1. Descartes at the dawn of the Modern Age
  2. Philosophy in the Modern Age
  3. Scholasticism and the Scientific Revolution
  4. The Rationalism and Dualism of Descartes
  5. Locke’s Empiricism, Berkeley’s Idealism
  6. Neo-Aristotelians—Spinoza and Leibniz
  7. The Enlightenment and Rousseau
  8. The Radical Skepticism of Hume questions and answers
  9. Kant’s Copernican Revolution

Week 3

The Rationalism and Dualism of Descartes

This is on participant's shareable, personal learning and research tool developed as part of the ABS RG The Modern Intellectual Traditions. Contents on this page are a personal initiative and are not an official part of the ABS course content. This is not a complete list of readings, resources, etc.  Although efforts have been made to cite references and avoid plagiarism by direct copying of texts, it is quite possible that there has been some content that is directly copied from the references at the bottom of the page. It is interesting to note that the concept of plagiarism arose during the Enlightenment.

  1. Descartes at the dawn of the Modern Age See Cahoone (2010:7-16) "Philosophy and the Modern Age". 
  2. Scholasticism and the Scientific Revolution See Cahoone (2010:17-29) "Scholasticism and the Scientific Revolution". url
  3. The Rationalism and Dualism of Descartes See Cahoone (2020:29 ) YouTube lecture and Transcript. See also Warbuton (2014) "Rene Descartes Meditations" Chapter 6. Page 51-63. and Gottlieb (2016 Chapter 1) via Kindle
  4. for sharing texts https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TCjnV5QkBajYcllfwfXH7pX2QrOVBxadPtydPrmJmEc/edit

Concepts to build on from previous weeks

The UHJ message of Nine Year Plan and learning process. The goal of learning in order to contribute to improved understanding of the Writings. 

The significance of the ancient deists philosophers, particularly Aristotle. Some Answered Questions was written/spoken in c. 1905 during dinners with Laura Clifford Barney, an educated, wealthy American living in Paris. Salons at that time would have been discussing Aristotle in light of the rise of materialism? Aristotle's categories and four causes were discussed by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. 

Descartes's Meditations is linked to dawn of the Scientific Revolution. Descartes was triggered by Galileo whose 1610 pamphlet on astronomy—Sidereus Nuncius (en:Starry Messengers) explained and validated Nicolaus Copernicus' heliocentrism introduced in 1543. Galileo, who was at that time Chief Mathematician and Philosopher to the Medici at the University of Pisa and mathematician at the University of Padua, was also known for his creation of powerful telescopes, contributed to the replacement of Ptolemy's first century AD's geocentric model, which, in turn, had incorporated Aristotle's 4th century BC's lectures on nature as compiled in Physics. This challenged the Christian/Aristotlian notion of a geocentric world in a snow globe that was static and unchanging, which in turn was based on the Psalms and Old Testament. Descartes claimed that Copernicus heliocentric world, until then a mere hypothesis, could be proven as factual because of "new technologies"—the telescope, for example, through which Galileo had observed and drawn the stages of the moon published in Starry Messengers. I compare this leap forward in our understanding of reality via the cosmos, to the Webb technology that has increased our visible evidence of stars, planets, and galaxies. It is a metaphor for the expansion of our capacity to understand spiritual concepts  

Timeline

1596 born in La Haye (now named Descartes), France.
1641 publishes Meditations.
1649 moves to Stockholm, Sweden to teach Queen Christina.
1650 dies in Stockholm.

Questions suggested by Todd and Nadia

  1. What does it mean to seek a foundation, or an Archimedean point?  Can you think of any such foundations that have stood the test of time?  If not, why not?

    1. Cahoone Lecture 3 (2020) Transcript (2020:30-42) Descartes wanted Archimedean point for all knowledge, great mathematician Archimedes: "If you gave me the right place to stand and a lever long enough, I could move the whole Earth.”

