I am not decided on the issue. I certainly have rationalist sympathies, but am unclear if it’s an issue of senses misleading or us mis-judging the senses. We see something in the sky, could be a plane or a star. We decide that it’s a star, tomorrow we find out it was actually a plane. In the process of *judgment* do the senses play a part or not? It’s hard to say. Maybe we can’t seperate them as much as we think. Maybe we can.

"Whatever I have accepted until now as most true has come to me through my senses. But occasionally I have found that they have deceived me, and it is unwise to trust completely those who have deceived us even once. -- Descartes — frank

The reference to personal betrayal is interesting here. A loss of trust questioning the good faith of the interlocutor. The relationship is in peril before the trial has begun. The setting reminds me of Dante who discovers he is lost "midway through life's journey." The failure to find one's way threatens madness.

I am not decided on the issue. I certainly have rationalist sympathies, but am unclear if it’s an issue of senses misleading or us mis-judging the senses. We see something in the sky, could be a plane or a star. We decide that it’s a star, tomorrow we find out it was actually a plane. In the process of *judgment* do the senses play a part or not? It’s hard to say. Maybe we can’t seperate them as much as we think. Maybe we can. — Manuel

Phenomenologically, it seems like the self and the world are two poles of sensation. if you look out the window, notice how you frame the experience as a connection between sensor and sensed. The two imply one another and they're inextricable. Descartes is asking if we can break this structure. Can we do it by flat out denying one pole, that is the sensed?

The reference to personal betrayal is interesting here. A loss of trust questioning the good faith of the interlocutor. The relationship is in peril before the trial has begun. The setting reminds me of Dante who discovers he is lost "midway through life's journey." The failure to find one's way threatens madness. — Paine

:up:

We can suppress them (the senses) to an extent. But it's the intellect which calls the shot when it comes to making truth claims, on this latter part, Descartes is quite right.

We can suppress them (the senses) to an extent. But it's the intellect which calls the shot when it comes to making truth claims, on this latter part, Descartes is quite right. — Manuel

But when we ask the world questions, like: is that a star I sense? Or an airplane? We want the world to speak, not our own intellects. All the human truth teller is doing is repeating what the world has said. The intellect is just supposed to aid us in hearing the world correctly, right?

Although the common picture of Descartes focuses on the dualism of mind and body, it should not overshadow the unity of his work as a whole which includes medicine, optics, and ethics. This is most easily seen in his Discourse on Method and the appendixes on geometry, optics, and meteorology.

Descartes' science of optics stands as a counterweight to the doubts raised in the Meditations. He begins the discourse on optics:

All the conduct of our lives depends on our senses, among which the sense of sight being the most universal and most noble, there is no doubt that the inventions which serve to augment its power are the most useful that could be made.

The science of optics is a study and theory of the nature of light. Its explanations are in terms of a physics of motion and physiology. Further, what is at issue is not the fact that the senses can deceive us but that they can be augmented and improved upon. Descartes overarching concern is not to bifurcate but to unify.

In his synopsis of the Meditations he says:

... the premisses which lead to the conclusion that the soul is immortal depend on an account of the whole of physics.

In other words, his metaphysics is grounded in physics. And yet he says in the First Meditation:

So a reasonable conclusion from this might be that physics, astronomy, medicine, and all other disciplines which depend on the study of composite things, are doubtful; while arithmetic, geometry and other subjects of this kind, which deal with the simplest and most general things, regardless of whether they really exist in nature or not, contain something certain and indubitable.

The problem is obvious. If his account of the immortality of the soul depends on an account of physics but it is reasonable to conclude that physics is doubtful then it is reasonable to conclude that the immortality of the soul is doubtful.

If only he had an Archimedean Point.

But when we ask the world questions, like: is that a star I sense? Or an airplane? We want the world to speak, not our own intellects. All the human truth teller is doing is repeating what the world has said. The intellect is just supposed to aid us in hearing the world correctly, right? — frank

But you don't recognize a star by sense, you recognize by the intellect. You see with your eye, but judge with your intellect.

