Hugur - 01.01.2015, Page 105

Efi, skynsemi og kartesísk endurhæfing 105
eru því engin ný „kartesísk hringrök á ferðinni“. Við gætum jafnvel lært eitthvað
af þessu um hin gömlu.32
Íslensk þýðing: Gunnar Harðarson
Abstract
Doubt, Reason, and Cartesian Therapy
What is published here is an Icelandic translation of an article, „Doubt, Rea-
son, and Cartesian Therapy“, that appeared in 1978 in the collection, Descartes:
Critical and Interpretive Essays, ed. Michael Hooker ( Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity Press: Baltimore & London). The article attracted a certain amount of
scholary interest at the time. The author interprets Descartes’ famous „method of
doubt“, as it is employed in the Meditations on First Philosophy and other works,
in a non-traditional way – as a therapeutic method rather than a method of
proof – in opposition to older interpreters such as David Hume and more recent
interpreters such as Anthony Kenny and Harry Frankfurt, who all represent
Descartes as building upon antecedent doubt: a doubt „antecendent to all study
and philosophy . . . as a sovereign preservative against error and precipitate judg-
ment.“ On the basis of this received understanding, Descartes’ method, together
with his arguments as they were taken to be, was severely criticized; but if the
method is rather understood to be therapeutic, the criticisms may be seen to miss
their mark. The therapy is directed against our natural failure to distinguish sense
perception from reason – to confuse them together from earliest youth – and thus
to misunderstand what these faculties really have to tell us. The therapy proceeds
by pushing us to recognize and abandon this „prejudice“ (as Descartes calls it)
and thus to come to a better and more correct understanding of what it is that
we do, and do not, know – that is, to free us from a perverse misunderstanding
of our own nature, of our epistemological faculties, of our convictions, and of the
world around us. According to this new interpretation, we should understand
Descrates’ arguments – their objectives, structure, and intended significance – in
quite another way than formerly. The author supports his view through references
to various Cartesian works, most of them well known, but some, such as the
Search After Truth, not often read.
32 Ég þakka William DeAngelis, Eyjólfi Emilssyni, Richard Lee og Jeffrey Tlumak fyrir vandaðar
og hjálplegar athugasemdir við fyrri gerðir þessarar greinar. Auk þess vildi ég þakka sérstaklega
Eyjólfi Emilssyni og Þorsteini Gylfasyni fyrir aðstoð við að gáta og þýða texta eftir Descartes í
frumgerð ritgerðarinnar. Frumþýðingarnar sem birtar voru í enskri gerð voru endurritun mín
á orðréttri þýðingu þeirra, en auk þess gaf Sigurður Pétursson sums staðar góð og vel þegin
ráð. Í þessu tilfelli vil ég einnig þakka Gunnari Harðarsyni fyrir íslenska þýðingu hans, skarpar
athugasemdir og hvatningu til að láta birta greinina á íslensku.
Hugur 2015-5.indd 105 5/10/2016 6:45:22 AM