International Phenomenological Society

Descartes on the Dubitability of the Existence of Self

Author(s): David Cunning
Source: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 74, No. 1 (Jan., 2007), pp. 111-131
Published by: International Phenomenological Society
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Descartes on the
Dubitability
of the Existence of Self
DAVID CUNNING
The
University of
Iowa
Philosophy
and
Phenomenological
Research
Vol. LXXIV No.
1, January
2007
2007 International
Phenomenological Society
In a number a
passages
Descartes
appears
to insist that "I
am,
I exist" and its var-
iants are
wholly
indubitable. These
passages present
an intractable
problem
of
interpretation
in the face of
passages
in which Descartes allows that
any
result is
dubitable,
"I
am,
I exist" included. Here I
pull together
a number of elements of
Descartes'
system
to show how all of these
passages hang together.
If
my analysis
is
correct,
it tells us
something
about the
perspective
that Descartes himself thinks
we should take in
reading
the Meditations.
There are a number of
passages
in which Descartes
appears
to treat "I
am,
I exist" as indubitable in a
way
that other results are not. For
example,
he
says
in the Second Meditation that
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.1
In the First Meditation he had
argued
that we can doubt the truths of
arithmetic and
geometry
if we cannot rule out the
prospect
that our
minds are not reliable
(AT 7:20-1),
but in the Second Meditation he
finds that "I
am,
I exist" is indubitable even in the face of that
pros-
pect.
The latter is a "firm and immoveable
point" (AT 7:24),
and "one
thing
that is certain and unshakeable"
(ibid.).
There are some
passages,
however,
in which Descartes allows that "I
am,
I exist" and its variants
1
AT 7:25. A similar
passage
is in Second
Replies,
AT 7:145-6. Unless otherwise indi-
cated,
I use the translations in John
Cottingham,
Robert
Stoothoff,
and
Dugald
Murdoch,
The
Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Volume
I, Cambridge:
Cam-
bridge University
Press
(1985); Cottingham, Stoothoff,
and
Murdoch,
The Philo-
sophical Writings of
Descartes, Volume
II, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press
(1984);
and
Cottingham, Stoothoff, Murdoch,
and
Anthony Kenny,
The
Philosoph-
ical
Writings of Descartes, Volume
III, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press
(1991).
I use "AT" to refer to the
pagination
in Charles Adam and Paul
Tannery,
Oeuvres de
Descartes,
Volumes
I-XII,
Paris: Vrin
(1996).
DESCARTES ON THE DUBITABILITY OF THE EXISTENCE OF SELF 1 1 1
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are dubitable.2 Here I
pull together
a number of elements of Descartes'
system
to show how all of these
passages hang together.
In section one
I
argue
that Descartes holds that most of us have a confused
materially
false idea of self and that as a result we can think our existence confus-
edly
and hence doubt it. In section two I consider a
passage
in Second
Replies
in which Descartes
appears
to state without
qualification
that it
is
impossible
for us to doubt our own existence. In section three I con-
sider the clear and distinct
perception
of self that is achieved in the Sec-
ond Meditation. I conclude with some remarks on the
implications
of
Descartes' notion of material
falsity
for the
project
of
conceptual
ana-
lysis.
I
The most fundamental
principles
of Descartes'
metaphysics
include that
"what is done cannot be
undone,"
that "he who thinks cannot but
exist while he
thinks,"
and that
"nothing
comes from
nothing."3
Des-
cartes refers to these
alternately
as "common notions" and
"primary
notions."4
Although
there is a sense in which these notions are the
most evident of
all,5 they
are still
quite
dubitable. Descartes
writes,
In the case of these common
notions,
there is no doubt that
they
are
capable
of
being clearly
and
distinctly perceived;
for otherwise
they
would not
properly
be called common notions. But some of them do not
really
have an
equal
claim
to be called 'common'
among
all
people,
since
they
are not
equally
well
per-
ceived
by everyone.
This is
not,
I
think,
because one man's
faculty
of know-
ledge
extends more
widely
than
another's,
but because the common notions are
in conflict with the
preconceived opinions
of some
people who,
as a
result,
can-
not
easily grasp
them. But the selfsame notions are
perceived
with the utmost
clarity by
other
people
who are free from such
preconceived opinions.6
2
See for
example
the Third
Meditation,
AT
7:35-6,
and
Principles of Philosophy
1:49-
50,
AT 8A:23-4. Some commentators have
argued
that in the
light
of these
passages
there is no coherent account to be reconstructed of Descartes' views on the dubitabil-
ity
of "I
am,
I exist." See for
example
Janet
Broughton,
Descartes 's Method
of
Doubt,
Princeton: Princeton
University
Press
(2002),
185. See also
Anthony Kenny,
Descartes, A
Study of
His
Philosophy,
Bristol: Thoemmes Press
(1968), 185; Margaret
Wilson
(1978), Descartes;
New York:
Routledge (1978),
37 and
133-5;
and Genevieve
Rodis-Lewis,
"On the
Complementarity
of Meditations III and V: From the 'General
Rule' of Evidence to 'Certain
Science',"
in Amelie
Oksenberg Rorty (ed.), Essays
on
Descartes'
Meditations, Berkeley: University
of California Press
(1984),
280.
3
Principles 1:49,
AT
8A:23-4;
Second
Replies,
AT
7:145-6;
and Second
Replies,
AT
7:135-6.
4
Principles 1:50,
AT
8A:24;
and Second
Replies,
AT 7:135-6.
5
In Second
Replies,
Descartes
says
that the
primary
notions of
metaphysics
"are
by
their nature as evident
as,
or even more evident
than,
the
primary
notions which the
geometers study" (AT 7:157).
6
Principles 1:50,
AT 8A:24.
112 DAVID CUNNING
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Here
(in Principles 1:50)
Descartes
says
that common notions are dubi-
table,
and in
Principles
1:49 he included as a common notion that "he
who thinks cannot but exist while he thinks." On Descartes'
view,
we
cannot refrain from
affirming
a clear and distinct
perception
while we
are
having it,
but the common notions "are not
equally
well
perceived
by everyone."7
If a
perception
is even the
slightest
bit
obscure,
it is
possible
to doubt it:
So
long
as we attend to a truth which we
perceive very clearly,
we cannot
doubt it. But
when,
as
often happens,
we are not
attending
to
any
truth in this
way,
then even
though
we remember that we have
previously perceived many
things very clearly,
nonetheless there will be
nothing
which we
may
not
justly
doubt so
long
as we do not know that whatever we
clearly perceive
is true.8
Like
anything,
"I
am,
I exist" is dubitable in the sense that we can con-
ceive that it is false if we think it
confusedly.9
We can be
suspicious
of
its truth if we
barely grasp
it and if it is "in conflict with
[one
of
our]
preconceived opinions,"
for
example
that what we know best we know
7
For Descartes' view that we cannot refrain from
affirming
a clear and distinct
per-
ception
while
having it,
see the Fifth
Meditation,
AT
7:69; Appendix
to
Fifth Objec-
tions and
Replies,
AT
9A:205;
Second
Replies,
AT
7:144;
"To
[Mesland],
2
May
1644,"
AT
4:115-6; Principles 1:43,
AT 8A:
21; Anthony Kenny,
"Descartes on the
Will,"
in John
Cottingham (ed.), Descartes,
Oxford: Oxford
University
Press
(1998),
149-52;
Charles
Larmore,
"Descartes'
Psychologistic Theory
of
Assent," History of
Philosophy Quarterly
1
(1984), 61-74;
and Alan
Nelson,
"Descartes's
Ontology
of
Thought," Topoi
16
(1997),
163-4.
8
Seventh
Objections
and
Replies,
AT
7:460, emphasis
added. See also Fourth
Replies,
AT 7:245-6.
9
Descartes nowhere offers a definition of
dubitability,
and so his account of dubita-
bility
must be reconstructed from the
passages
in which he
speaks
of
things
as dubi-
table. Here I am
appealing
to the Seventh
Objections
and
Replies passage
as
partial
evidence for the view that Descartes holds that a
proposition p
is dubitable iff we
can think
p confusedly
and conceive that
~/?.
