Descartes Two
Summary
TLDRIn this video, we delve into Descartes' Second Meditation, where he questions everything, including the existence of his own body. Through doubt, Descartes discovers the first fundamental building block of reality: the thinking mind, encapsulated in his famous phrase 'I think, therefore I am.' He then explores the nature of the soul and distinguishes it from bodily functions, aligning it with thought. Descartes further establishes 'extension in space' as the second building block, which is perceived by the mind and is the basis for scientific knowledge. The video concludes by highlighting how Descartes' meditations aim to provide a solid foundation for science and knowledge.
Takeaways
- ๐ง The second meditation by Descartes focuses on doubting everything, including the existence of the body and the reliability of senses and imagination.
- ๐ค Descartes introduces the famous phrase 'I think, therefore I am' (Cogito, ergo sum), establishing thought as the first fundamental building block of reality and proof of one's own existence.
- ๐ง He questions the traditional definition of humans as 'rational animals' and moves the concept of the soul closer to the idea of thinking, suggesting they might be one and the same.
- ๐ Descartes uses the example of a piece of wax to illustrate that the true nature of physical objects is not their sensory qualities but their extension in space.
- ๐ซ He dismisses the reliability of senses and imagination in understanding the true nature of things, as they can be deceptive.
- ๐งฉ The second fundamental building block of reality, according to Descartes, is extension in space, which is the essence of all physical objects and the object of scientific knowledge.
- ๐งโโ๏ธ Descartes associates the soul with the mind and thinking, suggesting that the soul's function is to judge and understand extension, thus connecting it with scientific knowledge.
- ๐ The wax example shows that while the wax's sensory properties change, its extension remains, indicating that extension is a constant and reliable aspect of physical reality.
- ๐ Descartes' aim is to provide a foundation for scientific knowledge that is compatible with the Catholic Church's teachings, suggesting that the soul's ability to understand extension is a gift from God.
- ๐ฎ The second meditation concludes with the establishment of the mind (thinking) and extension as the two fundamental building blocks of reality, with the mind being the source of scientific understanding.
Q & A
What is the main focus of Descartes' Second Meditation?
-The main focus of Descartes' Second Meditation is to establish the two fundamental building blocks of reality: thought or mind, and extension in space. He seeks to prove the existence of the self as a thinking thing and the existence of external objects as extended in space.
How does Descartes begin the Second Meditation?
-Descartes begins the Second Meditation by continuing to doubt everything, including his own body and the physical world, as established at the end of the First Meditation.
What is Descartes' famous phrase that he introduces in the Second Meditation?
-Descartes introduces the famous phrase 'I think, therefore I am' (Cogito, ergo sum) in the Second Meditation, which is a variation of 'I am, I exist' that he uses to prove his own existence as a thinking thing.
What does Descartes argue about the nature of the soul in relation to thought?
-Descartes argues that the soul is closely related to thought, suggesting that the soul and thinking might be the same thing. He moves the concept of the soul away from traditional understandings of animation and bodily functions, focusing on thought as the defining characteristic.
How does Descartes use the example of wax to demonstrate the concept of extension?
-Descartes uses the example of wax to show that the true nature of the wax is its extension in space, which is not dependent on the senses or imagination but is discerned by judgment. He argues that even when the wax's sensory properties change, its extension remains constant.
What does Descartes consider the object of scientific knowledge?
-Descartes considers extension in space, which is the fundamental property of material objects, as the object of scientific knowledge. He believes that scientific knowledge is rooted in the functioning of the soul, which judges extension to be true.
How does Descartes differentiate between judgment and the senses or imagination?
-Descartes differentiates judgment from the senses and imagination by stating that judgment is a faculty of the mind or soul that discerns truth beyond what can be perceived by the senses or imagined. It is the ability to understand and judge the nature of extension in objects like wax.
What is the significance of Descartes' discussion on the 'rational animal' in the Second Meditation?
