:: The Young Enthusiast ::

From N’s class:

For Plato, you can’t arrive at rational truth on your own, you need a teacher. In that sense, the Republic and Symposium are proposing a kind of social theory.

There are steps to experience the form of beauty and they must be completed in order. The first step is always easy; Plato’s first step is “love a body.” Next you love many bodies, gradually developing a general idea of love.

Beauty is general, eternal and simple. It can’t be analyzed.

Top ten ways to misunderstand rationalism:

1. Analyze what is simple. The truth is simple, indivisible. You can only “see” it. Definitions are just ways of codifying what we already know. You can’t learn anything from a definition. For instance, scholars try to analyze Descartes’ concept of thought, which is a simple, intuitive concept.

2. Trying to explain truth by appeal to appearances. Part 2 of Spinoza’s Ethics isn’t about exploring the concept of truth, it is about explaining falsity.

3. Proposition. Locke and Hume both say a proposition is a set of ideas taken together.

4. Content of ideas

5. Argument – inference – deduction – demonstration – for a rationalist all of these are silly notions. Aruments and deductions must be attached to significant ideas.

6. Confuse psycho-history of the author, doctrines and the exposition. What arguments do the authors use to get across to the reader what the doctrines are? You get the doctrine first by intuition, then you go back and figure out the propositions and arguments that express the doctrine.

7. Magic word philosophy – “cause,” “necessity,” “proposition,” etc. Rationalists do not appeal to these types of terms, they say that they bear explaining.

8. Goal of philosophy: Wisdom is not the typical goal for rationalists.

9. Kant was a good historian: Kant’s system is not a synthesis of rationalism and empiricism. Kant’s critiques of rationalism are not well-founded.

An important rationalist theme is the emphasis on strictly-defined method.

The spirit of Reformation is also apparent in rationalism. Decentralization, anyone can do it, direct channels to God / truth.

Descartes had two methods for approaching the problems of philsoophy: analytic and synthetic. In synethetic, one lays out the axioms and definitions and then you build theorums from them. Analytic method involves taking a conclusion and working backward to prove principles that must be true for the conclusion to be true. Descartes thought an analytic method was the best way to teach students philosophy.

In the second replies to the Meditations there is a lengthy discussion by Descartes of why he uses the analytic method. He does, begrudgingly, give a rough outline of a synthetic way of understanding his philosophy.

The fundamental principles of Descartes’ philosophy:

1. The Principle of Sufficient Reason: Everything has an explanation. For any question you can ask, there must be a sufficient answer or explanation. Some nonsense or ill-formed questions might not deserve an answer, though. How do you stop, then, a regress of explanations? (ilke a three-year-old asking why to everything) You find something that is self-explanatory. The self-explanatory concept that rationalists come up with is infinity or, alternately, God. We can always inquire into something’s existence, so all existence can be explained / grounded in its non-existence, just as one thing’s identity is defined by what is not it.

2. In opposition to God, there are two types of finite things: finite thought and (finite) extension. Finite means to be limited or bounded. For extension, Spinoza is all for infinity, but Descartes distinguishes between the infinite and the indefinite. Infinite means something is absolutely completely; we cannot add to it. Indefinite means we might add to it. Integers are indefinite; no matter how big an integer is, you can always add one to it.

What makes an attribute a principle attribute? That is the attribute through which modes are conceived. If you want to conceive of an object’s motion, you must conceive of its extension.

What is there? For Descartes, the universe consists of God, thinking things, extended things and human beings, which are a composition of mind and body. The way we get variety is by the modes and attributes possessed by individual instances of these substances. (God has no modes; modes by definition are temporal, God does not exist within time in that manner.)

Things don’t have attributes and modes as such. (Refer to the Nolan article for Descartes’ theory of attributes.) Some of our thoughts (very few) are clear and distinct, whiel others are obscure and confused. The confusion results from confusing the four elemental substances, i.e. God, thinking things, etc.

The question “what is a substance?” comes up, but it may not be an important one for several reasons. First of all, rationalists don’t believe that it is important to attach a term to a concept. Language is just an arbitrary system of signs and symbols; the real work is done when we clearly and distinctly perceive the idea of substance. We figure out how to do this by reading the Meditations. Secondly, substantiality is an attribute and a thing is its attribute; it doesn’t own, possess or attach itself to them. Attributes cannot be considered directly, so we cannot clearly perceive substance.

There are different ways of moving from a confused perception to a clear and distinct perception. These are different modes of logic or rationality.

The concept of infinity is actually prior to the concept of potential infinity. We can only understand potential infinity if we understand actual infinity.

Nolan’s argument is that attributes are the thing, e.g. God is omniscience.

Cognitive routes: the thoughts we use to get to clear and distinct thoughts. The thought of finite power can eventually get us to the idea of infinite power (God).

