Examining The Meditations (Part 7): Classifying Thoughts

Entries in this series:

Examining The Meditations (Part 1): The Religion Of Descartes --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-1-religion.html

Examining The Meditations (Part 2): Cartesian Doubt --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-2-cartesian.html

Examining The Meditations (Part 3): Descent Into Skepticism --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-3-descent.html

Examining The Meditations (Part 4): Illusion And Reality --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-4-illusion.html

Examining The Meditations (Part 5): "I am, I exist" --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-5-i-am-i.html

Examining The Meditations (Part 6): Mind-Body Dualism --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/examining-meditations-part-6-mind-body.html

Examining The Meditations (Part 7): Classifying Thoughts


At last, we've reached the third meditation of Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy!  Last having addressed that he has not yet proven to himself that he possesses a physical body, Descartes moves onward to the issue of God's existence, the relevance of God's existence to human epistemology, and the classification of different types of thoughts.

He starts to return to his initial hypothesis that God is deceiving him, which he brought up in his first meditation:


". . . it occurred to me that perhaps some God could have given me a nature such as that I was deceived in matters which seemed most evident . . . Yet when I turn to the things themselves which I think I perceive very clearly, I am so convinced by them that I spontaneously declare: let whoever can do so deceive me, he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I continue to think I am something; or make it true at some future time that I have never existed, since it is now true that I exist; or bring it about that two and three added together are more or less than five, or anything of this kind in which I see a manifest contradiction." (25)


Here Descartes articulates the concepts of necessary and logical truths without calling them by those titles--they cannot be false and not even an act of God himself could ever make them false.  This class of truths represents the sole things which cannot be false, which must be true by pure necessity regardless of what else is.  Because of this absolute certainty which he can possess about such matters, Descartes finds the courage to openly invite God to deceive him in other areas, as he will still know at least necessary truths for sure.

When it comes to other matters, though, he sees the need to investigate whether God exists and is a deceiver:


"But in order to remove even this slight reason for doubt, as soon as the opportunity arises I must examine whether there is a God, and, if there is, whether he can be a deceiver.  For if I do not know this, it seems that I can never be quite certain about anything else." (25)


Descartes was misguided here.  In the last six entries in this series I have constantly been pointing out things which can be known with absolute certainty beyond the fact that my mind exists and that I am a thinking, perceiving thing--the existence of truth, logical truths, necessary truths, mathematical truths (numeric extensions of logical truths), and everything that follows from them, including the fact that I have a body of some sort (a conclusion which Descartes' own arguments have not yet reached).  I do not need to believe in any deity, nor does one even have to exist, for me to know any of these things as I do.  Descartes himself seemingly admits before this that logical truths, mathematical truths, and truths about his perceptions cannot be illusions and no God could ever bring it about that they are false, as I said above; I am saying that this does not acknowledge the full extent of my possible knowledge, with or without either God's existence or knowledge of his existence.  I can still prove to myself that I have a body of some kind, that I am not dreaming while I am awake (see part six of the series for summaries of these two proofs), and that my memory is reliable (see part five for more on this).

Besides, the unfortunate reality is that no being with my human limitations can prove that God is or is not a deceiver.  The Christian God, which Descartes professed allegiance to in his Dedicatory letter to the Sorbonne (part one of this series examined that) and which I serve due to probabilistic reasons, is no deceiver, yet all that lies within the human capacity to prove is that an uncaused cause exists; attributing various moral and theological natures to this being beyond that cannot be supported with pure logic, although much evidence from a variety of disciplines does indeed exist in favor of Christianity and the Bible.  The inability to know for sure if God is a deceiver by no means negates the great evidence against such a position though!

And now Descartes begins defining different types of thoughts into different categories:


"First, however, considerations of order appear to dictate that I now classify my thoughts into definite kinds, and ask which of them can properly be said to be the bearers of truth and falsity.  Some of my thoughts are as it were the images of things, and it is only in these cases that the term 'idea' is strictly appropriate - for example, when I think of a man, or a chimera, or the sky, or an angel, or God.  Other thoughts have various additional forms: thus when I will, or am afraid, or affirm, or deny, there is always a particular thing which I take as the object of my thought, but my thought includes something more than the likeness of that thing.  Some thoughts in this category are called volitions or emotions, while others are called judgments." (25-26)


The first kind of thoughts that Descartes analyses are ideas which are mental reflections of concepts.  If I close my eyes and imagine a soccer ball, an iPad, a book, or a coin, my mind is perceiving a representation of an object or concept which I am not actually gazing at or touching with my senses.  That idea exists as an immaterial projection of my mind, like a dream.  Other thoughts, as Descartes notes, have a further property.  They involve and have as their object an idea or concept but they also involve some mental activity beyond just imagining a concept: wanting to have a cup of water instead of just imagining one, for instance; fearing a lion instead of just imagining it; hoping a particular person dates you instead of just thinking about that person, and so on.  This is the difference between me merely imagining a PlayStation 4 and me having the active desire to go and play one.  Holding an idea in the mind is not identical to having a particular attitude and volitional stance towards the object of that idea.

