Descartes and Method

Descartes and Method

Through a careful and rigorous examination of Descartes’s scattered remarks on his method and its application in his scientific and mathematical works, Daniel E. Flage and Clarence A. Bonnen develop a systematic account of his method and its role in the Meditations. In the first part of Descartes and Method, Flage and Bonnen interpret the Cartesian search for essences as a search for both laws and conceptual elucidation. In the second half of the book each Meditation is examined in light of the interpretation of method. The interplay between the search for general principles and the clarification of ideas looms large in the discussions of Meditations Two and Three. The book explains how Descartes’s last three Meditations do nothing less than reveal the implications of God’s non-deceptiveness. We see that in the end Descartes, the great rationalist, specifies the scope and limits of empiricism. Unparalleled in any other work, Descartes and Method delineates the role of the method of analysis in the Meditations. Anyone wishing to gain a new understanding of Descartes’s Meditations should read this book. Daniel E. Flage is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at James Madison University. He is the author of Berkeley’s Doctrine of Notions, Understanding Logic, and David Hume’s Theory of Mind (Routledge). Clarence A. Bonnen taught philosophy at Penn State Erie until 1995. He is currently a computer programmer in Austin, Texas.

Routledge Studies in SeventeenthCentury Philosophy

1 The Soft Underbelly of Reason The passions in the seventeenth century Edited by Stephen Gaukroger 2 Descartes and Method A search for a method in Meditations Daniel E. Flage and Clarence A. Bonnen

Descartes and Method A search for a method in Meditations

Daniel E. Flage and Clarence A. Bonnen

London and New York

First published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001. © 1999 Daniel E. Flage and Clarence A. Bonnen All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Descartes and Method: a search for a method in Meditations/Daniel E. Flage and Clarence A. Bonnen p. 13.8 x 21.6 cm Includes bibliographical references and index 1. Descartes, René. 1596–1650. Meditationes de prima philosophia. I. Bonnen, Clarence A., 1958– II. Flage, Daniel E., 1951– B1854.F57 1999 194—dc21 98–45328 CIP ISBN 0-415-19250-1 (Print Edition) ISBN 0-203-02376-5 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-17475-5 (Glassbook Format)

To Phillip Cummins and in memory of Edmund Pincoffs

I do think that somewhere in the process of making something – whether you’re making a building, or you’re making a part, an actor’s part – that there’s something about submitting to the logic of the thing you’re building that’s consistent between the two. There’s something about understanding how it works before you set out to use it. There’s something about knowing that one brick goes on top of another and that there’s a purpose for the foundation – to spread the weight. . . . But basically I think it’s just about a method of work. Not expecting a result, but starting out knowing that it needs this for the bottom. Harrison Ford, 1996

Contents

List of figures Acknowledgements Abbreviations

Introduction

x xi xiii

1

Whither a Cartesian method 1 An outline for a search for a method in the Meditations 4 Method and metaphor 6

PART I

Descartes’s method

11

1

Analysis: the search for laws Analysis 13 Material and formal truth 23 Intuition and the natural light 27 Types of certainty 29 The rules in the Discourse 32 Analysis and the best explanation 43

13

2

Analysis: the clarification of ideas Are all innate ideas materially true? 45 Clarifying ideas and the four rules of the Discourse 56 Descartes's idea of light 58

45

3

Causation Caterus on the problem of God’s self-causation 73 Formal and efficient causes 75

72

viii Contents Arnauld on the problem of God's self-causation 77 Cartesian essences and explanations 85 Mind and body 91 The unity of the method 98

Appendix: the rainbow

100

PART II

Descartes’s Meditations on First Philosophy

109

4

Meditation One: doubts and suppositionss New foundations: the task of the Meditations 112 Epistemological doubts 114 The hypothetical doubts 120 Conclusions 128

111

5

Meditation Two: the beginning of the ascent A new foundation 129 The Cogito outside the Meditations 131 The first Cogito arguments in the Meditations 143 Res Cogitans and the second Cogito 146 The piece of wax 155 Conclusions and cautions 163

129

6

Meditation Three: reaching the peak, or variations on the existence and idea of God Clarity, distinctness, and a classification of thoughts 166 The first argument for the existence of God 175 The second argument for the existence of God 187 Odds and ends 191 Clarifying the idea of God 193 Conclusions 202

7

Meditation Four: truth and falsity: reflections from the summit God and error 204 Clear and distinct ideas are true 210

166

203

Contents ix 8

Meditation Five: the beginning of the descent True and immutable natures 215 An ontological interlude 221 Memory and divine non-deception 230

214

9

Meditation Six: the world restored Material objects as probable, and the real distinction between mind and body 237 The argument for the nature and actual existence of the corporeal world 242 What “nature” can teach about minds and bodies 244 Human error and divine non-deception, revisited 249 Conclusions 251

237

10

Circles

252

Notes Bibliography Index

258 293 300

Figures

1 2 3 4

Triangle The rainbow The prism Movement of particles

16 102 105 106

Acknowledgements

In working on this study, we have benefited greatly from discussions and comments from a large number of friends and colleagues. In particular, we would like to thank Jonathan Bennett, Willis Doney, Donald Cress, Phillip Cummins, Ronald Glass, Jeffrey Tlumak, the late William Williams, Gordon Fisher, Jeffrey Coombs, Madeleine Pepin, Véronique Foti, Michael Gass, Kenneth Winkler, Frederick O’Toole, Russell Wahl, Stephen Wagner, George Stengren, James Petrik, Patrick Murphy, Barbara Tovey, Charles Huenemann, Lisa Hall, Steven Voss, Eric Palmer, Kent Baldner, Joseph Campbell, Rocco Gennaro, Eric Sotnak, Susanna Goodin, Matthew Stuart, and Sam Levey for their helpful comments and encouragement in working on various parts of this work. We would also like to thank Susan Bonnen for helping us eliminate many of the misspellings, typos and other infelicities in the text. Research for this book was supported in the summer of 1992 by a Summer Research Grant from James Madison University (Flage) and a research grant from Penn State Erie (Bonnen), which allowed us to collaborate actively for several weeks that summer. In 1994, Flage received the Edna T. Shaeffer Humanist Award, presented by the College of Letters and Sciences of James Madison University, which supported further research for the book. In addition, Bonnen participated in Willis Doney’s 1991 NEH Summer Seminar, “The Philosophy of Descartes”, and we both participated in Jonathan Bennett’s 1995 NEH Summer Seminar, “Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz: Central Themes”. We appreciate each of these organizations for their support and encouragement. Some of the early research for Descartes and Method: a Search for Method in Meditations was presented in articles. We acknowledge the editor of History of Philosophy Quarterly for granting us permission to reprint revised

xii Acknowledgements versions of “Descartes’s Cogito” (Flage 1985) and “Descartes and the Epistemology of Innate Ideas” (Flage and Bonnen 1992a). We thank the editor of Modern Schoolman for permitting us to reprint revised versions of “Descartes’s Factitious Ideas of God” (Flage and Bonnen 1989) and “Descartes’s Three Hypothetical Doubts” (Flage 1993). The editor of The Review of Metaphysics receives our thanks for allowing us to reprint an expanded version of “Descartes on Causation” (Flage and Bonnen 1997). We thank John Cottingham and Cambridge University Press for permission to quote extensively from The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Finally, both of us are eternally grateful to wives and families for their encouragement, patience, and tolerance during the writing of this book. Clarence Bonnen would especially like to thank his parents, James and Sarah Bonnen, for all of those times that they expressed to him their sincere belief that he partakes in one of the most noble of human activities, philosophical contemplation and dialogue. Daniel E. Flage Harrisonburg, Virginia Clarence A. Bonnen Austin, Texas

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations will be used throughout the book. AT x: y CSM x: y CB §x Mx Ox P x: y POS §x

Oeuvres de Descartes, volume x: page y The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, volume x: page y The Conversation with Burman, section x Le Monde, ou Traité de la Lumière, page x The Discourse on Method, Optics, Geometry, and Meteorology, page x Principles of Philosophy, part x: section y Passions of the Soul, section x

Introduction

This is a book on René Descartes’s method in his most famous work, Meditations on First Philosophy. Although we briefly discuss his celebrated “method of doubt”, our attention centers on the method championed in the Discourse on Method. Of specific concern is the method of analysis to which Descartes alludes in the Second and Sixth Replies (AT 7: 155–7, 424– 5, 444–7; CSM 2: 110–12, 286–7, 299–301) and which he describes as the fifth way of reaching wisdom – the search for first causes – in the Preface to the French edition of the Principles (AT 9B: 5, CSM 1: 181). Once one understands that method, the argumentative structure of the Meditations should appear far clearer and much less eclectic than it would be otherwise. Whither a Cartesian method Some will greet our task with a healthy dose of skepticism, suggesting either that Descartes had no method (Schuster 1993) or that he abandoned his method in the late 1630s or early 1640s (Garber 1992: 46–8). If Descartes abandoned all commitments to method by the late 1630s, one has little reason to believe that considerations of method are germane to the interpretation of the Meditations of 1641. Others might suggest that even if he had a method, all knowledge of its nature followed him to his grave. Leibniz put it this way: There have been many beautiful discoveries since Descartes, but, as far as I know, not one of them has come from a true Cartesian. I know these people a little, and I defy them to name one such discovery from their ranks. This is evidence that either Descartes did not know the true method, or else that he did not leave it to them. (Letter to Molanus, ca. 1679, in Leibniz 1989: 240–1)

2 Introduction If Descartes had a method but did not successfully communicate it to his successors, then he is guilty of the same intellectual sin with which he charged the ancient geometers, namely, “these writers themselves, with a kind of pernicious cunning, later suppressed this mathematics [method] as, notoriously, many inventors are known to have done where their own discoveries were concerned” (AT 10: 336, CSM 1: 19; cf. AT 7: 157, CSM 2: 111). Certainly he did not go out of his way to teach his method to others. His remark in the Discourse, that “My present aim, then, is not to teach the method which everyone must follow in order to direct his reason correctly, but only to reveal how I have tried to direct my own” (AT 6: 4, CSM 1: 112; cf. Letter to Mersenne, 27 February 1637: AT 1: 349, CSM 3: 53) suggests that the method is to be revealed like the form of a Wittgensteinian world: it can be shown, but not described. Such an approach bodes ill for the commentator on the Cartesian method. Finally, some would find Descartes’s talk of the method of analysis misleading. In the Second Replies, he does not vaunt analysis as a method of discovery or justification; rather, he says it is “the best and truest method of instruction” (AT 7: 156, CSM 2: 111, our emphasis); it is a method of demonstration (AT 7: 155, CSM 2: 110). So some might conclude that the textual evidence we would bring to bear in our account of the nature of the Cartesian method of discovery and justification is not germane to the task. In reply, we stress that our approach will be conservative, perhaps even naive.1 The sole reason we contend that approaching the Meditations through an examination of the Cartesian method might prove fruitful is that Descartes says he applied his method to metaphysical topics in the Meditations. In the Dedicatory letter he writes: I was strongly pressed to undertake this task by several people who knew that I had developed a method for resolving certain difficulties in the sciences – not a new method (for nothing is older than the truth), but one which they had seen me use with some success in other areas; and I therefore thought it my duty to make some attempt to apply it to the matter at hand. (AT 7: 3, CSM 2: 4) Further, the suggestion that the “method of analysis” is merely a method of instruction or demonstration is misleading. As a method of demonstration, analysis mirrors the method of discovery. Descartes says:

Introduction 3 Analysis shows the true way by means of which the thing in question was discovered methodically and as it were a priori, so that if the reader is willing to follow it and give sufficient attention to all points, he will make the thing his own and understand it just as perfectly as if he had discovered it for himself. (AT 7: 155, CSM 7: 110) He also alludes to his “method of analysis” at several points in the Sixth Replies (AT 7: 424, 444–5, CSM 2: 286, 299–300). Furthermore, to suggest that he proposed a “method of analysis” places him within a definable historical tradition. Descartes himself suggests that his method has much in common with the method of the ancient geometers (AT 10: 376–7, 7: 4 and 156, CSM 1: 18–19, 2: 5 and 111). We also show that his remarks on method have strikingly close parallels in the methodological writings of the Italian school of Padua, which was a leader in the revival of classical studies and the development of a scientific method for over two centuries before the publication of Descartes’s Discourse (Randall 1968). Nor did concerns with the “method of analysis” die with Descartes. In The Art of Thinking, Arnauld draws the distinction between the method of analysis and the method of synthesis along the following lines: Generally speaking, method may be called the art of arranging well a sequence of thoughts either to discover a truth of which we are ignorant or to prove to others a truth we already know. We distinguish two kinds of method: The one for discovery of truth is called analysis or the method of resolution or the method of invention; the second, used to make others understand a truth, is called synthesis or the method of composition or the method of instruction. (Arnauld 1964: 302) Arnauld’s discussion of the method of analysis concludes with the four rules of method in Descartes’s Discourse (AT 6: 18–19, CSM 1: 120; Arnauld 1964: 308–9). Kant (1950: 11) tells us that his Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics follows the method of analysis, and he carefully distinguishes between analysis as a method and analyticity as a property of propositions (ibid.: 23n.). Indeed, as we show in Chapter One, there are conceptual affinities between the method of analysis and what C. S. Peirce called “abduction” (Peirce 1955; see also Hanson 1958: 85–92). But it is one thing to claim that

4 Introduction the expression “method of analysis” can reasonably be taken to mark a method of discovery; it is something else to provide an elucidation of that method. Descartes provided some account of his method of inquiry in at least three works: Rules for the Direction of the Mind (hereafter Regulae), the Discourse on the Method, and Second Replies. In none of these works does he provide a step-by-step account of his preferred procedures of inquiry. Further, since the Regulae were neither completed nor published in his lifetime, it is a matter of debate whether Descartes changed his method, whether there are substantial differences between methods before and after about 1629.2 We do not enter that debate; rather, we construct our account of the Cartesian method on the basis of the Discourse, the Essays, and other works published after 1637. While we do not ignore the Regulae, we use it only, first, to show that further evidence exists that Descartes was cognizant of a distinction or methodological move that his later works seem to support and second, in those cases where the Regulae provide a particularly clear statement of a doctrine that appears in the later works. To put it differently, we use the Regulae to find secondary evidence for our account of the method, but we draw primary evidence from Descartes’s later works. An outline for a search for a method in the Meditations In the first three chapters we examine the method as such. Even a cursory examination of Descartes’s works suggests that he employs an ostensible distinction between two objectives of methodological inquiry: first, to discover causes or principles or laws, and second, to discover essences. In the first chapter we focus on laws; in the second chapter we focus on essences. In both cases we attempt to show how the Cartesian method of analysis works: it is a search for principles that explain why a phenomenon, accepted as given, is as it is. In both chapters we show how Descartes’s abstract remarks on method suggest a procedure, and show how that procedure is employed in his nonmetaphysical works. In the third chapter we examine the Cartesian notion of a cause. We argue that the notion of a cause operative in Cartesian explanation is a formal cause. We show that this effectively collapses the distinction between a law and an essence and

Introduction 5 that it makes intelligible both his remarks on the mind–body relation and some of his remarks on method. The fourth through the ninth chapters examine the individual Meditations. In Chapter Four we argue, following Frankfurt (1970), that the Descartes of the First Meditation focused his attack on the presumed epistemic fundamentality of an empiricist principle. We also show that various assumptions give life to specifiable doubts. These assumptions become crucial at later points in the Meditations, and, in particular, the deceiver arguments raise the most specific doubts. In Chapter Five we argue that there are four versions of the Cogito argument and that there is an intimate relationship between Descartes’s proof of his existence and his clarification of the idea of himself. In Chapter Six we show that there are two themes in the Third Meditation. His primary objective is to show that God exists, and that his arguments presented to prove that point are, perhaps, the clearest applications of the analytic method in the Meditations. A secondary objective is to clarify the idea of God, a clarification which remains implicit throughout the discussion. In Chapter Seven we show that Descartes introduces his theory of judgment in the Fourth Meditation to explain the compatibility of a nondeceptive God with the fact of human error. In Chapter Eight we argue that his ontological argument is best construed as a means of confirming that his clear and distinct idea of God as a perfect being is true. We also argue that his concerns with memory in the closing paragraphs constitute an argument that the notion of a nondeceptive God is broader than the Fourth Meditation understanding: it must allow for certainty in mathematical proofs, even when one merely remembers that one had clearly and distinctly perceived a conclusion reached earlier in the proof. In Chapter Nine we argue that Descartes again widened the implications of the nondeceptiveGod hypothesis to justify the belief in the material world. Throughout chapters Seven through Nine, we also show that there are claims introduced as working hypotheses in the earlier Meditations that are only later confirmed. In Chapter Ten we examine the Cartesian Circle. While most Descartes scholars – beginning with his contemporaries (AT 7: 124–5, 214, CSM 2: 89, 150) – contend that at some point he assumes what he sets out to prove, there is anything but agreement on where the circularity arises. We show that, if our account of the method is correct, the Descartes of the Meditations avoids Arnauld’s charge (1964) of circularity. But this victory is shortlived. In proposing a way to reconcile his differences with Arnauld regard-

6 Introduction ing the second proof of the existence of God in Meditation Three (AT 2: 243, CSM 2:170), he effectively steps into Arnauld’s circle. Method and metaphor Before turning to the method of analysis as such, we examine two of Descartes’s famous metaphors: the house/foundations and the tree of philosophy. In the course of discussing these metaphors we elucidate some of the interpretive assumptions with which we approach the Cartesian texts. Descartes’s most famous metaphor compares his previous system of beliefs to a house with weak foundations. Like the owner of such a home, he will tear it down and build anew (see AT 6: 13, CSM 1: 117). Anyone with even a modicum of exposure to Descartes knows that it is his doubts that raze his house to the ground. But what does he do with his demolished house? In the Discourse he suggests that some of the materials will be recycled into his new house: And, just as in pulling down an old house we usually keep the remnants for use in building a new one, so in destroying all those opinions of mine that I judged ill-founded I made various observations and acquired many experiences which I have since used in establishing more certain opinions. (AT 6: 29, CSM 1: 125) If one takes the analogy at face value, it suggests that he incorporates certain elements of the old house into the new one. If one examines Part Four of the Discourse and the Meditations, one notices, at the least, prima facie resemblances between the old house and the new: both contain a God; both contain a human being composed of a body and a soul; and both grant a significant place to the empiricist principle. The old house and the new also differ in each of those ways: the new house contains a carefully analyzed concept of a God whose existence is proven; the analysis of body and soul (mind) in the new house differs from that in the old; and although Descartes gives the empiricist principle a significant place in his new house, it no longer provides the foundation for the house, and it no longer functions as the naive principle found early in the Meditations.

Introduction 7 Nor should one find it surprising that sensory experience, which is the fundamental object of attack early in the Meditations, is ascribed a significant place by the end of that work. In the Preface to the French edition of the Principles, Descartes places it fairly high in the levels of wisdom. Notice the levels of wisdom to which he alludes: The first level contains only notions which are so clear in themselves that they can be acquired without meditation. The second comprises everything we are acquainted with through sensory experience. The third comprises what we learn by conversing with other people. And one may add a fourth category, namely what is learned by reading books – not all books, but those which have been written by people who are capable of instructing us well; for in such cases we hold a kind of conversation with the authors. I think that all the wisdom which is generally possessed is acquired in these four ways. . . . Now in all ages there have been great men who have tried to find a fifth way of reaching wisdom – a way which is incomparably more elevated and more sure than the other four. This consists in the search for the first causes and the true principles which enable us to deduce the reasons for everything we are capable of knowing; and it is above all those who have laboured to this end who have been called philosophers. I am not sure, however, that there has been anyone up till now who has succeeded in this project. (AT 9B: 5, CSM 1: 181) As ordinarily understood, knowledge based on sense experience is the second highest form of knowledge. Thus, it is not surprising that Descartes should grant a significant status to the empiricist principle. But he remarks that there is a fifth way – the Cartesian method – which is superior to the other four in so far as it provides a method for discovering first principles. These first principles provide the ground for all knowledge. Given these first principles, one will be able to explain why each of the principles at the lower levels obtains and what its limits are. It is in this way that he can champion a modified empiricist principle at the end of the Meditations: the higher principles specify the limits of the empiricist principle’s applicability. Returning to the house metaphor, if the foundation is discovered through the method, the lower elements on the scale of wisdom are built upon it in the same way that the studs, joists, and rafters are built upon the foundation of a house.

8 Introduction Houses come in many styles, and houses of many styles can be built on any given foundation. So if one pushes the house metaphor further, one might inquire into the architectural style of the house Descartes builds. We suggest that his house be understood on the model of the half-timbered buildings that were common during the middle ages, what the Germans called a Fachwerkhaus. Whatever else might be said about the house of knowledge built on a Cartesian foundation, the method requires that the various elements which are discovered should be systematically integrated, and that one should clearly perceive how the various elements of the epistemic structure support one another. In this regard, there is no better model than the open timbers of a Fachwerkhaus. A visual examination of the facade of a half-timbered house allows one to see which timbers provide the structural support for the others. We argue that throughout the early Meditations, Descartes introduces assumptions that only later are given support. For example, in Meditation Two, he claims that he is “only a thing that thinks” (AT 7: 27, CSM 2: 18). As he acknowledges in the Preface to the Reader, the “only” is unwarranted at the point it is introduced, adding, “I shall, however, show how it follows from the fact that I am aware of nothing else belonging to my essence, that nothing else does in fact belong to it” (AT 7: 8, CSM 2: 7). The latter point is proven in the Sixth Meditation (AT 7: 78, CSM 2: 54), and we argue that this connection between Meditations Two and Six is one of many lateral supports (visible timbers) in Descartes’s house. If the house metaphor suggests that Descartes’s philosophy is systematic, that later elements are logically and conceptually dependent upon earlier elements, this point is driven home even more forcefully by the tree metaphor in the Preface to the French edition of the Principles. There Descartes writes: Thus the whole of philosophy is like a tree. The roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches emerging from the trunk are all the other sciences, which may be reduced to three principal ones, namely medicine, mechanics and morals. By “morals” I understand the highest and most perfect moral system, which presupposes a complete knowledge of the other sciences and is the ultimate level of wisdom. (AT 9B: 14, CSM 1: 186) While Descartes suggests that a system of moral principles is the final and most important fruit of his inquiry, moral knowledge is grounded in a physics

Introduction 9 – and ultimately a metaphysics – from which it is deduced. Like the foundation in the house metaphor, the health and strength of the tree is dependent upon the health and strength of its roots. The objective of the Meditations is to build a sturdy house, or to establish that the roots of his philosophical tree are strong and healthy. Regardless of which metaphor one follows, one point is clear: Descartes’s philosophy is properly systematic. It is hierarchical. The principles of metaphysics are at the top of the hierarchy (or, to use the tree metaphor, are the roots), and everything in his system rests upon those principles. The principles of metaphysics themselves are hierarchically related to one another. In the next three chapters we examine his method as a procedure utilized to find the most general principles of a discipline. If one takes the tree and house metaphors seriously, wherever one might begin in the system, one must ultimately relate one’s conclusions (deductively) to the principles of metaphysics, and the principles of metaphysics must be hierarchically arranged. Descartes’s philosophy may be understood on the model of a complete and unified science, in which the principles of biology are reduced to those of chemistry and the principles of chemistry are reduced to the principles of physics. The question remains, however, how did Descartes believe one should proceed in discovering the ultimate principles of the sciences and metaphysics? To answer that question we must turn to a consideration of his method.

Part I

Descartes’s method

1

Analysis The search for laws

At the end of the Second Objections to the Meditations, Mersenne invites Descartes to “set out the entire argument in geometrical fashion, starting from a number of definitions, postulates and axioms” (AT 7: 128, CSM 2: 92). While Descartes complies with Mersenne’s request (AT 7: 160–70, CSM 2: 113–20), he initially responds that the arguments of the Meditations are set forth in accordance with a geometrical method, namely, the method of analysis. We begin with a sketch of what we believe Descartes meant by “analysis”. Next we examine the Cartesian texts to show the plausibility of our reconstruction of Cartesian analysis. In this chapter we focus on analysis as the search for general laws or principles. In the next we examine conceptual analysis: the search for clear and distinct ideas, or, more properly, the method by which ideas are clarified.1 While we demonstrate the textual consistency of our reconstruction of Cartesian analysis, we shall deem it correct only to the extent that it clarifies the structure of the Meditations, since, as Descartes tells us, “it is analysis . . . alone which I employed in my Meditations” (AT 7: 156, CSM 2: 111). Analysis In the Second Replies, Descartes alludes to analysis as a method of demonstration. As a method of demonstration, analysis mirrors the method of discovery: “Analysis shows the true way by means of which the thing in question was discovered methodologically and as it were a priori” (AT 7: 155, CSM 2: 110). Given this mirroring, one should be able to delineate the steps operative in the method. Given its universality, the same method should be found in the physical sciences, mathematics, and metaphysics, although

14 Descartes’s method one might discover additional constraints appropriate to each of those fields. For example, the “method of doubt” is appropriate in metaphysical inquiries, since the primary notions in metaphysics are: as evident as, or even more evident than the primary notions which the geometers study; but they conflict with many preconceived opinions derived from the senses which we have got into the habit of holding from our earliest years, and so only those who really concentrate and meditate and withdraw their minds from corporeal things, so far as is possible, will achieve perfect knowledge of them. (AT 7: 157, CSM 2: 111) While the “method of doubt” is a necessary supplement to the method of analysis in metaphysical inquiries, it is not identical to the Cartesian method.2 What, then, is the nature of that method? We suggest that the method of analysis is a search for eternal truths (common notions, axioms), propositions which are recognized as true as soon as they are considered (P 1: 49). Eternal truths vary in degrees of generality. Descartes’s paradigms of eternal truths are: “It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at the same time; What is done cannot be undone; He who thinks cannot but exist while he thinks” (P 1: 49: AT 8A: 24, CSM 1: 209, Descartes’s emphasis) and “Nothing comes from nothing” (P 1: 75: AT 8A: 38, CSM 1: 221). Eternal truths constitute the essences of things (AT 1: 152, CSM 3: 25). Consequently, the generality (simplicity) of eternal truths varies with the generality of the object(s) under consideration (see AT 1: 149, CSM 3: 24). Insofar as analysis is the complement of synthesis and the latter is the deductive method found in works such as Euclid’s Elements and Spinoza’s Ethics (see AT 7: 156, 160–70; CSM 2: 110–11, 113–20), the method of analysis is the search for the most basic principles (axioms, eternal truths, common notions) in a certain domain. So geometrical analysis yields the most general principles in geometry; physical analysis yields the most general principles of physics; and metaphysical analysis yields the most general principle of metaphysics, namely, the existence of God (AT 1: 149, CSM 3: 24). Furthermore, as we show, the domains in which one seeks eternal truths stand in a hierarchical order: metaphysical truths are higher than mathematical truths which are higher than physical truths (see AT 9B: 14, CSM 1: 186). In general, the degree of fundamentality of a truth (or a domain of discourse) is inversely

Analysis: the search for laws 15 proportional to the corporeality of the domain. This is exemplified in the Geometry, where Descartes reduces the truths of geometry to those of arithmetic. But while this might tell us what Descartes sought, it does not specify a procedure for discovering those truths. Is there such a procedure? And if there is, can one elucidate it in terms of a commonly understood model? In what follows we suggest that his procedure was to propose a hypothesis which, if true, would explain the phenomenon in question. Confirmation of the hypothesis is a two-fold process. First, its truth must be recognized by the natural light (light of reason). Second, either it must be subsumed under a more general hypothesis known by the natural light, or it must unify the domain from which it is taken. As we argue below, the sense of “truth” operative in these two cases is not the same. We argue that the natural light recognizes material truth (cf. Wilson 1978: 107–9; Wolfson 1934 vol. 2: 98– 9); coherence is evidence of formal truth. Still, this fails to tell us how Descartes could claim to systematically construct hypotheses. To understand that, let us begin with his Geometry. In the Geometry Descartes gives us a hint regarding the procedure for solving any problem. He writes: Thus, if we wish to solve some problem, we should first of all consider it solved, and give names to all the lines – the unknown ones as well as the others – which seem necessary in order to construct it. Then, without considering any difference between the known and the unknown lines, we should go through the problem in the order which most naturally shows the mutual dependency between the lines, until we have found a means of expressing a single quantity in two ways. This will be called an equation, for the terms of the one of the two ways [of expressing the quantity] are equal to those of the other. And we must find as many such equations as we assume there to be unknown lines. Or else, if we cannot find many of them, and if nonetheless we have omitted nothing that is to be desired in the question, this indicates that it is not entirely determined; and in that case, we can take at random lines of known length, for all the unknown lines to which no equation corresponds. (AT 6: 372, O 179) Here the procedure is fairly straightforward. Assume you are given a triangle ABC (see Figure 1) and want to find the length of side BE of a similar triangle BDE (AT 6: 370; O 178). If the lines AC and DE are parallel, then:

16 Descartes’s method

Figure 1 Triangle BE BD —=— BC AB One cross multiplies: BE × AB = BC × BD and, assuming AB = 1 unit, one concludes that: BE = BC × BD This is a means of solving an equation for an unknown variable. Insofar as the lines of a geometric construct are treated in terms of numerical values, one reduces geometry to arithmetic, which was one of Descartes’s objectives in the Geometry (AT 6: 369–70, O 177).3 Insofar as the problem is arithmetic, the method is strictly deductive. But not all the problems which Descartes attempted to solve were arithmetic or reducible to arithmetic problems. Does this provide us with any general clues regarding the nature of the method? We believe it does. Solving arithmetic equations for a given variable is analogous to finding the missing premise in an enthymematic argument. Given one premise and the conclusion, one can formally and unambiguously determine what premise, if any, will yield a valid categorical syllogism. If Descartes used a deductive nomological model of explanation, the search for an explanatory principle (natural law) may be construed as the search for the missing premise of a valid enthymematic argument.4 Of course, formal validity provides no more than a necessary condition for the acceptability of the missing principle. One must also recognize the truth of the principle

Analysis: the search for laws 17 by the natural light. So, did Descartes, like the logical positivists of our own time (see Hempel 1965), construe explanation in terms of a deductive nomological model? Yes. Evidence for this can be drawn from his remarks on the methodology in the Optics and Meteorology. Descartes writes: Should anyone be shocked at first by some of the statements I make at the beginning of the Optics and the Meteorology because I call them “suppositions” and do not seem to care about proving them, let him have the patience to read the whole book attentively, and I trust that he will be satisfied. For I take my reasonings to be so closely interconnected that just as the last are proved by the first, which are their causes, so the first are proved by the last, which are their effects. It must not be supposed that I am here committing the fallacy that the logicians call ‘arguing in a circle’. For as experience makes most of these effects quite certain, the causes from which I deduce them serve not so much to prove them as to explain them; indeed, quite to the contrary, it is the causes which are proved by the effects. And I have called them “suppositions” simply to make it known that I think I can deduce them from the primary truths I have expounded above; but I have deliberately avoided carrying out these deductions in order to prevent certain ingenious persons from taking the opportunity to construct, on what they believe to be my principles, some extravagant philosophy for which I shall be blamed. (AT 6: 76–7, CSM 1: 150; see also AT 9B: 5, CSM 1: 181, P 4: 206) Notice the role of supposition or hypothesis formation.5 Descartes says that in the Optics and Meteorology he introduces various assumptions that are later proven insofar as they provide adequate causal explanations of the phenomena in question. His remark that there is a mutual proof of causes and effects – the assumption qua cause is proven insofar as it explains the phenomenon in question and the phenomenon is proven insofar as it follows deductively from the assumption qua cause – shows the role of coherence in his system. To the extent that the supposition explains and deductively implies the claim that a certain effect must occur, one is justified in accepting the (formal) truth of the cause qua supposition. Notice that the coherence Descartes has in mind is theoretical. Even if one recognizes a supposition as

18 Descartes’s method (materially) true by the natural light, it also must cohere with more general truths in a given system. As Descartes notes, “I have called them “suppositions” simply to make it known that I think I can deduce them from the primary truths I have expounded above.” Further, it is at least in part observable phenomena which are explained, since “experience makes most of these effects quite certain.” Placing this discussion of suppositions in the context of the levels of wisdom enumerated in the Preface to the French edition of the Principles (AT 9B: 5, CSM 1: 181) suggests a deductive (explanatory) relationship between the levels of wisdom exemplified in Descartes’s method. He notes that the four standard levels of wisdom consist of, first, “notions which are so clear in themselves that they can be acquired without meditation,” second, “everything we are acquainted with through sensory experience,” third, “what we learn by conversing with people,” and fourth, “what is learned by reading books . . . written by people who are capable of instructing us well” (AT 9B: 5, CSM 1: 181). There is a fifth way which “consists in the search for the first causes and the true principles which enable us to deduce the reasons for everything we are capable of knowing” (AT 9B: 5, CSM 1: 181, our emphasis). Descartes’s call for deductive explanations ultimately suggests that one will develop a complete and coherent explanation of the world by following his method. The double method of coherence to which Descartes alludes in the passage above was not original to him. At several points he suggests that his method was drawn from the Pappus and other ancient geometers (AT 10: 376, CSM 1: 18–19; AT 7: 4, CSM 2: 4). Pappus describes the method of analysis as follows: Now analysis is the way from what is sought – as if it were admitted – through its concomitants [the usual translation reads: consequences] in order to something admitted in synthesis. For in analysis we suppose that which is sought to be already done, and we inquire from what it results, and again what is the antecedent of the latter, until we on our backward way light upon something already known and being first in order. And we call such a method analysis, as being a solution backwards. In synthesis, on the other hand, we suppose that which was reached last in analysis to be already done, and arranging in their natural order as consequences the former antecedents and linking them one with another, we arrive at the construction of the thing sought. . . .

Analysis: the search for laws 19 In the theoretical kind we suppose the thing sought as being and as true, and then we pass through its concomitants [consequences] in order, as though they were true and existent by hypothesis, to something admitted; then, if that which is admitted be true, the thing sought is true, too, and the proof will be the reverse of the analysis. (Hintikka and Remes 1974: 8–9) The methodological similarity between this passage and the description of his method that Descartes proposed in the Geometry is striking. Analysis consists of two phases. The first or upward phase is a search for principles. Here one assumes what one wants to prove and seeks principles that will deductively explain it. The second or downward phase – the proof of the analysis – is a synthetic argument based on the principles discovered. Another analytic tradition can be traced back through the medievals to Aristotle. 6 In 1334, Urban the Averroist wrote the following in his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics: [D]emonstrations which proceed from causes . . . though they are always prior and more known quoad naturam, are often posterior and less known to us. This occurs in natural science, in which those things prior for us, such as effects, we investigate their causes, which are posterior and less known to us. And this is the way of the method of resolution. But after we have investigated the causes, we demonstrate the effects through those causes; and this is the way of the method of composition. Thus physical demonstrations follow after mathematical demonstrations in certainty, because they are the most certain after those in mathematics. (Quoted in Randall 1968: 232) There are several points to notice here. First, Urban draws a distinction between two orders in which things are known. On the one hand, there is the order of reality, in which general principles (natural laws) are prior to the phenomena they explain; on the other hand, there is the temporal order in which things become known to us. Descartes draws a similar distinction. In both the Regulae (AT 10: 418, CSM 1: 44) and the Fifth Replies (AT 7: 384, CSM 2: 263–4), he indicates that insofar as one is concerned with epistemic issues, we must distinguish between the order of epistemic priority (which follows the metaphysical order, the order of reality) and the order of consideration, that is, the order in which one actually considers things.7 As

20 Descartes’s method Urban notes, in the double process of proof, one considers various issues before one offers explanations of them. Thus, sensible knowledge might be prior in the order of consideration, but knowledge of the causes of those sensed phenomena are prior in the epistemic order. Just as the Descartes of Discourse, Part Six, stressed that one can claim knowledge of sensible appearance – which is prior in the order of consideration – only when subsuming it under (explaining it by) a causal principle which is epistemically prior to it (prior in reality), Urban stresses that one obtains knowledge only when what is epistemically prior supplies a coherent explanation of what is prior in the order of consideration. Nor was the “double method” to which Descartes alludes in the Discourse anticipated only by Urban the Averroist.8 Paul of Venice (1429) makes much the same point by quoting Averroes’ commentary on Aristotle’s Physics: Scientific knowledge of the cause depends on a knowledge of the effect, just as scientific knowledge of the effect depends on knowledge of the cause, since we know the cause through the effect before we know the effect through the cause. This is the principal rule of all investigation, that a scientific knowledge of natural effects demands a prior knowledge of their causes and principles. [This is not a circle, however.] In scientific procedure there are three kinds of knowledge. The first is of the effect without any reasoning, called quia, that it is. The second is of the cause through knowledge of the effect; it is likewise called quia. The third is of the effect through the cause; it is called propter quid. But the knowledge of why (propter quid) the effect is, is not the knowledge that (quia) it is an effect. Therefore the knowledge of the effect does not depend on itself, but upon something else. (Quoted in Randall 1968: 233) Notice that again one finds a distinction between kinds of knowledge. The first kind to which Paul of Venice alludes seems to be sensible knowledge: it is knowledge (or, at least, the presumption) that something is a certain way. Such knowledge is prior in the order of consideration to causal knowledge. The second kind is knowledge of a cause through its effect, which is little more than knowledge that a given effect must have a certain cause. One will also have this second kind of knowledge prior to the search for the cause itself: in the parlance we introduced above, it is prior in the order of consideration to knowledge of an effect by way of its cause, even though the cause is prior in the epistemic order. Descartes seems to follow Paul of

Analysis: the search for laws 21 Venice in acknowledging this distinction, since it presupposes the eternal truth that “Nothing comes from nothing” (AT 8A: 38, CSM 1: 221; P 1: 49), that is, it sets forth the need to inquire into the cause of a phenomenon.9 Of course, it is not until the third and final stage that one can claim scientific knowledge of the phenomenon, for one only then conceives of the phenomenon as the effect of a particular kind of cause. Both Paul of Venice and Descartes claim that the procedure avoids the charge of arguing in a circle. How can this be? Is one not simply assuming what one sets out to discover and arguing that, since what one has discovered will explain the phenomenon in question, one is justified in accepting it as true? No. In Descartes’s works we are concerned with two different issues, discovery and confirmation, and confirmation itself consists of two phases. This is how Descartes proceeds. Having isolated a phenomenon, one inquires into its cause. The “cause” for which one is looking is a principle or natural law that will explain the phenomenon. The phenomenon is prior in the order of consideration to the question of its cause, and the question, “What is the cause of phenomenon x?” is prior in the order of consideration to any candidate for an explanatory principle. The question “What is the cause of x?” identifies the cause only by description. In answering the question, Descartes distinguishes between two phases. In positing a causal principle (statement of natural law), one’s initial question is one of its material truth: is the posited principle recognized as true by the natural light? An affirmative answer initially confirms the law; it shows that the posited law is internally consistent: it could be an explanatory principle. In the second phase, one shows that positing the law explains the phenomenon in question. For example, if one questions why the water on the stove is boiling, one might make various observations: the water is heated to 212°F.; the atmospheric pressure is 29.92 inches of mercury. This might lead one to posit as an explanatory principle that all water at an atmospheric pressure of 29.92 inches of mercury that is heated to 212°F boils. This principle would be recognized as true by the natural light; that is, it would be recognized as materially true (internally consistent). If, in turn, it would explain why the water on the stove is boiling, there would be evidence of the formal truth of the causal principle. One is concerned with two issues in distinguishing between the two phases of the explanation. The natural light provides an initial and very limited confirmation of the causal principle: it shows the plausibility of the law by revealing the law as materially true. The deduction of the phenomenon to be explained from the law and the set

22 Descartes’s method of initial conditions shows that the law in question explains the phenomenon. This is evidence for the formal truth of the law. Further evidence of its formal truth is derived from subsuming the law in question under more general laws, the material truth of each being recognized by the natural light. But one could always construct alternative explanations, each of which is based on a principle that is recognized by the natural light. How does one choose among those explanations? Descartes accepted the principle of parsimony: given a choice between two explanations, he deemed the simpler explanation – the explanation appealing to fewer fundamentally different kinds of entities or a smaller number of laws – the most probably true. This is not a principle Descartes trumpets from the rooftops. Indeed, as he suggests in a letter to Regius of January 1642, it is at least politically prudent to leave existential questions open; all one need show is that the entities assumed by one’s opponents are not necessary to explain the phenomenon at hand (AT 3: 491–2, CSM 3: 205).10 In the same letter he points to his own strategy in the Meteorology. He counsels Regius: [W]hy did you need to reject openly substantial forms and real qualities? Do you not remember that on page 164 of my Meteorology, I found them unnecessary in setting out my explanations? If you had taken this course, everybody in your audience would have rejected them as soon as they saw they were useless, and in the mean time you would not have become so unpopular with your colleagues. (AT 3: 491–2, CSM 3: 205) In the passage to which he alludes, Descartes explains observable changes in the material world on the hypothesis that observable objects are composed of minute parts, and that macroscopic changes are the result of changes in the configuration and movement of the particles of which they are composed. He does not deny the existence of the Scholastics’ “‘substantial forms’, their ‘real qualities’, and so on. It simply seems to me that my arguments will be all the more acceptable insofar as I can make them depend on fewer things” (AT 6: 239, CSM 2: 187n.2, O 268). Nor is this the only place Descartes appeals to the principle of parsimony. In the First Discourse of the Optics, and to a lesser extent in the Fourth Discourse, he suggests that there is no reason to posit the intentional forms of the Scholastics insofar as his theory will explain vision without such a postulation. Indeed, he remarks, “By this means, your mind will be delivered from all those little images flitting through the air, called ‘intentional forms’,

Analysis: the search for laws 23 which so exercise the imagination of the philosophers.” (AT 6: 85, CSM 1: 153–4; cf. AT 6: 112, CSM 1: 165). Thus, it seems clear that Descartes at least implicitly appeals to parsimony as a basis for deciding between two theories. To summarize, we believe that the Cartesian method is a type of argument to the best explanation.11 Descartes begins by seeking an explanation for a certain phenomenon. He proposes a hypothesis, a general principle which, if true, would provide the lawful basis for explaining the phenomenon in question. This is subject to a two-phase process of confirmation. First, the natural light must recognize it as materially true. Second, it must provide the basis for a deductive–nomological explanation of the phenomenon in question. This provides evidence that the hypothesis is formally true, and the degree of evidence is increased if the hypothesis itself can be subsumed under a higher level law (hypothesis). In addition to this, he implicitly appeals to the principle of parsimony as the basis for choosing between two hypotheses which are equally plausible on the basis of the previous criteria. Simplicity is the ground for deciding which theory is “best”. In our account of Cartesian analysis as a search for natural laws, we introduced a distinction between material and formal truth, and we assigned a central role to the light of nature. Before showing the consistency of our account of the method with the four methodological rules Descartes sets forth in the Discourse, we must digress and elucidate the distinction between material and formal truth, the role of the natural light (intuition) in his method, and the kinds of certainty found in his philosophy. These are our topics for the next three sections. Material and formal truth In the Third Meditation Descartes introduces the notion of an idea, distinguishes an idea simpliciter from other forms of thought, and draws a distinction between formal falsehood and material falsehood. Formal falsehood is a property of judgments, rather than of ideas simpliciter (AT 7: 37, 43; CSM 2: 26, 30; see also AT 7: 233, CSM 2: 163). Judgment is the proper domain of error, “[a]nd the chief and most common mistake which is to be found here consists in my judging that ideas which are in me resemble, or conform to, things located outside me” (AT 7: 37, CSM 2: 26). Judgments are complex mental acts insofar as they require an affirmation or denial by the will with respect to an idea (see AT 7: 56, CSM 2: 39). While ideas provide the subject matter for judgments, ideas as such are not formally true or false.

24 Descartes’s method Descartes contends that if one is to avoid error – formal falsity – “the perception of the intellect should always precede the determination of the will” (AT 7: 60, CSM 2: 41). If any sense of truth or falsehood applies to ideas as such, then it is material truth and falsity.12 When he introduces the notion of material falsity in Meditation Three, Descartes indicates that the notion applies strictly to ideas having a low degree of clarity and distinctness, ideas that “represent non–things as things” (AT 7: 43, CSM 2: 30; see also AT 7: 233, CSM 1: 163). Ideas of heat or cold, for example, are so obscure and confused, that “they do not enable me to tell whether cold is merely the absence of heat or vice versa, or whether both of them are real qualities, or neither is” (AT 7: 44, CSM 2: 30). Because ideas present themselves as if they represent things, materially false ideas provide the subject matter for false judgments (AT 7: 231, CSM 2: 162). His more extended discussion of material falsity in the Fourth Replies repeats the same theme: material falsity is a function of an idea’s obscurity. Focusing on the idea of cold, he says, “[M]y only reason for calling the idea [of cold] ‘materially false’ is that, owing to the fact that it is obscure and confused, I am unable to judge whether or not what it represents to me is something positive which exists outside my sensation” (AT 7: 234, CSM 2: 164; cf. AT 7: 233, CSM 2: 163). Material falsity is a function of the obscurity of an idea of sensation, the idea itself being “something positive as its underlying subject” (AT 7: 234, CSM 2: 164; see also AT 7: 234–5, CSM 2: 164). “The greatest scope for error is provided by the ideas which arise from the sensations of appetite,” which explains, for example, why a dropsical person may seek to satisfy a craving for water, but does so at serious risk of injury (AT 7: 234, CSM 2: 163–4). A materially false idea is so obscure that one does not know of what it is an idea, that is, one does not know the essence of the thing putatively represented. Since “according to the laws of true logic, we must never ask about the existence of anything unless we first understand its essence” (AT 7: 107–8, CSM 2: 78), the fact that an idea is materially false (obscure and confused), increases the probability of error in any judgment based upon that idea. If an idea is materially false (obscure and confused), one cannot determine its degree of objective reality, and, consequently, one cannot apply Descartes’s maxim that an idea’s degree of objective reality must be the result of “some cause which contains at least as much formal reality as there is objective reality in the idea” (AT 7: 41, CSM 2: 28–9). Hence, a materially false idea can provide no solid ground for judging the nonideational nature of the cause of one’s idea.13

Analysis: the search for laws 25 Given Descartes’s contention that obscure and confused ideas are materially false, we may extrapolate a notion of material truth. Clear and distinct ideas are materially true: they provide the basis for formally true judgments.14 While even Descartes’s most extensive discussion of clear and distinct ideas (P 1: 45) tells one less than one would like regarding their nature, at least it shows that a clear and distinct idea includes a sufficient number of the constituent properties of a thing of a kind to allow one to distinguish it from all other kinds. Given this level of clarity, one can inquire into the cause of one’s idea. At this point one may move from the realm of ideas to that of formal reality, that is, to the reality of material objects and God (see AT 7: 37, CSM 2: 26). But even if clear and distinct ideas are materially true, this does not guarantee that all clear and distinct ideas provide the basis for formally true judgments, that is, judgments regarding the actual existence of objects. In the Fifth Meditation, Descartes indicates that he finds within himself: countless ideas of things which even though they may not exist anywhere outside me still cannot be called nothing; for although in a sense they can be thought of at will, they are not my invention but have their own true and immutable natures. (AT 7: 64, CSM 2: 44) His example is an idea of a triangle, which: even if perhaps no such figure exists, or has ever existed, anywhere outside my thought, there is still a determinate nature, or essence, or form of the triangle which is immutable and eternal, and not invented by me or dependent on my mind. (AT 7: 64, CSM 2: 45) One’s idea of a triangle is innate (AT 7: 382, CSM 2: 262). One’s idea of a triangle cannot be called nothing, for one can demonstrate that a triangle has various properties (AT 7: 64–5, CSM 2: 45). To put this differently, an object possibly exists that corresponds to the idea (AT 7: 71, CSM 2: 50). But possible correspondence is one thing; actual correspondence is something else. Descartes raises the possibility that no triangles are actual, even though the idea of a triangle is (materially) true.15 This implies that all eternal truths about triangles have no existential import: no judgments of formal truth (existence) follow immediately from them.

26 Descartes’s method The conclusions we have reached regarding one’s clear and distinct ideas of triangles seem applicable to all eternal truths except the claim that God exists. At Principles 1: 13, Descartes places eternal truths or common notions in the same class of ideas as those of numbers or triangles.16 After noting that one avoids error so long as one makes no affirmations or denials regarding the ideas one finds within oneself, he writes: Next, it [the mind] finds certain common notions from which it constructs various proofs; and, for as long as it attends to them, it is completely convinced of their truth. For example, the mind has within itself ideas of numbers and shapes, and it also has such common notions as: If you add equals to equals the results will be equal; from these it is easy to demonstrate that the three angles of a triangle equal two right angles, and so on. (P 1: 13: AT 8A: 9, CSM 1: 197; see also P 1: 49, CB §52) Descartes indicates that mathematical truths and other eternal truths, such as, “He who thinks cannot but exist while he thinks,” are free from existential import (see P 1: 10, 49). Hence, they cannot be formally true. Consequently if, as the texts suggest, the distinction between formal and material truth is exhaustive, eternal truths can be only materially true, and, with the exception of the claim of divine existence, entail no formal truths. If we are correct in this, then among the eternal truths are some that assert the necessary and sufficient conditions for claims of real (formal) existence, but which, apart from any factual truths, will not warrant judgments of real (formal) existence.17 Thus, an eternal truth in conjunction with a factual claim, and only in conjunction with a factual claim, can provide the basis for justifying a claim of real existence. If our reconstruction of analysis in the first section of this chapter is correct, eternal truths are the general principles that are discovered in analysis. But one will generally claim that it is one thing to “discover” a principle that will allow one to deduce a factual claim; it is something else to know that the principle discovered is true. Further, we have already seen that Descartes holds that the deducibility of a claim from a general principle is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for asserting the truth of the claim deduced. But if independently-known, eternal truths serve as the deductive anchor in the justification of factual claims, then how does one know these eternal truths? He answers this question in terms of intuition and the natural light.

Analysis: the search for laws 27 Intuition and the natural light Throughout his works, Descartes alludes to principles known by the “natural light” or the “light of nature” or the “light of reason.” In the Principles of Philosophy, he identifies the “light of nature” with the “faculty of knowledge which God gave us” (AT 8A: 18, CSM 1: 203; P 1: 30). In the Synopsis of the Meditations, he claims that “speculative truths . . . are known solely by means of the natural light” (AT 7: 15, CSM 2: 11). In the Third Meditation he notes:

Whatever is revealed to me by the natural light . . . cannot in any way be open to doubt. This is because there cannot be another faculty both as trustworthy as the natural light and also capable of showing me that such things are not true. (AT 7: 38–9, CSM 2: 27) In Meditation Four he identifies the natural light with the “power of understanding . . . which God gave me” (AT 7: 60, CSM 2: 42). Indeed, the explanatory subtitle of The Search for Truth by Means of the Natural Light asserts, “This light alone, without any help from religion or philosophy, determines what opinions a good man should hold on any matter that may occupy his thoughts, and penetrates into the secrets of the most recondite sciences” (AT 10: 495, CSM 2: 400, Descartes’s emphasis). The light of nature is the power or the faculty by which one discerns eternal truths. It is what the Descartes of the Regulae (AT 10: 366–70, CSM 1: 13–15) called “intuition,” a term he used almost exclusively in that work.18 In this section we examine the Regulae to show that intuition provides knowledge of eternal maths, that is, knowledge of material truths; that deductively valid movements are recognized as such by intuition; and that knowledge of formal truths requires a combination of intuition and deduction.19 Descartes’s discussions of intuition and deduction begin in the Third Rule and continue intermittently through the Twelfth. Claiming that there are only two sources of “knowledge of things with no fear of being mistaken,” namely intuition and deduction (AT 10: 368, CSM 1: 14), he defines ‘intuition’ as follows: By ‘intuition’ I do not mean the fluctuating testimony of the senses or the deceptive judgement of the imagination as it botches things

28 Descartes’s method together, but the conception of a clear and attentive mind, which is so easy and distinct that there can be no room for doubt about what we are understanding. Alternatively, and this comes to the same thing, intuition is the indubitable conception of a clear and attentive mind which proceeds solely from the light of reason. (AT 10: 368, CSM 1: 14) We have already noticed that Descartes identifies the “natural light” with the faculty that discerns truth. Intuition, then, initially seems nothing more than the ability to recognize truth by the light of reason. The passage tells us a bit more, however, for it requires that the mind be “clear and attentive.” The call for clarity implies that the mind be free of preanalytic biases, e.g. that one reject the assumption that all knowledge is derived from sense perception.20 Further, one must “attend” to what is discovered, e.g. to the extent possible, one should ignore the bombardment of sensuous information.21 But intuition is not only the recognition of truth; it is also the recognition of deductive validity. As Descartes continues: The self-evidence and certainty of intuition is required not only for apprehending single propositions, but also for any train of reasoning whatever. Take for example, the inference that 2 plus 2 equals 3 plus 1: not only must we intuitively perceive that 2 plus 2 make 4, and that 3 plus 1 make 4, but also that the original proposition follows necessarily from the other two. (AT 10: 369, CSM 1: 14–15) In deducing “that 2 plus 2 equals 3 plus 1,” intuition plays two roles. By intuition one recognizes the serf-evidence of the premises from which the deduction proceeds, and one recognizes the necessary connections among a very limited number of premises and a conclusion. As Descartes goes on to indicate, deduction, “the inference of something necessarily following from some other propositions which are known with certainty” (AT 10: 369, CSM 1: 15), differs from intuition insofar as it involves a “continuous and uninterrupted movement of thought” (AT 10: 369, CSM 1: 15), while no such movement is found in intuition. Deductive arguments often proceed from several premises and require that one draw subconclusions before reaching one’s final conclusion. Such arguments lack the immediate self-evidence of intuition insofar as they require that one remember the premises and

Analysis: the search for laws 29 subconclusions, that is, “deduction in a sense gets its certainty from memory” (AT 10: 370, CSM 1: 15). Nonetheless, each step of a deductive argument involves an intuitive move, and consequently Descartes claims that: those propositions which are immediately inferred from first principles can be said to be known in one respect through intuition, and in another respect through deduction. But the first principles themselves are known only through intuition, and the remote conclusions only through deduction. (AT 10: 370, CSM 1: 15). Notice that Descartes claims that first principles are known through intuition. As he indicated in the Introduction to the French edition of the Principles, such first principles have two characteristics: First, they must be so clear and so evident that the human mind cannot doubt their truth when it attentively concentrates on them; and, secondly, the knowledge of other things must depend on them, in the sense that the principles must be capable of being known without knowledge of these other matters, but not vice versa. (AT 9B: 2, CSM 1: 179–80; see also AT 10: 401–2, CSM 1: 33–4) What counts as a “first principle” might vary with the subject matter of one’s inquiry. But it is clear that these “first principles” are what Descartes alternatively calls “simple propositions” (AT 10: 428–9, CSM 1: 50), “simple natures which the intellect recognizes by means of a sort of innate light” (AT 10: 419, CSM 1: 44; see also AT 7: 65, CSM 2: 44–5), “common notions” (AT 10: 419–20, CSM 1: 45; see also CB §1: AT 5: 146, CSM 3: 332–3), or “eternal truths” (P 1: 48–50, CB §52: AT 5: 167). These “first principles” are necessarily true and, when attentively considered, are recognized as such by the natural light. It is these first principles that provide the basis for deductions which establish the certainty of less primary claims. Types of certainty While Descartes claims that there is but one method for discovering truth, and while he claims that certainty rests on either immediate intuitions of

30 Descartes’s method eternal truths or deductions from eternal truths that are so known, one should not take this to imply that all certainty is monolithic. We have already noticed that he denied existential import to etemal truths. Hence, if all one’s deductions take only eternal truths as their premises, there is no basis for existential judgments. We show in Chapter Five that he did not limit intuitive certainty to knowledge of first truths – he also allowed that one has immediate knowledge of one’s own psychological states – but even this seems to place very severe limits on knowledge. Since Descartes was a noted physicist, as well as a philosopher and mathematician, and since existential judgments in physics cannot reasonably be deemed necessary truths, what epistemic status does he ascribe to such truths? To put it differently, does he distinguish the certainty germane to physics and ordinary factual claims from that germane to metaphysics and mathematics? Yes. Descartes distinguishes between “absolute” or “metaphysical certainty,” certainty based solely on necessary truths, and “moral certainty.” In the French edition of the Principles, he writes, “Absolute certainty arises when we believe that it is wholly impossible that something should be otherwise than we judge it to be” (P 4: 206: AT 9B: 324, CSM 1: 290). Moral certainty is anything that falls short of absolute certainty. To illustrate the notion of moral certainty, Descartes considers a case of decoding a message. He writes: Suppose for example that someone wants to read a letter written in Latin but encoded so that the letters of the alphabet do not have their proper value, and he guesses that the letter B should be read whenever A appears, and C when B appears, i.e. that each letter should be replaced by the one immediately following it. If, by using this key, he can make up Latin words from the letters, he will be in no doubt that the true meaning of the letter is contained in these words. It is true that his knowledge is based merely on a conjecture, and it is conceivable that the writer did not replace the original letters with their immediate successors in the alphabet, but with others, thus encoding quite a different message; but this possibility is so unlikely that it does not seem credible. (P 4: 205: AT 9B: 327–8, CSM 1: 290; see also Regulae, AT 10: 404–5, CSM 1: 35–6) In proposing a hypothesis that will provide an intelligible rendering of the message, one has good reason to believe the accuracy of one’s guess at the

Analysis: the search for laws 31 key to the code. Nonetheless, one’s evidence is not conclusive: more than one key to the code may exist, and if so, one might not possess the key used by the letter’s author. One can only claim moral certainty for one’s decoding. A claim possesses only moral certainty if it is either a contingent truth or deduced from premises some of which are contingent truths. In contrasting contingent truths with eternal truths, Descartes told Burman, “As for contingent truths, these relate to existing things. Contingent truths involve existing things, and vice versa” (CB §52, AT 5: 167). This suggests that all existential judgments, other than the judgment that God exists (cf. P 1: 14), are contingent truths, and consequently, are only morally certain. But while this is generally correct, there are exceptions. For example, Descartes notes: Again, there are many instances of things which are necessarily conjoined, even though most people count them as contingent, failing to notice the relation between them: for example the proposition, “I am, therefore God exists”, or “I understand, therefore I have a mind distinct from my body”. (AT 10: 421–2, CSM 1: 46) The difference here is that certain truths that are taken to be contingent are, Descartes maintains, actually necessary: these truths rest solely on deductions from self-evident premises. Hence, he claims, the truths are necessary; their certainty is absolute or metaphysical. Descartes maintains that the physics of the Principles possesses at least moral certainty (P 4: 205), though wanting to make a stronger claim for it (P 4: 206). He writes: Now if people look at all the many properties relating to magnetism, fire and the fabric of the entire world, which I have deduced in this book from just a few principles, then, even if they think that my assumption of these principles was arbitrary and groundless, they will still perhaps acknowledge that it would hardly have been possible for so many items to fit into a coherent pattern if the original principles had been false. (P 4: 205: AT 8A: 328, CSM 1: 290) Descartes takes the fact that descriptions of various phenomena are deducible from the assumed principles as evidence of the (formal) truth of the principles. This complies with our earlier suggestion that the Cartesian

32 Descartes’s method method is an attempt to discover the best explanation, and that the deducibility of an explanation from a set of principles is a necessary condition for claiming that those principles are formally true. Yet if his deductions included factual assertions known on the basis of experience, rather than strictly by the natural light, he may claim no more than a high degree of moral certainty for his physics. Similarly, insofar as the Meditations include a combination of principles known by the natural light and factual premises, in many cases he may claim no more than a high degree of moral certainty that his conclusions are metaphysically certain.22 The rules in the Discourse To this point we have sketched what we believe Descartes meant by “analysis,” we have argued that he drew a distinction between material and formal truth and that material truth pertains to ideas and eternal truths, and we have examined his distinction between moral and metaphysical certainty. We turn now to the four methodological rules which he enumerates in the Discourse and show how they are consistent with the account of analysis we have developed. The four rules of the Discourse on Method are notoriously ambiguous, and seem to be compatible with any number of methods of inquiry. If our preliminary account of the Cartesian method is correct, however, the rules take on a distinct and determinate character. The first rule of the Discourse is: The first was never to accept anything as true if I did not have evident knowledge of its truth: that is, carefully to avoid precipitate conclusions and preconceptions, and to include nothing more in my judgments than what presented itself to my mind so clearly and so distinctly that I had no occasion to doubt it. (AT 6: 18, CSM 1: 120) This rule might be taken to be operative in the “methodological doubts” of the First Meditation, where Descartes shows that he did not have “evident knowledge” of most of those things he had previously believed. Yet insofar as this is a general rule of the method, one cannot take it to be a call to systematic doubt, since the doubts that are so pronounced in the Meditations are wholly absent in the scientific works. The rule does little more than specify the need for caution in seeking knowledge and the call for certainty

Analysis: the search for laws 33 in reaching a conclusion. Nonetheless, given the distinctions we have examined, a bit more meat can be placed on the bones of this rule. If one construes “evident knowledge” as knowledge by means of the natural light (intuition), then it is a call for material truth and metaphysical certainty. If so, then it has limited applicability to any of Descartes’s scientific works, since the conclusions of Cartesian science may reach only a high degree of moral certainty. Nonetheless, this limitation points to an important aspect of any Cartesian inquiry. While the ultimate conclusions of Cartesian physics might have only moral certainty, they must be based on principles known by the natural light, that is, they must be based on principles that are metaphysically certain. Principles known by the natural light are materially true: they show that the entity under consideration is at least possible (something God could create; cf. AT 7: 78, CSM 2: 54) or that the principle is capable of being formally true in any possible world. In this respect, principles known by the natural light are evident; they provide the epistemic basis for any subsequent explanation. Taken in this way, the first rule requires that one search for eternal truths in any given area of inquiry as the initial basis for sound judgment. While the first rule focuses on the material truth and the metaphysical certainty relevant to eternal truths, it tells us little about the procedure one should follow in solving a problem. The second rule, however, is procedural. Descartes writes: The second, to divide each of the difficulties I examined into as many parts as possible and as may be required in order to resolve them better. (AT 6: 18, CSM 1: 120) There are several elements to this rule, and some of the considerations raised here will be germane to the third rule as well. We begin with an examination of the “difficulty.” Then, we look at the reasons why Descartes claims these difficulties must be divided into parts. In Rule Thirteen of the Regulae, Descartes indicates that the first step in solving a problem is to delineate the problem clearly. He lists three elements to this: First, in every problem there must be something unknown; otherwise there would be no point in posing the problem. Secondly, this unknown something must be delineated in some way, otherwise there would be nothing to point us to one line of investigation as opposed to any

34 Descartes’s method other. Thirdly, this unknown something can be delineated only by way of something else which is already known. (AT 10: 430, CSM 1: 52–3) If one is to solve a problem, one must first know the nature of that problem. If one wanders into one’s kitchen and notices that the refrigerator door is open and milk and groceries are spilled on the floor, one does not have a problem. One has a problem or difficulty to be solved only once one delineates a certain question and decides to make a judgment about that state of affairs (AT 10: 432, CSM 1: 53). Under the circumstances, one would most probably attempt to discover why the kitchen is in a state of disarray, that is, one would seek a cause from an effect. Descartes lists five distinct ways in which one can delineate a problem: “Now, we are seeking to derive things from words, or causes from effects, or effects from causes, or a whole from parts or parts from other parts, or several of these at once” (AT 10: 433, CSM 1: 53). These modes of delineation help focus one’s thought and investigation on an object, although nothing is known of the object other than its relation to a certain state of affairs.23 Since Descartes held that “simple natures are all self-evident and never contain any falsity” (AT 10: 420, CSM 1: 45), the division of a problem is a search for the simple nature(s) that will explain why the state of affairs is as it is. All problematic states of affairs are complex, and the division of such a state of affairs into its “parts” provides the basis for answering the question about any particular phenomenon, “What is the best way to subsume the phenomenon under first principles?” If one looks at the scientific works, one quickly discovers how Descartes divides a problem into its component parts. Consider the Optics. Descartes’s concern there is with “determin[ing] the shape that these [telescopic] lenses must have” (AT 6: 92; O 66). To make the discussion intelligible even to the “craftsmen, who usually have little formal education” (AT 6: 82, CSM 1: 152), Descartes tries “not to omit anything, or to assume anything that requires knowledge of other sciences.” He continues: This is why I shall begin by explaining light and light-rays; then, having briefly described the parts of the eye, I shall give a detailed account of how vision comes about; and, after noting all the things which are capable of making vision more perfect, I shall show how they can be aided by the inventions which I shall describe. (AT 6: 83, CSM 1: 152)

Analysis: the search for laws 35 The division of the problem in the Optics, and the relationships among those divisions, can be understood by briefly considering the topics Descartes addresses in the several sections of that work. In the “First Discourse: Of Light,” he introduces a particle theory of light on the basis of three analogical models: a blind man’s stick, wine in a vat with holes in the bottom, and a ball being thrown into objects of varying consistencies. These models suggest that light travels in straight lines except when propelled through a medium. When propelled toward a medium of one sort or another, the direction of the light ray (the direction of a ball) is reflected, if the medium hit is firm, in a direction that depends upon the arc of the medium, or is refracted from its original course in passing through the medium. In the “Second Discourse: Of Refraction,” Descartes expands on the ball model and discusses the mathematics of refraction.24 In the “Third Discourse: Of the Eye,” he gives a detailed description of the parts of the eye. In the “Fourth Discourse: Of the Senses in General,” he expands his anatomical discussion to include the nerves and the brain, explaining how the nerves can transmit images, even though no actual image as such is transmitted. In the “Fifth Discourse: Of the Images That Form on the Back of the Eye,” Descartes ties together the issues discussed in the first three discourses. By dissecting an eye, noticing the formation of an image on the back of the eye, and noticing how the variations in the shape of the eye tend to change the sharpness of the image’s focus, Descartes can explain why the optics of the eye is as it is on the basis of his considerations of refraction and the parts of the eye. In the “Sixth Discourse: Of Vision,” he explains color vision on the basis of movements in the optic nerve (AT 6: 134, CSM 1: 169), perception of position on the basis of the location in the brain where the nerves originate (AT 6: 134–5, CSM 1: 169), distance in terms both of natural geometrical calculations and in terms of the distinctness of an image and its parts (AT 6: 138–40, CSM 1: 172), the seeing of size and shape (AT 6: 140–1, CSM 1: 172), and an explanation of dreams (AT 6: 141–3, CSM 1: 172–3).25 The plausibility of these explanations rests on the discussion of the role of the nerves and the brain in sense experience that he developed in the fourth discourse. The “Seventh Discourse: Of the Means of Perfecting Vision” is an examination of the use of lenses in correcting vision. Descartes’s case is based on the theories of light and refraction he developed in the first two discourses. The “Eighth Discourse: Of the Shapes That Transparent Bodies Must have in Order to Divert Rays Through Refraction in Every Way That

36 Descartes’s method is Useful to Sight,” is a mathematical description of the means of determining what shapes a lens must have to reach the desired refractive effect. All of this is a preliminary to the explanation of the working of the telescope in Discourse Nine. Discourse Ten is a practical account of how the appropriate lenses are to be constructed, which constructions would allow one to find greater empirical evidence for the claims Descartes made throughout the earlier discussions. One finds much the same kind of arrangement in the Meteorology. Descartes begins with a particulate hypothesis regarding the nature of the physical world (AT 6: 232–9; O 263–8), that is, he assumes “that water, earth, air, and all other such bodies that surround us are composed of many small particles of various shapes and sizes” (AT 6: 233; O 264), and a consideration of the arrangement of the particles of various sizes in the atmosphere (AT 6: 239–48; O 269–74).26 He then explains the various atmospheric phenomena on the basis of his hypotheses and the various conclusions he had reached in the Optics. His discussions are devoted to winds (Discourse Four), clouds (Discourse Five), snow, rain, and hail (Discourse Six), storms and lightning (Discourse Seven), the rainbow (Discourse Eight), colors in the clouds and coronas (Discourse Nine), and the appearance of many suns (Discourse Ten). As in the Optics, he introduces hypotheses at the beginning of the work which function in explanations, which explanations allow him to construct further explanations. If the second rule of the Discourse tells us where to begin, the third tells us how to proceed after the dividing the problem into its “parts”.27 The rule reads: The third, to direct my thoughts in an orderly manner, by beginning with the simplest and most easily known objects in order to ascend little by little, step by step, to knowledge of the most complex, and by supposing some order even among objects that have no natural order of precedence. (AT 6: 18–19, CSM 1: 120) We have already seen that the “simple and most easily known objects” are “first principles” or eternal truths (see AT 6: 20–1, CSM 1: 121). “Complex” or composite objects are any that are not simple. These include ordinary objects and such states of affairs as provide the basis for a problem or “difficulty” of the sort considered in the second rule. Descartes writes of composite natures in Rule Eight of the Regulae:

Analysis: the search for laws 37 As for composite natures, there are some which the intellect experiences as composite before it decides to determine anything about them: but there are others which are put together by the intellect itself. All these points will be explained at greater length in Rule Twelve, where it will be demonstrated that there can be no falsity save in composite natures which are put together by the intellect. In view of this, we divide natures of the latter sort into two further classes, viz. those that are deduced from natures which are the most simple and self-evident (which we shall deal with throughout the next book), and those that presuppose others which experience shows us to be composite in reality. (AT 10: 399, CSM 1: 32) Since “the whole of human knowledge consists uniquely in our achieving a distinct perception of how all these simple natures contribute to the composition of other things” (AT 10: 427, CSM 1: 49), this passage implies that the “ascent” from the simple to the complex is an epistemic ascent that consists of the deduction of descriptions of complex states of affairs from “simple natures” or eternal truths. One reduces objects to their simple components by subsuming descriptions of those objects under general laws. So the order with which Descartes is concerned here is the epistemic order (the order of reality), not the order of consideration. This is precisely what Descartes does in his scientific writings. In the Geometry, he explains the conclusions of “ordinary” plane geometry by subsuming them under the “simpler” (more general) principles of arithmetic. In the Optics and the Meteorology, he assumes various simple (general) principles at the outset and shows that these allow him to explain various observable phenomena. In The World, he assumes that God creates a new world composed of a “perfectly solid body which uniformly fills the entire length, breadth and depth of this huge space in the midst of which we have brought our mind to rest” (AT 11: 33, CSM 1: 91) and that this matter operates in accordance with a specified set of laws (AT 11: 36–48, CSM 1: 92–8). This set of general assumptions allows him to explain the formation of the sun, stars, and planets (Chapters Eight and Nine), and to argue that the hypothetical new world, after a sufficient time, would come to be indiscernible from the world we ordinarily perceive (Chapter Fifteen). One finds the same arrangement in the scientific parts of the Principles of Philosophy, where he introduces a set of general assumptions (P 3: 44ff.) and proceeds to explain the complex physical world on the basis of them.

