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Philosophy Rene Descartes was an advocate of Dualism, which is a philosophy that states that the world is made up of two elemental categories that are incompatible, such as mind and body, which always exist separately. He wrote his Meditations with two central issues in mind: Proving the existence of God and proving the immortality of the soul through natural reason. The Meditations are divided into six separate sections that focus on different parts of Descartes argument. The first Meditation focuses on the concept of true beliefs.
Descartes sets out to determine what is true by doubting everything that he know or has learned to the point of writing the Meditations. His main suspicion of knowledge is that which is gained via sensory input (empirical). He created a systematic doubting experiment where sensory information is questioned for several reasons in search of undeniable truths. Through this experiment, he discerns between primary and secondary qualities of things.
Primary objects, objects of senses, exist in the mind. For example, an apple tastes sweet, looks red, and smells fruity. These qualities do not exist in the physical world, but are manifestations of the mind. Secondary objects, objects of mathematics, existence in space and have physical qualities (e.
g. an apple is round and is singular). Descartes continues the first Meditation as he investigates God as a deceiver. He poses that God may possibly be tricking his mind to perceive what does not exist. He refutes this, however, based on the concept that infinite goodness must exist in God as a necessary attribute of God. To further rectify any deception with Christianity, he postulates the existence of the evil genius.
The second Meditation focuses on the mind, and the fact that it is easier to prove the existence of than is the body. Descartes understands that he exists (from Discourse, cognition ergo sum), but here seeks to understand exactly what type of thing he is. He proposes that he is body and soul, but cannot refer to body since it requires senses to know the body exists. His determination is that he exists as two separate substances a thinking substance, which is nonphysical in nature, and an extended substance, which is physical, but not capable of thought. Descartes uses the analogy of the changing of the form of wax to demonstrate that changes in physical properties do not change the essence of being.
The concluding argument is that the soul is immortal the physical body may change, but the essence of the mind remains. In the third Meditation, Descartes proposes that everything he perceives clearly and distinctly is true, but that the senses are inferior to mathematical judgment. There is, however, one obstacle. God may be deceiving him. To determine Truth, Descartes must prove God exists and show he is not a deceiver. One proposed proof is as follows: 1.
We have an idea of infinite perfection 2. The idea we have of ourselves includes finitude and imperfection 3. Reality exists in the cause of an idea and much as in the idea itself 4. The idea of infinite perfection originated from a being with infinite perfection God Once Descartes has proven Gods existence, and that Descartes, himself, exists, he must then show that God is the cause of his existence.
He proposes that he could not have been produced by himself or a finite cause less than God. He also concludes that he (his essence, not his body) could not be created from several partial causes or by his parents. He argues that he is Gods creation, and God would have made him is His image, so he would understand God just as he understands himself. Therefore, God is not a deceiver since deception is an imperfection and God is infinite perfection.
The final Meditation is used to prove that material objects exist and that the mind is distinct from the body. Descartes proposes that external objects are the active source of perceptions. Descartes offers the following proof: 1. I know clearly and distinctly that there is in me a passive faculty which receives perceptions from an active source 2. This active source of perception is either me, God, or external objects 3.
I am not that active source since such perceptions are not willfully produced and do not involve thinking (my true essence) 4. God does not implant ideas of perception in me since this would be deception 5. Therefore, external objects are the active source of perceptions Descartes ends the Meditations with the final thought that bodily perceptions do exist by restoring confidence in bodily perceptions by setting aside the possibility that he is dreaming. When we are awake, our memories unite the events of our lives; when we are dreaming, memory cannot connect our dreams together. In Meditation Two, Descartes hits upon the indubitable principle he has been seeking.
He exists, at least when he thinks he exists. The cogito (Descartes' proof of his own existence) has been the source of a great deal of discussion ever since Descartes first formulated it in the 1637 Discourse on Method, and, I believe, a great deal of misinterpretation (quite possibly as a result of Descartes' repeated contradictions of his own position in subsequent writings). Many commentators have fallen prey to the tempting interpretation of the cogito as either syllogism or enthymeme. This view holds that Descartes asserts that he is thinking, that he believes it axiomatic that 'whatever thinks must exist' and therefore that he logically concludes that he exists.
