PHL105Y November 9, 2005

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PHL105YNovember 9, 2005

• For Monday, finish Descartes Sixth Meditation,
  and read Section I (pp.1-9) of Humes Enquiry
  Concerning Human Understanding
• For Friday, write a page on one of the following
  questions (it will be collected).
• On p.53, Descartes comments that the soul is not
  just in the body in the way a sailor is in a
  ship, but is commingled with it. What does he
  mean by that?
• In the last paragraph of the Sixth Meditation,
  Descartes explains how we tell the difference
  between dreaming and waking life. How
  satisfactory do you find Descartes account of
  how we do this?

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The first essay, final version

• The final version of your first essay is due
  today. Any late essays should be given to your
  instructor or TA in person, or put in the
  philosophy drop box in the stairwell outside
  NB262.
• Essays get downgraded 2 points for every school
  day late, unless you supply a documented excuse
  such as a doctors note
• Upload your essay to turnitin.com when it is
  finished instructions on doing this are
  available on the course website. We count your
  essay as received when it is uploaded, but you
  need to hand in a hard copy too.
• Class ID 1395973
• Class password republic all lower-case

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The Fourth Meditation

• God and the problem of error

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If my rationality is reliable,why do I make
mistakes?

• Three claims Descartes is committed to
• God does not deceive me
• My faculty of judgment comes from God
• I do make mistakes sometimes

5
An analysis of judgment

• Judgments always involve the joint work of
• The intellect, through which I perceive ideas
• The will, which affirms or denies (or suspends
  judgment upon) what I perceive

6
An analysis of judgment

• The intellect, taken on its own, is not the
  source of error (why not?)
• -the intellect just presents ideas whether you
  contemplate an idea of yourself, a table, or the
  tooth fairy, you havent made an error until you
  judge it, until you say The tooth fairy exists.

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An analysis of judgment

• The will, taken on its own, is not defective (why
  not?)
• It is just the power to affirm or deny any
  particular idea its an unlimited power for me
  I am always free to decide what to think
• (what is freedom?)

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What is freedom?

• In order to be free I need not be capable of
  being moved in each direction on the contrary,
  the more I am inclined in one direction the
  more freely do I choose that direction.
• AT57-8.

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What is freedom?

• In order to be free I need not be capable of
  being moved in each direction on the contrary,
  the more I am inclined in one direction the
  more freely do I choose that direction.
• AT57-8.
• What matters is that no external force
  determines your decision

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Freedom is not indifference

• Were I always to see clearly what is true and
  good, I would never deliberate about what is to
  be judged or chosen. In that event although I
  would be entirely free, I could never be
  indifferent. (AT58, p.39)

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Where errors come from

• Not from the intellect, on its own, nor from the
  will, on its own, but from my failure to align
  them properly
• The intellect is fine as far as it goes, but it
  doesnt present me with a clear and distinct idea
  of everything (its finite)
• Errors arise when I make judgments about things
  that are not clear and distinct

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Whos to blame?

• If I want to, I can avoid error entirely, all my
  life, by only judging what is clear and distinct
  to me
• Note that God could have given me a clear and
  distinct idea about everything Id ever think
  about. Since he didnt, is he to blame for my
  mistakes?

13
Error and God

• God could have made me free, finite, and
  infallible
• He didnt do so, but hes not responsible for my
  mistakes (why not?)

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Error and God

• God could have made me free, finite, and
  infallible
• He didnt do so, but hes not responsible for my
  mistakes (why not?)
• Inescapable (built-in) human error would be a
  problem avoidable human error is not (why?)

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The avoidance of error

• We can avoid error entirely by taking care to
  remember to abstain from making judgments
  whenever the truth of a given matter is not
  apparent. (AT 62, p.41)
• How helpful is that rule?
• What does it presuppose about us?

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The Fifth Meditation

• Another proof of the existence of God
• Q What aspect of my ideas of material things is
  clear and distinct?
• A Their mathematical properties (so Im
  entitled to use math to gain knowledge of
  nature).

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The Sixth Meditation

• The existence of material things
• The distinction between
• mind and body

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What we know at the beginning of the Sixth
Meditation

• I exist
• God exists, and is not a deceiver
• Our clear and distinct ideas are true
• The aspect of our ideas of corporeal things that
  is clear and distinct their mathematical
  properties (recall the discussion of the wax in
  the Second)

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What we know at the beginning of the Sixth
Meditation

• I exist
• God exists, and is not a deceiver
• The aspect of my ideas of material things that is
  clear and distinct their mathematical
  properties (so Im going to use math to gain
  knowledge of nature)
• What I dont yet know whether this table (or any
  other corporeal thing) exists

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How do I prove the table is real?

• Is there a part of my mind that is designed to
  pick up on the reality of the table?

