Theology and Deception in Descartes

To begin with, I acknowledge that it is impossible for God ever to deceive me, for trickery or deception is always indicative  of some imperfection. And although the ability to deceive seems to be an indication of cleverness or power, the will to deceive undoubtedly attests to maliciousness or weakness. Accordingly, deception is incompatible with God.

Meditations 81, A&T 53

We've talked about this as one of the most vital assumptions Descartes makes, but I don't think we've discussed deception in depth. First, for such a critical point, he doesn't seem to spend much time with his proof. I guess I find it interesting that although he is writing this to Christian theologians, he doesn't make any mention of Christ or an explicitly Biblical God in the entire text.  I would think that God used "trickery" in the Old Testament - ie. the Binding of Isaac. I also wonder what this says about Descartes moral structure - he seems to not take the consequences into account, but rather the action in itself. My questions are: Does Descartes truly believe that this point is as evident as he claims, or does he spend so little time on it because he knows it is a weak proposition? and This point of God's deception implies a personal God that interacts with the world, and while Descartes states this is a philosophical and not a theological treatise, what insights can we gain into Descartes' theology?

Descartes, Meditations II

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?

Does it seem, in the section where Descartes is questioning why God would have created him imperfectly, that he would like to, if given the chance, say that God made a mistake when he chose not to make Descartes imperfect? Is he simply supporting the decision of God because he is afraid of repercussions?

Descartes, Meditations 2

"... perhaps I am dreaming, as I recently objected against myself, in other words, that everything I am now thinking of is no truer that what occurs to someone who is asleep? Be that as it may, this changes nothing; for certainly, even if I were dreaming, if anything is evident to my intellect, then it is entirely true." - 71

"... the hyperbolic doubts of the last few days ought to be rejected as ludicrous. This goes especially for the chief reason for doubting, which dealth with my failure to distinguish being asleep from being awake. For I now notice that there is a considerable difference between these two; dreams are never joined by th ememory with all the other actions of life, as is the case with those actions that occur when one is awake." - 89

Are these two quotes convincing? Does Descartes fairly address dreams and matrix-esque illusions? Or does he gloss over this difficulty? I think we definitely might have trouble with the second quote. If I understand him correctly, Descartes is basically arguing that while he's awake, he can remember both his dreams and his waking life, whereas while he's asleep, his memories are bounded by the dream. But isn't this exactly the problem? If Descartes is dreaming his entire life, as he knows it, then wouldn't he be "bounded by the dream" and not remember his true, waking life? Or perhaps he has no memories of another life and has always lived within the dream. In either case, I don't see that he has solved this particular difficulty.

Descartes' Platonic Thoughts

Their truth is so open and so much in accord with my nature that, when I first discover them, it seems I am not so much learning something new as recalling something I knew beforehand.  In other words, it seems as though I am noticing things for the first time that were in fact in me for a long while, although I had not previously directed a mental gaze upon them. (Meditation 5, AT 64)

This passage reminds me of Plato's Meno, which demonstrates that certain knowledge is innate and can be recollected via inquiry.  I fully support both Plato and Descartes in their beliefs that there are certain ideas that have not been fabricated but rather "have their own true and immutable natures," but am wondering if this is a sound argument for the existence of God (AT 64).  I understand how it applies to and works for the idea of a triangle or some other mathematical figure.  The nonexistence of such things is impossible; one cannot even attempt to disprove their nature.  The existence of God, however, is an argument that has taken many forms and resulted in varied conclusions.  I am having trouble determining whether this approach is strong enough to support such a claim.  Is this something that each individual clearly and distinctly knows, as Descartes argues?  

Descartes & the Plato/Aristotle Dialogue

For this reason alone the entire class of causes which people customarily derive from a thing's "end," I judge to be utterly useless in physics. It is not without rashness that I think myself capable of inquiring into the ends of God.

Descartes, Meditation Four, A&T 55

In the quoted passage, Descartes attempts to eliminate the Aristotelian procedure of determining a thing's use by its "end." Last time, Peter brought up neoplatonism as it relates to Descartes's "ideas" (cf. A&T83, about 6/16ths of the way down, for a possibly relevant passage). Plato looked up to the Forms, and Aristotle attempted to work more empirically; we see a somewhat similar situation here with Descartes and Bacon respectively.

