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DESCARTES' PHILOSOPHY.
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Examines ideas of dualism of mind & body, doubt & knowledge, the senses, consciousness & dreams, methodology, rationalism & the probable.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Examines ideas of dualism of mind & body, doubt & knowledge, the senses, consciousness & dreams, methodology, rationalism & the probable.
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INTRODUCTION
Dualism has become so associated with René Descartes that it is usually referred to as Cartesian dualism, as if this were the defining approach to the issue. Dualism is the theory that the mind and the body, that mind and matter, are two distinct things. Descartes considered the issue of the location of the mind and found that the mind was separate from the body. He says that he is a subject of conscious thought and experience and thus cannot be nothing more than spatially extended matter. The mind, or the essential nature of the human being, cannot be material but must be non-material. This non-corporeal entity may be intimately associated with the body, but it is not itself a material entity as is the body. Descartes offered several arguments for this belief, one of which was the conceivability argument which
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These arestatements that are self-evident in that they prove themselves to reason,for to understand them is to know that they are absolutely true. Yet, thoughDescartes agrees that experimentation can reveal much about scientificknowledge of the world, the ideal for him remains the deductive method. The one thing that cannot be doubted and that is true each time it isexpressed by a person is that that person exists. In truth, he is identifying the body throughvarious characteristics perceived by the senses and in no way identifyingthe body itself. Interestingly, the arguments Descartes uses do not come up to thelevel of proof he would insist on for mathematics, which he holds out asthe ultimate method of thought. The mind is his awareness and his reality, but the bodymay be an illusion sent to deceive him. The promise of a response to skeptical problems will not be a point in favor of a system of philosophical ideas if those ideas help generate the problems in the first place, especially since the problems, once grasped, tend to be more compelling than any particular solutions (Michael Williams 117- 118). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.----------------------- 12 If we can conceive of something, it must bebecause God has placed that idea of what we conceive in our minds. Descartes himself raises the possibility that God could deceiveus if He wished, though Descartes rejects the idea that God could deceiveby showing that this would make God a less than perfect being. In the Second Meditation he notices that to be deceived by the demon there must be a medium of deception, namely thought, and if thought, then a real thinker, himself (Sorell 59-6 ).This medium of deception is such that there are certain ideas presented toit which are irresistible, but irresistibility does not mean truth: That there are things which one cannot help believing when one thinks of them might be a matter of a psychological compulsion, one which the malicious demon would have been happy to implant. For Descartes, reason is the only road to knowledge, and heuses mathematics as his model: By using the method of mathematics, philosophy could achieve absolute certainty and could prove itself, as mathematics does, to my own reason, to human reason, and be acknowledged as universally true (Lavine 93). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. It is the site of rational thought. Works CitedCopleston, Frederick. When he is, he is beset by theillusion that what he senses is real, when in fact it is a dream. Descartesoffered several arguments for this belief, one of which was theconceivability argument which necessarily involves a degree of tautology.Descartes says that the separate existence of the mind and body isconceivable and so is possible. However, he moves the wax to the fire andchanges it--the taste escapes, the odor evaporates, the color changes, theshape is destroyed, the size increases, the form changes from solid toliquid, the object becomes hot and can no longer be held in the hand, andwhen it is struck it no longer emits a sound. The mind and body may be separate entities, but theyare also united so that we cannot doubt that the body exists, that it feelspain and pleasure, that it is affected by hunger and thirst. 3) It must be about something which exists, and from it beliefs aboutthe existence of other things can then be deduced (Lavine 93-95). New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.Williams, Bernard. Even if there is somepowerful force bent on deceiving the observer, the observer knows that hehimself exists: Let him deceive me as much as he will, he can never make me be nothing as long as I think that I am something. Theissue is broader than the conceivability argument offered by Descartes, butthat argument in particular is suspect and raises as many issues as itpurports to solve. Descartes finds that he is uncertainnow whether he is awake or dreaming, and so the experience of the senseshas to be doubted because it is indistinguishable at the time from thedreaming state. He says if he had been askedto explain the nature of the body, he would have explained that it waswhatever could be determined by a certain shape, and comprised in a certainlocation, whatever fills a certain space so as to exclude from it everyother body, whatever can be apprehended by the senses, and whatever can bemoved in certain ways. Having elevated human reason, Descartes is faced with the fact thatall reason takes place within his own mind. The conceivability argument for dualism is a kind of argumentDescartes uses again and again. The primary effects can be deduced withoutgreat difficulty, but there is an infinity of particular effects which canbe deducted from the same first principles, raising the issue of how we areto distinguish between the effects which actually take place and thosewhich might take place but do not. New York: Penguin, 1986.Descartes, René. The philosopher would then tryto deduce by analysis the character of the intermixture of simple natureswhich would be necessary to produce all those effects which the philosopherhas seen to take place in connection with the object being examined. The mind is our awareness, the one thingthat we can know is real. New York: Bantam, 1984.Malcolm, Norman. He rejects as false all his beliefs about material objects, even his faith in the reality of simple material natures. It issubject to the senses in that it acquires information through the senses,but it is not a sense in itself. Experience orexperiment can then tell whether these are consistent (Copleston 8 -81). Descartes denies the power of the senses toperceive knowledge because of an awareness that the senses are flawed andthat they are not to be trusted. New York: Penguin books, 1978.Williams, Michael. