Relativism and "Get on my Level"

Oh boy, look what we have here! A relativist man in the 1600's trying to be philosopher of the year! Descartes really seems like a nice guy. He wants to understand what it means to be. His conclusion arrives at the statement: "I now know that even bodies are perceived  not by the senses or by imagination but by intellect alone..." I understand that relativism only just came to fruition only decades ago, but what Descartes puts forward is just modern day relativism with a dash of narcissism. I remember having a conversation with a friend on Facebook with him telling me good and bad are social constructs and that there is no moral standard in the universe. This plays into the fact that anything is good to me so long as I see it is good. (Obviously this is false as my youth pastor points out a situation that if good and bad were relative to the individual then murder and rape would be social acceptable and reasonable...which they aren't) I digress, Descartes makes a claim based on relativism that things, or bodies, can only be perceived if the individual is smart enough to do so. In a sense, Descartes tries to reason himself that because he cannot see or touch God, then He must not exist. But using Descartes' own logic, I can say he's just too incompetent to understand that just because his perception of a physical God isn't there, it doesn't mean God isn't real. He simply can't see beyond the mental block he was trying so hard to remove in the first place. So to me, Descartes runs full circle into the ground and then proceeds to eat his own dust.

Now for my next victim, Kant. Enlightenment. What a powerful word, it holds so much depth beneath it but to Kant, no normal man can attain it. Kant puts forth the notion that enlightenment is blocked by the current society we abide in. From the beginning, we are trained to rely on outside help. What do you do when you don't know the meaning of a word? Google it. What if you're looking to be creative in the kitchen but you haven't gone through culinary school? Google it. What if for some reason you can't understand your weekly reading for your Honors class? Goo---I mean ask a professor... (whew, that was close. I almost told the truth there.) This is our external crutch: the internet. We as a society have become dependent on it. If you don't have internet access on a day to day basis, you are not in "the know." So it is safe to assume that the vastness of the web would grant the knowledge we need for our own enlightenment, right? Wrong. Kant says in order for one to become enlightened, one must separate himself from the crutches of the world. And if I can translate correctly, he wants us to become like monks: developing knowledge and understanding through our own studies and tests. So in order to "get on my level", as enlightenment implies, you must first "get off my level" and begin anew as to not hold to the external assistance of society.

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