This view, it seems to me, is wrong. It should be stated on no occasion, in the Meditations, does Descartes write 'I am thinking, therefore I am', nor anything directly equivalent. Rather, he says: "Doubtless, then, that I existing, let him deceive me as he may, he can never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I shall be conscious that I am something. So that it must, in fine, be maintained, all things being maturely and carefully considered, that this proposition I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time it is expressed by me or conceived in my mind. " (p. 80). The point here is that it is impossible to doubt the truth of the proposition 'I exist' when one utters it. It is an indubitable proposition, and one that will necessarily be presupposed in every attack of the sceptic.
Descartes is not yet entitled to use syllogisms as the possibility of the malign demon is still very much alive. As an aside, Descartes himself denies that the cogito is a syllogism, although it should be mentioned that in some of the Replies to Objections he seems to assert that it is in fact a syllogism. Finally, in the Regular ad directions ingen, Descartes denies the usefulness of syllogisms as a means to knowledge. I believe that, given Descartes' project, it is fair to grant him that the cogito deserves the status he bestows upon it. For can there be anything more certain than something that is so forceful and so powerful that every time it is presented to our mind we are forced to assent to it? What Descartes did here was to jiggle about the way philosophy normally approaches the construction of knowledge structures.
By starting with self-knowledge, he elevates the subjective above the objective and forces his epistemology to rest upon the knowledge he has of his own self (and inadvertently sets the tone for the next 300 years of philosophy). This leaves him with a problem. He can know his own existence, that he is a thinking thing and the contents of his consciousness, but how can any of this ever lead to any knowledge of anything outside of himself? The answer is that, by itself, it can't.
Furthermore, it seems to be further proof that Descartes does believe we can get to know objects in themselves to a certain extent. Finally, I turn to Descartes' argument for the distinction of mind and body. Descartes believes he has shown the mind to be better known than the body in Meditation Two. In Meditation Six he goes on to claim that, as he knows his mind and knows clearly and distinctly that its essence consists purely of thought, and that bodies' essences consist purely of extension, that he can conceive of his mind and body as existing separately. By the power of God, anything that can be clearly and distinctly conceived of as existing separately from something else can be created as existing separately. At this point, Descartes makes the apparent logical leap to claiming that the mind and body have been created separately, without justification.
Most commentators agree that this is not justified, and further, that just because I can conceive of my mind existing independently of my body it does not necessarily follow that it does so. In defence of Descartes, Saul Kripke has suggested that Descartes may have anticipated a modern strand of modal logic that holds that if x = y, then L (x = y). In other words, if x is identical to y then it is necessarily identical to it. From this it follows that if it is logically possible that x and y have different properties then they are distinct. In this instance, that means that because I can clearly and distinctly conceive of my mind and body as existing separately, then they are distinct.
The argument, like much modern work on identity, is too technical and involved to explore here in much depth. But suffice to say that we can clearly and distinctly conceive of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as being distinct and yet they are identical, necessarily so under Kripke's theory. It is doubtful that Kripke can come to Descartes' aid here and Descartes needs further argument to prove that the mind and the body are distinct. And so we finish our discussion of Descartes' attempts to extricate himself from the sceptical doubts he has set up for himself.
As mentioned previously, the ultimate conclusion to draw regarding the success of the enterprise that Descartes set for himself must be that he failed. When the whole epistemological structure is so heavily dependent on one piece of knowledge - in this case the knowledge that God exists - then a denial of that knowledge destroys the whole structure. All that we can really grant Descartes - and this is certainly contentious - is that he can rightly claim that when a clear and distinct idea presents itself to his mind, he cannot but give his assent to this idea, and furthermore, that while this assent is being granted, the clear and distinct idea can be justly used as a foundation for knowledge. The most this gets us - and this is not a little - is the knowledge of our own existence each time we assert it. But Descartes' project should not be judged by us as a failure - the fact that he addressed topics of great and lasting interest, and provided us with a method we can both understand and utilize fruitfully, speaks for itself.
Bibliography: Descartes, Rene. Meditation I. Random House, 1985 Descartes, Rene. Meditation II. Random House, 1986.
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