Abstract
The essay comments Descartes’ Meditations I. Starting from the suggestion that the “material” modes of the Pyrrhonists can be distinguished from the “formal” modes of the Academics, the text is read as a sequence of reasons for doubting whole sets of beliefs. These operations are “formal” insofar as Descartes’ meditator recognises that he cannot enumerate one by one the members of these sets. First, he recalls how many beliefs he formed in infancy were erroneous, and identifies one source of error in their coming on the authority of others. He then notices that, even in favourable conditions, he could form false beliefs, for instance if he were suffering from persistent delusions. Favourable conditions cannot be delimited unless one knows one is not so suffering. Yet, sane people have dreams that resemble the delusions of the insane. On one reading of what a dream is, the beliefs threatened by the dreaming hypothesis include all those concerning the past. The final two phases of Meditations I, the deceiving God hypothesis and the evil demon hypothesis, raise the spectre of “transcendental scepticism”, outstripping Pyrrhonist and Academic scepticisms, but they resemble “formal” modes because they supply reasons for doubting about entire sets of beliefs. While the deceiving God hypothesis is rejected on the basis of what is argued in Meditations III (that there is a veracious God), the same does not hold of the demon. But, even if the demon does exist, Descartes can intuit his own existence and thus overthrow transcendental scepticism.
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Notes
- 1.
C. Adam, and P. Tannery, (eds.) Œuvres de Descartes (12 voll.) (1897–1913) corrected and added to by J. Beaude and P. Costabel (et al.), Vrin, Paris, 1964–76 (hereinafter “AT”): Meditationes de Prima Philosophia (hereinafter, “Med.”), I, AT VII, p. 17.
- 2.
I borrow the trope from Jonathan Rée (Philosophical Tales, Methuen, London, 1987, ch. 1) to keep myself reminded that the narrating voice of the Meditations is not the historical Descartes recounting an episode of his own life.
- 3.
R. Descartes, Discours de la méthode (hereinafter “Dis.”), I, AT VI, p. 9.
- 4.
Dis., I, AT VI, p. 5: “je me trouvois embarrrassé de tant de doutes.”
- 5.
Med., I, AT VII, p. 17: “[animadverti] quam dubia sint quaecunque istis postea superextruxi.”
- 6.
Loc. cit.: “ingens opus esse videbatur.”
- 7.
Loc. cit.: “firmum & mansurum cupiam in scientiis stabilire.”
- 8.
Loc. cit.: “funditus omnia semel in vita esse evertenda, atque a primis fundamenti denuo inchoandum.”
- 9.
Op. cit., pp. 17–8: “[o]pportune igitur hodie mentem curis omnibus exsolvi securum mihi otium procuravi, solus secedo, serio tandem & libere generali huic mearum opinionum eversioni vacabo.”
- 10.
In a series of articles, Gisela Striker recurs to this sort of motivation: “On the differences between the Pyrrhonists and the Academics”, originally published in German in Phronesis, 1981, translated in her Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1996, pp. 135–49; “Scepticism as a kind of philosophy”, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 86 (2001), pp. 113–29; “Academics versus Pyrrhonists reconsidered”, in R. Bett (ed.) Ancient Scepticism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2010, pp. 195–207. In this last volume, Michael Williams underscores Descartes’ unconcern to use doubt as a way of reaching tranquillity: “Descartes’ transformation of the sceptical tradition”, op. cit., pp. 268–313. In the closing chapters of her Descartes’ Deontological Turn (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2010), Noa Naaman-Zauderer proposes strong motives for thinking that, in the period after the composition of the Meditations, Descartes came to think that the right use of the will (as discussed in Med., IV) constitutes “the ultimate end of our actions” (p. 179).
- 11.
Op. cit., p. 18: “non minus accurate ab iis quae non plane certa sunt atque indubitata, quam ab aperte falsis assessionem cohibendam.”
- 12.
