René Descartes’

Meditations on First Philosophy

Contents:

I. Brief Introduction & Biographical Sketch

II. Textual Analysis of The Meditations

III. Questions for Reflection

Click Here for the Outline of Med. Three

I. Brief Introduction & Biographical Sketch

René Descartes was born near Tours, France in 1596 (Indre-et-Loire region, central France).  He was Catholic, grounded in the scholastic tradition (in essence, a rationalism that sought to reconcile faith and reason while purging much of the Neoplatonist mysticism in Christianity), as much as he objected to it (for taking reason too far so as to threaten the mysteries of faith and/or making religious authority subservient to reason or for having become a closed and narrow system that could neither accept scientific discoveries nor make religion popularly acessible).

Descartes earned a law degree although published materials predominately in the sciences and philosophy; he also served in the Dutch and Bavarian militaries.  Consistently unhealthy, Descartes sought a life of seclusion; in 1629 he moved to the Netherlands (stayed for 20 years), only occasionally returning to France, and changing his residence frequently to preserve his privacy. 

His early years focused on science-proper; his first major work began in 1619 when he founded the mathematical studies of natural phenomena, elaborated in his Rules for the Direction of the Mind (unfinished, publ. 1684).  Then, while in seclusion, he wrote texts on optics, meteorology, geometry (published in 1637); and between 1630-1633 he wrote a treatise on physics, Le Monde, ou Traité de la Lumière, which defended a heliocentric view of the universe, and L’Homme on natural philosophy.  However, he refused to publish this work while alive (both published in the 1660’s) because of Galileo’s (1564-1642) house arrest and the condemnation of his Dialogue (1632).  Descartes explained:

... in order to express my judgment more freely, without being called upon to assent to, or to refute the opinions of the learned, I resolved to leave all this world to them and to speak solely of what would happen in a new world, if God were now to create ... and allow her to act in accordance with the laws He had established.

In these earlier works, he made a number of important contributions to mathematics and physics, especially his foundation (with Galileo) of what is now known as analytic geometry (“Cartesian Coordinates”).  His famous philosophic work, The Discourse on the Method, was published in 1637 and outlined a first proposal for a universal method of philosophy. 

In 1638-40 he enlarged upon the metaphysical issues therein, publishing (in 1641) his Meditations on the First Philosophy: In Which the Existence of God and the Distinction of the Soul from the Body are Demonstrated; there were two editions in Latin (the academic language) in 1641 and 1642 before being translated into French (the popular language) in 1647.  The translation into French was relatively unusual and significant, for it testified to Descartes’ wishes to bring his work to a wider, non-specialized audience, who lay outside the accepted ‘authorities’ on theological and philosophical matters—despite his hesitancy in the Preface that the book may not be fit for everyone.  For the second edition of the Meditations, Descartes asked his friend, Father Mersenne, to solicit criticisms and comments from fellow scholars (including Thomas Hobbes), which he then addressed, printing both critique and responses in the 1642 edition.

In 1649, Descartes moved to Stockholm at the request of Queen Christina of Sweden who employed him as a philosophy tutor; unfortunately, Christina’s desire for philosophy at 5 am, weakened the sickly Descartes.  The early hours and brutal climate instigated pneumonia, killing Descartes in 1650.

Why we remember Descartes is because of his:

φadamant insistence on a radical philosophy (radical, i.e, roots);

φclose integration of philosophy, theology, and physical science;

φraising philosophical argumentation to a science akin to geometry;

φemphasis on methodology. 

Even philosophers who rejected his thought spent a great deal of time and energy doing so - Descartes could not be ignored.

However, despite all these influences, his philosophical and scientific work never became the ‘official’ new philosophy, as he had hoped it would.  First, during his lifetime, it suffered religious condemnation and, after his death, it was officially banned (in 1663 until 1948) by the Church in Rome on the grounds it was opposed in system to Aristotle.  (Note: The Index of Forbidden Books, Index Librorum Prohibitorum, was published on the authority of the Roman Catholic Church beginning in 1159 in the Netherlands and was finally suppressed in 1966.  The Index only contained books that the ecclesiastical authority was asked to act upon; the lists had official sanction in all Catholic countries--nevertheless, it is not the case that no one read the Meditations until after 1948, it was just “officially” banned for that long). Then, by the early 18th Century, it suffered the double blow of the rise of empirically minded approaches in Britain and France, together with the triumph of Newtonian physics pretty much everywhere. 

