Descartes On The Power of Ideas

North American Philosophical Publications
Descartes on the Power of "Ideas"

Author(s): Stephen I. Wagner
Source: History of Philosophy Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Jul., 1996), pp. 287-297
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of North American Philosophical Publications
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History of Philosophy
Quarterly
Volume
13,
Number
3, July
1996
DESCARTES ON THE POWER OF "IDEAS"
Stephen
I.
Wagner
Descartes'discussion
of ideas in Meditation III is often seen as the most
problematic
element in his
metaphysical project.
A
previous paper
in
this
journal
offers a
reading
of Meditation II which attributes to Descartes
a
conception
of the mind as an active
power.1
That view can
provide
a
range
of clarifications to Descartes'Meditation III
theory
of ideas. This
paper
will
spell
out the most central of those clarifications.
Even
though
this discussion of
Descartes'theory
of ideas does derive from
an
earlier
analysis
of Meditation
II,
it need not be seen as
dependent
on
the
validity
ofthat
analysis.
Our initial claims about the nature of mind
can be considered
along
the lines of Descartes' own
approach
in Part VI of
the Discourse on
Method,
with
regard
to the
"suppositions"
he
employs
in
the
Optics
and the
Meteorology.
He tells
us in Discourse VI that he thinks
he can deduce these
suppositions
from his
"primary truths,"
but that in his
presentation
he would
simply
allow "the causes to be
proved by
the ef
fects"?that
is,
he would take the
explanatory
force of these
suppositions
as
constituting
such
proof.
Our claims about the mind's nature can be
derived from the Meditation II text. But the
present
discussion need not
presuppose
the
validity
ofthat derivation?the results ofthat
analysis may
also be taken as
"suppositions."
With these as
starting points,
we
will be
led to a
range
of clarifications to Descartes' discussion of ideas in Medita
tion III. These "effects" can serve to
furnish,
if not
proof,
at least
support
for the
explanatory
"causes."
I. The Meditation II Discoveries
Our first claim is that the Meditation II thinker discovers the mind to be
an active
power,
whose
cognitive activity
consists in the
generating
of
representations.
All of the mind's
cognitive
acts are
discovered to involve
some
degree
of
generative activity?from
the most
perfect
exercises ofthat
power
in
generating
clear and distinct
perceptions,
to the less
perfect
exercises in our
imaginings
and
sensings.
Our second claim is that this
discovery
is achieved
by recognizing that,
in each of our
thoughts,
the
power affecting
our will is a
reflection of the
mind's
generative power.
For
example,
the clear and distinct
perception
of
the
piece
of wax has two
components?the representation
of the
wax as
287
288 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
QUARTERLY
extended,
which is a
representation generated by
the
intellect,
and the
power compelling
our
assent,
which is a
representation
of the mind's
activity.
In our
perceptions
which are not clear and
distinct,
this
power
is
experienced
as a less forceful inclination of the will.
In addition to the
recognition
of these individual
thoughts
as
generative
acts,
Meditation II
provides
the thinker with a
clear and distinct
perception
of the mind itself as a
thinking thing.
This
perception,
also
self-generated,
is achieved
by consolidating
the
spectrum
of
representations
of the mind's
activity
into a
single representation,
which consists
wholly
of a
power
affecting
the meditator's will.
The
generation
of this idea of the mind
explains
Descartes' claim in the
Synopsis
that Meditation II enables the meditator to "form a
concept
of the
soul which is as clear as
possible
and is also
quite
distinct from
every
concept
of
body"
(AT
VII, 13;
CSM
II, 9).2
The natures of mind and
body
are
presented
in our clear and distinct
perceptions
of each. The clear and
distinct
perception
of mind
represents
it as a
generative power, capable
of
operating
on its own?as
such,
it
qualifies
as
the idea of a substance. The
perception
of
body
includes no
representation
of
power
and no
compelling
ground
for
concluding
that it exists.
