Notes on Descartes’ Meditations

1. Introduction to Descartes

The French philosopher René Descartes (1596~1650) is commonly known as the father
of modern philosophy. This is because Descartes set the agenda for much of modern
philosophy, that is, Western philosophy from the 17th century onwards. Ever since
Descartes, Western philosophers have been preoccupied with the problem of providing a
secure foundation for human knowledge, the mind-body problem (concerning the precise
nature of the relationship between mind and body), and the problem of our knowledge
concerning the external world (how do we know that the external world and material
objects exist, if we are only certain of our own subjective experience and can doubt the
existence of things beyond our own experience)?

The central philosophical problem that Descartes addresses in the Meditations is:
Can we know anything with absolute certainty?
Descartes assumes that knowledge requires absolute certainty: knowledge must be built
on unquestionable evidence and conclusive proofs. This means that what counts as
knowledge cannot allow any room for doubt, and this is why Descartes takes reasons for
doubting our beliefs (let’s call these “skeptical worries” from now on) seriously. Our
beliefs that we have bodies, that there are material objects, and that there are other minds
inside other people’s bodies can all be called into doubt. So can our beliefs in logical,
mathematical and geometrical truths. Hence these beliefs cannot be counted as
knowledge, given the very high standards Descartes sets on knowledge.

Descartes tries to remove these skeptical worries by locating a bedrock of infallible

evidence, and rebuilding human knowledge on this bedrock by means of unassailable
proofs. So his solution to the above problem is to provide a chain of proofs to show:
(i) that I exist (as a thinking thing),
(ii) that God exists (as the cause of my idea of God), and
(iii) that the external world exists (as guaranteed by a non-deceiving God).
There is a reason why these proofs proceed from mind to God to world. The most
powerful skeptical worry (e.g., the Evil Genius Hypothesis) raises the possibility that I
might be systematically mistaken in all of my judgments. But even this skeptical worry
cannot undermine the evidence I have for my existence as a thinking being, with
infallible access to the contents of my own mind. So my own existence, and the access I
have to ideas in my own mind, provides the bedrock of certainty on which to rebuild
human knowledge. But I can still be systematically mistaken in my judgments about
anything outside of my own mind (such as that I have a body, that there are material
objects, and that other people have minds). Descartes eliminates the possibility of
systematic deception/error by showing that from my own idea of God as perfect being I
can prove the existence of God as the cause of my idea. Then, since God is perfect and
deception is an imperfection, it follows that God will not allow me to be systematically
deceived. Whatever appears to me systematically true, when I am careful enough in my

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judgments, will be guaranteed to be true by God. Because it appears systematically true
that there are things outside my mind (e.g., that I have a body, that there are material
objects, and that other people have minds), it can be proved that there is an external
world.

To summarize Descartes—
Problem: Can we know anything with absolute certainty?
Method: Eliminating skeptical worries.
Solution: A single chain of proofs, from self to God to world.

2. Knowledge as Justified True Belief

Let me give you a brief background on the problem of characterizing the nature of
knowledge. Traditionally, philosophers have characterized knowledge as justified true
belief. That is, you know something just in case:
(a) you believe it,
(b) what you believe is true, and
(c) you are justified in believing it.
Now, the reason why a true belief must be justified in order to count as a piece of
knowledge is this: there can be accidentally true beliefs that we would not count as
knowledge. Suppose you mistake a 20 dollar bill for a 10 dollar bill, and you place the
bill in your pocket, falsely believing that you have 10 dollars in your pocket. Then while
you are asleep your cheap brother secretly replaces the 20 dollar bill in your pocket with
a 10 dollar bill. The next day you go on believing that you have 10 dollars in your
pocket, and this now happens to be true because of what your brother did while you were
unawares. So now you have a true belief that you have 10 dollars in your pocket, but it is
not a case of knowledge, but of being lucky in your beliefs.

So, knowledge requires justification.1 Descartes too insists that in order for true belief to
count as knowledge rather than a lucky guess, we must arrive at true belief via proper
justification.2 Also, according to Descartes, justification requires absolute certainty:
…knowledge is conviction based on a reason so strong that it can never be
shaken by any stronger reason [Descartes, in a letter written in 1640].
1
20th century philosophers have discovered that there are cases where even justified true belief doesn’t give
us knowledge. Since it was Edmund Gettier who first pointed this out, this is known as the Gettier
problem. To find out more, you can Google-search “the Gettier problem”.
2
See Meditations, p.40, where Descartes says [emphasis mine]:
But if I hold off from making a judgment when I do not perceive what is true with
sufficient clarity and distinctness, it is clear that I am acting properly and am not
committing an error. But if instead I were to make an assertion or a denial, then I am not
using my freedom properly. Were I to select the alternative that is false, then obviously I
will be in error. But were I to embrace the other alternative, it will be by sheer luck that I
happen upon the truth; but I will still not be without fault, for it is manifest by the light of
nature that a perception on the part of the intellect must always precede a determination
on the part of the will.

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Or to put it in other words, we are justified in believing something only if we cannot
doubt that it’s true and it cannot possibly be false—only if it is indubitable and infallible.
Thus, according to Descartes, we have knowledge just in case:
(a) you believe it,
(b) what you believe is true, and
(c) [i] you have indubitable and infallible evidence for the belief, or
[ii] it can be justified by other beliefs for which you have indubitable and
infallible evidence.

Thus, according to Descartes, something counts as knowledge only if we are absolutely

certain of it, and there is no chance at all that we can be mistaken about it. We may
object that this requirement of indubitability and infallibility sets too high a standard for
knowledge, and we may wonder if anything would count as knowledge on this standard.3

The Lottery Paradox:

But there is a good argument that knowledge requires eliminating all possibility of error.
This is a reductio ad absurdum argument known as the Lottery Paradox. Our goal is to
prove that:
Knowledge requires eliminating all chance of error
So we assume the opposite claim (the negation of the above claim):
A chance of error can be allowed for a belief to count as knowledge.

