10: I Think: Descartes Foundation of Modern Science

1. 10: I Think: Descartes� Foundation of Modern Science 1

2. Pascal on Matter and Spirit �The human being is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but she is a thinking reed. There is no need for the universe to take up arms to crush her: a vapor, a drop of water, suffices to kill her. But when the universe crushes her, the human being would still be more noble than that which kills her, because she knows that she dies, and the advantage the universe has over her. The universe knows nothing of this. 2

3. The main focus: our capacity for thought �All our dignity consists then in thought. It�s from this that we take our distinctiveness, and not from space or duration, which we are unable to fill up. Let us work then at thinking well: see here the principle of morality.� Pascal, Pensees #209 (1660) 3

4. 1 Two Perspectives on the new World 1) Immensely larger world opened up by the new sciences is exhilarating As a thinking being � Expansion of one�s mental horizons to the ends of the universe 2) But also alienating, depressing As a material being � We are no longer in the center of the universe (Copernican revolution) By comparison with physical expanse of the universe, the individual physical being is an insignificant speck 4

5. Matter and Spirit 1) As material beings we are subject to the laws of nature that are being explored by the new sciences. 2) As thinking (spiritual) beings, we comprehend these laws, and in this respect we are outside of them. 5

6. Christianity and the new sciences Pascal�s double intellectual perspective A pioneer in the new sciences A religious reformer Traditional religion is externalist: follow rituals, take the sacraments, believe Reformist Jansenism: return to the inner spirit of religion: the kingdom of God is within us: inner experience 6

7. 2 Bifurcation of Reality 1) Reality consists in physical objects governed by deterministic laws In practical terms for human beings this is the desiring or passion-driven individual 2) and in the thinking, rational subjects capable of knowing these laws, and so existing outside of them Epistemologically, the knower is always apart from the object of knowledge In practical terms = freedom from deterministic laws A capacity to alter one�s desires 7

8. Materialism and science Modern science requires the ability of thought to break from appearances: freedom from deterministic laws If the mind were governed by the laws of matter (materialism) the new sciences would not be possible Modern science explicitly focuses on deterministic laws governing desire-driven, self-interested individuals: Hobbes to Hume to Smith but implicitly requires freedom from those laws as a condition of knowledge itself: 8

9. Hobbes� inconsistency How reconcile Hobbes method with his materialism? Method: break down the whole into its parts Find the right starting point Rebuild the whole from the part which sheds the most light Materialism The mind and its phantasms are a passive product of external forces operating on it Producing the �great deception of sense� And yet we are able to free ourselves from this deception through philosophical method How is this possible without freedom of the mind? 9

10. Locke�s dualism Locke begins with matter as condition of simple ideas and then refutes materialist explanation of ideas 10

11. Hume and Smith too escape the determinism of the passions Hume: reason is a slave of the passions But Hume escapes the passions when he reflects on their causes And finds nothing there And Smith escapes the passions that drive the individuals to pursue their interests in accord with the requirements of the market When he looks theoretically upon the whole interconnected reality of the market The God�s eye point of view that Hume rejects And finds that he is powerless to affect it, in order to perfect it 11

12. Hence Descartes� dualism On the one hand there are the laws of matter On the other hand, there is the mind, which is non-material, capable of comprehending these laws Locke follows Descartes, but modestly (as an underlaborer) takes the laws of the material world as given, as his starting point Mind, spirit, then appears as an exception to these laws But Descartes begins with mind as the condition of the laws themselves Logically, we must know the mind first, which is our instrument before we can know the world outside of us by means of it 12

13. 3 Descartes� Method of the Free Mind �Method consists entirely in the order and disposition of the objects towards which our mental vision must be directed if we would find out any truth. We shall comply with it exactly if we reduce involved and obscure propositions step by step to those that are simpler, and then starting with the intuitive apprehension of all those that are absolutely simple, attempt to ascend to the knowledge of all others by precisely similar steps.� 13

14. Three steps of scientific method 1) Analysis of world given in experience 2) Choice of a simple starting point from the aspects derived from 1) 3) Reconstruction of experience from the starting point, going from simple to complex Note: method is not a matter of leaving the realm of objects, but of proper �order and disposition of the objects� 14

15. Descartes� new starting point Hobbes begins with straight-line motion the starting point of the objects studied by physics. Descartes beings with thinking the more fundamental starting point of science itself Thinking itself must become an object for thought 15

16. Freedom of thought 1) to choose the right starting point from all the impressions 2) to follow the method step-by-step without being seduced by immediate appearances Presupposes a free-standing, self-moving subject capable of reorganizing the objects of experience in a way chosen by oneself according to a logical method 16