-The discussion on the 'rational animal' is significant because it shows Descartes' awareness of classical definitions of humans and his intention to redefine the concept. He uses it to transition from the traditional understanding of the soul as animating the body to the soul as a thinking entity.
How does Descartes address the unreliability of sense perception and imagination in the Second Meditation?
-Descartes addresses the unreliability of sense perception and imagination by showing that they can be deceptive and cannot provide certain knowledge of the external world. He uses the example of wax to demonstrate that the true nature of objects is not found through sensory experience or imagination but through the mind's judgment of extension.
What role does doubt play in Descartes' Second Meditation?
-Doubt plays a crucial role in Descartes' Second Meditation as it is the method he uses to question all previous knowledge and beliefs. Through doubt, he seeks to find a firm foundation for knowledge, which he eventually finds in the certainty of his own existence as a thinking thing.
How does Descartes' Second Meditation contribute to his broader philosophical project?
-Descartes' Second Meditation contributes to his broader philosophical project by establishing a secure foundation for knowledge and science. By proving the existence of the thinking self and the external world as extended in space, he paves the way for a new approach to understanding reality that is grounded in the certainty of the mind's judgments.
Outlines
๐งโโ๏ธ Introduction to Descartes' Second Meditation
This paragraph introduces the second meditation by Descartes, emphasizing the skeptical approach taken in the first meditation where everything, including God, arithmetic, and geometry, is doubted. Descartes starts the second meditation by acknowledging the doubt but then seeks to establish certainty. He introduces the famous phrase 'I think, therefore I am' (Cogito, ergo sum), which serves as the first fundamental building block of reality. Descartes argues that doubt itself is a form of thinking, and therefore, the existence of a thinking entity is certain. The paragraph also hints at the distinction between the mind and the body, suggesting that the mind (or thought) might be the essence of the self, separate from the physical body.
๐ค The Concept of 'Rational Animal' and the Soul
In this paragraph, the discussion shifts to the concept of 'rational animal' (zoon logon echon), a term attributed to Aristotle, which refers to humans as living beings endowed with reason and language. Descartes reflects on this definition, acknowledging the complexity of defining 'animal,' 'reason,' or 'rationality.' He then transitions to the idea of the soul, questioning what he previously thought it was. Descartes differentiates the soul from the physical body and its functions, such as nourishment and sensory perception, which are all subject to doubt. He suggests that the soul might be more closely aligned with thought, moving towards the idea that the soul and thought might be one and the same.
๐ฏ๏ธ The Wax Argument and the Nature of Extension
Descartes uses the example of a piece of wax to illustrate his point about the nature of material reality. He notes that the sensory perceptions of the wax, such as its smell, taste, and appearance, are not reliable indicators of its true nature because they can change and are subject to doubt. Descartes argues that what remains constant and certain about the wax is its extension in space. Even when the wax melts or changes form, its extendedness in space persists. This leads to the conclusion that extension, or the property of occupying space, is the fundamental characteristic of all material things and is the second building block of reality. The paragraph also touches on the idea that judgment, which is a faculty of the mind, is what allows us to understand extension beyond what our senses and imagination can perceive.
๐ The Mind, Extension, and the Foundation of Scientific Knowledge
The final paragraph summarizes the key points of Descartes' second meditation. It reiterates that the mind, or thought, is the first fundamental building block of reality, and extension in space is the second. Descartes suggests that scientific knowledge, which is primarily concerned with understanding extension and material bodies, is rooted in the soul's ability to judge and comprehend extension. The paragraph also hints at the role of God in creating the soul and, by extension, humankind's capacity for scientific knowledge. The meditation concludes by establishing the mind and extension as the foundational elements for understanding reality and the pursuit of scientific knowledge.
Mindmap
Keywords
๐กMeditation
๐กDescartes
๐กDoubt
๐กCogito, ergo sum
๐กMind
๐กSoul
๐กExtension
๐กWax Argument
๐กJudgment
๐กScientific Knowledge
Highlights
Descartes begins the second meditation with everything in doubt, including God and arithmetic.
