Analysis of Descartes on Existence and Continuity

Descartes' analysis in the third meditation which equated the power for creating and preserving existence the same is important for how he sees God in relation to him as a cause.  I think that this moment in Descartes at the same time shows the distinction between two different kinds of causes, and then conceals them once again.  These causes begin to be unraveled again (in the canon passed down) by Leibniz, and the distinction is made again in Kant.

As a result of the second meditation, Descartes has placed the reader, and himself, before his own simple cognitions.  When you remove all inferences, and attempts to judge, Descartes still finds we have the raw activity of cognition - the seeming appearings, the loving and hating, the fact of judging (even if the truth is doubtable).  These shimmerings constitute our existence and this is what is referred to by the famous cogito sum.

The third meditation works on this more or less pure state recovered in the second meditation and attempts to analyze it to discover what else can be found in it.  When Descartes considers the cause of existence to be the same as the cause of the preservation of existence, we can get a clear picture of what he means by looking at our experience, which contains as a matter of fact a continuity as part of what is in every cognition.  How does Descartes take this experience, which contains a temporal depth (in its internal reference to the having been of the previous moment) and decide that it is the same thing to have this continuity as to have the simple existence?  Before I try to speak to this let me make some remarks about its apparent affect on history after him.

In Descartes' inheritors the results of the collapsed distinction between existence and preservation (continuity) are fascinating.  In Malebranche we find that at each moment God must act to set everything in its place (occasionalism).  In Spinoza we find something even more interesting which reveals a lot about what must happen when these things are collapsed: it no longer makes sense to say that the ego is a substance underlying the sequence, but that we must immediately have the absolute substance (God) be the unity of the continuity of events.  In both Malebranche and Spinoza we have God operating at every 'moment': everything is a miracle.

Lurking in the continuity of the cognitions is the 'great principle' put forward by Leibniz: the Principle of Sufficient Reason.  Through this principle, Leibniz will differentiate between the series of events (which is infinite) and the cause of the entire series itself (for Descartes, these were preservation and existence).  Leibniz found it intolerable that God would be performing a miracle at every moment, as apparently had to be the case under Descartes' analysis.  Additionally, the production of the 'I' (ego) in Leibniz is understood on the basis of the continuity of cognitions: in the Monadology, Leibniz discusses how apperception, as that which unified perceptions, is what produces the 'I' through a reflective process.  With differentiating between the continuity and the existence of moments of the series, Leibniz has introduced the substance of the subject again (which allows him to have more substances than just God, as in Spinoza).

Kant, perhaps without knowing it, takes Descartes' result in the second meditation more seriously, and along with the insights off Leibniz, continues more or less where Descartes has left off with an analysis of what is contained in the continuity of the experience.  What Descartes collapsed into the same cause, is for Kant's resolution to the third antinomy, the distinction between natural causes and spontaneous causes.  This distinction, in Kant, is the basis of the division of reason into the theoretical and the practical.  Many other implications in Malebranch and Spinoza, as well as things uncovered again by Leibniz and Kant, could be added to this, but I will save this for another time.

Returning to Descartes, what is it that he was seeing that allowed him to collapse the distinction that he had made between existence and preservation (continuity)?  It seems, to me, that one could see the continuity of the sequence as something that is entirely contained in the moment we are cognizing, and that we have  no reason to refer to the existence of another time before (the moment is entirely self-contained).  In Leibniz we find that the element in the moment which refers back transcends the moment and require just as much existence in the previous state in order to bring about the current one such that one original creation is sufficient for the series to continue.  At this point we have two speculative claims - that only this moment exists and that the whole series must exist.  In both Descartes and Leibniz the cause of existence is thought in terms of something in addition to the cognition of an object as such.

In Kant, the connection of the sequence is a rule of the understanding, and existence is not something we add to the object (as an extra judgment), but as part of the structure of cognition generally.  In Kant we do not find any reason to make the speculative claim that there is something like an 'efficient cause' of existence, or continuity, as seemed demanded by Descartes and Leibniz.

I think it is important to note that the advance that Kant seemed to make in his analysis is all possible in the picture that even Descartes had provided, and it would be interesting to try to carry the clarification through the rest of Descartes analysis (as well as those of other thinkers before and after).  When Descartes and Leibniz turned from their analysis - perhaps too soon - and started deriving knowledge from their conclusions, they turned to a scientific procedure which they hadn't eventuated yet in terms of its possibility.

On Behalf of our Cultivating a More Complete Moral Outlook

(This is a continued reflection on a-moral situations.)

