Archetypes of Wisdom

1
Archetypes of Wisdom

• Douglas J. Soccio
• Chapter 9
• The Rationalist Rene Descartes
• place picture from pg 254 here

2
Learning Objectives

• On completion of this chapter, you should be able
  to answer the following questions
• What is rationalism?
• What is the coherence theory of truth?
• What is methodic doubt?
• What are innate ideas?
• What are a priori ideas? What is a posteriori
  knowledge?
• What is skepticism? What is cogito?
• What is the evil genius?
• What is materialism? What is Cartesian dualism?
• What is the ontological argument?
• What is the mind-body problem?

3
The Epistemological Turn

• The developments in modern science, and the
  decline in the authority of a single (Roman
  Catholic) church, helped bring about the end of
  the medieval era and the beginning of what we now
  refer to as the Modern Worldview.
• In philosophy, the result of these changes was a
  shift away from metaphysics toward epistemology
  as the basis for philosophy. René Descartes is
  often viewed as the first philsopher who made
  this shift, now called the epistemological turn.
  
• He thought that before we can reasonably evaluate
  any beliefs about reality, we must inquire into
  the nature of the instrument we use to observe
  it.

4
The Problem of Authority

• Although Descartes was a Catholic, like Luther,
  he gave more authority to the individual.
• Descartes believed that each individual possesses
  the natural light of reason and needs no
  intervening authority to interpret the great
  book of the world.
• His scientific interests led him to make
  observations himself and to conduct his own
  experiments, and he came to doubt Aristotles
  authoritative writings on nature.
• So he made a radical proposal Lets start
  afresh, throwing out everything we think we know,
  and build a system of knowledge based entirely on
  ideas whose truth can be clearly and distinctly
  knownto us, firsthand.

5
The Life of René Descartes

• René Descartes (1596-1650) was born into an old
  and respected family in the French province of
  Touraine.
• After completing his studies as the Jesuit
  college at La Flèche, Descartes spent the next
  few years living the life of the young gentleman
  he was -- he practiced fencing, rode horses, and
  briefly took up gambling . He earned degrees in
  civil and canon law at the University of
  Poitiers.
• In 1618, he enlisted in the army of the orince
  of Nassau and later joined the army of the Duke
  of Batavia.
• While enlisted, on November 10, 1619, he had a
  revelation in which he discovered the
  foundations of a wonderful new science.

6
Descartes Revelation

• I remained the whole day shut up alone in a
  stove-heated room, where I had complete leisure
  to occupy my thoughts. There, Descartes says, he
  discovered the foundations of a wonderful new
  science. The next night, full of excitement and
  anticipation over his discovery, he had three
  dreams, in one of which he heard a clap of
  thunder. He took it to be the Spirit of Truth
  descending to take possession of him.
• He believed he had been divinely encouraged to
  establish a universal method of reasoning, based
  on mathematical principles, which would guarantee
  the absolutely certain truth of its results.

7
The Solitary Intellect

• Solitary and secretive, Descartes preferred to
  avoid the distractions and commotion of city life
  and social involvements.
• He lived alone most of his life, and during a
  twenty-year period lived in twenty different
  houses.
• His independent lifestyle enabled him to study
  philosophy, geometry, physics, optics,
  circulation, and other topics.
• In September 1649, he became a tutor for the
  Queen of Sweden.
• But the weather and his lifestyle got the best of
  him, and he died of pneumonia on February 11,
  1650 at age fifty-three.

8
Rationalism

• Rationalism is an epistemological position in
  which reason is said to be the primary source of
  all knowledge, prior to the senses.
• In general, rationalists believe that abstract
  reasoning can produce undeniable, absolutely
  certain truths about nature, existence, and the
  whole of reality.
• These truths are called a priori ideas because
  they are discovered independently of experience,
  without empirical observation or experimentation.
• Descartes stands not only as the father of
  modern philosophy, but as the original archetype
  of the modern rationalist.

9
Against Disordered Thinking

• The Third Rule in Descartes Rules for the
  Direction of the Mind states Once we have
  chosen a subject to study, we should confine
  ourselves to what we can clearly intuit and
  deduce with certainty for ourselves.
• In other words, We must not rely on what others
  have thought or on our own as-yet-untested
  beliefs. We must look for ourselves, with new
  eyes and new understanding.
• Rule Four states that There is need of a method
  for finding the truth.
• He claimed that it is very certain that
  unregulated inquiries and confused reflections of
  this kind only confound the natural light and
  blind our mental power.