The world doesn't speak, we reach conclusions based on what we are able to discern. Here Descartes would likely introduce his famous "common notions", but I'm yet to read the Meditations a second time, more carefully.

I do remember him making quite astute observations about what we literally see and how we interpret what we see. I think his example was seeing a hat, and inferring a person, something like that.

But this latter part moves us quite ahead in the Meditations.

:up:

Next is Descartes' reasoning for why he could be wrong about whether the hand in front of him is his hand:

What a brilliant piece of reasoning! As if I were not a man who sleeps at night and often has all the same experiences while asleep as madmen do when awake – indeed sometimes even more improbable ones. Often in my dreams I am convinced of just such familiar events – that I am sitting by the fire in my dressing-gown – when in fact I am lying undressed in bed! Yet right now my eyes are certainly wide open when I look at this piece of paper; I shake my head and it isn’t asleep; when I rub one hand against the other, I do it deliberately and know what I am doing. This wouldn’t all happen with such clarity to someone asleep.

"Indeed! As if I didn’t remember other occasions when I have been tricked by exactly similar thoughts while asleep! As I think about this more carefully, I realize that there is never any reliable way of distinguishing being awake from being asleep.

"This discovery makes me feel dizzy, which itself reinforces the notion that I may be asleep! Suppose then that I am dreaming – it isn’t true that I, with my eyes open, am moving my head and stretching out my hands. Suppose, indeed that I don’t even have hands or any body at all." — Descartes, First Meditation

So don't really have to be a madman to doubt that your hand is really yours. You could be asleep right now. There doesn't appear to be any criteria for determining if what's happening to you now is a dream or reality. But then, dreams imply a world that's been copied by the mind:

Still, it has to be admitted that the visions that come in sleep are like paintings: they must have been made as copies of real things; so at least these general kinds of things – eyes, head, hands and the body as a whole – must be real and not imaginary. For even when painters try to depict sirens and satyrs with the most extraordinary bodies, they simply jumble up the limbs of different kinds of real animals, rather than inventing natures that are entirely new. If they do succeed in thinking up something completely fictitious and unreal – not remotely like anything ever seen before – at least the colours used in the picture must be real. Similarly, although these general kinds of things – eyes, head, hands and so on – could be imaginary, there is no denying that certain even simpler and more universal kinds of things are real. These are the elements out of which we make all our mental images of things – the true and also the false ones.

These simpler and more universal kinds include body, and extension; the shape of extended things; their quantity, size and number; the places things can be in, the time through which they can last, and so on.

So it seems reasonable to conclude that physics, astronomy, medicine, and all other sciences dealing with things that have complex structures are doubtful; while arithmetic, geometry and other studies of the simplest and most general things – whether they really exist in nature or not – contain something certain and indubitable. For whether I am awake or asleep, two plus three makes five, and a square has only four sides. It seems impossible to suspect that such obvious truths might be false. — Descartes, First Meditation

So our doubts continue to develop. Now what seems indubitable is that two plus three makes five. How could that be wrong?

So our doubts continue to develop. — frank

He does not doubt that there are:

... simpler and more universal kinds include body, and extension; the shape of extended things; their quantity, size and number; the places things can be in, the time through which they can last, and so on. — Descartes, First Meditation

At this point the ontological status of these things has not been determined. Only that they are:

... the elements out of which we make all our mental images of things – the true and also the false ones.

but perhaps nothing more.

Now what seems indubitable is that two plus three makes five. — frank

He says that such obvious truths cannot be false, but the problem remains as to what they are truths of, that is:

... whether they really exist in nature or not ... — Descartes, First Meditation

The full significance of this is revealed in what follows immediately:

...I have for many years been sure that there is an all-powerful God who made me to be the sort of creature that I am.

This too must be doubted. Both that there is an all-powerful God and what sort of creature he, Descartes, is.

He has claimed that:

For whether I am awake or asleep, two plus three makes five, and a square has only four sides.

but in what follows:

... how do I know that I myself don’t go wrong every time I add two and three or count the sides of a square?

