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Reason and Knowledge
Lecture Three – The Cogito
Introduction
So far, we have considered the Cartesian method of doubt. Descartes claims that if we are going to develop a secure foundation for knowledge, we need to be able to distinguish those beliefs we had that we knew with certainty from those that were uncertain. Descartes sets about this task by suspending judgement about all beliefs that could be doubted. Descartes concludes that beliefs about perception, the external world, and even the truths of mathematics, couldn’t be held to with certainty.
What survives this radical sceptical doubt? In the 2nd Meditation Descartes argues that what survives is my knowledge that I exist as a thinking thing. The argument by which Descartes reaches this conclusion is known as the cogito, because he formulates it in his Principles of Philosophy as ‘Cogito ergo sum’ – ‘I think, therefore, I am.’ We look in more detail at this claim and what kind of inference it is. In the second half of the lecture, I will talk about another argument from the second meditation: Descartes wax argument. The aim of this argument is to show that the mind is better known than the body.
The Cogito
Descartes claims that if, following the application of extreme doubt in the first meditation, we are going to rebuild the foundations of our belief in the external world, we just need to find one belief that is certain:
Archimedes used to demand just one firm and immovable point in order to shift the entire earth; so I too can hope for great things if I manage to find just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshakable. (Descartes 24)
Descartes’ point here is that because our beliefs are interconnected in systematic ways, once we have established a point of certainty, we can start seeing what the implications of this one certain belief are. We can then begin to reconstruct our beliefs more generally. Now, it turns out that when we look back at the process of doubting, there is such a belief that can be used as an Archimedean point:
But I have convinced myself that there is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Does it now follow that I, too, do not exist? No. If I convinced myself of something [or thought anything at all], then I certainly existed. But there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who deliberately and constantly deceives me. In that case, I, too, undoubtedly exist, if he deceives me; and let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I think that I am something. So, after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that the proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind. (Descartes 25)
So it is the fact that I exist which falls outside the reach of methodological doubt.
The Cogito as an Inference
We might consider the cogito argument to operate according to an inference from the ‘I think’ to the ‘I am’. However, if we are dealing here with an inference, then we will need a further premise, that allows us to connect the ‘I think’ with the ‘I am’.
The obvious premise to choose would be the generalisation ‘Everything which thinks, exists,’ as this premise references both thinking and existing, and so allows us to relate one to the other. Now, this proposition seems to get its logical force from the fact that it is a specific instance of a more general proposition, namely that if something has a property, then it must exist. This proposition appears to be something like a logical truth, and so seems to be a relatively harmless addition – if something is round, for instance, then it seems to follow logically that it must exist, in order to be round. If this were the case, then the cogito argument would be as follows: (P1) If something has a property, then it exists. (P2) I think (I have a property). (C) I exist.
This does give us an argument that shows that I exist from the fact that I think, but there are several features missing from this argument that seem to be essential to Descartes’ intentions. First of all, the argument doesn’t seem to rest in any important way on the fact that we are thinking. It seems like any other property would equally well get us to the ‘I am’. Consider the following: (P1) If something has a property, then it exists. (P2) I breathe (I have a property). (C) I exist.
This variant of the argument is equally valid, but it doesn’t seem to capture Descartes’ intention.
The second aspect that is missing from this argument is the emphasis on the first person perspective. According to the structure we have here, it doesn’t appear that the reference to the self is necessary. For instance, consider the following:
(P1) If something has a property, then it exists. (P2) You think (You have a property). (C) You exist.
What are the problems with these two variants on the cogito argument? In relation to relying on the general claim that if something has a property it exists, Descartes himself raises this regarding the property of breathing in a letter of March 1638:
When someone says ‘I am breathing, therefore I exist’, if he wants to prove he exists from the fact that there cannot be breathing without existence, he proves nothing, because he would have to prove first that it is true that he is breathing, which is impossible unless he has also proved that he exists. But if he wants to prove his existence from the feeling of the belief he has that he is breathing, so that he judges that even if the opinion were untrue he could not have it if he did not exist, then his proof is sound. For in such a case the thought of breathing is present to our mind before the thought of our existing, and we cannot doubt that we have it while we have it. (Descartes, quoted in Williams 94)
Descartes’ point here is that if we are really trying to prove that we exist from the fact that we are breathing, then we have missed the point of the method of doubt. Our existence as physical beings has been bracketed in our attempt to arrive at a point of certainty (our impressions of breathing could just be an illusion fed to us by an evil demon). Now, breathing is a function of ourselves as physical beings. We cannot therefore prove our existence from the fact that we breathe, as we first need to justify our beliefs about the physical world.