17. Thinking machines? �For we can easily understand a machine�s being constituted so that it can utter words, and even emit some responses to action on it of a corporeal kind, which brings about a change in its organs; for instance, if it is touched in a particular part it may ask what we wish to say to it; if in another part it may exclaim that it is being hurt, and so on. But it never happens that it arranges its speech in various ways, in order to reply appropriately to everything that may be said in its presence, as even the lowest type of man can do.� 17

18. Human openness and infinity Thinking machines are programmed to respond in determinate ways to determinate stimuli or inputs Animals are similarly specialized to respond to the requirements of their particular ecological niche they never become self-reflective and self-transforming beings capable of unlimited evolution But the human mind is infinitely open to new arrangements and possibilities: i.e., it is free 18

19. Independence of the mind Mind cannot be a function of body Otherwise science would be impossible External inputs would result in outputs according to the deterministic mechanics of the bodily organism And no reordering of the inputs would be possible It must be independent of the body 19

20. Unity of mind and body So the human being is a unity of mind and body. Descartes stresses the unity of two substances, not their duality. But his main goal: to demonstrate the independence of spirit from matter That�s enough for one philosopher 20

21. 4 The New Logic of Rational Transformation Francis Bacon�s (1561 �1626) three methods (New Organon v. Aristotle�s Organon) The empiricism of the ant The rationalism of the spider The transformative rationality of the bee The transformative power is within the bee�thinking transforming the material of experience Rationalist primacy of thought is not spider�s method: thinking without material to transformatively digest 21

22. A new logic is needed Bacon�s New Organon refers to Aristotle�s Organon calls for a new logic in accord with the new sciences� one that is free from the accumulation of information due to sensory experience of the old Aristotelian logic (method of the ant) A classification of reality as observed without adopting a theory of innate ideas (Plato�s method of the spider) 22

23. Hobbes� inconsistencies Theoretically in admitting the power of thinking reason to reconstruct reality In reducing thinking to being a product of externally moved matter Practically In seeing people as moved by passions While capable of creating a rational state to overcome their passions Hobbes is a rationalist regarding method, but does not explore reason first (and so falls into inconsistencies) 23

24. Locke�s dualism Locke rejects a priori ideas or the primacy of thinking (Descartes?) and argues that our ideas are based on simple sensory impressions And yet he insists also on an independent power of thinking To explain sensory experience itself Ideas are not physical To guide science beyond appearances Material substance is a configuration of fundamental particles as yet unknown To guide individuals in practical life Idea of humanity is implicit in our actions with others and imposes norms 24

25. Hume�s inconsistency He insists on the primacy of impressions over ideas, passions over reason And yet philosophical reason breaks from the beliefs produced by the passions Observing the movements of ordinary life from an outside scientific perspective But this activity of the mind achieves nothing positive of its own: no new scientific truths for practical life producing angst And flight back to the irrationality of ordinary beliefs Which are nevertheless moderated thanks to philosophical skepticism 25

26. Beyond sense impressions For Hobbes, Locke and Hume, the validity of ideas is established by tracing them back to sense impressions And yet post-Copernican modern science requires a break from the primacy of sense experience 26

27. Smith�s higher perspective Understanding the whole economic realm as a system of division of labor, Smith�s reason is outside the system he explains He is exhilarated by his comprehension (like Pascal for astronomy: the mind comprehends the universe) And depressed by his powerlessness to act on its basis (also like Pascal: physically, I am a mere speck) 27

28. Smith�s solution But reality imposes a solution (otherwise the system will self-destruct) Give the workers education: a larger understanding of the world in which they operate and the obstacles imposed by narrow beliefs (comforting to Hume) will give way to the freely flowing purposes of combined humanity 28

29. Power of the human spirit Implied by Hobbes� appeal to the fiat of reason in creating the State, overcoming the passions that drive people to partiality Contradicting his materialism Implied by Hume�s ability to free himself from the beliefs produced by the passions Contradicting his position that reason is a slave of the passions Implied by Smith�s belief in the power of education to rescue society from its own self-destruction Contradicting his postulate of the primacy of individual self-interest 29

30. Descartes on the democratic impulse of science �Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed.� The scientific method is available to all Starting point is simple Proceeds step-by-step Need only patience and perseverance Scientific method implicitly contradicts the inequality of his society, and the illusions that justify it 30

31. 5 Cogito Ergo Sum �And since all the same thoughts and conceptions which we have while awake may also come to us in sleep, without any of them being at that time true, I resolved to assume that everything that ever entered into my mind was no more true than the illusions of my dreams. 31

32. �But immediately afterwards I noticed that whilst I thus wished to think all things false, it was absolutely essential that the �I� who thought this should be somewhat [something], 32

33. �and remarking that this truth �I think, therefore I am� was so certain and so assured that all the most extravagant suppositions brought forward by the sceptics were incapable of shaking it, I came to the conclusion that I could receive it without scruple as the first principle of the Philosophy for which I was seeking.� 33

