Owens, the Cartesian starting point, Hume, and Kant

In "An Introduction to Christian Metaphysics," giving a summary of the history of metaphysics, Owens says that Kant never once thought of denying the Cartesian starting point. Owens of course is objecting to Kant's refusal to deny the cartesian starting point. One finds later in the book that although he does make it appear that he deals with the problem of the uncertainty inherent in the senses, Owens really just ignores it.

Owens simply says that the sentiment we feel when we come into contact with a sensible object is much stronger than the belief in something in our minds and much stronger than our belief in the supersensible. He concludes from this forcible sensation that sensible objects are grasped intellectually--that is, he says it is no sort of belief that grasps these objects. But Owens offers no way to demonstrate such certainty. He can't, yet he is determined to say that we have full evidence and that this evidence is that we do in fact see something. Like I said, he offers no evidence to get around the uncertainty inherent in our senses. He simply restates himself in various intellectual ways.

Now, this does nothing but introduce doubt into Owen's account of metaphysics (because it is based on the fact that we have direct cognitive access to the world). It doesn't falsify it. But how did Hume and Kant come to such doubt concerning their senses? They could only do so by enquiring into the relationship between their minds and the world. But if they conclude that the senses are to be doubted, since the phenomena of experience (sensible things) play a fundamental role in our enquiry into the mind, then it seems that their conclusions, too, can be doubted. They can only delve into their minds by observing the relations between their minds and sensible objects. Sensible objects are too be doubted. Thus, the conclusions arrived at by relying on sensible objects to enquire into the mind also can be doubted.

Now, Let's say that Owens (or another Thomist or Aristotelian) brings this objection against Hume or Kant: "Your conclusions concerning the doubt of the senses, too, can be doubted, since you partly relied on the senses to come to your conclusions regarding the limits of the human understanding."

This may at first seem like a forceful objection. It is, but perhaps not as forceful as the Owens/Aristotelian might like. Both Hume's and Kant's conclusions can be doubted. But such an objection doesn't falsify Hume or Kant (just as the doubt of the senses doesn't falsify Thomism), but merely introduces a little doubt--a tincture of Pyrrhonism, if you will. If Owens uses the doubt concerning the senses concluded by Hume or Kant against their conclusions regarding human understanding, then Owens is accepting their doubt, and using it against them. In doing so he doesn't dismiss or dispel the doubt, he uses it against Hume and Kant. The conclusion: there is a little doubt, a tincture of Pyyrhonism, in all 3: Owens, Hume and Kant.

Our senses can be doubted because of the uncertainty regarding the mind's relation to the external world. Thomism can be doubted because of the inherent uncertainty regarding our senses. Hume and Kant can be doubted because they do, in part, rely on their senses to enquire into their minds.

( Yes, it does seem that I am playing the role of the Pyrrhonist here; But lest one think that it is useless, it should be kept in mind that Hume is quite dogmatic in his claim that his enquiry into the human mind cannot be doubted and that Owens very much thinks that his dogmatic conclusions are quite certain. Kant, too, seems confident in his restructuring of metaphysics.)