What even is real, bruh? (Part 2)

Why Descartes Thought He Could Save Knowledge and Why I’m Not Convinced

Well, well, well … I’m back.

Why? Because in my previous article, I promised (or was it a threat?) to write more if people said nice things about it. As it turns out, at least one person did, and apparently, that was enough to satisfy my insatiable appetite for validation.

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In my previous piece (in case you didn’t read it), I wrote about an existential crisis I had as a teenager. Specifically, the whole business of wondering whether the external world is real or if other minds exist apart from my own. I’m not sure how many of you could relate to that. Perhaps more than we’d suspect—especially if, like me, you grew up before the Internet, before doom scrolling, and had to lie in bed at night with nothing but your own thoughts to haunt you.

Now, let me attempt something I probably should have done before the first article: articulate the central idea of this series. It’s this: René Descartes, along with the likes of Kant, Hume, and other modern epistemologists have led us into a muddle—an unreasonable, unhelpful, and even false view of knowledge, certainty, and belief. And that this affects how Christians think of and defend their faith in God. Bold? Maybe. True? We’ll see.

In this article, though, I want to do three things:

1. Show that Descartes didn’t emerge from a vacuum. The epistemology he developed and which gained such wild traction was deeply shaped by the cultural factors swirling around Europe in his day.

2. Offer a brief overview of what I understand Cartesian epistemology to entail.

3. Ask you to subscribe and say more nice things in the comments section to motivate me to continue this series.

The Cultural Context of Descartes’ Philosophy

Descartes didn’t emerge in a vacuum (though, given his appetite for radical doubt, he might have been open to the idea—even if, by 'vacuum,' we meant a device designed to remove dirt from floors. And that! That right there, friends, is precisely why publishers insist on editors). He lived during one of the most intellectually turbulent periods in European history, when the very foundations of knowledge were being shaken—often quite violently."

The Scientific Revolution was in full swing, led by figures like Galileo Galilei, Nicolaus Copernicus, and Johannes Kepler, who weren’t just tweaking old theories but dismantling the Aristotelian worldview that had dominated for centuries. This wasn’t a polite intellectual disagreement; it was an upheaval. The cosmos, once thought to be an orderly hierarchy with Earth at the center, was now appearing to be something far stranger—and far less comforting.

Meanwhile, the Protestant Revolution (I’m Catholic, okay?—let’s call it what it was: a revolution) was tearing Christendom apart, leaving theological certainties in ruins. Competing doctrines clashed, and the once-unified vision of truth that Christians had held for centuries was splintering. This intellectual and cultural turmoil set the stage for a radical rethinking of how we arrive at truth. Enter the philosopher who famously resolved to doubt everything in order to find something unshakable.

A Prima on Cartesian Epistemology

In the midst of this chaos, Descartes set himself a monumental task: to build a foundation for knowledge that couldn’t be toppled by the latest scientific discovery or theological dispute. His solution was radical. Rather than grounding knowledge in external authorities—be they the Church, Aristotle, or even the empirical sciences—he turned inward, to the certainty of the self. If nothing else could be trusted, at least one’s own existence could be (or so he argued).

In a world of intellectual and cultural upheaval, Descartes offered a promise of stability. Descartes found his starting point: Cogito, ergo sum—"I think, therefore I am." Even if everything else is an illusion, the act of doubting itself proves there’s a thinker doing the doubting. It’s not much to go on, but for Descartes, it was enough—a foundational truth immune to doubt, or so he thought.

I should say that there’s some debate about just how skeptical Descartes really was. Was he, as many assume, the greatest skeptic since Pyrrho of Elis, or was his skepticism a deliberate tool, a methodical strategy to strip away uncertainties and ultimately reinforce what the Church taught about God and the world? I lean toward the latter view: that his doubt was a means to an end, not an end in itself. That said, this distinction doesn’t significantly impact what I’m arguing in this series.

Building on the Cogito, Descartes introduced the idea that "clear and distinct perceptions" could serve as the standard for truth. If an idea is clear (obvious) and distinct (not muddled with other ideas), it must be true. Of course, this immediately begs the question: how can we be sure our perceptions are actually clear and distinct? For Descartes, the answer lay in God.

Though Descartes begins with the self, he doesn’t stay there. He argues that the existence of a benevolent God guarantees the reliability of reason and the truth of clear and distinct perceptions.

In essence, Cartesian epistemology is foundationalist, meaning it seeks to build all knowledge on a secure base. Starting with the Cogito, Descartes attempted to derive truths about the world using pure reason and logical deduction. It’s an ambitious project—some might say overly so.

I’ll just say that I don’t find his argument for God persuasive at all. He offers two in his Meditations, and the first goes something like this:

1. I have the idea of a perfect, infinite being.

2. The cause of an idea must have at least as much reality as the idea itself.

3. As a finite and imperfect being, I cannot be the source of the idea of an infinite and perfect being.

4. Therefore, the idea of God must have been placed in me by an infinite and perfect being—God.

Think of Descartes’ truths as rungs on a ladder leading from ignorance to knowledge. The second rung (God exists) is essential for reaching the third rung (my senses reliably inform me about the external world). If that second rung breaks, the whole climb collapses—you’re left stranded on the first rung, “I exist,” and unable to go any further.

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In my next article (assuming there is one), I’ll explore why even Descartes’ supposed first truth, “I exist,” isn’t as certain as he believed. I’ll also introduce a different approach to understanding knowledge.

P.S. Feel free to subscribe