PHIL 111: Introduction to Philosophy

LARKIN: Spring 2003

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Descartes, Meditation Two

 

I.                     Cogito Argument

A.      Set-Up

1.        Descartes is searching for something that is certain—something which cannot be doubted—to serve as the foundation for a new system of beliefs.

2.        He has gotten himself into a thoroughly skeptical frame of mind by considering and ‘holding in front of his mind’ the possibility of an all-powerful evil genius bent on deceiving him.

 

B.       The Argument

P1:  I can suppose/persuade myself that nothing exists except for me.

1a:  If I try to suppose or persuade myself that I do not exist, then still I exist as the thing that is doing the supposing or persuading.

 

1b:  If I am being deceived by an evil genius that I exist, then still I exist as the thing being deceived.

 

C1:  I cannot doubt that I exist.

 

C2:  So I am certain that I exist whenever I think that I do.

 

 

 

II.                   Res Cogitans Argument

A.      Set-Up

1.        So Descartes has found something that he can be certain about—his own existence.

2.        Now he wants to build on this foundation.

3.        So he considers the question “what then am I?”

 

 

B.       Argument

1.        Descartes first considers what properties he previously thought himself to have.

a.        body—physical properties

b.       nourished himself

c.        walking—self-locomotion

d.       sensing—seeing, hearing, feeling, etc.

e.        thinking

 

2.        The argument

P1:  I can doubt that I have a physical body.

 

P2:  I can doubt that I nourish myself, walk, or sense.

 

P3:  But I cannot doubt that I think. 

 

C:  So I am essentially a thinking thing.

 

 

 

III.                 Wax Argument

A.      Set-Up

1.        Descartes has found that the one thing he can be most certain about is his own existence as a thinking thing, knowledge of which does not come through his senses.

2.        But this is odd—goes against common sense—in two ways:

a.        It seems that our most secure knowledge comes from our senses.

b.       It seems that we have our clearest and most distinct ideas about corporeal objects.

 

B.       The Argument

P1:   My knowledge even of corporeal objects derives in part from my Understanding (reason) and not merely from my Senses (Imagination).

1a:  The cold piece of wax when heated changes all of its sensible properties.

 

1b:  Still, I know that it is the same wax.

 

1c:  I cannot know this through my senses, which only provide access to sensible properties.

 

1d:  So I must know it through my Understanding.

 

P2:  Whatever degree of knowledge my evidence (the ways things seems to me) provides for the existence of corporeal objects, that very same evidence provides an even greater degree of knowledge that I exist and that I am thinking. 

[Whatever my evidence is, it does not prove the existence of corporeal objects, but the existence of that evidence does prove that I exist as a thinking thing.]

 

C:  So it should be no surprise that the mind is more easily and better known than corporeal objects.