Rene Descartes – Second Meditation
The Nature of the Human Mind and How it is Better Known than the Body
Everything we see is Fictitious.
Our memory cannot be trusted, and we have no senses. In this state, what remains true?
The fact that nothing is certain.
If we can convince ourselves of something, anything, then we certainly exist.
But what if this Is itself a deceit. From a demon within the mind that deliberately deceives us.
Even if this demon is deceiving us, we still undoubtedly exist, because as long as we can think we are something, then we are something.
I am, I exist, must be true whenever I assert it or think it, for as long as we can think it.
But what does ‘I’ mean? What is the “I” in “I exist”.
Must be careful to ensure that this “I” only refers to me. And nothing else, in order to maintain the certainty of “I am, I exist”.
To find the “I” we must think what we believe ourselves to be. Then from this subtract whatever can be doubted (even slight doubt) by the above reasons, so in the end only what is certain remains.
If we begin with “I am a man”, it will lead on to harder and harder questions trying to define nature.
I am a man – a rational animal – then what is rationality, what is an animal, etc. etc.
Instead begin with the belief that we have a face, hands, arms, and a whole structure of bodily parts – the body.
This then moves on to the belief that we eat, and drink, that we can move, and that we have senses and can think – all of which are done by the soul.
The soul being something rare and subtle that permeates the solid parts of a person.
The sense of what a body is, is more sure than the soul.
Initial Idea of the Body
Whatever has a definite shape and position, and can occupy a region of space in such a way as to keep every other body out of it.
It can be perceived by touch, sight, hearing, taste, or smell.
But it is unable to sense or think.
It can be moved in various ways.
But it cannot start up movements by itself, it is moved by other things by which it is touched.
Having the power to move itself and perceive senses, is not the nature of the body.
Initial Idea of the Soul
Thinking. Thought. This is the working of the soul.
We are Simply Things that Think
A mind, a soul, or an intellect, or reason.
We are not the framework of limbs that is called the body, or a thin vapour that permeates the limbs.
These things we are supposing to be nothing.
But they are not distinct from us – it is still unknown whether these things are the “I” that we are aware of.
Not important for now, as we can only form opinions about things that we know.
What is “I” that we know.
Our knowledge of it cannot depend on things of whose existence we are still unaware.
Cannot depend on anything we invent in our imagination. To invent is to contemplate. To essentially tell a story. No fact.
It is to contemplate the shape or image of a bodily thing.
This is why we can be sure we exist and know that anything relating to the body can be nothing but dreams.
So, what are we?
A thinking thing.
“A thing that doubts, that understands, that affirms, that denies, that wishes to do this and does not wish to do that, and also that imagines and perceives by the senses.” p.20
Even if the things we imagine do not exist, it is the “I” that imagines them.
And so, to imagine is to think. It is a part of thinking, and therefore a part of the soul.
It is also the same “I” who sense or is aware of bodily (corporeal) things seemingly through the senses.
Because we may be dreaming, we can never be sure if what we experience is real, but we seem to experience these things. This cannot be false.
What is called ‘sensing’ is just seeming, and when seeming is understood in this restricted sense of the word it too is simply thinking.
“But it still seems that the bodily things of which the images are formed in our thought, and which the senses themselves investigate, are much more distinctly recognised than that part of ourselves, whatever it is, that cannot be represented by the imagination.” P.21
Bodies can change and still be the same body, so what is it about them that we understand so clearly? Clear enough to know that they are bodies.
Think of a body of solid wax freshly removed form honeycomb.
It still has all the flavour of the honey, some of the scent of honey, and is in a similar size and shape. It is hard, cold, and solid – it has all the properties of a body of wax.
But as it is brought close to a fire it melts and now its attributes change.
Yet the same wax still remains.
If bodies can change form, then it is evident that none of its attributes given to use through senses, make it what it is.
Taste, smell, sight, touch, hearing etc. can alter, yet still present the same body.
If we take away everything that does not belong to a body – everything the body could be without – what is left is merely something extended – flexible and changeable.
Changeability is knowing that a body is changeable, and understanding that it can go through endlessly many changes of certain kinds – far more than we can depict in our imaginations.
Wax in shape can be round to square, square to triangle and so on.
So it isn’t our imaginations that give us a grasp of flexible and changeable.
Extended means a body can be extended in many ways – more than our imagination can comprehend.
Wax is increased if it melts, increased again if boiled, and can be extended in many more ways.
Must conclude that the nature of bodies cannot be revealed by our imagination, but is perceived through the mind alone.
Bodies that are perceived by the mind are pictured by the imagination.
But although our perception of them seemed to be a case of vision and touch and imagination, it isn’t so and it never was.
It is purely a scrutiny by the mind alone.
What the mind perceives can be imperfect and confused, or it can be clear and distinct – depending on the degree of attention we pay to the subjects of our thoughts.
What goes into our perception of other bodies does more to establish the nature of our own minds.
What comes to our mind from bodies, helps us to know our mind distinctly.
This still pales into insignificance when compared with what our mind contains within itself that enables us to know it distinctly.
Bodies are perceived not by the senses of imagination, but by the intellect alone.
Not through their being touched or seen, but through their being understood.
This helps us to know that we can perceive our own minds more easily and clearly than we can anything else.