Descartes - Meditations on First Philosophy 1-3
From The Inferno
Descartes: Mediations 1-3
Contents |
[edit] Author’s Notes/Introduction
The handout at the lecture for this is GREAT!!! I don’t have the .doc file, but I’ll scan it and .pdf it for you guys who did go to the lecture or lost the lecture sheet. Also, Professor Nelson also made some handouts for Descartes which are also very good… maybe you should even read this and just get those .pdfs instead.
[edit] First Meditation – Doubt
- Senses cannot be trusted
- “From time to time I hae fond that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once” (12)
- ex: Madman’s perceptions of things cannot be trusted, maybe I am like them (13)
- but he dismisses this because he claims that he is not insane
- Dreams are not real, though we can’t tell while we’re dreaming
- What if I’m dreaming? If I’m dreaming, how do I know that this hand is actually my hand? (13)
- He then classifies things that may still be real in dreams (colors, etc.):
- Composite : simple ::
- Painted sirens : color ::
- Eyes, limbs : “simpler and more universal things” ::
- fake : real
- What if I’m dreaming? If I’m dreaming, how do I know that this hand is actually my hand? (13)
- There might be an evil demon god who deceives us instead of a good God
- “I am like a prisoner who is enjoying an imaginary freedom while asleep” (15)
[edit] Second Meditation – Cogito Ergo Sum
- Start with: “nothing is certain” (16)
- Asks the questions? Is there no God? Is there no me?
- Answers: “if I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed” (17)
- This is the cogito argument
- Next: What is I?
- What DID I think I was:
- A man, a rational animal, a body?
- “The next thought was that I was nourished, that I moved about, and that I engaged in sense-perception and thinking; and these actions I attributed to the soul” (17)
- But does a body, thought, nutrition/movement exist?
- He rejects the existence of a body, and therefore the existence of nutrition/movement (which relies on a body to be there) because of the possibility of an evil demon who tricks him (18)
- Accepts thought: inseparable from him
- “I am, I exist … for as long as I am thinking” (18)
- Can you doubt that you are thinking? In order for a thinking (action), there has to be a thinker (noun) to do the thinker. Thus, a thinker must exist.
- Thus, I am a thinking thing that “doubts, understands, affirms, denies … and also imagines and has sensory perceptions” (19)
- Object of imagination (my body) has not been proven to exist. However, the power of imagination (the act of imagining) does exist since I am imagining.
- Things that seem v. act of seeming
- What DID I think I was:
- Bodies and wax
- We give wax certain qualities: hard, smooth, grayish, etc.
- Put wax by fire and it melts
- The certain qualities from before are changed, now it’s: soft, mushy, hot, smells, etc.
- Thus, these qualities cannot belong to this wax, since without them the wax is still wax
- Thus, this wax is only something that is perceived in my mind. It is not something that has these qualities, and therefore it is not something that has extensions. Perception/thinking of the object is what persists, not extensions of the object. (by perception I don’t mean sensory perception, I mean the act of perceiving)
- Another example: if you see men in the street, you only see hats and coats. But it is the perception in your mind that tell you that those are men.
- This shows that his knowledge of external objects are also based on thinking. I guess by showing the wax is a wax because he thinks it’s a wax, he validates the fact that he is himself because he thinks so…? I’m a little confused about this actually…
- “If my perception of the wax seemed more distinct after it was established not just by sight or touch but by many other considerations [such as thought perception], it must be admitted that I now know myself even more distinctly” (12)
[edit] Third Meditation – The Existence of God
- God
- Can bring about anything, except for the belief that I am nothing or that 3 + 3 does not = 6
- Ideas: Descartes will now classify his ideas
- False (idea of things) v. True (face that he is imagining/desiring)
- Innate (he caused the idea) v. Adventitious (External object caused theidea) v. Inventions (like hobbits and hippogriffs)
- Formal v. Objective reality of ideas
- Ex: Fire contains heat which is hot; hotness is formally in heat; hotness is objectively in Fire
- Formal: its own intrinsic reality
- Objective: function of its representational content
- External Ideas (Adventitious) “do not depend on my will”
- If these External Ideas are not willed by me, then where do they come from?
- Sometimes external ideas conflict: ex: sun appears small but is very big
- Proof of an external cause (28)
- There must be as much reality in the cause of an idea as there is in the effect (the effect is me having that idea)
- Something cannot arise from nothing
- What is more perfect cannot arise from what is less perfect
- There has to be a primary cause of the ideas in me
- I am not that cause, since the “ideas in me are like images which can easily fall short of perfection of the things from which they are taken”
- Thus, I am not alone in the world. The cause of these ideas must also exist outside of me.
- Proof of God – Ontological
- Among my ideas, is the idea that represent God (the idea of God)
- God, my idea of God, is infinite, perfect; he is a being that created myself and the universe
- Perception of the infinite precedes perception of the finite because there is more reality in an infinite substance than there is in a finite substance
- Idea of God is a true idea, it is not just made up by me because idea of God is clear and distinct, “and contains in itself more objective reality than any other idea”
- Infinite being (me) cannot grasp the infinite (God)
- Thus, this infinite, perfect being must exist in order to inspire the idea of an infinite/perfect being in me, an finite/imperfect being
- Proof of God – via Cause/Cosmological
- From whom do I derive my existence?
- There are two powers that are conducive to life/existence
- Preservation: the force that needs me going
- Creation: the force that makes me
- Do I have powers to cause or preserve myself? Not that I know of.
- I must depend on some other being to preserve me.
- This other being must be God because…
- “What caused me is itself a thinking thing and possesses the idea of all the perfections which I attribute to God”
- If the thing that caused me is NOT God, then something caused it and when you reach the end of the chain of causes, you still get God
- Other thoughts
- I did not invent the idea of god, it was placed in me. Because I was “made in his image and likeness, and that I perceive that likeness”
- This contemplation of perfect (though imperfect) allows us to experience joy
In short, from the lecture notes
- I have an idea of God
- My idea of God must have a cause
- Only God could be the cause of my idea of God
- Hence, God must exist. (Causer => an existing one who cause)
[edit] My Thoughts
His arguments seem to begin to fall apart in the third meditation when he takes the jump from “I have an idea of Perfection” to “this must be caused by a Perfect being.” Why can this not be an invention instead of an external idea/adventitious idea? Descartes might say that hobbits and hippogriffs are still derived from things we see, like Peter Bull+shortness and eagles+lions. They are composites or different ideas. However, perfection is not divisible. It is not derived from anything besides perfection. Anyway, this is just one example of an objection. Basically, I think his arguments are very tight (I mean, who can deny that they are thinking?) until the third meditation, where little holes like this start poppin’ up.
