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"MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY".
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Examines objections to First, Second & Sixth Meditations on existence of God & man.... More...

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Paper Abstract:
Examines objections to First, Second & Sixth Meditations on existence of God & man.

Paper Introduction:
This study will examine Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy, specifically the objections to the First, Second, and Sixth Meditations. There are a number of objections to the arguments in the Meditations, some of which are technical and perhaps trivial, some of which are significant and which cut to the very heart of Descartes' arguments on existence. Descartes argues, for example, "That which we clearly and distinctly understand to belong to the true and immutable nature of anything, its essence or form, can be truly affirmed of that thing. But after we have with sufficient accuracy investigated the nature of God, we clearly and distinctly understand that to exist belongs to his true nature. Therefore we can with truth affirm of God that He exists" (Stumpf 258).

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The Illusion of Technique. He was not so much seeking the truth about existence andGod, but was rather trying to come up with a purely rational way to proveexistence and specifically the existence of God. Hamlyn writes: "There is something clearly paradoxical in the denialboth of one's existence and of one's involvement in thinking (since denialsurely involves that). itssubject is really 'First Philosophy,' which is here understood in theunbroken tradition since Aristotle as metaphysics that culminates in God.Descartes, like the rest of the seventeenth century, thinks within andtoward God" (115-116). a kind of self-examination" (136-137). . For example, in the Sixth Meditation, Descartes argues that"perception and sensation are modes of thinking." Hamlyn points out:"Given his use of the term model this means that they depend on thought inthe sense that they cannot occur without it, while thought can occurwithout them. One of the objections to Descartes' argument in the first twomeditations focuses on the fact that his argument appears to be very closeto what Augustine had argued much earlier. Yet, as Gassendi pointed out in his objections toDescartes' Meditations, my existence seems to follow just as directly fromthe truth of 'I walk' as from that of 'I think.' Descartes pointed out thatthere is a difference in that the truth of 'I walk' is not itself evident--one could be wrong about the fact that one is walking--in the way that thetruth of 'I think' is" (137). . As Hamlyn writes, "It was objected to Descartes at the time thatsomething like the 'Cogito' had been employed by Augustine, although with adifferent purpose. It is this narrower use of the term 'thought' and theemphasis upon it that justifies the ascription of the label 'rationalist'to him" (138). Thereforewe can with truth affirm of God that He exists" (Stumpf 258). But after we havewith sufficient accuracy investigated the nature of God, we clearly anddistinctly understand that to exist belongs to his true nature. . As Barrett writes, "Thiswork is not an epistemological treatise on skepticism, as some moderninterpreters would like it to be; but as its full title indicates . Both quotes do indeed touchupon the same subject of the nature of the human mind and specifically therole of doubt in philosophy. . Augustine, a man of most penetratingintellect and of much note" (Veitch 8 ). Socrates to Sartre. A History of Western Philosophy. These and other arguments seeking to simultaneously extend theknowledge of existence from the thinking mind to the external-world and toGod, and to maintain distinctions between all these different objects, openDescartes to the objections of those analysts who are merely asking thatDescartes maintain his intellectual and rational integrity throughout hisentire argument. For one who contends that the human mind is corporeal does not on thataccount believe that every body is a mind . All that follows is the attempt to reconnect the mindto the world, and to demonstrate that the once-isolated mind can apprehendGod ultimately. It is a charge of plagiarism,in effect, and it is not altogether a charge without merit. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978.Hamlyn, D.W. . The objection is a valid one, but it overlooks the emphasis inDescartes--which is not in Augustine--on the individuals role in thisprocess of discovery: "The account . As one objection goes, quite reasonably, "It can be maintained thatthe argument proves too much and conducts us to the Platonic doctrine(refuted nevertheless by our author) that nothing corporeal belongs to theessence of man, who is hence entirely spirit, while his body is merely thevehicle of spirit; whence follows the definition of man as a spirit thatmakes use of a body. . Not all theproperties of the wax need disappear when it melts, for example, and thefinal claim about the mind's intuition seems something of a jump" (139).The objection itself reads in part: "Now as to the first part of thestatement, namely, that you completely