AN APPRAISAL OF DESCARTES' MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY.

1.0 INTRODUCTION Throughout the history of philosophy and even civilization generally, no epoch has ever experienced such unparalleled philosophical and scientific revolution in world history. And so between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, the Western world saw the emergence of a newly self-conscious and autonomous human being curious about the world; confident in his own judgments; skeptical of orthodoxies; often described as rebellious We will show in the sub-topic, The Philosophy of Rene Descartes that this was not a rebellion but a resignation. against authority and tradition; responsible for his own beliefs and actions; enamored of the classical past but even more committed to a greater future; proud of his humanity; conscious of his distinctness from sensible phenomenon; aware of his creative-artistic powers as an individual creator; assured of his intellectual capacity and dexterity to comprehend and control nature, and altogether less dependent on an omnipotent God. Cf. David Cawthon, Philosophical Foundations of Leadership (UK: Transaction Publishers, 2002), p.41. This is precisely the world in which we find Rene Descartes, one in which the dynamics of intellectual originality, ingenuity and curiosity and individual responsibility would forge a new understanding of epistemic certainty- how man would perceive himself and his relationship to others. This emergence of the modern mind, rooted in the rebellion (as often described) against the medieval Church and the ancient authorities, and yet dependent upon and developing from both these matrices, took the three distinct and dialectically related forms of the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution. These collectively ended the cultural hegemony of the Catholic Church in Europe which held sway until the establishment of the more individualistic, skeptical, and secular spirit of the modern age. Out of that profound cultural transformation, science and rationality emerged as the West’s new faith. Cf. Richard Tarnas, Passion of the western Mind (Britain: Pimlico, 2010), p.282. All these were indicative of the robust contributions of that suave Descartes. Descartes’ disillusionment of the kind of knowledge he received from his predecessors, the scriptures and the senses made him set out his ingenious gigantic inquiry into the basis of not just acquiring certain knowledge but purifying the epistemic discipline by reining it from undue empirical infiltration; a discipline he felt had become toxic because of the uncritical and unscathed incursion of the traditional but paralyzed over-reliance on the information received from the senses. He was obsessed with the problem of intellectual certainty. Thus, the onerous task of building an edifice of knowledge that would be fortified enough that there will be no room for truths and doubts enveloped and led him to further seek to incarcerate as incriminating, the sensible data which was guilty of deception. Buttressing his reason for this, he opines thus: “…whatever I have accepted until now as most true has come to me through my senses. But occasionally I have found that they have deceived me, and it is unwise (as prudence dictates) to trust completely those who have deceived us even once… Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, Trans. Michael Moriarty (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 13. The Meditations on First Philosophy, evinces this Cartesian non-effaceable thesis. Being one of the most engaging collections of arguments in the history of philosophy, it was a masterpiece of Rene Descartes. It resembles in many ways St Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual exercises. Cf. Eustache Ephrem K. M. Badou, “Modern Philosophy” (Lecture Note, Department of Philosophy, Dominican Institute, Ibadan, October 2014), p.31. It contains the most definitive and eloquent statements of Descartes’ philosophy. Throughout the meditations, Descartes’ primary concern was the undaunted search for epistemic certitude, but nevertheless, in the final three meditations he moves from the epistemological problem of certainty to metaphysical questions about reality. Cf. William F. Lawhead, The Voyage of Discovery (California: Wadsworth publishing Company, 1996), p.249. Here Descartes demonstrates the existence of God and the distinction between the human soul (i.e. mind) and body. The Meditations take the form of a challenging philosophical game. At each turn he produces a belief about which he is certain; then he uses his creative imagination to see if there is any way to see if he could be mistaken. The Meditations on First Philosophy is a vivid representation of Descartes’ thoughts. In what follows, we shall attempt an exposition of Rene Descartes’ First Philosophy, his theory of knowledge and metaphysics. Our work will be done in three basic sections. In the first section, we shall look at the intellectual background that gave birth to Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy. In the second section, we shall make an analytical presentation of ideas and concepts that make up the main thrust of Descartes’ Meditations. In the final section, we shall examine how Descartes’ theory of First