First Principles, Reality and Descartes — Ali Shukri Amin
First published on my writing site: www.aliamin.info/2026/01/first-principles-reality-and-descartes/
By Ali Shukri Amin. I first wrote this as comments on r/PhilosophyMemes, in the thread “No wait a damn minute…Descartes? Hello?”, copied here as written.
Comment 1
The whole point of the meme is that what you consider “reality” requires some first principle to justify it otherwise Cartesian doubt becomes solipsistic, evil demon, Pyyrhonian, and even deeper layers of doubt.
Your choices are:
1) God of the philosophers (the vast majority of philosophy before the young Hegelians)
2) Radical skepticism (I don’t know if anything is real)
3) Some kind of idealism that lends to focusing solely on phemomenal experience, like a modified Hegelian dialectic
4) Naieve materialism (doesn’t make any sense, is not actually a justifiable position. Hurr durr it’s real because I see it)
Posted January 28, 2026. Read it on Reddit.
Comment 2
I misspoke. Skepticism is the one posing the problem. Philosophical theism & idealism are attempts at solving it. There are some “materialists” who are not naieve but I lump them in with idealists because it’s more methodological differences than foundational ones.
Naieve materialism is not semantically different than idealism, it’s substantively different.
Philosophical theism suggests that a God is the fundamental anchor upon which epistemology can be based, because if there is a benevolent transcendent guarantee that our cognition is not outright deceptive – then we can begin to evaluate other things. This is Plato’s form of the Good or Decartes benevolent God.
Kant & Hegel turn to ontology to try to construct an epistemology based in the phenomenon without recourse to the noumenon. While Hegel did believe in God, his work in this regard is definitely the pinnacle of a non-theistic approach to solving the major problems proposed by skeptics. I don’t think he succeeds.
Naieve materialists have benefitted from the fallout of Hegelian dialectic & the young Hegelians, assume hard philosophy (metaphysics, ontology, epistemology) is just “solved” because it’s so obvious that the material world is real dude.
We end up getting a scenario where the robust options are: theism, idealism, or radical skepticism.
Posted January 28, 2026. Read it on Reddit.
Comment 3
My original comment,
The whole point of the meme is that what you consider “reality” requires some first principle to justify it otherwise Cartesian doubt becomes solipsistic, evil demon, Pyyrhonian, and even deeper layers of doubt.
Your choices are:
1) God of the philosophers (the vast majority of philosophy before the young Hegelians)
2) Radical skepticism (I don’t know if anything is real)
3) Some kind of idealism that lends to focusing solely on phemomenal experience, like a modified Hegelian dialectic
4) Naieve materialism (doesn’t make any sense, is not actually a justifiable position. Hurr durr it’s real because I see it)
Let’s focus on,
“3) Some kind of idealism that lends to focusing solely on phemomenal experience, like a modified Hegelian dialectic”
I just said Marx is a dialectical materialist & young Hegelian. How did I adjust my stance at all?
Posted January 29, 2026. Read it on Reddit.
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