Similar
passages
are in Fourth
Replies,
AT
7:245-6;
the Third
Meditation,
AT
7:36;
and
Principles 1:50,
AT 8A:24. We can
rule out in advance an alternative account
according
to which Descartes holds that
a
proposition p
is dubitable iff it is
possible
for someone to
clearly
and
distinctly
perceive
that
~p:
Descartes nowhere
speaks
of
clearly
and
distinctly perceiving nega-
tions,
but more
importantly,
his view on the
will-compellingness
of clear and dis-
tinct
perceptions
entails that a clear and distinct
perception
that
~p
would be an
indubitable
perception
that
~/?,
and
presumably
Descartes does not hold that what
it is to doubt
something
is to affirm with
certainty
that it is false. To doubt some-
thing
that is
true,
our
perception
of it must be at least somewhat
confused;
and of
course the same has to
apply
in cases in which we doubt
something
that is false. In
Appendix
to
Fifth Objections
and
Replies
Descartes
says
that "before we can decide
to
doubt,
we need some reason for
doubting" (AT 9A:204). Accordingly,
we doubt
a
thing
in circumstances in which we
perceive
it
confusedly
and affirm
something
else that conflicts with it.
DESCARTES ON THE DUBITABILITY OF THE EXISTENCE OF SELF 1 13
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through
the senses.10 We can conceive that it is false if we
barely grasp
it and if we are
among
"those who like to contradict
just
for the sake
of it."11 We can conceive that it is false if we
barely grasp
it and if we
take
seriously
the
possibility
that our minds are not reliable.
One scenario in which we
perceive
our existence
confusedly
is that in
which we have a confused idea of self. Descartes identifies a
perception [as]
'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.12
If our idea of self is
confused,
our
perception
of the existence of our
self is constituted in
part by
a confused idea.13 This
perception
can be
made more distinct if we
clarify
our idea of
self,
but until we do it is
dubitable:
It is clear that we do not have this kind of
[absolute] certainty
in cases where
our
perception
is even the
slightest
bit obscure or
confused;
for such
obscurity,
whatever its
degree,
is
quite
sufficient to make us have doubts in such cases.14
Descartes holds that most of us have an idea of self that is confused:
All our ideas of what
belong
to the mind have
up
till now been
very
confused
and mixed
up
with the ideas of
things
that can be
perceived by
the senses.15
He adds that
This is the first and most
important
reason for our
inability
to understand with
sufficient
clarity
the
customary
assertions about the soul and God.16
One of the reasons that we do not
clearly
and
distinctly
understand
some of the
(presumably true)
assertions about mind is that our idea of
mind is confused. A sufficient condition for
having
a confused
percep-
tion that X is A is
having
an idea of X that is confused.
10
The Second
Meditation,
AT 7:29-30.
11
Second
Replies,
AT 7:157.
12
Principles 1:45,
AT
8A:22, emphasis
added.
13
Here I am
referring
to Descartes' view that a
judgment
is the affirmation
by
the
will of an idea that is had
by
the intellect. See for
example
the Fourth
Meditation,
AT
7:56-8;
and
Principles 1:34-38,
AT 8A:18-9.
14
Second
Replies,
AT 7: 145.
1 5
Second
Replies,
AT 7: 1 30- 1 .
16
AT 7:131.
114 DAVID CUNNING
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Descartes offers a detailed account of how we come to have ideas of
mind and God that are "mixed
up"
with ideas of sensible
things. First,
he
says
that as a result of
paying
so much attention to the sensible
bodies on which we
depend
for
survival,
we
ignore things
that we can-
not sense and assume that
they
are
nothing
at all.17 We assume that
whatever is real is
sensible,
and our ideas of mind and God
pay
a
heavy price.
If we
regard
mind or God as
real,
we conceive them as
sensible:
many people's understanding
of substance is still limited to that which is
imagi-
nable and
corporeal,
or even to that which is
capable
of
being perceived by
the
senses.
...[TJhey suppose
that
nothing
can subsist unless it is a
body,
and that
no
body
can subsist unless it can be
perceived by
the senses.18
Another reason that we come to conceive of mind and God as sensible
is that our standard
way
of
thinking
of
any object
is to think of it as a
sensible
thing.19
A childhood focus on our
bodily
needs is a focus on
the sensible bodies that meet
them,
and as a result we do not become
proficient
at
thinking
of other kinds of
thing:
our mind is unable to
keep
its attention on
things
without some
degree
of diffi-
culty
and
fatigue;
and it is hardest of all for it to attend to what is not
present
to the senses or even to the
imagination.20
If it is
extremely
difficult for us to conceive of
things
that cannot be
sensed,
almost
everything
that we do conceive we will conceive as
17
See for
example Principles
1:71. Descartes writes that "since the mind
judged every-
thing
in terms of its
utility
to the
body
in which it was
immersed,
it assessed the
amount of
reality
in each
object by
the extent to which it was affected
by
it. As a
result,
it
supposed
that there was more substance or
corporeality
in rocks and
metals than in water or
air,
since it felt more hardness and heaviness in them.
Indeed,
it
regarded
the air as a mere
nothing,
so
long
as it felt no wind or cold or
heat in it"
(AT 8A:36).
See also The
World, chapter four,
AT
11:21;
and
Principles
11:10-22,
AT 8A:45-52.
18
Principles 1:73;
AT 8A:37.
19
See also E.M.
Curley, "Analysis
in the Meditations: The
Quest
for Clear and Dis-
tinct
Ideas,"
in
Rorty 1984, 156-62; Gary Hatfield,
"The Senses and the Fleshless
Eye:
The Meditations as
Cognitive Exercises,"
in
Rorty 1984, 70-1;
and
Stephen
Menn,
Descartes and
Augustine, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press
(1998),
chapter
6.
20
Principles 1:73,
AT 8A:37. Descartes
goes
on to
say
that most of us are
very
attached to our senses and that "since... there is
nothing
whose true nature we
per-
ceive
by
the senses
alone,
it turns out that most
people
have
nothing
but confused
perceptions throughout
their entire lives"
(AT 8A:37).
DESCARTES ON THE DUBITABILITY OF THE EXISTENCE OF SELF 1 1 5
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sensible. In
particular,
we will conceive of mind and God as
sensible,
even
though they
are not.21
Descartes does not think that we are
thinking
of mind or God if we
just
have an idea of a sensible
thing.
He
says
to
Gassendi,
This is a
thought
which is
worthy
of
you alone,
O Flesh. For if
anyone
thus
represents God,
or the
mind,
to himself he is
attempting
to
imagine something
which is not
imaginable,
and all he will succeed in
forming
is a
corporeal
idea
to which he
falsely assigns
the name 'God' or 'the mind'. A true idea of the
mind contains
only thought
and its
attributes,
none of which is
corporeal.22
Descartes
presumably
should
say
that an idea is not of God or mind if
it is an idea of a sensible
thing.
It is instead an idea of a sensible
thing.
A "true idea of
mind,"
as Descartes
puts it,
is not an idea of a
thing
that is sensible. In between a true idea of mind and an idea that is fal-
sely assigned
the name 'mind' is an idea that is of
mind,
but that is
confused. Descartes
says
that our ideas of mind and God "have been
very
confused and mixed
up
with ideas of
things
that can be
perceived
by
the senses." A true
(or
clear and
distinct)
idea of mind does not
rep-
resent mind as
material,
but as result of our embodiment this idea is
run
together,
and
tightly associated,
with ideas of sensible
things.
According
to
Descartes,
our
pre-philosophical
idea of mind is
very
confused. It in fact has much in common with what Descartes treats as
the
paradigmatic
case of a
materially
false idea
-
the
sensory
idea.
Descartes defines material
falsity
in Fourth
Replies:
The first
point
is that certain ideas are
materially
false. As I
interpret
this
claim,
it means that the ideas are such as to
provide subject-matter
for error.