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.Sorell, Tom. In a sense even my sensations could be the same, even though their apparent bodily causes would be illusory (Malcolm 6). Descartes also makes a distinction between the primary and moregeneral effects and the more particular effects which can be deduced fromprinciples or first causes. 2) Its certainty must be ultimate and not dependent upon thecertainty of any other belief. Thisinformation becomes the empirical data the philosopher then investigates,and the data are presupposed by the method. . He says that we mustagree that the things we see when we are asleep are like painted images andthat they have to have been formed in the likeness of what is real and true(Descartes, Discourse on Method and the Meditations 97). But these are madmen, and I would not be less extravagant if I were to follow their example (Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy 25). How isit possible to tell the difference? Descarteshas reached the point, as he notes, when he can free his mind from allcares and secure for himself "an assured leisure in peaceful solitude"(Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy 95) enabling him to apply hisreason to these issues, though it may not be possible for him to show thatall of his former opinions were false: But since reason has already persuaded me that I ought to withhold belief no less carefully from things not entirely certain and indubitable than from those which appear to me manifestly false, I shall be justified in setting all of them aside, if in each case I can find any ground whatsoever for regarding them as dubitable (Descartes, Discourse on Method and the Meditations 95). Herecognizes that we cannot do without the information provided byexperience, and indeed such knowledge is necessary as a way of gatheringthe data needed for the deductive method (Copleston 81-83). This is in reality aform of the conceivability argument, for Descartes here assumes that if wecan form an image in our sleep, we have to have a real image as itsoriginal model which we can find in the real world. Descartes suggests that we pretend we are asleep andaccept that all that we sense is false and illusory. . The conceivability argumentrelates to the proof of the existence of God and to the idea Descartes hasof God as a perfect being. Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry. Our senses havelimitations when it comes to things that are too small or too far away.There are other things which are self-evident and not to be doubted, andDescartes cites the fact that he is sitting in his chair by the fire in adressing-gown with a paper in his hands--these things are not to bedoubted: And how could I deny that these hands and this body belong to me, unless perhaps I were to assimilate myself to those insane persons whose minds are so troubled an clouded by the black vapors of the bile that they constantly assert that they are kings, when they are very poor; that they are wearing gold and purple, when they are quite naked; or who imagine that they are pitchers or that they have a body of glass. The thesis of the incorporeality of the mind seems, from first to last, a fixed point in Descartes' thinking. There must then bereal objects corresponding to what we sense in our dreams, and so there issome correlation between the illusion and reality. Perhaps only this, that there is nothing certain in the world (Descartes, Discourse on Method and the Meditations 1 1).The problem with the conceivability argument is that it also involves anassumption that something must exist because it can be conceived of, whilethere are other things that can be conceived of that are rejected.Descartes often argues on both sides of the same issue. Descartes said we could not deduce a priori the existence ofparticular physical things. They arepropositions which no rational mind can doubt. He exists in his mind, and he knowsthat he exists through the awareness of that mind. . For instance, at one point he uses the example ofa piece of wax. . Indeed the now widespread adoption of the label "Cartesian dualism" to refer to the incorporeality thesis has had the effect of making that thesis the very hallmark of Descartes' philosophy (Cottingham 236). The climax is reached on the third day,not the sixth, for it is then that Descartes convinces himself that hisidea of God is something real and existent: In the First Meditation Descartes makes himself doubt that he has an idea of any really existing thing. Descartesoffers a complete discussion of knowledge, its source, its object, and therationale for his view of knowledge. Problems of Mind. The Meditations has an unusual literary form. Descartes. He doesnot see the mind as existing in the body as something imposed to maintaincontrol. Oncethis is done, the philosopher can boldly assert that he has discovered thereal nature of the physical object as far as human intelligence and theexperimental observations will allow. Descartes says he had no doubts as to thenature of "body," though now he has had to reconsider this position giventhat he realizes all the elements of the body are known to him only throughthe senses that he does not trust any longer. Instead, he decidesthat what he comprehended might be imagination, but he has to reject thisview. New York: Bobbs- Merrill, 196 .Lavine, T.Z. Descartes in another