I've read the selections in another book, but yeah, Descartes is not my homeboy ( )

I have some amount of ambivalence toward skeptical philosophy in general. It's a tradition that engendered enlightenment errors and, later, influenced atheistic materialism. Descartes wasn't an atheist or a materialist as such, but his system of skeptical doubt is still incredibly silly in my opinion. First of all, a system of doubt is a contradiction in terms; a system must be based on positive and actual constituents; doubt is a negative, not a positive, so it cannot be a foundation for any genuine philosophy. For skeptical doubt to have any constructive role, it must be based on positive and actual veritable knowledge. The only reason I would doubt anything is that the thing that is up for scrutiny does not line up with what I hold positively to be true. Beginning with the idea that I must "doubt everything" and then find a positive in that futile endeavor is incredibly ludicrous. One cannot start with a negative and ever hope to gain a positive. The maxim "I cannot doubt that I am doubting" is drunk talk in my opinion. It's just twaddle. I think it means next to nothing. Knowledge always reaches the point where no more deduction can be done. Once that point is reached, you are in the realm of intuition. Intuitive knowledge is self-evident knowledge. It cannot be broken down any further; it is at it's most basic components. To doubt that 2 plus 3 is 5 is stupid. I have no reason to doubt that such is true. It is basic intuitive knowledge. To doubt it for doubt's sake is simply to engage in schizoid dialectic that has absolutely no positive and constructive function. Once one doubts all foundation for knowledge, one no longer has a foundation to even doubt. Beginning with doubt, one must always end with doubt because it is a negative and in the end everything could be doubted if one denies that intuitive self-evident truth is real; and one would have to deny it in order to doubt everything.
While Descartes does variously claim that his system is not just endless nullity, he often contradicts this in the things he says. I give this book three stars instead of a lower number because there are some interesting ideas here and there. In the sections where he deals with questions regarding the existence of God, you have some worthwhile notions. Much of that has a precedent in scholastic theology from the medieval period though; so he isn't really breaking new ground there in my opinion. ( )