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Table of contents

A probable conjecture may pull me one way; but when I realize that it is a mere conjecture and not a certain and indubitable reason, that in itself will push me the other way. My experience in the last few days confirms this: the mere fact that I found all my previous beliefs to be somewhat open to doubt was enough to switch me from confidently believing them to supposing them to be wholly false.

It is a misuse of my free will to have an opinion in such cases: if I choose the wrong side I shall be in error; and even if I choose the right side, I shall be at fault because I'll have come to the truth by sheer chance and not through a perception of my intellect. The latter, as the natural light shows me clearly, should be what influences my will when I affirm things.

I have said that error is essentially a privation — a lack of something that I should have — and now I know what this privation consists in.

Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes

God has never owed me anything, so I should thank him for his great generosity to me, rather than feeling cheated because he did not give me everything. Nor can I reasonably complain that God gave me a will that extends more widely than my intellect. The will is a single unitary thing; its nature is such, it seems, that there could be no way of taking away parts of it. Anyway, should not the great extent of my will be a cause for further thanks to him who gave it to me?

Finally, I must not complain that God consents to the acts of will in which I go wrong. What there is in these acts that comes from God is wholly true and good; and it is a perfection in me that I can perform them. That is, it is a mere fact about something that is not the case; it does not involve the notion that it ought to be the case.

God has given me the freedom to assent or not to assent in cases where he did not give me clear understanding; he is surely not to blame for that. Of course God easily could have arranged things so that, while keeping although my freedom and still being limited in what I understand, I never made a mistake.

Hasidic Panpsychism

I can see that if God had made me this way, I would — considered just in myself, as if nothing else existed — have been more perfect than I actually am. But the universe as a whole may have some perfection that requires that some parts of it are capable of error while others are not, so that it would be a worse universe if all its parts were exactly alike in being immune from error.

I must be right in my explanation of the cause of error. If I restrain my will so that I form opinions only on what the intellect clearly and distinctly reveals, I cannot possibly go wrong. Here is why. He is supremely perfect; it would be downright contradictory to suppose that he is a deceiver. So the clear and distinct perception must be true. So today I have learned not only how to avoid error but also how to arrive at the truth. It is beyond question that I shall reach the truth if I think hard enough about the things that I perfectly understand, keeping them separate from all the other matters in which my thoughts are more confused and obscure.

That is what I shall be really careful to do from now on. I may take these up at some time; but right now I have a more pressing task. Now that I have seen how to reach the truth — what to do and what to avoid — I must try to escape from the doubts that beset me a few days ago, and see whether anything can be known for certain about material objects. Before enquiring into whether there are any such things, I should consider the ideas of them in my thought, in order to see which of those ideas are distinct and which confused.

I distinctly imagine quantity — that is, the length, breadth and depth of the quantity, or rather of the thing that is quantified. Size, shape, position and so on are well known and transparent to me as general kinds of phenomenon, but there are also countless particular facts involving them that I perceive when I attend to them. The truths about all these matters are so open to me, and so much in harmony with my nature, that when I first discover any of them it feels less like learning something new than like remembering something I had known before, or noticing for the first time something that was already in my mind without my having turned my mental gaze onto it.

Even if there are not and never were any triangles outside my thought, still, when I imagine a triangle I am constrained in how I do this, because there is a determinate nature or essence or form of triangle that is eternal, unchanging, and independent of my mind.

Consider the things that I can prove about the triangle — that its three angles equal two right angles, that its longest side is opposite its greatest angle, and so on. It does not help to point out that I have sometimes seen triangular bodies, so that the idea of the triangle might have come to me from them through my sense organs. I can prove truths about the properties not only of triangles but of countless other shapes that I know I have never encountered through the senses.

These properties must be something, not pure nothing: whatever is true is something; and these properties are true because I am clearly aware of them. I remember, too, that even back in the times when the objects of the senses held my attention, I regarded the clearly apprehended propositions of pure mathematics — including arithmetic and geometry — as the most certain of all. The preceding two paragraphs lead to this conclusion: The mere fact that I find in my thought an idea of something x, and clearly and distinctly perceive x to have a certain property, it follows that x really does have that property.

Can I not turn this to account in a second argument to prove the existence of God? This understanding is just as clear and distinct as what is involved in mathematical proofs of the properties of shapes and numbers. So even if I have sometimes gone wrong in my meditations in these past days, I ought still to regard the existence of God as being at least as certain as I have taken the truths of mathematics to be. At first sight, this looks like a trick.

Answering this still leaves open the existence question, which asks whether there are any triangles or flames or sparrows. I can easily believe that in the case of God, also, existence can be separated from essence, letting us answer the essence question about God while leaving the existence question open, so that God can be thought of as not existing.

