Assignment for Friday, 2/26

Descartes, MEDITATIONS 1 & 2.

Writing: Pick one of the following topics and write at least 2 paragraphs on it.

1. Identify a specific example in which Descartes combines imagination and reasoning to explore his understanding of his identity, or his relationship to reality. What does this example reveal about Descartes’ understanding of his world? Why does he need both imagination and reason to demonstrate his point? How does the example serve the theme of that particular Meditation? 

2. Write about Descartes as a character. Compare him to Boethius, Socrates, Orpheus, and/or Qfwfq. How is he situated in his narrative? How does he establish his identity in relation to the world? How do his choices reflect on issues we have been talking about in the course (e.g., mind/body, time, narrative vantage-points, etc.)?

Jack

In the Phaedo and the Consolation, the characters Socrates and Boethius were clearly in exceptional circumstances. Their impending executions had a huge influence on the subject and course of their respective philosophical discourses. Obviously, Descartes was not about to die. Where Boethius contemplated being beaten to death, Descartes could ponder the possibility that he was actually naked in bed and not at his desk in his night gown. While both Socrates and Boethius approached their debates with a position already in mind, an underlying sentiment whose validity they wished to prove, Descartes’ approach is the exact opposite. Socrates (soul is immortal) and Boethius (God is just; good will be rewarded and evil punished) need to justify these beliefs. Descartes’ position is, of course, based on a position of total doubt; this is much more tenable when death is not looming.

            Almost as obvious of a difference is the lack of supporting characters in Descartes. Socrates’ companions mostly functioned as yes-men, occasionally popping up with rival philosophical positions to knock down (Pythagorean attunement theory, for example). Boethius’ invented the character of Boethius (from the perspective of the beliefs he intended to convey, Lady Philosophy is more in line with the author’s own self; the prisoner Boethius represents whining and fearful man) in order to fulfill the similar role of chiming in with assent to maintain the impression of a dialogue and also to, on a few occasions, mourn the unjustness of the world in a representation of self-interest. Descartes has only one character (who uses the first person, even though our editor is convinced of a clear division between “the Meditator” and Descartes—I think, I just skimmed the introduction). But stylistically he goes heavy on the self-directed questions and soon starts using a plural first person; this creates a sense of a more immediate and intimate narrative place; while the actual setting is the Meditator alone in his room, the impression is of the Meditator speaking aloud to his audience/reader. Apparently Descartes the author actually solicited philosophical objections from other philosophers and scholars; at least in these first few chapters, he is fairly diligent about always questioning himself as to the validity of his claims. Conclusions: (1) Descartes makes a very respectable decision that stronger philosophic criticisms can be lodged by others than by himself. (2) Wisdom from a heavenly Lady Philosophy-type figure is unnecessary and indeed not to be trusted when building from the existence of the human as the existence of the mind as the absolute starting point.

            These two points of basic narrative situation and number of characters are pretty obvious; I think they still deserve to be remembered as much as (more dramatic) narratives and (more diverse) dramatis personae were remembered and discussed in consideration of the earlier works.

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            On a separate note, skimming through the introduction, I found the page or so summarizing some objections to the Cogito (xxvii) to be worth considering. Nietzsche phrased one of these (how can we assume that “I” am the agent of the thinking, or that there even is an agent) like this:

“With regard to the superstitions of logicians, I shall never tire of emphasizing a small terse fact, which these superstitious minds hate to concede—namely, that a thought comes when “it” wishes, and not when “I” wish, so that it is a falsification of the facts of the case to say that the subject “I” is the condition of the predicate “think.” It thinks: but that this “it” is precisely the famous old “ego” is, to put it mildly, only a supposition, an assertion, and assuredly not an “immediate certainty.” After all, one has even gone too far with this “it thinks”—even the “it” contains an interpretation of the process, and does not belong to the process itself. One infers here according to the grammatical habit “thinking is an activity; every activity requires an agent; consequently—.” 

Seems a pretty solid objection to me. Do you feel there is any justification to Descartes saying “For that it is I that am doubting, understanding, wishing, is so obvious that nothing further is needed in order to explain it more clearly”?

Michael

Damn it, Jack, you said what I wanted to say about yes-men and fictional characters. These last two assignments, it's like you anticipate the scathing remarks I might say and then say them yourself...

