Damir Kamalov
PHIL 2101
Professor Gradowski
3/7/18
The Senses
Descartes is a very interesting philosopher that really questions who he is in his Meditations readings. His rampant questioning and him stripping away any uncertainty in his life is a very interesting case to examine. However when you do that and make claims that open him up to debates. There is one claim that I found that was very much in contradiction with what he wrote before it.
In Descartes Meditations II he made the claim that as he comes to “perceive wax more distinctly by applying not just sight and touch but other considerations, it helps him know himself more distinctly” (Meditations, 8). I don’t agree with this statement even though in his train of thought it is understandable as to how he got to this conclusion. He backs up this statement by saying that “whatever goes into my perception of the wax or of any other body must do even more to establish the nature of my own mind” (Meditations, 8). In that sentence he’s using his senses to back up the claim. He first mentions sight and touch which are senses, as he analyzes the wax he uses more senses. He contradicts himself because when he says “Sense-perception one needs a body in order to perceive and besides, when dreaming I have seemed to perceive through the sense many things that I later realized I had not perceived in that way” (Meditations, 5). Here he is specifically calling into question the validity of trusting your senses. That means we can’t use our sense to determine what is correct in the world or validate our own existence with them. However he specifically does that in his original claim
The validity of his claim is very questionable as well as his reasoning. Your senses and general perception aren’t heightened when evaluating another body you’re just using them. The general idea of this statement is very strange too when you analyze the claim. He’s essentially saying that a comparison to a different body from your body establishes the nature of his mind the most. I understand where he’s coming from because when you think about something else your really using your mind which provides insight into it. Comparison between two bodies such as wax and himself activates certain senses that feed into his quest for greater bodily understanding. However you don’t really need that because just being alive and thinking about anything establishes the nature of the mind.
Another part of how he justifies his claim is when he talks about applying his senses such as sight and touch to help know himself more distinctly. If you read that in the context of Descartes you’ll remember when he said that he couldn’t trust his senses because they have deceived him before due to his dreaming. So he shouldn’t be trusting his senses anymore such as sight and touch because he has been deceived by them before.
Descartes does make a point to try to resolve this “When the wax is in front of us, we say that we see it, not that we judge it to be there from its colour or shape; and this might make me think that knowledge of the wax comes from what the eye sees rather than from the perception of the mind alone” (Meditations, 7). He tries to make a distinction between seeing something and judging it from its visual characteristics which is false. It’s the same thing except one implies more detail. He later says to prove his point “If I look out of the window and see men crossing the square, as I have just done, I say that I see the men themselves, just as I say that I see the wax; yet do I see anymore than hats and coats that could conceal robots?” (Meditations 7). What that statement says about the man out the window isn’t the same as the wax. The wax is in front of him and is clearly visible while the men/robots are covered in hats in which they are obscured. With the wax it’s very straightforward, he’s seeing and holding it which gives him sight and touch despite not exactly calling that. So the ability to judge from its colour or shape comes from the mind despite saying that it might come from the eye. However the mind is still connected to his senses, therefore he cannot trust his mind according to himself.
Despite Descartes not trusting his senses he still knows himself more distinctly while using them to analyze his piece of wax. This brings up the question of why he believes that he knows himself more distinctly while analyzing wax. This might be because while using your senses you’re actively using your mind to analyze this piece of wax. So because he’s thinking about something he’s more connected to his body than when he wasn’t thinking about it.
You can make the objection that the senses are an evil demon and that you really can’t trust them. However if you make that objection you can essentially object to anything that isn’t completely abstract in your head. The only thing that you can definitely know without being tricked is what’s going on inside your head because nobody else knows about it but you.
Descartes entire argument of not trusting your senses because they have tricked you before is unmanageable. Your senses have deceived you before but you know when they have deceived and afterwards it’s very clear when. Your senses cannot possibly be deceiving you all the time unless they were in which case we would never know. Which according to him they are and that also means that the wax cannot possibly be making you know yourself more distinctly. So his original claim that he perceives wax more distinctly when he analyzes it is a contradiction in his own words.
Bibliography
Francks, Richard. Descartes' Meditations: a Reader's Guide. Continuum, 2008.