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variations on the existence and idea of God

In the Third Meditation, Descartes presents his first two arguments for the existence of God. They are variations on classical versions of the cosmological argument; moreover, both arguments comply with the basic pattern of attempting to give the best explanation of a phenomenon. In this case, God as causal agent best explains why I have an idea of God with a certain content in one case, and why I exist as a thing having an idea of God with a certain content in the other. As a preliminary study for the arguments, Descartes elaborates his conceptual schema. He formally introduces the notion of a clear and distinct idea. He introduces a threefold classification of ideas as adventitious, factitious, and innate. He distinguishes formal and material falsity. He introduces and assigns a major role to the natural light.

Finally, he implicitly clarifies the idea of God as he proceeds through his arguments in the Third Meditation.

We begin this chapter by perusing Descartes’s preliminaries to the proofs of the existence of God. Next we examine the two proofs. Finally, we show that he presents a progression in the ideas of God and argue that the penultimate and ultimate ideas of God are innate only insofar as they are comprised solely of innate elements; these ideas might equally well be classified as factitious.

Clarity, distinctness and a classification of thoughts

After remarking that one should place oneself in a meditative posture and set aside all those beliefs one has not yet proven, Descartes begins the Third Meditation with an enumeration of things he knows, namely, he is “a thing that thinks: that is, a thing that doubts, affirms, denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of many things, is willing, is unwilling, and also

which imagines and has sensory perceptions” and he knows that there are ideas “in so far as they are simply modes of thinking.” (AT 7: 34–5, CSM 2:

24) He then enumerates the various modes of thought. Notice what he does not explicitly say: he does not say that he exists, although that might be taken to be implicit in his remark that these modes of thought “do exist within me.” (AT 7: 34–5, CSM 2: 24)

If one of the primary objectives of the Second Meditation was to prove that he exists, why is the existential claim played down here? The reason seems to be that he has shifted his focus. His concern here is with clear and distinct ideas. Clear and distinct ideas are ideas of the essences of things of various kinds. They are materially true, but, as we shall see repeatedly, the presence of a clear and distinct idea does not guarantee the existence of an entity of the relevant kind. Rather, following the true logic (AT 7: 107, CSM 2: 78), the presence of a clear and distinct idea is necessary for knowledge of a thing of a kind.¹

Of clear and distinct ideas Descartes writes:

In this brief list I have gone through everything I truly know, or at least everything I have so far discovered that I know. Now I will cast around more carefully to see whether there may be other things within me which I have not yet noticed. I am certain that I am a thinking thing. Do I not therefore also know what is required for my being certain about anything? In this first item of knowledge there is simply a clear and distinct perception of what I am asserting; this would not be enough to make me certain of the truth of the matter if it could ever turn out that something which I perceived with such clarity and distinctness was false. So I now seem to be able to lay it down as a general rule that whatever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true.

(AT 7: 35, CSM 2: 24) Here Descartes introduces his famous criterion of truth, namely, all clear and distinct perceptions are true. What is the epistemic status of the principle?

Is it a generalization from a single case, as the passage suggests, or is it a hypothesis? We are inclined to understand it in the latter way. Notice what Descartes says, “[T]his would not be enough to make me certain of the truth of the matter if it could ever turn out that something which I perceived with such clarity and distinctness was false.” The phrasing suggests that one accepts the criterion until such a point as one discovers a case in which an idea is clear and distinct but false, that is, one treats it as a hypothesis to be

confirmed or refuted. The refutation of the hypothesis would consist of finding an idea that is clear and distinct but inconsistent. The confirmation would consist in giving reasons why the criterion should be taken as true.

As we shall see later, Descartes takes the fact that God is not a deceiver as confirmation that the criterion itself is true (AT 7: 62, CSM 2: 43), which tends to support our suggestion that one should treat the criterion as a hypothesis. But what does it mean for a perception to be clear and distinct?