34. Doubting everything Standpoint of doubt was natural after the Copernican revolution But today we take the scientific point of view as a given People today no longer take perceptions at face value, but accept the scientific reconstruction as if we directly experienced it Only poets now speak to direct experience And children 34

35. Seeing a rainbow (1) My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety. William Wordsworth, �My heart leaps up when I behold,� http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww194.html. 35

36. Seeing a rainbow (2) rainbow is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines on to droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. It takes the form of a multicoloured arc. Rainbows caused by sunlight always appear in the section of sky directly opposite the sun. 36

37. What can�t be doubted In a dream all objects are unreal, though we think that they are real (i.e., existing independently of us) >Perhaps our waking experience is another kind of dream But the �I� that does the dreaming was real �I think� � i.e., I am conscious of myself It must be true that I, the thinker, the dreamer, at least am real. �I exist� = Starting point of a science of reality 37

38. What causes �I�? Materialists argue that consciousness is the product of objects outside of it The �I� of the dream cannot be the product of the objects dreamt about Because they are not real: It is the dreamer who creates these objects And so cannot be created by them (as materialists would argue) So in the dream I am aware of myself existing independently of objects outside of myself �I think� Therefore I exist independently of any reality outside myself �Therefore I am� 38

39. A thinking substance �From that I knew that I was a substance the whole essence or nature of which is to think, and that for its existence there is no need of any place, nor does it depend on any material thing; so that this �me,� that is to say, the soul by which I am what I am, is entirely distinct from body, and is even more easy to know than is the latter; and even if body were not, the soul would not cease to be what it is.� 39

40. Non sequitur? John Cottingham, editor of The Cambridge Companion to Descartes, says of Descartes� move �from the proposition that he can doubt the existence of his body to the conclusion that he can exist without his body,� that it �is, or ought to be, regarded as one of the most notorious nonsequiturs in the history of philosophy.� 40

41. The supposed argument I think therefore I am: I can think of myself as flying (or existing without a body) (Whatever I think of is real) Therefore I am really flying (or existing without a body) 41

42. Existential self-awareness 1) I am aware of myself in a dream, where nothing else is real (�I am thinking�) 2) My self-consciousness (�I think�) does not depend on the external things or objects I am thinking about (including the brain or body) Because they aren�t real in the dream But I the dreamer am real: my thinking is a self-contained reality that creates thoughts, ideas, imaginary objects 3) My self-consciousness exists (�I am�), independently of the brain or body 42

43. Compare Locke�s argument 1) My idea of red is the redness I see it as Qualitative nature of acts of consciousness 2) The brain consists of material particles in motion 3) Material particles in motion can only produce other material particles in motion 4) Therefore the brain cannot cause my ideas (and my thinking about them) i.e., consciousness of an idea is a phenomenologically distinct reality, irreducible to material �causes� 43

44. Critique of Locke Descartes: but Locke�s argument supposes knowledge of material particles How do I know those? Locke takes such knowledge as given And yet what I directly know are ideas, not material things But the subsequent development of British philosophy (Berkeley, Hume) shows that knowledge of material things on the basis of ideas is impossible 44

45. Vicious circle? 1) we begin with material things existing outside of us as described by science 2) knowledge, consciousness, is produced when these external things interact with the physical organism 3) But consciousness (perception, knowledge) is qualitiatively distinct from material properties 4) and all I directly know are ideas 5) I therefore cannot ever know the material things (1) Berkeley, Hume 45

46. What is given in the first place? 1) we can�t trust sensations as the basis of knowledge (Copernican revolution in science) 2) What I am given in the first place are only my acts of consciousness and their ideal objects 3) and the peculiar reality or existence of the being that thinks, i.e., myself, the �I think� 4) Not everything I can think of exists Cottingham supposes that Descartes argues this 5) But my own thinking at least must exist as the condition of everything I can think of 46

47. What comes next? 6) Next question: does anything else exist? I.e., a non-thinking substance, a �body�? 7) To suppose a dependence on the body for thinking is to beg this question of how we know bodies�i.e., substances that are unlike what we directly know 8) Cottingham�s critique begs this question, as does Hobbes and Locke 47

48. 6 Immortality of the Soul �. . . we cannot conceive of body excepting in so far as it is divisible, while the mind cannot be conceived of excepting as indivisible. For we are not able to conceive of the half of a mind as we can do of the smallest of all bodies; so that we see that not only are their natures different but even in some respects contrary to one another. . . . 48

49. �[W]hat I have said is sufficient to show clearly enough that the extinction of the mind does not follow from the corruption of the body, and also to give men the hope of another life after death . . .� 49

