Philosopher views

DOUBTFUL EVIDENCE MUST BE REJECTED

1. REASON CREATES DOUBT ABOUT ALL BELIEFS

Rene Descartes, Philosopher, DESCARTES SELECTED PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS, 1988, p. 76.

Reason now leads me to think that I should hold back my assent for opinions which are not completely

certain and indubitable just as carefully as I do from those which are patently false. So, for the purpose of rejecting all my opinions, it will be enough if I find in each of them at least some reason for doubt And to do this I will not need to run through them all individually, which would be an endless task.
2. ALL DOUBTFUL OPINIONS MUST BE REJECTED TO DETERMINE TRUTH

Rene Descartes, Philosopher, DESCARTES SELECTED PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS, 1988, p. 160.

Since we began life as infants, and made various judgments concerning the things that can be perceived by the senses before we had the full use of our reason, there are may preconceived opinions that keep us from knowledge of the truth. It seems that the only way of freeing ourselves from these opinions is to make the effort, once in the course of our life, to doubt which we find to contain even the smallest suspicion of uncertainty.
3. ALL BELIEFS MUST BE REJECTED BASED ON DOUBT

Rene Descartes, Philosopher, DESCARTES SELECTED PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS, 1988, p. 123.

In just the same way, those who have never philosophized correctly have various opinions in their minds which they have begun to store up since childhood, and which they therefore have reason to believe may in many cases be false. They then attempt to separate the rest and making the whole lot uncertain. Now the best way they can accomplish this is to reject all their beliefs together in one go, as if they were all uncertain and false.

OBJECTIVE REALITY IS USED TO JUDGED IDEAS

1. THERE ARE DIVERSE DEGREES OF REALITY

Rene Descartes, Philosopher, THE PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS OF DESCARTES, 1968, p. 56.

There are diverse degrees of reality or (the quality of being an) entity, for substance has more reality than accident or mode; and infinite substance has more than finite substance. Hence there is more objective reality in the idea of substance than in that of accident; more in the idea of an infinite than in that of a finite substance.

Rene Descartes, Philosopher, THE PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS OF DESCARTES, 1968, p. 157. There is no doubt that those which represent to me substances of something more, and contain so to speak more objective reality within them, that those that simply represent modes or accidents; and that idea gain by which I understand a supreme God, eternal, infinite, omnipotent, the Creator of all reality in itself than those by which finite substances are represented.

Rene Descartes, Philosopher, THE PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS OF DESCARTES, 1968, p. 161. Now the reality attaching to an idea is distinguished as two-fold by you. Its formal reality cannot indeed be anything other than the fine substance which has issued out of me, and has been received into the understanding and has been fashioned into an idea. (But if you will not allow that the semblance proceeding from an object is a substantial effluence, adopt whatever theory you will, you decrease the image’s reality.)

But its objective reality can only be the representation or likeness to me which the ideas carries, or indeed only that proportion in the disposition of its parts in virtue of which they recall me. Whichever way you take it, there seems to be nothing really there; since all that exists is the mere relation of the parts of the idea to each other and to me, i.e. a mode of its formal existence in respect of which it is constructed in this particular way. But this is no matter, call it, if you like, the objective reality of an idea.