Finally,
these discoveries lead the meditator to an
understanding
of the
meanings
of
"thought"
and "existence."
"Thinking"
is seen to
signify
the
causal
activity
of
generating
ideas.
"Existing"
is taken to
signify
an exer
cise of causal
power. Thus,
the meditator is
justified
in
concluding
that
whenever he
thinks,
he exists.
Given these
claims,
we can turn to Descartes' discussion of ideas in
Meditation III. We will look first at the clarifications
provided
for our
understanding
of
objective reality,
formal
reality
and the causal laws. We
will then look
briefly
at the
impact
of our
perspective
on material
falsity
and the idea of God.
II. OBJECTIVE REALITY AND THE CAUSAL LAWS
Descartes' discussion of ideas in Meditation III is
primarily
in the service
of
deciding
whether he can conclude to the existence of
anything
other than
himself. After
rejecting
his natural inclinations as a reliable
guide
for
deciding
that
any
of his ideas are not
self-generated,
Descartes
develops
another
way
of
proceeding:
But it now occurs to me that there is another
way
of
investigating
whether
some of the
things
of which I
possess
ideas exist outside me. In so far as the
ideas are <considered>
simply
<as> modes of
thought,
there is no
recognizable
inequality among
them:
they
all
appear
to come from within me in the same
fashion. (AT VII, 39-40;
CSM
II, 27-28).
Taking
an idea
as a mode of the mind is
taking
it
"materially"?as
an
"operation"
of the
intellect,
as the Meditations' Preface tells us. On our
DESCARTES ON THE POWER OF "IDEAS" 289
reading,
the thinker
beginning
Meditation III takes this
operation
to be
a
generative activity.
The Meditation II
discovery
of this
activity
can
ground
Descartes' assertion here that
our
ideas "all
appear
to come from within
me in the same fashion"
(omnes
a me eodem modo
proceder?
videntur).
But since
taking
ideas
simply
as modes of
thought,
or
generative acts,
does not
provide
for
any
distinctions between
them,
Descartes moves on to
taking
them as
representative
entities:
But in so far as different ideas <are considered as
images
which>
represent
different
things,
it is clear that
they
differ
widely. Undoubtedly,
the ideas
which
represent
substances to me amount to
something
more
and,
so to
speak,
contain within themselves more
objective reality
than the ideas which
merely
represent
modes or accidents.
Again,
the idea that
gives
me
my understanding
of a
supreme
God
. .
.certainly
has in it more
objective reality
than the ideas
that
represent
finite substances.
(AT VII, 40;
CSM
II, 28).
As
many
commentators have made
clear,
Descartes
points
us here to a
purely
internal feature of our
ideas?a
reality
contained in
se,
within
themselves. He does so
by introducing
a
category
of
"being"
additional to
the realities of the
object thought
about and the thinker who has the idea.
And while this
step
has been seen
by many
as
the most
troubling step
in
the "order of reasons" of the
Meditations,
our
proposals
about the Medita
tion II discoveries show us how the meditator is
prepared
to understand
this
concept.
In
introducing
this
concept,
Descartes first refers the Meditation III
thinker to the ideas of substances and their modes. If we attend
strictly
to
the order of
reasons,
as Descartes insists we
must,
the
only
ideas that are
available to serve as referents here
are the ideas of the mind and its
modes?these are the
only
ideas of a substance and its modes which have
been
apprehended
to this
point. Indeed,
the
comparison
which Descartes
goes
on to make in this
passage
between the ideas of finite and infinite
substances has itself not
yet
been
grounded?it
must be further
explicated
by
what comes next in Meditation III. We
must, then,
find the
significance
of the
objective reality
of our ideas within the
paradigm
ideas of the mind
and its modes.
As we
have
seen,
the idea of the mind consists
wholly
in a
power affecting
the will?a
power
which
represents
the full
generative power
of the mind's
activities.
Thus,
the
objective reality
of the idea of the mind must be
captured by
that
representation.
