Meditation III

What does Descartes know? That he is a thing that thinks. Where can he go from here?

Return to the Cogito: "I am certain that I am a thinking thing. But do I not therefore also know what is required for me to be certain of anything?" (70)

Clear and Distinct Ideas: "in this first instance of knowledge, there is nothing but a clear and distinct perception of what I affirm. Yet this would hardly be enough to render me certain of the truth of a thing, if it could ever happen that something that I perceived so clearly and distinctly were false. And thus I now seem to be able to posit as a general that everything I clearly and distinctly perceive is true." (70) [Notice he says 'seem'] But hasn't Descartes been wrong about things he thought he perceived clearly and distinctly before?
He thought that he clearly perceived the existence of "the earth, the sky, the stars", etc. but those perceptions have turned out not to be clear and distinct at all.
Why? Because even if my judgment that these things exist "was a true one, it was not the result of the force of my perception." (70) What about basic beliefs about arithmetic and geometry? Aren't they clearly and distinctly perceived, but not certain? Recall: Descartes' worry that God is a deceiver prevents him from being certain those beliefs are true.

But "because I have no reason for thinking there is a God who is a deceiver … the basis for doubting … is very tenuous and, so to speak, metaphysical." (71) Notice how these beliefs are open to doubt in a different way than the previously mentioned ones.
 

 How should we handle this worry about whether clear and distinct ideas can be trusted?

The Solution: Investigate whether:

(i) God exists and
(ii) if so, whether he could be a deceiver.
If the answer is yes to i and no to ii, then we'll have found a criterion of truth – whatever you clearly and distinctly perceive is true. i is the focus of Meditation III.

ii is the topic of Meditation IV.
 

*****************

Three Ways of Proving the Existence of God

1. Cosmological - show God exists based upon some observed fact about the world  (see Meditation III)

2. Ontological - show God exists based upon the concept of God (see Meditation V)

3. Teleological - show God exists based upon 'goal-directedness' (i.e., design) in nature.  Note:  Descartes does not offer a teleological proof of God's existence.

***************************

Descartes' First (Cosmological) Proof of God's Existence

A Way of Classifying Thoughts: "first group all my thoughts into certain classes, and ask in which of them truth or falsity properly resides." (71)
1. ideas (Note Descartes' way of using the term: "images of things; to these alone does the word 'idea' properly apply" (71))

2. volitions (desires)

3. affects (emotions)

4. judgments

Which of these can be true or false?
 

 Only judgments.  "the most principal and frequent error to be found in judgments consists in the fact that I judge that ideas which are in me are similar to or in conformity with certain things outside me." (71-2)

Note: There is a sense in which ideas can be false. "there is another kind of falsity (called 'material' falsity) which is found in ideas whenever they represent a non-thing as if it were a thing." (75)

 Three Sources of Ideas: (1) innate (2) adventitious - from 'outside' (3) produced by me
"I must inquire particularly into those ideas that I believe to be derived from things existing outside me. Just what reason do I have for believing that these ideas resemble those things?" (72)
A Response: "I have been taught so by nature" ************************

Another Way of Classifying Thoughts: "insofar as these ideas [i.e., my ideas] are merely modes of thought, I see no inequality among them; they all seem to proceed from me in the same manner. But insofar as one idea represents one thing and another idea another thing, it is obvious that they do differ very greatly from one another." (73)

Some ideas have more objective reality than others.  (Note:  'Objective reality' does not mean what you expect it to.)

"the idea that enables me to understand a supreme deity, eternal, infinite, omniscient, omnipotent, and creator of all things other than himself, clearly has more objective reality within than do those ideas through which finite substances are displayed." (73)

Think of objective reality as 'representational reality'.  The greater the thing an idea is about, the more objective reality the idea has, e.g., ideas about God have more objective reality than ideas about humans.

What do we mean by greater?  This idea has to be explained in terms of what Descartes calls formal (i.e., actual) reality.  The higher the level of formal reality, the greater the thing.

Three Levels of Formal Reality
1. Infinite Substances - e.g., God - highest level of formal reality
2. Finite Substances - e.g., humans, animals
3. Modes (i.e., properties) - e.g., looking white, tasting sour - lowest level of formal reality
*************************************

The Special Causal Principle:

"it is evident by the light of nature that there must be at least as much [reality] in the … cause as there is in the effect of that same cause." (73)
Where "could an effect gets is reality, if not from its cause?" (73)

"what is more perfect … cannot come into being from what is less perfect." (73)
 

Is this plausible? Extending this idea:  "this is manifestly true not merely for those effects whose reality is actual or formal, but also for ideas in which only objective reality is considered." (73)
  In other words, "there is at least as much formal reality [in the cause] as there is objective reality contained in the idea." (74)

"just as the objective mode of being belong to ideas by their very nature, so the formal mode of being belongs to the causes of ideas, at least to the first and preeminent ones, by their very nature." (74)

