Descartes Analysis

Does Descartes create a vicious circle when he argues that the clear and distinct perception that a non-deceiving God exists and that clear and distinct perceptions are true because a non-deceiving God exists? The argument here will be that he does not. To prove the point Descartes' arguments for clear and distinct perception with respect to God's existence in the third meditation will be examined. In addition, it will be vital to the argument that Descartes' arguments for a non-deceitful God, also in the third meditation, be used as proof. Equally important to this argument that Descartes theory of perception does not commit a vicious circle, one needs to look at Descartes' arguments in the fourth meditation to show that error in the mind's reasoning is not the fault of God, but the fault the mind's will or recollection. One also has to be clear about Descartes' distinction between reasoning of Man and the infallibility of God. If Descartes proves anything in his Meditations it is that everything except God can be fallible. The reason makes sense. We see things through our mind. We explain what we see as being fact. But, fact to one person may not be fact to someone else.

In the third meditation Descartes begins his argument for clear and distinct perceptions with skepticism and by producing a counter-argument to his thesis. In other words, Descartes attempts to argue for the skeptical position that he could have borrowed some of the ideas of what is clear and distinct in corporeal objects from himself and, consequently, that no clear and distinct perception of God is necessary to clearly and distinctly perceive corporeal objects. The example Descartes' gives is this:

"For instance, I think that a stone is a substance, that is to say, a thing that is suitable for existing in itself; and likewise I think that I too am a substance. Despite the fact that I conceive myself to be a thinking thing and not an extended thing, where as I conceive of the stone as an extended thing and not a thinking thing (Ariew and Watkins, 37-38).

In this argument, Descartes disproves the skeptics' claim that minds can perceive corporeal objects as independently existing for the simple reason that minds perceive themselves as existing independently.. Descartes explains that thinking substances, namely minds, cannot clearly and distinctly perceive extended substances and matter, for the simple reason that mind and matter are two categorically different substances that do not share properties. The mind is res cogito, a thing with the property of thought, and matter is res extensa, a thing with the properties of extension, shape, position, and motion. Neither substance has the properties of the other. Therefore the mind cannot truly conceive of the other.

With this not so subtle distinction about mind and matter, the question now arises in the third meditation as to what has the ability to give the mind a clear and distinct perception of matter? Descartes answers this question by stating, "I understand by the name 'God' a certain substance that is infinite, independent, supremely intelligent, and supremely powerful, and that created me along with everything else that exists-if anything else exists" (Ariew and Watkins 38). Decartes even provides a reasonable explanation for these thoughts: Descartes offers an explanation of how and why he acts the way he does. "I experienced in myself a certain capacity for judging which I have doubtless received from God, like all the other things I possess..." (Descartes 1956 89)

So, why "must" God exist? Descartes states it is so because the mind does not have the properties within itself to directly perceive matter In essence, then, God must exist because only God has infinite independence, power, and knowledge with which to create two separate, distinct, and independent substances. Furthermore, Descartes elaborates on this point of proof of God's existence by saying that the human mind does not have a positive idea of an infinite substance, so the mind cannot create the idea of God; therefore, "the idea of God must come from an actual infinite substance, God" (Ariew and Watkins, 38). Now, Descartes explains how the mind can have an idea of God: "... I do not perceive the infinite by means of a true idea, but only through a negation of the infinite" (Ariew and Watkins, 38). The mind's idea of God comes from knowing that the mind itself is finite, and that knowledge of its own finitude limits certain ideas and concepts. One has to believe that there is something beyond man's finitude- and that this "infinite" can only be described as God.

It is interesting- and maybe a little confusing to the average person, that Descartes claims that we know God only through the negation of His infinity, in the same manner that we know darkness as a lack of light (Ariew and Watkins, 38). Therefore, the idea of God in the mind "is the most true, the most clear and distinct" idea that we have because we know our own finitude and defects by this idea (Ariew and Watkins, 38). Descartes also rationalizes that it is God who has created Man (Descartes, in this case), and if this was not so, then there would be no way to understand that man is not perfect. Descartes, then, states God is innate.