The reason we conceive of a thing as having multiple attributes when all the attributes are the thing is because we take different cognitive routes to get to the clear and distinct perception.

If clear and distinct ideas are represented by circles, a confused idea looks like a bunch of circles overlapping. The process of taking the cognitive route involves clearing away all of the circles until you only have on clear and distinct one.

The will is active; the intellect is passive. An exertion of will always implies you are perceiving your extension of will. So the exertion is the active component, the will’s effect on the intellect is the passive component.

Meditations:

Doubt is a method for Descartes.

Knowledge was thought of as something you appeal to an authority to get; Descartes’ method was different in that you generated that knowledge yourself using this method.

The method of doubt is designed to shake our prejudices; not just bad theories we’ve learned by the fundamental assumptions about the world we internalized as a child.

Descartes thought the order of his method was very psychologically effective.

Stages of doubt:

1. Consideration of doubt from illusion, specifically sensory illusion. This is intended to shake our confidence in the sense as the main means of acquiring knowledge.

2. Dream argument: We know we can’t rely on dreams for knowledge, but there’s no fool-proof way to discern waking experience from dream experience. It is not perfectly certain that waking experience can be trusted.

Painting analogy: Painters create composite landscapes by taking a tree from one scene, a stream from another, etc. Our brain can do this as well; we can see a horn on a goat and a horse and imagine a unicorn from that.

3. Defective nature doubt: We are fundamentally ill-equipped to understand some things. Perhaps our seemingly infallible understanding that 2+1=3 could arise from a flaw in our understanding rather than a true indication of how things work.

The defective nature doubt is absolutely universal in scope; it allows us to doubt even our most fundamental assumptions.

2nd Meditation:

The cogito isn’t actually in the Meditations; it’s in the Principles.

The cogito is special because it is clear and distinct. But why is it more special than our other clear and distinct knowledge? Just because it comes first in an indivdual’s chronological development. This is the first clear and distinct perception that you get under Descartes’ method.

Even to doubt you must exist; wherever there is thinking there is existence.

Critics say there is a jump from positing the existence of a thought to positing a thinking thing. What is the “I” of “I think” and “I am?” Descartes only affirms that something is thinking whenever it thinks. He does not argue that the thing continues to exist once it is not thinking.

The cogito is a tautology; “I think, therefore there is some thinking going on.”

In the 2nd Meditation Descartes says “what am I? I am a thinking thing.” Descartes really means this as a negative: “I am not sure that I am anything but a thinking thing.”

Descartes says sensation in the strict sense is nothing but thinking. If I see the color red I cannot doubt that I seem to be seeing red; you can’t doubt sense in the strict sense.

The cogito is not yet perfect knowledge; however, it seems clear and distinct.

Descartes talks about the wax to help people who can’t get past sense impressions. All of the sensory qualities of the wax are changing. The only thing that is constant is that it is extended.

What is the point of the wax passage? Most people read it as determining the nature of wax is extension, but it’s not; at this point in the 2nd Meditation we can’t do that. The points are that we know mind better than body (because we only know bodies by a purely mental scrutiny). You distinctly thinking extension only proves that you distinctly think extension, not that extension really exists.

At the end of the second meditation we have established no perfect knowledge. We have no grasp of substance, temporality, etc.

You cannot doubt something while you are CDPing something, though CDPs are subject to the defective nature doubt.

The wax passage is an example of a CDP of self, eg the cogito.

3rd Meditation:

All of our thoughts are “as if” – we can’t say we see red, but we can say we seem to be perceiving red, or it is as if red were there. Principles I 9-10. By the term “idea,” Descartes means this kind of “as if” thought.

We can only ask what seems to be the source or cause of our ideas.

We can, however, classify our ideas into 3 categories: innate, aventitious (seeming to come from the senses) and invented (seeming to have been generated by my own understanding).

It seemsa s thought we can attribute degrees of reality to the seeming causes of our thoughts. We can divide these into 3 categories as well: substantial (finite), substantial (infinite/unlimited) and modal.

All of these things above are just things that we have pulled out of the cogito. However, thinking about them still just puts us back on the cognitive route to our CDP of ourselves through the cogito.

The clarity and distinctness of the cogito spurs us to look for other perceptions of this type.

If we really take the defective nature doubt seriously, how can we get past the cogito? Descartes thinks that if we can be sure there is a perfect being who created us. The next step of the method must be to establish with perfect certainty that such a God exists.

Descartes’ argument here turns on a CDP of infinity; if you can’t CDP infinity you can’t make any more progress in the method. However, our CDP of infinity is still subject to defective nature doubt. We don’t get rid of that until the 5th meditation.

Ideas can be said to be part of formal reality or objective reality. Objective reality refers to the “objects” or the seeming sources of our ideas. Under a degree of formal reality there is actually infinite, finite substantial and modal. Degrees of objective reality can be divided into these categories as well.