:up:

I don't have to tell this to you, I'm kind of "typing out loud" here but, he really doesn't deserve the amount of crap that is often levied his way, in particular for his dualism.

Nevertheless, the basic orientation of arguing that complex thoughts are created by the combination of quite simple "things" (whatever they are ontologically) is remarkably modern and very fruitful.

there are some propositions which seem impossible to doubt without claiming insanity. How can I doubt that these are my hands? — frank

This is the bottom of a very long fall, so it seems absurd; and people take philosophy as esoteric, unpractical, and academic because they associate it with taking this worry seriously. But, as I said, it starts with the fear that we could be deceived in our cultural assumptions and societal norms. Another way to see this is that we might not know how to go on together at some point, that we might be judged wrong despite following orders, that the words we say might betray us. We are scared and anxious of, as it were, the future: uncertain, unpredictable outcomes.

Socrates will say that contradictory ideas “clash with each other in our soul” and Theatetus says that he “wonders immensely what these things are, and really sometimes I feel dizzy when I look at them.” Socrates says this “wonder” is the “origin of philosophy”. Descartes will also feel “dizzy” at the realization that there is no foundation whatsoever, not even as to whether I am awake. But the concern is for certainty in our opinions and customs, which are what he really wants to get straight about. We want knowledge to be as certain as the hands in front of our face; we don’t doubt our hands, we doubt that knowledge will save us at all.

:up:

Next in the first Meditation, he presents this argument for why I might be wrong about "2+5=7"

However, I have for many years been sure that there is an all-powerful God who made me to be the sort of creature that I am. How do I know that he hasn’t brought it about that there is no earth, no sky, nothing that takes up space, no shape, no size, no place, while making sure that all these things appear to me to exist? Anyway, I sometimes think that others go wrong even when they think they have the most perfect knowledge; so how do I know that I myself don’t go wrong every time I add two and three or count the sides of a square? Well, you might say·, God would not let me be deceived like that, because he is said to be supremely good. But, I reply, if God’s goodness would stop him from letting me be deceived all the time, you would expect it to stop him from allowing me to be deceived even occasionally; yet clearly I sometimes am deceived.

Some people would deny the existence of such a powerful God rather than believe that everything else is uncertain. Let us grant them – for purposes of argument – that there is no God, and theology is fiction. On their view, then, I am a product of fate or chance or a long chain of causes and effects. But the less powerful they make my original cause, the more likely it is that I am so imperfect as to be deceived all the time – because deception and error seem to be imperfections. Having no answer to these arguments, I am driven back to the position that doubts can properly be raised about any of my former beliefs. I don’t reach this conclusion in a flippant or casual manner, but on the basis of powerful and well thought-out reasons. So in future, if I want to discover any certainty, I must withhold my assent from these former beliefs just as carefully as I withhold it from obvious falsehoods. — Descartes, First Meditation

In modern language, he's just saying that it's metaphysically possible that he could be in circumstances where he's wrong about arithmetic. A divinity could create those conditions.

He answers an objection to this, that the divinity he's describing can't exist because God is loving. God wouldn't do that to His creations. Descartes answers that if that were true, he should never find himself deceived.

Another objection is to the framework of metaphysical possibility: one could just deny that there is any divinity at all, so remove the primary power of that kind of possibility. Descartes answers that this doesn't bring us back to certainty, though. Without a divinity, Descartes says he would be left at the extremity of imperfection (divinity basically is existence and perfection), and so it's more likely that he would be deceived all of the time.

So up to this point, we've lost confidence in the certainty of

1. that this is my hand
2. that 2+3=5
3. that there is any earth, sky, space, shape, size, place, etc.

This is a quick Wikipedia article on the medieval conception of God.

The crux of what I see is that Descartes is demonizing the inherent fallibility of our human condition.

I sometimes think that others go wrong even when they think they have the most perfect knowledge; — Descartes, First Meditation

Even in the best case scenario, even when required to be “perfect”, knowledge—predetermined, non-contextual, hoping to predict the right thing to do (“ought”)—is flawed in Descartes assessment.

