Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Meditations 6: more on what nature teaches us...

In the first half of part 6 of Meditations, Descartes uses nature as an excuse for the pairing of a particular mind with a particular body despite his claims that the two are separate. It turns out that Descartes goes on to discuss how nature teaches us many things, some of which are true and others false. He makes a point that anything which we seem to know naturally is implanted in us by God. Descartes tries to make a distinction between nature's true and false teachings. He says that there are three subsets of natural teachings. The first pertains only to the mind; the second pertains only to the body; the third pertains to the relation between the mind and body.  The first subset, according to Descartes, is always true. Things pertaining only to the mind are clear and distinct concepts that must be true. Descartes is not concerned with the second subset, and he claims that the truth of the contents of the third subset varies. He claims that false natural teachings regarding the relation between mind and body are mere misinterpretations. So although it is true that something in heat excites pain, there is nothing that resembles pain inside the heat. Descartes claims that the problem is that we have conflicting signals about what to do or not do, and this can be blamed on our bodies. He says that there are two main sources of error that are a direct result of the body:  (1) the mind and body are distinct; the mind is unified and the body is divisible... (2) some bodily feelings are exaggerated or misdirected, making them deceptive. 

Meditations 6: A problem with dualism

In part 6 of Meditations, Descartes talks more about dualism and the distinction between mind and body. He talks about how he knows that the mind exists ("I think therefore I am"), but he has to work through an argument to prove that the body exists (Matt talks about that in his first post on this section).  Once Descartes is satisfied that both the mind and the body exist, he has to work out a way to justify the connection his soul has with his particular body. This is a problem because if all minds are distinct from all bodies, then there is no way to account for things like hunger, thirst, pleasure, and pain. If my mind is independent from my body, like Descartes suggests, that why does my mind only recognize pain that is inflicted upon my body? What accounts for the joining of a mind with a body? Further, if every living body is paired with a soul, are the two really distinct? Descartes questions this...

"As for the body which by some special right I called 'mine,' my belief that this body, more than any other, belonged to me had some justification. For I could never be separated from it, as I could from other bodies; and I felt all my appetites and emotions in, and on account of, this body; and finally, I was aware of pain and pleasurable ticklings in parts of this body, but not in other bodies external to it. But why should that curious sensation of pain give rise to a particular distress of mind; or why should a certain kind of delight follow on a tickling sensation? Again, why should that curious tugging in the stomach which I call hunger tell me that I should eat, or a dryness of the throat tell me to drink, and so on? I was not able to give any explanation of all this, except that nature taught me so. For there is absolutely no connection (at least that I can understand) between the tugging sensation and the decision to take food..."

"Nature taught me so" is the best explanation I can find for Descartes' response to this problem. He goes on from this section of part 6 to talk about the mind-body distinction in a very matter-of-fact way. He says that he knows himself to be a thinking thing that does not exist in space, and he has "a distinct idea of body, in so far s this is simply an extended, non-thinking thing." He comes to the conclusion that he is distinct from his body and that he can exist without it. 

I'm not convinced. 

Monday, February 11, 2008

Meditation 6

In chapter 6 of the meditations Descartes uses this chapter to talk about the real distinction between the mind and the body and the existence of material things. He starts out this part by stating that material things can exist because God is able to make them exist. He goes into talking about how since he can clearly grasp something (pure mathematics) they must therefore exist. Knowing the existence of such objects is possible and he goes into trying to prove this by using the idea of mental images. He does this by drawing a distinction between mental images and understanding. Descartes uses an example to further this point.
“When I have a mental image of a triangle, for example, I don't just understand that it is a figure bounded by three lines; I also "look at" the lines as though they were present to my mind's eye. And this is what I call having a mental image. When I want to think of a chiliagon, I understand that it is a figure with a thousand sides as well as I understand that a triangle is a figure with three, but I can't imagine its sides or "look" at them as though they were present.”

I rather agree with Descartes on this idea of distinction between mental images and understanding. There is definitely I difference between the two ideas and I sort of have a example of this. I can imagine a unicorn that it is a horse that has a horn like a rhino or some other animal with a horn. Though I can imagine this animal because it is made up of other animals I can not truly understand what a unicorn is until I could see one for myself which is impossible.

meditation 6

Meditation six deals with the existence and material things but what really interests me is Descartes idea of the proof for the body being separate and distinct from the soul. His proof goes like this, What ever god can create I can perceive it, if got creates things to be separate from one another, they are distinct from each other, I understand my existence therefore I don’t need a body, so god can make a thinking thing independent of a body, so my soul is distinct from my body. So I can exist without a body. I find his proof very interesting, just wonder how he came to some of the conclusions about his proof. One of my biggest problems is that god can make a soul distinct from the body but how does he get his soul is distinct from the body. How does he know that God doesn’t choose or only certain people have souls distinct from their bodies?

