Descartes on God and Matter (Meditations 3-5)

Descartes on God and Matter (Meditations 3-5) I. Review of some of the key outcomes from Med 1 and 2 A. From Meditation 1: I. Almost everything is subject to doubt. Until this doubt is removed, any (system) of knowledge does not have sufficient justification. B. From Meditation 2: i. Meditator finds something that seems immune to doubt (cogito) ii. The meditator discovers something about his nature or essence: he is something that thinks (sum res cogitans) iii. The meditator discovered something about the capacity of the mind (our intelligence)— that is, that through its use (only) we can discover the metaphysical truth about essence. (Example of candles.) II. Criteria for clarity and clarity Meditators make general observations about cogito: Surely in this first instance of knowledge, there is nothing but a certain clear and distinct perception of what I assert. And thus I now seem to be able to put forward as a general rule that everything that I feel very clearly and clearly is true. (70). If clarity and difference are signs of a definite truth, then it seems like we have a way out of the skeptical scenario. We record what we feel clearly and clearly, and then reason from it. Descartes did not define 'clear' or 'different' in Meditation, but he did other work. [See below, "Quotes on clarity and difference."] The problem is that we seem to be prone to error both in what we feel clearly and clearly and in our reasoning. How do we overcome this? Descartes suggests: At the first occasion I had to ask if there was a God, and, if so, whether or not he could be a fraud. Because if I didn't know about this, it seems that I would never be able to be sure about anything else. (71) He believed that he had to prove the existence of "the true God, in whom all the treasures of wisdom and science are hidden," (82) as he said later in the Meditations. Knowledge of God's existence is seen as the basis, and more certain than, all knowledge other than direct self-knowledge. The importance of Meditation III is twofold: first in its methodological proposals of clear and different ideas, developed in more detail later; and second in his conclusion that God exists. III. Causal Arguments (aka Trademark Arguments1) for the existence of God There are two independent arguments for the existence of God given in Meditation, one in Meditation III, the other in Meditation V. In Meditation III, we begin by contemplating the furniture of the mind, the existence of which has been proven. I had a lot of ideas, he said, some of which seemed innate, some of which were adventurous, some of which were invented by me. Can we know, just by considering the content of our ideas, is something real that suits them? Descartes suggested that sometimes we can. A. Compressed version of the argument:23 Step 1: There is in the meditator's mind the idea of God as "an infinite, eternal, unchanging, independent, highly intelligent, very powerful, and which created me together with 1 It is said because of this sentence: "Certainly, it is not surprising that in creating me, God should have given me this idea, so that it would be like the mark of the craftsmen who were impressed by his work" (80) 2 In the contemporary context, we use the term 'objective' in an almost opposite way to Descartes. For us to say that something has an objective reality is to say that it exists outside of me, regardless of my mind. But for Descartes, something has an objective reality if it exists as an object of thought, in my mind. For Descartes, formal reality is what is independent of me. Be sure to be clear when you use these terms that you mean. 3 Descartes, René. Discourse on Method and Meditation on First Philosophy. 4th edition. Translated by Donald A. Cress. Hackett Publishing, 1998. © Hackett Publishing. All rights reserved. This content is exempt from our Creative Commons license. For more information, see https://ocw.mit.edu/help/faq-fair-use/. everything that exists, if there is anything else." (76) But where did such an idea come from? What is the cause? I (meditator) am imperfect and limited. The next step depends on the following principles (sometimes called the 'Principle of Causal Sufficiency'): There must be at least as many [realities] in efficient and total causes as there are in the effects of the same cause (74). The idea seems like this: suppose you find a clock in the woods. How did this clock come to exist? There must have been some intelligence at least as complex as the clock to create it. The same will apply if you find a blueprint for the clock. The idea of God is like a blueprint: the content of the idea is infinite and perfect. So there must be something equally infinite and perfect that created it. Step 2: God exists, and "God, I say, is the same being about who is in me: a being who has all the perfections that I cannot comprehend, but which can somehow touch my mind, and a being that is not subject to any defects. From these considerations, it is very clear that he cannot be a fraud, for it is manifested by the light of nature