But the less powerful they make my original cause, the more likely it is that I am so imperfect as to be deceived all the time – because deception and error seem to be imperfections. — Descartes, First Meditation

But we regularly fail, make mistakes, don’t assess the situation (act thoughtlessly) or do so not taking into account the other, etc. None of this is reason for panic or a vortex of irrationality. The possibility of error in our actions does not lead to the conclusion that all our efforts are hopeless. And not just “wrong” but seemingly for no reason, randomly, as if it could happen at any time without our being able to see it coming (thus, maliciously). This is the motivation of the desire to have the predictability and stability of science or math or our direct sensations, so that we can just follow the moral rules and never be wrong or judged.

The crux of what I see is that Descartes is demonizing the inherent fallibility of our human condition. — Antony Nickles

Well, he does posit a demon but I do not think he is demonizing our fallibility.

But we regularly fail, make mistakes, don’t assess the situation (act thoughtlessly) or do so not taking into account the other, etc. None of this is reason for panic or a vortex of irrationality. — Antony Nickles

We do, but he does not argue that this is reason for panic or a vortex of irrationality. Quite the opposite, it is reason to find something indubitable and build on that foundation.

so that we can just follow the moral rules and never be wrong or judged. — Antony Nickles

In the Discourse on Method Descartes presents his "provisional morality".

My third maxim was to try always to master myself rather than fortune, and to change my desires rather than the order of the world.

It is provisional because his method will allow man to master fortune. Man will no longer have to accept things the way they are. Descartes method of reason is, as he says in the Meditations, the Archimedean point from which he can move the world.

It's a part of it, I think, though he does have a very strong optimistic streak so far as the extent of human reason can go in attaining knowledge.

He wanted to get rid of most of the influence of scholastics, which he thought were generally quite mistaken in terms of arguments and conclusions and reasoning in general.

But he did think that if one follow him in his specific method, no question we set ourselves to answer, will be beyond our reach. He's somewhat inconsistent, at least in his Rules for the Direction of Mind, where he sometimes seems to acknowledge that we do have certain limits.

It was a good corrective and obviously he set forth a immeasurable change in philosophy away from metaphysics and into epistemology, and he got an awful lot correct. But he was too optimistic about what we can know, even though he does point out, as you do, that many ways we are led to error.

But he's mostly remembered in popular cultures by being that guy who postulated two substances, as if there somehow idiotic, given the state of knowledge during his life...

Well, he does posit a demon but I do not think he is demonizing our fallibility — Fooloso4

This seems to be splitting hairs. I think we can agree he’s not actually claiming there’s a demon. I welcome your reading, but I am claiming he is externalizing that he is demonized (afraid), that his ability to have a clear path through our culture and customs is fraught. He is afraid that we are unable to tell right from wrong; that the human condition is unfounded.

but he does not argue that this is reason for panic or a vortex of irrationality. Quite the opposite, it is reason to find something indubitable and build on that foundation. — Fooloso4

He is anxious that he might turn out to be wrong (“I was struck by how many false things I had believed”) or that he is not aware of, explicitly, the opinions he “confidently assents to”, that “keep coming back… as though they had a right to a place in my belief-system”—our ordinary beliefs. The reason to find a foundation is the fear, the lack of confidence, the unease of possibly being wrong.

he does have a very strong optimistic streak so far as the extent of human reason can go in attaining knowledge. — Manuel

The thing about Descartes, even Socrates, is that they do put the cart before the horse in wanting a specific type of knowledge (to solve our doubts) even before they get started, but in searching they do find a method that advances our ability to dig into a subject, even if they don’t get things right, or are barking up the wrong tree (such as imagining if we get clear about our sensations we will solve our moral dilemmas).

Sure - this was a phenomenon common the classical tradition of the rationalists and the empiricists, they believed that the contents of our mind were transparent and, could be treated as such. They did provide a useful framework on how to proceed, but, as you mention, it was not quite right, but surely understandable and not worthy of reproach (not that you are reproaching them), given the time they (and in particular Descartes) lived in.

