The Statement and Limitations of the Reasoning Essay

The Statement and Limitations of the Reasoning - Essay Example Therefore I exist† is used in one place by Descartes in his Discourse on the Method, part 4, paragraph 1, where he says, â€Å"I noticed that while I was thus trying to think everything false, it was necessary that I, who was thinking this, was something. And observing that this truth "I am thinking, therefore I exist" was so firm and sure that all the most extravagant suppositions of the skeptics were incapable of shaking it, I decided that I could accept it without scruple as for the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking†. Descartes observed that there were several conflicts in philosophy, state Skirbekk and Gilje (2001), and according to him the only certain method was the deductive mathematical method. It became the determining factor in his philosophy. In a deductive system, the conclusions are of little value if the premises are uncertain and only half-true. If philosophy is to be a deductive system like Euclid’s geometry, completely true premises or axioms should be found. According to Moorman (1943), Descartes synthesized Mathematics with Philosophy. The scientific system that Descartes borrowed from Mathematics and from deductive components of the scientific method, led to the deductive philosophical system in which absolutely certain propositions had to be found. â€Å"The cogito was an axiomatic statement, one of identity†. Descartes gave objective reality to a geometrical extension. The Cogito argument is represented as a compelling intuition about ourselves in relation to the physical world, and it has a close connection with the improbability of materialism, states Slezak (1983). Ayer (1953) agrees with Descartes that the proposition â€Å"I am thinking, therefore I exist† cannot be doubted. Descartes’ methodical doubt is a means of filtering out all the propositions that one logically can doubt in order to find the propositions that are logically beyond doubt, and these propositions can be used as premises in the deductive system.