Having completed the systematic undermining of his earlier beliefs, Descartes begins to rebuild his epistemic world. In his reconstruction he follows the method we outlined in the first three chapters. Under that method the Second and Third Meditations are fundamentally a search for principles. To follow Descartes’s house metaphor, in these meditations he pours the foundation and constructs most of the framing; in the final three meditations, he adds the siding and lays out the interior. The completion of the interior decor and external trim is work left for his physics and ethics.
In this chapter we show how the method operates in the Second Meditation. Descartes takes the fact that he doubts as a factual premise and proceeds to search for a principle which justifies the claim that he exists. In the Second Meditation, one finds a characteristic interplay between a search for principles and conceptual elucidation. His examinations of his own nature and the piece of wax stand as exemplars of clarifying an idea. These examinations provide important preliminaries to his introduction of the criterion of clear and distinct perception in Meditation Three.
A new foundation
Descartes is nothing if not dramatic when he begins the Second Meditation with a reiteration of the conclusions of Meditation One. The opening paragraph of the Meditation stresses the seriousness of his doubts. He includes a virtual restatement of the third explicit doubt under the malicious-demon hypothesis, namely, the resolution to “guard against assenting to any falsehoods, so that the deceiver, however powerful and cunning he may be, will be unable to impose on me in the slightest degree” (AT 7: 23, CSM 2: 15) in stating “Anything which admits of the slightest doubt I will
set aside just as if I had found it to be wholly false.” The more interesting element of the paragraph, however, is found in his desire to find an Archimedean point:
Archimedes used to demand just one firm and immovable point in order to shift the entire earth; so I too can hope for great things if I manage to find just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshakeable.
(AT 7: 23, CSM 2: 16) What is the nature of this point? What will Descartes gain if he discovers it?
One might reasonably suggest that “the point” is the Cogito: this is the starting-point of his philosophy (see P 1: 10). But what status should be ascribed to that discovery? Is this the foundation on which he intends to rebuild his sciences (cf. AT 7: 17, CSM 2: 12)? Or is its status more like that of a basement wall that is built upon a foundation that has already been poured? We believe it is the latter, the first brick laid upon a new foundation, a foundation which, at least for purposes of dramatic effect, Descartes does not yet recognize as secure. To understand our point here, let us return briefly to the First Meditation.
Recall that Descartes’s objective there was to demolish what he had formerly considered the foundation of his sciences, namely an empiricist criterion of knowledge: “Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either from or through the senses” (AT 7: 18, CSM 2: 12). If the Archimedean point qua Cogito were construed as the foundation of his new philosophy, it would be a radically different kind of foundation from that which he destroyed: he would be replacing a criteriological foundation with a factual foundation. But a factual claim will not work as an epistemic foundation: the epistemic objective is to distinguish what can be known as true (known as facts) from what cannot. For this reason we consider it prima facie implausible to construe the search for an Archimedean point as a search for foundations.
Furthermore, the criticisms of the empiricist criterion in Meditation One already point to an alternative criteriological foundation. Recall Descartes’s seemingly modest claim that “from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once” (AT 7: 18, CSM 2: 12). We argued that to raise foundational doubts Descartes must implicitly weigh the probability of one criterion on the basis of another. Claims of deception require that one previously know
that the conjunction of two inconsistent claims cannot be true. This knowledge cannot be obtained from sense experience alone: sense experience can report no more than what appear to be the facts at a given time. The principle of noncontradiction must be known in some other way, namely, by the natural light: its truth must be perceived clearly and distinctly.
As we shall see, Descartes repeatedly appeals to what is known by the natural light at crucial junctures in his arguments. We believe that the natural light (perceiving clearly and distinctly) constitutes his new epistemic foundation: it is necessary for judging the applicability of other criteria, such as the epistemic criterion, and it provides the source for knowledge of exceedingly general principles (eternal truths).1
Even if the new epistemic foundation is criteriological, that is, perceiving clearly and distinctly, this still fails to help us locate the Archimedean point.
