Descartes Meditations Revision

Hey,

I bought the Penguin Descartes Meditations book a few days ago and have since done my usual rewriting thing (including the meditations reworded and the criticisms). I have emailed to Claire, Graeme and Dave but if anyone else wants a copy, leave your email address in a reply! :)

Matt

Descartes Assignment

Read the posts on 1. Clear and Distinct Ideas and the Cartesian Circle, 2. The Ontological Argument, and then write the following essay:

Assess the Ontological Argument and explain its significance in Descartes' philosophy.

You may choose to mention the Trademark Argument but don't linger on it. You may also mention the Cartesian Circle criticism, which is especially relevant if you are attacking the Ontological Argument by disagreeing with Descartes' account of rational knowledge (clear and distinct ideas). You can't really ignore the Kantian and Humean criticisms.

I would like you to build in some actual quotations from Meditation 5. Also do some research, eg using the on-line encyclopedias of philosophy.

Remember that you are assessing, or evaluating, the argument. You have to give a full account of the argument and of some of the main objections to it...but you must go a step further and assess the criticisms also. Don't automatically agree with criticisms. Reach a conclusion by weighing up the balance of how successful the arguments are on both sides. Think about your conclusion: remember that Descartes claims not only to have proved that God exists but that He exists necessarily.

Deadline: Tuesday 17th November.

The Ontological Argument

You need to read Meditation 5, especially section 7 onwards. Before we begin, remember why it is important for Descartes to prove the existence of God. He needs to be able to trust his clear and distinct ideas in order to show that he has knowledge of things other than his own existence. Only God can guarantee clear and distinct ideas because only God can trump the Evil Demon. Without God, Descartes could be the victim of the demon - even clear and distinct ideas could be tricks. But if Descartes can show that a supremely perfect being exists then he can be sure that he is not being deceived. God could not be a deceiver, so whatever innate ideas and clear and distinct ideas Descartes finds in his mind can be trusted (even if he still cannot fully trust his senses).

The Ontological Argument can be summarised as follows:

a) The idea of God is the idea of a supremely perfect being.
b) Existence is a perfection.
c) Therefore God must exist.

a) depends on the theory of innate ideas; b)and c) depend on the theory of clear and distinct ideas. The idea of God as a supremely perfect being is an innate idea - we are born with the capacity for thinking it. We can clearly and distinctly perceive that existence is built into the idea of a supremely perfect being.

Warning! Don't rush into thinking that Descartes is claiming that thinking of a supremely perfect being makes it true that God exists. Conceiving of a mountain doesn't make the mountain exist, and conceiving of God doesn't make God exist. The point is that just as you cannot conceive of the mountain without a valley, because they cannot occur separately, so you cannot conceive of a God that doesn't exist because God and existence cannot be separated. Descartes perceives this distinctly.

Ah ha! you exclaim - just because the idea of God cannot be separated from the idea of existence, that doesn't prove that God actually exists, that he is real. That's certainly true if you are an empiricist, but if, like Descartes, you believe that certain rational intuitions (ie clear and distinct ideas) can give you a priori truths about reality, then Descartes' argument might still work. So your final response to the Ontological Argument might well depend on your response to the claim that we can have a priori knowledge of reality.

But...aaargh! you scream...Descartes is clearly talking nonsense - anyone can conceive of God not existing. I know what God's attributes are supposed to be - I've got a clear conception of what He would be like if He existed, but he doesn't.

Descartes is not amused, nor impressed. He responds: All the attributes of God entail each other. Omnipotence entails omniscience, for example - only a being who knew everything could be able to do anything. Only a being who existed could be either omniscient or omnipotent. Also, in order to be omnipotent God must not depend on anything else or on anything else existing (including ourselves and our ideas of Him). He must exist Himself all the time, eternally. He cannot come into and go out of existence at any point. We cannot, without contradiction, conceive of a God who doesn't actually exist or who only existed contingently. This means that God exists necessarily (not contingently). He doesn't just happen to exist; he must exist.

Remembering how Thomas Aquinas objected to Anselm's version of the argument, you insist that Descartes' argument is about the concept of God being inseparable from the concept of existence: it doesn't say anything about reality. But, as I said before, that depends on whether you think certain kinds of thought (a priori rational intuitions or clear and distinct ideas) can give us knowledge of reality. If they can, then the concept of God could be one of those a priori intuitions: the thought reflects reality.