   In the fourth meditation Descartes writes, "When no reason inclines me in one direction rather than another, I have a feeling of indifference—that is, of its not mattering which way I go—and that is the poorest kind of freedom. What it displays is freedom, considered not as a perfection but rather as a lack of knowledge—a kind of negation.  If I always saw clearly what was true and good, I should never have to spend time thinking about what to believe or do; and then I would be wholly free although I was never in a state of indifference."

   If we consider, with Kant, that our freedom is recognized as a postulate whenever we are cognizing our duty, then the passage just quoted from the Meditations can be thought in terms of a life lived where we are always cognizing some duty and so constantly engaged as free beings.  This state of constant and complete moral determination doesn't imply that we are always acting out of duty, but that we always have something moral to be doing in every case.  If we consider this to be a positive direction to move towards, as Descartes does, it may be helpful to understand why, as well as what pursuit brings us closer to this state.

   Ultimately, the reason to engage ourselves in developing a complete moral outlook will need to be moral, and so something we discover on our own, so I will need to discuss how this duty may emerge.  But first, we may find this ideal of a completely morally determined orientation to the world attractive to us by repeating what Descartes says: "I would be wholly free although I was never in a state of indifference."  You would always experience yourself in action, and interested.  Also, you would be potentially attaining to higher levels of self-esteem; you would feel closer to having attained the goal of perfect virtue, since you would see it tested at all moments.

   (Recognition of a completely determined moral orientation as an ideal provides a new challenge to the validity of Schopenhauer's virtue of denial of the will to live, since Schopenhauer's argument arises out of thinking that we must necessarily find ourselves in a position of boredom when we are idle.)

   In considering how such a practical ideal for our moral outlook could emerge, we can consider how different understandings of nature and degrees of worldliness must always result in differences in moral judgments.  From this alone I assert that bringing humanity to a unity in moral matters depends upon agreement on our study and interpretation of nature (I will develop this topic elsewhere).  Our  fallibility  in interpreting our situation can call all our moral judgments into question, and so there seems to be a potential demand we could come to recognize morally (which I have come to feel) that clarifying the situations we are in to our utmost is important, but this duty right away conflicts with many other duties which may overrule it, particularly where we have special knowledge such as situations where we are inclined to lie.

   While I know that no theoretical argument can be given to support a moral judgment, I can at least hope to continue to articulate an interpretation of the situation that can heighten a concern with our understanding of the situation, and will hopefully foster this sense of duty to understand for ourselves in others.

Transcending into the World

    Transcendence is typically understood as going beyond nature or the world (of appearance).  I have an interest in broadening this understanding by recognizing that transcendence also involves coming into the world.  This is not a new discovery in the history of philosophy, but a re-emphasis of past thought and a reflection on terminology.

   For Kant, 'transcendence' refers to whatever goes beyond any possible experience.  Even though this is the only sense in which 'transcendence' is used by Kant, we would do a disservice to ourselves if we did not allow ourselves to consider it in terms of its reverse.

   Kant defines life as the faculty of effecting representations.  This faculty of life is not itself a representation, and so we have a relation between something transcendent (us) and representations - cause and effect between things that are different in kind.  It is plain to see the problem, and even to associate it with its well known name: the mind-body problem.  This is the classical situation of transcendence into the world; it is frequently associated with Descartes, but I would contend that we can see it as very old, going all the way back to Parmenides' statement, "τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ νοεῖν ἐστίν τε καὶ εἶναι" [the same thing is for thinking as for being].  We may do well not to go into obscurity, and stick with Descartes for now as the locus classicus of the problem.
   Recently, I wrote about how Descartes' doubt only affects his understanding of the subjective.  The world is cognized by our passive faculties, while our active faculty (will) is employed in doubting.  Doubting only annuls possibilities of action, rather than objects or the will itself.  Descartes cannot entirely annul life in doubt, since the doubt is also an act of will, but he is cut off from acting among the things of the world with any certainty.  The mind-body problem in Descartes, therefore, concerns how to understand how an intelligible entity (will) can effect objective entities.  Descartes considers that something greater than both subject and object is required for this, and, along with Anselm, God is employed as this object.  Matters stand differently for Kant.
   For Kant, the mind-body problem was not a live difficulty.  It is clear that asking how the category of cause can apply to something merely intelligible is an impossible question from a theoretical point of view.  The best we can do theoretically is to show that there is no inherent contradiction in thinking something intelligible as a cause.  However, in circumstances where it is demanded of us that we act, life is simply posited, unproblematically, by practical reason.  Taken practically, the mind-body problem is irrelevant, since it would only ask into what was already assumed.  However, now a peculiar reversal makes itself apparent.