If
we next consider a
mode of the
mind,
such as the clear and distinct
perception
of the
wax,
there are two
possible
features of the idea which are candidates for the
objective reality
it con
tains?the
representation
of the wax as extension and the
power affecting
our will. But if we are to
perform
Descartes'
requested comparison
between
the
objective
realities of the idea of the mind and of this mode of the
mind,
it is
only
the
power affecting
our will which can serve us.
Since the
powers
affecting
the will in each idea are
phenomenologically distinguishable,
effecting
more or less forceful inclinations of
will, they
allow for identifica
QUARTERLY
tion from within
experience.
And since the
power representing
the mind
is the
power
to
generate any
and all of
our
ideas,
it will effect a more forceful
inclination of the will than the
power experienced
in the idea of the
wax.
Thus,
the idea of the mind
will,
as Descartes
puts it, "undoubtedly"
be seen
to have more
objective reality.
A few clarifications are in order here.
First,
this
reading
of
objective
reality
leads the meditator to
identify "reality"
with
"power" and, given
the
Meditation II
result,
to
equate
both of these with "existence." This three
fold identification is
supported by
Descartes' later characterization of
objective reality
as "the mode of
being by
which a
thing
exists
objectively
in the intellect
by way
of an idea"
(AT VII, 41;
CSM
II, 29).
We can note
too that the
suggestion
made
by many
commentators that
objective reality
must be identified with
"possible
existence" is in fact
appropriate.
But
within the order of
reasons,
an
understanding
of
"necessary
existence" has
not
yet
been
achieved,
so the meditator does not
yet
have the resources to
make that finer distinction.
The statement
just quoted
leads us to a
second
point.
Descartes charac
terizes
objective reality
as the
way
in which a
thing
exists in the
intellect,
and this
might
seem to
suggest
that it is a mistake to
explicate
it as a
power
affecting
the will. But Descartes' comments to Mersenne in
January
1641
are
helpful
here:
I claim that we have ideas not
only
of all that is in our
intellect,
but also of all
that is in the will. For we cannot will
anything
without
knowing
that we will
it,
nor could we know this
except by
means of an
idea.
. . .
(AT
III, 295;
CSMK
III, 1724).
We are reminded here that our entire discussion of ideas is conducted from
a self-reflective
posture.
From this
posture,
the inclinations of the
will,
as
they
are
experienced
in our
thoughts,
can be
apprehended
and can serve
as
ideas of the mind and its modes.
A final clarification is
provided by
E.J. Ashworth's criticism of Descartes'
grading
of the
objective
realities of his ideas:
. . .
how are we to
grade
the
reality
of ideas?
. . .
Having
a
high grade
of
reality
must involve
having
certain sorts of
property
to a
high degree, including
causal
efficacy
or creative
power.
How can
any
of these be
assigned
to
my
ideas?5
Ashworth's
questions help
focus our
proposals
in an
important way.
Our
ideas can be
"assigned"
causal
efficacy
not in the sense that
they
them
selves are
causally efficacious;
rather
they
contain
objective reality
in that
they
exhibit an exercise of causal
power.
The meditator's
understanding
that the
power
exhibited is a reflection of the mind's creative
activity
of
generating
ideas
captures
the sense in which
objective reality
is indeed a
"representative reality."
Returning
to the
text,
we can now see how Descartes'introduction of his
first causal
principle
is
grounded:
Now it is manifest
by
the natural
light
that there must be at least as much
<reality>
in the efficient and total cause as in the effect of that cause. For
where,
I
ask,
could the effect
get
its
reality from,
if not from the cause? And
how could the cause
give
it to the effect unless it
possessed
it? (AT VII, 40;
CSM
II,
28).
Our
perspective
makes
plausible
this claim of
proportionality
between the
"effect" and its "cause." As a result of the Meditation II
discoveries,
the
meditator in fact takes
objective reality
to be an
effect,
since the
power
moving
our will is understood to be
a
reflection of the mind's
generative
activity.
