A222 - Exploring Philosophy : Disappointed with Descartes

I can't help feeling a bit disappointed by Descartes whole 'Cogito Ergo Sum', I was expecting a bit more - and it took a lot of pages of reading to end in a bit of an anti-climax.

I agree that your senses can be fooled, and so when he discards all knowledge based on sensory perception I can see the reasoning behind that.

To then discard what you can presently see and feel on the grounds that it could all be a dream, is a bit more of a step towards the unlikely, but has some validity, but only some.

But most problematic was to then discard all science knowledge such as 2 + 2 = 4 because an evil supernatural spirit may be playing with you mind. This is just fanciful and I doubt he'd be able to get away with such reasoning these days.

This however leaves him with his one true fact. If I am thinking, then I must exist, and Descartes says he can rely on nothing else.

This obviously gives him a bit of a problem regarding building all knowledge on this one true fact, and for this to be the foundation of all certainty. Descartes then falls on the time proven crutch of those who have run out of ideas and invokes the idea of God. Descartes says that if he has nothing else, he has an idea of a God which God must have put there, so he must exist.

This may be his lesser known idea "I am thinking of you, so you may exist" - not quite as snappy a line.

But having discounted the possibility of 2+2=4 being true due to a evil supernatural entity playing with his mind, why would the idea of a God not also come from this evil supernatural entity.

I know which one I am surer about being factual.

Firstly, I think it more likely that the idea of God was put there by his parents and society.

Secondly, if Descartes was searching for certainty, having gotten down to the one certain fact, 'I think therefore I exist', it seems a bit of a cop out and counter intuitive to then rely on existence of God to further his ideas.

If there has been one concept or idea that has provoked more debate about its existence or not I have yet to find it.

So, it may be the most famous philosophical line ever written, but the theory behind it, to my mind, is full of holes.