"Appearance" vs. "Reality"

[Geremia]

My Portuguese friend asked:

When I see a book and move my hand towards it I end up feeling a sensation of touch. A sensation of touch happens because of contact. But I'm not sure if it is the book I'm touching because I cannot see contact and thus there could be between my hand and the book some object invisible to the naked eye placed there by an evil demon or something. When we feel a sensation of touch, how can we know for sure which object we are touching? When I feel a sensation of touch how can I know which surface I've touched?

This is precisely Descartes's "evil deceiver" argument against the trustworthiness of the senses. Unlike Descartes's followers, who thought the only thing one can know with absolute certainly is that a "thinking thing" ("res cogitans") knows it exists ("Cogito, ergo sum."), Descartes himself thought that all certitude rests on God not being a deceiver; He is the "fundamentum inoconcussum veritatis" or "unshakeable foundation of truth". Descartes 1644 p. 290:

Absolute certainty arises when we believe that it is wholly impossible that something should be otherwise than we judge it to be. This certainty is based on a metaphysical foundation, namely that God is supremely good and in no way a deceiver, and hence that the faculty which he gave us for distinguishing truth from falsehood cannot lead us into error, so long as we are using it properly and are thereby perceiving something distinctly.

But this is not convincing because God is known first through our senses (cf. Rom. 1:20), and if our senses are deceived, we cannot know God properly (cf. Pope St. Pius X, Doctoris Angelici: "error with regard to the nature of creation begets a false knowledge of God").

A better argument for the trustworthiness of the senses is given in vol. 2 of Coffey's Epistemology, chapter XX "Idealism and the Distinction between 'Appearance' and 'Reality'" (pp. 167-83 // DjVu pp. 179-95), which does a good job dispelling the Kantian notion that appearances and their reality form two separate, disconnected things known.

[Kephapaulos]

Yes. That is an old ploy that has lead to the widespread doubt of the truth in the modern world today. Benedict XVI referred to the state of moral relativism that we have now, but many may not realize that that and the atheism are the results of Kantianism, Hegelianism, liberalism, and modernism.

[Kephapaulos]

What about things on earth such as our perception of the sun rising and setting or the way the horizon looks to us where they fall in relation to the fact that God can neither deceive nor be deceived?


What of the apparent contradictions in Scripture in relation to God as Truth too?



I imagine it might all have to do with our fallen nature in how we perceive things.

[Geremia]

What about things on earth such as our perception of the sun rising and setting or the way the horizon looks to us where they fall in relation to the fact that God can neither deceive nor be deceived?

What of the apparent contradictions in Scripture in relation to God as Truth too?

I imagine it might all have to do with our fallen nature in how we perceive things.

I wonder if Adam & Even before the Fall knew of "appearances."