Loc. cit.: “satis erit ad omnes rejiciendas, si aliquam rationem in unaquaque reperero.”
- 13.
Op. cit., III, AT VII, p. 36: “valde tenuis et, ut ita loquar, Metaphysica dubitandi ratio.”
- 14.
T.M. Lennon and M.W. Hickson, “The skepticism of the First Meditation” in K. Detlefsen (ed.) Descartes’ Meditations: A Critical Guide, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2014, pp. 9–24.
- 15.
Med., I, p. 18: “[n]ec ideo etiam singulæ erunt percurrendæ, quod operis esset infiniti.”
- 16.
Loc. cit.: “[n]empe quidquid hactenus ut maxime verum admisi, vel a sensibus, vel per sensus accepi.”
- 17.
R. Descartes, Responsiones per Burmanum, AT V, p. 146: “[a] sensibus [videlicet] visu, quo colores, figuras [et similia] omnia percipi, præter illum [autem] accepi reliqua per sensus, [scilicet] per auditum quia ita a parentibus, præceptoribus, aliisque hominbus accepi et hausi ea quæ scio.”
- 18.
Med., I, AT VII, p. 18: “prudentiæ est nunquam illis plane confidere qui nos vel semel deceperunt”. Similar formulations of a ‘once bitten, twice shy’ maxim appear in Dis. IV (AT VI, p. 32), Princ., I, 4 (AT VIIIA, p. 6) and Recherche de la Verité, (AT X, p. 510). One might note that, if the maxim applies to itself, then it may be prudent not to be as prudent as Renatus is trying to be.
- 19.
Med., I, AT VII, p. 18: “hos autem interdum fallere deprehendi.”
- 20.
Interestingly, the early uses of the example appear in the Epicurean literature, such as Diogenes of Oenonanda (Fragments edited by C.W. Chilton, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1971 fr. 69) and Lucretius (DRN, IV, 353–63). Of course, it does appear in the sceptical literature, but not – so far as I know – before Sextus (PH, I, 118; Adv. Math., VII, 208 ff.)
- 21.
Med., VI, AT VII, pp. 76 and 82.
- 22.
Op. cit., I, AT VII, p. 18: “interdum sensus circa minuta quædam & remotiora nos fallant”. It is interesting that, here, Descartes moves from the first person singular of his narrator to the plural that involves also the reader: he is appealing to common experience, rather than to just his own.
- 23.
Loc. cit.: “pleraque tamen alia sunt de quibus dubitari plane non potest.”
- 24.
Op. cit., VI, AT VII, p. 81.
- 25.
Op. cit., I, AT VII, p. 18: “& similia”.
- 26.
Op. cit., I, AT VII, pp. 18–9: “[m]anus vero has ipsas, totumque hoc corpus meum esse, qua ratione posset negari?”
- 27.
Perhaps the closest correspondences are between Renatus’ believing that he is wearing a winter gown when he is actually wearing a winter gown and a madman’s believing that he is wearing an imperial robe when he is actually naked. But we stick with the more bodily case (about which Renatus says that his hand and his whole body are his), for a reason that should become clear when we consider the reach of the evil demon.
- 28.
Med., I, AT VII, p. 19: “cerebella tam contumax vapor ex atra bile labefactat.”
- 29.
Loc. cit.. Of course Renatus does not himself cite the particular case of the king, but Descartes very likely knew of it.
- 30.
Loc. cit.: “amentes sunt isti, nec minus ipse demens viderer, si quod ab iis exemplum ad me tranferrem”.
- 31.
C. Larmore, “The First Meditation: skeptical doubt and certainty” in D. Cunning (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Descartes’ Meditations, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2014, pp. 48–67; the dialogue is set out with two “speakers” at pp. 56–7.
- 32.
Med., I, AT VII, p. 19: “tanquam non sim homo qui soleam noctu dormire & eadem omnia in somnis pati, vel etiam interdum minus verisimilia, quam quæ isti vigilantes.”