{Miscellaneous Addendum:  There is an interesting discussion of Descartes, who believed animals had not soul and felt no pain, being a vegetarian for reasons that if they could feel pain, it would be unethical to eat them.  See discussion HERE.}

II. Textual Analysis of The Meditations

“What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists?  

In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.”

                                           --Woody Allen

Dedicatory Letter to the Sorbonne:

The Sorbonne was the divinity school of the University of Paris and was the theological center --the authority-- in its day.

Descartes contends his philosophy is entirely consistent with the Church’s theology.  His two topics will be proving: the existence of God and the immortality of the soul (i.e., its divisibility from the mortal body).

Pleads with the faculty to: 1) correct his mistakes, 2) add what he missed, 3) publicly approve of the book. 

Is Descartes a clever speaker?  Is he being a politician?  Sweet talking the Church?  An egotistical *#$@? Disingenuous?  Scared for his life?  Why the tone he adopts?  Why talk of the ‘weak intellects’ of the common people?

Preface to the Reader:

Addresses two (plus) objections:

(1) What the mind perceives itself to be is its perception of what it is and not necessarily everything it may well be (i.e., you, Descartes, say mind is X without admitting the mind could be X, Y, and Z, not just X).  His reply: yeah, sure, but my perception is that other attributes are excluded (which is, “of course,” proved later as well). 

(2) The idea I have that is more perfect than me (i.e., St. Anselm’s proof for the existence of God) does not necessitate existence of that idea.  Descartes reply: but, this uses ‘idea’ in different way. 

Then he addresses in general replies to his work from atheists—these only attack his conclusions and ignore his arguments.

Why does Descartes address these objections?  Why mention two potentially damning critiques before even presenting his philosophy? 

Meditation One:

Method: Radical Doubt, i.e., Hyperbolic Doubt:

the destruction and reconstruction of knowledge with the aim to uncover if there is a certain and true foundation and what this is in order to rebuild all knowledge truthfully.  How can we do philosophy, do science, even live a full and rewarding life if all we know or think we know is built upon falsity, deception, and error?

We do not need to destroy (i.e., doubt, suspend) every last piece of knowledge (we have not the time for this).  So, we will doubt in three broad strokes:

What do we doubt?

1) Senses

2) All reality, Are we awake or asleep? (Dream Hypothesis)

3) Is God good?  Or is He an Evil Genius?

For example...

1) Our senses deceive us often!  We can think we are cold, but have a fever and are really hot.  We can see a mirage in the desert and think it an oasis.  We can be intoxicated and think the pavement is spinning and it is not.  Etc.

2) Can we really prove that this, right now, here, is not really a dream?  Many films have portrayed this scenario, from Chris Maker’s La Jetée (1962) to the Wachowskis’ Matrix (1999) to Richard Linklater’s Waking Life (2001), etc.. 

3) It is possible that God is not good, but, rather, an evil genius who is playing with us for kicks and nothing is really real; we could be like marionettes and He pulls the strings, we could be like simple pawns in His game. 

A Question on this Meditation:

Is there not a potentially problematic link between real-unreal, true-false, existence-nonexistence, and the doubtable-indubitable? 

Arguing against the dream hypothesis, Descartes likens sleep to painting wherein what is, is a likeness of reality or the true or the existent.  Experience, he says (D.p.20), determines truthfulness; but how can we conceive of experience as not being the dubitable sensory experience?  We need to rely instead on reason, but to do so, do we not need to outline what principles of reason (i.e., the Kantian project) are true—truly innate and not from the sensory world?  How to deal with this?

Descartes appeals to Space and Time as true components of reality (extension, shape, quantity, place, time) and differentiating the logical Composite (doubtful) and Simples (indubitable).  But… all of these are still within the realm of experience… there is no solid argument for their innateness or against their sensory foundation. 