philosophy has been received within the domains of philosophy, with primary focus on the criticisms to which his Meditations has been subjected. In the final analysis we shall consider the actualization of the Meditations on First Philosophy in the contemporary period, afterwards the evaluation and conclusion shall follow suit. BACKGROUND STUDY ON THE PERSON OF RENE DESCARTES René Descartes, whose name was Latinized as Renatus Cartesius, whence comes the adjectival form ‘Cartesian’ that is often used to qualify aspects of his works, was born on March 31, 1596 and died on February 11, 1650. Rene Descartes studied in the Jesuit college of La Fleche (1604-1612) Cf. Samuel Enoch Stumpf, Philosophy, History and Problems (USA: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1994), p.236., he was a notable Mathematician, Physicist and Philosopher. In terms of works, Tom Sorrell notes that although his output was not large he nevertheless made fundamental contributions to Physics, Mathematics, and Optics and reported useful observations in other fields, notably Meteorology and Physiology. Cf. Tom Sorrel, Descartes: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p.1. During these years, he was impressed with the kind of certainty he found in mathematics as against (as it were and as he thought) that in the impure philosophical milieu. Cf. G.O. Ozumba and Mike Egbuta, History of Modern Philosophy (Calabar: Norbert Publishers, 2012), p.9. Posterity certainly remembers him as the one who postulated what has become a famous dictum: “Cogito, ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am). Descartes was writing at a time when a new physics was being developed by Galileo and others. This new physics could be understood as a Mathematization of nature. It was also the period when catholic philosophy inherited from Aristotle had a tremendous and almost hegemonic influence. Descartes is most famous for having published a relatively short work, such as: “The Regulae ad Directionem Ingenii”, “Rules for the Direction of the Mind” (1628), “ Le Monde”, “The World” (1634), “Discours de la Method”, “Discourse on Method” (1637),”Principia Philosophiae”, “Principles of Philosophy”(1644), “Passions de l'ame”, “Passions of the Soul” (1646), “Meditationes de Prima Philosophia”, “Meditations on First Philosophy”(1641), in which he provides a philosophical groundwork for the possibility of the sciences. Cf. Kurt Smith, “Descartes' Life and Works”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). The “Meditationes de Prima Philosophia”, “Meditations on First Philosophy” is our focus in this exposition.  THE PHILOSOPHY OF RENE DESCARTES Having thus been fascinated by the mathematical method of clarity, certainty and indubitability, Descartes considers philosophy as an antithesis of those mathematical virtues; for he sees philosophy as being founded on doubtful and shaky grounds. Determined therefore to give philosophy a firm foundation with the mathematical method as its base, he resolves to search and discover one thing which can be said to be certain and indubitable. Such a certainty, if found, would be the foundation of the philosophical system upon which all other truths would be built. He thus launched into this arduous task, by systematically questioning and doubting all that he used to know. Cf. G. N.A. Vesey (Ed.), Body and Mind (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1964), p. 22. Aristotelianism (which gave sensuality some dominating chamber) had as it were interpenetrated the intellectual atmosphere in which Descartes thrived and was educated. The philosophy of Aristotle, especially as mediated through the scholastics, loomed large and held sway as an almost indubitable and indisputable authority in matters of metaphysics, logic, ethics and philosophy of nature. A philosophy that was like a sine qua non if the resolution of arguments and the solution of intellectual and religious problems are to be attained. The authority of God was held to be absolute in matters of faith. However, according to Dennis Des Chene, “The realms of human knowledge were divided among several authorities, subordinate to faith, but otherwise presumed true: Aristotle in philosophy, Galen in medicine, Thomas in theology.” Janet Broughton and John Carriero (Ed.), A Companion to Descartes, (Malden: Blackwell publishing, 2008) p. 18. Much of these heavily influenced and troubled the intellectual landscape of Descartes era. The colossal reverence given to certitude occasioned by the instrumentality of the senses got Descartes exasperated that all-through his philosophical peregrination he was very circumspective about anything sensible. Descartes is often presented as rebelling - even if sometimes subtly or prudently - against these established norms of his time. Much as this may be true, but it is important to note that there were events which probably prepared him for this ‘rebellion,’ Rebellion as commonly described. A common description which will later be shown as a common misdescription. Thus, avowing that common use may be pointing to common misuse or common error. and also influenced his philosophical outlook. Chene further relates that many events conspired in the sixteenth century to cast human, and even divine authority into doubt. The very familiar