10
Good Sense is not Enough

• Descartes believed that a mathematically precise
  method was the only reliable way to discover the
  truth about the universe. He proposed to use the
  new spirit of scientific inquiry and mathematical
  rigor to reexamineeverything!
• Descartes believed earlier philosophy to be
  deficient because it did not rest solely on ideas
  known through the clear light of natural
  reason.
• While he adopted the radical position that
  everybody has good sense in the sense of having
  reason, he also felt that to be possessed of
  good mental powers is not sufficient, the
  principal matter is to apply them well.
• For that one needs a method.

11
Methodic Doubt

• Descartes proposed applying a method with
  mathematical rigor, starting from and building on
  self-evident truths.
• In his Rules, he stated that we must not accept
  anything we can doubt at all. Thus, Descartes
  believed he needed to employ methodic doubt if he
  were to arrive at an absolutely certain
  foundation, for knowledge.
• Simply put, methodic doubt involves deliberately
  doubting everything it is possible to doubt in
  the least degree. Whatever remains will be known
  with absolute certainty.
• However, in order to apply methodic doubt,
  Descartes still had to rely on a standard f truth
  that could tell him whether or not it was
  reasonable to doubt something.

12
Standard of Truth

• Descartes proposed that only those things we can
  accept as clear and distinct should be accepted
  as true.
• Clear he defined as that which is present and
  apparent to an attentive mind.
• Distinct he defined as that which is so
  precise and different from all other objects that
  it contains within itself nothing but what is
  clear.
• Some philosophers are troubled by this standard
  of truth. They claim that the standard itself is
  ambiguous and subjective and thus cannot be known
  with clarity and distinctness.

13
Innate Ideas

• Descartes believed we must begin with initially
  unquestioned assumptions and basic principles --
  a priori knowledge, or knowledge that is known
  prior to or independently of sense experience.
• Examples include very basic truths such as All
  triangles contain 180 and Every event has a
  cause.
• This is contrasted with a posteriori knowledge,
  knowledge that is known after or dependent upon
  sense experience.
• For example, the statement My shirt is white
  can be true for a particular set of circumstances
  today and false tomorrow.
• Descartes believed that we can know some things
  are true a priori because they are innate.

14
The Cartesian Genesis

• In the Meditations, Descartes does not really
  doubt so as to arrive at skepticism rather, his
  methodical or systematic doubt is the process of
  Cartesian inquiry, not the end result.
• He starts by seeing what could be doubted or
  rather, since he cant challenge everything, he
  examines basic beliefs (on which depend all other
  beliefs) for what is doubtful.
• He wanted to if any beliefs survived or resisted
  being doubted.
• He could be certain of whatever passed this test,
  and this would form the basis of his new
  structure of knowledge.

15
Maybe its All a Dream?

• Like most of us, prior to his investigations,
  Descartes had uncritically assumed that the most
  true and certain things known come from the
  senses.
• However, the fact that we are sometimes deceived
  by our senses indicates that they are not totally
  reliable.
• Descartes considers the possibility that he might
  be dreaming and that even things near-by (and
  so hard to doubt) do not really exist.
• All of this shows that the senses cannot be the
  foundation of knowledge. But even if the world is
  a dream, it still has regularity and
  predictability, doesnt it?

16
The Evil Genius

• Descartes has trouble seriously doubting that his
  conception of a world with regularity and
  predictability is false.
• In particular, he has not been able to convince
  himself to suspend his belief in mathematics
• This leads him to suppose that an evil genius may
  in fact be deceiving him
• I shall then suppose not that God who is
  supremely good and the fountain of truth, but
  some evil genius not less powerful than
  deceitful, has employed his whole energies in
  deceiving me.
• With this ultimate delusion, Descartes concludes
  the first Meditation.

17
Cogito, Ergo Sum

• After calling everything he perceives into doubt,
  Descartes wonders whether he can call his own
  existence into doubt as well. But he finds that
  this is impossible.
• For in order for him to doubt himself, he must go
  through the process of doubting (which, for
  Descartes, is a process of thinking).
• This means hes found something certain himself
  as a thinking thing.
• The famous Latin sentence, Cogito, ergo sum,
  literally means I think, therefore I am.
• In other words I cant doubt my existence,
  since I have to be the thing doubting if doubting
  is being done.

