Descartes' Meditations

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I’ve been reading Descartes’ meditations lately and in it he starts out with two doubts which could render his opinions doubtful, and thus not certain. The first reason for doubt is that he does not know whether he is asleep and thus creating all things he sees. The second reason for doubt is that he could be of such a nature as to be always wrong even in matters which seem to him clear and distinct, i.e. his intuitions. These two doubts render him certain of only one thing. That is that he is a thinking thing. Yet in meditation III, in one paragraph he manages to dish out this conclusion: “So now i seem to to able to lay it down as a general rule that whatever i perceive very clearly and distinctively is true.” He does not address those two doubts he mentioned before concluding this. Instead, his reasoning for concluding this is this; Since he is certain that he exists, he is also as certain of what is required for him to know this. This is that he had a certain and distinct perception of his assertion about his own existence. And thus since clear and distinct produced him certainty in his first item of knowledge, he takes it that it will produce him certainty at all times. So, with this path, or method, Descartes goes on to prove God, and then that he is not prone to error.

Was Descartes a coward? I say this because he starts out using his reasons for doubt as a device with which to make his intuitions invalid, as is very clear in his first meditation, when he “admits” (that’s the word he uses, hint hint) that without God, he could not be certain of anything. Yet, later on in his 5th and 6th meditations he has God do only one thing. That is assure him that he be certain in things he has forgotten the proofs to. Clearly, Descartes lied to himself. I’m guessing halfway through his 3rd meditation he realized he was heading towards circular reasoning, and so did not mention his two reasons up until after he had established “as a general rule” that whatever he perceives very clear and distinctively is true.

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I used to think this, then a bit of closer reading and discussions with people showed me the error. To answer your question: Descartes isn’t a coward, he’s dishonest. All the talk about searching for sure foundations of knowledge, and the focus on epistemology in general, is a bit of a red herring. Descartes main purpose in the Meditations is really not to establish a sure foundation for knowledge. As he says himself, nobody has ever really doubted these things. The real point is that the senses can’t be trusted (the sceptical part) but reason can, for the same reason that we can trust that 2+2=4. There isn’t a convincing argument for this, but there isn’t really meant to be. From this, Descartes tries to show that the mind and body are seperate, and God exists. That this is Descartes purpose is clear from the subtitle of the book: in which the existence of God and the real distinction between mind and body are demonstrated.

Now, that Descartes is trying to do the above I’m certain. He says as much in a letter, to Hobbes I think. The problem really is that the doubts Descartes raises need to be answered if we actually do want a secure foundation for knowledge. Because Descartes doesn’t actually doubt these things (hence dishonest, not a coward) he’s happy enough to say the stuff he says, which as an actual argument is hopeless.

Also, think about why the title of the book is ‘Meditations’. Meditations aren’t meant to be like the arguments you find in a geometry textbook. You, of course, meditate on them. Descartes thinks that you will believe his views, rather than be convinced by a rational-type argument. Its interesting that the approach he uses in the Meditations is not used in his Principles of Philosophy, which is designed to be a rational argument. In that there’s no talk of evil demons really. The purpose of all the doubts are to show how little we can trust the senses. That we can trust reason Descartes just takes for granted, though its hard to figure this out from the way he presents it.

Oh, and Descartes isn’t just dishonest, he is the most frustratingly inconsistent philosopher I have ever studied in any depth. At least people like Kant hide their inconsistencies deep down so you need to understand him first, Descartes just doesn’t link his views on different subjects, and if he did his system would crash down around him.

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If I remember correctly, the meditations was a work he marketed to the general audience, which is why he wrote it in French instead of Latin.

What you say makes a lot of sense to me, and I can’t help but agree with pretty much everything.

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One studies Descartes more for his canonical/historical significance than his logic. Personally, I think the cogito itself is circular.

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I don’t think Descartes is guilty of circularity. I say this because he uses his second reason for doubt not as a device with which to place doubt even onto those propositions which are clearly and distinctively perceived, ie his intuitions, but as a thought experiment which he entertains until he came up with an “Archimedean immovable point;” his I am, I exist. It is from this indubitably certain proposition that he then goes on salvage his clearly and distinctively conceived ideas.