10 Steps to Conquering Anything You Set Your Mind To

But on more careful reflection it becomes quite evident that, just as having-internal-angles-equal-to?? Just as it is self-contradictory to think of highlands in a world where there are no lowlands , so it is self-contradictory to think of God as not existing — that is, to think of a supremely perfect being as lacking a perfection, namely the perfection of existence. How things are in reality is not settled by my thought; and just as I can imagine a winged horse even though no horse has wings, so I can attach existence to God in my thought even if no God exists. This involves false reasoning.

The influence runs the opposite way: the necessity of the thing constrains how I can think, depriving me of the freedom to think of God without existence that is, a supremely perfect being without a supreme perfection , like my freedom to imagine a horse with or without wings. Nor must it be alleged here as an objection, that it is in truth necessary to admit that God exists, after having supposed him to possess all perfections, since existence is one of them, but that my original supposition was not necessary; just as it is not necessary to think that all quadrilateral figures can be inscribed in the circle, since, if I supposed this, I should be constrained to admit that the rhombus, being a figure of four sides, can be therein inscribed, which, however, is manifestly false.

This objection is, I say, incompetent; for although it may not be necessary that I shall at any time entertain the notion of Deity, yet each time I happen to think of a first and sovereign being, and to draw, so to speak, the idea of him from the storehouse of the mind, I am necessitated to attribute to him all kinds of perfections, though I may not then enumerate them all, nor think of each of them in particular. And this necessity is sufficient, as soon as I discover that existence is a perfection, to cause me to infer the existence of this first and sovereign being; just as it is not necessary that I should ever imagine any triangle, but whenever I am desirous of considering a rectilinear figure composed of only three angles, it is absolutely necessary to attribute those properties to it from which it is correctly inferred that its three angles are not greater than two right angles, although perhaps I may not then advert to this relation in particular.

But when I consider what figures are capable of being inscribed in the circle, it is by no means necessary to hold that all quadrilateral figures are of this number; on the contrary, I cannot even imagine such to be the case, so long as I shall be unwilling to accept in thought aught that I do not clearly and distinctly conceive; and consequently there is a vast difference between false suppositions, as is the one in question, and the true ideas that were born with me, the first and chief of which is the idea of God.

For indeed I discern on many grounds that this idea is not factitious depending simply on my thought, but that it is the representation of a true and immutable nature: in the first place because I can conceive no other being, except God, to whose essence existence [necessarily] pertains; in the second, because it is impossible to conceive two or more gods of this kind; and it being supposed that one such God exists, I clearly see that he must have existed from all eternity, and will exist to all eternity; and finally, because I apprehend many other properties in God, none of which I can either diminish or change.

But, indeed, whatever mode of probation I in the end adopt, it always returns to this, that it is only the things I clearly and distinctly conceive which have the power of completely persuading me. And although, of the objects I conceive in this manner, some, indeed, are obvious to every one, while others are only discovered after close and careful investigation; nevertheless after they are once discovered, the latter are not esteemed less certain than the former. Thus, for example, to take the case of a right-angled triangle, although it is not so manifest at first that the square of the base is equal to the squares of the other two sides, as that the base is opposite to the greatest angle; nevertheless, after it is once apprehended.

And, with respect to God if I were not pre-occupied by prejudices, and my thought beset on all sides by the continual presence of the images of sensible objects, I should know nothing sooner or more easily then the fact of his being. For is there any truth more clear than the existence of a Supreme Being, or of God, seeing it is to his essence alone that [necessary and eternal] existence pertains?

And although the right conception of this truth has cost me much close thinking, nevertheless at present I feel not only as assured of it as of what I deem most certain, but I remark further that the certitude of all other truths is so absolutely dependent on it that without this knowledge it is impossible ever to know anything perfectly. For although I am of such a nature as to be unable, while I possess a very clear and distinct apprehension of a matter, to resist the conviction of its truth, yet because my constitution is also such as to incapacitate me from keeping my mind continually fixed on the same object and as I frequently recollect a past judgment without at the same time being able to recall the grounds of it, it may happen meanwhile that other reasons are presented to me which would readily cause me to change my opinion, if I did not know that God existed; and thus I should possess no true and certain knowledge, but merely vague and vacillating opinions.

Thus, for example, when r consider the nature of the [rectilinear] triangle, it most clearly appears to me, who have been instructed in the principles of geometry, that its three angles are equal to two right angles, and I find it impossible to believe otherwise, while I apply my mind to the demonstration; but as soon as I cease from attending to the process of proof, although I still remember that I had a clear comprehension of it, yet I may readily come to doubt of the truth demonstrated, if I do not know that there is a God: for I may persuade myself that I have been so constituted by nature as to be sometimes deceived, even in matters which I think I apprehend with the greatest evidence and certitude, especially when I recollect that I frequently considered many things to be true and certain which other reasons afterward constrained me to reckon as wholly false.

