What Does Descartes Mean To Me

Descartes: You ask what you are, yet you fail to comprehend that to know of something is to know it without a doubt. Focus on something that is clearer to you than yourself. Davies: You say I should find clarity outside of myself, but this seems impossible when all I know is that I am thinking. Is it not appropriate to feel sceptical of everything else?

Descartes: You must allow yourself freedom from this radical doubt. You know that you think and that you exist. Turn your attention to the external world and investigate a corporeal substance to feel more clarity within yourself. Take this for example, tell me what you see.

Davies: An ice cube.

Descartes: Nonsense. You think you know this ‘ice cube’ but you are mistaken. Describe it.

Descartes: You may know it by another name, but you cannot deny that this is not the same ice as before. Its identity remains. Nothing suggests itself my friend. You cannot say that an object is anything. The ice was not bound to any of these qualities. Ask yourself the question of what it has, it’s true and immutable nature (REF 1), as the ice was merely a body that presented itself to you as one thing and is now another.

Hobbes: You cannot possibly say that nothing suggests itself, for you know more of an object when you observe it! The ice’s sensory qualities are the presupposition to all understanding, dare you say that there exist conceptions in your mind that have not been begotten upon, totally or partly, by the sense (reference)

Descartes: Do not misunderstand me. I do not say that the senses are entirely useless in my perception, all I infer is that they cannot provide a distinct understanding of the ice (reference Med). You are predisposed to judge that your senses tell you all that there is to know, alas we know they cannot always be trusted. Withdraw your commitment from the ice being its sensible qualities for that is all it was seeming to be, everything has now

To understand is to compare phantasms and differentiate their likeness and unlikeness (ref2.1). These phantasms pass in the train of imaginations and the judgement of their differences comes from memory (2.1, ref2).

Davies: I cannot entertain that the faculty of understanding exists within that of imagination. Have we not discussed that the imagination, as powerful as it may be, cannot depict all possible changes of the ice? This indubitability overwhelms me and I cannot consider your objection true. There is a great difference between imagining and conceiving in the mind, so I shall consider them to be separate faculties. For I can envision an existence deprived of the ability to sense or imagine but cannot comprehend myself independent of the intellect. This faculty endures insofar as I am a thinking thing!

Descartes: Exactly. The imagination lacks the faculty of judgement (reference). You may have sensory memories of the ice, but they represent only what was seeming to be so. The intellect allows you to vividly concentrate on what the ice consists in. It allows you to penetrate outward forms to contemplate their inner constitution (reference