Descartes

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Descartes
- a philosopher, mathematician and physician

René Descartes, rationalist, was born in La Haye (Touraine) in France 31 March 1596, to one of the country’s most known noble families. His ancestors had all been military, except for his dad Joachim Descartes whom adopted the title as Counseiller au Parlement in Bretagne. His mother died, presumably of tuberculosis a few days after the birth of René Descartes. This disease probably had an affect (if it was not the cause) of Descartes early disease and poor health. He was educated at the Jesuit school of La Fléche, which focused on philosophical and scientific education, and considered him gaining well education. However, this education also made Descartes ponder over how much he actually knew and therefore decided upon that he knew very little. Favoring and doing extremely well in mathematics, he continued his education further at the University of Poiters and graduated with a law degree in 1616.
The year after, he joined the army of Prince Maurice of Orange in Breda. For eight years (1620-1628), he traveled throughout Europe, and finally decided to settle in Holland, which he did for twenty years. During this time, he developed his mathematical theories and even began on his philosophical theory, by starting from “nothing” – in other words – scratch. This was because he came about that humans (we) cannot accept anything as true unless we can clearly and definitely perceive it – in other words – he did not rely on our observations as he did not believe that objects were as they appeared to us. Therefore, he started by excluding everything that could be considered as “doubtful”. An important example he suggested was dreams. How can we be sure that dreams are not for real; can’t life be a dream? Soon he realized that everything could be doubtful…except for one thing. The fact that he doubted was evident, and in order to doubt, he had to be thinking. This would mean that as he was thinking, it was that he was a thinking thing. From that, he expressed it as “Cogito ergo sum” or in other words – “I think, so I exist”. By this, he did not only mean thoughts, understanding and reflecting, but also willing, imagination and feeling.

Within this solution, he created another hypothesis about the Perfect Being. He considered us as imperfect beings, and this persuaded him to behold on his religious views and proved in his theory that God was that Perfect Being. His main argument was that as he has the idea of the perfect, which determines him as the imperfect, the perfect cannot arise from the imperfect. The perfect is also the creator and the originating base; everything must come from something, so it comes from a Perfect Being, which is God. God cannot be deceived and cannot deceive. With this, Descartes believes that mathematical, logical and moral values are innate. The truth of these innate ideas is God. Since God’s existence is one of Descartes perfections, a Perfect Being must exist.

Apart from the Perfect Being, Descartes also rationalized and recognized two realities – the mind and body and separating these two. The mind is conscious and cannot be divided into smaller parts. It can’t also take up space. The mind is indivisible and thought – related to “cogito ergo sum” (understanding, willing, sensing and imagining). The body however, takes up space, is external and infinitely divisible – matter. Although having different natures, the mind and body somehow interacts through the nervous system according to Descartes. Also, the appearance of bodies differ through senses. While body can affect mind, mind can affect body, through the pineal gland, causing motion for instance. To Descartes, man is a perfect machine. To come to these conclusions, Descartes always based them on mathematical functions and scientific knowledge, whereas trying to avoid and exclude as much traditional and theological standards as possible.

Another hypothesis arose when defining characteristics. For instance, if we take an apple – that apple have characteristics of roundness, redness, sweet smell and singularity. Descartes determined that the sweet smell and redness des not belong to the actual apple: it is we that observe it in that way through mind. These are examples of, what is now called secondary qualities. On the contrary, the singularity and roundness belong to the actual apple, and is not the result of our observation only. These are examples of, what is not called primary qualities.
For Descartes, the foundation and guide for pursuing truth were both reason. Moreover, he was anti-authoritarian and not fond of empirical experiments.

In 1649, he attended to the court of Queen Christina of Sweden, who became interested and active in Descartes writings. He remained her instructor, in required conditions (instructing at 5 a.m.) which apparently disturbed his poor health even more; Descartes caught pneumonia the year later and failing to survive the unpleasant cold, he died within a month’s time, 11 February 1650 in Stockholm.
Descartes idea of dreaming is an important point that he has made. What we feel is “reality” might not be so. What about dreaming? When we dream – does it only stay a dream, or do we actually live through dreams in reality? In the case for against, the most logical and accepted theory today is that dreams seem to stay “dream”; in other words we sleep and wake up the next morning without the dream being reality. However, in the case for the argument, it is interesting to see what dreams could be. Could dreams perhaps be another dimension that we actually do go through – different situations, places and times – every night, where living in this dimension is a different kind of life, like a labyrinth where we do not know how to achieve the goal of our aim, or do not know in our subconscious what these goals are? After 8-12 hours, we sort of “wake up” from these dreams – transferred in this dimension and continue to live our life. There are several ideas that can be raised from Descartes’ argument. We can doubt dreaming, just as we can doubt anything else (except for thought, mind and Perfect Being.)

The different characteristics, in other words the primary and secondary qualities, sounds logical, as people are different, we interpret things differently as well. The secondary qualities can be interpreted differently, from person to person. The sweet smell and redness, can differ from apple to apple. An apple can be green, it can be yellowish, and for some it might not smell sweet – it might smell sour or out of favor. However, the primary qualities are the qualities we all agree upon. These are not based on our interpretation, they are the actual characteristic, and if we all agree upon them, we have a base where we can distinguish between the true characteristics.

Descartes argues that the idea of a Perfect Being is universal. That can actually cause doubts as well. Take it from this point of view – how can you know of a Perfect Being, if you don’t know the opposite? Are our ideas of an imperfect innate as well? How and why are we aware of a perfect and imperfect being – can’t people consider themselves as “perfect”? Although skepticism arises from questioning, I agree with Descartes’ argument – that the idea of the Perfect Being is innate. From birth, we know exactly that we are imperfect and all have an idea of a Perfect Being. Therefore, it must exist and is (according to Descartes) the creator and originator of all reality. Nevertheless, how can you be so sure of that specific God? I think that Descartes should have considered another factor for the existence of the “Perfect Being” – faith. The idea of “God” can be doubtful if people value and believe differently; therefore, the Perfect Being also depends on faith, just like any theology. Since people have different cultures and value different depending on where they originate from, the idea of “God”, or Perfect Being has to be supported by faith, as faith will reinforce and make people understand and value the Perfect Being better.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

World Philosophers – Smart, Ninian – Routledge, London (1999), pgs. 220-222
Sophie’s World – Gaarder, Jostein – H. Aschehoug & Co, Oslo (1991), “Descartes” pgs. 194-204
Rene Descartes – Lindborg, Rolf – Natur och Kultur – Stora vetenskapsmän, Stockholm (1968)
Descartes i urval – Cartesius – Albert Bo...