Insofar
as it is such a
reflection,
the claim seems to follow
easily
that it cannot exceed the
generative power
itself.
Thus,
Descartes'
princi
ple
seems to be
an
appropriate
candidate for
a
deliverance of the natural
light.
Furthermore,
we can
explain
how Descartes can now
go
on to
say
that
two more
general principles follow from
this result:
It follows from this both that
something
cannot arise from
nothing,
and also
that what is more
perfect?that is,
contains in itself more
reality?cannot
arise
from what is less
perfect.
(AT VII, 40-41;
CSM
II,
28).
Many analyses
seem to reverse Descartes' movement of
thought here,
suggesting
that he derives his first causal
principle
from these
more
general principles.
But our
analysis
seems to fit the text
better,
since it
suggests
that both the causal
principle
and these more
general principles
can in fact be seen as
generalizations developed
from and
grounded
in the
Meditation II
experiential discovery
of the mind's
activity
and its effects.
This
viewpoint
accords better with Descartes' claim in Second
Replies
that
"It is in the nature of our mind to construct
general propositions
on the
basis of
our
knowledge
of
particular
ones"
(AT
VII, 141;
CSM
II, 100).
Invoking
his second causal
principle,
Descartes introduces the notion of
a
"formal
reality":
And this is
transparently
true not
only
in the case of effects which
possess
<what the
philosophers
call> actual or formal
reality,
but also in the case of
ideas,
where one is
considering only
<what
they
call>
objective reality.
.
.[I]n
order for a
given
idea to contain such and such
objective reality,
it must
surely
derive it from some cause which contains at least as much formal
reality
as
there is
objective reality
in the idea.
(AT VII, 41;
CSM
II, 28-29).
Although
Descartes seems to be
applying
his causal
principle
"across
categories"?reasoning
from the existence of
a certain
"objective reality"
in
his ideas to a certain
degree
of "formal
reality"
in their causes?our
perspective provides
a corrective.
As we have
seen,
the
objective reality
of an idea?its
power
to move our
will?is taken
by
the meditator to be a
manifestation,
within the realm of
ideas,
of the mind's
power
to
generate representations.
The "formal real
ity"
to which the
power affecting
our will
corresponds
is our mind's
genera
QUARTERLY
tive
power.
So
our
reading
shows that Descartes is not
applying
his causal
principle
across
categories,
since both formal and
objective
realities denote
"causal
powers."
He is
simply correlating
the manifestation of a
causal
power
within consciousness with the
power
itself
operating
outside the
realm of his direct awareness.
Our
analysis
shows too that the
paradigm
for Descartes' introduction of
his term "formal
reality"
is the
mind,
insofar as it is understood to be a
generative power.
Thus
we see
that the causal
relationship
between formal
and
objective
realities comes first in the order of
discovery, grounded
as it
is in the Meditation II
discovery
of the mind's
power
to
generate
ideas. Our
understanding
of formal realities in
general
and of "formal-to-formal"
causal
relationships
must be
epistemologically grounded
in these
para
digms.
We
should, then, agree
with Annette
Baier,
who has also traced the
fundamental nature of the
"formal-to-objective"
causal
paradigm
back to
Meditation II and
says:
If the causal
principle
did not
apply
to
objective reality,
then it could not be
known to the meditator to hold
good.6
Within the order of
reasons,
the causal link between formal and
objective
realities is not
problematic?it
is basic.
Our
perspective
also
helps
to
clarify
Descartes'
explanation
of
objective
reality
to Caterus in First
Replies
as "the
object's being
in the intellect in
the
way
in which its
objects
are
normally
there"
(AT
VII, 102;
CSM
II,
75).
We must take the
"object"?the
formal
reality?to
be
a
causal
power.
The
way
in which such an
object
is in the intellect is not in the form of a
"picture
image."
Rather it is there
through
a
representation
of the
objects's
causal
power,
in the form of the
power affecting
our will.