 We can ask: how great a chance of error is to be allowed, for a belief to be

knowledge?
 Suppose our answer is: one chance in a billion. (E.g., Your belief, “My
crappy car won’t be stolen while I’m in class” counts as knowledge, even
though there is one chance in a billion that your belief is false.)
 Let’s set up a fair lottery with a billion tickets numbered from 1 to
1,000,000,000. We draw one ticket, but we do not inspect its number.
(a) Since any ticket has one chance in a billion of being drawn, we know
that it was not drawn. [Because we are supposing that something
counts as knowledge only if there is one chance in a billion that we are
mistaken.]
(b) Hence we know that no ticket was drawn. [Follows easily from (a).]
(c) But we also know that one ticket was drawn.
(d) Contradiction. [Follows from (b) and (c): one contradicts none.]

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Other philosophers, mostly empiricists like John Locke (see next section), have thought that Descartes
sets the bar on knowledge too high. Since empiricists believe that all our knowledge comes ultimately
from sense-perception, which can be highly reliable without providing absolute certainty, empiricists
propose that knowledge does not require absolute certainty, but only a high degree of probability.
According to empiricists, controlled experiments and careful generalization can be used to attain
knowledge, and this also accords with scientific practice, where a scientific hypothesis is justified on the
basis of strong enough evidence from empirical observation and experimental data.

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  This argument generalizes: if there is one chance in n, however large a
number n may be, we can get a contradiction. (You can check this by
replacing ‘billion’ in the above argument with an even larger number.)

Therefore, to avoid contradiction:

No chance of error can be allowed for a belief to count as knowledge.
Which is just what we set out to prove in other words, that knowledge requires
eliminating all chance of error.

 Note on reductio ad absurdum (“reduction to absurdity”): The Lottery Paradox

explained just above uses a type of argument known as reductio ad absurdum.
This type of argument establishes its conclusion by showing that assuming the
opposite leads to absurdity (usually a contradiction). Here is the general pattern
of reductio ad absurdum arguments:
(1) To prove some statement p, assume the opposite, not-p.
(2) Argue that from the assumption not-p, we’d have to conclude q.
(3) Show that q is false, or contradictory, or absurd in some way.
(4) Conclude that in order to avoid accepting q, one must accept p.

3. Rationalism vs. Empiricism

We have seen how Descartes brought problems about the nature of human knowledge
into the foreground. In the 17th and 18th centuries Western philosophers were divided into
two schools, the empiricists and the rationalists, who had different approaches to
knowledge.

The empiricists, on the one hand, included John Locke (1632~1704), George Berkeley
(1685~1753), and David Hume (1711~1776). They held that the human mind was like a
blank slate (tabula rasa) at birth, and that sense perception is the source of all the ideas in
our minds. They generally maintained that facts about the external world (i.e., the world
outside our minds) cannot be known independently of experience.

The rationalists, on the other hand, included Descartes, Baruch Spinoza (1632~1677)
and Gottfried Leibniz (1646~1716). They denied that the mind is a blank slate at birth.
According to rationalists, there are innate ideas known by reason (rather than sense
perception), and there are some facts about the external world (e.g., such as the existence
of God) that can be known independently of experience.

Please note that we are using the term ‘rationalist’ here in a narrow and technical sense.
In the broad and ordinary sense of the term, both empiricist and rationalist schools are
‘rationalist’—they both insist upon rational inquiry as the method of attaining truth.
What they disagree about is the precise role of sense-perception and experience in
rational inquiry. A second point: it is difficult to find philosophers who were
thoroughgoing rationalists or thoroughgoing empiricists. For instance, a rationalist like

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Descartes does place some (cautious) reliance upon the senses as a source of information
about the external world and material objects. And an empiricist like Locke was a
rationalist about the existence of God, just like Descartes: we have an innate idea of God,
and from this we can deduce the existence of God. More generally, empiricists have
tended to side with rationalists on logical and mathematical truths—we know that truths
in logic and mathematics are always and necessarily true independently of experience.

Rationalists usually point to logical or mathematical truths as examples of items that we

know by reason, independently of experience. Think for instance of ‘2 + 2 = 4’. We
know, without consulting further experience, that this arithmetic statement is always and
necessarily true: we know for sure that any pair of pairs—even ones we haven’t seen or
counted—will add up to four things. This cannot be verified by experience, but we do
know it! Rationalists believed that such truths known by reason reveal substantive truths
about the world, independently of experience. Now, logical and mathematical truths are
uncontroversial. But Euclidean geometry (which rationalists took to reveal truths about
the nature of space) does not describe the nature of physical space according to modern
theoretical physicists. There are other controversial claims that rationalists made about
the world independently of experience, such as ‘Every event has a cause’, and, of course,
‘God exists’.

Descartes, let me repeat, is a rationalist. According to Descartes, we have innate ideas

about logic, mathematics and geometry which are discovered by reason4, independently
of experience. When we concentrate our attention on these ideas, we find that they are
‘clear and distinct’, as opposed to ideas about particular features of material bodies which
come from the senses. These latter ideas deriving from senses are ‘obscure and
confused’. You can take clear and distinct to mean something like self-evident and
reliable, and obscure and confused to mean not self-evident and unreliable. Clear and
distinct ideas provide evidence (usually about logic, math and geometry, but also when
these are applied to the external world) which cannot mislead us in our judgments,
whereas obscure and confused ideas provide information (usually about the external
world) which often mislead us in our judgments.

Descartes places priority upon innate ideas discovered by reason, as opposed to ideas
arising from sense experience. He believed that innate ideas provide reliable information
even about material objects, and this can be seen in the discussion of the wax example in
Meditation Two (Meditations, pp.21~2). Descartes notes that the piece of wax before it is
melted and after it is melted seem to have completely different properties:
Before the wax is melted: it has honey flavor and flowery scent, it is solid, cold,
easy to touch, and emits a sound when you rap on it.
After the wax is melted: it has neither honey flavor nor flowery scent, it is liquid,
hot, cannot be grasped, and no longer emits a sound when you rap on it.
Our senses tell us that all the sensible properties we have observed in the wax before it
melted is different from the ones we observe after it is melted. So our knowledge that the

4
Descartes very often refers to reason as “light of nature”.

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wax remains despite these changes must come from reason rather than experience. Thus
Descartes says:
…I need to realize that the perception of the wax is neither a seeing, nor a
touching, nor an imagining…; rather it is an inspection on the part of the mind
alone. This inspection can be imperfect and confused, as it was before [when it
was based on the sense-perception], or clear and distinct, as it is now [when it is
based on reason]….

4. Meditation One: Skeptical Worries

Descartes’ aim in Meditation One is to get us to question the grounds (i.e., the reasons or
the justifications) for our beliefs. But Descartes is not a skeptic—he is not denying the
possibility of knowledge. He is raising skeptical worries so that he can later remove
them, and ground our beliefs upon unquestionable evidence and airtight arguments.

Descartes provides three general grounds or skeptical worries for doubting our beliefs:
A. Fallibility of the Senses
B. The Dream Argument
C. The Evil Genius Hypothesis

A. Fallibility of the Senses. Our senses can deceive us by giving us wrong information
about the things we perceive, other bodies and our own. Descartes gives detailed
examples in Meditation Six, the last paragraph on p.50. Think of distant objects
appearing much smaller than they actually are (e.g., the sun), colors looking different
under different lighting conditions, a stick looking bent in water. Even our internal
sensations can be mistaken, as evidenced by the phantom limb phenomenon (an amputee
without his right leg feeling an itch in his nonexistent right foot).

B. The Dream Argument. There is the possibility that we are dreaming. While we are
dreaming we usually suppose that we are awake. But dream-experiences are like wide-
awake-experiences, and we cannot distinguish between them.5 If we cannot distinguish
between dream-experiences and wide-awake experiences, then we could now be
dreaming, for all we know. The Dream Argument comes in two versions:
(i) The Universal Possibility of a Dream: it is always possible that you are dreaming.
So it is possible that you are mistaken in your belief that you are now actually
sitting in front of your computer, reading these notes.
(ii) The Possibility of a Universal Dream: it is possible that you are always dreaming.
So it is possible that waking reality does not even exist, and that physics,
astronomy, medicine, etc. are mistaken.
Note: if you cannot come up with definitive signs by which to distinguish dream from
reality, then you cannot rule out the possibility that you are dreaming. If you cannot rule

5
Sure, crazy things happen in dreams but not in waking reality. But when we are dreaming the “crazy”
events seem normal to us, just as “normal” events seem normal in waking reality, but would seem crazy in
some dream world where flying pigs are normal.

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out the possibility that you are dreaming, then you cannot rule out the possibility that (i)
you have mistaken beliefs about even the most obvious physical facts about yourself, or
even (ii) physics, astronomy, medicine, etc. are mistaken.

C. The Evil Genius Hypothesis. But suppose that there is an evil demon instead of God,
as powerful and wise as God, but a real bad-ass who is out to trick you into believing
everything false. You cannot prove that there is no such evil genius, so it is possible that
just about all of your beliefs, even including “2 + 3 = 5” and “The three angles of a
triangle add up to 180 degrees” (i.e., truths based on clear and distinct ideas), are false.
That is because the evil genius could have “given me a nature such that I might be
deceived even about matters that seemed most evident” [p.25].

The Evil Genius Hypothesis raises the possibility of systematic deception: the annoying
thing about the possibility of systematic deception is that there seems to be no way of
ruling out the possibility (however unlikely it is). There is no way of checking whether
you are actually being deceived or not, say by good detective work.

Usual sorts of deception are cases where, if one is careful enough, one can avoid being
fooled by the deception. If one inspects the available evidence, and pieces together the
clues, one can figure out whether one is being deceived or not. But systematic deception
is not like that: if an evil genius is deceiving you, he would cover all tracks of his
deception, and won’t leave behind any clues. The usual sorts of evidence for detecting
deception are themselves tainted, so one cannot rely on such evidence to rule out the
possibility of systematic deception. Not even Sherlock Holmes, through careful checking
of evidence, can tell whether he is being systematically deceived or not.

Perhaps the idea of systematic deception can be explained by giving you an example of
the sort of deception that is not systematic enough. Think of the movie “The Truman
Show”. In that movie Truman is actually living on the set (a gigantic dome) of a 24-hour
TV show about him, but he falsely believes that he is living in a real town. He eventually
finds out the truth, because the deception is not systematic enough, and Truman figures
this out by piecing together the available clues. But when one is being systematically
deceived, say by an all-powerful evil genius, there is no empirical way of finding out that
you are being deceived.

Some Examples of Systematic Deception/Error (besides the Evil Genius hypothesis):

a. The Possibility of a Universal Dream: How do you know you have not been
living in a universal dream all along, from which you may awake one day?
b. Brain in a Vat: Perhaps an evil scientist or an alien has removed your brain
from your body and placed it in a vat filled with life-sustaining liquid, and has
wired your brain to a supercomputer that feeds false information into your
brain. If this scenario is true, it would make many of your particular beliefs
about the external world false.
c. Zombies: For all I know, other people could be “zombies” (not the stupid
slow-moving zombies you find in movies, but mindless beings who act

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 intelligently, just as though they have minds), and I may be the only person
who has a mind. This is also known as the Problem of Other Minds.
d. Bertrand Russell’s Skeptical Hypothesis: Perhaps the universe was really
created just five minutes ago, along with your memories that seem to extend
several years back (but in fact do not), and artifacts and geological phenomena
that look very old (but in fact are not). If this scenario is true, it would make
all your beliefs about the past (beyond five minutes ago) false.
e. The Matrix: Perhaps you are living in a virtual reality?
These possible scenarios are as hard to rule out as the Evil Genius Hypothesis. But if you
cannot rule out these possibilities of systematic deception/error, then there is a chance
however unlikely that you are mistaken in many of your beliefs.

5. Meditation Two: Proof of the Existence of Self

Descartes’s proof runs as follows. Suppose that there is an evil genius deceiving me in
everything I believe. But even when I doubt on the supposition that I’m constantly being
deceived, I cannot doubt that I am doubting. In that case, there must be an ‘I’ that does
the doubting. To generalize the point: whatever I am thinking about may be false, but
from the fact that I am thinking, it follows that there’s a thinking thing, i.e., me.

Thus Descartes proposes the truth of the claim “I exist”, whenever I think or utter the
claim, as the very first item of knowledge that he can be absolutely certain of. The
reasoning by which Descartes arrives at this indubitable knowledge of his own existence
is commonly referred to as “the Cogito” (short for cogito ergo sum, which is a Latin
sentence meaning “I think, therefore I exist”).6

6. Meditation Three: Proof of the Existence of God

Thus far Descartes has proven his own existence as a thinking thing. As a thinking thing
he has various ideas, which are basically representations of objects (just as paintings are
representations of what they picture). He cannot doubt that he has these ideas, although
he can doubt whether there are any objects independent of his mind corresponding to
these ideas (e.g., he cannot doubt that he has an idea of his own body, though he can
6
Note 1: There are some philosophers who argue that Descartes is not warranted in concluding that
he exists, from the fact that he thinks. He is only warranted in concluding that there is thinking going on,
there is doubting going on, there is being deceived going on, etc. This strikes me as right; however, I don’t
think it affects Descartes’s proof of God’s existence and subsequent arguments. For instance, if we find
Descartes saying, “I have an idea of a perfect being”, we can change it to “There is thinking going on about
a perfect being”, and the proof would still work, although it would have to be completely rephrased. So, in
my judgment, this objection does not undermine most of Descartes’s later arguments.
Note 2: The exact nature of the self is not addressed by Descartes at this early stage, for he wants
to avoid such abstruse questions in his search for an indubitable first item of knowledge. This gives rise to
some intriguing possibilities. Perhaps Descartes’s thinking self is a mere figment of some other being, part
of someone else’s dream. Perhaps the evil genius is dreaming that he is Descartes thinking that there’s an
evil genius deceiving him. Perhaps the thinking self is part of Brahman. All these possibilities are
compatible with Descartes’s proof that the thinking self exists.

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doubt that his body really exists). In other words, Descartes assumes that he has
infallible access to the contents of his own mind, but not anything beyond his mind.

Although philosophers nowadays tend to question Descartes’s assumption that we cannot

be mistaken about the contents of our own minds, a related and weaker claim seems to be
true. Namely, I have privileged access to the contents of my own mind which no one else
has, and I do not have such access to the contents of another person’s mind. To illustrate
the idea of privileged access: think of any number from 1 to 10. No one will be able to
tell what number you are thinking of (except by taking a random guess), except you
yourself.

Here’s a quick sketch of what’s going on in Meditation Three. Among the ideas that he
has, Descartes isolates a special class of ideas that he calls clear and distinct. But it
seems that the evil genius can deceive him even about what seem to be self-evident ideas
that are clearly and distinctly perceived, such as that 2 + 3 = 5. So Descartes needs to
remove the possibility of an all-powerful deceiver, and he does that by proving the
existence of God. God’s non-deceiving nature would guarantee that we can rely upon
self-evident ideas that we clearly and distinctly understand. Descartes argues for the
existence of God by first observing that among the class of clear and distinct ideas we
have is the idea of God, i.e., a being who is infinite and perfect. Now the source of this
idea can only be from God himself, because the idea of infinitely perfect being cannot
come from the finite and imperfect objects of sense experience or from inward reflection
upon our own finite and imperfect powers. This argument is sometimes called the
Trademark Argument, since the idea of God we have, according to Descartes, is like a
trademark logo that God has left in our minds to show us who our Maker is. Finally,
having proved the existence of God, Descartes can establish that God will guarantee the
reliability of anything he clearly and distinctly perceives. This is because God is a
perfect being, and benevolence is a perfection while deception is an imperfection.7 That
is, God cannot be a deceiver. Thus God would ensure that whatever is clearly and
distinctly perceived can be counted as completely reliable evidence.8
7
Descartes relies on the assumption, which can be traced back to St. Augustine (354-430 CE), that there are
degrees of reality corresponding to degrees of excellence. So, according to Descartes and Augustine,
goodness is real and evil isn’t, and evil is merely the lack or deficiency of goodness.
8
Note: There is a problem here which is called the Cartesian Circle. Notice that Descartes employs
the clear and distinct idea of God in establishing that we cannot be mistaken or deceived about the clarity
and distinctness of our ideas. But this seems to be circular—Descartes is presupposing what he is arguing
for. (A circular argument is one that smuggles the conclusion into the premisses that support the
conclusion. Thus the problem with a circular argument is that it cannot convince someone who has no
reason to believe in the conclusion.) To put it in other words, if the reliability of self-evident ideas is in
doubt, we cannot use a self-evident idea (i.e., of God) to remove the doubt, but that seems to be what
Descartes is doing. This worry was first noted by Antoine Arnauld (1612~1694) in the following words:
My one remaining hesitation is about how it is possible to avoid circularity when our
author says that ‘our only guarantee that the things which we clearly and distinctly
conceive are true is the fact that God exists.’ For our only guarantee that God exists is
that we conceive very clearly and distinctly that he does exist; so before being convinced
of the existence of God we need to be convinced that everything which we clearly and
distinctly conceive is true.
Descartes himself was aware of this problem, but he, along with many Descartes scholars, has denied that
there is circularity in the argument.

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The Trademark Argument:
Let’s now take a closer look at Descartes’s main proof of the existence of God, which I
shall call the Trademark Argument. This argument is so called because Descartes
believes that the idea of God is implanted in our minds by God, like a trademark logo:
“…it is not astonishing that in creating me, God should have endowed me with this idea,
so that it would be like the mark of the craftsman impressed upon his work…”
(Meditations, p.34). Just as we can recognize the maker from the logo, so we can
recognize our Maker from our idea of God.

The proof relies, first, on the definition of ‘God’ as perfect being, someone who is perfect
in all positive attributes (e.g., perfectly good, perfectly wise and perfectly powerful). The
proof also makes use of two key assumptions, that (1st) all of our ideas must come from
somewhere (these ideas cannot come from nothing), and that (2nd) something more
perfect cannot come from something less perfect. From these assumptions it follows that
the idea of perfect being could not have come from myself (since I am imperfect), but
could have only come from the perfect being. Hence the most perfect being, namely
God, must exist as the cause of our idea of the most perfect being.

Let’s put this argument in numbered steps or premisses. We will then look at further
arguments Descartes provides for some of these premisses.

(1) I have a clear and distinct idea of perfect being, i.e., of God.
(2) Every idea has a cause, either an imperfect being (like myself) or a perfect being.
(3) A cause must be at least as perfect as the effect.
(4) I am an imperfect being.
(5) I cannot be the cause of the idea of perfect being [follows from (3) and (4)].
(6) There is one perfect being, i.e., God, that causes my idea of perfect being
[follows from (2) and (3)].
(7) Therefore God exists.

1. Premiss (1) is true by definition of ‘God’. Now one might challenge Premiss (1) on
grounds that the concept of God varies from religion to religion and even from one
person to another. In response, Descartes can say that it does not matter that different
religions have different ideas of God. If talk of God is confusing on account of the
different meanings that ‘God’ has, then let’s dispense with all talk of God and talk of
the most perfect being instead. We understand the idea of a being who is perfect in all
positive aspects, e.g., perfect in wisdom, goodness, and power. So long as we
understand this idea, and thus have the idea in our minds, Descartes can (purport to)
prove that the idea can only come from a being who is perfect in all positive aspects.
This will then enable Descartes to eliminate the possibility of systematic deception.

2. Premiss (2) seems obvious, and Descartes does not see any need to defend it.

3. The most important, interesting and controversial premiss is (3). Premiss (3) states a
general causal principle which has the following implications:

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 (3a) Something cannot come from nothing. This is obvious.
(3b) Something more perfect cannot come from something less perfect. E.g., if I
have less than perfect knowledge of Descartes, then I cannot convey to you a
perfect knowledge of Descartes. Your perfect knowledge of Descartes
couldn’t have come from me. It must have come from somewhere else, such
as the Meditations, a philosophical friend, etc.
(3c) The idea of something more perfect cannot come from something less perfect.
Since ideas are representations, here is an example for the sister principle that
the representation of something more perfect cannot come from something
less perfect. The Mona Lisa represents a woman and her subtle smile with
such great skill that it couldn’t have come from the hands of a doodling child.
According to this principle, it is possible for Da Vinci to make a childish
doodle, but impossible for a doodling child to make a Mona Lisa.

4. Premiss (4) is obvious enough. I doubt and I desire. I doubt because I lack
knowledge, and I desire because I lack something good. If I had perfect knowledge
and perfect goodness, I wouldn’t doubt or desire. So I am an imperfect being.

5. How about Premiss (5)? Why can’t I be the cause of the idea of perfect being?
Perhaps I can form the idea of imperfection from observation of my own imperfect
nature, and by negating this idea of imperfection, get the idea of perfection (just as I
might get the idea of darkness by defining it in terms of the idea of light, i.e., defining
‘darkness’ as the absence of light). In response to this challenge, Descartes claims
that we cannot understand imperfection without first understanding perfection. Our
idea of imperfection is that of falling short of a perfect standard, which means that we
must first understand what a perfect standard is. So the idea of perfection must come
before idea of imperfection, and the idea of perfection, given the causal principle
stated in Premiss (3), cannot come from an imperfect being such as myself.

6. How about Premiss (6)? Well, if Premiss (3) is true then Premiss (6) follows from it.
The cause of the idea of perfect being must be a perfect being, and nothing less. But
why must there be one perfect being? Perhaps my idea of perfection can have many
causes. One cause might be a being that has perfect wisdom, but not perfect
goodness, like the evil genius. Another cause might be a being that has perfect
goodness, but not perfect power and wisdom, say Santa Clause. So my idea of
perfect goodness, wisdom and power may have two different causes if I get part of
the idea from the evil genius, and part of it from Santa Clause. But Descartes
considers and rules out this possibility that my idea of perfect being may have several
causes. According to Descartes, unity, simplicity, and the inseparability of all
perfections are also perfections in their own right, and this guarantees that there is
only one perfect cause of my idea of perfect being.

7. Meditation Four: Source of Error and How to Avoid Careless Error

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At the beginning of Meditation Four, Descartes draws out the consequences of the proof
of God’s existence. It not only proves the existence of a perfect being, it also establishes
God’s nature as a non-deceiving being, because deception involves evil intent which is
incompatible with perfect goodness. The existence of God as perfect being provides
guarantee that whatever appears systematically true to us will be true. So, our clear and
distinct ideas provide entirely reliable evidence about logical, mathematical and
geometrical truths. But keep in mind that, although Descartes has ruled out the
possibility of systematic deception, it is still possible for us to make occasional mistakes
through carelessness on our part. So Descartes is going to explain how it is possible for
us to make such careless mistakes, and propose a strategy for avoiding careless error.

We can state this issue in another way, by making a distinction between ideas and
judgments. Ideas cannot be true or false, whereas judgments can be true or false.

Ideas are basically representations in our minds. An idea is a representation or a picture

of what something is like, but it makes no commitments or claims about the existence of
that something. For example, a picture of a unicorn, taken by itself, does not make any
claim about whether unicorns exist or not, and hence does not make any false claims. In
the same way, you have an idea of a unicorn in your mind, and what this means is that
you understand what a unicorn is like; it does not mean that you are making any true or
false claims about the existence or non-existence of unicorns. On the other hand,
judgments do make claims that are either true or false, for instance about the existence or
non-existence of unicorns.

What this means is that we cannot be mistaken about the ideas we have in our minds. We
start making mistakes when we rely on these ideas to make judgments (i.e., true or false
claims). Now, what Descartes has shown, through his proof of the existence of a non-
deceiving God, is that God guarantees the truth of judgments based on the reliable
evidence of clear and distinct ideas/representations. We tend to make mistakes when we
carelessly make judgments based on the unreliable evidence of obscure and confused
ideas/representations, mostly arising from sense-perception.

The Source of Error:

Descartes tackles a problem which arises from his position that God as a perfect being
cannot deceive us. If God is a non-deceiver, how is it possible that we ever make any
mistakes at all? Descartes has a neat solution to this problem, which consists of two
parts.

First, Descartes notes that error arises from the joint operation of understanding and free
will. Though our understanding is limited (and there are many things we don’t
understand, or understand only in an obscure and confused way), God guarantees that we
cannot be mistaken about the presence of this or that idea in our mind, and whether the
idea is clear and distinct, or obscure and confused. On the other hand, God has given us
unlimited free will, and we can choose to believe or act upon whatever we please (though
we may not succeed because our power is limited).

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Secondly, we make mistakes only when we rashly exercise our free will in making
decisions about things we don’t clearly and distinctly understand. We tend to make
mistakes only when we decide to believe, on the basis of an obscure and confused idea
arising from what we perceive through the senses, that there is something external to our
minds corresponding to the idea. So, God is not to blame for the mistakes we make, since
he has guaranteed us infallible access to the ideas in our minds and perfectly free will; we
ourselves are to blame for the rash exercise of our own free will, and if we are careful
enough we can avoid mistakes.

A Simple Strategy for Avoiding Error (Suspend Judgment!):

Descartes’s diagnosis of the source of error suggests the following strategy for avoiding
error: “I should never judge anything that I do not clearly and distinctly understand”
(p.41). So we should suspend judgment on things we don’t clearly and distinctly
understand, and this means most things outside of logic, mathematics and geometry.
Since we don’t clearly and distinctly understand anything we perceive through the senses,
this means that we should suspend judgment about all the information we receive through
our five senses of sight, touch, etc., and the internal sensations of pain and pleasure. A
more refined strategy for avoiding error is provided in Meditation Six.

8. Meditation Five: Second Proof of the Existence of God

In this Meditation Descartes offers a second proof of the existence of God, known as the
Ontological Argument. Descartes needed the first proof (the Trademark Argument) to:
a. eliminate the possibility of systematic deception (say by the evil genius), and
b. establish that our judgments based on clear and distinct ideas are true.
Descartes believes that the second proof is weaker than the first proof of God’s existence.
The second proof cannot be used to eliminate the possibility of systematic deception, and
hence cannot establish that the judgments based on clear and distinct understanding are
true. But the first proof guarantees that the second proof is valid and sound.

The Ontological Argument has a fairly long history, dating back to St. Anselm (1033-
1109), who devised the first known version of the argument, which attempt to prove the
existence of God solely from our concept of God, without relying upon any evidence
from experience. Descartes’s version is simpler and more elegant, and the gist of his
argument is that the very essence9 of God entails the existence of God. Here is how
Descartes’s version of the argument runs:
(1) I have a clear and distinct idea of a perfect being, i.e., of God.
(2) Perfection necessarily includes existence.
(3) Therefore, a perfect being, i.e., God, exists.
This argument is supported by analogy with the following argument we can make about
the clear and distinct idea of a triangle:
(1*) I have a clear and distinct idea of a triangle.
9
The essence of something is the qualities that make that thing what it is. Saying that the essence of God
entails God’s existence means that God’s existence is one of the qualities which make God what S/He is.

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 (2*) A triangle necessarily includes three angles adding up to 180 degrees.
(3*) Therefore, a triangle has three angles adding up to 180 degrees.
It follows that, just as a triangle necessarily has three angles adding up to 180 degrees, so
God necessarily has existence in reality.

Perhaps the most difficult step to defend in the Ontological Argument is Premiss (2).
Why must perfection include existence, or in other words, why must existence be a
perfection? Here’s one way of making Premiss (2) plausible. Consider a being that only
has good, positive attributes, like Santa Clause. An actually existing Santa would be
better than a merely imaginary Santa, right? Next we consider God, who has all the
good, positive attributes in the highest degree possible. Here we ought to say, just as we
did with Santa, that an actually existing God would be better than a merely imaginary
God. But now it follows that a merely imaginary God does not have all the good,
positive attributes in the highest degree possible, because a merely imaginary God is not
as good as an actually existing God. Hence, existence is a perfection. (At least for
beings who only have positive attributes: I add this qualification because we think that an
actually existing evil genius is worse than an imaginary one.)

9. Meditation Six: Proof of the Existence of the External World, Etc.

In this Meditation Descartes offers:

a. a proof that the external world exists independently of his own mind,
b. a more refined strategy for avoiding error, and
c. arguments to show that the mind is distinct from the body.

Proof of the Existence of the External World:

This argument is meant to establish that material objects like chairs and mountains, my
own body, and other minds exist outside of my own mind. Our evidence about the
external world comes from what we observe through our senses of sight, hearing, touch,
smell and taste. Let’s call such evidence perceptions.

Descartes argues for the existence of the external world as follows. Either the source of
perception is (i) my own mind, or (ii) God, or (iii) objects outside my mind in the
external world. Option (i) is ruled out, because perceptions arise in me without my active
cooperation and even against my will. So the source of perceptions is external to my
will. Option (ii) is ruled out, because I have a very strong inclination to believe that my
perceptions come from objects outside. In other words, I have such a strong inclination
to believe that Option (iii) is true, so that God would be a deceiver if Option (iii) is false.
But God is not a deceiver. Hence objects in the external world exist, as the source of my
perceptions.

A Refined Strategy for Avoiding Error (Cross-Check!):

Descartes offers two strategies for avoiding error, one in Meditation Four, and the other
in Meditation Six. Although Descartes has eliminated the possibility of systematic

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deception by proving the existence of a non-deceiving God, this leaves room for
occasional mistakes we make through careless judgment (careless error). In Meditations
Four and Six, Descartes shows that we ourselves are the sources of these errors, and that
we can avoid these mistakes if we are careful enough.

We’ve seen the more simple strategy earlier. Here’s the more refined strategy: with
respect to perceptual information about material objects, we should cross-check the
information with several different senses, with the testimonies of competent experts or
authorities, and verify the information with our own memories if relevant memories are
available. The fallibility of the senses is due to insufficient information. We can
approach near certainty in our perceptual beliefs if we cross-check our information with
as many sources of evidence as we can access, and are aware of everything relevant to
the issue at hand. In this way we can remove the skeptical worry raised by the Fallibility
of the Senses.

We can also rule out the possibility that we are now dreaming. For dreams are not as
coherent as waking life—e.g., a dream does not pick up from where you left off in the
last dream, and even within a dream there is inconsistency. But waking life is
systematically interrelated in a way that dreams are not, and again we can verify this by
cross-checking with various sources of evidence, and by using our memory. This is how
we can remove the skeptical worry raised by the Dream Argument (namely this version:
the Universal Possibility of a Dream).

Mind-Body Dualism:
According to Descartes, mind is separate from body, and the self is essentially mind and
not body. In a way this is a position that most people accept on the commonsense level.
But it is Descartes’s definitions of “body” and “mind” which are interesting, namely:
Mind = that which thinks, or a thinking substance.
(“a thinking, non-extended thing”)
Body = that which takes up space, an extended substance.
(“an extended, non-thinking thing”)
By “thinking” is meant believing, doubting, reasoning, wishing, desiring, imagining,
having visual sensations, sensations of touch, hearing, smell and taste, feeling pain, etc.

By “extension” is meant having length, width, height. Take the table before you. It is
several feet long, several feet wide, and several feet high, i.e., it is extended in three-
dimensional space. In other words, bodies take up space, occupy spatial positions, and
they can also move from one position to another.

Descartes maintains that mind and body are two entirely separate kinds of substances:
mind by definition cannot be matter, and vice versa. This view is called mind-body
dualism. Descartes provides several arguments in support of mind-body dualism, and
here we will consider a couple of them, and also add another argument from David
Hume.

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1. Doubtability Argument. Descartes’s first argument, presented in Meditation Two, is
based on the idea that we can doubt whether it is the body exists, but we cannot doubt
that the mind which doubts exists:
(1) I can doubt that my body exists.
(2) I cannot doubt that my mind exists.
(3) So, body and mind are two different things.
Premiss (1) is supported by the skeptical arguments mentioned in Meditation One,
namely the Dream Argument and the Evil Genius Hypothesis. Premiss (2) is
supported by Descartes’s proof of the existence of the self (as a thinking thing) in
Meditation Two. The inference from Premisses (1) and (2) to Conclusion (3) is
supported by Leibniz’s Law. According to Leibniz’s Law, one and the same thing
must be exactly similar, it cannot have dissimilar features. Since the mind and body
have different features (the existence of one cannot be doubted, but the existence of
the other can be doubted), they must be different things.
The problem with the above argument lies in the inference: it is a fallacious
inference based on a misapplication of Leibniz’s Law. Let me first state Leibniz’s
Law in more exact terms, and then explain the fallacious inference, known as the
Masked Man Fallacy.

2. Leibniz’s Law states that:

If x = y, then whatever is true of x is true of y,
which is logically equivalent to (its contrapositive, namely):
If something true of x is not true of y, then x ≠ y.
To exlain Leibniz’s Law in simpler words: if x has something y doesn’t, then x and y
have to be two different things.
For example, taking the property being the U.S. president in the year 2006, which
is true of George W. Bush but not of Bill Clinton, we may infer that they are different
people. Or, take the property being 50 minutes long. Your religion lecture is 50
minutes long but your philosophy lecture is not, so they must be different lectures.
Along the same lines, Descartes in the Doubtability Argument is taking the
property being doubtable, which is present in the case of the body, but absent in the
case of the mind, and inferring that mind and body must be different.

3. The Masked Man Fallacy. But it is important to note that there are exceptional
cases where Leibniz’s Law does not apply. Namely, it does not apply to cases where
mental attitudes towards objects, like knowing, believing, doubting, desiring, fearing,
etc., are involved. Consider the following argument:
(1) I know who my father is.
(2) I don’t know who the masked man is.
(3) So, the masked man is not my father.
But the argument is a fallacy: the truth of all the premisses does not guarantee the
truth of the conclusion. For instance, if my father is wearing the mask, then of course
(2) will be true, because I cannot see the face of the masked man. But in that case the

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 conclusion will be false, since my father is wearing the mask. Here’s another
fallacious argument:
(1) I cannot doubt that Mark Twain wrote Huck Finn.
(2) I can doubt that Samuel Clemens wrote Huck Finn.
(3) So, Mark Twain is not Samuel Clemens.
But since “Mark Twain” is a nom de guerre that Samuel Clemens used in his literary
works, the conclusion is false even if the premisses are true. Likewise:
(1) I cannot doubt that the Morning Star = Morning Star.
(2) I can doubt that the Evening Star = the Morning Star.
(3) So, the Morning Star is not the Evening Star.
Here the premisses can be true. Since the Morning Star is the brightest heavenly
body in the morning, and the Evening Star is the brightest heavenly body in the
evening, we may doubt that they are one and the same heavenly body. But
astronomers have discovered that the Morning Star and the Evening Star are one and
the same heavenly body, i.e., Venus. So the conclusion is false.
In sum, when you apply Leibniz’s Law to cases where mental attitudes towards
objects are involved, you are in danger of committing the Masked Man Fallacy.
Descartes’s Doubtability Argument does commit this fallacy. But to his credit,
Descartes was well aware of this problem,10 and thus presents the Divisibility
Argument which avoids this fallacy.

4. Divisibility Argument. Here is Descartes’s second argument for mind-body dualism:

(1) The body is a divisible thing.
(2) The mind is an indivisible thing.
(3) So, body and mind are two different things.
As in the Doubtability Argument, the inference from the premisses to the conclusion
appeals to Leibniz’s Law. But unlike the Doubtability Argument, the inference is
unproblematic: it does not commit the Masked Man Fallacy.
The weakness in the Divisibility Argument lies elsewhere, in Premiss (2), which
is controversial. Sure, the body is a divisible thing because it has parts. But why
isn’t the mind divisible, why can’t the ideas we have be parts of the mind? In support
of (2), Descartes argues that we cannot discern any parts within ourselves when we
examine our minds. According to him, the faculties of will, feeling, understanding,
etc. cannot be called its parts because it is one and the same mind that wills, feels and
understands.
There are a couple of problems here. First, Descartes seems to be moving illicitly
from the fact that the mind is a single thing to the conclusion that it is a simple thing.
That’s not warranted because a single thing can be a complex thing—it can have
parts. Secondly, introspection seems to reveal that our minds consist of diverse
mental processes at any given time, which is precisely what David Hume found when
10
See Meditations, “Preface to the Reader”, p.7, i.e., the paragraph that begins with the words “The first is
that, from the fact that the human mind, when turned in on itself, does not perceive itself to be anything
other than a thinking thing, it does not follow that its nature or essence consists only in its being a thinking
thing….”

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 he inspected his own mind. Why can’t this multiplicity of mental processes be the
divisible parts of the mind?

5. Spatiality Argument. Hume gives a very neat argument for mind-body dualism,
which is more plausible than the Divisibility Argument:
(1) The body is spatially extended.
(2) The mind is not spatially extended.
(3) So, body and mind are two different things.

Note: Having explained three arguments for mind-body dualism, let me note one
interesting difficulty with mind-body dualism. The main problem comes from
Descartes’s view that mind and body interact. Now it is plausible that there is interaction
between body and mind. It is clear that the body acts on the mind, causing it to have
sensations of touch, pain, etc., and to perceive objects such as tables and chairs. And it is
also clear that the mind also acts on the body: by an act of will I can raise my hand, take
hold of this marker and write on the board.

But the problem arises when we combine mind-body dualism with the view that mind
and body interact. It is mysterious how two entirely different kinds of substance can
interact. According to Descartes’ definitions of ‘mind’ and ‘body’, mind cannot occupy a
position in space. So we cannot say that the mind has motion, or that it can come into
contact with matter. This is because having motion is to travel from one position to
another position in space, and coming into contact is to touch one another in space.

Now, we can see how one billiard ball can cause another to move. It travels from one
part of the table to another part, comes into contact with another ball, displacing that ball
from its position and communicating motion to it. But mind, by definition, cannot
occupy a position in space, and hence it cannot come into contact, move or displace any
physical thing from its position in space, e.g., my arm from here to there or the neuron
cells in my brain.

In short, the problem is, how can something which cannot occupy space, come into
contact with something in space? How can something which cannot itself move, move
something else? Even if we feel no doubt that there is mutual interaction between mind
and body, it is mysterious exactly how such interaction is possible on Descartes’s dualist
view that mind is non-extended and body is non-conscious substance. (If the mind is just
the brain, and hence something physical and spatially extended, then there is no special
difficulty in explaining how mind and body interact—it will then be just like one physical
body interacting with another physical body.)

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