We are inclined to identify the Cartesian self as that point. The doubts had called the existence of all objects into question. Through the Cogito, the Cartesian self becomes the first existent object introduced into Descartes’s world.2 This entity, the first one placed on the foundation, like an Archimedean point, provides the fulcrum to move additional building materials into place.
Descartes continues by reminding himself of the doubts he had entertained. First, he raises the doubts consistent with holding that all knowledge requires sense experience. This is emphasized in his remarks that “everything I see is spurious” and “I have no senses” (AT 7: 24, CSM 2: 16). Second, he seems concerned with existential claims. He clarifies this concem with regard to memory: the assumption is that “none of the things that it reports ever happened” (AT 7: 24, CSM 2: 16). One might reasonably suggest the same regarding body, shape, extension, movement, and place, since Descartes said he would consider them chimeras, that is, idle fancies and illusions. Finally, if existential claims are his only concern, he would leave open the entire realm of eternal truths as things knowable. Indeed, the absence of any allusion to the unknowability of mathematical truths suggests that the Cartesian meditator is concerned solely with existential claims and that a nonempirical means might remain for knowing truths.
The Cogito outside the Meditations
On our account of the Cartesian method, Descartes searches for eternal truths as explanatory principles. In the case of the Cogito, this would imply that he infers his own existence in the form of an argument, or alternatively
a principle which, together with the fact that he thinks, explains his existence.
While to construe “I think, therefore I am” as an enthymematic syllogism seems consistent with the remark in Principles Part 1, section 10, it appears inconsistent with one of Descartes’s famous remarks in the Second Replies.
So before turning to the Cogito passages in the Meditations, we provide a way to understand the Cogito passages outside the Meditations as consistent with our interpretation and, given our account of the method, with one another.
In the Second Replies, Descartes seemingly denies that his knowledge of his own existence rests upon a syllogistic argument. He writes:
And when we become aware that we are thinking things, this is a primary notion which is not derived by means of any syllogism. When someone says ‘I am thinking, therefore I am, or I exist,’ he does not deduce existence from thought by means of a syllogism, but recognizes it as something self-evident by a simple intuition of the mind. This is clear from the fact that if he were deducing it by means of a syllogism, he would have to have had previous knowledge of the major premiss
‘Everything that thinks is, or exists’; yet in fact he learns it from experiencing in his own case that it is impossible that he should think without existing. It is in the nature of our mind to construct general propositions on the basis of our knowledge of particular ones.
(AT 7: 140–1, CSM 2: 100) Here Descartes seemingly denies that one’s knowledge of one’s own existence is based on a syllogism. If one’s knowledge of one’s own existence were so based, then the major premise, “everything that thinks exists,”
would be logically and epistemically prior to the existential claim. But insofar as we “construct general propositions on the basis of our knowledge of particular ones,” he seems to reject both the logical and epistemic priority of the general proposition. Here he appears to embrace the claim that one knows one’s own existence by an immediate intuition. Since this interpretation of the passage is widespread, let us call it the “standard interpretation” (see Copleston 1960: 101–2; Frankfurt 1970: 97; Williams 1978: 89; Wilson 1978: 56; Curley 1978: 87–93).
In the Principles, on the other hand, Descartes seems to reverse the order of epistemic priority, for there he writes:
And when I said that the proposition I am thinking, therefore I exist is the first and most certain of all to occur to anyone who philosophizes in an orderly way, I did not in saying that deny that one must first know what thought, existence, and certainty are, and that it is impossible that that which thinks should not exist, and so forth. But because these are very general notions, and ones which on their own provide us with no knowledge of anything that exists, I did not think they needed to be listed.
