Strengths and Weaknesses of Metaphysical Methods of Inquiry

¶ … Metaphysical Methods of Inquiry

The philosopher Rene Descartes adopted what he called a 'metaphysical' or rationalist approach to understanding the world and the relationship of the human to the divine. In contrast to a physical approach a 'meta-physical' inquiry, as the word suggests, is a method of reasoning that takes the thinker outside of the physical world and confines the philosopher's focus to the mind when establishing what is true. The great strength of the metaphysical approach, according to Descartes, is that it is not polluted by the potential delusions of the material world, in contrast to an empiricist or scientific approach. Metaphysics is deductive, rather than inductive in nature. It makes suppositions based upon evidence, reasoning from first, established principles, rather than creating principles based upon sensory evidence. "But while my senses may deceive me about what is small or far away, there may still be other things taken in by the senses which I cannot possibly doubt...unless perhaps I liken myself to madmen" (Descartes 136). Given that Descartes believes certain persons are insane based upon his sense evidence is not justification enough: he could be mad, delusional or dreaming. That is why the human mind is better known and more trustworthy than the human body.

In terms of the value of metaphysics, it lacks the innate biases and subjectivism that often can corrupt evidence, such as when a person has poor eyesight or was simply in a bad mood because he or she skipped lunch when witnessing an event. Descartes' commentary highlights how 'eyewitness accounts' are far from reliable. Every night when we enter into a dream state we leave what we consider the real world. We believe we know for certain when we are dreaming and when we are fully awake, but that is based upon faulty sensations of the body. The rigorous inquiry of rationalism forces philosophers to question common sense notions and to demand a more stringent justification for relying upon 'gut' feelings.

Descartes ultimately uses his metaphysical inquiry to deductively prove the existence of God, stating that the presence of a higher intelligence within his mind as a concept that is more supremely good than himself and the fact that there must be a mind to be 'doing' the thinking -- even to be deceived by the senses, mad, or dreaming -- shows that the existence of God can be proven in a deductive, a priori fashion. Descartes views his proof of God as 'thorough' because he first begins by doubting everything -- the goodness of God, the existence of an omnipotent God, the existence of the world, even the existence of his own self. It could all be the creation of a demon (Descartes 138). However, ultimately, using the metaphysical approach he states that is impossible -- he always returns to the notion that there is an 'I' doing the thinking, and therefore he must exist. And if he exists, and his conception of a higher being remains in place, that higher being must exist. "It is me who senses -- or who seems to gain knowledge of objects through the senses" (Descartes 140).