 ************************

Using The Special Causal Principle to Prove God's Existence

The Strategy: "If the objective reality of any of my ideas is found to be so great that I am certain that the same reality was not in me, either formally or eminently, and that therefore I myself cannot be the cause of the idea, then it necessarily follows that I am not alone in the world, but that something else, which is the cause of this idea, also exists." (74)
'eminently'? If something possesses a property formally, it literally possesses it. If something possesses a property eminently, it possesses it in a 'higher' sense.
  E.g., If you have a computer program on a disk that was created by being copied from a version of the program on another disk, then the effect (i.e., the program) is formally there in the cause. But if the program was created by someone writing the program and saving it on the disk then the effect is eminently in the cause. Conisdering the Source of His Ideas Men, Animals & Angels:  "As to the ideas that display other men, or animals, or angels, I easily understand that they could be fashioned from the ideas that I have of myself, of corporeal things, and of God – even if no men (except myself), no animals, and no angels existed in the world." (75)

Corporeal Things:  "As to the ideas of corporeal things, there is nothing in them that is so great that it seems incapable of having originated from me." (75)

God:  "I understand by the name 'God' a certain substance that is infinite, independent, supremely intelligent and supremely powerful … the more carefully I focus my attention on them [i.e., these attributes of God], the less possible it seems they could have arisen from myself alone." (76)

 
This idea has infinite objective reality, so its cause must have infinite formal (i.e., actual) reality.

But then the cause of the idea must be God.

Therefore, God exists.

 ****************

The Proof Again in a Little More Detail:

The Idea of an Infinite Substance: "although the idea of substance is in me by virtue of the fact that I am a substance, that fact is not sufficient to explain my having the idea of an infinite substance, since I am finite" (76)
Substance = roughly, a thing capable of independent existence

"how would I understand that I doubt and that I desire, that is, that I lack something and that I am not wholly perfect, unless there were some idea in me of a more perfect being" (76)
"although I could perhaps pretend that such a being does not exist, nevertheless I could not pretend that the idea of such a being discloses to me nothing real … It is indeed an idea that is utterly clear and distinct" (77)
Is it legitimate for him to appeal to clarity and distinctness here?


Could I be the source of this idea? "Perhaps all these perfections that I am attributing to God as somehow in me potentially"

 
But God is that "in which there is nothing whatever that is potential." (77)


"I must conclude that God necessarily exists." (76)


********************

Version Two of the Proof that God Exists

[Note:  because we're running out of time, we won't be discussing the second version of Descartes' proof nor will you be responsible for it on the exam.]
"it is appropriate to ask .. whether I myself … could exist, if such a being [as God] did not exist.

From what source, then, do I derive my existence?" (78) Descartes considers a number of possibilities:

(1) Perhaps I caused myself to exist

"if I got my being from myself, … I would have given myself all the perfections of which I have some idea; in so doing I would myself be God!" (78)

But what if Descartes has the power to bring himself into existence, but not the give himself all perfections?

 
That doesn't make sense.  "it is obvious that it would have been much more difficult for me … to emerge out of nothing than it would be to acquire knowledge of many things about which I am ignorant". (78) (2) Perhaps "I have always existed as I do now" (78) Descartes tells us that this won't help because "it is obvious to one who pays close attention to the nature of time that plainly the same force and action are needed to preserve anything at each individual moment that it lasts as would be required to create that same thing anew, were it not yet in existence … this too is one of those things that are manifest by the light of nature." (78)
  Why does this matter?

Should we accept this claim?

[What about intertia?]
(3) Perhaps I am capable of sustaining myself
But "since I am nothing but a thinking thing … if such a power were in me, then I would certainly be aware of it." (79)

Here, he seems to assume what is known as the transparency of the mind, i.e., he seems to assume that we are aware of the contents of our own mind (so that we are aware of our powers and limitations)
 

Should we accept this claim?

[What about Freud & unconscious desires?]


(4) Perhaps my existence can be traced back to "my parents or … some other causes less perfect than God."
 

This just puts off the issue. "because I am a thinking thing and have within me a certain idea of God, it must be granted that what caused me is also a thinking thing and it too has an idea of all the perfections which I attribute to God." (79)


(5) "perhaps several partial causes have concurred in bringing me into being" (79)

  But "the unity, the simplicity, that is, the inseparability of all those features that are in God is one of the chief perfections that I understand to be in him. Certainly the idea of the unity of all his perfections could not have been placed in me by any causes from which I did not also get the ideas of the other perfections". (79) Conclusion: "I have no choice but to conclude that the mere fact of my existing and of there being in me an idea of a most perfect being … demonstrates most evidently that God too exists." (80)

How did I get the idea of God?   "the idea is innate in me, just as the idea of myself is innate in me." (80)

Setting Up Meditation IV: "it is quite obvious that he [God] cannot be a deceiver, for it is manifest by the light of nature that all fraud and deception depend on some defect." (80)

[Philosophy 1200]