Finally,
our
perspective
can offer
a
clarification
regarding
Descartes'
infamous "causal resemblance
principle":
A
stone,
for
example,
which
previously
did not
exist,
cannot
begin
to exist
unless it is
produced by something
which
contains,
either
formally
or emi
nently everything
to be found in the
stone; similarly,
heat cannot be
produced
in an
object
which was not
previously hot, except by something
of at least the
same order
<degree
or kind> of
perfection
as
heat,
and so on. But it is also
true that the idea of
heat,
or of a
stone,
cannot exist in me unless it is
put
there
by
some cause which contains at least as much
reality
as I conceive to
be in the heat or in the stone.
(AT VII, 41;
CSM
II,
28).
Descartes'
principle
has occasioned
widespread
discussion and criticism.
But our discussion shows that the meditator has been led to understand
formal and
objective
realities
as
powers.
Since the meditator
is,
at this
point, cognizant
of
only
one
kind of causal
power,
the
only
"resemblance"
between cause and effect which can be at issue here concerns
degrees
of
causal
power.
From the
perspective
which the meditator has been led to
adopt,
Descartes will be
seen as
saying simply
that the
cause must contain
at least the same
degree
of
power
as is contained in the effect.
III. The Formal Reality of Ideas?
A further clarification confronts a
possible objection
to our
analysis,
Our
view that "formal
reality"
denotes
generative power
entails that ideas
n
themselves have
no formal
reality.
This
claim, however,
runs counter to
the views of most commentators. For
instance,
Nicholas
Jolley says:
While
laying
the foundations for his
proof
of the existence of
God,
Descartes
distinguishes
between the 'formal' and
'objective' reality
of ideas: ideas have
formal
(or intrinsic)
reality by
virtue of
being
modes of
thought,
or mental
events;
and
they
have
objective reality by
virtue of their
object
or
repre
sentational content.8
Vere
Chappell,
while
placing
his view in the context of his distinction
between
ideasm (ideas
taken
materially)
and
ideas0 (ideas
taken
objec
tively), agrees:
Descartes holds that there are different modes of
being
or
existence,
different
ways
in which
things
are.
Objective being
is the mode in which
things
in the
intellect
characteristically
exist. This sort of
being
is contrasted with actual
or formal
being,
which is the mode in which
things
outside the intellect exist.
The acts or
operations
of the
intellect?including
all
ideasm?also
have actual
or formal
being.9
But while this view is
widely accepted,
we must see
that the relevant texts
are far from clear in this
regard.
We should
note, first,
that Gassendi states the view we are
questioning
in his
objections:
You do in fact..
.distinguish
between
objective
and formal
reality,
where 'formal
reality,'
as I understand
it,
applies
to the idea itself not as it
represents
something
but as an
entity
in its
own
right.
(AT VII, 285;
CSM
II, 199).
Descartes, however,
does not comment on
Gassendi's
claim, passing
up
this
opportunity
to offer us
explicit guidance
on this
point.
In Meditation III
itself,
one
passage
seems to
deny
that ideas are formal
realities:
. .
.although
the
reality
which I am
considering
in
my
ideas is
merely objective
reality,
I must not on that account
suppose
that the same
reality
need not exist
formally
in the causes of
my ideas,
but that it is
enough
for it to be
present
in
them
objectively.
For
just
as the
objective
mode of
being belongs
to ideas
by
their
very nature,
so the formal mode of
being belongs
to the causes of
ideas?or at least the first and most
important ones?by
their
very
nature.
(AT
VII, 41-42;
CSM
II,
29).
Descartes denies here that the
objective
mode of
being belongs
to the causes
of ideas because their nature is to be formal realities. His claim that the
objective
mode of
being belongs
to ideas
by
their nature is
presented
in a
parallel
form?as
captured
in his
"just
as"
(quemadmodum)?suggesting
that we
should
deny
them formal
reality.