- 33.
Loc. cit.: “[q]uam frequenter vero usitata ista, me hic esse, toga vestiri, foco assidere, quies nocturna persuadet, cum tamen positis vestibus jaceo inter strata.”
- 34.
Cf. M. Occhionero, Il sogno, Carocci, Rome 2009.
- 35.
See Baillet, Vie de Mons. Des Cartes (2 voll.) Hortemels, Paris 1690, I, pp. 80–6.
- 36.
I am grateful to Walter Cavini for drawing this not entirely felicitous terminology to my attention.
- 37.
Responsiones, V, II, ad 7, AT, VII, pp. 358–9.
- 38.
I owe this reference to Alessandra Violi.
- 39.
See E. Filevich (et al.), “Metacognitive Mechanisms Underlying Lucid Dreaming”, The Journal of Neuroscience, 35:3 (2015), pp. 1082–8.
- 40.
We might call this the “Matrix hypothesis”, but it would take us too far afield to incorporate it fully into an account of the Meditations.
- 41.
Med., I, AT VII p. 19. “in somnis”.
- 42.
A. Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (1819, 2 vols), in Sämtliche Werke, A. Hübscher (ed.), F.A. Brockhaus, Wiesbaden 1972, I, p. 21 (§5).
- 43.
Med., I, AT VII, p. 19: “certe vigilantibus oculis intueor hanc chartam.”
- 44.
Loc. cit.: “non sopitum est hoc caput quod commoveo, manum istam prudens & sciens extendo & sentio.”
- 45.
Loc. cit.: “non tam distincta contingerent dormienti.”
- 46.
Loc. cit.: “quæ dum cogito attentius, tam plane videor nunquam certis indiciis vigiliam a somno posse dintingui.”
- 47.
Loc. cit.: “nec particularia ista vera sint, nos oculos aperire, caput movere, manus extendere, nec forte etiam habere tales manus”. Again, Descartes expresses this in the first person plural: he is drawing the reader into Renatus’ drama.
- 48.
Loc. cit.: “veluti quasdam pictas imagines.”
- 49.
Loc. cit.: “non nisi ad similitudinem rerum verarum fingi potuerunt.”
- 50.
Loc. cit.: “generalia hæc, oculos, caput, manus totumque corpus, res quasdam non imaginaria, sed veras existere.”
- 51.
Op. cit. I, AT VII, p. 20: “certe tamen ad minimum veri colores esse debent, ex quibus illud component.”
- 52.
Loc. cit.: “rerum imagines.”
- 53.
Loc. cit.: “magis simplicia & universalia.”
- 54.
Op. cit., II, AT VII, pp. 30–1.
- 55.
Op. cit., I, AT VII, p. 20: “[c]ujus generis esse videntur natura corporea in comuni, ejusque extensio; item figura rerum extensarum; item quantitas, sive earundem magnitudo & numerus; item locus in quo existant tempusque per quod durent, & similia.”
- 56.
Loc. cit.: “quæ a rerum compositarum consideratione dependent.”
- 57.
Loc. cit.: “dubias quidem esse.”
- 58.
Loc. cit.: “aliasque ejusmodi.”
- 59.
Loc. cit.: “de simplicissimis & maxime generalibus rebus tractant.”
- 60.
Loc. cit.: “sive vigilem, sive dormiam […] nec fieri posse videtur ut tam perspicuæ veritates in suspicionem falsitatis incurrant.”
- 61.
Cf. the image of the tree of the sciences in R. Descartes, Lettre-Préface to the French edition of the Princ., AT IXB, pp. 14–5.
- 62.
Med., VI, AT VII, pp. 83–8.
- 63.
Loc. cit., p. 90: “naturæ nostræ infirmitas.”
- 64.
Loc. cit. pp. 87–8.
- 65.
