Ah, yes! The most renowned Universal Methodic Doubt: the movement that started the Modernist way of thinking. I used to be a big fan of this movement because of the fact that this was one of the logical proofs of God's existence. But, as time went by, people learned one thing: it's basically flawed. If it weren't, then there wouldn't be any Post-Modern Philosophy, or Phenomenology. It did prove the existence of others, but does it really need that kind of logical train of thought to prove the existence of others?
We know that Descartes was wrong; that is a fact. But, many people do not know the mistakes he did. They even take for granted the good things that he did. Perhaps this is an opportunity for people to know why there is a concept known as "Anthropocentrism". I hope this entry will shed some light about Descartes' reflection about the cogito and God, and how Post-Modernism rose from the ashes of Modernism. The ideas that I will present are not mine, but a compilation of opinions from other people.
The Universal Methodic Doubt is a process of doubting the object, and doubting the doubt, until coming up to a conclusion that there is a Bedrock of Certitude--the cogito. Descartes made clear that there is nothing certain but himself, and that others are just manifestations of his consciousness. This is good, as a matter of fact. It led to the understanding of the capabilities of man to understand and to go beyond what the Logos, the nature and boon of truth as known by the ancient Greeks, shows us. Man learned that they can have dominion over the Logos.
Another good thing about this is that it proved the existence of a God--Id quo majus cogitari nequit, which means "that than which nothing greater can be thought". This god is deemed to be perfect because of the Universal Methodic Doubt, which pointed out that man is imperfect. Because man knew that he was imperfect, then he must know that concept of perfect. And from here, Descartes stated and proved the existence of God.
Then comes the hard part. Descartes made a mistake. The effect of the Universal Methodic Doubt gave rise to the wrong concept of subjectivism; for because of this method, man became the enemy of everything (man against nature, man against society, man against man, and man against himself). It led to a virtual destruction of the world because men forgot to take responsibility of the power presented by the cogito. And all of these was due to the statement that "others exists only because God created them, but I can only be sure of their extention and motion". It just shows that man still thinks and believes that he is the center of the universe, and that others bow down before him.
But that problem could have been solved by Descartes himself when thinking of the transition between the proof of a Bedrock of Certitude and the proof of others' existence. This idea came later in Marcel's, Heidegger's, and Fransen's ideas in the Post-Modern era of thinking. Esse est Co-esse. I exists, and therefore, others exists.
Descartes could've been the father of this idea, that others exists. In the Universal Methodic Doubt when he already reached the point of Cogito, ergo sum, he thought of this question, "If others are just manifestations of my consciousness, why then are there others existing even though I want them to be shut down in my conscious being?" And from there, he ventured to prove the existence of others; and in the process, he used his "God", the perfect being, as a link between his existence and the existence of others. If he just admitted the existence of others, then the consequences of Modernism wouldn't be that bad, that it needed to create another movement just to remedy it.
Actually, have something to share about the fruits of Modernism. It's two fruits, Solipsism (the attitude of man that points out that he is the only one existing) and Value Subjectivism (the act of separating the value from the objective traits of others) are the reasons why there is a need for Post-Modernism.
There was a girl in college that always acted like the leader of the pack. She acts as if she knew everyone, and then she bosses them around. It is true that this girl has the charisma of a leader, but she's too self-centered. She thinks that she is the law. When she works as a head, one will admire her because of her skill, but her agendas are centered to favor her personal time. And, because of this, her co-workers started to resent her. They even started to spread rumors about her, which she confirms in the end.
It shows confusion, right? So tell me, was Modernism optimistic? Did it, standing alone, shed some "goodness" in man?
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