(P 1: 10: AT 8A: 8, CSM 1: 196) Even though the Cogito is the “first and most certain of all [propositions] to occur to anyone who philosophizes in an orderly way,” this does not imply that “sum” can be known apart from the general principle “everything that thinks exists.” This passage seems to suggest that the general principle is epistemically prior to “sum,” which seems to be exactly what Descartes denied in the Second Replies.
In his conversation with Descartes, Burman raised the question of the consistency of the two passages. Descartes’s reply is recorded as follows:
Before this inference, “I think therefore I am,” the major “whatever thinks is” can be known, for it is in reality prior to my inference, and my inference depends upon it. This is why the author says in the Principles that the major premise comes first, namely because implicitly it is always presupposed and prior. But it does not follow that I am always expressly and explicitly aware of its priority or that I know it before my inference.
This is because I am attending only to what I experience inside myself – for example, “I think therefore I am”: I do not pay attention in the same way to the general notion “whatever thinks is.” As I have explained before, we do not separate out these general propositions from the particular instances; rather, it is in particular instances that we think of them. This is the sense in which the words from page 155 cited here [from the Second Replies] should be taken.
(CB §4: AT 5: 147, CSM 3: 333) In his reply to Burman, Descartes draws a distinction between the logical or epistemic order of propositions and the order of consideration, that is, the order in which propositions are actually entertained.3 Consistent with his position in the Principles, Descartes claimed that there is an inference from
I think to I exist and that the general proposition, Whatever thinks exists, is epistemically prior to “sum.” But the fact that the justification of “sum” is dependent upon one’s prior knowledge of the general proposition does not entail that one is explicitly aware of the general proposition before entertaining the inferential claim, “I think, therefore I am”: nothing guarantees that the order of consideration is the same as the order of epistemic priority.
Indeed, he suggests that one entertains general propositions only when one is considering particular propositions, that is, “it is in particular instances that we think of them” (CB §4, Cottingham’s emphasis: AT 5: 147, CSM 3: 333, Cottingham removes the emphasis). This indicates that at least one particular proposition is prior in order of consideration to general propositions: there may be more. Since the proposition Whatever thinks exists is an eternal truth, we recognize it as true as soon as we entertain it (P 1: 49); however, we entertain and recognize such eternal truths as true only within the context of examining their particular instances. As Descartes commented earlier in the Conversation:
since they [common principles and axioms, that is, eternal truths] are present in us from birth with such clarity, and since we experience them inside ourselves, we neglect them and think about them only in a confused manner, but never in the abstract, or apart from material things and particular instances. Indeed, if people were to think about them in the abstract, no one would have any doubt about them; . . . for they cannot be denied by anyone who carefully focuses his attention on them.
(CB §1: AT 5: 146, CSM 3: 332–3) This indicates that even though certain general propositions are epistemically primary, particular propositions supersede them in the order of consideration.
If the position Descartes advanced in the Conversation reconciles the passage in the Second Replies with that in the Principles, this reconciliation is reached through the distinction between the order of consideration and the order of epistemic primacy. Further, if this distinction allows for a consistent reading of those two passages, then the interpretation that has been advanced for one of the passages must be incorrect: that is, both passages cannot be concerned primarily with the order of epistemic primacy.
Examining the passage from the Principles, one finds that Descartes implicitly acknowledges a distinction between the order of consideration and the order of epistemic primacy. He claimed that “the proposition I am
thinking, therefore I exist is the first and most certain of all to occur to anyone who philosophizes in an orderly way” (P 1: 10: AT 8A: 8, CSM 1:
196): that is, a person who follows Descartes’s method in philosophical inquiry will positively entertain it as the first proposition. But the Cogito’s priority in the order of consideration is not to be confused with epistemic priority. As Descartes writes, “I did not in saying that deny that one must first know . . . that it is impossible that that which thinks should not exist” (P 1: 10: AT 8A: 8, CSM 1: 196). Although the general proposition is epistemically prior to “sum,” the Cogito is prior in consideration. Thus, consistent with the Conversation, this passage from the Principles suggests that it is on the occasion that one entertains the Cogito that one recognizes the truth of the general proposition.
