What I Don't Agree with Cassirer

I think Ernst Cassirer’s thoughts on Descartes’ arguments is only partially accurate. Cassirer mostly sees Descartes as a man introducing a new ground to the way we think. He makes accurate points like “Thought cannot turn toward the world of external objects without at the same time reverting to itself”.  What he means here is that all objects are as real as our perception lets them be, which is really what Descartes believes in.  We need to filter everything we’ve ever known through a philosophical filter to know for sure they are true and existent.  I also agree that Descartes and his followers need to deal with the problem of “epistemological skepticism” since the world at the time is running on the scholastic Aristotelian train of thought.

Although he points out something I disagree with, which is his thoughts on the equality of a mind’s power to apply this philosophical filter.

Descartes, as we learned from his book’s Part one, developed his thoughts as a reaction to the scholastic Aristotelian education.  He said that himself and other colleagues of his weren’t happy how knowledge was addressed in the schools at the time.  He especially points out how was asked to look at the books and if he really seeks the true knowledge, how knowledge is true if it was acknowledged by previous generations.  But during his academic life, he has only found more doubts, less certainty by referring to this kind of knowledge.  There isn’t a single way to learn the truth, according to him.  He wanted to change the scholastic belief believing in that.  So, Descartes rebuilt his belief system and started from the very ground.  “I think, therefore, I am — was so firm and so assured that all the most extravagant suppositions of the skepties were incapable of shaking it” proves this (Descartes, pg. 18).  There is no certain knowledge from this point on, so basically, this is the only truth of knowledge there is to him at this point, the absolute.  And Descartes proves this base knowledge right. Therefore, there can’t be any more truth in anything.  

On the other hand, Cassirer states that there is no justification of the “instruments” (minds) being used in this truth-seeking process.  “Knowledge is not merely applied as an instrument and employed unreservedly as such, but time and again with growing insistence the question of the justification of this use of knowledge and the quality of the instrument arises” are Cassirer’s exact words. But Descartes already stated that all humankind was born with this tool and that every person is equally capable of doing this.  When Descartes says “It is not likely that anyone is mistaken in this.  Rather, it provides evidence that the power of judging well and of distinguishing the true from the false is naturally equal in all men, and that the diversity of our opinions does not arise from the fact that some people are more reasonable than the others…”  he addresses directly to this issue before he talks about anything else, foreseeing that his preceding claims may create a conflict (Part One, pg. 1).  In my opinion, this issue is directly addressed and Descartes is on solid ground.