The goal of the second meditation is to identify the fundamental building blocks of reality.
Descartes argues that doubting is a form of thinking, leading to the conclusion 'I think, therefore I am'.
The first building block of reality is the existence of thought or mind.
Descartes questions the traditional definition of humans as 'rational animals', distancing the concept of the soul from physical attributes.
The soul is associated with thought, suggesting they might be one and the same.
Descartes uses the example of a piece of wax to demonstrate the unreliability of sense perception and imagination.
The concept of 'extension' is introduced as a quality that exceeds both sense perception and imagination.
Descartes asserts that all bodies are pure extension in space, forming the second building block of reality.
The mind's ability to judge the extension of the wax is attributed to the soul's capacity for scientific knowledge.
Descartes aims to ground scientific knowledge in the soul's processes, aligning with the Catholic Church's acceptance.
The wax example illustrates that scientific knowledge is rooted in the mind's judgment rather than sensory experience.
Descartes concludes that the mind's judgment is the faculty that discerns the truth of extension.
The meditation establishes a foundation for scientific knowledge based on the mind's ability to understand extension.
Descartes' wax example shows that the nature of the wax is understood through the mind, not the senses.
The second meditation ends with the identification of thought and extension as the two fundamental building blocks of reality.
Transcripts
hello
um I hope that you're all well now we're
going to do a little guide through the
second meditation
um Descartes second meditation if you
remember from the last
video and from your last reading so
where we end at the end of the first
meditation is everything in doubt right
everything is in doubt
um
even God and arithmetic and geometry
perhaps though Descartes seems to give
them an odd treatment there
um
but everything is in doubt Descartes has
no body no nothing like that so and this
is where he starts in second meditation
he's
struggling with it
um but remember I said probably that in
the second meditation Descartes is going
to give us the two fundamental building
blocks of reality so this is again it's
metaphysics so
um what is there what what is there in
the world
um in the last uh last meditation
everything that we knew was
demolished taken down by an attack on
sense perception and Imagination which
is the building of composite things
these were both shown to be deceptive
and thereby anything which is rooted in
them can be drawn into doubt and now
Descartes is still doubting here but he
immediately uh page 17 of the PDF into
uh into the page 18 moves to prove
something
and what he does here he gives us
a different version of the phrase that
he's most famous for sorry I have the
texting from me I just want to make sure
that I have the page numbers right so
you can follow along where I'm at
um he says what truth is left
perhaps this alone that nothing is
certain and his argumentation here runs
that
um
everything is doubtful everything has
been drawn into doubt I could be certain
of nothing even the fact that I have a
body and that I'm here in this physical
space in the living room as it were
um but oh and I'm being deceived
potentially but if I'm doubting
some process is happening
and if I'm being deceived there must be
something to be deceived right there
must be something there which is the
object of deception
um and so doubting is a form of thinking
so therefore I exist Descartes says he
said did I therefore not convince myself
that I did not exist either this is page
18. no certainly I did exist if I
convinced myself of something
Beyond doubt then I also exist I am I
exist whenever it is uttered by me or
conceived in the mind is necessarily
true
and this I am I exist is a variation on
the the phrase that Descartes is most
famous for
um which is uh I think therefore I am or
perhaps most famous word I think
therefore I am kagito Ergo soon
so I think therefore I am uh and and
here we have the first building block of
reality for Descartes um if I'm doubting
all this time there must be something
um which is going on this process is
thought I am a thinking thing so the the
First Fundamental building block of
reality that Descartes has proven to
himself is a thought or mind depending
on how you want to look at it thinking
or mind right
um and then he immediately moves at the
bottom of page 18 into uh
the question of well beforehand what did
I think that I was now I know at the
very least I am thought I'm thinking I
am a thinking mind
um remember this is still not
necessarily connected to the brain
although I will tell you that if you
want to search for yourself Descartes
thought that thought and the Soul
um existed in the pineal gland so that's
another story
um
in any case uh I think therefore I am
I'm a thinking thing what did I think
that I was before
um and he first appeals to this phrase
rational animal and I don't want to get