We now have the first piece of our probing, namely, how clear and distinct perception allows the mind to somehow comprehend a non-deceiving, infinitely perfect God. But we still have to see how the mind clearly and distinctly perceives corporeal objects from this idea of a non-deceiving God.

Descartes again assumes the skeptic's position in beginning his argument. He attempts to prove the skeptic's case to be true: "But perhaps this being is not God, and I have been produced either by my parents or by some other causes less perfect than God" (Ariew and Watkins, 39). Descartes finds that no being but God can conceive of the infinite qualities of God because God cannot have any other cause that contains the ideas of Him: God is self-caused (Ariew and Watkins, 40). Therefore the idea of God in the human mind cannot be split into separate categories of knowledge, power, and independence. The reason, according to Descartes is because God would then not be a perfect unity, and this is part of God's essence. (Ariew and Watkins, 40). What Descartes is trying to show his skeptics is that God ios not divided into separate categories, but all categories are unified in Him. This is what makes him ideal, perfect, One, and well beyond the ken of ordinary mortal Man. Dewscrates also seems to say that without Man's mind aware of God's existence, there would be no proof of such existence.

The final arguments one must examine before refuting the Cartesian Circle objection are those concerning error: Descartes discusses error and false reasoning in the fourth meditation. He claims that "[God] assuredly has not given me the sort of faculty with which I could ever make a mistake, when I use it properly" (Ariew and Watkins, 40). Furthermore, Descartes claims, "error as such is not something real that depends upon God, but rather is merely a defect... I make mistakes because the faculty of judging the truth, which I got from God, is not, in my case, infinite" (Ariew and Watkins, 41). Therefore, our faculties of reason cannot cause erroneous perceptions because God created them and God is infinitely good, powerful, capable, etc., so consequently a mistaken perception like perceiving a stone as an independent substance similar to the mind is the fault of the mind, not the fault of God. Descartes argues that the will overextends our intellect, and this creates error: "[The source of my errors] are owing simply to the fact that, since the will extends further than the intellect, I do not contain the will within the same boundaries; I also extend it to things I do not understand" (Ariew and Watkins, 43). This is how we err and mistakenly perceive objects in ways other than that in which God created them. So, we can avoid error by carefully controlling our will in our perceptions. Descartes also claims that we can avoid error by remembering to abstain from making judgments about those matters in which the truths are not apparent" (Ariew and Watkins, 44). One might ask here for a better explanation by Descartes of "truth." If his argument were to be reasoned out, then there can only be one truth=- God's, not Man's.

This leads one to Descartes' introduction of memory in the fourth meditation: the clear and distinct perception of God, which he claims is "the most true" and the "most clear and distinct" idea the mind has. Thus since memory is different from perception, we can avoid that vicious circle some critics ascribe to Descartes.

At this point, we have all of the pieces we need to show that Descartes' theory of perception is not circular. Let us take the stone that Descartes first perceived. If we want to be certain that the mind perceives the stone, we need not first perceive God's existence. We see things "as they are" so to speak, not through the eyes of God, this infinite being. In fact, nowhere in the meditations does Descartes claim that God is like a telescope through which we can perceive things. Instead, the mind knows that God is a non-deceiver because the mind has an idea of perfection and infinity and yet lacks perfection itself. The mind, however, has no clear and distinct idea of God. The mind knows God only indirectly. Almost "second-hand". Thus, Descartes' theory of perception does not create a vicious circle because the objects that the mind perceives are clear and distinct and the mind does not will the object to be something that it is not. this description does not require any direct use of the perception of God. Thus, the mind does not misperceive corporeal objects because it fails to perceive God before perceiving the object. it is sufficient for the mind to have perceived God only once in order to clearly perceive corporeal objects. By controlling the will and remembering a previous clear and distinct perception of God, Descartes theory of perception avoids the vicious circle of perceiving God to perceive a corporeal object.

WORKS CITED

Descartes, Rene. "Meditations on First Philosophy". In Ariew, Roger & Eric Watkins eds. Indianapolis: Hackett: Modern Philosophy. (1998) pp. 22-80.

Descartes, Rene: Great Books of the Western World Vol. 31 Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1956)