38 Descartes’s method Hence, the scientific writings tend to bear out our suggestion that one of Descartes’s concerns with “simplicity” was to reduce complex phenomena to their simplest components, that is, the general laws that allow one to explain them.28 The third rule, however, does not concem only the explanation or justification of descriptions of complex states of affairs; it also advises us to direct our “thoughts in an orderly manner . . . supposing some order even among objects that have no natural order of precedence.” What does this mean? Even as early as Rule Five of the Regulae Descartes emphasizes the extreme importance of this question of order: The whole method consists entirely in the ordering and arranging of the objects on which we must concentrate our mind’s eye if we are to discover some truth. We shall be following this method exactly if we first reduce complicated and obscure propositions step by step to simpler ones, and then, starting with the intuition of the simplest ones of all, try to ascend through the same steps to a knowledge of all the rest. (AT 10: 379, CSM 1: 20, Descartes’s emphasis) Rule Five contains elements found in both the second and third rules of the Discourse. As we noted in looking at the second rule, one must attend to elements of a problem with an eye to discovering simple (eternal) truths. Once these are discovered and recognized as (materially) true, one can engage in deductions that yield certainty. The order to which Descartes here alludes is the same we found in Pappus’ discussion of an analysis and its proof: one first discovers general principles, then one makes deductions from those principles (in Hintikka and Remes 1974: 8–9). This order, Descartes stresses time and again, is at the heart of his method (see AT 10: 451, 6: 21, 7: 155; CSM 1: 64, 1: 121, 2: 110). Questions remain, however, since Descartes calls us to suppose “some order even among objects that have no natural order of precedence” (AT 6: 18–19, CSM 1: 120). If all knowledge is either knowledge of eternal truths or knowledge based on deductions from eternal truths, what does Descartes mean when he suggests that one suppose an order among objects having no natural order of precedence? A complete answer to this question will lead us into issues pertinent to the fourth rule of the Discourse, namely the rule of enumeration, but we might make some initial distinctions. We have already noticed that Descartes,

Analysis: the search for laws 39 like many of his predecessors, draws a distinction between the order of consideration and the order of epistemic priority (order of nature). In the third rule, he is concerned with an epistemic ordering: an ordering from things that are clear and evident (first principles) to things that are less clear. One can clearly and distinctly conceive of characteristics of real objects that are inseparable in nature, and it is the fact that these characteristics are more clearly conceived that entails that they are prior in the order of knowledge: they will allow one to explain why real objects are as they appear to be. But Descartes does not merely tell us that an epistemic order exists that is distinct from the order of nature, he tells us to suppose an order. As we have already seen, supposition plays a significant role in his account of analysis: one supposes a principle to justify a proposition or explain a phenomenon. In other words one takes such a principle as a hypothesis, and a necessary condition for accepting the supposition is that one can deduce from it a statement that one knows (or believes) to be true. If the deduction is possible, this establishes a logical coherence between one’s beliefs and suppositions. Nor does the order require using the supposition of principles only with respect to explaining or justifying singular claims. The method requires an ordered progression of increasingly general suppositions, each being introduced to explain a “fact,” which was a supposition in a lower level of analysis. As Descartes notes in Regulae Rule Fifteen: Again, we should realize that, with the aid of the unit we have adopted, it is sometimes possible completely to reduce continuous magnitudes to a set and that this can always be done partially at least. The set of units can then be arranged in such an order that the difficulty involved in discerning a measure becomes simply one of scrutinizing the order. The greatest advantage of our ordering lies in this progressive ordering. (AT 10: 452, CSM 1: 65) In analysis, one seeks continually more general propositions that will allow one to explain or justify claims of greater particularity, what Descartes calls more complex claims. While analysis moves upward towards more general principles, the deductive or synthetic phase proves the analysis, showing that the more complex (less general) claims follow deductively from the progressively more general principles one discovers during the analytic phase.29

40 Descartes’s method But given Descartes’s remarks on epistemic priority, this implies something else. While the first principles might be best known, that is, epistemically primary, they are discovered by analysis. The analysis is based on either things that are already known in some other way, perhaps by a previous analysis–synthesis movement or on the basis of sense experience. Hence, analysis itself requires that one draw a distinction between the order of epistemic priority and the order of consideration, that is, the order in which the analyst actually brings propositions before his or her mind. Hence, a factual statement known on the basis of sense experience which provides the basis for the analysis – which describes a phenomenon to be explained – might be first in the order of consideration, even though one can claim to know that the phenomenon is true only after one has discovered a general principle under which it can be subsumed. In analysis, though not in synthesis, the order of consideration is generally the mirror image of the order of epistemic priority. So the third rule of the Discourse shows both that supposition plays a significant role in the method and that the justification of a less general or singular claim requires a deduction from a more general claim which is known by the natural light. But this still does not tell us how epistemically basic principles are discovered. To understand this, we must turn to the fourth rule of the Discourse. The final rule reads: And the last, throughout to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so comprehensive, that I could be sure of leaving nothing out. (AT 6: 19, CSM 1: 120) What does Descartes mean by “enumeration”? To what kinds of “reviews” is he alluding? To give an “enumeration” is little more than to give a list. It is in this sense that Descartes generally uses “enumeration” in Of the Passions of the Soul, where he merely lists of the principal passions (see AT 11: 372, 379, 443, 485; CSM 1: 349, 352, 383, 402; see also AT 10: 395, CSM 1: 29). But such a minimal sense tells one little. To gain a better understanding of the role of enumeration, we may turn to the Regulae. In Rule Seven of the Regulae, Descartes remarks: In order to make our knowledge complete, every single thing relating to our undertaking must be surveyed in a continuous and wholly

Analysis: the search for laws 41 uninterrupted sweep of thought, and be included in a sufficient and well-ordered enumeration. (AT 10: 387, CSM 1: 25, Descartes’s emphasis) His subsequent discussion focuses on “truths which . . . are not deduced immediately from first and self-evident truths” (AT 10: 387, CSM 1: 25). An enumeration is “an inference drawn from many disconnected facts” (AT 10: 407, CSM 1: 37). Enumerations clearly include cases of long deductive arguments, in which one must bring numerous premises and sub-conclusions before one’s mind. In such cases Descartes recommends that one go over the argument often enough that memory plays little or no role in seeing the evidence of the conclusion (AT 10: 387–8, CSM 1: 25). However, it seems likely that by “enumeration” Descartes means more than the careful listing of one’s premises. Descartes provides some insight into the meaning of “enumeration” later in his discussion of Rule Seven. He writes: In this context enumeration, or induction, consists in a thorough investigation of all the points relating to the problem at hand, an investigation which is so careful and accurate that we may conclude with manifest certainty that we have not inadvertently overlooked anything. (AT 10: 388–9, CSM 1: 25–6) Notice that what Descartes says here ties in nicely with the second rule of the Discourse, namely that a problem should be divided into its several parts. If one enumerates or lists all the elements of the problem, one will not “inadvertently overlook anything.” For one’s enumeration to be complete, one must list all the elements of the problem. In the case of a long deductive argument, one might take this as listing all the premises and sub-conclusions of the argument. But Descartes’s point seems more general. One must be certain that one has considered all the aspects of the problem or difficulty under consideration. The issue is “inductive,” in a modern sense of that term, Insofar as, apart from the enumeration of the premises and subconclusions of a deductive argument, there might always remain some modicum of doubt that one has enumerated (listed) all aspects of the problem. Some evidence for this lingering doubt about enumerations may be borne out in Descartes’s discussion of an enumeration sufficient to show that the rational soul is not an element of a corporeal substance. In his words:

42 Descartes’s method The enumeration should sometimes be complete, and sometimes distinct, though there are times when it need be neither. That is why I said only that the enumeration must be sufficient. For if I wish to determine by enumeration how many kinds of corporeal entity there are or how many are in some way perceivable by the senses, I shall not assert that there are just so many and no more, unless I have previously made sure I have included them all in my enumeration and have distinguished one from another. But if I wish to show in the same way that the rational soul is not corporeal, there is no need for the enumeration to be complete; it will be sufficient if I group all bodies together into several classes so as to demonstrate that the rational soul cannot be assigned to any of these. (AT 10: 390, CSM 1: 26–7) To base a conclusion on a complete enumeration would require that one consider every case of a certain kind of thing. For example, to show that all presently existing ravens are black, one would need to examine all instances of ravens. But insofar as classes of things are divisible into kinds, Descartes suggests that if one provides an enumeration of all the kinds of corporeal substances, it is sufficient to examine the question whether or nor the rational soul is corporeal with respect to each kind of corporeal substance. One’s review of the kinds of corporeal substances must be undertaken with great care to assure that no kinds of corporeal substance have been omitted. Since the incompleteness of one’s reviews always looms as a possibility, the certainty of one’s conclusion is relative to the enumeration: one might show on the basis of deductions from first principles that the rational soul is not a corporeal substance of any of the kinds listed, but the possibility remains that one’s enumeration (list) is incomplete.30 But if an enumeration is fundamentally a list, what kinds of things are listed, and how are these lists used? Some guidance can be obtained by recalling that Descartes distinguished among five types of problems to solve: “seeking to derive [1] things from words, or [2] causes from effects, or [3] effects from causes, or [4] a whole from parts or [5] parts from other parts, or several of these at once” (AT 10: 433, CSM 1: 53). If one keeps this list in mind and looks at some examples, one might develop an understanding of the several different activities that are placed under the heading of “enumeration.” In Regulae, Rules Seven and Eleven, Descartes is concerned with finding the relationship between two magnitudes, e.g. A and E, for which a number

Analysis: the search for laws 43 of intermediate magnitudes exist, A and B, B and C, and C and D. To find the relationship between A and E, one begins with a listing of the component parts. Next, one intuits the relations among the various parts of the whole. Finally, one recombines the various parts in coming to know the relation between the magnitudes that constitute the whole. Here, and in any case of seeking a whole from parts, the enumeration with which one begins is an enumeration of parts. In seeking causes from effects – where “cause” is construed broadly to include such things as the key to an encoded message – the enumeration is a list of hypotheses, e.g. possible keys to the code (see AT 404–5, CSM 1: 35–6; cf. P 4: 205). This is an enumeration of possible causes. Since only one cause can be responsible for the effect, one deals with the enumeration by elimination, as Descartes does in the passage quoted above on corporeal substances and the rational soul. Insofar as one can allude to a methodologically fundamental sense of “enumeration,” we believe this is either first, an enumeration of causal hypotheses with an eye to eliminating those that fail to explain, or second, an enumeration of elements of a thing with an eye to eliminating the inessential ones.31 Descartes suggests this at the end of Rule Thirteen when he writes: The only thing worth doing, then, in our view is to scrutinize in due order all the factors given in the problem at hand, to dismiss those which we plainly see are irrelevant to the issue, to hold onto those which are essential, and to submit the doubtful ones to a more careful examination. (AT 10:438, CSM 1:56) We shall see that Descartes commonly practiced this sense of enumeration throughout the Meditations. Analysis and the best explanation In Section 1 of this chapter, we suggested that the Cartesian method is to be construed in terms of providing an inference to the best explanation.32 In this section we summarize the conclusions we have reached by delineating the criteria Descartes used to deem an explanation “best.” Philosophers of science who defend inference to the best explanation as the ground for theory confirmation differ from proponents of a hypothetical– deductive theory of confirmation primarily in terms of their greater emphasis

44 Descartes’s method on the theoretical virtues of simplicity, coherence, and explanatory power.33 It is primarily a set of criteria used to choose between alternative theoretical accounts of a given phenomenon. We have seen that Descartes appeals to the simplicity of his explanations relative to those of the Scholastics as a ground for his explanations’ acceptability and, at the least, this provides prima facie evidence that he favored inference to the best explanation. Two further points also support our conclusion. First, he included alternative hypotheses among the things enumerated in his attempts to explain a given phenomenon, and second, he provided grounds for eliminating all but one of those hypotheses. There can be little question that Descartes accepted a deductive– nomological model of explanation: it is by deducing a description of a phenomenon from a law of nature that one proves the analysis that led to the discovery of that law. Hence, the deducibility of a description of a phenomenon to be explained is a necessary condition for an explanation to be deemed “best,” but it is not a sufficient condition. In addition, the general principle that provides the basis for the explanation must be known by the natural light, that is, it must have at least an initial plausibility.34 Further, as is suggested by the use of the conclusions reached in the Optics in providing explanations in the Meteorology, Descartes places considerable emphasis on the coherence and systematization of the conclusions he reaches.35 Finally, the systematization and the analytic search for increasingly general principles points to the explanatory power of his approach.36

2

Analysis The clarification of ideas

If Descartes chooses analysis as his method, then analysis applies equally to all types of inquiry. In the last chapter we discussed how analysis proceeded in the search for natural laws. Since clear and distinct ideas represent the essences of things (AT 7: 78, CSM 2: 54), and since “according to the laws of true logic, we must never ask about the existence of anything until we first understand its essence” (AT 7: 107–8, CSM 2: 78), a clear and distinct idea is prior in the epistemic order to any judgments one might make regarding the existence of a thing of a specific kind. Thus the method of analysis is germane to finding clear and distinct ideas, or, as we shall show, how ideas are clarified. Since most commentators identify clear and distinct ideas with innate ideas, and many commentators hold that all innate ideas are true (Copleston 1960: 93; Jones 1969: 182; Ree 1974: 142–3; Clarke 1982: 53ff.; Flage 1985: 165, 174, 176; Van De Pitt 1985b: 363–84; Carriero 1986: 205; Stumpf 1988: 241; Edelberg 1990: 493–533 passim; cf. Hausman and Hausman 1997), we begin by delineating our position on innate ideas.1 We show that no textual evidence exists to support what we call “the epistemic thesis,” that is, the thesis that all innate ideas are (materially) true and known to be true as soon as they are considered. Next, we describe the role of analysis in the clarification of ideas. Finally, we turn to the Optics as a case study: we show how Descartes clarifies the idea of light. Are all innate ideas materially true? Any complete examination of Cartesian innate ideas must address two issues. First, there is the metaphysical issue, namely, what is the nature of an innate idea? Is an innate idea a nonoccurrent actual idea or is it merely a disposition

46 Descartes’s method to form such an idea under a specifiable set of circumstances? Second, is the epistemic thesis true? While we have argued elsewhere that the textual evidence supports a dispositional account of the nature of innate ideas, the second question is of primary relevance to questions regarding the Cartesian method.2 In this section we argue that no unambiguous texts support the epistemic thesis. Moreover, even assuming the truth of the epistemic thesis, its philosophical purpose remains a mystery. We conclude this section by arguing that Cartesian innate ideas explain only how concepts are formed. Before inspecting the textual evidence for the epistemic thesis, we must distinguish this from two other issues regarding innate ideas. First, some maintain that Descartes distinguishes between two senses of ‘innate ideas’, a broader sense pertaining to all nonoccurrent ideas, and a narrower sense that pertains only to the ideas of God, self, extension, and eternal truths (Clarke 1982: 48–58; see AT 8B: 358–9, CSM 1: 304). If one draws such a distinction, the epistemic thesis pertains solely to the narrower sense of ‘innate idea’, and we use the expression “innate ideas” in the narrow sense throughout this chapter. Second, since Descartes held that eternal truths reside within the mind (P 1: 49), we shall assume that some innate ideas have eternal truths as their objects.3 Given these points, we may now peruse the evidence for the epistemic thesis. Although many commentators accept the epistemic thesis, little attempt has been made to provide a precise formulation for it. Consequently, one might take the epistemic thesis to assert (a) that the class of innate ideas coextends with the class of clear and distinct ideas, whether such a coextension is necessary or contingent, or (b) that all innate ideas are true regardless of their clarity or distinctness.4 Given either (a) or (b), one could infer that an idea is true from its innateness. Our question is whether sufficient evidence exists to show that either assertion is true. In examining the several discussions of the relationship between an idea’s innateness and its truth, we show that while Descartes consistently claims that all true ideas are innate, he does not unequivocally claim that all innate ideas are true. In his early writings, Descartes often claimed that “We have within us the sparks of knowledge, as in a flint” (Olympian Matters: AT 10: 217, CSM 1: 4), or that “The human mind has within it a sort of spark of the divine, in which the first seeds of useful ways of thinking are sown” (Regulae: AT 10: 373, CSM 1: 17), or that there are “certain primary seeds of truth naturally implanted in human minds” (Regulae: AT 10: 376, CSM 1: 18; see also Discourse: AT 6: 64, CSM 1: 144). Since these “sparks” or “seeds” might be

Analysis: the clarification of ideas 47 understood as innate ideas, does this provide evidence that all innate ideas are true? No. At most it shows that some innate ideas are true, and given his metaphorical presentation, any stronger claim is far from obvious. The passage from the Olympian Matters (AT 10: 217, CSM 1: 4) contains an ambiguity on just this point. The “sparks of knowledge” might be innate ideas or simply abilities to obtain knowledge, however one explains the latter. Furthermore, the first passage from the Regulae suggests that the principles of the Cartesian method, not innate ideas of essences or eternal truths, constitute the “spark of the divine” (AT 10: 373, CSM 1: 17). As the passage continues, Descartes celebrates his method’s usefulness in producing arithmetic and geometry as areas of human knowledge. He remarks, “These two disciplines are simply the spontaneous fruits which have sprung from the innate principles of this method” (AT 10: 373, CSM 1: 17). If the principles of the method are innate, these principles might be “innate ideas,” but they differ in content from what one ordinarily takes Descartes’s innate ideas to be. Similarly, even ifone takes the “seeds of truth” in the Regulae (AT 10: 376, CSM 1: 18) and the Discourse (AT 6: 64, CSM 1: 143–4) to denote something more like conventional Cartesian innate ideas, both passages indicate that one knows these “seeds of truth” by the “natural light” or the “light of the mind” (AT 10: 376, CSM 1: 18). In the passage from the Discourse, for example, Descartes indicates that he: tried to discover in general the principles or first causes of everything that exists or can exist in the world. To this end I considered nothing but God alone, who created the world; and I derived these principles only from certain seeds of truth which are naturally in our souls. (AT 6: 64, CSM 1: 143–4) The allusion to “principles” suggests his concern is with principles known by the natural light, principles which, in the Meditations, allow him to prove the existence of God (see AT 7: 40-1, CSM 2: 28).5 Hence, the ambiguities in the early writings leave open the question of what is meant by “seeds of truth.” They might be innate ideas as understood in his later works. They might be the principles of the method. Or they might even be the natural light or what the natural light discovers. Given these ambiguities, one cannot claim that the early works clearly support the claim that all innate ideas are true.

48 Descartes’s method In the Meditations, the Replies, and the Principles, Descartes explicitly uses the expression ‘innate ideas,’ and he indicates that ideas are innate if they are neither adventitious nor factitious (AT 7: 37–8, CSM 2: 26).6 In these later works he indicates that, once one lays aside “the preconceived opinions acquired from the senses,” one can “make use of the intellect alone, carefully attending to the ideas implanted in it by nature” (P 2: 3). In examining the passages from the Meditations and Replies, we again ask whether he claims that all innate ideas are true, or merely that all true ideas are innate. Two passages in the Fifth Meditation might shed light on the epistemic thesis. In the first, Descartes comments on quantity and extension. He remarks: Not only are all these things very well known and transparent to me when regarded in this general way, but in addition there are countless particular features regarding shape, number, motion and so on, which I perceive when I give them my attention. And the truth of these matters is so open and so much in harmony with my nature, that on first discovering them it seems that I am not so much learning something new as remembering what I knew before; or it seems like noting for the first time things which were long present within me although I had never turned my mental gaze on them. (AT 7: 63-4, CSM 2: 44) Although Descartes fails to mention innate ideas in this paragraph, his concern centers on innate ideas of extension and the essences of extended things. This concern manifests itself in the following paragraph when he claims, “I find within me countless ideas of things which even though they may not exist anywhere outside me still cannot be called nothing” (AT 7: 64, CSM 2: 44), and he goes on to discuss the nature of triangularity. One should notice two points regarding the passage quoted. First, he limits his attention to a number of kinds of idea, so the passage can provide no strong evidence that all innate ideas are true. Second, while “the truth of these matters is . . . open and . . . in harmony with my nature,” the recognition of that truth is not simply a function of forming the ideas; it occurs only upon attending to them. This concern with attention suggests that recognizing ideas as true requires more than a mere awareness of them (see also AT 7: 73, CSM 2: 51). What more could this be? Presumably, in attending to an idea,

Analysis: the clarification of ideas 49 the natural light yields understanding or the recognition of truth. If so, then the fact that an idea is innate appears to bear little or no epistemic importance. In the second passage Descartes contrasts the idea of God with ideas of figures inscribed in circles. He notes: I cannot even imagine [that the class of figures that can be inscribed in a circle includes the class of all quadrilaterals], so long as I am willing to admit only what I clearly and distinctly understand. So there is a great difference between this kind of false supposition and the true ideas that are innate in me, of which the first and most important is the idea of God. There are many ways in which I understand that this idea [of God] is not something fictitious which is dependent on my thought, but an image of a true and immutable nature. First of all, there is the fact that, apart from God, there is nothing else of which I am capable of thinking such that existence belongs to its essence. Second, I cannot understand how there could be two or more Gods of this kind; and after supposing that one God exists, I plainly see that it is necessary that he has existed from eternity and will abide for eternity. And finally, I perceive many other attributes of God, none of which I can remove or alter. (AT 7: 86, CSM 2: 47) This passage is interesting for several reasons. First, it shows that some innate ideas are true, and it might be taken to show that all true ideas are innate. Second, and more importantly, it shows that even if one grants that the idea of God is innate, as Descartes already did in the Third Meditation (AT 7: 51, CSM 2: 35), nothing interesting follows from that fact. Given that he provides reasons why the idea of God must be understood as an idea of a true and immutable nature, rather than a fictitious idea, the passage suggests either that (a) one cannot know that the idea of God qua innate idea is an idea of an immutable nature, or that (b) no incontrovertible mark of innate ideas exists. If it shows (a), the passage is a counter-example to the epistemic thesis. If it shows (b), then even if the epistemic thesis is true, innateness cannot function as a criterion of truth. While Descartes provides several discussions of innate ideas in the Replies, few are relevant to the epistemic thesis. In several of his discussions, he argues that the only way to explain the possibility of having an idea of God is that God caused that innate idea within us (see AT 7: 105–6, 133; CSM 2: 77, 96). In another discussion he explains how it is possible to form an idea of a geometrical figure on the basis of innate ideas (AT 7: 381–2,

50 Descartes’s method CSM 2: 262).7 The sole remark that might imply the epistemic thesis is the claim that “My principal aim has always been to draw attention to certain very simple truths which are innate in our minds, so that as they are pointed out to others, they will consider that they have always known them” (AT 7: 464, CSM 2: 312). Here again, the most this remark reveals is that all true ideas are innate; it does not show that all innate ideas are true. Thus, Descartes’s major philosophical works provide little evidence that he accepted the thesis that all innate ideas are true; at most they show he accepted the thesis that all true ideas are innate. But the proponent of the epistemic thesis might contend that in Descartes’s correspondence there is evidence for that thesis. In the letter to Mersenne of 16 June 1641, for example, he draws the distinction between adventitious, factitious, and innate ideas, commenting of the last that “others are innate, such as the idea of God, mind, body, triangle, and in general all those which represent true immutable and eternal essences” (AT 3: 383, CSM 3: 183). In the letter to Hyperaspistes of August 1641, he remarks: Nonetheless, it [the mind] has in itself the ideas of God, itself, and all such truths as are called self-evident, in the same way as adult humans have when they are not attending to them; it does not acquire these ideas later on, as it grows older. I have no doubt that if it were taken out of the prison of the body it would find them within itself.8 (AT 3: 423–4, CSM 3: 190; see also AT 5: 146, 149–50; CB §1 and §9: AT 5:146 and 149–50, CSM 3: 332–3 and 336–7) Notice that in both letters Descartes claims that one has innate ideas of immutable natures, but neither letter implies that the class of innate ideas coextends with the class of ideas of immutable natures or that all innate ideas are materially true. Thus, the textual evidence we have considered to this point does not prove that Descartes embraced the epistemic thesis: it might prove that he believed that all true ideas are innate, but it does not prove that he believed that all innate ideas are true. In turning to one final piece of textual evidence we find not only insufficient evidence for the truth of the epistemic thesis, but evidence for the falsity of or confusion in the epistemic thesis itself. In the letter to Mersenne of 16 October 1639, Descartes comments on the account of innate ideas Herbert of Cherbury developed in De Veritate. He

Analysis: the clarification of ideas 51 notes that Lord Herbert devoted considerable space to the nature of truth, and takes common consent as the mark of the true and innate. Descartes then contrasts his own position with that of Herbert. He writes: The author takes universal consent as the criterion of his truths; whereas I have no criterion for mine except the light of nature. The two criteria agree in part: for since all men have the same natural light, it seems that they should have the same notions; but there is also a great difference between them, because hardly anyone makes good use of that light of nature, so that many people – perhaps all those we know – may consent to the same error. Also there are many things which can be known by the light of nature, but which no one has yet reflected on. (AT 2: 597–8, CSM 3: 139) Notice the contrast between Herbert and Descartes. Herbert held that all true ideas are innate and that one can recognize their truth on the ground of common consent. While Herbert of Cherbury might have held that all innate idea are true, Descartes seems to divorce the question of innateness from the question of truth: neither the fact that an idea is innate nor the fact that everyone accepts the idea as true provides evidence for its truth. Descartes claims that one can know the truth of an idea only by means of the natural light.9 Descartes goes on to indicate that Herbert conflates two senses of ‘instinct’: He recommends especially that one should follow natural instinct, from which he derives his common notions. For my part, I distinguish two kinds of instinct. One is in us qua men, and is purely intellectual: it is the light of nature or eye of the mind, to which alone I think one should trust. The other belongs to us qua animals, and is a certain impulse of nature toward the preservation of our body, towards the enjoyment of bodily pleasures and so on. This should not always be followed. (AT 2: 599, CSM 3: 140) In the Third Meditation Descartes distinguishes between the two kinds of natural instincts that Lord Herbert conflated. Alluding to the passivity of perception and one’s inclination to believe that the world is as one sensibly perceives it, Descartes comments:

52 Descartes’s method When I say ‘Nature taught me to think this’, all I mean is that a spontaneous impulse leads me to believe it, not that its truth has been revealed to me by the natural light. There is a big difference here. Whatever is revealed to me by the natural light – for example that from the fact that I am doubting it follows that I exist, and so on – cannot in any way be open to doubt. This is because there cannot be another faculty both as trustworthy as the natural light and also capable of showing me that such things are not true. But as for my natural impulses, I have often judged in the past that they were pushing me in the wrong direction when it was a question of choosing the good, and I do not see why I should place greater confidence in them in other matters. (AT 7: 38–9, CSM 2: 26–7) Consistent throughout Descartes’s works is the theme that perceptions known by the natural light are true and that such perceptions are clear and distinct (cf. AT 7: 15, 192, CSM 2: 11, 135; AT 10: 368, CSM 1: 14; P 1: 11, 18, 20, 28, 44, 3: 1). Neither Descartes’s distinction between two kinds of instinct nor his remarks on the natural light, however, provide support for the epistemic thesis. Indeed, the considerations of the natural light tend to suggest that questions of one’s knowledge of the material truth or falsehood of an idea are independent of considerations of the innateness or noninnateness of an idea, for one would assume that Descartes offers his method to help place the mind in the appropriate state for the natural light to illuminate the truth.10 Thus, after considering the textual evidence, we find no reason to conclude that Descartes embraced the epistemic thesis. One should not find it terribly surprising that the textual evidence fails to support the epistemic thesis, for if it did Descartes’s epistemology would be riddled with redundancy. On the side of objects of thought, it is unquestionable that he held that clear and distinct ideas are (materially) true (see AT 6: 33, 38, 7: 35; 9B: 9; CSM 1: 127, 130, 183, 2: 24; P 1: 30, 43). On the side of the mind, the natural light is the faculty of discerning truth (see P 1: 30). Had he also accepted the epistemic thesis, claims of innateness would have fulfilled no epistemic purpose that the criterion of clarity and distinctness and the natural light did not already fulfill. Further, it would have brought additional epistemic problems in its wake. Were one to claim that all innate ideas are true, and were that contention to carry any epistemic weight, then there would have to be grounds for knowing that some particular idea is innate, rather than adventitious or factitious. But what could those grounds

Analysis: the clarification of ideas 53 be? In the Third Meditation, Descartes’s sole reason for claiming the idea of God is innate is that innateness alone will explain how one can have an occurrent idea of God (AT 7: 51, CSM 2: 35), and this hardly constitutes a sufficient reason for claiming that the idea itself is true. Further, even if the proofs of God’s existence rest upon the clarity and distinctness of the idea of God, the presupposition of that idea’s innateness would contribute nothing of epistemic significance to those proofs. Similarly, with regard to the eternal truths “which have no existence outside our thought” (P 1: 48: AT 8A: 22, CSM 1: 208), Descartes finds it epistemically sufficient to claim that one immediately recognizes them as true by the natural light: their innateness need play no epistemic role in such a judgment. The proponent of the epistemic thesis might contend that if any innate ideas are materially false, then God would be a deceiver. How would such an argument go? Error, properly so called, does not occur at the level of ideas; rather, it occurs at the level of judgment, within the domain of formal, not material, truth and falsity.11 A charge of divine deception would seem warranted only if an idea is clear and distinct but (materially) false, but Descartes identifies materially false ideas solely with obscure or confused ideas (AT 7: 232–5, CSM 2: 162–4). Further, the distinction between clear and distinct, and obscure and confused ideas is exclusive and exhaustive. Were one to contend that Cartesian innate ideas are ideas that one cannot but believe to be (materially) true, one begs the question, for only clear and distinct ideas are indubitable (see AT 7: 69, CSM 2: 48). Any weaker version of the thesis claiming deception on the basis of a mere tendency to believe is inconsistent with the entire Cartesian project. Hence, one lacks philosophical grounds for interpreting Descartes as an adherent of epistemic thesis.12 To this point we have argued that no textual or philosophical argument sufficiently warrants the conclusion that Descartes embraced the epistemic thesis. But if innate ideas play no epistemic role in his philosophy, why were they introduced? We suggest that they play nothing more than an explanatory role. As we have noted, he claims that the idea of God is innate because one, we have such an idea, and two, the fact that we have such an idea cannot be accounted for through either experience or a recombination of adventitious ideas. If the idea of God is a paradigmatic innate idea, one will recognize that the same explanatory value of the doctrine of innate ideas holds vis-à-vis the entire class of innate ideas. The class of innate ideas contains at least ideas of essences and ideas of general principles (eternal truths). Each of these is an idea one has on various

54 Descartes’s method occasions. If Descartes assigned an ontological status to either general properties or general facts, then there would be grounds for claiming that one perceives general properties, for example, in perceiving particular properties. But one has reason to doubt that such general properties (universals) and general facts have any status in his ontology. In discussing “How universals arise,” he writes: These universals arise solely from the fact that we make use of one and the same idea for thinking of all individual items which resemble each other: we apply one and the same term to all the things which are represented by the idea in question, and this is the universal term. When we see two stones, for example, and direct our attention not to their nature but merely to the fact that there are two of them, we form the idea of the number which we call “two”; and when we later see two birds or two trees, and consider not their nature but merely the fact that there are two of them, we go back to the same idea as before. This, then, is the universal idea; and we always designate the number in question by the same universal term “two”. In the same way, when we see a figure made up of three lines, we form an idea of it which we call the idea of a triangle; and we later make use of it as a universal idea, so as to represent to our mind all the other figures made up of three lines. (P 1: 59: AT 8a: 27–8, CSM 1: 212–13) This paragraph is reminiscent of Locke’s account of abstraction (1975: 409– 20), although the operative mechanism differs in Descartes’s account. Instead of abstracting from experience, Descartes’s innate ideas provide the basis for the formation of more general ideas. Descartes makes precisely this point in his reply to Gassendi: it is the fact that one has an innate idea of a triangle that allows one to recognize a crude, particular figure drawn on paper as a triangle (AT 7: 381–2, CSM 2: 262). While all existents might be particulars, the doctrine of innate ideas at least allows one to explain how one can have ideas of general properties (essences). The mechanism just described extends to the formation of general principles as well. There are indubitably occasions on which one considers general propositions such as “It is impossible for the same thing to be and not be” or “Whatever thinks, exists” (see P 1: 49). How can one do this? If one has innate ideas of eternal truths, this provides the needed explanation.

Analysis: the clarification of ideas 55 But even though Descartes claims that the unprejudiced mind cannot but assent to eternal truths when considered, this does not entail that the recognition of their truth is a function of their innateness. Presumably his celebrated causal maxim that “there must be at least as much in the efficient and total cause as in the effect of that cause” (AT 7: 40, CSM 2: 28) is an eternal truth. Since that maxim is “manifest by the natural light” (AT 7: 40, CSM 2: 28), one may reasonably assume that the same can be said regarding all eternal truths. If so, then the grounds for deeming a proposition true are distinct from questions of its innateness. If Descartes divorces epistemic considerations from questions of innateness, then the sole function of Cartesian innate ideas is to explain how we can form general ideas. If this is so, then such innate ideas will allow one to explain all one’s general beliefs, both true and false. For example, on the basis of an innate idea one can explain the possibility of forming the idea corresponding to the general proposition, “The material world is exactly as it appears to the senses,” a proposition whose falsity the light of reason recognizes. Further, if one divorces questions of the truth of an idea from questions of innateness, that is, if questions of truth are relegated solely to the domains of the clarity and distinctness of ideas and the natural light, then his remark in the Comments on a Certain Broadsheet that there is a sense in which even adventitious ideas are innate (AT 8B: 359, CSM 1: 304; see also AT 3: 417–18, CSM 3: 187) fits well with his better-known discussions of innate ideas. Innate ideas allow one to explain how motions in the sense organs can result in ideas of figures which fail to resemble the source of those motions, in the same way that they allow one to explain the formation of ideas of essences and general propositions. In both cases, the process that allows one to explain concept formation is independent of questions of truth and falsehood. Thus, the evidence suggests that Cartesian innate ideas only explain how it is possible to form occurrent ideas. We have seen that the textual evidence does not support the epistemic thesis that all innate ideas are true. If it did support that thesis, then Descartes would be saddled with the additional epistemic problem of providing incontrovertible grounds for distinguishing innate ideas from adventitious and factitious ideas. Nor does the rejection of the epistemic thesis raise the specter of a divine deceiver. Finally, if the doctrine of innate ideas plays only an explanatory role in Descartes’s philosophy, it throws light on his remark that, in a sense, all ideas are innate (AT 8B: 358–9, CSM 2: 304).

56 Descartes’s method Clarifying ideas and the four rules of the Discourse So far we have argued for three claims: one, that the doctrine of innate ideas only explains how it is possible to form general ideas; two, that neither textual nor philosophical grounds exist for claiming that all innate ideas are materially true; and three, that the material truth of an idea – whether innate or otherwise – is recognized by the natural light. This third point would place ideas on the same plane as general principles insofar as the natural light recognizes both as true. Given these three claims, we may now consider the four roles of the method enumerated in the Discourse and show how the method operates to clarify ideas. Through the natural light one recognizes the material truth of an idea: the class of materially true ideas corresponds to the class of clear and distinct ideas. If one makes no judgments except on the basis of clear and distinct (materially true) ideas, one complies with the first rule, namely, “never to accept anything as true if I did not have evident knowledge of its truth” (AT 6: 18, CSM 1: 120). But as we observed in the last chapter, this is a cautionary rule: it does not tell us how to discover or create ideas that are clear and distinct. The second rule, “to divide each of the difficulties I examined into as many parts as possible and as may be required to resolve them better” (AT 6: 18, CSM 1: 120), points to the relationship between the ideas one has and the problem(s) one confronts. Ideas tell us what something is. The ideas we consider go hand in hand with the problems we face. Assume we are concerned with the nature of a human being, a task Descartes undertakes in Meditations Two and Six. We might raise a number of questions, for example, is a human being a simple or a composite? If it is a simple, what simple kind of thing is it? If it is a composite, of what simple kinds of things is a human composed? One attempts to form the relevant ideas. One enumerates the possibilities (rule four) to see whether the natural light deems the proposed idea materially true. One analyzes each of the ideas – in the ordinary sense of taking them apart – to see whether the component ideas are clear and distinct (materially true). One continues until such a point as the resultant ideas are recognized as materially true by the natural light. Throughout the process, one’s inquiry is guided by questions such as, “What is this?” The third rule concerns order: “to direct my thoughts in an orderly manner, by beginning with the simplest and most easily known [most general] objects in order to ascend little by little, step by step, to knowledge of the most complex” (AT 6: 18, CSM 1: 120). Once one completes the analysis, that is,

Analysis: the clarification of ideas 57 once one has reduced one’s idea of an entity to its fundamental components, each of which is conceived clearly and distinctly, one looks for connections among those ideas. As we show below, these are deductive relationships much like those we examined in Chapter One. Throughout this procedure the natural light guides one’s intellect. This call to order is not only constructive. Just as we noticed a distinction between the order of epistemic priority and the order of consideration when examining natural laws, the same is found here. In the process of clarifying an idea, one often begins with the ordinary (complex) notion and hones it until all the elements that remain are clearly conceived. For example, when Descartes begins his inquiry into his own nature in Meditation Two, he asks, “What then did I formerly think I was? A man. But what is a man?” (AT 6: 26, CSM 2: 17). His former ideas are first in the order of consideration. These ideas are analyzed (considered in terms of their elements, following the second rule), and with the guidance of the natural light, all but their simplest (most general, most clearly conceived) elements are rejected. The fourth rule, “to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so comprehensive, that I could be sure of leaving nothing out” (AT 6: 19, CSM 1: 120), plays two important roles in the clarification of ideas. First, as in the case of principles, the rule often requires an enumeration (listing) of hypotheses: alternative ideas of a thing of a specific kind. In his discussion of his idea of a human, for example, Descartes begins with the Aristotelian notion of a human – a rational animal – rejects it, and turns to the alternative hypothesis that a human is a combination of body and soul (AT 6: 25–6, CSM 2: 17). Second, the rule calls for an enumeration of the elements that constitute the idea under consideration. As we show in Chapters Five and Six, this kind of enumeration is important, since it often provides the basis for an argument by elimination (a complex disjunctive syllogism) in which, by the guidance of the natural light, inessential elements are eliminated. At other points, such an enumeration provides the occasion on which the mind forms a more general idea of the essence of a thing of the kind in question. This process is related to the doctrine of innate ideas. If an innate idea is a disposition to form an occurrent idea with a specific cognitive content under a specifiable set of conditions, then the analysis of an idea which is first in the order of consideration triggers a disposition to form an idea that is earlier in the order of epistemic priority (is simpler), or the natural light whittles away the nonessential elements of the initial idea, leaving only the simplest (most general) elements of the initial idea.13 These two processes

58 Descartes’s method might be called conceptual amplification and conceptual limitation (elimination). Descartes uses both processes in the Meditations. It is one thing to show that a certain procedure is found in the Meditations; it something else to show that a certain procedure is an element of the Cartesian method of analysis. If we have correctly interpreted the Cartesian method of analysis relative to ideas, then it should also appear in Descartes’s scientific writings. To illustrate, we examine his analysis of light in the Optics. Descartes’s idea of light Descartes devotes the first and second discourses of the Optics to honing his concept of light. At the outset he delineates his procedure with respect to the development of his scientific conception of light: Now since my only reason for speaking of light here is to explain how its rays enter into the eye, and how they may be deflected by the various bodies they encounter, I need not attempt to say what is its true nature. It will, I think, suffice if I use two or three comparisons in order to facilitate that conception of light which seems most suitable for explaining all those of its properties that we know through experience and then for deducing all the others that we cannot observe so easily. In this I am imitating the astronomers, whose assumptions are almost all false or uncertain, but who nevertheless draw many very true and certain consequences from them because they are related to various observations they have made. (AT 6: 83, CSM 1: 152–3) By likening his methodical approach to that of the astronomers, Descartes elucidates the idea of light. When astronomers reason about the sun or a star, they can consider two different ideas of the sun or a star. One is the immediate sensory experience that one has when looking at the sun or a star, while the second is the idea one has after reasoning about that sensory experience.14 Thus, the “assumptions” spoken of here are the initial sensory experiences that we all have of astronomical phenomena. Descartes says that these ideas or sensory experiences are false. The true idea is the one which is the result of reasoning about the false idea.15 Like the astronomers, he starts from those initial sensory experiences of light and develops the idea of light through a process of reasoning.

Analysis: the clarification of ideas 59 Descartes begins his analysis by considering three comparisons or models. These models do two things: first, they help elicit or draw our attention to common experiences concerning light, and second, they help us refine these common experiences into a geometrical notion. Part of his method requires an arrangement of his experiences of light through a sufficient enumeration.16 The investigator’s problem or problems and the degree of certainty required determine the nature of any particular sufficient enumeration. In this case Descartes wishes to explain how light enters the eye and, ultimately, how to grind lenses properly.17 With these purposes in mind, he enumerates the relevant experiences of light by examining his three models and achieves a more general account of the principles or properties of light through the use of mathematical and geometrical description. How does Descartes draw attention to the relevant experiences of light that must be examined? There are three rough, but common kinds of experience that people have of light: first, light moves in a straight line; second, it emanates from one luminous body and lands on one or more bodies; and third, it is deflected (reflected or refracted) or completely absorbed by bodies.18 Each of Descartes’s models is clearly intended to draw attention to certain common experiences of light. But this is just the first step. The real work consists of taking these ideas of commonly observed behaviors of light and using the models to amplify (draw out) other properties and refine them into an adequate geometrical account of light.19 Descartes believes that the final, geometrical idea will still be related to these initial ideas, since the geometrical idea of light is merely a refinement of the initial ideas. Let us see how he moves from a commonsensical to a geometrical idea of light by examining each of the three models. The walking-stick model Descartes starts with the model of the blind man’s walking-stick. This example evokes the idea that light moves in a straight line; however, this is not what Descartes emphasizes.20 Notice how he establishes the analogy between the walking-stick and our sensations of light: In order to draw a comparison from this [the blind man’s walking-stick], I would have you consider the light in bodies we call ‘luminous’ to be nothing other than a certain movement, or very rapid and lively action,

60 Descartes’s method which passes to our eyes through the medium of the air and other transparent bodies, just as the movement, or resistance of the bodies encountered by a blind man passes to his hand by means of his stick. (AT 6: 84, CSM 1: 153) Here Descartes points to the similarities between light and a blind person’s use of a walking-stick. Notice that the walking-stick does not represent light itself; it represents the medium through which light passes, that is, air and transparent bodies. He chooses this model to underscore his supposition that light is a mode of matter. It is the movement of matter between a luminous body and the illuminated bodies (such as a human eye). Employing the model in this way implicitly prohibits the Scholastics’ standard explanation of light in terms of intensional forms (intelligible species).21 Through a careful examination of the walking-stick model, Descartes also attempts to break the Scholastic urge to appeal to intensional forms by eliminating the the assumption of a resemblance between the light itself and our sensory ideas of light. No object need pass between a luminous body and an illuminated body. Instead of using the first model to draw the conclusion that light moves in a straight line, Descartes emphasizes first, the instantaneous nature of light, and second, light’s ability to traverse vast distances.22 He writes: In the first place this [comparison] will prevent you from finding it strange that this light can extend its rays instantaneously from the sun to us. For you know that the action by which we move one end of a stick must pass instantaneously to the other end, and that the action of the light would have to pass from the heavens to the earth in the same way, even though the distance in this case is much greater than that between the ends of a stick. (AT 6: 84–5, CSM 1: 153) With the walking-stick model Descartes not only extends but refines the idea of light. Initially, the model represents light moving over relatively short distances, distances which can be taken in at one glance. He easily convinces us that the movement of light over relatively short distances is instantaneous. In that case the walking-stick analogy is hardly stretched. However, when thinking about light from the heavens, the question whether the model still holds will naturally arise: maybe over short distances light

Analysis: the clarification of ideas 61 only appears to move instantaneously because light moves very fast, and over longer distances light’s real non-instantaneous nature would show itself. Through the use of the model he implicitly removes the noninstantaneous hypothesis.23 His response that it is instantaneous even in the case of vast distances represents an amplification of the concept of light. Thus, distance is irrelevant to the movement of any particular ray of light.24 The walking-stick model loses its explanatory purchase when one focuses on the medium rather than the movement through that medium. A walkingstick is not similar to air or transparent bodies. Hence, the model is limited. Being aware of this limitation (AT 6: 86, CSM 1: 154), Descartes introduces a model to help explain the medium that propogates the motion that is light. The wine-vat model Though the walking-stick model suggests that light is a straight-line phenomenon, the wine-vat model actually reveals this essential feature of light. The three parts of the wine-vat passage help Descartes to clarify further the idea of light. The first part provides the link between the experience of light and the wine-vat model. The second establishes light as a straightline phenomenon. The third elaborates on the propagation of light and how much light can be emitted from one source. We examine each part in turn. First, Descartes establishes the relevant similarities between a wine vat and light. In constructing the analogy, he makes several assumptions which elucidate the nature of light. He writes: Consider a wine vat at harvest time, full to the brim with half-pressed grapes, in the bottom of which we have made one or two holes through which the unfermented wine can flow. Now we observe that, since there is no vacuum in nature . . . and yet there are many pores in all the bodies we perceive around us . . . it is necessary that these pores be filled with some very subtle and very fluid matter, which extends without interruption from the heavenly bodies to us. Now if you compare this subtle matter with the wine in the vat, and compare the less fluid or coarser part of the air and the other transparent bodies with the bunches of grapes which are mixed in with the wine, you will understand the following. (AT 6: 86–7, CSM 1: 154)

62 Descartes’s method Descartes points to two similarities between the wine vat and light: one, the medium (transparent bodies or air) through which light is conveyed is like the liquid in the wine vat, and two, given that there is no vacuum, the transparent bodies or air are like the grapes (whether crushed or not) in the vat. He tells us that light consists of the movement or action of the fine or “subtle” matter (movement or action of the liquid in the vat) found in the pores of bodies in the air or the bodies that constitute air.25 Thus, light in any form must be a mode of the substance through which it passes, since it is the motion or action of the fine or “subtle” substance found in the pores of bodies. In the second part, Descartes establishes light as a straight-line phenomenon. Commenting on the model, he writes: The parts of wine at one place tend to go down in a straight line through one hole at the very instant it is opened, and at the same time through the other hole, without these actions being impeded by each other or by the resistance of the bunches of grapes in the vat. This happens even though the bunches support each other and so do not tend in the least to go down through the holes, as does the wine, and at the same time they can even be moved in many other ways by the bunches which press upon them. (AT 6: 87, CSM 1: 154) Then he examines his perceptions of light and sees how the model helps to illuminate his experience: In the same way, all the parts of the subtle matter in contact with the side of the sun facing us tend in a straight line towards our eyes at the very instant they are opened, without these parts impeding each other, and even without their being impeded by the coarser parts of the transparent bodies which lie between them. This happens whether these bodies move in other ways – like the air which is almost always agitated by some wind – or are motionless – like, say glass or crystal. (AT 6: 87, CSM 1: 154–5) One should recognize two points. First, the wine-vat models light as a straight, linear phenomenon. Second, the half-crushed grapes make explicit the assumption that the air between a light source and its destination is a

Analysis: the clarification of ideas 63 continuous mass and that light is the movement of the mass between the two. Though Descartes recognizes that air is non-empty and that transparent bodies stand between the light source and its destination, he recognizes that the subtle matter is impeded neither by these bodies nor by other subtle matter: air and the transparent bodies in air yield to the movement of the more subtle matter in the air. In the third part of the passage, Descartes develops the wine-vat analogy by suggesting that at any particular point on the surface of the vat, the fluid has a tendency to move towards both holes in the bottom. While this is suggested in the second part of the discussion of the wine-vat model, it is only in the third part that he fully develops this property of light. He draws his reader’s attention to this feature of the wine vat in the following way: And note here that it is necessary to distinguish between the movement and the action or the tendency to move. For we may very easily conceive that the parts of wine at one place should tend towards one hole and at the same time towards the other, even though they cannot actually move towards both holes at the same time, and that they should tend exactly in a straight line towards one and towards the other, even though they cannot move exactly in a straight line because of the grapes which are between them. (AT 6: 88, CSM 1: 155) Then he draws the analogy to light: In the same way, considering that the light of a luminous body must be regarded as being not so much its movement as its action, you must think of the rays of light as nothing other than the lines along which this action tends. (AT 6: 88, CSM 1: 155) In moving from the model to the phenomenon of light, Descartes emphasizes the manner in which light is conveyed from its source to other surfaces. His point is that any wine at a point on the surface of the vat will tend to move in a straight line toward both holes at the bottom of the vat.26 The same will hold of a light source. He distinguishes between the movement of the wine and its tendency to move because its tendency to move is much more akin to his experiences of light. Wine at a particular point on the vat will actually

64 Descartes’s method move toward one or the other holes in the bottom of the vat, but not both. But this is not how light works. If one looks at a candle on a table in the center of a room one notes that the candle actually emits light in all directions. Thus, the analogy between the wine vat and light must be understood in terms of the tendency to move rather than the actual movement. 27 From the development of the analogy in the third part of this passage, Descartes discovers that a number of other properties of light follow. Thus there is an infinity of such rays which come from all points of a luminous body towards all the points of the bodies it illuminates, just as you can imagine an infinity of straight lines along which the ‘actions’ coming from all the points on the surface of the wine tend towards one hole, and an infinity of others along which the “actions” coming from the same points tend also towards the other hole, without either impeding the other. (AT 6: 88, CSM 1: 155) Descartes extrapolates from the idea of the movement of wine along a straight line from one point on the surface of the wine vat towards a hole at the bottom to the movement of the wine along straight lines from an infinity (indefinitely large number) of points on the surface of the vat to a hole at the bottom; moreover, such an infinity of rays exists for every hole in the bottom of the vat.28 The same holds for a candle in a room. The number of rays that will fall on a point on an object in the room from the candle will be indefinite, given an indefinite number of points on the surface of the candle’s flame. To take his analogy one step further we could also say that the number of rays from a given point on the candle’s flame extending to an object in the room is also indefinite, so long as he willingly grants an indefinite number of geometrical points on the surface of an actual object. We should notice how the wine-vat model moves from a common experience of the wine vat to a more purely geometrical discussion towards that passage’s end. Thus, he conceives of the indefinite number of light rays in terms of multiplying the divisions of the points on the surface of the wine vat to arrive at indefinitely many movements from the top of the wine vat to one of the holes (AT 5: 154, CSM 3: 339; CB §21: AT 5: 154, CSM 3: 339).29 Even so, the conclusion that there are indefinitely many movements from the surface of the wine vat to a hole goes beyond the observable to a strictly geometric consideration. Descartes begins with sensory experience and amplifies it considerably.

Analysis: the clarification of ideas 65 Through the wine-vat model, Descartes also has analyzed the nature of light by breaking it down into first, its source, second, its destination, and third, how it travels between the two. He has also broken down the phenomenon of a luminous body illuminating the whole of a surface at the end of the wine-vat passage. Thus he not only amplifies the concept of light, he also analyzes the concept by using the wine vat as a model. The tennis-ball example Finally, Descartes discusses two other features of light: reflection and refraction. In these cases he employs the motion of a tennis ball as it strikes a number of different surfaces. He begins by noting that light will pass through a uniform transparent body in a straight line but that the behavior differs with respect to other sorts of bodies. Then he introduces the tennisball model. But when they meet certain other bodies, they are liable to be deflected by them, or weakened, in the same way that the movement of a ball or stone thrown into the air is deflected by the bodies it encounters. For it is very easy to believe that the action or tendency to move (which, I have said, should be taken for light) must in this respect obey the same laws as motion itself. In order that I may give a complete account of this third comparison, consider that a ball passing through the air may encounter bodies that are soft or hard or fluid. (AT 6: 88–9, CSM 1: 155) Descartes uses the tennis-ball analogy to model three different ways light behaves: light gets absorbed by objects, reflected by objects, and refracted by objects. These three behaviors result from coming into contact with soft, hard and fluid bodies, respectively. He has little to say about balls hitting soft bodies, except that the ball ceases to move after hitting such a body. Later, when explaining the color of different surfaces, he suggests that black bodies are the result of breaking up all of the light rays.30 He does not dwell on this at any length. This should not surprise us given that he wanted primarily to understand the nature of vision in the Optics with an eye to producing better lenses. The phenomena of the reflection and refraction of light take center stage at the end of the First Discourse and through the Second Discourse. His

66 Descartes’s method account of the nature of light must explain these two kinds of behavior. He gives a very general account of both phenomena at the end of the First Discourse. One finds a more careful analysis of both in the Second Discourse and, by the end of the Second Discourse, we have the concept of light which Descartes will confirm in his discussions of vision and lenses (Discourses Six through Ten). Using the tennis-ball model, Descartes describes the phenomenon of light reflection through observations of tennis balls bouncing off of hard surfaces. He notes that a ball can bounce off a number of differently shaped hard surfaces. [I]f they [bodies] are hard, they send the ball in another direction without stopping it, and they do so in many different ways. For their surface may be quite even and smooth, or rough and uneven; if even, either flat or curved; if uneven, its unevenness may consist merely in its being composed of many variously curved parts, each quite smooth in itself, or also in its having many different angles or points, or some parts harder than others, or parts which are moving (their movements being varied in a thousand imaginable ways). (AT 6: 89, CSM 1: 155) This is a list of the differently textured surfaces that affect the behavior of a tennis ball when it strikes them. Descartes takes for granted that light reflects in all of the same ways given the same sorts of surface only on a much smaller scale. In returning to the phenomenon of reflection at the beginning of the Second Discourse, Descartes turns his interest from the general movement of light to a careful analysis of its nature. There he intends to determine the relationship of the angle of incidence to the angle of reflection. By finding that the angle of incidence in a ball thrown at the ground is equal to the angle of its reflection, he discovers a way of measuring what he calls the quantity of reflection. What interests us here is his use and his idealization of the model. The idealization starts when he discusses how the actual movement of the ball compares to the movement of light as it has so far been constructed. To avoid getting into difficulties, let us assume that the ground is perfectly flat and hard, and that the ball always travels at a constant speed, both in its downward passage and in rebounding, leaving aside

Analysis: the clarification of ideas 67 entirely the question of the power which continues to move it when it is no longer in contact with the racquet, and without considering any effect of its weight, size or shape. For there is no point in going into such details here, since none of these factors is involved in the action of light to which the present inquiry must be related. It is only necessary to note the power, whatever it may be, which causes the ball to continue moving is different from that which determines it to move in one direction rather than another. (AT 6: 93–4, CSM 1: 156–7) Given the task of uncovering the relationship between the angle of incidence and the angle of reflection, Descartes believes that certain idealizations of the model are in order. By assuming that the ball travels at a constant speed throughout the motion under consideration and that its weight, size and shape are irrelevant, he preserves the assumption that light moves instantaneously and in straight lines. If he were to let the effects of the ball’s weight, size or shape influence his thinking on light, he would have to abandon light as moving instantaneously and in straight lines. Note that he also comments that the ball’s movement through space is irrelevant. This also should not surprise us given his contention that light is the movement of the subtle matter found in the pores of bodies. One should think of the tennis ball as light insofar as its line of flight represents the bodies through which the movement of the subtle matter takes place. We end up with a model that is more idealized than either the walking-stick or wine-vat model. As for refraction, Descartes briefly introduces it in the First Discourse and returns to it in the Second Discourse. In the last sentence of the First Discourse, he only introduces a ball striking fluid as a model of the refraction of light: Finally, consider that the rays are also deflected, in the same way as the ball just described, when they fall obliquely on the surface of a transparent body and penetrate this body more or less easily than the body from which they come. (AT 6: 92–3, CSM 1: 156) One should take note of two things about this model. First, Descartes requires an oblique angle of incidence: one has a case of reflection if the angle of incidence is too acute or a case that is neither refraction nor reflection if the

68 Descartes’s method angle of incidence is a right angle. Second, one may wonder how the penetration can occur with more ease given the model of throwing the ball into a body of water. But here he proposes a wider application of his model. Though this might appear difficult to do, imagine throwing or somehow launching the ball from the bottom of the deep end of a pool and having the ball leave the pool. Descartes develops this model of refraction midway through the Second Discourse (AT 6: 97, CSM 1: 58). There he switches the medium through which the ball passes to a thin sheet of linen to capture more clearly the phenomenon we call surface tension. One of the best ways of introducing this notion is to imagine the surface of the water as something different from the rest of the water. Moreover, it is easier to describe the resistance of the surface of water in terms of its two components – vertical force and horizontal force – using the image of a sheet. Descartes describes this feature of the model as follows: [I]n order to know what path it [the ball] must follow, let us consider again that its motion is entirely different from its determination to move in one direction rather than another – from which it follows that the quantity of these two factors must be examined separately. And let us also consider that, of the two parts of which we can imagine this determination to be composed, only the one which was making the ball tend in a downward direction can be changed in any way through its colliding with the sheet, while the one which was making the ball tend to the right must always remain the same as it was, because the sheet offers no opposition at all to the determination in this direction. (AT 6: 97, CSM 1: 158–9) Given this construction, the sheet offers resistance only to vertical movement. This explains why the ball cannot continue in a straight line after it rips through the sheet. And since its vertical moment is slower than it once was, the ball moves off at an angle more acute than the angle of incidence (using the sheet as the base line for both angles). The same should happen if one replaces the sheet with water. Assuming that the water’s surface and the sheet have the same effect on the ball, the angle of refraction should be exactly the same. As Descartes notes: [I]t is certain that the surface of the water must deflect it [the ball] towards that point in the same way as the sheet, seeing that it reduces

Analysis: the clarification of ideas 69 the force of the ball by the same amount, and that it is opposed to the ball in the same [vertical] direction. Then, as for the rest of the body of water which fills all the space [through which the ball will pass], although it resists the ball more or less than did the air which we supposed there before, we should not say for this reason that it must deflect it more or less. For the water may open up to make way for the ball just as easily in one direction as in another, at least if we always assume, as we do, that the ball’s course is not changed by its heaviness or lightness, or by its size or shape or any other extraneous cause. (AT 6: 98–9, CSM 1: 159–60) The last part of this quotation reiterates the idealization that was made in the case of reflection. To model more precisely the effect of light passing into water, we must treat the medium on either side of the water’s surface as having the same effect with respect to the ball’s direction. The remainder of the Second Discourse focuses on measuring the quantity of any particular refraction, which is necessary for the later Discourses. At this point in the Second Discourse, Descartes has laid bare the essentials of the refraction of light through the extension of the tennis-ball model. In a paragraph toward the end of the Second Discourse, he reveals one significant difference between the movement of balls traveling through air and the movement of light through air: When you make these observations [of particular refractions], however, you will perhaps be amazed to find that light-rays are more sharply inclined in air than in water, at the surfaces where their refraction occurs, and still more in water than in glass; while just the opposite occurs in the case of a ball, which is inclined more sharply in water than in air, and which cannot pass through glass at all. (AT 6: 102, CSM 1: 162) Descartes’s point is that large objects like balls move through air with more ease than subtle matter can. He explains this phenomenon through his earlier hypotheses about the nature of light: You will no longer find this strange, however, if you recall the nature that I ascribed to light, when I said it is nothing but a certain movement or an action received in a very subtle matter which fills the pores of

70 Descartes’s method other bodies. And you should consider too that just as a ball loses more of its motion in striking a soft body than a hard one and rolls less easily on a carpet than on a completely bare table, so the action of this subtle matter can be impeded much more by the parts of the air (which, being as it were soft and badly joined, do not offer it much resistance) than by those of water, which offer more resistance; and still more by those of water than by those of glass, or of crystal. Thus, insofar as the minute parts of a transparent body are harder and firmer, the more easily they allow the light to pass; for the light does not have to drive any of them out of their places, as a ball must expel the parts of water in order to find a passage through them. (AT 6: 103, CSM 1: 162–3) Given his three assumptions – that light consists in the movement of subtle matter, that subtle matter is much smaller than the bodies that make up air, and that the bodies in air are much softer than those of water or glass – the movement of light finds much more resistance in air than in water or glass. If one remembers that the motion of subtle matter is broken up by soft bodies, then Descartes’s reasoning should be clear. A large body like a ball must force other bodies out of its path when it is moving. Thus, it becomes clear why the softer bodies of air are not as great an impediment as the harder bodies found in water and glass. The result of this difference between the tennis-ball model and light affects the size of the angles of refraction. The important point is that the change in media has a significant affect on the refraction of light. The tennis-ball model tums out to be quite a rich vehicle for explaining the exact nature of light’s reflection and refraction. In various ways, we have seen how Descartes extends and amplifies the concept of light as it is understood in the walking-stick and wine-vat examples. One should note that by the end of the Second Discourse he has an idealized model as he attaches assumption after assumption of how his reader should understand the movement of a tennis ball through either a sheet or water. Through this idealization he arrives at a conception of light that is precise enough to tackle the problems of improving vision with telescopes. Descartes’s conception of light There are a number of lessons that we should draw from Descartes’s

Analysis: the clarification of ideas 71 conceptual clarification of light. First, he locates the rough nature and properties of light that must be understood. This rough account represents an analysis or breakdown of the different common experiences of light. He attends to light’s instantaneous nature, its linear movement, and that it reflects and refracts. Second, he refines his understanding of each of these features through an analogy or model. He knows that he must provide an account of the basic nature of light. This is achieved through the use of the walking stick to elucidate the instantaneous nature of light, and the wine in the wine vat to elucidate the propagation of light and its nature as a straightline phenomenon. The major properties of refraction and reflection of light are refined in a lengthy discussion about throwing or hitting a tennis ball against or through different bodies. Finally, as with any conceptual clarification, he need not give a full-blown account. In the case of light in the Optics, the conceptual clarification is driven by the need to understand vision and to improve telescopes. These purposes explain why his discussion of the absorption of light is so brief: an examination of absorption is not needed to explain vision or improve telescopes. One should keep in mind one point about the place of conceptual clarification in Descartes’s system. The clarification process itself does not validate the final concept of light; the process does not show that the clarified idea of light is the concept operative in the correct account of vision. At most, clarification shows that the idea of light is materially true, that it is not the basis for false judgments regarding vision. Descartes himself explains that the process of constructing the idea of light in the Optics does not confirm its accuracy. That confirmation – the formal truth of the judgments based upon the idea – comes when the idea is successfully employed in the explanation of vision and the improvement of telescopes. And this is precisely what our account of the method implies.

3

Causation

Since our account of the Cartesian method places causal explanation at the center of Descartes’s concerns, it is imperative that we clarify what he meant by a causal explanation. To do so, we turn to that place in the Third Meditation where he suggests that God, and only God, is self-caused (AT 7: 49–50, CSM 2: 34). This claim results in objections, first from Caterus and then from Arnauld, that an efficient cause must be distinct from its effect, and therefore the notion of self-causation is unintelligible (AT 7: 95, CSM 2: 68; AT 7: 207– 13, CSM 2: 146–50). In the course of his reply to Arnauld, Descartes distinguishes between a formal cause and an efficient cause, contends that God’s essence is properly the formal cause of God’s existence, and attempts to find a cause midway between a formal cause and an efficient cause. In this chapter we examine Descartes’s discussion of the distinction between formal and efficient causes in the reply to Arnauld. We show that Descartes’s account of the formal/efficient causation distinction is consistent with prominent accounts of that distinction from Aristotle to Suarez: an explanation by formal cause is an explanation based on the essence of a thing, while an explanation by efficient cause is an explanation based on agency. We then ask whether Descartes’s concern with formal causation is limited to God’s self-causation. To answer that question we inquire into the ontological and epistemic status of Descartes’s natural laws, and determine that Cartesian natural laws are ontologically and epistemically indistinguishable from eternal truths: they constitute the form or essence of the world. If so, then apart from God’s action in creating and sustaining the world and acts of the human will, all Cartesian causes are formal. Such a position makes intelligible Descartes’s remarks on the union of mind and body. Further, it unifies the two elements of the Cartesian method that we

Causation 73 discussed in Chapters One and Two: all explanation is formal explanation, that is, explanation based on the essences of things.1 Caterus on the problem of God’s self-causation In the Third Meditation, Descartes considers the possibility that he, a thinking thing with an idea of God qua supremely perfect being, is caused by something distinct from himself. Either he is caused by God, or he is caused by some being less perfect than God. If the latter is true, he can raise the same question regarding the cause of that being. As he writes: In respect of this cause one may again inquire whether it derives its existence from itself or from another cause. If from itself, then it is clear from what has been said that it is itself God, since if it has the power of existing through its own might, then undoubtedly it also has the power of actually possessing all the perfections of which it has an idea – that is, all the perfections which I conceive to be in God. If, on the other hand, it derives its existence from another cause, then the same question may be repeated concerning this further cause, namely whether it derives its existence from itself or from another cause, until eventually the ultimate cause is reached, and this will be God. (AT 7: 49–50, CSM 2: 34) The argument is a variation on the cosmological argument, and, as Descartes tells Caterus in his reply, he takes this self-causing God to effectively alleviate any possibility of an infinite causal regress (AT 7: 108–9, CSM 2: 78). Descartes’s commentators found the argument puzzling. Caterus asked what Descartes meant by ‘from itself.’ Caterus distinguished between a positive and a negative sense of that expression. In the positive sense, it means “from itself as from a cause,” and in this sense a cause from itself “bestows its own existence on itself; so if by an act of premeditated choice it were to give itself what it desired, it would undoubtedly give itself all things, and so would be God” (AT 7: 95, CSM 2: 68). But Caterus considered the negative sense of ‘from itself,’ not from another, as what is more commonly understood by that phrase. In this negative sense, ‘from itself’ implies that questions of efficient causality cannot be raised regarding God. So, Caterus naturally concludes, “it does not derive existence from itself as a cause, nor did it exist prior to itself so that it could choose in advance what it should

74 Descartes’s method subsequently be” (AT 7: 95, CSM 2: 68–9). Caterus further relates this negative sense of ‘from itself’ to the essence or form of a thing by focusing on the question of limitation. Claiming Descartes had not proved that the essence of God is infinite, Caterus gives an example to show that the internal (formal, essential) principles of things place limitations on things. He writes, “That which is hot, for example, . . . will be hot as opposed to cold in virtue of its internal constitutive principles, and this will be true even if you imagine that its being what it is does not depend on anything else” (AT 7: 95, CSM 2: 69). If there are essential properties, these properties place limitations on things regardless of whether those things are caused by another. Thus, unless Descartes shows that God has no essential limitations, the negative sense of ‘from itself’ fails to prevent the potential regress. In his reply, Descartes modifies the standard meaning of “efficient cause” as it applies to a divine cause, an attempt that continues in his replies to Arnauld. Among the standard conceptual constraints on the notion of efficient causality were the claims that one, whatever will count as an efficient cause must be prior in nature to its effect, and two, the cause and the effect must be distinct entities (it is an extrinsic cause).2 Descartes rejects both of these in the case of God’s self-causation. He cites three reasons for rejecting these standard constraints: first, “it would make the question trivial, since everyone knows that something cannot be prior to, and distinct from, itself” (AT 7: 108, CSM 2: 78); second, the cause qua cause exists only at the time it is effective; and third, the assumption of self-causation is the only means of heading off an infinite causal regress (AT 7: 108–9, CSM 2: 78). Descartes continues by attempting to explain how God can be selfpreserving, that is, the positive sense in which God’s existence is from itself. He argues for this extended positive sense of ‘efficient causation,’ by trying to expand the domain to which the notion of an efficient cause can apply. He suggests that if he preserved his own being, he would have no problem referring to himself as his own efficient cause. On the basis of such an appeal to authority, he turns to the case of God. He warns us against applying the notion of efficient causation to God’s causal powers when he tells us, “[A]ll that is implied [by divine self-preservation] is that the essence of God is such that he must always exist.” In the next paragraph, Descartes claims that God’s self-preserving causality is analogous to, but presumably not the same as, efficient causality. There Descartes writes:

Causation 75 There are some who attend only to the literal and strict meaning of the phrase ‘efficient cause’ and thus think it is impossible for anything to be the cause of itself. They do not see that there is any place for another kind of cause analogous to an efficient cause. (AT 7: 109, CSM 2: 79) He then turns to a discussion of the omnipotence he finds when he examines his idea of God. If we attend to this, “we will have recognized that this power is so exceedingly great that it is plainly the cause of his continuing existence, and nothing but this can be the cause” (AT 7: 110, CSM 2: 79–80). It is the “immense and incomprehensible power” of God (AT 7: 110, CSM 2: 79), Descartes says, that constitutes the positive sense in which one can claim that God’s existence is “from himself” as an efficient cause or as something analogous to an efficient cause. This is not Descartes at his best. Although here he explicitly claims that there is a positive sense in which God is the efficient cause of himself – or, at least, something closely analogous to the efficient cause of himself – in the Comments on a Certain Broadsheet, he writes: I must advise the author of these pamphlets that I have never written that God should be called “the efficient cause of himself not just in a negative but also in a positive sense”, as he is rash enough to allege on page eight of the second booklet. (AT 8B: 368, CSM 2: 310) Why the about face? In the First Replies, Descartes has blurred the distinction between an efficient and a formal cause.3 In claiming, “all that is implied is that the essence of God is such that he must always exist” (AT 7: 109, CSM 2: 79), he is appealing to a formal cause, not an efficient cause.4 This point did not go unnoticed by Arnauld, whose criticisms focus primarily on the position advanced in the replies to Caterus. But before we turn to Arnauld’s objections, we digress briefly and examine the traditional distinction between an efficient and a formal cause. Formal and efficient causes The Aristotelian doctrine of the four causes was presupposed by Descartes and his critics. These causes provide four ways of answering the question

76 Descartes’s method “Why?” That Descartes rejected the doctrine of final causality, that is, a natural end or purpose, is widely acknowledged (see AT 7: 55, 5:158 CSM 2: 38–9, 3: 341; P I: 28). He also had little interest in material causality, that is, questions concerning the stuff of which something is made (see AT 7: 242, 366; CSM 2: 169, 252). His official interest is in efficient causality, that is, the cause of existence or change, although in the Fourth Replies he raises questions regarding formal causality, that is, explanation based on the essence of a thing. To place the Descartes–Arnauld exchange into context, we look briefly at historical discussions of efficient causality and formal causality. Aristotle defined an efficient cause as: That from which the change or the resting from change first begins; e.g. the advisor is a cause of the action, and the father a cause of the child, and in general a maker a cause of the thing made and the changeproducing of the changing. (Metaphysics, 5.2 1013a29–33: Aristotle 1941: 752; see also Posterior Analytics 2.11 93a36–94b8: Aristotle 1941: 171; and Physics 2.3 194b29–32: Aristotle 1941: 241) In the Aristotelian metaphysics of agent and patient, the efficient cause is the agent to the material cause’s patient. This is the standard nomenclature throughout the medieval period and into Descartes’s time (see Aquinas 1970: 198–9; Peter of Spain, Topics, in Kretzmann and Stump 1988: 236; William of Sherwood 1966: 86–7; Suarez 1994; Arnauld 1964: 243). Descartes was well within the tradition in suggesting that an efficient cause is that “without which finite things cannot exist” (AT 7: 236, CSM 2: 165), as he was in claiming that at least God and human wills are efficient causes (see POS §34–6; see Suarez 1994, 18.2.40: 88; 19.2.12–23: 290–300; see also Garber 1993b), and that there is only a distinction of reason between creation and conservation.5 Aristotle defines a formal cause as follows: “The form or pattern, i.e., the definition of the essence, and the classes which include this (e.g. the ratio 2:1 and number in general are causes of the octave), and the parts included in the definition” (Metaphysics, 5.2 1013a27–9: Aristotle 1941: 752). In the passage Descartes cites from the Posterior Analytics, Book Two, Chapter Eleven (AT 7: 242, CSM 2: 169), Aristotle says this: Why is the angle in a semicircle a right angle? – or from what assumption

Causation 77 does it follow that it is a right angle? Thus, let A be right angle, B the half of two right angles, C the angle in a semicircle. Then B is the cause in virtue of which A, right angle, is attributable to C, the angle of a semicircle, since B = A and the other, viz. C, = B, for C is half the two right angles. Therefore it is the assumption of B, the half of two right angles, from which it follows that A is attributable to C, i.e. that the angle in a semicircle is a right angle. Moreover, B is identical with (b) the defining form of A, since it is what A’s definition signifies. Moreover, the formal cause has already been shown to be the middle. (Posterior Analytics, 2.11 94a27–35: Aristotle 1941: 171; cf. Posterior Analytics 2.8 93a3–14, Aristotle 1941: 167; see also Aquinas 1970: 198) A formal cause is explanatory. Unlike an efficient cause, which explains why or how something comes to be, a formal cause explains why something is what it is. As Suarez put it, “the form is properly a cause not of the generation but of the thing generated” (Suarez 1994, 1.17.1: 5). As Aristotle’s example shows, appeals to a formal cause explain why something is the case. Such explanations are deductive: the essential definition (as major premise) plus a statement of conditions (minor premise) entail a description of the phenomenon to be explained. In a geometric case, the formal cause explains the phenomenon by reducing it to (deducing it from) Euclid’s fundamental elements; in the case of a natural phenomenon, it is to give a deductive-nomological explanation where one takes the natural law to be “essential.”6 Insofar as it is based on the essence of a thing, it is an intrinsic cause, while an efficient cause is extrinsic (Suarez 1994: 17, Introduction: 3). Again, prior to Descartes a formal cause was commonly understood as an explanation from the essence of a thing (Peter of Spain, Topics, in Kretzmann and Stump 1988: 237; Arnauld 1964: 244; cf. William of Sherwood 1966: 86– 8), and Descartes also understood it in that way (AT 7: 236, CSM 2: 165). Given this distinction, we may now turn to Arnauld’s objections and Descartes’s replies. Arnauld on the problem of God’s self-causation Arnauld was not satisfied with Descartes’s reply to Caterus and proceeded to push the objection further. After summarizing the reply to Caterus, Arnauld raises questions regarding the formal criteria for being an efficient cause, notably, the contention that an efficient cause must be a distinct thing from

78 Descartes’s method its effect. Quoting Descartes’s contention that the natural light reveals that an efficient cause qua cause exists only at the time that it produces its effect (AT 7: 209, CSM 2: 147; quoted from AT 7: 108, CSM 2: 78), Arnauld raises a series of objections focusing on the distinction between an efficient cause and its effect. First, the natural light seems to require that the cause is distinct from the effect, or, at least, Descartes provided no reasons to believe otherwise (AT 7: 209, CSM 2: 147). Second, the causal relation is irreflexive: nothing can receive existence from itself (AT 2: 209–10; CSM 2: 147–8). Third, the causal relation is dyadic: “there is a mutual relation between cause and effect. But a relation must involve two terms” (AT 7: 210, CSM 2: 147). Next Arnauld launches an attack on Descartes’s claim that God, in particular, is the efficient cause of himself in a positive sense. First, the conservation thesis cannot be applied to God, for it requires that the existence of a thing be divisible into temporally distinct units, and temporal predicates are inapplicable to God (AT 7: 211, CSM 2: 148). Second, since God is eternal, “it is pointless to ask why this being should continue to exist” (AT 7: 211, CSM 2: 148); indeed, the question why God should continue to exist is absurd (AT 7: 211, CSM 2: 148–9). Third, if God derived existence from himself, he would have to be conceived as existing before he existed (AT 7: 211–12, CSM 2: 149). Fourth, the notion of preservation presupposes original creation, and “the very terms ‘continuation’ and ‘preservation’ imply some potentiality, whereas an infinite being is pure actuality, without potentiality” (AT 7: 212, CSM 2: 149). The most telling objection however rests on the distinction between efficient and final causes. After remarking that, “We look for the efficient cause of something only in respect of its existence, not in respect of its essence” (AT 7: 212, CSM 7: 149), Arnauld explains that mathematicians do not look for the existence of the objects of their studies (AT 7: 212, CSM 2: 149).7 Then he proceeds to show that Descartes had blurred the distinction between formal and efficient cause. In Arnauld’s words: But it belongs to the essence of an infinite being that it exists, or, if you will, that it continues in existence, no less than it belongs to the essence of a triangle to have its three angles equal to two right angles. Now if anyone asks why a triangle has its three angles equal to two right angles, we should not answer in terms of an efficient cause, but should simply say that this is the eternal and immutable nature of a triangle.

