The Beliefs and Logic of Descartes and Plato
How Perception and the Senses Affect the View of the World
Oct 5, 2009
Rene Descartes and Plato both held the opinion that human perceptions are all flawed and as a result, they held that people cannot actually rely upon their senses the way they believed they could. They shared this opinion with other philosophers like Bertrand Russell, who talked about the same or similar issues with various analogies.
Rene Descartes' View of the World
Descartes saw the flaws in the idea and nature of knowledge because he realized that the senses could be deceived. That could make something that seemed true actually completely false, causing a rift between what a person thought was true and what was actually true and leading to cognitive dissonance. Once that took place, it could make a person very uncomfortable and take a long time to sort itself out because beliefs, attitudes and opinions would have to change.
What Descartes thought about the issue also tied into what Bertrand Russell believed about mathematics, because Russell focused not on senses and opinions but on how a person could reason with logic to get answers to questions he might have on just about anything. Logic often leaves little room for belief based on faith or opinion, because logic only involves ideas that can be proven. While someone may have an opinion that he believes to be true, it may be inaccurate if it's not provable.
Plato's Arguments on Perception
Plato's arguments on perception are hard to dispute. Most of his opinions about human nature and ethics are very solid, and they cannot be destroyed by mere speculation and light discussion. What he believes about human nature — that people use their flawed perceptions as opposed to facts — can be seen by observing people and watching what they do in relation to specific events.
Because of this, Descartes seems to agree with Plato and appears to think that his beliefs will continue to stand the test of time as they have ever since he made them public, because they are logical. The conclusions that Russell reached have also held up because they are considered to be true, and because human nature has not really changed since Russell's time.
Technology and many other things have advanced far beyond what Descartes, Russell, or Plato could have ever imagined, but the intrinsic nature of human beings has stayed the same, and will continue to do so. They believe what they choose to believe and what they feel is real, but they don't all take the time to reason out what they're being told in order to determine whether it's logically and rationally valid.
Descartes and Plato Resources
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