the intuition and deduction thesis - Descartes

Question 1

Explain the difference between intuition and deduction

Answer 1

intuition is the immediate and non-inferential grasp of an a priori truth while deduction is an a priori step by step reasoning that reaches a logical certain conclusion.

Descartes believes that he can gain knowledge by realising intuitive ideas and then building upon them with deduction. Therefore all truths reached are a priori - they are necessarily true and are concluded on reason alone.

Question 2

Explain Descartes notion of clear and distinct ideas

Answer 2

Descartes uses clear and distinct ideas to move his way out of scepticism as they are the things which he is certain of being true.

Descartes postulates that an idea is clear if it is present and accessible to the attentive mind, while an idea is distinct if it can be separated from all other ideas.

For instance, with leg pain, descartes says that while it is clear, it is not distinct as it is hard to distinguish the cause of the pain. While with ideas such as 2+3=5 are distinct.

Question 3

explain descartes cogito as an example of an a priori intuition

Answer 3

The Cogito for Descartes is his starting point for his way out of scepticsm. The Cogito is the only thing which he can be certain of at this point as can be summarised as ‘I think therefore I am”.

the cogito is an act of intuition because it is an a priori, immediate and self-verifying, argument which does not involve any inferences. This is required for the Cogito as Descartes believed the possibility of an evil demon could deceive him at any certain step if he utilised a longer argument.