Hello, I’m Dr. Anadale from Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
Today’s text is Descartes’ Meditation Six.
For today, I want you to focus on just three parts of the Meditation.
I will discuss each part in turn, and give reading questions for you to answer.
First, let’s look at the title and first lines.
The title of Meditation Six is “Concerning the Existence of Material Things, and the
Real Distinction between Mind and Body.”
These, then, are the two things Descartes will prove in the final meditation: that material
things, outside the mind, exist, and that the mind and the body are distinct in reality,
not just in thought.
In the first two sentences, Descartes says he will now examine whether material things
exist, adding, “I now know that they can exist, at least insofar as they are the object
of pure mathematics….”
This is just a reminder that, as the wax example at the end of Meditation Two showed, for Descartes,
material objects are fundamentally mathematical objects, known by the intellect rather than the senses.
Second, take a closer look at the section that begins between margin notes 74 and 75.
In a short paragraph beginning “First of all…,” Descartes promises to do three
things: review all things he previously believed to be true from his senses, assess his reasons
for doubting them, and consider what he must now believe about these same things.
In the next long paragraph, beginning “So first, I sensed…,” he does the first task,
reviewing his beliefs based on the senses.
In the long paragraph after that, beginning “Afterwards, however…,” Descartes reviews
his reasons for doubting the evidence of his senses, reasons he first gave in Meditation One.
Then he writes, “But now, having begun to have a better knowledge of myself and the
author of my origin, I am of the opinion that I must not rashly admit everything that I
seem to derive from the senses; but neither, for that matter, should I call everything into doubt.”
The next two paragraphs present Descartes’ argument for believing that material things exist.
It ends just below margin note 80, with the words, “And consequently corporeal things exist.”
Read this argument carefully, and come to class prepared to discuss it.
Third, let’s look at some observations Descartes makes about the mind and the body in the final
pages of Meditation Six, starting around margin note 86, with “Now my first observation…”
His first observation is that the mind and the body are really distinct because matter
is divisible, but mind is not divisible.
Read this argument carefully, and consider whether it is convincing.
His second observation is that the mind is not affected by all parts of the body, but only by the brain.
Other parts affect the (immaterial) mind only by affecting the (material) brain first.
With his third observation, he considers the transmission of pain from the foot to the
brain to the mind via the nerves of the leg and spine.
If this is the way pain works, then an impulse part way along the path from foot to brain
should be able to mimic the pain felt in the foot.
So that the right sort of electrical impulse at the base of my spine might cause me to
feel as though I had a pain in my foot, without my foot being the site of pain at all.
In fact, I would not be able to tell the difference between that ‘phantom pain’ and a pain
in my real foot.
“The same opinion should hold for every other sensation,” he concludes.
This is an interesting and radical view of the mind/body relation.
Take a few minutes to consider its implications.
How am I related to my body, if all my bodily sensations work the way Descartes suggests?
Am I ever really *in* my body, or am I the recipient of impulses that seem to come from my body?
There’s a lot more in Meditation Six to discuss, but those three points are enough for now.
I look forward to discussing them with you soon.
Thanks for watching today; goodbye.