BETWEEN CERTAINTY AND DOUBT
DESCARTES AND THE SECOND-DEGREE SKEPTICISM
Keywords:
Certainty, Truth, Skepticism, Rene DescartesAbstract
This work seeks to argue that Cartesian philosophy is
invariably circumscribed by the limits of human reason. Therefore, remarkable excerpts from the Cartesian corpus regarding certainty will be exposed, indicating that at different moments in his philosophy, it is always possible to distinguish that Descartes restricts the scope of his doctrine to the capacities of the human intellect. Later, it will be necessary to evaluate two Cartesian passages that Richard Popkin relies on to accuse Descartes of holding a skeptical philosophy. Finally, it is defended that these passages are in accordance with Cartesian thought and that, nowise, they demonstrate that the result of the system built by Descartes is a failure in relation to its objectives. In conclusion, based on the nomenclature offered by Popkin himself, it is established that Descartes maintains a second-degree skepticism that is perennial in his philosophy and, as a consequence, it is evidenced that Descartes is not a skeptic malgré lui as he is accused by Popkin.
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