   It is the experience of life that gives us a foundation for the theoretical mind-body problem.  And so, the actual transcendence into the world sets the stage for the problem of exiting the world and returning to ourselves - to transcend experience, or to know ourselves.  This first transcendence in action, which postulates life, connects the theoretical and practical in an interesting manner.

   (Perhaps a thought-worthy way to express the mind-body problem is as regulative: the mind-body problem is the idea of the highest technique.  If we could use the 'cause' of the mind-body connection it seems we could use it for any effect - it would be a godlike power: the mind body problem as the idea of the highest technique is the technically practical ideal of happiness.  I will leave this thought unfinished here.)

   We enter into the world through first transcendence by being directed to objects in the world.  An infatuation with the world immediately seems to conceal the coming-into-the-world, and our thought is modeled after the world in great part.  When we seek to employ our worldly thought in attending back to the first transcendence, we find ourselves incapable.  (We even find that our worldly way of thinking is not sufficient to understand world as such.)
   We are not necessarily cut off in thinking more broadly than our normal worldly way.  Certain things awaken a recognition of our first transcendence, for instance, the moral law expressed in our sense of duty, the sublime, and beauty.

   Philosophy seeks the return to the point of first transcendence in understanding; this is not for the purpose of leaving the world, but only in order to move back into the world with new direction.

Descartes' Cogito and Heidegger's Dasein

I want to write this just as a small matter of consideration for interpreters of Heidegger and Descartes.

Recently I was considering how doubt concerns the subject and not objects, and that the result of the hyperbolic doubt that Descartes pursues results in no change in the objects as objects, but only in the subject's possible activities with the objects - they become doubtful behaviors. 

I thought it may be interesting to point out that when we doubt an activity, it is not gone for us as a possible activity. I may doubt that I can pick up an object, but this doesn't change the object, nor does it change the possibility of my picking it up (as an action I can try). 

When I doubt all that is possible for me to doubt, as Descartes does, I am left with all the same possibilities, and objects. However, I am not doing anything else with the objects. I am, however, still there in the same circumstances, just having taken a certain stand in relation to them. 

To be a bit cheeky. Heidegger complains about Descartes, but in showing what Descartes overlooked, he also overlooked what both of them overlooked: the Cogito also establishes Dasein (being there) as Being-in-the-World.  Heidegger really does acknowledge this, however, but sees the thing that Descartes as overlooking an inquiry into the 'sum' of the 'Cogito sum'.

(6/9/2015) Heidegger has a very interesting interpretation of Descartes (similar to my own here) in his Nietzsche lectures, Volume 4 (Nihilism) Chapter 16 (The Cartesian Cogito as Cogito Me Cogitare).  Of course, Heidegger doesn't identify Descartes' position with his here.

