|
Descartes and a Theory of Error by Glenn R. Jackson Copyright 1998 Glenn R. Jackson The progression through Descartes' "Meditations" leads first to a systematic doubt, the search for objects of certain knowledge. This systematic doubt along with the postulation of a powerful, evil, and most importantly, deceiving spirit, are revealed by Descartes in his "First Meditation." In the "Second Meditation" Descartes begins his road back from doubt as he finds that even as he doubts, he thinks, and as he thinks so does he most certainly exist. At this point in Descartes "Meditations" there remains one obvious stumbling block to certainty, and that is the postulation of the all-powerful and deceiving spirit. Descartes sets to work on this problem in his "Third Meditation" as he offers proofs for the existence of God, a God who is most certainly not a deceiver.
Not being a deceiver, God becomes very important to Descartes as a guarantor of the foundations of knowledge. That brings us to the "Fourth Meditation" which is the concern of this paper, and more specifically, to a discussion of Descartes' theory of error contained in that particular meditation. This paper will formulate Descartes theory of error, explore several criticisms of the theory, and offer a possible reformation of that theory. "The theory of error is itself an important part of what he wanted to know when he set out on his enquiry." The point is evident that if Descartes is to be successful in his search for certainty, then he must be able to identify and eliminate error that allowed him to fall into doubt in the first place. As Descartes begins the "Fourth Meditation," he returns to the final thoughts of the Third,
Descartes knows that there are objects in the world, corporeal things, but without God he does not know them with certainty. So the conclusions from the "Third Meditation" find an application in the Fourth, a God who is guarantor of corporeal things. But this does not mean that an appeal to God is the sole means of certainty, the human mind too has the ability to judge with certainty about objects of the world.
In light of this, that is, that God does not deceive and further has given to each mind the ability to judge correctly, how does it happen that antone is ever in error? As Descartes struggles with an answer to this question there is one thing that he does know, that being that God is not responsible for anyone being in error. God may not directly deceive, though he has the power, neither can He be responsible because of how He made us. For each derives what we are from God's nature, and that nature is perfect. But Descartes also knows that while God is perfect, we are not, and in fact, in some ways we are completely "removed from perfection."
So it seems that error is not an active quality of our being, but is the result of a particular deficiency in our being. Yet God is good and all knowing and it would seem that His creations could have been made in such a way as to never err. Considering this aspect and the obvious fact that we do err, Descartes will only deal with the aspect of error, leaving the rest to the impenetrable mystery of God's will. But as for the rest, Descartes knows that as far as our being is derived from God's being it will be perfect. He is therefore led to postulate two causes present in all cases of judgement where there is error, the faculty of knowing, and the faculty of choice. Being finite in nature we are limited in our knowledge or in our understanding, but as far as we derive our being from God we are totally free to choose or to will. The understanding and the will are then for Descartes the two faculties that are used when we judge in error. Of these two faculties it is the understanding alone that lacks the perfection that could lead to error, but the understanding is for Descartes a passive faculty. Passive in the aspect that it can only conceive ideas or gather knowledge, it cannot act on that knowledge. "Thus the limitations on the understanding, while they certainly exist, do not by themselves explain the liability to error - they only explain ignorance." It is up to the will to choose based on the understanding. The will then is the active faculty, the faculty that chooses in error, but the will is the perfect faculty derived form God's nature. This means that the faculty that can err can never act and the faculty that can act can never err.4 The solution to this dilemma is explained simply by Descartes as the will exceeding the understanding.
Therefore, error occurs when we act on information that is not complete or, more accurate to Descartes thinking, we act (will) when we do not have a clear and distinct idea of the object to be acted on. From this then it is clear for Descartes as to what must be done to avoid error and to always will that which is true. It is simply to suspend judgement on anything where the understanding does not have a clear and distinct idea of that thing.