    2. A contemporary Australian physicist, Huw Price,  investigated the problem of time as a philosophical issue relevant in terms of quantum mechanics in his 1996 book Time's Arrow and Archimedes Point: New Directions for the Physics of Time, starting with Saint Augustine's "Confessions" in which he asked "Could the future affect the past?" His 1996 book Time's Arrow and Archimedes Point, Price described the taxonomy problem—the relationship between the "thermodynamic and cosmological arrows of time". The second problem he raised is the genealogy problem—questioning why arrows in time exist since the laws of physics may be reversible/symmetric in time. Price suggests that the arrow of time could be investigated from a viewpoint outside of time—the view from Nowhen. See the relevant Wikipedia article. 

  2. In order for Descartes to find his foundation, he decided the best approach was to begin by doubting everything.  What are the different classes of knowledge that he doubted?  Why did he adopt this approach?  Do you find it a convincing approach yourself?

  3. Among the things that Descartes doubted, would you maintain that some things are more doubtful than others?  For example, do you believe that one could ever doubt that 2 plus 2 equals 4 once one is familiar with the concept?

  4. His rock-solid foundation is “I think, therefore I exist”—that even if he is being fooled by a malicious demon, he must exist as a thinking thing to be fooled.  Do you agree with this conclusion?  Do you see it as a fundamental starting point for further inquiry?

  5. What is the short list of indubitable claims he makes in the wake of this discovery (pages 35 and 36 of the transcript)?

    1. I must exist as a mental nonphysical thinking substance—Latin: res cognitans "a thing that things" rp35 Note: Aristotelian substance.
    2. We can doubt the existence of material things which are res extensa—spatical extensions with that have volume, width, breadth:the brain, the lecturn. pp35-6

  6. What is the essence of material substance?  How does it differ from thought?

    1.  

      1 Substance

      "self-subsisting thing"

      God

      		 Only true Self-Subsisting an infinite mental substance.

      Mind

      I think therefore I am; all thoughts have thinkers;

      triangle?

      The  interior angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees. This conclusion follows logically from the concept of ‘triangle’. It is an aspect of the essence of a triangle that the sum of its interior angles is 180 degrees.

      "essence of mind is thought”

      the mind/soul of man is a mental substance

      "Mind does not take up space; your thought does not take up space. A thought
      has no space; an idea has no volume, no width or breadth." (Cahoone 2010:36)

      Body

      wax*:

      • honeycomb
        • fragrant, hard, cold, honey-taste
      • melted wax
        • hot, liquid, lost taste

      gold

      • has no soul
      • no mind
      • cannot feel

      tower

      rabbit 

      • has no soul
      • no mind 
      • has a material substance but no mental substance
      • cannot feel (Cahoone 2010:41)

      man

      • the mind/soul of man is a mental substance
      • unique
      • a thinking thing
      • only man has a soul

      tower

      “essence of body is extension”

      "essence of material substance, if it exists,
      is res extensa, or spatial extension." (Cahoone 2010:36) It takes up space

      all these things are the same body of substance

      The "old Aristotelian doctrines of final causes and substantial forms are going to have no role in distinguishing and understanding material substances. Material substances
      are going to be understood by the new science of Galileo and Copernicus as matter in motion."(Cahoone 2010:39)

      2. Property of a substance

      "a special property of a substance; property that makes that substance the kind of substance that it is"

      P is the essence of S, if and only if I can conceive of S attributing only P to it.

      2. Principal attribute

      3. Mode

      • “any other property of a substance” 

      • A particular way of being the principal attribute

      • something determinable

        • the property of extension or the property of thought) 

      • a mode is a determinate way of being extended or thought

        • Square is a way of being extended

        • Imagining a unicorn is a way of being thought). See 

      Colour, shape, size,

      A substance could exist without any particular one of its modes

Note. * Descartes’ explained that through rational thought we acquire understanding of the existence of the material world through reason alone, through rational thought. This confirms Descartes' certitude that we exist as a thinking thing. We can know the essence of wax and even even though it changes texture, temperature, smell, taste through rational thought not empirical observation. This "contrasts sharply with empiricism, which in its strongest form is the view that all our knowledge of the world must be acquired via the senses." (Warbuton (2014:55)

  1. To assure himself that material substance exists—that there is an external world, that there is something outside his mind—he says he must first prove the existence of God.  Two proofs are offered.  How convinced are you by these proofs?