Is he concerned with perception as an act, or with the object of perception, or both? And what does he mean in claiming that clear and distinct perceptions are true?

Regarding the second question, the passage is ambiguous. When Descartes first alludes to the clarity and distinctness of the perception, he says, “there is simply a clear and distinct perception of what I am asserting”

(quàm clara quædam & distincta perceptio ejus quod affirmo; AT 7: 35, CSM 2: 24): this could be an allusion to the object perceived or to the act of perceiving. The later instances seem to refer to characteristics of an act, that is, how one perceives an object, for he refers to “something I perceived with such clarity and distinctness” (ut aliquid, quod ita clare & distincte perciperem) and “whatever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true”

(illud omne esse verum, quod valde clare & distincte percipio).² Further, if one takes the object to be an idea (a term Descartes has yet to introduce into the Meditations) and if an idea is somehow like an image (AT 7: 37, CSM 2:

25), one might be disinclined to grant that one can clearly and distinctly perceive the truth of propositions. But only two paragraphs later he alludes to clearly and distinctly perceiving the truth of arithmetic and geometry, claiming that the only ground he has for questioning such beliefs is the possibility that God is a deceiver (AT 35-6, CSM 2: 25).³ Again, Descartes writes with reference to the ideas of corporeal things later in the Meditation,

“I notice that the very things I perceive clearly and distinctly in them are very few in number” (AT 7: 43, CSM 2: 29). The grammatical form of these and other passages (see AT 7: 119, 245, 379, 519; CSM 2: 85, 171, 260, 353) suggests that it is the act of perceiving that is clear and distinct. Still, in using the expression “clear and distinct ideas” (see AT 7: 53, 78, 387, 476;

CSM 2: 37, 54, 265, 321) Descartes suggests that the object of thought is what is clear and distinct. Can he have it both ways? It would seem so.

As we have seen in Meditation Two, to render an idea clear and distinct requires acts of mental scrutiny. When Descartes writes of perceiving clearly and distinctly, he introduces these kinds of acts together with the resultant psychological compunction to deem the resultant idea “true.”⁴ The resultant

idea is clear and distinct. This does not mean, however, that the resulting idea differs qua existent from the idea prior to the exercise in mental scrutiny.

Given his remarks on the formation of universals (P 1: 59), we may rightly suggest that one attends selectively to aspects of the original idea.

But how should one understand this clarity and distinctness of a perception or idea? Descartes answers this question in the Principles. There he writes:

I call a perception ‘clear’ when it is present and accessible to the attentive mind – just as we say that we see something clearly when it is present to the eye’s gaze and stimulates it with a sufficient degree of strength and accessibility. I call a perception ‘distinct’ if, as well as being clear, it is so sharply separated from all other perceptions that it contains within itself only what is clear.

(P 1: 45: AT 8A: 22, CSM 1: 207–8) To understand this, we must carefully examine the analogy to visual perception. Assume you are nearsighted. The world at a distance appears blurred or fuzzy, much like the images in a Cezanne painting. Assume you are looking at the top of a hill at some distance from you. You see a red patch at the top of the hill. What is that patch?⁵ You do not know; all you can say is that it is something that is red. How would you find out what it is? You would move closer to it. Why? It puts the object in better focus. What does this mean? You are able to discern more of its characteristics. Now let us assume you move half the distance to the object, and you are now able to discern that it is a car. Do you now have a clear and distinct idea of the object? Perhaps, but this will depend on your objectives. If your question was merely, “Is the red thing a car, a building, a tree, or something else?” you have answered it. The visual clarity of the perception was adequate to answer that question: you could discern enough characteristics of the object to distinguish it from others insofar as that object is a car. Hence, the perception is clear and distinct insofar as its resultant idea falls under the concept of a car. But there are cars and there are cars. You might want to have a more distinct idea of the object. You might ask, “Is it a Ford or a Chevrolet or a Mercedes Benz? Is it a family car or a muscle car? Is it a recent or an older model?” You walk closer. More characteristics become clear.