In this way then Descartes is able to formulate a theory of error which removes all possibility of blame from God and places it fully on Man, thus confirming God as a reliable guarantor of knowledge. And in addition, this theory preserves the God given nature of Man by viewing error as an avoidable state. "Two different difficulties are removed. On the one hand, to avoid error is in one 5 own power, and thus the way is clear again for the Method it is up to me whether I pursue my inquiries with enough self-discipline to avoid hasty affirmation. On the other hand, we see that there can be no reproach to God."5 In the same quote, Bernard Williams hits upon the key of Descartes theory of error and of this "Fourth Meditation," with this characterization of error it is clear that the Method of Doubt is not in vain and from this point can go forward to certainty. This was an important view to establish, unfortunately, many feel that the view is faulty and that Descartes from this point forward began to lose his way in the search for certainty. Any criticism of Descartes theory of error has an obvious starting point in the characterization of the will. Free will is problematic in and of itself, but a perfectly free will seems to fly in the face of common sense. It seems fairly obvious that at times we just do not freely choose to do what we do. Of course this is a general problem for anyone who uses the idea of free will, but there is a more specific problem for Descartes. His characterization of the will is of an infinite or limitless faculty that can choose anything that can be thought of as long as there is not any "felt obstacle."6 Is it true to say, as Descartes does, that we can choose to do anything that we can conceive? It seems obvious that there are many things that we can conceive of, but are quite impossible to do. Though we can conceive of moving an impossibly heavy weight it is not possible for us to move it.7 Descartes answer to this criticism is it is not the actual doing of a conceived action that we are free to do, it is only in the willing or choosing that we are free.8 In other words, we can freely choose to move the impossibly heavy weight because of our free will, but it does not take from the freedom of the will just because we cannot do what we have chosen to do. This seems to be an awfully weak argument for free will, especially in light of some modern criticisms of the idea. For example, a behaviorist might argue against free will by stating that all human actions are determined by conditionings that are impossible to break, and therefore all actions are purely mechanical responses to stimuli. This behaviorist would also be able to offer some actual examples of human conditioning. Descartes only possible reply to these examples would seem to be that although these individuals are not able to act differently than they do, it is possible to assume that they have chosen to act differently. The best that this answer can do is to keep the idea of free will alive, but it is the idea of something that is not relevant to our everyday choice making. Characterized in the above way, it appears that Descartes freedom of choice, or the act of willing, takes place in the mind, i.e., as a purely mental event. This is evident if we examine the concept of assenting. Assenting, for Descartes, is a mode of willing.9 In other words, assenting is choosing to do a particular action as described above. As Bernard Williams states: "It seems rather to mean that with assenting, the question of one's ability just does not arise. One assents or not, at will." Further, to assent to something the individual must believe in that something, assenting entails belief. This seems to mean for Descartes that when we assent to a proposition we then really believe that proposition, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.10 However, Descartes does offer two restrictions on this process of assenting that seem to get around this objection. First, that assenting will not occur in cases where the thinker is faced with overwhelming evidence for a certain belief, and second, that assenting should be used mainly in the negative sense of the suspension of belief.11 So the will is not to be used contrary to evidence, and assentings most important function is in the suspension of beliefs (just as Descartes has done in the "Meditations"). This does seem to help Descartes get around the objection that, as understood in the "Meditations," assenting indicates a possibility of choosing to believe something in the face of evidence against it. However, these restrictions placed on assenting by Descartes seem to highlight certain confusion on Descartes part. First, is it really possible to use assent in a negative sense, i.e., can we truly suspend our beliefs? Though Descartes wishes to believe so, and in fact has based the whole "Meditations" on this negative sense of assenting, it does not appear to be the case that we can indeed suspend our beliefs. As William James has stated in "The Will to Believe," considering the psychology of human belief it seems unreasonable to think that by a simple act of will we can suspend our beliefs in such matters as, for example, the existence of Abraham Lincoln. Of course it is easy to say that we can suspend belief and even to think that we have, but can we act as if we have suspended our beliefs? The way we act or behave is a far better indicator of what we believe than any statement of beliefs can be. In this then Descartes seems to be mistaken, the will, and assent as one of its modes, is not really used in a negative sense regarding beliefs. And this raises a further question, is it true that our beliefs