list includes the discoveries of the New World, the theories of Copernicus, schisms within the Christian Church and the wars that resulted from them, political turmoil and economic distress. Philosophical skepticism, revived from the ancients, was invoked to debunk the claims of authority. Cf. Janet Broughton and John Carriero (Ed.), A Companion to Descartes, p.18. The revival of philosophical skepticism must have made a deep impression on Descartes. He was to write later in his Discourse on the Method that, .......From my childhood, I have been familiar with letters; and as I was given to believe that by their help a clear and certain knowledge of all that is useful in life might be acquired, I was ardently desirous of instruction. But as soon as I had finished the entire course of study, at the close of which it is customary to be admitted into the order of the learned, I completely changed my opinion. For I found myself involved in so many doubts and errors, that I was convinced I had advanced no farther in all my attempts at learning, than the discovery at every turn of my own ignorance. Rene Descartes, Discourse on the Method Trans. Richard Kennington (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2007), AT VI, 4-5. Care should be taken to note a very salient and impassable point. With Descartes’ submission as outlined above in his Discourse on Method, it is crystal clear that it was not a rebellion but a resignation from the traditional, for he says: “…but as soon as I had finished the entire course of study, at the close of which it is customary to be admitted into the order of the learned, I completely changed my opinion…” Rene Descartes, Discourse on the Method, AT VI, 4-5.. We see the construal of Descartes’ philosophical scheme being conferred with the appellative ‘rebellious’ as a misconstrual and a dangerous attempt to poison Descartes’ philosophical intention. He was resigning from the traditional which he felt does not appeal to the ‘ideal state’ of philosophy. But then, this resignation later became known as a revolution because it marked some novelty and liberation from the traditional that circumscribes and stifles “free-independent thinking” and adopts the rational rudiments of thinking which enhances and celebrates independent thinking. One that received further global acceptance and purified to some extent, the philosophical arena. This disposition indubitably sowed the seeds of the Methodic Doubt in Descartes intellectual life. The methodic doubt will eventually reach its highest systematization and application in his Meditations on First Philosophy. Descartes decided to break away from what can be referred to as the Aristotelian-scholastic dogma in two major ways. First, Descartes rejected the use of substantial forms as explanatory principles in physics. A substantial form by definition was thought to be an immaterial principle of material organization that resulted in a particular thing of a certain kind. Cf. Howard Robinson, “Substance”, The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (Ed.). The main principle of substantial forms was the final cause or purpose of being that kind of thing. The substantial form of a thing unites with matter in order to organize matter for the sake of being that kind of thing. Whatever qualities the thing possesses is explained teleologically by the goal of being that kind of thing. For instance, the ability of a dog to bark is explained by the goal of being a dog. A dog barks because it is a dog. Descartes rejected this (scholastic) way of discovering knowledge because it has nothing new or useful to say. Weary of textbooks and schools that merely repeated and replicated the stale ideas of Aristotle and the Dogma of Scholasticism, he left his teachers behind and began to travel. This travel was not for sightseeing but served as an intellectual journey in which he attempted to study “the great book of the world”. This however led him to further confusion, doubt and despair as he encountered a diversity and multiplicity of opinions which led to a resolution to undertake studies within him, using all the powers of his mind to choose the way he will follow. Cf. William F. Lawhead, The voyage of Discovery (California:Wadsworth publishing Company,1996), p.244. Also, because of the varied opinions of philosophers and practical men, Descartes swore not to allow himself (which was now the object of his study and the subject who studies) to be tenaciously gripped by or attached to any view or custom. He became bent on rejecting all his age long ideas with a burning and unswerving spirit to start on a clean slate to construct a philosophical system of true knowledge that would be achieved through the powers of human reason alone. Descartes’ hope was to find solid foundation for scientific knowledge. Of course for scientific knowledge to be hinged on a solid foundation, that foundation must be certain. The kind of certainty Descartes sought transcended the authority of Aristotle and the church. He wanted to organically connect all truths and to make them conform to a rational scheme. Secondly, Descartes also rejected the Aristotelian-scholastic idea that nothing comes to the intellect except through the senses. Descartes held that empirical (sensory) knowledge is not reliable because