Causation 79 And similarly, if anyone asks why God exists, or continues in existence, we should not try to find either in God or outside him any efficient cause, or quasi-efficient cause (I am arguing about the reality, not the name); instead, we should confine our answer to saying that the reason lies in the nature of a supremely perfect being. The author [Descartes] says that the light of nature establishes that if anything exists we may always ask why it exists – that is, we may inquire into its efficient cause, or if it does not have one, we may demand why it does not have one. To this I answer that if someone asks why God exists, we should not answer in terms of an efficient cause, but should explain that he exists simply because he is God, or an infinite being. And if someone asks for an efficient cause of God, we should reply that he does not need an efficient cause. And if the questioner goes on to ask why he does not need an efficient cause, we should answer that this is because he is an infinite being, whose existence is his essence. For the only things that require an efficient cause are those in which actual existence may be distinguished from essence. (AT 2: 212–13, CSM 2: 149–50) Arnauld’s point is this. If existence is essential to God, then God’s essence is a formal cause of his existence, that is, the essence of God explains why it is impossible to push the causal regress in a version of the cosmological argument to the point of asking, “And what is the cause of God?” That question is unintelligible. So in appealing to efficient causation vis-à-vis God, Descartes had misstated the proof. Rather than repeatedly asking whether or not the cause of one’s being is self-caused and pushing the inquiry until such a point as one finds a self-caused being, he should have asked whether the cause of one’s being is itself caused or is God. The chain would have ended at the point that God was identified as an efficient cause of one of the causes of one’s being, since the essence of God entails existence: a formal cause would have ended the chain of efficient causes. If one accepts the distinction between formal causes and efficient causes, we believe that Arnauld’s criticism is exactly right.8 In his reply, Descartes attempts to defend a broadened notion of efficient causality, one that would justify deeming God self-caused in a positive sense. He stresses that “in saying that God ‘in a sense’ stands in the same relation as an efficient cause, I made it clear that I did not suppose he was the same as an efficient cause” (AT 7: 235, CSM 2: 164–5), and that his

80 Descartes’s method guiding principle was that “‘if anything exists we may always inquire into its efficient cause’ . . . ‘or, if it does not have one, we may demand why it does not need one’. These words make it quite clear that I did believe in the existence of something that does not need an efficient cause. And what could that be, but God?” (AT 7: 235–6, CSM 2: 165). In claiming that God was “his own cause” Descartes says he did not “mean an efficient cause; it simply means that the inexhaustible power of God is the cause or reason for his not needing a cause” (AT 7: 236, CSM 2: 165). It is because God’s positive essence qua “inexhaustible power or immensity of the divine essence is as positive as can be, I said that the reason or cause why God needs no cause is a positive reason or cause” (AT 7: 236, CSM 2: 165). Descartes next introduces the distinction between a formal and an efficient cause. He writes: Similarly, in every passage where I made a comparison between the formal cause (or reason derived from God’s essence, in virtue of which he needs no cause in order to exist or to be preserved) and the efficient cause (without which finite things cannot exist), I always took care to make it explicitly clear that the two kinds of cause are different. And I never said that God preserves himself by some positive force, in the way in which created things are preserved by him; I simply said that the immensity of his power or essence, in virtue of which he does not need a preserver, is a positive thing. (AT 7: 236–7, CSM 2: 165) The paragraph is interesting in a number of ways. First, as we have seen, Descartes’s distinction between a formal and an efficient cause is well within the Aristotelian tradition. Second, we have been unable to find any place other than the Fourth Replies where he takes “care to make it explicitly clear that the two kinds of cause are different.” Finally, even here he is concerned, not with the claim that God’s existence follows immediately from his essence, but with the contention that the essential power of God somehow accounts for God’s existence and that God does not preserve himself in the same way that he preserves other things. Thus, he grants Arnauld that God is not properly the efficient cause of himself, but insofar as the power of God is a positive element of God’s essence, God is not the cause of himself in a purely negative sense. As he continues, Descartes attempts to detail the extended sense in which he is wont to use the expression “efficient cause” with respect to

Causation 81 God’s self-causation. Suggesting that virtually everyone grants that considering efficient causes is “the primary and principal way, if not the only way, that we have of proving the existence of God” (AT 7: 238, CSM 2: 166), Descartes suggests that it is correct to inquire into the efficient causes of God himself, “even though we have not given an explicit account of what it means to say that something derives its existence ‘from itself’” (AT 7: 238, CSM 2: 166). As he continues, however, he suggests that properly speaking, this blurs the distinction between a formal and an efficient cause of God. In his words: Those who follow the sole guidance of the natural light will in this context spontaneously form a concept of cause that is common to both an efficient and a formal cause: that is to say, what derives its existence ‘from another’ will be taken to derive its existence from that thing as an efficient cause, while what derives its existence ‘from itself’ will be taken to derive its existence from itself as a formal cause – that is, because it has the kind of essence which entails that it does not require an efficient cause. Accordingly, I did not explain this point in my Meditations, but left it out, assuming it was self-evident. (AT 7: 238–9, CSM 2: 166–7) Here Descartes suggests a notion of cause that is common to both an efficient and a formal cause, although his discussion suggests that this common element is little more than a blurring of the distinction: properly speaking, deriving existence “from itself” – from its own essence – is an instance of a formal causality. Indeed, while arguing for an extended notion of ‘efficient cause,’ he later grants that he can reconcile his differences with Arnauld by deeming God the formal cause of his own existence. He writes: But to reconcile our two positions, the answer to the question why God exists should be given not in terms of an efficient cause in the strict sense, but simply in terms of the essence or formal cause of the thing. And precisely because in the case of God there is no distinction between existence and essence, the formal cause will be strongly analogous to an efficient cause, and hence can be called something close to an efficient cause. (AT 7: 243, CSM 2: 170)

82 Descartes’s method The question is, then, what is this analogy between God’s self-causation and an efficient cause? How can Descartes extend the notion of an efficient cause to include God’s self-causation? Contending that the causal argument must fail unless efficient causality extends to God’s own existence (AT 7: 239, CSM 2: 167), Descartes defends the extended meaning of ‘efficient cause’ by means of several geometrical analogies. In his words: To give a proper reply to this, I think it is necessary to show that, in between ‘efficient cause’ in the strict sense and ’no cause at all’, there is a third possibility, namely ‘the positive essence of a thing’, to which the concept of an efficient cause can be extended. In the same way in geometry the concept of the arc of an indefinitely large circle is customarily extended to the concept of a straight line; or the concept of a rectilinear polygon with an indefinite number of sides is extended to that of a circle. I thought I explained this in the best way available to me when I said that in this context the meaning of ‘efficient cause’ must not be restricted to causes which are prior in time to their effects or different from them. For, first, this would make the question trivial, since everyone knows that something cannot be prior to, or distinct from, itself; and secondly, the restriction ‘prior in time’ can be deleted from the concept while leaving the notion of an efficient cause intact. (AT 7: 239–40, CSM 2: 167; see also AT 7: 245, CSM 2: 170–1) What is this analogy supposed to show? Consider the case of a regular rectilinear polygon with an indefinite number of sides. One can construe such a polygon as a circle. Why? Descartes seems to believe that each side of a rectilinear polygon with an indefinite number of sides would have a side with the length of one point. Hence, the distinction between a polygon and a circle would collapse. Similarly, he seems to claim that when one is concerned with a being whose essence is infinite power, the distinction between a formal and an efficient cause collapses.9 Why? An efficient cause is an agent; it is a cause of the generation of a thing or state of affairs. A formal cause is the essence of a thing. If the essence of a thing is infinite power, then there can be no limits on its causal efficacy. Its essence as a formal cause entails existence in the sense that there could be no efficient cause that would prevent its existence. We believe that it is in this peculiar way that Descartes attempts to collapse the formal/efficient cause distinction in the case of God. Just as the distinction between a regular rectilinear polygon

Causation 83 and a circle collapses when the number of sides of the polygon becomes indefinitely large, so the distinction between efficient and formal causality collapses when pushed to infinity.10 Such seems to be the point of the analogy. 11 We are not convinced that this analogy is intelligible. At best it shows that God’s self-causality is sui generis, and given Descartes’s remarks on the limitations of the human understanding vis-à-vis the divine, this might not speak against it (see, for example, AT 7: 220, CSM 2: 155). Our interest, however, remains with the introduction of the notion of a formal cause. As we argue in the last three sections of this chapter, construing much of Cartesian explanation in terms of formal causality is consistent with both the textual evidence regarding the status of natural laws and the integration of his grand explanatory scheme. But he seems hesitant to discuss his program in terms of formal causation – the only place he explicitly alludes to formal causes is in the replies to Arnauld. In the remainder of this section, we give reasons why Descartes might have been hesitant to construe his explanatory program in terms of formal causes. When one indicates the formal cause of something, one offers an explanation based on essential properties. Though the mention of formal causes revolted him, Descartes did not find talk of essences unseemly. Indeed, he held that “according to the laws of true logic, we must never ask about the existence of anything until we first understand its essence” (AT 7: 107–8, CSM 2: 78). Further, he clearly held that mathematical explanations (geometric proofs) are explanations based on formal (essential) causes. Why, then, did he seemingly spurn explanations based on formal causes? We suspect that his reservations stemmed from the connotations that accompanied the word “form.” Famously, Descartes rejected the Aristotelian doctrine of forms. His evidence against the doctrine came, in part, from showing that a particular phenomenon could be explained without reference to forms. In the Optics, he indicates that his explanation of color does not require the Scholastic doctrine of intentional forms (AT 6: 85, CSM 1: 155–6; see also AT 6: 112, CSM 1: 165). In the Meteorology, he stresses that his account of the nature of terrestrial bodies does not: deny any further items which they imagine in bodies over and above what I have described, such as ‘substantial forms’, their ‘real qualities’, and so on. It simply seems to me that my arguments must be all the more

84 Descartes’s method acceptable in so far as I can make them depend on fewer things. (AT 6: 239, CSM 2: 173n2) As he tells Regius in January 1642, one need not overtly deny the existence of substantial forms, since by adequately explaining the phenomenon in question without positing such forms, one effectively shows that the doctrine of forms is useless and may fruitfully be rejected (AT 3: 491–2, CSM 3: 205). Given his rejection of the doctrine of forms, we believe Descartes held it would be verbally misleading to suggest his explanations are based on formal causes. Furthermore, while Descartes’s account of formal causes alludes to essences, and Cartesian essences are treated as something other than Aristotelian forms, it was not uncommon to conflate “formal cause” or “formal explanation” with “caused by (or explained on the grounds of) an Aristotelian form.”12 Notice how the sixteenth century philosopher Peter Ramus defined formal causality: The formall cause is that by the which the thing hathe his name and beyng. And therfore euery thing is distingued from another by its forme. The forme also is engendred togeather, with the thing it self: as, a reasonable soule is the forme of man, for by it Man is man, and is distingued from other thinges. The Geometricall figures haue their forme, some beyng triangles, and some quadrangles. So hathe naturall thinges: as the heauen, the earthe, trees, fyshe and suche others. So that euery thing is to be expounded as the nature of it is, if we maye attayne to the knowledge theof, as in artificiall thinges is more easie to be founde.13 (Ramus 1969: 15) Notice that obtaining an Aristotelian form somehow explains why something is what it is. Our suspicion is that even though Descartes understood formal causes in terms of deductions from Cartesian essences, he recognized that the very expression “formal cause” invites theoretical confusion – it contains unwanted Aristotelian connotations, probably including the sanctioning of final causes – and he therefore avoided the terminology. In the next two sections, we hope to show that, while he avoided the terminology, many of his explanations are best construed as explanations from formal causes (essences).

Causation 85 Cartesian essences and explanations So far we have examined Descartes’s discussions of the self-causality of God. In the replies to both Caterus and Arnauld, he argues that God possesses a form of self-causality midway between formal and efficient causality. We are not convinced that he was successful; nonetheless, since Descartes himself acknowledged that taking God as only a formal, and not an efficient, cause of himself alleviates his differences with Arnauld (AT 7: 243, CSM 2: 170), we explore the possibility that either the formal/efficient causality distinction was blurred in other contexts or he came to acknowledge that a large part of his explanatory structure rests on formal causes. In this section we argue that Cartesian natural laws can be construed as essences. In the next section we argue that such a construal of natural laws helps clarify his account of mind-body interaction. Outside the replies to Arnauld, Descartes does not explicitly concern himself with formal causality. Throughout his writings, however, he provides explanations on the basis of natural laws and appeals to various eternal truths known by the natural light.14 Several questions should be asked regarding natural laws and eternal truths: What is their ontological and epistemic status? Insofar as God is the efficient cause of essences, eternal truths, and natural laws, are these ontologically on a par?15 What are the epistemic relations among them? If essences, eternal truths, natural laws are ontologically on a par – if the laws of physics, along with the laws of geometry, constitute the essence of the material world – it is reasonable to construe Cartesian explanations as explanations based on formal causes. In this section we begin with a short argument to show that a deductivenomological explanation is more reasonably construed as an explanation from formal causes than from efficient causes, that, as Suarez puts it, “the form [natural law] is properly not a cause of the generation but of the thing that is generated” (Suarez 1994, 17.1.2: 5). Then we show that the textual evidence in Descartes’s works tends to support the contention that natural laws constitute the essence of the physical world, that they are eternal truths, and therefore that a Cartesian deductive-nomological explanation meets the criteria for being an explanation based on formal, not efficient, causes. Consider the form of a deductive-nomological explanation: given a natural law and a set of antecedent conditions, one deduces a description

86 Descartes’s method of a phenomenon to be explained. For example, if we wanted to explain why the water on the stove is boiling, we might propose the following explanation: All water heated to 212°F boils (law). The water on the stove is water heated to 212°F (antecedent condition). Therefore, the water on the stove boils (phenomenon to be explained). What does this explain? It explains why the water on the stove is boiling water rather than gaseous water or frozen water. It explains why the thing generated has the characteristic it has. It does not explain how there came to be boiling water on the stove. That would require a different kind of story: John went into the kitchen. He filled a pan with water. He placed the pan on the stove and turned on the gas. The heat from the burning gas was transferred to the molecules of water, causing them to move rapidly. At a certain point the movement of the molecules became so rapid that it manifested itself in the macroscopic property we call “boiling water.” Here John is an agent of change; he is the transient efficient cause of the boiling of the water. Yet, the deductive-nomological explanation has the characteristics of an explanation based on formal causes. To follow our reasoning here consider the similarities between the characteristics of a natural law and metaphysical essence. Natural laws state the necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of a state of affairs.16 A complete description of the essence of a thing of a specific kind would allow one to deduce the various states of that thing under various conditions. Both natural laws and essential descriptions are sempiternal: they hold at all times. Both natural laws and essential descriptions are partial descriptions of the structure of the world. In a welldeveloped system, both natural laws and essential descriptions can, and do, stand in deductive hierarchical relations to one another. Due to these similarities, one might reasonably conclude that the distinction between a natural law and an essential description is merely verbal and that deductivenomological explanations are explanations from formal causes.17 Here someone will certainly object that, even granting these similarities, there are absolutely fundamental differences between natural laws and

Causation 87 essential descriptions. Natural laws are contingent truths; essential descriptions are necessary truths. One can imagine denying a natural law, but one cannot imagine denying an essential description since, indeed, such a denial is self-contradictory. Hence, even if formal similarities exist between deductive-nomological explanations and explanations based on formal causes, their fundamental difference rests on the status of natural laws with regard to essential descriptions. While explanations based upon essential descriptions are explanations from formal causes, deductivenomological explanations cannot be, since natural laws are contingent. This objection merely assumes that all natural laws are nonessential. There are three considerations that tend to show that Descartes considered natural laws as a species of eternal truths. First, he held that God created eternal truths along with all other things. Second, he held that God so constructed the natural realm that the natural laws follow deductively from God’s nature and the other eternal truths. Thus, Descartes would deny Hume’s claim that it is clearly conceivable, and therefore possible, that “the course of nature may change” (Hume 1975: 35, 37–8).18 Finally, Descartes employs the same terminology in the description of a person’s psychological disposition to accept a natural law as he does in the description of a person’s psychological disposition to accept an eternal truth. Let us turn to the first of these three considerations. When Descartes claimed that God is the efficient cause of all things, he clearly meant to include all eternal truths. Note what he writes to Mersenne: As for the eternal truths, I say once more that they are true or possible only because God knows them as true or possible. They are not known as true by God in any way that would imply that they are true independently of him. If men really understood the sense of their words they could never say without blasphemy that the truth of anything is prior to the knowledge God has of it. In God willing and knowing are a single thing in such a way that by the very fact of willing something he knows it and it is only for this reason that such a thing is true. So we must not say that if God did not exist nevertheless these truths would be true; for the existence of God is the first and most eternal of all possible truths and the one from which alone all others proceed. (AT 1: 149–50, CSM 3: 24)

88 Descartes’s method You ask me by what kind of causality God established the eternal truths. I reply: by the same kind of causality as he created all things, that is to say, as their total and efficient cause. For it is certain that he is the author of the essence of created things no less than of their existence; and this essence is nothing other than the eternal truths. (AT 1: 151–2, CSM 3: 25; see also AT 1: 145, 152–3, 2: 138, CSM 3: 23, 25–6, 103) Descartes never relinquished the claim that God is the total and efficient cause of all things, including eternal truths (cf. AT 7: 432, CSM 2: 291). Insofar as God is the cause of all things, including the essences of things, it seems prima facie plausible to suggest that the natural laws are eternal truths since they constitute the essence of the material world. But one might object that insofar as Descartes is concerned with the essence of the material world, he is concerned – as he makes clear in Meditation Five – with the principles of geometry. Even if one grants that the principles of geometry are eternal truths, this does not entail that the laws of motion are. In reply, several points should be noticed. First, Descartes occasionally suggests that “my entire physics is nothing but geometry” (AT 2: 268, CSM 3: 119; cf. AT 1: 476, 3: 39, CSM 3: 77, 145). While one might suggest that this is something of an overstatement, we shall see that Descartes considered it only a slight exaggeration. Second, in section five of the Discourse on Method, his summary of The World, he writes: Further, I showed what the laws of nature were, and without basing my arguments on any principle other than the infinite perfections of God, I tried to demonstrate all those laws about which we could have any doubt, and to show that they are such that, even if God created many worlds, there could not be any in which they failed to be observed. (AT 6: 43, CSM 1: 132) The suggestion that the principles of motion are true in all possible worlds suggests that they are eternal truths. Finally, the fact that Descartes deemed his physics mechanical, and held that, except in those cases in which the material realm is impinged upon by a mind qua efficient cause, all events can be explained on the basis of a small collection of laws, indicates that he held that they are universally true.19 Since God is the cause of all things, including eternal truths, one would need a reason why the laws of physics are

Causation 89 intrinsically different from other eternal truths. As we shall see, the laws of physics are different from other eternal truths, but not in a way that makes them less eternal or necessary. How do the laws of physics differ from other eternal truths? They are less basic, since one derives the laws of physics from the truths of metaphysics and the more basic eternal truths. This brings us to our second consideration, namely that Descartes understood his philosophy as constituting a deductively related whole. Again, this is a recurrent theme in the letters: “I must tell you that the little book on metaphysics which I sent you [the Meditations] contains all the principles of my physics” (AT 3: 233, CSM 3: 157); “I may tell you, between ourselves, that these six Meditations contain all the foundations of my physics” (AT 3: 298, CSM 3: 173; see also CB §48: AT 5: 165; CSM 3: 346–7). In his writings, he makes the same point. In The World, he justitles his first two laws of motion as follows: “So it is that these two rules follow manifestly from the mere fact that God is immutable and that, acting always in the same way, he always produced the same effect” (AT 11: 43, CSM 1: 96). A bit later we find this: But I shall be content with telling you that apart from the three laws I have expounded, I do not wish to suppose any others but those which follow inevitably from the eternal truths on which mathematicians have usually based their most certain and most evident demonstrations – the truths, I say, according to which God himself has taught us that he has arranged all things in number, weight and measure. The knowledge of these truths is so natural to our souls that we cannot but judge them infallible when we conceive them distinctly, nor doubt that if God had created many worlds, they would be as true in each of them as in this one. Thus those who are able to examine sufficiently the consequences of these truths and of our rules will be able to recognize effects by their causes. To express myself in scholastic terms, they will be able to have a priori demonstrations of everything that can be produced in this new world. (AT 11: 47, CSM 1: 97) Similarly, his call in the Meditations for new foundations for the sciences (AT 7: 17, CSM 2: 12) can be seen as such a clarion call. Again, in his letter to Mersenne of 11 March 1640, he is concerned with the reduction of the laws of physics to the more basic laws of mathematics. He writes, “I would think I knew nothing in physics if I could say only how things could be,

90 Descartes’s method without demonstrating that they could not be otherwise. This is perfectly possible once one has reduced physics to the laws of mathematics” (AT 3: 39, CSM 3: 145; cf. AT 1: 140–1, CSM 3: 22). And the penultimate section of the Principles shows that Descartes attributed absolute certainty to his physics insofar as the less fundamental elements were deduced from the more fundamental. In his words: This [absolute] certainty is based on a metaphysical foundation, namely that God is supremely good and in no way a deceiver. . . Mathematical demonstrations have this kind of certainty, as does the knowledge that material things exist; and the same goes for all evident reasoning about material things. And perhaps even these results of mine will be allowed into the class of absolute certainties, if people consider how they have been deduced in an unbroken chain from the first and simplest principles of human knowledge. . . . Once this is accepted, then it seems that all the other phenomena, or at least the general features of the universe and the earth which I have described, can hardly be intelligibly explained except in the way I have suggested. (P 4: 206: AT 8A: 328–9, CSM 1: 290–1) If the laws of physics are “deduced in an unbroken chain from the first and simplest principles of human knowledge,” and if those principles are eternal truths, then the laws of physics must also be eternal truths. Because the laws of physics represent more complex and derivative truths, they might not be as immediately obvious as their more basic counterparts.20 Our third and final consideration also supports the view that Cartesian natural laws are essential truths. Descartes uses the same terminology to describe one’s psychological dispositions to accept natural laws, on the one hand, and eternal truths, on the other. He claims that eternal truths are self-evident: But when we recognize that it is impossible for anything to come from nothing, the proposition Nothing comes from nothing is regarded not as a really existing thing, but as an eternal truth which resides within our mind. . . . It would not be easy to draw up a list of all of them; but none the less we cannot fail to know them when the occasion for thinking about them arises, provided that we are not blinded by preconceived notions. (P I: 49: AT 8A: 23–4, CSM 1: 209)

Causation 91 Does Descartes ascribe such certainty to the laws of physics? Yes. In the Discourse, one finds this: What is more, I have noticed certain laws which God has so established in nature, and of which he has implanted such notions in our minds, that after adequate reflection we cannot doubt that they are exactly observed in everything which exists or occurs in the world. (AT 6: 41, CSM 1: 131) In his letter to More of 5 February 1649, he writes: Moreover, I do not agree with what you very generously concede, namely that the rest of my opinions could stand even if what I have written about the extension of matter were refuted. For it is one of the most important, and I believe the most certain, foundations of my physics; and I confess that no reasons satisfy me even in physics unless they involve that necessity which you call logical or analytic, provided you except things which can be known by experience alone, such as that there is only one sun and only one moon around the earth and so on. (AT 5: 275, CSM 3: 364–5) These passages tend to show that one knows the laws of physics with the same certainty as eternal truths, and, therefore, one should categorize them as eternal truths. Even if Descartes had not alluded to the psychological force with which the laws of physics strike the mind, his contention that more basic eternal truths deductively entail these laws shows that the laws of Cartesian physics – and all other natural laws – must be deemed eternal truths. As eternal truths, they provide a partial specification of the essence of the world. For that reason, explanations based on appeals to natural laws are explanations based on formal causes. Mind and body Two objections will naturally arise. First, some might object that our concern with formal causality ignores questions regarding efficient causality. Descartes regarded God and human minds as efficient causes of states of affairs. If we do not delineate the relationship between formal and efficient

92 Descartes’s method causality, the critic will claim that our case lacks credibility. Second, only in his reply to Arnauld does he ever explicitly allude to formal causes, and there he seems inclined to avoid them. Unless one can show that construing causal issues as questions of formal causation elucidates an otherwise opaque issue, one has little reason to believe he embraced formal causality as thoroughly as we claim. To answer the first objection, we must look briefly at some of Descartes’s remarks on efficient causality. These concern questions of the will, the aspect in which human beings most resemble God (AT 7: 57, CSM 2: 40). He writes that even though one does not speak univocally in comparing the divine will and the human will, “the only idea I can find in my mind to represent the way in which God or an angel can move matter is the one which shows me the way in which I am conscious I can move my own body by my thought” (AT 5: 347, CSM 3: 375). What is the will? [T]he will simply consists in our ability to do or not do something (that is, to affirm or deny, to pursue or avoid); or rather, it consists simply in the fact that when the intellect puts something forward for affirmation or denial or for pursuit for avoidance, our inclinations are such that we do not feel we are determined by any external force. (AT 7: 57, CSM 2: 40; see also POS §41) This definition is somewhat curious. The will is an ability: the power to do or refrain from various activities. What does this mean? Presumably, one can find out what these powers or abilities are only by practice. Can one effect a movement of one’s arm by an act of will? Yes. One wills it to move and it moves, although, starting with a movement of the pineal gland (POS §41), numerous intermediate effects occur between the act of volition and the resulting movement of the arm. An act of will is an agent’s action; as such, an act of will has no further explanation. But what is this? In characterizing will as an ability or a power, what does this mean ? Descartes offers no characterization of the notions of power or ability. It is basic; it is ineffable. To put any conceptual meat on the bones of power, one must analyze the power or the ability to do something. That analysis comes in the form of a law: if act of will Am occurs, then a mental state Sm occurs, or a physical state Sb occurs. Or, to say that God is omnipotent, is to say that for any x, if God wills that x, then x. The human will has limits: we discover these limits by experience. But the fact that acts of will escape further explanation does not entail a lack of lawful correlation between certain acts

Causation 93 of the will and certain states of the pineal gland. As Descartes told Princess Elizabeth in his letter of 6 October 1645: I must say at once that all the reasons that prove that God exists and is the first and immutable cause of all effects that do not depend on human free will prove similarly, I think, that he is also the cause of all the effects that do so depend. (AT 4: 314, CSM 3: 272) God established laws correlating acts of the will with states of the pineal gland. In this way the notion of power obtains cognitive content. One explains and understands the efficacy of the will only in terms of natural laws. So considerations of efficient causality do not militate against the contention that Cartesian explanation should be construed in terms of formal causality; rather, they tend to support it. The lawful connection between states of the will and states of the pineal gland also implies that formal causality helps us understand Descartes’s account of the connection between mind and body: mind and body are lawfully connected. This answers the second objection. If Descartes holds that the world is governed by natural laws and these laws are eternal truths, then lawful explanations of body to body relations are based on formal causes. Insofar as God is the efficient cause of all natural laws, God could establish a series of lawful (essential) relations between bodily states and mental states. Descartes’s discussion of phantom pains in the Sixth Meditation makes little sense unless one assumes that there is some kind of lawful connection such that if the pineal gland is in a certain state Sb, the mind is in a state Sm (see AT 7: 83–8, CSM 2: 58–61). Similarly, such a lawful relationship is suggested in the Comments on a Certain Broadsheet when, after alluding to his Optics, he proposes that innate ideas are dispositions to form occurrent ideas with a particular content, that: The ideas of pain, colours, sounds and the like must be all the more innate if, on the occasion of certain corporeal motions, our mind is to be capable of representing them to itself, for there is no similarity between these ideas and the corporeal motions.21 (AT 8B: 359, CSM 1: 304) If we look at his letter to Elizabeth, 21 May 1643, we see that his remarks

94 Descartes’s method support our contention that the connections between mind and body are lawful connections construed as eternal truths. In responding to Elizabeth’s question of “how the soul of man (since it is but a thinking substance) can determine the spirits of the body to produce voluntary actions” (in Blom 1978: 106), Descartes indicates that he had said little about how the body and soul act upon one another, his primary aim having been to demonstrate their distinctness (AT 3: 665, CSM 3: 218). To explain how we understand both the distinctness and the union of mind and body, he alluded to primitive notions. He writes: First I consider that there are in us certain primitive notions which are as it were the patterns on the basis of which we form all our conceptions. There are very few such notions. First, there are the most general – those of being, number, duration, etc. – which apply to everything we can conceive. Then, as regards body in particular, we have only the notion of extension, which entails the notions of shape and motion; and as regards the soul on its own, we have only the notion of thought, which includes the perceptions of the intellect and the inclinations of the will. Lastly, as regards the soul and the body together, we have only the notion of their union, on which depends our notion of the soul’s power to move the body, and the body’s power to act on the soul and cause its sensations and passions. (AT 3: 665, CSM 3: 218; cf. 3: 690–1, CSM 3: 226) Descartes claims we have four sorts of primitive notions in our mind. There are the most general notions, notions that apply to anything at all. More interestingly, there are the primitive notions: one, of extension, “which entails shape and movement,” two, of thought, and three, of the union of body and mind, on which depends all knowledge of the powers minds have regarding body and bodies have regarding mind. What are these primitive notions? They are the eternal truths, the common notions of Principles 1: 48–50, or, more properly, they are the most basic eternal truths, those from which all other etemal truths (natural laws) can be deduced. As eternal truths, these primitive notions express the essence of mind, body, and the mind-body union. Indeed, all of knowledge follows from them. As Descartes continues: I observe next that all human knowledge consists solely in clearly distinguishing these notions and attaching each of them only to the things to which it pertains. For if we try to solve a problem by means of

Causation 95 a notion that does not pertain to it, we cannot help going wrong. Similarly we go wrong if we try to explain one of these notions by another, for since they are primitive notions, each of them can be understood only through itself. (AT 7: 665–6, CSM 3: 218, our emphasis) It is to our own soul that we must look for these simple notions. It possesses them all by nature, but it does not always sufficiently distinguish them from each other, or assign them to the object to which they ought to be assigned. (AT 7: 666–7, CSM 3: 219) Notice that Descartes says exactly what he should say if all Cartesian explanation stems from formal causes (essences). The primitive notions constitute the essences of mind, body, and the mind-body union. They are distinct essences: each is known through itself. As eternal truths they reside in the soul and “have no existence outside our thought” (P I: 48: AT 8A: 22, CSM 1: 208). Error occurs when these essential truths are applied to the wrong domain. Notice further that this account makes intelligible Descartes’s analogy between the mind-body connection and heaviness construed as a real quality. He writes: So I think that we have hitherto confused the notion of the soul’s power to act on the body with the power one body has to act on another. We have attributed both powers not to the soul, for we did not yet know it, but to the various qualities of bodies such as heaviness, heat, etc. We imagined these qualities to be real, that is to say to have an existence distinct from that of bodies, and so to be substances, although we called them qualities. In order to conceive them we sometimes used notions we have for the purpose of knowing bodies, and sometimes used notions we have for the purpose of knowing the soul, depending on whether we were attributing to them something material or something immaterial. For instance, when we suppose that heaviness is a real quality, of which all we know is that it has the power to move the body that possesses it towards the centre of the earth, we have no difficulty in conceiving how it moves this body or how it is joined to it. We never think that this motion is produced by a real contact between two surfaces, since we find, from our own inner

96 Descartes’s method experience, that we possess a notion that is ready-made for forming the conception in heaviness, which – as I hope to show in my Physics – is not anything really distinct from body. For I believe that it was given us for the purpose of conceiving the manner in which the soul moves the body. (AT 3: 667–8, CSM 3: 218–19; cf. AT 3: 693–4, 7: 441–2; CSM 3: 227–8, 2: 297–8) In alluding to real qualities or substantial forms, Descartes attempts to elucidate the relationship between body and soul on the basis of a theoretical concept he rejects.22 How can this be helpful? Natural laws qua eternal truths fulfill some of the same functions in his philosophy as Aristotelian forms in the Scholastic philosophy: they specify the essential connections among things. Just as a Scholastic form is the essence of a thing of a kind, natural laws (primitive notions, eternal truths) provide the essential connection between mind and body. So Descartes’s allusions to primitive notions supports our account of the mind-body relationship, and our account tends to be confirmed insofar as it makes intelligible the analogy to heaviness construed as a real quality. Certainly someone will raise an objection. The union between mind and body is either a substantial union or it is not.23 If the human mind and body join to form a single substance, then one must raise all the questions that are germane to the doctrine of substance, e.g. what is its principal attribute? Descartes does not tell us what the principal attribute of the mind-body union is, which provides prima facie evidence that he did not hold that there is a substantial union between body and soul. On the other hand, if a substantial unity does not exist between body and soul, the suggestion that an essential relation exists between them is far too strong. Indeed, if essential connections do obtain between mind and body, he would have no clear way to establish the soul’s immortality (AT 7: 14, CSM 2: 10), since when one claims an essential connection one takes what are putatively two things as fundamentally one. Thus, the critic would claim, either Descartes made an elementary error or our interpretation is wrong. Given that the latter seems far more probable than the former, the critic would reject our interpretation. This objection is misguided, for it assumes that there are essential truths only with respect to substances. Descartes rejects such a view. His doctrine of true and immutable natures entails that there are essential and eternal truths with respect to nonsubstantial entities, such as triangles (AT 7: 64;

Causation 97 CSM 2: 44–5). Essential truths are truths about kinds of things. So, one might reasonably interpret his remarks on primitive notions (AT 3: 665, CSM 3: 218) as claiming that there are essential truths pertaining to this mind insofar as it is an entity of the mental kind, to this body insofar as it is an entity of the bodily kind, and to this mind–body complex insofar as it is an entity of the mind–body kind. One might cringe at this mind–body hyphenate, but it is perfectly justified. Descartes tells us that the notion of the mind-body union is primitive (see quotation above). If so, then the mind-body union constitutes a basic kind. Moreover, he explicitly tells Arnauld in the Fourth Replies that “although mind is part of the essence of man, being united to a human body is not strictly speaking part of the essence of mind” (AT 7: 219, CSM 2: 155, our emphasis). Whether the mind–body complex constitutes a substantial union is a distinct question from whether it has essential properties insofar as it is an entity of the mind–body-complex kind. Since Descartes himself seems not to have been of one mind on the first question, we will not pursue it (see Voss 1994). Whether a mind, insofar as it is an entity of the mental kind, could exist apart from the body to which it is united is a distinct question from whether a mind, insofar as it is an entity of the element-of-a-mindbody-complex kind, could exist apart from the kind of complex of which it is an element. Descartes answers the first question in the affirmative (see AT 7: 444–5, CSM 2: 299). We find his negative response to the second question in the Fourth Replies: Thus a hand is an incomplete substance when it is referred to the whole body of which it is a part; but it is a complete substance when it is considered on its own. And in just the same way the mind and the body are incomplete substances when they are referred to a human being which together they make up. But if they are considered on their own, they are complete. (AT 7: 222, CSM 2: 157) Though Descartes avoids such bothersome hyphenates as our “elementof-a-mind-body-complex,” a mind and body do conjoin to form an instance of the mind–body kind. They are properly parts of that whole. Given his commitment to the mind–body kind, relative to that kind neither mind nor body can be conceived independently of one another. One can conceive of a mind separate from a body, but only when one conceives of a mind as a thing of the mental kind.24

98 Descartes’s method We conclude, therefore, that Descartes’s answer to the problem of the connection between mind and body is that they are joined by natural laws, that these laws are eternal truths, and that questions of Cartesian causal relations are questions of formal causality. The unity of the method In Chapters One and Two, we examined the Cartesian method with respect to natural laws and with respect to ideas. If our argument in this chapter is sound, it reveals an essential unity in the Cartesian method. The fundamental object sought through methodological inquiry is the essence of a thing, whether that is an object – in which case one seeks a clear and distinct idea – or a natural law (a partial specification of the essence of the natural world) or some more general eternal truth (a partial specification of the essence of any possible world). In each case, the natural light provides one with the insight that one has found an essence. Except in the case of God, to show that something exists requires an existential premise. Following the deductivenomological model of explanation, the justification of the form “x exists” would require an eternal truth of the form, “Anything that is ø exists” and an existential claim of the form “x is ø.”25 Insofar as eternal truths are essential claims, this procedure complies with Descartes’s maxim that “according to the laws of true logic, we must never ask about the existence of anything until we first understand its essence” (AT 7: 107–8, CSM 2: 78). In our earlier chapters, we distinguished between an enumeration of hypotheses in searching for natural laws and an enumeration of properties in seeking the essence of a thing. Since eternal truths are essences, these are two sides of the same coin. When seeking a natural law, one enumerates hypotheses: these are objects of consideration because they partially specify the essence of the world (or any possible world). Similarly, in considering the essence of an object, the enumeration of properties is the object of consideration since they help one specify a thing of a certain kind. In either case, the natural light guides one in the elimination of hypotheses or properties from the list.26 Finally, construing Cartesian causes as formal causes increases the plausibility of Descartes’s commitment to the double method of coherence to which he alludes in Part Six of the Discourse on Method.27 Recall that Descartes warns his readers not to be shocked that: [I call some of the statements] at the beginning of the Optics and

Causation 99 Meteorology “suppositions” and do not seem to care about proving them. . . For I take my reasoning to be so closely interconnected that just as the last are proved by the first, which are their causes, so the first are proved by the last, which are their effects” (AT 6: 76, CSM 1: 150) Insofar as the suppositions or hypotheses on which his system is built are eternal truths – and recognized as such by the light of nature – this mutual proof complies with a concern with formal causes. The natural light recognizes his initial hypotheses as true: their material truth is recognized. As long as they explain the phenomena in question, evidence for their formal truth exists: it is evidence that the principle in question applies to the real world. Further, if a description of the phenomenon to be explained can be deduced from the hypothesis and a statement of fact, this constitutes what Pappus called the proof of the analysis (in Hintikka and Remes 1974: 9). If we correctly claim that Descartes concerned himself with formal causes – explanations based on essences – the various elements of his remarks on the method of analysis cohere nicely. But to this point we have only shown that one can construct a coherent account of Cartesian analysis. Since Descartes claimed that analysis “is the best and truest method of instruction, and it was this method alone which I employed in my Meditations” (AT 7: 156, CSM 2: 111), the adequacy of our account can be shown only if it manifests itself in the Meditations, that is, if it increases the coherence of that work. To this task we now turn.

Appendix The rainbow

In his letter to Vatier of 22 February 1638, Descartes writes: I have, however, given a brief sample of it [my method] in my account of the rainbow, and if you take the trouble to reread it, I hope that it will satisfy you more than it did the first time; the matter is, after all, quite difficult in itself. (AT 1: 559, CSM 3: 85) This is one of the few places in which Descartes unequivocally claims to provide a sample of his method; hence, we briefly examine that work, and find that his procedural moves comply with our account of the method.1 Descartes’s discussion of the rainbow in Discourse Eight of the Meteorology differs in certain ways from the method we have discussed and which we will discuss in detail with respect to the Meditations. At first blush, one might think that he conducts no searches for general principles, no exercises in conceptual elucidation, and fails to appeal to the natural light. Since we contend that these characteristics are hallmarks of the Cartesian method, does their absence expose a fundamental flaw in our account of the method? Not at all. First, being a fairly complex phenomenon, the rainbow is far from fundamental. His discussion presupposes the conclusions reached in the previous seven discourses of the Meteorology and the Optics. We should not be surprised that he discovers no new laws. Second, the discourse on the rainbow is explanatory. As such, it exemplifies the fundamentality of coherence to the Cartesian method. Third, it is only at first blush that one finds no exercises in conceptual elucidation. As we show, Descartes is concerned with the essential elements necessary for the occurrence of a rainbow. While his interests are straightforwardly causal, the search for

The rainbow 101 essential elements may be construed as an exercise in ideational clarification. Finally, as one would expect when examining a topic that is several levels removed from the metaphysical foundations of the Cartesian system, it is only reasonable to contend that he tacitly justifies his conclusions by means of the natural light; to explicitly introduce the natural light at this level of discourse would be inappropriate. Descartes describes the phenomenon to be explained in the first paragraph of Discourse Eight. He begins by observing the occasions on which one perceives a rainbow. He writes: First, I considered that this arc can appear not only in the sky, but also in the air near us, whenever there are many drops of water in the air illuminated by the sun, as experience shows us in certain fountains; thus it was easy for me to judge that it came merely from the way that the rays of light act against those drops, and from there tend toward our eyes. Then, knowing that these drops are round, as has been proven above, and seeing that their being larger or smaller does not change the appearance of the arc, I then took it into my head to make a very large one, the better to examine it. (AT 6:325, O 332) Descartes sets the initial elements of the problem as follows. Experience indicates that it is only on occasions in which droplets of water are in the air that one perceives a rainbow. This occurs not only in cases when a rainbow appears at a distance after a rainstorm, but also when rays of sunlight pass through droplets of water close at hand. Thus, the phenomenon to explain is how the interaction of water droplets and light result in an observable rainbow. Given his conclusion earlier in the Meteorology that all drops of water are round – “those of fresh water are round like strings, and those of salt like cylinders or rods; for all bodies that move in different ways over a long period of time usually become rounded” (AT 6: 203, O 285; cf. AT 6: 280–1, O 298–9, where water droplets are said to be perfectly round) – Descartes proposes to examine the phenomenon by using a large round flask filled with water to simulate a water droplet. Let us call this round flask of water a “super-droplet.” Descartes observes the effects of sunlight passing through the superdroplet. (See Figure 2.) There are two rainbows. In the primary rainbow, the color red is perceived at point D. In the secondary rainbow, a fainter red is

102 Appendix to Part I

Figure 2 The rainbow perceived at point K. In the case of D, the angle formed by point D, the observer E and the point M at the base of the rainbow is about 42°. The angle KEM is approximately 52°. So long as the angle DEM remains at approximately 42°, the brilliant red remains. If the angle becomes bigger, the color disappears; if it becomes smaller, it divides into other colors. The fainter rainbow is inverted. If the angle KEM is made slightly larger than 52°, weaker colors (yellow, blue) appear; if it is much larger or somewhat smaller than 52°, the colors disappear. This is the phenomenon to be explained. Descartes now turns to explanation. He writes: After this, examining in more detail what caused the part D of the ball BCD to appear red, I found that it was the rays of the sun which, coming from A toward B, were curved as they entered the water at point B, and went toward C, whence they were reflected toward D; and there, being curved again as they left the water, they tended toward E. For as

The rainbow 103 soon as I put an opaque or dark body in some place on the lines AB, BC, CD, or DE, this red color would disappear. And even if I covered the whole ball except for the two points B and D, and put dark bodies everywhere else, provided nothing hindered the action of the rays ABCDE, the red color nevertheless appeared. Then I was also searching for the cause of the red which appeared at K; and I discovered that it was the rays which came from F toward G, where they curved toward H, and in H reflected toward I, and in I reflected again toward K, and then finally they curved at point K and tended toward E. Therefore the primary rainbow is caused by the rays which reach the eye after two refractions and one reflection, and the secondary by other rays which reach it only after two refractions and two reflections; which is what prevents the second from appearing as clearly as the first. (AT 6: 328–9, O 334) To understand how this passage agrees with our account of the Cartesian method, one should take the initial observation – that wherever rainbows appear water droplets and sunlight must also appear – as placing certain limits on the explanans: any explanation of the rainbow must appeal only to properties of water and light. The discussions of reflection and refraction in the Optics (see AT 6: 93–105, CSM 1: 156–64) provide the guiding thread: namely, water bends rays of light. Given this, Descartes may formulate a hypothesis regarding the roles of reflection and refraction in explaining the physical side of color perception: in the case of the primary rainbow, one perceives red as a result of two refractions and one reflection, and in the case of the secondary rainbows, one perceives red as a result of two refractions and two reflections. The hypothesis, in turn, guides the subsequent experimental tests and observations: by blocking the light following any of the lines represented on the diagram, the phenomenon (red) ceases to occur. These observations confirm the supposition that to see red requires light. They also show that to perceive redness requires two refractions. If Descartes’s method complies with the model we have suggested, he should seek the minimum number of characteristics of light interacting with a medium to explain the phenomenon (the rainbow) sufficiently. If one were to enumerate the characteristics he has considered to this point, these would include: one, curved water droplets, two, light traveling in straight lines, three, two refractions of light, four, one or two reflections of the light, and five, refractions resulting in angles of very specific degrees. Are all of these

104 Appendix to Part I characteristics necessary for the phenomenon? No. His discussion of the prism reduces the number of characteristics necessary for explaining the phenomenon. A prism is a triangle of crystal which causes a rainbow phenomenon. As he describes the case, he assumes a prism with an angle of 30° to 40°, such that the sun’s rays that enter the prism are perpendicular to its angled surface and bend to form a rainbow. (See Figure 3.) The phenomenon is the same as it was in the case of the rainbow, but there are significant differences in the circumstances that result in the rainbow-like phenomenon. Descartes lists these: From this I learned, first, that the surfaces of the drops of water need not be curved in order to produce these colors, for those of this crystal are completely flat; nor does the angle under which they appear need to be of any particular size, for it can be changed there without their changing. And although we can cause the rays going toward F to curve sometimes more and sometimes less than those going toward H, they nevertheless always paint red, and those going toward H always paint blue; neither is reflection necessary, for there is none of it here; nor finally do we need a plurality of refractions, for there is only one of them here. But I judged that there must be at least one refraction, and even one such that its effect was not destroyed by another, for experiment shows that if the surfaces MN and NP were parallel, the rays, being straightened as much in the one as they were curved in the other, would not produce these colors. (AT 6: 330–1, O 335) Notice that Descartes eliminates a certain number of characteristics. The rainbow phenomenon occurs when light passes through a prism. But the prism has only straight edges, so the curvature of a water droplet is not necessary for the formation of a rainbow. The size of the angle appears to be irrelevant to the phenomenon. In the case of the prism, there is only one refraction and no reflection of the light, so it appears that only one refraction is necessary for the phenomenon.2 So he leaves us with the refraction of light as the sole necessary condition for explaining the rainbow phenomenon. Before going on, we should notice what Descartes has done here and how it complies with our general account of the Cartesian method. Notice, first, that a rainbow as a phenomenon that occurs after a thunderstorm is

The rainbow 105

Figure 3 The prism sensibly indistinguishable either from a rainbow that occurs when light passes through water in a fountain or from the result of light passing through a prism. Second, insofar as the visual effect is the same, prima facie reasons arise for assuming a common cause. In examining the prism, Descartes has clarified the idea of the cause of a rainbow; it is in many ways analogous to the clarification of the idea of the self in Meditation Two (see AT 7: 25–8, CSM 2:17–19).3 The meteorological rainbow is phenomenally identical with the rainbow caused by light passing through a prism. In showing the differences between the two cases, he enables himself to hone the notion of the cause of a rainbow to its single fundamental element, namely, the refraction of light. But if the refraction of light alone is essential to the rainbow phenomenon, it remains an open question why such refraction results in the apparent change from white light to colored light. In turning to this problem, Descartes again allows the conclusions reached in the Optics to guide his hypotheses. Light is construed as the movement of fine particles. The movement of these particles is, in principle, no different from the movement of other bodies. So to explain refraction is nothing more than to explain changes in the motion of the moving particles constituting light. Descartes explains this (see Figure 4) by means of the interaction of a particle V (whose spin is represented by the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4) with four other particles, Q,R, S,

106 Appendix to Part I

Figure 4 Movement of particles and T. If Q and R are moving more rapidly toward some point X than V, and S and T are moving more slowly toward X than V, then Q increases the spin of V without hindrance from R, since R is already moving faster. The result is that V has a stronger tendency to rotate than to move in a straight line, which causes the color red. If the opposite situation obtains – if Q and R are moving more slowly than V, which is moving more slowly than T and S – then the rotation of V is decreased and it veers in such a way that it is visible as the colors green to blue.4 Notice what has happened. Descartes focuses on the rainbow phenomenon. He makes certain observations of a meteorological rainbow. He clarifies the concept of the cause of a rainbow by considering rainbows caused by a prism. This ideational analysis clarifies the idea of the cause of a rainbow by reducing it to a fundamental common element, namely the refraction of light. He then explains refraction in terms of his optical theory. All that remains for him to do is explain why, in the case of the meteorological rainbow, the primary and secondary rainbows are perceived only at about 42° and 52°. This he explains in terms of shadows, the blockage of light (see AT 6: 336–7, O 339). We need not go into the details of that explanation. Nor need we go into his explanations of inverted rainbows (AT 6: 341–2, O 343–4) and tertiary rainbows (AT 6: 342–3, O 344). Suffice it to say his pattern throughout

The rainbow 107 Discourse Eight follows the model we set forth in the first three chapters. He analyzes the phenomenon (he looks for clear and distinct ideas). He seeks natural laws which will allow him to explain it. In this case, unlike those we have considered or shall consider below, the laws are found in the more general work he has already completed, namely, the Optics. Having found the laws and a “clear and distinct idea” of the cause of the rainbow, he can explain the meteorological phenomenon on the basis of his laws. This is precisely what one would expect given our account of the Cartesian method.

Part II

Descartes’s Meditations on First Philosophy

4

Meditation One Doubts and suppositions

Now that we have provided a general account of the Cartesian method, we turn to the Meditations. Since Descartes claimed that “analysis . . . is the best and truest method of instruction, and it was the method alone which I employed in my Meditations” (AT 7: 156, CSM 2: 111), our account of the method should prove insightful with regard to the argumentative structure of the Meditations. Further, we take seriously his remark that “there are many truths which – although it is vital to be aware of them – this method often scarcely mentions, since they are transparently clear to anyone who gives them his attention” (AT 7: 156, CSM 2: 110), which implies that many appeals to the common principles and eternal truths are not explicitly mentioned (see P 1: 49; CB §1: AT 5: 146, CSM 3: 332). In this chapter we examine the First Meditation. We show that the doubts are not all of a kind. The early doubts are based on epistemic assumptions; the later doubts are purely hypothetical. While one might argue that the doubts function only as hypotheses to be refuted, we argue that the deceiverGod argument, the defective-faculties argument, and the malicious-demon hypothesis fulfill more complex heuristic roles. Our discussion has three parts. We begin by examining the meditation’s opening paragraphs and argue that the “method of doubt” serves primarily to clear the mind of its pre-philosophical biases. Next we examine what we call the “epistemic doubts,” that is, the doubts prior to the deceiver-God argument. Finally, we examine the purely hypothetical (hyperbolical) doubts and argue that the heuristic functions of the deceiver-God argument, the defective-faculties argument, and the evil-demon hypothesis are distinct from one another.

112 Descartes’s Meditations New foundations: the task of the Meditations Descartes begins the Meditations with his famous foundations metaphor. Having been: struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them . . . [I realized that it was necessary] to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last. (AT 7: 17, CSM 2: 12) Descartes seeks to establish new epistemic foundations for his sciences. What does this entail? He tells us later that “Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either from the senses or through the senses” (AT 7: 18, CSM 2: 12). This suggests that he will focus his attack on the empiricism manifest in the Scholastic maxim, “Nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu.” If our account of the method is correct, Descartes replaces this empiricist principle with the principle that one should accept as “most true” only such principles that one knows through the natural light of reason (eternal truths).1 The foundations metaphor seems to have two further implications. First, consistent with the shift away from an empiricist epistemology, first principles are known by reason, not by abstraction from experience (see AT 7: 117, 120, 220, 221, 228, 9A: 211, 215, 216; CSM 2: 83, 85, 155, 156, 160, 274, 276, 277). This epistemological shift marks a significant departure from the Aristotelian tradition, which held that even the truths of mathematics and metaphysics are abstracted from experience (Metaphysics 11.3, 1061a29–1061b12: Aristotle 1941: 855). Second, although the Meditations is an epistemological work, metaphysics is its subject-matter. Descartes attempts to place his scientific works on secure metaphysical as well as epistemological foundations.2 Given the reductionist tendencies in his scientific works, we can reasonably understand the search for metaphysical foundations for the sciences as the search for the highest explanatory principle.3 If one finds such a principle, it provides the basis for justifying the claim that the material world exists and explains what can be known of it. Descartes urges one “to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations” (AT 7: 17, CSM 2: 12; see also AT 6: 13–14, 10:

Doubts and suppositions 113 511–14, CSM 1: 117, 2: 407–9, and P 1: 1–2), but when one looks at that task in comparison with the conclusions of Meditation Six, one notices that the world envisaged there appears much like the world dismantled in Meditation One. Descartes seems to have replaced his old opinions “with the same ones once I had squared them with the standards of reason” (AT 6: 13–14, CSM 1: 117).4 While the attack on the foundations razes Descartes’s house of opinions to the ground, his practice comes closer to lifting a house from its foundation and moving it to a new and firmer one. Such a move inevitably requires some patching in the edifice moved: for example colors, sounds, heat and cold lose the status of “real qualities” and become what later philosophers call “secondary qualities,” but much of the house remains intact. Nor should one find this terribly surprising. While the rhetoric of the Meditations plays down the role of sense experience, Descartes grants at least a moderate degree of certainty to sense experience. In the Preface to the French edition of the Principles, he lists sense experience as a level of human wisdom second only to “notions which are so clear in themselves that they can be acquired without mediation” (AT 9B: 5, CSM 1: 181). Although he goes on to claim that there is a still more perfect way, which “consists in the search for the first causes and the true principles which enable us to deduce the reasons for everything we are capable of knowing” (AT 9B: 5, CSM 1: 181), much of what is known by this highest way leaves intact what is known by the lower ones. This result should startle no one, since the fifth and highest level of wisdom, more properly understood, defines the limits of what is known by sense experience. Descartes gives voice to another theme that recurs throughout the Meditations, namely, that the discovery of false beliefs is the motive for systematic doubt. If knowledge is based on the wrong foundations, error can easily follow. But this alone does not explain why he believed that systematic doubt constitutes a necessary propaedeutic to discovering new foundations. Doubt is needed to free the mind from “preconceived opinions” (præjudiciis) formed by sense experience (see AT 7: 445, CSM 2: 299; AT 1: 353, CSM 3: 55; P 1: 1 and 71). In the Dedicatory Letter to the Sorbonne he indicates that a primary reason why few people will understand his Meditations is that “they require a mind which is completely free from preconceived opinions and which can easily detach itself from involvement with the senses” (AT 7: 4, CSM 2: 5). In the Preface to the Reader he warns, “I would not urge anyone to read this book except those who are able and willing to meditate seriously with me, and to withdraw their minds from the senses and from all preconceived opinions” (AT 7: 9, CSM 2: 8). In the

114 Descartes’s Meditations Synopsis he writes that the greatest benefit of the doubts “lies in freeing us from all our preconceived opinions, and providing the easiest route by which the mind may be led away from the senses” (AT 7: 12, CSM 2: 9). And, finally, in the Conversation with Burman he sounds this theme once again: “[T]he author is considering at this point the man who is only just beginning to philosophize and who is paying attention only to what he knows he is aware of” (CB §1: AT 5: 146, CSM 3: 332). In a prephilosophical state, one naturally assumes that the empiricist principle is true. The data of sense experience are, for all of us in a naive state, first in the order of consideration. Insofar as Descartes attempts to replace the empiricist principle with an alternative foundational epistemic principle, he drives a wedge between what is first in the order of consideration and what is first in the order of epistemic priority. Calling preconceived opinions into doubt allows us to attend more closely to the natural light (AT 7: 107, CSM 2: 77; see also AT 7: 135, CSM 2: 97; see also CB §1: AT 5: 146, CSM 3: 332–3). A systematic doubt paves the way for recognizing the primary notions or eternal truths – particularly metaphysical first principles (AT 7: 156, CSM 2: 111) – which “we cannot fail to know . . . when the occasion for thinking about them arises, provided that we are not blinded by preconceived opinions” (P 1: 49: AT 8A: 24, CSM 1: 209; see also P 1: 50, 67). The philosopher at the beginning of the Meditations is understood as one in a state of philosophical naiveté, one having all the natural biases toward the reliability of sense perception. By weaning oneself from sense experience, one becomes aware of those axioms that are “in us from birth” (CB §1: AT 5: 145, CSM 3: 332), and one is in a position to recognize their truth by the natural light. While Descartes’s objective was to doubt all his previous opinions, he insists on a reasoned doubt. He explains that “it will be enough if I find in each of them at least some reason for doubt” (AT 7: 18, CSM 2: 12). For each claim that he engulfs in doubt, he provides a reason for doing so. As we shall see, the doubts are of various kinds. Some doubts are based on experience; others are purely hypothetical. By raising these doubts, Descartes destroys the foundations for his current house of beliefs and the house “collapses of its own accord” (ibid.). Epistemological doubts In his scientific writings, Descartes typically begins with a set of suppositions (hypotheses) that his subsequent discussions tend to confirm insofar as

Doubts and suppositions 115 they explain known phenomena. The doubts raised in the First Meditation can be treated as suppositions, but they differ in two ways from the suppositions in his other works. First, while he offers the suppositions in the scientific works for adoption, the doubts in the First Meditation function primarily as suppositions to be refuted.5 Second, while the suppositions in the scientific writings are conceptually simple, those introduced by the doubts are conceptually complex. By looking at the prudential doubt at the beginning of Meditation One, we discover that Descartes makes two suppositions, namely that all knowledge is derived from the senses and that judgments based upon sense perception are sometimes inconsistent. Granting the second supposition sets the stage for a reductio ad absurdum of the first. Descartes begins by noting: Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once. (AT 7: 18, CSM 2: 12) Cases in which the senses have deceived include “towers which had looked round from a distance appeared square from close up; and enormous statues standing on their pediments did not seem large when observed from the ground” (AT 7: 76, CSM 2: 53; cf. AT 7: 385, CSM 2: 264). Assuming that neither the tower nor the statue mutates when its sensible appearances change, we have made inconsistent judgments based on past experience. So Descartes suggests it is epistemically prudent to withhold judgment until one is in the most favorable position to judge. Is Descartes’s concern limited to epistemic prudence? We think not. If everything is known “from the senses or through the senses,” and if, as Berman reports, this is the distinction between what is known by sight and what is known by hearing, that is, instruction (CB §1: AT 5: 146, CSM 3: 332), then the principle of noncontradiction must be known through the senses.6 One cannot know it “from the senses”: the most the senses could show is that, as a matter of fact, objects do not have inconsistent properties, not that it is impossible for them to have inconsistent properties.7 Hence, it could only be known “through the senses,” that is, by instruction. This sets the stage for a regress to Proto-Gorgias, the first person who taught the

116 Descartes’s Meditations principle of noncontradiction. At that point one faces the following dilemma: either Proto-Gorgias knew the principle was true or she did not. If she did not know it, then even now no grounds for doubt exist in cases of inconsistent judgment. But we supposed that grounds for doubt do exist. Therefore, she must have known the principle of noncontradiction. If she did know it, either she knew it “from or through the senses” or in some other way. We have already acknowledged that it cannot have been known from the senses, and by hypothesis she cannot know it through the senses, since the first person who taught the principle of noncontradiction cannot have been taught the principle by another. Hence, Proto-Gorgias must know it in some other way, that is, the supposition that all knowledge is derived “from the senses or through the senses” must be false. Thus, by accepting Descartes’s supposition that doubt is possible, one implicitly accepts a nonempirical basis for knowledge. This does not imply that one has no knowledge on the basis of sense experience; it merely implies that at least there is some non-sensuous basis for knowledge. Descartes must modify his initial supposition that all knowledge is derived from experience to the claim that only some – though, perhaps, most – knowledge is derived from experience, while allowing at least that there is a nonsensuous basis for the principle of noncontradiction. The call for prudence is the mark of such a modification. Having duly noted the need for prudence in making judgments from sense experience, Descartes implicitly changes his assumed epistemic principle from what might be called the Principle of Acquaintance (PA) to what might be called the Enhanced Principle of Acquaintance (EPA). PA states that whatever one is sensibly acquainted is identical with the real world. EPA states that whatever one is sensibly acquainted with provides the basis for one’s knowledge of the real world, and the real world is identical with an internally consistent reconstruction of sensible experience. In other words, the object of sensible awareness o1 at t1 may be taken as identical with an object in the world so long as there is not another object of sensible awareness o2 at tn whose existence is inconsistent with o1. While PA commits one to the claim that the round-appearing, five-inchtall tower one now sees in the distance is actually round and five inches tall, EPA requires that one suspend judgment on the shape and size of the tower until one has more experience. Hence, if one is now at the base of the what one sees as the same tower that once had appeared as round and fiveinches-tall, but now appears to be square and thirty feet tall, and if experience teaches that towers that appear as short and round from a distance often

Doubts and suppositions 117 appear tall and square from a closer view, EPA requires that one judge the tower itself as tall and square (see AT 7: 76, 82; CSM 2: 53, 57). EPA provides a judgmental stability to the presumptive world that is not provided by PA.8 EPA is a recognition of the normal standards of inductive certainty. Descartes’s supposition of EPA is evident in the fourth paragraph of the First Meditation. There he acknowledges that since the senses occasionally deceive one, PA must be rejected, that is, one must not judge that the world is as it appears in those cases in which experiential judgments prove to be inconsistent. Nonetheless, there are cases in which it is virtually impossible to doubt beliefs derived from the senses, e.g., “that I am here, sitting by the fire, wearing a winter dressing-gown, holding this piece of paper in my hands” (AT 7: 19; CSM 2:13). Why is this virtually impossible to doubt? How does it differ from the case of the distant tower? In the case of the distant tower, he has inconsistent experiences; in the case of sitting by the fire in his dressing gown he presumably has no such inconsistent experiences. Descartes implicitly appeals to not only his present experience, but to past experience as well; he appeals to EPA: given his past experience, he has no reason to doubt his senses in the present case. Indeed, his experience suggests that the sole analogue for claiming that he is presently deceived is found in the insane person, who has numerous false – indeed, outrageous – beliefs. Since no experiential grounds exist for claiming that his belief that he is seated near the fire in his dressing-gown is false, EPA seems to justify his belief. The considerations in this paragraph provide no basis for calling EPA into doubt. Descartes’s confidence is short-lived. Though he does not explicitly call EPA into doubt, his famous dream argument suggests that no clear ground exists for applying the criterion. In Descartes’s words: A brilliant piece of reasoning! As if I were not a man who sleeps at night, and regularly has all the same experiences while asleep as madmen do when awake – indeed sometimes even more improbable ones. How often, asleep at night, am I convinced of just such familiar events – that I am here in my dressing-gown, sitting by the fire – when in fact I am lying undressed in bed! Yet at the moment my eyes are certainly wide awake when I look at this piece of paper; I shake my head and it is not asleep; as I stretch out and feel my hand I do so deliberately, and I know what I am doing. All this would not happen with such distinctness to someone asleep. Indeed! As if I did not remember other occasions when I have been tricked by exactly similar thoughts while asleep! As I

118 Descartes’s Meditations think about this more carefully, I see plainly that there are never any sure signs by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep. The result is that I begin to feel dazed, and this very feeling only reinforces the notion that I may be asleep. (AT 7: 19, CSM 2: 13) If experience is the touchstone of knowledge, one must take into account all kinds of experience. If there were a form of experience distinct from sensible acquaintance, but not clearly distinguishable from it, then one would not know when EPA could be applied. The dream argument raises precisely this problem. A dream is a natural form of madness. Phenomenally, dream states are indistinguishable from waking perceptual states.9 Since, by hypothesis, dream states provide one with no knowledge of the real world, any judgments regarding the world made on the basis of a dream state will as much lead one into error as if one were insane. Descartes alludes to past experiences in which he confused dream states with waking perceptual states to provide evidence that such a confusion is possible. But if such a confusion is possible insofar as it occasionally occurs, unless there is a criterion by which one could distinguish dream states from waking perceptual states (the domain to which EPA applies) EPA can provide no clue to the nature of the real world. Thus, the dream argument raises the specter of losing epistemic contact with the real world. The dream argument fails to force an explicit rejection of EPA; instead, it forces one to arrive at a meta-criterion that will allow one to delineate those states to which EPA applies from other experiential states.10 Since Descartes claims an inability to distinguish dream states from waking states, does this imply that experience can play no role in the search for knowledge? No. As the painter paragraph (AT 7: 20, CSM 2: 14) makes clear, the specter of dreams simply requires that one’s epistemic suppositions be changed once again. They must be both broadened and narrowed. Since one finds no criterion on which to distinguish waking experience from dream experience, one must broaden “sensible acquaintance” to the generic “experience.” Since some forms of experience yield false judgments, one must narrow the objects of experience to include those and only those objects that are common to all experience. The analogy between a dream and a painting does this. While neither a painting nor a dream represents an occurrent state of affairs, the elements of both are found in occurrent perceptual states. Whether one perceives a portrait or a person, one will

Doubts and suppositions 119 notice various kinds of body parts: “eyes, head, hands and the body as a whole” (AT 7: 19, CSM 2: 13). Not all objects represented in dreams or in paintings actually exist. Consider mythical beasts, for example. Yet even mythical beasts are composed of parts of the same kinds one sensibly perceives. Though one often takes the fact that objects in some dreams and paintings bear little resemblance to real objects as a ground for questioning the existence of heads or hands, at least one should deem as real the most general sorts of thing, “corporeal nature in general, and its extension” (AT 7: 20, CSM 2: 14). By limiting the things one can claim to exist in spite of the dream argument to the class of geometrical objects (corporeal nature in general), the painter paragraph is a study in abstraction from sense experience. In moving from the contention that bodily parts are real through the contention that colors are real to the contention that corporeal nature in general is real, Descartes remains consistent with the assumption that one derives all knowledge from experience. Those in the Aristotelian-Scholastic heritage even assume that the truths of geometry are ultimately abstracted from what is given in experience. Aristotle himself suggests just this in his Metaphysics, where he writes: As the mathematician investigates abstractions (for before beginning his investigations he strips off all the sensible qualities, e.g. weight and lightness, harness and its contrary, and also heat and cold and the other sensible contrarieties, and leaves only the quantitative and continuous, sometimes in one, sometimes in two, sometimes in three dimensions, and the attributes of these qua quantitative and continuous, and does not consider them in any other respect, and examines the relative positions of some and the attributes of others, and the ratios of others; but yet we posit one and the same science of all these things – geometry) – the same is true with regard to being. (Metaphysics, 11.3, 1061a29–1061b5: Aristotle 1941: 855) The theme that knowledge arises through abstraction from sense experience persisted in various forms throughout the Middle Ages (see Copleston 1972: 82, 92, 119, 122, 130, 211, 241). Hence, as Harry Frankfurt (1970: 64–7) also argues, some version of the empiricist principle of knowledge, limited now to only the most simple and general aspects of experience (mathematical principles), is still supposed when Descartes

120 Descartes’s Meditations concludes that only the basic truths of mathematics remain indubitable (AT 7: 20, CSM 2: 14). If experience is the touchstone of knowledge, and if the principles of mathematics apply to all objects of experience insofar as they are the most abstract truths derived from experience, then the principles of mathematics are indubitable. To carry the process of doubt any further requires that reasons be given for calling the domain of experience – and the existence of the corporal realm which presumably underlies it – into doubt. This is the task of the hypothetical doubts.11 The hypothetical doubts Up to this point Descartes has whittled away at the empiricist principle of knowledge. Beginning with the very broad and naive principle that all knowledge is derived from sense experience (PA), Descartes first shows that the fact that one reaches inconsistent conclusions from experience shows that one must make experiential judgments with some care. Implicit in his call for prudence in experiential judgment is a refutation of PA: if one knows that inconsistent judgments cannot both be true, this must be derived from a source other than sense experience. Then an enhanced principle of acquaintance (EPA) replaced PA and this new principle requires that one limit one’s experiential judgments to consistent judgments based on further experience and suspend judgment when the veracity of appearance is an open question. The dream argument allows EPA to stand, while it also produces the necessity for a meta-criterion that allows one to determine when one is in a state of sensible awareness as opposed to a dream state. Given the inapplicability of EPA as the fundamental epistemic principle, we argued that the painter paragraph broadens the epistemic criterion from sensible appearance to experience in general while narrowing it to experience of that which is common to both dream-states and waking states. The painter paragraph reflects the common Aristotelian-Scholastic position that knowledge of universals is obtained by an abstraction from experience. Thus, only the most abstracted aspects of experience, such as mathematical and geometrical principles, would remain immune from systematic doubt. To this point only variations on an empiricist principle provide the suppositional basis for the doubts, and thus empirical considerations fuel the skeptical engine that propels the continued limitation of the supposition. The remaining doubts raised in the First Meditation are of a different kind. While the previous doubts made no metaphysical assumptions – at most

Doubts and suppositions 121 they posed limits for one’s metaphysical assumptions – the remaining doubts make metaphysical assumptions and are purely hypothetical, raising the question of the consequences that would occur if one’s assumptions were correct. To distinguish them from their epistemological predecessors, we refer to the deceiver-God argument, the defective faculties argument, and the malicious demon as “the hypothetical doubts.” Many commentators treat the three hypothetical doubts as a single “deceiver argument.”12 While we grant that Descartes could treat them as merely three variations on a common theme, this would make the hypothetical doubts differ qua suppositions from the suppositions in the scientific writings as well as those in the earlier part of the Meditation. If the hypothetical doubts qua suppositions follow the pattern in the scientific writings, one can read nothing more or less into the supposition than he specifies. Given this approach, we argue that he uses each hypothesis as a heuristic device for raising a separate set of doubts. In the remainder of this chapter we examine these doubts and, by appealing to the specific places at which he replies to the issues raised in each argument, provide some grounds for contending that a distinct heuristic accompanies each of them. To facilitate the ability to follow our argument from here to the end of the this chapter, we have marked the three suppositions under the deceptiveGod hypothesis, or the first hypothetical doubt, with the markers “DG1”, “DG2” and “DG3”, and the three suppositions under the malicious-demon hypothesis, or the third hypothetical doubts, with “MD1”, “MD2” and “MD3”. Descartes expresses the first of his three hypothetical doubts in the following words: And yet firmly rooted in my mind is the long-standing opinion that there is an omnipotent God who made me the kind of creature that I am. [DG1] How do I know that he has not brought it about that there is no earth, no sky, no extended thing, no shape, no size, no place, while at the same time ensuring that all these things appear to me to exist just as they do now? [DG2] What is more, since I sometimes believe that others go astray in cases where they think they have the most perfect knowledge, may I not similarly go wrong every time I add two and three or count the sides of a square, or in some even simpler matter, if that is imaginable? [DG3] But perhaps God would not have allowed me to be deceived in this way, since he is said to be supremely good. But if it were inconsistent with his goodness to have created me such that I am

122 Descartes’s Meditations deceived all the time, it would seem equally foreign to his goodness to allow me to be deceived even occasionally; yet this last assertion cannot be made. The second hypothetical doubt is expressed in the following way: Perhaps there may be some who would prefer to deny the existence of so powerful a God rather than believe that everything else is uncertain. Let us not argue with them, but grant them that everything said about God is a fiction. According to their supposition, then, I have arrived at my present state by fate or chance or a continuous chain of events, or by some other means; yet since deception and error seem to be imperfections, the less powerful they make my original cause, the more likely it is that I am so imperfect as to be deceived all the time. I have no answer to these arguments, but am finally compelled to admit that there is not one of my former beliefs about which a doubt may not properly be raised; and this is not a flippant or ill-considered conclusion, but is based on powerful and well thought-out reasons. So in future I must withhold my assent from these former beliefs just as carefully as I would from obvious falsehoods, if I want to discover any certainty. (AT 7: 21–2, CSM 2: 14–15) Two paragraphs later, the third hypothetical doubt is expressed: I will suppose therefore that not God, who is supremely good and the source of truth, but rather some malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me. [MD1] I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds, and all external things are merely delusions of dreams which he has devised to ensnare my judgement. [MD2] I shall consider myself as not having hands or eyes, or flesh, or blood or senses, but falsely believing that I have all these things. [MD3] I shall stubbornly and firmly persist in this meditation; and, even if it is not my power to know any truth, I shall at least do what is in my power, that is, resolutely guard against assenting to any falsehoods, so that the deceiver, however powerful and cunning he may be, will be unable to impose on me in the slightest degree. (AT 7: 22–3, CSM 2: 15)

Doubts and suppositions 123 If one notices what Descartes says explicitly, one realizes that one should separate the specific and explicit doubts raised by each of these possibilities. The first hypothetical doubt calls the existence of a material world into question (DG1), it calls one’s mathematical beliefs into question (DG2), and it raises the possibility that the fact that one occasionally errs is sufficient to show that God is a deceiver (DG3). The second hypothetical doubt does not explicitly ask one either to raise questions regarding the existence of material objects or to question mathematical truths. It simply asks what the consequences would be if the cause of one’s existence were something other than a perfect God: the less perfect the cause of one’s existence, the more probable it is that one is deceived. Finally, the third hypothetical doubt – the malicious demon – raises the possibility that all appearances are delusions (MD1) and that one does not have a bodily nature (MD2), adding the reminder that one must guard against assenting to falsehoods (MD3). Hence, with the possible exceptions of DG1 and MD1, the specific and explicit doubts one entertains in the three hypotheses are distinct. Before turning to Descartes’s uses of these doubts, let us ask whether there are differences between DG1 and MD1. If one examines DG1 and MD1, one observes both similarities and differences. In DG1 Descartes explicitly raises the possibility that a deceiverGod could cause one falsely to believe in the existence of external objects. While MD1 does not explicitly raise the question of existence, it does suggest that external things and their properties might be “delusions of dreams which he has devised to ensnare my judgment” (AT 7: 23, CSM 2: 15). Is the difference significant? We believe so. Since Descartes indicates in the painter paragraph that one’s inability to distinguish dream states from bona fide perceptual states fails to entail a complete lack of knowledge (AT 7: 19–20, CSM 13–14), we suggest a similar point here, namely, even if one were in a perpetual dream state, one cannot conclude that one would have no warranted judgments regarding material objects, although any such judgments would be nonexistential judgments. To see the plausibility of this point, let us see how Descartes uses the malicious-demon hypothesis. The malicious demon The third hypothetical doubt supposes a malicious demon as the root cause of deception. In the Meditations, the demon explicitly appears on the meditative stage for a fairly short period of time: it makes its entrance at the

124 Descartes’s Meditations end of Meditation One, and is never mentioned after Meditation Two. In Meditation Two, Descartes responds to MD1–MD3 in the reverse of the order in which they are introduced. Recall MD3: “even if it is not in my power to know any truth, I shall at least do what is in my power, that is, resolutely guard against assenting to any falsehood” (AT 7: 23, CSM 2: 15). The Second Meditation begins with virtually the same vow: Anything which admits of the slightest doubt I will set aside just as if I had found it to be wholly false; and I will proceed in this way until I recognize some thing certain, or, if nothing else, until I at least recognize for certain that there is no certainty. (AT 7: 24, CSM 2: 16) Being nothing more than a resolution, MD3 needs no reply. MD2 raises doubts about one’s bodily existence: “I shall consider myself as not having hands or eyes, or flesh, or blood or senses, but falsely believing that I have all these things” (AT 7: 23, CSM 2: 15). The same issue comes up in the first Cogito passage (AT 7: 24–5, CSM 2: 16–17) and again in the discussion leading to res cogitans: But I have just said that I have no sense and no body. This is the sticking point: what follows from this? Am I not so bound up with a body and with senses that I cannot exist without them? But I have convinced myself that there is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Does it not follow that I too do not exist? (AT 7: 24–5, CSM 16) MD2 raises these doubts. The demon is a heuristic device. One of its uses is to strip away the presumption that one’s existence is purely bodily or dependent upon the existence of bodies. By clearing away those preanalytic prejudices, the demon hypothesis paves the way for Descartes’s recognition that thinking is a sufficient condition for knowing his own existence, a condition that is immune from the doubts raised by the possibility of an evil deceiver (AT 7: 25, CSM 2: 17).13 Similarly, in clarifying the concept of himself, Descartes appeals to these same demonic doubts regarding the presumption that he is a bodily thing (AT 7: 26–7, CSM 2: 18). With res cogitans, the malicious demon disappears from the stage of the Meditations. The demon functioned as a epistemic purgative and as a foil

Doubts and suppositions 125 against which to test the conclusions reached to that point in the Meditation (see AT 7: 172, CSM 2: 121). But even if the persona of the demon is gone, MD1 remains. Where does Descartes examine that doubt? We have noticed that there are prima facie differences between MD1 and DG1. We hope to show that one can reasonably take the piece-of-wax argument as a reply to the doubt. Recall MD1: “I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds, and all external things are merely delusions of dreams which he has devised to ensnare my judgement” (AT 7: 23, CSM 2: 15). Notice that colors, shapes, and sounds are among the specific things Descartes suggests might be delusions of dreams. Notice also that he is concerned with judgments. He addresses these topics in the piece-of-wax argument. When the wax is removed from the honey-comb, “its colour, shape, and size are plain to see . . . if you rap it with your knuckle it makes a sound” (AT 7: 30, CSM 2: 20). Yet, as Descartes approaches the fire, these specific qualities change. The wax becomes clear, its shape changes, it expands in size, and it no longer makes sounds when rapped with one’s knuckle. Still one judges that the wax remains the same throughout the changes. Judgment is a function of the intellect, not the perceptive faculty. Insofar as the intellect helps produce judgments, it makes little difference whether the ideas that are the objects of judgment are ideas of existent things or mere delusions. The clarified idea of the wax – the idea that results from one’s judgment – is the idea of the nature of wax whether or not wax exists. Hence, with respect to essential – as opposed to existential – judgments, it makes no difference whether external things are “delusions of dreams.” MD1 provides the catalyst for distinguishing between essential and existential judgments.14 The deceptive-faculties argument Descartes’s second doubt supposes that a being less powerful than God causes one’s being.15 He believes that the less powerful the cause of one’s being, the greater the probability that one is deceived. Why would Descartes believe this? What are the “powerful and well thought-out reasons” that underlie this doubt? The doubt rests on Descartes’s causal maxim, “there must be at least as much in the efficient and total cause as in the effect of that cause” (AT 7: 40, CSM 2: 28). Since it is a corollary of this principle that “what is more perfect . . . cannot arise from what is less perfect” (AT 7: 40–1, CSM 2: 28), the supposition that the cause of one’s being is less

126 Descartes’s Meditations than perfect entails that one is less than perfect, and as the perfection of one’s cause decreases, the probability of deception increases. If our construal of the second doubt is correct, the arguments for the existence of God in the Third Meditation are an extended reply to it, for the causal maxim and its corollary with respect to objective reality take center stage in that Meditation (see AT 7: 42, CSM 2: 29). Descartes turns the doubt on its head, since, in conjunction with the claim that one has an idea of God, he uses the operative principle to show that the cause of one’s being must be God. As we show in Chapter Six, there is also a shift in that Meditation from the idea of God as a being with numerous properties to the idea of a supremely perfect being, and “since it is manifest by the natural light that all fraud and deception depend on some defect,” Descartes concludes that God cannot be a deceiver (AT 7: 52, CSM 2: 35). Given that conclusion, the issue shifts to whether any remaining grounds exist for declaring God is a deceiver, the issues raised in the first hypothetical doubt.16 Is God a deceiver? If one accepts our account to this point, the malicious-demon hypothesis functions primarily as a means of drawing the reader away from the assumptions, first, that the domain of reality is identical with the corporeal realm and second, that all judgments are or presuppose existential judgments. The deceptive faculties argument raises questions concerning the cause of one’s existence and was introduced as a hypothesis to be refuted. Given his tripartite rationale for doubting, namely, the doubts that either first, draw one away from the presumption that the world is corporal and known solely by experience, second, provide Descartes with something to which to reply in subsequent meditations, or third, provide a foil against which to test subsequent conclusions (AT 7: 172, CSM 2: 121), one would expect that at least some of the doubts raised by the deceiver-God argument are foils against which to test his conclusions. We shall see that this is so. At the end of the Third Meditation, Descartes concludes that God is not a deceiver (AT 7: 52, CSM 2: 35). Nonetheless, the implications of the possibility of divine deception dominate the last three meditations. Recall that DG3 raises the question whether God would be a deceiver if it ever happened that one were deceived. This issue is addressed in Meditation Four. Descartes claims that one has a faculty of judgment that is implanted by God and that a nondeceiving God would not allow one “to go wrong

Doubts and suppositions 127 while using it correctly” (AT 7: 54, CSM 2: 38). Immediately after this, he raises the issue expressed in DG3: “There would be no further doubt on this issue were it not that what I have just said [that God is not a deceiver] appears to imply that I am incapable of ever going wrong” (AT 7: 54, CSM 2: 38). The remainder of the meditation is devoted to developing a theory of judgment which explains how one can err while exonerating God from charges of deception. Hence, DG3 is a foil against which Descartes tests the contention that God is not a deceiver. DG2 raises the possibility that one might err even in cases in which one believes one has the most perfect knowledge. Meditation Five focuses on Descartes’s paradigm of perfect knowledge, mathematics. He argues first that knowledge of simple natures is evident (AT 7: 64–5, CSM 2: 44–5), and later that insofar as clear and distinct ideas depend upon God they must be true (AT 7: 70, CSM 2: 48), and that one’s knowledge of the existence of God guarantees that one will not be deceived in one’s memories of clear and distinct ideas, thereby guaranteeing the certainty of mathematical demonstrations (AT 7: 69–70, CSM 2:48).17 Thus, DG2 is also a foil against which Descartes tests his conclusions. Finally, DG1 calls the existence of material objects into question. In Meditation Six Descartes replies to that doubt. He argues that the material world must exist insofar as it is subject to mathematical description from the following observations and previously established conclusions: one, one has a natural disposition to believe in the existence of the material world; two, God is not a deceiver; three, God would be a deceiver if one had a disposition to believe in a material world but there were no faculty that allowed one to correct one’s belief.18 In the Conversation with Burman Descartes indicates that in the First Meditation he was considering a person who was just beginning to philosophize. He assumed that “the common principles or axioms . . . are present in us from birth with such clarity . . . we neglect them and think about them only in a confused manner, but never in the abstract, or apart from material things and particular instances” (CB §1: AT 5: 146, CSM 3: 332–3). If our account of the hypothetical doubts is correct, one implicitly accepts at least one of those common principles (Descartes’s causal maxim) in supposing the doubts, and the process of meditation makes many of those principles and their consequences explicit.