Meditation Two:

Three most important points: distinction of mind from body, Cogito Ergo Sum, and the Wax Analogy.

(1) Distinction of the body from the mind: important because 1) the second topic or main point of the whole book according to the Dedicatory Letter and 2) in order to prove the existence of God (the first topic or main point), he must be able to prove his own existence, which he will do so by finding the most certain knowledge, which will be the mind (if mind was indistinguishable from the body, its certainty would by compromised). 

The Body: “...by a body I understand whatever has a determinable shape ad definable location and can occupy a space in such a way as to exclude any other body; it can be perceived by touch, sight, hearing, taste, or smell, ad can be moved in various ways, not by itself but by whatever else it comes into contact with it” (D.p.26).  Not certain knowledge!  Cannot certainly say the “I” that now exists is a body (or anything bodily, i.e., girl, boy, tall, short, old, young, etc.).

The Mind: classically, the soul (according to Aristotle) was responsible for nutrition, motion, sense perception, thinking; the first two levels were shared amongst all living things (plants, non-rational animals, and rational animals), the third was shared by all animals, and the last by only rational animals, thus, was how Aristotle defined humanity: the rational animals.  For Descartes, the first three attributes all are meaningless if there is no body; so, mind is only thinking.  Thinking is the only certain piece of knowledge.

(2) Cogito Ergo Sum: I think, therefore I am.

(Not phrased exactly this way in the Meditations, but is expressive of his argument). 

“...I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me of conceived in my mind” (D.p.25).  In other words, every time I think nothing is certain, every time I think I may be being deceived, every time I wonder if I even exist, there is necessarily an “I” doing the thinking or wondering. 

Restated more clearly and fully on the next page: “I am, then, in the strict sense only a thing that thinks.... But what kind of a thing?  As I have just said -- a thinking thing” (D.p.27).

(3) The Wax Analogy:

A critique of realism (the presumption that things exist objectively and independently of the “I,” if realism is legitimate, than true, certain comes from physical--i.e. bodily--things, not through the mind alone).  Essentially, we think we grasp (i.e. know) a lump of wax through what we think is most graspable (i.e. its physical traits, scent, taste, size, etc.), however, this is not the case.  When we take the wax next to the fire, all these traits change, although it is still wax; so, what we use to know it as wax is not the accumulation of these traits.  Nor is what we know it to be known through imagination; imagination presents infinite possibilities of what it may be, but does not tell us what it is.  Instead, we know the wax through the mind alone. 

Meditation Three:

Nothing else can be certain unless we can prove God is not evil and deceiving us, so, that is the topic of this Meditation: proving God’s existence, his nature (as not evil), and how we can know this with certainty.  To do so, we begin with what we know certainly (I am a thinking thing); then we explore what this thinking is so as to see if there is more we can be certain of (to eventually prove God); and then elaborate our first rule: everything I clearly and distinctly perceive is true.  Now, we can begin:

What is the thinking that the “I” is?

Ideas (true)

Volitions / Will (true)

Emotions / Affects (true)

Judgments (can be false)

Ideas are the most certain; they can be:

Innate

Adventitious

Produced by the “I”

Descartes begins with Adventitious Ideas (to explore if they are certain, thus, could prove God’s existence or not) and develops a six-part argument against their legitimacy (certainty). 

1) Spontaneous impulse to believe is not as strong as the light of reason

2) Just b/c they don’t depend on will does not necessitate their origin to be from the outside

3) Even if adventitious, no necessity that idea resembles thing [SUN]; disparity & equal/unequal ideas

4) There must be as much reality in the efficient & final causes as there is in the effect

Aristotle’s Four Causes:

A) Material Causefrom which

B) Formal Causeto which

C) Efficient Causeby which

D) Final Causefor the sake of which

5) Something cannot come from nothing

6) What is more perfect cannot come from what is less perfect

So, Descartes concludes: certainty is NOT in adventitious ideas; an idea cannot come into existence except by a creator who has every property of the existant in it either formally or eminently, likewise an idea cannot exist (in me) unless it has come (to me) from a source with as much reality as is in the object of the idea. 