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Meditation 5- The ontological argument

". . .when I concentrate more carefully, it is quite evident that existence can no more be separated from the essence of God than the fact that its three angles equal two right angles can be separated from the essence of a triangle, or than the idea of a mountain can be separated from the idea of a valley."
Descartes reasons that he cannot think of God as not existing, so he must exist. Now this seems pretty foolish. Here is his reason: it is the essence of God to exist, just as it is impossible to imagine a triangle without it having three angles equaling 180 degrees, and impossible to think of a mountain which doesn't have a corresponding valley. Here essence can be separated from existence: just because we cannot separate the idea of a mountain from a valley doesn't mean that either one necessarily exists- it just means that IF a mountain exists then it must have a corresponding valley. For Descartes though, it is part of the essence of God to exist, so that God is the only being in which existence is included in or implied by his essence. Descartes says that this is because God is perfect, and existence is a perfection, just as omniscience and omnipotence are. So this sounds a little bit better than it did in the beginning.

So here is Descartes' version of he ontological argument:

1. God is perfect
2. It is part of the essence of something perfect to exist
C: God exists

I'm sure that this argument seems wrong in some way, whether or not you can put your finger on what seems wrong about it. Here is what is wrong: existence is not a predicate (or a property attributable to something). Of course anything which has a property exists, but existence itself is not a property, it is a quantifier ( as Immanuel Kant will later point out).

Friday, February 8, 2008

Part 5 of Meditation

In part 5 of meditation, Descartes compares God's existence to the existence of a triangle. He says that he did not use his senses to know the nature of a triangle. He claims he can think of all types of shapes that he's never seen before, but can still know the properties of those shapes. He says that he's always regarded mathematical and geometrical objects to be more certain than objects of the senses. He goes on to talk about the essence of objects and says that the essence of a triangle is the fact that it has 3 sides so if an object did not have 3 sides, it would be impossible for it to be a triangle. Since the triangle is such a clear and distinct idea, then it must exist. He continues and says that since God is also such a clear and distinct idea and the essence of God is existence, he must exist.

I agree with Descartes here a little, I think it is possible to think of different shapes and draw visualizations of those shapes from the idea of them, but I don't think just because God's is a clear and distinct idea in Descartes' mind, it means that he must exist. It just seems like there can be a lot of things that may seem like a clear and distinct idea in your head and turn out to be completely false.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Discourse, Part 5: Immortal Soul

Descartes talks about the rational soul in part five of the Discourse. He discusses the human form as a separate entity that does not necessarily require the rational soul in order to operate.  Descartes claims that God did not initially pair his design of the human body with a rational soul, but rather with animal spirits.  The idea that the human body can exist with or without the rational soul implies that the soul is completely distinct from the body. Descartes claims that the human soul is powerful enough to exist independently of the body (something that animal spirits can’t do), and therefore it is able to survive when the body dies. While disease and aging wear down the human body and eventually destroy it, the human soul is immune to these and all other forces. This makes the soul immortal. 

Discourse, Part 5: The Rational Soul

In part five of the Discourse, Descartes discusses what makes human beings distinct from beastly animals. He begins by asserting that God originally designed the human form, including internal organs and external limbs and features, just as we know it today. He assumes, however, that God did not give souls to human bodies in the beginning.  Without rational souls, these non-thinking machines only had animal spirits, which instructed the body on how to move and follow natural, impersonal desires brought about by the senses. This is how Descartes thinks animals act. Since they neither have reason nor a significant level of intelligence, they cannot act based on personal desires or will. Everything is mechanic. What makes humans distinct from animals then is their pairing with a rational soul that allows them to speak and reason. Descartes believes that animals are incapable of communicating their thoughts, whether through words or other signs. He concludes that the inability to communicate thoughts implies the absence of thoughts. Further, animals do not understand why they perform actions. An animal will eat because of a mechanical trigger in its body that tells it to eat, while a rational man will understand his hunger and then seek food. The rational soul is what makes humans human. 

Discourse on Method: Chapter 6

In chapter 6 of the Discourse, Descartes has a long and winded discussion on why he should not publish any of his works, but then changes his mind and decides that there are reasons to why he should publish some of his works. He considers the most important reason to why he should publish his works as the futherment of knowledge among the various fields like engineering and medicine. He says this because he knows he won't have enought time to do this on his own. Descartes then decides to talk discuss why he wrote in french instead of latin and finished up Chapter 6 with why he dosen't want any praise, money or fame for his writings only the futherment of his writings and knowledge. I think this chapter is sort of misplaced because the rest of the chapters in the discourse have actual importance to philosophical discussion while this chapter talks about why he should or shouldn't publish his works

Between God and Nothingness

In Part 4 of Meditation, the Meditator explains that the he is between God and nothingness. He says that God is a perfect and infinite being, but created him to be a finite being. So although he does share some perfection with God, he also shares nothingness.