It is
surely possible
to
argue,
as
Chappell does,
that since Descartes tells us that an "idea" can be taken in
two
senses,
the formal mode of
being belongs
to ideas taken
"materially."
QUARTERLY
But this move
simply
creates a
problem,
which has
perplexed many
com
mentators,
of
understanding why
Descartes introduces
a different
term?"materially"?rather
than
referring
to this sense as an idea taken
"formally."
On
our
view,
this
problem
never arises. Ideas taken
materially
are modes of the
mind, but,
since
they
do not
possess generative power,
are
not themselves formal realities.
In one
other
passage
central to this
issue,
Descartes describes the rela
tion between ideas and their causes:
For
although
this cause does not transfer
{transfundat) any
of its actual or
formal
reality
to
my idea,
it should not on that account be
supposed
that it
must be less real. The nature of an idea is such that of itself it
requires {exigat)
no formal
reality except
what it derives from
my thought {praeter
illam
quam
mutuatur a
cogitatione mea),
of which it is a mode.
(AT VII, 41;
CSM
II, 28).
Descartes' claim that the
cause
does not transfer
any
of its formal
reality
to the idea
suggests
that the
mind,
in its causal
activity,
does not
provide
an
ideam
with
any
formal
reality.
What the idea does "derive from
my
thought"
seems to be
something
other than formal
reality.
Our view
provides
an
answer?the idea does not derive
generative power,
but
only
representative power,
in the form of a
power affecting
the will.
We can
conclude, then,
that the text does not
provide
an obstacle to our
claim that ideas have no formal
reality.
IV. MATERIAL FALSITY
A full treatment of the issues involved in Descartes'
concept
of material
falsity
is
beyond
the
scope
of our discussion. It will suffice to show that
our
perspective
is
helpful
in a central
respect.
We can focus first
on
Descartes'
description
of this
concept:
For
although.
.
.falsity
in the strict
sense,
or formal
falsity,
can occur
only
in
judgements,
there is another kind of
falsity,
material
falsity,
which occurs in
ideas,
when
they represent non-things
as
things.
For
example,
the ideas which
I have of heat and cold contain so little
clarity
and distinctness that
they
do
not enable me to tell whether cold is
merely
the absence of heat or vice
versa,
or whether both of them are real
qualities,
or neither is. And since there can
be no ideas which are not as it were of
things,
if it is true that cold is
nothing
but the absence of
heat,
the idea which
represents
it to me as
something
real
and
positive
deserves to be called
false_(AT VII, 43-44;
CSM
II, 30).
And
second,
we need to see Descartes'
explanation
of how these
materially
false ideas are caused:
Such ideas
obviously
do not
require
me to
posit
a source distinct from
myself.
For on the one
hand,
if
they
are
false,
that
is, represent non-things,
I know
by
the natural
light
that
they
arise from
nothing
?
that
is,
they
are in me
only
because of a
deficiency
and lack of
perfection
in
my
nature. If on the other
hand
they
are
true,
then since the
reality
which
they represent
is so
extremely
slight
that I cannot even
distinguish
it from a
non-thing,
I do not see
why they
cannot
originate
from
myself.
(
AT
VII, 44;
CSM
II, 30).
These statements
indicate,
as a number of commentators have
shown,
that
"we must
distinguish
the
representative
character of Cartesian ideas from
their
objective reality."10
This conclusion follows from the fact that those
ideas which "arise from
nothing"
have
representative
character
(since
all
ideas
are "as it were of
things")
but have no
objective reality
(since
an
idea
can have no more
objective reality
than there is formal
reality
in its
cause).
While this result has often
proven problematic
for
commentators,
it can be
easily
understood from our
perspective.
Our discussion has shown that most of our ideas have two
components.
For
example,
the clear and distinct
perception
of the wax consists of the
representation
of the wax as extension and the
power affecting
our will.
On our
view,
the latter is the idea's
objective reality;
we can
identify
the
former,
for the
point
at
issue,
as its
representative
character. The
objective
reality
of an idea shows it to be the effect of the
operation
of some
causal
power, indicating
that it
truly represents
a
"thing."