The argument runs like this. Descartes states that with indubitable clear knowledge that he exists comes indubitable knowledge of “what is required”* in order that he be “certain about anything”. “In this first item of knowledge,” he states on the same page, referencing his indubitably certain assertion about his own existence, “there is simply a clear and distinct perception of what I am asserting.” With this premise then, Descartes lays it down “as a general rule” that all things he perceives clearly and distinctively are true. In other words his argument seems to be this. Since clear and distinct perception produced in him the indubitably certain idea that he exists, “as a general rule” therefore clear and distinctly perceived ideas will produce ideas that are as certain as the notion that he exists. It is with this way that he guarantees the aptness of his reasoning equipment. Had he instead not discharged the second reason for doubt into the I am, I exist, but instead kept using it as a device for doubt for propositions following the I am, I exist, he would be left with a solipsist position. This is something that he clearly could not have, since he was after all, a published physicist.

So Descartes is not guilty of circularity, although he is inconsistent in the way he uses of his doubts. This is due, I think, to him realizing that he was heading towards circularity. For example, in his first meditation, after having introduced the scenario in which he might have faulty reasoning equipment, i.e. his second reason for doubt, he states that in lacking God as his creator, and instead having come about by chance, this would mean that “not one of my former beliefs about which a doubt may not properly be raised." Yet later in the 5th and 6th meditation he only has God do one measely thing, viz that one be assured of certainty even in things which one has forgotten the proofs which made one certain in the first place. But this is a most insignificant thing, and it is far from being as catastrophic on his certainty if lacking.

Although, sporadically throughout the 4th, 5th, and 6th meditations he does bring up the second reason for doubt again, only this time using it as a possible device for doubting his natural constitution, and not as a thought experiment. This time he quickly dismisses the doubt as being impossible since God, whom he proved to be supreme and all that with his healthy reasoning, would not do such a malicious thing. Pretty weak, but it is technically valid, or at least non-circular.

*the quoted parts are quotes from the book.

edit: added a bit more material.

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I liked Descartes until he started talking about God.

Though, the Modernists risked severe penalties if they did not mention God…

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I don’t get how some people manage to read Descartes as a closet atheist. The only reason he doesn’t talk about God even more is because he never properly addresses causality. If he did, he’d have had to be an occasionalist. If he’d ever considered properly how the mind and body can interact, he’d have had to use God. As it is he already gives God responsibility for our knowledge.

One thing I will say that really annoys me is when people treat the cogito as a syllogism, or think it needs to be treated as such. Descartes explicitly says that it is not a syllogistic argument. Its an intuition, not a deduction, and is grasped at once, not by going through premises to reach a conclusion. What he means by this is clear to anybody who has ever tried to doubt that ‘they’, whatever ‘they’ is exist. Another thing: all the objections that this doesn’t show that we exist, only thought exists, are sometimes mis-directed. People often object, why does he assume that thoughts have a possessor? Well, he does assume this, its because thought (a mode, property) can’t exist without a substance (here, a mind, i.e. us). But this principle isn’t just something he uses ad hoc in the cogito argument, he uses it repeatedly in his work, and it was a fundamental principle at the time. And is it such a ridiculous principle? Also - the cogito argument is only meant to show that a thinking thing exists, a mind, by definition (Descartes’), not a human being.

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Anyone who believes the Cogito is a syllogism has a fundamental misunderstanding of either foundationalism, i.e., a system comprised of a hierarchical series of propositions derived from a single self-evident assertion, or what Descartes was trying to do. For if the Cogito was derived from a syllogism, then (A) the major and minor premises would have to be the self-evident truths, which is hardly aesthetically pleasing, and (B) he would undeniably have to use Aristotelian logic, which can be called into question through the demon argument: is he certain that deduction was valid, hasn’t he been mistaken before?

Anyhow, I do not believe Descartes was being dishonest. In each edition of the Meditations, whether they are in Latin, French, or English, is a letter to the Sorbonne, in which he makes his intentions explicit: to convince atheists and sceptics that they are absurd to deny God and soul, but still believe in an external world, because contrary to their opinion, Knowledge of anything is in fact dependent upon knowledge of God and soul, both of which are in a philosophical sense more knowable than anything else in the world. It is hard to accuse Descartes of hiding anything, then, since he is one of the most open and honest rhetoricians.

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Well, my thing is that he defines the “I” as a “thinking thing,” distinct, as it were, from “man” or “rational animal.” He’s right to do this. But then his ultimate conclusion, that he “is” entails what, exactly? That he is a thinking thing, for the notion of what it means to “be” is already explained as “thinking.” It follows, or so it seems to me, that what the cogito really says is “I am thinking, therefore I am thinking.”