Next he begins explaining the truth news or falsity of ideas in reference to the external world:


"Now as far as ideas are concerned, provided they are considered solely in themselves and I do not refer them to anything else, they cannot strictly speaking be false; for whether it is a goat or a chimera that I am imagining, it is just as true that I imagine the former as the latter.  As for the will and the emotions, here too one need not worry about falsity; for even if the things which I desire are wicked or even non-existent, that does not make it any less true that I desire them.  Thus the only remaining thoughts where I must be on my guard against making a mistake are judgments.  And the chief and most common mistake which is to be found here consists in my judging that the ideas which are in me resemble, or conform to, things located outside me." (26)


Having ideas proves to the one having them that it is true that the ideas exist in the mind as types of thoughts, which is totally irrelevant to whether or not the idea corresponds to something in the external world at all.  I recall seeing goats, but never chimeras (a mixture of goat, lion, and snake anatomy), for instance.  It is true that the concepts of both a goat and a chimera exist in my mind, and if I have a mental attitude or desire about a certain idea then it is true that I have that attitude or desire.  In making a metaphysical or epistemological judgment about an idea corresponding to the external world, however, then my thoughts can take on the property of falseness.  See what Descartes is saying?  If I merely imagine a chimera, the only matter of truth involved is that it is true that I am imagining a chimera; but if I make a judgment about chimeras existing or not existing outside of my mind, then my ideas can now be false depending on their conformity to reality.  Imagining something does not necessarily mean it is true.

Regarding the will, Descartes mentions the will and its volitions but he doesn't even bring up the topic of demonstrating that he possesses free will, which is of incredible importance when discussing human knowledge, for if total determinism is true and every event or occurrence is determined by a preceding event or occurrence, then certain disastrous things result.  If total determinism were true, then even my thoughts would be guided by some force(s) external to me; if my thoughts are not guided by me then I cannot truly reason, only react, and I cannot trust my rationality; if I cannot reason and trust my rationality, then (not only do I have no basis for believing total determinism) I have used my ability to reason to come to the true conclusion (if this level of determinism is true) that my ability to reason is illusory and unreliable.  Yet in this hypothetical scenario I used it to come to a true conclusion, one which is self-contradictory!  Reason/logic itself and the reliability of my ability to grasp it are both things which I cannot have anything less than absolute certainty about due to the fact that they are necessary truths.  There is no way they can be false, and to argue against them is to only demonstrate this fact!  The ability to reason means I am not merely reacting blindly and that I can have actual knowledge; the ability to reason cannot exist in my mind without some degree of free will accompanying it.  Thus, total determinism is self-refuting and impossible, for it both undermines any ability to rationally hold to it and also is logically incompatible with the necessary fact that I do reason [1].

With that important rabbit trail addressed, I will move on to the issue of the origin of ideas:


"Among my ideas, some appear to be innate, some to be adventitious, and others to have been invented by me.  My understanding of what a thing is, what truth is, seems to derive simply from my own nature.  But my hearing a noise, as I do now, or seeing the sun, or feeling the fire, comes from things which are located outside of me, or so I have hitherto judged.  Lastly, sirens, hippogriffs and the like are my own invention.  But perhaps all my ideas may be thought of as adventitious, or they may all be innate, or all made up; for as of yet I have not clearly perceived their true origin." (26)


Adventitious means originating from an external source.  Descartes realizes that only three possible origin points for an idea exists: 1) it always existed within him, innately buried in his mind; 2) it was planted in his mind from an external source (an experience, etc); or 3) it was devised solely by his mind and neither originated from an outside source or was always within his mind.

With that, I will end part seven of this journey into Descartes' Meditations.  Next comes an inspection of his assessment of whether or not he can discern if certain ideas or perceptions in his mind have as their cause something external to his own mind.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/reason-refutes-determinism.html