One of the most pressing questions in philosophy is determining what is “real.” Senses can be deceiving and most of what we claim to know is based off those senses. If we cannot be sure of what we see, feel, and hear, how can we be sure of anything we know? This being the case, the only knowledge to be trusted should be what we can discern without our senses. But to only live by knowledge that is not gained through the senses, we create a reality that is unfit for living in the world we are experiencing, regardless of whether or not it is real. Plato contends that images and visible objects are less credible than forms and scientific objects (107) and Descartes wishes to throw out any knowledge that is gained through senses (12). However, it is this world that we experience that is most present to our minds, so the knowledge that would best serve us is what we can discern from the experiences of this world.
Plato’s idea is that all things can be categorized as either objects of condition and condition in the soul, and then can be separated by the nature of where they are experienced; the two possibilities are the intelligible world and the visible world. In Plato’s diagram (107) he classifies the intelligible as knowledge and the visible as opinion. This goes along with the idea that our senses are not to be trusted and what we can hold to be true cannot be based off what we see but rather what we think. He argues the point of not trusting our senses with the hypothetical cave scenario.
The hypothetical cave scenario presented by Plato (109-10) is an example that should demonstrate the possibility of our own ignorance. Living in a world cut off from sunlight seeing shadows and hearing echoes, the prisoners do not know what is true. The shadows they see are only images and the opinions they base are only imagining. When they are taken out of the cave and brought into light, everything they have come to “know” is useless information and they are better people for knowing the truth.
The problem with Plato’s cave is that nothing depends on the will of the prisoner. They are tied down such that they cannot leave the cave even if they thought they could. Their enlightenment relies solely on the will of the guards that keep them in confinement, and that makes the entire matter rest outside of the prisoners’ control. The prisoner’s world remains to be the cave and all that matters to them is what they can discern from the shadows and echoes. These shadows are truth as long as the cave is their environment, because any knowledge outside of the cave does not have any purpose to them.
Plato’s problem is that he is failing to recognize the years spent in the cave and is only concerned with the event of being brought out of the cave and being shown the light. In addition, the nature of Plato’s enlightenment involves a higher power forcefully removing you from your world and putting you in a more “true” world. If the true world is kept from us and the only thing that will bring us there is the will of an omnipotent being, then why should we entertain that this world we experience is not real? It remains real to us as long as we have our experiences in it.
This does not mean that while in the cave that the world outside is not real. It simply is not. It has no purpose, no definition, and not even a clue to the prisoners that it exists. The prisoners are living their lives in accordance to the world of the cave. They are formulating ideas, opinions, beliefs, and emotions as to the nature of the shadows. What they formulate about those shadows is what their lives are based on. It is all that really matters because it is all that is there for them and as far as they know, those shadows are all that is. It does not matter that there is a world beyond the cave because the only way that world could be experienced is by an outside force. If there is no choice regarding the fate of which they have no knowledge, than there is only the cave.
This is also true for us. If we are in fact the prisoners, tied such that we cannot see all that there is, then there is no point in questioning what else there is. All that we can do is to continue living out our lives in this world that we experience and be open to the possibility that there is a world outside. We could not free ourselves from the ropes that are keeping us in the cave, so we might as well act based on what we can discern from the shadows of our reality.
For Descartes, this does not seem to be enough. Descartes proposes that everything we know could be false. Even the things casting the shadows in Plato’s cave are not real, and the world outside the cave is not enough. He hypothesizes that all we experience and sense could be a world created inside our minds by a demon prodding at our brains in a vat (15). The only knowledge that Descartes will accept as true is what he can reach without the use of his senses. What he can determine is that the “I” exists. “I think, therefore I am,” is a claim he validates by saying that he has these thoughts and that there is some force acting on him. If something is acting on him, then “him” must exist (17).
He also manages to validate God’s existence in such a fashion. Taking that “I” is a finite being as true, a being that is not infinite would not be able to comprehend an infinite being by one’s self. In order to imagine this infinite being, the infinite being must have put the concept of infinity into the mind. Descartes is able to prove that “I” and God exist.
His argument is sound. By disregarding all knowledge gained through the senses, he has convinced me that I exist and that God exists. What I do not agree with is that all knowledge gained through the senses is to be disregarded. The possibility that this world we experience is not the “real world” does not seem compelling enough to me to discount what we see and touch and hear as truth.
It is true that there is a possibility we are just brains in a vat. It is possible that there no such thing as we, that I am the only one and my brain is in a vat being prodded. Virtually anything is possible. But the world we experience is what is true to us. Descartes points out that there are occasions that the senses can betray us. If our senses can be deceived in one respect, they may be constantly deceived.
But our senses are interpreting a world in a constant way, in the spring we see the grass is green and when it dies it is brown. Much of what we see in the world is constant and we can take that as knowledge for what is true in this world we experience. There are times that we may be deceived and our senses fail at telling us what is true. But to argue that our senses are not to be trusted based on the rare occasions we were misled is foolish for living in this world we experience.
A possibility I would like to entertain is what if Descartes is right and this is not the “real world?” What if we free ourselves from this world we experience and come into a world where we learn we have been deceived? What would we do next? Would we blindly trust that the world we have come into is real? If I was brought into a new world and shown that this world I have experienced for my entire life was a lie, I would not believe that this new world was real. I cannot even say for certain that I would believe that this world I am experiencing now was true. With Descartes’ contention that this may not be real, he essentially contends that there is no world we could trust as real.
Perhaps this is not a real world. My experiences, senses, and knowledge of this place could be completely imagined. But this world continues to exist, and my present consciousness exists in it. I have knowledge of this place based on what I perceive to be true and I have made choices and decisions based on that knowledge and will continue to do so. For the time being I will take this world as true.
If one felt particularly compelled to discern the truth of this world, if it is real or imagined, one would have to truly disregard all other aspects of their life in the search. This possibility of a “real world” would have to take precedence over what this person is experiencing. The possibility that this world is the “real world” is too compelling to me to waste what this world has to offer to my senses and perceptions.
These things we do everyday may be real. There is the possibility that they are only shadows and we are bound in ignorance accepting the only thing we have been offered as truth. These shadows, if they are indeed only shadows, are real enough and more importantly, satisfying enough that I am content. If this world turns out to be not true, it will certainly make me feel better about the mistakes I have made. The positive experiences have been satisfying enough to me that I will not regret them not being true.

References

René Descartes. “Meditations I and II.” In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. II. Trans. John Cottingham et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Plato. From “The Republic.” In Fifty Readings in Philosophy. Second Edition. Ed. Donald C. Abel. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2004.

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