18
The Cogito

• Descartes now explores the nature of the
  cogito, the I think. He thus claims that at
  this point all he knows is that he is a thing
  that thinks
• What is a thing which thinks? It is a thing
  which doubts, understands, conceives, affirms,
  denies, wills, refuses, which also imagines and
  feels.
• Descartes is arguing here that we identify and
  know everythingincluding bodily and material
  thingsthrough the mind. He grounds all knowledge
  in mental states, in awareness. Thus the
  foundation of Descartes philosophy and, to a
  considerable extent, of the modern worldview, is
  the thinking self.

19
The Idea of God

• In the Third Meditation , Descartes takes up the
  issue of Gods existence. When the Third
  Meditation begins, Descartes knows only that he
  exists and is a thinking thing, with various
  ideas in his mind, including the idea of God.
• Descartes needs to investigate whether this idea
  is true or not, because if he can establish the
  existence of God rationally, he will have a
  foundation for truth concerning his other ideas.
• If God is not a deceiver, then He will have given
  Descartes the ability to distinguish the real
  from the merely imagined. Thus the issue of Gods
  existence and nature is crucial to Descartes
  entire rationalistic enterprise.

20
The Idea of God

• As a rationalist, Descartes cannot appeal to
  anything like Aquinas arguments for the
  existence of God (Chapter 8) because they are
  based on claims about the external world, the
  existence of which Descartes has yet to
  establish.
• So if Descartes can succeed in proving that God
  exists he will have to examine the nature and
  quality of his own idea of God.
• He knows that he has such an idea, that the idea
  exists. But does it follow that an object
  corresponding to this idea exists?

21
Proving God Exists

• Here is a simplified version of Descartes
  argument
• I have in me the clear and distinct idea of a
  perfect, infinite being. Where could I, an
  imperfect, finite creature, ever get the idea of
  infinite perfection?
• The idea of such a being could not have come from
  me even a bigger, stronger, quantitatively
  improved Descartes is less than infinitely
  perfect. In other words, Descartes mind cannot
  be the cause of this one special idea. Therefore,
  it must have come from God.

22
Assumptions

• Descartes has ruled out the idea of an infinite
  regress of causes.
• He is also appealing to a version of the
  principle of sufficient reason No matter how far
  the chain of causes extends, nothing is
  sufficient to explain the idea of a perfect,
  infinite being but a perfect, infinite being.
• Descartes determines that he cannot have
  received the idea of God through the senses,
  nor has it suddenly burst upon his consciousness.
  He cannot have imagined it, for he lacks the
  ability to improve upon or to detract from it.
  Consequently, he says, the only alternative is
  that it is innate in me, just as the idea of
  myself is innate in me.

23
Destination

• With this argument, Descartes reaches his
  destination
• Descartes conception of God as a perfect being
  includes the qualities of all-knowing,
  all-powerful, all-loving, all-good. Descartes
  posits that such a God would not let him be
  constantly deceived by either himself or some
  evil genius. If, the argument goes, God gave us
  clar and distinct ideas, they must be basically
  accurate and reliable.

24
Descartes Second Demonstration of Gods Existence

• In the Fifth Meditation, Descartes presents an
  additional argument for Gods existence. The
  argument iworks like this
• Descartes has an idea of a perfect being.
• One of the properties of a perfect being (i.e. an
  aspects of its essence) is necessary existence
  (it cannot not exist).
• Therefore, God exists.
• Notice the analogy to the triangle
• I easily persuade myself that the existence can
  be separated from the essence of God, and that we
  can thus conceive of as not actually existing.
  But, nevertheless, when I think of it with more
  attention, I clearly see that existence can no
  more be separated from the essence of God than
  can its having its three angles equal to two
  right angles be separated from the essence of a
  rectilinear triangle.

25
An Ontological Argument

• This is an ontological argument, an attempt to
  prove the existence of God by drawing on the
  unique nature of the idea or concept of God. In
  other words, the argument may be true by
  definition.
• The purest form of the ontological argument first
  occurs in the writings of St. Anselm (1033-1109).
• He asserted that the very idea of God contains
  existence because by definition God is that
  than which nothing greater can be conceived. And
  of any two things, a real one is greater than
  an imaginary one. Hence, an existing God is
  greater than a merely imaginary God. Therefore,
  by definition, the term God refers to a real,
  existing being.

