Descartes

Margaret Dauler Wilson, Ted Honderich

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781134963515
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

One of the most significant studies of Descartes in recent times. It concentrates on the Meditations to show Descartes' philosophy in the context of his overall scientific objectives, not all of them fully explicit in the texts.

II
Knowledge of Self and Bodies

1
The concerns of Meditation II

The First Meditation called into ‘doubt’ all the deliverances of the senses, and especially what we learn from the senses concerning the existence of nature and our physical selves. It also raised questions about the certainty of mathematics and the reality of simple natures. The aim of the Second Meditation is to establish that we can know with certainty that we ourselves exist even without knowing that bodies exist. Our knowledge of ourselves as thinking beings is, Descartes holds, primary and non-sensory. In addition, Descartes argues that we have a non-sensory awareness of the nature of body itself, which is far superior to what we take to be ‘knowledge’ gained by direct sensory apprehension. Another important claim of the Second Meditation is that the knowledge of ourselves as thinking things is, like the knowledge of body derived from reason, ‘clear and distinct.’ I will argue later that thisclaim provides an important step in Descartes’s development of his argument for the independence of mind from body—an argument concluded only in the Sixth Meditation. In addition it implies what I will call the doctrine of the ‘epistemological transparency’ of thought or of the thinker: our awareness of our thought processes is immediate and unproblematic. Thus, thought lies outside the domain of scientific explanation. Unlike body, it is just what it seems, and there is nothing about it to explain. (As I will argue later, though, Descartes also holds some views that are in conflict—or at any rate in tension—with the doctrine of epistemological transparency of thought or mind.)

In this chapter I will be primarily concerned, first, with what is sometimes called Descartes’s ‘proof of his own existence,’ and second with the argument through which he tries to establish some fundamental propositions about the nature of body. My treatment of the first topic is, mainly, an attempt to explore and clarify certain aspects of the so-called cogitoreasoning, for what I regard as their great intrinsic interest. While I will argue in some detail against certain other treatments of the subject, much of this criticism is relatively independent of the over-all conception of the Meditations that I defend in this book. I do, however, accord fundamental importance to the role of the cogitoreasoning in providing a basis for Descartes’s later immaterialist conclusions. Thus, the interpretation of the cogito reasoning cannot proceed in complete independence from interpretation of the Meditations as a whole. However, this point will not be fully explained until a later chapter.

With respect to the treatment of body, I hold that Descartes has a rather good argument for at least part of the conclusion he wishes to reach in the Second Meditation—but this argument unfortunately does not appear in the Meditations themselves. The argument that does appear in the Meditations is, I think, terribly obscure—and gives the impression that Descartes is concerned with problems quite different from the ones that are really at issue.

2
Ego existo

The new line of thought of the Second Meditation begins with the observation that just as Archimedes had required only one fixed point to move the whole world, so Descartes will have great hopes if he can locate the ‘least thing’ which is certain and firm (AT VII, 24; HR I, 149). He then restates his previous supposition that he has no senses, and that ‘body, figure, extension, movement, and place’ are mere ‘chimeras.’ But perhaps, he continues, there is something ‘different from all these,’ of which there could not be the least occasion to doubt. Perhaps, he first suggests, there is at least some God (or whatever it should be called) who conveys these thoughts [cogitationes] to me? But why should he suppose so, since he might himself be their author? But then at least he is something? The ensuing crucial passage culminates in the conclusion that ‘ego sum’ does escape the negations of Meditation I:

But I have already denied I have any senses, and any body. But nevertheless I hesitate; for what follows? Am I so bound to body and senses that without them I could not be? But I was persuaded there is nothing at all in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies; [did I not persuade myself] therefore that even I am not? No indeed, certainly I was, if I persuaded myself of something [French version: or even if I thought of something]. But there is some unknown deceiver, maximally powerful and clever, who by his industry always deceives me. Without doubt [haud dubie] therefore I still am, if he deceives me; and deceive as much as he can, nevertheless he could never make it the case, that I am nothing as long as I think that I am something. So that, indeed, all these things having been considered enough, it is finally determined that this proposition [pronuntiatum], I am, I exist, whenever it is pronounced by me, or mentally conceived, necessarily is true. (AT VII, 24–5; HR I, 150)