waytakes the easy way out because he himself notes that the mind is easier toknow than the body, and it is easy to doubt the body and impossible todoubt the mind, at least as an "entity," though it is possible to doubt thethoughts of the mind, which could be placed there in a number of falseways: I suppose therefore that all the things I see are false; I persuade myself that one of those things ever existed and that my deceptive memory represents to me; I suppose I have no senses; I believe that body, figure, extension, movement and place are only fictions of my mind. Meditations on First Philosophy. Elsewhere, Descartes utilizes concreteexamples even when he is doubting the reality of the concrete and soanchors his argument in the real world more solidly than he does with theconceivability argument. STARTING POINT For Descartes, the starting point was to doubt anything andeverything in regard to which he "could imagine the least ground of doubt"(Descartes, Philosophical Works 1 1). The mind is here conceivingof itself and holds that the mere fact that it can conceive of itself asexisting separately from the body means that mind and body are twodifferent things. The second method isdeduction, by which Descartes means orderly, logical reasoning of inferencefrom self-evident propositions. Descartes created a circular argument that is inherent in hisconceivability approach. In the conceivability argumentin particular, Descartes sets forth probabilities as something that have tobe accepted and then builds a philosophical structure on what is not suchsolid ground. Yet Descartes is not always clear about what he means orabout the extent of the separation he perceives as necessary between mindand body. From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest. "Cartesian Dualism: Theology, Metaphysics, and Science." In The Cambridge Companion to Descartes, John Cottingham (ed.). The picture that Descartes created of the relationshipbetween mind and body is one that has plagued philosophy ever since. . He canthus deny that he has a body and senses because he perceives these thingsonly through what he has called the senses, and all this data might befalse. Inthis way the philosopher's provisional doubt is overcome, though not in away that simply returns him to his initial position: It is essential to Descartes' project that the story be told this way. Here againhe creates a tautology, a circular argument that has in the definition ofGod the proof that God must exist. 236-257.Descartes, René. He saysthat God is the sum of all perfections, and since existence itself is aperfection, God and existence must be intertwined. He argues that God is an idea ofperfection and then that this idea of perfection is so great and so faroutside human experience that it must be an idea given by God. The book is a diary ofa fictional intellectual retreat lasting six days, and each day isaddressed in its own Meditation. He asks then if it is possible that he can exist without the bodyand without the senses, and of course he can because the one thing he knowswithout the senses is that he exists. . He insists on aseparation between mind and body, and yet he also argues that the two areconnected in some mechanistic way he only hints at and never explains. The mind is our nature, and our nature--as Descartesnotes at the beginning--is to doubt and then to understand, affirm, deny,will, imagine, and feel: As a bodiless mind I would do those things. Descartes sets forth a theory of rationalism in which reason is heldup as the most important element in human nature and as the only means tocertainty in knowledge. Discourse on Method and the Meditations. Descartes finds that hemight doubt everything else because his senses may deceive him. He saysthat what the insane represent to themselves when they are awake he mayrepresent to himself when he is asleep because dreams are often improbable. . The issue has beenlinked with questions about the electronic brain of the computer as well,for explorers of Artificial Intelligence are asking whether a machine canthink, and if it can think, whether this means that it has a mind. This fact raises issues about the validity of the senses, for whenDescartes is asleep, he may have dreamed precisely that he is sitting infront of this fire in just the same pose. . Descartes notes a number of reasons why we have to doubt our senses.For one thing, the senses sometimes deceive us with regard to minuteobjects or objects that are at a great distance from us. Here he shows an intuitiveunderstanding of duality, for the mind is trusted for what it developsthrough reason even as the senses are linked with the physical body that isin effect fooling the mind. Descartes' situation is that the only reason he has for believing anything to be true is that it is either irresistible, or depends on something that is irresistible; so, when he is not actually thinking of anything irresistible, he can entertain the idea that nothing which he is disposed to believe is really true (Bernard Williams 187).The question that is then possible is whether what we experience is reallytrue. He describes the characteristics of the wax that can beapprehended by the senses, noting its shape, the feel of it, the way itsmells, the way it can be manipulated to make a sound, and the way ittastes. It is an object that is quite distinct and that is identifiedclearly by its characteristics. My mental acts, and the contents of my consciousness, could be identical with what they are in my actual embodied condition. New York: Doubleday, 1963.Cottingham, John. Thefirst encounter brings about a provisional doubt that clears Descartes'mind of prejudices that would blind him to the truth, allowing him toapproach subsequent encounters in a way that leads him to new truths. He questions whether the senses provideany knowledge. This isnecessary to show that the knowledge acquired by reason is true. Inherent in Descartes's argument is the mind-body problem and theneed to understand what is the mind and what is the body as well as howthey are connected and related. This non-corporeal entity may be intimately associated withthe body, but it is not itself a material entity as is the body. Ithas also involved scientific inquiry as the argument is made as to