We'll come back to that later. Let's try Kant's "existence is not a property" argument. Kant says Descartes is wrong to classify existence as a property or a predicate - that is, as part of the description of God. Saying that God exists doesn't add anything to our understanding of what God is like. To use AJ Ayer's example, being white, having a horn, being horse-like are all properties of a unicorn, part of the description, but not existing is not part of the description. No existential statement is part of the description of an object. We have the description of a unicorn, now whether such a thing exists or doesn't is a different kind of claim: perhaps it does exist, perhaps it doesn't, but either way it is a purely factual question. It is a contingent fact that unicorns don't exist and, if God does exist, that is a contingent fact too. A synthetic rather than an analytic truth. This doesn't prove God's existence one way or another, but it does suggest that Descartes' argument doesn't prove God's existence is a logical necessity.

Hume, a little earlier than Kant, also denies that God's existence is a necessary truth. He argues that all truths are either synthetic (matters of fact, known empirically) or analytic (known by reason but only by virtue of the definitions). If God's existence were a necessary truth it would be analytic and the contrary ("God does not exist")would be self-evidently contradictory (as is "My bachelor friend is a married man"), but it isn't, anymore than "Unicorns exist" is contradictory. According to Hume, no existential statements are ever self-evidently contradictory, even if they are obviously untrue.

But Descartes would not accept Hume's starting point about all truths being either analytic a priori or synthetic a posteriori. Descartes could argue that not all rational intuitions are analytic - in other words there can be synthetic a priori truths. we can know things about reality by thought alone. In this case, "God does not exist" might not be self-contradictory, but it is incoherent. It cannot make sense, given our clear and distinct perception that the idea of God entails His existence.

So, as I suggested earlier, it all boils down to whether you can accept Descartes' rationalist theory of clear and distinct ideas giving us knowledge of reality.

The Wax Example

Descartes argues that he is a res cogitans, a thinking thing. He is a thing that "doubts, perceives, affirms, denies, wills, does not will, that imagines also, and which feels". Some of these attributes seem to link mental states to physical states, for example to our sense organs. Surely, to perceive something is to experience it through our senses? But Descartes insists that the essential features of perception are intellectual rather than sensual.

One purpose of the wax example is to demonstrate this point. Wax makes an excellent example because it connects with all the senses.

The wax has a certain colour, smell, taste. It is hard to the touch and makes a sound when tapped. But when it melts all these sensory properties change. The appearance, smell, taste, sound, and texture all change - and yet, Descartes says, he perceives it to be the same wax. This shows that the wax is not its sensory properties, for if it were its colour, taste, smell, etc. could not change without it being different wax. So when he thinks of the wax he is thinking of something that is extended (takes up space) and changeable.

It is not through imagination that he knows what it is, for he knows that it can go through more changes than he can imagine. If it's not through the senses, nor through imagination, that he perceives the wax, how does he do it? The answer is: through his understanding - ie intellectually. When he says he "sees" the wax (visually), what he is really doing is making an intellectual judgement.

He backs this up with the example of looking out of his window and seeing a man in the street below. What he actually sees from above is a hat and cloak moving along. But he makes a judgement that there is a man underneath (rather than a machine). He does not see the man visually; he makes an intellectual judgement that it is a man.

Notice that these examples are about how we know things. Although the wax example is sometimes seen as reinforcing the cogito argument, and the distinction between mind and matter, it is mainly about how we know things about the physical world. It makes a point about the nature of matter too, of course. The wax is not essentially its sensory properties; it is essentially those properties that are perceived intellectually.

This is not such an extraordinary idea - after all, nowadays we don't think that physical objects are really as we perceive then with our senses; we don't see protons and electrons, do we? But, on the other hand, we don't generally think of our recognition of objects as being an intellectual activity: we tend to think that we just see things, hear things, touch things, etc - in other words, that we know things through our senses. But surely Descartes is right. When we see things as something - eg a black shape as a cat - that is surely at least partly an intellectual judgement. Cats, of course, don't normally change all their sensory properties as we look at them, as the wax does. That's why the wax example is so well chosen, and why we wouldn't normally accept what Descartes says about true perception" (by which he means something close to recognition or identification) is an intellectual judgement. But if it true in the case of wax, it is perhaps true in the case of all perception. We intellectually judge or infer the presence of physical objects from their sensory properties, but the only physical properties we can judge objects really to have are extension and changeability.