128 Descartes’s Meditations Conclusions The task of the First Meditation is to rid the mind of its preconceived opinions. Descartes undertakes this task by introducing two sets of doubts. The one kind is characterized by a challenge to one’s epistemic supposition that the world is as one perceives it. Each successive doubt poses experientially based counter-examples to one of the supposed empirical epistemic principles, which requires, in each case, that a more limited version of the supposition replace the original. The second set of doubts is hypothetical in nature. The doubts raise numerous issues to which he replies in subsequent Meditations. He claimed that in the First Meditation “we are dealing primarily with the question of whether anything has real existence” (CB §1: AT 5: 146, CSM 3: 332). By the end of the Meditation, the existence of all things has been called into doubt. He has cleared the reader’s mind of its preconceived opinions, and it is now in a state in which the natural light can shine forth. We shall examine the first fruits of this natural illumination in the next chapter.

5

Meditation Two The beginning of the ascent

Having completed the systematic undermining of his earlier beliefs, Descartes begins to rebuild his epistemic world. In his reconstruction he follows the method we outlined in the first three chapters. Under that method the Second and Third Meditations are fundamentally a search for principles. To follow Descartes’s house metaphor, in these meditations he pours the foundation and constructs most of the framing; in the final three meditations, he adds the siding and lays out the interior. The completion of the interior decor and external trim is work left for his physics and ethics. In this chapter we show how the method operates in the Second Meditation. Descartes takes the fact that he doubts as a factual premise and proceeds to search for a principle which justifies the claim that he exists. In the Second Meditation, one finds a characteristic interplay between a search for principles and conceptual elucidation. His examinations of his own nature and the piece of wax stand as exemplars of clarifying an idea. These examinations provide important preliminaries to his introduction of the criterion of clear and distinct perception in Meditation Three. A new foundation Descartes is nothing if not dramatic when he begins the Second Meditation with a reiteration of the conclusions of Meditation One. The opening paragraph of the Meditation stresses the seriousness of his doubts. He includes a virtual restatement of the third explicit doubt under the maliciousdemon hypothesis, namely, the resolution to “guard against assenting to any falsehoods, so that the deceiver, however powerful and cunning he may be, will be unable to impose on me in the slightest degree” (AT 7: 23, CSM 2: 15) in stating “Anything which admits of the slightest doubt I will

130 Descartes’s Meditations set aside just as if I had found it to be wholly false.” The more interesting element of the paragraph, however, is found in his desire to find an Archimedean point: Archimedes used to demand just one firm and immovable point in order to shift the entire earth; so I too can hope for great things if I manage to find just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshakeable. (AT 7: 23, CSM 2: 16) What is the nature of this point? What will Descartes gain if he discovers it? One might reasonably suggest that “the point” is the Cogito: this is the starting-point of his philosophy (see P 1: 10). But what status should be ascribed to that discovery? Is this the foundation on which he intends to rebuild his sciences (cf. AT 7: 17, CSM 2: 12)? Or is its status more like that of a basement wall that is built upon a foundation that has already been poured? We believe it is the latter, the first brick laid upon a new foundation, a foundation which, at least for purposes of dramatic effect, Descartes does not yet recognize as secure. To understand our point here, let us return briefly to the First Meditation. Recall that Descartes’s objective there was to demolish what he had formerly considered the foundation of his sciences, namely an empiricist criterion of knowledge: “Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either from or through the senses” (AT 7: 18, CSM 2: 12). If the Archimedean point qua Cogito were construed as the foundation of his new philosophy, it would be a radically different kind of foundation from that which he destroyed: he would be replacing a criteriological foundation with a factual foundation. But a factual claim will not work as an epistemic foundation: the epistemic objective is to distinguish what can be known as true (known as facts) from what cannot. For this reason we consider it prima facie implausible to construe the search for an Archimedean point as a search for foundations. Furthermore, the criticisms of the empiricist criterion in Meditation One already point to an alternative criteriological foundation. Recall Descartes’s seemingly modest claim that “from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once” (AT 7: 18, CSM 2: 12). We argued that to raise foundational doubts Descartes must implicitly weigh the probability of one criterion on the basis of another. Claims of deception require that one previously know

The beginning of the ascent 131 that the conjunction of two inconsistent claims cannot be true. This knowledge cannot be obtained from sense experience alone: sense experience can report no more than what appear to be the facts at a given time. The principle of noncontradiction must be known in some other way, namely, by the natural light: its truth must be perceived clearly and distinctly. As we shall see, Descartes repeatedly appeals to what is known by the natural light at crucial junctures in his arguments. We believe that the natural light (perceiving clearly and distinctly) constitutes his new epistemic foundation: it is necessary for judging the applicability of other criteria, such as the epistemic criterion, and it provides the source for knowledge of exceedingly general principles (eternal truths).1 Even if the new epistemic foundation is criteriological, that is, perceiving clearly and distinctly, this still fails to help us locate the Archimedean point. We are inclined to identify the Cartesian self as that point. The doubts had called the existence of all objects into question. Through the Cogito, the Cartesian self becomes the first existent object introduced into Descartes’s world.2 This entity, the first one placed on the foundation, like an Archimedean point, provides the fulcrum to move additional building materials into place. Descartes continues by reminding himself of the doubts he had entertained. First, he raises the doubts consistent with holding that all knowledge requires sense experience. This is emphasized in his remarks that “everything I see is spurious” and “I have no senses” (AT 7: 24, CSM 2: 16). Second, he seems concerned with existential claims. He clarifies this concem with regard to memory: the assumption is that “none of the things that it reports ever happened” (AT 7: 24, CSM 2: 16). One might reasonably suggest the same regarding body, shape, extension, movement, and place, since Descartes said he would consider them chimeras, that is, idle fancies and illusions. Finally, if existential claims are his only concern, he would leave open the entire realm of eternal truths as things knowable. Indeed, the absence of any allusion to the unknowability of mathematical truths suggests that the Cartesian meditator is concerned solely with existential claims and that a nonempirical means might remain for knowing truths. The Cogito outside the Meditations On our account of the Cartesian method, Descartes searches for eternal truths as explanatory principles. In the case of the Cogito, this would imply that he infers his own existence in the form of an argument, or alternatively

132 Descartes’s Meditations a principle which, together with the fact that he thinks, explains his existence. While to construe “I think, therefore I am” as an enthymematic syllogism seems consistent with the remark in Principles Part 1, section 10, it appears inconsistent with one of Descartes’s famous remarks in the Second Replies. So before turning to the Cogito passages in the Meditations, we provide a way to understand the Cogito passages outside the Meditations as consistent with our interpretation and, given our account of the method, with one another. In the Second Replies, Descartes seemingly denies that his knowledge of his own existence rests upon a syllogistic argument. He writes: And when we become aware that we are thinking things, this is a primary notion which is not derived by means of any syllogism. When someone says ‘I am thinking, therefore I am, or I exist,’ he does not deduce existence from thought by means of a syllogism, but recognizes it as something self-evident by a simple intuition of the mind. This is clear from the fact that if he were deducing it by means of a syllogism, he would have to have had previous knowledge of the major premiss ‘Everything that thinks is, or exists’; yet in fact he learns it from experiencing in his own case that it is impossible that he should think without existing. It is in the nature of our mind to construct general propositions on the basis of our knowledge of particular ones. (AT 7: 140–1, CSM 2: 100) Here Descartes seemingly denies that one’s knowledge of one’s own existence is based on a syllogism. If one’s knowledge of one’s own existence were so based, then the major premise, “everything that thinks exists,” would be logically and epistemically prior to the existential claim. But insofar as we “construct general propositions on the basis of our knowledge of particular ones,” he seems to reject both the logical and epistemic priority of the general proposition. Here he appears to embrace the claim that one knows one’s own existence by an immediate intuition. Since this interpretation of the passage is widespread, let us call it the “standard interpretation” (see Copleston 1960: 101–2; Frankfurt 1970: 97; Williams 1978: 89; Wilson 1978: 56; Curley 1978: 87–93). In the Principles, on the other hand, Descartes seems to reverse the order of epistemic priority, for there he writes:

The beginning of the ascent 133 And when I said that the proposition I am thinking, therefore I exist is the first and most certain of all to occur to anyone who philosophizes in an orderly way, I did not in saying that deny that one must first know what thought, existence, and certainty are, and that it is impossible that that which thinks should not exist, and so forth. But because these are very general notions, and ones which on their own provide us with no knowledge of anything that exists, I did not think they needed to be listed. (P 1: 10: AT 8A: 8, CSM 1: 196) Even though the Cogito is the “first and most certain of all [propositions] to occur to anyone who philosophizes in an orderly way,” this does not imply that “sum” can be known apart from the general principle “everything that thinks exists.” This passage seems to suggest that the general principle is epistemically prior to “sum,” which seems to be exactly what Descartes denied in the Second Replies. In his conversation with Descartes, Burman raised the question of the consistency of the two passages. Descartes’s reply is recorded as follows: Before this inference, “I think therefore I am,” the major “whatever thinks is” can be known, for it is in reality prior to my inference, and my inference depends upon it. This is why the author says in the Principles that the major premise comes first, namely because implicitly it is always presupposed and prior. But it does not follow that I am always expressly and explicitly aware of its priority or that I know it before my inference. This is because I am attending only to what I experience inside myself – for example, “I think therefore I am”: I do not pay attention in the same way to the general notion “whatever thinks is.” As I have explained before, we do not separate out these general propositions from the particular instances; rather, it is in particular instances that we think of them. This is the sense in which the words from page 155 cited here [from the Second Replies] should be taken. (CB §4: AT 5: 147, CSM 3: 333) In his reply to Burman, Descartes draws a distinction between the logical or epistemic order of propositions and the order of consideration, that is, the order in which propositions are actually entertained.3 Consistent with his position in the Principles, Descartes claimed that there is an inference from

134 Descartes’s Meditations I think to I exist and that the general proposition, Whatever thinks exists, is epistemically prior to “sum.” But the fact that the justification of “sum” is dependent upon one’s prior knowledge of the general proposition does not entail that one is explicitly aware of the general proposition before entertaining the inferential claim, “I think, therefore I am”: nothing guarantees that the order of consideration is the same as the order of epistemic priority. Indeed, he suggests that one entertains general propositions only when one is considering particular propositions, that is, “it is in particular instances that we think of them” (CB §4, Cottingham’s emphasis: AT 5: 147, CSM 3: 333, Cottingham removes the emphasis). This indicates that at least one particular proposition is prior in order of consideration to general propositions: there may be more. Since the proposition Whatever thinks exists is an eternal truth, we recognize it as true as soon as we entertain it (P 1: 49); however, we entertain and recognize such eternal truths as true only within the context of examining their particular instances. As Descartes commented earlier in the Conversation: since they [common principles and axioms, that is, eternal truths] are present in us from birth with such clarity, and since we experience them inside ourselves, we neglect them and think about them only in a confused manner, but never in the abstract, or apart from material things and particular instances. Indeed, if people were to think about them in the abstract, no one would have any doubt about them; . . . for they cannot be denied by anyone who carefully focuses his attention on them. (CB §1: AT 5: 146, CSM 3: 332–3) This indicates that even though certain general propositions are epistemically primary, particular propositions supersede them in the order of consideration. If the position Descartes advanced in the Conversation reconciles the passage in the Second Replies with that in the Principles, this reconciliation is reached through the distinction between the order of consideration and the order of epistemic primacy. Further, if this distinction allows for a consistent reading of those two passages, then the interpretation that has been advanced for one of the passages must be incorrect: that is, both passages cannot be concerned primarily with the order of epistemic primacy. Examining the passage from the Principles, one finds that Descartes implicitly acknowledges a distinction between the order of consideration and the order of epistemic primacy. He claimed that “the proposition I am

The beginning of the ascent 135 thinking, therefore I exist is the first and most certain of all to occur to anyone who philosophizes in an orderly way” (P 1: 10: AT 8A: 8, CSM 1: 196): that is, a person who follows Descartes’s method in philosophical inquiry will positively entertain it as the first proposition. But the Cogito’s priority in the order of consideration is not to be confused with epistemic priority. As Descartes writes, “I did not in saying that deny that one must first know . . . that it is impossible that that which thinks should not exist” (P 1: 10: AT 8A: 8, CSM 1: 196). Although the general proposition is epistemically prior to “sum,” the Cogito is prior in consideration. Thus, consistent with the Conversation, this passage from the Principles suggests that it is on the occasion that one entertains the Cogito that one recognizes the truth of the general proposition. If, however, one accepts Descartes’s contention that the position advanced in the Conversation effects a reconciliation between the Principles and the Second Replies, then one must reject the standard interpretation of the passage from the Second Replies: one must reject the assumption that Descartes is there concerned solely, or even primarily, with the issue of epistemic primacy. Through a sentence-by-sentence examination of the critical passage from the Second Replies, we shall show that his interest there is in the priority of consideration. The first sentence of the passage reads, “And when we become aware that we are thinking things, this is a primary notion which is not derived by means of any syllogism” (AT 7: 140, CSM 2: 100). Here Descartes does not claim that coming to know that we are thinking things is a primitive act of knowledge or a primary notion (prima quaedam notio). Instead, he claims that when we become aware or take notice (cum auteum adventimus) that we are thinking things, that this “taking notice” is a primary notion. The language of “taking notice” or “becoming aware” need not imply the truth of that which is noticed. In science, for example, one formulates a hypothesis about which, prior to empirical and theoretical investigation, one temporarily suspends judgment. Yet, one is aware of the hypothesis prior to its confirmation. To understand “awareness” as mere consideration is consistent with the Conversation. Similarly, the position advanced in the Conversation requires that one place no epistemic weight on this primary notion, that is, that the notion of oneself as a thinking thing is primary only in the order of consideration, not in the order of epistemic primacy. If this account is correct, then the first sentence in the Replies is consistent with the Conversation. Further, were one to claim that becoming “aware that we are thinking

136 Descartes’s Meditations things” is an act of knowledge, it is a claim with no existenrial import. Consistent with his maxim that “we must never ask about the existence of anything until we first understand its essence” (AT 7: 107–8, CSM 2: 78), Descartes is concerned with his nature, not his existence.4 Insofar as he is concerned with his nature, this awareness of his nature does not entail that he considers the maxim that “Everything that thinks exists,” although it might be the occasion on which he considers that proposition. Thus, even if one claims the first sentence has epistemic weight, it leaves open the question whether his knowledge of his own existence rests upon the general principle. The second sentence reads, “When someone says ‘I am thinking, therefore I am, or I exist,’ he does not deduce existence from thought by means of a syllogism, but recognizes it as something self-evident by a simple intuition of the mind” (AT 7: 140, CSM 2: 100). As Anthony Kenny (1968: 84)acknowledges, this passage is ambiguous as to what is known selfevidently, that is, whether it is sum or the Cogito, and consequently we must consider both possible interpretations. But since the same ambiguity is found in the third sentence, we may reasonably examine the second and third sentences together. The third sentence reads: This is clear from the fact that if he were deducing it by means of a syllogism, he would have to have had previous knowledge of the major premiss ‘Everything that thinks is, or exists’; yet in fact he learns it from experiencing in his own case that it is impossible that he should think without existing. (AT 4: 140, CSM 2: 100) We may ask whether one must claim that one’s knowledge of one’s own existence is intuitive (known by the natural light) if the ‘it’ in both of these sentences refers to ‘existence’ rather than the Cogito; that is, whether the intent of “recognizes it [one’s own existence] as something self-evident by a simple intuition of the mind” is that one intuitively knows of one’s own existence. One need not conclude that such knowledge is intuitive, but to reject such a conclusion one must recognize that the translation shrouds the ambiguity of the Latin. The word translated as ‘as’ is ‘tanquem,’ which can mean either ‘as’ or ‘as if.’ On the one hand, if it is interpreted as the ‘as’ of identity, all the apparent inconsistencies between the Second Replies and the Principles are justified. On the other hand, if one interprets ‘tanquem’ as ‘as if,’ that is, if one understands it as indicating some degree of similarity

The beginning of the ascent 137 short of identity, one might have a means of rendering the two passages consistent. Understood in this second way, this ‘as if’ suggests that one’s own existence is not known by intuition, but that one’s knowledge of one’s own existence is in some way similar to intuitive knowledge. How might they be similar? As we will see, in the Meditations Descartes comes to discover his own existence on the basis of methodological doubt: given that he recognizes that he is a thinking thing, he cannot doubt that he exists (AT 7: 24–5, 27; CSM 2: 16–17, 18). If the fact that he cannot doubt his own existence sufficiently demonstrates that his existence is clearly and distinctly perceived (known by the natural light), then this fact would show that “sum” is intuitively known, and one would have no reason to claim merely that one’s knowledge of one’s own existence is as if it were intuitive knowledge. Descartes, however, lacks the conceptual room to lay claim to clear and distinct knowledge of his own existence. First, he generally limits clear and distinct ideas and knowledge by the natural light to ideas of the essences of things and necessary truths, and he takes existence to be an essential property of God alone (AT 7: 35, 64–5, 8: 21–2, 6: 31–4; CSM 2: 24, 44–5, 1:126–7 and P 1: 45; see also Gewirth 1967). Second, as we have seen, Descartes’s first rule of method in the Discourse (AT 6: 18, CSM 1: 120) suggests that indubitability is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for judging a proposition true. Similarly, in Section 43 of Principles, Part 1, he writes, And even if there were no way of proving [that we never go wrong when we assent only to what we clearly and distinctly perceive], the minds of all of us have been so molded by nature that whenever we perceive something clearly, we spontaneously give our assent to it and are quite unable to doubt its truth. (AT 8A: 21, CSM 1: 207) In both passages Descartes suggests that if an idea is clearly and distinctly perceived, one cannot doubt it. He never suggests that if one cannot doubt an idea, then it is clearly and distinctly perceived. If indubitability is only a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for properly judging the truth of a proposition, then the fact that a proposition is indubitable is compatible with the material falsity of that proposition’s constituent ideas.5 Nonetheless, even if one does not clearly and distinctly perceive “sum,” one might recognize it “as if it were [our emphasis] something self-evident” in the sense that it is immune from systematic doubt and is accompanied by a

138 Descartes’s Meditations psychological attitude that is similar to the psychological attitude accompanying an idea that is clearly and distinctly perceived. Thus, even if the general proposition were epistemically prior to, and therefore necessary for the justification of, “sum,” Descartes correctly entertains “sum” prior to the general proposition according to the order of consideration. If, according to the other interpretation, the ‘it’ in the second and third sentences refers to the Cogito itself, the same understanding of “recognized as if” applies. If the general proposition were known, the Cogito would follow from it. In the order of consideration, however, a singular proposition such as the Cogito is prior to its corresponding general proposition. Only on the occasion of considering the singular proposition does one entertain and recognize the truth of the general proposition. Given this second interpretation, the sense of the final sentence in the paragraph is clear. The sentence reads, “It is in the nature of our mind to construct general propositions on the basis of our knowledge of particular ones” (AT 7: 140-1, CSM 2: 100). Particular propositions are prior in the order of consideration to general propositions.6 This reading of the sentence is consistent with Descartes’s expressed claims in the Conversation (CB §4: AT 5: 147, CSM 3: 333) and his contention that the proposition “Everything that thinks exists” is an eternal truth (P 1: 49). Even though the eternal truth is epistemically prior to both the Cogito and “sum,” this does not entail that one actually thinks of the general proposition before one thinks of the particular. Our reading of the passage from the Replies also supplies an important explanation to another peculiarity regarding Descartes’s reply to the objection. While his reply focuses on the Cogito, the objection focuses on Descartes’s claim that he knew he was a thinking thing. The objection reads: Thirdly, you are not yet certain of the existence of God, and you say that you are not certain of anything, and cannot know anything clearly and distinctly until you have achieved clear and certain knowledge of the existence of God. It follows from this that you do not yet clearly and distinctly know that you are a thinking thing, since, on your own admission, that knowledge depends on the clear knowledge of an existing God; and this you have not yet proved in the passage where you draw the conclusion that you clearly know what you are. (AT 7: 124–5, CSM 2: 89) The question here concerns, not whether there is a syllogism involved in

The beginning of the ascent 139 concluding that one exists, but one’s knowledge of one’s essential nature. As we have seen, the bulk of Descartes’s reply concerns the Cogito, not the question of one’s essential nature. These issues are, of course, closely related. An attribute is an essential attribute of a kind of object if and only if having that attribute is a sufficient condition for the existence of that kind of object. Insofar as thought is an essential attribute of the self (mind), recognizing the truth of the proposition that “Whatever thinks, exists” is concomitant with discovering one’s own nature. Since the proposition is an eternal truth, once it is considered, one knows that it is true, and one therefore knows that thought is an essential attribute, that is, one knows that it is one’s nature to think. Consequently, one need not appeal to memory in proving one’s essence, and Descartes justifiably responds: Thirdly, when I said that we can know nothing for certain until we are aware that God exists, I expressly declared that I was speaking only of knowledge of those conclusions which can be recalled when we are no longer attending to the arguments by means of which we deduced them. Now awareness of first principles is not normally called ‘knowledge’ by dialectitians. (AT 7: 140, CSM 2: 100) Both knowledge of one’s nature and knowledge of the eternal truth that “Everything that thinks exists,” are instances of knowledge of first principles. Both are recognized as materially true by the natural light. Further, knowledge of one’s essence is concomitant with the recognition of the material truth of the proposition “Whatever thinks, exists”: both are eternal truths, and whichever one is prior in the order of consideration would provide the occasion for considering the other. Since eternal truths are evident as soon as they are considered, one need not prove the existence of God prior to coming to know one’s own nature or essence. Thus, as a reply to the objection, reading the passage in terms of the order of consideration seems reasonable. Hence, by acknowledging the distinction suggested in the Conversation with Burman between the order of consideration and the order of epistemic primacy, one can show that no inconstencies exist between the discussions of the Cogito in the Principles and that in the Second Replies. While the discussion in the Principles addresses both the order of consideration and the order of epistemic primacy, the response in the Second Replies primarily addresses the order of consideration. Notice that this distinction between

140 Descartes’s Meditations the order of consideration and the order of epistemic primacy is precisely what one would expect, given our account of the method in the first three chapters. When employing the method of analysis “there are many truths which – although it is vital to be aware of them – this method often scarcely mentions, since they are transparently clear to anyone who gives them his attention” (AT 7: 156, CSM 2: 110), so one should not be surprised that Descartes states conclusions without citing the etemal truths upon which those conclusions rest. This is particularly important given his dictum that “according to the laws of true logic, we must never ask about the existence of anything until we first understand its essence” (AT 7: 107, CSM 2: 78), since, as we shall see, in his first proof of his own existence, the Descartes of the Meditations does not explicitly allude to his essential nature prior to claiming his own existence. Before returning to the Meditations, however, we examine two other passages that tend to support our account of the Cogito arguments. In the Discourse on Method, Descartes provides an abbreviated version of the Cogito. After setting forth the dream argument, Descartes continues: But immediately I noticed that while I was trying thus to think everything false, it was necessary that I, who was thinking this, was something. And observing that this truth “I am thinking, therefore I exist” was so firm and sure that all the most extravagant suppositions of the sceptics were incapable of shaking it, I decided that I could accept it without scruple as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking. (AT 6: 32, CSM 1: 127) This passage tells us little about how Descartes comes to know his own existence. Two paragraphs later, in the context of discussing clear and distinct ideas, he explains why he is justified in claiming his own existence. He writes: I observed that there is nothing at all in the proposition “I am thinking, therefore I exist” to assure me that I am speaking the truth, except that I see very clearly that in order to think it is necessary to exist [our emphasis]. So I decided that I could take it as a general rule that the things we conceive very clearly and very distinctly are all true; only there is some difficulty in recognizing which are the things that we distinctly conceive. (AT 33, CSM 1: 127)

The beginning of the ascent 141 Here Descartes appeals to the clarity and distinctness of the general principle that if something thinks then it exists as a justification for accepting the Cogito as an instance. Hence, this passage supports our interpretation of the reasoning that led him to affirm his own existence. The second passage is in his letter to Clerselier of 12 January 1646. There, in referring to a series of objections that had been raised against the Meditations, he writes: Your friends note six objections against the Second Meditation. The first is this. The author of the Counter-Objections claims that when I say ‘I am thinking, therefore I exist’ I presuppose the major premiss ‘Whatever thinks exists’, and hence I have already adopted a preconceived opinion. Here he once more misuses the term ‘preconceived opinion.’ For although we can apply the term to the proposition in question when it is put forward without attention and believed to be true only because we remember that we judged it to be true previously, we cannot say that it is always a preconceived opinion. For when we examine it, it appears so evident to the understanding that we cannot but believe it, even though this may be the first time in our life that we have thought of it – in which case we would have no preconceived opinion about it. But the most important mistake our critic makes here is the supposition that knowledge of particular propositions must always be deduced from universal ones, following the same order as that of a syllogism in Dialectic. Here he shows how little he knows of the way in which we should search for the truth. It is certain that if we are to discover the truth we must always begin with particular notions in order to arrive at general ones later on (though we may also reverse the order and deduce other particular truths once we have discovered general ones). Thus when we teach a child the elements of geometry we will not be able to get him to understand the general proposition ‘When equal quantities are taken from equal amounts the remaining amounts will be equal,’ or ‘The whole is greater than its parts,’ unless we show him examples in particular cases. It is by failing to take heed of this that our author has gone astray and produced all the invalid arguments with which he has stuffed his book. He has simply made up false major premisses whenever the mood takes him, as though I had used them to deduce the truths which I expounded. (AT 9A: 205–6, CSM 2: 271)

142 Descartes’s Meditations Descartes focuses on two issues in replying to his critic. First, he argues that one expresses no prejudice in claiming that one’s knowledge of the truth of the Cogito presupposes knowledge of the general proposition “Whatever thinks exists.” Second, he argues that knowledge of particular truths does not always depend upon knowledge of universal truths. Let us examine each of these issues in turn. In his discussion of prejudice, Descartes refers back to an attempt to clarify that notion earlier in the letter. There he writes: The first of these objections is based on the fact that the author of this book has not realized that the term ‘preconceived opinion’ applies not to all the notions which are in our mind (which I admit it is impossible for us to get rid of) but only to all the opinions which we have continued to accept as a result of previous judgements that we have made. (AT 9B: 204, CSM 2: 270) Insofar as Descartes systematically doubts, no judgment previous to that process of doubting should be accepted as true. Hence, in the initial stages of the resolution of those doubts, he should be free of “preconceived opinions” based upon previous judgments. Nonetheless, he holds that certain eternal truths are innate within the mind, and as eternal truths they are neither based upon previous judgments nor can we “get rid” of them by systematic doubt; moreover, once we explicitly consider them, we recognize them as true (P 1: 48–9). Because the general maxim that “Whatever thinks exists” is an eternal truth, it is “so evident to the understanding that we cannot but believe it, even though this may be the first time in our life that we have thought of it – in which case we would have no preconceived opinion about it” (AT 9B: 205, CSM 2: 271). Therefore, Descartes exercises no prejudice in contending that the general proposition is epistemically prior to the Cogito. Consistent with the tenets of the Cartesian method, one initially construes the Cogito as a hypothesis that one confirms by deducing it from the eternal truth “Whatever thinks exists.” Even so, as a hypothesis, the Cogito is prior in the order of consideration to the eternal truth. The remainder of the passage from the letter to Clerselier is also consistent with the reasoning we attribute to Descartes. He claims that: if we are to discover the truth we must always begin with particular notions in order to arrive at general ones later on (though we may also

The beginning of the ascent 143 reverse the order and deduce other particular truths once we have discovered general ones). (AT 9B: 206, CSM 2: 271) One can know by intuition that one thinks (AT 10: 368, CSM 1: 14).7 Given this particular truth as the starting point of one’s reasoning, one can inquire into the implications of that truth, positing the Cogito as a hypothesis. This occasions the consideration and recognition of the general proposition’s material truth, and from this, together with one’s knowledge that one thinks, one can infer that one exists. In this way, consistent with the letter to Clerselier, one begins with particular truths, discovers a general truth, and subsequently infers another particular truth. Thus, we see that the Cogito passages outside the Meditations are consistent with our account of the method, and we may now turn to the parallel passages in the Second Meditation.8 The first Cogito arguments in the Meditations Recall that in the second paragraph of the Meditation, Descartes asked what remains certain if one rejects all the evidence of sense perception, and with it the assumption that bodies exist. He concludes “So what remains true? Perhaps just the one fact that nothing is certain” (AT 7: 24, CSM 2: 16). He then asks whether anything exists. In his words: Yet apart from everything I have just listed, how do I know that there is not something else which does not allow even the slightest occasion for doubt? Is there not a God, or whatever I may call him, who puts into me the thoughts I am now having? But why do I think this, since I myself may perhaps be the author of these thoughts? In that case am not I, at least, something? But I have just said that I have no senses and no body. This is the sticking point: what follows from this? Am I not so bound up with a body and with senses that I cannot exist without them? But I have convinced myself that there is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Does it now follow that I too do not exist? No: if I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed. But there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is deliberately and constantly deceiving me. In that case I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me; and let him deceive me as

144 Descartes’s Meditations much as he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something. So after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind. (AT 7: 24–5, CSM 2: 16–17) Descartes begins the search for an existent. As we shall see, his procedure here typifies the upward phase of his analysis, that is, the search for general principles or general (simple) ideas. The argument takes the form of a disjunctive syllogism. Its form is as follows: Either A or B or C exists (is essential to X). But A cannot be known to exist (be essential to X) because . . . B cannot be known to exist (be essential to X) because . . . So C exists (is essential to X). In the present case, after asking whether something exists, Descartes considers two cases. Might not God exist? Might not I exist? Consistent with the deceiver-God hypothesis, the concept of God is delineated as that which puts thoughts into the person who is thinking. Descartes jettisons this existential hypothesis on the grounds that one might cause one’s own thoughts, which is a corollary of the defective-faculties hypothesis. With the rejection of the first alternative, Descartes shifts to the second, namely the hypothesis that he, Descartes, exists. Here his dictum that “we must never ask about the existence of anything until we first understand its essence” (AT 7: 107, CSM 2: 78) comes into play. In order to determine whether or not he exists, he has to place himself under a concept, that is, he has to know enough about his nature to determine what kind of possible entity he is considering. In effect, he first asks whether he exists as a bodily entity, rejects that claim, and in so doing rejects the concept of himself as a purely bodily entity. “But I have just said that I have no senses and no body. This is the sticking point: what follows from this? Am I not so bound up with a body and with senses that I cannot exist without them?” (AT 7: 24, CSM 2: 16). His existence as such an entity (and his concept of himself as such an entity) falls prey to the malicious-demon hypothesis: “But I have convinced myself that there is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies” (AT 7: 25, CSM 2: 16; cf AT 7: 22–3; CSM 2: 15). He then reformulates the concept of himself in three ways: first, as something that can be convinced of something, second as something that can be deceived and, third, as something that can entertain the proposition, “I exist.” In his words:

The beginning of the ascent 145 Does it now follow that I too do not exist? No: if I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed. But there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is deliberately and constantly deceiving me. In that case I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me; and let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something. So after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind. (AT 7: 25, CSM 2: 16–17) Notice his theme and variations. First, Descartes says I convinced myself of something, therefore I exist. Second, he says I am deceived, therefore I exist (see also The Search After Truth, AT 10: 515, CSM 2: 409–10). Finally, he says I entertain the proposition “I am,” therefore I exist. Each of these is a variation on the Cogito argument. None of these comes to the same statement as “I think, therefore I am.” Each pertains to a particular type of thought or a thought with a particular propositional content. Why, in the context of the analytic procedure in the Meditations, does the proof of his own existence fall short of the generality of the standard form of the Cogito? What Descartes knows about himself rests on what has already occurred in the Meditations. In Meditation One, he doubted his previous beliefs. Therefore, he is justified in conceiving of himself as a thing that doubts. Further, he took his doubts seriously, that is, he convinced himself that some of his previous beliefs fall short of knowledge. Therefore, he is justified in conceiving of himself as a thing that is convinced of various propositions, even if the propositions of which he is convinced begin with the clause, “It might be false that . . .” Finally, he has entertained the proposition, “I exist,” which implies that he is justified in conceiving of himself as a thing that entertains that proposition. Each of these concepts is singular. Each is posed in terms of a very low grade of generality: they are complex ideas, that is, they are not (yet) conceived as forms of thought. But how does he reason? Does he propose the proposition “I exist” as a hypothesis to be confirmed? And does he appeal to an implicit premise, to wit, “Anything that is convinced of something (doubts, entertains the proposition ‘I exist’) exists?” The proposition “I do not exist” functions as a hypothesis to be refuted. Notice the way Descartes sets the discussion, “Does it not follow that I too

146 Descartes’s Meditations do not exist?” (AT 7: 25, CSM 2: 16). Since each of the initial formulations of the Cogito implies his existence, these formulations serve as reasons which falsify the hypothesis “I do not exist.” He formulates the hypothesis negatively because he continues to apply doubt as a heuristic with respect to limiting existential claims. Through the refutation of the hypothesis posed, he proves his own existence. But does his conclusion rest on an implicit premise? One should not be surprised if it does, since, in the method of analysis, “there are many truths which – although it is vital to be aware of them – this method often scarcely mentions, since they are transparently clear to anyone who gives them this attention” (AT 7: 156, CSM 2: 110). And it seems that each formulation of the argument requires a premise of the form “Anything that is convinced of something (doubts, entertains the proposition ‘I exist’) exists,” although only his remarks regarding the third formulation tend to show that. When Descartes claims, “I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind” (AT 7: 25, CSM 2: 17), one must ask why he could say it is “necessarily true” (necessario esse verum). If, as we contend, the existential conclusion rests on the eternal (necessary) truth, “Whatever entertains the proposition ‘I exist’ exists,” then the conclusion is necessitatem ex hypothesi, that is, necessary on the hypothesis that the implicit major premise is true. For this reason he claims “I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me [our emphasis] or conceived in my mind.” And, of course, he employs this same sense of ‘necessity’ in the next paragraph when he alludes to “this ‘I’. . . that now necessarily exists (qui jam necessario sum)” (AT 7: 25, CSM 2:17).9 Res cogitans and the second Cogito Having proven his existence under the three descriptions we have just considered, Descartes next attempts to develop a better understanding of his nature by determining whether those descriptions fall under a more general description of his nature. Ultimately, he concludes with the familiar claim that he is a thing that thinks. As he did at the outset of the meditation, he begins in a strictly procedural manner by reminding himself what he knows and informing his reader of his plans (AT 7: 25, CSM 2: 17). He knows he exists, and he indicates that he will take the various conceptions he had of himself and subject them to careful scrutiny. Here, as in the case of the initial proofs of his existence, he presents a complex disjunctive syllogism, restating three hypotheses (his previous conceptions of himself) and

The beginning of the ascent 147 rejecting all but the last on the ground that either it lacks clarity or that it falls victim to his systematic doubts. Descartes introduces and eliminates the first disjunct in a attempt to reject Scholasticism, but also to advamce to what he takes as the more serious competitors of his disjunctive syllogism. Beginning as any good Scholastic might, he writes that he formerly believed he was a man, but, given the ambiguity in “man,” he moves quickly to introduce the standard Scholastic definition: man is a rational animal. He rejects this first hypothesis, since: I should have to inquire what an animal is, what rationality is, and in this way one question would lead me down the slope to other harder ones, and I do not now have the time to waste on subtleties of this kind. (AT 7: 25, CSM 2: 17) By adopting the standard Scholastic definition, one would face the specter of a regress without a definite end. If one term is defined in terms of two others, this suggests that each of those terms must also be defined in terms of two others, and so on. Such a regress bodes ill as a means for clarifying a concept, and Descartes rejects it as a false start. But one might ask whether something more is at work in this quick dismissal. Georges Dicker indicates that Descartes dismisses the “Aristotelian method of definition” in favor of “a better method, involving ‘clear and distinct ideas,’ for grasping the meanings of important notions” (Dicker 1993: 65). While Dicker’s suggestion seems right, he does not make explicit what such a rejection implies. The rejection would seem to raise a criteriological question: when does one know that one has provided an adequate definition of the thing under consideration? Furthermore, in attacking the Scholastic approach to defining ‘man,’ Descartes implicitly attacks the Scholastic use of Porphyrian trees to capture the Aristotelian Categories. These trees get their name from the neo-Platonist Porphyry and his commentary (the Isagoge) on Aristotle’s Categories. In it Porphyry repesents each of the ten Aristoteian categories (substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action and affection) in terms of a tree. In the dispute at hand we are interested in the Porphyrian tree representing the category of substance. A Porphyrian tree representing the category of substance divides reality up in terms of the different substances. In a typical Scholastic Porphyrian tree, one would find an exclusive and exhaustive branching between corporeal and incorporeal substances above the trunk,

148 Descartes’s Meditations which represents the category of substance. The one side represents bodies and the other represents spirits. Up the first branch one finds animals and humans; up the second branch one finds angels and God. Further up the branch of corporeal substance one finds a division between the animate and non-animate, and beyond that a division between rational and nonrational animate corporeal substances. Ultimately, the good Scholastic would place individuals among the twigs. So, for example, the individual Clarence Bonnen would be placed up the rational, animate, corporeal branch (though his wife might from time to time beg to differ). Thus, we not only find the definition of humanity reflected in the tree, but all of the individuals that would fit that definition. Such a tree also allows for a way of understanding possibility and impossibility in terms of what the essences will allow and what they will not allow. This presents us with a different notion of logical possibility than the one with which we are familiar. One might say that a human lion (a chimera) is impossible because such a being would simultaneously fall into two inconsistent categories: the rational and the nonrational.10 Descartes’s dismissal of the definition of man as “rational animal” may be a veiled attack on the Scholastic concept which relies on such trees without carefully considering the criterion underlying them. Thus, the methodological foundation of these trees is arbitrary. We find two pieces of evidence to support our claim here. First, Pierre Bourdin objects to Descartes’s move from knowledge of one’s self to one’s own existence in the Seventh Objections (section eight, entitled, “A fourth attempt to find a way in, which is abandoned as hopeless”). In the course of that objection, Bourdin appeals to a portion of a Porphyrian tree (see AT 7: 506, CSM 2: 344). There he breaks the category of substance down into the subcategories of corporeal and incorporal thinking substances. In response, Descartes writes: His [Bourdin’s] first blast is the comment that “the inference from knowledge to existence is not a valid one,” and he produces, like a fluttering flag of victory, a diagram which contains a completely arbitrary classification of thinking substance. (AT 7: 517, CSM 2: 352) The context in which Bourdin offers his “classification” and Descartes rejects it is interesting. The nature and the existence of the self is what is at issue.

The beginning of the ascent 149 Bourdin, being the good Scholastic and sensitive to Descartes’s rejection of the definition of man as a rational animal, wants to force him to deal with the implication of that rejection, namely, a dismissal of a tradition in Scholasticism. Though Descartes originally dismisses the Scholastic approach as miring one in a regress, here he rejects the Scholastic approach to the definition as arbitrary. In short, the Scholastic approach is methodologically unsound. One might object that Descartes would have made this explicit if this were really what was at issue in rejecting the Scholastic definition. But his quick dismissal appears quite consistent with attacks on other Scholastic shibboleths. Indeed, Descartes counsels his one-time follower Henricus Regius not to draw attention to his implicit rejection of the Scholastic notions of substantial forms and real qualities. Though we have quoted Descartes’s counsel earlier in chapter one, it bears reiterating here: [W]hy did you need to reject openly substantial forms and real qualities? Do you not remember that on page 164 of my Meteorology, I said quite expressly that I did not at all reject or deny them, but simply found them unnecessary in setting out my explanations? If you had taken this course, everybody in your audience would have rejected them as soon as they saw they were useless, and in the mean time you would not have become so unpopular with your colleagues. (AT 3: 492, CSM 3: 205) Where Descartes wishes to provide a doctrine which is contrary to current Scholastic doctrine, but need make no reference to it, he avoids any such reference. In the case at hand, he offers a different criterion for defining ‘man,’ and draws no direct connection between his criterion and that of the Scholastics; furthermore, notice that he merely mentions the difficulty with the Scholastic approach without clearly delineating the nature of that approach. So, in his own approach to his conflicts with the Scholastic tradition he generally minimizes the explicit rejection or even the recapitulation of any Scholastic doctrine. So why mention the Scholastic definition of man at all? At this point in Meditation Two, he must introduce hypotheses to arrive at the best explanation of what it is to be a man. Because of the prevalence of the Scholastic definition among the learned, and because of his own method, he cannot ignore it completely. Interestingly, by trying to imagine his Porphyrian tree we can see how

150 Descartes’s Meditations Descartes believes he undermines the Scholastic approach. Descartes’s tree would look different from that of Bourdin and his Scholastic predecessors in that the first basic branch might be between supremely perfect (infinite) and imperfect (finite) substances, rather than corporeal and incorporeal substances. One might note that during the course of Meditation Three Descartes discovers that what makes him different from God is that he is imperfect (finite) while God is supremely perfect (infinite), and what ultimately grounds Descartes’s distinction is the criterion of clarity and distinctness generated through his contemplation of himself and the nature of his idea of God. He believes that once the person meditating along with him sees his criterion, he or she will naturally reject the arbitrariness of the Scholastic alternative. Whatever tree one ultimately draws for Descartes, it will have to reflect his discovery of the basic categories through the method of clarity and distinctness as reflected in the Meditations.11 The second piece of evidence to show that Descartes rejects the Scholastic reliance on Porphyrian trees as arbitrary can be found in his unpublished work, The Search after Truth. In that work he attempts to put the message of the Meditations into dialogue form. Having one of the characters, Epistemon, represent the Scholastic perspective, Descartes forces himself to defend his position through his protagonist, Eudoxus, more clearly than he does in the relevant passages of Meditation Two. In the case at hand, the third character, Polyander, responds to Eudoxus’s question, “What are you?” by saying, “I shall say I am a man” (AT 10: 515, CSM 2: 410). Eudoxus complains that Polyander leaves himself open to the complexity of the Scholastics, which will ultimately render no progress. In doing so, Descartes has Eudoxus reject the Scholastic tendency to head for the trees when anyone asks about the essence of a thing: First, what is an animal? Second, what is rational? If, in order to explain what an animal is, he were to reply that it is a ‘living and sentient being’, that a living being is an ‘animate body’, and that a body is a ‘corporeal substance’, you see immediately that the questions, like the branches of a family tree, would rapidly increase and multiply. Quite clearly, the result of all these admirable questions would be pure verbiage, which would elucidate nothing and leave us in our original state of ignorance. (AT 10: 516, CSM 2: 410) That the Scholastic approach is described as “pure verbiage” evinces a

The beginning of the ascent 151 sense that this approach is arbitrary. But, of course, Epistemon would hardly sit still for this and Descartes has that character defend the Scholastics: I am sorry you despise the tree of Porphyry, which the learned have always admired, and it annoys me that you would try to convey to Polyander what he is in a different way from the one which has long been universally accepted in the Schools. To this day no better or more appropriate way has been found for explaining what we are than displaying all the levels which make up our whole nature, for in this way, by passing up and down through all these levels, we can learn what our nature has in common with the natures of all other things, and in what respects it differs from them. And this is the highest point to which our knowledge can reach. (AT 10: 516, CSM 2: 410–11) Through Epistemon, Descartes expresses the idea that the trees represent the essences of things and the relations between them. Not surprisingly, he follows the same advice that he gave Henricus Regius in January of 1642 and avoids confronting the Scholastic solution to a philosophical problem and simply offers his own alternative explanation in the hope that others will see it as the better solution. So, Descartes praises the Schoolmen by having Eudoxus say, “I have never had any intention of condemning the method of explanation ordinarily employed in the Schools, nor shall I ever wish to” (AT 10: 516–17, CSM 2: 411). Then Descartes has Eudoxus return to the alternative Cartesian solution to the question, “What am I?” dismissing the Scholastic solution to the problem in favor of his own. Whether this is a fair strategy is not our point. We only wish to demonstrate that Descartes dismisses the Scholastic answer to that question as methodologically arbitrary. Returning to the Meditations, Descartes next turn to a fairly naive account of himself for his second hypothesis, a combination of body and soul (AT 7: 25–6, CSM 2: 17–18). He considers the concept of body to be fairly clear; the concept of soul is less clear. While the body is something that possesses shape, occupies space, and so forth, the soul is conceived as something that is responsible for nourishment, sense perception, and movement. So conceived, the soul is merely an aspect of the human body, a conception embraced by the Scholastic tradition and Aristotle’s De Anima (See De Anima 2.2 413a11–414a29: Aristotle 1941: 557–9); it is not conceived as

152 Descartes’s Meditations something inherently distinct from the body (See De Anima 2.2 413b27–30; Aristotle 1941: 558). It is that something-I-know-not-what that is responsible for certain functions of the body. The clearest conception available is that it is “like a wind or fire or ether, which permeated my more solid parts,” a conception which is obscure and takes the soul to be fundamentally corporeal (AT 7: 26; CSM 2: 17). The body falls victim to the hypothetical doubts, and Descartes focuses his attention on the notion of the soul (AT 7: 26–7, CSM 2: 18). Again, his argument is a disjunctive syllogism. Either he is a body or a soul. But the malicious demon hypothesis raises the possibility that what appear to be bodies are merely delusions. So there are no firm grounds for claiming the existence of the body. So one must identify one’s self with the soul. This raises the question of the nature of the soul. Descartes’s discussion of the nature of the soul is a discussion in which the obscure notion of a soul is replaced with a fairly precise notion of mind. It is the first case in the Meditations of attempting to make an idea clear and distinct, although the terms ‘clarity’ and ‘distinctness’ (in their various forms) do not surface until late in this Meditation, and their significance is not noted until Meditation Three. We find the same method or process in conceptual clarification as we find in the first Cogito arguments, namely, the process of positing hypotheses and giving reasons for rejecting them until one is found for which no such reason can be given. Notice the progression: one, am I qua soul essentially a thing that explains nutrition and movement? No. Why not? Both these activities are intimately tied to the body. Two, am I qua soul essentially a thing that engages in sense perception? No, for two reasons. Sense perception as such requires the existence of a body, and the existence of bodies is called into doubt by the malicious demon hypothesis. Second, as the dream argument shows, sense perception produces false beliefs. This suggests that whatever will count as the essential attribute of the soul must be what it appears to be and not deceive one in any way. This remark is interesting because it departs from the previous reasons, all of which concern existential claims, and shifts attention to epistemic considerations. This shift leads us to consider and accept the third hypothesis, namely, that I, qua soul, am essentially a thing that thinks. As Descartes puts it: At last I have discovered it – thought; this alone is inseparable from me. I am, I exist – that is certain. But for how long? For as long as I am

The beginning of the ascent 153 thinking. For it could be that were I totally to cease from thinking, I should totally cease to exist. (AT 7: 27, CSM 2: 18) Several aspects of this passage should be noticed. While Descartes might have introduced the notion of thinking as an attribute of the soul by simply following out common conceptions, he obtains the confirmation of thought as essential to the soul by means of another Cogito argument: “I am, I exist – that is certain. But for how long? For as long as I am thinking.”12 Notice that this is very close to the classical “I think, therefore I am.” If one follows our account of the method, then one understands that the justification of the existential statement rests on the general proposition “Whatever thinks, exists.” Such a general statement, known by the light of nature, not only justifies the claim to existence, given the fact that one is thinking, it also shows that thought is an essential attribute of the existent object. While the general proposition might be obtained by starting with the three versions of the Cogito argument in paragraph three of the meditation and asking under what more general characteristic doubting, being convinced, and entertaining the proposition “I exist” might be subsumed, Descartes does not seem to proceed this way. Instead he reaches the conclusion that thought is essential to his nature and entertains the proposition “Whatever thinks, exists” by considering the commonly accepted attributes of the soul, one of which is thinking. Notice how the previous Cogito arguments relate to present argument. By eliminating the several hypotheses regarding the nature of the soul, he discovers a general attribute under which all the more particular qualities are subsumed. It is at once the occasion for recognizing that thinking is an essential attribute of the soul (mind) and recognizing the truth of the proposition “Whatever thinks, exists.” On this occasion he confirms that thought is essential to his being, and raises the discussion to a higher level of generality. In the upward phase of the analysis, earlier conclusions suggest new hypotheses, and later conclusions yield greater coherence by explaining why the earlier conclusions were justified. The grounds for claiming his existence have been raised to a higher level by discovering the essential attribute of the self, that is, an attribute the presence of which guarantees the existence of a thing of that kind. But Descartes says something stronger than this. He might claim that thought is essential to his nature in the sense that he is at least a thing that

154 Descartes’s Meditations thinks, leaving open the possibility that there are other essential attributes. But famously, this is not what he says. He says, “I am, then, in the strict sense only a thing that thinks” (our emphasis). Is this justified? No. Nor is it clear that he was committed to the claim at this point in the Meditations. Notice that in the preface he writes: From the fact that the human mind, when directed towards itself, does not perceive itself to be anything other than a thinking thing, it does not follow that its nature or essence consists only in its being a thinking thing, where the word ‘only’ excludes everything else that could be said to belong to the nature of the soul. My answer to this objection is that in that passage it was not my intention to make those exclusions in an order corresponding to the actual truth of the matter (which I was not dealing with at that stage) but merely in an order corresponding to my own perception. So the sense of the passage was that I was aware of nothing at all that I knew belonged to my essence, except that I was a thinking thing, or a thing possessing within itself the faculty of thinking. (AT 7: 7–8, CSM 2: 7; cf. AT 7: 422–4, CSM 2: 285–6) This prefatory remark suggests that the wording is ambiguous, and that Descartes was concerned only with what he could know about himself at that point. One finds more evidence that this is his concern in the next paragraph where he asks whether he can know himself to be something more than a thinking thing. Indeed, one might treat this so-called knowledge as a hypothesis to be confirmed, though the confirmation comes considerably later. As we shall see, he adduces the grounds for claiming that he is only a thing that thinks in Meditation Six.13 Having concluded that he is a thinking thing, Descartes attempts to clarify the idea of a thinking thing (AT 7: 27–8, CSM 2: 18–19). This constitutes a partial enumeration of the modes of thought, and it is a dual clarification. It clarifies the notion of thinking by means of its kinds, and it clarifies the notions of the several kinds of thought by revealing the implications of considering them as modes of thought. He claims to use his imagination in an attempt to clarify what he is. In fact, the discussion does as much to clarify the notion of imagination as the notion of the self. He repeats the limitations placed on knowledge due to the malicious-demon hypothesis: he cannot currently identify himself with either a physical body or a bodily conception of the soul, while allowing that such elements

The beginning of the ascent 155 ultimately might be identical with the “I”. He notes that imagination is inventive and takes corporeal entities on as its subject matter. Neither function of the imagination will provide knowledge. The focus is the distinction between imagination and understanding, and, insofar as imagination and sense perception involve images, the discussion also shows that imagination and sense perception have only a minor role in the acquisition of knowledge. This is reflected in the conclusion he reaches: “But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions” (AT 7: 28, CSM 2: 19). Here perceiving and imagining appear as afterthoughts and are ascribed minor roles insofar as the objects of those acts are epistemically suspect, but still, as he affirms in the following paragraph, they are powers of thought. The piece of wax Having completed his examination of the nature of the self as a thinking thing, Descartes now turns to the piece of wax. He ostensibly introduces the assumption that the wax exists because of the difficulty of suspending belief in the material world (AT 7: 29–30, CSM 2: 20), although nothing he says about the wax requires the existential assumption. He later claims that the exercise teaches us at least as much about the mind as it does about the wax (AT 7: 33, CSM 2: 22). We examine it as an exercise in conceptual clarification. Descartes’s familiar piece-of-wax argument is as follows: Let us take, for example, this piece of wax. It has just been taken from the honeycomb; it has not yet quite lost the taste of the honey; it retains some of the scent of the flowers from which it was gathered; its colour, shape and size are plain to see; it is hard, cold and can be handled without difficulty; if you rap it with your knuckle it makes a sound. In short, it has everything which appears necessary to enable a body to be known as distinctly as possible. But even as I speak, I put the wax by the fire, and look: the residual taste is eliminated, the smell goes away, the colour changes, the shape is lost, the size increases; it becomes liquid and hot; you can hardly touch it, and if you strike it, it no longer makes a sound. But does the same wax remain? It must be admitted that it does; no one denies it, no one thinks otherwise. So

156 Descartes’s Meditations what was it in the wax that I understood with such distinctness? Evidently none of the features which I arrived at by means of the senses; for whatever came under taste, smell, sight, touch or hearing has now altered – yet the wax remains. (AT 7: 30, CSM 2: 20) Descartes’s thought experiment is based on two assumptions. First, he assumes that we are concerned with an ordinary piece of wax as it is sensibly presented. Second, he assumes that the wax retains its identity through change. Notice that the latter is strictly an assumption: the sole evidence for that assumption is that “no one denies it, no one thinks otherwise.” When it is placed by the fire, all the sensible qualities of the wax change. On the assumption that the wax retains identity through change, what does this show? Descartes’s answer reflects two aspects of his thought experiment: first, the wax itself possesses no characteristics available to his senses; second, he does not have access to the wax’s essential character through the senses. In his words: Perhaps the answer lies in the thought which now comes to my mind; namely, the wax was not after all the sweetness of the honey, or the fragrance of the flowers, or the whiteness, or the shape, or the sound, but was rather a body which presented itself to me in these various forms a little while ago, but which now exhibits different ones. But what exactly is it that I am now imagining? Let us concentrate, take away everything which does not belong to the wax, and see what is left: merely something extended, flexible and changeable. But what is meant here by ‘flexible’ and ‘changeable’? Is it what I picture in my imagination: that this piece of wax is capable of changing from a round shape to a square shape, or from a square shape to a triangular shape? Not at all; for I can grasp that the wax is capable of countless changes of this kind, yet I am unable to run through this immeasurable number of changes in my imagination, from which it follows that it is not the faculty of imagination that gives me my grasp of the wax as flexible and changeable. And what is meant by ‘extended’? Is the extension of the wax also unknown? For it increases if the wax melts, increases again if it boils, and is greater still if the heat is increased. I would not be making a correct judgement about the nature of wax unless I believed it capable of being extended in many more different ways than I will ever encompass

The beginning of the ascent 157 in my imagination. I must therefore admit that the nature of this piece of wax is in no way revealed by my imagination, but is perceived by the mind alone. (I am speaking of this particular piece of wax; the point is even clearer with regard to wax in general.) But what is this wax which is perceived by the mind alone? It is of course the same wax which I see, which I touch, which I picture in my imagination, in short the same wax which I thought it to be from the start. And yet, and here is the point, the perception I have of it is a case not of vision or touch or imagination – nor has it ever been, despite previous appearances – but of purely mental scrutiny; and this can be imperfect and confused, as it was before, or clear and distinct as it is now, depending on how carefully I concentrate on what the wax consists in. (AT 7: 30–1, CSM 2: 20–1) Fundamentally, the wax is extended – it takes up space – flexible and changeable. To claim that it is flexible is to claim that it is capable of taking on an indefinitely large number of shapes. Are these characteristics known by sense perception and imagination? No. They are perceived by the mind alone; these characteristics are incapable of being “pictured.” One should notice that the word “judgment” has slipped into Descartes’s discussion. In his parlance, judgment is neither a function of sense perception nor a function of imagination; it is a function of the mind as a thing that reasons or understands. He searches for a general characterization of a particular piece of wax. In characterizing the wax as something that is extended, flexible, and changeable, he moves from considerations of particular states of the wax – having a particular extension and shape, then another, and another – to those characteristics under which the particular instances fall. In effect, he looks at the particular extensions and shapes of the wax in its various stages of heating and asks under what general characteristic might all of those particulars be subsumed? The melting of the wax is the occasion on which these general characteristics are considered. These general characteristics are not perceived by the senses, rather they are “perceived” by the mind. This observation reinforces his earlier suggestion that, while sense perception and imagination qua powers of the mind are modes of thinking, they are fairly low-grade powers. As such, they do not provide one with knowledge. Nonetheless, instances of sense perception and imagination more often than not provide the occasions for inquiry. Thus this imaginative reconstruction of the various changes in the wax occasions the discovery of the clear and distinct idea of the wax.

158 Descartes’s Meditations Notice also that this represents the first appearance of the notion of clarity and distinctness in the Meditations. As he writes: the perception I have of it [the wax] is a case not of vision or touch or imagination – nor has it ever been, despite previous appearances – but of purely mental scrutiny; and this can be imperfect and confused, as it was before, or clear and distinct as it is now, depending on how carefully I concentrate on what the wax consists in. (AT 7: 31, CSM 2: 21) The piece-of-wax argument shows how an idea becomes clear and distinct (or, to follow the French, how an act of perception becomes clear and distinct). By considering the changing characteristics of the wax under the hypothesis that the wax itself remains one thing, Descartes engages in a disjunctive syllogism that leads to positing the characteristics of extension, flexibility, and changeability as essential to the wax. Consider a list of the perceived characteristics of the wax in the course of the changes observed. The wax was round, the wax was not round; the wax had a volume of ten cubic centimeters, the wax had a volume of twelve cubic centimeters, the wax had a volume of fourteen cubic centimeters . . . the wax had a flavor, the wax did not have a flavor; the wax was aromatic, the wax was not aromatic; etc.. In looking for essential characteristics of the wax, Descartes is guided by a principle known by the natural light to the effect that “For any characteristic p, if p is a characteristic of x at time t1 and not-p is a characteristic of x at time tn (t1 ≠ tn), then neither p nor not-p is essential to x.” By this means particular colors,flavors, sounds, shapes are eliminated. But on this occasion the inquirer forms a hypothesis that extension and flexibility (the ability to take on various shapes) are essential. The natural light presumably confirms this hypothesis. Except for the principle involved, this is precisely the same process involved in Descartes’s consideration of his own nature. His process of mental scrutiny, a whittling away of characteristics in an attempt to find one characteristic (or a small number of characteristics) that is essential to a thing of a particular kind, results in a clear and distinct idea. The piece-ofwax argument provides, along with the res cogitans discussion, an example of the process involved in making an idea clear and distinct, and, in so doing, it anticipates the role of clarity and distinctness in the remaining meditations. By extending his meditation to the wax, Descartes also claims to have gained an insight into the nature and powers of the mind. He writes:

The beginning of the ascent 159 But as I reach this conclusion I am amazed at how [weak and] prone to error my mind is. For although I am thinking about these matters within myself, silently and without speaking, none the less the actual words bring me up short, and I am almost tricked by ordinary ways of talking. We say that we see the wax itself, if it is there before us, not that we judge it to be there from its colour or shape; and this might lead me to conclude without more ado that knowledge of the wax comes from what the eye sees, and not from the scrutiny of the mind alone. But then if I look out of the window and see men crossing the square, as I just happen to have done, I normally say that I see the men themselves, just as I say that I see the wax. Yet do I see any more than hats and coats which could conceal automatons? I judge that they are men. And so something which I thought I was seeing with my eyes is in fact grasped solely by the faculty of judgement which is in my mind. (AT 7: 31–2, CSM 2: 21) Here Descartes contrasts the natural tendency to assume that the world is as it appears – the naive realism of the pre-philosophical individual – with the degree of sophistication reached as we approach the end of Meditation Two. At the beginning of Meditation One, the precritical individual assumed that the world is as it appears to the senses. The Meditation One doubts dashed this assumption. But by reintroducing the hypothesis that a material world exists – an introduction which is strictly a hypothetical and temporary loosening of the doubts – Descartes asks what we can know about a particular object. What he discovers is that even ifhe assumes a material object’s existence, his sensory experiences do not reveal its essential nature. Assuming that objects retain identity through change, an object’s constitutive properties are imperceptible. No particular extension is common to all the phases of the wax; however, he finds some extension or other in each phase of the wax. At this point, Descartes recognizes that wax falls under the general concept of extension. General concepts are not sensibly perceived. Hence, it is not on the basis of sense perception or imagination that one discovers the nature of the wax, although these mental operations might provide the occasion for the considerations that yield knowledge. It is on the basis of a judgment one comes to know the nature of wax, that is, through a judgment one knows the wax as an extended, flexible, and changeable thing. Hence, a judgment furnishes the ground on which one knows or believes that the

160 Descartes’s Meditations raincoat-clad objects that one sees from one’s window are humans, rather than machines or perceptual illusions. The piece-of-wax episode also tells us something more about the mind. To this point, Descartes has concluded that the self is “A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions” (AT 7: 28, CSM 2: 19). Is this a complete enumeration of the several powers of the mind? No. The piece-of-wax argument shows that there must be at least one more property falling under the general heading of “thinking,” to wit, judging. If a rule of the method is that one “make enumerations so complete . . . that I could be sure of leaving nothing out” (AT 6: 19, CSM 1: 120), then any enumeration may be revised. Seen in this way, the piece-of-wax argument is a test case regarding the completeness of the enumeration of the kinds of thinking, a test case showing that an important element of that enumeration had been ignored.14 Arguably, this fails to fit with what occurs subsequently. Descartes’s next enumeration of the activities of the mind is exactly the same as his earlier enumeration, adding only the conclusions he reached regarding the objects of thought and sense perception. At the beginning of Meditation Three he writes: I am a thing that thinks: that is, a thing that doubts, affirms, denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of many things, is willing, is unwilling, and also which imagines and has sensory perceptions; for as I have noted before, even though the objects of my sensory experience and imagination may have no existence outside me, none the less the modes of thinking which I refer to as cases of sensory perception and imagination, in so far as they are simply modes of thinking, do exist within me – of that I am certain. (AT 7: 34–5, CSM 2: 24; cf. AT 7: 28, CSM 2: 19) If there is no change, why could Descartes claim that discovering the power of judging provides an increased understanding of the mind? Is judging a genuine addition to the enumeration he had already provided, or is it merely involved in understanding? One should notice two points. First, unlike the first enumeration of the powers of the mind, the second enumeration clearly indicates that perception and imagination, as powers of the mind, provide one with no knowledge of existents: the acts of sense perception and imagination leave open the question of the existence of the objects of those acts. Nonetheless, this

The beginning of the ascent 161 difference does not detract from the facts that sense perception and imagination are powers of the mind, and that they depend on the mind for their existence. Descartes explicitly mentions these points in the third paragraph from the end of Meditation Two: However, one who wants to achieve knowledge above the ordinary level should feel ashamed at having taken ordinary ways of talking as a basis for doubt. So let us proceed, and consider on which occasion my perception of the nature of the wax was more perfect and evident. Was it when I first looked at it, and believed I knew it by my external senses, or at least by what they call the ‘common’ sense – that is, the power of imagination? Or is my knowledge more perfect now, after a more careful investigation of the nature of the wax and of the means by which it is known? Any doubt on this issue would clearly be foolish; for what distinctness was there in my earlier perception? Was there anything in it which an animal could not possess? But when I distinguish the wax from its outward forms – take the clothes off, as it were, and consider it naked – then although my judgement may still contain errors, at least my perception now requires a human mind. (AT 7: 32, CSM 2: 21–2) The piece-of-wax argument unequivocally demonstrates that a mind is required for one to have an understanding – even if it is an inadequate one – of the nature or existence of an object. It clarifies the status of sense perception and knowledge. Second, as we shall see in our examinations of the Third and Fourth Meditations, judging plays an important role in obtaining knowledge. One uncovers existential truths by judging; indeed, judging is proper to the domain of formal truth and falsity, that is, to questions of existence (see AT 7: 43, CSM 2: 30). This goes beyond the fundamental sense of “understanding,” which pertains to explanation and determination of what something is, rather than that it is. The examination of the wax is peculiar insofar as it proceeds on the assumption that the wax exists. As we shall see in the Third Meditation, when Descartes introduces the distinction between formal falsity and material falsity, the latter notion will concern primarily the question of the clarity and distinctness of ideas, while the former notion will primarily concern the status of judgments involving existential claims. Given this, one might suggest that even though his inspection of the wax provides

162 Descartes’s Meditations one with greater insight into the functions of the mind, it does not wholly clarify the function of judgment. Descartes continues by noting that his discussion has supplied him with additional reasons for claiming his own existence. He writes: But what am I to say about this mind, or about myself? (So far, remember, I am not admitting that there is anything else in me except a mind.) What, I ask, is this ‘I’ which seems to perceive the wax so distinctly? Surely my awareness of my own self is not merely much truer and more certain than my awareness of the wax, but also much more distinct and evident. For if I judge that the wax exists from the fact that I see it, clearly this same fact entails much more evidently that I myself also exist. It is possible that what I see is not really the wax; it is possible that I do not even have eyes with which to see anything. But when I see, or think I see (I am not here distinguishing the two), it is simply not possible that I who am now thinking am not something. By the same token, if I judge that the wax exists from the fact that I touch it, the same result follows, namely that I exist. If I judge that it exists from the fact that I imagine it, or for any other reason, exactly the same thing follows. And the result that I have grasped in the case of the wax may be applied to everything else located outside me. Moreover, if my perception of the wax seemed more distinct after it was established not just by sight or touch but by many other considerations, it must be admitted that I now know myself even more distinctly. This is because every consideration whatsoever which contributes to my perception of the wax, or of any other body, cannot but establish even more effectively the nature of my own mind. But besides this, there is so much else in the mind itself which can serve to make my knowledge of it more distinct, that it scarcely seems worth going through the contributions made by considering bodily things. (AT 7: 33, CSM 2: 22) This paragraph needs careful examination, for it shows how part of the confirmatory phase of analysis functions. Remember how Descartes had proven his own existence earlier in the meditation. First, he argued that since he doubted, was persuaded of something, or entertained a specific proposition, it followed that he existed. Next he inquired into his nature and determined that he was a thing that thinks, providing an enumeration of the various kinds of thought. His discussion of the wax helped clarify the status

The beginning of the ascent 163 of sense perception and imagination. In this paragraph he takes what he has just clarified, namely, the status of sense perception and imagination as modes of thought, and asks what follows from granting that status to them. It follows that he exists. This is part of the downward phase of the initial analysis. This downward phase tends to confirm sense perception and imagination as modes of thought, since, at this stage of the Meditations, only modes of thought provide evidence for claiming his existence. It places these modes of thought, qua modes, on a par with doubting, being persuaded, and understanding. Thus, the initial analysis of mind is coherent in that each of those modes entails his existence. Conclusions and cautions In this chapter we examined the Second Meditation. We argued that, since Descartes constructs the Meditations in accordance with the method of analysis (see AT 7: 156, CSM 2: 111), the meditation should build step-bystep from the minimal knowledge obtained at the end of Meditation One, namely, “I doubt,” to something more. We found that the Cogito argument proceeds in two stages. During the first stage, Descartes proves he exists on the basis of the factual claim, “I doubt.” In the second stage he analyzes his nature, which serves as the basis for something closer to the standard version of “I think, therefore I am.” The analysis of his nature is a conceptual analysis – an exercise in ideational clarification – and is consistent with his principle that the essence of a thing must be known before the corresponding existential claims are justified. Only after he analyzes his nature as a thing that thinks does he believe that he can move from the general claim that he thinks to his existence. We also argued that the piece-of-wax argument plays two roles in his analysis. It is an exercise in ideational clarification relative to ideas both of the wax and the self. Regarding the latter, it is particularly a clarification of the nature of sense perception and imagination as modes of thought. The confirmation of the status of sense perception and imagination as modes of thought is that the statements “I sensibly perceive” and “I imagine,” together with the appropriate general statements known by the light of nature, explain the previously established fact that I exist. One should also notice what we have not said. We have not suggested that Descartes’s arguments at any point presuppose a notion of substance. Since others have argued that a doctrine of substance is at least implicit in

164 Descartes’s Meditations the piece-of-wax argument (e.g. see Curley 1986: 164), and some have argued that the Cogito assumes a doctrine of substance (Dicker 1993: 53–6), a few words should be said about substance. Do Descartes’s arguments in the Second Meditation presuppose a doctrine of substance? Yes, but in a more important sense, no. If by “presuppose” one means that given a complete or fairly complete analysis of the subject-matter in question one will introduce a doctrine of substance, the answer is trivially affirmative. It is trivially affirmative since one of the objectives of analysis is to make explicit what is implicit in the assumptions with which one begins. In the last chapter, for example, we suggested, not unreasonably, that many of Descartes’s conclusions are implicit in the doubts raised in Meditation One. In particular, he concludes that the light of nature is a non-empirical source of knowledge. While he implies this conclusion in the opening doubts regarding the empiricist criterion of knowledge, it would be unreasonable to suggest that the light of nature is clearly understood at that point. Similarly here, if one wishes to claim that he implicitly assumes that the self is a substance, then that claim is true only in a trivial sense. This claim is neither recognized nor necessary for one to reach the conclusion “sum”: a notion of substance does not and need not play a philosophically significant role in that proof. Much the same can be said regarding the piece-of-wax argument. In all probability, Curley is correct in suggesting that: Descartes prepares us to regard the term substantia, when it appears, as simply a very general term for referring to objects conceived as things which may continue to persist in existence in spite of radical changes in the way they exist. (Curley 1986: 164) This does not prove his point, however. If one assumes that the presence of any doctrine of substance is sufficient to show that Descartes presupposes a doctrine of substance, then some doctrine of substance was presupposed from at least the point of the earliest Cogito arguments, namely, Aristotle’s mundane doctrine of substance as simply a subject of predication. (See Categories 5 2a11ff., Aristotle 1941: 9.) But that is not Descartes’s doctrine of substance, a doctrine couched in terms of the independence of existents (see P 1: 52; Meditation Three, AT 7: 44, CSM 2: 30). Descartes’s doctrine of substance is not couched in terms of either being a thing or being a thing

The beginning of the ascent 165 that retains identity through time – indeed, identity plays no explicit role in any of his discussions of substance. In the case of the piece of wax, he accepts identity through change as a working hypothesis only because it strikes him as a generally accepted, commonsense notion. His doctrine of substance, as such, plays no systematic role in that argument. So, while the piece-of-wax argument might prepare one for a consideration of substance in Descartes’s distinctive sense of that term, it is, at most, “hovering in the wings” at this point in the Meditations. One of the objectives of the Cartesian method is to order our thoughts. “The items which are put forward first must be known entirely without the aid of what comes later; and the remaining items must be arranged in such a way that their demonstration depends solely on what has gone before” (AT 7: 155, CSM 2: 110). Does this suggest that a doctrine of substance is present in the Second Meditation? No. It plays no systematic role and no clear idea of substance has been introduced. Hence, to claim that a doctrine of substance is “presupposed” violates Descartes’s dicta regarding the method.

