Meditation I: Concerning Those Things That Can Be Called into Doubt#
Meditations on First Philosophy in Which the Existence of God and the Distinction between the Soul and the Body Are Demonstrated
Ariew, Roger & Eric Watkins (eds). (2019). Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources. 3rd Ed. Hackett.
[P]
Several years have now passed since I first realized how numerous were the false opinions that in my youth I had taken to be true, and thus how doubtful were all those that I had subsequently built upon them.
And thus I realized that once in my life I had to raze everything to the ground and begin again from the original foundations, if I wanted to establish anything firm and lasting in the sciences.
But the task seemed enormous, and I was waiting until I reached a point in my life that was so timely that no more suitable time for undertaking these plans of action would come to pass.
For this reason, I procrastinated for so long that I would henceforth be at fault, were I to waste the time that remains for carrying out the project by brooding over it.
Accordingly, I have today suitably freed my mind of all cares, secured for myself a period of leisurely tranquility, and am withdrawing into solitude.
At last I will apply myself earnestly and ureservedly to this general demolition of my opinions.
[P]
Yet to bring this about I will not need to show that all my opinions are false, which is perhaps something I could never accomplish.
But reason now persuades me that I should withhold my assent no less carefully from opinions that are not completely certain and indubitable than I would from those that are patently false.
"reason...persuades me"
the relation between reason and persuasion
What is it that reason persuades me of?
I should withhold my assent not only from the false but from anything not completely certain and indubitably true.
For this reason, it will suffice for the rejection of all of these opinions, if I find in each of them some reason for doubt.
Nor therefore need I survey each opinion individually, a task that would be endless.
Rather, because undermining the foundations will cause whatever has been built upon them to crumble of its own accord, I will attack straightaway those principles which supported everything I once believed.
the criterion for assenting or no: If there is at least one reason for doubt, then I should withhold my assent.
the structure of knowledge: foundations and everything that rests on the foundations; it is only necessary to inspect the foundations
[P]
Surely whatever I had admitted until now as most true I received either from the senses or through the senses.
However, I have noticed that the senses are sometimes deceptive; and it is a mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in those who have deceived us even once.
knowledge has come to me through the senses; but there are reasons to doubt the truthfulness of the senses
[P]
But perhaps, even though the senses do sometimes deceive us when it is a question of very small and distant things, still there are many other matters concerning which one simply cannot doubt, even though they are derived from the very same senses: for example, that I am sitting here next to the fire, wearing my winter dressing gown, that I am holding this sheet of paper in my hands, and the like.
certain objects of the senses seem false: for example, objects of the senses change their appearance over time
other objects of the senses seem undeniably true
But on what grounds could one deny that these hands and this entire body are mine?
Unless perhaps I were to liken myself to the insane, whose brains are impaired by such an unrelenting vapor of black bile that they steadfastly insist that they are kings when they are utter paupers, or that they are arrayed in purple robes when they are naked, or that they have heads made of clay, or that they are gourds, or that they are made of glass.
But such people are mad, and I would appear no less mad were I to take their behavior as an example for myself.
How could we reasonably deny the reality of the senses?
[1] Can we rule out insanity?
[P]
This would all be well and good, were I not a man who is accustomed to sleeping at night, and to experiencing in my dreams the very same things, or now and then even less plausible ones, as these insane people do when they are awake.
In my dreams, I experience the insane.
How often does my evening slumber persuade me of such ordinary things as these: that I am here, clothed in my dressing gown, seated next to the fireplace–when in fact I am lying undressed in bed!
In my dreams, I often believe that I am awake so to speak.
But right now my eyes are certainly wide awake when I gaze upon this sheet of paper.
This head which I am shaking is not heavy with sleep.
I extend this hand consciously and deliberately, and I feel it.
Such things would not be so distinct for someone who is asleep.
As if I did not recall having been deceived on other occasions even by similar thoughts in my dreams!
Actually being awake seems to be more solid than believing I am awake in my dreams. But if I believe as much in my dreams, how can I be sure that I am not dreaming when I am awake?
As I consider these matters more carefully, I see so plainly that there are no definitive signs by which to distinguish being awake from being asleep.
As a result, I am becoming quite dizzy, and this dizziness nearly convinces me that I am asleep.
[2] Can we definitively distinguish between being asleep and being awake?
[P]
Let us assume then, for the sake of argument, that we are dreaming and that such particulars as these are not true: that we are opening our eyes, moving our head, and extending our hands.
Perhaps we do not even have such hands, or any such body at all.
Nevertheless, it surely must be admitted that the things seen during slumber are, as it were, like painted images, which could only have been produced in the likeness of true things, and that therefore at least these general things–eyes, head, hands, and the whole body–are not imaginary things, but are true and exist.
If we are asleep, then the particular dream objects do not actually exist. But, they are representative likenesses of the kinds of things that do exist.
For indeed when painters themselves wish to represent sirens and satyrs by means of especially bizarre forms, they surely cannot assign to them utterly new natures.
Rather, they simply fuse together the members of various animals.
imaginations creates novel wholes out of existing parts
Or if perhaps they concoct something so utterly novel that nothing like it has ever been seen before (and thus is something utterly fictitious and false), yet certainly at the very least the colors from which they fashion it ought to be true.
And by the same token, although even these general things–eyes, head, hands, and the like–could be imaginary, still one has to admit that at least certain other things that are even more simple and universal are true.
Even if we suppose that the parts themselves are imaginary; the colors themselves imaginary; all these things rest on some simpler elements that exist.