that all deception and deception depend on some defect." All reviewers (81) In short: a perfect God should be the cause of my idea of a perfect God. Question: "How do meditators establish the truth of the Causal Sufficiency Principle?" Note that argumentative reasoning also assumes that the meditator (and we with him) finds in him not only an idea of God, but an idea with a very specific content. Question: Do we have such an innate idea? If we do, does it have that content? IV. Two Problems Fault Problem: If my abilities (intellectual, etc.) all come from God and God is not a deceiver, where do my faults come from? Cartesian Circle: If I can know that my intelligence is reliable only after establishing the existence of God, then how can I establish the existence of God in the first place? I needed to trust my intellect to prove God's existence, but without knowledge of God's existence, I had no right to trust my intellect. A. Error Errors depend on the simultaneous agreement of two causes: the ability to know that is in me and the ability to choose. intelligence and will" (83-4). The problem, as Descartes presented, parallels the problem of evil: if God the creator is omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good, how can there be evil in the world? A world with free will is better than a world without free will and evil is the result of human freedom, not God. In Descartes' view, the will and intelligence differ in scope; As a result, through the use of the will we can make judgments about things that are beyond the proper scope of our intelligence; In this case, we risk making a mistake. "But if I delay making judgments when I do not understand what is right with sufficient clarity and distinction, it is clear that I acted correctly and did not make any mistakes" (86). B. Cartesian Circle (more on that next time) V. The second argument for the existence of God: The Ontological Argument i) I had the idea of a perfect God within me. ii) Existence is perfection. Or: ii*) "From the fact that I cannot think of God except as being, then existence cannot be separated from God, and therefore He really exists." iii) So God exists. The basic idea behind the ontological argument for the existence of God is that existence (necessary) is part of the essence of God. We can gain knowledge of God's essence with reason, as well as His existence. Quotes on clarity and difference From Meditation: I am sure that I am a thinking person. But didn't I also know what it takes for me to be sure of something? Surely in this first instance of knowledge, there is nothing but a certain clear and distinct perception of what I am asserting. But this would hardly be enough to convince me of the truth of a thing, if it could happen that something I felt so clearly and clearly was wrong. And thus I now seem to be able to put forward as a general rule that everything that I feel very clearly and clearly is true. p. 539, c. 2. This makes 'clear' and 'different' undefined. In his Principles of Philosophy, Descartes offers the following: Perceptions that can serve as the basis for a particular and undeniable judgment must be not only clear but also distinct. I call perception 'clear' when it exists and is accessible to the mindful mind—just as we say that we see something clearly when it comes into the eye gaze and stimulates it with a sufficient level of power and accessibility. I call 'different' perception that, apart from being obvious, it is so sharply separate from all other perceptions that it contains only what is obvious within itself. 4 Descartes went on to use the example of pain to illustrate the difference between clarity and difference: For example, when a person feels intense pain, the perception he has of it is indeed very clear, but it is not always different. Because people usually confuse this perception with vague judgments that they make regarding the nature of something that they think is in a painful place and that they perceive to resemble the sensation of pain; But in reality it was only the sensation that they felt clearly. Therefore perception can be clear without being different, but not different without being clear. 5 The accessibility of clear and distinct perceptions may also require us to first undergo the process of doubt as modeled in Meditation 1. The author of the Fifth Objection (Gassendi) asked Descartes: "what skills or methods might enable us to discover that our understanding is so clear and distinct that it is true and make it impossible that we should be wrong?" 6 In response, Descartes wrote: I argue that I have carefully provided such a method in the right place, where I first eliminate all preformed opinions and then list all my main ideas, distinguishing the obvious from the obscure or confusing.78 4 Cottingham, Stoothoff, and Murdoch, eds. and trans., Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings, Cambridge: 1988, pp. 174–175, emphasis added. 5 Cottingham, Stoothoff, and Murdoch, p. 175. Question: Are you satisfied? Do we have sufficient reason to accept the criteria of clarity and difference?