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Volume 8 Number 1, April 2007

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Gaukroger, Stephen (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Descartes’ Meditations

Reviewed by

Alexandra Couto

This edited volume contains essays on the most salient themes of the Meditations along with a translation of the Meditations in seventeenth century English by William Molyneux. I will briefly describe the essays of the collection and then provide a more detailed discussion of some of them.

The introduction by Stephen Gaukroger provides a short introductory overview of the book. The first chapter by Roger Ariew urges us to conceive of the Meditations as a dialogue at two levels. First, the Meditations’ objections and replies should be considered as an integral part of the Meditations and constitutes as such an exchange of views. Second, the book in its whole should also be regarded as a reply to the objections previously raised against Descartes’ Discourse on Method. It is only within this framework of a two-level dialogue that the Meditations can be rightly understood. Chapter 2 by Charles Larmore examines how well the Meditations succeed in defeating the claims of the skeptic and the empiricist. Chapter 3 by Edwin Curley discusses the cogito. Chapter 4 by Marleen Rozemond focuses on the nature of the mind. She focuses on the endorsement by the Meditations of a redrawing of the boundaries between the mental and the physical. Chapter 5 by Jorge Secada examines the doctrine of substance. He looks into the relationship between substance and modes and urges us to read Descartes as answering the philosopher Francisco Suarez. Chapter 6 by Steven Nadler looks into the doctrine of Ideas. Nadler explicates also two distinctions made in the Meditations: the distinction between formal and objective reality and the distinction between innate, adventitious and fictitious ideas. Chapter 7 by Lawrence Nolan and Alan Nelson questions the proofs for the existence of God. It addresses successively the problems involved in the causal and ontological arguments. Chapter 8 by Gary Hatfield discusses the accusation of circularity made against Descartes. The circularity involved is the following: Descartes grounds the existence of God on the truth of clear and distinct ideas while grounding also the truth of clear and distinct ideas on the existence of God. Chapter 9 by Michael della Rocca discusses Descartes’ account of the will. Descartes held that the will was an active ability of the mind to assent to judgment of ideas. Della Rocca suggests that there are difficulties in Descartes’ account of the role played by the will in cognitive judgments. Della Rocca doubts that the will could play such a role in the case of belief. Della Rocca investigates Descartes’s account of freedom, as residing in the free will to assent to clear and distinct ideas. Chapter 10 by Desmond M. Clarke examines Descartes’ definition of matter as spatial extension and his proof of the existence of matter. Chapter 11 by John Cottingham discusses Descartes’ treatment of the mind-body problem. Chapter 12 by Tad Schmaltz focuses on reception of the Meditations among seventeenth-century thinkers. Tad Schmaltz describes the relationship between the Meditations, the Discourse on Method and the Principles of Philosophy. Schmaltz discusses in particular the impact Descartes had on Spinoza, Malebranche and Leibniz.

I will now describe some of these essays in more details. I will focus here on chapters 2, 3, 7, 8 and 11.

Chapter 2 by Charles Larmore reminds the reader that Descartes’ skepticism is innovative not in its scale but in its purpose; Descartes uses scepticism to grounds the possibility of knowledge more firmly. Furthermore, Larmore holds that the Meditations’ primary purpose is not to dismiss scepticism alone but also to reject empiricism. Larmore then suggests to conceive Meditation I as a dialogue between the skeptic and the empiricist. First, the empiricist is defeated by the hypothesis propounded by the skeptic that an omnipotent god is trying to deceive our most certain beliefs, such as those that are purely mathematical. Second, the skeptic is defeated by Descartes’ cogito ergo sum argument, a claim that can’t be refuted by the skeptic, since the skeptic can’t deny that he is thinking and that thought presupposes existence. Descartes proves both the empiricist and the skeptic wrong and lays the foundations of a new non-empiricist conception of human knowledge. The new standard of truth relies on clarity and distinctness of perception. Larmore goes on to address Descartes’ commitment to indubitable knowledge. Here Larmore objects that practical concerns might force us to opt for less than indubitability. Descartes’ ideal of pure inquiry might be indeed too demanding to act as a useful standard for knowledge. Descartes’ starting point is the mind itself and he rejects taking common sense as a proper ground for belief. Descartes is thus committed to a very demanding conception of knowledge.

