Removing all Prejudice--is it possible?
By Keyanz
@Keyanz (8)
United States
April 15, 2010 8:29pm CST
Rene Descartes seems to have removed all prejudice in writing his meditations on first philosophy. Is it the job of all philosophers to do this, but realistically, is this possible?
2 responses
@rambansal (574)
• India
18 Jun 11
Removing prejudices is impossible as we are all programmed in our own chosen ways and so keep prejudices safe in our minds. For a try to remove prejudice, we need to understand, the genesis of it -
http://theosoph-universeofmind.blogspot.com/2011/04/genesis-and-development-of-prejudice.html
@ubermensch (136)
• Philippines
17 Sep 10
Yes, this is possible as we turn into the age of postmodernity. This age characterize by the groundlessness of our judgments. French philosopher Jean Francois Lyotard said that it is possible to destroy all those prejudices characterized by the grand narratives from old philosophical system. In the Eastern philosophy, the nothingness or Nirvana in Buddhism is much like this task to remove all the prejudices that we have in our mind.
Indeed, this is the task of the philosophers to remove the biases so that they can have a wide view of seeing things. If they will not do that then, they are just giving their opinions but not truth. For Husserl, it is possible to remove all the prejudices and we can reach the pure transcendental Ego by suspending our presuppositions. He called this presuppositionless.
Let me remind you that the methodic doubt of Rene Descartes was not really successful in removing all the prejudices. He did not doubt two things which is substance and causality. In the case of substance, he did not remove the prejudice that there is a self that exist or thinks. The self is a thinking substance.
In the case of causality, Descartes was a religious and have the prejudice that there must be a God who exists that can guarantee than there is truth.