Loc. cit.: “hyperbolicæ superiorum dierum dubitationes, ut risu dignæ, sunt explodendæ.”
- 66.
E.g. G. Dicker, Descartes, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1993, p. 177.
- 67.
E.g. H. Frankfurt, Demons, Dreamers and Madmen, Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis 1970, pp. 170 ff.
- 68.
E.g. D.E. Flage and C.E. Bonnen, Descartes and Method, Routledge, London 1999, p. 251.
- 69.
Med., VI, AT VII, p. 90: “res occurrunt, quas distincte, unde, ubi, & quando mihi adveniant, advert.”
- 70.
Loc. cit.: “cum tota reliqua vita connecto.”
- 71.
Loc. cit.: “plane certus sum, non in somnis, sed vigilanti.”
- 72.
Loc. cit.: “postquam omnes sensus […] ad illas examinandas convocavi, nihil mihi, quod cum ceteris pugnet, ab ullo ex his nuntietur.”
- 73.
Loc. cit.; as in (iv) with “memoriam” in place of “omnes sensus”.
- 74.
Loc. cit.; as in (v) with “intellectum” in place of ‘memoriam”.
- 75.
T. Hobbes, Objectiones III, I, AT VII, p. 171: the sense of “vetera” as a description of what Descartes offers would be not merely “old things” but “old hat”.
- 76.
Obj. III, ult., AT VII, p. 195. Ten years later, Hobbes himself used a similar “coherence” criterion for distinguishing waking from dreaming in Leviathan (1651, ed. R. Tuck, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1991, I, 2, p. 17), noting slyly that “waking I often observe the absurdity of Dreames, but never dream of the absurdities of my waking”.
- 77.
Med., VI, AT VI, p. 89: “præsertim illa de somno, quem a vigilia non distinguebam.”
- 78.
I. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, J.F. Hartnock, Riga 1787 (Preface to 2nd ed.) p. xxxix, n. a: “So bleibt es immer ein Skandal der Philosophie [..] das Dasein der Dinge ausser uns […] bloss auf Glauben unnehmen zu müssen, und wenn es jemand einfällt es zu bezweifeln, ihm keinen genugtuenden Beweis entgegenstellen zu können.”
- 79.
Med., I, AT VII, p. 21: “[u]nde autem scio illum non fecisse ut nulla plane sit terra, nullum cœlu,, nulla res extensa, nulla figura, nulla magnitudo, nullus locus, & tamen hæc omnia non aliter quam nunc mihi videantur existere?”
- 80.
Some commentators have thought that “in terms of scope, the demon hypothesis does not impugn any beliefs that had not already been called into question by previous arguments”: J. Cottingham, A Descartes Dictonary, Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1993, p. 47. Why, then, does Renatus distinguish the two hypotheses?
- 81.
Loc. cit., p. 22: “ludificationes somniorum”. Note that colours, shapes and sounds, considered as qualities of ideas, are not put in doubt by dreaming: they constitute the perceptual content of dream “experiences”.
- 82.
Loc. cit., pp. 22–3: “considerabo meipsum tanquam manus non habentem, non oculos, non carnem, non sanguinem, non aliquem sensus.”
- 83.
It will be recalled that it would only be on the deflationary model of dreaming that, as a set, apparent memories are put directly in doubt.
- 84.
Med., II, AT VII, p. 24: “credo nihil unquam existitisse eorum quæ mendax memoria rapræsentat; nullos plane habeo sensu; corpus, figura extensio, motus, locusque sunt chimeræ.”
- 85.
Op. cit., III, AT VII, p. 35: “[n]empe terra, cœlum, sydera & cetera omnia quæ sensibus usupurbam.”
- 86.
Loc. cit., pp. 35–6.
- 87.
Loc. cit., p. 36: “non aliam ob causam de iis dubitandi esse postea judicavi, quam quia veniebat in mentem forte aliquem Deum talem mihi natura indere potuisse, ut etiam circa illa deciperet, quæ manifestissima viderentur.”
