Descartes and doubt

‘I recommend having a Descartes moment and I recommend doubt; the world could really do with more of both.’

I have recently been going through what I would call a Descartes moment, that is to say a moment when I’ve doubted pretty much everything that I thought beforehand. By that I don’t mean specific things or beliefs in a specific area, I do mean almost everything aside from my own existence which remained safely defended by the cogito.

I am not new to Descartes nor solipsism, I have heard all the ideas before and have known them for quite some time. So why am I having my Descartes moment now and not when I first encountered doubt? This is because before I was not really doubting. Meditations (by Decartes) was an intellectual exercise at best and a passive viewing at worst; I missed entirely what Descartes was trying to do, he wasn’t trying to do a little thought experiment he was trying to instill in me the same doubt he experienced when he was a young man (possibly around the same age as me now that I think about it).

It is easy to say in an abstract and purely intellectual way, ‘Nothing that I think is true’, but is it actually rather difficult to sincerely doubt on command. Doubt is usually something that leaps up unbidden; we try to avoid it, we’re afraid of it. Going from that normal state of affairs to actively trying to will yourself into a state that you so naturally abhor and are terrified of is intensely difficult, and I must admit that I did not doubt by my own strength of will but by accident.

I think this is what set Descartes apart from many philosophers; he isn’t trying to tell you what to think he’s trying to teach you how to think. He’s trying to teach a method of critical thinking that is more than a temporary suspension of belief or a purely intellectual pursuit. He is attempting to instill a genuine and sincere personal framework for rational belief. Therefore I recommend having a Descartes moment and I recommend doubt; the world could really do with more of both.