(AT 7:231)
What it is for an idea to
provide subject-matter
for error is not
exactly
clear,
however. Descartes
says
that material
falsity
"is the
falsity
to be
found in an idea"
(AT 7:233).
He elaborates:
Even if I do not refer
my
ideas to
anything
outside
myself,
there is still
subject-
matter for
error,
since I can make a mistake with
regard
to the actual nature of
the ideas. For
example,
I
may
consider the idea of
colour,
and
say
that it is a
thing
or
quality;
or rather I
may say
that the colour
itself,
which is
represented
by
this
idea,
is
something
of the kind. For
example,
I
may say
whiteness is a
quality;
and even if I do not refer this idea to
anything
outside
myself
-
even
if I do not
say
or
suppose
that there is
any
white
thing
-
I
may
still make a
21
See also
Fifth Replies,
AT
7:365;
Second
Replies,
AT
7:130-1;
"To
Mersenne, July
1641,"
AT
3:393-4;
"To
Hyperaspistes, August 1641,"
AT
3:430;
and "To Clersel-
ier, February 1645,"
AT 4:187-8.
22
Fifth Replies,
AT 7:385.
116 DAVID CUNNING
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mistake in the
abstract,
with
regard
to whiteness itself and its nature or the idea
I have of it...23
If an examination of our idea of cold reveals that coldness is a
thing
or
quality,
when coldness is not a
thing
or
quality,
then our idea of cold
mischaracterizes coldness. Descartes thinks that most of us have an
idea of cold that is
misrepresentative
in this
way.
This idea of cold
leads me to
judge
that the idea of the sensation of cold
represents
some
object
called 'cold' which is located outside of me....24
Our
sensory ideas,
Descartes
says, "represent non-things
as
things."25
They
lead us to
judge
that
(for example)
coldness is
"something posit-
ive which exists outside
my
sensation."26
They represent
items that do
not exist
mind-independently
as items that do.27
Descartes thinks that
strictly speaking
a sensation is a mode of
mind. A true idea of a sensation
represents
it as such:
pain
and colour and so on are
clearly
and
distinctly perceived
when
they
are
regarded merely
as sensations or
thoughts.28
23
Conservation with
Burman,
AT 5:152. Note that Descartes indicates that the
expres-
sion 'even if I do not refer this idea to
anything
outside
myself
is to be understood
as 'even if I do not
say
or
suppose
that there is
any
white
thing'.
In the
larger pas-
sage
he is
pointing
out that the material
falsity
of an idea
(of X)
is
independent
of
whether or not X
actually
exists.
24
Fourth
Replies,
AT 7:234-5.
25
The Third
Meditation,
AT 7:43.
26
Fourth
Replies,
AT 7:234. Descartes is not
offering
a definition of material
falsity
in
the Third Meditation when he
says
that
materially
false ideas
represent non-things
as
things. Instead,
he is
expounding
one of the
ways
in which
sensory
ideas
provide
the
subject-matter
for error:
they represent non-things
as
things
in the sense that
they represent things
that do not exist
mind-independently
as
things
that do exist
mind-independently.
Ideas
-
even
sensory
ideas
-
can
provide subject-matter
for
error in other
ways,
as Descartes reveals when he
says
that ideas of
appetite (for
example, thirst)
are
materially
false in that
they
lead us to
pursue
or avoid items
that we should not
(Fourth Replies,
AT
7:234).
Descartes' definition of material fal-
sity
-
what he "means
[in saying that]
certain ideas are
materially
false"
(emphasis
added)
-
is that "the ideas are such as to
provide subject-matter
for error."
27
See also
Principles 1:66-71,
AT
8A:32-6;
and The
World,
AT 1 1:3.
28
Principles 1:68;
AT 8A:33. Similar
passages
are in
Principles 1:66,
AT
8A:32;
and
Principles 1:70,
AT 8A:34-5. See also Alan
Nelson,
"The
Falsity
in
Sensory
Ideas:
Descartes and
Arnauld,"
in E. Kremer
(ed.), Interpreting Arnauld,
Toronto: Uni-
versity
of Toronto Press
(1996), 19, 23-6;
Nelson
1997, 166;
Samuel C.
Rickless,
"The Cartesian
Fallacy Fallacy,"
Notts 39
(2005), 315-7;
and Katherine J.
Morris,
"Intermingling
and
Confusion,"
International Journal
of Philosophical
Studies 3
(1995),
290-7.
DESCARTES ON THE DUBITABILITY OF THE EXISTENCE OF SELF 1 1 7
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Our idea of cold
-
our
pre-philosophical
idea of cold
-
is
materially
false. It
provides subject-matter
for error in that an examination of that
idea delivers the result that the sensation of cold exists
extra-mentally,
when in fact it does not. Descartes traces the
falsity
in this
sensory
idea
to our unreflective childhood
supposition
that
objects
are
just
as we
perceive
them:
all of us
have,
from our
early childhood, judged
that all the
objects
of our
sense-perception
are
things existing
outside our minds and
closely resembling
our
sensations,
i.e. the
perceptions
that we had of them.
Thus,
on
seeing
a col-
our,
for
example,
we
supposed
we were
seeing
a
thing
located outside us which
closely
resembled the idea of colour that we
experienced
within us at the time.29
As
children,
we
judge correctly
that the extensive
qualities
of bodies
have a
mind-independent existence,
but in addition we make the
hasty
judgment
that all of the other
qualities
that we
perceive
to be in bodies
exist
mind-independently
as well.30 The
falsity
in a
sensory
idea is the
result of
something
that we do. Descartes' account of material
falsity
thus
parallels
the account of error that he offers in the Fourth Medi-
tation:
if we
frequently
have ideas
containing
some
falsity,
this can
happen only
because there is
something
confused and obscure in
them,
for in that
respect
they participate
in
nothingness,
that
is, they
are in us in this confused state
only
because we are not
wholly perfect.
And it is evident that it is no less contradict-
ory
that
falsity
or
imperfection
as such should
proceed
from God than that
truth or
perfection
should
proceed
from
nothingness.31
29
Principles
1:66. AT 8A:32.
30
Principles 1:71,
AT 8A:35-6. Descartes writes that "In our
early
childhood the mind
was so
closely
tied to the
body
that it had no leisure for
any thoughts except
those
by
means of which it had
sensory
awareness of what was
happening
to the
body....[T]he
mind had various sensations
corresponding
to the different areas
where,
and
ways
in
which,
the
body
was
being stimulated, namely
what we call the
sensations of
tastes, smells, sounds, heat, cold, light,
colours and so on
-
sensa-
tions which do not
represent anything
located outside of our
thought.
At the same
time the mind
perceived sizes, shapes,
motions and so
on,
which were
presented
to
it not as sensations but as
things,
or modes of
things, existing (or
at least
capable
of
existing)
outside of
thought, although
it was not
yet
aware of the difference
between
things
and sensations. The next
stage
arose when the mechanism of the
body,
which is so constructed
by
nature that it has the
ability
to move in various
ways by
its own
power,
twisted around
aimlessly
in all directions in its random
attempts
to
pursue
the beneficial and avoid the
harmful;
at this
point
the mind that
was attached to the
body began
to notice that the
objects
of this
pursuit
or avoid-
ance had an existence outside itself. And it attributed to them not
only sizes,
shapes,
motions and the
like,
which it
perceived
as
things
or modes of
things,
but
also
tastes, smells,
and so
on,
the sensations of which
were,
it
realized, produced
by
the
objects
in
question."
31
Discourse on the
Method,
Part
Four,
AT 6:38-9.
118 DAVID CUNNING
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None of the ideas that God
implants
in a human mind is false intrinsic-
ally.32
A clear and distinct idea of color
represents
color as mind-
dependent,
but as a result of our habitual
supposition
that color is
mind-independent,
that idea has been run
together,
and
tightly
associ-
ated,
with the idea of
mind-independent
existence.33 Like an idea of
mind that is mixed
up
with ideas of sensible
things,
a
materially
false
idea of a sensation is mixed
up
with other
ideas,
and it would not be an
idea of that sensation if it were
just
an idea of a
mind-independent thing.
