Method, Technical Reason, Autonomy

Technical Reason is procedure in accordance with an ordered sequence of concepts.  Thus, a Method is an expression of Technical Reason.  So, even though Modern Rationalism and Modern Empiricism are each Methods, their common basis remains unrecognized by each in most of the works of Modern Philosophy.  Spinoza implicitly employs Technical Reason in his brief discussion of the concept of Definition, e. g. how to draw a Circle, but he never develops it explicitly when discussing Reason.  Kant glimpses it, in his concept of Schematism, but fails to recognize the equivalence of Technical Reason and Autonomy, conduct guided by a rule that one gives oneself.  As a result, in the Critique of Practical Reason, it is not that Technical Reason is an "art concealed in the depth of the human soul".  Rather, Technical Reason is suppressed by Kant in the concept of Pure Practical Reason, which is a kind of Reason by means of which a human can conform to the standards of an incorporeal deity, thereby compromising the concept of Autonomy.  Comparable is the concept of human Free Will that is compromised by the Theological imperative that only one choice is acceptable.   Technical Reason is thus correspondingly suppressed in the Critique of Judgment--characterized there as a faculty that can be attributable only heuristically, by humans, to Nature or to a Natural being.  So, because of his Theological commitments, Kant squanders an opportunity to expose the Rationalism, and the entailed Autonomy, that transcends the presumed Rationalism vs. Empiricism conflict of Modern Philosophy.

Empiricism, Method, Virtual Reality

As has been previously discussed, according to a rigorous execution of Cartesian Skepticism, 'I doubt' means 'I methodically doubt'.  On that basis, 'I think' means 'I think methodically', or, in other words, 'I reason technically', i. e. because Techne consists in proceeding according to a rule, which is what 'methodically' means.  Now, Locke also neglects that Empiricism is a Method, and, hence, that it is constituted by Technical Reason, though the possibility of that self-discovery remains open to an Empiricist who locates Sense-Experience in the plainly evident context of Action.  However, Berkeley emphatically eliminates that possibility, by completely privatizing Empiricism, transforming it into a Virtual Reality doctrine, the only activity in which of his disembodied Avatar is receiving communications from a deity.  Often overshadowed in that privatization by the reduction of Primary Qualities to Secondary Qualities, is his reduction of depth-perception to a construct out of Secondary Qualities, thereby eliminating any externality from Experience.  Even as putatively secularized by Hume and Smith, that doctrine accordingly transforms Lockeian Democracy into a Virtual Reality Political Philosophy, the influence of which continues today.  In the process, the concept of Citizenship in a Democracy as consisting in Technical Reason, i. e. Self-Rule, remains an obscured potential.

Method, Doubting, Certainty

More fully articulated, Descartes' method of Doubting can be formulated as: 1. Try to doubt X; 2a. If X can be doubted, it is not certain; 2b. If X cannot be doubted, it is certain.  So, in the self-application of the method, X = #1, and the result is 2b, on the grounds that trying to doubt X and not trying to doubt X cannot occur simultaneously, i. e. constitutes a logical contradiction.  But, if this is the decisive result that his Avatar is aiming it in the Virtual Reality of the Meditations, then he fails.  For, in the apparent application of the Principle of Contradiction, 'I cannot doubt that I am doubting', X = doubting, and, hence, the complete method.  But, if so, the subsequent inference of the Avatar, from 'I am doubting' to 'I am thinking' is problematic, insofar as 'I think P' means either 'I believe that P is true', or even 'I entertain that P'.  Rather, it is the method itself that = X in 2b, so, as a logical argument, the rumination of Descartes' Avatar in the Meditations is valid only if 'I think' = 'I exercise the method of Doubting'.  Likewise, if, as a result, 'I am' is certain, then it is only insofar as what I am is a practitioner of a variety of Skepticism.  On that basis, the validity of the argument from 'I exist' to 'God exists' is more complicated than Descartes' Avatar presents it to be.

