# Lesson 1.5: Reason and the Senses

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-luxury-of-virtue-7020409/lesson-1-5-reason-and-the-senses
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-luxury-of-virtue-7020409/lesson-1-5-reason-and-the-senses.md
Podcast: [The Luxury of Virtue](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-luxury-of-virtue-7020409)
Published: 2026-01-21T00:09:55+00:00
Episode link: https://zencastr.com/z/9mMFzbqv
Audio file: https://redirect.zencastr.com/r/episode/697019531991660f7f2c3d68/size/1156955539/video-files/64df8cc3b9f97166287697c5/a505b9e9-e4db-4ccb-8198-3ff9ee9ccc3a.mp4
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-luxury-of-virtue-7020409/episodes/lesson-1-5-reason-and-the-senses
Duration seconds: 4207

## Resource

If our senses can deceive us and our reasoning can outrun experience, which should we trust as the true foundation of knowledge: reason alone, or the evidence of the world? Topics discussed: * How radical skepticism (including modern versions like simulations) motivates Descartes' turn inward * A reconstruction of René Descartes' Cogito argument as a proposed foundation of certainty * The difficulty of moving from Descartes' foundational truths to knowledge of the external world * Philosophical objections to Descartes' inference from thinking occurs to a unified self exists, including Nagasena's chariot analogy * The role of innate ideas and God in Descartes' attempt to bridge the epistemic gap * John Locke's rejection of innate ideas and the blank slate hypothesis * Locke's empiricism, including simple vs. complex ideas and indirect realism * The tension between reason and the senses as competing sources of knowledge * The emerging dilemma between rationalism and empiricism as rival epistemic frameworks

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## Transcript

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