He goes on to say that if God is perfect, he should be able to create perfect beings and thinks that if God always does what is best, why not make it so humans were never wrong? He quickly dismisses this thought and says that since we are imperfect and finite beings, we could never understand the will of a supreme being like God.

The idea that we could never understand God's will isn't a new idea. It's been around for centuries and I've personally always found it amusing. Whenever somebody questions the actions of "God" it always seems to be the same idea that you shouldn't question God because you would never be able to understand his ways. I think the Catholic Church just says this so they never have to explain anything lol.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Meditations 4 - Imperfection as 'Privatio Boni' part 2: The Will

Descartes is still not completely satisfied with the explanation that I summarized in the previous post for why man errs. Here is the crux:

"There is, moreover, no doubt that God could have given me a nature such that I was never mistaken; again, there is no doubt that he always wills what is best. Is it then better that I should make mistakes than that I should not do so?"

Descartes is asking why, if God could have made man infallible, he did not. He concludes that whatever God has done must be what is best, since God is perfect. But how are we to make sense of this? Isn't our finitude what causes us to make mistakes? Descartes examines the will which God has given us, which is the faculty by which we make decisions and act upon those decisions. Our will, it seems, is infinite. That is not to say that we are all powerful, i.e. that we can will anything we please, but rather that we can choose to take an attitude towards anything that is presented to us. We have the freedom to affirm, to deny, to pursue and to avoid anything that is presented to us, and we are not determined to do so by anything external to ourselves.

So this is Descartes' incomplete explanation from the previous post supplemented to become more complete: "So what then is the source of my mistakes? It must be simply this: the scope of the will is wider than that of the intellect."

By this Descartes means that our will is infinite but our understanding is finite. We have the power to make decisions about things which we do not understand. It is when we extend our will past our faculty of understanding and reason that we make mistakes. If we would limit ourselves to only making decisions about things which we clearly and distinctly understand, and act accordingly with reason, then we would never go wrong.


Meditations 4- Imperfection as 'privatio boni'

In this part of the meditations, Descartes examines why, if God is good, man is imperfect. He says that man has received his faculty of judgment from God, yet still makes mistakes and errors. This cannot be due to any deceitfulness in God, as Descartes says "the will to deceive is undoubtedly evidence of malice or weakness, and so cannot apply to God."

Descartes explains that man's error is due to his lack of perfection. Man, being finite, is in many ways removed from perfection (in knowledge, understanding, power), so in that he lacks many things. Imperfection is not a thing itself, but rather a lack of goodness. This lack is not so much
a moral one, but rather a lack of complete understanding and knowledge that may lead to moral imperfection, that is, to making wrong choices.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Discourse Part 4- Imperfect Minds

In part 4 of Discourse, Descartes discusses God and some reasoning to prove his existence. He explains that since most objects in the world are imperfect, they could easily be delusions of our imperfect minds and could simply be objects our minds have created, but since our minds are imperfect, it is impossible for them to create the idea of a perfect God, basically concluding that there must exist the perfect mind of God to account for himself and anything else in the world that is perfect.

I don't really agree with Descartes on this point. Maybe he is correct by saying that we rely on our senses too much, but there's no way to know God is perfect if he can't been seen. Yes, there are millions of unexplainable things in the world, but there is also a lot that science has explained in the past thousand years, many of these things are things people concluded God was responsible for. I think things that are still unknown will be figured out eventually...it just takes time.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Repost: Part 4 of Descartes' Discourse

This is the part of the discourse in which Descartes explains how he went about doing the meditations. Descartes decides to search for truth which is indubitable- something he could be completely certain of. He uses a method of methodological doubt to do this. He begins by doubting everything that he cannot be completely certain of, i.e. physical objects and the external world in general. This kind of doubt is methodological instead of pathological because it is not as though Descartes is a crazy man who leaps to the conclusion that he cannot know anything. Rather, he wants to call everything into doubt that he cannot be certain of, so that out of all of this he can sift something which he can be certain of. He says that almost the entire physical world which he experiences could plausibly be just a dream, seeing as dreams seem just as real as reality while we are sleeping. He comes to one thing which he cannot doubt: his own existence. He knows this for sure because of the proposition "Cogito ergo sum" ("I think therefore I am"). If he is thinking, then it must be that he exists or else he would not think, and the instant that he doubts this proposition he affirms its truth, because to doubt is to think. He concludes that if anything is certainly true, this is.