    1. Trademark Argument: Although Descartes didn't use the word trademark or brand, he uses the concept that God left a trademark of His Brand on His Creation. His Brand is benevolence, the opposite of malice or deception. S therefore God would not deceive man. Descartes is very confident in the clarity and veracity of his own perception because God would not have created man without the capacity to perceive with clarity which would result in man being easily deceived. (Warbuton (2014:57)
    2. The Ontological Argument from the Fifth Meditation: Descartes'  a priori argument for God’s existence is an analysis of the concept of God. God the concept, is supremely perfect and God's existence is one of his perfections. Therefore God exists.(Warbuton (2014:57)

  2. Since he now knows that both his mind exists and that God exists, how does he move on to prove that matter exists as well?  What is the significance of his conviction that God is not a deceiver?

    1. His Brand is benevolence, the opposite of malice or deception. S therefore God would not deceive man. Descartes is very confident in the clarity and veracity of his own perception because God would not have created man without the capacity to perceive with clarity which would result in man being easily deceived. (Warbuton (2014:57)

  3. What are the three substances he ends up with?  How are they related to each other?

    1. The three substances are God, mind, and body. They are all self-subsisting. 

  4. He says that mind, unlike matter, has no parts, and so it must be immortal.  Can you find correlations on this point among the writings of the Faith?

    1. Descartes’s dualism refers to his belief that the mind, which can outlive the body, can exist outside the body> He is more certain of himself existing as a thinking thing than one who can rely on his bodily senses. "The mind is the real Descartes (or whoever) whose body may or may not exist."(Warbuton (2014:55)

  5. How does he justify the new materialist, mechanical science?

    1. The "old Aristotelian doctrines of final causes and substantial forms are going to have no role in distinguishing and understanding material substances. Material substances are going to be understood by the new science of Galileo and Copernicus as matter in motion."(Cahoone 2010:39)
    2. "Descartes has thus provided a means, a powerful means, of separating physical material reality that will now be the province of the new science, the new materialist, mechanical science of nature that comes especially from Galileo. Descartes has departed that from the mind—the mind, which is also the soul, the seat of emotions, which is also the seat of my own free will and hence responsible for ethics. Descartes has given to science what is science’s, and to religion and ethics what is religion’s and ethic’s; it belongs to these fields and can’t be studied by science." (Cahoone 2010:39)
    3. "Scientific method, then, guarantees that our beliefs are true, meaning they correspond or are adequate to their objects. As we already saw, Descartes supported epistemic rationalism. Rationalism holds that besides sensory experience, we have another source of ideas and knowledge: For Descartes, those were the innate ideas. These are the most famous basic features of his approach." (Cahoone 2010:40)

  6. What, according to Descartes, is the best cognitive method God has given us?

    1. Rational thought
    2. man  is in essence a thinking thing.(Warbuton (2014:57)

  7. There are arguably various problems with Descartes approach, especially: a. his circular argument pertaining to the proofs of the existence of God; and b. his metaphysical dualism.  Do you agree that these are problems?

    1. "Descartes’s belief that he can be more certain of the existence of himself as a thinking thing than as a body suggests a division between the mind and the body. The mind is the real Descartes (or whoever) whose body may or may not exist. The mind can outlive the body. This sharp separation between mind and body has come to be known as Cartesian Dualism. Descartes believes that mind and body, although in principle separable, interact, and consequently his view is sometimes also known as interactionism." (Warbuton (2014:55) 
    2. "Generally, some form of monism, that is, a theory which says that there is only one kind of substance (the physical), rather than a dualistic theory (which says there are two sorts of substance), seems to raise fewer difficulties, even though the task of explaining the nature of human consciousness remains an intractable one."  (Warbuton (2014:61) 

  8. How would you distinguish Descartes’s philosophy from Scholasticism?  For example, how would you distinguish between the concept of the soul in Aristotelian and/or Scholastic philosophy and the concept of Mind in Descartes's philosophy?