6

Meditation Three Reaching the peak, or variations on the existence and idea of God

In the Third Meditation, Descartes presents his first two arguments for the existence of God. They are variations on classical versions of the cosmological argument; moreover, both arguments comply with the basic pattern of attempting to give the best explanation of a phenomenon. In this case, God as causal agent best explains why I have an idea of God with a certain content in one case, and why I exist as a thing having an idea of God with a certain content in the other. As a preliminary study for the arguments, Descartes elaborates his conceptual schema. He formally introduces the notion of a clear and distinct idea. He introduces a threefold classification of ideas as adventitious, factitious, and innate. He distinguishes formal and material falsity. He introduces and assigns a major role to the natural light. Finally, he implicitly clarifies the idea of God as he proceeds through his arguments in the Third Meditation. We begin this chapter by perusing Descartes’s preliminaries to the proofs of the existence of God. Next we examine the two proofs. Finally, we show that he presents a progression in the ideas of God and argue that the penultimate and ultimate ideas of God are innate only insofar as they are comprised solely of innate elements; these ideas might equally well be classified as factitious. Clarity, distinctness and a classification of thoughts After remarking that one should place oneself in a meditative posture and set aside all those beliefs one has not yet proven, Descartes begins the Third Meditation with an enumeration of things he knows, namely, he is “a thing that thinks: that is, a thing that doubts, affirms, denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of many things, is willing, is unwilling, and also

Reaching the peak 167 which imagines and has sensory perceptions” and he knows that there are ideas “in so far as they are simply modes of thinking.” (AT 7: 34–5, CSM 2: 24) He then enumerates the various modes of thought. Notice what he does not explicitly say: he does not say that he exists, although that might be taken to be implicit in his remark that these modes of thought “do exist within me.” (AT 7: 34–5, CSM 2: 24) If one of the primary objectives of the Second Meditation was to prove that he exists, why is the existential claim played down here? The reason seems to be that he has shifted his focus. His concern here is with clear and distinct ideas. Clear and distinct ideas are ideas of the essences of things of various kinds. They are materially true, but, as we shall see repeatedly, the presence of a clear and distinct idea does not guarantee the existence of an entity of the relevant kind. Rather, following the true logic (AT 7: 107, CSM 2: 78), the presence of a clear and distinct idea is necessary for knowledge of a thing of a kind.1 Of clear and distinct ideas Descartes writes: In this brief list I have gone through everything I truly know, or at least everything I have so far discovered that I know. Now I will cast around more carefully to see whether there may be other things within me which I have not yet noticed. I am certain that I am a thinking thing. Do I not therefore also know what is required for my being certain about anything? In this first item of knowledge there is simply a clear and distinct perception of what I am asserting; this would not be enough to make me certain of the truth of the matter if it could ever turn out that something which I perceived with such clarity and distinctness was false. So I now seem to be able to lay it down as a general rule that whatever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true. (AT 7: 35, CSM 2: 24) Here Descartes introduces his famous criterion of truth, namely, all clear and distinct perceptions are true. What is the epistemic status of the principle? Is it a generalization from a single case, as the passage suggests, or is it a hypothesis? We are inclined to understand it in the latter way. Notice what Descartes says, “[T]his would not be enough to make me certain of the truth of the matter if it could ever turn out that something which I perceived with such clarity and distinctness was false.” The phrasing suggests that one accepts the criterion until such a point as one discovers a case in which an idea is clear and distinct but false, that is, one treats it as a hypothesis to be

168 Descartes’s Meditations confirmed or refuted. The refutation of the hypothesis would consist of finding an idea that is clear and distinct but inconsistent. The confirmation would consist in giving reasons why the criterion should be taken as true. As we shall see later, Descartes takes the fact that God is not a deceiver as confirmation that the criterion itself is true (AT 7: 62, CSM 2: 43), which tends to support our suggestion that one should treat the criterion as a hypothesis. But what does it mean for a perception to be clear and distinct? Is he concerned with perception as an act, or with the object of perception, or both? And what does he mean in claiming that clear and distinct perceptions are true? Regarding the second question, the passage is ambiguous. When Descartes first alludes to the clarity and distinctness of the perception, he says, “there is simply a clear and distinct perception of what I am asserting” (quàm clara quædam & distincta perceptio ejus quod affirmo; AT 7: 35, CSM 2: 24): this could be an allusion to the object perceived or to the act of perceiving. The later instances seem to refer to characteristics of an act, that is, how one perceives an object, for he refers to “something I perceived with such clarity and distinctness” (ut aliquid, quod ita clare & distincte perciperem) and “whatever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true” (illud omne esse verum, quod valde clare & distincte percipio).2 Further, if one takes the object to be an idea (a term Descartes has yet to introduce into the Meditations) and if an idea is somehow like an image (AT 7: 37, CSM 2: 25), one might be disinclined to grant that one can clearly and distinctly perceive the truth of propositions. But only two paragraphs later he alludes to clearly and distinctly perceiving the truth of arithmetic and geometry, claiming that the only ground he has for questioning such beliefs is the possibility that God is a deceiver (AT 35-6, CSM 2: 25).3 Again, Descartes writes with reference to the ideas of corporeal things later in the Meditation, “I notice that the very things I perceive clearly and distinctly in them are very few in number” (AT 7: 43, CSM 2: 29). The grammatical form of these and other passages (see AT 7: 119, 245, 379, 519; CSM 2: 85, 171, 260, 353) suggests that it is the act of perceiving that is clear and distinct. Still, in using the expression “clear and distinct ideas” (see AT 7: 53, 78, 387, 476; CSM 2: 37, 54, 265, 321) Descartes suggests that the object of thought is what is clear and distinct. Can he have it both ways? It would seem so. As we have seen in Meditation Two, to render an idea clear and distinct requires acts of mental scrutiny. When Descartes writes of perceiving clearly and distinctly, he introduces these kinds of acts together with the resultant psychological compunction to deem the resultant idea “true.”4 The resultant

Reaching the peak 169 idea is clear and distinct. This does not mean, however, that the resulting idea differs qua existent from the idea prior to the exercise in mental scrutiny. Given his remarks on the formation of universals (P 1: 59), we may rightly suggest that one attends selectively to aspects of the original idea. But how should one understand this clarity and distinctness of a perception or idea? Descartes answers this question in the Principles. There he writes: I call a perception ‘clear’ when it is present and accessible to the attentive mind – just as we say that we see something clearly when it is present to the eye’s gaze and stimulates it with a sufficient degree of strength and accessibility. I call a perception ‘distinct’ if, as well as being clear, it is so sharply separated from all other perceptions that it contains within itself only what is clear. (P 1: 45: AT 8A: 22, CSM 1: 207–8) To understand this, we must carefully examine the analogy to visual perception. Assume you are nearsighted. The world at a distance appears blurred or fuzzy, much like the images in a Cezanne painting. Assume you are looking at the top of a hill at some distance from you. You see a red patch at the top of the hill. What is that patch?5 You do not know; all you can say is that it is something that is red. How would you find out what it is? You would move closer to it. Why? It puts the object in better focus. What does this mean? You are able to discern more of its characteristics. Now let us assume you move half the distance to the object, and you are now able to discern that it is a car. Do you now have a clear and distinct idea of the object? Perhaps, but this will depend on your objectives. If your question was merely, “Is the red thing a car, a building, a tree, or something else?” you have answered it. The visual clarity of the perception was adequate to answer that question: you could discern enough characteristics of the object to distinguish it from others insofar as that object is a car. Hence, the perception is clear and distinct insofar as its resultant idea falls under the concept of a car. But there are cars and there are cars. You might want to have a more distinct idea of the object. You might ask, “Is it a Ford or a Chevrolet or a Mercedes Benz? Is it a family car or a muscle car? Is it a recent or an older model?” You walk closer. More characteristics become clear. This allows you to identify it as a muscle car, a relatively recent Ford Mustang. The visual idea is now clear and distinct vis-à-vis the concept of a recent

170 Descartes’s Meditations Ford Mustang. But you might need to take a very close look to determine whether it is a 1995, 1996, or 1997 Mustang. These considerations show several things. First, clear and distinct ideas are ideas of kinds of things. Insofar as one might claim to have a clear and distinct idea of an individual, for example God or the piece of wax or the self, the idea is still treated as an idea of a kind. Second, ideas that are already clear can become clearer. As our example shows, an idea might be sufficiently clear vis-à-vis one sortal term to determine that it is an idea of a thing of that sort, but it may not be sufficiently clear to determine whether the object is an object of a more specific sort.6 Hence, the degree of clarity necessary for distinctness is sortally relative.7 Third, even though clear and distinct ideas contain all or a sufficient number of properties to allow one to distinguish one kind of thing from another, an idea’s clarity and distinctness do not assure the existence of a thing of that kind. Descartes claims that the clarity and distinctness of an idea guarantee only the possibility of the existence of such an object (AT 10: 351, CSM 1: 299; AT 7: 150, CSM 2: 107; see also AT 7: 78, CSM 2: 54). One would expect this, given that “according to the laws of true logic, we must never ask about the existence of anything until we first understand its essence” (AT 7: 107–8, CSM 2: 78). Finally, when Descartes concerns himself with an idea’s clarity and distinctness, the essence of a thing is the primary topic. Consequently, the components of a Cartesian clear and distinct idea are simple (general) relative to the particular object that presents the occasion for seeking a clear and distinct idea. Thus our analogy might be somewhat misleading with respect to Cartesian practice. While the route from a red patch to a recent red Ford Mustang results in an enlarged enumeration of the particularizing properties, the Cartesian practice would require us to seek an increasingly limited number of increasingly general properties by which one can distinguish the object in question from other kinds of things. But if clear and distinct perceptions show only that the object of the perception might exist, rather than that it does exist, in what sense can Descartes claim that these ideas are true? They are at least materially true, that is, they provide no material for false judgments. We show below that nothing in the Third Meditation requires that clear and distinct perceptions be true in anything other than a material sense. Because his concern lies solely with material truth, the criterion is little more than a reassertion that whatever is known by the natural light is materially true, which we have argued is the foundational principle on which he rebuilds his epistemic house. Thus, insofar as clear and distinct ideas represent the essences of

Reaching the peak 171 things, they represent the possible essences of possible things. To claim that clear and distinct ideas are materially true commits one to no existential propositions.8 Descartes continues his meditation by inquiring into the source of his errors. He writes: Yet I previously accepted as wholly certain and evident many things which I afterwards realized were doubtful. What were these? The earth, sky, stars, and everything else that I apprehended with the senses. But what was it about them that I perceived clearly? Just that the ideas, or thoughts, of such things appeared before my mind. Yet even now I am not denying that these ideas occur within me. But there was something else which I used to assert, and which through habitual belief I thought I perceived clearly, although I did not in fact do so. This was that there were things outside me which were the sources of my ideas and which resembled them in all respects. Here was my mistake; or at any rate, if my judgement was true, it was not thanks to the strength of my perception. (AT 7: 35, CSM 2: 24–5) He reviews his doubts. While one has doubts regarding the existence of the earth, the sky, and so forth, there is no question that one has thoughts about these possible things. It is here that Descartes first introduces the term ‘idea’ as a thought with at least the potential for representative content. The implicit argument for ideas goes like this. It is possible – indeed we are assuming – that the earth, the sky, and all material objects do not exist. Yet I have thoughts (sense perceptions) which, in a naive way, I take to be identical with the objects I have called into doubt. I have no question whether these thoughts exist, even though the existence of material objects is dubious. Since the existence of a particular object cannot be at once certain and dubious, two distinct objects must exist which are somehow related. So let us call those objects of thought of whose existence I am certain ‘ideas,’ and let us call those objects of whose existence I am uncertain ‘external objects’ or ‘material objects.’ Given the distinction, Descartes indicates that he had assumed that external objects were the sources of these ideas and perfectly resembled them.9 He rejects this assumption, thereby leaving open the question of the causes of ideas and their representational function. While ideas might not actually represent objects, Descartes’s further remarks assure us that they are at least potential representatives (AT 7: 36–

172 Descartes’s Meditations 7, CSM 2: 25–6). He enumerates the various kinds of thoughts and affirms that ideas properly so called are like images, that is, they have (or can have) a representational function. Further, all thoughts involve ideas, since Descartes refers to the “additional forms” these thoughts have: the several psychological attitudes (affirming, denying, willing, and judging) have ideas as their objects. By assuming that ideas qua objects of thought have a possible representational function, he leaves open a number of questions regarding the potentially represented object. Does the object presented exist? Is the idea qua object of thought clear and distinct, that is, can it possibly represent a determinate thing? Are claims one would make regarding the object as represented in the idea (formally) true or false? Claims based on the representative function of any idea are the domain of the faculty of judgment, and, as he says in the next paragraph, truth and falsehood properly pertain only to judgments (AT 7: 37, CSM 2: 26). Not only do truth and falsehood properly pertain only to judgments, but the most common source of error stems from judgments regarding the representative function of ideas. Recall that, at the beginning of Meditation One, Descartes suggested that he assumed the world is as it appears to the senses. The introduction of ideas as the objects of thought indicates that the common errors of perceptual judgment change in description. While prior to the introduction of the theory of ideas one might have said, “I see a round tower in the distance” only to find that the tower was square or that one was dreaming, the description would now be posed like this: “I am aware of an idea which represents a round tower in the distance and judge that there is, in fact, such a tower.” While this mere redescription of the situation only accommodates the theory of ideas, it brings with it an important point, namely, judgment is the only psychological attitude in which formal truth and falsehood are at issue. Descartes continues by enumerating the kinds of ideas he has (AT 7: 37– 8, CSM 2: 26), suggesting that ideas are of three sorts: innate, adventitious, and factitious (made up). This is only a preliminary classification. As we show below, the classification of ideas as factitious or made up is misleading. While we certainly construct some ideas out of the components of other ideas in our mind, the category of factitious ideas is not basic: any of the components of a factitious idea are either adventitious or innate. Moreover, even these two basic categories apply only to occurrent ideas, that is, ideas of which we are aware at a time; for, as we noted in Chapter Two, in the Comments on a Certain Broadsheet Descartes went so far as to claim that innate ideas are fundamentally dispositions to form occurrent ideas with a

Reaching the peak 173 certain cognitive content, and, as such, all ideas are innate. Nonetheless, the innate/adventitious/factitious ideas distinction is useful when he attempts to explain the formation of ideas. Descartes focuses on ideas of sense perception and explains why one believes that those ideas represent objects outside oneself: one has a natural tendency to believe so (AT 7: 38, CSM 2: 26). This is little more than a reformulation of the assumption operative at the beginning of the First Meditation. Initially, one assumes that one perceives the physical world directly (naive realism). This leads to two problems: first, one’s judgments based on visual perceptions are often inconsistent; and second, as one’s experience increases, one must weigh one appearance against another to avoid error. When he introduces a distinction between the objects of thought and material objects, Descartes must reformulate his previous assumption. By suggesting that we have a natural disposition to assume a similarity between our ideas and the physical world (the resemblance thesis), he accommodates a representative theory of ideas with the original assumption that all knowledge is derived from sense experience. This explains, at most, the origin of adventitious ideas. And this disposition to believe that physical objects cause and resemble adventitious ideas might be bolstered by the fact that the mind passively receives the ideas. But at this point in the Meditations, neither the disposition nor the passivity thesis should be taken as evidence that extramental things cause adventitious ideas, since the divine deceiver hypothesis is still operative.10 Later in his discussion, Descartes draws a distinction between natural tendencies to believe and what is known by the natural light. I will now see if these arguments are strong enough. When I say ‘Nature taught me to think this’, all I mean is that a spontaneous impulse leads me to believe it, not that its truth has been revealed to me by some natural light. There is a big difference here. Whatever is revealed to me by the natural light – for example that from the fact that I am doubting it follows that I exist, and so on – cannot in any way be open to doubt. This is because there cannot be another faculty both as trustworthy as the natural light and also capable of showing me that such things are not true. But as for my natural impulses, I have often judged in the past that they were pushing me in the wrong direction when it was a question of choosing the good, and I do not see why I should place any greater confidence in them in other matters. (AT 7: 38–9, CSM 2: 26–7)

174 Descartes’s Meditations Experience indicates that natural tendencies to believe have led one into error in the past. So, until one can provide grounds for claiming that natural tendencies to form an opinion have some evidentiary weight, they must be viewed as suspect. Yet, the natural light is the innate faculty that allows one to discern the truth. What one knows by the natural light has epistemic warrant; at least, it is immune from doubt. In drawing a distinction between natural tendencies to form an opinion and the natural light, Descartes has introduced a potential source of knowledge of general principles, a source that he fully utilizes in his arguments for the existence of God. Since the faculty of the natural light allows one to perceive material truth, what that faculty perceives is clear and distinct. In continuing his discussion, Descartes provides reasons for discounting, first, the passivity thesis and, secondly, the resemblance thesis (AT 7: 39, CSM 2: 27). Since the passivity thesis provides evidence that something other than oneself causes one’s adventitious ideas, it is incumbent upon him to determine whether an alternative, yet equally plausible, hypothesis exists. Here he draws upon his previous doubts. Even granting that the will does not cause the ideas in question, it remains possible that an unknown faculty of the mind causes those ideas. The dream phenomenon bolsters such a supposition, since ideas in a dream state are not conscious products of the will. So the passivity thesis does not unequivocally support the assumption that some of our ideas arise from an extramental reality. Further, even if the passivity thesis provided evidence for an external cause of one’s adventitious ideas, one still would have no grounds for accepting the resemblance thesis. Descartes continues: And finally, even if these ideas did come from things other than myself, it would not follow that they must resemble those things. Indeed, I think I have often discovered a great disparity in many cases. For example, there are two different ideas of the sun which I find within me. One of them, which is acquired as it were from the senses and which is a prime example of an idea which I reckon to come from an external source, makes the sun appear very small. The other idea is based on astronomical reasoning, that is, it is derived from certain notions which are innate in me (or else it is constructed by me in some other way), and this idea shows the sun to be several times larger than the earth. Obviously both these ideas cannot resemble the sun which exists outside me; and reason persuades me that the idea which

Reaching the peak 175 seems to have emanated most directly from the sun itself has in fact no resemblance to it at all. (AT 7: 39–40, CSM 2: 27) Here Descartes renders the resemblance thesis problematic. If the world is as it appears to the senses, then there should be no conflicts between the contents of sensory ideas. However, the doubts in the First Meditation called the resemblance thesis into question. The tower that appears round and small at a distance of two miles might appear large and square from a distance of twenty feet. Both ideas cannot accurately represent the same object. So, at best, some means must be found for determining which sensory perceptions are epistemically privileged. His consideration of the contrasting astronomical and sensory ideas of the sun undermines both the resemblance thesis and and the passivity thesis more radically than the initial examples of the First Meditation. Given the disparity in content between the (incorrect) sensory idea of the sun and the (correct) idea based on scientific reasoning, there is no ground for the resemblance thesis. Similarly, with the loss of the resemblance thesis, the passivity thesis proves dubious because the strongest claim it could support is the claim that some-thing-I-know-not-what causes the sensory idea of the sun. Finally, the passivity thesis loses epistemic warrant in light of the Cartesian dictum that knowledge of essence precedes knowledge of existence. Thus, Descartes refuses to grant sense experience any epistemic warrant. As he writes: All these considerations are enough to establish that it is not reliable judgement but merely some blind impulse that has made me believe up till now that there exist things distinct from myself which transmit to me ideas or images of themselves through the sense organs or in some other way. (AT 7: 40, CSM 2: 27) The first argument for the existence of God11 Descartes has been asking whether anything exists apart from himself. His initial attempt failed: one’s natural disposition to believe that ideas represent objects external to one’s mind is not sufficient to show that ideas represent extramental objects, nor can elements of the idea do so. Now he attacks the

176 Descartes’s Meditations problem in a different way. Notice how this parallels what he did in Meditation Two. There he enumerated various conceptions of himself and gave reasons for rejecting some of them before settling on the conception of himself as a thinking thing. Though his enumeration here consists of only two cases, he does enumerate two hypotheses that might lead him to knowledge of things outside of himself. The first hypothesis – the position of the unsophisticated representative realist – is rejected, so he tries an alternative approach.12 Descartes’s alternative approach lays the groundwork for his first proof of the existence of God by distinguishing objective and formal reality. He writes: But it now occurs to me that there is another way of investigating whether some of the things of which I possess ideas exist outside me. In so far as the ideas are simply modes of thought, there is no recognizable inequality among them: they all appear to come from within me in the same fashion. But in so far as different ideas represent different things, it is clear that they differ widely. Undoubtedly, the ideas which represent substances to me amount to something more and, so to speak, contain within themselves more objective reality than the ideas which merely represent modes or accidents. Again, the idea that gives me my understanding of a supreme God, eternal, infinite, omniscient, omnipotent and the creator of all things that exist apart from him, certainly has in it more objective reality than the ideas that represent finite substances. (AT 7: 40, CSM 2: 27–8) Descartes distinguishes between the reality of an idea qua idea and the reality of the content of an idea. As modes of thought, all ideas possess the same degree of reality. Nonetheless, ideas as potential representatives differ from one another. Ideas representing substances represent entities that have more reality than those representing modes. Ideas representing an infinite substance have more reality than those representing finite substances. The objective reality of an idea is the degree of reality of the object of thought, the possible object represented by the idea. As Descartes indicates in the “[a]rguments proving the existence of God and the distinction between the soul and the body arranged in geometrical fashion” appended to the Second Replies, there are but three degrees of reality: mode, finite substance, and infinite substance (AT 7: 165–6, CSM 2: 113-17; cf. Curley 1978: 131). Introducing degrees of objective reality leads to

Reaching the peak 177 interesting consequences. The degree of objective reality of an idea depends upon how one conceives of an object. By misconceiving an object, one could plausibly assign it a degree of reality higher than it would have if it existed, for Descartes does not say that the idea to which one assigns a certain degree of objective reality must be clearly and distinctly conceived. Indeed, the description of God he presents in this paragraph – the first of three descriptions provided in the Third Meditation – is not portrayed as a clear and distinct idea. Descartes next introduces his notorious causal maxim. He continues: Now it is manifest by the natural light that there must be at least as much in the efficient and total cause as in the effect of that cause. For where, I ask, could the effect get its reality from, if not from the cause? And how could the cause give it to the effect unless it possessed it? It follows from this both that something cannot arise from nothing, and also that what is more perfect – that is, contains in itself more reality – cannot arise from what is less perfect. And this is transparently true not only in the case of effects which possess actual or formal reality, but also in the case of ideas, where one is considering only objective reality. . . . The nature of an idea is such that of itself it requires no formal reality except what it derives from my thought, of which it is a mode. But in order for a given idea to contain such and such objective reality, it must surely derive it from some cause which contains at least as much formal reality as there is objective reality in the idea. For if we suppose that an idea contains something which was not in its cause, it must have got this from nothing; yet the mode of being by which a thing exists objectively in the intellect by way of an idea, imperfect though it may be, is certainly not nothing, and so it cannot come from nothing. (AT 7: 40–1, CSM 2: 28–9) The natural light convinces one “that there must be at least as much reality in the total efficient cause as there is in the effect.” Let us call this “Descartes’s causal maxim.” Given his threefold division of degrees of reality, this maxim implies that a mode may be caused by another mode or by a finite substance or by an infinite substance, while a finite substance can be caused either by another finite substance or an infinite substance, and an infinite substance can be caused only by an infinite substance. While the causal

178 Descartes’s Meditations maxim is “known by the natural light,” this is not the first time that the principle has come into play in the Meditations. As we argued in Chapter Four, Descartes assumes the principle in the second hypothetical doubt. If the cause of one’s being is something less perfect than God, then the less perfect one’s cause, the more probable it is that one will err. That doubt becomes plausible only on the assumption of the causal maxim. From the maxim, Descartes contends, two corollaries follow, namely, “that something cannot arise from nothing, and also that what is more perfect – that is, contains in itself more reality – cannot arise from what is less perfect.” The latter claim does little more than restate the maxim itself. The former is ambiguous. What does it mean to claim that something cannot arise from nothing? If taken literally, namely, that nothingness, having no degree of reality, cannot cause any thing that has a higher degree of reality, that is, having any degree of reality whatsoever, then it follows from the maxim. But some commentators, for example Georges Dicker (1993: 116-17), contend that Descartes takes it to imply something stronger, namely, that every existent object has a cause, which does not follow from the principle. Does Descartes take the former principle to imply the latter? Perhaps, though it is unclear whether he considers the principle that the more perfect cannot arise from the less perfect as a direct implication of or equivalent to the principle that something cannot arise from nothing. Descartes accepts the principle that every existent has a cause. The whole analytic method is predicated on the assumption that there are explanatory relations that obtain among propositions. In some cases, as in his Geometry, these relations are conceptual. In other cases, an existential claim is implicit in the explanation, that is, the existence of an object can be explained only on the basis of the existence of some other object. This, certainly, is the gist of the contention that something cannot arise from nothing. However, insofar as the explanatory assumption is implicit in the method of analysis, the maxim that something cannot arise from nothing is neither equivalent to nor implies that every event has a cause (every existent object is caused by some other existent object). Rather, both the principle that there must be at least as much reality in the total efficient cause as in the effect and the maxim that something cannot arise from nothing are insights of his methodological assumption as it applies to the explanation of existents. And it is a function of the natural light to provide such insights. Taken at the level of formal (actual) existence, Descartes’s causal maxim provides limits to the direction of causal relations. Descartes, however, extends the scope of this maxim from the formal realm (the realm of actual

Reaching the peak 179 existence) to the realm of ideas, contending that the object that causes an idea with a certain degree of objective reality X must have at least an equal degree of formal reality. This extension of the scope of the maxim provides the bridge between objective reality and formal reality. This bridge allows him on the one hand to move from the ideational realm to the formal realm (actual existence), and on the other hand, to introduce the notion of eminent causation. In eminent causation, a more perfect thing can cause the existence of a less perfect thing or the idea of a less perfect thing, but not vice versa. Thus, a finite substance can cause the existence of a mode or an idea of a mode, but a mode can cause neither a finite substance nor the idea of one. This kind of causation seems to remain close to the content of Descartes’s causal maxim. Nonetheless, it provides an essential bridge between the realm of ideas and that of extramental reality. If one allows eminent causation (or eminent containment), then one provides a basis for the existence of an idea with a certain degree of objective reality: the sole explanation for the presence of an idea of God is the existence of a thing that has all the properties of God. In the following passage, Descartes explains the theoretical conditions that the connection between formal and objective reality must satisfy. And although the reality which I am considering in my ideas is merely objective reality, I must not on that account suppose that the same reality need not exist formally in the causes of my ideas, but that it is enough for it to be present in them objectively. For just as the objective mode of being belongs to ideas by their very nature, so the formal mode of being belongs to the causes of ideas – or at least the first and most important ones – by their very nature. And although one idea may perhaps originate from another, there cannot be an infinite regress here; eventually one must reach a primary idea, the cause of which will be like an archetype which contains formally all the reality which is present only objectively in the idea. So it is clear to me, by the natural light, that the ideas in me are like images which can easily fall short of the perfection of the things from which they are taken, but which cannot contain anything greater or more perfect. (AT 7: 41–2, CSM 2: 29) Descartes emphasizes causes. A cause as such possesses one of the three degrees of formal reality. In attempting to bridge the gap between the objective

180 Descartes’s Meditations reality of an idea’s content and the formal reality of an idea’s cause, he makes one of the standard moves found in versions of the cosmological argmnent; he claims that while ideas can cause one another, the chain of causes must be finite. Eventually one must confront an idea that cannot be explained on the basis of other ideas. This ultimate idea he calls a “primary idea,” and it must represent its causal archetype, because the cause of the primary idea must contain at least as much formal reality as is found objectively in the primary idea. The implications of this principle prove pivotal to the first argument for the existence of God. To this point in the Meditation, Descartes can only lay claim to his own existence and the existence of his ideas (modes of his thought). Eminent causation permits Descartes to find an idea that has an objective reality so high that its existence can be explained only by the existence of a cause external to his thoughts and himself, such that the possible object that the idea represents has at least as great a degree of formal reality as the idea has objective reality. Only two possibilities exist: one, Descartes cannot construct the idea from the idea of himself and elements of other ideas of which he is aware, and thus, he would have grounds for claiming that something external to him causes the idea; or two, Descartes can construct the idea from the idea of himself and the elements of other ideas of which he is aware, and thus, his meditation would end in epistemological solipsism, since he would fail to produce grounds for claiming the existence of something external to himself (AT 7: 42, CSM 2: 29). With these preliminaries in mind, we turn to the first argument for God’s existence. The structure of the first argument is quite simple. Descartes presents a list of the various kinds of ideas he finds in his mind. He then asks whether he could explain the presence of each kind of idea without positing the existence of an external cause. He argues that each idea, except the idea of God, can so be explained. Since the presence Of an idea of God cannot so be explained, he concludes that God exists. He presents his list of kinds of ideas as follows: Among my ideas, apart from the idea which gives me a representation of myself, which cannot present any difficulty in this context, there are ideas which variously represent God, corporeal and inanimate things, angels, animals and finally other men like myself. (AT 7: 42–3, CSM 2: 29)

Reaching the peak 181 He then asks whether he can explain the existence of each kind of idea without positing an extramental existence. He begins with the ideas of humans, angels, and animals (AT 7: 43, CSM 2: 29), and argues that if one has ideas of corporeal things, oneself, and God, elements of those ideas can be recombined to form ideas of animals, human beings, and angels, even if those kinds of beings do not exist. For example, insofar as an angel is conceived as a winged human, the idea of an angelic body can be formed from that of a bird and a human body. Assuming that an angel is an intelligent being, rather than merely a complex machine, one conceives of the body as possessing a mind like that of a human, although more powerful.13 Insofar as God is conceived as a thinking thing that is more powerful than a human, an angelic mind is conceived as more powerful than a human mind, though less powerful than a divine mind. Thus, by recombining elements of the ideas present in his mind, Descartes can explain how it is possible to form ideas of angels. Turning to the idea of corporeal substance, Descartes shifts the nature of the explanation. He writes: As to my ideas of corporeal things, I can see nothing in them which is so great as to make it seem impossible that it originated in myself. For if I scrutinize them thoroughly and examine them one by one, in the way in which I examined the idea of the wax yesterday, I notice that the things which I perceive clearly and distinctly in them are very few in number. The list comprises size, or extension in length, breadth and depth; shape, which is a function of the boundaries of this extension; position, which is a relation between various items possessing shape; and motion, or change in position; to these may be added substance, duration and number. But as for all the rest, including light and colours, sounds, smells, tastes, heat and cold and the other tactile qualities, I think of these only in a very confused and obscure way, to the extent that I do not even know whether they are true or false, that is, whether the ideas I have of them are ideas of real things or of non-things. For although, as I have noted before, falsity in the strict sense, or formal falsity, can occur only in judgements, there is another kind of falsity, material falsity, which occurs in ideas, when they represent non-things as things. For example, the ideas which I have of heat and cold contain so little clarity and distinctness that they do not enable me to tell whether cold is merely the absence of heat or vice versa, or whether both of them are real qualities, or neither is. And since there

182 Descartes’s Meditations can be no ideas which are not as it were of things, if it is true that cold is nothing but the absence of heat, the idea which represents it to me as something real and positive deserves to be called false; and the same goes for other ideas of this kind. (AT 7: 43–4, CSM 2: 29–30) One cannot simply recombine elements of other ideas to form the idea of corporeal substance: this idea is more general than that of any kind of corporeal substance.14 Nonetheless, as he shows a few paragraphs later, his account of eminent causation allows him to explain how the properties of corporeal substance can be formed. Like most substance theorists, Descartes held that substance is known only mediately, that is, by means of its attributes (P 1: 52). Since corporeal substance is a finite substance, its status in the levels of reality is no higher than that of a human finite substance. Since eminent causation allows him to contend that a finite substance can construct ideas of modes of a finite substance, he has the basis for explaining the presence of the constitutive properties of material substance. To explain his idea of corporeal substance, Descartes initially attempts to clarify it by generalizing from his clarification of the idea of the wax. Notice that he articulates the clarification in terms of those properties that he clearly and distinctly perceives as constituting a corporeal object, namely: size, or extension in length, breadth and depth; shape, which is a function of the boundaries of this extension; position, which is a relation between various items possessing shape; and motion, or change in position; to these may be added substance, duration and number. (AT 7: 42–3, CSM 2: 28–9) With the exception of substance, duration, and number, these are characteristics discerned in the analysis of the piece of wax. Substance, duration, and number are characteristics that could be drawn from Descartes’s consideration of his own nature, as he acknowledges in the next two paragraphs (AT 7: 44–5, CSM 2: 30–1). He wants to determine those characteristics that he perceives as essential to a thing qua corporeal entity. One does not clearly and distinctly perceive such characteristics as heat and cold; one can conceive of a corporeal entity even in the absence of such properties. Ideas that are not clear and distinct are materially false: they provide the basis for formally false judgments. Hence, ideas of properties

Reaching the peak 183 that are not clearly and distinctly perceived cannot be ideas of constitutive properties of material substance. As Descartes continues, he stresses the epistemic weakness of ideas that are not clear and distinct. He writes: Such ideas obviously do not require me to posit a source distinct from myself. For on the one hand, if they are false, that is, represent nonthings, I know by the natural light that they arise from nothing – that is, they are in me only because of a deficiency and lack of perfection in my nature. If on the other hand they are true, then since the reality which they represent is so extremely slight that I cannot even distinguish it from a non-thing, I do not see why they cannot originate from myself. (AT 7: 44, CSM 2: 30) Descartes’s argument takes the form of a dilemma. Either ideas of properties that are not clearly and distinctly perceived, e.g. heat and cold, represent constitutive properties of material objects or they do not. If they do not represent constitutive properties of material objects, then material objects could exist without such properties and the best explanation of one’s awareness of these properties rests upon defects in one’s nature. If they do represent constitutive properties of material objects, then the fact that they are not clearly and distinctly perceived implies that they have a low status in reality, that is, they are modes rather than attributes. Thus, given his account of eminent causation, he himself could be the cause of these ideas. So, in either case, he is not forced to posit the existence of an external entity as the cause of his idea of corporeal substance. Descartes continues his scrutiny of ideas of material objects. To dispose of such ideas as candidates for primary ideas, he appeals to characteristics of himself and eminent causation (AT 7: 44–5, CSM 2: 30–1). He divides the class of properties he clearly and distinctly perceives into two subclasses on the basis of whether the ideas of them are actually in him. Those properties the ideas of which he finds in himself are substance, duration, and number. Defining substance as a thing that can exist independently (cf. P 1: 51), he argues that insofar as he himself is a substance, he may attribute substantiality – whether correctly or not – to material objects: the concept of substance is derived from the self and applied to a non-self. He argues the same way with regard to duration and number. Those properties he does not find in himself are peculiar to material (nonmental) substances. He lists

184 Descartes’s Meditations the properties of extension, shape, position, and movement as meeting this description; however, these properties are nothing more than attributes or modes of a substance. Since they are attributes or modes, while Descartes himself is a substance, they could be contained in him eminently, that is, insofar as he is a substance, it is possible for him to create from his own nature ideas of attributes or modes, even if they are modes of a material substance. Thus, he can explain the presence of the ideas of material objects in his mind even if no such objects exist.15 At this point Descartes has explained how he can form each of the ideas of things in his mind except the idea of God. Recognizing this, he asks whether the idea of God as “infinite, independent, supremely intelligent, supremely powerful, and which created both myself and everything else (if anything else there be) that exists” (AT 7: 45, CSM 2: 31) represents an external existent.16 He does this by contrasting the idea of God with those ideas that he has already explained as possibly deriving from himself, but, he writes, “[T]he more carefully I concentrate on them [the properties of God], the less possible it seems that they could have originated from me alone” (AT 7: 45, CSM 2: 31). Being bereft of any alternative explanation of the presence of the idea of God, he concludes that God exists. Descartes has done little more than stipulate that he could not construct the idea of God. Why would he claim that? How does the idea of God differ from the previous ideas he considered? Fundamentally, it differs in that it is an idea of an infinite being, while the ideas he had considered previously are ideas of finite beings. He now addresses the importance of that difference, that is, why only the existence of an infinite being could explain the possibility of an idea of an infinite being. To this topic he devotes the next several paragraphs. He begins by contrasting infinite substance with finite substance (AT 7: 45, CSM 2: 31). He argues that the sole basis for explaining one’s idea of an infinite substance is another infinite substance. The infinite is logically prior to the finite. But why should one claim that the idea of infinity contains anything more than the negation of the idea of finitude? Descartes explains: And I must not think that, just as my conceptions of rest and darkness are arrived at by negating movement and light, so my perception of the infinite is arrived at not by means of a true idea but merely by negating the finite. On the contrary, I clearly understand that there is more reality in an infinite substance than in a finite one, and hence that my perception

Reaching the peak 185 of the infinite, that is God, is in some way prior to my perception of the finite, that is myself. For how could I understand that I doubted or desired – that is, lacked something – and that I was not wholly perfect, unless there were in me some idea of a more perfect being which enabled me to recognize my own defects by comparison? (AT 7: 45–6, CSM 2: 31) Notice Descartes’s argument. He contends that the idea of the infinite is prior to that of the finite, and, therefore, it cannot be a negative idea. Why? Descartes is imperfect. Were this not so, he could not doubt, desire, or fall into error. He claims to possess an archetypical idea of perfection to which he compares himself. In the process of comparing himself to this idea of perfection, he recognizes his own imperfection. If the idea of perfection is truly archetypical, it must be prior to the idea of imperfection, and its cause must be something distinct from himself. Descartes continues by asking whether the idea of God is materially false. In his words: Nor can it be said that this idea of God is perhaps materially false and so could have come from nothing, which is what I observed just a moment ago in the case of the ideas of heat and cold, and so on. On the contrary, it is utterly clear and distinct, and contains in itself more objective reality than any other idea; hence there is no idea which is in itself truer or less liable to be suspected of falsehood. This idea of a supremely perfect and infinite being is, I say, true in the highest degree; for although perhaps one may imagine that such a being does not exist, it cannot be supposed that the idea of such a being represents something unreal, as I said with regard to the idea of cold. (AT 7: 46, CSM 2: 31–2) There are two related issues here. First, Descartes raises the question whether the idea of God is materially false. This he emphatically denies, arguing that the idea of God is the clearest and most distinct of all ideas. Second, the definition of God has changed. While two paragraphs earlier he defined the term ‘God’ by means of an enumeration of several attributes, here the enumeration is limited to supreme perfection and infinite being. If the idea of God is expressed by the definition, the idea here is clearer and more distinct because Descartes has specified a pair of attributes under which all the

186 Descartes’s Meditations previous attributes fall, namely, perfection and infinity. He then discusses this idea of God. In the parlance found in the replies to Arnauld, Descartes indicates that the idea of God as a perfect being is an idea of a complete thing and a complete thing is “a substance endowed with the forms or attributes which enable me to recognize that it is a substance” (AT 7: 221, CSM 2: 156). Yet, his idea of God is inadequate because it fails to “contain absolutely all the properties which are in the thing which is the object of knowledge” (AT 7: 220, CSM 2: 155). Since his mind is finite, Descartes cannot have an adequate idea of an infinite entity, that is, an idea of all the constitutive properties of an infinite being. Nevertheless, each of those properties he perceives in the idea of God implies a perfection. The idea of perfection itself is simpler (more general) than that of any sort of perfection, and consequently, in keeping with his own account of degrees of clarity and distinctness, Descartes justifiably claims that the idea of a perfect being is the “most clear and distinct of all my ideas” (AT 7: 46, CSM 2: 31–2). Descartes concludes the argument by considering the objection that his own perfection is greater than he thinks (AT 7: 46–7, CSM 2: 32). His objection is straightforward: perhaps I’m more perfect than I believe myself to be. Since he finds himself increasing in knowledge, does it follow that he is potentially perfect? He provides a response with a rather Socratic flavor by indicating that such improvement only reveals how much further from perfection he actually is. He distinguishes between actual properties and potential properties. The idea of God is that of an actually infinite being that contains nothing potentially; the most Descartes could claim for himself is the potentiality of infinite knowledge. This alone sufficiently shows that he cannot be the cause of the idea of an actually perfect being: the actual can be the cause of the potential, but not vice versa. Further, being only potentially perfect is a mark of actual imperfection. He stresses this point by claiming that the more knowledge he obtains, the more clear it becomes that his knowledge will never be infinite (AT 7: 47, CSM 2: 32). Hence, any degree of imperfection is sufficient to show that he himself cannot be the cause of his idea of an infinite being. Thus ends Descartes’s defense of the claim that only God could cause his idea of God. He has argued in two phases. First, he showed that one can construct the ideas of all kinds of things except God by recombining elements of the idea of himself and the idea of God, or, when the idea cannot be formed by simple recombination, it can be explained through eminent causation. During the second phase, he raised and replied to objections to

Reaching the peak 187 the claim that only God can be the cause of the idea of God. As Descartes concludes, “If one concentrates carefully, all this is quite evident by the natural light” (AT 7: 47, CSM 2: 32). We now turn to his other argument for God’s existence. The second argument for the existence of God Having completed his argument for the existence of God based on considerations of the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of an idea of God, Descartes turns to an argument for the existence of God based on the fact that he exists and has an idea of God. Why would he do that? He suggests that the previous proof is abstruse, that considerations of objective reality cannot retain one’s attention given the continual bombardment of sensuous images (AT 7: 47–8, CSM 2: 32–3). We hope to show that more is going on than Descartes initially suggests. Appeals to abstruseness alone would fail to justify a second proof. In the first argument, Descartes assumes that a cause with a certain degree of formal reality will explain effects with an equal or lesser degree of objective reality. The second argument rests only on considerations of formal reality. He knows he possesses the degree of formal reality attributed to a finite substance. Because a substance is an entity that is capable of existing independently (AT 7: 44, CSM 2: 30; P 1: 52), it possesses a certain duration, a fact he already acknowledges regarding himself (AT 7: 44–5, CSM 2: 30–1). During the course of the first argument, he acknowledges a distinction between finite and infinite substances, but the nature of that difference is not clearly understood there. The aim of his second argument is to demonstrate that he can explain his own existence, the existence of a thing having both an idea of God and which exists for an extended period of time, solely on the presumption that he is caused by an infinite substance. The second argument for God’s existence begins with an enumeration. In the previous argument he began by enumerating his various ideas to ask what would sufficiently explain their presence. Here he enumerates the possible causes of his existence to see which, if any, could have caused his existence. As in the previous argument, he constructs a complex disjunctive syllogism, eliminating the various options until he reaches the conclusion that only God could be the cause of his existence. What are the possible causes of his existence other than God? The options are himself, his parents or some being “less perfect than God,” or God (AT 7: 48, CSM 2: 33). He

188 Descartes’s Meditations rejects the first three of these possibilities, leaving God as the only adequate explanation of his existence. Before examining Descartes’s treatment of the first option, we should attend to an oddity: he goes on for three paragraphs about the apparently self-contradictory notion of self-causation. Keep three points in mind here. First, Descartes believes that a cause is not temporally prior to its effect, it is simultaneous with it. Second, he seems willing to grant that an efficient cause need not be existentially distinct from its effect. We have discussed these two points at length in the first three sections of Chapter Three. While we admit that the argument’s success turns on a very tenuous blurring of the distinction between formal and efficient cause, we wish to attend more to the structure of the argument than to its success. Finally, given the three degrees of formal reality and eminent causation, a finite substance could be responsible for all of its own modes; moreover, since finite substances could cause finite substances, it remains an open question whether a finite substance could be the cause of itself at distinct points in time, since an efficient cause is simultaneous with its effect. In attending to the first option, Descartes distinguishes two ways in which he might be said to cause his own existence: he could be the initiating or the preservative cause of his own existence. He rejects the possibility that he caused himself. At first, he reasons that he would have done better by himself if he had been self-caused. The idea that he would have created himself without limits with respect to any of his abilities naturally leads him to believe that he would have made himself more knowledgeable or powerful than he is. Here, again, he contrasts himself with his idea of perfection and relies on the assumption of his finiteness. To drive this point home Descartes discusses what he must believe in order to think that he brought about his own existence. I must not suppose that the items I lack would be more difficult to acquire than those I now have. On the contrary, it is clear that, since I am a thinking thing or substance, it would have been far more difficult for me to emerge out of nothing than merely to acquire knowledge of the many things of which I am ignorant – such knowledge being merely an accident of that substance. And if I had derived my existence from myself, which is a greater achievement, I should certainly not have denied myself the knowledge in question, which is something much easier to acquire, or indeed any of the attributes which I perceive to be

Reaching the peak 189 contained in the idea of God; for none of them seem any harder to achieve. And if any of them were harder to achieve, they would certainly appear so to me, if I had indeed got all my other attributes from myself, since I should experience a limitation of my power in this respect. (AT 7: 48, CSM 2: 33) If he had caused himself, he would have given himself all the perfections he attributes to God, but he lacks these perfections. The degrees of formal reality dictate that it would be harder to create a finite substance (a thinking thing) than to create a mode (knowledge); similarly, it would be more difficult to create a substance out of nothing than to create one of its accidents (knowledge). He concludes that he did not cause himself, since he would have limited neither his knowledge nor his other properties, since, as modes, their existence is less problematic than his own substantial existence. The second way Descartes might understand himself as the cause of himself is to assume that he has always existed and ask whether he is his own preservative cause. He asks himself whether he has any evidence that he has always existed. He has none. Here he stresses the duration of his existence. If he always existed, he would need to account for his preservation in existence. This he cannot do. He knows by the natural light that he can only distinguish conceptually between creation and preservation. Dividing his life into temporal segments, Descartes claims that the same power would be necessary to preserve his existence – or to create him anew at every moment – that is required to create him initially (AT 7: 48–9, CSM 2: 33). Thus, the case of his preservative cause collapses into the case of his initial creative cause. Given his previous conclusion that he could not be the initial cause of himself, he has no reason to believe that he is the cause of his continued existence. Indeed, he continues, if he had such a power, he would be aware of it, but he is aware of no such a power, so he does not have it. Thus, since no entity can continue to exist without a cause, some other being must account for the cause of his preservation (AT 7: 49, CSM 2: 33– 4). What then is that preservative power? Descartes rejects the second and third options, his parents or some being less perfect than God, as the causes of his existence. Though he presents them as separate options, his argument against the third option should count equally well for his parents, since they, too, are less perfect than God. Nevertheless, his parents furnish a natural starting point for him to generate his regress. His argument takes the form of a dilemma (AT 7: 49–50, CSM 2:

190 Descartes’s Meditations 34). Either his parents are the cause of his being, or they are not. If they are the cause of his being, then given that there must be at least as much reality in the cause as in the effect, it must account for his existence as a thinking thing with an idea of God. Assume his parents met that condition, then the question is simply pushed back one step, for either they are the cause of their own being or they are not. If they are, then they are self-caused. If they are not, then the chain goes back another step. Ultimately, whatever would be the first cause must be self-caused, that is, God. But even this is more than Descartes needs. Assuming that the regress cannot be infinite does not account for the current preservation of his being. At most, it explains coming into existence in the past. Since there is only a distinction of reason between the initial cause of a being and the cause of its preservation, a parental cause cannot explain the phenomenon of Descartes’s continued existence. Hence, his parents cannot be the cause of his being (AT 7: 50, CSM 2: 34). Descartes temporarily shifts to considerations of non-parental causes of his being. Assume there were several partial causes of one’s being, taking parents as a cause would be one special case of this. Will this allow Descartes to explain his existence? No. On this assumption, each of the partial causes might contribute one element – one kind of perfection – to the idea of a perfect being. He rejects this possibility on the ground that “unity, the simplicity, or the inseparability of all the attributes of God is one of the most important of the perfections which I understand him to have” (AT 7: 50, CSM 2: 34). He is dealing here with the idea of one thing that is “a supremely perfect and infinite being” (AT 7: 46, CSM 2: 31). Insofar as it is one being, the perfections must be united. Furthermore, unlike the idea of God operative in the earlier argument (cf. AT 7: 40, 45; CSM 2: 28, 31), perfection is taken to be a simple, indivisible attribute, that is, he is concerned with perfection per se, rather than an enumeration of specific types of perfections. For this reason the simplicity and inseparability of the kinds of perfection is germane to the argument. The presence of an idea of God construed as perfection per se would not be explained by the presumption of several partial causes of his being. This idea is complete, even if not adequate; the idea of God as a collection of specific kinds of perfections is not guaranteed to be complete. So Descartes rejects the assumption that he, as a thing containing the idea of God as a perfect being, could be the result of several partial causes. Descartes returns to the contention that his parents cannot be the cause of his being. He repeats the earlier claim that they could not be the cause of

Reaching the peak 191 his preservation. Furthermore, he reflects on what he considers himself to be. He considers his parents as a cause only to the extent that he himself may be a material entity (AT 7: 50–1, CSM 2: 35). At this point in the Meditations he does not know himself as a material entity; he may only categorize himself as a thinking being (mind). So, considerations of the causes of his existence as a material object – if, indeed, he has such an existence – are irrelevant. Having dismissed alternative possible causes of his existence as a thing with an idea of God as a perfect being, he concludes that only God could be the cause of his being as a thinking thing: no other possibility will adequately explain his existence. Thus ends his second argument for God’s existence. Let us briefly review the nature of his two proofs. In the first proof Descartes searched for the necessary and sufficient conditions for having an idea of God. It focused on the objective reality of the idea and the degree of formal reality necessary to explain the idea. After considering the various possibilities, he concluded that only God could be the cause thereof. In the second proof he primarily concentrated on formal reality (actual existence), concerning himself with objective reality only when he had to explain the existence of a being with an idea of God as a supremely perfect being. Given the strict construal of himself as a thinking thing containing an idea of God as a supremely perfect being, he concluded that only the existence of a God corresponding to his idea could be the cause of his initial and continued existence as a thinking thing. Odds and ends With the conclusion of the second proof of the existence of God, Descartes has completed the fundamental objective of the meditation. In what remains, he considers questions regarding the nature of the idea of God – whether it is adventitious, factitious, or innate – and implications of the existence of God as a supremely perfect being. Descartes claims that the idea of God is innate. In his words: It only remains for me to examine how I received this idea from God. For I did not acquire it from the senses; it has never come to me unexpectedly, as usually happens with the ideas of things that are perceivable by the senses, when these things present themselves to the external sense

192 Descartes’s Meditations organs – or seem to do so. And it was not invented by me either; for I am plainly unable either to take away anything from it or to add anything to it. The only remaining alternative is that it is innate in me, just as the idea of myself is innate in me. (AT 7: 51, CSM 2: 35) As Descartes noted earlier, ideas are either adventitious, factitious (constructed), or innate. In this paragraph he argues that the idea of God is innate. The idea cannot be adventitious, since it is not derived from the senses. His proofs have shown that he cannot have invented it, and so it cannot be factitious. Therefore, it follows by disjunctive syllogism that it must be innate. We shall return to this argument in the next section. Descartes then reflects on the conclusion that the idea of God is (somehow) innate within him: And indeed it is no surprise that God, in creating me, should have placed this idea in me to be, as it were, the mark of the craftsman stamped on his work – not that the mark need be anything distinct from the work itself. But the mere fact that God created me is a very strong basis for believing that I am somehow made in his image and likeness, and that I perceive that likeness, which includes the idea of God, by the same faculty which enables me to perceive myself. That is, when I turn my mind’s eye upon myself, I understand that I am a thing which is incomplete and dependent on another and which aspires without limit to ever greater and better things; but I also understand at the same time that he on whom I depend has within him all those greater things, not just indefinitely and potentially but actually and infinitely, and hence that he is God. The whole force of the argument lies in this: I recognize that it would be impossible for me to exist with the kind of nature I have – that is, having within me the idea of God – were it not the case that God really existed. By ‘God’ I mean the very being the idea of whom is within me, that is, the possessor of all the perfections which I cannot grasp, but can somehow reach in my thought, who is subject to no defects whatsoever. It is clear enough from this that he cannot be a deceiver, since it is manifest by the natural light that all fraud and deception depend on some defect. (AT 7: 510–2, CSM 2: 35)

Reaching the peak 193 Descartes emphasizes two themes here. First, he reflects on the meaning of the theological claim that humans are made in the image of God (Genesis 1: 27). He suggests that since God causes his initial and continued existence, one should not be surprised that some similarity exists in nature between God-as-cause and himself.17 The extent to which Descartes reflects the image of God seems limited to the fact that both God and Descartes are thinking things, even though he claimed that, as a finite substance that recognizes its finitude, he is no more than a pale image of an infinite and perfect God. The second theme is Descartes’s rejection of the view that God is a deceiver. Since God is a perfect being, God can have no defect, and insofar as deception is dependent upon a defect, deception cannot be predicated of God. So God is not a deceiver. Methodologically this is a very important conclusion: it answers the first hypothetical doubt of the First Meditation. Furthermore, the implications of this conclusion for the three specific doubts under the deceiver-God hypothesis are the subject matter of the last three Meditations. Descartes concludes his Third Meditation by slipping into a theological reverie, which requires no philosophical commentary. Clarifying the idea of God While God’s existence provides the primary theme of the Third Meditation, we have noted that Descartes’s descriptions of the idea of God also have undergone a subtle change. As we argued in our discussion of the method, questions of ideational clarification always stand in counterpoint to the search for principles. In this section we turn to Descartes’s ideas of God, beginning with a more primitive idea of God than is found in the Third Meditation. We show how his dispositional account of nonoccurrent innate ideas allows him to explain the several transformations in the idea of God. We argue that the idea of God is innate only insofar as each of the components of an occurrent idea of God is an occurrent innate idea. We also argue that since one systematically reconstructs the idea of God, one can reasonably construe the idea of God as factitious.18 Factitious ideas Descartes wrote little regarding factitious ideas, although what he wrote shows that they are compound ideas: factitious ideas are “made up” (factis)

194 Descartes’s Meditations or “invented by me (a me ipso facae mihi videntur) from other ideas” (cf. AT 8B: 358, 7: 38; CSM 1: 303, 2: 26). Given that he cites ideas of sirens and hippogriffs as examples of factitious ideas, one might be tempted to identify factitious ideas with what the British empirical philosophers called “ideas of the imagination” – which would imply that they are composed solely of adventitious ideas (cf. Williams 1978: 132; Grene 1985: 13) – but one should not yield to that temptation. Factitious ideas can be composed either of adventitious ideas, or innate ideas, or some combination of the two. This is clear from a comparison of Descartes’s discussions of the two ideas of the sun in the Meditations with his remarks on the division of ideas into adventitious, factitious, and innate in his letter to Mersenne of 16 June 1641.19 In the Meditations Descartes defends the claim that adventitious ideas need not resemble their putative causes. In that Third Meditation passage, he introduces one of the two ideas of the sun as the adventitious idea that we passively form on a sunny day. That idea derives directly from sense perception, and leaves us with the impression that the sun is quite small. The other idea derives from astronomical reasoning. The second more accurately represents the nature of the sun itself in that the sun is understood as larger than the earth. Notice that this astronomical idea of the sun is “derived from certain innate notions which are in me (or else constructed by me in some other way)” (AT 7: 39, CSM 2: 27). This is a factitious idea constructed from innate ideas. In his letter to Mersenne, Descartes makes this point explicitly. There he writes: I use the word ‘idea’ to mean everything which can be in our thought, and I distinguish three kinds. †Some are adventitious†, such as the idea we commonly have of the sun; †others are constructed or made up†, in which class we can put the idea which the astronomers construct of the sun by their reasoning; and †others are innate, such as the idea of God, mind, body, triangle, and in general all those which represent immutable and eternal essences. . .†. (AT 3: 383, CSM 3: 183) This passage tells us several things. First, it indicates that one constructs the factitious idea of the sun in the course of astronomical reasoning. Second, it shows that one’s astronomical idea of the sun has innate components. Third, it presents us with a partial list of the ideas that are innate. Finally, and most importantly, it shows that the distinction between adventitious ideas

Reaching the peak 195 and innate ideas is exclusive and exhaustive. At bottom, all simple ideas are either adventitious or innate, for factitious ideas can be composed of ideas of both kinds.20 If we examine Descartes’s discussion of the formation of an idea of a triangle, we shall be in a position to determine the relationship that obtains between innate and factitious ideas. In the Principles of Philosophy, Descartes provides a brief account of how universal ideas arise. After commenting that “number, when it is considered simply in the abstract or in general, and not in any created things, is merely a mode of thinking; and the same applied to all the other universals” (P 1: 58: AT 8A: 27, CSM 1: 212), he writes: These universals arise solely from the fact that we make use of one and the same idea for thinking of all individual items which resemble each other: we apply one and the same terms to all the things which are represented by the idea in question, and this is the universal term. When we see two stones, for example, and direct our attention not to their nature but merely to the fact that there are two of them, we form the idea of the number which we call ‘two’; and when we later see two birds or two trees, and consider not their nature but merely the fact that there are two of them, we go back to the same idea as before. This, then, is the universal idea; and we always designate the number in question by the same universal term ‘two.’ In the same way, when we see a figure made up of three lines, we form an idea of it which we call the idea of a triangle; and we later make use of it as a universal idea, so as to represent to our mind all the other figures made up of three lines. Moreover, when we notice that some triangles have one right angle, and others do not, we form the universal idea of a right-angled triangle; since this idea is related to the preceding idea as a special case, it is termed a species. And the rectangularity is the universal differentia which distinguishes all right-angled triangles from other triangles. And the fact that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides is a property belonging to all and only right-angled triangles. Finally, ifwe suppose that some right-angled triangles are in motion while others are not, this will be a universal accident of such triangles. Hence five universals are commonly listed: genus, species, differentia, property, and accident. (P 1: 59: AT 8A: 27–8, CSM 1: 212–13) Several things should be noticed in this passage. First, universals are not

196 Descartes’s Meditations “in” the objects one observes. The universals to which Descartes refers are nothing more than general ideas of the respects in which two or more objects resemble one another. Second, the mind actively forms or becomes aware of a universal idea. In the examples he mentions here, one “directs one’s attention” or “notices” a particular aspect of a complex state of affairs. Finally, the universal ideas one forms are actualizations of innate dispositions. We need to make note of three further points. First, Descartes’s account of how one forms universals is similar to John Locke’s account (1975: 408– 20) of how one forms abstract ideas: if one attends to a complex state of affairs, then one can form an idea of a component of that state of affairs, and, by comparing various individuals, one can form an idea of the respect in which those individuals resemble one another.21 Of course, a significant difference exists between Lockean abstraction and its Cartesian counterpart. Locke rejects the doctrine of innate ideas and suggests that by abstracting one can form general notions without appealing to innate ideas. In Descartes’s case, the putative fact that innate ideas are dispositions allows one to explain the formation of the general ideas. Thus, if one attends to a particular three-sided figure, this might trigger a disposition to form an idea of triangularity. Second, the process by which one forms a Cartesian universal idea is comparable to that process by which one forms clear and distinct ideas of a piece of wax or oneself, for, in both of these cases, the properties conceived are extremely general. In forming a clear and distinct idea of a piece of wax, one assumes that the wax one removes from the hive at time t1 is identical with the wax that is dripping from one’s hand at a later time t2, and one asks, consistent with that assumption, which of the qualities of the wax have remained throughout that time. In concluding that the wax is extended, flexible, and movable, one goes beyond the sensibly given; the ideas in terms of which the wax is defined are innate (AT 7: 30–1, CSM 2: 20–1). The procedure was the same, of course, in Descartes’s earlier inquiry into his own nature (AT 7: 27–8, CSM 2: 18–19). This, together with the fact that astronomical reasoning led to the factitious idea of the sun, suggests that one triggers innate ideas as dispositions when one reasons analytically and critically. Finally, the examples we have considered suggest that when one’s reasoning triggers an innate disposition to form an occurrent idea, one begins with either an adventitious or a factitious idea, and one concludes with a factitious idea. The resulting factitious idea might be composed of four innate ideas, that of, one, a thing (genus) differentiated on the basis of

Reaching the peak 197 two, extension, three, moveability, and four, flexibility. Even in the case of the self or the most general notions of body, the analysis yields an idea of the genus (”thing” or “substance”) and its differentia. This is precisely what one would expect, given our account of analysis in Chapters One and Two. Further, this allows us to understand the evolution of the ideas of God in the Third Meditation. The ideas of God Up to this point we have shown that factitious ideas can be composed of any combination of adventitious and innate ideas. We also have suggested that if all ideas of substances are complex ideas, then they are factitious. In returning to the Third Meditation, we examine the journey that takes us from the least clear and distinct idea of God – the idea Descartes described to Hobbes – to the most clear and distinct idea of God, the idea of a perfect being. During this journey, there are two intermediate stops: the original idea is clarified to the idea of God whose attributes are non-finite, which is clarified to the idea of God whose attributes are infinite, which is clarified to the idea of a perfect being. As we noticed above, at least two different ideas of God appear in the Third Meditation. At the beginning of the meditation, God is described as “eternal, infinite, omniscient, omnipotent and the creator of all things that exist apart from him” (AT 7: 51, CSM 2: 35; cf. AT 7: 45, CSM 2: 31). At the end of the meditation, God is described as “a most perfect being” (AT 7: 51, CSM 2: 35; cf. AT 7: 46, CSM 2: 31 and AT 7: 65, CSM 2: 45). To distinguish these, let us refer to the first idea of God as “IG1” and the second as “IG2”. One will notice two things initially. First, IG2 differs in its degree of generality from IG1: perfection is a single attribute that subsumes ideas of the several distinct attributes of God in IG1. Second, IG1 ostensibly differs from the idea of God Descartes described to Hobbes, which we shall call the Hobbesian idea of God (HIG).22 In his reply to Hobbes, Descartes claims that one forms an idea of God (HIG) by “extending” the idea of one’s own understanding and other attributes (AT 7: 188, CSM 2: 132). Such a process will yield indefinitely great attributes. In IG1, the attributes ostensibly are infinite. What are the considerations that take one from HIG to IG1?23 Properly speaking, HIG is distinct from IG1 insofar as no indefinite extension of one’s own attributes will be sufficient to yield an infinite attribute.24 It is less clear that Descartes

198 Descartes’s Meditations initially acknowledged a distinction between HIG and IG1, or that the distinction between them came to be recognized on the basis of a process of reasoning. If our account is correct, then one would expect that reasoning about HIG triggers an innate disposition or set of dispositions which yields IG1. Evidence to this effect appears in the Third Meditation. Notice what Descartes writes at the initial stage of his argument for the existence of God based upon his idea of God: By the word ‘God’ I understand a substance that is infinite, independent, supremely intelligent, supremely powerful, and which created both myself and everything else (if anything else there be) that exists. All these attributes are such that, the more carefully I concentrate on them, the less possible it seems that they could have originated from me alone. So from what has been said it must be concluded that God necessarily exists. (AT 7: 45, CSM 2: 31, our emphasis) How does one form IG1? Let us say that one considered the traditional description of God and attempted to construct an idea corresponding to it.25 In one’s initial attempt to construct such an idea, one might well expand upon one’s idea of oneself and form HIG. But a modicum of consideration will reveal the inadequacy of HIG. As Hobbes noted, “to say that God is infinite is the same as saying that he belongs to the class of things such that we do not conceive them as having bounds” (AT 7: 187, CSM 2: 131). In a Cartesian framework, by considering HIG, one’s considerations trigger certain innate dispositions that lead one to a version of IG1. Initially, one might recognize that there is a distinction between an indefinitely great extension of one’s own attributes and infinite attributes. Thus, one might revise HIG to form HIG* by replacing the positive notion of indefinitely great attributes with the negative notion of non-finite attributes. A consideration of infinity, however, will take one from HIG* to IG1. Having noticed that he could derive the idea of substance from himself, but not the idea of infinite substance (AT 7: 45, CSM 2: 31), Descartes goes on to discuss the conception of infinity. He writes: And I must not think that, just as my conceptions of rest and darkness are arrived at by negating movement and light, so my perception of the infinite is arrived at not by means of a true idea but merely by negating the finite. On the contrary, I clearly understand that there is more reality

Reaching the peak 199 in an infinite substance than in a finite one, and hence that my perception of the infinite, that is God, is in some way prior to my perception of the finite, that is myself. For how could I understand that I doubted or desired – that is, lacked something – and that I was not wholly perfect, unless there were in me some idea of a more perfect being which enabled me to recognize my own defects by comparison? (AT 7: 45–6, CSM 2: 31) By contemplating the idea of infinity, Descartes concludes that his understanding of infinity is not the negation of the finite, rather, it is prior to his understanding of the finite. With respect to the ideas of God, this suggests that one’s consideration of the idea of infinity (what is involved in the notion of infinity) triggers an innate disposition or set of dispositions that allows one properly to form IG1. The exercise of clarification allows one to move from HIG to IG1: the same exercise is involved in forming a clear and distinct perception of the piece of wax or of oneself (cf. (AT 7: 25–8, CSM 2: 17–19; AT 7: 30–1, CSM 2: 20–1; AT 8A: 21–2, CSM 1: 207–8). Notice also the factitious nature of IG1: it is complex, and the mind puts together the several component ideas of the attributes in the sense that the components of HIG* are systematically replaced with more adequate ideas of the attributes of God. Moreover, each component of IG1 is an innate idea, even though IG1 is complex, and thus factitious. While we have moved from HIG to IG1, we have yet to arrive at the idea of God as a perfect (or supremely perfect) being (IG2). If the account of the formation of a universal idea that Descartes presents in the Principles of Philosophy applies to the ideas of God, then the move from IG1 to IG2 should be nothing more than recognizing that one can subsume all the distinct attributes of God included in IG1 under the idea of perfection. In continuing his discussion, Descartes asks whether IG1 might not be materially false.26 He writes: Nor can it be said that this idea of God is perhaps materially false and so could have come from nothing, which is what I observed just a moment ago in the case of the ideas of heat and cold, and so on. On the contrary, it is utterly clear and distinct, and contains in itself more objective reality than any other idea; hence there is no idea which is in itself truer or less liable to be suspected of falsehood. This idea of a supremely perfect and infinite being is, I say, true in the highest degree; for although perhaps one may imagine that such a being does not exist, it cannot be

200 Descartes’s Meditations supposed that the idea of such a being represents something unreal, as I said with regard to the idea of cold. The idea is, moreover, utterly clear and distinct; for whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive as being real and true, and implying any perfection, is wholly contained in it. It does not matter that I do not grasp the infinite, or that there are countless additional attributes of God which I cannot in any way grasp, and perhaps cannot even reach in my thought; for it is in the nature of the infinite not to be grasped by a finite being like myself. It is enough that I understand the infinite, and that I judge that all the attributes which I clearly perceive and know to imply some perfection – and perhaps countless others of which I am ignorant – are present in God either formally or eminently. This is enough to make the idea that I have of God the truest and most clear and distinct of all my ideas. (AT 7: 46, CSM 2: 31–2) In this paragraph Descartes introduces IG2. By considering the possibility that IG1 is materially false (that is, one or more of the attributes of IG1 represents nothing as if it were something), one triggers the innate disposition to form IG2. As one notices each of the attributes of God in IG1 is perfect in kind, one subsumes each of the attributes of IG1 under perfection, and thus one forms IG2. One can have no clearer and more distinct idea of God than IG2 since one presumes that the notion of perfection is broader than the individual perfections found in IG1 and, therefore, IG2 subsumes more distinct perfections under it than are enumerated in IG1.27 Thus, consistent with his contention that analysis alone is used in the Meditations (AT 7: 156, CSM 2: 111), Descartes’s idea of God evolves from the Hobbesian idea of God, which is nothing more than an expanded idea of oneself, into the idea of God as a supremely perfect being. In the course of considering the several attributes of God in HIG, certain innate dispositions are triggered which replace the ideas of indefinitely great attributes with ideas of properly infinite attributes. Thus, one arrives at IG1. In considering what is common to each of the attributes in IG1, one triggers another innate disposition, and the ideas of the several perfections of God that are subsumed under the general idea of perfection, which constitutes IG2. One should remember that IG1 and HIG are both factitious or constructed by us: however, all the components of IG1 are innate, whereas the components of HIG are not all innate. Further, even IG2 might reasonably be deemed a factitious idea, for causal considerations form the basis of the adventitious/

Reaching the peak 201 factitious/innate distinction, and, on the basis of the innate dispositions within us, we replace the ideas of the several distinct attributes of God found in IG1 with one overarching attribute. If this account is plausible, then both IG1 and IG2 are innate ideas to the extent that they are composed solely of innate ideas, but they are factitious since we are the ones who put these ideas together, and, at the very least, they are factitious insofar as HIG was a factitious idea and both IG1 and IG2 are modifications of HIG that occur in the course of proper reasoning. But even if one would grant that both IG1 and IG2 are innate only insofar as each of its components is innate, one could well raise an objection based on Descartes’s reply to Caterus. There Descartes distinguished true and immutable natures from natures that are merely “invented and put together by the intellect” (AT 7: 117, CSM 2: 83). The latter kind of idea “can always be split up by the same intellect, not simply by abstraction but by a clear and distinct intellectual operation, so that any ideas which the intellect cannot split up in this way were clearly not put together by the intellect” (AT 7: 117, CSM 2: 83–4). IG2, the objection would continue, is the idea of a true and immutable nature, and consequently it cannot be split up by an act of the intellect. Hence, IG2 cannot be deemed factitious. In reply one must distinguish between forming an idea and recognizing that the idea formed represents a true and immutable nature. Even with the most inadequate idea of God (HIG), one seems to have an intellectual operation by which one recognizes that the several attributes of God must be inseparably joined together. Of course, this makes sense if and only if the idea under consideration is an idea of God. Such a position is consistent with the reply to Caterus. There Descartes writes: But I think of a triangle or a square . . . then whatever I apprehend as being contained in the idea of a triangle – for example that its three angles are equal to two right angles – I can with truth assert of the triangle. And the same applies to the square with respect to whatever I apprehend as being contained in the idea of a square. For even if I can understand what a triangle is if I abstract the fact that its three angles are equal to two right angles, I cannot deny that this property applies to the triangle by a clear and distinct intellectual operation – that is, while at the same time understanding what I mean by my denial. (AT 7: 117–18, CSM 2: 84, our emphasis)

202 Descartes’s Meditations On the basis of a clear and distinct intellectual operation, one recognizes that the attributes of a triangle, and similarly the attributes of God, must be inseparably joined.28 One can distinguish this operation from the operation of merely forming the idea. Given the clarity and distinctness of the intellectual operation, one can conclude that even IG2 is a factitious idea composed of innate ideas. Thus, each of the ideas of God is factitious given that each is complex and formed by the operations of the human mind. We have shown that in the journey from the Hobbesian idea of God to the idea of God as a perfect being, one’s reasoning triggers certain innate dispositions which allow one to form ideas of greater generality. Hence, even the most general idea of God is factitious. If our argument is sound, the conceptual journey from HIG to IG2 prepares one for the ontological argument in Meditation Five. As we shall see, the ontological argument is founded on IG2, and the “upward” movement of Cartesian analysis found in the Third Meditation explains how IG2 is formed. The Third Meditation provides nothing more than the “upward” phase of that analysis. Descartes completes his analysis on the basis of the deduction of the existence of God from IG2, a factual claim already established in the Third Meditation. It is this “downward” movement that tends to confirm IG2 as a clear and distinct idea of God. Conclusions In this chapter we have examined the Third Meditation. After inspecting Descartes’s preliminaries to the arguments for the existence of God, we have shown that the arguments for the existence of God may be construed as arguments to the best explanation of certain phenomena, namely, the fact that Descartes has an idea of God and the fact that he exists as a thing having an idea of God. The arguments for the existence of God constitute the major theme in the Third Meditation. The minor theme is the clarification of the idea of God. While all the components of the idea of God are innate, the fact that it is constructed by a systematic replacement of components of a given idea of God by more adequate components makes it reasonable to suggest that the idea of God is factitious.

