So let’s turn to Meditation Two. The first thing I asked about was the title.
What does the title of this meditation tell us?
(Student: “Concerning the Nature of the Mind, That it is Better Known Than the Body.”)
The knowledge of the mind, the knowledge I have of my mind, is more certain than the
knowledge that I have of my body.
This is actually quite important, because if I'm prioritizing the senses as my foundation,
as Aristotle and the older tradition would do… How do you begin to know things?
‘Well, from the time you're a baby you begin experiencing and sensing things.
That's the beginning of all knowledge,’ goes the old theory.
Descartes’ going to say instead: It's this thought inside my own mind, which is more
certain and less subject to deception and error than the knowledge outside of my mind.
Which means we’re going to start here, and on the basis of conclusions I draw about my
mind, I’m going to then reach some kind of knowledge about my body.
So, the first thing he’s going to argue about in this meditation is the nature of
the mind and the body, and the nature of the mind is such that we know it better that we
know the body.
So, he brings us back to the point at which we left Meditation Two (One).
In Meditation Two (One), you recollect, we finished with complete doubt.
We had found ourselves…
We had worked ourselves into the situation of contemplating the possibility of an evil demon.
The evil demon, I said, was a kind of epistemological nuclear weapon, we have no way escaping the
evil demon’s deceptive power.
If a being with infinite power can act on me, and cause me to make whatever errors he
wishes, it looks like I have no hope of ever having certainty about anything.
Everything I know, I’ll have to say: “Well, provided the Evil Demon isn’t deceiving
me right now, I think the bus is here on time.
Provided the Evil Demon isn’t deceiving me, I’m pretty sure I have five fingers on my hand.” Etc.
Now, how do we escape from the Evil Demon?
Well, this is what we get at the beginning of Meditation Two.
Just remember that in Med One we began with a mixture of true and false beliefs, with
no sure method of telling between them.
Then Descartes went through this process of reasoning, of radical doubt, that we called the 3 D’s.
Deception of the senses, therefore I have to set all those aside.
Dream experiences, which lead us to set aside the bare existence of my body.
And then the possibility of the Evil Demon leads me to set aside even the analytical
sciences and the abstract reasoning of mathematics.
The Evil Demon could make me get two and three, 2+2 or 2+3 wrong, every single time, with
his infinite power.
He just intervenes to cause me to go wrong while thinking I’m going right.
We're getting down to the thing that is proof against [pause] all three of these.
The thing I can’t falsely dream, the thing I can’t be deceived about, and the thing
that not even the Evil Demon can cause me to get wrong, and it’s the reality of “I think,” or “I am thinking.”
“I am thinking right now.”
That’s a fact that, if the Evil Demon wishes to fool me, he has to allow that fact to exist.
He has to allow that fact to take place.
Moving forward, so he goes on and says I'm going to therefore suppose everything that
I see is false.
He's reminding us that however we get out of this, it’s not going to be by the senses,
it’s not going to be by our memories.
I've already denied that I have any senses, that I have a body.
At the bottom of page 63: “I persuaded myself…” bottom of 63, “…that there's absolutely
nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies.
Is it then the case that I too do not exist?”
We see the beginning of the turn here.
“But doubtless I did exist, if I persuaded myself of something.
But is there some deceiver, who is supremely powerful, who is always dedicated to deceiving
me, then too there would be no doubt that I exist, since then he would be deceiving me.
And let him do his best at deception, he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so
long as I shall *think* that I am something.”
This ‘I think’ is indubitable because it's self-validating.
Every time I think it, it becomes true. Thinking it makes it true.
That's not the case with any other foundational statement that I could get, like “My senses
are reliable,” or “I’m seeing yellow right now,” or anything like that.
Those things all could be mistaken, thinking them doesn’t make them true.
But thinking “I think” causes it to be true.
So my next point here: What are his reasons for rejecting the definition “rational animal”?
So I know that I exist, I think, then we get to “I exist.”
I exist, but what *am* I ? What *is* this thing that exists?
I exist but what am ? I'm not a rational animal.
That's the standard answer from Aristotle forward.
Human beings are of the genus “animal,” and their specific difference is “rationality.”
So “the animal that is rational” would be the classical answer. Why not?
(Student: Because he said we would have to ask what ‘animal’ and ‘rational’ are, and that
would take too long.)
Not just that it would take too long, but how would I know, how do I know what those words mean?
Senses. I got that information from the senses, and I've already set those aside.
I can't use those. That tool is not in my toolbox anymore.
So if I'm going to pull myself up out of this pit to figure out what I am, as a basis for
going forward, I'm going to have to reason my way out without using the concept of “rational”
or “animal.”
These are going to be unknown to me except through my senses.
It’s only with my senses that I'll be able to know what “rational” means and what
“animal” means.
That’s actually a very good question: What is his conceptual vocabulary?
What *are* the tools that are left in his toolbox?
If he gave up all of his memories, all of his senses, everything he's ever learned through
contact with any other human being ever…
Even if God spoke to him, presumably he has to remember what God told him, and he's back
into the trap of remembering, the memory of an experience, that could be deceptive, the
Evil Demon could be at work there.
So if these things are unknown, what do we say then?
How does he go forward? Let’s read this, middle of page 64.
Let’s see…“Nor do I have enough free time…”
This is what you were talking about, “to waste on subtleties like this.
Instead permit me to focus here on what came spontaneously and naturally into my thinking
whenever I pondered what I was.”
I think this is important. What's his method here?
It’s not to say: ‘Let me consult the wisdom of the Ancients.’
Or ‘Let me examine what the finest minds in philosophical history, Aristotle, Plato,
or somebody more recent, my own Jesuit schoolmasters at the University of Paris, let me consult
what they think, and decide whether I agree or disagree in part or in full.’
No, let me set all that aside as being much too subtle and abstract, and ivory tower,
pointy head elite intellectual.
Let me think of the common man that I was praising at the beginning of this text and
in the Discourse.
The ordinary guy who’s just got a fair share of common sense.
Let me reason like that guy, and just notice what spontaneously comes into my mind whenever
I think about myself and my thought.
What's his method here? What’s the source of authority for his method?
It’s not tradition, it’s not connection to some sort of authoritative text or school of thought.
What is it, what’s going to be the basis for his trusting what conclusions he comes to?
(Student: His thought process.) His own reflective thought process.
We've got here the kind of, that common sense idea from the beginning, now made into his
main method.
I’m just going to pay careful attention to what happens in my mind when I think clearly
about this, in my isolated stove-heated room.
So his method here is going to involve reflection, rather than any sort of appeal to, or interpretation
of, or just extension of and participation in, a tradition.
Rather than thinking that way, he’s going to be starting over, starting over on the
basis of his own subjective experience.