follow assent? This is a problem if it is true that beliefs are not suspendable by the action of the will. Because while it may be true initially that a belief proceeds from an act of will, once a belief is held it cannot be suspended by the will and, therefore, really precedes all other acts of the will. This seems to indicate that the will becomes less free as we accumulate beliefs. And, in fact, the will makes choices based on beliefs held. This is not as much of a problem for will viewed as a mixed bag of free choice and belief determined choice as it is for Descartes' perfectly free will. In Descartes characterization, the will is a faculty that chooses strictly according to the knowledge presented to it by the understanding, so that as the understanding changes so does what we choose. This ignores, however, the seemingly undeniable fact that our beliefs do affect the will and thereby our choices. So in the end it appears that Descartes theory of error is undermined by its' characterization of the will. If the will is not perfectly free then there is no possibility of a suspension of belief. And if this is the case then there is little hope for Descartes’ search for certainty by the method of systematic doubt. Further, if the will is controlled by beliefs, as asserted above, then error is not the correctable situation that Descartes views it to be. And yet, to dismiss this theory of error because of problems with the characterization of the will seems to do a real injustice to Descartes’ theory. Descartes characterization of the understanding as the root of all error does, on the face of it, appear to be true. However, it is within this characterization of the understanding that, I believe, Descartes first began to go wrong on his theory. First, it appears to me that while the understanding may be limited in what it knows at any particular moment in time, it is quite unlimited in what it can know in future times. That is to say that we understand or know more now than we did at any particular point in time in the past. This would seem to be necessarily true as we look at human history. Descartes described the understanding as the faculty that "apprehends ideas" and further, that the understanding is limited in what it can apprehend. It is this limited apprehension that I believe is false. Instead, I believe that the understanding is unlimited and can apprehend all ideas. The only real limitation to the understanding is in the number of ideas brought before it. Let me state this another way. Since we are finite beings, we have only a certain finite knowledge before us at any time. As time goes on, we constantly add to this knowledge by various means, i.e., we are accumulating ideas. Now the understanding is able to "apprehend" these ideas, this knowledge, as it is made available to it. Meaning that Descartes was mistaken, this quality of apprehension that is the understanding is not limited as an ability, but is constrained by the knowledge or ideas available at any particular time. Furthermore, as was shown above, the will is not perfectly free, but is more accurately described as controlled by belief. In the final analysis we have a finite number of ideas presented to the understanding and these ideas are "apprehended" by the understanding with the will choosing to believe or not to believe. Once there is belief, that belief becomes a part of the will. So that as the will accumulates beliefs, it becomes increasingly directed by those beliefs. And as the understanding is furnishing the so called "apprehension of ideas" to the will to be eventually used in the formation of beliefs, the understanding seems to be the controlling faculty and, therefore, the true focus for any theory of error. Now, if Descartes had reached this same construal of the faculties of the understanding and the will, then could he have also reached his most important conclusions for die theory of error? That being that error is correctable and that it is thereby possible to arrive at certain knowledge. I believe that it would be possible to an extent, but I am not convinced that he could arrive at certain knowledge about as many things as he originally had. The method for correcting error would remain similar to before. All available knowledge would be brought before the understanding as before, with one major difference. If there is any evidence to the contrary of a clear and distinct idea, then the most you could have would be a belief, but you could not call it certain knowledge. Of course this seems to lead you awful close to idealism, but I believe that in actual use there would be found many objects of certain knowledge. In conclusion, it seems that Descartes' theory of error is crippled by his characterization of the will. Specifically his assertion that the will is unlimited in nature and is perfectly free as is God's own will. It appears that it would be possible to produce a sounder theory of error by focusing on the faculty of the understanding, but it is not clear whether this would lead too close to idealism and thereby defeat Descartes attempt to arrive at certain knowledge.
1Bernard Williams. "Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry", p. 166. 2 A. Boyce Gibson. "The Philosophy of Descartes", p. 32 3 Bernard Williams. "Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry", p.167. 4A.Boyce Gibson. "The Philosophy of Descartes", p. 32.. 5 Bernard Wil1iams. "Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry", p.169. 6 Ibid. p.172. 7 Ibid. p.172. 8 Ibid. p.172 9Ibid. p.176. 10 Ibid. p.177. 11 Ibid. p.178. 12 William James. "The Will to Believe". Found in Reason and Responsibility by Joel Fienberg, p.62.
|