whetherthe brain can be considered different or identical with the mind andwhether the mind can exist separately from the brain. The wax is only what he perceives with his senses and understandswith his judgment. In the Meditations, Descartes presents his own journey fromprephilosophical common sense to metaphysical enlightenment, and each stepon this journey is taken in response to an encounter with skepticism. He says that everything he knew or thought heknew in the past was based on sense perception, and the senses can lie.Because of this, Descartes has to begin from a position of doubt and mustprove everything to himself through the application of reason. Descartes intends us to see that we might have existed withoutever having had a body, for the body is not necessary to our existencewhile the mind is. A History of Philosophy: Descartes to Liebniz. Nature itself is created by God, and what nature teaches us isalso accepted as true because we can conceive of it and so must accept itas coming from God. He says that he is a subject of conscious thought and experienceand thus cannot be nothing more than spatially extended matter. Healso avoids certain issues that cannot be explained in the way he hasundertaken his proofs, such as the existence of other minds, something heappears to assume but never tries to prove. The mind,or the essential nature of the human being, cannot be material but must benon-material. "Descartes and the Metaphysics of Doubt." In Essays on Descartes' "Meditations", Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (ed.). Descartes said that the chief secret ofmethod was to arrange all the facts into a deductive, logical system.Descartes wishes to build a system of philosophy based on intuition anddeduction, a system that will remain as permanent as and true as geometry.Descartes sets forth three requirement for the foundations of thisphilosophy: 1) Its certainty must be such that it is impossible to doubt, it isself-evident to reason, it is clear and distinct. He shows his bias toward the supremacy ofthe mind in such arguments, for the "proof" of the existence of a thing oran idea is that the mind has conceived of it. The conceivability argument is a weak method of applying the samemethod to something non-corporeal, namely an idea, and it is weak becauseof that. This is a dichotomy in Descartes's approach, that his concreteexamples are often more powerful than those developed purely through theapplication of reason, which he holds out as the superior method. Descartes uses as an example what happens when he is asleep. In analyzing the issue of knowledge and the meaning of thought,Descartes shows that his essential nature is to be found in thought and notin the body. CARTESIAN DUALISM In the Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes discusses whathas come to be called the Cartesian dualism, which refers to the theoryoffered by Descartes that the mind and body are separate and that the mindis incorporeal: Throughout his life Descartes firmly believed that the mind, or soul. Dualism is the theory that the mind and the body,that mind and matter, are two distinct things. DESCARTES AND THE PROBABLE Indeed, what Descartes says is that what is conceivable is possible.He does not say it is true but that it is possible, and so his analysisrests not on proof but on a potential for proof. KNOWLEDGE There are only two mental operations by which true knowledge can beattained, says Descartes, and these are the methods of mathematics.Intuition is the understanding of self-evident principles. A possibility is not a mathematicalcertainty, after all, and so the conceivability argument in particularfails to fit this criterion. If it is possible for two things to existseparately, he says, they cannot be identical. Descartes began with his method ofdoubt, undertaken because he had reached an age where he now believed thathe would be able to remove all of his earlier beliefs and begin with aclean slate, as it were. was essentially nonphysical. There is no connection withothers, for such a connection could only take place through the senses.The one connection possible in the rational mind is with God, and Descartesdemonstrates that God exists and that He does not deceive. Self-evident propositions did not include ideas about the nature ofthings. This isalso one of the reasons why Descartes does not doubt the existence ofcorporeal substance and does not doubt the existence of the body. Godwould not be a deceiver, for then He would not be a perfect being. To accomplish this, the philosopher first had tocollect observations with which sense-experience supplies him. We know that an object exists by experience,but to understand the true nature of the object it was necessary to applythe Cartesian method. For instance, he states that we cannot doubt thereliability of the mind because the mind derives from God, but it is alsothe mind which must be seen as reliable if we are to prove the existence ofGod, and we have to prove the existence of God to show that the mind isreliable. INTRODUCTION Dualism has become so associated with René Descartes that it isusually referred to as Cartesian dualism, as if this were the definingapproach to the issue. Thus, after having thought well on this matter, and after examining all things with care, I must finally conclude and maintain that this proposition: I Am, I exist, is necessarily true in every time that I pronounce it or conceive it in my mind (Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy 24). The philosopher can then reverse theprocess and start with the simple natures and deduce the effects, whichshould be consistent with the effects actually observed. What, then, shall be considered true? Descartes here says that this can beaccomplished by empirical observation and experimentation. However, in spite of havinglost all of these characteristics, the wax is still the same piece of wax.Descartes asks what it was he comprehended when he looked at the wax beforeand finds it could not have been only the different elements perceived bythe senses because even without them, the wax remains. Descartes considered theissue of the location of the mind and found that the mind was separate fromthe body.
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