Thus, Descartes moves to Innate and Produced by the “I” ideas in order to see if there is in either of those categories and idea SO GREAT so as to require a cause greater than than the “I,” which would prove a more great thing to be in existence (i.e., God). 

So, what types of ideas does the “I” have?  I have ideas of: myself, God, corporeal & inanimate things, angels, animals, other people.  The two classes of ideas that he explores: those of corporeal things and those of God.

The ideas that we have of corporeal things turn out to be not so special that we cannot have produced them.  Of interest, however, in this section is the distinction between Formal Falsity (in judgments) and Material Falsity (in ideas that represent non-things as things) and that we (thinking things) can know things by an analogical comparison between our substantiality and the substantiality of things. 

The ideas that we have of God, then, are most promising (and the last hope) to find something SO GREAT that we cannot have produced them. 

First, he defines God: A certain substance that is infinite, eternal, immutable, independent, supremely intelligent and supremely powerful, created me and everything else if there is anything else (it may be profitable to compare this definition to the one with which he ends the Meditation). 

His substance is infinite, mine if finite; nonetheless, I can know his infinity (not via negativa) in someway as prior to my knowledge of my own finitude. 

So, his initial conclusion is that the idea of a supreme deity who is perfect and infinite is the most true idea and could not have been produced by me (now he must go on to demonstrate this).

But... maybe I am underestimating myself... maybe I have all the perfections of God in me potentially, and they are just not yet actualized.  (Note the inherent historicist position... our future is determined by the natural law of progress, we are always getting better...)

Three arguments FOR and AGAINST this:

1) Three reasons FOR & AGAINST why I cannot have the potential for perfection within me:

A) I am gradually getting smarter.

vs. my future intelligence is potential, nothing in God is potential, He is his actuality; my potentials just show my own imperfection.

B) I can can gain other perfections.

vs. my perfections will never be infinite like God’s perfections; only god can have nothing added.

C) potential for perfection gives idea of perfection.

vs. objective being (of idea) cannot come from potential being (i.e., arguments 4-6 vs. adventitious ideas).

But... surely, I can have acquired my existence from elsewhere...?

From: Myself, My parents, or Other things less perfect put together...?

No...

If I created myself, I would have no lacks.

If I maintained myself, I would know of a power of my maintenance and I do not know of my possession of any such power.

If I came from a composite of other things, there must be as much reality in those things as in me.

There can be no infinite regress back to accumulate all the perfections.

Part of perfection is unity, a composite source violates this possibility.

My parents do not preserve me, even if they created me.

My parents may have made my matter and given me dispositions but they did not give me thinking in itself. 

Thus...!  We can conclude that God exists.  I exist because he exists.  “By ‘God’ I mean the very being the idea of whom is within me, that is, the possessor of all the perfections which I cannot grasp, but can somehow reach in my thought, who is subject to no defects whatsoever” (D.p.52).  And, finally, He is not a deceiver, for deception is a flaw and He is perfect. 

Meditation Four:

So… Meditation Three confirmed that God does not deceive me because He is good; all deception and trickery are signs of imperfection and He is perfect; therefore he does not deceive.  Yet, there is falsity and error; thus, we must be its cause, not Him.  The last meditation also demonstrated error to be formally from judgments or materially from ideas that represent non-things as if there were things.  So, now we must explore the reason for this formal falsity.

The faculty of judgment is the cause of error.  BUT… my ability to judge was given to me by God, and God does not deceive!  So, Descartes realizes that the faculty is perfect and should function well if he uses it properly.

So why do I make mistakes?   From my error I can elaborate my ontology!

* I am a middle ground between God and nothingness.

So far as the perfect god made me, there is nothing in me that would deceive me.  But, so far as I participate in nothingness, I am led to all sorts of errors. 

* I lack a great deal.  I am not perfect, I make mistakes (D.p.54).

* I make mistakes because my faculty for judgment is not infinite. 

-BUT- Descartes says this is not an entirely satisfactory analysis (D.p.55).  Why?  Because error is not pure negation; instead, error is a privation of knowledge that ought to be in me.