Can we elaborate on this dialogue? In what ways is Descartes neoplatonic? How does his attempt to establish a basis of knowledge upon "clear and distinct perception" fit into the comparison to Plato? How would he respond to Bacon or Aristotle?

P.S. When I began reading Descartes for this class, I had forgotten how important he had been to me when I first read him Freshman year. I have always considered Descartes to be captivating: he is careful, logical, and apparently sensible. The thing he seeks is also enchanting: a pure basis for knowledge, obtained by mere meditation. I find "I think, therefore I am" to be a beautiful idea, even though I think it assumes more than he purports. His skepticism still strikes me deeply, but as much as I disagree that there is any basis for knowledge other than belief I find his notion of "clear and distinct perception," especially as described on the last two paragraphs of Meditation Four and on A&T 68-70, to be an excellent procedure by which one could determine what one truly believes and attain to it. Despite not actually agreeing with what he says, for what it's worth, I think Descartes is really worth paying close attention to.

Clear and Distinct is Unclear

But whatever type of argument I use, it always comes down to the fact that the only things that fully convince me are those that I clearly and distinctly perceive. And although some of these things I thus perceive are obvious to everyone, while others are discovered only by those who look more closely and inquire carefully, nevertheless, once they have been discovered, they are considered no less certain than the others (Meditiations, A&T 68-69).

I think it is agreed that Descartes intends his conclusions, of his existence and God, to be objective. This quote provides further evidence. First, it implicitly claims that Descartes' conclusions are certain. Second, it explicitly claims that people are not looking close enough or inquiring carefully if they disagree with the conclusions. The verb "discovered" indicates that Descartes believes his conclusions' reality are independent of an individual's deliberance.

But there is much disagreement regarding Descartes' principle criterion for accepting something as reality - his "clear and distinct perception." Is it relativism or a true revelation of reality? I found it interesting, but perhaps no help to the present question, that Descartes likens this "clear and distinct perception" to a conformation to "the good and the true" (58). According to Descartes, clearly and distinctly perceiving something is not a subjective, internal belief: "A great light in my intellect gave way to a great inclination in my will" (59). It seems that Descartes is saying that his reason did not ultimately ascertain his existence and God, but an external force that drew his will.

Be that as it may,  have previously admitted many things as wholly certain and evident that nevertheless I later discovered to be doubtful.  What sort of things where these?  Why, the earth, the sky, the stars, and all the other things I perceived by means of the senses.  But what was it about these things that I clearly perceived?  Surely the fact that the ideas of thoughts of these things were hovering before my mind.  But even now I do not deny that these ideas are in me.

Meditations 35

Descartes makes a very profound distinction here between a thing and an idea of a thing.  Previously, we have read people (Cervantes, for example) who have distinguished between appearance and reality, but I think this is the first time someone has effectively severed particular things from the thought of them.

What are the implications of this?

Descartes seems to proceed along the same lines as Plato's character Timaeus, in positing different corresponding things for each kind of thought.  For thoughts of mutable things, there are uncertain objects.  For thoughts of entirely immutable things (or God), there must correspond an entirely certain object.

Is this Neoplatonic?  Does perfection generate (or "emanate") imperfection?  If so, why?  So far, God has no desire or impulse, only infinite qualities.  Why would such a philosophical God make an uncertain and imperfect world? 

So, I don't have a quote, but thinking along the lines of the principle of charity as Professor Affeldt encouraged us to do last class I'm wondering about Descartes' belief in God being based on his thought conception of God.  As I'm learning in my theology class Aquinas defines theology as faith seeking understanding.  It seems to require a great leap of faith that God exists in our understanding therefore an even more perfect God exists in reality, and I admire Descartes' trust both in his own faculties and in the possibility of a more perfect God than can exist in his own understanding.  We are also studying in my theology class how faith is rooted in experience and how one cannot assume universal experience of faith because each person's experience is different.  Learning about Descartes' experience is one way of understanding faith.  It may not be the same as my experience but it may be the same as others' and it certainly worked for him.  Is this all the validity a faith argument needs?