It has
"something positive
as its
underlying subject, namely
the actual
sensation involved."34 It is in some sense a
composite
of a true idea of
the sensation and
predicates
that do not
pertain
to the sensation. It is an
idea that "is referred to
something
other than that of which it is in fact
the idea."35 It is a true idea of a sensation that is so
tightly
associated
with
predicates
that do not
pertain
to the sensation that an examination
of our idea of the sensation will
yield
a result that is false.
Descartes
certainly privileges
the
sensory
idea as the
paradigm
of mater-
ial
falsity,
but he takes other ideas to be
materially
false as well. He
writes,
[A]s
for the confused ideas of
gods
concocted
by idolaters,
I see no reason
why
they
too cannot be called
materially false,
in so far as
they provide
the
subject-
matter for false
judgements.36
He adds that material
falsity
admits of
degrees
and that an idea is
more or less
materially
false as a function of the extent to which it
pro-
vides
subject-matter
for error:
ideas which
give
the
judgement
little or no
scope
for error do not seem as much
entitled to be called
materially
false as those which
give great scope
for error.37
32
See also Nelson
1996, 23-6,
and Dan
Kaufman,
"Descartes on the
Objective
Real-
ity
of
Materially
False
Ideas," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly
81
(2000),
402. As a
result of our
hasty judgments
and also our
embodiment,
some of our ideas become
confused,
but we can restore even the most recalcitrant of these
-
for
example
ideas of sensations that incline us to
pursue
or avoid what we should not.
(See
for
example
The Sixth
Meditation,
AT
7:89-90).
Some commentators have
argued
that
Descartes holds that
sensory
ideas are confused
intrinsically.
See for
example
Wil-
son
1978, 105-16;
and Jill
Buroker,
"Descartes on Sensible
Qualities,"
Journal
of
the
History of Philosophy
29
(1991),
585-611.
33
See also
Principles 1:71,
AT
8A:35;
and Nelson
1997,
168-9.
34
Fourth
Replies,
AT 7:234. Note that Descartes holds that
everyone
has innate ideas
of God and mind that serve as the
"underlying components"
of our confused ideas
of mind and God. See for
example
Third
Replies,
AT
7:183-9;
Second
Replies,
AT
7:136-7;
and Fifth
Replies,
AT 7:375.
35
Fourth
Replies,
AT 7:233.
36
Ibid.
37
Ibid.
DESCARTES ON THE DUBITABILITY OF THE EXISTENCE OF SELF 1 19
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Confused ideas that are made
up
at will do not
provide
as much
scope
for error as ideas of color and
cold,
which we do not notice that we
have
assembled,
and "the
greatest scope
for error is
provided by
the
ideas which arise from the sensations of
appetite."38
One
possible
explanation
for Descartes'
emphasis
on the material
falsity
of
sensory
ideas over that of our
pre-philosophical
ideas of mind and God is
that,
as a result of our embodiment and our attention to
self-preservation,
our clear and distinct ideas of sensations have been more
tightly
wed
to
predicates
that do not
apply
to them. The task of
correcting
materi-
ally
false
sensory
ideas also has a kind of
urgency,
in that these ideas
lead us to err in a
way
that threatens our
very
survival. For
example,
a
patient
with
dropsy might
die if he
accepts
the deliverances of his
materially
false idea of thirst.39 More
generally,
the research that will
help
us to understand the
workings
of the human
body,
and to learn
how to treat
it,
will not be
completed
if we do not abandon the bad
predicates
of Aristotelian science.40
II
In this section I want to consider an
objection.
In Second
Replies
there is
a
passage
in which Descartes
appears
to state that "I
am,
I exist" and its
variants are not dubitable in
any
circumstances. He
writes,
Now some of these
perceptions
are so
transparently
clear and at the same time
so
simple
that we cannot ever think of them without
believing
them to be true.
The fact that I exist so
long
as I am
thinking;
or that what is done cannot be
undone,
are
examples
of truths in
respect
of which we
manifestly possess
this
kind of
certainty.
For we cannot doubt them unless we think of
them;
but we
cannot think of them without at the same time
believing they
are
true,
as was
supposed.
Hence we cannot doubt them without at the same time
believing they
are
true;
that
is,
we can never doubt them.
(AT 7:145-6)
Here Descartes
appears
to state
unequivocally
that we cannot think "I
exist so
long
as I am
thinking"
without
believing
that it is true and so
can never doubt it.
The first
thing
to note about this
passage
is that Descartes does not
in fact
say
in it that "I exist so
long
as I am
thinking"
and other
simple
38
Fourth
Replies,
AT 7:234.
39
Ibid.
40
One of Descartes' aims is to
replace
the bad
concepts
of Aristotelian science with
the
concepts
of the new mechanistic
science,
and a
recognition
of the confusion of
our current ideas of sensible
qualities
is crucial to this end. See
Principles of
Philos-
ophy, preface
to the French
edition,
AT
9B:5-9;
"To Princess
Elizabeth,
21
May
1643,"
AT
3:665-8;
"To
Regius, January 1642,"
AT
3:491-2;
and "To Princess
Elizabeth,
28 June
1643,"
AT 3:690-1.
120 DAVID CUNNING
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truths are indubitable.
Instead,
he
says
that some of our
perceptions
of
these truths are so
transparently
clear that we cannot have them with-
out
believing
their truth. At the end of the
preceding paragraph,
he
specifies
the
perceptions
that he has in mind
-
"the clear
perceptions
of the intellect" as
opposed
to
perceptions
that involve the senses
(AT
7.145).41
In
Principles
1:49-50
(cited
at the
beginning
of section
one)
he
included "what is done cannot be undone" and "I exist so
long
as I
am
thinking"
as
examples
of common notions that can be doubted if
we
perceive
them
confusedly.
Here he
says
of these same notions that
some of our
perceptions
of them are indubitable.42 He is not
talking
about the
indubitability
of
particular truths,
but about the indubitabil-
ity
of some of our
perceptions
of these truths.
Descartes does indeed
single
out "I exist so
long
as I am
thinking"
and "what is done cannot be undone" as
unique
in the
passage.
How-
ever,
he is not
singling
them out as
wholly
indubitable. He is instead
distinguishing
them from truths that cannot be
clearly
and
distinctly
perceived
on their own. As he
says,
There are other truths which are
perceived very clearly by
our intellect so
long
as we attend to the
arguments
on which our
knowledge
of them
depends....
(AT 7:146)
Descartes is
certainly right
to think that there are truths whose truth is
not
fully
evident if we are not also aware of our reasons for
accepting
41
Descartes adds here that "if there is
any certainty
to be
had,
the
only remaining
alternative is that it occurs in the clear
perceptions
of the intellect and nowhere
else"
(AT 7:145).
There are three
passages
in Descartes'
corpus
which
might appear
to reflect the view that some non-intellectual
perceptions
are clear and distinct. One
is in Second
Replies,
in which Descartes
says
that a
person
with
jaundice perceives
snow
"just
as
clearly
and
distinctly
as we do when we see it as white"
(ibid.).
This
passage
is at best neutral on the
question
of whether or not
perceptions
of snow
are
actually
clear and
distinct; indeed,
the
passage
comes
immediately
before Des-
cartes' claim that if there is
any certainty
to be had it occurs in the clear and dis-
tinct
perceptions
of the intellect and nowhere else. The second
passage
is in First
Replies,
in which Descartes
says
that
just
as we can
clearly
and
distinctly perceive
part
of a
chiliagon
if we focus our
attention,
we can
clearly
and
distinctly perceive
a
portion
of the sea
(AT 7:113).
This
passage
can be read as
reflecting
the Second
Meditation view that we can
clearly
and
distinctly perceive
a
body
so
long
as we
focus our attention on those
aspects
of the
body
that are
perceived by
the intellect
alone
(AT 7:30-1).
Given the
weight
of the Second
Replies passage,
this is how it
should be read. The same
reading applies
to the
passage
in Conversation with Bur-
man,
AT 5:160. For a
contrary
view see Rickless
2005,
315-7.
