DESCARTES:
THE QUEST FOR CERTAINTY AND THE MIND/BODY PROBLEM
OBJECTIVES:
1. Be able to explain the primary contributions of Descartes to modern thought.
2. Be able to explain in what ways Descartes departed from the methodology of his predecessors.
3. Be able to compare/contrast the methodology of Descartes with that of Bacon.
4. Be able to explain the methodology of Descartes as discussed in the Discourse on Method, and as applied in the Meditations.
5. Be able to discuss the role of the evil demon in Descartes, and the role of skepticism in general in his thought.
6. Be able to define foundationalism, and to explain how Descartes's philosophy exemplifies this school of philosophy.
7. Be able to explain how Descartes rescues himself from the evil demon argument, what things are known clearly and distinctly and why, and what his overall conclusion on this basis is in the Meditations.
8. Be able to explain Descartes's position on the relation of the mind to the body, and to discuss the implications of it and problems associated with this position.
FAMOUS QUOTATIONS:
From the Discourse on Method
"It is true that, while studying the customs of other men, I found here too, scarcely any room for conviction, and noticed hardly fewer contradictions among them than in the opinions of philosophers.....The diversity of our opinions, consequently, does not arise from some having a larger share of reason than others, but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects."
"...The mathematicians alone have been able to find any demonstrations, that is certain and evident reasons, I, therefore, did not doubt but that such must have been the rule of their investigation."
"...I desired to give my attention solely to the investigation of truth, I thought that a procedure exactly the opposite was called for, and that I ought to reject as absolutely false all opinions in which I could have the least doubt, or order to ascertain afterward whether there remained anything in my belief that was wholly certain."
"I believed that the four following principles would prove sufficient for me....
The first was never to accept anything as true which I did not clearly know to be such....The second to divide each of the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible....
The third, to conduct my thoughts in such order that, by commencing with objects that were the simplest and easiest to know, I might rise little by little, step by step, to the knowledge o the more complex....
Finally, in every case to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general, that I might be assured that nothing was omitted."
"...and when I observed that this truth, Cogito ergo sum, was so certain and assured, that no reason for doubt, however extravagant, could be advanced by the skeptics to shake it, I decided that I might, without hesitation, accept it as the first principle of the philosophy I was searching for."
From The Meditations:
"But what am I then? A thinking being. What is a thinking being? A being which doubts, which undertsands, which conceives, which affirms, which denies, which wills, which rejects, which imagines also, and which perceives."
OUTLINE
I. Introduction
A. Descartes's overall significance in the history of modern thought
B. Descartes's general aims.
"I wish to give myself entirely to the search after truth."
C. his method:
i. skepticism
ii. as distinguished from criticism
iii. use of skepticism in the service of criticism
II. The Meditations
a. structure
i. Project of doubt.
ii. Skepticism about senses.
iii. Radical skepticism.
b. the project of doubt examined
i. definition of Cartesian Doubt: to cast out anything with the slightest possibility of error.
ii. the reliance on foundationalism and why
c. the stages of doubt (skepticism)
i. The Senses
"wiser not to trust entirely to any thing by which we have once been deceived."
ii. First Objection: although there are some cases in which the senses seem to deceive us, these are not the
iii. reply to objection I:
a) how do I know that in cases which seem normal I am not dreaming?
b) IS IT TRUE that we really cannot discriminate between waking and dreaming? Norman Malcolm
iv. Objection to the reply:
a) There are some things even in sleep which are real. These are analytic truths.
v. reply to the objection:
a) The Evil Demon hypothesis: a metaphysical hypothesis.
vi. two kinds of doubt:
a) logical: any logical possibility of doubt
b) psychological: what you are capable of doubting
vii. What is it Descartes is looking for?
a) To Know P is to believe P, but the reverse does not hold.
b) Looking for some truth that to believe it would be to know it. If one can find such a truth, then the evil demon is powerless.
viii. The indubitable truth:
Cogito ergo sum.
a) Is it an argument? If so, what is its form and is it valid?
b) Is it an intuition? Why is this a better way to approach the Meditations?
c) Does Descartes assume that there is a substance which thinks?
d) does he assume here that a corporeal body cannot think?
ix. To think is my nature: res cogitans
a) properties of mind
b) properties of body
x. what are thoughts, or mental entities?
xi. can one's existence be doubted?
xii. what if there are no thoughts?
xiii. Solipsism (Solus ipse -- he alone)
a. Was his method of doubt and the Evil Demon hypothesis too strong?
b. How will Descartes explain knowledge of other existing things, if there are any?
c. Can he ever be sure that the Evil Demon does not exist?
d. Is the Evil Demon hypothesis an intelligible one?
O.K. Bowsma
e. The problem of referential opacity
f. How will he bridge the gap between mental and external world? The mind/body problem.
III. The answer in Meditation III and beyond:
a. Clear and Distinct Ideas
"I am certain that I am a thinking thing. Hence, I must know what is required to make me certain. What is required to make me certain is that I perceive it clearly and distinctly."
b. shift to psychological definition of indubitability
c. What is it for an idea to be clear and distinct?
i. clear: "I call that clear which is present and manifest to mind." (Principles of Philosophy)
d. Distinct: that which is so precise and different from other objects that it contains within itself only what is clear in it.
e. clarity and distinctness proves
i) that mind is other than body
ii) that God exists
a) Descartes's ontological argument
b) Argument from perfection
iii) the non-existence of the evil demon.
f. There is something about our very ideas which marks them out as true.
g. vs. Bacon