But the
reality
con
tained in some of our ideas is so
slight?they
exhibit so
little
power?that
we cannot tell if
they
have
any objective reality. Nevertheless,
all
ideas,
even
those which
seem to have no
objective reality,
are
"as it were of
things"
in that
they
have some
representative
character. For
example,
even the
idea of cold
presents
an "actual
sensation,"
as Descartes tells
Arnauld,
and
thereby "provides subject
matter for error":
. .
.my only
reason for
calling
the idea
'materially
false' is
that, owing
to the
fact that it is obscure and
confused,
I am unable to
judge
whether or not what
it
represents
to me is
something positive
which exists outside of
my
sensation.
And hence I
may
be led to
judge
that it is
something positive though
in fact it
may merely
be an absence.
(AT VII, 234;
CSM
II, 164).
The
representative
character of the
idea, along
with our
inability
to discern
whether the idea has
any objective reality, may
lead
us to
mistakenly judge
that there is some causal
power?some
formal
reality?which generated
the idea.
But,
in
fact,
it
may
"arise from
nothing"?that is,
from
a
lack in
our nature. We
see, too,
that this last
suggestion
does not violate Descartes'
causal
principles,
since
only
the
objective reality
of the
idea,
not its
repre
sentative
character,
has been shown to
require
a
positive
cause.
Our
perspective
shows that material
falsity
is indeed an intrinsic feature
of
ideas,
as Descartes
repeatedly
insisted. Some ideas
appear
to not exhibit
any power.
Since we are unable to discern whether
they do, they provide
material for
making
false
judgments
in the
way
we
have described.
V. THE IDEA OF GOD
We can
conclude
by briefly offering
some
suggestive
results of our
analy
sis
regarding
the idea of God. A
question asked,
but left
unanswered, by
John
Yolton,
can serve as our focus.
Referring
to the idea of
God,
he
says:
There
may
be a
problem
with this
particular
idea.
. .
.Can an idea be a mode
of
my thought
but not caused
by
me?11
QUARTERLY
From the
outset,
the Meditation III thinker has taken an
idea,
as a mode
of the
mind,
to
signify
a
generative
act. But after
concluding
that the idea
of God cannot be caused
by
the
mind,
Yolton's
question
must be confronted.
The
discovery
of this idea creates a tension in the meditator's
conception
of the mind's
"operations."
We need to see more
clearly
how this tension is
brought about, by recognizing
the
unique
nature of this idea within the
view we've set out.
Descartes'indications that this idea has infinite
objective reality
has the
implication,
from our
perspective,
that it exhibits infinite
power.
The
import
of this is described
by
Descartes in First
Replies:
But if.
.
.we attend to the immense and
incomprehensible power
that is
contained within the idea of
God,
then we will have
recognized
that this
power
is so
exceedingly great
that it is
plainly
the cause of his
continuing
existence.
. .
.[W]hen
we
perceive this,
we are
quite
entitled to think that in a sense he
stands in the same relation to himself as an efficient cause does to its
effect,
and hence that he derives his existence from himself in the
positive
sense.
(AT
VII, 110-111;
CSM
II,
79-80).
From our
perspective,
Descartes' claim has two
epistemological
conse
quences.
First,
the
immensity
of the
objective reality
of the idea of God?the
immensity
of the
power affecting
our will?seems to eliminate the need to
posit
an
efficient
cause outside of itself. It can
only
do so if the
power
shows
itself to be "self-creative." This
suggests
that its "infinitude" is not to be
understood as a
difference in
degree
from the
objective
realities of our other
ideas,
but rather
as a difference in kind. It is the
apprehension
of this
self-creative
power
which
provides
the meditator with the
meaning
of
"necessary
existence."