It is from these components, as if from true colors, that all those images of things that are in our thought are fashioned, be they true or false.
Whatever the elements of the content of ideas, they exist.
[P]
This class of things appears to include corporeal nature in general, together with its extension; the shape of extended things; their quantity; that is, their size and number; as well as the place where they exist; the time through which they endure, and the like.
body; extension; shape; quantity; size; number; place; time
[P]
Thus it is not improper to conclude from this that physics, astronomy, medicine, and all the other disciplines that are dependent upon the consideration of composite things are doubtful, and that, on the other hand, arithmetic, geometry, and other such disciplines, which treat of nothing but the simplest and most general things and which are indifferent as to whether these things do or do not in fact exist, contain something certain and indubitable.
disciplines dependent upon composite things
disciplines which treat the simple, the general
For whether I am awake or asleep, two plus three make five, and a square does not have more than four sides.
It does not seem possible that such obvious truths should be subject to the suspicion of being false.
It is not possible for mathematical truths to be false (whether I'm asleep or awake).
[P]
Be that as it may, there is fixed in my mind a certain opinion of long standing, namely that there exists a God who is able to do anything and by whom I, such as I am, have been created.
How do I know that he did not bring it about that there is no earth at all, no heavens, no extended thing, no shape, no size, no place, and yet bringing it about that all these things appear to me to exist precisely as they do now?
Moreover, since I judge that others sometimes make mistakes in matters that they believe they know most perfectly, may I not, in like fashion, be deceived every time I add two and three or count the sides of a square, or perform an even simpler operation, if that can be imagined?
How do I know that God is not a deceiver?
An omnipotent God could deceive me even about logicomathematical truths.
But perhaps God has not willed that I be deceived in this way, for he is said to be supremely good.
Is God omnibenevolent?
Nonetheless, if it were repugnant to his goodness to have created me such that I be deceived all the time, it would also seem foreign to that same goodness to permit me to be deceived even occasionally.
But we cannot make this last assertion.
An omnibenevolent God would not deceive me about anything.
But in fact I am deceived about some things.
Therefore, we can't say that omnipotent God is omnibenevolent; is omnipotent God a deceiver?
[P]
Perhaps there are some who would rather deny so powerful a God than believe that everything else is uncertain.
Let us not oppose them; rather, let us grant that everything said here about God is fictitious.
Let's suppose that God is not omnipotent in order to avoid the argument that there exists an omnipotent God who has the power to deceive us about everything.
Now they suppose that I came to be what I am either by fate, or by chance, or by a connected chain of events, or by some other way.
But because being deceived and being mistaken appear to be a certain imperfection, the less powerful they take the author of my origin to be, the more probable it will be that I am so imperfect that I am always deceived.
Well, the less perfect God is, the less perfect I am. And it would follow that the more capable I am of being deceived.
I have nothing to say in response to these arguments.
But eventually I am forced to admit that there is nothing among the things I once believed to be true which it is not permissible to doubt–and not out of frivolity or lack of forethought, but for valid and considered arguments.
It doesn't matter whether our deception comes from an omnipotent God who deceives us about everything or from our imperfect nature as the result of an imperfect God.
Thus I must be no less careful to withhold assent henceforth even from these beliefs than I would from those that are patently false, if I wish to find anything certain.
Therefore, even the logicomathematical truths are doubtful.
[P]
But it is not enough simply to have realized these things; I must take steps to keep myself mindful of them.
For long-standing opinions keep returning, and, almost against my will, they take advantage of my credulity, as if it were bound over to them by long use and the claims of intimacy.
Nor will I ever get out of the habit of assenting to them and believing in them, so long as I take them to be exactly what they are, namely, in some respects doubtful, as has just now been shown, but nevertheless highly probably, so that it is much more consonant with reason to believe them than to deny them.
Hence, it seems to me I would do well to deceive myself by turning my will in completely the opposite direction and pretend for a time that these opinions are wholly false and imaginary, until finally, as if with prejudices weighing down each side equally, no bad habit should turn my judgment any further from the correct perception of things.
For indeed I know that meanwhile there is no danger or error in following this procedure, and that it is impossible for me to indulge in too much distrust, since I am now concentrating only on knowledge, not on action.
[P]
Accordingly, I will suppose not a supremely good God, the source of truth, but rather an evil genius, supremely powerful and clever, who has directed his entire effort at deceiving me.
EVIL GENIUS
everything is a deception
I will regard the heavens, the air, the earth, colors, shapes, sounds, and all external things as nothing but the bedeviling hoaxes of my dreams, with which he lays snares for my credulity.
I will regard myself as not having hands, or eyes, or flesh, or blood, or any senses, but as nevertheless falsely believing that I possess all these things.
I will remain resolute and steadfast in this meditation, and even if it is not within my power to know anything true, it certainly is within my power to take care resolutely to withhold my assent to what is false, lest this deceiver, however powerful, however clever he may be, have any effect on me.
I do not have the power to know what is true, but I do have the power to withhold my assent to what is false.
But this undertaking is arduous, and a certain laziness brings me back to my customary way of living.
I am not unlike a prisoner who enjoyed an imaginary freedom during his sleep, but, when he later beings to suspect that he is dreaming, fears being awakened and nonchalantly conspires with these pleasant illusions.
In just the same way, I fall back of my own accord into my old opinions, and dread being awakened, lest the toilsome wakefulness which follows upon a peaceful rest must be spent thenceforward not in the light but among the inextricable shadows of the difficulties now brought forward.