7

Meditation Four Truth and falsity: reflections from the summit

We have argued that the method of analysis consists of two phases, a search for principles and a confirmation of the propriety of the principles. There are three elements in Cartesian confirmation: first, the principle in question is recognized as (materially) true by the natural light, second, it explains the phenomenon that provided the occasion for the search for the principle, and third, the principles discovered coherently unify the various elements of a conceptual system or are shown to have a determinate place in such a system. One might expand on Descartes’s famous house metaphor by suggesting that the natural light (clear and distinct perception) provides a foundation for the house, but the stability of the house requires that uprights be constructed on that foundation and that lateral beams support those uprights. In Meditations Two and Three, he provides some of the uprights from which his conceptual house is built; in Meditations Four through Six, he completes the framing and installs beams that laterally support the uprights. In each of the last three Meditations, he draws out the implications of the conclusion that God is not a deceiver. This does not mean that everything is a matter of deductive entailment. Although Descartes was wont to say that one could deduce all the lower principles of his metaphysics as well as his scientific principles from his most fundamental metaphysical principle, that God exists and is not a deceiver (cf. AT 1: 563, CSM 3: 87), the double method of coherence to which he alluded in Part Six of the Discourse continues to operate. He remarks: as experience makes most of these effects quite certain, the causes from which I deduce them serve not so much to prove them as to explain them; indeed, quite to the contrary, it is the causes which are proved by the effects. (AT 6: 76, CSM 1: 150)

204 Descartes’s Meditations This is as applicable mutatis mutandis to the ontological argument in the Fifth Meditation as it is to his scientific writings, Similarly, while his official task in the Sixth Meditation is to prove the existence of a material world, it implicitly reintroduces and explains the limits of an empiricist principle. Nor has he dispensed with ideational clarification: the unifying theme of Meditations Four through Six is the clarification of the notion that God is not a deceiver. So in looking at the last three Meditations, we must be conscious of the interplay of explanation and justification, on the one hand, and the role of ideational clarification on the other. In this chapter we show that Descartes introduces his theory of judgment as a means of explaining how human error is compatible with the conclusion that God is not a deceiver: he shows that, in proving that God is not a deceiver, he has not proven too much. In the process, he argues that clear and distinct ideas are true. We argue that with this “exoneration”of the doctrine of clear and distinct ideas he shifts from considerations of material truth to considerations of formal truth. God and error Descartes begins the chapter in the familiar manner of summarizing his previous conclusions. Not only does he claim greater clarity for ideas of his own nature and the nature of God than he claims for ideas of the material realm, but he also claims more certainty for his own existence and the existence of God than he claims for the existence of the material world. Through a consideration of the nature of God and the implications of God’s perfect nature, he seeks to ground all subsequent knowledge. Descartes frames the principal problem of the Meditation by setting the perfection of God in opposition to the fact that one has a faculty of judgment which occasionally errs: this is the third specific doubt under the deceiverGod hypothesis (AT 7: 21, CSM 2:14).1 He repeats the conclusions reached at the end of Meditation Three that “the will to deceive is undoubtedly evidence of malice or weakness, and so cannot apply to God” (AT 7: 53, CSM 2: 37; see also AT 7: 52, CSM 2: 35; and CB §3: AT 5: 147, CSM 3: 333). If God were a deceiver, then either God would be intentionally malicious or impotent. Both properties are incompatible with God’s perfection. Neither malice nor impotence may be attributed to God, so God cannot be the immediate cause of deception. Hence, one must seek some other explanation of human error.

Reflections from the summit 205 Descartes locates the basis for human error in the faculty of judgment. God created that faculty and, given the perfection of the Deity, Descartes concludes, “he surely did not give me the kind of faculty which would ever enable me to go wrong while using it correctly” (AT 7: 53–4, CSM 2: 37–8). This sets the stage for the analysis of judgment and his exoneration of God from the charge of deception vis-à-vis human error: error arises from the misuse of the faculty of judgment. How does Descartes reconcile God’s perfection with human error? Is the fact that humans are subject to error a sufficient condition for deeming God a deceiver (AT 7: 54, CSM 2: 38)? No. If God were charged with deception, it would be necessary to find a positive faculty that causes one to err. This Descartes does not find. Nonetheless, if God can be exonerated from the charge of deception, it is incumbent upon him to explain the possibility of error. Toward this end, he notes the contrast between the idea of God as a positive idea of supreme perfection and the idea of nothingness. Descartes locates himself at some intermediate position between perfect being and nothingness. Insofar as error is a defect, the fact that one is imperfect will explain the possibility of error without positing a positive faculty to account for it. Since one’s faculty of judgment is not infinite, one can explain how error arises without a faculty that causes one to err. But this alone is not sufficient to exonerate God from a charge of deception. Since God is both omnipotent and omnibenevolent, it would seem that God could – perhaps indeed, should – have created humans in such a way that they would not err. Even if God did not create a positive faculty that causes one to err, does not the presumption that God could have done so but did not do so raise the specter of the deceiver once again? Does it not suggest that God lacked either the power or the will to create humans free from error? Are the following three statements compatible: firsst, one makes mistakes; second, God could have created humans so that they would not make mistakes; third, God wills what is best (AT 7: 55, CSM 2: 38)? Descartes’s initial reply comes in two parts and stands as a preamble to his analysis of judgment. First, he rejects teleological explanation. Second, he reflects on the implications of the contention that God always acts for the best. He rejects teleological explanations, in this case, explanations based on final causes (AT 7: 55, CSM 2: 38–9). Assuming that one construes any final causes as purposes of the Deity, he suggests that a finite entity can neither comprehend the nature nor the purposes of an infinite entity. Since divine

206 Descartes’s Meditations purposes might simply be unknowable to finite beings, Descartes rejects any appeal to final causes in physics. Descartes continues by anticipating Leibniz’s famous dictum that this is the best of all possible worlds. It also occurs to me that whenever we are inquiring whether the works of God are perfect, we ought to look at the whole universe, not just at one created thing on its own. For what would perhaps rightly appear very imperfect if it existed on its own is quite perfect when its function as a part of the universe is considered. (AT 7: 55–6, CSM 2: 39) While at this point Descartes knows only that he and God exist, this does not entail that they are the only existents. If other beings exist, one must understand their perfection or imperfection in terms of the whole created universe. Thus, even in the best of all possible worlds one has no guarantee that any individual created entity must be perfect. Having completed this preamble, Descartes turns to analyze judgment in terms of two faculties: the faculty of will and the faculty of understanding. The role of the intellect is limited: it only allows one to perceive ideas that function as the objects of possible judgments. The understanding, as such, does not account for errors in judgment. Nor should one fault it for not having ideas of all existents, since one cannot produce any positive reason to explain why God should have provided one with all such ideas. Thus, the absence of a certain number of ideas – the limited nature of the understanding – does not of itself entail that God is a deceiver; God might be charged with deception only if there were a reason why humans should have those ideas they do not have and God chose not to allow humans to have them (AT 7: 56–7, CSM 2: 39–40). In terms of the will, the second faculty operative in judgment, there seem to be no limits to the freedom of choice. The will or ability to choose is the faculty with the fewest limits placed upon it, and Descartes suggests “that it is above all in virtue of the will that I understand myself to bear in some way the image and likeness of God” (AT 7: 57, CSM 2: 40). No essential difference exists between the human will and the will of God, although the latter is infinitely greater: the difference is one of degree rather than of kind. The essential identity of human and divine will is supported by the meditator’s sense that there are no external constraints on the will when one

Reflections from the summit 207 is inclined to act or judge. The real difference is found between human and divine understanding (AT 7: 57, CSM 2: 40). Given the distinction between understanding and the will, Descartes further analyzes judgment by assigning them their respective roles. The will is perfect in its kind – it is the faculty in terms of which humans are most clearly created in the image of God. The will, as such, causes no error. Nor does the understanding. If one actually understands something, then one understands it correctly and one’s understanding is adequate: this follows from the meaning of the word ‘understands.’ When one’s ideas are clear and distinct (when one has genuine understanding), one unavoidably inclines towards assenting to the idea (to affirm its material truth). Insofar as a perfect God creates humans, that God would be a deceiver if one could err under such circumstances. Error raises its ugly head only when one’s understanding is incomplete, when the ideas on which one’s judgment rests fail to meet the standards of clarity and distinctness. In such cases, the will affirms (or denies) on the basis of insufficient evidence, and one falls into error. To avoid error, the will must be restrained to instances in which one clearly and distinctly perceives ideas (AT 7: 58, CSM 2: 40–1). Descartes continues by reflecting on his doubts and their resolutions (AT 7: 58–9, CSM 2: 41). The conclusions he has reached to this point have rested upon the inclination of the will to follow the natural light. In those instances in which the natural light has shown that a proposition is materially true, the will was strongly inclined to accept that truth. He stresses that the inclination of the will to judge that propositions recognized as true by the natural light are true is an inclination that is free from external constraint. Further, he contends that the degree to which one can deem oneself free stands in proportion to the degree to which those propositions, whose truth the natural light recognizes, psychologically compel one’s assent. Freedom, here, is freedom from error: it is not the question of freedom and responsibility that is raised in standard discussions of free will.2 At this point Descartes only knows himself as thinking thing; he has no compelling reasons to claim either that he also has or is identical with a corporeal nature. In this absence of compelling reasons, the will remains indifferent; “I am indifferent as to whether I should assert or deny either alternative, or indeed refrain from making any judgement on the matter” (AT 7: 59, CSM 2: 41).3 Reflecting on this psychological indifference, Descartes remarks: What is more, this indifference does not merely apply to cases where

208 Descartes’s Meditations the intellect is wholly ignorant, but extends in general to every case where the intellect does not have sufficiently clear knowledge at the time when the will deliberates. For although probable conjectures may pull me in one direction, the mere knowledge that they are simply conjectures, and not certain and indubitable reasons, is itself quite enough to push my assent the other way. My experience in the last few days confirms this: the mere fact that I found that all my previous beliefs were in some sense open to doubt was enough to turn my absolutely confident belief in their truth into the supposition that they were wholly false. (AT 7: 59, CSM 2: 41) Descartes’s concern lies in his lack of a psychological compunction to affirm or deny. Whenever the mind fails to produce sufficient evidence for the truth or falsity of a certain proposition, the will remains in a state of indifference. Such a state is unstable. Considerations of probability tend to push one toward assent; recognizing and emphasizing the evidence’s probable nature tends to pull one toward denial. Descartes cites his experiences in raising methodological doubts as confirming such an interplay between the recognition that certain propositions are merely probable and the doubts raised with respect to those propositions. Descartes wishes to avoid error as much as he wants to attain truth; avoiding error is, at least, a good secondary position in which to find oneself. If one refrains from making judgments – if one’s will refrains from affirming or denying – one cannot err. When one does not clearly and distinctly perceive the truth of a proposition, the only epistemically correct behavior is to suspend judgment. In an epistemically proper world, the determination of the intellect – the recognition of truth by the light of nature – should always precede acts of judgment. No epistemic worth can be assigned to accidental correctness; such an abuse of the will results in a privation, which constitutes the essence of error. This privation lies in the operation of the will insofar as its acts are caused by a human agent, not in the faculty per se. Thus, the individual, not God, is responsible for error (AT 7: 59–60, CSM 2: 41). By following through on his own suggestion that any evaluation of human faculties is holistic, Descartes continues to exonerate God from the charge of deception. He considers the limits of human understanding (AT 7: 60, CSM 2: 42). Human beings are finite, so human understanding is limited. Since God is not obligated to make humans more perfect than they are, the

Reflections from the summit 209 limits on human abilities are no ground for complaint. This piece of reasoning gains plausibility through Descartes’s earlier remark that humans do not know God’s intentions. Thus, no ground exists for claiming that God intended to make humans more perfect than they are. In as much as the idea of God is clear and distinct, one can take God to be a perfect being. The assumption that God intended to make humans more perfect than they are, together with God’s perfection, would imply that God is impotent rather than omnipotent. Hence, it follows that a perfect God would intend humans to be only as perfect as they are. On the basis of the earlier assumption that the world is the best of all possible worlds, it follows that even if humans are intellectually limited, the world taken as a whole is better because of such limitations. If God intends to create the best of all possible worlds, then no humans ought to complain about their essential limitations. Further, Descartes says, no one has grounds for complaining that the will is more extensive than the intellect. The will is a single faculty: unlike understanding, it is not subject to divisibility into degrees. If anything it is a mark of greater perfection to have the faculty of the will than not to have it. Hence, no one may object to having that faculty (AT 7: 60, CSM 2: 42). Descartes’s final remarks reveal his sympathies with at least one element of the Augustinian account of free will. Like Augustine (Augustine 1964: 99), Descartes maintains that human beings are more perfect for having a faculty of will (and limited understanding) that yields the capacity of falling into error than they would be if they lacked it (AT 7: 60–1, CSM 2: 42–3). This position should surprise no one since it is properly in the faculty of the will that humans are made in the image of God (AT 7: 57, CSM 2: 40). While God could create humans in such a way that they would never fall into error, such a human would be a less perfect entity. Perfection is found in the faculty per se; error and privation occur only in the imperfect use of that faculty: and in that imperfect use God does not concur (AT 7: 60–1, CSM 2: 42). The sole imperfection in humans vis-à-vis the will is in the imperfect use of it, in judging on the basis of incomplete evidence. Descartes appeals to the possibility that more perfection exists in the universe because humans have the ability to err than would exist if humans lacked that ability, that is, if they either perceived everything clearly and distinctly or were disposed to judge only on the basis of clear and distinct perceptions. In the penultimate paragraph of the meditation, Descartes appeals to the actual abilities of humans to withhold judgment as the means of avoiding error. While humans are imperfect in that they do not have clear and distinct ideas of all things, they remain capable of suspending judgment when ideas

210 Descartes’s Meditations are not clear and distinct. This is, in fact, the only means of avoiding error, and Descartes recommends that one repeatedly impress on one’s mind, in an attempt to instill a good epistemic habit, the need to suspend judgment except when the ideas providing the basis for the judgment are clear and distinct (AT 7: 61–2, CSM 2: 43). Clear and distinct ideas are true Having explained the possibility of human error consistent with the perfection of God, and thus exonerated God from the charge of deception, Descartes concludes that God could be a deceiver only if it were possible to err regarding clear and distinct ideas. It is here that man’s greatest and most important perfection is to be found, and I therefore think that today’s meditation, involving an investigation into the cause of error and falsity, has been very profitable. The cause of error must surely be the one I have explained; for if, whenever I have to make a judgement, I restrain my will so that it extends to what the intellect clearly and distinctly reveals, and no further, then it is quite impossible for me to go wrong. This is because every clear and distinct perception is undoubtedly something, and hence cannot come from nothing, but must necessarily have God for its author. Its author, I say, is God, who is supremely perfect, and who cannot be a deceiver on pain of contradiction; hence the perception is undoubtedly true. So today I have learned not only what precautions to take to avoid ever going wrong, but also what to do to arrive at the truth. For I shall unquestionably reach the truth, if only I give sufficient attention to all the things which I perfectly understand, and separate these from all the other cases where my apprehension is more confused and obscure. And this is just what I shall take good care to do from now on. (AT 7: 62, CSM 2: 43) Clear and distinct perceptions, and only clear and distinct perceptions, guarantee that the object of the perception is possible. They guarantee that the object perceived is “something,” even if they do not guarantee that the object actually exists.4 Insofar as God is not a deceiver and one cannot help but give assent to ideas clearly and distinctly perceived, such perceptions must be deemed at least materially true.

Reflections from the summit 211 But is Descartes introducing a stronger claim here, namely, that clear and distinct ideas must be formally true? We believe he is. The putative topic of Meditation Four is truth and falsity, even though his de facto focus is on judgment. Only judgments are formally true or false (AT 7: 43, CSM 2: 30), and “the chief and most common mistake which is to be found here consists in my judging that the ideas which are in me resemble, or conform to, things located outside me” (AT 7: 37, CSM 2: 26). The avoidance of error is the avoidance of formal falsity. Given that the topic of Meditation Four is the avoidance of error – the avoidance of formally false judgments – we believe that this provides prima facie evidence that he was concerned with formal truth in his contention that all clear and distinct ideas are true. Such a claim would entail that things exist to which the clear and distinct ideas comply, but this does not entail that the entities are material objects. Notice Descartes’s cautious language, claiming only that “every clear and distinct perception is undoubtedly something, and hence cannot come from nothing” (AT 7: 62, CSM 2: 43), and since it is caused by God, “the perception is undoubtedly true” (AT 7: 62, CSM 2: 53). If it is merely materially true, it is only the idea of a possible object; if it is formally true, then something exists extramentally to which it conforms. What could that be? In the Fifth Meditation, Descartes introduces the notion of a true and immutable nature. A true and immutable nature is not an existent in space and time, as his reflections on the true and immutable nature of a triangle demonstrate (AT 7: 64, CSM 2: 44–5). A true and immutable nature can be nothing more than an idea in the mind of God.5 Clear and distinct ideas are ideas of essences. If they are materially true, then they are internally consistent: they show that it is possible for an object to exist that is conformable to the idea. Since they are formally true – in as much as they represent a true and immutable nature, an idea in the mind of God – they represent something with an ontological status, even though it is a status less than full existence (see AT 3: 545–6, CSM 3: 211). The shift from material truth to formal truth is the shift from the possible essence of a possible thing, to the actual essence of a possible thing. Is the move from the material to the formal truth of clear and distinct ideas significant? Yes. If an ontological basis exists for one’s clear and distinct ideas of the essences of things, then it increases the explanatory coherence of Cartesian metaphysics. Notice what Descartes says in the Synopsis:

212 Descartes’s Meditations In the Fourth Meditation it is proved that everything that we clearly and distinctly perceive is true, and I also explain what the nature of falsity consists in. These results need to be known both in order to confirm what has gone before and make intelligible what is to come later. (AT 7: 15, CSM 2: 11) If we have correctly accounted for Cartesian confirmation, namely, that the confirmation of a general principle consists in the deductive subsumption of a phenomenon to be explained under a principle and the subsumption of that principle under a more general principle, Descartes’s concern with confirmation of his earlier conclusions is exactly what one would expect. In proving God’s non-deceptiveness, he explains why the material truths central to Meditations Two and Three are justified: they are formally true, because they are rooted in divine ideas. Nor should one see this as an instance in which the Cartesian circle rears its ugly head. Recall that in the preface to the French edition of the Principles Descartes claimed that the “first level [of wisdom] contains only notions which are so clear in themselves that they can be acquired without meditation” (AT 8B: 5, CSM 1: 181). These, certainly, are the eternal truths and clear and distinct ideas of essences construed as materially true. This however is not the highest level of wisdom. The highest level “consists in the search for the first causes and the true principles which enable us to deduce the reasons for everything we are capable of knowing” (AT 8B: 5, CSM 1: 181). In this highest level of wisdom, one finds the claim that God exists and does not deceive. Because God is not a deceiver, clear and distinct ideas must represent true and immutable natures, they must be formally true. The relation between formal truth and material truth is analogous to the relation between between causal and logical possibility: just as everything that is causally possible is logically possible, so everything that is formally true is materially true. Since clear and distinct ideas reflect true and immutable natures (ideas in the mind of God), they explain why the material truths are true, they confirm the conclusions reached in Meditations Two and Three.6 Hence, if Descartes is successful in explaining the possibility of error on the basis of his theory of judgment, he has exonerated God from charges of deception based strictly on the fact that humans err and has shown that, at least with respect to ideas clearly and distinctly perceived, God cannot be a

Reflections from the summit 213 deceiver. Two further points are worthy of notice. First, God does not guarantee the truth of ideas clearly and distinctly perceived.7 Instead, because God is not a deceiver – but would be a deceiver if it were possible for one to err with respect to ideas clearly and distinctly perceived – one can conclude that clear and distinct perceptions are formally true and thereby explain their material truth. Second, this is a general strategy Descartes uses in the following Meditations. He claims that we have certain dispositions to judge various propositions as true. Given certain sets of circumstances, God would be a deceiver if one had a disposition to judge that a certain proposition p was true when, in fact, p was false. On this basis, the proposition that God is not a deceiver increases its scope. So we have seen that the Descartes of Meditation Four explains how human error is possible given that God is not a deceiver. In turning to the remaining Meditations we show how Descartes draws out further implications from that principle of divine non-deceptiveness.

8

Meditation Five The beginning of the descent

Having provided a theory of judgment that allows for human error compatible with divine perfection, Descartes begins to see what fruit the nondeceptiveGod thesis will bear. We have already seen that the thesis initially implies the formal truth of clear and distinct ideas, since they psychologically compel humans to accept their truth and, consequently, God would be a deceiver if clear and distinct ideas were false. This entails only that these ideas represent true and immutable natures, that is, ideas in the mind of God. As we shall see, the nondeceptive-God thesis drives the main arguments in Meditations Five and Six, and the general form of those arguments is as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

There is a phenomenon that I am psychologically compelled (or disposed) to believe. There is no means (faculty) which allows me to show that the phenomenon is not as it appears. Therefore, God would be a deceiver if the phenomenon were not as it appears. God is not a deceiver. Therefore, the phenomenon is as it appears.

Notice that the argument for the formal truth of clear and distinct ideas fits this argument form. In this chapter we examine Descartes’s discussion of mathematical entities, the ontological argument for the existence of God, and his discussion at the end of the meditation which suggests that all remembered clear and distinct ideas are true. We show that the conclusions reached follow from the contention that God is not a deceiver and tend to support various claims that were raised as hypotheses in the earlier Meditations. To put it

The beginning of the descent 215 metaphorically, Descartes not only builds a wall of his epistemic house, but provides lateral supports for the wall as he builds. True and immutable natures Descartes begins the Meditation by telling us that the descent from the heights of analysis will be a descent to the material realm, a descent that is completed only in Meditation Six. Issues regarding “the nature of myself, or my mind” (AT 7: 63, CSM 2: 44), that is, issues regarding the substantial nature of the mind, are postponed until Meditation Six. His initial concern is with what can be known regarding the essences of material objects, “the ideas of these things, insofar as they exist in my thought, and see which of them are distinct, and which confused” (AT 7: 63, CSM 2: 44). Why does he concern himself with these ideas first? At this point, Descartes knows that all clear and distinct ideas are true on pain of making God a deceiver. We have argued that ‘truth’ here should be understood as formal truth: clear and distinct ideas represent “true and immutable natures.” While this provides an ontological ground for clear and distinct ideas, it makes no methodological difference whether one is concerned with material or formal truth vis-à-vis mathematical claims.1 Both concern the essence of things. At the psychological level, one cannot discern the difference between a material truth and a formal truth. Clear and distinct ideas represent the essences of things: as formally true they represent actual essences; as materially true they represent possible essences. Except in the case of God, no essential claim entails an existential claim. As ideas of the essences of things, clear and distinct ideas are epistemically prior to existential claims, since “God can bring about whatever we clearly perceive to be possible” (AT 8B: 352, CSM 1: 299). Since “we must never ask about the existence of anything until we first understand its essence” (AT 7: 107, CSM 2: 78), and since geometry describes the essential nature of extended objects, Descartes’s methodological constraints require that he inquire into the (geometrical) essence (examine clear and distinct ideas) of material objects before inquiring into their existence. It is helpful to remember that Meditation Two contains Descartes’s initial inquiry into what can be clearly known about bodies. The piece-of-wax argument, whatever else it might show, is at least an initial attempt to clarify the notion of body. However, to claim that body in general is extended, movable, and flexible, while perhaps clear, is not distinct: it will not allow one

216 Descartes’s Meditations to distinguish among bits of extension in such a way that those bits of extension could exist as determinate entities. While the Descartes of the piece-of-wax argument might have discovered the genus under which the wax falls (extension), he does not have the differentia necessary to show that any given temporal phase of the ever-changing wax is a possible entity. Having shown, however, that clear and distinct ideas are (formally) true, and therefore that the clear and distinct ideas of mathematical entities are true, he may now differentiate kinds of extended entities. He continues by examining quantity: Quantity, for example, or ‘continuous’ quantity as the philosophers commonly call it, is something I distinctly imagine. That is, I distinctly imagine the extension of the quantity (or rather of the thing which is quantified) in length, breadth and depth. I also enumerate various parts of the thing, and to these parts I assign various sizes, shapes, positions and local motions; and to the motions I assign various durations. (AT 7: 64, CSM 2: 44) On the face of it, this paragraph is odd. The Descartes of Meditation Two, who had attributed to imagination little more than the status of an unwanted stepchild (AT 7: 28, CSM 2;19), who in the piece-of-wax argument is at pains to show that it was by the understanding – not by the senses or the imagination – that the nature of wax is known, now is concerned with quantity as “something I distinctly imagine.” But this is merely a prima facie oddity. He begins with an idea that is an object of the imagination and proceeds to analyze that idea. As it becomes understood, “quantity” becomes “extension of the quantity” of a particular object, which is reduced to a mathematical description in terms of length, breadth, and depth. Insofar as he is concerned with a particular object, this is also analyzed in terms of its component parts, that is, such simple qualities as its “sizes, shapes, positions and local motions; and to the motions I assign various durations,” that is, its mathematically describable properties. It is on those properties that his continuing discussion focuses.2 Descartes notices the ease with which he understands extensional quantities (AT 7: 63, CSM 2: 44). His remarks suggest that one has innate ideas of geometrical entities. As he tells Gassendi, “we could not recognize the geometrical triangle from a diagram on paper unless our mind already possessed the idea of it from some other source” (AT 7: 382, CSM 2: 262).

The beginning of the descent 217 But if our arguments in earlier chapters are sound, this innateness itself does not account for the apparent truth of mathematical propositions. Rather, we recognize the (material) truth of certain innate ideas on the basis of the natural light. This suggests that we construe mathematical propositions as eternal truths (cf. P 1: 48), since eternal truths possess the apparent intimacy ascribed to mathematical truths: “we cannot fail to know them [eternal truths] when the occasion for thinking of them arises” (P 1: 49: AT 8A: 24, CSM 1: 209). Yet, he introduces the notion of a true and immutable nature, which suggests that one should understand a geometrical object as something other than a collection of eternal truths. In his words: But I think the most important consideration at this point is that I find within me countless ideas of things which even though they may not exist anywhere outside me still cannot be called nothing; for although in a sense they can be thought of at will, they are not my invention but have their own true and immutable natures. When, for example, I imagine a triangle, even if perhaps no such figure exists, or has ever existed, anywhere outside my thought, there is still a determinate nature, or essence, or form of the triangle which is immutable and eternal, and not invented by me or dependent on my mind. This is clear from the fact that various properties can be demonstrated of the triangle, for example that its three angles equal two right angles, that its greatest side subtends its greatest angle, and the like; and since these properties are ones which I now clearly recognize whether I want to or not, even if I never thought of them at all when I previously imagined the triangle, it follows that they cannot have been invented by me. (AT 7: 65, CSM 2: 44–5) We have suggested that true and immutable natures are ideas in the mind of God. At some points Descartes seems to ascribe considerable epistemic importance to “true and immutable natures” as the essences of kinds of things (AT 7: 116, CSM 2: 83). In the First Replies he writes: But if I think of a triangle . . . then whatever I apprehend as being contained in the idea of a triangle – for example that its three angles are equal to two right angles – I can with truth assert of the triangle. And the same applies to the square with respect to whatever I apprehend as

218 Descartes’s Meditations being contained in the idea of a square. For even if I can understand what a triangle is if I abstract the fact that its three angles are equal to two right angles, I cannot deny that this property applies to the triangle by a clear and distinct intellectual operation – that is, while at the same time understanding what I mean by my denial. (AT 7: 117–18, CSM 2: 84) If our account of true and immutable natures as ideas in the mind of God is correct, they are ontologically significant. Are they also epistemologically significant? Returning to a distinction at the heart of the Cartesian method, we may ask whether the order of consideration is the same as the order of epistemic primacy. In understanding that the interior angles of a triangle are equivalent to two right angles, is the triangle qua triangle epistemically primary or merely primary in the order of consideration? If geometrical figures have an archetypical existence as ideas in the mind of God, does that solve an epistemic problem for the thinker? No. Assuming that the perfection of God requires that all possible knowledge be available to anyone who makes a diligent and methodologically sound inquiry, and assuming that true and immutable essences are ideas in the mind of God, a mechanism must be provided by which the inquirer could metaphorically “see into the mind of God” (though only metaphorically). How can this be done? Innate ideas as dispositions allow one to explain how the idea of a geometrical object can be formed, but this does not account for our knowledge of true and immutable natures. How can one have knowledge of such natures? Notice that Descartes claims that since “various properties can be demonstrated of the triangle . . . it follows that they cannot have been invented by me.” If God creates all minds from the same mold, as he seems to assume (cf. AT 6: 1–2, CSM 1: 111), then the collection of innate ideas qua dispositions is virtually identical from one human mind to another. This will explain why anyone can form the idea of a triangle and why, under the appropriate circumstances, virtually everyone will grant certain eternal truths. Eternal truths are common notions or axioms (P 1: 49). As anyone who has ever studied geometry will attest, given the definitions, axioms, and postulates of a geometric system, everything in the system follows from them. If one is not distracted by Descartes’s example of the triangle and considers instead the more basic elements of a geometrical system, one may reasonably suggest that the definitions, axioms, and postulates of Euclidean geometry

The beginning of the descent 219 are eternal truths.3 Given Descartes’s emphasis on the demonstrability of the properties of a triangle, one could account for the uniformity of knowledge regarding properties of triangles (and any other geometric objects) on the basis of deductions from axioms qua eternal truths.4 If this is correct, then a “true and immutable nature” as known is nothing more than a set of eternal truths and its deductive consequences. As known, geometrical objects are constructs. While the idea of a triangle might be first in the order of consideration, the basic elements of a geometric system are first in the order of epistemic primacy. So to attain knowledge of the properties of a triangle, the triangle must first be reduced to (analyzed in terms of) the basic geometric elements, and once this is done, one can prove that a triangle has certain properties. Insofar as one clearly and distinctly perceives an idea of a triangle, triangles are possible and are describable in terms of all those properties that an existent triangle would possess. However, given the nature of Cartesian and classical geometrical analysis, to clearly and distinctly perceive the nature of a triangle one must reduce it to its fundamental elements and then deduce from those elements the properties that a triangle possesses, for example, the property that the interior angles of a triangle are equal to 180°. This implies that the doctrine of true and immutable natures plays no epistemic role in the Cartesian system. Such natures are known only if one understands the nature of a triangle in terms of the fundamental elements of Euclidean geometry. So understood, a triangle is constructed out of those fundamental elements. Indeed, insofar as God creates the etemal truths, including the fundamental principles of geometry, the true and immutable natures need be nothing more than all consequences that God “perceives” to follow from those essential principles.5 Descartes’s next paragraph supports our reading. He says: It would be beside the point for me to say that since I have from time to time seen bodies of triangular shape, the idea of the triangle may have come to me from external things by means of the sense organs. For I can think up countless other shapes which there can be no suspicion of my ever having encountered through the senses, and yet I can demonstrate various properties of these shapes, just as I can with the triangle. All these properties are certainly true, since I am clearly aware of them, and therefore they are something, and not merely nothing; for it is obvious that whatever is true is something; and I have already amply

220 Descartes’s Meditations demonstrated that everything of which I am clearly aware is true. And even if I had not demonstrated this, the nature of my mind is such that I cannot but assent to these things, at least so long as I clearly perceive them. I also remember that even before, when I was completely preoccupied with the objects of the senses, I always held that the most certain truths of all were the kind which I recognized clearly in connection with shapes, or numbers or other items relating to arithmetic or geometry, or in general to pure and abstract mathematics. (AT 7: 64–5, CSM 2: 45) Descartes stresses that the ideas of geometrical objects are innate; it is the innateness that explains how one can form the idea of a geometrical object that one has not seen and, perhaps, never will see (a chiliagon, for example). Again, he stresses the demonstrability of properties of such objects and the clarity and distinctness of one’s perceptions of them. The fact that one clearly and distinctly perceives provides the grounds for claiming that the premises for and the conclusion of the demonstration are true. Descartes notes, first, that “the nature of my mind is such that I cannot but assent to these things, at least so long as I clearly perceive them,” and second, that even before he engaged in his meditative inquiry, “when I was completely preoccupied with the objects of the senses,” mathematical truths attained the greatest degree of certainty (cf. AT 6: 7–8, CSM 2: 114). Since the psychological force of ideas clearly and distinctly perceived indicates that they must be true on pain of making God a deceiver, he now is warranted in accepting their truth. An additional point should be noticed. The allusion to the psychological compulsion of the clear and distinct ideas of mathematical truths alludes back to Meditation Three. Recall that, after introducing the criterion of clear and distinct perception, Descartes turned briefly to mathematics. He deemed the possibility of a deceiver God the sole ground for questioning the reliability of mathematics (AT 7: 36, CSM 2: 25). In examining the mathematical principles themselves, however, this purely hypothetical doubt had no psychological force. As he wrote: Yet when I turn to the things themselves which I think I perceive very clearly, I am so convinced by them that I spontaneously declare: let whosoever can do so deceive me, he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I continue to think I am something . . . or bring it

The beginning of the descent 221 about that two and three added together are more or less then five, or anything of this kind in which I see a manifest contradiction. (AT 7: 36, CSM 2: 25) In the Third Meditation, the criterion of clear and distinct perception was introduced as a hypothesis. Descartes indicates that what is perceived clearly and distinctly is psychologically compelling. But only in the Fourth Meditation does he provide reasons for taking this psychological compulsion as a reason for declaring that clear and distinct perceptions are (formally) true. So the discussion of geometry in Meditation Five is warranted by the discussion in Meditation Four and confirms the implicit trust he had placed in the truths of mathematics already in Meditation Three. This is one of the lateral connections in the Meditations.6 An ontological interlude Descartes has not completed his discussion of mathematics: he returns to it at the end of the Meditation. In between he introduces the ontological argument for the existence of God. In one respect this is puzzling: he has already provided two proofs of the existence of God in Meditation Three. In another respect it should surprise no one: the focus in Meditation Five is on clear and distinct perception and what can be known on the basis of clear and distinct perception. The truths of mathematics are so known, but they entail no existential claims. The ontological argument, if sound, entails an existential claim. In examining that argument, our interest will be primarily in the role it plays in the Cartesian system of analysis. Assuming that mathematical truths are justified insofar as they are clearly and distinctly perceived, Descartes urges the meditator towards the recognition that there is another argument for the existence of God. In his words: But if the mere fact that I can produce from my thought the idea of something entails that everything which I clearly and distinctly perceive to belong to that thing really does belong to it, is not this a possible basis for another argument to prove the existence of God? Certainly, the idea of God, or a supremely perfect being, is one which I find within me just as surely as the idea of any shape or number. And my understanding that it belongs to his nature that he always exists is no

222 Descartes’s Meditations less clear and distinct than is the case when I prove of any shape or number that some property belongs to its nature. Hence, even if it turned out that not everything on which I have meditated in these past days is true, I ought still to regard the existence of God as having at least the same level of certainty as I have hitherto attributed to the truths of mathematics. (AT 7: 65–6, CSM 2: 45) The argument may be put as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

I have a clear and distinct idea of God as a supremely perfect being. The existence of anything of which I have a clear and distinct idea is possible. Therefore, it is possible that God exists as I conceive of God. Existence is contained in the idea of God. Therefore, God exists.

The argument is familiar, as are criticisms of various forms of the argument.7 Basing his argument on the contention that his idea of a supremely perfect being is clear and distinct, and therefore is an idea of a being whose existence is possible, Descartes notes that his idea of God contains existence and concludes that God exists.8 Interestingly, he claims that God’s existence is at least as certain as the truths of mathematics: just as geometrical proofs are based on the ideas of the fundamental elements of geometry, so the proof of the existence of God is based solely on the idea of God. Even in Descartes’s time, the ontological argument had been the subject of significant criticism, and, by raising and replying to some of those criticisms, Descartes extends the argument. He writes: At first sight, however, this is not transparently clear, but has some appearance of being a sophism. Since I have been accustomed to distinguish between existence and essence in everything else, I find it easy to persuade myself that existence can also be separated from the essence of God, and hence that God can be thought of as not existing. But when I concentrate more carefully, it is quite evident that existence can no more be separated from the essence of God than the fact that its three angles equal two right angles can be separated from the essence of a triangle, or than the idea of a mountain can be separated from the

The beginning of the descent 223 idea of a valley. Hence it is just as much of a contradiction to think of God (that is, a supremely perfect being) lacking existence (that is, lacking a perfection), as it is to think of a mountain without a valley. (AT 7: 66, CSM 2: 45–6) Just as one would contradict oneself to claim that a mountain (an uphill slope) can exist without a valley (a downhill slope), one would contradict oneself to contend that a supremely perfect being lacks a supreme perfection.9 Insofar as existence is a perfection, God must be conceived as existing: to claim that God does not exist is a contradiction. But Descartes raises another objection to his position. He writes: However, even granted that I cannot think of God except as existing, just as I cannot think of a mountain without a valley, it certainly does not follow from the fact that I think of a mountain with a valley that there is any mountain in the world; and similarly, it does not seem to follow from the fact that I think of God as existing that he does exist. For my thought does not impose any necessity on things; and just as I may imagine a winged horse even though no horse has wings, so I may be able to attach existence to God even though no God exists. (AT 7: 66, CSM 2: 46) The gist of the objection is this. While granting that a mountain cannot exist without a valley, such a truth does not entail that mountains exist. All that it shows is that if a mountain exists, then necessarily there is a valley as well. Does not the ontological argument show the same, namely, that if God exists, then God’s existence is necessary? Descartes replies: But there is a sophism concealed here. From the fact that I cannot think of a mountain without a valley, it does not follow that a mountain and valley exist anywhere, but simply that a mountain and a valley, whether they exist or not, are mutually inseparable. But from the fact that I cannot think of God except as existing, it follows that existence is inseparable from God, and hence that he really exists. It is not that my thought makes it so, or imposes any necessity on any thing; on the contrary, it is the necessity of the thing itself, namely the existence of God, which determines my thinking in this respect. For I am not free to

224 Descartes’s Meditations think of God without existence (that is, a supremely perfect being without a supreme perfection) as I am free to imagine a horse with or without wings. (AT 7: 66–7, CSM 2: 46) The idea of God itself entails that God exists. Since the idea is clear and distinct, one cannot help accepting its (formal) truth. Since existence itself is contained in the idea of God, and since the idea of God is clear and distinct, it is psychologically impossible to conceive of God as not existing. While the case of the mountain and the valley entail no existential claims, the idea of God differs in that regard. God cannot be conceived as not existing. The idea of God is formally true. Therefore God exists. Descartes considers a third objection: And it must not be objected at this point that while it is indeed necessary for me to suppose God exists, once I have made the supposition that he has all perfections (since existence is one of the perfections), nevertheless the original supposition was not necessary. Similarly, the objection would run, it is not necessary for me to think that all quadrilaterals can be inscribed in a circle; but given this supposition, it will be necessary for me to admit that a rhombus can be inscribed in a circle – which is patently false. (AT 7: 67, CSM 2: 46) The objector questions the fundamental assumption of the ontological argument, namely, whether one must assume that God has all perfections. The objector compares the case with the false assumption that all quadrilaterals can be inscribed in a circle. Descartes responds that while one need not necessarily form an idea of God, whenever one does form that idea, one attributes all perfections to God. Once one recognizes that existence is a perfection, one recognizes that God exists. This is comparable to ascribing properties to a triangle after one forms an idea of a triangle: the properties are entailed by the idea. It differs from the assumption that all quadrilaterals can be inscribed in a circle, for that state of affairs is not conceived clearly and distinctly. Descartes appeals to three reasons in defending the point that the idea of God as a supremely perfect being is an idea of a true and immutable nature: first, God is unique because existence belongs only to God’s essence; second, no more than one God of this kind could exist; and

The beginning of the descent 225 third, no attributes of God could be removed or altered. The second and third of these require some comment. If one conceives of God as a supremely perfect being, why does that entail God’s uniqueness? The reason seems to relate to Descartes’s division of reality into three degrees, namely that the reality attributable to a mode, a finite substance, and an infinite substance. Insofar as God is perfect, this perfection requires that God have all perfections to an infinite degree. As a perfect being, God must be an infinite substance. Assuming there is but one infinity – a common assumption before Cantor (1915) – the presumption of God’s infinity entails God’s uniqueness.10 Furthermore, one would not stretch Descartes too far to suggest that he accepted a principle of the identity of indiscernibles.11 If there were two entities falling under the concept of God, each would contain all perfections. But if there were two entities containing all perfections, they would be indistinguishable, and therefore identical. Thus, both considerations regarding infinity and questions regarding the identity of indiscernibles explain why Descartes claimed that no more than one God could exist.12 The third point is superfluous. According to Descartes, one has clear and distinct ideas of things of a certain kind: a clear and distinct idea is the idea of the essence (essential properties) of a thing of a certain kind. To change any property in any idea of an essence would be an essential change, that is, it would be sufficient to change a thing of one kind into a thing of another – assuming the idea would remain clear and distinct. In this regard, the idea of God qua idea of a kind differs in no way from any other clear and distinct idea qua idea of the essence of a kind. It is sufficient only to underscore the claim that if any of the perfections contained in the idea of God were removed, it would cease to be an idea of God. The following two paragraphs are transitional. They return one to more general considerations regarding the implications of conclusions drawn from clear and distinct ideas and are followed by considerations regarding demonstrations based upon clear and distinct ideas. Descartes reiterates that assenting to clear and distinct ideas is psychologically compelling. He distinguishes, however, between those ideas that are immediately obvious and those that require closer examination. The (material) truth of the idea remains the same no matter how much or how little one examines an idea, and he explains why some ideas are initially less compelling on the basis of the preconceptions and sensible perceptions. Were it not for these, he suggests, the ontological argument would be obvious to all.

226 Descartes’s Meditations But what is one to make of Descartes’s ontological argument? Is one to follow the Kantian line and suggest that Descartes takes existence to be a predicate, while holding that existence is presupposed by any predication? We are not convinced that such a criticism is as devastating to Descartes’s argument as many might think. While we find his ontological argument less than convincing, we will attempt to develop a plausible account of it based on Descartes’s ontology. First, we argue that not all predication presupposes existence. Second, in light of his account of degrees of reality, his argument cannot be dismissed as completely implausible. Third, and finally, since he has already proven the existence of God twice, we explore the role of the ontological argument in the context of the Cartesian method. If Kant is right, then any ascription of a predicate to a subject presupposes the existence of the subject. It is implausible to ascribe such a position to Descartes. If Descartes held such a position, then categorical propositions would have existential import. As we saw in chapter five, he rejects such a view. He notes in Principles 1: 10 that even a general principle such as “it is impossible that that which thinks should not exist . . . provides us with no knowledge of anything that exists” (AT 8A: 8, CSM 1: 196). Further, in Meditation Five, he explicitly claims that, although one can prove various properties with respect to a triangle, such proofs do not entail that triangles exist (AT 7: 64, CSM 2: 45). Moreover, if our earlier argument concerning ideas of geometrical figures and true and immutable natures is sound, then Descartes need not presuppose subsistence in discovering geometrical truths. If, as we suggest, geometry is reduced to its definitions, axioms, and postulates, which are eternal truths known by the natural light, those general principles entail no existential claims; rather they are true of extended objects if such objects exist. Seen in such a way, geometrical objects, as such, are nothing more than bundles of properties that follow from the fundamental elements of a geometrical system; while geometrical truths apply to extended objects if such objects exist, geometric truths neither presuppose nor entail the existence of extended objects. Could one not employ the same argument with respect to the idea of God? An affirmative response would imply that, at the most, a clear and distinct idea of God shows that if God exists, then God exists (or, perhaps, exists necessarily). How does the case of God allegedly differ from that of a triangle? In a Cartesian context, what does it mean to claim that existence is an essential property of God but not of anything else?

The beginning of the descent 227 Many things exist. My current idea of Hume’s missing shade of blue exists. I exist. God exists. Is the word “exists” univocal in each of these cases? The first thing to notice is that one means three very different things when one asserts the previous three existential claims: my idea of Hume’s missing shade of blue exists as a mode of the mind; I exist as a finite substance; God exists as an infinite substance. These existents reflect Descartes’s three degrees of reality. Here we restrict “reality” to formal reality (real existence), rather than objective reality. In noting the distinction among the degrees of reality, we shall construct a plausible Cartesian ontological argument. Either Descartes uses the word ‘exists’ univocally or he uses it equivocally. On the one hand, if he uses it equivocally, then existence as applied to a mode is different in kind from existence as applied to a finite substance, which is different in kind from existence as applied to an infinite substance. So understood, the kinds of existence correlate with degrees of independence. Such a position is problematic, for either kinds of existence and kinds of independence reflect two sides of the same ontological coin, distinguishable only in reason, or they are distinct but correlated properties. It is inconsistent with Cartesian principles to suggest that they reflect the same reality. Supposing that Descartes did hold this view, he could not conceive of a mode or finite substance without conceiving of it as existing, since conceiving of a mode or finite substance as such is to conceive of it as having a certain degree of independence. Given his remarks on geometrical properties – which, if they did actually exist, would exist as modes of a material substance – it is inconsistent to claim that conceiving of such properties as modes entails that such modes exist.13 On the other hand, if ‘existence’ is used equivocally, but it is not identical with independence, Descartes’s position approaches unintelligibility. We might know what ‘existence’ means with respect to finite substances and modes, since we exist as finite substances that have certain modes. But if the meaning of ‘existence’ as one applies it in the case of God differs fundamentally from the meaning as one applies it in the case of a finite substance or its modes, how Descartes understands what is meant by “God exists” is a mystery. Would the difference in applying the word ‘exists’ to both God and a finite substance be like the difference between applying the word ‘round’ to a circle and a pudgy person’s belly (which is, at best, semicircular)? Or would it be like the difference between applying the word ‘heavy’ to a piece of lead and to Hegel’s philosophy (or Hegel’s writing

228 Descartes’s Meditations style)? Since answering these two questions seems impossible, and since we know of no place where Descartes explicitly claims that the meaning of ‘exists’ differs vis-à-vis the degrees of reality, the use of the word “exists” is most likely univocal. If Descartes uses ‘exists’ univocally, then it is a transcategorial predicate (a transcendental term). Nonetheless, if the what of existence is transcategorially identical, the how of existence is not. The issue of the meaning of existence within the context of the ontological argument is one of independence, and focusing on that, one may construct a variation on the ontological argument. God is a perfect being. What does that mean? God has all perfections. What does that mean? Among other things, it means that one conceives of God as an infinite substance. What does that mean? It means that God is causally and ontologically independent of all other things. What is entailed by claiming that a possible entity is causally or ontologically independent? It means, as Descartes puts it, “It is not that my thought makes it so, or imposes any necessity on any thing; on the contrary, it is the necessity of the thing itself, namely the existence of God, which determines my thinking in this respect” (AT 7: 67, CSM 2: 46). It is the independence of God – infinite substance – that explains why one must conceive of God as an existent. If one conceived of God as merely a possible – not an actual – being, then the idea of God, like the idea of a winged horse (AT 7: 67, CSM 2: 46), would be dependent upon the thinker creating the idea. But the idea of God as a perfect being is clear and distinct, and therefore at least materially true. Insofar as the idea qua clear and distinct cannot be the basis for formally false judgments, and insofar as the idea is that of an absolutely independent being, these conditions only could be met if there actually is a being corresponding to the idea, that is, if God exists.14 Whether or not this reconstruction of Descartes’s reasoning is plausible, the question still remains, “Why did Descartes construct another argument for the existence of God?” We believe, with Gueroult (1984: 257ff.), that the ontological argument constitutes one of the lateral connections between the search for principles (the analysis in Meditations Two and Three) and drawing out the consequences of those principles. In Meditation Three, Descartes concluded that the idea of God as a supremely perfect being is the clearest and most distinct of ideas (AT 7: 46, CSM 2: 32). Since he argued in Meditation Four that clear and distinct ideas must be (formally and therefore materially) true on pain of making God a deceiver, the ontological argument, if sound, tends to confirm that the idea of God as a supremely

The beginning of the descent 229 perfect being is true. If God’s existence can be proven from the clear and distinct idea of God alone, that is, if an analysis of the idea itself proves that God exists, this confirms the primacy of the idea in that it establishes what is already known, namely that God exists. This yields a coherence across the Meditations. Insofar as it establishes deductively what was known by an argument to the best explanation, it tends to support the claim that the idea of a supremely perfect being is clear and distinct. Notice how Descartes does this. The ontological argument should be viewed in two ways, both of which are “demonstrations.” As Descartes writes Morin on 13 July 1638: You say also that there is a vicious circle in proving effects from a cause, and then proving the cause by the same effects. I agree: but I do not agree that it is circular to explain effects by a cause, and then prove the cause by the effects; because there is a big difference between proving and explaining. I should add that the word “demonstrate” can be used to signify either, if it is used according to common usage and not in the technical philosophical sense. I should add also that there is nothing circular in proving a cause by several effects which are independently known, and then proving certain other effects from this cause. (AT 2: 197–8, CSM 3: 106) How should the ontological argument be seen? As we have discussed it, the ontological argument is seen as a proof that God exists. So seen, the clear and distinct idea of God as a perfect being is a given: it is first in the order of consideration, and assuming that considerations of essence are epistemically prior to claims of existence, it proves that God exists. However, consistent with Descartes’s double method of coherence, one may interpret it as an explanation. So construed, the claim that God exists is known first, and one is seeking an explanation of that fact. The existence of God was proven on the basis of two arguments in Meditation Three. If the claim “God exists” is first in the order of consideration, the ontological argument is a formal explanation of the existence of God. Which is the correct way to see the ontological argument? Both are. At the end of Meditation Three, Descartes claimed to know the highest existential claim and the highest essential claim. If the ontological argument is construed as both a justification and an explanation, the clear and distinct idea of God is sufficient to prove that God exists and to explain the existence of God. Given his double method

230 Descartes’s Meditations of coherence, we believe Descartes would have us look at it in both ways: it shows that, in the case of God, the existence/essence distinction collapses. Related to that collapse is the fact that the distinction between formal and material truth makes a difference. For mathematical objects it makes little difference whether one considers a possible essence or an actual essence. The clarity and distinctness of one’s idea in considering an imagined triangle versus an actual triangle would be the same, namely that it is possible that such an object exists. In the case of God, the notion of formal truth carries some weight. If the idea of God is merely materially true, this implies that it is possible that it represents something. If the idea of God is formally true, it actually represents something that is at least possible (a true and immutable nature). The material/formal truth distinction sheds light on the breakdown of the essence/existence distinction in the case of God. The only way in which the idea of God could be materially true is if it represents an existent being (is formally true). Memory and divine non-deception The nominal topic of Meditation Five is to demonstrate the possibility that material objects exist and (again) demonstrate the existence of God. The de facto topic of the meditation is clear and distinct ideas and what they allow us to know. Of course the topics are related: insofar as material objects are construed geometrically, their existence is possible, and insofar as God is construed as a perfect being, God must exist. In his concluding remarks, however, Descartes returns to the examination of mathematics in particular and demonstration in general. Descartes considers past instances of clear and distinct perception, and thereby broadens the implications of the proposition “God is not a deceiver.” He writes: Admittedly my nature is such that so long as I perceive something very clearly and distinctly I cannot but believe it to be true. But my nature is also such that I cannot fix my mental vision continually on the same thing, so as to keep perceiving it clearly; and often the memory of a previously made judgement may come back when I am no longer attending to the arguments which led me to make it. And so other arguments can now occur to me which might easily undermine my opinion, if I were unaware of God; and I should thus never have true

The beginning of the descent 231 and certain knowledge about anything, but only shifting and changeable opinions. For example, when I consider the nature of a triangle, it appears most evident to me, steeped as I am in the principles of geometry, that its three angles are equal to two right angles; and so long as I attend to the proof, I cannot but believe this to be true. But as soon as I turn my mind’s eye away from the proof, then in spite of still remembering that I perceived it very clearly, I can easily fall into doubt about its truth, if I am unaware of God. For I can convince myself that I have a natural disposition to go wrong from time to time in matters which I think I perceive as evidently as can be. This will seem even more likely when I remember that there have been frequent cases where I have regarded things as true and certain, but have later been led by other arguments to judge them to be false. (AT 7: 69–70, CSM 2: 48) Supposedly, Arnauld alludes to this paragraph in raising his famous question about the Cartesian Circle.15 We will examine the circle in detail in Chapter Ten. Our current concern is with the relationship between this paragraph and what has gone before. So long as one clearly and distinctly perceives something, one is psychologically compelled to deem it materially true, and the considerations in Meditation Four indicate that this is a formal truth regarding the essence of a thing. In fact, however, there are relatively few times when one perceives clearly and distinctly. Many times, the most one can do is remember that at some previous point one clearly and distinctly perceived that x. For example, I can remember that at one time I constructed a proof of the Pythagorean theorem, but I no longer remember the proof. Can I claim to know that the Pythagorean theorem is true? Yes, says Descartes, so long as I have knowledge of God. He continues that theme in the next paragraph. In his words: Now, however, I have perceived that God exists, and at the same time I have understood that everything else depends on him, and that he is no deceiver; and I have drawn the conclusion that everything which I clearly and distinctly perceive is of necessity true. Accordingly, even if I am no longer attending to the arguments which led me to judge that this is true, as long as I remember that I clearly and distinctly perceived it, there are no counter-arguments which can be adduced to make me doubt it, but on the contrary I have true and certain knowledge of it.

232 Descartes’s Meditations And I have knowledge not just of this matter, but of all matters which I remember ever having demonstrated, in geometry and so on. For what objections can now be raised? That the way I am made makes me prone to frequent error? But I now know that I am incapable of error in those cases where my understanding is transparently clear. Or can it be objected that I have in the past regarded as true and certain many things which I afterwards recognized to be false? But none of these were things which I clearly and distinctly perceived: I was ignorant of this rule for establishing the truth, and believed these things for other reasons which I later discovered to be less reliable. So what is left to say? Can one raise the objection I put to myself a while ago, that I may be dreaming or that everything which I am now thinking has as little truth as what comes to the mind of one who is asleep? Yet even this does not change anything. For even though I might be dreaming, if there is anything which is evident to my intellect, then it is wholly true. (AT 7: 70–1, CSM 2: 48–9) The first sentence is reminiscent of the conclusions drawn in the Third Meditation and elucidated in the Fourth. God exists. God is a perfect being. Deception is inconsistent with perfection. There is no basis on which one could discover that an idea perceived clearly and distinctly is false, and one is psychologically compelled to acknowledge its truth. Therefore, on pain of making God a deceiver, clear and distinct ideas are true. But here Descartes broadens that argument by remembering that he clearly and distinctly perceived something in the past; he claims that no argument can be produced to make him doubt it. Why does he claim this? Pragmatically, something like this must be assumed if one is to construct even fairly involved geometrical proofs. In proving Euclid’s Theorem 28, one might allude back to earlier proofs. For example, one might derive the proof from the definitions, axioms, and postulates as well as, let us say, Theorems 23 and 26. These theorems have been proven, although the proofs might not presently be before one’s mind. If there is a divine “guarantee” that having clearly and distinctly perceived that Theorems 23 and 26 are true is sufficient to remove all doubt regarding them, then, of course, they can be used in the proof: one is warranted in accepting anything that follows from them. And the situation is the same if one derives the proof of Theorem 28 directly from the definitions, axioms and postulates, for then the proof is very involved and in the later steps one must take one’s memory that one clearly and distinctly perceived something at an earlier step in the proof as a sufficient reason for using it to draw a conclusion later in the proof. Without good reasons to believe that the memories of clear and distinct perceptions are true, one would always have insufficient evidence for the conclusion of any extended argument or

The beginning of the descent 233 proof. But one must be very circumspect in ascribing fiduciary properties to God. Since Descartes held that God creates all eternal truths (AT 1: 145–6, CSM 3: 23), a temptation exists to read the passage in terms of God as guarantor of the truth of clear and distinct perceptions, whether immediately considered or remembered. We believe that one should resist this temptation. Even in a pre-analytic (pre-meditative) state, Descartes held that clear and distinct perceptions and eternal truths are self evident.16 Deductive arguments yield certainty if any do. But rather than seeing God as a guarantor of clear and distinct perceptions and one’s memories of them, Descartes seems to claim that with the proof that God exists and is not a deceiver, one does away with the “very slight and, so to speak, metaphysical” reasons for doubting the certainty of mathematical truths, mathematical demonstrations, and all beliefs based on clear and distinct perception (AT 7: 36, CSM 2: 25). Surely, the absence of grounds for doubt predominates any other theme in these two paragraphs. The previous knowledge of God’s existence and nondeceptiveness eliminates any reasons to dislodge a belief deduced from clear and distinct ideas. In the last two sentences of the paragraph we first quoted in this section, Descartes claims that this previously discovered knowledge about God sets aside the possibility of doubting mathematical truths. And one finds the same theme in the second sentence of the second lengthy quotation on page 231. Again, God does not guarantee the truth of clear and distinct perceptions and memories of them; rather, no skeptical arguments regarding clear and distinct ideas can be forthcoming since arguments based on clear and distinct perceptions are psychologically compelling, and God exists and is not a deceiver. To understand this point, one need only look at Descartes’s discussion of the atheistic geometer. In his Second Replies, Descartes grants that an atheist can clearly be aware of a geometric truth, even though “he cannot be certain that he is not being deceived on matters which seem to him to be very evident,” and for that very reason denies that the atheist can have true knowledge of it, until “he acknowledges that God exists” (AT 7: 141, CSM 2: 101). The atheistic geometer might well recognize that the interior angles of a triangle are equal to 180°, but the belief falls short of knowledge. Why? The geometer or someone else might be able to develop doubts regarding his or her conclusion. These doubts might be purely hypothetical and as outrageous as one might like: “What if my mental faculties are radically deficient?” “What if there were an infinitely powerful malicious demon who deceives me?” So long as the doubts have any force, the geometer’s beliefs fall short

234 Descartes’s Meditations of knowledge. Only with the proofs that God exists and is not a deceiver in Meditations Three and Four does the Cartesian theist undercut the grounds for raising hypothetical doubts. With the destruction of those doubts, the theist attains knowledge. Hence, the hypothetical doubts of Meditation One remain significant only for the atheist or agnostic; given the proof of the existence and nondeceptive nature of God, no grounds for doubt can be adduced for anything that is clearly and distinctly perceived. Since this argument now applies even to remembered instances of clear and distinct ideas, Descartes has broadened the implications of the principle that God is not a deceiver. One should also notice that the considerations in these paragraphs are parallel to those in Meditation Three, paragraph four: these paragraphs in Meditation Five might be taken as reply to the doubts raised there. In Meditation Three, paragraph two, Descartes introduced the principle that all clear and distinct ideas are true. In paragraph four, there are questions and an epistemic doxology. First he says: Did I not see at least these things clearly enough to affirm their truth? Indeed, the only reason for my later judgement that they were open to doubt was that it occurred to me that perhaps some God could have given me a nature such that I was he deceived even in matters which seemed most evident. (AT 7: 36, CSM 2: 25, our emphasis) Second, he alludes to his “preconceived belief in the supreme power of God” to the effect that such a God could easily be a deceiver. Third, there is an epistemic doxology: Yet when I turn to the things themselves which I think I perceive very clearly, I am so convinced of them that I spontaneously declare: let whoever can do so deceive me, he will never bring it about that I am nothing so long I continue to think I am something . . . or anything of this kind in which I see a manifest contradiction. AT 7: 36, CSM 2: 25) Finally, Descartes reiterates the grounds for doubting the truth of clear and distinct ideas:

The beginning of the descent 235 And since I have no cause to think that there is a deceiving God, and I do not yet even know for sure whether there is a God at all, any reason for doubt which depends simply on this supposition is a very slight and, so to speak, metaphysical one. (AT 7: 36, CSM 2: 25, our emphasis) Even in Meditation Three, the possibilities either that God does not exist or that God is a deceiver constitute the only grounds to doubt the truths of clear and distinct ideas. Both of these possibilities would be based on a “preconceived belief” in the nature of God, and not upon a clear and distinct idea of God. This preconceived belief is based on the supposition that one’s nature is inherently defective and only a deceptive God or a being distinct from God could explain one’s nature (cf. AT 7: 21–2, CSM 2: 14–15). Notice that in the Fifth Meditation he says virtually the same thing. How can one call one’s belief in the soundness of a geometric proof into question? One can do so only if one is “without knowledge of God. For I can convince myself that I have a natural disposition to go wrong . . . in matters which I think I perceive as evidently as can be” (AT 7: 70, CSM 2: 48, our emphasis). If one were to have such a natural disposition to err, either the cause of one’s being is something less perfect than God, or God is a deceiver. Descartes has dismissed both positions. So to anyone who has acknowledged that God exists and is not a deceiver, no reasons exist for doubting even remembered clear and distinct ideas. Another lateral connection is established between the earlier and later Meditations. So what has Descartes done in these two paragraphs? Has he, as it might first appear, shown that God is a guarantor of memory, at least in those cases in which one has memories of clear and distinct ideas (cf. Doney 1955)? No. What he has shown is that the principle that God exists and is not a deceiver has broader implications than might initially be realized. His position might be constructed as to parallel the proof of the truth of clear and distinct ideas in Meditation Four. Demonstrations – valid deductive arguments from selfevident premises (based on clear and distinct ideas) – are psychologically compelling: it is psychologically impossible to work through the demonstration and reject the conclusion, even if one only remembers that individual elements of the demonstration were clearly and distinctly perceived. If God is nondeceptive and would be deceptive if one were psychologically compelled to believe that a demonstrated proposition is true when it is false, then one must accept the truth of a demonstrated

236 Descartes’s Meditations proposition, and any memories of clear and distinct elements of the demonstration must be taken as true on pain of making God a deceiver. Hence, each of the elements of the demonstration must be true: all skeptical doubts have been undercut. This is a slight broadening of the implications of the claim, “God is not a deceiver,” but only a slight broadening. With his explanation of why clear and distinct ideas are true and why mathematical demonstrations are justified, Descartes has proven that corporeal entities are possible in as much as their essences are clearly and distinctly perceived. This sets the stage for proving that corporeal entities exist.

9

Meditation Six The world restored

By the end of the Sixth Meditation, virtually everything is as it was at the beginning of Meditation One. Among the exceptions masked by the “virtually” are heat and cold, colors (including black and white), and, presumably, flavors, aromas, sounds, and anything else that is not subject to geometric description. While these absences might suggest that the Descartes of Meditation Six was anti-empirical, we argue that he championed a cautious empiricism, what we called the Enhanced Principle of Acquaintance (EPA) in Chapter Four. Descartes’s initial arguments in Meditation Six concern the existence of the material world. He presents a series of arguments that show with increasing probability that the material world exists. Ultimately, the warrant for the belief that a material world exists rests on the nondeceptive God thesis. Material objects as probable, and the real distinction between mind and body Descartes begins the Meditation with a look back and a look ahead. He makes two main points. First, insofar as God could create anything one clearly and distinctly perceives, it follows that material objects possibly exist. Further, material truth is understood as consistency or possible existence: “I have never judged that something could not be made by him [God] except on the grounds that there would be a contradiction in my perceiving it distinctly” (AT 7: 71, CSM 2: 50). Second, he suggests that considerations of the imagination imply that material objects exist, for the imagination appears to apply the cognitive faculty to a body. Descartes develops an argument for this thesis in the next two paragraphs.

238 Descartes’s Meditations To imagine a triangle is to form of a picture of a triangle in the mind, although one might understand what a triangle is without a pictorial representation. Descartes illustrates this point in terms of a chiliagon, a thousand-sided plane figure, which can be understood but not imagined.1 Even if one could imagine a chiliagon or a myriagon, the image itself would not increase one’s understanding of the figure; understanding the properties of a multi-sided object requires an understanding of the fundamental elements of geometry plus the ability to draw out the consequences of those definitions, axioms, and postulates with respect to the kind of figure in question. Of course, in cases of objects with fewer sides – triangles, squares, pentagons, hexagons, etc. – it is possible not only to understand their natures but to imaginatively construct an image of the relevant kind of figure. Descartes claims that imagination is something more than pure understanding; it requires a peculiar effort of the mind that is not required for understanding, which shows that a difference exists between the imagination and the understanding (AT 7: 72–3, CSM 2: 50–1). Given the distinction between the understanding and the imagination, Descartes argues for the probability that material objects exist, that is, the existence of material objects offers a plausible (and perhaps the best) explanation of the phenomenon of imagination. He writes: Besides this, I consider that this power of imagining which is in me, differing as it does from the power of understanding, is not a necessary constituent of my own essence, that is, of the essence of my mind. For if I lacked it, I should undoubtedly remain the same individual as I now am; from which it seems to follow that it depends on something distinct from myself. And I can easily understand that, if there does exist some body to which the mind is so joined that it can apply itself to contemplate it, as it were, whenever it pleases, then it may possibly be this very body that enables me to imagine corporeal things. So the difference between this mode of thinking and pure understanding may simply be this: when the mind understands, it in some way turns towards itself and inspects one of the ideas which are within it; but when it imagines, it turns towards the body and looks at something in the body which conforms to an idea understood by the mind or perceived by the senses. I can, as I say, easily understand that this is how imagination comes about, if the body exists; and since there is no other equally suitable way of explaining imagination that comes to mind, I can make a probable conjecture that the body exists. But this is only a probability; and

The world restored 239 despite a careful and comprehensive investigation, I do not yet see how the distinct idea of corporeal nature which I find in my imagination can provide any basis for a necessary inference that some body exists. (AT 7: 73, CSM 2: 51) In Meditation Two, when Descartes explicated the meaning of the claim that he is a thing that thinks, he included “also imagines and has sensory perceptions” (AT 7: 28, CSM 2: 19) as little more than an afterthought. His position here explains why imagination was ascribed little more than the status of an unwanted stepchild: the ability to imagine is not essential to him, that is, he would still be a thinking thing even if he were incapable of forming images in the imagination. Since the imagination’s presence or absence would not affect the nature of the mind, its occurrence suggests that imagination is essentially related to something other than the mind. But if imagination is not essential to the mind or thinking thing, this opens the door to some other explanation of the presence of the imagination. If a body were associated with his mind, Descartes would have an explanation of the occurrence of the imagination: through this body one can imagine things.2 The difference between pure understanding and imagination, then, would be the difference between the mind turning and looking within and inspecting ideas – an operation that does not require images – and the mind looking outward at something in the body. Descartes suggests that this is a very plausible explanation, indeed, it is the best explanation available that accounts for the occurrence of imagination. Nonetheless, this explanatory justification of the existence of the body is only probable. Descartes next develops an argument to demonstrate the probability that at least one material object exists, namely, that body one considers one’s own. This is an argument from sense perception. It extends the argument concerning imagination insofar it presumes that the senses supply the materials on which the imagination works. His argument consists of three phases: To begin with, I will go back over all the things which I previously took to be perceived by the senses, and reckoned to be true; and I will go over my reasons for thinking this. Next, I will set out my reasons for subsequently calling these things into doubt. And finally I will consider what I should now believe about them. (AT 7: 74, CSM 2: 51)

240 Descartes’s Meditations This passage reflects standard Cartesian procedure. In Meditation Two, when he asked what he was, he began by considering what he formerly believed himself to be and then gave reasons why he no longer could deem all those elements essential (AT 7: 25–8, CSM 2: 17–19). The same procedure was employed regarding the piece of wax (AT 7: 30–1, CSM 2: 20–1). Here he completes the procedure through evaluating the extent to which his previous doubts are justified in light of the conclusions drawn regarding the nondeceptive nature of God. In a rather lengthy passage (AT 7: 74–6, CSM 2: 51–3), Descartes begins the first phase by listing his pre-critical beliefs about his body and sensory experience, and the reasons, if any, he had for those beliefs. Prior to his doubts, Descartes assumed that he had a body. By his senses he perceived that his body was one of many bodies and that the other bodies could affect it in various ways. Some of these apparent affects he welcomed because they yielded sensations of pleasure; others repelled him because they yielded sensations of pain. He had sensations such as hunger, and propensities toward various emotions. He had sensations of color, heat and cold, and ideas of the other sensible modalities. Since he does nothing to form and cannot prevent the occurrence of those ideas he calls ideas of sensation, and since they are more lively and vivid than those intentionally created by the mind, it seems reasonable to assume that something external to himself caused them; moreover, he naturally assumes the ideas resemble their external causes. The fact that the use of his senses occurs before the development of his ability to reason, and the fact that the ideas formed by the reason are less vivid than those of the senses explains why he had assumed the truth of the empiricist principle. Similarly, the belief that a certain body is his own seemed justified because, one, he could never be separated from it as he could from other bodies, two, he felt his appetites and emotions in it, and three, and he was aware of pain and pleasure in that body rather than some other. His only available explanation of why he associates certain sensations with the need to eat or drink is that “nature taught me so” (AT 7: 76, CSM 2: 53). And, with regard to his pre-critical judgments about sensory objects in general, he discovers that, he “was apparently taught to make [them] by nature” (AT 7: 76, CSM 2: 53). Descartes begins to undermine these pre-critical beliefs when he finds that experience itself tends to undercut the assumed reliability of experience. He provides a litany of misjudgments based on sense perception (AT 7: 76– 7, CSM 2: 53–4). What appeared to be a round tower when seen from a significant distance, appeared square when perceived from a lesser distance.

