Descartes' Meditations

The purpose of this research is to examine the section of Descartes's Meditations in which he develops a theory of mind by means of meditation upon a lump of wax. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context for a discussion that connects a lump of wax to philosophical theory, and then to discuss how he formulates a theory of rational (i.e., mind-based) reality that is the standard for measuring human experience of the material world. In other words, by what Descartes ultimately declares to be known about the wax, he arrives at a theory of innate mental concepts, which seems intended to explain in a methodical and systematic way what is real, or most real, about the physical world, or anyway the human experience of the physical world. Indeed, the fact that the title of the work as a whole is Meditations is a clue to Descartes's application of speculative philosophy to the project of understanding the human mind.

What is important to understand about Descartes's discussion of the properties of wax is that the shape of the discussion that surrounds it is of primary importance. It is critical that the pattern of argumentation be seen as systematic and methodical--something that makes perfect sense inasmuch as Descartes's principal discipline was mathematics, a science of the mind, or more exactly of the organized mind, or a mind organized enough to seek out equivalencies and the proper character of relationships. The discussion of wax as a thing perceived in its va

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t remains untouched, whatever the condition of the material universe. One does not have to insist that the mind's misperceptions are objectively real to see that this is an assertion of the "palpable" or rather direct and immediate experience of innate ideas as the preeminent feature of human experience. Descartes acknowledges the dilemma that this poses for the seeker of clarity and understanding. First he notes that, as a practical matter, it makes more sense to doubt the reality of sense experience, it being easily demonstrated that one cannot trust one's senses. But then he notes that, as a matter of fact, one is more inclined to trust the reality sense experience precisely because it is palpable and as it were ready to hand. Meanwhile, the supposedly simpler abstractions of the mind and imagination, which are as it were closer to one's most basic experience, "which are known to me and which pertain to my real nature" (10) are, as a practical matter, much more elusive to human understanding. In other words, it is more difficult for the mind to grasp an idea of its own essence than to grasp an idea of phenomenal reality. Descartes uses the experiment with the lump of wax to illustrate the point. In part, the experiment deals

Category: Philosophy - D