In any case, the shift to epistemology is definitive with Descartes, and that is still fully with us to this day and doesn't look like it will go away for the foreseeable future.

We decide that it’s a star, tomorrow we find out it was actually a plane. In the process of *judgment* do the senses play a part or not? It’s hard to say. Maybe we can’t seperate them as much as we think. Maybe we can. — Manuel

In regard to the question whether the senses play a part; how do we later find out it was a plane?

The Second Meditation:

“I feel like someone who is suddenly dropped into a deep whirlpool that tumbles him around so that he can neither stand on the bottom nor swim to the top.”

Emerson starts his essay Experience lost “[ i ] n a series of which we do not know the extremes, and believe that it has none.” They are in surroundings with no form and no way to orient. The analogy is apt because Descartes has no specific subject, and so no context from where to start. The abstraction leads to a general response without the criteria of an ordinary circumstance, and so grasps for the criteria of perfection.

“I will suppose, then, that everything I see is fictitious. I will believe that my memory tells me nothing but lies. I have no senses. Body, shape, extension, movement and place are illusions.”

He goes on to create the picture that our human faculties are the problem: that our sight creates fiction, our memory lies, and our sensations are illusions. Framing it on ordinary terms like dream, illusion, fiction, and lies gives us understandable ways of making it right: to awaken (pay attention), find what is not fake, sort out the facts, and authenticate. Unfortunately, Descartes, and everyone thereafter, takes the judgment of what the solution needs to be away from these ordinary contexts, and so postulates consciousness, reality, factual basis, and truth vs falsity (rather than mistake).

Somebody tells tomorrow that new military technology which looks bright at night, it could be confused for a star. Or we see the "star" moving very, very slowly, but we are uncertain because we are sleepy, tomorrow we ask was a star moving last night, and someone tells us that there's an airport nearby, and people confuse stars with planes because of that. Any reason, really.

I am claiming he is externalizing that he is demonized (afraid), that his ability to have a clear path through our culture and customs is fraught. — Antony Nickles

I think you have mistaken a rhetorical device for something existential.

From the First Meditation:

I realized that if I wanted to establish anything in the sciences that was stable and likely to last, I needed – just once in my life – to demolish everything completely and start again from the foundations. It looked like an enormous task, and I decided to wait until I was old enough to be sure that there was nothing to be gained from putting it off any longer. I have now delayed it for so long that I have no excuse for going on planning to do it rather than getting to work. So today I have set all my worries aside and arranged for myself a clear stretch of free time. I am here quite alone, and at last I will devote myself, sincerely and without holding back, to demolishing my opinions.

It is a meditation, not a crisis of doubt. He has waited to do this meditation until he was able to set aside the time to withdraw from the practical concerns of daily life. It is in that sense a practice of abstraction.

The thing about Descartes, even Socrates, is that they do put the cart before the horse in wanting a specific type of knowledge ... — Antony Nickles

In my opinion, knowledge of our ignorance is the proper philosophical starting point. Descartes was more cautious than Socrates. But he was also more cautious than Galileo, who did know something of which the Church was ignorant.

How could Descartes claim that there are things the Church is ignorant of, thing the Church claimed that are doubtful and wrong? By doubting everything.

Thanks for posting from Meditation 2. I just wanted to comment on this last portion of the first Meditation before moving on:

It isn’t enough merely to have noticed this, though; I must make an effort to remember it. My old familiar opinions keep coming back, and against my will they capture my belief. It is as though they had a right to a place in my belief-system as a result of long occupation and the law of custom. It is true that these habitual opinions of mine are highly probable; although they are in a sense doubtful, as I have shown, it is more reasonable to believe than to deny them. But if I go on viewing them in that light I shall never get out of the habit of confidently assenting to them. To conquer that habit, therefore, I had better switch right around and pretend (for a while) that these former opinions of mine are utterly false and imaginary. I shall do this until I have something to counter-balance the weight of old opinion, and the distorting influence of habit no longer prevents me from judging correctly. However far I go in my distrustful attitude, no actual harm will come of it, because my project won’t affect how I act, but only how I go about acquiring knowledge.