The world restored 241 Amputees testified that they suffered from (phantom) pains in their missing limbs. A further difficulty arises when he realizes that he has no more reason to believe that external objects cause wakeful sense perceptions than he has for believing that dream states derive from external causes. Finally, Descartes examines the consequences of the assumption that his faculties were inherently defective. All these provide reasons why one should not place a great deal of confidence in what was “taught by nature” (AT 7: 77, CSM 2: 53), even if sense perceptions are independent of the will. With the coming of knowledge of his own nature and God’s nature and existence, Descartes claims grounds for dispelling some of the doubts he has raised regarding the existence of the material world and the reliability of sense experience. He begins: First, I know that everything which I clearly and distinctly understand is capable of being created by God so as to correspond exactly with my understanding of it. Hence the fact that I can clearly and distinctly understand one thing apart from another is enough to make me certain that the two things are distinct, since they are capable of being separated, at least by God. The question of what kind of power is required to bring about such a separation does not affect the judgement that the two things are distinct. Thus, simply by knowing that I exist and seeing at the same time that absolutely nothing else belongs to my nature or essence except that I am a thinking thing, I can infer correctly that my essence consists solely in the fact that I am a thinking thing. It is true that I may have (or, to anticipate, that I certainly have) a body that is very closely joined to me. But nevertheless, on the one hand I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in so far as I am simply a thinking, nonextended thing; and on the other hand I have a distinct idea of body, in so far as this is simply an extended, non-thinking thing. And accordingly, it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it. (AT 7: 78, CSM 2: 54) Here Descartes argues for the real distinction between mind and body, namely, that a mind and body can exist independently of one another. Already in Meditation Two, Descartes argued that he had a clear and distinct idea of himself as a thinking thing (AT 7: 33, CSM 2: 22). From Meditation Five, he has a clear and distinct idea of an extended object in that it can be understood

242 Descartes’s Meditations as an object of pure mathematics. Hence, the mathematical conception of his own body is the conception of an object whose existence is possible. Since he has a clear and distinct idea both of his mind and of his body as an object of pure mathematics, each can exist as he conceives of it, or, more properly speaking, the mind can exist apart from the body.3 As Descartes indicates in the Synopsis (AT 7: 3, CSM 2: 12) and in reply to an objection in the Preface (AT 7: 78, CSM 2: 7), only and until he has this real distinction argument before him can he lay claim to indubitable knowledge of himself as a thinking substance (see also Sievert 1975). We suggested in Chapter Five that one might understand Descartes’s premature restriction of his essence to thinking in Meditation Two as a hypothesis to be confirmed. Before the real distinction argument, he can (mistakenly) maintain that his essence consists solely in thinking: that is, he does not yet have the sufficient reason to believe that such an assertion would not lead to an erroneous judgment. Since Descartes finds himself so closely related to his body, and since one must know exactly what attributes are essential to something to understand that thing as a substance, he must be able to distinguish clearly between body as such and mind as such. Prior to this argument he does not have a clear and distinct idea of his body. Thus, prior to making the real distinction he cannot clearly and distinctly understand the difference between his mind and his body. This conclusion is borne out by the fact that he feels he must clarify the status of sense perception and imagination before he introduces the real distinction. Descartes must know whether these powers are essential to him as a thinking thing or not. Knowing that imagination and sense perception are not essential allows him to make three claims: one, he can claim that he has an even clearer idea of himself as a thinking thing; two, it allows him to draw a starker division between himself and those things related to body; and three, it allows him to eliminate himself (a thinking thing) as a candidate for the causes of his sensorial ideas. All three of these points must be established before he can claim to distinguish clearly and distinctly between mind as substance and body as substance. The argument for the nature and actual existence of the corporeal world From the implications of imagination and sensory perception as modes of thought, Descartes develops the argument for the existence of the corporeal world. The argument rests on considerations of the nature of substance and

The world restored 243 an understanding of the implications of the principle of God as a nondeceiver. Imagination and sense perception are essentially mental acts.4 Hence, they are modes of thinking: they necessarily inhere in a mental substance, although a mental substance could exist without those modes of thought. Not all modes are modes of thought. Some faculties such as changing position and taking on a certain shape include no mental act. If such faculties exist, they must exist as modes of extension. One passively perceives ideas of sensible objects. Since the mind passively perceives sensory ideas, it cannot be the active cause of the ideas of sensible objects. In eliminating his mind as the cause, Descartes realizes that he must find some other substance as the cause of those ideas. This other substance “contains formally or eminently all the reality which exists objectively in the ideas produced by this faculty” (AT 7: 79, CSM 2: 55). Having already discounted the possibility that he himself caused his sensory ideas (the passivity thesis), Descartes enumerates the possible causes: it is either a corporeal substance, or God, or some intermediary between God and corporeal substance which contains eminently what is objectively in the ideas. But God does not deceive and one naturally believes in the existence of corporeal substance, so the cause of the idea must be a corporeal substance. Notice how the God-is-not-a-deceiver argument goes and compare it with earlier versions of that argument. 1. 2. 3.

4. 5.

God has given me a great propensity to believe that sensory ideas are produced by material objects. God has given me no faculty by which I could recognize that material objects are produced by anything other than material objects. If something other than material objects produces sensory ideas in me while I have a propensity to believe that material objects produced those sensory ideas and no faculty to show that the belief is false, then God is a deceiver. God is not a deceiver. Therefore, sensory ideas are produced by material objects.

This is Descartes’s third argument from the nondeceptive nature of God. In each case the form is the same: 1. 2.

I have a psychological propensity to believe that x. If I have a propensity to believe that x even though x is false and there

244 Descartes’s Meditations 3. 4.

is no way to show that x is false, then God would be a deceiver. God is not a deceiver. Therefore, the belief that x is not false.

The notion of falsehood differs between the first two uses of the nondeceiver argument and the last insofar as the first two need be concerned with only material falsehood while the third is concerned with formal falsehood. One should note a significant link between the two previous uses of the nondeceiver argument and the nondeceiver argument which proves the existence of material objects: the argument applies to material objects and their properties only if one conceives of material objects mathematically, that is, material objects having those and only those properties that one perceives as clear and distinct. So, the third instance of the non-deceiver argument depends upon the first two. This dependency also shows how the appeal to the natural tendency to believe in the existence of material objects here differs from that rejected in Meditation Three. In Meditation Three, Descartes was concerned with the natural impulse to believe in the existence of material objects as they are sensibly perceived. He rejected this natural impulse as an epistemic warrant since, as he puts it: I have often judged in the past that they [natural impulses] were pushing me in the wrong direction when it was a question of choosing the good, and I do not see why I should place any greater confidence in them in other matters. (AT 7: 39, CSM 2: 27) In the Sixth Meditation, Descartes delimits the conception of a material object inasmuch as he clearly and distinctly perceives each element of the conception, and he applies the nondeceptive-God argument only with respect to his tendency to believe in the existence of a material object so construed. Descartes’s conception of material objects explicitly does not show that material objects are colored and so forth. What “nature” can teach about minds and bodies Descartes continues the meditation by considering ideas of those properties

The world restored 245 of material objects which are not clear and distinct. He begins his discussion by asking two questions simultaneously: What of the other aspects of corporeal things which are either particular (for example that the sun is of such and such a size or shape), or less clearly understood, such as light or sound or pain, and so on? (AT 7: 80, CSM 2: 55) One question concerns the status of singular judgments; the other concerns properties of objects that are not clearly and distinctly perceived. The former question suggests something about the limits of the nondeceiver argument. Human beings not only assume the existence of material objects in general, they assume the existence of particular (individual) material objects. Were one to assume that the latter was Descartes’s concern in the previous paragraph, his complex question suggests otherwise. Here he takes the status of judgments regarding individual objects as central. This suggests that he was concentrating on more general, that is, simpler, properties in the previous paragraph. If this is the case, then the nondeceptive-God argument only demonstrates the existence of objects to which geometrical properties apply; from one’s belief in the existence of one’s own body and from one’s geometrical construal of that presumptive body, the nondeceptive-God argument does not entail that one’s own individual body must exist on pain of making God a deceiver. Nor should this be surprising. Remember, the second rule of method in the Discourse requires that one concern oneself with simplest things, that is, general properties, before concerning oneself with complex things, that is, things composed of assorted kinds of properties (AT 6: 18, CSM 2: 120). Thus, in the previous paragraph, Descartes may be taken to prove nothing more than that things exist to which the principles of geometry apply on pain of making God a deceiver; he should not be taken to have proven the existence of any particular object. Particular objects are existentionally determinate; the geometric properties of objects qua geometric properties are merely determinable. Methodologically, Descartes should concern himself first with establishing that there is a domain of existents to which the laws of geometry apply and only then turn to a more detailed description of specific individuals within that domain.5 In the remainder of the paragraph, Descartes examines those aspects of material objects which escape mathematical description. He puts it this way: Despite the high degree of doubt and uncertainty involved here, the

246 Descartes’s Meditations very fact that God is not a deceiver, and the consequent impossibility of there being any falsity in my opinions which cannot be corrected by some other faculty supplied by God, offers me a sure hope that I can attain the truth even in these matters. Indeed, there is no doubt that everything that I am taught by nature contains some truth. For if nature is considered in its general aspect, then I understand by the term nothing other than God himself, or the ordered system of created things established by God. And by my own nature in particular I understand nothing other than the totality of things bestowed on me by God. (AT 7: 80, CSM 2: 55–6) Here Descartes sets the stage for the argument for the existence of individual material objects. He claims that if I hold an opinion for which God has given me no faculty by which I can show the opinion is false, then the opinion must be true on pain of making God a deceiver. Once again, he broadens the scope of the God-is-not-a-deceiver argument. Here Descartes is not concerned with ideas clearly and distinctly perceived. The expansion of the criterion and his remark that “everything I am taught by nature contains some truth” lays the groundwork for claiming that one’s spontaneous impulse to believe that individual material objects exist has some warrant (cf. AT 7: 38, CSM 2: 26–7; see also AT 2: 599, CSM 3: 140). Although the identification of God and nature in his justificatory remark, “nature is . . . nothing other than God himself, or the ordered system of created things established by God,” appears curious, when one considers it in conjunction with the paragraph’s last sentence, one might reasonably construe the identification as the claim that all things depend on God. Since Descartes claims that we can know that material objects exist on pain of making God a deceiver, he can now lend some credence to those spontaneous natural impulses that yield beliefs, the kind of impulses to which he contrasted knowledge by the natural light in Meditation Three (AT 7: 38–9, CSM 2: 26–7). In the next three paragraphs Descartes tells us some of the things nature teaches. This is followed by a paragraph in which he, once again, warns us of the limits of natural education. First, nature teaches us that we have a body and that we know various states of that body. He writes: There is nothing that my own nature teaches me more vividly than that I have a body, and that when I feel pain there is something wrong with

The world restored 247 the body, and that when I am hungry or thirsty the body needs food and drink, and so on. So I should not doubt that there is some truth in this. (AT 7: 80, CSM 2: 56) There is a lot going on here, and not everything that Descartes mentions is equally certain. Nature teaches me that I have a body, that is, since I have a natural tendency to believe that I have a body, and since God is not a deceiver and I have no faculty that shows that my belief is false, the belief that I have a body must be true. How is this “taught”? Is it merely a spontaneous belief, or is it something else? This is not clear. What one clearly knows, however, is that one is taught not only that a body exists but that a correlation exists between certain bodily states and certain mental states. This knowledge suggests that nature teaches one that a body exists through certain types of sense perception, particularly the sensations of pain or discomfort. Assume that one knows by the natural light that every event, including sensations, has a cause (cf. P 1: 49). If one seeks the cause of a certain repeated sensation of pain, one might notice that each sensation of pain is correlated with an appearance of a pin being jabbed into what appears to be a hand. One might notice, further, that this hand is perceived from a certain perspective: one perceives various parts of a body into which the pin is jabbed when one feels pain. This paragraph shows not only that one’s body exists, but that one has perceptual knowledge of some states of that body. Nature also teaches that one’s mind and body are closely, indeed intimately, united (AT 7: 81, CSM 2: 56). When one injures one’s foot, one does not merely notice it as one might notice an injury to some other body, rather one senses pain. One is more directly aware of the states of one’s body than one is aware of the states of other objects. One’s knowledge is sensitive, not intellectual. While sensations of hunger and thirst are correlated with states of the body, these sensations are confused modes of thinking: one does not know what states are represented by such sensations, only that a certain kind of state is represented. As Descartes tells Elizabeth, “[i] t is the ordinary course of life and conversation, the abstention from meditation and from study of things which exercise the imagination, that teaches us how to conceive of the union of the soul and the body” (AT 3: 692, CSM 3: 227). What does this mean? As we have shown in Chapter Three, Descartes asserted the existence of a primitive notion of the union of mind and body, as well as primitive notions of body as extended and mind as thinking (AT 3:

248 Descartes’s Meditations 665, 691; CSM 3: 218, 226), and that there are natural laws that join mind and body. But one comes to know the union of mind and body by experience. Presumably this includes the discovery that the pain of hunger can be alleviated by eating. Notice that, one, Descartes here concerns himself with the gross relationships between states of mind and presumptive states of the body, rather than the more precise correlation between states of the mind and states of the pineal gland, and two, all this is known by experience. Finally, nature teaches that bodies exist which are distinct from and in the vicinity of the meditator’s own body (AT 7: 81, CSM 2: 56). Descartes appears to offer a nearly blanket warrant of experience. One perceives bodies that are distinct from one’s own. One notices correlations between states of those bodies and states of one’s own mind-body complex. Except when there are empirical or theoretical reasons for calling one’s sensible observations into question, one is warranted in one’s use of experience. Descartes has not retreated to the naive empiricism found at the outset of Meditation One, but he does offer a cautious or informed empiricism. He reminds us that we ought not be hasty in our empirical judgments. He gives a partial list of unwarranted judgments: There are, however, many other things which I may appear to have been taught by nature, but which in reality I acquired not from nature but from a habit of making ill-considered judgements; and it is therefore quite possible that these are false. Cases in point are the belief that any space in which nothing is occurring to stimulate my senses must be empty; or that the heat in a body is something exactly resembling the idea of heat which is in me; or that when a body is white or green, the selfsame whiteness or greenness which I perceive through my senses is present in the body; or that in a body which is bitter or sweet there is the selfsame taste which I experience, and so on; or, finally, that stars and towers and other distant bodies have the same size and shape which they present to my senses, and other examples of this kind. (AT 7: 82, CSM 2: 56–7) What theoretical limits is Descartes imposing on judgments from sense perception? No guaranteed correspondence exists between each element of empirical experience and material reality. As he later stresses in his physics, no vacuum exists (P II: 16; See also AT 11: 16–23, CSM 1: 85–8): apparent emptiness does not correspond to actual emptiness. One still constrains one’s judgment by considerations of clarity and distinctness: insofar as

The world restored 249 one’s ideas of color, aroma, savor, and sound are not clear and distinct, one has no warrant to conclude that any similarities exist between those sensory ideas and states of the material objects to which they supposedly correspond. Furthermore, one must balance experience with experience: one must use the enhanced principle of acquaintance (EPA). If one discovers conflicting evidence regarding the shape or size of an object, one should withhold judgment until one can place the evidence within a general framework that will resolve the conflicting appearances by providing a basis for judging which appearance (hypothesis) is most probably true. For example, one should base one’s judgment of the size or shape of a star on the best available (scientific) evidence. Descartes held that what one knows on the basis of the mind–body union is quite limited. The mind produces judgments, including those regarding the nature and existence of the material world (AT 7: 82–3, CSM 2: 57). The information one obtains from the mind-body union is purely pragmatic: it allows one to come to know the needs of the body and the kinds of things to seek or avoid if one is to retain a healthy body; it provides only very obscure information regarding the nature of the body (AT 7: 83, CSM 2: 57–8). Human error and divine non-deception revisited At this point Descartes returns to the problem of human error. While the issue in the Fourth Meditation was the exoneration of God from charges of deception based on the fact that people occasionally err, the issue here centers on the explanation of errors arising from the union of mind and body. Descartes entertains cases of desiring that which is unhealthful, whether that desire is for the relish of a sumptuous meal which, unbeknownst to the eater, is laced with poison (AT 7: 83–4, CSM 2: 58), or the desire for water by a person who is suffering from dropsy (AT 7: 84–5, CSM 2: 58–9 passim), or a case of a phantom pain (AT 7: 86–8, CSM 2: 60–1). Given that the senses provide “only very obscure information” regarding the body (AT 7: 83, CSM 2: 58), Cartesian principles suggest that errors should be expected. The discussion focuses on the mechanisms operative in the body and the connections between mind and body. Descartes holds that bodies are complex machines. As complex machines, they operate in accordance with the laws of mechanics. He explains what

250 Descartes’s Meditations happens in the case of illness on the basis of an analogy to a clock (AT 7: 84–5, CSM 2: 58–9). Human bodies are like clocks: both function in accordance with natural laws, and this fact obtains whether the body or clock functions well or poorly. Just as one can explain why a clock fails to keep time on the basis of laws of nature, similar laws will explain why one might be deceived into desiring water when consuming water would prove harmful. To suggest that a malfunctioning clock or an unhealthy body is operating “unnaturally” is to introduce the myth of substantial forms or final causes: such presumptive purposes provide one with no understanding of the nature of the kind of body in question.6 Descartes makes other observations on the relationship of mind and body. First, body is divisible; mind is indivisible. An injury to one’s body has no concomitant effect on one’s mind (AT 7: 86, CSM 2: 59). Second, the mind is not intimately related to the whole of a body, but only to a part of the brain, the seat of the common sense (the pineal gland) (AT 7: 86, CSM 2: 59– 60). Since the mind is lawfully related to only a small part of the brain, the lawful relation between mind and body can obtain – the law that if the pineal gland is in state Sb then the mind is in state Sm can obtain – even if not all the states that normally result in state Sb obtain. Descartes’s extended example is the case of a phantom pain. If a person has a foot amputated, the nerve that had led to the foot might be stimulated, which results in a state of the pineal gland Sb and the corresponding mental state Sm. The amputee might come to believe that a tack has been inserted into his or her foot, although such a deception should be short-lived. Once the amputee realizes that his or her foot has been removed, he or she realizes that the causal chain cannot begin in his or her foot. There is a balancing of experience with experience in seeking a coherent explanation of the phenomenon: one appeals to EPA. Thus, the explanation of the phantom pain or a state of illness occurs on the bodily side, and it does not speak against the goodness of God (AT 7: 88–9, CSM 2: 61). When the amputee misjudges that he or she has a pain in an amputated foot or when the dropsical individual suffers thirst, God is not guilty of deception since the system of mind-body laws is generally beneficial to humans. When the body is diseased, the sensory “mistakes” result from altered states of the body. The natural laws relating states of the pineal gland with states of the mind remain intact. The erroneous judgment one might make regarding the states of the body by means of states of the mind stems from insufficient empirical information. Were one able to diagnose that one is suffering from dropsy, one would not take the sensation of thirst as a sufficient ground for believing that one’s body needed liquid. One

The world restored 251 balances experience with experience to provide a basis for a sound judgment. Here, unlike the case of clear and distinct perception, one has a faculty that will allow one to provide grounds for claiming that one’s “natural belief” – that one’s body needs liquid, that there is a tack in one’s foot, that the poisoned food is healthful – is false. Once again, Descartes’s God avoids charges of deception. Experiential coherence not only allows Descartes to defend God, but also yields a criterion that allows one to distinguish waking from dreaming states (AT 7: 89–90, CSM 2: 62). Conclusions So what has happened in the Sixth Meditation? Descartes has replied to the first specific doubt in the deceptive-God argument, namely, How do I know that he [God] has not brought it about that there is no earth, no sky, no extended thing, no shape, no size, no place, while at the same time ensuring that all these appear to me just as they do now? (AT 2: 21, CSM 2: 14) He broadens his contention that God is not a deceiver. Just as he argued that clear and distinct ideas must be (formally) true because we are psychologically disposed to believe that they are true and we have no faculty to discern their falsehood, we similarly have an innate disposition to believe in the existence of the material realm and no faculty to show that that general belief is false. Yet, we do have faculties which allow us to show that some of our beliefs about the nature and existence of some bodies is false. In the process of developing the argument for the existence of bodies, Descartes supplants the Aristotelian definition of ‘man’ as a rational animal with that of a combination of mind and body, each of which is substantial. And he reintroduces an empiricist principle, although the principle is far less naive than that with which he began the First Meditation. It is an empiricist principle which is subordinate to reason, a principle that brings empirical data before the tribunal of reason to judge and explain the relationships among its multiple bits of data. Through the enhanced principle of acquaintance first found in the fourth paragraph of the First Meditation, one discovers an empiricism that can help set out the problems for Cartesian science.

10

Circles

If we have correctly accounted for the Cartesian method in the first three chapters and have shown how it functions with respect to the Meditations in the last six chapters, then our work should shed light on classical problems of interpreting Cartesian texts. In Chapter Three we argued that Cartesian causes are formal, and that the mind-body connection reflects nothing more nor less than a lawful correlation. Insofar as that connection is only a lawful correlation, the differences between mental and physical substances pose no special problems. While we believe that we have provided a fresh look at the problem of interpreting Cartesian mind-body relations, anyone who offers an account of the Cartesian method as it applies to his metaphysics should offer some insight into what has come to be called “the Cartesian Circle.” To meet this responsibility, we put our account to the test in this chapter. We argue that our interpretation of the Meditations by way of the method exonerates Descartes from the charge of circular reasoning raised by his contemporary critics, although the exoneration comes at a price.1 One finds charges of circular reasoning at several points in the Objections. As early as the Second Set of Objections, there are anticipations of the Cartesian Circle. There we find this: Thirdly, [in the Second Meditation] you are not yet certain of the existence of God, and you say that you are not certain of anything, and cannot know anything clearly and distinctly until you have achieved knowledge of the existence of God. It follows from this that you do not yet clearly and distinctly know that you are a thinking thing, since, on your own admission, that knowledge depends on the clear knowledge of an existing God; and this you have not yet proved in the passage where you draw the conclusion that you clearly know what you are. (AT 7: 124–5, CSM 2: 89)

Circles 253 If Descartes held that one can know the truth of ideas clearly and distinctly perceived only once he has proven that God is not a deceiver, then his claim in the Second Meditation that he knows that he is a thing that thinks is unwarranted. A justified claim of knowledge that p requires that p is true. But clear and distinct ideas are not proven to be true until Meditation Four. Thus, in Meditation Two he assumes a criterion of truth that he only later proves. While this might not properly be a circular argument, it at least begs the question of the truth of clear and distinct ideas. Such is the objection. Descartes replies that the “awareness of first principles is not normally called ‘knowledge’ by dialectitians” (AT 7: 140, CSM 2: 100). While this appeal to common practice is hardly adequate, our account of the method shows why the objection lacks force. In acknowledging the distinction between material and formal truth, Descartes has the basis for claiming that clear and distinct ideas are known to be materially true prior to the nondeceptive-God arguments: the natural light recognizes only material truth (possibility). This recognition does not entail the formal truth of his idea; it only reveals the consistency of his idea of himself as a thinking thing, and thus, the idea of a possible essence. If our account of Descartes’s search for a foundational epistemic principle is correct, that search culminates in the natural light. If so, then he has methodological warrant to claim that the idea of himself as a thinking thing is true, but only materially true. Thus, the force of the objection rests on an equivocation on “truth”, and once the distinction between material and formal truth is acknowledged, the objection loses its force. The classic version of the Cartesian Circle is found in Arnauld’s objections. Arnauld wrote: I have one further worry, namely how the author avoids reasoning in a circle when he says that we are sure that what we clearly and distinctly perceive is true only because God exists. But we can be sure that God exists only because we clearly and distinctly perceive this. Hence, before we can be sure that God exists, we ought to be able to be sure that whatever we perceive clearly and distinctly is true. (AT 7: 214, CSM 2: 150) Call this the Arnauld Circle. Put simply, it asserts that since God exists, it follows that clear and distinct ideas are true. And since clear and distinct ideas are true, it follows that God exists. There is no question that the Meditations exemplify this pattern of

254 Descartes’s Meditations argumentation. In Meditation Three Descartes shows that God exists. In Meditation Four he shows that, since God exists and is not a deceiver, clear and distinct ideas are formally true. And given the formal truth of clear and distinct ideas in general, and the idea of God as a perfect being in particular, he argues in Meditation Five that God exists. But this, as such, does not constitute circular argumentation. The Arnauld Circle becomes problematic only if the arguments in the Third Meditation assume the formal truth of clear and distinct ideas and the notion of formal truth plays a pivotal role in the arguments for the existence of God. Such an argument would take the following form: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

The idea of God is clear and distinct. All clear and distinct ideas are formally true. Therefore the idea of God is formally true. Formal truths possess existential import. Therefore, God exists.

Given this argument, the Arnauld Circle would be generated by the following argument in Meditation Four: 6. 7. 8.

If clear and distinct ideas were not formally true, then God would be a deceiver. God exists and is not a deceiver. Therefore, clear and distinct ideas are formally true.

We grant that the second argument is found in Meditation Four. We deny that the first argument is found in Meditation Three. If our account of the method is correct, charges of an Arnauld Circle are curious. In examining the arguments for the existence of God in Meditation Three, we noticed that the proofs of God’s existence depend on the claim that one has a clear and distinct idea of God only insofar as the idea must be sufficiently clear to distinguish the idea of God from the idea of other actual or possible things.2 Descartes raises no concerns regarding the material or formal truth of the idea within the arguments themselves. This is not to say no concern exists with respect to clear and distinct ideas; far from it. As we argued, in the course of the Meditation Descartes clarifies the idea of God from that of a being with many omni-attributes to that of a supremely perfect being (AT 7: 45–6, CSM 2: 31). It is true that part of this clarification occurs in the course of refuting the possibility that the idea of God is materially

Circles 255 false, and therefore cannot represent a real essence (AT 7: 45, CSM 2: 31). Nevertheless, substantive questions of clarity and distinctness do not arise as such within the context of either argument. Furthermore, the objection is reasonable only if one assumes, first, that in claiming an idea is clear and distinct Descartes is concerned unequivocally with formal truth and, second, that there are no degrees of clarity and distinctness. As we have argued throughout this book, the primary mode of truth which pertains to clear and distinct ideas is material truth. Material truth pertains to possibility. In claiming that all clear and distinct ideas are materially true in Meditation Three, Descartes commits himself to nothing more than that a clear and distinct idea is the idea of a possible essence. Further, as we argued in Chapter Six, ideas possess clarity and distinctness to varying degrees: only the idea of God as a perfect being is “utterly clear and distinct” (AT 7: 45, CSM 2: 31).3 This concern with degrees of clarity and distinctness complies with degrees of possibility. Consistent with that, one can claim that there are degrees of material truth, while in the case of formal truths – particularly existential claims – it is incoherent to say that some propositions are “truer” than others. Given this distinction, Descartes can well use the notion of material truth in the cosmological arguments for the existence of God in Meditation Three. On the same basis, he can argue in Meditation Four that the nondeceptiveGod thesis commits one to the claim that clear and distinct ideas represent “true and immutable natures,” that they are formally true in that they represent actual essences of things that possibly exist (ideas in the mind of God). So, while the clear and distinct ideas of Meditation Three are true, they are only materially true. As such, they show nothing more than the possible existence of a thing of a kind. If only material truth remains operative in Meditation Three, the proofs of divine existence there avoid concerns about the formal truth of ideas of God, the mode of truth that follows from the nondeceptiveGod thesis. Thus, Descartes does not trap himself in the Arnauld Circle. Unfortunately, Descartes’s avoidance of the Arnauld Circle rests, in part, on a philosophical mistake. In the second argument for the existence of God in Meditation Three, Descartes argues that God is the efficient cause of himself. As we noted in Chapter Three, Arnauld argues at length that the notion of a thing being an efficient cause of itself is incoherent (see AT 7: 207–13, CSM 2: 146–50). He concludes: The author says that the light of nature establishes that if anything exists we may always ask why it exists – that is, we may inquire into its

256 Descartes’s Meditations efficient cause, or if it does not have one, we may demand why it does not have one. To this I answer that if someone asks why God exists, we should not answer in terms of an efficient cause, but should explain that he exists simply because he is God, or an infinite being. And if someone asks for an efficient cause of God, we should reply that he does not need an efficient cause. And if the questioner goes on to ask why he does not need an efficient cause, we should answer that this is because he is an infinite being, whose existence is his essence. For the only things that require an efficient cause are those in which actual existence may be distinguished from essence. (AT 7: 213, CSM 2: 149–50) When discussing Arnauld’s objections to the second argument for the existence of God in Chapter Three, we concluded that Arnauld was correct. As Descartes himself acknowledges in his reply: To give a proper reply to this, I think it is necessary to show that, in between ‘efficient cause’ in the strict sense and ‘no cause at all’, there is a third possibility, namely ‘the positive essence of a thing’, to which the concept of an efficient cause can be extended. (AT 7: 239, CSM 2: 167) If the meaning of ‘efficient cause’ when applied to God’s self-causation is distinct and different from the meaning of ‘efficient cause’ when applied to causal relations among finite beings, then Descartes’s argument falls on the grounds of an equivocation on ‘efficient cause.’ Descartes goes on, however, and offers a partial reconciliation. He writes: But to reconcile our two positions, the answer to the question why God exists should be given not in terms of an efficient cause in the strict sense, but simply in terms of the essence or formal cause of the thing. And precisely because in the case of God there is no distinction between existence and essence, the formal cause will be strongly analogous to an efficient cause, and hence can be called something close to an efficient cause. (AT 7: 243, CSM 2: 170) Let us ignore Descartes’s attempt to conflate the notions of efficient and formal causation in the case of God’s causal activity and focus on the

Circles 257 reconciliation. If Descartes allows that, strictly speaking, the causal regress in the second proof is stopped by an appeal to a formal cause, he has stepped directly into Arnauld’s Circle. Why? If he claimed that the idea of God is clear and distinct but only materially true, this will not stop the regress. On the one hand, a clear and distinct idea as materially true is only an idea of the possible essence of a possible thing. Claims of material truth, by themselves, entail no existential propositions. On the other hand, if a clear and distinct idea of God is formally true, then it is an idea of an actual essence of a possible thing. Since God’s essence entails existence, the causal regress is stopped. In the Third Meditation, however, Descartes has provided no grounds for claiming that clear and distinct ideas are formally true: that they are ideas of actual, rather than possible, essences. If his second argument had successfully proven that God qua supremely perfect being exists – and therefore that God’s essence is actual – it might be plausible to examine that essence, draw the conclusion that God is not a deceiver, and conclude that clear and distinct ideas are formally (not only materially) true. But in allowing that “the answer to the question why God exists should be given . . . in terms of the essence or formal cause of the thing,” Descartes attends to the actual essence of God, to the formal truth of the idea of God. And in so doing, Descartes becomes ensnared in Arnauld’s Circle. Thus, Descartes’s argument in the Meditations ultimately fails, since the second proof of the existence of God either equivocates on ‘efficient cause’ or assumes that the idea of God as a perfect being is formally true at a point when he is warranted only in claiming that it is materially true. Nonetheless, if our study has been successful, it shows that Descartes’s Meditations are structured in accordance with the method of analysis. This method helps guide one’s search for eternal truths, whether those truths be causal (explanatory) principles or essential truths. The natural light recognizes them as materially true. They are shown to be formally true to the extent that they explain the phenomenon in question. This is a double method of coherence, a method with roots in both the analysis of the ancient geometers and the Aristotelian tradition. Throughout the Meditations, Descartes conducts an upward search for principles followed by a downward explanation based on those principles. One should not be surprised to discover that the Meditations as a whole follows this structure. Descartes works upward to the principle that God exists and is not a deceiver, and downward, showing that the nondeceptive-God thesis has broader implications than initially are acknowledged. If our account is correct, the distinction between material and formal truth is central to an understanding of the main arguments in the Meditations.

Notes

Introduction 1.

2.

Our naiveté extends to other topics as well. The dissimulation thesis holds that the Descartes of the Meditations was insincere with respect to many aspects of his metaphysics, particularly with respect to questions concerning God (Caton 1973, Loeb 1986, 1988, Softer 1987). We do not explicitly discuss that issue; however, if our project is successful, it will falsify the dissimulation thesis. Evert van Leeuwen argues that there are few substantial changes in the Carte sian method in the Regulae vis-à-vis the Discourse, while granting a change in the nature of the presentation of the method (Leeuwen 1993). Both Daniel Garber and Stephen Gaukroger distinguish between the early method and the mature method (see Garber 1992: 30–62, and Gaukroger 1992: 585–602). Eric Palmer contends that while many of the differences are merely cosmetic, a distinction should be drawn between his pre-1629 and post-1629 works. After 1629 Descartes concerns himself with foundational issues and employs the method of doubt; before 1629 he writes with little, if any, attention to founda tional issues and never employs doubt in anything but a fragmentary fashion (Palmer 1997: 26–30).

Part I Descartes’s method 1 Analysis: the search for laws 1. 2.

3. 4. 5.

In this we follow Gerd Buchdahl 1988: 135. As we show in Chapter Four, the “method of doubt” is a propaedeutic to metaphysical analysis, but it is not an element of the method of analysis as such: it is only in his metaphysical writings that Descartes introduces doubt. As Stephen Gaukroger notes, in geometrical analysis Descartes’s “algebra is the only thing that constrains what is possible” (Gaukroger 1989: 84). In this regard, one might characterize Descartes’s procedure by the Peircean term “abduction.” See Peirce 1955; cf. Hanson 1958: 85ff. The difference between the use of “supposition” and “hypothesis” is the differ ence between French and Latin. Compare the French and Latin versions of the Discourse (AT 6:76 and AT 6: 582).

Notes to Chapter One 259 6. Some will claim that in alluding to Descartes’s Aristotelian predecessors we are blurring the distinction between geometrical and Aristotelian analysis (see Hintikka 1978: 78–9). We grant this. What we shall see, however, is that some of the remarks of Descartes’s Aristotelian predecessors anticipate almost to the word Descartes’s remarks in Discourse, Part Six. So while granting the distinction between geometrical and Aristotelian analysis, we are inclined to believe, with Hintikka, that Descartes himself blurred the distinction. 7. It should not be surprising that Descartes recognized such a distinction. It is not far removed from Aristotle’s distinction between “prior and more known without qualification.” See Posterior Analytics 1.2, 72a1–5 in Aristotle 1941: 112. 8. John Herman Randall notes that this double method was known quite widely in the fifteenth century (Randall 1968: 234). Other philosophers who defended this method were Cajetan of Thiene (1465) and Nifo Agostino (1506). 9. Notice that in the Regulae Descartes indicates that any problem at hand must be delineated. He writes: In every problem, of course, there has to be something unknown – otherwise the inquiry would be pointless. Nevertheless, this unknown something must be delineated by definite conditions which point us decidedly in one direction of inquiry rather than another. These conditions should, in our view, be gone into from the very outset. (AT 10: 434–5, CSM 1: 54)

10. 11. 12.

13.

It is by looking for the cause of a given phenomenon – by subsuming the phenomenon under the eternal truth that “Nothing comes from nothing” – that one sets the problem, that one focuses the mind on an entity or principle to be found. To follow Russell’s distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description (Russell 1912: 4–59), to know the phenomenon sought at the second level in the order of consideration is to know that phenomenon by description. George Gale (1979: 227–30) has some interesting remarks on the politics of theory acceptance. For an extensive discussion of arguments to the best explanation, see Lipton 1991. We know of only one place where Descartes uses the expression “materially true” (AT 7: 151, CSM 2: 107), and that discussion sheds little light on the meaning of the expression. Nonetheless, since Descartes claims that some ideas are not materially false, we consider it reasonable to use the expression “material truth.” (Cf. Wilson 1978: 105–19, especially page 113, and Frankfurt 1970: 129.) Though Norman Wells uses different terminology in his 1984 article on material falsity, we roughly follow the account found there. Where he uses “true or false object,” we tend to use “formal truth or falsity.” Like us, he believes that the material falsity of an idea may provide the basis for a formalfalsehood, but in itself the materially false idea does not involve mistaking an object of one kind for an object of another kind. As Wells puts it:

260 Notes to Chapter One Descartes’ position, however, is obviously not restricted to the pre-judgmental level nor does it have to do with ideas as formally representative of the truth and falsity of objects such that a materially false idea misapprehends and misrepresents its object by representing another object. Descartes insists that his discussion of material falsity must be understood on the plane of idea taken materially, as an intellectual operation in which the truth and falsity of objects are not at issue. Therefore, there is no basis for any misrepresentation or misapprehension. There is, however, ground for misjudgment, not because of any reputed misapprehension or misrepresentation on a pre judgmental level. (Wells 1984: 46, author’s emphasis) He also seems to agree with us that the material falsity of an idea will be located in its confusedness or obscurity, as when he writes of Descartes’s distrust of sensory ideas: Contrary to our cognitive status in the presence of the clear and distinct ideas of God and the triangle, revealing a genuine res on the metaphysical and mathematical planes of intelligibility, when we are in the presence of sensory ideas, we are confronted with the less than clear and distinct and rather beclouded intelligibility of the physical world and the bodies in it. The sensory ideas of light, colors, sounds, odors, flavors, heat and cold, etc., are so confused and obscure that one does not know, on this pre-judgmental level of intellectual knowing, whether these ideas represent a true object or a false object in the fashion in which ideas, formally taken, inevitably do. Descartes is obviously struck by the failure of these ideas truly to represent and to represent truly a res, a true object, or a non res, a false object. Due to this failure to represent, in any adequate fashion, an object either true or false, Descartes considers it appropriate to acknowledge a pre-judgmental material falsity on this level of sensory ideas, and one which is not to be confounded with the formal falsity or judgments. (Wells 1984: 35–7, author’s emphasis) Though he might agree with our reading of “material falsity,” nowhere does he join us in suggesting that Descartes has an implicit notion of material truth. Wells might believe that another difference exists between our treatment of the “objective reality of ideas” and his treatment thereof. He writes: “Idea”, then, in traditional Cartesian fashion, designated the act of representing as well as the “thing represented.” Yet, for all this, and despite repeated expressions of the same doctrine, there is a persistent tendency in the history of Cartesianism and its scholarship to interpret “idea” taken “objectively” as in some way representative. Contrary to what I take to be Descartes’s constant position, such a rendering unwittingly transfers that function which is proper to the cognitive activity, the function of representing, to the thing known and represented by that activity. In all this, a significant villain of the piece would appear to be a misinterpretation of

Notes to Chapter One 261 Descartes’s use of the term imago to characterize some of our “knowing activities” (cogitationes). For he has indicated that certain cogitationes are “images [or ‘representations’] of things” (imagines rerum) to which alone the term “idea” properly belongs. (Wells 1990: 34–5) At least with to respect eternal truths, we seem to follow that “persistent tendency” of Cartesian scholarship to understand “‘idea’ taken ‘objectively’ as in some way representative.” If an eternal truth is the material truth of a true and immutable nature, then even Wells would be hardpressed to criticize scholars when they extended the representational function beyond that cognitive activity which produces an idea which is materially true (an idea that is not materially false in any way). If eternal truths are material truths, there is nothing obnoxious about admitting that our idea of a triangle, taken objectively, represents a true and immutable nature. One might wonder whether true and immutable natures are objects in the requisite sense or not. In fact, Wells seems to believe that they are: not only the idea of God taken “objectively”, but the idea of the triangle, taken “objectively” as well, however intramental they may be, must be seen as independent of the mind. . . . The “things represented,” then, in the case of ideas of God and the triangle, however intramental they may be, are independent of the representing activity of the human mind. (Wells 1990: 46–7)

14

As for our ideas of objects of experience, this would be another matter and we would tend to agree with Wells. However, we will find in Chapter Two that the conceptual clarification of any of our sensory ideas will always end in a concept which is more like that of a true and immutable nature than a sensory idea. Our clearest ideas of material objects will be those that have been whittled down to a compound idea composed only of ideas of extension and motion. For example, take Descartes’s examination of the piece of wax in Meditation Two. Ultimately, Descartes would express the idea of the wax in terms of an idea which is a compound of mathematical ideas of true and immutable natures. When one engages in conceptual clarification, one attempts to eliminate from a compound sensory idea all of those elements that might contain a material falsity. Under our interpretation of a Cartesian clarification of a sensory idea of an object, one would make no reference to the object as such, and thus one would not necessarily take the idea before or after clarification as representative of the object. That representation would be made whenever one asserts of the clarified idea that it represents something in extramental reality, that is, one makes a judgment. Thus, we believe that we remain in agreement with Wells on the non-representational nature of “ideas taken objectively.” While the clarity and distinctness (material truth) of an idea are necessary conditions for a judgment of the formal truth or falsity, they are not sufficient conditions. The clarity and distinctness of an idea shows only that the object so

262 Notes to Chapter One

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

conceived could exist. They do not show that the object so conceived actually exists (AT 7: 151, CSM 2: 107). We discuss the sufficient conditions below. If one feels uncomfortable with the suggestion that there might not be triangles, while one maintains that the idea of a triangle is materially true, consider the case of a thousand- or a million-sided plane figure. In both of these cases, one knows what the thing is and what is demonstrably true of a thing of that kind. One would not claim that the material truth of either idea shows that the idea is formally true, because one is not inclined to assert that a thousand- or a million-sided object exists. One may wonder why we say that eternal truths are only material truths, when only ideas are materially true (or false). This seeming incongruity can be ex plained in two ways. First, Descartes classifies his thoughts into three different kinds in the Third Meditation (AT 7: 36–7, CSM 2: 25–6): ideas in the strictly appropriate sense (e.g. God, the sky, a man); volitions (e.g. desiring, willing, fearing); and judgments (e.g. denying and affirming). Given that Descartes con siders the first category of thought as ideas in the strict sense, then by implica tion the other two categories of thought are ideas in a much more general sense. This general sense of “idea” can be anything that is “in the mind,” and certainly eternal truths or common notions can only be found “in the mind.” Second, Descartes treats eternal truths or common notions as having “no exist ence outside our thought” (P 1: 48: AT 8A: 22, CSM 1: 208). If we take him at his word, then eternal truths are not formal truths. Formal truths concern extramental reality. Since the formal/material distinction is exhaustive of all truths, the only category of truth that eternal truths or common notions can fall under is material truth. Even though Descartes does not allow that our ideas of hunger, thirst, pain and other physical sensations are clear and distinct (see P 1: 45, 46), had he done so, one would not be permitted to judge that those ideas represented real physical states. One of the few uses of “intuition” outside the Regulae is in the Second Replies (AT 7: 140, CSM 2: 100). See also the letter to Silhon, May 1637 (AT 1: 353, CSM 3: 55); letter to Plempius for Fromondus, 3 October 1637 (AT 1: 415, CSM 3: 62); and the letter to Silhon, March or April 1648 (AT 5: 136–9, CSM 3: 330–2). Given the distinction between material and formal truth, we cannot agree with Desmond Clarke that “An intuitus is not a judgment (X, 420), and hence has no truth-value (X, 432)” (Clarke 1982: 58). None the less, to claim that intuition provides only material truth does not guarantee that it provides knowledge of fact. Gaukroger will take exception to our suggestion that, throughout his works, Descartes takes the natural light to provide evidence for the truth of a proposi tion. He argues that in the later works this is no longer the case. He writes: Secondly, the criterion by which we recognize truths is said to be the “light of nature”, although the Discourse has made it clear that this light of nature, which takes the form of grasping things clearly and distinctly, is no longer

Notes to Chapter One 263 self-legitimating, as I’ve argued it was earlier, but now requires a divine legitimation, because of hyperbolic doubt. (Gaukroger 1995: 327; see also p. 317)

20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25.

26.

Taken at face value, Gaukroger’s claim seems false, since even in the Principles Descartes claims that eternal truths are immediately recognized as true by the natural light (P 1: 48) and the causal maxim in Meditation Three gains its epistemic warrant on the ground of the natural light (AT 7: 40, CSM 2: 28). Nonetheless – and this is Gaukroger’s point – there is some kind of “divine guarantee” of the truth of clear and distinct ideas to which Descartes alludes in Meditation Four, and before that point, Gaukroger claims, the truth of clear and distinct ideas cannot be known. For Gaukroger’s claim to be plausible, one must assume that all truth is of a single kind, namely, formal truth. If we are correct in distinguishing between material and formal truth, Gaukroger’s claim that “grasping things clearly and distinctly, is no longer self-legitimating” loses its plausibi ity. As we argued above, and as we will argue at length in Chapters Six and Seven, the claims that clear and distinct ideas are true and that propositions known by the natural light are true pertain fundamentally to materiai truth. Material truths have no existential import. We argue in Chapter Seven that one, the “divine guarantee” of clear and distinct ideas marks a shift from concerns with material truth to formal truth and two, a nondeceiving God does not (actively) guarantee the formal truth of clear and distinct ideas. Rather, one must infer that clear and distinct ideas (eternal truths) are formally true on pain of making God a deceiver. Thus, we believe Gaukroger’s claim is either false or misleading insofar as it fails to take into account the distinction between material and formal truth. As we show in examining Meditation One (Chapter Four), the purpose of sys tematic doubt is primarily to alleviate pre-philosophical biases. Compare CB§1: AT 5: 146, CSM 3: 332–3; the letter to Hyperaspistes (AT 3: 423–4, CSM 3: 189–90). Peter Markie (1992a) discusses the distinction between moral and metaphysical certainty in the context of the Cogito argument. One forms what later philosophers called a “relative idea” or “relative notion” or “relative conception,” which functions in the realm of ideas much as a definite description functions in the linguistic realm. (See Reid 1969:7–10.) Relative ideas have a very low degree of clarity and distinctness (Flage 1981; Flage 1987; Flage 1989: 152). It is by a partial specification of the problem that Descartes avoids Meno’s paradox that it is impossible to look for something until one knows what one is looking for, and once one knows what one is looking for, the search is pointless. (See Meno 80d5–e5, in Plato 1961: 363.) This is a case of using a more general model to explain the phenomena one observes, specifically, the behavior of the moving ball. For a more complete development of this position see Malebranche 1980: 40– 7; Reid 1970: 122–33. For a further development of this position see George Berkeley, New Theory of Vision (Berkeley 1948–57: vol. 1: 161–239) It is proper to suggest that Descartes’s theory is a precursor of what is now call

264 Notes to Chapter One

27. 28.

29.

30. 31. 32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

the “atomic theory,” although Descartes himself was not wont to consider all the particles “atoms,” insofar as that connoted an indivisible particle. See AT 6: 238, O 268. The third rule of the Discourse is commonly known as the rule of synthesis. See Beck 1952: 156. This, of course, is not the same sense of “simplicity” that one finds in the principle of parsimony. As we noted, Descartes’s discussions of the principle of parsimony are virtually parenthetical. None the less, we believe it is consistent with the third rule to suggest that he is implicitly concerned with parsimony as well. This would imply that he is seeking not only the general principles that will allow one to explain a phenomenon, but also the smallest number of principles that commit one to the fewest fundamentally different kinds of entities. If we are correct in suggesting that this was one of the intentions of the rule, it is no more than implicit. Should the reader disagree with us on this point, it is of little difference. Notice Descartes’s remarks on what he attempted to discover and, once discov ered, the synthetic (deductive) relationships among them at AT 6: 63–5, CSM 1: 143–4. See also Pappus (Hintikka and Remes 1974: 9) on the proof of the analysis. Descartes, of course, was far more optimistic than this. See AT 10: 389, CSM 1: 26. We consider this in greater detail in Chapter Two, since the enumeration of actual or possible elements is the first move in the clarification of an idea. Nor are we alone in making such a suggestion. Unlike Gaukroger (1989: 75), who finds Descartes’s use of inference to best explanation systematic, Flora Leibowitz and Gerd Buchdahl recognize that Descartes uses the argument form, but do not suggest that he employs it systematically. The scope of Buchdahl’s work (1963, 1988) is limited to Descartes’s scientific writings, and thus he only suggests that Descartes uses inference to best explanation in his attempts to explain physical phenomena. While noting that Buchdahl implicitly limits his remarks to explanations of physical phenomena, Leibowitz (1981: 81) remarks that the argument form also appears in metaphysical contexts. She finds that Descartes employs an inference to best explanation when he denies that animals have “thinking souls” (ibid.: 86–7). While most proponents of inference to the best explanation accept a deductivenomological model of explanation, there is nothing inherent in the model that requires this. Indeed, Peter Lipton (1991: 23–31) recently has argued that neither the reason model nor the familiarity model nor the deductive-nomological model of explanation is wholly consistent with our explanatory practices. Harmon seems to allow that one can assign initial plausibilities to one’s explana tory hypotheses. (Harmon 1965: 32–8, especially p. 325.) Such a view has been challenged (Lipton 1991: 61–6). In our discussion of the Meditations, we show that Descartes was concerned with showing that the several insights by the natural light yield consistent conclusions. As Lipton notes (1991: 58), the accounts of inference to the best explanation have not been terribly well-defined. Some proponents, notably N. R. Hanson,

Notes to Chapter One 265 have contended that one of the characteristics that make an explanation “best” is its ability to deal with the anomalies with which other explanations cannot deal. (Hanson 1958; Hanson 1971, especially pp. 65–6.) Were one to contend that the ability to account for anomalies is a mark of the “best” explanation, there is only limited evidence that Descartes’s account manifests this characteristic. The anomalous cases with which Descartes deals are in the Geometry, e.g. his analysis of conic sections in the second part of that work.

2 Analysis: the clarification of ideas 1.

2.

3.

4.

5. 6.

Martial Gueroult (1984: 16, 87) goes so far as to identify innate ideas with intellectual (nonsensible) ideas, which effectively reduces the Cartesian method to a search for innate ideas. See Flage and Bonnen 1992b. While the metaphysical issue is secondary visà-vis questions of method, we shall see that the dispositional account fits in well with questions of conceptual clarification, and it is the dispositional account that is in the background when we discuss the method of concept clarification. There is one issue vis-à-vis the dispositional account that should be broached Anthony Kenny writes: Descartes, with his disdain for the Aristotelian notion of potentiality, was unable to distinguish between the unrealized capacity to acquire knowledge and the nonexercise of knowledge already acquired. There seems no real room in his system for the concept of learning. (Kenny 1968: 103; see also Cottingham 1976: xxxii-xxxiii; Williams 1978: 134–5; but cf. Cottingham 1986: 145–6) Kenny’s suggestion that a dispositional account of innate ideas implies that Descartes was an unwitting Aristotelian is plausible only if one assumes the epistemic thesis that all innate ideas are true and potential bits of knowledge. If our argument in this section is sound, innate ideas on any metaphysical construction are epistemically neutral. This implies that, on the dispositional account, innate ideas do no more than explain how it is possible to form an idea with a particular cognitive content. As for his suggestion that “There seems no real room in his system for the concept of learning,” whatever further function the Cartesian method may have, it at least explains how learning is possible. Even those who maintain that all innate ideas have eternal truths as their objects can agree with this third assumption, since it is a weaker claim. This third assumption only commits one to the view that at least some innate ideas have eternal truths as their objects. If our discussion in Chapter One is sound, the sense of ‘truth’ in (b) must be material truth, which reduces (b) to a form of (a), but since few Descartes scholars acknowledge the distinction between material and formal truth, we virtually leave open the sense of “truth” in the following discussion. In Chapter Six we discuss how these principles flow from his method. We have argued elsewhere that factitious ideas are not properly a distinct cat

266 Notes to Chapter Two

7. 8.

9.

10.

11. 12.

13.

14.

egory of Cartesian ideas, since it is possible that a factitious idea be composed solely of innate ideas, but this issue need not concern us at the present. See Flage and Bonnen 1989 and Chapter Six of this work. We return to the explanatory value of the thesis of innate ideas below. Descartes also mentions innate ideas in the letter to Mersenne of 22 July 1641 (AT 3: 417–18, CSM 3: 187) and the letter to Clerselier of 23 April 1649 (AT 5: 354–5, CSM 3: 376–7), but neither of those remarks concerns the epistemic thesis. It is worthy of notice that Herbert of Cherbury is the only proponent of a theory of innate ideas Locke mentions by name in his polemic against innate ideas, and that, like Descartes, Locke’s attack is on the contention that any innate idea would yield “general assent.” See Locke 1975: 77, 58. See Chapters Four and Five, where we show exactly how the preparation of Meditations One and Two are attempts to place the mind in a state receptive to the natural light. This is the principal theme of Meditation Four. Were one still to object that there is no reason why a good God should create human beings with false innate ideas, Descartes has available two kinds of reply. First, as we indicated above, Descartes’s primary concern is with exonerating God from any charge of being the cause of error or deception and, as we discover in the Fourth Meditation, such deception or error occurs in the realm of judgment, not in the realm of ideas. At most, false innate ideas would provide the basis for certain false judgments. Second, if our account below is correct and innate ideas have only an explanatory function, then Descartes might argue that in creating human beings as things that might err, human beings are more perfect than they would be if they were unable to err, in the way that Augustine argued that free will makes humans more perfect than they would be without free will (see Augustine 1964: 99). Since the possibility of forming materially false ideas is a necessary condition for error, the fact that some innate ideas are false might be taken to imply that human beings are more perfect than they would be if they were lacking a basis for an erroneous judgment. Just as the doctrine of free will makes human beings responsible for their non-intellectual sins, the doctrine of free will together with the possibility that some innate ideas are false makes them responsible for their intellectual sins (errors). Should the dispositional analysis of the nature of innate ideas be false, this makes no difference. Anyone holding that innate ideas are actual full-blooded, though nonoccurrent, ideas must grant that there are situations which bring such ideas before the mind. If Descartes’s method does anything, it maximizes the occasions on which such innate ideas are brought before the mind in an orderly way. So even the nondispositionalist must grant that dispositions play a role in bringing ideas with a particular cognitive content before the conscious mind, or, if one shuns disposition-talk, that there are laws of nature which indicate that whenever a specifiable set of conditions obtain, an idea with a particular cognitive content is brought before the conscious mind. Note that Descartes calls this sensory experience an idea in the face of Hobbes’s eighth objection (AT 7: 184, CSM 2: 129–30).

Notes to Chapter Two 267 15. 16.

17. 18.

For further discussions of astronomical reasoning, see AT 7: 39, 363–4, 440, 446; CSM 2: 27, 251, 296, 300. D e s cartes distinguishes a sufficient enumeration from a complete enumeration in the Regulae: The enumeration should sometimes be complete, and sometimes distinct, though there are times when it need be neither. That is why I said only that the enumeration must be sufficient. For if I wish to determine by enumeration how many kinds of corporeal entity there are or how many are in some way perceivable by the senses, I shall not assert that there are just so many and no more, unless I have previously made sure I have included them all in my enumeration and have distinguished one from another. But if I wish to show in the same way that the rational soul is not corporeal, there is no need for the enumeration to be complete; it will be sufficient if I group all bodies together into several classes so as to demonstrate that the rational soul cannot be assigned to any of these. To give one last example, say I wish to show by enumeration that the area of a circle is greater than the area of any other geometrical figure whose perimeter is the same length as the circle’s. I need not review every geometrical figure. If I can demonstrate that this fact holds for some particular figures, I shall be entitled to conclude by induction that the same holds true in all other cases as well. (AT 10: 390, CSM 1: 26–7) The point is that the context and level of certainty that one seeks will determine whether one seeks a complete or a sufficient enumeration. Thus, an adequate enumeration will depend upon the context and the level of certainty that one seeks. See the Tenth Discourse of the Optics (AT 6: 211ff., O 162ff). Close to the end of the First Discourse of the Optics he remarks: For in the end, I venture to say, the three comparisons which I have just used are so appropriate that all the particular features which may be observed in them correspond to certain features which prove to be entirely similar in the case of light; but I have tried to explain only those which have the most bearing on my subject. (AT 6: 104, CSM 1: 163, O 83)

19.

Though this comment is made with respect to Descartes’s three models of refraction (throwing a ball at the ground, throwing a ball at a finely woven linen sheet, throwing a ball that glances off or enters a body of water) it could equally be said of the other two models of light in the Optics (the walking-stick and the wine vat). Descartes wishes to clarify his conception of light only so far as he can adequately explain the behavior of lenses and how to grind them properly. Any further clarification would be unnecessary for his purposes. Descartes lists and briefly explains the properties of light in The World (AT 11: 98–103, M 171–83). There he lists one more property than appears in the Optics, namely, that light rays of stronger intensity can affect light rays of weaker intensity. Two things should be noted about the treatment of light in The

268 Notes to Chapter Two

20.

21. 22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

World as opposed to the treatment of light in the Optics. First, The World is not written according to the analytic mode of presentation. Descartes’s interest centers on the definitions of items and their properties, and not how one arrives at those definitions and properties. Chapter Fourteen of The World does nothing more than list the properties of light. One should note that Descartes refers back to the Optics when he believes that the reader may not follow how he understands reflection and refraction (AT 11: 102, M 181). Second, since the goal of The World (correcting and enhancing our understanding of the heavens and the Earth) is more extensive than that of the Optics (explaining how to grind lenses to improve human vision), one should expect a richer notion of light in The World than in the Optics, even though the conception is actually not that much richer. One task in The World is to explain why the stars fail to appear in the sky where they really are, and this task requires a richer conception of light than any task in the Optics (AT 11: 105ff., M 189ff.). One might think that Descartes should be completely happy with using the walking-stick example to draw our attention to the fact that light moves in straight lines. But the analogy breaks down rather quickly, for Descartes believes that, unlike the walking-stick, light itself is not a substance but a mode of substance. Note that he highlights this linear aspect of light when he considers the wine-vat model, which is discussed later. This might be why Descartes reemphasizes that light is movement at AT 6: 85, CSM 1: 153. All of the properties of light that Descartes discusses in the Optics show up in Chapter Fourteen of The World. There he gives a list of twelve properties (AT 11: 98, M 173). One should also note that the hypothesis of the existence of a void would raise havoc with Descartes’s clear rejection of the void in The World (AT 11: 17–21, 34, 37; CSM 1: 85–7, 91, 93) and the Principles (P 2: 16, 18, 33; 3: 157; 4: 22, 202). During the wine-vat comparison, Descartes rejects the void without argument by remarking that “nearly all philosophers” do the same (AT 6: 86, CSM 1: 154). n rejecting the void, Descartes acquires an explanation of how action can occur at a distance. The sun can cause us to see light because light is actually the motion or action of intervening bodies. See AT 6: 103, CSM 1: 163–4; AT 6: 234, O 265; and AT 6: 331, O 336. In comprehending the wine-vat model, Descartes makes a crucial assumption about the physical world, namely, that there is no void (AT 6: 86, CSM 1: 154). Thus, when understanding the analogy between the wine vat and the world, one must understand that light cannot itself be a substance. One might think that this assumption is unfounded, but since the object of the Optics is to improve vision, Descartes certainly is allowed such an assumption. If his goal were more comprehensive, e.g. had he wished to provide a general account of matter in motion, then he would have had to justify the assumed nonexistence of a void. Though Descartes does not explicitly spell out the analogy between the liquid in the vat not moving in exactly straight lines and the movement of light not moving in exactly straight lines, it can be done. If one understands groups of grapes as analogous to transparent bodies, then one can understand that the

Notes to Chapter Two 269

27.

28.

principles of reflection or refraction also apply to the movement of wine to the bottom of the vat. It seems that the only reason he does not make it explicit in the wine-vat passage is that he needs the tennis-ball analogy to make this movement clear. Thus, one can understand that the wine moves through the grapes reflecting off one grape after another but ultimately moving in what can be called a straight line. If one understands this analogy applying to the context in which light is transmitted, then one understands how the light would be seen as exactly straight, even though light at the microscopic level must reflect off very small bodies as well. Descartes notes in the next paragraph that the laws that apply to potential motion also apply to actual motion (AT 6: 89, CSM 1: 155). He reiterates this position in a letter to Mersenne (5 October 1637) in response to an objection that Pierre de Fermat raises in this connection. There Descartes finds groundless Fermat’s worry that the laws governing potential movement might differ from the laws governing actual movement (AT 1: 450–1, CSM 3: 73–4). Though Descartes recognizes the importance of the distinction between the infinite and the indefinite in the following passage, he is not always consistent in practicing it: Now I make a distinction here between the indefinite and the infinite. I apply the term ‘infinite’, in the strict sense, only to that in which no limits of any kind can be found; and in this sense God alone is infinite. But in cases like the extension of imaginary space, or the set of numbers, or the divisibility of the parts of a quantity, there is merely some respect in which I do not recognize a limit; so here I use the term ‘indefinite’ rather than ‘infinite’, because these items are not limitless in every respect. (AT 7: 113, CSM 2: 81)

29.

30.

One should note that he says that he strictly applies the term ‘infinite’ only to God. This, of course, would mean that when he speaks loosely of infinities he may, strictly speaking, be speaking only of indefinite things. The use of ‘infinite’ in the wine-vat passage is just such an example. So, to be consistent with Descartes’s technical sense of the terms ‘infinite’ and ‘indefinite,’ our discussion uses the word ‘indefinite’ where consistency with the wine-vat passage would require us to use ‘infinite.’ It seems that Descartes has anticipated the mathematical distinction between denumerable and nondenumerable infinities. Since a multiplication of a countable number of light rays is countable, it would represent a denumerable infinity; whereas, the qualities of God would be nondenumerably infinite. For a discussion of this distinction see Kleene 1967: 175–83. Any particular light ray requires two kinds of movement. First, there is the movement down the series of small balls that begin at a luminous body and end at an illuminated body. Second, there is the spin of the small balls. This spin accounts for the color of the light (see AT 11: 255–6, CSM 1: 323 and AT 6: 327– 34, O 336–8). The fastest spin accounts for white light; the slowest spin accounts for the blue spectrum of light. Bodies that take on a particular color will be objects that can create a spin of a particular speed. Black bodies will simply be the result of bodies which “break up the light-rays that meet them and take away

270 Notes to Chapter Three all their force” (AT 6: 91, CSM 1: 156). Thus, when Descartes describes the action of light on soft bodies, he provides an explanation of how bodies can be black.

3 Causation 1.

2.

3.

4.

5. 6.

7.

8. 9. 10.

Some philosophers might argue that the Cartesian texts are so underdetermined with respect to a theory of causation that any attempt to delineate such a theory is a form of wishful thinking. We find this contention premature and leave it to our readers to judge whether we have succeeded in demonstrating that a Cartesian theory of causation can be gleaned from Descartes’s writings. See Suarez 1994, Disputation 18, §7: 131–77, and Disputation 17, Introductory Remarks: 3. For careful discussion of Aristotle’s, Aquinas’s, and Suarez’s criteria for deeming a cause an efficient cause, see Secada (1990: 49–51). One might think that ‘blur’ is too weak a word here. It appears that Descartes is attempting to make an exception to the standard criteria for efficient causality in the case of God’s causing himself. But this would make nonsense of the argument in Meditation Three, since it would introduce an equivocation on the notion of an efficient cause. Taken in this strict sense, such a move might provide evidence for elements of the dissimulation thesis, that is, the thesis that the Descartes of the Meditations intentionally misrepresented important elements of his philosophy. See Loeb 1986: 243–70 for a discussion of the dissimulation thesis. To examine that thesis is beyond the scope of this work. Such a move would conflate Descartes’s cosmological argument with his onto logical argument, and we believe he had methodological reasons for not wanting to do so. In Chapter Eight we argue that the ontological argument tends to confirm that Descartes’s idea of God as a supremely perfect being is correct. (Cf. Gueroult 1984: 240ff.) See Boethius of Dacia, “The Sophisma ‘Every Man is of Necessity an Animal’” in Kretzmann and Stump 1988: 499; cf. Suarez 1994, 18.3.12: 98–9. It is comparable to doing a formal proof in logic. While one is typically asked to show that the conclusion follows from the premises and a certain set of rules, the same procedure can be seen as explaining why the conclusion follows from the premises and a set of rules. This is a position Descartes rejects, as we shall see when examining elements of his voluntarism. Further, the contention that essences are uncreated was not universally accepted. See Suárez 1983: 31.2: 57–66. This is not to say that Descartes’s views were in complete compliance with Suárez’s. On the differences, see Hatfield 1993. See note 4 above. We shift from the Cartesian term ‘indefinite’ to ‘infinite’ because Descartes holds that God’s causal efficacy is truly infinite. See the following note. We should note that our explanation is consonant with Descartes’s limitation on the use of ‘infinite’ and ‘infinity.’ See First Replies (AT 7: 113–44, CSM 2: 81– 2), Fifth Replies (AT 7: 286–7; CSM 2: 199–200), and P I: 26–7. Descartes gets quite a bit of mileage from his notion of infinity in Meditation Three. His analogy here is troublesome. In the passages just cited, he admonishes others not

Notes to Chapter Three 271

11.

12. 13.

to believe that they have an adequate enough notion of infinity to apply it to geometrical or physical objects. It should be noted in the passage quoted above that Descartes lives by his own rules by choosing the phrases “indefinitely large circle” and “indefinite number of sides” for his own analogy. However, by doing so he significantly weakens his analogy. One would have hoped for a strict similarity between these two geometrical analogues and the nature of divine causality. But, alas, God is the only truly infinite being in Cartesian reality. Jonathan Bennett suggested an alternative interpretation of this analogy during his 1995 NEH Seminar and in personal correspondence with us. He suggests that Descartes is thinning the notion of efficient causality as it applies to God by taking away the idea that an efficient cause of something cannot be the cause of itself. Yet, Bennett believes that an element of efficient causation remains, namely that element which helps stop the question, “Why does x exist?” Furthermore, Bennett believes that this interpretation makes Descartes’s geometric analogy more cogent. We believe there are two problems with Bennett’’s interpretation. First, he cannot preserve Descartes’s distinction between the infinite and the indefinite. The usefulness of the analogue, which is a rectilinear figure the number of whose sides is indefinitely large, turns on its sides actually being infinite in number. Bennett argues that the theoretical advantage to discussing circle arcs in rectilinear terms is that one need not always specify that the circle has a finite radius; Descartes however would maintain that it could not have an infinite radius. In short, the analogue fails to supply explanatory insight at precisely the point where one would expect it. (See previous footnote as to how our interpretation preserves this Cartesian distinction.) Second, Bennett’s interpretation faces the following dilemma: either the “thin” notion applies only in the case of God or it does not. If Bennett believes the former, then there is an equivocation on “efficient cause” in the Third Meditation (see footnote 3 above). If he believes the latter, then lawful explanation becomes impossible. If the “thinning” notion is intended to stop the question, “Why does x exist?” then in principle anything could cause itself rather than be caused by something else, at least from time to time. For example, this would defeat Lewis Carroll’s intended literary effect on the reader when the Chesire Cat disappears except for its smile, that is, decides to cause only its smile – at least for a while. We examine this is greater detail below. See also William of Sherwood 1966: 8–6; Wilson 1972: 111–12; Poinsot 1985: 382. By a hundred years after Descartes, the formal/efficient causality distinc tion seems distinctly to have fallen out of favor. Thus it is that Hume, giving the results of his analysis of causation, could write: We may learn from the foregoing doctrine, that all causes are of the same kind, and that in particular there is no foundation for that distinction, which we sometimes make betwixt efficient causes, and causes sine qua non; or betwixt efficient causes, and formal, and material, and exemplary, and final causes. For as our idea of efficiency is deriv’d from the constant conjunc-

272 Notes to Chapter Three tion of two objects, wherever this is observ’d, the cause is efficient; and where it is not, there can never be a cause of any kind. (Hume 1978, 171)

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

Hume’s conclusion is unacceptable. Insofar as he held that the truths of arithmetic and algebra (although perhaps not geometry) are known on the basis of relations of ideas, they are subject to demonstration (ibid.: 71). Corresponding to every arithmetic or algebraic demonstration, however, there is an explanation from formal causes. Hence, it is false to claim that “where it is not [for efficient causality], there can never be a cause of any kind.” Nonetheless, as history shows, Hume was on the winning side in the intellectual war over the number and kind of causes. Hence, insofar as Descartes’s attempt to extend the notion of an efficient cause to God’s self-causality, Descartes was on the winning side in the war, even though we must grant that Arnauld won the battle. Recall that in his letter to Mersenne of 27 May 1630, Descartes claims that “For it is certain that he [God] is the author of the essence of created things no less than of their existence; and this essence is nothing other than the eternal truths” (AT 1: 152, CSM 3: 25). Descartes’s divine voluntarism regarding essences and eternal truths is not with out precedents. See Suárez 1983, 31.2: 57–64. It is beyond the scope of the present work, however, to determine Suárez’s position on voluntarism. There is an ambiguity in the expression ‘natural law.’ It is sometimes taken to be certain uniformities in nature; at other times it is taken to be statements describing those uniformities. We are using it within this paragraph and the next in the second way, although nothing in our interpretation of Descartes’s treatment of natural laws hangs on how we use the expression. Philosophers of science often distinguish two kinds of natural law: laws of simultaneity and transtemporal laws. An examination of Descartes’s examples of natural laws suggest that they are all laws of simultaneity, though such a construal might be more temporal than Descartes requires (AT 9: 38–48, CSM 1: 92–8; P II: 37–52). Descartes has a problem with time. The passage at Principles I: 57 suggests that he understands time as a theoretical construct; he maintains motion as primary in his physics and time as measured on the basis of arbitrarily chosen motions. A thorough examination of this issue, however, is beyond the scope of the present work. If we are right on this point, of course, it is ironic that the logical positivists were both the foremost proponents of the deductive-nomological account of explanation and purported champions of a non-metaphysical philosophy of science. See also Brody (1972). Hume 1975: 35, 37–8. Jonathan Bennett (1994), argues that the domain of the conceivable and the possible are one and the same for Descartes. He is uneasy about our argument here. He objects that natural laws are not eternal truths because their falsehood is conceivable. This he takes as one upshot of his paper. We grant Bennett the thesis of his paper, but deny this conclusion. To see why, consider two cases. First, one may confront a necessary truth without recognizing it as such. Hobbes relates with delight his astonishment at finding a seemingly

Notes to Chapter Three 273

19.

20.

21.

false, indeed necessarily false, theorem in Euclid’s Elements. Only after tracing its deductive ancestry back to Euclid’s most basic elements did he recognize that the theorem was not only true, but necessarily so. Hobbes has discovered a feature of nonbasic eternal truths, namely that those truths derived from the more basic ones need not be self-evident on first consideration. Second, the apparent conceivability of a state of affairs does not demonstrate that it is possible. Consider a perpetual motion machine consisting of an electric motor and a generator. The generator produces enough electricity to power the motor, which turns the generator. So far no obvious trouble arises. But upon closer and more careful scrutiny, one finds reasons that, while the machine may be possible, it cannot be a perpetual motion machine. Physics tells us that both the motor and generator are subject to friction. Therefore, the system will slowly lose energy that will need to be replaced if the machine is to run perpetually. When all the laws of physics are brought to bear on this system, we discover that what we had taken as a clear and possible idea was not. These two cases show that if the eternal truths are arranged in a hierarchical structure, then one clearly conceives an eternal truth lower in the hierarchy only when one understands its deductive relationships to the more fundamental eternal truths. Thus, if Descartes construed natural laws as lower-level eternal truths, then he can at once reject Hume’s maxim and embrace Bennett’s account of Cartesian modalities. That he held this should be clear from the fact that, in The World, he introduced the assumption that God will never perform miracles and that “rational souls . . . will not disrupt in any way the ordinary course of nature” (AT 6: 48; CSM 1: 97). Note further that, assuming similar principles, the Descartes of the Principles claimed that all phenomena in the physical world could be explained. See P 3: 47. Our discussion assumes that the distinction between God’s action(s) and God’s character (immutability) collapses. Following traditional theology, speaking of change in God’s case can only be metaphorical. God’s acts are not in time. Thus, all God’s acts are “at the same time” because they are not at any time at all. Descartes accepted the traditional theology in part because he sought to avoid theological controversy. We believe that his theory of time also supports a traditional theology: see note 24. In the Optics one finds this: “Instead we must hold that it is the movements composing this picture which, acting directly upon our soul in so far as it is united with our body, are ordained by nature to make it have such sensations” (AT 6: 130; CSM 1: 167). As we argued in the last chapter, we believe that the doctrine of innate ideas suggests that the mind is structured in such a way that there are natural patterns of thought. The will might be the motive force that begins a chain of thought, that affirms and denies propositions, and pushes the process of analysis onward, but the lawfully organized innate ideas (as dispositions to form occurrent ideas with a certain content) prove impervious to the will. For example, if one begins with an idea of God as a magnified idea of oneself and inquires into the adequacy of that idea, this will lead to an idea of God as a being that is infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, etc., and ultimately to an idea of a supremely perfect being. (See Flage and Bonnen 1989; 1992b.) If we are correct, this

274 Notes to Chapter Three

22. 23.