Cartesian Doubt as Doubt of the Subjective

   When Descartes exerts his capacity to doubt, we see him capable of doubting all manner of objects.  However, Descartes fails to doubt the subject (Ego), which saves his project from its death spiral.  I intend to explore Cartesian doubt as being better understood as doubting the subjective, rather than the objective; in order to do this I will first articulate what I mean by subjective and objective, and then show how Descartes' thought should be seen in light of this, and how our considerations of Descartes may benefit from a new kind of emphasis on the subjective.
   When I speak of the objective, I mean whatever is said of objects, while when I say subjective I mean whatever is said of the subject.  So, if I say, "that car is red", I am saying something objective, whereas if I say, "I am cold", or, "that car is Red, for me", I am saying something subjective.  Often we use 'subjective' exclusively in relation to a bias of a subject, so that if someone says, "that cake is tasty", we would realize it may not be tasty for everyone, and so we would say that the statement is subjective.  I want to say that this statement was objective, since it pertains to the cake, not the subject, however, it should have been said, "this cake is tasty, for me".
   We often express ourselves objectively when we mean it subjectively, as we saw with the cake.  I realize this is pedantic, but I want to be as clear as possible since I will be holding myself to this in discussing Descartes. Strictly speaking, all speaking in a subjective mode is rather an objective mode: the subjective cannot truly be communicated, for this would mean actually transmitting the state of the subject.  If this were possible, reporting, "I am cold", would make others cold.
   Now I ask, when Descartes doubts objects what does he accomplish? The passive cognitions of perceptions and understanding of the objects are unaffected; the cup is still experienced as a cup just as it was before the doubting.  What difference is made by doubting?
   Because doubt does not affect my passive cognitions, but instead my active ones, I should consider how my active cognitions relate to the cup.  As active, I am a willing or unwilling being.  This suggests that my doubt of the cup just pertains to my attitude towards possible activity with the cup.  We can see here a hint that my doubt of the cup is a doubt of my capacity to effect something, and not of some property the cup possesses.
   More general than our activity with the cup seems our doubt of its existence.  What does doubting the existence of the cup mean?  Something vague like, there appears to be a cup, but there is really no cup?  If we are considering if the cup is a mirage or dream, then we attribute to the appearance of a cup the status of something which is not a cup.  This sort of attribution to the cup is objective, since it pertains to an understanding of the cup.
   While there is a sense of 'doubting' in taking the cup to be a mirage, it should still be described not as a doubt of the thing, since we doubt how we first understood it, but this is still ultimately a doubt of the subject.  We are doubting how the cup which appears to us is understood by us, then changing our assessment of the object to a mirage or dream; in this new understanding of the object, which is positive, we once again just have our own abstinence from activity with the object, such that we see the difference between the non-mirage and mirage is set by actions (not passions).
   In brief: if we do not simply doubt the cup as understood by us, but are concerned that the appearance of the cup is an appearance of something, but not how that something really is, then we are not concerned with any passive element of our cognition, since these are exhausted entirely on the appearance, but instead are concerned about acting.
   There are some benefits afforded by this emphasis on the subjective in reading Descartes: first, it clarifies what doubt consists in; second, we can get a sense of the passive and active elements of cognition insofar as they have an impact on the discovery of certainty of Ego; third, we can clarify the discovery of certainty in the Ego by noting that all sorts of activities were able to be abstained from save for the activity of cognizing (doubt itself is active cognizing); fourth, we can clarify what existence means by clarifying what it means to be able to doubt or not doubt it (perhaps this will help us understand the proof of God in the third meditation).
   We also find ourselves with some new murky elements in Descartes ripe for exploring, such as, what is the relation between the active and passive elements of cognition, and how are they bound together as one Ego? This union of action and passion may also help clarify the more central role that the will develops in the fourth meditation which I have discussed before.  I hope to investigate this soon. 

Descartes' Cogito and Kant's Transcendental Deduction of the Categories

In Kant's deduction of the categories, he shows that two things are the same which usually are spoken of as different: the a priori unity of our representations is the same thing as the unity of consciousness. To put this in other terms which are more understandable: relationships thought between objects are at the same time the subject ('I') in its pure form. If we consider Descartes' Cogito along the lines of Kant's deduction, we find greater insight into how Descartes' Ego Cogito should be understood.

Ego Cogito, Ego Sum. These words, which do not constitute an argument so much as a recognition, seemed to change the course of Philosophy after them. When we look at what cognitions compose Descartes' Ego, he first describes a laundry list of thought processes: doubts, understanding, affirmation, denial, will, imagination and sensory perception. If we want to consider all of these as related to Kant's deduction we will concern ourselves with sensory perception.

We can note that the other sorts of cognition other than sensory perception all concern sensory perception directly or indirectly. We understand what is given through sense, and our judgments consist in connecting that understanding to doubt, affirmation, denial, willing (an act in the sensory world) or being unwilling (in the sensory world); Descartes' exploration of the kinds of ideas that we have to imagine with also shows that they all either come from sense originally or are innate.

Now, Descartes says, "Ego Cogito, Ego Sum": I think, I am. These statements are equivalent (there is no 'therefore'). If we concern ourselves with just sensory perception, we can say, "I perceive, I am", as an accurate reformulation. Now, it is very easy to see this as saying, like Kant, that the unity of representations is also the unity of consciousness (what is taken to be 'I'). There is just one concern that may bother us: Descartes speaks of himself as if he is a substance, which gives the impression that there is something underlying the thought, or which thought adheres to as a predicate.

Kant is clear about avoiding the pitfalls that Descartes gets accused of. He notes that we cannot attribute substance to the subject, since substance only applies to objects, but in its application to objects the subject is produced as well. This use of 'substance' in Kant is incredibly refined, since it not only has the general characteristic meaning of substance (something which is only predicated of, and not a predicate), but also additional refinements in terms of how the concept is able to be used by us.

