The main flaw I see with this argument is that rejection ALL perception of the external world as a source of fact due to ONE slip-up is extreme and unwarranted. Trusting things more often than not turns out correct. Descartes must be looking for 100% solidity in truth, which may never be possible. But just because we can’t have 100%, doesn’t mean it’s better to have 0% than 99%.

Beyond Bounds

Sense-perception has always been an interest of the philosophers. A prominent problem is the problem of perception, which is created by the ideas of illusion and hallucination: if it is possible to have this sort of error, how can perception be what we understand it to be?

When we reflect on the causal facts of perception, it leads to a problem. It’s not clear how perception can yield knowledge of the existence of physical things, considering that any perceptual experience can be caused without an external object stimulating our senses.

Representational Theory of Perception

René Descartes’ representational theoryof perception states that our conscious experiences do not reflect the reality of things, rather, we merely see a miniature virtual reality replica of that world in a mental or internal representation. In other words, we only discern our ideas or interpretations of objects in the world, due to a barrier…

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Published by varjakBaby


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