Am I overlooking something?

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I do not think that Descartes’ “existence” was supposed to be a discursive concept, but rather a transparent intuition. Perhaps your problem, then, is that you are possibly externalizing the meditations, when you are supposed to substitute yourself for the philosophizer. For they are not supposed to be read as Descartes’ thoughts, but taken up as your own, because Descartes supposed that it should then be intuitively clear to the reader that as long as he himself is thinking, he must exist.

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It is not because of this that I said he was dishonest. I call him dishonest because of the way in which he went about assuring himself that his reason was not flawed so that he did not go wrong even in matters which seemed to him most clear and distinct, i.e. his intuitions. It is with this reasoning equipment, and causal principles, that he then goes on to prove God. He was specifically dishonest in the way he went about using, or rather not using, his second reason for doubt,* i.e. he discharged it right after the cogito. Had he not discharged it, and instead kept using it as a general reason for doubt as he ought to have done, he would have been certain of only his cogito.

Had he been honest, he would have concluded that all he could be certain of was that he existed and was a thinking thing.

*his second reason for doubt is the following:
“The second reason for doubt was that since I did not know the author of my being (or at least was pretending not to), I saw nothing to rule out the possibility that my natural constitution made me prone to error even in matters which seemed to me most true.”

He even says that unless he can “rule out the possibility that my natural constitution made me prone to error” he may then “go wrong every time he adds two and three or count the sides of a square…”

Yet he doesn’t rid himself of this doubt until after he had used his reason to prove God. Clearly this reasoning is circular. Or, it would be, if he hadn’t realized this and changed tact. It is why he instead uses this reason for doubt as a scenario he immerses himself in, but only until a point. That is, only until he has come upon something certain, “or, if nothing else, until I at least recognize for certain that there is no certainty,” as he says. But he has no reason to cease using this doubt even after coming across that indubitable assertion, i.e. that he is a thinking thing, he exists. I call him dishonest because of the way he treats this doubt, and a coward for not admitting that all he can be certain of is that he is a thinking thing.

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Which is one of the problems, I’d say.

Well, the thing is, I “substitute” (if that’s what we’re calling it) myself with the “other” in virtually every thought I have. In fact, I’m not sure I can even understand what it would mean to read a philosopher without thinking with him or her as they think, as though you were with them on the meditation.

So, no, that can’t be it.

That’s a very strange way to look at it, imho.

Everything he says is “intuitively clear”; if it wasn’t, we wouldn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. The question isn’t whether we “get” what he’s doing or saying, it’s about whether he succeeds with his argument or not.

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coward? maybe… do you want to know why descartes did the cogito? look at what the church did to galileo…

rene was no idiot…

-Imp

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I think Ponty’s reading of Descartes is correct, when I called him dishonest I didn’t mean he set out to mislead his readers, I think he can be charged with intellectual dishonesty: the doubts he raises in the Meditations basically involve calling the reliability of reason into doubt. He doesn’t attempt to give a proper solution to this problem, and he doesn’t really pretend to, but my point is that it is intellectually dishonest to not attempt to, or at least acknowledge the scale of the problem. Thats the problem I have with it, if our reason could generate inconsistencies, or just be plain wrong, then we can never be certain of anything.

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and rene’s mathematics contradicted the church. he published his meditations to appease the church while publishing his geometry that undercut the church…

scidiv.bcc.ctc.edu/Math/Descartes.html

-Imp

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Well here’s where I’ve ended up after a few hours of thinking on this matter:

http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=162779

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Along with Imp’s reminder as to the “political” reasons why Descartes wrote the Meds, I think it’s useful to remember that Rene was not trying to provide a proof for God that should be taken as the primary reason for believing in God. That is, he assumes God, and assumes that his readers already believe in God. Just as did the Scholastics before him, on whose work he was trying to improve. In this sense, he is certainly circular, but I cannot see how this matters. Since faith, or revealed truth is taken as the fundamental “reason” to believe in God, any “proof” is neccesarily an adjunct.

Perhaps because of the more secular environment in which philosophy dwelleth today, this is easily forgotten.

That being said, Descartes also suffers from an entirely unwarranted reputation for being a great philosopher, which he was not. I think we look at him too closely, and expect more than he can deliver. The Meds are actually theology, after all.

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The meds are just a good example of calling into doubt reality and the existence of things using a historical example.

BAH, formal philosophy… :unamused: :imp: