In the last comment on Mr. Lefvor's last post, Dr. Davis says that Descartes never examined the subjective point of view. I would like to disagree with this and state that because of the type of thought Descartes discovered, an "I" or subjective viewpoint is necessitated (although he should have talked about this or explicitly examined it). Let us first look at what Descrtes classifies as thinking, for my argument rests upon this. On (AT) page 28, in the Second Meditation, Descrtes says that I am a thinking thing which is a thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, unwilling, imagines, and seems to have sense perception. Although he has already posited an "I", his types of thinking would ultimately lead him to this same conclusion. For instance, seeming to have sensory perception necessitates that one has a viewpoint and certain types of abilities. If only thought existed the only type of perception that would seem possible would be a senseless one, or maybe one could say that he would have every sense perception which would amount to saying that his sense perceptions include senses he doesn't have, (like echo-location or other possible sense which have not evolved yet) and that we would have these sense perceptions from every possible view-point of an object. Clearly those are both absurd alternatives and it seems that sense perception necessitates a viewpoint. Similarly, that fact that this thought does not know everything implies either 1) that what he has is not all of thought, which means that there is more than just him, and this sounds like having a point of view on the whole from a part (view-point) or 2) that there is an unconscious part of thought that is not known by reflixive thought. If this is true then saying "thought exists" is a near meaningless statement because he doesn't really know what thought is or he only knows a part of what thought is.
Another less critical problem is that Descartes often refers to his "faculty of true judgement" (Meditation IV, AT 54-55). It is common-sensical that a faculy is something that needs to be used by another. If this is the case then there must be an I that uses the faculty. This is not a great argument but if Descartes had any stock in the meaning of faculty then it has some persuaviseness.
Although, I don't disagree that someone using Descartes' methods ought to qustion the "I", I think that Decartes reasonably deduces his "I" from his definition of thought. If one is to argue that Descartes shoudn't posit an "I" they should first focus on what thought is.
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The way I'm reading this, Mr. York is arguing that the I is necessarily implied in thinking. That offers an answer to Mr. Lefavor's original question. D., in showing what belongs natively to the I (doubting, affirming, willing, idea-having, etc.) does indeed show what he takes an "I" to be.
ReplyDeleteI don't see Mr. York's post as addressing my concern, however. D. does not wonder how it is possible or what makes it possible for there to be doubting, affirming, etc. He simply notes that there is such thinking. Moreover, if such thinking stopped, he (as an I) would cease to exist.
God ends up guaranteeing that this I is a coherent, persistent point of view. D. never supposes or attempts to uncover some other source of the unity or coherence or persistence of the I. German Idealists do attempt that. I'm not saying they are successful or that D. is not right to ignore what might be a silly question anyway. But, since we will read Kant, the question of the condition for the possibility of I-thinking is worth considering. I don't yet see an argument here that it is not.
Dr. Davis, I agree with your statement. I think that if his definition of thinking is reasonable then concluding an "I" is reasonable. If it is not, then it is not reasonable. I also think that examining different (and better) definitions of thought would be a great idea and would probably lead us to different places than Descartes. You are correct in saying that I have not given an argument for what he does or why he does it, only that his conclusion follows from his definition of thought, which is probably not a full one.
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