The refinements in the use of 'substance' in Kant may be a large change in the sense of the word such that if we look back at Descartes we can find that substance might be used in a different way. It's clear that Descartes does not intend for the substance to be understood in terms of a material, and it seems like it would be much easier to understand it in terms of an idea. There is also reason to think that Descartes really only considered God a substance.

Even if we can not completely clear Descartes' name of all faults (though I may attempt it), we can still get greater insight into his work by clarifying elements of it through such comparisons as above.

Re-Evaluating the 'Substance' of Descartes' Cogito

   A traditional reading of Descartes' Cogito is that the subject is a substance of the sort that is separate from, stands 'under' or 'alongside' cognitions (the 'seeming appearing', willing and unwilling, loving and hating, &c). A recent discussion with a friend provided an opportunity to question this traditional reading of Descartes in a novel way with relation to the 'Self' concept; it occurred to me to consider if the Cogito is better described by reference to the cognitions themselves, the very 'surface of things', to the 'seeming appearing', rather than something that stands 'under' or 'alongside' these cognitions.
   The consideration that led me to this reading involves a discussion of what I will refer to as the depth of the 'Self' concept. Different thinkers consider of the Self as having different depth, and so use the term (and some others) in different ways. I must give an account of what I mean by 'depth' here before I can continue on to the interpretation.
   I will assume for the discussion here that the term 'experience' will mean the broadest sense of experience, such that all possible contents are recognizable within it. For some thinkers' terminology, a perception is considered equal to an experience (or an experience is considered simply perception). In this way, all possible content of thought are treated as not necessarily relational external to the perception (relation would just be another thing within the perception). In this manner of speaking, the Self, thought as the perceiver, is given negatively as the container the perception. Here, the subject is given in advance (a priori), since it is the stage wherein the experience is given.
   Others, such as Kant, speak of experience as a synthesis of different perceptions, such that the subject really does not come about except through laws of the organization (synthesis) of perceptions into experience. In this case, the subject is not a ground of the perception, but a result of the synthesis of perceptions.
   When there is only one perception required for the Self, I say that there is less 'depth' (and this is not at all intended in a pejorative sense). Descartes is a thinker who seems to take the subject to be thought in a single moment, as it were, and not considered an entity synthesized in reference to cognitions. But, if there is nothing that stands outside cognitions to identify with the subject, the subject will be the cognitions themselves, related to a cognition of their relation (also in the same perception), and so here the subject is a mere thinking (thing), while still being matter (though of a cognitive, not material, sort). A 'thinking thing', then, does not need to imply an object that then thinks which is separate from cognitions, but apparently could be taken to be the cognitions themselves related by a cognition - put awkwardly, the Cogito is simply a 'thinking'.
   To clarify why I consider this reading of Descartes seriously, I will first clarify why I think that Descartes' subject/Self concept has the depth of a single perception.
   The reason that it occurs to me to say that the subject in Descartes has minimal depth is that Descartes treats the subject as requiring preservation moment to moment, where preservation is explicitly treated as equivalent to creation. If we were to be skeptics, the Self could have just been created -now- with all of its current cognitions. Descartes requires God as our creator and preserver, where God simply refers to the continuity of Descartes existences as a condition.
   Here we can already catch a glimpse of why it is incorrect to call the subject in Descartes a substance (something Descartes himself admits), since it is not self-caused, or unconditioned. Also, because the entirety of the self needs preservation we can see how the entirety of the Self must be in the momentary perception so far as it is cognizable at all.
   The argument for the necessity of the idea of God also gives some weight to reading Descartes as a 'thinking' rather than a 'thinking thing' (where thing is an underlying substance). The proof involves how all finite ideas are only possible with an infinite idea as their ground (from which the finite ideas came). Descartes is a finite idea, and he requires that ground for his origin. (I will pass over supposed problems in this argument, since the purpose here is to try to assess the character of the Self, as Descartes thinks it. I do think the difficulties here can be resolved.)
   These considerations leave me with much to consider. First of all, I am interested in how this division of terms forms a complete account, and how such a division of terms is comparable to those of other writers. Next, I consider the development of a 'moral proof' (like Kant's) to become more recognizable here. Insofar as we accept the unity and continuity of the subject we believe in God as a preserver, and, in the Fourth Meditation, insofar as we act in the world and accept the continuity in things there, we accept God as the preserver of those things as they are, and as they are given to us. Certainty, which is a condition for truth for Descartes, requires this transcendent relationship with the divine.
   The last thing that I continue to wonder about is the nature of the doubting that Descartes carries on in the start of his inquiry. Ultimately it seems that he is rejecting a world view where the objects and subject are conceived of substances that preserve themselves, rather than simply rejecting objects of experience (he explicitly maintains the certainty of the objects insofar as they are merely appearance). Descartes is not deceived by his experience, but by the world view he has inherited. Doing an exposition as he does on the real dependence of our cognitions on the transcendent, and comparing it to the messy way his contemporaries may have maintained it, can easily meet the task set in the letter to Sorbonne, where Descartes says that he will give a proof of God that atheists can accept.

