In my previous post, I spoke of the weight of unspoken certainty. Looking back through my archives, I found the paper I wrote sixteen years ago on Descartes' First Meditation.
To understand the weight I carry now, I had to look at the scales I built sixteen years ago.
>Now the problem with `science is that it supposes to generate knowledge about everything and beyond any doubt`. Doubting everything, so Wittgenstein1, would actually be no doubt at all. In my own thinking even deception in life and in science is an important part of learning (process towards knowledge) and therefore doubt is more a situational tool but not a principle. I doubt that the generalization of doubting is neither necessary nor sufficient, implying that even if I doubt everything in order to start at some or one point this does not mean that knowledge works this way. I can understand that it is me who thinks but still miss the bigger picture and therefore actually gained no knowledge at all. Descartes misses to investigate the nature of deception, its meaning, its relation to knowledge. He starts doubting beliefs in his childhood, continues to doubt all sensory beliefs and finally doubts all beliefs. This proceeding seems to be quite excessive. This idea of “all sensory”, for instance is not really plausible to me, rather counter intuitive. It implies that all man kind is created equally great, equally weak in relationship to the ability to perceive the world. `A scientist, who has to read many books works with the same sharp eyes as a scientific sailor who reads waves on the surface of the ocean, the thin line on the horizon or the wind. So the boatsman might be able to actually see that the earth is not flat by watching the horizon on a daily basis, but not so much the scientist who uses logic and therefore stays in the house, “from 9 to 5”. So how can it be that a philosopher questions what a sailor observes due to his daily work on the earth’s surface?`
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Back then, I used the example of a sailor—someone whose senses are sharpened by the salt and the horizon—to argue against Descartes' total doubt. I wanted to stay connected to the 'real' world.
What I didn't realize then, but what the Sovereign knows now, is that the 'Sailor' isn't just better at seeing; he is more comfortable with the isolation, with what he sees. The weight isn't in the doubting; it's in the knowing. Sixteen years ago, I argued that Descartes was too radical and doubt is just a "situational tool" and the world is the classroom (liber mundi). Descartes had gained certainty but lost the world. He was trading reality for logic. Today, I realize he wasn't radical enough. Now, I argue that certainty is an "internal burden." The world is merely noise.
Quintessence
2011 Student 2026 The Sovereign
Doubt is a tool to find the truth. Certainty is a weight carried alone.
The Sailor sees the horizon. The Sovereign is the horizon.
Use Wittgenstein to "stay in the world." Use Logometric Arcana to "transcend noise."
Descartes' Argument: If any belief can be doubted (even slightly), it must be treated as false to find a foundation that is "firm and unshakable." Since the senses occasionally deceive (e.g., a straw looking bent in water), they are not 100% reliable and must be discarded entirely.
My Objection: `Doubt is a "situational tool," not a universal principle`. Different people (the sailor) have different levels of sensory "expertise." Generalizing doubt across all humanity ignores the "process of learning" through deception.
Descartes' Potential Response: He would say a sailor is still relying on a "judgment" based on a sense that could be tricked by a more elaborate "Evil Demon" or a dream. Even if the sailor is "better" at seeing, he is still seeing a "representation," not the "thing-in-itself."
Sovereign: Pragmatism 1 Point
Descartes: formal logic 1 Point.
However, Descartes’ foundation is lonely. By stripping away the sailor's horizon to find the Cogito, he `gains certainty but loses the world`.
My blog seems to be the bridge: accepting the "Weight of Unspoken Certainty" (the Cogito) while acknowledging the "Sailor’s" reality as the place where that certainty must be lived.
In a nutshell - The Sovereign is a witness.
I
no longer need a secondary data point called world to validate my
certainty. Instead I accept the "Weight of My Unspoken Certainty".
- James Bond: The world is not enough.
- Descartes: gains certainty but loses the world
The world may or may not exist - the observer is his own world
The world may or may not exist - the observer won't need it for certainty.
By using "The observer won't need it," I declare a state of epistemological independence.
* Bond is a consumer: he needs the world to act upon.
* Descartes is a mourner: he misses the world he traded for logic.
* The Sovereign is a witness: the existence of the world becomes a secondary data point.
The world is no longer the anchor.
I am declaring Epistemological Independence.
ad Wittgenstein "Moreover, for Wittgenstein, the kind of never-ending doubt put forward by a proponent of radical skepticism, far from being a legitimate intellectual enterprise, will prevent his proponents from engaging in any intellectual activity at all; to support his point, Wittgenstein gives the example (OC 310) of a pupil who constantly interrupts a lesson, questioning the existence of things or the meanings of words. His doubts will lack any sense, and at most they will lead him to a sort of epistemic paralysis; he will just be unable to learn the skill/subject we are trying to teach him (OC 315)." [source]
ad deception there is a paper by a German psychology professor, child development, theory of mind in a child which focuses on the exact moment when a child learned object consistency. It might have been Marco Schmidt and Michael Tomasello (who writes amazing stuff. My fav book: Why We Cooperate. Must read.) - but in my memory Schmidt was a female researcher. I did find related papers tho:
- Perspectives on Perspective Taking: How Children Think About the Minds of Others
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