As for the objection, yeah, I like it. I took a Philosophy class two semesters ago, and we covered Descartes. While objections to cogito ergo sum weren't mentioned in lecture, our GSI brought them up in discussion. He asked us how we felt about Descartes presupposing an "I." He further suggested that cogito ergo sum is a circular argument because 'sum' allows us to say 'cogito' (unless we exist, how can we think?—therefore we could as easily say, sum ergo cogito ergo sum). It's tricky in part because no language (at least none that I know of) is able to discuss the self without presupposing the self. Nietzsche hits this nail on the head when he mentions grammatical habit. It's unclear to me whether or not cogito ergo sum could work in a different grammatical framework.

To return to the prompt:

I. Descartes combines reason and imagination to explore his identity in the Preface to the Reader. "... I did not think it useful to hold forth at greater length in a work written in French and designed to be read indiscriminately by everyone, lest weaker minds be in a position to think that they too ought to set out on this path." Here he is using reason (making a logical conclusion from premises), but also his imagination (ideas of superiority), and with these two he establishes his idea as the paragon of elitism. A friend of mine once said, "cogito ergo superbum est," and, while I don't recall enough of my middle school Latin curriculum to comment on his grammar, his meaning is obvious.

But this is more or less pedantry. Allow me to try this again.

I. Descartes pioneers the rationalist school of modern philosophy in the Meditations, so reason and imagination necessarily go hand-in-hand. While he isn't establishing a list of axioms as his buddy Spinoza later does, he still sets up a fundamental premise and works from there. Reason is key to working from there, and imagination is key in setting up the fundamentals. Imagination is also key to the process of reasoning, as he fuels his progress with examples (later, I believe he invents the 'chilagon'). As for one concrete example... in sections 18 and 19, he discusses the fact that he is sitting at a desk in his night-gown. He then mentions that he can imagine this being a dream (he is accustomed to sleeping). Here he is both reasoning and imagining, and he's exploring his identity as the man he thought he was before commencing his meditations. He's probing it, as it were, searching for flaws to be exploited and turned into skepticism. As skepticism is the theme of the meditations as a whole (at least nominally—one can easily demonstrate that he is simply acting the part of yes-man to the Church), it is obvious why this is important.

II. As for his character, it is not so different from those of, say, Simmias or Cebes. He's doing a bit more imagining and a bit more reasoning than either of they do, and he's talking a lot more, but going back to my previous parenthetical he is simply rubbing the Church's back as though it were Socrates and he, a mere disciple. There is no dialogue, but Descartes' philosophy is geared explicitly to pleasing his religious overlords (as shown later by his presupposition that God exists)—this is in sharp contrast to, say, Spinoza, who in 'proving' the existence of the metaphysical God manages to piss off both the orthodox Jewish community to which he belonged and the reverent Christian community to which he was exiled. Spinoza wasn't a lapdog. Descartes? Doesn't seem to be much more than that to his character. He even writes in Latin such that the commoners don't imagine they can keep up with him—that's a technique straight out of the book of religious institution.

Jack

Hey, my comments weren't all scathing remarks. I haven't read Descartes before, so it's very possible that you have solid grounds for your views that I am ignorant of, but I think you still take some cheap shots at him. I think a certain amount of "back rubbing" was necessary concerning the church in order to remain at liberty and continue to write. I think our introduction mentions a decision not to publish a scientific work based on Galileo's recent troubles with ecclesiastical authority. I felt that in the first two books the insistence on the fictitiousness of the "clever deceiving devil" premise was a little more than would seem necessary out of context, but that it was likely very necessary to ensure that, yes, he met with Church approval so that he could be read by people legally.

As to the writing in Latin thing, which we briefly discussed in class, I don't think that Descartes deserves to be singled out for this. Many important precursors and contemporaries also wrote in Latin (in Holland, where he spent much of his time, I imagine that Erasmus was still a huge influence from the previous century, in France many of the Renaissance purely literary figures wrote poetry in Latin, etc, scientists like Newton and Galileo wrote in Latin, and I think philosophers pretty much everywhere wrote in Latin). Furthermore, Descartes' Discourse on the Method  was written in French, and he specifically says that he is writing this book in Latin to avoid some specific atheist morons who bothered him with insubstantial objections. There is some element of truth in his statement that he wants the intelligent people to read his book, because frankly most of the people who were educated and trained adequately to have both an interest in and a capability in judging the rational arguments of his work would know Latin.

Michael

I didn't mean to insinuate that -all- your comments were scathing, just that you have been hitting many of the disdainful notes I otherwise would have.