The Problem of 'The Problem of Knowledge'

   The problem of knowledge is often characterized as asking how is it that we can know anything, or something with certainty, or that something exists, &c.  This problem generates a lot of frustration both in the form of paradoxes such as the Gettier Problem, and ridiculous situations such as someone pointing to an object and saying "how do you know that's really there?".  As queer as these situations may be, there is always a sense in which they are valid for us to entertain, yet we usually dismiss them and "go on with our lives".  How is it that this 'problem' we recognize does not dog us in everything we do?  How are we still confident in our daily lives?  To answer these tangents simply: the the problem of knowledge is better grasped by us in an implicit manner than is it in an explicit manner.
   What does grasping the question better implicitly rather than explicitly mean?  To put it one way, if we explicitly take the problem of knowledge to be something that should cripple us in our daily lives, then our ability to just go on with our lives is a direct refutation of that formulation, and reveals an implicit understanding of the problem.
   When young, students of Philosophy come to expect the flippant response one finds when they raise the question of knowledge to a general audience, and have been satisfied to also then be flippant about the public. However, that the problem of knowledge actually is no problem for those who propound it should provide us with direction in evaluating the problem (rather than aggravating it as Epistemology professors I have known do).
   Descartes is taken as a forefather of the problem of knowledge, yet Descartes does not side with the problem against knowledge. However, much earlier than Descartes, Plato asked about knowledge in his work Theaetetus, and this masterpiece can be very helpful to us today in reforming our approach the question of knowledge. Unfortunately, I often encounter this dialogue interpreted so that it is infected by our more contemporary understanding of the problem of knowledge.
   In the dialogue, Socrates is discussing what knowledge is and the first answer that his interlocutor Theaetetus (a youth with a resemblance to Socrates) gives is that knowing is 'perceiving'. (I use perceiving here in a loose sense.) In many ways this answer is comparable to the Cogito of Descartes, though with a different emphasis.
   Apart from "I think, I am", an understanding of Descartes Cogito shows that there is quite a bit that we cannot doubt. We can doubt that there 'really' are objects, but we cannot doubt that it seems that there are objects; we cannot doubt any of our cognitions qua cognitions, though we can doubt the content. Theaetetus' answer is like this, but where Descartes reaches this point with reference to his capacity to doubt, Theaetetus instead begins with something like the Cogito. Descartes proceeds to try to find his way back to an assurance in real things, while Theaetetus and Socrates inquiry leads them instead to finding the problem of knowledge to be how we can account for error. It is this question of how we can be in error that more rightfully should be called the problem of knowledge.
   It is easy to point out, as many have, that if we are to have a problem of knowledge then there must already be knowledge, and an understanding of it, such that there can be a problem; having a problem of knowledge minimally implies knowledge of the problem. This is where the problem of knowledge as the question of how we can be in error is much more interesting than the more skeptical question which depends upon an understanding of knowledge that already assumes its existence to be dubious.
   This new problem of knowledge supposes that we also know what it is like to be in error. In the Theaetetus, it is recognized that we take some people to be wiser than others, and that if knowledge is 'perception', then everyone would be equally wise since they would equally have 'perception'. Out of this a theory of 'judgment' is articulated out of which comes a new way in which we see that we get it wrong: sometimes we take something we perceive to be something that it later turns out not to be. We may see Theaetetus in the distance and judge him to be Socrates - how does this happen? Now models are presented in relation to how we might make this particular error - the famous tabula rasa and the aviary and a model based on court room arguments (incorrectly equated with justified true belief); all of these fail to satisfy the argument.
   The importance of the method on display in the Theaetetus is that the argument proceeds from something known which is then compared to the understanding of knowledge. The lack in the starting point is measured against what is trying to be obtained, and the pursuit follows between two points that are known in order to try to fill in the gaps. It will be impossible to formulate a general theory for how we are wrong in any particular way, but it is possible for us to articulate different kinds of error (e.g., mistaken identity), and the general sources of these errors in relation to some mistake of procedure. There is also a question about what the structure of any error is like - a metaphysical orientation to the question.
   Concerning how we err metaphysically, Heidegger shows explicitly something that Kant shows implicitly: that our average way of being has a tendency to cover up our authentic possibilities. Put in a Kantian mode, our theoretical approach to knowledge is fundamentally unsuited for grasping the practical - being guided by a purely theoretical method covers up the practical and hinders us in advancing in practical concerns. For Heidegger there is nothing bad about averageness, just as for Kant there is nothing bad about theoretical reason, but these things can become sources of error for us through obfuscation; this makes for an important addition to what is said in the Theaetetus.

