Uncovering the Hidden Truth Within Descartes’ Method

“Guess none of us could read the lie behind the golden truth”

-Lost Frequencies, Elley Duhé and X Ambassadors “Back to You”

Before understanding why, we are drawn, above all, to movement in the world around us because it feeds our senses in a way that motionless space does not. Why is motion so stimulating for the human senses? Because motion arouses us, energizes us, and steadily multiplies us. Because we, like the butterfly, are moving matter, therefore, we can identify with the butterfly slightly more than the swaying tree, and even less, with the vast and motionless mountain. Though, we are much more a tree than we are a mountain, and even more a butterfly than we are a tree. Why? Because of the specific arrangement of our matter. Since we take a special interest in movement, from almost the first time we open our eyes,

our vision will fixate on the bright contrasting colours of a monarch butterfly, fluttering against, what our young senses perceive to be, a still backdrop of nothingness. Our intrinsic desire to understand this energetic matter in motion will lead us to further inquiries using the tools at our disposal, which for human infants and many other young mammals, is limited to sense perception. Our hearing might detect the soft, rapid motion of the insect’s body and wings maneuvering the air around it. We might reach our tiny hand out to try and touch this bright, curious movement with our fingers. If we are successful at grasping it, our instincts might prompt us to bring the moving thing closer to our nose and mouth for closer investigation. These are the ways we understand the world until our intellect has evolved to the point of being able to apply a secondary set of tools to the subjects of inquiry, which, of course, leads to a second set of questions. What causes the butterfly to move the way it does? Why is it a caterpillar before it becomes a butterfly? What causes this change? What did this insect evolve from? Why does it exist? What is its primary purpose? These are the questions that modern scientific methods can only give us half the answer to because efficient and final causation is built into the methods we use to study it. As a result, we only examine the matter and form of things which leads us to an incomplete understanding of the subject matter in question.

Considering that sense perception had led former philosophers to arrive at false truths

about the world, Descartes decided that only the most doubtless foundation could provide an enduring basis for scientific knowledge and took it upon himself to establish such

groundwork in his Meditations on First Philosophy. However, his six-part thought experiment laid out in this discourse cannot lead to reliable truths about the external world because once Descartes has applied his method of doubt, he fails to restore a principle of motion to account for the changes that take place within extended substance*. As a result, the

fundamental Aristotelian principle of efficient causation* is neglected because of this omission and is replaced by Descartes’ concept of God as he understands him. With "God" as the ultimate maker and “creator” of everything, not only do Descartes’ “first principles” nullify the need to ask questions about “who” or “what" caused a thing to be, but also questions about “why” a thing is the way it is since God is the final cause* within his theory as well. The reason why this is problematic is because if the answers that give meaning and purpose to a things existence is already built into the foundation of scientific method, only those who have access to this (now hidden) “truth” about “God’s existence”, which Descartes believed to be “innate” in him (Descartes 64), will be able to reach the credible conceptions of reality that he strived for concerning all things knowable and even admits himself that “without this [truth] nothing could ever be perfectly known” (76).

For Aristotle however, an ordered, and more importantly, a universal theory of causation

was essential to our understanding of the physical world, particularly the changes and

movement that occur in that world. His theory was unique because it gave meaning and purpose to both living and non-living forms of matter in question and could even be applied to infinite things such as the universe. The universe was a special form for which to apply this theory because it resulted in a curious, missing metaphysical component that remained to be unexplainable movement that must have caused the event that caused the universe to come into existence. Moreover, since spontaneous events could only occur posterior to a cause according to Aristotle’s theory in Physics, even if it were true that the existence of the universe was due to a spontaneous event, “it [would] still be true that intelligence* and

nature [were] prior causes of this All…” (Aristotle 247). This was a universal approach to knowledge because it gave a purposeful account of everything within the universe whether one believed this first movement to be an all-powerful god or not. With proper application, real and meaningful truths about the world could be uncovered either way.

Descartes' first principles, on the other hand, rely on a potentially exclusive provision

that is only accessible to those exposed to it because “the existence of God” is a concept rather than a principle. If a concept is used as a first principle, not only will this concept become more difficult to uncover because it is essentially hidden in the foundation of all method that is derived from it, since concepts are something that must be conceived in the mind, everyone who is introduced to one, will contemplate, and conceptualize it differently since consciousness is an infinite thing. This leads to an unequal and unfair distribution of first principles as well as an incomplete understanding of the universe. In the next paragraphs, I will explain how Descartes arrived at this principle before examining the detrimental effects of its application.

Descartes embarked on his project believing that “an earnest and unfettered general

demolition of [his former] opinions” (41) was essential in developing assumptions that could be relied upon as a basis for scientific knowledge and was willing to admit that his belief that an all-powerful god created him, was among one of the long-term, “fixed” opinions (43) he held. He understood that to fully rid himself of any biases relating to this opinion, he would first need to erase this creationary conviction from his mind completely to see if it

remanifested itself naturally. If it was successful in doing so, and in such a way that it could no longer be called into doubt, then it could officially earn its status as a first principle within his method. Moreover, this part of our existence would no longer require further questioning because it had been “proven” unequivocally, or so he thought.

