In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes takes it upon himself to cast aside all that he has previously known by finding clear reason for doubt, and he uses his “blank cognitive slate” as a basis for finding certainty. After establishing that our senses deceive us, Descartes must establish something he can claim with certainty lest his thoughts aimlessly wander around with no anchor to objective truth. Descartes claims “So I too can hope for great things if I manage to find just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshakeable” (CSM II 16, AT X 24). Ultimately, Descartes comes to the famous conclusion “I am, I exist” (CSM II 21, AT X 31) in Meditations II. However, this conclusion, as well as the path of reasoning Descartes follows to arrive at it in Meditations I, is not without interpretative discord. Considering the dreaming vs reality and deceiving demon passage in Meditation I as well as the wax passage in Meditation II, the cogito passage is most aptly summed up as a valid inference/deduction presupposed by a scenario of doubt.
In Meditations I, Descartes brings up the idea that we may be dreaming, and hence none of our experiences can be considered veridical or true. He does so to find reasonable doubt for his senses and perceptions which also serves to narrow down what he can consider with certainty. However, there is debate as to what exactly Descartes is trying to bring into question by proposing this possibility. On one hand, Descartes asks “How often, asleep at night, am I convinced of just such familiar events” (CSM II 13, AT X 19), implying rather straightforwardly that the question is a simple matter of whether we are currently asleep or awake and how to distinguish between sleeping and waking experiences. Following this question, it is reasonable to assume that the distinguishing between dreaming and waking directly translates to distinguishing between veridical and non-veridical experiences, offering leverage for certainty. On the other hand, Descartes also states “Nonetheless, it must surely be admitted that the visions which come in sleep are like paintings, which must have been fashioned in the likeness of things that are real” (CSM II 13, AT X 19), forming the “painter analogy”. The painter analogy tackles the general and more fundamental question of whether verdicial experiences themselves exist, casting aside the now-irrelevant question of whether we are in a dreaming or waking state. Even within our dreams, what we perceive cannot possibly be an original idea as truly original ideas are impossible to “paint”. As a result, everything we perceive is rooted in something real, regardless of our mental state.
Later in Meditations I, Descartes also establishes the idea of an omnipotent and infinite God and calls into question whether he is good or deceptive. Although he is tempted to believe in this God’s goodness, Descartes reasons that “if it were inconsistent with his goodness to have created me such that I am deceived all the time, it would seem equally foreign to his goodness to allow me to be deceived even once” (CSM II 14, AT X 21). Knowing that he has been deceived once, Descartes concludes through contradiction that God is a deceiving demon. The potential flaw within this reasoning lies in the fact that Descartes assumes that his having been deceived in the past is a certainty! The act of knowing one has been deceived implies that one now knows the truth or certainty, which is what Descartes is at-the-present in pursuit of. Thus, circular reasoning in this area gives rise to interpretative difficulty regarding the hypothesis that God is deceiver. Digressing from this matter, even under the assumption that “some malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me” (CSM II 15, AT X 22), to what extent are we being deceived? Some argue that this demon attacks our ability to perceive, tying in closely with the idea that our sensory perceptions cannot be trusted. Others argue that the demon attacks our memory and hence our capacity for deductive reasoning. However, a recurring example of deception that Descartes uses is that 2 + 3 no longer equals 5. In this case, is simple arithmetic a product of our sensory perception, a specific case of deductive reasoning, or something else entirely? Hence, does this demon completely undermine all that we know down to the intuitive building blocks of knowledge. If this demon is able to falsely convince us that 2 + 3 = 5, there are 3 sides to a triangle, and other matters of such simplicity, there is little room for certainty within the subjects of our studies as even the purest subjects have been overturned. As a result, Descartes looks deeper for certainty and eventually arrives at his cogito statement.
“At last I have discovered it – thought; this alone is inseparable from me. I am, I exist – that is certain” (CSM II 18, AT X 27). Descartes establishes that his existence is a necessary condition for him to think and doubt, and thus is a certain and immutable fact which serves as a seed for analyzing anything for certainty. Afterwards, Descartes immediately employs his newfound tactic for identifying certainty regarding the existence and nature of a piece of wax. Due to the near infinite physical forms and degrees of extension that a piece of wax can take on, Descartes concludes that “The perception I have of it is a case not of vision or touch or imagination – nor has it ever been, despite previous appearances – but of purely mental scrutiny” (CSM II 21, AT X 31), further solidifying his case for the cogito statement. There are four common interpretations regarding the connection between the two statements “I think” and “I exist” as well as the conditions in which the statements may be applied. Under the Intuitive Interpretation, the connection between thinking and existing is near self-evident and a matter of simple intuition. The complementary interpretation is the Inference Interpretation which argues that the connection is indirect and must be inferred via the process of deduction. The Intuitive Interpretation is immediately debunked, as Descartes’ thought process for arriving at the cogito statement is that if he thinks and doubts, he is being deceived by the aforementioned demon. Subsequently, if he is the object of deception by an omnipotent demon, he indeed must be something. Though simple, this thought process is deductive by nature, starting and ending at two non-equivalent points. Furthermore, the wax passage illustrates the lengths to which Descartes needed to consider the wax’s nature before establishing it as existing insofar as it is a mental perception of his, contradicting the straightforward and effortless process typically required to connect intuitive ideas. As for the conditions of application, a scenario of doubt must presuppose existence. A scenario of doubt refers not to a scenario in which the meditator is actively doubting the existence of himself or an object (Performative Interpretation), but rather any scenario in which there is room for reasonably doubting existence (Conditions of Doubt Interpretation). As seen in the wax passage, Descartes begins by simply considering the wax for what he perceives it to be momentarily. In this scenario, Descartes does not need to actively perform the task of doubting the wax’s existence, nor does he need to have a perfect perception of what the wax is, yet he is still in a situation where the characteristics he observes of the wax can be reasonably doubted as certainties across all forms of wax. So long as there is room for doubt, mental scrutiny regarding oneself or an object must necessarily be at work, which has been established as a form of existence.
With the cogito established, Descartes has given himself a platform from which he can explore countless other topics and ideas with certainty insofar as they are thoughts of his. He continues with this in Meditations III.
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