On the other hand, it might be the case that we base our argument on the impression we have that we are breathing, regardless of whether these impressions come from the real world or from the evil demon. In this case, however, we are really arguing that because I think I am breathing, I am. Thus in this case, it’s really the thinking, and not the breathing, that is justifying our beliefs.
What about the second case? It seems to be the case that when we say something has a particular property, in our example ‘you’ have the property of ‘thinking’, we are also implicitly ascribing existence to that thing. But while when we make a judgement that something has a particular property we do implicitly assume that that thing has existence, the kind of existence we attribute to it can vary greatly. For instance, while we can talk about Hamlet doing lots of different things during the play of the same name, we wouldn’t attribute a real existence to him. Yet we might say that he exists in some sense (as a fictional character, for instance). This kind of existence clearly isn’t the kind that Descartes is looking for.
Now in fact, Descartes’ own view of the cogito argument is that it cannot be seen as an inference. We started off with the claim that whatever has a property, exists. Descartes argues in the replies to objections that this general proposition in fact emerges from the cogito argument, rather than being its basis.
When we perceive that we are things that think, this is a first notion that is derived from no syllogism; and when someone says, “I think, therefore I am, or I exist,” he does not conclude his existence from his thought as if by the force of some syllogism, but as something known by itself; he sees it by a simple inspection of the mind. As it appears form the fact that, if he deduced it from the syllogism, he would first have had to know this major premise: Everything that thinks, is or exists. But on the contrary, it is taught to him from the fact that he feels in himself that it cannot be the case that he thinks, unless he exists. For it is in the nature of our mind to form general propositions from the knowledge of particular propositions. (Descartes 140)
Nonetheless, he does often frame the cogito argument as a kind of inference, as the argument can be made to look stronger this way.
Cogito as Based on Performative Contradiction
If the cogito argument isn’t based on an inference from a principle, how does it function? Jaako Hintikka suggests that what’s behind the cogito is a performative contradiction. To see how this might work, we can look at the following proposition: Katrina Mitcheson does not exist.
Now, there clearly isn’t any problem with any of you making this statement – while it might be a false claim, it would certainly make sense. However, there would be an issue if I were to say it. That is because, if the statement were true, it would entail my own non-existence as the person asserting the sentence. What’s interesting about this claim, therefore, is that while it may be contradictory, its contradictory nature depends on who the speaker of the proposition is. For this reason, Hintikka calls it a performative contradiction, as it depends ‘Katrina Mitcheson’ does not exist’ is a performative contradiction if we know the context (the speaker), the statement ‘I do not exist’ will always be a performative contradiction. That’s because the I itself is contextual.
So here we can relate the notion of performative contradiction back to the method of doubt. As we saw, Descartes attempts to show that it is possible to doubt a whole series of our beliefs – that is, to assert the opposite belief.
As we have seen, we cannot assert the opposite of the statement, I exist, because to assert ‘I do not exist’ involves a performative contradiction. In this sense, Hintikka’s reading shows why the first person perspective is necessary for the cogito.
Crucially it is thinking, and not another characteristic such as breathing or walking that is essential to showing that we exist.
[Thinking] cannot be replaced with an arbitrary verb. The performance [act] through which the existential self-verifiability is manifested cannot be any arbitrary human activity..It must be just what we said it is: an attempt to think in the sense of making myself believe...that I do not exist. Hence Descartes’ choice of the word cogito. (Hintikka 17)
We cannot make ourselves believe we don’t exist, because the attempt involves thinking, and thinking shows us that we exist.
Implications of the Cogito
What though do we actually know from I think, I am? Descartes makes the following claim:
At present I am not admitting anything except what is necessarily true. I am, then, in the strict sense only a thing that thinks; that is, I am a mind, or intelligence, or intellect, or reason – words whose meaning I have been ignorant of until now. But for all that I am a thing which is real and which truly exists. But what kind of a thing? As I have just said – a thinking thing. [Descartes 27]
While this is quite a minimal result, it has two important implications. First, while we don’t know much about our own nature, we do know that what’s definitive of it is thinking, which is something we understand clearly.
Second, Descartes’ definition implies that we can characterise what we are purely in terms of our mental capacities. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the mind is actually separate from the body. The situation might be like the objects of geometry – while we can understand a triangle purely in terms of its geometrical properties, we know that in fact triangles also have non-geometrical properties in practice, such as colour.
