Elmo Recio

polywog@drexel.edu

Assignment 3

Descartes' Exercises

The exercises in this section are take from Rene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy Second Edition, by Christopher Biffle, ISBN: 1-55934-512-8

Exercise 1.1:

1) He must show each of his beliefs to be false. (Inconsistent- all he has to do is overthrow the foundation and the rest of his beliefs will be false)

2) It is not possible to achieve certainty about anything. (Inconsistent- There are no references to this premise in the first two paragraphs)

3) His beliefs have a doubtful shaky foundation. (Consistent- He refers to his youth facts taken for granted.)

4) He should treat beliefs that are slightly doubtful the same as beliefs that are completely doubtful. (Consistent- He can justify grounds for belief if in each he can find some ground for doubt.)

5) He will begin by attacking his 'foundational' beliefs. (Consistent- He attacks his foundational beliefs so that he would be able to attack the beliefs that are based on this foundation too.)

6) All knowledge appears to come through the senses. (Inconsistent- There are no references to this premise in the first two paragraphs)

Exercise 2.2:

1) If Descartes denies that he has senses and a body, then he can't prove that he exists. (Consistent- he says that he must exist if he can be deceived... because there is something there to be deceived.)

2) Descartes proves that God exists. (Inconsistent- he does not prove that a god exists. But is using god in a premise for his argument)

3) The deceiver could not deceive Descartes into believing he, Descartes, does not exist. (Consistent- he states that because there might be a deceiver that there is something (Descartes) there to deceive.)

4) Even if there is no physical world, it does not follow that Descartes' mind does not exist. (Inconsistent- He states that if there were no physical world, that would mean that Descartes himself could not exist. Yet, he does exist.)

5) Descartes proves that he exists. (Consistent- see previous comment)

Exercise 2.4:

1)

a. Archimedes is being compared to himself. He is saying that if Archimedes did it with math and geometry, so can he!

b. "One fixed and immovable point" is being compared to this axiom and one point of belief that he may hold which may make his foundation of belief.

c. Moving "the whole earth from its place" is being compared to the ability to restructure his belief system based on this one axiom.

d. The point of this analogy (Archimedes and the moving of thd earth from one point) is the fact that if Archimedes can move the whole world with but one point, then he can restructure and define his belief system but with ond foundational truti, his one axiom.

2)

a. "Distinctly comprehended" means the things that we can 'clearly' see and perceive with our senses. For example something that you may be holding and sensing, this piece of paper right now, or the mouse, computer screen if you are reading it online.

b. An example of a "general conception" as Descartes probably meant it, would be things that can be taken for granted, which can be deceiving. For example, someone walking down the street, or a generic table.

c. The goal in examining the wax is to demonstrate these "distinctly comprehended" objects that may be taken for granted. To examine these objects properties.

d. The wax is an example of an object which is commonly taken to be most distinctly comprehended.

3)

a. The error that Descartes makes when he sees men (as he 'sees' the wax) walking down the street is that he might not be seeing what is there for real. For example, he states, that these 'men' might be robots underneath their clothes. How could he know if they are real.

b. The purpose of him mentioning "robots" is to demonstrate the fact that he could be seeing something that isn't really true. On the surface, they look like a human, however, underneath, they are not real-- just machines.

c. The point that Descartes is making about his senses is that they cannot be fully trusted. Because, what may seem to be totally obvious and "distinctly clear" may not actually be so.

d. The point that Descartes is trying to make with judgement, is the fact that he is using his mind to determine what is real and true based on his senses. His senses are not the ones telling him that there is a robot underneath the clothes, rather that there is something there which fits the description of a man. So he uses his inner mind to judge the information from his senses.

e. Errors of the type demonstrated in the misjudging example are one of deception. This deception comes from relying on the senses 100% of the time.

f. The last statement in this excerpt concludes that he should judge with his mind objects which can be perceived by the senses.

g. The evidence offered for the conclusion of the last sentence is the one of seeing robots. If he were to rely purely on what the senses puts forth into his mind, without judgement, then he may be deceived by humans which may be robots (underneath.)

Exercise 3.3:

1) I must exist in order to think I exist.

2) ...then I cannot know for certain that external objects exist.

3) God could be deceiving me.

4) I can use it as a general rule...

5) ...then I cannot know anything for certain.

6) I should be careful when I make judgements about my ideas being copies of external objects.

The Proof of God's Existence:

In Meditations III Descartes attempts to prove God's existence. He attempts to give a logical argument for the existence of God. He is not successful in his attempt.

Descartes' attempt fails on the simple reliance on his own theory of the separation of the subjective reality and the formal reality. He believes that in order for there to be the Idea of God (the subjective reality of God), it must have been placed there by his own cognition or something else's (in the formal reality). His argument is as follows:

• There can be ideas with particular properties
• It must be placed there by a being of equal or higher properties in the real world
• The God idea has the properties of all powerful, all present, and all knowing
• No other human has the properties of all powerful, all present, and all knowing
• I do not have the properties of all powerful, all present, and all knowing
• I have the idea of God.
• Conclusion: A physical God must have put the idea of God in his head.

This argument is valid (it follows that if the premises are true then the conclusion is true.) Yet this argument is unsound. The premises are assumed to be true when they are not. If we look at premise number two we see that this theory, which he assumed was true is not. Hence in order for this argument to be sound, then we must assume his theories on the objective, formal and eminent reality to be true.

The Problem of Pain:

Using Descartes theory of subjective and formal realities, we may conclude that someone is feeling pain, even if we do not feel it ourselves. He states in Meditation IV that some mental images probably come from physical images. So we may further extend that to deduce the following argument.

• I can feel pain
• I have the subjective reality of pain
• I can produce the formal reality of pain
• I can transfer formal realities to another person with the same properties as I
• My formal reality of pain is a manifestation of the subjective reality of pain
• Hence: I am able to give someone else formal reality of pain which is similar to what I am actually feeling (or the subjective reality of pain)
• Other people have the same properties as I (human properties)
• Hence: other people are also able to transfer their formal realities of pain, which is similar to what I am actually feeling, to me.

Using this not-so-simple argument, we see that the subjective reality of pain can be transferred to another human via the formal reality. Even if we are not actually feeling this pain. We know how it is to feel pain, and what demonstrable effects are present when we feel it. We apply these visible 'side effects' with what we would do if such issues were present in our lives. In this way, we may conclude that if someone were writhing about on the floor crying they would be in pain. But Descartes quickly points out that we must make some sort judgement call when taking information in through the senses.

A clear example is the judgement of people from a distance. Your vision might be telling you that the individual in the distance is only centimeters tall, yet this is not in actuality true. You must use your judgement to determine that your senses are 'lying' to you due to the phenomenon known as distance. The same type of judgement call comes into play if you see someone in pain. For example, if you were to see someone laughing, then you would assume that they were happy. Yet what if this other person was from another planet. Where the body language was different. Then when someone might be crying, they may be happy; and when they were laughing, they may be in excruciating pain.

Since all that you have to judge these ramen (not of your species but equal to you) is based on your past personal experiences then your senses are, indeed, lying to you. Your judgement calls are incorrect; You may actually be inflicting damage on this other individual without knowing it. Their formal reality when it comes to pain, differs on a vast level with your formal reality. Hence the reason for premise number four above. Although this is taking the concept of pain recognition ad absurdum, it still follows that transference of subjective realities through formal realities can only occur between individuals with similar properties, as Descartes implied.