Christian Influence

Thus there remains only the idea of God. I must consider whether there is anything in this idea that cold not have originated from me I understand by the name "God" a certain substance that is infinite, independent, supremely intelligent and supremely powerful, and that created me along with everything else that exists--if anything else exists. Indeed all these are such that, the more carefully I focus my attention on them, the less possible it seems they could have arisen from myself alone. This from what has been said, I must conclude that God necessarily exists...76:45

Given that Decartes discusses at length his conception of the true power and capabilities of God, would we go about saying that he believes in a Christian God? He states that God is infinite and that "nothing can be added to his perfection." Does Descartes adopt a Christian attitude toward God, or does he create his own understanding? Under what notion does Descartes think that God is an actual existing thing, and how could we break down this argument? It seems that he might jump to quickly, or rather, that he simply assumes that since he is a thinking thing, that God must be a thinking thing. How does he get to this point? And how does he back it up?

Doubtful Analogies?

"But then were I perchance to look out my window and observe men crossing the square, I would ordinarily say I see the men themselves just as I say I see the wax. But what do I see aside from hats and clothes, which could conceal automata? Yet I judge them to be men. Thus what I thought I had seen with my eyes, I actually grasped solely with the faculty of judgment, which is in my mind (Meditation 2, 32)."

Descartes often uses fascinating, brief analogies to illustrate his points. I wonder to what degree they work as well as to what degree he intends them to work. This particular analogy picks up on a question I have lingering from last class.

I will treat the question first. Basically, last class I got hung up on how (as it appeared to me) Descartes switched methods when he got to the superspecific fields of dioptrics and meteors (Discourse, 77). When the object of his inquiry got overly messy or practical or minute, I think that he (knowingly) started to rely on a posteriori effects to prove causes, rather than his standard use of a priori reasoning from causes to effects. To me, this reversal seems important precisely because it is not his main point--it seems to challenge his established method of finding certainties without empirical evidence.

What the quote is supposed to illustrate is how the apriori reasoning is what gives the certainty of what the thing is. In other words, Descartes knows the man is a man by a judgment of his mind, not because he saw their clothes. Similarly, he knows the wax is wax (whatever that is) by a judgment of his mind, and not because he touched, saw, felt, or smelt it. Is it actually possible to know what the wax is by thought alone? That is my question.

I will now examine the analogy. The first hurdle is that he sees the clothes. The clothes seem to be signs of the man that lies within. Are the qualities of the wax signs that point to the quantities that make up the essence of the wax, and which are only known by thought? From what Descartes has been saying all along about his method, it seems that the mind would have no need for signs. Should he be able to know that there are men crossing the street without even looking?

Perhaps a solution is to carry over the word see as a metaphor for the insight of the mind that grasps the wax's quantifiable essence. If we do this, then perhaps the mind "sees" the quantitative essence of the wax by adding up qualitative sensory information, a sort of mental equation, done (astoundingly) "silently and without words" (32).

But then where does the sensory information come from, if not the world? But he "has supposed [the world] to be nothing" (27). Yet he has also supposed the world to be mechanical and quantitative matter (20). I am confused. The point is that by relocating the analogy of the clothed men into the mind does not seem to have eliminated the need for some impact from the outside world.

Perhaps he simply means, "I judge them to be men" in spite of the possible deception of the appearence (i.e. that they could be robots. By the way, he probably meant the irony that is obvious with his conception of the mechanical body). But even so, how else could he judge them to be men unless he had the possibly deceptive appearance?

Unless some others of you "see" it better, it seems this analogy does not carry through far enough to be a help. It illustrates what can happen when one tries to use sensory processes to make an analogy to a process of the mind. Descartes seems to see the danger of this move; speaking in the synopsis of the third meditation, he writes, "Since my intent was to draw the minds of readers as far as possible from the senses, I had no desire to draw upon comparisons based upon corporeal things" (14). Is this one example simply a consequence of his brief laxity of the "reins" of the "confines of truth" (29-30)? Do any of you interpret this analogy in a different way that sheds better light upon my original question, or are there other analogies at key moments that should be called into question? How much is he relying on them and for what purpose? Do they help us beyond making us feel as if we understand something he said better? If so, how should we read them so as to get the truth without being mislead?