Descartes and Deception

   One primary benefit of a phenomenological or philosophical interpretation is that it tries to see the phenomena that an author is discussing (even implicitly) first hand. The advantage of this is that we can use this as a common starting point for interpretation even when such a starting point has not been provided, and such a starting point is universally available.  However, sometimes it can be quite difficult to catch a glimpse of what an author is encountering, and sometimes direct glimpses of particular concepts are impossible (for example, monads).  But where a glimpse is impossible, one can ultimately trace the concept or idea back into a relation with phenomena.
   Even when the method of a philosopher is apparently straightforward, as is the case in Descartes' Meditations, it is easy to not pay enough attention to the method and what it assumes to be effective. Descartes' manner of doubting presupposes the intelligibility of deception, as well as the importance of the sort of things we may be deceived by; this latter assumption is tentative on our part.  If we consider what the essence of deception is, we find that Descartes' own procedure of looking at the world and doubting is much more complicated than it initially seems. I mean to attempt an overview of some of the current difficulties in my current considerations of Descartes.  By putting it down as a starting point I can hopefully return to it in order to advance.
   Because Descartes is interested in something indubitable, he decides that if he can find any reason that he could doubt something then he will disregard it.  Here we must clarify this procedure on a number of points:  first, a guarding against the characterization of the method as hyperbolic or radical doubt; second, deception itself must be clarified, which will require that we understand the sort of thing that the indubitable is such that we cannot be deceived by it.
   Descartes does not desire to doubt everything, rather he desires the indubitably of some foundational starting point (or if we go by his letter to the faculty of Sorbonne, he means to prove the existence of God in a manner satisfactory to atheists).  To call his method hyperbolic doubt would be to characterize the method by part of its result after the fact.  I suggest that we try to characterize Descartes' inquiry as being cautious, though I will hold off on giving it some specific name.  It may be a better plan when reading and discussing Descartes to emphasize the care that Descartes means to have at the basis of his inquiry rather than the degree to which the results shake the foundations of his former outlook on life.  With this preliminary characterization I will advance to discussing deception in Descartes.
   Characterizing deception will help us to fully disclose the sort of care that Descartes takes in his work.  Put casually, deception supposes that the way things are given to us may not relate to how they are in some un-given form.  I have put this in a very unassuming manner to begin with intentionally as I want to make use of it to point out that there is something given and something not given that are required as either corresponding or not when there is a potential for deception. However, the casual manner of putting it leaves a lot of questions unanswered. I do not want to presume that this un-given thing is to be characterized as a substance, or thing-in-itself, or any other specific thing even though it may be any of these or something else in the case of Descartes.  Something else of note here is that we are not sure if deception is due to our own faculties or to the objects giving themselves in a false way, or through some other means, nor do we know the specific character of what is given.  I mention all of this so we can try to consider the wide area of possibilities available to us in understanding the sort of deception that Descartes is concerned with. It may be only one possible determination of these, or all possible determinations may fit; in each case we would have different ways of characterizing the given and un-given.  As expected, we will now need to try to get a sense of what the indubitable is for Descartes such that he can be deceived by anything else.
   We can perhaps characterize what is indubitable to Descartes with reference to what he finds to be indubitable: that he thinks, he is - the Cogito.  This is not all that Descartes finds to be indubitable, and not even what is most indubitable. (It is quite interesting to consider the option of degrees of indubitably. Why would this be more puzzling than degree of reality or perfection?)  Even though we have some of what Descartes finds to be indubitable, the proper understanding of the ego cogito is still only grasped through a recognition of what has been overcome, namely, deception.  Our interpretation here is in a place where we can co-determine deception and the indubitable.

Guides from Greek Thought:
   The Greek word for 'false' is pseudos (ψεῦδος) which involves dissembling.  Does this suggest that Greek thought also ran in parallel with Descartes' thinking on deception?  (I am considering this in relation to Heidegger's interpretation of Greek thought in his Parmenides.) This may or may not hold, but this comparison may be fruitful.