So I shall suppose that some malicious, powerful, cunning demon has done all he can to deceive me – rather than this being done by God, who is supremely good and the source of truth. I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds and all external things are merely dreams that the demon has contrived as traps for my judgment. I shall consider myself as having no hands or eyes, or flesh, or blood or senses, but as having falsely believed that I had all these things. I shall stubbornly persist in this train of thought; and even if I can’t learn any truth, I shall at least do what I can do, which is to be on my guard against accepting any falsehoods, so that the deceiver – however powerful and cunning he may be – will be unable to affect me in the slightest. This will be hard work, though, and a kind of laziness pulls me back into my old ways.

Like a prisoner who dreams that he is free, starts to suspect that it is merely a dream, and wants to go on dreaming rather than waking up, so I am content to slide back into my old opinions; I fear being shaken out of them because I am afraid that my peaceful sleep may be followed by hard labour when I wake, and that I shall have to struggle not in the light but in the imprisoning darkness of the problems I have raised." — Descartes, First Meditation

@Manuel Notice how he's foreshadowing Hume's answer to the problem of induction? We seem to be bound by habits of belief, so that even if you decided to doubt everything you know, you'd find yourself "pulled back into the old ways."

So now he goes into the "imprisoning darkness" of the problems he has raised.

That's right they reach very similar conclusions so far as the usefulness and dependability of "folk psychology" (I dislike the term "folk", but, it's what we have...), the interesting thing to me is they kind of reach opposite conclusions.

Descartes tries to develop a method in which the reasons he puts forth for believing in something necessarily follow. Hume's big revelation was that we actually never observe such necessity, but merely postulate them.

Now, this brings forth an important conundrum, do we follow the principle of sufficient reason or do we go with Hume and say that this principle cannot be experienced in the world.

But that is an entirely different thread.

Still, very astute observation Frank. :up:

But that is an entirely different thread. — Manuel

True. :cool:

Is anything found there that does not come, ultimately, from the senses?

I’ll let you move the discussion forward at your leisure Frank, as it is your thread. It does appear we
may have not worked out all the issues brought up in the first part.

It is a meditation, not a crisis of doubt. He has waited to do this meditation until he was able to set aside the time to withdraw from the practical concerns of daily life. It is in that sense a practice of abstraction. — Fooloso4

If we take philosophy literally and at face value, we are not putting it in contrast to the rest of the tradition, nor questioning why he has chosen this method, why he needs certainty.

The fact that Descartes “withdraws from the practical concerns of daily life” is not only the cause of the abstraction, it is motivated by the desire for abstraction, to be apart from our human life, its uncertainty. However, in doing so, we no longer have our ordinary concerns, so we can impose the criteria for whatever concerns us most, which is to be certain.

We seem to be bound by habits of belief, so that even if you decided to doubt everything you know, you'd find yourself "pulled back into the old ways." — frank

Descartes tendency is to “slide back into my old opinions” just as Hume’s doubt would recede when he went to the bar, because we do have a “memory” (as Socrates would say) of our shard lives and judgments. I would argue that without those there is no action, no meaning, no concerns, no way to have a self, at all.

I think you have mistaken a rhetorical device for something existential. — Fooloso4

What we are told is not the only important part of philosophy. Philosophy is not about undeveloped summaries or condensed conclusions. We, like Descartes, must ask more of the text. So I do not take anything as “rhetorical” but take it seriously enough to attribute reasons for everything, implications, assumptions, motivations, blind spots, frameworks, analogies, etc. But these are not my guesses or just reading more (putting more) into a text; I supply evidence for these lines of implication. I offer you to see for yourself, or offer other answers to these open questions, other reasons for why he said this or that, said it this way or that.

Good question. From the first meditation:

Whatever I have accepted until now as most true has come to me through my senses.