Paste your essay in here…In Descartes “ Wax argument”, he is trying to provide a clear and distinct knowledge of “I” which represents the mind while corporeal things, “whose images are framed by thought, and which the senses themselves imagine are much more distinctly known than this mysterious ‘I’ which does not fall within the imagination” ( Descartes 36). In this argument, descartes states that corporeal things are not perceived through our senses or imagination but through our intellect. Descartes uses the “ Wax “ in the second meditation of Meditations on First Philosophy to explain why we as thinking things are able to know a thing even if it has been changed in some way.
In Descartes meditation 2 , he analyzes a piece of wax to see if he can see describe it through the senses. The hard piece of wax has properties of form and texture when he first examines the wax, but then when he examines it again all of its features changes as it becomes warmer by the fire. This explains Descartes claim “ wax itself never really is the sweetness of the honey, nor the fragrance of the flowers, nor the whiteness, nor the shape, nor the sound” (Descartes) and the only knowledge we get from this is “ it is something extended, flexible, and mutable” (Descartes). Even though the properties of the wax changed , we are able to see that the object is still the object and we rely on our senses to provides us with information to determine what a this is although it will tell us different things our minds will be able to take that information and
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determine what it is. This forces us to realize that that it is difficult to understand the true nature of the wax, and its identity is not able to be identified from other things that have the same qualities as the wax. Therefore, there must be something inherently characteristic of that thing; because we wouldn’t be able to conclude what exactly it was because our senses can deceive us.
Descartes is now in the position where he explains the stages of the argument and leading to his conclusion. In the first stage, it show that if we rely on our senses we can get to know all that is there to know about the wax. But from moment to moment (when the wax is heated) it loses all the properties that our senses told us it has. We gain information from the senses that at one moment it is hard and cold; tastes like honey; smells flowery; has specific shape. But at the next moment, when the wax is heated, it loses all the properties that our senses told us it has. If we rely on our senses we can only apparently know everything there is to know about a piece of wax. We think, then, that our senses apparently can tell us everything there is to know about the piece of wax. Next , Our senses shows us at one moment something that has color, shape an odor can change into a hot,odorless liquid. Descartes now wonders what happens when the wax get close to fire. According to the text , “ what remained of the taste is exhaled, the smell evaporates, the colour alters, the figure is destroyed, the size increases, it becomes liquid, it heats, scarcely can one handle it,and when one strikes it, no sound is emitted” ( Descartes 36). All of the qualities of the wax changes and it is now soft when before it was hard. Nonetheless, the same piece of wax still remains. We know that the solid piece of wax and the melted piece of wax are the same cannot come through the senses since all of its properties have changed. Our minds can perceive the true nature of the wax. By reasoning, we can know what the melted wax is the same thing is the solid wax. “Don’t I know myself much more truly and certainly, and also much more
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distinctly and plainly,than I know the wax?” (Descartes 39), therefore, descartes thinks that if we can understand “extension”“solidity” “wax” “liquid” concepts, this tells us something about how our minds work. He concludes the stages of the argument by saying nothing can be more easily and more evidently perceived by me than my mind. The texte stated “proper speaking, bodies are cognized noy by the senses or by the imagination, but are grasped by the understanding alone” and “ nothing is more easily or more evidently apprehended by me than my mind” (Descartes 40).
One of the objections to the wax argument comes from Hobbes where he agrees with Descartes when he states that he is a thinking thing. The fact that I think,or have an image it follows that I am thinking; for ‘I think’ and ‘I am thinking’ mean the same thing. And from the fact that I am thinking it follows that I am, because something that thinks isn’t nothing. But when Descartes adds ‘that is, I am a mind or intelligence or intellect or reason’,Hobbes disagreed. He stated that Descartes identified the thing that understands with thinking, something which thinking does or the thing that understands with intellect is a power that the thing has. Hobbes ended his argument by saying that to know the idea ‘I exist’ depends on knowing the idea ‘I think’ and knowing it depends on our inability to separate thought from the matter that is thinking. In Descartes defense, ‘that is, I am mind, or intelligence, or intellect or reason’, he meant things have faculty or thought, not mere faculties or abilities. Hobbes uses words like ‘subject’, ‘matter’ and ‘body’ to refer to this thinking things which forms it into something inseparable from the body should stop using words but focus on the subject matter.
In conclusion, it is impossible to realize the mind as a distinct thing unless there is already consciousness of an external body from which it is distinct.the wax is distinct from the mind as much as the mind is distinct from the wax. Our perception of the body can cease to be obtained in any way by our senses, therefore, our knowledge of the wax remains uncertain.