Thursday, September 19, 2019

Method and Truth

As is articulated in the full version of the title of the Discourse, Descartes devises his Method to seek Truth.  Now, there are multiple concepts of Truth, two of which Correspondence and Coherence.  The Correspondence concept of Truth is constituted by a relation between a belief and a state-of-affairs.  The Coherence concept of Truth is constituted by a relation between two or more beliefs.  Accordingly, there are multiple Truth-seeking Methods, one of which evaluates a single belief, another of which evaluates several beliefs at the same time.  So, plainly Descartes' Method of Doubt is a Correspondence Method, e. g. rejecting a belief as True on the grounds that it may be a dream, and, hence, its content does not correspond to that of an identical state-of-affairs.  But, at one juncture of the Meditations, Descartes becomes no longer interested in testing for Correspondence, and switches to attempting to establish Coherence.  This is when he links beliefs that are Certain with beliefs that are Doubtable, thereby switching to the Coherence Method.. Now, the link between the two sets of beliefs is the belief that 'God would not deceive me'.  But Descartes accepts that belief without subjecting it to either the Correspondence or the Coherence Method.  Rather, he implicitly accepts it via a third Method, which can be called Faith.  Subsequently, the resulting presumed Coherence becomes the basis of the Dualism in which traditional Theology and emergent Science cohere, thereby presenting a solution to the problem that is clearly motivating Descartes, i. e. how to reconcile those two sets of beliefs.  So, if his Dualism is the structure of Truth, then his Method of Doubt is not by itself successful in the capacity of establishing that Truth. And it might be noted that the actual 'pineal gland' that he proposes as the link between Mind and Body is his faith that his deity would not deceive him.

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