The question you have to ask is if you, as a thinking thing, can have generated on your own the idea of actual infinity. When we try to generate the idea of infinity on our own by adding bigger and bigger numbers, the closest we can get is potential infinity.

4th Meditation:

We now have 2 CDPs: infinity and the cogito.

The fourth meditation explores the difference between me and the source of my being.

The source of my being is perfectly perfect; then wouldn’t it follow that I am perfect (of my kind)? However, I err; I am fallible, imperfect.

An imperfection in thought would be an error in judgment or an affirmation of something that is false.

Descartes affirms outright that we are perfect. So then his project is to figure out why we err. One reason we might err is that we don’t have enough ideas, but maybe God already gave us the perfect amount of ideas. You can always want more ideas no matter how many ideas you have, and to have all ideas would make you God.

Descartes says the will is the way in which we most resemble God because our will is infinite, i.e. there is no limit upon it. The problem is that our will is not connected to infinite power. The intellect is also perfect, so again why do we err?

When we use our faculties properly we get the right result, when we use it improperly we err. Why, then, did God not make my faculties idiot-proof?

Descartes’ truth rule is usually summed up with “withold judgment whenever able.”

Though it isn’t essential to his argument, Descartes says that indifference is the lowest grade of freedom. The will is at its most free when it is unerringly pursuing the true and the good.

The big result of the fourth meditation is the truth rule: whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive is true. A corresponding rule is that we should withold affirmation whenever possible.

In meditation 2 we had a CDP of extension, but we weren’t yet allowed to confirm it as truth.

Meditation 1: method
Meditation 2: self
Meditaiton 3: God / infinity
Meditation 4: Relationship between self and God
Meditation 5: Extension / God
Meditation 6: Union (of mind and body)

Meditation 5: It is innate to my nature that I “imagine” (NOT CDP) there is a material world.

How do you prove geometrical principles with Descartes? Example: All of the interior angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees. First, CDP triangle. Second, CDP the triangle “contains” the proposition. Third, CDP the proposition.

According to Nolan, “square” and “triangle” are attributes of extension.

To abstract that idea: 1. CDP the innate idea. 2. CDP the idea under an attribute. 3. CDP the other attribute.

This schema leads us to another method for CDPing the existence of God: 1. CDP God; 2. CDP the necessary existence of God; 3. CDP Necessary existence. This is explained on p. 115, 5th postulate.

How does Descartes get rid of defective nature doubt?

We defined DND as: my nature is such that I go wrong even in what seems supremely evident.

Refiningour definition of DND further and further takes us to this claim: the source of my being is deceptive. Then we claim that God is deceptive because he made us. You might then say that the perfect non-deceiver is a deceiver. This is a manifest contradiction, and DND vanishes in a puff of logic.

Descartes addresses the jump from the being that created me to God in the 2nd set of replies, page 103. Gods and Angels passage.

Descartes’ entire system turns on our CDP of infinity; if we are really CDPing infinity defective nature doubt is invalid.

Meditation 6:

What is the truth we pick up on with our CDP of extension? It’s the innate idea of material substance.

Before we can confirm the existence of material bodies, we must prove that mind and body are really distinct. This the proof:

1. CDP my thought
2. CDP extension
3. CDP that thought excludes extension and vice versa

Two substances are said to be distinct when they can be said to exist independently of one another. You might also say “thought and extension can exist apart.”

4. God could create thought apart from extension.

5. Thought is really distinct from extension.

What is the active faculty serving as the source of sensation? Sensations are not a result of my active will, so where do they come from? There are 3 possibilities:

1. me (or something like me, i.e. another thinking thing)
2. God
3. Extension

We can eliminate ourselves because we can find no faculty in uorselves that can do that. We can eliminate other thinking things because they don’t have that faculty either. God could do it, but he wouldn’t do it because that would make him a deceiver.

When we examine the 3rd option we notice that our mind seems to be connected to a hunk of extension that we call our own by special right.

We notice that we feel some sensations not as a pilot feels what happens to his ship, but more intimately. When we exmaine what makes these sensations different we get a CDP of union.

Because God created us as perfect of our kind our faculty of sensation must be perfect. Descartes’ solution is that sensation is not designed to yield truth (that is what our intellect is for), it is designed to show us what is condusive to the preservation of ourlseves as a union.

But our senses do malfunction, such as when we have certain diseases or conditions. This is due to the divisible nature of our bodies.

The not as a pilot distinction is a cognitive route to the innate idea of union.

Influential 20c writing on Descartes: 1961: Kenny’s Descartes; 1978: Margaret Wilson’s Descartes; E. Curley’s Descartes Against the Skeptics; Bernard Williams; 1971, Frankfurt: Demons, Dreamers and Madmen; 1992: Garber: Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics.

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