42
Descartes does
say (in
the Second
Replies passage)
that the two common notions
are "truths of which we
manifestly possess
this kind of
certainty."
Given that he
takes the truths to be
dubitable,
he is not
saying
that we
always
have such
certainty
about
them,
but that such
certainty
is within our
capability.
DESCARTES ON THE DUBITABILITY OF THE EXISTENCE OF SELF 121
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them. In the AT 7:145-6
passage,
he is not
making
the
point
that the
"simple"
truths are
absolutely
indubitable.
Instead,
he is
making
the
point
that
part
of their
simplicity
consists in the fact
that,
unlike the
conclusions of
arguments,
it is within our
capability
to
clearly
and dis-
tinctly perceive
them without
clearly
and
distinctly perceiving anything
else
-
for
example, premises
from which
they
are inferred.
Still,
it is
possible
for us to think them
confusedly
and then doubt them.
Descartes thinks that there are
many
circumstances in which we can
doubt "I
am,
I exist." We can doubt it if we think it
confusedly
as a
result of
having
a confused
materially
false idea of self. We can also
doubt "I
am,
I exist" if we think it
by attending
to
linguistic symbols
that stand in for it. Descartes
writes,
it is
very
seldom that our
concept
of a
thing
is so distinct that we can
separate
it
totally
from our
concept
of the words involved. The
thoughts
of almost all
people
are more concerned with words than with
things....43
As we have
seen,
Descartes thinks that it is
extremely
difficult for us to
sustain the kind of attention that is
required
for
having
a clear and dis-
tinct
perception.
It is much easier for us to take the short-cut of think-
ing imagistically.
In
attempting
to think of
infinitude,
for
example,
we
might
instead think of a
string
of
symbols
that stands in for our idea
of infinitude.44
Or,
we
might confusedly perceive
the
proposition
"what-
ever thinks exists" when
it is
put
forward without attention and believed to be true
only
because we
remember that we
judged
it to be true
previously.45
According
to
Descartes,
much of human behavior takes
place
without
being guided by thought:
a
very large
number of the motions
occurring
inside us do not
depend
in
any
way
on the mind. These include
heartbeat, digestion, nutrition, respiration
when we are
asleep,
and also such
waking
actions as
walking, singing,
and the
like,
when these occur without the mind
attending
to them.46
The habitual use of
language
is no
exception.
The reason
why
an ani-
mal can
speak
is
that,
without
any accompanying
mental
activity,
its
animal
spirits
can cause its
body
to make the relevant
noises,
but our
43
Principles 1:74,
AT 8A:37.
44
See for
example
Second
Replies,
AT 7:141-2.
45
Appendix
to
Fifth Objections
and
Replies,
AT 9A:205.
46
Fourth
Replies,
AT 7:229-30.
122 DAVID CUNNING
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animal
spirits
can cause
bodily
movements as well.47 If "the
thoughts
of almost all
people
are more concerned with words than with
things,"
and if we can use
language
without
confronting
the ideas to which that
language
is
tied,
we can entertain the
possible falsity
of a lot of
things
even if their
falsity
is
strictly speaking
incoherent.48
Another circumstance in which we can doubt "I
am,
I exist" is that
in which we take
seriously
the
possibility
that our minds
might
be
deceived about matters that are most evident to us. In the Third Medi-
tation Descartes reiterates the view that we cannot doubt a clear and
distinct
perception
while
having
it:
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 whoever can do so
deceive
me,
he will never
bring
it about that I am
nothing,
so
long
as I con-
tinue to think I am
something;
or make it true at some future time that I have
never
existed,
since it is now true that I
exist;
or
bring
it about that two and
three added
together
are more or less than
five,
or
anything
of this kind in
which I see a manifest contradiction.
(AT 7:36)
However,
when we turn our attention
away
from a clear and distinct
idea and consider instead the
prospect
that we
might
be deceived about
matters that are most evident to
us,
we can doubt
any
of our beliefs.49
In the First
Meditation,
Descartes had
argued
that the truths of arith-
47
See also "To the
Marquess
of
Newcastle,
23 November
1646,"
AT
4:573-5;
and
The Passions
of
the Soul
1:50,
AT 1 1:368-9. Such a view is not unusual
among early
moderns. See for
example
John
Locke,
An
Essay Concerning
Human
Understanding,
ed. P.H.
Nidditch, Oxford,
Clarendon Press
(1975), II.ix.10, 147;
and
Ralph
Cud-
worth,
The True Intellectual
System of
the
Universe, Stuttgart-Bad
Cannstatt: F.
Fromann
Verlag (1964),
157-9. See also David
Cunning, "Systematic Divergences
in Malebranche and
Cudworth,"
Journal
of
the
History of Philosophy
41
(2003),
351-2;
and David
Cunning, "Agency
and
Consciousness," Synthese
120
(1999),
271-94.
48
See also Bertrand
Russell,
"The
Philosophy
of
Logical Atomism," Logic
and Know-
ledge,
ed. R.C.
Marsh,
London: Allen & Unwin
(1956),
185. He
writes,
"In
very
abstract studies such as
philosophical logic,
... the
subject-matter
that
you
are
supposed
to be
thinking
of is so
exceedingly
difficult and elusive that
any person
who has ever
tried to think about it knows
you
do not think about it
except perhaps
once in six
months for half a minute. The rest of the time
you
think about the
symbols,
because
they
are
tangible,
for the
thing you
are
supposed
to be
thinking
about is
fearfully
diffi-
cult and one does not often
manage
to think about it. The
really good philosopher
is
the one who does once in six months think about it for a minute. Bad
philosophers
never do." See also David
Cunning,
"Semel in Vita: Descartes' Stoic View on the Place
of
Philosophy
in Human
Life,"
Faith and
Philosophy (forthcoming).
49
AT 7:36. Descartes
writes,
"And whenever
my preconceived
belief in the
supreme
power
of God comes to
mind,
I cannot but admit that it would be
easy
for
him,
if
he so
desired,
to
bring
it about that I
go wrong
even in those matters which I think
I see
utterly clearly
with
my
mind's
eye."
For a discussion of this kind of "meta-
cognitive" doubt,
see Lex Newman and Alan
Nelson,
"Circumventing
Cartesian
Circles,"
Nous 33
(1999),
370-404.
DESCARTES ON THE DUBITABILITY OF THE EXISTENCE OF SELF 123
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metic and
geometry
are dubitable in the face of the
prospect
that we
might
be deceived about matters that are most evident to us.50 In the
Third Meditation he
says
that until we know that God has created us
with reliable
cognitive
faculties we "can never be
quite
certain about
anything
else"
(AT 7:36).
As in other
circumstances,
in the Third Medi-
tation we are able to doubt our own existence.51
Ill
Early
in the Second Meditation Descartes' meditator has a clear and
distinct
perception
of his existence.
Immediately
thereafter he reverts to
thinking
of his self as a
thing
that is sensible and material. This is not
50
There is a debate in the literature about whether or not the First Meditation medita-
tor
clearly
and
distinctly perceives
the truths of mathematics and
geometry.
Some
commentators have
argued
that the beliefs of the First Meditation meditator are
"from the senses or
through
the senses"
(AT 7:18)
and thus that he does not have
any
clear and distinct
perceptions. (See
for
example Harry Frankfurt, Demons, Dreamers,
and
Madmen, Indianapolis
and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill
Company,
Inc.
(1970),
62-4;
Charles
Larmore, "Scepticism,"
in Daniel Garber and Michael
Ayers (eds.),
The
Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy,
Volume
II, Cambridge:
Cambridge University
Press
(1998), 1166-8;
and Rickless
2005,
323-4. An
important
text here is the Second
Replies passage (AT 7:145)
in which Descartes
says
that cer-
tainty
in the strict sense is not had
through
the senses but
through
the
intellect.)
Other
commentators have
argued
that in the First Meditation the truths of mathematics
and
geometry
are
"transparent"
and "evident" and thus that
they
are
clearly
and dis-
tinctly perceived. (See
for
example Georges Moyal,
"A Brief Note on
Clarity
and Dis-
tinctness in Descartes' First
Meditation,"
Studia Leibnitiana 31
(1999), 91-8;
and
Norman
Kemp Smith,
New Studies in the
Philosophy of Descartes,
London: MacMil-
lan & Co.
(1963), 272.)
The correct view is that it is a mistake to take sides on the
issue. Descartes is
explicit
that he is
writing
the Meditations for a
variety
of minds
{Seventh Replies,
AT
7:482;
First
Replies,
AT
7:120).
We take the
first-person point-
of-view in an
attempt
to come to see the truth for ourselves
{Appendix
to
Fifth Objec-
tions and
Replies,
AT
9A:208),
but not all meditators
begin
at the same
epistemic
position.
If the meditator is an atheist
geometer,
or if he has
"form[ed] very
distinct
notions of
body"
as a result of his
"study
of mathematics"
("To
Princess
Elizabeth,
28 June
1643,"
AT
3:692),
he
might
have clear and distinct
perceptions
of the truths
of mathematics and
geometry
and then doubt them after
turning
his attention instead
to the
prospect
that he is deceived about matters that are most evident to him. Such a
meditator
might
indeed be committed to the
empiricist
view that there is
nothing
in
the intellect that was not first in the
senses,
and his
first-person reasoning might
reflect
this
commitment,
but that of course does not mean or even
suggest
that all of his
beliefs are either from or
through
the senses. The Second Meditation realization
(AT
7:31)
that our
perceptions
of bodies have
always
involved an act of
purely
mental
scrutiny
bears out that the commitment is false. The First Meditation meditator is
not
yet
a
Cartesian,
and he reasons
accordingly.
51
There still remains the
question
of
why
we cannot refrain from
affirming
our exist-
ence in the face of the
prospect
of
hyperbolic
doubt at the start of the Second
Meditation. Below I
argue
that Descartes holds that if we
carefully
consider the
prospect
that we
might
be deceived about matters that are most evident to us,
we
form a clear and distinct idea of self and have a clear and distinct
perception
of
the existence of self.
124 DAVID CUNNING
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surprising.
Descartes holds that the habits that stem from our embodi-
ment are such that it is
very
difficult for us to have a clear and distinct
perception,
and that if we do we almost
immediately
revert to
thinking
that is confused:
In later
years
the mind is no
longer
a total slave to the
body,
and does not
refer
everything
to it.
Indeed,
it
inquires
into the truth of
things
considered in
themselves,
and discovers
very many
of its
previous judgements
to be false. But
despite this,
it is not
easy
for the mind to erase these false
judgements
from its
memory;
and as
long
as
they
stick
there, they
can cause a
variety
of errors. For
example,
in our
early
childhood we
imagined
stars as
being very small;
and
although
astronomical
arguments
now
clearly
show us that
they
are
very large
indeed,
our
preconceived opinion
is still
strong enough
to make it
very
hard
for us to
imagine
them
differently
from the
way
we did before.52
Descartes thinks that we revert to habitual
ways
of
thinking
even
after
we have done a lot of
philosophical
work and
appreciate
that those
ways
of
thinking
are to be abandoned. At the start of the Second
Meditation we are
practically guaranteed
to revert to a
pre-
Meditations
way
of
thinking.
Descartes thus works to make sure that we do not
erroneously
conclude on the basis of our
materially
false idea of self
that the
thing
whose existence we have
just
established is sensible and
material. If we
do,
we will "be
making
a mistake in the
very
item of
knowledge
that I maintain is the most certain and evident of all"
(AT
7:25).
If we conclude that we
exist,
but
appeal
to our
pre-philosophical
idea of self to
unpack
what it is that
thereby exists,
we will conclude
that the
thing
that exists is material and sensible. We are therefore
instructed to restore our confused
perception
of our existence to a
per-
ception
that is clear and distinct:
I will therefore
go
back and meditate on what I
originally
believed
myself
to
be,
before I embarked on this
present
train of
thought.
I will then subtract
any-
thing capable
of
being weakened,
even
minimally, by
the
arguments
now intro-
duced,
so that what is left at the end
may
be
exactly
and
only
what is certain
and unshakeable.
(AT 7:25)
What remains at the end of this
process
is
"exactly
and
only
what is cer-
tain and
unshakeable,"
and so the
perception
that we had at the start of
the
process
is somewhat confused. We
target
the First Meditation
skepti-
cal
arguments
on our
pre-
Meditations idea of self until we are no
longer
affirming
the existence of
something
sensible and material when we affirm
our existence.53 We
strip
our
pre-Meditations
idea of self of the ideas of
52
Principles 1:72,
AT 8A:36-7. See also The
World, chapter six,
AT
11:35; preface
to
the Meditations,
AT
7:9;
Fourth
Replies,
AT
7:231;
and Second
Replies,
AT 7:164.
53
See also
Broughton 2002, 120-1;
Menn
1998, 245-7;
and Frankfurt
1970,
119-20.
DESCARTES ON THE DUBITABILITY OF THE EXISTENCE OF SELF 125
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sensible
things
that are
tightly
associated with
it,
and we are left with a
clear and distinct idea of
mind,
and a clear and distinct
perception
of our
existence
(at
AT
7:27).
We are
doing
the same
thing
at the start of the
Second
Meditation, although
the
resulting
clear and distinct
perception
is more
momentary.
We
suppose
that "there is
absolutely nothing
in the
world,
no
sky,
no
earth,
no
minds,
no bodies"
(AT 7:25),
and we are
thereby
left with a clear and distinct
perception
of our existence.54
Immediately
after
arriving
at a clear and distinct idea of
mind,
Des-
cartes
appears
to claim that he
thereby
knows that he is an immaterial
thing.
He
says,
At
present
I am not
admitting anything except
what is
necessarily
true. I
am,
then,
in the strict sense
only
a
thing
that thinks.
(AT 7:27)
A bit later in the Meditation he makes clear that he is
being
more careful:
And
yet may
it not
perhaps
be the case that these
very things
which I am
sup-
posing
to be
nothing,
because
they
are unknown to
me,
are in
reality
identical
with the T of which I am aware? I do not
know,
and for the moment I shall
not
argue
the
point,
since I can make
judgements only
about
things
which are
known to me.
(Ibid.)
One of the reasons that Descartes does not
prove
that mind is imma-
terial in the Second Meditation is that he is not a
position
to
compare
a clear and distinct idea of mind with a clear and distinct idea of
body
to see what mind and
body
have in common.55 If he had addressed the
question
of whether or not
thinking
is
material,
his meditator would
have
compared
his clear and distinct idea of mind to the confused idea
of
body
that he
brought
to the
Meditations,
and we do not subtract the
excess elements from this idea until the end of the Second Meditation.56
Descartes makes
explicit
in the Second Meditation that he does not
establish therein that mind is
immaterial,
and he is clear in other texts
as well:
54
See also
Principles 1:7,
AT 8A:7.
55
In "To
Mersenne,
21
January 1641,"
Descartes writes that "To
say
that
thoughts
are
merely
movements of the
body
is as
perspicuous
as
saying
that fire is
ice,
or
that white is
black;
for no two ideas we have are more different than those of black
and
white,
or those of movement and
thought.
Our
only way
of
knowing
whether
two
things
are different or identical is to consider whether we have different ideas
of
them,
or one and the same idea..."
(AT 3:285).
See also "To
[De Launay],
22
July 1641,"
AT 3:421.
56
One of the reasons that Descartes does not
compare
a clear and distinct idea of mind
to a clear and distinct idea of
body
at the endot the Second Meditation is
presumably
that he has other tasks that he sees as more
pressing.
For
example,
in the Third Medi-
tation he
says
that "as soon as the
opportunity
arises I must examine whether there is
a
God,
and if there
is,
whether He can be a deceiver"
(AT 7:36).
