Descartes' Moral Certainty: Is It Practical Or Metaphysical?

As is known,Descartes' philosophy begins with the pursuit of the knowledge's certainty.There are two certainties Descartes had mentioned,metaphysical and moral certainty.But there are always some difficulties and controversies about moral certainty,so the thesis is aimed at doing studies on the debate of moral certainty.In the first part,the issue about moral certainty will be shown.Compared with classical philosophy,and also as we see in the Descartes' writings and the controversy of the researchers,there are different meanings in moral certainty in practical philosophy and metaphysics respectively.In the second chapter,I present why moral certainty has double meanings from the developing trend of Descartes' philosophy.In Aristotelianism,the certainty of knowledge is based on the different grades in ousia,but Descartes switch the foundation to the cognitive rules of "Cogito".Therefore,moral certainty is kind of certainty in metaphysics.While the shift can't carry through by the stalemate of two entities:mind and body,Descartes proposes mind and body are corresponding to theoretical and practical fields,and in practical field we can only get moral certainty.Consequently,moral certainty have meanings in both practical philosophy and metaphysics.Then,in third chapter,I analyze the difficulty for the whole philosophy because of moral certainty.We can draw the conclusion that the existence of I is metaphysical certainty,but the existence of material things is a moral certainty,which mean that there has been a divide in the phenomenal and noumenal world and a possibility for Kant's theory of thing-it-itself.At last,Descartes promotes the certainty of the existence of material things to metaphysical certainty by God's guarantee,then the whole Descartes' philosophy has fallen into the worship of the God's absolute power inevitably and become a kind of moral theology or political theology.In the last part,combing the thesis,I give an emphasis to my proposition.