Descartes' meditations book summary, Schemi e mappe concettuali di Filosofia Moderna

Scarica Descartes' meditations book summary e più Schemi e mappe concettuali in PDF di Filosofia Moderna solo su Docsity! 1 The goal The “I” Not a religious meditation Tabula rasa The use of the Doubt Foundations of knowledge MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY – RENÉ DESCARTES INTRODUCTION ESSAY – Bernard Williams The Meditations are not meant to be a treatise, but rather an exercise of thinking. It is not just that though, we are nevertheless expected to sense the author’s guiding hand throughout. It is, certainly, a device to convince us of the author’s opinions, but it is more than that, because it aims to convince us by making us conduct the argument ourselves. The “I”: • In the Meditations → does not represent the author, but anyone who will step into the position of “the thinker” who is prepared to reconsider and recast their beliefs • In the Replies → represents Descartes himself Throughout the Meditations the author takes responsibility both for the conduct of the thinker’s reflections and their outcome, where that includes the beliefs to which we shall have been led if we are persuaded by the argument. Though Descartes’ book resembles in structure and goals some works of religious meditation, it is nothing like them. Although the inquiry in which he leads the reader does yield a conviction of the existence of God, one great difference lies in the authority with which the two kinds of works were offered: the authors of religious meditations claimed authority from their own experience; Descartes’ authority lies only in inviting us to suppose, uncovered methods of simple, clear-headed and rational inquiry which all reasonable people can conduct if they clear their minds of prejudice and previous beliefs. No special religious discipline nor knowledge of texts or history is required. Descartes, in order to start his meditations, claims that the rational way to start this path of thinking is to get rid of all previous knowledge one thinks to have. This approach though is not supposed to be directly applied to the ordinary affairs of life (“no sane person has ever seriously doubted these things”), even if Descartes hopes that these reflections will eventually affect our everyday life. Descartes makes a methodical use of the Doubt in order to look for the so-called “foundations” of knowledge. This consists in a refusal to take things for granted that might be doubtful (general intellectual method), and the Doubt is therefore deployed for defined purposes and it is under control from the start. Scepticism in the ancient world had a negative connotation; Pyrrhonians and others avoided it since it was in order to calm and eradicate an unsatisfiable urge for knowledge. Descartes’ aim was the opposite: to use scepticism to help in acquiring knowledge, and to bring out from a sceptical inquiry the result that knowledge was, in fact, possible. The Doubt is used in Descartes’ work to eliminate false conception, and prove that a proper science would have nothing to fear from the doubts of the sceptics themselves. Descartes’ Doubt was therefore to be both revelatory and pre-emptive. Historians classify Descartes as a “rationalist” who is searching for foundations in the sense of axioms from which the whole knowledge might be deducted, as in a geometrical system. But Descartes was a rationalist, rather, in his views about the origins of scientific concepts. He affirms that it is only by empirical investigation and experiment that we could discovers which descriptions are true for the actual world. Basically, the Doubt provides foundations for knowledge because it helps eliminating the error. Descartes’ aim was not so much to find truths from which all scientific knowledge could be deducted, but rather to identify false or doubtful propositions which were implied by our everyday beliefs and so made those beliefs themselves unreliable. 2 A deceiving, malicious demon The illusion of the senses Phenomenon of dreaming Bourdin – 7th Objection The pre- emptive scepticism of the Meditations God is no deceiver Descartes’ conclusion Objection Once a statement is found indubitable, it could from then on serve as a sound foundation of our understanding of the world. In its extreme form, the Doubt is embodied in the fiction that a malicious demon is deceiving the thinker throughout their search for knowledge. Thinking experiment: “if there were an indefinitely powerful agency who was misleading me to the greatest conceivable extent, would this kind of belief be correct?”. Thinking in these terms, Descartes is led to identify whole tracts of his ordinary experience he may lay aside, including his own body. With the “illusions of the senses”, Descartes reminds us that we can be mistaken in our perceptions and beliefs even in our everyday life, since the world may not really be as it presents itself. It is true that anything we can perceive, we can dream we perceive and there is no way of telling at the time of dreaming whether we are dreaming or not. What the thinker can do, at any rate, is to “bracket” these experiences, and not commit on the question of whether they are waking, reliable experiences, or delusive dreams. Sceptical journey: a. Distributive doubt → on any occasion we may be mistaken b. Help of the malicious demon c. Final collective doubt → we may be mistaken all the time In regards of the “phenomenon of dreaming”, does it really lead to conclusion that we can never know whether we are dreaming of are awake? Why does the thinker take dreaming so seriously, and not madness? Bourdin, the author of the Seventh Objection argues that dreaming and madness should be treated together. The distinction Descartes makes, relies