What is the Archimedean Point in Descartes' Meditations?

My relationship with Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy is one of loving frustration.For a cursory report of the history of my interpretation: I have gone from not being able to accept the Cogito, and being offended by the 'assumption' of God, to accepting the Cogito, and being suspicious of a change in method that resulted in a complete breakdown in meditation four.Most recently I have perceived something in the fourth meditation that may allow me to understand a continued continuity after the Cogito, and a chance to continue to meditate along with Descartes.I hope to present some of my recent work with the Meditations to get some feedback and answer questions (hopefully) about this approach.

In the first two meditations Descartes does a terrific job explaining what he is doing in such a way that it follows more like a story than an argument.In the third meditation, there is a change in presentation: what was a story of adventures in skepticism becomes more like a scholastic argument for the existence of god, specifically an ontological proof.The change in presentation left me wondering how to continue meditating along in the same manner as before, since, for example, it is easier to understand what it is like to doubt but much harder to understand what ‘eminence’ is like (this required some digging).Here I allowed myself to simply change my interpretive method to a more argumentative style, and could accept Descartes ontological proof with some reservations.(Descartes does not seem to be doing anything other than saying he is limited and therefore depends on something unlimited, which is acceptable taken formally – some concerns with this are still available to me, but I will spare them.)

The fourth meditation instantly frustrates readers with what appears to be intellectual negligence.Descartes declares God to be good:

“For, in the first place, I discover that it is impossible for him ever to deceive me, for in all fraud and deceit there is a certain imperfection: and although it may seem that the ability to deceive is a mark of subtlety or power, yet the will testifies without doubt of malice and weakness; and such, accordingly, cannot be found in God.”(http://www.wright.edu/cola/descartes/meditation4.html)

Where is the argument for this?Maybe we can attempt to construct something about evil as privation, and then argue that deception is evil, but I think there are some reasons this approach is to be avoided.At this point many readers I know throw up their arms in despair; I was included in this group until recently, when I found a new direction for my interpretation.

As Descartes continues in the fourth meditation he says something very interesting:

“It is the faculty of will only, or freedom of choice, which I experience to be so great that I am unable to conceive the idea of another that shall be more ample and extended; so that it is chiefly my will which leads me to discern that I bear a certain image and similitude of Deity.” (ibid.)

Speaking formally, our will is equal to God’s, though His has much greater extension (speaking materially).I had read this a number of times before – every time I had gone through the Meditations – but the last time I was reading it something clicked.

If we take Descartes to be looking for an Archimedean point on which he can build a trust in the world and proceed with certainty in his inquiries into nature, then it often seems as if the Cogito is this point on which everything turns.Now, while this is true, it often seems that the infallible ground of our knowledge is that we cannot doubt our own existence.However, I suggest considering that the real Archimedean point is found in the fourth meditation - our possession of unlimited will.What is the value of this suggestion?First of all, it leads us back to a new consideration of Descartes radical doubt.

If we can doubt the existence of everything “outside of us”, but cannot doubt ourselves, there is still no reason to act or take any cognition as the basis for action.If we do act, we are assuming a reason on which we have acted and a ground in taking the seeming appearing of the world around us to be legitimate.It seems to me that this assumption Descartes takes to be a good God. Now, before we get suspicious, we do not need to immediately pull in assumptions from Descartes’ (and our) culture when we are discussing God, rather we should consider exactly what Descartes requires from the concept ‘God’ for his argument and only that.First of all, we know we are limited, and depend on something unlimited; second of all, what appears to us is not a lie.I hope to focus on the second of these leaving the concerns about the first behind. The development up to the fourth meditation constitutes an epistemic theodicy.This theodicy seems to be required as an assumption, a priori, for anyone who involves themselves in the world through actions, since the ground of trusting “external” objects is something that assures their suitability to know them, which would need to be a being that can guarantee our continued existence (omnipotence), has a grasp of thing in themselves (omniscient), is required to acknowledge in every case (omnipresent), and would not lie to us (epistemically benevolent, which may be the only benevolence required). As a student of Kant, I immediately see a connection between the primacy of will in Descartes and Kant’s Practical Philosophy, I also see a relation to Kant’s moral proof of God.Now, Descartes does not necessarily see his argument as I do, however, this interpretive hypothesis explains a lot for me and gives me reasons to return to the text to explore the predictions it makes. I hope this hypothesis can help anyone reading this to also see if they can make sense of the continuity of the Meditations.