So the first purpose of the wax example is to make a point about how we have knowledge of physical objects. The second purpose is to say something about what the essential properties of physical objects are.

Clear and Distinct Ideas. The Cartesian Circle.

Descartes is a rationalist. The cogito argument rests on an acceptance of an idea that is immediately present to his mind - not on experience or deduction (although this could be disputed). The thought that if he is thinking then he must exist is the first "clear and distinct idea". He intuits it directly, by pure thought. By "clear" Descartes means that the idea is open and present to the attending mind. By "distinct" he means that it is a precise, separated, sharply defined idea, not mixed up with other ideas or concepts.

The point is that at the time we rationally "perceive" the idea, its truth cannot be doubted. It is self-evident.

But what about when we are not attending to the idea, when we are not "perceiving" it directly? Does it cease to be true? What could make it true when we aren't thinking about it? Does its truth come and go?

One obvious response would be to say that memory makes it true. We remember that it is an idea we have previously perceived to be self-evidently true. But memories themselves can be confused, vague and inaccurate; and they are not demon-proof. So far there is only one demon-proof idea, for even if the demon is tricking Descartes about every other idea (and every memory), he cannot be tricking him about his existence.

So Descartes needs something other than memory that can establish enduring truths, truths that remain certain even when not be directly attended to. But having established that clear and distinct ideas are self-evidently true in the case of the cogito, he can now use them to establish the existence of God. Once he has established the existence of an omnibenevolent God he can be sure that God would not permit him to be systematically deceived. Some of his sense perceptions may be illusions, but his clear and distinct ideas, which are purely intellectual and not linked to the body, can surely be trusted. This means he can trust them to be true enduringly, even when not attended to.

The Cartesian Circle

This is a famous objection to Descartes' use of clear and distinct ideas. It is claimed that he argues in a circle, as follows:

1) I am certain that God exists because I am certain of whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive.
2) I am certain of what I clearly and distinctly perceive because I am certain God exists.

This would obviously be an unacceptable form of argument. But Descartes denied that he was arguing circularly. He said we can trust clear and distinct ideas without relying on God, but only at the time of the "perception". Once we have proved the existence of God (who by definition must endure when we are not perceiving his existence by pure thought), we can claim that we have enduring knowledge of him and his goodness, and that therefore we can trust our clear and distinct ideas not to be only temporarily true. Once we have proved even fleetingly the existence of God, we can be sure that we are not being systematically deceived by the demon - and therefore that what we clearly and distinctly perceive to be true is true enduringly, even when we are not attending directly to the idea.

Not everyone is satisfied by this response. You must decide whether you think Descartes'clear and distinct ideas theory, on which his whole philosophy depends, really does avoid the Cartesian Circle objection.

Cogito: The First Certainty

In Meditations II Descartes argues that even if the Evil Demon is deceiving him about everything else, it cannot be deceiving him about one thing - that he exists. As long as he is doubting everything, he is thinking, and as long as he is thinking, he must exist. Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am; or: I am thinking, therefore I exist. If the demon tricked him into thinking he didn't really exist, he could reason his way out of the trickery, for if he is doubting his own existence, he is surely thinking. Something is thinking, and that which thinks is the "I".

Clearly, Descartes is making the assumption that thoughts require a subject to think them, something that isn't itself a thought but which in some sense is aware of the thoughts. Is he entitled to assume that thoughts require a thinker? If we think he isn't then his argument fails, for all he'd be left with is "There are thoughts". In any case, he does seem to be assuming that the subject of the thoughts is a continuing thing, subsisting from one thought to the next, and from one kind of mental process to the next (doubting, imagining, etc). He is not entitled to do this, for this could be an illusion created by the demon. But without this continuing "I", his argument looks much weaker: a fleeting "I" that exists only momentarily, as each separate thought occurs, would not be able to reason. It could not form the cogito argument, nor be the subject of clear and distinct ideas, for it would not be able to linger on them long enough to check they really are clear and distinct.

Perhaps you disagree with me, or have your own arguments against Descartes. Get posting!