This passage is widely known as an instance of the ‘cogito reasoning,’ despite the fact that the famous formulation ‘I think therefore I am’ (‘cogito ergo sum’) appears only in cognate passages in other works—not in the Meditations itself. For instance, in the Discourse Descartes had written (at a similar stage in the argument):

Immediately I noticed that while I wished thus to think that all was false, it was necessarily required that I who thought it was something. And remarking that this truth: I think, therefore I am, was so firm and so assured, that all the most extravagant suppositions of the skeptics were not capable of shaking it, I judged that I could receive it without scruple, as the first principle of philosophy which I sought. (AT VI, 32; HR I, 101)

And the Principles passage is rather similar:

But having thus rejected all those things, of which we can in any way doubt, and even feigning them to be false,…we easily suppose there is no god, no heaven, no bodies;…but not in the same way [ideo] that we, who think such things, are nothing: for it is inconsistent to suppose that what thinks does not at the same time that it thinks, exist. And hence this cognition, I think, therefore I am, is the first and most certain, of all that occurs to one in the order of philosophizing. (AT VIII–1, 6–7; HR I, 221)

In place of the categorical assertion of ‘I think therefore I am,’ the Meditations passage concludes with a conditional proposition: ‘I exist necessarily is true, whenever it is pronounced or mentally conceived by me.’

Some commentators have strongly insisted on the differences between the Meditations formulation and that of the other works. They have been concerned to argue that what I will call the ‘naïve interpretation’ of the cogito is not acceptable for the Meditations, however strongly it may be suggested by the cognate passages in other writings. They also feel that the cogito reasoning, as naïvely interpreted, is subject to philosophical criticisms that their more sophisticated interpretations avoid. I will argue that the naïve interpretation is not in conflict with the text of the Meditations. It does, however, present certain philosophical problems and perplexities—not all of which are avoided by alternative sophisticated interpretations.

According to the naïve interpretation, the cogito reasoning is intended to present ‘I exist’ as a truth known by inference to be indubitable; its indubitability is inferred from the indubitability of ‘I think’—or, as Descartes sometimes says, of the fact that I think, or of my thinking. The indubitability of ‘I think’ itself is construed as a sort of datum. This interpretation is suggested by the categorical assertion of ‘I think,’ and by the ‘therefore,’ in the formulation of the Discourse and the Principles. It is (one would have supposed) conclusively confirmed by Descartes’s way of replying to one of Gassendi’s objections to the Meditations argument. Gassendi had written:

Concerning the Second [Meditation], I see that you recognize at least that you who pretend [to doubt] are; and thus establish that this proposition:—I am, I exist, is true each time that you pronounce it, or that you mentally conceive it. But I don’t see that you needed all this apparatus, when you had other grounds for being certain [aliunde certus eras], and it was true, that you are; and could have inferred that from any other action [actione], since it is known by the natural light that whatever acts, is. (AT VII, 258; HR II, 137)

In replying, Descartes does not at all object to Gassendi’s construal of what he was doing at the beginning of Meditation II—i.e., inferring the truth of ‘I exist’ from one of his ‘actions.’ He just denies that any action other than thought would do. He remarks:

What reason do you have to say that there was no need of such a large apparatus to prove that I exist?… When you say that I could have concluded the same thing from any other of my actions, you are very mistaken, because there isn’t one of them of which I am entirely certain—I mean with that metaphysical certainty which alone is here in question— except thought [emphasis added]. Thus, for example, this consequence would be no good: I walk, therefore I am, except in so far as the consciousness of walking is a thought, from which alone this conclusion [illatio] is certain, not from the movement of the body, which sometimes does not exist in sleep, when nevertheless it still seems to me that I am walking; so that from the fact that I think I walk I can very well infer the existence of [a] mind which thinks this, but not that of [a] body which walks. It is the same with the others. (AT VII, 352; HR II, 207)

In replying to this objection to the Meditations, Descartes claims that a formulation like ‘I walk therefore I am’ wouldn’t suit his purposes (and note that it is Descartes, not Gassendi, who here supplies the ‘therefore’ formulation). The reason is that I don’t have metaphysical certainty of my walking—but only of my thinking. In other words, Descartes endorses Gassendi’s conception of the structure of the cogito reasoning—while rejecting his claim that just any action would serve for the premiss.

