Where we left off: "I suppose that everything I see is false. I believe that none of what my deceitful memory represents ever existed. I have no senses whatever. Body, shape, extension, movement, and place are all chimeras. What then will be true? Perhaps just the single fact that nothing is certain." (63)
Is it possible that I (Descartes) don't exist?
"But there is some deceiver or other who is supremely powerful and supremely sly and who is always deliberately deceiving me. Then too there is no doubt that I exist, if he is deceiving me. And let him do his best at deception, he will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I shall think that I am something." (64)The Cogito
Descartes puts this thought in a number of ways:
"Je pense donc je suis" (in the Discourse on Method)
This is perhaps a natural way to understand Descartes' point, but
it is not what Descartes has in mind.
Notice that, in the Meditations, Descartes never says "I think
therefore
I am". This is significant.
The Limits of the Cogito
What am I?
What about now?
A Brief Digression - Aristotle on the Soul
[Note: As with the material on Aristotle in the notes on the Phaedo, we will not discuss the material on Aristotle's view of the soul in class. It won't be on the exam either. You may, however, find it helpful.]
Aristotle on Form and Matter: Forms are very different for
Aristotle than for Plato. Where Plato conceives of Forms as independently
existing things, the same is not true for Aristotle.
Essentially, for Aristotle, a form is the organizing principle of matter. Matter without form is not anything at all. In this way, the word 'form' matches up with our modern use of it as meaning something like 'shape', but a form is more than simply a shape.
Aristotle on the Soul: For Aristotle, the soul is the form of a living body, i.e., it is the way the matter in the body is organized
Aristotle distinguished between different kinds of souls.
It is this picture of the soul that Descartes has in mind when he thinks about what he used to believe.Plants had only a nutritive soul (i.e., they are organized in such a way as to be nourished, grow and diminish).Animals had sensory/perceptual souls (i.e., they are organized as with a nutritive soul, but also with the ability to perceive and sense things).
People had rational souls (i.e., they are organized so as to have all of the above, plus reason).
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Back to Descartes: "At this time I admit nothing that is not necessarily true. I am therefore precisely nothing but a thinking thing; that is a mind, or intellect, or understanding, or reason … what kind of thing? I have said it already: a thinking thing." (65)
Q: Is Descartes endorsing Mind-Body Dualism here?
(Recall: Mind-Body Dualism = the view that individuals are a composite of a non-physical soul/mind and a physical body.)"But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, and that also imagines and senses." (66)It might appear so, but Descartes denies this. From the Third Set of Objections and Replies: "I left [this issue] quite undecided until the Sixth Meditation, where it is proved." (AT VII 175)
Keep in mind the difference between:
(1) I have proved that I am nothing but a soul It's #2 that Descartes has in mind in the passage at the start of this section.and
(2) I have proved nothing but that I am a soul
Notice the trade-off in the items on Descartes' list:
I can be certain that I sense, but this is a pretty watered-down idea of sensing.
Rationalism
Descartes uses the Pieces of Wax example to claim that this appearance is misleading. He argues for a position now known as rationalism – roughly, the theory that the ultimate source of knowledge is reason.
Contrast with empiricism – the senses are the ultimate source of all knowledge (e.g., David Hume 1711-1776 )
The Piece of Wax - An Argument for Rationalism
Start with a solid piece of wax. As you bring it close to a fire its physical properties alter. "Does the same wax still remain? I must confess that it does" (67)
How do we make this judgment?
"were I perchance to look out my window and observe men crossing the square, I would ordinarily say I see the men themselves just as I say I see the wax. But what do I see aside from hats and clothes, which could conceal automata? Yet I judge them to be men. Thus what I had thought I had seen with my eyes, I actually grasped solely with the faculty of judgment, which is in my mind." (68)
Descartes concludes that he was wrong when he thought earlier that corporeal things could be known more easily than the mind. He concludes that we can know about our minds/souls more clearly and more easily than we can know about physical objects.
[Philosophy 1200]"there is not a single consideration that can aid in my perception of the wax or of any other body that fails to make even more manifest the nature of my mind." (69)