the senses sometimes deceive. Thus, the presence of what we describe as ‘perceptual seemings’ like illusions, misperceptions, mirage and phantasmagoria elicited this Cartesian conviction. Hence what comes through the senses cannot be trusted. It is only the mind that can perceive clear and distinct ideas and so arrive at absolute certainty. The mind alone can arrive at knowledge which is indubitable, incorrigible, immune from error and impervious to revision and error. Descartes’ rejection of Aristotle is well captured in a letter he wrote to Mersenne on January 28, 1641. In this letter, he writes, in relation to his Meditations, that “. . . I will tell you between ourselves, that these six Meditations contain all the foundations of my Physics. But please don’t say so; because those who favor Aristotle would perhaps make more difficulty about approving them; and I hope those who read them will accustom themselves insensibly to my principles, and recognize their truth, before noticing that they destroy those of Aristotle”. Rene Descartes, “Letter to Mersenne.” Quoted in Margaret Dauler Wilson, Descartes (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978) pp. 2-3. So what kind of knowledge was Descartes after? Finding an answer to this question will be part of the preoccupation of the next section. CARTESIAN METHODOLOGICAL SKEPTICISM In the opening lines of the first Meditation, Descartes sets his project for the rest of the work. He begins the Meditations with an austere remark thus stating, “…some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood.” Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (UK: Cambridge University Press, 1641) Trans. Elizabeth S. Haldane, 1.17,12. Descartes was prompted to look for a method because as shown above, he had wanted to establish a firm and systematic way of using the human mind to establish truths in order to forestall the uncertainty that was rife in the gamut of received truths based on authorities. Consequently, he was to doubt whatever knowledge he may before now, be said to have possessed. To achieve the forestalling agenda, he is found saying: “I realize that if I wanted to establish anything in the sciences that was stable and likely to last, I realise that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundation.” John Cottingham and Robert Stoothoff (Ed.), Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings (UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p.76. This begins what we know as “Descartes’ Methodic Doubt”. In proceeding by way of a Methodic Doubt, Descartes betrays an influence of skepticism. His whole aim is to reach certainty – to cast aside the loose earth and sand so as to come upon firm rocky foundation. Cf. Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method, AT VI, 29. He reiterates in the first meditation that in order to constitute anything enduring and stable in the sciences, “it is necessary… to demolish everything completely and start right again from the foundations….” Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method, AT VII, 17. He “does not mean simply that we are to apply doubt to all candidates for knowledge…He means that in the initial demolition phase of the project we are to apply doubt collectively, undermining the candidates for the foundations of knowledge all in one go.” Lex Newman, “Descartes’ Epistemology” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Many beliefs surely will not endure this tough and fierce process, but if any beliefs come through unscathed and uncorrupted, he will know these beliefs have a certainty beyond any possible doubt. Since doubting involves thinking, Descartes at a stage rehearsed the whole process in his mind and thought that though it could be possible that he had no body and that the physical things were illusory, it was necessary that he exist in order to be deceived. His methodic efforts eventually led him to a proposition which he considered indubitable: cogito, ergo sum (which means, ‘I think therefore I am’). According to him, “. . . after considering everything thoroughly, I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind.” Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, AT VII, 25. The possibility of being deceived will not deter Descartes from positing that he exists because, according to him, to be susceptible to deception, one has to first exist. This proposition then served as the fulcrum, springboard, compass and rock on which other propositions revolve, find their origin and bearing. It serves as a rock because it is intuitively certain, it is direct, unmediated and incorrigible with over-whelming clarity and distinctness. We should also note that Descartes’ methodic doubt must not be equated with that of the skeptics. His skepticism was systematic and aimed at helping him to find an absolute starting point for the erection of an edifice of knowledge unlike that of the skeptics who doubt in order to remain in doubt. Thus, doubt for him was a means and not an end. He would write in a letter of 1638 that, “although the Pyrrhonists reached no certain conclusion from their doubts, it does not follow that no one can”. Janet Broughton, Descartes’s Method of Doubt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), p.98. A spectacular thing about the Cartesian Methodic Doubt and the Cartesian Cogito discovery is that with the Cartesian discovery, we savour another victory over the skeptic’s challenge of the impossibility of knowledge on the grounds of uncertainty and lack of indubitability. Now with Descartes’ dateless footprints, we now have a sure imprint that we can rely on, to wit, we can be sure of at least one thing that is known with certainty. With this Cartesian epistemological axiom, we can now make forays into the vineyard of knowledge. Cf. G.O. Ozumba, A Concise Introduction to Epistemology (Calabar: Jochrisam Publishers, 2001), pp. 96-97.  