Philosophy: Skeptcism(Descartes and Hume) - Essay Example

Descartes and Hume According to Descartes, skepticism involves breaking down everything that has the slightest doubt, only to leave yourself with all of the things that you are most certain about. After the breaking down of the first set of knowledge and doubts, the person should then find out everything that they could about what information was left for them. Descartes believed that there should be no skepticism, especially when it has to do with learning, information, and the obtaining and retaining of knowledge.

Hume, on the other hand, believed that skepticism was something that could be depleted by evaluating even the most mundane, positive things of the world. Hume’s skepticism involved doubting and undermining the simple and mundane claims to knowledge. Hume also believed that it was impossible to figure out and understand the knowledge of the external world – the world in which objects and thoughts are no longer just physical. What we cannot already see, hear, or touch is something to doubt and disbelieve.

The underlying differences between Descartes’ beliefs concerning skepticism and the beliefs of Hume is that Descartes was about finding and dispelling certain knowledge unless information could be found to back it up, while Hume was concerned about disregarding the ideas that would suggest something other than the physical world. Descartes believed that a person should challenge what they do or do not believe; Hume felt that anything that was not physical could not possibly be real, whether or not it could be proved otherwise.

It can be said that Descartes was about learning, while Hume was about un-learning – disregarding things that have always been known for a lack of physicality. Both forms of skepticism brought forth by both of the philosophers, however, involves knowing, doubting, and figuring out for ourselves what we deem real and worthy of our personal knowledge. As human beings, it is in our nature to doubt what we do not understand. It is also in our nature to learn and to mentally grow, so we must throw ourselves into the information and knowledge that is presented to us so that we can make up our minds about what we believe or what we think.

Two other similarities between the two separate views of skepticism are that skepticism is something that human beings should not have. It blinds us from the knowledge that the world holds, and we have to find that knowledge to settle the doubt that we have. Both philosophers have also agreed that they do not fully understand, or at times, believe the world in which they live. Even Descartes, who has more of an open mind in regards to skepticism, claims that at times he doubted the existence of his world.

Both philosophers held their own specific views of how they regarded skepticism, as well as the ways to overcome the doubt that they had. The latter was either done by disregarding certain information and learning what one could about the thing that they had doubts about, or by disregarding it completely, without fully questioning it.