The Wax Example
Descartes still needs to argue against the belief that we don’t know the mind as well as the body. While we have quite determinate perceptions of physical things, we don’t seem to be able to ‘picture’ the mind in the same way. Descartes acknowledges:
But it still appears – and I cannot stop thinking this – that the corporeal things of which images are formed in my thought, and which the senses investigate, are known with much more distinctness than this puzzling “I” which cannot be pictured in the imagination. [7:29]
Descartes’ claim is that while this appears to be the case, in fact, the mind is better known than the body. In order to illustrate this point, he introduces a thought experiment about a piece of wax. I want to look at Descartes’ text in full before going through what Descartes wants us to take from it:
Let us take, for example, this piece of wax. It has just been taken from the honeycomb; it has not quite yet lost the taste of honey; it retains some of the scent of the flowers from which it was gathered; its colour, shape and size are plain to see; it is hard, cold, and can be handled without difficulty; if you rap it with your knuckles, it makes a sound. In short, it has everything which appears necessary for a body to be known as distinctly as possible. But even as I speak, I put the wax by the fire, and look: the residual taste is eliminated, the smell goes away, the colour changes, the shape is lost, and the size increases; it becomes liquid and hot; you can hardly touch it, and if you strike it, it no longer makes a sound. But does the same wax remain? It must be admitted that it does; no one denies it, no one thinks otherwise. So what was it in the wax that I understood with such distinctness? Evidently none of the features which I arrived at by means of the senses; for whatever came under taste, smell, sight, touch or hearing has now altered – yet the wax remains. (Descartes 30-31)
Now, behind this example is the claim that there are three different ways in which we might gain an understanding of something: through the senses, the imagination, or the intellect. We can go through each of these ways in which we might know the wax to see whether they are accurate.
Starting with the senses, we can see that the wax cannot be understood through the senses. When we melt the wax, all of its sensible properties change. As none of its sensible properties remain constant, it cannot be the case that we know the nature of the wax through any of these properties. Rather, we understand it as ‘merely something flexible, extended, and changeable.’ (Descartes 31) We therefore understand the wax as something that is capable of taking on innumerable different shapes. This point shows that we cannot understand the wax through the senses – the senses can only tell us the shape that the wax actually has, but fundamental to the nature of the wax is that it has the potential to take on far more shapes than it has in actuality.
If the senses can only tell us what is the case, then it is at least clear that we can imagine things that aren’t real. We can picture to ourselves, for instance, a Pegasus, even though winged horses aren’t real. So, given that the wax is understood in terms of an ability to take on shapes that goes beyond the shapes it actually holds, can it be the imagination that allows us to understand the wax? No, because what defines the wax is the innumerability of the shapes that it can take on. The imagination can only represent these different shapes by presenting us with an image of each one. For this reason, the imagination cannot represent the essential plasticity of the wax.
If the wax isn’t understood through the sense, or through the imagination, then it has to be through the intellect that we understand the nature of the wax.
The Mind is known better than the body
Descartes opens the second meditation by claiming that the mind is better known than the body. After this long digression into the nature of perception, we can now see why that is the case. Given that judgement (an operation of mind) is fundamental to a perception of bodies, the existence of the mind is affirmed in any judgement about bodies. Descartes makes this point as follows:
Moreover, if my perception of the wax seemed more distinct after it was established not just by sight or touch but by many other considerations, it must be admitted that I now know myself even more distinctly. This is because every consideration whatsoever which contributes to my perception of the wax, or of any other body, cannot but establish even more effectively the nature of my own mind. But besides this, there is so much else in the mind itself which can serve to make my knowledge of it more distinct, that it scarcely seems worth going through the contributions made by considering bodily things. (Descartes 33)
Conclusion
So we have seen that what Descartes presents in this meditation is not an inference in a traditional sense, but rather what we might call a ‘performative inference’ that relies on the first person perspective of the thinker, and thought as his defining attribute. Nonetheless, the nature of the cogito is extremely limited as it stands. It is reliant on this first personal perspective. It only guarantees existence at this moment. While we may remember having entertained the cogito argument in the past, these past reflections are susceptible to the dreaming scepticism we looked at last week. Finally, while we know that this ‘I’ exists, we cannot clearly and distinctly conceive of the nature of this existence. Next week, we will look at Descartes’ attempt to expand on this Archimedean point which rely on his proofs of the existence of God.