5.0 DESCARTES’ METAPHYSICS Throughout the Meditations, Descartes’ primary concern is epistemology, nevertheless, in the final three meditations he moves from the epistemological problem of certainty to metaphysical problem about reality. These include the existence of God, the existence of the physical world and the mind-body relationship. 5.1 The Existence of God The end of the second Meditation marks a crescendo of Descartes’ general disdain for the senses considered as sources of truth. Cf. Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy 3d ed., trans. Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993), p.47. Hence, he concludes that he knows for certain only that he is a thinking thing. What else does he know? Recall that Descartes makes a distinction between things which are undoubted, and things which are indubitable (AT 7.36). A belief being dubitable does not require that a believer is actively harboring a doubt with respect to it, but merely that his claim to knowing it is challengeable via Stroud’s Principle of Exclusion or Weak Closure. In other words, we need not entertain an actual doubt about a belief for it to be dubitable, and hence for it to be dismissed as a knowledge claim under Descartes’ condition of indubitability. Regarding God and the proof for his existence, Descartes deviated from that of the scholastic philosophers. This was simply because he had launched a fundamental break from this tradition already as we saw and thus, did not want to take anything for granted. He also saw that his predecessors often employed things which in themselves needed to be proved like motion and cause. Cf. Samuel Enoch Stumpf, Philosophy, History and Problems (USA: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1994), p.244. Therefore the only option left for him was to prove God’s existence wholly from the aid of reason and solely in terms of the rational awareness of his own existence and internal thoughts. Given Descartes’ hyperbolic deference to skeptical doubt, it is understandable why he devotes the third Meditation to proving God’s existence. Descartes needs to prove that the traditional Christian God exists in order to be able to meaningfully implement his clearness and distinctness criteria—his certainty criterion—of knowledge. That is to say, until he has established the existence of not only a non-deceptive God, but one that is also omnibenevolent, anything that he can clearly and distinctly perceive, and which he wishes to claim as knowledge, will necessarily be defeated by the Evil Genius hypothesis introduced at the end of the first Meditation. Descartes thus here offers three arguments for God’s existence so that he can resist its force, and build upon the two fundamental axioms which he establishes in the second Meditation. He started by saying that as a doubting thing, he was imperfect and limited but that he nevertheless has an idea of perfection in him. Cf. Genevieve Rodis-Lewis, Descartes: His Life and Thought (London: Cornell University Press, 1995), p.80. He therefore begins his proof by examining the various ideas that pass through his mind. The outline that follows suit shows Descartes’ argument Something cannot be derived from something There is at least as much reality in the cause as there is in the effect. I have an idea of God as an infinite and perfect being The idea of God in my mind is an effect that is caused by something I am finite and imperfect and thus I could not be the cause of the idea of an infinite and perfect God. Only an infinite and perfect being could be the cause of such an idea Therefore, God (an infinite and perfect being) exists. Descartes perception of the infinite, that is God, is in some way prior to the perception of the finite, which is himself. Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, 3.45,31. In the Meditations, Descartes provides two other arguments for the existence of God. The second argument is a causal argument that seeks to show that his own sustained existence requires an adequate cause. Using a variation of the first proof he argues that a being such as himself who contains the idea of perfection could not come from an imperfect cause. In the course of searching for an explanation of his own, sustained existence, he introduces the principle that there cannot be an infinite regress of causes. Cf. William F. Lawhead, The Voyage of Discovery: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy 4th Ed. (California: Wadsworth publishing Company, 2015), p.253. Therefore these causes must culminate in an ultimate cause. In the third argument he also employs a version of the ontological argument developed by Augustine Cf. Samuel Enoch