But after I have discovered that God exists, seeing I also at the same time observed that all things depend on him, and that he is no deceiver, and thence inferred that all which I clearly and distinctly perceive is of necessity true: although I no longer attend to the grounds of a judgment, no opposite reason can be alleged sufficient to lead me to doubt of its truth, provided only I remember that 1 once possessed a clear and distinct comprehension of it.


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My knowledge of it thus becomes true and certain. And this same knowledge extends likewise to whatever I remember to have formerly demonstrated, as the truths of geometry and the like: for what can be alleged against them to lead me to doubt of them? Will it be that my nature is such that I may be frequently deceived? But I already know that I cannot be deceived in judgments of the grounds of which I possess a clear knowledge. Will it be that I formerly deemed things to be true and certain which I afterward discovered to be false?

But I had no clear and distinct knowledge of any of those things, and, being as yet ignorant of the rule by which I am assured of the truth of a judgment, I was led to give my assent to them on grounds which I afterward discovered were less strong than at the time I imagined them to be. What further objection, then, is there? Will it be said that perhaps I am dreaming an objection I lately myself raised , or that all the thoughts of which I am now conscious have no more truth than the reveries of my dreams? But although, in truth, I should be dreaming, the rule still holds that all which is clearly presented to my intellect is indisputably true.

Thus I see plainly that the certainty and truth of all knowledge depends strictly on my awareness of the true God. Now I can achieve full and certain knowledge of countless matters, both concerning God himself and other things whose nature is intellectual, and also concerning the whole of that corporeal nature that is the subject-matter of pure mathematics.

The remaining task is to consider whether material things exist. Insofar as they are the subject matter of pure mathematics, I perceive them clearly and distinctly; so I at least know that they could exist, because anything that I perceive in that way could be created by God. The only reason I have ever accepted for thinking that something could not be made by him is that there would be a contradiction in my perceiving it distinctly.

My faculty of imagination, which I am aware of using when I turn my mind to material things, also suggests that they really exist. For when I think harder about what imagination is, it seems to be simply an application of the faculty of knowing to a body that is intimately present to it — and that has to be a body that exists. When I think of a body, I usually form some kind of image; so in thinking of a chiliagon I may construct in my mind — strictly speaking, in my imagination — a confused representation of some figure. In the case of a pentagon, the situation is different. This imagining, I find, takes more mental effort than understanding does; and that is enough to show that imagination is different from pure understanding.

This seems to imply that my power of imagining depends on something other than myself; and I can easily understand that if there is such a thing as my body — that is, if my mind is joined to a certain body in such a way that it can contemplate that body whenever it wants to — then it might be this very body that enables me to imagine corporeal things. So it may be that imagining differs from pure understanding purely like this: when the mind understands, it somehow turns in on itself and inspects one of its own ideas; but when it imagines, it turns away from itself and looks at something in the body something that conforms to an idea — either one understood by the mind or one perceived by the senses.

I can, I repeat, easily see that this might be how imagination comes about if the body exists; and since I can think of no other equally good way of explaining what imagination is, I can conjecture that the body exists. But this is only a probability. As well as the corporeal nature that is the subject-matter of pure mathematics, I am also accustomed to imagining colours, sounds, tastes, pain and so on — though not so distinctly.

Now, I perceive these much better by means of the senses, which is how helped by memory they appear to have reached the imagination. I want to know whether the things that are perceived through the senses provide me with any sure argument for the existence of bodies. To begin with, I will 1 go back over everything that I originally took to be perceived by the senses, and reckoned to be true; and I will go over my reasons for thinking this.

Next, I will 2 set out my reasons for later doubting these things. Finally, I will 3 consider what I should now believe about them. I also perceived by my senses that this body was situated among many other bodies that could harm or help it; and I detected the favourable effects by a sensation of pleasure and the unfavourable ones by pain. As well as pain and pleasure, I also had sensations of hunger, thirst, and other such appetites, and also of bodily states tending towards cheerfulness, sadness, anger and similar emotions.

Outside myself, besides the extension, shapes and movements of bodies, I also had sensations of their hardness and heat, and of the other qualities that can be known by touch. In addition, I had sensations of light, colours, smells, tastes and sounds, and differences amongst these enabled me to sort out the sky, the earth, the seas and other bodies from one another. All I was immediately aware of in each case were my ideas, but it was reasonable for me to think that what I was perceiving through the senses were external bodies that caused the ideas.