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How do I prove the table is real?

• Is there a part of my mind that is designed to
  pick up on the reality of the table?
• My imagination and my pure intellect are distinct
  
• Caution recall that in the 4th Descartes
  described the intellect as whatever presented
  content for affirmation, and that content could
  include visualizations or intellectual ideas?
  There he was talking about the whole faculty of
  the intellect, which includes imagination there
  is also the pure intellect, which doesnt
  visualize, but just does mathematical reasoning,
  and is contrasted to imagination.

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Why do I imagine?

• Note remember that imagining includes fantasy,
  sense perception, memory any mode of thought in
  which you contemplate images
• Is imagination essential to me being me?

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Why do I imagine?

• Is it essential to me being me?
• No I could exist without it.

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Why do I imagine?

• Is it essential to me being me?
• No I could exist without it.
• So why is it there? Is it essential to my
  picking up signals from the world around me?

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Why do I imagine?

• Is it essential to me being me?
• No I could exist without it.
• So why is it there? Is it essential to my
  picking up signals from the world around me?
• Yes, so the fact that a non-deceiving God gave
  this faculty means that theres something out
  there.

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Descartes proof of the existence of corporeal
things

• The ideas of the imagination dont all come from
  me (they strike me against my will, sometimes)
• These ideas either come from God, directly or
  indirectly, or from other things
• God has ..given me a great inclination to
  believe that these ideas issue from corporeal
  things (AT80)
• consequently corporeal things exist. (AT80)

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What about illusions, etc.?

• The teachings of nature make me believe in outer
  things (i.e. its instinctive, not intellectual
  like thirst or hunger)
• These feelings suggest to me that I am a union of
  soul and body (see AT 81)
• The primary purpose of sense perception is
  keeping body and soul together i.e. survival,
  not insight into the true nature of things

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Imagination and survival

• Only those things that are clear and distinct to
  me are really as I perceive them bodies may not
  exactly match my obscure perceptions of them
• I perceive things in a way that assists the
  survival of the ordinary person in ordinary
  circumstances my perceptions might sometimes be
  misleading in dim light/at high speed/ etc.
• Illusions can happen, but they cant happen
  constantly, and I discover I am able to offset
  them and figure out how things really are

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Mind and body

• The mind is indivisible extended things can be
  divided into parts
• Because the body sends signals along an extended
  pathway into a single point where it contacts the
  mind, its signals can be misleading (an impulse
  from your toe travels along pathway ABCD to reach
  your brain if your foot is amputated at point C
  you could have the same sensation of the hurt
  toe, misleadingly)

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Mind and body

• But the reason why phantom limb pain and other
  true errors of nature are possible is that God
  has set up the best overall system for our normal
  condition so there is no malice behind these
  errors furthermore, we can find out enough
  about ourselves to override these errors

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Self-understanding

• An analysis of the purpose of my faculties (like
  the one Ive just undertaken in going through the
  Meditations) enables me to recognize the errors
  Im vulnerable to, and correct or avoid them
  without difficulty
• Furthermore, when I bring all the senses, and
  memory, and intellect to bear on a situation, I
  can find out the truth

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Doubts about dreaming resolved

• How can we distinguish dreaming from waking life?
• I now notice that there is a considerable
  difference between these two dreams are never
  joined by the memory with all the other actions
  of life, as is the case with those actions that
  occur when one is awake. For surely if, while I
  am awake, someone were suddenly to appear to me
  and then immediately disappear, as occurs in
  dreams, so that I see neither where he came from
  nor where he went, it is not without reason that
  I would judge him to be a ghost or a phantom
  conjured up in my brain, rather than a true man.
  (AT89-90)
• Is this satisfactory?

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Doubts about dreaming resolved

• when these things happen, and I notice
  distinctly where they come from, where they are
  now, and when they come to me, and when I connect
  my perception of them without interruption to the
  rest of my life, I am clearly certain that these
  perceptions have happened to me not while I was
  dreaming but while I was awake.
• What does it mean to connect your perceptions
  this way?

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Doubts dispelled

• Nor ought I have even the least doubt about the
  truth of these things, if, having mustered all
  the senses, in addition to the memory and my
  intellect, in order to examine them, nothing is
  passed on to me by any of these sources that
  conflicts with the others. For from the fact
  that God is no deceiver, it follows that I am in
  no way mistaken in these matters. (AT90)

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Doubts dispelled?

• But because the need to get things done does not
  always permit us the leisure for such a careful
  inquiry, we must confess that the life of man is
  apt to commit errors regarding particular things,
  and we must acknowledge the infirmity of our
  nature. (AT90)
• How great is this infirmity? Does this
  acknowledgement undercut Descartes project of
  establishing something firm and lasting in the
  sciences?