The Idea of God

"The whole force of the argument rests on the fact that I recognize that it would be impossible for me to exist, being of such a nature as I am (namely, having in me the idea of God), unless God did in fact exist." Meditation 3, A&T 52

I'm not sure that I understand how Descartes can say that God's existence is based on him having the idea of God. In the first meditation, Descartes says,

"For indeed when painters themselves wish to represent sirens and satyrs by means of especially bizarre forms, they surely cannot assign to them utterly new natures. Rather, they simply fuse together the members of various animals. Or if perhaps they concoct something so utterly novel that nothing like it has ever been seen before (and thus is something utterly fictitious and false), yet certainly at the very least the colors from which they fashion it ought to be true." etc. Meditation 1, A&T 20

So basically I do not understand how the idea of God has to mean that there is a God. Why couldn't the idea of God come from a combination of ideas, or be something "utterly novel?" Maybe I missed a big part of his explanation, but this is what stood out to me when I finished.

Descartes' Method

The first [rule] was never to accept anything as true that I did not plainly know to be such. (18)

I formulated a provisional code of morals . . . to obey the laws and customs of my country, constantly holding on to the religion which, by God's grace, I had been instructed from my childhood, and governing myself in everything else according to the most moderate opinions and htose furthest from excess. (22-23)

As I think several of my fellow posters have pointed out, Descartes claim of taking nothing for granted is perhaps not very strong. While he doubts a considerable amount, he leaves out at least one essential: his ability to reason logically and accurately. If indeed there were an "evil deceiver," wouldn't this deceiver be capable of twisting Descartes' mind so that what he believes to be logical is in fact a fallacy? "Je pense donc je suis" appears to be logical, both to Descartes and to us. But how do we know our perception of "logical" is not skewed? We can't know this, and neither can Descartes.

Therefore, Descartes does not doubt everything; he keeps faith in his reason. This would certainly appear to negate all his further claims (if his original premise - je pense donc je suis - is incorrect, all further conclusions must also be incorrect). However, I wonder if his method is nevertheless effective. I think that Descartes realizes that if he doubts his reason, he will never be able to know anything, and by studying the way in which he devises a "provisional code of morals" we can see more clearly his response to this difficulty. He decides that it is better to have faith in something than to doubt everything and accomplish nothing (this goes back to Dante, or Eliot, who argued that "the way up is the way down" and any movement is better than none). This may lead him to error, but at least he has a chance of discovering the truth. So, once again, he has placed that faith in his reason. How else could he choose the criteria for his morals? By what standards does he judge this provisional code?

Descartes’ method cannot give him complete or perfect knowledge, but it does provide a better basis for his beliefs. It helps him to apprehend more fully God, himself, and the created world, and this apprehension helps him live and strive productively. Although he does not state it as such, as long as he does not doubt his mind, this then must be his goal. Whether the world he senses is real is finally unimportant; Descartes cares not whether it is real, but how best to deal with it.

Descartes' Deception

My plan has never gone beyond trying to reform my own thoughts and building upon a foundation which is completely my own. And if, my work having pleased me sufficiently, I here show you a model of it, it is not for the reason that I would wish to advise anyone to imitate it (p. 9)

Before I comment on this excerpt, I want to agree with Brennan that perhaps our discussion should begin discussing the reliabilty of the first premise of Descartes' Method: to only accept things one can "clearly and distinctly" perceive.

As for the excerpt, I believe Descartes is being coy. For whatever reason - concealing discordance with the church or practicing the rhetorical device of humility - Descartes lies when he says he does not want anyone to imitate his model. The prerequisites (basically saying that, "if you're stupid then this is not for you") for using his method and the publication of the Discourse imply that Descartes wants to share his method to assert its influence on people's way of thinking.

Having said this, I believe premises such as the Method's first maxim and the cogito are meant to be more objective than subjective. And perhaps they are. In response to John's claim that the cogito is extremely subjective, I believe it is extremely objective. For if one were to be Baconian and conduct a survey, all participants would likely agree they were capable of independent thought. The cogito could be a proof of existence based on objective data rather than "clear and distinct perception." Or maybe I just have a "clear and distinct perception" that this is so. Ha....

Je pense, donc je suis

As much as I hope we get into chapter six and the way Descartes echoes, or expands upon, Bacon, I think the issues presented in Chapter 4 might be more prevalent in our minds during the first Descartes class, so I thought it might be useful to speak on that.

