Note: This essay was originally written for my Philosophy of Mind course. In my research in formal epistemology I have accepted a form of epistemic falliblism which is termed “radical probabilism” in the literature.

One argument against this form of fallibilism is from Descartes argument on the infallibility of the cogito ergo sum. In this paper I challenge his argument in detail

By: Kyle Alander

Rene Descartes argues we have infallible knowledge of our mental states, his argument is based on the infallibility of cogito ergo sum (I Think, Therefore, I Am), this is known as introspectionism. However, introspectionism has been recently challenged by Nisbett, De Camp Wilson & Schwitzgebel. They argue through a set of experiments that introspection is unreliable and so fallible, their position is anti-introspectionism. I will reinforce their conclusions by adding an additional problem for Descartes’ position. Descartes’ account of the infallibility of cogito ergo sum relies on two background assumptions, the first assumption is us having infallible knowledge about logic, and the second assumption is a specific account of incorrigible doubt. I will argue that on philosophical grounds these two assumptions are wrong and so it would lead to a fallibilism about the contents of our minds making at least some form of anti-introspectionism as true.


Exposition:

Descartes’s introspectionism says that we can have infallible knowledge of our mental states. This mental infallibility entails that we cannot be mistaken about our mental states, the mental states include our beliefs, reasons, and other mental stuff in our minds. He also believes that he has special introspective access to his mental states. His main argument is that an evil demon can deceive him about his external world sense perceptions but cannot deceive him about his mental thinking, this is from his famous “I Think, Therefore, I Am” statement.

Nisbett and De Camp Wilson disagree with Descartes and so hold to anti-introspectionism, their thesis is based on a set of experiments that show that people cannot accurately report on what is the mental stuff in their minds, rather when people report they are reliant on a priori theory about what they are thinking rather than the mental items themselves. An a priori theory is a theory or narrative that is in your head regarding your identity and mental contents. So we can only report accurately when we have a theory about our mind and its contents rather than the mind and contents of the mind itself. For example, when the subjects are asked to write speeches that go against their own views they will later adopt the contrary view and then revise the history of their beliefs to state that they believed the contrary view the whole time. So this would be an example of people reporting not on what is actually in their minds but what they theorized was in their mind

Schwitzgebel adopts another form of anti-introspectionism, he claims that while introspection is very important to our everyday life it is unreliable in telling us what is going on inside our heads. He bases this on the notion that we can ask questions about the contents of our mind and not be certain about it. He uses the example of our emotions and sensory experiences and how we can misjudge these mental states. Like when we feel joy or anger these can often be conflated, and we often don’t understand why we are joyful or angry much of the time. So the very fact that we can question our own emotions of introspection is evidence for a kind of anti-introspectionism.

Critical Evaluation:

I will argue that on philosophical grounds that we do not have infallible knowledge about logic and that Descartes specific account of incorrigible doubt is wrong. If either of my arguments succeeds then it would lead to a fallibilism about the contents of our minds making at least some form of anti-introspectionism as true.

First, we can deny the underlying logic of Descartes’s argument by the following thought experiment: the evil demon can deceive us about modus ponens. Modus ponens is the logical statement: if P then Q, P, Therefore Q. It could be the case that we are simply wrong about modus ponens because anytime we do the logic the demon steps in to make us have a false belief. However for the cogito ergo sum to work we must assume that modus ponens works and not be possibly wrong about it.

An objection defending Descartes is that even an omnipotent demon cannot change logic and so cannot deceive us about it. However this misses the point of the problem since I am not making an ontological claim about the ability of a demon to change logic, I can grant that it cannot do that. Instead, I am making an epistemological claim: we could be deceived about our understanding or knowledge of logic. So my objection to Descartes does not rest on the ability of the demon to change logic it only rests on the ability of the demon to mess with our knowledge about logic.  Thus Descartes’s demon could deceive us about the very foundations of logic, making us doubt the logic behind the cogito ergo sum.

Second, we can question Descartes account of incorrigible doubts. Consider this thought experiment: let’s say that I am sitting on my armchair, engaging in philosophical thought. I experience sensation Z containing the thought “I am doubting”, and then there is sensation Y which contains the thought “I am hungry”. So when I experience Z I form the belief “I am doubting”, but then one day I get sensation Z and form the belief “I am hungry” or more critically I form the sensation Y (something that is supposed to be my hunger) and form the belief “I am doubting”. We are left with a problem, I was mistaken in that instance since the sensation Y contains something incorrect.

An objection to this thought experiment is that even if we have a sensation Y and not Z, we are still in fact doubting since doubting implies thinking and so we can still have infallible knowledge about thinking and doubting.

However, this objection doesn’t work. The challenge for the cartesian is how we get to the knowing we are thinking and doubting. We can’t know we are thinking and doubting based on something false as knowledge requires we had the correct chain of justification all along, it is not merely about getting to the truth. Another way to put it is that if we are in a state such that we form the belief we are doubting based on false sensations, then we cannot know we are doubting as our belief is not rightly connected to our sensation, we simply got ‘lucky’ that we got to the correct belief that we are doubting, but our justification is flawed and so isn’t sufficient for knowledge. This is a serious problem for Descartes account of incorrigible doubt since his views rely on the assumption that the justification regarding the doubt is itself through a correct chain of justification. But there is an in-principle way where we can be wrong about our sensations about our doubts. Since there is an in principle way for us to be wrong about our doubts this reinforces the conclusion that Descartes’ account of incorrigible doubts is mistaken.

These considerations make both of Descartes views wrong. I have shown that us having infallible knowledge about logic and Descartes specific account of incorrigible doubt are both mistaken. Therefore since those assumptions are false it leads to a fallibilism about the contents of our minds making at least some form of anti-introspectionism as true.