126 DAVID CUNNING
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I
deny
that I in
any way presupposed
that the mind is
incorporeal [in
the Sec-
ond
Meditation]; though
later
on,
in the Sixth
Meditation,
I did in fact demon-
strate as much.57
He does not conclude in the Second Meditation that he is an immater-
ial
thing.58
He does however
say
there that he is in the strict sense
only
a
thing
that
thinks. Outside of the Meditations he
explains
what he means
by
this:
I said in one
place
that while the soul is in doubt about the existence of all
material
things,
it knows itself
praecise
tantum
-
'in the strict sense
only'
-
as
an immaterial
substance;
and seven or
eight
lines further down I showed that
by
the words 4in the strict sense
only'
I do not at all mean an entire exclusion
or
negation,
but
only
an abstraction from material
things;
for I said that in
spite
of this we are not sure that there is
nothing corporeal
in the
soul,
even
though
we do not
recognize anything corporeal
in it. Here
my
critic is so unfair
to me as to
try
to
persuade
the reader that when I used the
phrase
'in the strict
sense
only'
I meant to exclude the
body,
and that I thus contradicted
myself
afterwards when I said that I did not mean to exclude it.59
Here Descartes uses some technical
terminology;
he
says
that Gas-
sendi has understood him as
excluding body
from mind in the Second
Meditation. Descartes
reports
that in fact he does not do this in the
Second
Meditation,
for
excluding body
from mind is tantamount to
showing
that mind is immaterial. In the Second Meditation he intends
57
Seventh
Objections
and
Replies,
AT
7:492, emphasis
added. See also Second
Replies,
AT
7:129;
Third
Replies,
AT
7:175; Fifth Replies,
AT
7:355, 357;
"To
Mersenne,
24
December
1640,"
AT
3:266;
and the Fourth
Meditation,
AT 7:59. In
"Synopsis
of
the
following
six
Meditations,"
Descartes
says
that in the Second Meditation he
forms "a
concept
of the soul that is as clear as
possible
and is also
quite
distinct
from
every concept
of
body" (AT 7:13).
Given the
weight
of the other
passages,
Descartes is not
saying
here that in the Second Meditation we notice that our con-
cept
of soul is distinct from our
concept
of
body, just
that it is distinct from it.
58
A number of commentators take Descartes to be
concluding
that he is an immater-
ial
thing
in the Second Meditation. See Norman
Malcolm,
"Descartes' Proof That
His Essence is
Thinking,"
The
Philosophical
Review 74
(1965), 326; Dugald
Mur-
doch,
"Exclusion and Abstraction in Descartes'
Metaphysics," Philosophical Quar-
terly
43
(1993), 51-2;
and Wilson
1978,
197. One of the reasons
why
commentators
defend this view is that in the
part
of the Discourse that
parallels
the Second Medi-
tation Descartes does
pretty
much the same
thing
that he does in the Second Medi-
tation,
and in that
part
of the Discourse he concludes that mind is
incorporeal.
There is no
question
about whether or not Descartes concludes that minds are
immaterial in the
parallel
section of the Discourse. He draws the conclusion
expli-
citly
in the Discourse itself
(AT 6:32-3),
and in a
commentary
on the
passage
he
reports
that that is what he is
doing ("Preface
to the
Reader,"
AT
7:8).
One reason
why
Descartes
proceeds
so
differently
in the more
autobiographical
Discourse is
that in the Meditations he is
assuming
that at the start of
inquiry
his readers have
very
confused ideas of mind and
body.
59
Appendix
to
Fifth Objections
and
Replies,
AT 9A:215.
DESCARTES ON THE DUBITABILITY OF THE EXISTENCE OF SELF 127
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"only
an abstraction from material
things."
This is a
process
in which
a
composite
idea is sifted for one of its
parts:
This intellectual abstraction consists in
my turning my thought away
from one
part
of the contents of this richer idea the better to
apply
it to the other
part
with
greater
attention.
Thus,
when I consider the
shape
without
thinking
of the
substance or the extension whose
shape
it
is,
I make a mental abstraction.60
If an idea has different
parts
or
contents,
we
might
isolate one of these
contents and think of it
separately
from what remains of the
larger
idea. Descartes has the meditator
doing exactly
this in the Second
Meditation. His
pre-
Meditations idea of self is a
composite
of an idea
of mind and ideas of sensible
things
that are
tightly
associated with
it;
he considers this idea and
"subtracts] everything
that is
capable
of
being
weakened." He restricts his
thought
to
things
whose existence he
cannot
doubt,
and all that he is left
thinking
of is mind. He abstracts
an idea of mind from his
pre-
Meditations idea of self.61 He does not
yet
have a clear and distinct idea of
body
with which to
compare
it,
so he
does not conclude that
thinking
is immaterial.62
Funny though
it
may sound,
when we are
attempting
to resolve the
larger interpretive problems
of the Cartesian
corpus
we need to
bring
confusion to the
debate,
or at least to
give
confusion a
place
at the
table. Whether we are worried about the Cartesian
position
on the
dubitability
of "I
am,
I
exist,"
or about another
problem
-
for exam-
ple
that of the Cartesian Circle
-
it is
imperative
that we be sensitive
to the datum that Descartes holds that
many
notions are confused that
are not
recognizably
so at the start of
inquiry.
In
attempting
to solve
the
problem
of the Cartesian
Circle,
for
example,
we can note that in
60
"To
Gibieuf,
19
January 1642,"
AT 3:475. See also Rules
for
the Direction
of
the
Mind,
AT
10:413,
441. Descartes also refers to another kind of abstraction in Rules
for
the Direction
of
the Mind
-
a
process
of
moving
from the
particular
to the
more
general (AT 10:458).
He is not
performing
abstraction in this sense in the
Second Meditation. He is not
generalizing
from the meditator's confused idea of
self to a more
general
version of that idea.
61
Some commentators have
argued
that Cartesian abstraction is
just
Cartesian exclu-
sion without the
guarantee
of divine
veracity.
See Malcolm 1965, 326;
and
Murdoch
1993,
52.
62
See also 'To
[Mesland],
2
May 1644,"
AT 4:120. We
might worry
that if the medi-
tator has a confused idea of
body
at the start of the Second
Meditation,
there is no
guarantee
that when he denies the existence of all bodies he will be left with a clear
and distinct idea of self.
By denying
the existence of what he
confusedly
takes to be
body,
he
might strip
his
pre-
Meditations idea of self of his
pre-
Meditations ideas of
body,
but not
strip
it of a clear and distinct idea of
body,
and so not be left with a
clear and distinct idea of mind.
However,
at the end of the Second Meditation Des-
cartes
argues
that our confused
pre-
Meditations idea of
body
includes a clear and
distinct idea of
body.
128 DAVID CUNNING
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the First Meditation the meditator thinks a lot of
things
that are false
or incoherent: that all of our beliefs are either from or
through
the sen-
ses,
that it is
possible
that God is a
deceiver,
and that an evil demon
might
be
deceiving
us if God is not. Like
any philosopher,
the medita-
tor
might
think all kinds
of things
at the start of
inquiry,
but that he
will later abandon after he has
carefully
examined his
pre-reflective
conceptions
and commitments. He arrives at the considered result that
S is not
P;
he does not then count it as an
objection
to this result that
before he
gave
it
any thought
it seemed that S
might
be P. The medita-
tor of the Meditations arrives at a new standard of distinctness in the
Second
Meditation,
and
premises
that meet this standard entail that
God exists. The confusions that the meditator
brought
to the
Meditations,
and the
materially
false ideas that are
among them,
do
not
compete.63
63
See
Principles
1:75-76. Descartes
writes,
"In order to
philosophize seriously
and
search out the truth about all the
things
that are
capable
of
being known,
we must
first of all
lay
aside all our
preconceived opinions,
or at least we must take the
greatest
care not to
put
our trust in
any
of the
opinions accepted by
us in the
past
until we have first scrutinized them afresh and confirmed their truth.
Next,
we must
give
our attention in an
orderly way
to the notions that we have within
us,
and we
must
judge
to be true all and
only
those whose truth we
clearly
and
distinctly
recognize
when we attend to them in this
way.