If, however, one accepts Descartes’s contention that the position advanced in the Conversation effects a reconciliation between the Principles and the Second Replies, then one must reject the standard interpretation of the passage from the Second Replies: one must reject the assumption that Descartes is there concerned solely, or even primarily, with the issue of epistemic primacy. Through a sentence-by-sentence examination of the critical passage from the Second Replies, we shall show that his interest there is in the priority of consideration.
The first sentence of the passage reads, “And when we become aware that we are thinking things, this is a primary notion which is not derived by means of any syllogism” (AT 7: 140, CSM 2: 100). Here Descartes does not claim that coming to know that we are thinking things is a primitive act of knowledge or a primary notion (prima quaedam notio). Instead, he claims that when we become aware or take notice (cum auteum adventimus) that we are thinking things, that this “taking notice” is a primary notion. The language of “taking notice” or “becoming aware” need not imply the truth of that which is noticed. In science, for example, one formulates a hypothesis about which, prior to empirical and theoretical investigation, one temporarily suspends judgment. Yet, one is aware of the hypothesis prior to its confirmation. To understand “awareness” as mere consideration is consistent with the Conversation. Similarly, the position advanced in the Conversation requires that one place no epistemic weight on this primary notion, that is, that the notion of oneself as a thinking thing is primary only in the order of consideration, not in the order of epistemic primacy. If this account is correct, then the first sentence in the Replies is consistent with the Conversation.
Further, were one to claim that becoming “aware that we are thinking
things” is an act of knowledge, it is a claim with no existenrial import.
Consistent with his maxim that “we must never ask about the existence of anything until we first understand its essence” (AT 7: 107–8, CSM 2: 78), Descartes is concerned with his nature, not his existence.4 Insofar as he is concerned with his nature, this awareness of his nature does not entail that he considers the maxim that “Everything that thinks exists,” although it might be the occasion on which he considers that proposition. Thus, even if one claims the first sentence has epistemic weight, it leaves open the question whether his knowledge of his own existence rests upon the general principle.
The second sentence reads, “When someone says ‘I am thinking, therefore I am, or I exist,’ he does not deduce existence from thought by means of a syllogism, but recognizes it as something self-evident by a simple intuition of the mind” (AT 7: 140, CSM 2: 100). As Anthony Kenny (1968:
84)acknowledges, this passage is ambiguous as to what is known self-evidently, that is, whether it is sum or the Cogito, and consequently we must consider both possible interpretations. But since the same ambiguity is found in the third sentence, we may reasonably examine the second and third sentences together. The third sentence reads:
This is clear from the fact that if he were deducing it by means of a syllogism, he would have to have had previous knowledge of the major premiss ‘Everything that thinks is, or exists’; yet in fact he learns it from experiencing in his own case that it is impossible that he should think without existing.
(AT 4: 140, CSM 2: 100) We may ask whether one must claim that one’s knowledge of one’s own existence is intuitive (known by the natural light) if the ‘it’ in both of these sentences refers to ‘existence’ rather than the Cogito; that is, whether the intent of “recognizes it [one’s own existence] as something self-evident by a simple intuition of the mind” is that one intuitively knows of one’s own existence. One need not conclude that such knowledge is intuitive, but to reject such a conclusion one must recognize that the translation shrouds the ambiguity of the Latin. The word translated as ‘as’ is ‘tanquem,’ which can mean either ‘as’ or ‘as if.’ On the one hand, if it is interpreted as the ‘as’
of identity, all the apparent inconsistencies between the Second Replies and the Principles are justified. On the other hand, if one interprets ‘tanquem’
as ‘as if,’ that is, if one understands it as indicating some degree of similarity
short of identity, one might have a means of rendering the two passages
short of identity, one might have a means of rendering the two passages