Stumpf, Philosophy, History and Problems (USA: McGraw-Hill, Inc, 1994), p.244. and Anselm in the fifth and eleventh centuries respectively. Cf. William F. Lawhead, The Voyage of Discovery (California: Wadsworth publishing Company, 1996), p.251. This ontological argument states that one cannot think of an idea like triangle without thinking of its attributes like lines and angles. In the same way, one cannot think of God without thinking of its attributes. Cf. Roger Ariew, Descartes and the First Cartesians (UK: Oxford University Press, 2014), p.179. The idea of God signifies a perfect being and perfection implies existence because perfection cannot be predicted to a thing that does not exist. Thus, the idea of God clearly and distinctly implies existence. The keen reader will see that Descartes’ proof of God’s existence essentially models the truth of his own existence and that of mathematics and geometry. This is so because we have seen that evil is incompatible with God’s attribute of perfection. Cf. Steven M. Duncan, The Proof of the External World: Cartesian Theism and the possibility of Knowledge (USA: Wipf & Stock, 2008), p.38. So God must be good and therefore cannot deceive us. An atheist therefore cannot be a mathematician because it is God that guarantees the truth of mathematics too. 5.2 The Existence of the Physical World In attempting to prove the existence of the physical world, Descartes did not rely on the information of the senses because of his fundamental distrust on the ability of the senses to supply some certain knowledge. And also because the senses still have their existence to be ascertained, it will be preposterous to use what is in doubt to ascertain what is also in doubt. Here he took another look at the physical world, at his own body, and other things and asked whether it can be certain that they exist. To be a thinking thing does not of itself prove that my body exist, for my thinking self is entirely and absolutely distinct from my body and can exist without it. Cf. Elizabeth D. Harvey, Sensible Flesh: On touch in Early Modern Culture (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), p.189. All his life Descartes can be said to naively believe that there is a physical world without considering the possibility that this could be an illusion or even a mirage. Despite the confusion of sense perception he affirms that physical things “possess all the properties which he clearly and distinctly understands.” Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, 6.80,55. In this passage, Descartes is giving momentum to Galileo’s view that the real nature of the physical universe is mathematical. In other words, the objective properties of an object consist only of its spatial (size, shape and motion) dimension. And about the colors, tastes, sounds and other qualities in our experience that make the world so rich, beautiful and one, Descartes has this to say; You have said it correctly. Those are only qualities in our experience. They are not properties of the objects themselves. These qualities are the subjective effects on our sense organs that are caused by the objective qualities in the world. William F. Lawhead, The Voyage of Discovery (California:Wadsworth publishing Company,1996), p.254 With the proof of the physical world, Descartes has now fully recovered from the sea of doubt that engulfed him. 5.3 The Mind - Body Dualism In the Mind–Body relation Descartes uncritically dredges up the Greek and medieval notion of substance. He defines substance in his work the Principle of Philosophy as a “thing which exists in such a way as to depend on no other thing for its existence.” Cf. Nathan D. Smith and Jason P. Taylor (Ed.), Descartes and Cartesianism (UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008), p.26. It is conspicuous that only God would fully fit this description since everything else depends on Him. Nevertheless, in a limited and analogical sense, created things can be called substance. He divided substances into two, which are: the mental and physical substances, implying that the mind and the body are two completely different entities. Extremely sure of his own mental existence but in doubt as to whether or not his body existed. This led him to conclude that the mind is a separate substance from the body because it does not need the body in order to exist or to be understood. Descartes stated that we are always aware of impressions which our senses bring to our knowledge and we feel they are things existing outside and their presence is not only overwhelming but clear and forceful. To give credence to his claim of the distinctness of the duo, Descartes ascribed attribute to them. Minds are capable of conscious acts, such as thinking, doubting and willing. Bodies are not conscious and are simply moved by the mechanical forces acting on them. Minds are not extended and so do not take up space, they are a kind of spiritual reality. Because they are not extended they are not made up of parts and cannot be divided. This he called Rex Cogitans. Bodies, of course are extended, occupy space and can be divided into more elementary particles. This he called Rex Extensa. Cf. William F. Lawhead, The Voyage of Discovery, p. 254. Having proved the existence of a good God, Descartes believed that he cannot delude