Once Descartes had deployed the method of doubt, he only allows opinions which are "entirely certain and indubitable" (41) to enter back into, what he claims to be, an error-free mind. This process soon leads him to conclude that he is, above all, a "thinking thing" and it is only because of this property that he can know beyond all reasonable doubt that he does, in fact, exist. Without minds, humans would simply be substance in motion, unaware of their bodies and consequently, their existence in the universe. Once we can affirm with certainty that we exist, only then can we begin to analyze our sense perception according to Descartes who states that sense perception “is nothing other than thinking” (49). What he means by this, is that we would not even be able to realize our sense perception, much less utilize it, if it were not for our capacity to think and reason, therefore, “sensing” is more thinking than anything else. However, Descartes is quick to warn that even our thoughts can be unreliable when drawing conclusions about extended substance using sense perception and uses a piece of beeswax to exemplify his point.

He argues that our ability to see, smell, taste, touch, and hear leads us to an incomplete

understanding of the wax because our senses do not and cannot perceive the true essence of the wax. That is to say, they cannot detect its changeable qualities without a mind that can analyze these changes, therefore, the senses alone, cannot detect its full potential. Because of this shortcoming, Descartes resolved that we gain more truths about our own bodies and mind when examining things which our senses perceive in the physical world because those things (extended substance) must all be understood which requires the faculty of reason which is something that is beyond our sense experience. This leads Descartes to the assumption that “there is nothing [he] can perceive more easily or more clearly than [his] own mind” (52) because it is something that he does not perceive with the senses. This assumption conveniently becomes the precursor to his argument for the existence of God, which, like the mind, is something that, also, cannot be perceived by the senses, therefore, can be perceived more clearly than material things according to Descartes’ unusual line of

reasoning.

Once Descartes becomes certain of God’s existence, he feels it necessary to explain

how such a “truth” came to him since he could "not [have] derived it from the senses” (63) or simply imagined it because he is “completely unable to remove anything from it or add anything to it” (63) supposedly. After ruling out these two possibilities, Descartes

immediately concludes that the idea of God must be “innate” in him since this was the only remaining explanation for how it could have come to be there in his view. Furthermore, this conclusion helps to confirm God’s existence since it is only fitting that his creator (God) would have “placed that idea within [him]” (64) as a mark of his “craftsmanship” according to Descartes. However, by establishing this infinite belief as a first principle within his theory, any method built from this foundation cannot be effectively applied to infinite substance itself because the cause of infinite substance already lies within the method. Consequently, Descartes’ first principles can only provide a basis for questions related to matter and form because, unlike intelligence, they are causes that can be quantified. Paradoxically, they do not have the potential of leading others to the assumption that everything in the universe was created with purpose by a non-deceptive, all-powerful god, a belief that his entire method relies upon for legitimacy.

But what if Descartes had not used his beeswax experiment to design an argument that would help support his more general conclusion that "God does, indeed, exists" (63), and instead, allowed logical reasoning to take its course? Might he have resolved that the wax was, above all, changeable matter? Would he have paid closer attention to the nature of his analysis during this experiment and noticed that his senses fired slightly before his intellect? Would he have considered this order to be significant? Would this have led him to contemplate the development of the senses and intellect and the order of that development? Would he have taken more care in emphasizing the fact that his ability to think was dependent on the constant movement of matter circulating within his body? Would he have resolved that he was more a moving thing than a thinking thing? And if so, where could this assumption have taken him? Could it have taken him closer to the truth?

While Descartes’ skepticism may have been methodological in its attempt to prove God’s existence, it cannot lead to universal truths about the physical world because he does not restore a principle of motion to account for the movement that causes extended substance to change. Furthermore, by making a belief in God a precondition within his theory, only those who have been given direct access to this belief (by God himself), will be able to employ his method successfully. Ironically, a source of intelligence in the universe is the one truth that Descartes’ first principles cannot possibly lead to.

Sincerely,

Heather

Note: This essay post has been inspired by intellectually stimulating seminar discussions with my brilliant LBST360 classmates, Dr. Warren Heiti's thought-provoking lectures on French Scientist, and Mathematician, René Descartes, and last but not least, Aristotle's Theory of Causation, which I have grown so attached to and protective of over time.

*Descartes categorized all three-dimensional objects that can be perceived by the senses (incl. bodies) as “extended substance”

*Efficient causation according to Aristotle’s Physics was “the primary source of the change or coming to rest”

*Final causation according to Aristotle’s Physics is “that for the sake of which a thing is done"

*In Aristotle’s Physics the word “intelligence” is used to refer to the basic immortal property of the transcendent Mind.

Works Consulted

Aristotle. The Basic Works of Aristotle, edited by Richard McKeon. New York, Random House,1941. pp.236-250

Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy, edited by Andrew Bailey. Translated by Ian Johnston. Peterborough, Broadview Press, 2013.