Second,
the
collapse
of the distinction between the
power
within the idea
and the efficient
cause of that
power
means that it will be
impossible
to
distinguish
the
objective reality
of the idea from the formal
reality
which
is its cause. In other
words,
the meditator will not be able to
distinguish
the "idea" from the
"thing."
This result
may
well
capture
the true sense in
which this idea most
fully escapes
a
suspicion
of material
falsity?it
eliminates the
possibility
of error in our
judgments
since there is
nothing
to which our causal
principles
need lead
us.
And it
may
also reflect the full
sense in which
we come to know that God must be the cause of this idea.
These
epistemological
results demand that further work be done to
fully
answer Yolton's
question. Up
to
now,
the meditator has taken the
power
exhibited in his ideas to
represent
his own mind's
generative power.
Rec
ognizing
that the
power
exhibited in this idea is not his own forces a
consideration of the
relationship
between his own
power
and God's
power?the
second
stage
of the Meditation III
proof passes
to that
very
issue. The full resolution of this issue will have a
range
of
implications
concerning
the
proper understanding
of the mind's
operations,
whether the
mind is in fact a
substance,
and more. Those concerns are
beyond
the
scope
of our
present
discussion. It is
enough
for now if our
analysis
has
provided
some
helpful
results
regarding
Descartes'
theory
of ideas and has moti
vated further
investigation
in the directions we have
pointed
out.
St. John's
University
Received
September
29,
1995
NOTES
1.
Stephen
I.
Wagner,
"Descartes'Wax:
Discovering
the Nature of
Mind," History
of Philosophy Quarterly,
vol. 12
(1995), pp.
165-83.
2. Our
view,
in line with Descartes' statement in the
Synopsis,
denies that
Descartes held a
non-representational
view of the
mind,
as some commentators
have
suggested, e.g.
Michel
Henry,
"The Soul
According
to Descartes" in
Stephen
Voss, ed., Essays
on the
Philosophy
and Science
of
Rene Descartes (New
York: Oxford
University Press, 1993), pp.
40-51.
3. For
example,
Calvin
Normore, "Meaning
and
Objective Being:
Descartes and
His
Sources,"
in Am?lie
Rorty, ed., Essays
on Descartes' Meditations
(Berkeley:
University
of California
Press, 1986), p.
238.
4. See also Third
Replies,
AT
VII, 181;
CSM
II,
127.
5. E. J.
Ashworth,
"Descartes'
Theory
of
Objective Reality,"
The New Scholasti
cism,
vol. 49
(1975), p.
338.
6. Annette
Baier,
"The Idea of the True God in
Descartes,"
in Am?lie
Rorty, ed.,
op. cit., p.
364.
7. The closest Descartes
comes to
attributing
such
power
to ideas is his statement
that "one idea
may perhaps originate
from another"
(AT VII, 42;
CSM
II,
29).
But
he
immediately goes
on to
argue
that we cannot
explain
this
"origination"
without
appealing
to some formal
reality
as the
primary
cause. This conclusion
only
follows
if he is
assuming
that ideas do not themselves have
generative power.
8. Nicholas
Jolley,
The
Light of
the Soul
(New
York: Oxford
University Press,
1990), pp.
13-14.
9. Vere
Chappell,
"The
Theory
of
Ideas,"
in Am?lie
Rorty, ed., op. cit., p.
187.
10. Calvin
Normore, op. cit., p.
230. Normore here credits
Margaret
Wilson with
establishing
this
point.
11. John
Yolton, Perceptual Acquaintance
From Descartes to Reid
(Minneapolis:
University
of Minnesota
Press, 1984),
note
14, p.
41.
12. Versions of this
paper
were
presented
at the fall 1995
meetings
of the Midwest
Seminar in the
History
of
Early
Modern
Philosophy
and the Minnesota
Philosophi
cal
Society. My
thanks
go
to the
organizers
and discussants of those
meetings
(especially
Phil
Cummins,
Michelle Eliot and
Doug
Lewis)
for their
help
with
my
work.

Descartes On The Power of Ideas

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