Self, Avatar, Virtual Philosophy

In Hinduism, the source of the term, an Avatar is an incarnation of a deity.  So, the common contemporary use of the term, i. e. a dis-incarnated representation of a corporeal player in a virtual reality context, is antithetical to its original meaning.  Regardless, the concepts of Avatar and Virtual Reality, as commonly understood these days, are hardly novelties.  For, the Self of Descartes, or of Locke, or of Berkeley, or of Hume, is such an Avatar--a dis-incarnated representation of its creator, who is a corporeal writer.  Likewise, the 'world' that it inhabits in such a work is a Virtual Reality.  Hence, these writings can be called Virtual Philosophy.  That is not to say that these Avatars are without Philosophical value.  For example, for Locke, it is an analytical tool that promotes liberation from political dogma, and has pioneered the elaboration of the perceptual process.  However, when ontologized, e. g. by Descartes or Berkeley, its kinship with the Hindu concept of Avatar gets exposed--an attempt to dis-incarnate the embodied Self, in order to re-associate it with an incorporeal deity.  Accordingly, the de-mystification of Virtual Philosophy can begin simply by maintaining the recognition that it is nothing more than a product of an embodied writer.

Skepticism, Rationalism, Empiricism

While Modern Rationalism begins with Cartesian Skepticism, Modern Empiricism culminates in Humean Skepticism.  The primary target of the former is Sense-Data, that of the latter is connections between Sense-Data.  With the advantage of being subsequent, Hume targets the two presumed survivers of Cartesian Skepticism--the I, and proofs of the existence of a deity.  For example, he dissolves the 'I' into a 'bundle of perceptions'.  However, in doing so, he betrays his method, by not applying it to the concept of a 'bundle'.  That lapse is a tip-off that he shares with Descartes the same general falsification--abstracting his exercise of Skepticism from the actual concrete immediately given, i. e. an I that is sitting at a desk conducting the exercise in a continuous piece of writing.  Likewise actually at a desk writing, while purporting to dissolve Bacon's original Empiricist method of observation, repetition, and generalization, are the intermediary Skeptics of Rationalism--Locke and Berkeley.  So, the two main doctrines of Modern Philosophy, Rationalism and Empiricism, are each a variety of selective Skepticism that falsifies its initial conditions.  Consequently, their shared concept of a methodical I becomes completely obscured, and virtually lost to history.

Skepticism Of Skepticism

When, in the Meditations, Descartes considers that he might be being deceived, the irony is that he is a fictional character, in a fictional situation, concocted by the real Descartes, who is actually at a desk, writing the account.  Furthermore, the real Descartes is attempting to execute a Method, one traditionally characterized as Skepticism.  Now, in the actual world, the criterion for a Method is not whether or not it is certainly occurring whenever one seems to be executing it.  Rather, it is whether or not it is effective in what it is being employed to accomplish.  Thus, accordingly, Skepticism about Skepticism concerns whether or not it accomplishes its goal, e. g. establishing resistance to some Dogmatism.  So, within the fiction, 'Descartes' might not be able to deny that he is 'Doubting' at the same time that he is 'Doubting', but this attempted 'Doubting' of 'Doubting' falsifies what constitutes actual Skepticism of Skepticism.  Now, despite their prominence in the history of Philosophy, Cartesian Cogito and Sum have not stood up well to scrutiny, e. g. they entail no identity over time.  But, Descartes' method itself has rarely been challenged.  Hence, generally overlooked has been its failure in its stated purpose--to establish an Existence that is Certain.  Yet, those varied criticisms of the Existents that are the purported achievements of the method thus entail criticism of the method itself.  But perhaps the more conclusive basis for Skepticism of Descartes' Skepticism is that the latter is ultimately only a circular procedure--arriving at an I and its Thinking that are entailed in the method from the outset.

Doubt and Autonomy

Descartes' method of Doubt consists in controlled doubting.  Now, as has been previously discussed, Certainty is merely Autonomy, i. e. control, abstracted from the corporeality of the subject.  Thus, Descartes' pivotal conclusion that Doubting is certain, i. e. 'I cannot doubt that I am doubting', is uninformative--it means merely that when one is employing a method, one is in control of what is doing, and likewise for when one is 'thinking'. Now, his 'I Think' is abstracted from an Object, i. e. from 'I think that X', or, in other words, from 'I believe that X'.  Furthermore, Pragmatists have defined a Belief as a 'disposition to act'.  Accordingly, a Doubt can be defined as an 'indisposition to act'.  Thus, methodical Doubt can be defined as 'controlled indisposition to act'.  So, re-embodied, the Meditations presents a technique for achieving Autonomy, rather than, as it is usually interpreted, an intricate esoteric Epistemological exercise.