The Method of Doubt and Its Purpose

Descartes begins by adopting the position of a global sceptic. He wants to doubt everything because he wants to get back to the foundations of all knowledge in order to build science up from principles that are absolutely certain. He needs to doubt all his previous beliefs because he suspects that some of them are false; if some are, all might be, and therefore all subsequent beliefs would by insecure. He thinks that knowledge has to be certain, indubitable. He sets the standards for knowledge very high - perhaps too high, certainly for everyday purposes, but he is interested in the foundations of scientific knowledge, so perhaps it is reasonable to set very high standards. However, he doesn't live up to those standards himself. Before long he is trusting any ideas that are "clear and distinct", which is not the same as ideas that are indubitable.

Also, Descartes seems to confuse certainty with conviction. Just because you have a strong conviction that a belief is true, it doesn't follow that it is certainly true. He thinks certainty can come from a kind of rational insight (clear and distinct ideas), but this is different from an idea being logically certain.

Descartes' doubt is universal. He is questioning all his beliefs, not individually but by questioning the principles they rest on. For example, any belief based on trusting perception is undermined by the first wave of doubt. It is hyperbolic: extreme, over-the-top, absurd (eg the Evil Demon) - but it has to be like this because it has to get into all the corners of his usual ways of thinking.He must not allow himself to slip back into his habitual attitudes.

First Wave: Doubting the Senses

In the past Descartes has been deceived by his senses. Distant things appear small, for example. However, such perceptual illusions don't undermine all perceptions, he says. They aren't usual (they wouldn't be illusions if they were), and they can often be explained. In fact, Descartes could perhaps have gone further. There are good reasons for doubting all our perceptions in so far as we cannot be sure that the actual world is as it appears to be to us (but this point concedes that there is an actual world distinct from our perceptions).

Second Wave: The Argument from Dreaming

Descartes is a man, so he sleeps and has dreams. Sometimes his dreams are ordinary, sometimes extraordinary. But "there are no conclusive signs by means of which one can distinguish clearly between being awake and being asleep". So, how can he be sure that what he takes to be the real world, when he is awake, isn't actually a dream? He could be dreaming that he is sitting by the fire in his dressing gown, holding a piece of paper.

One response to this is that genuine perception is more coherent than dreams are and that we can usually tell when we are awake and when dreaming; but of course we could simply be dreaming that we can tell the difference! Another response is that the concept of dreaming depends on the concept of real perception, just as the concept of fake money depends on there being genuine money. If everything was a dream, would we be able to talk about dreams and reality? Personally, I think we could, because we would be dreaming that there was a dream world (within the dream-reality) and a "real" world (also within the dream-reality), so I think we could still have versions of the two concepts. Also, Descartes doesn't really need to prove that everything is or could be a dream, only that we can't know when we are dreaming and when we are awake. It is the correct application of the concepts that he is sceptical about.

But dreaming doesn't undermine all Descartes' beliefs. Even in dreams a square has four sides, 2+3 = 5, etc. So he introduces his secret weapon.

The Third Wave: The Evil Demon

What if our minds were controlled by a powerful and malignant demon who wants to deceive us about everything? Then everything would be thrown into doubt. I couldn't be sure anything I experience or think is real. The demon controls all my experience, perceptions, thoughts. He could be deceiving me even about mathematics and geometry, and about apparent features of objects such as shape, location and extension.

So Descartes now doubts everything. But somehow he has to get out of this global scepticism in order to establish a firm foundation for knowledge, but how? He has dug himself a deep hole!At present he does not know a single thing.

Summer Holiday Task

A small task for you to do before the start of next term. Read Meditation 2 and makes sure you really understand the cogito argument. Then write a paragraph or a page about whether it is a good argument. Does it work? You could do some research to see what other people say about this. There's no doubt that at first sight it seems fine. But does it assume the very thing it is attempting to prove?

Feel free to comment or to add a post about this or any other topic. Enjoy your holiday. See you in the new school.

Descartes: task (and Meditations 2)

This is work for you to do this week. We miss a lesson on Monday and two on Wednesday, when I am not in, so this is for you to have completed by Thursday, and we will discuss it in the lesson.

Task: Read Descartes' first Meditation in the post below and then write a summary of it, concentrating on the three waves of doubt and how they lead into each other.

Don't worry if you find this hard. You'll have plenty of chances to understand it thoroughly. But do your best with the summary. Of course, you could discuss this between yourselves and help each other by adding posts or comments.

In Meditation 2 Descartes escapes from the hyperbolic doubt he has talked himself into and establishes his first certainty - that he exists (the cogito). Clicking on the post title above will take you to Meditations 2 - in case you'd like to check it out.