- 88.
This much-discussed doctrine appears in Descartes’ letters, the earliest being to Mersenne in April 1630 (AT I, p. 145) and the latest being to Arnauld in late July 1648 (AT V, p. 224), but virtually never breaks the surface in the works prepared for publication (one exception is a passage in Sixth Replies, where Descartes knew he was addressing Mersenne and friends (AT VII p. 435)).
- 89.
Med. I, AT VII, p. 21: “At forte noluit Deus ita me decipi, dicitur enim summe bonus; sed si hoc ejus bonitati repugnaret, talem me creasse ut semper fallar, ab eadem etiam videretur esse alienum permittere ut interdum fallar; quod ultimum tamen non potest dici.”
- 90.
With or without a creating God, this model may, after all, reflect our predicament, given that we cannot even see two equal lines as equal if they have arrows pointing in different directions at their ends (Müller-Lyer), that we cannot see a sunset as ourselves hurtling backwards on a spinning earth (heliocentrism), that we cannot get our heads around velocities that are not additive (relativity) and a whole host of other pretty basic phenomena. The alleged application of common sense that is science allegedly tells us that common sense is all wrong.
- 91.
P. Unger, Ignorance, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1975, p. 8, n.2.
- 92.
H. Putnam, “Realism and Reason”, Proceedings and Addresses of the Americna Philosophical Association, 50 (1977), pp. 483–98.
- 93.
H. Putnam, Reason, Truth and History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1981, ch. 1; R. Nozick, Philosophical Explanations, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1981, pp. 197–247.
- 94.
Med., III, AT VII, p. 36: “[u]t autem illa tollatur, quamprimam occurret occasio, examinare debeo an sit Deus, &, si sit, an possit esse deceptor.”
- 95.
Op. cit., III, AT VII, p. 52.
- 96.
Op. cit., I, AT VII, p. 22.
- 97.
The view that there is incompatibility between God’s benevolence and the existence of the evil demon is less prominent in the more recent Cartesian literature, perhaps in part because interest has shifted away from his theory of knowledge to his metaphysics and to the interactions between his methodology and his endeavours in what we would now call “science”. On this historiographical point, see John Cottingham’s “Introduction” to his edited volume, Reason, Will and Sensation, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1994, pp. 1–16.
- 98.
N. K. Smith, New Studies in the Philosophy of Descartes, Macmillan, London 1952, p. 289.
- 99.
M. Gueroult, Descartes selon l’ordre des raisons (1953, 2 vols), Aubier-Montaigne, Paris 1968, I, p. 287.
- 100.
A.J.P. Kenny, Descartes: A Study of his Philosophy, Random House, New York 1968, p. 36; likewise, with an expression of debt to Kenny, E. Curley, Descartes Against the Skeptics, Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1980, p. 42.
- 101.
L. Beck, The Metaphysics of Descartes, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1965, p. 142.
- 102.
H. Frankfurt, Demons, Dreamers and Madmen, cit. p. 175. For myself, the idea of even one omnipotent being is an absurdity.
- 103.
Descartes himself asserts the incompatiblity of the demon’s malignity with his supposedly infinite power in his conversation with Burman (AT V, p. 147).
- 104.
B. Williams, Descartesn The Project of Pure Enquiry, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1978, p. 163.
- 105.
J. Secada, Cartesian Metaphysics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000, pp. 44–5.
- 106.
R. Popkin, History of Scepticism (1960) expanded and revised, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1979, p. 181.
- 107.
It is hard to resist saying that the incompatibilists cited above, as well as Putnam and Nozick, are doing the devil’s work.
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Davies, R. (2017). The Modes of Descartes’ First Meditation. In: Smith, P., Charles, S. (eds) Academic Scepticism in the Development of Early Modern Philosophy. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 221. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45424-5_8
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