This allows you to identify it as a muscle car, a relatively recent Ford Mustang.

The visual idea is now clear and distinct vis-à-vis the concept of a recent

Ford Mustang. But you might need to take a very close look to determine whether it is a 1995, 1996, or 1997 Mustang.

These considerations show several things. First, clear and distinct ideas are ideas of kinds of things. Insofar as one might claim to have a clear and distinct idea of an individual, for example God or the piece of wax or the self, the idea is still treated as an idea of a kind. Second, ideas that are already clear can become clearer. As our example shows, an idea might be sufficiently clear vis-à-vis one sortal term to determine that it is an idea of a thing of that sort, but it may not be sufficiently clear to determine whether the object is an object of a more specific sort.⁶ Hence, the degree of clarity necessary for distinctness is sortally relative.⁷ Third, even though clear and distinct ideas contain all or a sufficient number of properties to allow one to distinguish one kind of thing from another, an idea’s clarity and distinctness do not assure the existence of a thing of that kind. Descartes claims that the clarity and distinctness of an idea guarantee only the possibility of the existence of such an object (AT 10: 351, CSM 1: 299; AT 7: 150, CSM 2: 107; see also AT 7: 78, CSM 2: 54). One would expect this, given that “according to the laws of true logic, we must never ask about the existence of anything until we first understand its essence” (AT 7: 107–8, CSM 2: 78). Finally, when Descartes concerns himself with an idea’s clarity and distinctness, the essence of a thing is the primary topic. Consequently, the components of a Cartesian clear and distinct idea are simple (general) relative to the particular object that presents the occasion for seeking a clear and distinct idea.

Thus our analogy might be somewhat misleading with respect to Cartesian practice. While the route from a red patch to a recent red Ford Mustang results in an enlarged enumeration of the particularizing properties, the Cartesian practice would require us to seek an increasingly limited number of increasingly general properties by which one can distinguish the object in question from other kinds of things.

But if clear and distinct perceptions show only that the object of the perception might exist, rather than that it does exist, in what sense can Descartes claim that these ideas are true? They are at least materially true, that is, they provide no material for false judgments. We show below that nothing in the Third Meditation requires that clear and distinct perceptions be true in anything other than a material sense. Because his concern lies solely with material truth, the criterion is little more than a reassertion that whatever is known by the natural light is materially true, which we have argued is the foundational principle on which he rebuilds his epistemic house. Thus, insofar as clear and distinct ideas represent the essences of

things, they represent the possible essences of possible things. To claim that clear and distinct ideas are materially true commits one to no existential propositions.⁸

Descartes continues his meditation by inquiring into the source of his errors. He writes:

Yet I previously accepted as wholly certain and evident many things which I afterwards realized were doubtful. What were these? The earth, sky, stars, and everything else that I apprehended with the senses. But what was it about them that I perceived clearly? Just that the ideas, or thoughts, of such things appeared before my mind. Yet even now I am not denying that these ideas occur within me. But there was something else which I used to assert, and which through habitual belief I thought I perceived clearly, although I did not in fact do so. This was that there were things outside me which were the sources of my ideas and which resembled them in all respects. Here was my mistake; or at any rate, if my judgement was true, it was not thanks to the strength of my perception.

(AT 7: 35, CSM 2: 24–5) He reviews his doubts. While one has doubts regarding the existence of the earth, the sky, and so forth, there is no question that one has thoughts about these possible things. It is here that Descartes first introduces the term ‘idea’ as a thought with at least the potential for representative content.

The implicit argument for ideas goes like this. It is possible – indeed we are assuming – that the earth, the sky, and all material objects do not exist. Yet I have thoughts (sense perceptions) which, in a naive way, I take to be identical with the objects I have called into doubt. I have no question whether these thoughts exist, even though the existence of material objects is dubious.