When we do this we shall
realize,
first of
all,
that we exist in so far as our nature consists in
thinking;
and we shall
simultaneously
realize both that there is a
God,
and that we
depend
on
him,
and
also that a consideration of his attributes enables us to
investigate
the truth of
other
things,
since he is their cause.
Finally,
we will see that besides the notions of
God and of our
mind,
we have within us
knowledge
of
many propositions
which
are
eternally true,
such as
'Nothing
comes from
nothing'....
When we contrast all
this
knowledge
with the confused
thoughts
we had
before, we will
acquire
the habit
of
forming
clear and distinct
concepts
of all the
things
that can be known....
[I]t
is
quite unworthy
of a
philosopher
to
accept anything
as true if he has never estab-
lished its truth
by thorough scrutiny;
and he should never
rely
on the
senses,
that
is,
on the ill-considered
judgements
of his
childhood,
in
preference
to his mature
powers
of reason"
(AT 8A:38-9).
Some commentators
(for example
Nelson and
Newman
1999)
are committed to the view that Descartes holds that we cannot once
and for all dismiss
hyperbolic
doubt as a confusion until we have a
(Fifth
Medi-
tation)
self-evident intuition of God's existence and
veracity.
This is not Descartes'
view.
(See
also First
Replies,
AT
7:120,
Second
Replies,
AT
7:163-4,
and First
Replies,
AT
7:136,
where Descartes is clear that he offers
multiple arguments
for
the existence of God because meditators who do not follow one such
argument
might
follow one of the
others;
and also "To
Regius,
24
May 1640,"
AT
3:64-5.)
A
complete
discussion of the
problem
of the Cartesian Circle is of course
beyond
the
scope
of this
paper. However,
the solution
proposed
here has Descartes
engaging
the
good-sense philosophical practice
of
analyzing pre-reflective conceptions
and
commitments and
abandoning
the
provisional
and less clear in favor of the more
clear. Descartes is
supposing
that once we are
intellectually mature, we continue to
reject
the unclear. If a meditator does not do
this,
or if he
forgets
all that he has
learned and reverts to
taking seriously
First Meditation
hypotheses,
that is a
prob-
lem for
him,
but not for Descartes.
DESCARTES ON THE DUBITABILITY OF THE EXISTENCE OF SELF 129
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IV
In The Search
After Truth,
Nicholas Malebranche calls attention to the
difficulties that the
(dualist-minded) metaphysician
encounters in
instructing
a
person
who has an inaccurate idea of soul. For
example,
if the
person
asks the
metaphysician
whether or not souls are
immortal,
the correct answer to the
question
is 'no' if the
person
conceives of soul
as a sensible
thing.
Malebranche concludes that the
metaphysician
should refrain from
answering
the
question
at all:
If in
questioning
them we
recognize
that their ideas do not
agree
with
ours,
it
is useless to answer them. For what do we
reply
to a man who
imagines
that a
desire,
for
example,
is
nothing
but the movement of
spirits;
that a
thought
is
but a trace or
image
of
objects
where
spirits
have formed in the
brain;
and that
all
reasonings
of men consist
only
in the different
placement
of certain
tiny
bodies
diversely arranged
in the head? To answer him that the
soul,
taken in
the sense that he
understands,
is
immortal,
is to deceive
him,
or to make
your-
self ridiculous in his mind. But to answer him that it is mortal is in a sense to
confirm him in an error of
very great consequence.
We must therefore not
answer
him,
but
only try
to make him retreat into
himself,
in order that he
may
receive the same ideas as we....64
Descartes faces a
(somewhat)
similar
problem
in the Second Medi-
tation. We enter the Meditation with a confused idea of
self,
an idea
that
provides subject-matter
for error. Our
prospects
for
engaging
in
productive philosophical inquiry hinge
on our
ability
to
prune
this idea
of ideas that have become attached to it. We revert to our confused
ideas with
ease,
and Descartes is there to
help
us at
every
turn.
For
Descartes,
our existence is
just
as dubitable as
anything
else. None
of this is to
suggest, however,
that Descartes thinks that we would iden-
tify
our existence as dubitable in all circumstances in which it is dubita-
ble. In the same
way
that we have bad
pre-philosophical sensory ideas,
and bad
pre-philosophical
ideas of mind and
God,
we are not
always
in
possession
of the best standard of distinctness. For
example,
in the First
Meditation we
might report
that our
sensory perceptions
are so distinct
that it is
impossible
that
they
are not veridical
(AT 7:18-9),
and we would
be
wrong. Or,
we
might proceed
like those who "have never taken suffi-
cient care to
distinguish
the mind from the
body"
-
64
Nicholas
Malebranche,
The Search
After Truth,
Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J.
Oscamp (trans,
and
ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press
(1997), VI.ii.7,
492. See also
II.ii.8,
157. There Malebranche
writes,
"it is
extremely
rare for those
who meditate
seriously
to be able to
explain
well the
things upon
which
they
have
meditated.
Ordinarily they
hesitate when
undertaking
to
speak
of these
things,
because
they
have
scruples
about
using
terms that raise a false idea in others.
Being
ashamed to
speak simply
for the sake of
speaking, ...they
have
great difficulty
in
finding
words to
express
unusual
thoughts
well."
130 DAVID CUNNING
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Although they may
have
put
the
certainty
of their own existence before that of
anything else, they
failed to realize that
they
should have taken 'themselves' in
this context to mean their minds alone.
They
were inclined instead to take
'themselves' to mean
only
their bodies....65
We
might
even have the
thought
that if an evil demon is
deceiving
us
we must
exist,
but have it cold and out of
context,
without
having
"philosophize[d]
in an
orderly way"
and without
having
a clear and
distinct
perception.66
Like
many
of our
epistemic
deficiencies our
poor
standard of distinctness is traceable to our embodiment.
Speaking
of
our
pre-philosophical
idea of
color,
Descartes
writes,
this
[namely,
that color exists
mind-independently]
was
something that,
because
of our habit of
making
such
judgements,
we
thought
we saw
clearly
and dis-
tinctly
-
so much so that we took it for
something
certain and indubitable.67
In
childhood,
our embodiment is so
pronounced
that we never
stop
to
evaluate the false
judgments
that we make about bodies. We later
assume that the reason
why
these
judgments
have stood the test of time
is that
they
are
unimpeachable:
Right
from
infancy
our mind was
swamped
with a thousand such
preconceived
opinions;
and in later
childhood, forgetting
that
they
were
adopted
without suf-
ficient
examination,
it
regarded
them as known
by
the senses or
implanted by
nature,
and
accepted
them as
utterly
true and evident.68
As we work
through
the
Meditations,
we are
impressed by
a new stand-
ard of distinctness
-
a standard to which our
pvQ-Meditations
standard
of distinctness
pales
in
comparison. According
to
Descartes,
it is
imper-
ative that we make this
epistemic progress.
If we do
not,
we will not be
in a
position
to see our
pre-philosophical
ideas and the
propositions
that include them for the confusions that
they
are. We will continue to
analyze concepts
that
misrepresent
their
objects,
and we will
mistakenly
regard
our results as sound.69
65
Principles 1:12,
AT
8A:9, emphasis
added.
66
The
quotation
is from
Principles 1:7,
AT 8A:7.
67
Principles 1:66,
AT 8A:32. See also
Principles 1:70,
AT 8A:34-5.
68
Principles 1:71;
AT 8A:36.
69
I am
grateful
to three
anonymous
referees of this
journal
for comments on an earlier
version of this
paper.
I am also
grateful
for comments from
participants
at the 2005
Central Division
Meeting
of the American
Philosophical Association,
where I
presen-
ted a version of the
paper.
The
paper
also benefited from discussions that I had with
John
Carriero, Daniel
Garber,
Diane
Jeske, Gregory Landini, Michael
Mulnix,
Alan
Nelson,
and Tad Schmaltz.
Finally,
I would like to
acknowledge generous fellowship
support
from the National Endowment for the Humanities
(2004-5)
and the UCLA
Clark
Library/Center
for 17th- and
18th-Century
Studies
(Fall 2004).
DESCARTES ON THE DUBITABILITY OF THE EXISTENCE OF SELF 131
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