26
Reconstructing the World

• Once Descartes is assured of his own existence
  and that of Gods, he is able to prove that the
  external world exists, including his own body
• Descartes reasons that since he has a clear and
  distinct idea of himself both as a mind and as
  having a body, he must of necessity be both a
  mind and a body.
• He has a clear and distinct idea of himself as a
  thinking thing, and he knows that God is not a
  deceiver. So this idea is reliable.
• He has ideas of bodies, both his own and others.
  These must also refer to something, and be caused
  by something outside his mind, since again,
  Descartes knows God is not a deceiver.
• He knows that science is getting the world
  roughly right (only roughly, since our senses are
  finite). Errors are due to our will to know
  running ahead of our good, but imperfect,
  abilities.

27
The Cartesian Bridge

• One of Descartes goals was to counter
  materialism, the view that everything including
  human beings, was simply material and could be
  explain by physical laws.
• Descartes was alarmed by the amoral, secular
  nature of this particular view of the universe.
  Yet, as we have noted, he was a scientist
  himself, and his philosophy was designed to
  bridge the growing gap between the new science
  and religion. By showing that the mind is
  different in kind from the body, Descartes hoped
  to prove that the discoveries of the physicists
  posed no threat to free will or the existence of
  an incorporeal soul.

28
Cartesian Dualism

• Any philosophical position that divides existence
  into two completely distinct, independent, unique
  substances or kinds of things is a form of
  dualism. The distinction can be between mind and
  body, natural and supernatural, spirit and
  matter, soul and body, good and evil, and so on.
• Cartesian dualism refers to Descartes conviction
  that human beings are a mysterious union of mind
  (soul) and body, of incorporeal substance and
  corporeal substance, with each realm operating
  according to separate sets of laws. The mind
  follows the laws of reason but otherwise is free.
  The body is governed by the laws of physics and
  falls under the rule of cause and effect The
  human body is no freer than any other material
  thing.

29
Cartesian Dualism

• This leaves us with a problem, though if the
  mind and body are different in kind, how do they
  communicate?
• How do you get ideas (from extended non-thinking
  things), and how do you (a non-extended thinking
  thing) tell your body to act on them once you
  have them?
• This is the result of Descartes philosophical
  dualism the position that existence is divided
  into two completely distinct kinds of things.

30
The Official Doctrine

• Dualism generates one of the most tenacious of
  philosophical questions What is the relationship
  of the mind to the body?
• Gilbert Ryle points to the appeal of dualism by
  calling it the official doctrine. That doctrine
  states that every human being is both a body and
  a mind. His body and his mind are ordinarily
  harnessed together, but after the death of the
  body his mind may continue to exist and
  function.

31
Mind-Body Problem

• Religious and metaphysical versions of the
  official doctrine sometimes compare the soul to a
  driver and the body to a car. At death, we get
  out of the car orif you believe in
  reincarnationtrade the old body in for a new
  one. Descartes rejects the cardriver type of
  analogy and unites mind and body into one
  whole.
• I am not only lodged in my body as a pilot in a
  vessel, but that I am very closely united to it,
  and so to speak so intermingled with it that I
  seem to compose with it one whole.
• Descartes also states that the mind and body are
  joined in the pineal gland, in the brain.

32
Is Dualism True?

• Dualism seems to get it right about mind and body
  forming some kind of unity.
• If I hit my thumb with a hammer, I experience no
  mind-body split.
• On the other hand, Descartes provides no
  explanation of how an immaterial substance can
  influence or be influenced by a material
  substance.
• Yet there are serious consequences if we reject
  dualism in favor of a materialistic,
  behavioristic monism When we reduce mental
  states to physical states, do we lose the
  possibility of free will, moral responsibility,
  and the possibility of survival after death?

33
From Cosmos to Machine

• According to the feminist philosopher Susan
  Bordo, Cartesian Modernity is inherently linked
  to the repression of nature and women.
• For Bordo, the problem is that objectivity,
  rather than meaning, became the chief
  philosophical issue.
• The masculinization of science thus leads to an
  alienation from nature, the repression of women
  and a de-emphasis on the family.

34
Post-Reading Reflections

• Can you prove that you are not dreaming right
  now?
• Were you convinced by either of Descartes
  arguments for Gods existence? Why?
• Descartes says that it were far better never to
  think of investigating the truth at all, than to
  do so without a method. Should he have been so
  troubled by disorganized thinking and blind
  curiosity? Shouldnt we all be free to think what
  we want to think?