The end of this reply suggests, further, that a particular thought or cogitatio, such as the ‘consciousness of walking,’ would serve just as well as the less specific ‘I think’ as the basis for concluding to the certainty of one’s existence. And this accords well with passages from other writings, where Descartes endorses other propositions of the form ‘I think that p (or, it seems to me that p), therefore I exist,’ as able to serve the function of the cogito reasoning.¹ The Meditations passage, too, can be read as indicating that Descartes is not particular about which cogitatio judgment he uses:

If I persuaded myself of something [FV or even if I thought of something], I certainly was;

Without doubt I still am, if he deceives me;

He could never bring it about that I am nothing as long as I think that I am something.

On the other hand, there is perhaps reason for caution here. For Descartes does not assert that either ‘I persuaded myself’ or ‘I think I am something’ is certain— and would obviously not want to assert that ‘he deceives me’ is certain. The Meditations, then, does introduce, in some sense, a hypothetical approach to the problem of the certainty of one’s own existence, in relation to one’s thinking. What Descartes’s reply to Gassendi seems to tell us is just that this hypothetical approach was not meant to supplant in any substantial way the more straightforward deployment of ‘I think therefore I am’ in other works.

In what follows I will consider three lines of objection to the naïve interpretation.

First, I acknowledge and try to clarify the point, made by many scholars, that the naïve interpretation requires that we read Descartes’s own major presentations of his position as enthymatic. I try to show that this implication does not involve conflicts with the texts, in particular does not involve conflicts with Descartes’s denial that the cogito is (implicitly) a syllogism.

Second, I argue against the view, developed particularly by Harry Frankfurt, that Descartes’s discussion of his existence in the Second Meditation presents peculiar difficulties for the naïve interpretation from a textual point of view. (I’m inclined to think that the naïve interpretation is even more strongly confirmed by the Meditations than the other works.) However, I will agree with one implication of Frankfurt’s position: that the relation of the cogito to the enterprise of Cartesian doubt is not fully accounted for by the naïve interpretation.

Third, I will take up the objection that the cogito as naïvely interpreted involves a petitio principii. Although this objection has been repeatedly formulated in the literature by highly perceptive critics, I do not find that its precise import has been made very clear. I will distinguish and evaluate several different lines of criticism that may be considered aspects of the ‘petitio’ objection. This discussion will lead to clarification of the naïve interpretation. (It will also ultimately lead to the suggestion that certain Cartesian texts about our knowledge of substances run counter to the requirements of the cogito as naïvely interpreted.)

Finally, I will try to show that the so-called ‘performative interpretation’ does not provide a philosophically superior reading of the cogito.

I have characterized the naïve interpretation as the view that Descartes intends to establish the indubitability of ‘I exist’ by presenting it (‘I exist’) as entailed by ‘I think’—itself indubitably and immediately known. But, evidently, we need some principle to license the inference of ‘I exist’ from ‘I think’—otherwise it will lack formal validity. This observation is sometimes taken as equivalent to the claim that if the cogito is a valid inference at all, it must be construed as a syllogism, depending on a major premiss such as ‘whatever thinks exists.’² And this is supposed to present an objection to the naïve interpretation—even apart from the oddity of a major premiss with ‘exists’ in the predicate place. For Descartes insists in at least two places that his cogito reasoning should not be construed as a syllogism, claiming that we come to know universal premisses from knowledge of particulars.³

Now in the first place there is probably no way to avoid all perplexity about the role of a universal principle in the cogito reasoning. For Descartes clearly does think that one ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• The Arguments of the Philosophers editor: ted honderich
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• A Note on the Texts
• A Note on Descartes’s Life and Works
• Editions and Abbreviations
• I: General Doubt
• II: Knowledge of Self and Bodies
• III: Some Perspectives on the Third Meditation
• IV: Judgment, Ideas and Thought
• V: True and Immutable Natures
• VI: Mind, Body and Things Outside us
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography