Journal 10

Shaniyah Frazier

Ideas in Antiquity

Journal 10

Moana Deep Analysis

Watching the Movie For the First Time:

I see why everyone still talks about Moana 4 years later. This movie was everything. From how crisp the image was, to the story line. I loved it. Through out the movie it seems like moana was going through major self reconstruction and figuring out who she was. One of my favorite parts of the movie was when she changed the lyrics in her main song to fit the stages she was in with her character development. This has been by far the most illustrated and blatant character development from any other Disney princess and I loved it. I wouldn’t have watched this movie without this class so I highly appreciate being forced to watch this movie. It seems to be a recurring theme in this class, the idea of finding yourself who you truly are. The take away from that is that true leadership requires self transparency, at least my own take away. I took notes during the movie to see what stood out to me and for the purpose of deeply analyzing the symbols and messages in Moana. I also made my boyfriend watch it with me and analyze it as well because two brains is better than one. Here are my findings.

Very early in the movie, you can see Moana was very different from the other village children. While Grandma Tala was telling the story, she was the only one not phased by the story. One could say she showed courage from her earliest stages in life. The idea of God or an ominous figure has been around for centuries. The belief in God comes from the Holy Scriptures, but the reason why people believe in the Holy scriptures is because of God. As Descartes states, “We must believe in God’s existence because it is taught in the Holy Scriptures, and, conversely, that we must believe the Holy Scriptures because they have come from God.” (Descartes, 1). The belief relies solely on faith rather than absolute knowledge. This is a prime example of a belief that is heavily supported to be fact but cannot be determined as a fact. Because this belief does not have absolute knowledge within it, it is vulnerable to doubt. In fact, there are many people who are Atheist that lack belief in God. This is why the Method of Doubt is important. It exposes vulnerable points in beliefs that make it easier to differentiate between a belief and a fact.

To simplify, the method of doubt is a procedure where you question a belief and if there is doubt, then you classify the belief as not being absolute knowledge. The typical steps in executing this method are first trying to reasonably doubt a belief. You do this by questioning the belief. Next, if you can doubt it, then it is discarded as a candidate for knowledge. If you cannot doubt the belief no matter what, then it is considered absolute certain knowledge. The process is quite simple. The three stages of skeptical doubt that Descartes goes through is the sense doubt, the dream doubt, and the evil demon doubt. All three of these categorized doubts combined can supposedly destroy all of our beliefs.

In the stage sense doubt, Descartes makes the argument that our senses sometimes deceive us. In this skeptical hypothesis, Descartes notes that “the senses are sometimes deceptive; and it is a mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in those who have deceived us even once.” (Descartes, 10). Senses oftentimes deceive us for example our sense of sight does so by making things appear tiny when they are far away. Although this is true, it is also the senses that undoubtedly prove things as well. For example, although my eyesight may make an extremely huge object seem small, my eyesight does not deceive me all of the time. In court, eyewitness testimony is seen as one of the best pieces of evidence because witnessing with one’s own eyes is seen as extremely reliable. My eyesight confirms where I am and confirms what I see happening before me. Descartes notes this stating “still there are many other matters concerning which one simply cannot doubt, even though they are derived from the very same senses.” (Descartes, 10). This concludes that although the doubt of senses offers doubt, it does not doubt enough of our beliefs because it also offers truth. The only beliefs that are subject to doubt are ones concerning objects seen far away. This is where Descartes pushes for the hypothesis that offers doubt to a bigger range of beliefs and enters the second stage of doubt.

The second stage of doubt is the dream doubt according to Descartes. The basis for this skeptical hypothesis is the fact that we cannot tell the difference between when we are dreaming and reality. Descartes states that he has grown “accustomed to sleeping at night, and to experiencing in my dreams the very same things” (Descartes, 10). This is due to our senses that can also be replicated indiscriminately and vividly in dreams. For example, it is not uncommon to hear that when people wet the bed, they are dreaming of being in a bathroom. Another example is when people dream of falling. When you dream of falling, you feel it in your body and wake up with your heart racing. This just shows how powerful dreams can be because they can trigger bodily responses. This puts doubt in all senses related to sense experience. This covers a majority of our beliefs, but it does not doubt beliefs about mathematics. Even in our dreams, the simplest math equations are still thought to be true. Descartes notes this by stating, “for whether I am awake or asleep, 2 plus 3 make 5, and a square does not have more than 4 sides.” (Descartes, 11). This is where Descartes tries to figure out the hypothesis that doubts all beliefs including mathematical ones.

The final stage of doubt is the stage that Descartes claims doubts all of our beliefs. This is the evil deceiver doubt. In this stage, Descartes proclaims that there is an all-powerful, all-knowing deceiver, who deceives us people regarding all that we believe. This evil deceiver sounds a lot like God who is also supposed to be all-knowing and all-powerful. In fact, Descartes states “Accordingly, I will suppose not a supremely good God… but rather an evil genius, supremely powerful and clever” (Descartes, 12). In this hypothesis, this evil deceiver has made us believe that what we have and believe is what we do not actually have. What makes the final stage the one that Descartes settles with is because this final stage includes “the heavens, the air, the earth, colors, shapes, sounds, and all external things as nothing…” (Descartes, 12).The reason why one could not just object to the final stage of doubt by denying there is an all-powerful deceiver is that whatever all-powerful God that did create Descartes would have made an imperfection. The fact that Descartes is being deceived all the time, shows “the less powerful they take the author of my origin to be” (Descartes, 12) if there is not an all-powerful deceiver.

The objection to the idea of there being an all-powerful deceiver rests upon the misunderstanding that the method of doubt is just doubting beliefs. It is not to say that any of these doubts are necessarily fact, but to show that because there are no answers to these doubts that there isn’t absolute knowledge. The only belief Descartes discovers to hold immunity to the evil deceiver doubt to Descartes is that he exist. The evidence of this conclusion is that if Descartes persuaded himself of something that must mean he exists. (Descartes, 13). This withstands the evil deceiver hypothesis because, as Descartes states, “there is no doubt I exist if he is deceiving me.” (Descartes, 12). In other words, the one sole thing that is of absolute knowledge, according to Descartes, is that we exist. And it is undeniable because we are here thinking about our existence.

All in all, Descartes’ first and second Meditations are very thought-provoking. Through his method of doubt, we go on what seems to be a deranged train of thought that ultimately leads to the conclusion that we do not know anything that is absolute knowledge besides that we exist. This demonstrates how high a standard that absolute knowledge is. The three stages of doubt gradually doubted all of our beliefs. I believe this was effective during Descartes’ time because, during the Scientific Revolution, there was an emergence of a lot of new science and beliefs. I think it was important to emphasize how necessary it was to have a standard of absolute knowledge for the foundation of modern science. This prevents the emergence of an imaginative belief to be taught as fact.

My song lyrics

Who am I?
I am a girl who wants to see the world and better it
I’m the girl who loves her family
It calls me
I am the daughter of Candace and Patton Frazier
We are descended from survivers
Who found their way across the world and who prospered when people did not want them to
They call me
I’ve delivered us to where we are
I have journeyed farther
I am everything I’ve learned and more
Still it calls me
And the call isn’t out there at all, it’s inside me
It’s like the tide, always falling and rising
I will carry you here in my heart you’ll remind me
That come what may
I know the way
I am Shaniyah!