Since the existence of a particular object cannot be at once certain and dubious, two distinct objects must exist which are somehow related. So let us call those objects of thought of whose existence I am certain ‘ideas,’ and let us call those objects of whose existence I am uncertain ‘external objects’

or ‘material objects.’ Given the distinction, Descartes indicates that he had assumed that external objects were the sources of these ideas and perfectly resembled them.⁹ He rejects this assumption, thereby leaving open the question of the causes of ideas and their representational function.

While ideas might not actually represent objects, Descartes’s further remarks assure us that they are at least potential representatives (AT 7: 36–

7, CSM 2: 25–6). He enumerates the various kinds of thoughts and affirms that ideas properly so called are like images, that is, they have (or can have) a representational function. Further, all thoughts involve ideas, since Descartes refers to the “additional forms” these thoughts have: the several psychological attitudes (affirming, denying, willing, and judging) have ideas as their objects. By assuming that ideas qua objects of thought have a possible representational function, he leaves open a number of questions regarding the potentially represented object. Does the object presented exist? Is the idea qua object of thought clear and distinct, that is, can it possibly represent a determinate thing? Are claims one would make regarding the object as represented in the idea (formally) true or false? Claims based on the representative function of any idea are the domain of the faculty of judgment, and, as he says in the next paragraph, truth and falsehood properly pertain only to judgments (AT 7: 37, CSM 2: 26).

Not only do truth and falsehood properly pertain only to judgments, but the most common source of error stems from judgments regarding the representative function of ideas. Recall that, at the beginning of Meditation One, Descartes suggested that he assumed the world is as it appears to the senses. The introduction of ideas as the objects of thought indicates that the common errors of perceptual judgment change in description. While prior to the introduction of the theory of ideas one might have said, “I see a round tower in the distance” only to find that the tower was square or that one was dreaming, the description would now be posed like this: “I am aware of an idea which represents a round tower in the distance and judge that there is, in fact, such a tower.” While this mere redescription of the situation only accommodates the theory of ideas, it brings with it an important point, namely, judgment is the only psychological attitude in which formal truth and falsehood are at issue.

Descartes continues by enumerating the kinds of ideas he has (AT 7: 37–

8, CSM 2: 26), suggesting that ideas are of three sorts: innate, adventitious, and factitious (made up). This is only a preliminary classification. As we show below, the classification of ideas as factitious or made up is misleading.

While we certainly construct some ideas out of the components of other ideas in our mind, the category of factitious ideas is not basic: any of the components of a factitious idea are either adventitious or innate. Moreover, even these two basic categories apply only to occurrent ideas, that is, ideas of which we are aware at a time; for, as we noted in Chapter Two, in the Comments on a Certain Broadsheet Descartes went so far as to claim that innate ideas are fundamentally dispositions to form occurrent ideas with a

certain cognitive content, and, as such, all ideas are innate. Nonetheless, the innate/adventitious/factitious ideas distinction is useful when he attempts to explain the formation of ideas.

Descartes focuses on ideas of sense perception and explains why one believes that those ideas represent objects outside oneself: one has a natural tendency to believe so (AT 7: 38, CSM 2: 26). This is little more than a reformulation of the assumption operative at the beginning of the First Meditation. Initially, one assumes that one perceives the physical world directly (naive realism). This leads to two problems: first, one’s judgments based on visual perceptions are often inconsistent; and second, as one’s experience increases, one must weigh one appearance against another to avoid error. When he introduces a distinction between the objects of thought

Descartes focuses on ideas of sense perception and explains why one believes that those ideas represent objects outside oneself: one has a natural tendency to believe so (AT 7: 38, CSM 2: 26). This is little more than a reformulation of the assumption operative at the beginning of the First Meditation. Initially, one assumes that one perceives the physical world directly (naive realism). This leads to two problems: first, one’s judgments based on visual perceptions are often inconsistent; and second, as one’s experience increases, one must weigh one appearance against another to avoid error. When he introduces a distinction between the objects of thought