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Chapter ReviewKey Concepts and Thinkers

• Rationalism
• Innate ideas
• Coherence theory of truth
• Methodic Doubt
• A priori knowledge
• A posteriori knowledge
• Cogito, ergo sum
• Ontological Argument
• Materialism
• Behaviorism

• Mechanism
• Reductionism
• Dualism
• Monism
• Pluralism
• al-Ghazali (1058-1111)
• Susan Bordo (b.1947)
• Rene Descartes 1596-1650)
• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
• St. Anselm (1033-1109)

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PHILOSOPHICAL QUERY

• Use Descartess distinction between memorizing
  ideas and understanding them to examine your own
  education. Describe the distinction between
  learning to love psychology or literature and
  becoming a historian of psychology or literature
  in Descartess terms. Speculate on ways this
  distinction might be used to reform education.
  (page 257)

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PHILOSOPHICAL QUERY

• Comment on the preceding passage. Do you agree
  with Descartes? Why? Is common sense the same
  thing as good sense? Analyze the notion of common
  sense. Do you really think there is such a thing?
  What is your evidence either way? (page 260)

38
PHILOSOPHICAL QUERY

• A common criticism of Descartess standard of
  truth is that he failed to apply it to itself. Do
  we know with clarity and distinctness that only
  what we know with clarity and distinctness is
  true? Can we know it? Not if, as critics claim,
  Descartess standard is itself unclear and
  ambiguous. Do you have a clear and distinct idea
  of Descartess criterion? How can we tell when an
  inability to perceive something clearly and
  distinctly is the fault of the individual or of
  the quality of the idea? Discuss carefully. (page
  262)

39
PHILOSOPHICAL QUERY

• Is Descartes correct? What about seemingly
  sincere, rational, and intelligent people who say
  they do not, perhaps cannot, see the truth of
  this idea about innate ideas? Compare Descartess
  problem here with Platos problem of accounting
  for ignorance of the Forms. Do you think Forms
  are innate ideas? Are innate ideas Forms? (See
  Chapter 5) (page 263)

40
PHILOSOPHICAL QUERY

• How carefully have you examined your own
  fundamental beliefs? What--if anything--is wrong
  with trusting beliefs handed down by others? Why
  not rely on the testing of others, trusting their
  conclusions? Discuss. Also comment on the
  tendency to believe something if it could
  possibly be correct. What is the relationships
  between possible and plausible, and what might it
  have to do with this entire issue? Explain. (page
  264)

41
PHILOSOPHICAL QUERY

• How do we know the difference between a dream or
  hallucination and reality? Seriously consider how
  a confused person might verify that he or she is
  or is not dreaming. (page 265)

42
PHILOSOPHICAL QUERY

• Before reading any further, stop for a moment
  and play with Descartess idea of an evil genius.
  Try to get into the spirit of doubting as much as
  you can. Do not be limited by what you actually
  doubt this is an intellectual exercise, not a
  personal confession. See if you can extend the
  range of what might on the remotest possibility
  be false or other than what you think it is. Can
  you be absolutely sure that there is no evil
  genius? (page 266)

43
PHILOSOPHICAL QUERY

• When I was a student I felt compelled to
  challenge anything presented to me as being
  irrefutable. As soon as I heard about the cogito
  I assumed I would be able to refute it, to show
  that is was not necessarily true. That proved
  easier said than done. Try for yourself it is
  interesting, and it is the only way to grasp
  Descartess point. Discuss your efforts. (page
  268)

44
PHILOSOPHICAL QUERY

• Some philosophers doubt that we really do have a
  clear and distinct (precise) idea of God. Reflect
  on the idea of God. Is it clear and distinct? Do
  you have a clear and distinct idea of
  perfection--in beings or automobiles or marriages
  or anything? Does Descartess argument? (page
  272)

45
PHILOSOPHICAL QUERY

• How plausible is this official doctrine? On
  Descartess own terms, how clearly and
  distinctly do we understand the relationship of
  the mind to the body? How can a completely
  nonphysical thing interact with a completely
  physical thing? To ask Mark Twains insightful
  question, How come the mind gets drunk when the
  body does the drinking? Why does my mind react to
  what happens to my body with such intensity if
  its not part of my body? (page 276)

46
PHILOSOPHICAL QUERY

• Do you think that Cartesian dualism reflects
  mens lives more than womens? Do you think
  Cartesian dualism reflects anyones life? (page
  277