on the fact that the mad are assumed unable to conduct the meditations at all, because they cannot join the thinker in thinking through these things. Descartes seemingly thinks that if we are sane, we can be sure that we are, even though mad people cannot tell that they are mad. The Meditations use the Doubt to lead out of the Doubt into knowledge, and correct conception of things. They show that we can reach such a conception, and demonstrate that knowledge is to be had. The foundations that Descartes believes himself at the end to have discovered are also foundations of the possibility of knowledge. That is why the scepticism of the Meditations is pre-emptive. The rebuttal of scepticism depends on the existence of a God who has created us and who is “no deceiver”. If we do our own part in clarifying our thoughts and we seek the truth as seriously as we can, God will not allow us to be systematically mistaken, since it would be contrary to the benevolence and the trustworthiness of God. “The will is involved in belief” – it is essential that we should have done our part, since if we do not accept a sound intellectual discipline, we deceive ourselves and are responsible for our errors, since God does not guarantee us against every error, but only general and systematic ones. The sceptics’ threat was that our entire picture of things might be wrong: now we have an assurance, because God is no deceiver, that this cannot be so In the Meditations the sceptics have been allowed to doubt even on the convictions that ground the belief in God. Descartes’ answer to this objection emphasises that: 5 Conclusion What am I? Definition of body I am a thinking thing The wax example myself of something, then I certainly existed”. Even if there is a supreme cunning power who is deceiving me, he will never take away from me the thought that I am something. “I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind” → certain and unshakable. I have a face, hands, arms and the whole mechanical structure of limbs which I call the body. I am nourished, I move about, I engage in sense-perception and thinking, which I attribute to the soul, whose nature I imagine to be something tenuous like wind, fire or ether. A body is “whatever has a determinable shape and a definable location and can occupy a space in such a way as to exclude any other body; it can be perceived by touch, sight hearing, taste or smell, and can be moved in various ways; not by itself but by whatever else comes in contact with it” But the only thing actually inseparable from me is thinking. I am, I exist, but I totally cease to when I cease to think. “I am, then, in the strict sense only a thing that thinks” What else am I? I am not a body, I am not a soul. What is the “I” that I know? I am aware of things that come from the senses, but we know they are false. Yet I seem to be aware of those things (touch, heat, etc.), and this cannot be false. After all, “having a sensory perception” can be restricted to simply thinking. I am still unable to picture this “I” in my imagination though, and it is surprising that “I should have a more distinct grasp of things which I realize are doubtful and unknown, than I have of which is true and known: my own self.” I take this piece of wax. It has a specific colour, shape, smell. When I put it close to the fire, though, everything changes: it melts, it becomes transparent, it loses its smell. But it remains the same wax. Evidently all the features I understood with the senses do not belong to the wax. If I take away everything that does not belong, all that remains is that this body is merely something extended, flexible and changeable. Flexible and changeable meaning that this piece of wax is capable of countless changes, so much that I am unable to run through this immeasurable number through my imagination. The nature of the wax is therefore not revealed by my imagination, but by my mind alone, because the perception I have of it is a case not of vision, or touch or imagination, but purely of mental scrutiny. But my mind is weak and prone to error. In fact, I judge that it is a piece of wax. The same way as I look out the window and judge that the one crossing the square is a man, and not an automaton concealed under a hat and a coat. Therefore, something which I thought I was seeing with my eyes is in fact grasped solely by the faculty of judgement which is in my mind. What is this “I” which seems to perceive the wax so distinctly? If I judge that the wax exists from the fact the I see it, I myself also exist. It is possible that what I see is not really wax; it is possible that I do not even have eyes with which to see anything. But when I see, or think I see, it is simply not possible that I who am now thinking am not something. Every consideration whatsoever which contributes to my perception of the wax, or of any other body, cannot but establish even more effectively the nature of my own mind. I know now that even bodies are not strictly perceived by the sense or the faculty of imagination but by the intellect alone, and that this perception derives not from their being touched or seen but from their being understood. 6 General rule Ideas Casual argument for God’s existence Evil Demon Hypothesis Solution for EDH God is no deceiver Error and the theological problem of Evil THIRD MEDITATION – The existence of God The thinker at the beginning of the 3rd meditation withdraws from all his senses and from everything he knows, proceeding with asserting what he has discovered so far to be true: He is a thing that thinks: a thing that doubts, affirms, denies, understands a few things and is ignorant of many, is willing and unwilling, and also which imagines and has sensory perception. “Whatever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true” Being a thinking thing, Descartes knows he has ideas. He notices that these ideas can be either innate, coming from outside, or made up. One of these ideas is the idea of God, i.e., something ethereal, infinite, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good and the creator of all things. But where did he get this idea of God, a perfect being? Did he invent it? Did it come from other people? No. His idea of could only have come from God himself. Moreover, according to Descartes, a cause must be at least as real or perfect as its effect. 