too in depth with this but I I did
probably mention when I was talking
about the dialectic that this word logos
in Greek means reason or can mean reason
can mean speech or language can mean
logic can mean ratio a lot of
intermingling Concepts come from it
right
and Descartes would be very aware that
when he says I'm not a rational animal
he's referring to a famous phrase or a
phrase well known and attributed to
Aristotle the definition of the human as
uh
foreign which zun is an animate thing
um logon here logos reason language uh
logic right
coming from the verb in Greek to have so
this this phrase rational animal that we
have in English and that he would have
had in Latin and he would have been
trained in classical brief of course and
known very much what he was alluding to
when he raised this phrase It's not by
chance
um
really means the uh animate thing the
thing which is animated alive sort of
moving
um that has language that has reason
that has logic right the animal that has
the animate thing that has the logos
and Descartes says well it's a pain to
have to ask what is an animal what is
reason or what is rationality right he
doesn't want to get into that it's
enough to just think that I'm thinking
but I want to let you know that he would
have known what
at least with the etymological right
meaning of this phrase was where it came
from an Aristotle and what these words
in Greek would have intended
um and that's important because he
immediately then moves to this
discussion of the Soul right he says uh
I thought that I had limbs this is the
top of 19 face hands arms whole
mechanism of Limbs that I referred to my
body even corpses have these things
right
um and I'm not this and then he goes on
to say uh next that I took nourishment
moved perceived with my senses and
thought these actions I attributed to
the soul okay so suddenly similar to God
in the last meditation we have the soul
um and one of the reasons that I
mentioned the Greek
initial meaning of rational animal as
soon log on
is because uh oftentimes and you might
have come across this
um
people believed that the soul
is what animates our body right
um the Breath of Life this sort of the
soul is what breeds life into uh inner
or not
um
immobile matter right matter that's just
sort of
um not alive not moving the soul is life
um and here and and really from page 19
up until he mentions the wax
um a lot of what he's doing is and this
is implicit it's not super direct he's
bringing the soul away from these
previous understandings of Animation
being animate having a body needing
nourishment right all these things are
still in doubt I don't need to eat
necessarily because I don't have a body
at least none of this is certain for
Descartes the only thing that's certain
is that I think
um and he's moving this the soul and the
the function of the Soul uh into
proximity with this I think therefore I
am the soul and thinking
close to the same that's that's what
he's doing here over the course of the
next few pages so
um and then he goes on to uh bottom of
I'm gonna skip 20 and 21 because I think
I just said what's most important
between 19 and 21 is the soul thinking
coming close right maybe being the same
thing
um then he moves on to 20 bottom of 21
he wants to prove the existence of
something other than thought right
something other than mine something
other than thinking
um
and he refers to a piece of wax that he
has with him
um
and in the first paragraph top page 22
he talks about oh it's smelling and
tasting like honey or flowers because
it's beeswax
it makes noises because it's solid you
can knock on it you could feel it uh
blah blah blah see the size and shape
and so on and so forth and all of these
things
are things which are known by the senses
right so none of these things prove that
the exact the wax exists we're back to
sense perception not being trustable
so then in the next paragraph he says
well all these things aside all these
characteristics all these attributes
that
um I seem to know about the wax but they
can't be proven because they come from
sense perception what remains and he
says flexibility
mutability and being extended right
um and flexibility is similar mutability
if you don't know means the ability to
be shaped
um
but he goes on to say the flexibility
and mutability don't apply here because
I can imagine all the different ways in
which I could shape something right I
already have that so if I could imagine
how how the wax could be shaped
um
then this is a product of the
imagination it's composite thinking also
not reliable because of what was said in
meditation one right imagination is
deceptive senses are deceptive and
we uh so we get here in these two
paragraphs the application of the two uh
faculties that we've thrown out to the
wax senses no imagination no and then we
have extendedness how does this remain
well Descartes says what happens when
you put the uh wax over the fire right
um
turns into a liquid and then it turns
gashes right and it extends in the
air
and so his argument here it's uh I'll
read it here at the bottom of 22.