understand what body is, merely bythinking that it is extended, has figure, can move, etc., and by denying ofit everything which belongs to the nature of mind, this is of little value. The questionis what Descartes means to do with the argument: Is his intentiondifferent from that of Augustine? Another objection to Descartes' basic argument in the first twomeditations is that one can just as easily base the reality of one's existence on any act one undertakes, and not simply thinking. Descartes argues, for example, "That which we clearly and distinctlyunderstand to belong to the true and immutable nature of anything, itsessence or form, can be truly affirmed of that thing. It is thisindividualist basis of Descartes' philosophical inquiry that is the notableand indeed revolutionary thing" (Hamlyn 137). Despite the step-by-step process of Descartes' reasoning whichpurports to be assuming nothing, beginning with the existing thinker andending with the existence of God, the fact is that Descartes was workingwithin a philosophical tradition which was rooted in a belief in theexistence of God. To lack existence,he said, implies no impairment of perfection, only the lack of reality"(Stumpf 258). The objection goes on to quote from Augustine and to follow thatquote with a similar argument from Descartes. Works CitedBarrett, William. . New York: Dolphin, 196 .----------------------- 7 But this is a conclusion, a leap, whichdoes not seem warranted according to Descartes own standards of reasoning.The argument about the wax and its properties serves as the basis ofDescartes' conclusion, but as Hamlyn points out in agreeing with Gassendi:"There is much that is defective with the argument . The Rationalists. But if you reply that body is not absolutely excludedfrom my essence/ but merely in so far precisely as I am a thinking being,the fear seems likely to arise that some one will entertain a suspicionthat the knowledge of myself..... brings out again how Descartes,approach depends upon what is evident to the individual. However, this objection from Gassendi seems to carry greater weightthan Descartes would grant, simply because the awareness that one iswalking involves thinking. New York: Viking, 1987.Stumpf, Samuel Enoch. In other words, it is possible to be perfectly non-existent, so thatDescartes violates his own rules of reasoning by assuming existence from aquality which does not in fact lead without doubt to existence. The argument of Descartes in the Meditations is an argument whichfirst splits the mind off from the body, the spirit from the flesh, createsa dualism, and then tries to heal that dualistic split. . The question, again, however, is whetherDescartes was simply borrowing from Augustine to fill a hole in hisargument, or whether he was using an earlier insight for an entirelydifferent and unique purpose to which, perhaps, even Augustine would notobject. There are a number of objections to the arguments in the Meditations,some of which are technical and perhaps trivial, some of which aresignificant and which cut to the very heart of Descartes' arguments onexistence. If one doubts the reality of what one isthinking, or aware of, then one might as well doubt whether one is reallythinking. Therefore, we must proveover and above this that the mind can be completely and adequatelyconceived apart from the body" (Veitch 82). Descartes hasreduced his reality in the first instance to the mind, thinking andtherefore existing. Kant concluded that purereason alone cannot prove or disprove the existence of God. One such objection reads thus: "The first thing that here occurs tome to be worthy of remark is that our distinguished author (Descartes)should have taken as the foundation of the whole of his philosophy thedoctrine laid down (before him) by St. . New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966.Veitch, John, trans. However, Gassendi offers the objection to this important conclusionon the existence of God that "perfection does not imply existence, sinceexistence is not a necessary attribute of perfection. But one thing that marks off Descartes' procedure isthat he arrives at his conclusion via a consideration of what he himselfthinks: "It involves . This study will examine Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy,specifically the objections to the First, Second, and Sixth Meditations. As Hamlyn concludes, "It has to be pointed out that the bestthat that offers [that is, that the fact that one's thinking is a self-evident fact] is that if one is looking for something that one cannot doubtwithout absurdity, then one cannot doubt that one is doing that very thing,and thus is thinking" (137). This attempt toheal the split is what brings the bulk of the objections. is not the knowledge of anything fullyand adequately conceived, but is known only inadequately and by a certainintellectual abstraction" (Veitch 84). . Kant would later go into greater detail in analyzing the efforts ofrationalists to prove the existence of God. Gassendi also objects, rightly, to Descartes notion in the SecondMeditation regarding the mind's apprehension of itself based on a mentalintuition, which is even more clear, says Descartes, than the mind'sapprehension of corporeal bodies.

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