-BUT- if I lack knowledge, did God not do a supremely perfect job creating me?  OR, is it better that I am mistaken than if I was always in truth?

This line of questioning, often called theodicy (coined by Leibniz from “god” and “justice;” poses questions like how can god be good when there is evil in the world or when things go wrong?  If god is perfect why would he make me imperfect, etc. - - But, Descartes changes his tone on D.p.60 When he says “Actually, instead of thinking that he has withheld from me or deprived me of those things that he has not given me, I ought to thank god, who never owed me anything, for what he has bestowed upon me.”).

Descartes then moves to a discussion (D.p.55-56) of how we think and talk about perfection—he says that we should always think in the universal and not the particular.  This idea has a long history:

First, it is how Socrates would often first prove his interlocutors wrong when they claimed they knew the answer to something (but that is an example of virtue, not virtue in and of itself!)…

Second, it is Aristotle’s most frequent invocation as to what his treatises are aiming for (avoid naming species instead of the genus!)…

And finally, it is a classic Medieval move (actually was part of St. Aquinas’ proofs for the existence of God!) that says that our imperfection can be considered a form of perfection if we are thought of as a part of a whole.  Thus… My participation in the universe makes my imperfections perfect (D.p.55-6).

So—Descartes says, again, we have to further consider this question of error, for it is error that is the only indication of my imperfection. 

Error arises from two causes:

(1) my faculty of knowing (intellect) and

(2) my faculty of choosing (free will)

So what does this mean?  How does error depend on both of these causes?  Through the intellect alone I perceive ideas (which cannot be false, so long as we avoid material falsity).  About these ideas I can make judgments (which can be in error, but if I make them very carefully, they should not be).  But, through my free will to choose I can be in error (willing: to be able to do or not do the same thing.  To be able to affirm, deny, pursue, shun).  WHY?  Because my understanding is small, limited (but I can have the idea of a greater understanding: God’s understanding).  All of my other faculties are small, limited.  God’s faculties are great and mighty.  But, my will, my free choice is boundless.  I cannot think of a greater will, a greater free choice.  This is how I am similar to God in image and likeness (“And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27, Douay-Rheims translation)).

“For in order to be free, there is no need for me to be capable of going in each of two directions; on the contrary, the more I incline in one direction—either because I clearly understand that reasons of truth and goodness point that way, or because of a divinely produced disposition of my inmost thoughts—the freer is my choice” (D.p.57-8).

Neither GRACE nor REASON limit my freedom!  In fact, they increase it!

“But the indifference I feel when there is no reason pushing me in one direction rather than another is the lowest grade of freedom…” (D.p.58). 

For Example:

You are told that you have won a contest and can choose Prize One, Prize Two, or Prize Three.  Not knowing what these prizes are, your willing one of them is not a great exercise of free will; you can only be indifferent to them because you lack knowledge. 

If you are told that Prize One is a vacation in Iraq’s active war zone, Prize Two is a year’s supply of rotting Aardvark meat, and Prize Three is a breathtakingly beautiful, sports car that runs on air instead of gasoline... You MUST will Prize Three; your knowledge of its superiority inclines you to it and as you choose it, you are exercising the most perfect free choice. 

Meditation Five:

So… if we have error when we will more than we know, yet, we want to know truth about material things… how do we proceed?  Well, to know things in the world, without error, we must know what it is that we can be certain about  So… we begin with the IDEAS of things as opposed to things in themselves.  We are studying our knowledge, not empirical things.  So… is there is anything certain about material things? 

We have already heard about the following list from THE WAX ANALOGY and from the definition of material things in the Third Meditation.  This list is of attributes of material, corporeal things: quantity, continuous quantity, things quantified in length, breath, and depth.  This list is about sizes, shapes, parts, movement, duration…  This list is about how do I know things? 

It is the same as what he has been talking about all along, but now we are thinking in terms of geometry and algebra.  Up until Descartes’ time, these were two entirely distinct fields: Geometry was about continuous quantity and Algebra was about discreet quantity.  But Cartesian coordinates pull these sciences together (permitting a graphing of coordinates (x, y) on an X and Y axes).  It permitted geometric shapes to be described by algebraic equations (a circle could be graphed as X2+Y2=4).  This was one of his great contributions to mathematics, and it serves as a good test for his ponderings: if faith and reason are separate but capable of completing each other, what better demonstration than through pure reason, thinking about numbers and shapes that do not need to empirically exist in the world, to complement his proof for God?

On D.p.64 he says that the truth of geometry is so obvious it seems as if he is not learning geometry, but that it is already in him, it is innate, and he is only recalling the information.  This is an idea borrowed from Plato’s dialogue Meno, wherein Socrates has a slave boy solve a geometry problem before he was taught the rule for solving such.

What this shows is that one finds within oneself many ideas that might not exist out in the world (Pi, infinity, etc.), but, this non-empirical-existence does not mean that these are nothing.  The ideas exist, even if they do not exist as things in the world.  I can think these things at will, although this does not mean that I “fabricate” them.  They have true natures in and of themselves.  (Note how this complements the prior discussion of Material Falsity.) 

What does this accomplish for Descartes?  He is wondering what exists: do the ideas in his mind correspond to things outside his mind?  Consider the different answers that may be had through realism and idealism and  “instrumentalism.” 

Realism argued that things exist independently of the “I,” so, in this case, it says that scientific theories describe reality objectively, as it really is before us and when we are long gone.  So the triangle in my head must correspond to a triangle out in the world.  Science experiments only uncover reality. 

Idealism argued that things do not exist independently; reality is mind-dependent.  For the early moderns, and in this case, scientific theories are subjective, they are our ideas; we may not find them embodied in material things in the world.  But, this does not mean that truth is relative (different for each of us); instead, it is subjective as in non-material, its source is the mind alone (i.e. Descartes’ WAX ANALOGY, truth from reason). 

So… Epistemology came up with the idea that we can use these scientific ideas, whose truth may never be instantiated in the empirical world, as useful instruments to predict how ideas in my mind will correspond to things in the world.  Today, we call this instrumentalism.

So- he says, on D.p.65, that maybe… maybe this can also be a basis for proving the existence of god (and maybe body as well): if I can clearly and distinctly perceive all of the thing to be in the idea, and that this idea comes from me, not from the outside, than maybe I can think god (or body) in this way.

So a triangle necessarily has its angles summing to two right angles.  This is an essential property of triangles, it is what we can define as a triangle.  Likewise, God’s essence implies the necessity of His existence.  Therefore our idea of God represents a real, actually existing “being.”

Now, a triangle, thus defined, must be necessarily true, thus exist insofar as we exist; it does not have to materially exist, it won’t necessarily exist independently of us; BUT God must (non-materially) independently exist, for Descartes.  Existence is a perfection that the perfect being must have (bottom of D.p.67).  And whereas some things depend upon us for their existence, God does not.  His existence does not depend on our thought, but when we really think of God we discover that he must exist.  The certainty of everything else depends, Descartes says, on the existence of god (D.p.70). 

Meditation Six:

Being the last of Descartes’ Meditations and given that we are still mere floating minds in a probable but uncertain reality with the possibility of there being other things, but this is still uncertain... The focus of this Meditation is to rebuild all the knowledge that we can on our new, firm foundation.  Most particularly, to determine if material things exist, especially, our bodies?

So, do material things exist?

1) Well, now I know that objects of pure mathematics exist, because I clearly and distinctly perceive them, so material things are capable of existing (we can graph them). 

2) They could also exist because God is capable of creating them. 

3) And, I can perceive such things through my faculty of imagination.

1) Mathematics are certain.

2) God does not deceive us.  

3) Faculty of imagination?  Can’t this deceive us?

The Imagination: application of the knowing faculty to a body intimately present to it.  The imagination is different from pure understanding. 

Take, for example, A PENTAGON:

Through Pure Understanding:Through Imagination:

It is a shape bounded by five lines            I picture the lines coming together

I know the pentagon (certain definition)            I “see” the pentagon (picture; not certain)

IMAGINE, for example, the chiliagon: a thousand sided figure.  We can picture something, but won’t really get it right in our imaginations.  Picture something with a thousand sides, now picture something with one thousand and five sides.  The picture in our heads does not really change, because we cannot clearly imagine that many sides in a countable fashion. 

Thus, we determine two things:

(1) Imagination requires an effort of the mind (we must envision) that is not required for understanding (we simply know).

(2) Imagination looks outward, towards the body; Understanding looks inward, to ideas.

What is important about this is that my essence does not depend upon my imagination; it depends upon my intellect.  If I lacked imagination, I would still be the entity that I am now.  So- the power of imagination relies on something that is distinct from me.  What it SEEMS to depends upon is body… (i.e. because of my body I can imagine things).  But- this is mere conjecture thus far… 

The point:  We are trying to use the imagination to provide a firm foundation through which we could infer the existence of the body.

Besides shapes, I also imagine colors, sounds, tastes, and pain (D.p.74). 

I perceive these through the senses; this perception is aided by memory to reach imagination (in other words, I sense X, I remember X, I can imagine X).  So… now I must address me “Sensory Perception” to determine if it will yield a certain argument for the existence of corporeal things.

Methodology (D.p.74):  1) Review all I previously believed to be true that I perceived via my senses, 2) why did I call these into doubt?, 3) now what should I believe?

1) I sensed I had a body.  I sensed my body was surrounded by other bodies that have an affect on me.  I sensed pleasure and pain.  I sensed appetites and “bodily tendencies,” i.e. emotions.  I sensed the unclear and indistinct properties, eminent properties, extension, shape, position, and motion.  And I sensed how bodies are distinguished from one another (D.p.74-5). 

2) So, I thought that all I sensed was true.  But, then I thought of experiences that weakened my faith in my senses, things like illusions, etc.  So I decided that the information from my senses was in error (D.p.75-77). 

3) “BUT NOW” because I have gone through all of these meditations, I find that I cannot say that my sensory information is all true, but also, that I cannot doubt all of it (D.p.77-8). 

--First, God made things that I can know clearly and distinctly.  I know I am a thinking thing (this is a certain idea I have).  But, I also know that there is such a thing called a body that is clearly and distinctly an extended thing (this is also a distinct idea I have).  I, a thinking thing, can exist without it, but it is clearly and distinctly a thing I know (not an idea essential to my existence, but one that I do have).

--Second, in me, this thinking thing, I have faculties of imagination and sensation.  These are different than me, “I” can exist without them, but they cannot exist without a body.  So- these faculties must exist either in a body. 

Within this discussion he differentiates Passive Faculty of Sensory Perception (which receives and recognizes ideas of sensible objects) from an Active Faculty (which produces these ideas and which cannot be within me (“I” as thinking thing) because it requires no intellectual act upon my part).  So… there must be another substance, which contains formally or eminently all the reality that exists in these sensory ideas.  Either (1) a body (formally containing them) or (2) God, etc. (eminently containing them).  And... God does not deceive; if we received these ideas eminently, yet seem to ascribe them to corporeal things, we would be deceived.  THUS… corporeal things must exist!!!  “…at least they possess all the properties which I clearly and distinctly understand… within the subject matter of pure mathematics” (D.p.80).

So… how about all those properties of things?  Do they, too, exist?  The size and shape of the sun?  What is pain, or sound, or light?  He says that these are still doubtful things, but God is no deceiver, so, EVEN nature’s teachings must contain a little bit of the truth…  God is nature, or he creates all of nature, or both—any way we look at it, God is the creator and God gives me things I can understand (like pain, sound, etc).

Nature teaches me that I have a body.  There is no reason further to doubt this (D.p.80-81).  My senses tell me, by hunger, thirst, pain, etc., that I am not a thinking mind in a deadened body, or a sailor in a ship, but that I am in my body more intimately.  We feel our bodies. 

Nature (now as the combination of mind and body) also teaches me that there are other bodies in the world and how to function in the world: to satisfy my needs (pursue some bodies), like to eat when hungry, drink when thirsty, and to safeguard my body (avoid some bodies).  Other things affect self. 

The other things that it seems like nature taught me—optical illusions—wasn’t really nature, it was my reckless judgment (D.p.82).  Because: I could be thinking an accidental property is really eminent… I could be presuming a one-to-one correspondence between my ideas and the thing in itself… I could be presuming a one-to-one correspondence between my taste and the thing in itself… I could be presuming a one-to-one correspondence between my senses and the thing in itself…  These mistakes mainly occur because I fail to recognize that what “nature teaches” is more limited than the totality of God’s creation.  All I mean here is Nature-Taught is what is taught to the combination of mind plus body.  It teaches us things to seek and things to avoid; to then judge the truth of these things, that is the work of the mind alone (D.p.82-3). 

It is our mistake when we use what nature teaches (sensory stuff) to yield knowledge or found judgments.  He then reviews some “new types” of mistakes that we can make in our judgments about nature (D.p.83-5).  In other words... BUT… sometimes mistakes are intense (feel thirst, but drinking would kill us).  “It thus remains to inquire how it is that the goodness of God does not prevent nature, in this sense, from deceiving us” (D.p.85).  

Observation 1:

(right before D.p.86) the body and mind are very different; the body is divisible and the mind is indivisible.  We can cut up our bodies and live (cutting one finger off does not prohibit walking or living); we cannot cut up the faculties of our mind (one mind wills, understands, has sensory perceptions).  (Ugh oh…  How then are the body and mind going to communicate? )

Observation 2:

comes quickly to the rescue— The mind is not immediately affected by all of the body, just a little part of it in the brain!  The pineal gland: that small part of the brain that houses “common sense.”  The other parts of the body will not affect my mind but they can relay messages with this part of the brain. 

Observation 3:

The body is laid out like circuitry: for example, when I have a pain in my foot, this pain is detected by nerves, conveyed through them all the way to the brain and causes a certain agitation that alerts the mind to the sensation in the foot, letting it feel the same sensation.

Observation 4:

That which agitates the mind produces a single sensation: preservation—thanks to God’s goodness, when we have agitated minds, we are immediately compelled to act in a way to ensure our survival; if we feel pain, we immediately seek to stop it, etc. 

What this physiology suggests:

Imagine the “I” as mind in front of a little TV.  The mind watches and is moved by the images, which are from the activities of the body.  This is rather like the mind is watching the feed from surveillance cameras that check up on what the body is doing in order to alert the mind to something that requires it to enact understanding.

Descartes sees the nature of body as hyper-mechanistic.  The body does what the mind sends messages to it to do according to the data given it.  The body certainly impacts the mind insofar as it provides the raw data for the mind to act upon; it is this, then, that accounts for our errors without there being a faultiness of our nature (D.p.88-9). 

In conclusion:  It is essentially better that we have a body (even with occasional deception) than not (89).  Being aware of this deception of the body permits us to be more careful in making judgments.  So now!!!  We can reject further hyperbolic doubt as ludicrous (D.p.89)!  There is certainly vast differences between sleeping reality and waking reality (89).  God certainly does not deceive (90).  When we are extremely cautious, we can avoid error.  Most of the time, however, we are not that cautious, thus are deceived; this is only a sign of our weak natures (90). 

The End.

III. Questions for Reflection

Why did the Sacred Faculty of the Sorbonne not give their public support to Descartes’ work?  To what would they have objected?  Is anything herein counter to Church doctrine?  Blasphemous? 

What are Descartes’ stated and/or real goals within this work?  Do(es) his goal(s) demonstrated match those he states?

Why are there no other forms of thoughts or “thoughts with properties” within our minds beyond ideas, volitions, affectations, and judgments?  Under what category do we put imagination? 

Why does he not consider exploring if there can be a proof for God’s existence within volitions or affections (which, he accedes, can also be true)? 

Why does he never articulate his argument against infinite regress?

He claims (end of Med. III) that our idea of God is not a material falsity, but, why not? 

When he supports the light of reason as yielding truth and spontaneous impulse as not, is he rejecting the latter ever providing truth?  Do we want to limit our notion of truth to only have its source in reason?  Is there not a truth that cannot be rationally explained?