24.

explains Descartes’s confidence that anyone following his method will reach the same conclusions he reached. Garber (1992: 95–103) presents an extended account of Descartes’s views on substantial forms. Paul Hoffman (1986) argues that the union between mind and body is substantial. Stephen Voss (1994) argues that Descartes did not have a settled view on the nature of human beings. While the Descartes of the Meditations might have held that there is a substantial unity between the human soul and the human body, the Descartes of the Principles and later did not clearly hold that the notion of a human being is significant, at least in any sense in which the mind and body ontologically constitute one entity. Some will argue that even if we have shown that one can read Descartes’s discussions of mind–body interaction in terms of formal causes, we have not solved the problem of mind–body or even body–body interaction in Descartes, since the problem of interaction presupposes the notion of efficient causality. Insofar as he claimed that only a conceptual distinction exists between creation and preservation (AT 7: 49, 109, 110, CSM 2: 33, 79), we must at least explain how God continually recreates these laws, that is, how God acts in such a way that the relations between created entities appears to be lawful. Does not our account, one might ask, follow Garber’s views (1992: 299–305; 1993b) and turn Descartes into at least a quasi-occasionalist? No. First, if one takes seriously Descartes’s claim that the best model we have for divine will is human will (AT 5: 347, CSM 3: 375), and if one recognizes that Cartesian beliefs are subject to the will, then a belief is the result of an act of the will. Any given belief will be retained until such a time as it is rescinded by some other act. If one applies this will-it-and-forget-it-forever theory of belief in the divine case, one has no reason to assume that God continually acts behind the scenes to make sure all the laws are followed. This also fits nicely with the notion that God is immutable. Second, the question, “What is God doing?” is properly a theological question, and Descartes regularly indicates that theological questions, properly so called, are beyond the scope of his investigations. Third, he claims he did not explain the nature of the unity between body and soul. Notice what he wrote to Clerselier: These questions [how can the soul move the body if it is in no way material, and how can it receive the forms [espèces] of corporeal objects?] presuppose amongst other things an explanation of the union between the soul and the body, which I have not yet dealt with at all. But I will say, for your benefit at least, that the whole problem contained in such questions arises simply from a supposition that is false and cannot in any way be proved, namely that, if the soul and body are two substances whose nature is different, this prevents them from being able to act on each other. And yet, those who admit of real accidents like heat, weight and so on, have no doubt that these accidents act on the body; but there is much more of a difference between them and it, i.e., between accidents and a substance, than there is between two substances. (AT 9a: 213, CSM 2: 275–6)

Notes to Chapter Three 275

25.

26.

27.

Finally, occasionalism seems inconsistent with Descartes’s theory of substance. Insofar as he draws a distinction between infinite substance, finite substance, and modes on the basis of independence (AT 7: 165–6, CSM 2: 117; P I: 51), to suggest that God literally recreates the world at every moment would seem to collapse the distinction between finite substance and mode. If both a finite substance and the modes that clothe it depend solely on a God that recreates them every moment, neither is more independent than the other: the substance-mode complex is reduced to a series of temporal slices and a finite substance, as such, would be nothing more than an abstraction from such a series of temporal slices. On such a view, the temporal slices, as such, would possess a greater degree of independence (reality) than the finite substances abstracted from them. And, of course, Descartes’s official ontology provides no slot for a temporal slice as such. For these reasons, while granting that we have little understanding of the Cartesian God as an efficient cause, we reject occasionalism as a plausible option. Some will surely object at this point that Descartes did not follow such a proce dure, since, in the Second Replies, he explicitly claimed that the Cogito does not make such an appeal (AT 7: 140–1, CSM 2: 100). We consider this objection at length in Chapter Five. For the present, two points should be noted. First, Descartes explicitly claims that “He who thinks cannot but exist while he thinks” (P 1: 49) is an eternal truth, and, in discussing demonstration by analysis, he says that “there are many truths which – although it is vital to be aware of them – this method often scarcely mentions, since they are transparently clear to anyone who gives them his attention” (AT 7: 156, CSM 2: 110). Second, we argue below that the general proposition is one of these “transparent truths.” As we show in Chapter Five, sometimes there are additional strictures under which the natural light works. For example, in the considerations leading to res cogitans in Meditation Two, various methodological doubts constrain the natural light. See Chapter One.

Appendix: the rainbow 1.

Garber claims that this is the “only explicit mention of the method in all of the Essays” (Garber 1993a: 294, Garber’s emphasis). We disagree. First, in the discussion of the rainbow, the Eighth Discourse of the Meteorology, Descartes says nothing explicitly about his method. Second, Descartes certainly sets forth a method in the Geometry (AT 6: 372, O 19), a method which has much in common with that of the ancient geometers. In his letter to Mersenne of March 1636 he says, “Finally, in the Geometry I try to give a general method of solving all the problems that have never yet been solved” (AT 1: 340, CSM 3: 51). While this remark might be taken to mean that the method in the Geometry can be used to solve all and only geometric problems, the contention that there is a method unique to geometry contradicts his repeated claim that a single, universal method exists. Nonetheless, since Descartes tells Vatier that the discourse on the rainbow is a paradigmatic example of his method in operation, it is worth careful examination.

276 Notes to Part I Appendix 2.

3. 4.

This claim is somewhat puzzling. In the original case, Descartes was concerned with the several bendings of the ray of light in its path from the sun, through the super-droplet, and to the eye of the perceiver. In the case of the prism, he is concerned only with the projection of the light onto a wall. To be consistent, he would need to claim that there is either a reflection or a second refraction from the projected image to the eye of the perceiver. See also Chapter Five. That Descartes seems to have had the energy levels of light completely turned around – red waves are longer (lower energy) than violet – need not concern us.

Part II Descartes’s Meditations on First Philosophy 4 Meditation One: doubts and suppositions 1. 2.

3.

4. 5.

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8. 9.

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We argue at length for this point at the beginning of Chapter Five. If our account in Chapter One is correct, these are two sides of the same coin, for what we call the order of epistemic priority is identical with what Descartes calls the order of reality. (See AT 10: 418, CSM 1: 44; AT 7: 384, CSM 2: 263–4; CB §4: AT 5: 147, CSM 3: 333.) See the letter to [Vatier] of 22 February 1638 (AT 1: 563, CSM 3: 87) where Descartes expresses his belief that all of his science can be deduced from his metaphysical principles. As we show later, this is an exaggeration: the empiricist principle at the end of the Meditations is a form of limited empiricism. This is one of the three functions Descartes ascribes to the doubts. In addition, some doubts are used as a means of drawingx the reader away from the supposition that the world is wholly corporeal and known by means of sense experience. Others function as a foil against which Descartes could test the certainty of his subsequent conclusions. (See AT 7: 172, CSM 2: 121.) Notice that in the preface to the French edition of the Principles, the third level of wisdom – the level of wisdom immediately below sensory experience – is “what we learn by conversing with other people” (AT 9B: 5, CSM 1: 181). This tends to support the interpretation of “through the senses” in the Conversation with Burman. Let us assume for the moment that the concept of an object is unproblematic. In fact, we believe the same kind of dilemma we raise with respect to the principle of noncontradiction below can be raised regarding the concept of an object. Notice that EPA is concerned with one kind of conceptual coherence to which the Cartesian method is committed. See Chapter One. Here dream states are not lucid, though one would have to advance grounds for distinguishing lucid from nonlucid dreams were one to suggest that the difference makes a difference. As the closing paragraph of Meditation Six makes clear, Descartes’s meta-criterion is itself a version of EPA. By that point, of course, he has modified EPA and relegated it to the status of a secondary or tertiary epistemic principle.

Notes to Chapter Four 277 11.

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13. 14.

15.

The doubts prior to the deceiver-god argument were not original to the Medita tions; Descartes raises the same doubts in Part 4 of the Discourse on Method (AT 6: 31–2, CSM 1: 127), although they are not developed in as great detail. Nor were they original to Descartes: the epistemic doubts can be traced back at least as far as the Islamic philosopher Abû Hamîd Muhammad al-Ghazâlî (1058– 1111). See McNeill and Waldman 1973: 206–10. We thank Madeleine Pepin for bringing this latter point to our attention. See Kenny 1968: 34–5; Frankfurt 1970: 79–87; Cottingham 1986: 30–5; Curley 1978: 40ff.; Markie 1986: 49, 137ff.; Wilson 1978: 31–42; Popkin 1964: 180– 6; Gueroult 1984: 18–26; Williams 1978: 56; Olson 1988. In several of these, the second hypothetical doubt is passed over with little or no comment. Exceptions to the blurring of the distinction between the doubts are found in Kennington 1971 and Softer 1987: 25–47, although their concerns differ significantly from ours. As we show in the next chapter, however, the doubt alone does not allow Descartes to know that he exists. Recall that questions of the existential import of universal propositions were significant in Descartes’s time. See Williams 1978: 90ff.; Kneale and Kneale 1962: 58, 210–11, 260, 264. Descartes denied that eternal truths have existential import (P 1: 10, 48–9), and insofar as such truths have no existential import, it was incumbent upon him to provide evidence that they have no existential import. In the Sixth Meditation Descartes is explicit in claiming that: The second reason for doubt was that since I did not know the author of my being (or at least was pretending not to), I saw nothing to rule out the possibility that my natural constitution made me prone to error even in matters which seemed to me most true. (AT 7: 77, CSM 2: 53)

16.

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Various commentators have questioned Descartes’s sincerity in offering the proofs of the existence of God in Meditation Three. (See for example Loeb 1988.) If our arguments are sound, the appeals to the natural light in Meditation Three do little more than make explicit what was implicit in granting the second doubt: in accepting the doubt, there is at least a faint glimmering of the natural light. If Descartes’s appeal to the natural light in Meditation Three were insincere, there should be no inclination to grant the doubts qua suppositions in Meditation One. In Chapter Eight, we argue that referring to God as a guarantor of clear and distinct ideas is not quite correct, although we need not go into this issue at this time. We examine the Cartesian Circle in Chapter Ten. Notice that in addition to earth and sky, the doubts raised in DG1 concern the existence of extended things, shape, size, and place, that is, those aspects of the material world that are subject to mathematical description. It is precisely these aspects of the material world that Descartes claims can be known. The colors, shapes, and sounds of MD1 remain banished.

5 Meditation Two: the beginning of the ascent 1.

There is an ambiguity in the expression “clear and distinct perception.” It can

278 Notes to Chapter Five

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3. 4. 5.

6.

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mean a perception that is clear and distinct, that is, a clear and distinct idea. It can also mean the act of perceiving clearly and distinctly. We consider the latter the more fundamental sense of the expression. As we argue in Chapter Six, acts of perceiving clearly and distinctly are guided by the natural light and result in ideas that are clear and distinct. If one prefers, it is the first entity proven that could obtain the status of a substance. However one construes the Cogito passages, they require that there be thoughts, but these are only modes of a substance. Recall that in Chapter One we saw such a distinction in the writings of several of Descartes’s predecessors and argued that such a distinction appears in his works. We show below that this is a maxim Descartes follows religiously in the argu ments for his existence in Meditation Two. Some commentators seem not to have noticed this and have conflated clarity and distinctness with indubitability. (Copleston 1963: 100 and Popkin 1964: 188; cf. Curley 1978: 117.) We shall argue that Descartes took indubitability from systematic doubt to be a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for the plausibility of a metaphysical hypothesis. Nonetheless, there is a sense in which we agree with Popkin et al. that he intended to show that the skeptic’s argnments lead to absurdity. As we argued in the last chapter, his causal maxim that “there must be at least as much in the total and efficient cause as in the effect of that cause” (AT 7: 40, CSM 2: 28) is the skeptical engine driving the second hypothetical doubt and the crucial premise in the proofs of the existence of God in Meditation Three. Our differences with Copleston, Popkin, and Curley are found in where we locate the absurdity generated by the skeptical doubts. We suggested in Chapter Two that innate ideas are to be construed solely as dispositions to form an occurrent idea with a certain cognitive content (see Flage and Bonnen 1992b). If the consideration of a particular proposition is the occasion on which one considers a general proposition, this is wholly consistent with and can be explained on the basis of an innate idea qua psychological disposition. This is in the Regulae. In the same passage Descartes claims that “everyone can mentally intuit that he exists,” which seems inconsistent with the account of Descartes’s method which we have offered. However, later in the passage he writes: It follows that those propositions which are immediately inferred from first principles can be said to be known in one respect through intuition, in another respect through deduction. But the first principles themselves are known only through intuition, and the remote conclusions only through deduction. (AT 10: 370, CSM 1: 15) Since the conclusion “sum” that is deduced from the general proposition is certainly not “remote,” this passage suggests that in such a context the intuition/ deduction distinction is easily blurred and that Descartes himself did not place a lot of weight on the distinction in those contexts in which the inference is immediate or nearly so. This also provides content to the sense in which one’s knowledge of one’s own existence is as if (tanquem) it were intuitive. An additional passage should be mentioned. In the Search After Truth, Descartes makes Eudoxus say:

Notes to Chapter Five 279

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You cannot deny that you have such doubts; rather it is certain that you have them, so certain in fact that you cannot doubt your doubting. Therefore it is also true that you who are doubting exist; this is so true that you no longer can have any doubts about it. (AT 10: 515, CSM 2: 409–10) As we show in the next section, this is one of the reasons Descartes embraces to show his existence in Meditation Two. Hence, we may safely pass over the Search After Truth without further comment. Stanley Tweyman (1993: 14–16)has argued that the denial of the Cogito is a contradiction. While we agree with him, we do not locate the contradiction on the same grounds. Tweyman suggests that “by a ‘contradiction’ in this context he means something different from what is meant when we say that the denial of ‘All bachelors are unmarried males’ is a contradiction” (ibid.: 15). If our account is correct, the contradiction is between “I think (doubt, consider a proposition, etc.) but do not exist” and the general principle “Everything that thinks (doubts, considers a proposition, etc.) exists.” We are very much indebted to Jeffrey Coombs’s conversations with us on the tendencies of Descartes’s Scholastic predecessors. He has also allowed us to read an early draft of a paper entitled “Modal Voluntarism in Descartes’s Jesuit Predecessors” which he presented to the American Catholic Philosophical Association in May of 1996, and which has since appeared in the Association’s proceedings, The Philosophy of Technology: Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, volume 70, 1997: 237–47. He has also been kind enough to allow us to see an early draft of his “The Ontological Source of Logical Possibility in Second Scholasticism,” expected to be published by Kluwer in 1998 or 1999 under the title, Modality in the Schools: Studies in the Theory of Modality in Second Scholasticism (1500–1750). Our understanding of the chimera (the human lion) as a logically impossible beast comes from Coombs’s discussion in this last article. Even though Descartes may not have been familiar with all of the views that Coombs discusses in his “The Ontological . . .,” Coombs helps fill in much of the Scholastic background against which Descartes says he struggles. In his lnstitutiones Philosophicae, Edmundus Purchotius, a Cartesian of the late seventeenth century, offered a Cartesian version of the Porphyrian tree of substance (reprinted in Risse 1970, vol. 2: 128 note 523). He offers one much different from the one that we have suggested here. He divides substance into corporeal and incorporeal, just as Bouridan did, but he then subdivides the incorporeal into the supremely perfect and the imperfect and the corporeal into living and non-living. Purchotius has the tree branch back together to provide a category for humanity. But, this would only better reflect the dual nature of humanity. (The tree that we offer would have to branch back together as well.) We would advocate our tree for the reason that infinite substance is absolutely independent of any other kind of substance and therefore seems to warrant being one of the main trunks, since Descartes expresses the notion of substance in terms of independence in Meditation Three (AT 7: 44, CSM 2: 30) and Principles, 1: 51 (see also AT 7: 185, CSM 2: 130). Purchotius’s tree has the advantage of putting the division between the incorporeal and corporeal at center stage, and thus

280 Notes to Chapter Five

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emphasizes the nature of humanity. The fact that either tree will contrast with the typical Scholastic version will do for our purposes. We leave it to the reader to decide which of the trees better reflects Descartes’s work. Such a task is beyond the scope of this project. Remember his description of the soul: “The next thing thought was that I was nourished, that I moved about, and that I engaged in sense perception and thinking” (AT 7: 26; CSM 2: 17). Donald Sievert (1975: 58–9) has also noticed the importance of the Synopsis comments on the interpretation of the cogito arguments. He indicates that the Synopsis remarks imply that Descartes may still make mistakes about his essence at this stage in Meditation Two. The particular mistake is that Descartes might mistake his essence as thinking substance. At this stage of the argument Descartes lacks the premises to make that inference. We would follow Sievert in this and add that Descartes’s conception of substance is not in play during the course of Meditation Two. Strictly speaking, he may only refer to himself as a “res cogitans” or “thinking thing.” In general, we sympathize with Sievert’s major contention that in Meditation Two Descartes does doubt that he is a thinking substance. Of course this is something of a false oversight insofar as the Descartes of Meditation Four analyzes judgment in terms of an affirming or denying act of the will.

6 Meditation Three: reaching the peak 1. 2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

There is, of course, an exception: the essence of God entails the exis. tence of God, but this issue is not raised until Mediation Five. Similarly, he seems to ascribe clarity and distinctness to the act of perception in the fourth paragraph of the Meditation, when he alludes to “things themselves which I think I perceive clearly” (AT 7: 36, CSM 2: 25). Descartes’s apparent vacillation within this paragraph between the possibility that God is a deceiver and the contention that whatever is clearly and distinctly perceived is (materially) true is widely recognized (see for example Copleston 1963: 108; Van Cleve 1979: 67; Markie 1992a: 151). We discuss this at length in Chapter Nine. We show there that the meditator in this paragraph is in the same position as Descartes’s atheistic geometer (AT 7: 141, CSM 2: 101), that the sole reason for doubting the criterion that clear and distinct ideas are true is that God could be a deceiver (that one’s faculties could be radically defective). In the case of mathematical truths this act of mental scrutiny is no more than understanding what is claimed and thereby recognizing the truth of the proposition. It is this psychological state that is required before Descartes will claim knowledge by the light of nature. Descartes consistently concerns himself with questions of essence when consid ering clear and distinct ideas. Recall that the issues in Meditation Two were “What am I?” and “What is the wax?” As we show in the final section of this chapter, there are also cases in which an idea becomes more clear by subsuming a kind under increasingly simpler (more general) predicates.

Notes to Chapter Six 281 7.

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9.

10.

11.

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As Descartes notes in the Regulae, an enumeration of properties, etc. need only be sufficient for whatever case is at hand (AT 10: 390–1, CSM 1: 26–7), which tends to show that questions regarding clarity and distinctness are relative to the question posed. We argue in the next chapter that Descartes’s exoneration of clear and distinct ideas in Meditation Four involves a shift from material to formal truth. Since formal truths are representative (AT 7: 37, 43–4; CSM 2: 26, 30), the shift to the formal truth of clear and distinct ideas is a shift from the possible essence of a possible thing to the actual essence of a possible thing, that is, a true and immutable nature (an idea in the mind of God). One need not necessarily assume that material objects were the efficient causes of ideas; given the Scholastic doctrine of notions or intentional forms, it would be sufficient for external objects to be construed as intentional forms, a doctrine Descartes rejected. See Optics: AT 6: 85–6, CSM 1: 153–4. As we shall see when we come to the Sixth Meditation, Descartes takes both of these theses as reasons for granting the hypothesis of a material world. We shall argue in Chapter Nine that Descartes believes this hypothesis is justified because it prevents anyone from resurrecting the possibility that God is a deceiver. Some scholars – see for example Timothy Cronin (1966: 75–127) – maintain that there is but one argument for the existence of God in the Third Meditation. We contend that there are two related arguments, since at paragraph twenty-nine (AT 7: 48, CSM 2: 33) Descartes introduces a second set of premises leading to the conclusion that God exists. Further, we argue, the idea of God operative in the second argument is clearer and more distinct than that in the first. Nonetheless, whether one deems the arguments distinct – whether one claims there is one argument or two arguments in the meditation – is of little consequence. Any reader of the Sixth Meditation will suggest that what Descartes rejects here is not far removed from what he accepts by the end of the Meditations. What is here merely a natural impulse he later takes as a partial reason to accept the existence of an external world that stands in a relation of partial resemblance to one’s sensible ideas. As we argue in Chapter Nine, it is the methodological organization of the Meditations that allows him later to accept a “mere impulse” as a ground for claiming the existence of an external world that partially resembles one’s sensible ideas. In the Sixth Meditation, he cannot reject such an impulse as evidence of an external world standing in a partial resemblance relation to his ideas without simultaneously generating grounds for a charge of divine deception. Hence, he will retrieve much of the veracity of sense experience, but under different epistemic conditions. If one follows a traditional angelology, such as that in Aquinas’s De Spiritualibus Creatures, angels at the level of archangels and above, are conceived strictly as spiritual (noncorporeal) entities. For our purposes, however, this makes little difference. One should notice that Descartes does not express his argument in terms of substance. He is concerned with ideas of corporeal things (ideas rerum corporalium). Nonetheless, since his account of the three degrees of reality is set forth in terms of the traditional parlance of substances and modes, and since,

282 Notes to Chapter Six

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consistent with the method, he assumes concepts that are only later clarified, we find it reasonable to carry on this discussion in terms of substance and modes. We leave open questions regarding the details of Descartes’s analysis of sub stance. In particular, we leave open the question whether he held that a substance is a substratum. For an interesting discussion of his awareness of substance on the assumption that he construed substance solely in terms of independence, see Markie 1992b. One should notice that the definition of the term ‘God’ given here is at least verbally distinct from that given in paragraph thirteen (AT 7: 40, CSM 2: 28) insofar as Descartes replaces ‘omnipotent’ (omnipotentem) with ‘supremely powerful’ (summe potentem), ‘omniscient’ (omniniscium) with ‘supremely intelligent’ (summe intelligentem), and adds ‘independent.’ This is but one shift found in Descartes’s ideas of God. We shall see that in paragraph twenty-five (AT 7: 46, CSM 2: 31), this idea is transformed into the “idea of a supremely perfect and infinite being” (idea entis summe perfecti & infiniti), and in paragraph thirtysix it becomes “an idea of a most perfect being” (quaedamque idea entis perfectissimi) (AT 7: 51, CSM 2: 35), which is the idea of “a supremely perfect being” (entis summe perfecti) that is operative in Meditation Five (AT 7: 65, CSM 2: 45). We discuss Descartes’s clarification of the idea of God in section five of this chapter. One should not over generalize with this result; for in Chapter Three, we have argued that Descartes did not hold that resemblance is a necessary condition for causality. We were pleased to discover that Jean-Marie Beyssade has arrived at some of the same conclusions that we have. On the one hand, he agrees with us that the Third Meditation is best understood as Descartes’s attempt “to generate the idea of God by means of a construction that operates in parallel with the proof of his existence” (Beyssade 1992: 178). Thus, one of the themes of the Third Meditation is a clarification of the idea of God. Moreover, he clearly anticipates the same objection as we do, that the idea of God must already exist (fully formed) in the mind prior to its discovery if Descartes insists that the idea of God is innate. Here Beyssade’s opponent would insist that an innate idea cannot be constructed. In response, Beyssade suggests that an “innate idea is the power or faculty of the mind for producing the idea” (ibid.: 182). Indeed, this is exactly the strategy we suggest in “Innate Ideas and Cartesian Dispositions” (Flage and Bonnen, 1992b: 72–7). On the other hand, we detect three differences between his interpretive approach and ours. The first difference may be a matter of emphasis. Beyssade emphasizes the finite mind’s understanding of God as incomprehensible. This allows him to make significant interpretive inroads into understanding that God has no principal attribute. We would argue that perfection is the principal attribute of God. Beyssade understands perfection as interchangeable with infinity. He would maintain that without this assumption we must abandon the incomprehensibility thesis concerning the finite mind’s conception of God. Descartes need not assume that he has a “generative rule” (that is, a rule by which one can generate an adequate conception of a thing) when arriving at the conclusion that God is the supremely perfect being. So long as he assumes that a finite mind

Notes to Chapter Six 283

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20.

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cannot truly grasp any specific infinite attribute such as omnipotence, then the more general definition of God cannot function as a generative rule. Second, Beyssade believes that an adequate idea or one “generative” of God is unattainable because it would require a “complete” enumeration of the attributes of God. In Rule Seven of the Regulae, Descartes maintains that a “complete” enumeration is an enumeration that includes “all the points relating to the problem at hand” (AT 10: 388, CSM 1: 25). Clearly this would be impossible in the case of arriving at a thorough knowledge of God. We fail to see why someone cannot treat the definition of God as, in some ways, generative. In the Fifth Replies (AT 7: 370–1, CSM 2: 256), Descartes does not seem to shy away from discussing the idea as properly conceived and then later showing that God has attributes that we did not countenance in previous inspections of our idea of God. Using the language of Rule Seven of the Regulae, all that is necessary for the goals of the Third Meditation is a “sufficient” enumeration of those attributes: an “enumeration which renders the truth of our conclusions more certain than any other kind of proof” (AT 10: 389, CSM 1: 26). Finally, Beyssade rejects the notion that the human mind constructs the idea of God (Beyssade 1992: 180). Here we believe that Beyssade’s worry stems from an implicit belief that innate ideas carry significant epistemic weight. Note how he labors to show that the resulting idea of God is innate, as if showing that the idea were factitious would lead to an irreversibly flawed idea. We, however, reject the claim that innate ideas carry any epistemic weight. As we have argued and will continue to argue, factitious ideas are nothing but ideas that have been manufactured by the mind. The raw materials will always be either innate ideas, adventitious ideas, or some mixture of both. In the case of the ultimate idea of God, it is a factitious idea composed of innate ideas. Norman Wells agrees with us here when he writes, “What with Descartes’s talk of chimerae, hippogryphs, sirens, etc., it is not often noted that the astronomical idea of the sun is a factitious or constructed idea” (Wells 1990: 55 n.121). Even the claim that the distinction between adventitious and innate ideas is exclusive and exhaustive is somewhat misleading. In his Comments on a Certain Broadsheet, Descartes indicates that every idea is innate insofar as it is construed as a disposition to form an occurrent idea with a determinate content (AT 8B: 359, CSM 1: 304). Thus, an occurrent adventitious idea and an occurrent nonadventitious innate idea differ only insofar as the former is caused by bodily movements while the latter is not. Cf. Locke 1975: 408–20. This similarity has not gone unnoticed. See Berkeley, Philosophical Commentaries, §784, in Berkeley 1948–57, I: 94; Weinberg 1965: 12; Flage 1987: 20–1, 24. We acknowledge that we here present a somewhat simplified account of the several ideas of God found in the Third Meditation. As we indicated in an earlier part of this chapter, there are intermediate versions of the idea of God between what we here call IG1 and IG2. For our present purposes, however, these differences are irrelevant. What we show is the mechanism by which Descartes clarifies the idea of God.

284 Notes to Chapter Six 23.

24.

25. 26. 27.

28.

One might object that we claim to find two ideas because we find two descriptions of God, which would imply that we should really find one idea of God and two descriptions of God. But remember that Descartes’s interest is in reaching that idea which best captures the nature of God. These descriptions capture the nature of God to different degrees: some of them are better than others. Taken separately, each description picks out a different possible being. If one follows our reading of the Third Meditation as an intellectual journey clarifying the idea of God, then nothing should bar us from understanding the products of the different stages of clarification as distinct ideas. To see that there is a distinction between these two ideas of God, one must see the distinction between indefinite attributes and infinite attributes. Descartes explicitly makes use of the distinction in the Principles of Philosophy (see also First Replies, AT 7: 113, CSM 2: 81, and Second Replies, AT 7: 136–41, CSM 2: 98– 101). At Principles 1: 26, he advises us not to engage in arguments about the infinite since we have finite minds. We should consider the divisibility of an extended thing as indefinitely small and the largest extended things as indefinitely large. At Principles 1: 27, he suggests that we reserve the term ‘infinite’ for God alone. His distinction becomes more transparent if one examines a more mundane example. The people living in east Austin, Texas have claimed that the University of Texas at Austin’s property line extends indefinitely into their community, since the University has often used its powers of eminent domain to extend the campus to the east. Nonetheless, for them to say that it extends infinitely into their community would be hyperbole of the highest order. An indefinite attribute has a limit which is not clearly defined, but there is a limit none the less, while an infinite attribute has no limit whatsoever. On the distinction between a description and a more proper real definition based upon genus and species, see Arnauld 1964: 165. On material falsehood, see Wilson 1978: 111–16 and our Chapter One. Should anyone contend that the consideration of the material falsehood of one’s idea of God might not be a sufficient condition for recognizing that all the distinct attributes of God in IG 1 can be subsumed under perfection, another passage appears later in the Third Meditation that almost certainly would yield this consequence. In the course of the second argument for the existence of God, Descartes considers the question of the unity of God and its consequences for accounting for one’s existence as a thing with an idea of God (AT 7: 50, CSM 2: 34). One should notice, however, that by that time the several distinct attributes of God are already couched in terms of perfections, so it seems reasonable to suggest that the notion of perfection, and therefore IG 2 is introduced prior to that point in the Third Meditation. In other contexts Descartes refers to this in terms of what is known by the natural light. See the letter to Mersenne of 16 October 1639 (AT 2: 596–9, CSM 3: 139–40).

7 Meditation Four: reflections from the summit 1. 2.

The doubt in question is a cognitive version of the problem of evil. There are interesting similarities between the position Descartes advances and

Notes to Chapter Seven 285

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standard discussions of freedom and responsibility. Like such classical twentieth century soft determinists as G. E. Moore (1912: 84–95) and A. J. Ayer (1954: 271–84; see also Schlick 1962: 143–58), Descartes emphasizes the will as a faculty of choice. With respect to judgment, the intellect sets forward something for our consideration, and we decide one way or the other. Like the soft determinists, Descartes stresses the absence of external constraint, while allowing that certain lawful regularities are necessary for deeming oneself free. He claims that “the more I incline in one direction – either because I clearly understand that reasons of truth and goodness point that way, or because of a divinely produced disposition of my inmost thoughts – the freer is my choice” (AT 7: 57–8, CSM 2: 40). One is free to a greater degree, the more one’s internal dispositions cause one to choose one option – the correct option – rather than another. One is least free when in a state of pure indifference: Descartes was certainly aware of Buridan’s ass, which starved from the lack of an inclination to choose either of two equally desirable stacks of hay. Descartes is not a determinist, however, since he does not hold that all choices are themselves subject to explanation. As we noticed in Chapter Three, he seems to hold that, while there are lawful connections between mental states and physical states, the mind qua efficient cause can choose which mental state obtains (cf. AT 4: 314, CSM 3: 272). This implies that, consistent with the standard classifications on the problem of free will, he is a libertarian. To reconcile these apparent differences, we should notice that there are differences between Descartes’s task and the task in standard discussions of free will. In the latter, the object is to give an account of human freedom that will leave a place for moral responsibility. The contention is that one must, in some sense, be free to do or refrain from doing some action x if one is to be held morally responsible for that action. This is not Descartes’s concern. Descartes’s concern is with freedom from error. If clear and distinct ideas are (at least materially) true and one has an irresistible disposition to affirm their truth, this explains why one is most free from error when the judgment of one’s will is least indifferent, when one’s choice is psychologically determined by the strength of a clear and distinct idea. God’s will is wholly indifferent. As Descartes writes to Mersenne on 21 April 1641: indifference in our case is rather a defect than a perfection of freedom; but it does not follow that the same is the case with God. Nevertheless, I do not know that it is †an article of faith† to believe that he is indifferent, and I feel confident that Father Gibieuf will defend my position well in this matter; for I wrote nothing which is not in accord with what he said in his book De Libertate. (AT 3: 360, CSM 3: 179)

4.

These are at least the remnants of Descartes’s doctrine of the creation of eternal truths. See the letters to Mersenne of 6 May 1630 and 27 May 1630, AT 1: 149– 50 and 1: 151–3, CSM 3: 24–6. As Descartes notes in the Fifth Meditation, the clear and distinct idea of a

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triangle shows that such an entity has some degree of existence – some might suggest it subsists – but this does not entail the actual existence of a triangle (AT 7: 64, CSM 2: 44–5). Given his commitment to a conceivability criterion of possibility (AT 7: 78, CSM 2: 54), this implies that the object of a clear and distinct perception is at least logically possible. Formal truth is in the domain of judgment. Certainly one judges that the truths of mathematics are true. Insofar as they are judged to be true, they fail within the domain of formal truths, and consequently there must be something – if only an idea in the mind of God – to which they correspond. Although our approach differs from that of others given that we rest our consierations on the distinction between material and formal truth, it is not wholly without precedent. Alan Gewirth (1941) developed a similar case on the grounds of the distinction between psychological and metaphysical certainty. (See also Van Cleve 1979.) While it is not uncommon to claim that Descartes’s God guarantees the truth of clear and distinct ideas, we are not clear as to what this phrase means. Certainly there is no act of God that constitutes such a guarantee unless it is a negative act, an act of not changing. If one alludes to the creation of eternal truths – eternal truths are true because God makes them so and God does not change them – the “guarantee” still rests on a negative act. In our account, Descartes concludes that they must be true since God is not a deceiver: God does not guarantee, rather, the notion of a nondeceptive God is more fully analyzed.

8 Meditation Five: the beginning of the descent 1. 2.

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5.

6.

We argue below, however, that the shift to formal truth is significant regarding the ontological argument for the existence of God. While this argument certainly begins an analysis at a higher level of generality than the piece-of-wax argument, one may view it as a continuation of that argument. While the piece-of-wax argument shows only that the wax is extended, movable, and flexible, the reduction of extension to mathematical description yields a more general understanding of extended entities. Descartes assumed that the principles of Euclidean geometry are basic and uni versal. In this, of course, he has been proven wrong. Nonetheless, we avoid an anachronism by following Descartes’s assumption in this case. Notice that the Descartes of the Regulae deemed agreement in judgment a necessary, though not a sufficient, condition for knowledge (AT 10: 363, CSM 1: 11). We leave open the question whether in creating the eternal truths God does something more than create human minds in such a way that they affirm the truth of certain propositions. (See Ishiguro 1983: 312.) While we agree with Walter Edelberg’s (1990: 504) discussion of geometrical entailment, if our discussion is sound, it shows that God creates true and immutable natures by creating eternal truths, not, as Edelberg suggests, that God creates eternal truths by creating eternal natures (ibid.: 508). While Descartes repeatedly claims that God creates eternal truths (AT 1: 149–50, CSM 3: 24–5; AT

Notes to Chapter Eight 287

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7.

1: 151–3, CSM 3: 25–6; AT 7: 436, CSM 2: 294), it is only in the Conversation with Burman that he talks about the creation of simple natures along with all possible things (CB §33: AT 5: 159–60, CSM 3: 343). Thus we consider it reasonable to suggest that, as known, “simple geometric natures“ or “true and immutable natures” are nothing more than eternal truths and the consequences that follow from them. Further, our position is consistent with the Cartesian notion of analysis as a search for general principles. As we construe Descartes’s position, it is consistent to suggest that geometry has been analyzed down to its fundamental elements prior to claiming knowledge of triangles. On Edelberg’s reconstruction, it would seem triangles are known, not merely considered, prior to their more fundamental components, namely, lines and angles. Thus, it appears that one cannot reconcile Edelberg’s position with Descartes’s general methodological principles. Later in this chapter we discuss the relationship between the views found in the fourth paragraph of Meditation Three and those views found in the closing paragraphs of Meditation Five. Some criticisms are better than others, of course. In his lectures on the history of modern philosophy, the nineteenth century German philosopher F.W.J. von Schelling reconstructed Descartes’s argument as follows: The perfect being cannot exist only contingently, thus can only exist necessarily (major proposition); God is the perfect being (minor proposition), therefore (he ought to conclude) He can only exist necessarily, for this alone is inherent in the premises; instead of this, though, he concludes: therefore He necessarily exists, and, it is true, thereby apparently bears out the fact that God exists, and seems to have proven the existence of God. But it is something completely different whether I say: God can only exist necessarily, or whether I say: He necessarily exists. From the first (He can only exist necessarily) only follows: therefore He exists necessarily (N.B. if He exists, but it does not at all follow that He exists). In this, therefore, lies the mistake of the Cartesian conclusion. (Schelling 1994: 50)

8.

This is not Descartes’s argument. Descartes does not begin with the premise that a perfect being can only exist necessarily; he begins with the more modest premise that the existence of God as a perfect being is possible: this is entailed by the claim that the idea of God is clear and distinct. Thus, Descartes systematically avoids the question whether the idea of God is consistent. The sense of possibility, however, is somewhat puzzling. In the case of ordinary objects, he claims that possibility entails that God could create an object corresponding to the idea (AT 7: 78, CSM 2: 54). The parallel can be extended to the case of an extraordinary object (God), only if one claims that God is self-caused. As we noted in Chapter Three, Descartes himself claims that the notion of efficient causality that he applies to God as self-caused differs from the notion of efficient causality that applies to ordinary objects (AT 7: 236, CSM 2: 165), and therefore he equivocates on “efficient cause” in the second

288 Notes to Chapter Eight

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10.

argument for the existence of God in Meditation Three. For the present, we shall charitably assume his claim that the clarity and distinctness of the idea of God as a perfect being entail merely that the idea of God is consistent. We return to this issue in note 15. At AT 3: 477, CSM 3: 202, Descartes states that a mountain is understood as an uphill slope and a valley as a downhill slope, and he claims that, by abstraction, one can conceive of a mountain without considering its corresponding valley. It is worthy of notice that in a letter to Mersenne of 15 April 1630, Descartes considers questions regarding the sizes of infinities. Notice what he says: With regard to infinity, you asked me a question in your letter of 14 March, which is the only thing I find in it which is not in the last letter. You said that if there were an infinite line it would have an infinite number of feet and of fathoms, and consequently that the infinite number of feet would be six times as great as the number of fathoms, †I agree entirely.† “Then this latter number is not infinite.”’ †I deny the consequence.† “But one infinity cannot be greater than another.” Why not? †Where is the absurdity?† Especially if it is only greater †by a finite ratio, as in this case, where multiplication by six is a finite ratio, which does not in any way affect the infinity.† In any case, what basis have we for judging whether one infinity can be greater than another or not? It would no longer be infinity if we could grasp it. Continue to honour me by thinking kindly of me. (AT 1: 146, CSM 3: 23)

11.

12. 13.

Descartes is here concerned with numbers. While he grants that one infinity can be proportionately greater than another, his remark that “It would no longer be infinity if we could grasp it” suggests that the mark of infinity is its inscrutability. This suggests that, while one might intelligibly talk of infinities of differing sizes, ultimately they are indistinguishable, ultimately there is but one. The entire passage is somewhat curious because Descartes repeatedly claims that infinity is properly ascribable only to God; everything less than God can be only indefinitely great (see Chapter Three, Note 14). Whatever else Descartes means in claiming that an idea is distinct, he means at least that as an idea of a kind it is distinguishable from ideas of other kinds. See Frankfurt 1970: 137–9. We return below to the implications of conceiving God as an infinite substance. Here one might object that geometrical properties do possess a kind of existence insofar as they are true and immutable natures, that is, ideas in the mind of God. We grant that. But existence as an idea in the mind of God is not robust existence; rather, it is subsistence. It is not existence as a mode of a substance: in his discussions of substance and modes, Descartes limits modes to the domain of finite substance. We are inclined to believe that there are ideas in the mind of God, given his voluntarism regarding eternal truths and the doctrine of true and immutable natures. Nonetheless, we know of but one place where Descartes uses such language (CB §33: AT 5: 159–60, CSM 3: 343), and we do not believe it is implausible to suggest, with Hide Ishiguro (1983: 312), that the establishment of

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eternal truths and true and immutable natures is little more than a uniform “hardwiring” of the human mind. Any plausibility this argument has rests on Cartesian categories and will not easily transfer to other versions of the ontological argument. Nonetheless, since the independence notion of substance was not unique to Descartes (see Blundevile 1599: 17), at least a degree of transference may be available. We are not terribly happy with the reconstruction of the ontological argument we have presented, although we do believe that Descartes might have been thinking along such lines. We propose another version of the ontological argument which also might reflect his reasoning. Modes of possibility are ranked as follows: logical possibility is broader than conceptual possibility which is broader than causal possibility. The highest degree of possibility is actuality: an actual object is causally, conceptually, and logically possible. Thus, an actual object may be described as “maximally possible.” (Given our common understanding of the distinction between possibility and actuality, it is incoherent to suggest that there are degrees of maximal possibility.) Given the modes of possibility, it is not unreasonable to suggest that there are degrees of possibility corresponding to degrees of clarity and distinctness (and corresponding degrees of material truth). Descartes describes his idea of God as a perfect being as “utterly clear and distinct” (AT 7: 46, CSM 2: 3l). If degrees of possibility correspond to degrees of clarity and distinctness, then an “utterly clear and distinct idea” is an idea of a maximally possible thing. Does this entail that God exists? No. To see this, let us start at the bottom, that is, with considerations of material truth. If one has a clear and distinct idea, one immediately recognizes its material truth, that is, one recognizes an idea of a possible essence of a possible thing. If the idea of God as a perfect being is utterly clear and distinct, then it is the idea of a maximally possible essence: the existence of an actual thing corresponding to the essence as revealed in the idea is possible. But maximal possibility is actuality. So the distinction between a possible and an actual essence collapses: the idea of a maximally possible essence is the idea of an actual essence. Since we have suggested that actual essences are ideas in the mind of God, let us assume that God is maximally self-conscious, so God has an idea of God’s essence. Let us assume, further, that such a construal is unproblematic. Now if the idea of God is the idea of an actual essence of a thing that possibly exists, one can again ask about the degree of possibility. It is the actual essence of a maximally possible object. Does this entail that it is the essence of an actual object? Before we answer that question, consider Descartes’s remark on clarity, distinctness, and possibility: “I know that everything I clearly and distinctly understand is capable of being created by God so as to correspond exactly with my understanding of it” (AT 7: 78, CSM 2: 54). If Descartes is consistent in claiming that possibility is the capability of being created by God, this implies that God qua maximally possible object is self-caused. (Later proponents of the ontological argument are equally willing to claim that “The strength of God implies . . . [God’s] existence” (Hartshorne 1965: 130).) As we noted in Chapter Three,

290 Notes to Chapter Eight

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16.

however, the notion of self-causation is conceptually inconsistent, and therefore impossible. So, while self-causation would explain why the essence of God entails existence, the conceptual impossibility of self-causation implies that the argument fails. The only alternatives open to the defender of Descartes’s argument are to suggest either that the notion of maximal possibility that applies to God is different from that which applies to ordinary actual objects, or that the notion of possibility when applied to God means something other than God’s ability to cause himself. But to embrace either alternative implies that the argument fails due to an equivocation either on ‘maximally possible object’ or on ‘possible’ (cf. Rowe 1974). In their edition of the Philosophical Writings, Cottingham, Stoothoff, and Murdock suggest that this is the paragraph to which Arnauld alludes in raising the problem of the Cartesian Circle (AT 7: 214, CSM 2: 150; see also CSM 2: 150n2), and it is to this paragraph that Descartes alludes in his reply (AT 7: 245– 6, CSM 2: 171). Notice that in the Second Replies, Descartes writes, “Now awareness of first principles is not normally called ‘knowledge’ by dialectitians” (AT 7: 140, CSM 2: 100). Similarly, in the Preface to the French edition of the Principles, he claimed the first level of wisdom “contains only notions which are so clear in themselves that they can be acquired without meditation” (AT 9B: 5, CSM 1: 181). And we have argued above that what is recognized by the natural light is the criteriological foundation on which Descartes rebuilds his epistemic house.

9 Meditation Six: the world restored 1.

2. 3.

4.

5.

Descartes’s point here seems to be that although one can imagine a many-sided plane figure, it would be an image of a chiligon only if it had exactly 1,000 sides. At best, it would be difficult to confirm that the imagined figure has exactly 1,000 sides. Should one doubt that point, imagine a chiliagon and try to count the sides. How would one mark each side to show that it has been counted? How would one guarantee that the imagined figure does not change subtly as one’s counting approaches 1,000? It is worthy of notice that the Descartes of the Regulae held that the imagina tion or phantasy is a part of the body. See AT 10: 414, 416; CSM 1: 41–2, 43. One might notice two points: one, the distinction between mind and body is one of the first requisites for the proof of the immortality of the soul (AT 7: 13, CSM 2: 9); two, the Descartes of the Synopsis suggests that only one bodily substance exists and all individual bodies are merely modifications of that one substance (AT 7: 14, CSM 2: 10). Recall that in Chapter Five we argued that the piece-of-wax argument establishes the same, insofar as Descartes could prove his existence on the basis of the premise “I think” or “I imagine.” This seems a reasonable account of Descartes’s moves, although the opening sentence of the present paragraph is open to an alternative interpretation. Notice that Descartes is parenthetically concerned with a geometrical descrip-

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tion of the sun. He had discussed this earlier, drawing a distinction between the idea of the sun acquired from the senses and that derived from geometrical reasoning (AT 7: 39, CSM 2: 27). If one focuses on the parenthetical example, Descartes might be taken to say that a certain degree of error is implicitly operative in astronomical reasonings insofar as they are based upon a set of assumptions regarding distance, perspective, etc. It would make some difference, for example, if one assumes that the sun is 93,500,000 miles away rather than 93,000,000 miles. However, the same problem arises with respect to a geometrical description of any presumptively existent object. If I calculate the volume of my body based on the presumption that I am 5 feet 10 inches tall, my conclusions will be different from those based on the assumption that I am 5 feet 10½ inches tall. The difficulty in determining the precise distance between oneself and the sun that is found in the case of astronomical reasoning is merely a clear example of the general problem of precision: no matter how carefully one measures one’s height, for example, there is always a certain degree of error. The application of a geometrical framework in the case of any particular object introduces a certain degree of imprecision, and therefore error. Therefore, in the earlier paragraph, Descartes concerns himself strictly with the applicability of a geometrical framework to the corporeal realm in general; in this paragraph, he deals strictly with the applicability of it to particular objects. Of course, Descartes attacks the notion of substantial forms using an analogy to a clock in more than one place. In a letter to Jean-Baptiste Morin, 12 September 1638, he introduces a clock analogy in admonishing Morin for appealing to the sun’s substantial form to explain sunlight. There he makes the analogy in the following way: You say that if light is nothing but the action of the sun, then there is no light in the sun’s nature; and that light is a more actual and more absolute being than movement is; and that only God acts by his essence, and so on. You are making difficulties in words where there are none in reality. There is no more problem than if I said that a clock shows the time only by the movement of its hands, and that its quality of showing time is not a more actual or absolute being than its movement, and that this movement belongs to it by its nature and essence, because it would cease to be a clock if it did not have it. I know that you will say that the form of the clock is only an artificial form, while the form of the sun is natural and substantial; but I reply that this distinction concerns only the cause of these forms, and not at all their nature; or that the substantial form of the sun, insofar as it differs from the qualities to be found in its matter, is an altogether philosophical entity which is unknown to me. (AT 2: 367–8, CSM 3: 121–2) Again, a clock analogy appeared in a piece that Descartes wrote for Regius to defend himself against Voetius and his followers’ attempts to oust Regius from his Chair at the University of Utrecht. In many ways this exposition of his own position helps explain the clock passage of the Meditations:

292 Notes to Chapter Nine All the arguments to prove substantial forms could be applied to the form of a clock, which nobody says is a substantial form. (AT 3: 505, CSM 3: 208) The second proof is drawn from the purpose or use of substantial forms. They were introduced by philosophers solely to account for the proper actions of natural things, of which they were supposed to be the principles and bases, as was said in an earlier thesis. But no natural action at all can be explained by these substantial forms, since their defenders admit that they are occult and that they do not understand them themselves. If they say that some action proceeds from a substantial form, it is as if they said that it proceeds from something they do not understand, which explains nothing. So these forms are not to be introduced to explain the causes of natural actions. Essential forms explained in our fashion, on the other hand, gave manifest and mathematical reasons for natural actions. (AT 3: 506; CSM 3: 208–9) Note that the artificiality of the clock works for him in these passages and in the Meditations passage in two ways. First, advocates of substantial forms introduce them primarily to explain the motion of natural beings. But this explanatory structure explains too much in the sense that it will explain the motions of human artifacts like clocks. Second, though clocks may be quite intricate, they are all motion and gears, and thus lend themselves more easily to explanations based on mechanical principles. Also, as the Regius passage most clearly shows, dispensing with mechanical explanations of natural phenomena in favor of explanations employing substantial forms results in substituting transparent (mathematically lucid) explanations for explanations that have at their center “occult” or mysterious entities. 10 Circles 1.

2.

3.

We make no pretense of exonerating Descartes from all charges of circular reasoning: indeed, we raise one of our own at the end of the chapter. We merely claim that in the Meditations Descartes is not guilty of the charge of circular reasoning raised by Arnauld and the other authors of the Objections. Nor do the proofs require a maximally clear idea of God; they require only such clarity as is sufficient to distinguish the idea of God from ideas of other things. Given Descartes’s remark to Hobbes that “everyone has the form or idea of understanding; and by indefinitely extending this he can form the idea of God’s understanding. And a similar procedure applies to the other attributes of God” (AT 7: 188, CSM 2: 132), it seems that even ideas of God that are less clear than those found in Meditation Three (see AT 7: 40, 45, 46, 49; CSM 2: 28, 31, 35) would be sufficient to fulfill the purposes of the arguments in that Meditation. As we also argued in Chapter Six, the notion of sufficient clarity varies with the questions one poses. While an idea composed of a certain number of properties might be sufficiently clear to allow one to distinguish between a cow and a horse, the same idea might not be sufficiently clear to distinguish between a Holstein cow and a Jersey cow.

Bibliography

Primary literature Descartes, René (1976) Conversation with Burman, translated with introduction and commentary by John Cottingham, Oxford: Clarendon Press. (CB § section 1) —— (1965) Discourse on Method, Optics, Geometry, and Meteorology, translated by Paul J. Olscamp, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, Library of Liberal Arts. (O [page]) —— (1979) Le Monde, ou Traité de la Lumière, translated with and introduction by Michael Sean Mahoney, New York: Abaris Books. (M [English page]) —— (1965) Oeuvres de Descartes, Publiées par Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, Nouvelle Présentation, en co-édition avec Le Centre National de la Rechere Scientifique, eleven volumes, Paris: Libraire Philosophique J. Vrin. (AT [volume]:[page]) —— (1985, 1984, 1992) Philosophical Writings of Descartes, translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch; Correspondence translated in part by Anthony Kenny, three volumes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (CSM [volume]:[page])

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Index

adventitious ideas 48, 50, 55, 166, 172–5, 191–2, 194, 197, 200, 284n.20 analysis, method of 2–4, 13–24, 39; argument/inference to best expla nation 43–4; discovering clear and distinct ideas 45; divisions of problems in Meteorology and Optics 34–45; enthymematic argument 16; in Meteorology and Optics 44; method of demonstra tion 13–14; and order of arguments 38; search for eternal truths/general principles 144, 257, 288n.5; see also best expla nation, double method, eternal truths, innate ideas, intuition, natural laws, natural light Archimedean point 130–1; see also cogito Aristotle 76; on Abstraction 119; Categories 147; De Anima 153; formal cause defined by 72 Arnauld, A.: accusation of circularity 5, 253–7; analytic distinct from synthetic methods 3; objection to divine self-causation 77–9 atheisitic geometer 233–4 Augustinian account of free will: sym pathies with 209; see also free will axioms 14; see also eternal truths Bennett, J.: on Cartesian conceivability and possibility 273–4n.18; rejection of natural laws as eternal truths 273n.18; thinned notion of Cartesian efficient causality 272n.11 best explanation, argument/infer-

ence to 23, 43–4, 166; and discov ery 31–2; ill-defined 265n.36; of imagination 239; ontological argument example of 229 Beyssade, J.-M.: on infinity and perfection 283–4n.18 body: concept of 151; as divisible 250 Caterus: objection to divine self-causa tion 73–4 causal maxim, Descartes’s 55, 177–8; two corrolaries of 178 causation/cause 72–99; blurring of efficient/formal causation 75, 81, 188, 255–7; creation vs. conserva tion/preservation 76; distinct from effect 77–8; efficient 188 (broadened meaning 81–2; meaning 74, 256–7); final 84, 205–6, 250; formal 76, 83 (and psychological laws 91–7; Cartesian causes as 252; as essence 82, 83; as explanation of essence 77); formal/efficient distinction 72, 75–7, 80; infinite regress of 73–4, 79; mind and body 72 (see also mind/body interaction); self-causation 72, 74–5, 188–9; see also eminent causation certainty 30–2; metaphysical 30–1; moral 31 Cherbury, Lord Herbert: on truth 50–1 chiliagon 238, 263n.15, 291n. 1 circle, Cartesian 5, 252–8; Descartes’s mistake 255–7; exposition of 253; failure to escape 256–7; and God’s nondeceptiveness 253; and mate rial and formal truth 253–5; see also Arnauld, truth

Index 301 clarification, conceptual/ideational 45–71, 152; as opposed to validation of ideas 71; of self 129; of wax 129, 155; see also God clarity and distinctness 201–2; of arithmetic and geometry 168; and conceptual clarification 152; degrees of 24, 255; degrees of possibility 290n. 14; distinctness relative to investigative context 170; and natural light 55; and material truth 56; see also ideas, clarification, natural light, truth clear and distinct ideas/perceptions 25, 161, 167, 185–6, 196, 202; and arguments for God’s existence 254–5; and corporeal substance 183; as disclosing material truth 120; and existence claims 167; formally true 211–13; idea of God as paradigm of 185; limited to essences and necessary truths 98, 137, 215; mark of the possible 170; materially true 210; and memory 232–6; of rainbow’s cause 106–7; representations of true and immutable natures 212; shift from material truth to formal truth 211; and true and immutable natures 255; truth of 45–53; of wax 157–60 cold 24, 113, 181–3, 238, 240 cogito: as hypothesis 143; material truth of 143; and res cogitans 146–55; and self as thought 152; and sense perception 152 cogito argument(s) 131–55; as nthymematic 131–3; imagina tion/understanding distinction 154– 5; in Meditations 143–55; outside Meditations 131–43; in Principles 132–3; in Second Replies 132, 138–9; structure of 163 common notions see eternal truth(s) confirmation, Cartesian 212; three elements of 203 consideration, order of 137–9, 229; sum prior to whatever thinks exists 133–4; as opposed to order epistemic priority 19, 38–9, 57, 133 contingency/contingent truth(s): as contrasted with eternal truths 31 Conversation with Berman 133–9; orders of consideration and epistemic priority 139–40; on the actual and the possible 25–6

deductive–nomological explanation 17, 23, 77, 85; see also causatio defective faculties: see hypothetical doubt demon, malicious/evil: see hypothetical doubt(s), malicious demon Dicker, G.: on Cartesian rejection of Scholastic definition of humanity 147; on implications of Descartes’s causal maxim 178 Discourse on Method: and cogito argu ment 137, 140; methodological rules as applied to conceptual/ ideational clarification 56–8 disjunctive syllogism: as argument strategy 144, 146–7 dissimulation thesis 1–2, 259n.1 divine deceiver 93, 111, 126–7, 144, 173, 205, 212, 220, 233; see also epistemic thesis divine nondeceptiveness 240, 258; implications of 210–13, 214, 230–7; and material objects/world 243–6; see also God, as exonerated, theodicy, material objects/world double method of coherence 17, 18–22, 98–9, 202, 203, 257–8; see also analysis, method of doubt, method of: a preliminary to foundational knowledge 113–14; purpose of 111; systematic applica tion of 32; see also methodological dream argument: see epistemological doubt, dream argument dropsy 24, 249–51 eminent causation 179, 180–4 enumeration 40–3, 157; activities of mind 154, 160; causes of self 187–8; complete 41; complete vs. sufficient 267–8n.17, 284n.18; divine attributes 135–6; ideas with origin external to self 176; five types of problem 42; ideas 171–2; kinds of idea 172 (see also innate/factitious adventitious); as list 41–2; sufficient 41–2; thoughts 166–7; and wax 158 empiricism: limited Cartesian 204, 248–9; naive 248; see also empiri cist principles empiricist principles 5, 6–8, 114, 173, 204; Enhanced Principle of Acquaintance (EPA) 116–18, 120, 249, 250, 251; naive realism 240; naturally assumed 51–2, 55, 114,

302 Index 173; passivity thesis 51, 173–5, 194, 243; refutation of 116; resemblance/resemblance thesis 119, 171, 173–5, 194–6, 240, 282n.12; as subordinate to reason 251; Scholastic maxim 112; see also empiricism, Scholasticism epistemic: priority, order of: distin guished from order of consideration 38–9, 57, 133–4; whatever thinks exists prior to sum 133–4 (see also cogito, consideration); prudence 115; thesis: 45–6; divine deceiver 55; implicit belief in 284n.18; lack of textual evidence 46–52; philosophical argument against 52–3; redundant 52; rejection of 45–55; see also analysis, innate ideas, light of nature epistemological doubts 111, 114–20; dream argument 117–20; dream opposed to waking states 118–19; see also Principle of Acquaintance error, human 5, 204–10, 249–51; avoidance of 208–10; degrees of 291–2n.5; necessary condition for 267n.12; possibility of divine deception 53; see also divine deceiver, God, nondeceptiveness, theodicy essence(s): actual 257; alleged differences between natural laws and 87–91; and clear and distinct ideas 211–12; prior to existence 136; /existence distinction: collapse of 229–30; existence in rela tion to 24; as formal cause 76; formation of ideas of 55; known by the natural light 137; and Porphyrian trees 147–51; possible 257; possible as opposed to actual 215; similarities between natural law and 86; of self 138–9; of wax 156–7; see also essential attribute, eternal truths, God, natural laws, true/immutable natures, true logic essential: attribute: 138; as simple/ general 153–4; of self/soul 152, 153; see also attribute, God, cogito/ self/soul; change 225 eternal truths 14, 96–7; assumed in analysis 146; creation of 287n.6; essence 24; explanatory principles 131; simplicity generality of 14; hierarchical domains of 14–17;

innate 142; lacking existential import 26, 30; and laws of physics 90–1; only material truths 263n.16; and mathematical truths 26; method of analysis as search for 14; and natural laws 87–91; psychological laws 93; result of reasoning 218–19; and self 139; and true and immutable natures 201; see also analysis, essence(s); true and immutable natures existence: as independence 227; transcategorical term 228; see also cogito, eternal, formal reality, God, material objects/world, self extension/extended entities 48, 159, 183–4; as continuous quantity 216 Fachwerkhaus 7–8, 203 factitious ideas 48, 50, 55, 166, 172–3, 191–2, 193–197, 202, 266n.6 falsity, formal: see error, judgment, truth; material: as function of obscurity and confusion 24; and ideas of sensation 24; see also cold, heat, sense/sensory, truth forms, Aristotelian doctrine: rejected 83 foundations, criteriological 130–1, 150 freedom, from error 207; see also error, human free-will 267n.12; see also freedom Garber, D.: on Descartes’s explicitly mentioning the method 276n.1; on Descartes as occasionalist 275n.24; account Descartes’s views on substantial forms 274n.22 geometry 14–17; and material objects 245; truths neither implying nor presupposing existence 226 God, idea(s) of 5, 180–1, 184, 197–202; Descartes on the consis tency of 288n.8; list of properties 197–201; factitious 166, 197–202; formally true 224; Hobbesian (HIG) 197–202; innate 166, 191–3, 197–202; maximally possible 290–1n.14; perfect 197, 199–202; transformations of 193; unity of 190; see also clear and distinct idea God 184–6, 190–1; analogy between mathematics and 222; atemporality 778; attribute(s) 197–8, 200–1; beyond efficient causation 73–4; contrasted with nothingness 205;

Index 303 cosmological arguments 175–91, 255; and clear and distinct ideas 212–13; creator of eternal truths 233; existence arguments, purposes of 5, 228–230; existence as essence 26, 79, 80, 226; exist ence as eternal truth 26; exoner ated 204–10, 250–1, 267n.13; and human free–will 205–9; infinity as essence of 78; immutable 224–5; limited human understanding of 186; omnipotence 80, 205; and omnibenevolence in free–will issue 205; perfect being 223–4; unique 224–5; and voluntarism 273n.14; will of 206; see also scausation, self–causation, divine deceiver, factitious ideas, human error, innate ideas, nondeceptive God, ontological argument, perfec tion, theodicy, true/immutable na tures Gueroult, M.: on ontological argument 228; reduces Cartesian method to search for innate ideas 266n.1 heat 24, 113, 181–3, 238, 240 Hoffman, P.: on substantial union of mind and body 274n.23 house, metaphor for knowledge 6–9, 112–14, 129–30, 170, 203, 291n.16; and lateral supports 214– 15, 221, 228–9, 235 humanity, na ture of 57, 146–55; Aristotelian notion of 57, 150 human lion 148 hypotheses/suppositions 5, 39, 57– 8, 158, 159; to be confirmed 145; in breaking code 43; cogito as 143; criterion of truth 167–8; defective faculties 121–3; and enumeration 40–3, 98; and explanation of light 69–70; formation of 17–18; in Geometry 15, 18; in metaphysi cal writings 115, 120–8; in Meteo rology 36; and parsimony 23; refutation of I do not exist 145–6; to be refuted 145; representative realist thesis as 176; resemblance thesis as (see empiricist principles, resemblance/resemblance thesis); in scientific writings 114–15; three deceiver-God 121–3; three hypotheses concerning God’s existence 189–91; of wax’s exist ence 155, 156; see also divine de ceiver, empiricist principles, passiv ity thesis

hypothetical doubt 111, 120–7; defective-faculties as 111, 125–6, 144, 235; deceiver God as 126–7; irrefutable by atheist 234; maliciousdemon as 111, 121–3, 124–5, 144, 154; task of 120; see also divine deceiver, psychological compulsion idea(s): of angels 181; complex vs. simple 145; of light 58–71; and representation 171–5; of sensation 24; rejection of clari fication as validation 71; relative 264n.23; see also adventitious, clear and distinct, empiricist prin ciples, factitious, innate, resem blance/resemblance thesis, sense/ sensory experience, simple, sun, universal imagination 157, 158, 160–1, 163; apparently applied to body 237; distinguished from the understand ing 237–8; nonessential to self as thinking being 239 immortality of the soul 96, 291n.3 indefiniteness; see infinite/indefinite dis tinction indifference of the will 207–8, 286n.2 indubitability: only a necessary condi tion for truth 50–1 infinite/indefinite distinction 197–9, 285n.24; Descartes’s inconsistent use of 270n.28 innate/factitious/adventitious distinction 166, 172–3, 191–2, 194 innate ideas/innateness 45–58; actualized by reasoning 196, 198; broad sense of 46; dispositional ac count of 46, 193, 266nn.2,3; dispositions 218; distinctness be tween truth and 51, 54–5; explanatory of concept formation 53–5, 218; naive empiricist prin ciple as 55; narrow sense of 46; seeds of truth 47; sparks of knowl edge 46–7; triggered by analytical and critical reasoning 196–7; see also adventitious, epistemic, facti tious, God, innate, sun, triangle infinity/infinite substance or attribute 184–6, 198–9, 206, 289n.10; anticipation of denumer able opposed to nondenumerable 270n.29; distinguished from finite substance 184–6, 187; generative

304 Index rule 284n.18; incomprehensible 283n.18; prior to finite 185; see also substance, God, perfection instinct: two senses of 51–2; see also empiricist principles intellect: see understanding, faculty of intuition 27–9; opposed to de uction 27– 9; recognition of truth 28; recogni tion of deductive valid ity 28; of the self 136; see natural light judgment, faculty of 5, 157, 160–2, 206–13; and clear and distinct ideas 170–1; existential vs. essential 125; misused 205; formal falsehood as function of misuse of 23–4; func tion of will and understanding 206; perfection of 205; suspension of 116; and wax’s nature 160; see also analysis, error, human, theodicy, understanding, will Kenny, A.: on cogito 135; on dispositional account of innate ideas and learning 266n.3 knowl edge: through abstraction 119; based on knowledge of God 231; deduction from fundamental ele ments 219–20; nonsensuous basis for 116; of true and immu-table natures 218; see analysis, clear and distinct ideas, intuition, judgment Leibniz, G.: on Cartesian method of analysis 1; Descartes anticipates best of all possible worlds 206 light 58–71; and arrangement of arguments in Optics 35–6; and color as spin of particles 105– 6; commonsensical idea 59; geometrical phenomenon 59, 64; illustration of particles 106; illustration of prism 105; as instantaneous 60–1; as particles 105–6; reflection 65–7, 103, 104; refraction 67–70, 103–4; as straight-line phenomenon 62–3; tennis ball model of 65–70; two Cartesian accounts 268–9 n.19; walking-stick model 59–60; wine-vat model 61–65; see also Scholasticism light of the mind see natural light Locke, J.: account of abstraction 54 material objects/world: actual existence

of 242–4; general nature of 242–3; individual 245, 246; justification of 5; as mathematical objects 244; natural disposition to believe 127; possible existence of 230; probable existence of 238–9 mathematics: analogy between God and 222; as certain 5, 220; and innate ideas as true 216–18; and true and immutable natures 215; see also material objects/world Meno’s paradox 264n.23 methodologi cal doubt: as propae deutic to meta physical analysis 259 methodological inquiry, two objectives of 4 mind: indivisible 250; perceptions of 157, 160; see also real distinction bet. mind and body mind–body interaction 91–7, 250–1; substantial union 96–7; see also real distinction mode(s): light as 60, 62, 269n.20; and second cosmological argument 189; sense perception and imagina tion as 157; of substance 183–4, 275–6n.24; thoughts as 157, 163, 279n.2 mountain/valley analogy 223 natural laws: essence of material world 72 88–90, 98; eternal truths 72, 95–6; psychological laws as 91–7; and psychological laws as divinely ordained 92–3; see also deductivenomological explanations, essence, eternal truths natural light 27–9, 101, 158, 163, 189, 246; clear and distinct perception 203; confirma tion 21–2; distin guished from in stinct 51–2, 173; faculty for dis cerning truth 52; guide to material truth 15, 170–1; hypotheses rec ognized by 15–16; inclination to follow 207; and math ematical truth 217; and recogniz ing truth 48; soul/self as known by 136; see also analysis, intuition, epistemic priority nature, taught by: limitation 246; necessary existence 226 necessity/necessary truth (s): and abso lute or metaphysical cer tainty 31; as basis for certainty 30; by hypoth esis 146; natural laws as 86–7, 88– 91; recognition of 273n.18;

Index 305 as truths based on deductions 31, 81 noncontradiction, principle of 115–16 nondeceptive God 5, 168, 204, 230–6, 237, 250, 258; arguments: for formal truth of clear and dis tinct ideas 212–13; general form of 214; to undercut any metaphysical doubt of mathematical truths 231– 6; for actual existence of material objects/world 242–4 occasionalism 275–6n.24 ontological argument 214, 221–30, 202; confirmation God’s existence as consequence of perfection 228– 9; entailing existential judgment 221; Kantian existence-as-predicate objection 225–6; rationale for third divine existence argument 228; search for and confirmation of prin ciples 228; God-as-independent variation of 228 Pappus 18 parsimony, principle 22–3, 264–5n.28; see also reduction Paul of Venice 20–1 perceptions: as act or object 168–9; see also clear and distinct, ideas, sense/sensory experience perfection(s) 179, 185–6, 188–90, 205–7, 224; as unifying character istic of idea of God 285n.27; see also God, ontological argument physics: morally certain 31–3; based metaphysically certain prin ciple 33 pineal gland 92–93; and the faculty of the will 93; and psychological laws connecting the will to 93, 247–8, 250–1 Porphyry’s Isagoge 147–151 Porphyrian trees 147–151, 280– 1nn.10, 11 possible/possibility: and conceivable 87, 273–4n.18; and eternal truth 87; material truth mark of 25–61; Scholastic understanding of 148 possible worlds 33, 88, 98; actual world as best of all 206 preconceived opinions 113–14; based on previous judgments 142; rejection of 128 pre-philosophical individual 159; see also empiricist principles, naive

primitive notions 94–6; mind and body 247–8 principal attribute 96; as germane to the doctrine of substance 94; of mind–body union 94, 96; of the soul/self 152–3; see also cogito, essence(s), God, per fection Proto-Gorgias, dilemma of 115–16 psychological compulsion 207–8, 220–1, 232, 233, 235, 243; of belief in God’s existence 224; degrees of 225; see also clear and distinct ideas/perceptions, will rainbow 100–7; phenomenon of refract ing light (see light, refraction); super droplet 101; illustration 102; in Meteorology 100–7 Ramus, P. on formal causation 84 real distinction (mind/body) 241–2 reality, formal: 179; basis for second cosmological argument 187; degrees of 189, 227; three degrees of 180; degrees of in dependence 227–8; objective: 176; degrees of 177; gap between formal reality and 179–80; see also causal maxim real qualities 22, 24; as sec ondary qualities 113; see also Scholasticism reason, light of: see natural light reduction 8–9; of the complex to the simple/general 36–7, 56–7; and formal cause 77; of geometric truths to arithmetic truths 14–16; in metaphysics 112; of physical laws to mathematical laws 89–90; in rainbow explanation 104 representative realism 176 Scholasticism: abstraction 119; Descartes’s rejection of 147–51; Descartes’s avoidance of explicitly rejecting 149–50; maxim of 112; methodological complexity in 150; and real qualities 22, 149; substan tial forms 22, 149; light as inten sional form/intelligible species 60; see also humanity, light secondary qualities 181–3; Scholastic definition 113; victim of dream ar gument 125; and wax 156–7 sense/sensory experience 6, 113, 114, 144, 158–63, 173; in analysis 39– 40; in conceptual clarification 64– 5, 262n.13; erroneous judgments

306 Index based on 115, 240–1; independent of will 241; and intuition 27–8; justification 281n.12; knowledge from 19–20, 263n.17; limits on judg ments 248–9; precritical beliefs about 240; rejected as foundational 133, 143; role in forming naive empiricist principle 55; role of imagination 239; and soul/self 152, 242; source of material falsity 24, 261n.13; source of second level of wisdom 18; of tower 115, 116–17; vision in Optics 35; see also adventitious, cold, empiri cist, heat, nature, sun simple ideas: innate or adventitious 194–5 simple natures 127; see eternal truths simplicity/generality 37; as reduction of complex phenomena 38 solipsism, epistemological 180 soul/self: essential or principal attribute of 138–9, 152, 241–2; possible cause of God 188–9; parents as cause of 190; as res cogitans or thinking substance 242 substance 163–5; corporeal 147–8, 181–3; identity through time 164– 5; incorporeal 147–48; as indepen dence 164, 187, 227–8,289– 90n.14; see also infinity substantial forms 22, 250; Descartes’s rejection 292n.6; see also Scholasticism sun: astronomical idea of 58, 175, 194; astronomical idea as factitious 194– 5; passively received 194; result of reasoning 58–9; sensory idea 58–9, 175, 267n.14; two ideas 58 synthesis, method of 3, 14 tree, metaphor for knowledge 6, 8–9 triangle/triangularity: and essences of extended things 48, 216–21; illustration 16; chilagon or myriagon opposed to 237–8; nonsubstantial entity 96; status of truths about essence 49; subject of proof that requires memory 230– 4; universal idea 195–6 true and immutable natures 96, 211, 215– 21; and epistemic role 219–20; and essential principles 219–20; as ideas in mind of God 218; of God 49, 224; ontologically

significant 218; represented by clear and distinct ideas 215 true logic, dictum of 24, 45, 83, 98, 136, 140, 144, 167, 170–1, 215, 224–5, 229–30, 281n.1 truth: equivocal opposed to univocal 263–4n.19 truth, criterion of 167–8; see also clear and distinct, divine nondeceptiveness, God, natural light truth, formal 23–7; God’s existence as a 224 truth, formal/material distinction 204, 211–12, 230, 258 truth, material 23–7, 166; and clear and distinct ideas 255; in cogito argument 143; of idea of God 185–43; and innate ideas 45– 55; principles known as 33; recognized by natural light 15; of proposition whatever thinks, ex ists 139 understanding, faculty of 161, 206–10; limited 206; recognizing ideas as true 48 universal ideas 195–6; actualized by in nate dispositions 196; formation of 196 Urban the Averroist: on analy sis 19 void: assumed nonexistence of 269n.25; consequences of rejection of 269n.24; Descartes’s rejection of 62, 269n.23 voluntarism, divine: see God Voss, S.: on Descartes’s unsettled view of human nature 274n.23 wax, piece of 155–63, 196, 239–40; characteristics 156–8, 182; continued examination 216, 287n.2; example of conceptual clarification 157–60, 215–16; judgment about nature of 125 Wells, N.: on material falsity 260–3n.13 will, faculty of 206–10; belief as a result of 276n.25; as efficient cause 72, 76; function in the dream argu ment 174; lacking external constraints 206; made in the image of God 92, 209; and pineal gland 93; sense perception as independent of 241