    1. Because Descartes' goal of doing philosophy—to "discover the foundation or ground of all realist, objective knowledge and thereby answer skepticism" is called foundationalism in philosophy.(Cahoone 2010:41) To practice foundationalism in philosophy, Descartes had to "get rid of Aristotle. Aristotle had a set of gradations between material objects: Plants had a lower level of soul; animals had a higher level of soul than humans. That kind of gradation will not fit with Descartes’ new philosophical motivations, because Descartes wants to give all physical reality to Galileo and mechanical science to understand."(Cahoone 2010:41) 
    2. "Minds are nonspatial thinking things, without parts. Something without parts cannot come apart; it cannot decay. Descartes naturally identifies minds with immortal souls: My soul and my mind are the same thing; they are my mental substance. My soul has no parts; my mind has no parts: It can’t come apart, hence it is immortal. Descartes has thus provided a means, a powerful means, of separating physical material reality that will now be the province of the new science, the new materialist, mechanical science of nature that comes especially from Galileo. Descartes has departed that from the mind—the mind, which is also the soul, the seat of emotions, which is also the seat of my own free will and hence responsible for ethics. Descartes has given to science what is science’s, and to religion and ethics what is religion’s and ethic’s; it belongs to these fields and can’t be studied by science." (Cahoone 2010:39)
    3. "Scientific method, then, guarantees that our beliefs are true, meaning they correspond or are adequate to their objects. As we already saw, Descartes supported epistemic rationalism. Rationalism holds that besides sensory experience, we have another source of ideas and knowledge: For Descartes, those were the innate ideas. These are the most famous basic features of his approach." (Cahoone 2010:40)

  9. Can you find passages from the writings of the Faith that address/modify/correlate with Descartes’s:

‘Abdu’l-Bahá – 5 – "God Comprehends All; He Cannot Be Comprehended" Friday evening, October 20th Paris Talks 

‘Abdu’l-Bahá 28 – Discourse at “l’Alliance Spiritualiste” Salle de l’Athénée, St. Germain, Paris, November 9th Paris Talks

Bahá’u’lláh. Chapter 82. LXXXII: "Thou hast asked Me concerning the nature of the soul." Gleanings 

My notes on Vahid Houston Ranjbar. 

In his 18 August 2022 article, "The Philosophy of Materialism – A Baha’i Response."  Ranjbar cited chapter 1: "Nature Is Governed by a Universal Law." in ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's Some Answered Questions.

Ranjbar introduced the 19th century physicist and materialist philosopher, Ludwig Boltzmann—a "hero of scientific materialism"—who held atomistic views and pioneered statistical mechanics. Like ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Boltzmann, was born in 1844. And like ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Boltzmann "seemed to believe in the concept of atoms."

Ranjbar's wrote, "Abdu’l-Baha in many of his philosophical discussions – like this one in the book Some Answered Questions – referred to the existence of atoms in the original sense of that word as a fundamental indivisible particle":

"Nature is that condition or reality which outwardly is the source of the life and death, or, in other words, of the composition and decomposition, of all things."

"This nature is subjected to a sound organization, to inviolable laws, to a perfect order and to a consummate design, from which it never departs. To such an extent is this true that were you to gaze with the eye of insight and discernment, you would observe that all things – from the smallest invisible atom to the largest globes in the world of existence, such as the sun or the other great stars and luminous bodies – are most perfectly organized, be it with regard to their order, their composition, their outward form, or their motion, and that all are subject to one universal law from which they never depart." 

Unlike other physicists and philosophers at the end of the 19th century, Boltzmann was convinced of the existence of atoms. Most late 19th century physicists and philosophers adopted Ernst Mach's and Wilhelm Ostwald's Energetics concept. They said that it was energy not matter that "made up the chief component of the universe."

"Boltzmann developed a new theory of thermodynamics based on the kinetic motion of atoms and molecules. He showed that the classical understanding of thermodynamics could be re-derived by considering the probabilistic behavior of a many-particle system – an approach called statistical mechanics." 