Cheap shots? Meh.

(Also, am I singling him out? Just because an activity or behavior is widespread does not mean it is immune to criticism.)

Karena

From the very beginning, Descartes is straightforward about his intentions:  His aim is to completely reorient the way he thinks about the world.  In order to explore certainty, he sets out to doubt all that is not absolutely certain (i.e. everything).

Like Boethius, Descartes advances his thoughts by having a conversation with himself.  Except, for Descartes, he does not seek to create another character unto whom he could project all his queries.  Instead, Descartes is constantly in the mode of questioning his state of mind, how something may have been framed, and the 'deception' he has endured thus far.  “But am I at least not something, after all?  But I have already denied that I have any senses or any body.  Now I am at a loss, because what follows from this?” (Descartes, 18).  From this, we see that Descartes is not afraid of admitting that he is at moments totally and utterly confused.  All he knows for certain is that he seeks to subtract all doubtful ‘certainties’ in order to uncover the real certainties yet left behind.  In this way, Descartes is even much more aware of the uncertainties of his beliefs than Boethius is ever willing to admit -- either with his own character or his constructed Lady Philosophy.

More notably, Descartes is fascinated by the question of the “I” -- especially as he struggles to “take care in case [he] should happen imprudently to take something else to be [him] that is not [him]” (Descartes, 18).  That conception is so far removed from Boethius’ frame of thought, he rather ends up performing the proliferated agency of the individual.  While Descartes ponders the “I,” Boethius as a thinker is splayed in two parts (Boethius, Lady Philosophy), who are for the course of the Consolation consistently in tension with one another.

There also comes a point, fairly early on in his questioning, in which Descartes sets up hypotheticals.  I immediately found that strange.  Why would he “suppose” anything in the middle of questioning everything, even if it is to explain how he has been deceived?  In this particular case, Descartes supposes the source of his deception before he begins denying certain existences.  “I will therefore suppose that, not God, who is perfectly good and the source of truth, but some evil spirit, supremely powerful and cunning, has devoted all his efforts to deceiving me.  I will think that the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds, and all external things are no different from the illusions of our dreams, and that they are traps he has laid for my credulity; I will consider myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, and no senses, but yet as falsely believing that I have all these . . .” (Descartes, 16-7).  By the end of this passage, it almost seems as though Descartes hypothesizes conditions which are altogether negligible to the advancement of certain queries.  They are not contrived as far as he is aware of their status as imaginary conditions (from which he can deduct further constructions).

Even if he is doubting everything there is available to doubt, certain certainties must be assumed if Descartes is to follow through certain chains of thought.  For this passage (and really, for the sake of this entire prospect), Descartes needs to assume that he has been somehow deceived -- otherwise, the idea that he has been correctly believing in certainties leaves his entire project without a spine.

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Chris

In Descartes’ “Second Meditation,” his short passage about wax explores the nature of imagination and reasoning and their application in his attempting to understand his relationship to reality.  He discusses how wax changes forms as a result of variations in temperature and it is because of this he is able to recognize the shortcoming of his perception, stating, “And I would not be correctly judging what the wax is if I failed to see that it is capable of receiving more varieties, as regards extension, than I have ever grasped in my imagination.  So I am left with no alternative, but to accept that I am not at all imagining what this wax is, I am perceiving it with my mind alone” (22-23).  In this way, Descartes distinguishes between imagination and perception, suggesting that perception is not limited to the senses, but that the mind itself is also capable of perceiving an object.  The imagination can be as deceiving as the senses and that it better to perceive with the mind.  For Descartes, “the perception of it is not sight, touch, or imagination, and never was, although it seemed to be so at first: it is an inspection by the mind alone” (23).  This view suggests that Descartes imagines his understanding of the world as the result of his ability to know things without succumbing to the deceptions of his senses.

            While this is certainly an admirable undertaking, I am unclear where Descartes stands on the issue of language.  I concede that it is certainly possible for one to think in ways outside of language (artists in color; musicians in sound), but I am unsure as to whether or not Descartes rationalization about existence is possible outside of language.  If everything the body acquires through the senses is a deception by “some evil spirit,” is Descartes suggesting that the acquisition of language is innate to the mind?  I haven’t read ahead yet to see if this is discussed, but throughout my reading of the first and second Meditations, it was unclear whether or not Descartes viewed language as another thing acquired through deception, and if this is in fact the case, how is it possible to justify his claims about thought being the one solid foundation?