50. Unity and divisibility �I� (self-awareness) is a unity in all the multiple modes of consciousness I dream, I desire, I imagine, I think rationally, etc. There is no left and right half of �I� As there is, supposedly, of the brain Material objects are regarded as inherently divisible But not self-awareness So these are fundamentally different �substances� 50

51. Hope for immortality The divisibility of the body at death does not imply the death of the soul (the indivisible unity of self-awareness) But that does not guarantee immortality Because there is a difference between �I think� and �I am� => I am not the cause of my own existence or being: thinking presupposes being, but does not cause it Otherwise, I would cause myself to think better than I do: truth would come easily 51

52. Thinking doesn�t create itself and so must depend a body To say that thinking is independent of the body, and a self-moving reality, seems to imply that thinking creates itself. But thinking obviously doesn�t create itself We thinking beings are dependent in all sorts of ways: sensations and passions arise out of the physical world, not our minds Therefore thinking must depend on something other than itself, And that can only be the body 52

53. Dependence and causality Being dependent on something doesn�t necessarily mean being caused by it Locke: we see red only in the presence of certain material objects. But these material objects do not cause the idea of red, but only condition its appearance Hence the dependence of our minds on the physical world for sensations and passions does not require that physical forces cause our mental activities If that were the case how could be doubt our sensations? How could we criticize our passions? 53

54. But bodies are dependent too Bodies do not cause themselves either Being or existence is presupposed to both mental and physical realities Hence the fundamental dependence of �I think� is not dependence on a body, but on being This argument points forward to the second proof for the existence of God from the nature of being and time 54

55. Strengthening the argument Step-by-step presentation so far: 1) I think (different forms of consciousness) 2) I am (peculiar existence of the self-conscious being) 3) Contrast between the thinking being and our concept of a non-thinking, material substance 4) Possibility of immortality, but not necessity Because thinking is not the same as being: It is conceivable that the �I� will die, not because consciousness is divisible but because it is no longer sustained in its being or existence 55

56. 7 The Light within Us �I see that there is manifestly more reality in infinite substance than in finite, and therefore that in some way I have in me the notion of the infinite earlier than the finite�to wit, the notion of God before that of myself. 56

57. �For how would it be possible that I should know that I doubt and desire, that is to say, that something is lacking to me, and that I am not quite perfect, unless I had within me some idea of a Being more perfect than myself, in comparison with which I should recognise the deficiencies of my nature?� 57

58. The next step 1) Illusions of ordinary experience I am deceived about reality (result of Copernican revolution in science) 2) Truth: I think therefore I am 3) Why do I seek truth in the state of illusion? 58

59. Idea of perfection is implicit in above 4) Because there is in me already the idea of perfection which makes me dissatisfied with a state of illusion, untruth and imperfection that I find myself in. Without an idea of truth, of perfection, I would be content with the world as I experience it Like a cow chewing its cud 5) This idea precedes and makes possible my consciousness of my ignorance (1) 59

60. Making explicit what is implicit Descartes proceeds step-by-step From a simple idea of consciousness, the bare minimal starting point of self-awareness To a more complex idea: consciousness as a movement from ignorance to knowledge, from illusion to truth And hence to a source of stimulation within consciousness: �idea of perfection within me� 60

61. Consciousness is not a thing Misleading idea of �I think� as �substance� like a table and chair Consciousness is radically unlike these �things� Another implicit difference between matter and spirit Tables and chairs are what they are But consciousness is not what it is and is what it is not (Sartre) I am aware of myself precisely as not perfect, as lacking what I want, so as to be what I want to be In the light of an idea of perfecting myself, an ideal of perfect being that I am not which makes possible the movement of consciousness that I am 61

62. Infinity of thought Human consciousness is a movement from non-being, lack, spiritual desire to fulfillment from imperfection to perfection, finite (closed) to infinite (open) Recall: infinity of human thinking being v finitude of thinking machine The machine is arranged in a certain way The thinking person keeps rearranging itself = Another way of characterizing the difference between matter and spirit 62

63. The argument circles back The idea of God (a perfect being) precedes the idea of myself The steps of the argument circle back to the starting point Recall Kant: what is the ground of the possibility of � We start with doubting, deception We come back to asking how doubting is possible This is not a vicious circle: it does not undermine its starting point, but deepens it, enriches it Contrary to the vicious circle in British philosophy It is a spiraling movement 63

64. Reconstruction of the argument 1) I am conscious of objects that I at first take to be real but which I discover are not real (sun goes around earth) 2) But my thinking itself is real: I think therefore I am 3) reflecting back on 1) and 2): the reality of thinking is that of a movement, a process, from ignorance to knowledge 4) Which presupposes a deeper condition: knowledge of perfection, and the desire to be perfect 5) Hence, a lack in oneself, in one�s own �being� 6) and an aspiration to infinity �The human being is the desire to be God� (Sartre) 64