surely I know something about the nature
of its extension for it is greater when
the wax is melting greater still when it
is boiling and greater still when the
heat is further increased
and I would not be correctly judging the
wax
if I failed to see that it is capable of
receiving more varieties as regards
extension than I have ever grasped in my
imagination
um
so what's he saying here he's saying
that while he knows that it will
continue to extend in in a variety of
ways
in space
he can't imagine these ways so it the
extension and the possibilities of
extension in the wax which are known to
him
exceed his imagination and they're also
not perceived by the senses presuming
that at some point in time the gaseous
form of the wax will lose its smell and
lose its visibility right so
extendedness is is a quality of
something which exceeds both sense
perception and the imagination
and so Descartes here says that what we
have
other than thought other than thinking
is pure extension in space
all bodies all things which are not
thought are pure extension in space and
so now we have the two fundamental
building blocks of reality for Descartes
thinking mind thought
extension in space
bodies right
um
and I'm going to read a little bit here
from page 23 in the middle
he says but in the meantime I am amazed
by the proneness of my mind to error for
although I'm considering all this in
myself silently and without speech yet I
am still ensnared by words themselves
and all but deceived by the very ways in
which we usually put things
for when we see for when we say that we
see the wax itself if it is present not
that we judge it
[Music]
um
from this I would have immediately
concluded that I therefore knew the wax
by sight of the eyes not by inspection
of the Mind alone
if I had not happened to glance out of
the window I have people walking along
the street so um
by luck as he's having this thought
he has a window in his living room and
he looks at it but what do I actually
see I say that I see them just as I see
the wax but what do I actually see I
just see hats and coats and these could
be
um hats and coats covering automata
right but I judge that they are people
and therefore what I thought I saw with
my eyes I in fact grasp only with the
ability so he he Associates now this
faculty of judging
um with thought
it's not something that we we perceive
with the senses and it's not something
we do
um via the faculty of imagination
judging is the faculty that belongs to
thought and so
extendedness
in not being able to be perceived by the
senses and exceeding the imagination in
its possibility is discerned by judgment
um
and let me show you really quick a
little drawing that I do for the
students where is it here it is it's
really bad on here sorry Microsoft Paint
style
um but hopefully you get this right he's
seeing extension
with the Mind's Eye he's judging it to
be true
um and so this is now something
different than the two faculties which
were gotten rid of
um and what he's done here so extension
let me get rid of this
that's a night you know he's got a
little night cap on and so on a little
mustache
um
extension as being the basic unit of
material physical reality right all
bodies are simply extension of space
extension is then the object of
scientific knowledge for the most part
um and by saying that it's the mind
which has been brought in proximity to
the soul that judges extension to be
true
and if extension is the object of
scientific knowledge then the production
of knowledge scientific knowledge which
knowledge about extension about bodies
and space is attributable now to the
soul so the steps of this meditation are
prove the first building block
thinking mind
bring thought or mind in proximity to
the soul
so that we're led to believe that the
soul and thought are one in the same
thing more or less
now show that the soul or thinking or
thought is what
has access to the truth
of what is other than it
namely extension in space
if this is the case
then scientific knowledge is rooted in
the functioning the activity the
processes of the Soul
now we might not say that God remember
his aim here is to found the science we
found mathematics and Sciences in a way
that will be accepted by the Catholic
church right
so it might not say that God is the one
who produces scientific knowledge
but God produces the soul
so he produces
humankind's capability to produce
scientific knowledge
so that's the uh
that's the second meditation that's how
it goes
um Descartes has now proven or has now
given us the two fundamental building
blocks of reality
the mind and extension which is
perceived by the mind or the soul and
he's rooted knowledge of extension which
is scientific knowledge in the processes
of the Soul which are thought
so that's
that's it
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