1) I have an idea of God; that is, an idea of a being with infinite reality 2) If I have an idea of something with a certain amount of reality, then that idea is caused by something with at least that much reality 3) Therefore, my idea of God is caused by something with infinite reality 4) Therefore, God – the only being with infinite reality – exists. However, God might be a deceiver: God could have made Descartes have many false beliefs. How then can the thinker be sure that he can trust any of his other beliefs besides the belief of his own existence? In the case of the Cogito (I think, therefore, I am), Descartes saw very “clearly and distinctly” that to think, one must also exist. But how does he know that clear and distinct perception is always reliable? E.g., how does he know that “triangles have three sides” if there’s an evil demon deceiving him? There is no way that an all-good being would make it so that when he “clearly and distinctly” thinks something to be true that it wouldn’t be true: an all-good being would not deceive him or allow an evil demon of such. Plus, it’s just been proven that God exists, so now he can trust whenever he “clearly and distinctly” thinks something to be true. FOURTH MEDITATION – Truth and falsity Proven the existence of God, the thinker thinks he “can see a way forward to the knowledge of other things”. First, he denies the possibility that God could deceiving him, since deception involves imperfection and is an indication of malice, and so cannot apply to God. If God is perfectly good, there should be no evil in the world. And if God is no deceiver, he would never make us fall into error. Nevertheless, there is evil and error. In the next passages Descartes tries to propose some potential solutions to the Problem of Evil, although he is not really convinced First Solution: “I am something intermediate between God and nothingness.” That does not solve the problem because God could still have created some intermediate being that does not make mistakes. 7 Concurrent causes of error Descartes vs Aristotle Descartes’ essentialism 2nd proof of God’s existence (Cartesian Circle) Second Solution: I am not God. My nature is weak and limited. God is capable of things whose causes are beyond my knowledge Descartes notices that his errors depend on two causes: 1. The faculty of knowledge / intellect (understanding) → with which I perceive ideas My faculty of knowledge is finite. At the same time I can form an idea of some understanding that is much greater and therefore must belong to the nature of God. 2. The faculty of choice / will → with which I determine my ideas true or false If you have a faculty of will, you can decide what to think/believe, based on the knowledge that you have. The will is illimited and beyond our grasp. This faculty makes us free, and therefore errors are “our” responsibility, not God’s There are two ideas of will: a) Freedom from indifference: we determine ourselves. b) Freedom of spontaneity: we act in accordance with our will, our “nature” determines us According to Descartes, God did not give him “faulty faculties”; on the contrary “the scope of the will is wider than that of the intellect; but instead of restricting it within the same limits, I extend its use to matters which I do not understand”. In other words, Descartes holds that all of his errors/sins result from his freely misusing his will. God hasn’t made Descartes in such a way that he inevitably makes mistakes; his errors are all attributable to his own acts of will, not to God. Therefore, the fact that he sometimes errs does not imply that God is a deceiver. Moreover, Descartes claims that whenever he makes a judgement without a clear and distinct perception, that judgment is faulty even if it is true, since “the perception of the intellect should always precede the determination of the will”. Therefore, he should believe only what he clearly and distinctly perceives; with everything else, he should hold off on making a judgement. Towards the end Descartes keeps meditating on the Problem of Error, although he never seems to come to a satisfactory conclusion. FIFTH MEDITATION – The essence of material things Descartes’ discussion of essence is intended as a strong reaction against Aristotelian empiricism. According to Aristotle, we do not have any innate ideas and everything we know we acquired from the senses – e.g., we know a triangle because we have seen it before. In Descartes’ formulation, whatever properties of a thing that we clearly and distinctly perceive, must be essential. Therefore, bodies are essentially extended (they occupy space), since extension is clearly and distinctly perceived by the intellect. The Meditator then reasons by analogy that God exists as an idea in his mind, and he clearly and distinctly perceives all of his qualities. One of these qualities is existence, so God must exist. Most importantly, he adds that “existence is inseparable from God, and hence he really exists”, describing existence as God’s essential property, without which God cannot even be perceived. However, Descartes never really addressed how to understand the essence of material things, but only of mathematical objects.