And noticing that this truth -- I think, therefore I am -- was so firm and so assured that all the most extravagant suppositions of the skeptics were incapable of shaking it, I judged that I could accept it without scruple as the first principle of philosophy I was seeking. --Descartes p.18

It would appear that shortly after this Descartes draws from this assertion the following conclusion:

And having noticed that there is nothing at all in this I think, therefore I am that assures me that I am speaking the truth, except that I could see very clearly that, in order to think, it is necessary to exist, I judged that I could take as a very general rule that the things we conceive very clearly and very distinctly are all true, but that there is merely some difficulty in properly discerning which are those that we distinctly conceive.

It is the most important observation I intend to make in this post that, despite being discovered by Descartes chronologically after his initial premise, this idea is logically prior to his je pense, donc je suis. That is to say, it is impossible to believe that this I think, therefore I am is true unless you first accept that things which we conceive very clearly and distinctly-- such as Descartes saw that cogito, ergo sum distinctly-- are true.

Is this really an acceptable grasping point? Surely there has existed at least one person who has converted from one religion to another, or has in some other way clearly and distinctly perceived something other than he or she clearly and distinctly perceived at an earlier date. Descartes seems to refer to this idea in other places: "anything the knowledge of which was not so natural to our souls that one could not even pretend to be ignorant of it" on page 24, "they are nearly all so evident that it is necessary only to understand them in order to believe them" on page 38, "common sense" and "reason" on page 43.

In what way is this apparent reliance on 'clear and distinct perception' in any way distinct from a confidence in one's beliefs? That is to say, Descartes seems to think he has struck upon something eminently true, and derived from it a system also eminently true. Let us leave his I think, therefore I am aside for a moment and face his most logically prior assumption: he asserts that what each individual sees clearly by reason / common sense to be true, is true. In what way is this distinct from, say, relativism?

Discourse on Method: Doubt and Feasibility

...I thought it necessary that I do exactly the opposite, and that I reject as absolutely false everything in which I could imagine the least doubt, in order to see whether, after this process, something in my beliefs remained that was entirely indubitable. Pg. 18

I was immediately struck by the similarity between this sentiment and Bacon's "if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin in doubts he shall end in certainties." Both use doubt as their cornerstone and have a lust for science with which they will become in Descartes word's (and Bacon's too...) "masters and possessors of nature (35)." They seem to be speaking the same language. I was struck, however, by one radical difference between the two. Bacon seems to stress the objective perspective for every issue, including philosophy, while there could be nothing more subjective than "I think, therefore I am." My more "conventional" question would be "how well do Bacon and Descartes reconcile with each other - Would Bacon be okay with Descartes' guidelines for finding one's first truth?" However, I would like to talk about the feasibility of any man attempting Descartes' plan for obtaining truth. Particularly, is this a text that many (or any) can base their lives off of, or is it impossible to truly doubt all things (as one might point  his seemingly flawed reasoning for 'I think, therefore I am as evidence)?

The Existence of God

"On the other hand, returning to examine the idea I had of a perfect being, I found that existence was contained in it in the same way in which the equality of its three angles to two right angles is contained in the idea of a triangle, or that the equidistance of all its parts from its center is contained in the idea of a sphere, or even more plainly still, and that, consequently, it is, at the very least, just as certain that God, who is this perfect being, is or exists, as any demonstration in geometry could be."  pg. 21

After realizing that he is imperfect, Descartes determines that there is a more perfect being "upon which [he] depended, and from which [he] had acquired all..." (19).  This is God, whose existence is prior to and responsible for all others.  I find Descartes' argument to be based on assumptions rather than certainties.  For such a weighty topic, I expected more conclusive reasonings.  Descartes emphasizes the superiority of understanding to coming to know via senses and imagination, yet he fails to support his claim that God is the most perfect being with sound proofs (in my opinion).  It is, to him, one of those things that "you just know," like the fact that the sum of the three angles of a triangle equals the sum of two right angles.  In Phil Inq last semester, I had a problem with Descartes regarding his circular and flawed "I think, therefore I am" reasoning.  Again, I think that his ability to know and articulate his methodology is limited.  Is his reasoning sufficient or is it incomplete?