Ranjbar wrote that Boltzmann accepted the "reality of a deity" and believed it was not possible for humans to conceptualize God. This aligns with what ʻAbdu'l-Bahá said in SAQ Part 3: "On the Powers and Conditions of the Manifestations of God", Chapter 37 in "The Connection between God and His Manifestations" in SAQ,

"Know that the reality of the Divinity and the nature of the divine Essence is ineffable sanctity and absolute holiness; that is, it is exalted above and sanctified beyond every praise. All the attributes ascribed to the highest degrees of existence are, with regard to this station, mere imagination."

ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. ​​​​​​ Part 1. On the Influence of the Prophets in the Evolution of Humanity. "Nature Is Governed by a Universal Law." Some Answered Questions. In Audible Chapter 1 is Chapter 3.

ʻAbdu'l-Bahá Part 3: "On the Powers and Conditions of the Manifestations of God", Chapter 37 in "The Connection between God and His Manifestations." Some Answered Questions. In Audible Chapter 37 is Chapter 35.

Ranjbar, Vahid Houston (18 August 2022). "The Philosophy of Materialism – A Baha’i Response." Part 1. What the World Is: Atoms or Energy. (Ranjbar 2022)

My notes on Cahoone (2010) The Rationalism and Dualism of Descartes YouTube lecture and Transcript. Pages 29-

My notes on Warburton (2014) "Rene Descartes Meditations" Chapter 6. Page 51-63. 

My notes on Gottlieb  (2016) Chapter 1 "Descartes: Starting Afresh" via Kindle pages 1-35

My contributions to the Wikipedia article on Descartes

According to John Cottingham—whose translation of Meditations—is considered to be "authoritative", Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy is considered to be "one of the key texts of Western philosophy". Cottingham said that the Meditations is the "most widely studied of all Descartes' writings".[156]: 50 

According to Anthony Gottlieb, a former senior editor of The Economist, and the author of The Dream of Reason and The Dream of Enlightenment, one of the reasons Descartes and Thomas Hobbes continue to be debated in the second decade of the twentieth century, is that they still have something to say to us that remains relevant on questions such as, "What does the advance of science entail for our understanding of ourselves and our ideas of God?" and "How is government to deal with religious diversity."[157]

In her 2018 interview with Tyler Cowen, Agnes Callard described Descartes' thought experiment in the Meditations, where he encouraged a complete, systematic doubting of everything that you believe, to "see what you come to". She said, "What Descartes comes to is a kind of real truth that he can build upon inside of his own mind."[158] She said that Hamlet's monologues—"meditations on the nature of life and emotion"—were similar to Descartes' thought experiment. Hamlet/Descartes were "apart from the world", as if they were "trapped" in their own heads.[158] Cowen asked Callard if Descartes actually found any truths through his thought experiment or was it just "an earlier version of the contemporary argument that we're living in a simulation, where the evil demon is the simulation rather than Bayesian reasoning?" Callard agreed that this argument can be traced to Descartes, who had said that he had refuted it. She clarified that in Descartes' reasoning, you do "end up back in the mind of God"—in a "universe God has created" that is the "real world"...The whole question is about being connected to reality as opposed to being a figment. If you're living in the world God created, God can create real things. So you're living in a real world."[158]

References

References for Week 3

ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. ​​​​​​ Part 1. On the Influence of the Prophets in the Evolution of Humanity. "Nature Is Governed by a Universal Law." Some Answered Questions. In Audible Chapter 1 is Chapter 3. 

Cahoone (2020:29 ) YouTube lecture 

Cahoone (2020) Transcript (2020:30-42)

Gottlieb, Anthony (2016). Chapter 1 in "Starting Afresh Descartes". The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy. Allen Lane. ISBN 9780871404435. Pages 1-36 via Kindle.

Ranjbar, Vahid Houston (18 August 2022). "The Philosophy of Materialism – A Baha’i Response." Part 1. What the World Is: Atoms or Energy. (Ranjbar 2022)

Warburton, Nigel. 25 Mar 2014. "Rene Descartes Meditations" Chapter 6. Page 51-63.

References for Week 2

References for Week 1

Meditations on First Philosophy/Meditation VI Wikisource. full-text

Further readings suggested by others