Chapter 3 by Edwin Curley is about the cogito. Descartes is a foundationalist with respect to knowledge. In Descartes’conception, most beliefs are thus taken to be justified by other, more basic, beliefs. The difficulty for foundationalists is usually to give a proper foundation for these basic beliefs. Curley puts into question the usual interpretation that, in the Meditations, Descartes holds basic beliefs to be self-evident. Descartes came to endorse Montaigne’s claim that the incomprehensibility of God’s power could bring us to cast doubt on any fundamental proposition of arithmetic. However, Descartes held a doctrine of privileged access to our mental life. Some mental states can’t be doubted; one can be mistaken about the existence of an external world but one can’t be mistaken about one’s own perceptions of it. Curley argues that Descartes has a defence against the charge of circularity if he can produce an assent-compelling argument that God exists and is not a deceiver. By the end of Meditation IV, we are supposed to have an assent compelling argument against that sceptical hypothesis.

Chapter 7 by Lawrence Nolan and Alan Nelson tests Descartes’ proofs for the existence of God. It starts by reminding us of the two arguments used by Descartes and their origins. The first causal argument claims that the existence of the universe must have a first cause. Descartes’ causal argument involves two steps. First, an idea of an infinite being exists in the meditator’s thought. This idea represents infinite reality. Second, the representation of this idea of infinity must depend on the existence of an infinite reality that caused it.  A finite real thing can’t possibly cause an infinite idea. The second ontological argument is claiming roughly that the idea of god is an idea of perfection which must include existence. Put in other words, Descartes’ clear and distinct perception of a supremely perfect being entails existence as a necessary element of God’s essence.

Chapter 8 by Gary Hatfield focuses on the Cartesian Circle. The Cartesian circle refers to the fact that both the assertion of the existence of God and the truth of clear and distinct perceptions depend on each other. Descartes’ proof for the existence of God relies on various premises that the meditator knows by clear and distinct perception. But the meditator can’t know anything before he knows that God exists. Hatfield suggests that the General Principle (GP) that all my clear and distinct perceptions are true might not be used as a premise but only as a method. Hatfield describes five different strategies Descartes could use to avoid the charge of circularity. I will mention here two of them. First, Descartes aims to show that clear and distinct perception are certain but does not aim at proving them true, which would be a more ambitious aim. Second, Descartes’ doubt only affects the general principle GP but not individual clear and distinct perception. In this way, he can legitimately use some of them, such as the clear and distinct perception of the existence of God.

Chapter 11 by John Cottingham discusses Descartes’ treatment of the mind-body problem. Descartes attributes a certain transparency to states of mind, but expresses puzzlement at the fact that some sensory perceptions cause one to act in a certain way. Hunger, for instance, will lead me to look for food. In order to shed light on this close relationship between body and mind, Descartes claims that, although they are distinct substances, they can be united. Extended matter and thinking substance are combined in our special human nature, which is related both to our bodily needs and our rational goals. Descartes believes thus that one could apply some effort on directing one’s emotions for them to be in line with one’s rational goals.

This Blackwell Guide to Descartes’ Meditations is a thorough read for anyone interested in the work of Descartes. The essays are original, scholarly and very dense. The different scholars of the volume bring new insights on and new interpretations of the main arguments of the Meditations. It is as well an interesting read for anyone interested in the history of philosophy. Each essay aims at capturing the original meaning of the Meditations by setting the interpretation in its proper historical context. At the same time, however, each essay represents a slightly different way of doing history of philosophy.

One could nevertheless regret two things. First, the volume fails to be adequately introductory for a general audience. The volume would not benefit undergraduates or those who are looking for an introduction to Descartes’ meditations. It is best recommended to graduates, Descartes experts and historians of philosophy.

Second, many chapters start by providing a historical context for understanding Descartes’ meditations. As separate articles, this is a judicious decision, but in a collection of essays on Descartes, it becomes very easily repetitive. Moreover, each essay aims at addressing the basic arguments provided by Descartes and here again, the most famous arguments are repeated in several chapters. This repetition is more problematic given that the book fails to be an introductory book on Descartes and assumes a certain familiarity with the literature. To sum up, the book is a thoroughly written collection of essays. The main problem of this collection is that it oscillates between addressing a student audience and a specialist audience. In trying to cast its net so widely, it ends up being unsatisfactory for students and experts alike.