us into believing that these impressions of extension are mere illusions (chimera). He gave example with a piece of wax which changed every quality except the quality of extension when melted. This further led Descartes to posit that it is only extension that can be guaranteed as the persistent quality of external objects. Cf. John Hospers, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis 4th Ed. (Great Britain: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1997), p. 99. This Cartesian bifurcation of the mind and body along distinct lines led to a chain of metaphysical and epistemological problems which has lingered and has continued to cause spasms in the nervous system of philosophy. Thus, Descartes is often accused of creating (and leaving unsolved) a huge metaphysical problem by postulating the mind-body dualism. In the second meditation he writes, “I am, then, in the strict sense only a thing that thinks; that is, I am a mind, or intelligence, or intellect, or reason - words whose meaning I have been ignorant of until now. But for all that, I am a thing which is real and which truly exists. But what kind of thing? As I have just said - a thinking thing”. The mind-body dualism however, began for Descartes as an epistemological issue. In his quest for a secure foundation for knowledge, for the principle of knowledge that is secure, stable, certain and indubitable, he needed a source and repository (so to speak) of knowledge that will guarantee the certainty, stability and indubitability of knowledge. In his opinion, the senses, which are related to the body, cannot guarantee this because, as he says, he has sometimes been deceived by the senses. It is the mind, the intellect, which can provide the guarantee which Descartes is looking for. This is because, according to him, it is the mind which can perceive ideas clearly and distinctly. He would conclude the second meditation by declaring that, I see that without any effort I have now finally got back to where I wanted. I now know that even bodies are not strictly perceived by the senses or the faculty of imagination but by the intellect alone and that this perception derives not from being touched or seen but from being understood; and in view of this I know plainly that I can achieve an easier and more evident perception of my own mind than of anything else. Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, AT VII, 34. Thus in Descartes’ view, we come to know clearly and distinctly not through the senses but through the mind or the intellect. It is the mind that can perceive clear and distinct ideas. This is clearly a reaction against the Aristotelian-scholastic maxim that nothing enters into the intellect except through the senses. Cartesian rationalism balks at this Aristotelian-scholastic position. At least two conclusions can be drawn from this subsection. One, Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy should not to be read primarily as a treatise on the mind and body or primarily as a book of Cartesian psychology. It is to be read primarily as a book of Cartesian epistemology. Two, the bifurcation of the mind and body was not for Descartes, an end. It was for him, a means to an end. The end was to show that it is only the mind which can know. According to Thomas Lennon, Descartes’ “quest for certainty led him to espouse a mind-body dualism, to locate the source of his initial certainty in subjective consciousness, and to bridge the cognitive gap between consciousness and its subject by a new theory of ideas and intentionality.” Janet Broughton and John Carriero (Ed.), A Companion to Descartes (Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2008), p.467. In the sixth meditation, Descartes while emphasizing the differences in the features of the mind and the body, makes it clear that it is the mind and not the body that thinks: “. . . on the one hand I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in so far as I am simply a thinking, non-extended, thing; and on the other hand I have a distinct idea of the body, in so far as this is simply an extended, non-thinking thing.” Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, AT VII, 78. Descartes position here is a kind of dualism. Dualism is the name for any theory that postulates two kinds of ultimate and irreducible principles. What we have here is a metaphysical dualism. Metaphysical dualism refers to any theory that claims that there are two ultimate and irreducible kinds of reality. To be more specific, because Descartes’ theory concerns the relationship between the mind and the body, it can be called Mind – Body dualism. But then since Descartes defined substance as “thing which exists in such a way as to depend on no other thing for its existence” Cf. Nathan D. Smith and Jason P. Taylor (Ed.), Descartes and Cartesianism (UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008), p.26. , the epistemological problem here is: How then do we know the nature of the interaction between the mind and body? The metaphysical problem is: If the body and mind are two distinct substances, where do they interact? If the physical body’s existence is known, where does the mind exist?  6.0 A Distinction between Descartes Metaphysics and Aristotle Metaphysics Comparing Aristotle’s Metaphysics with that of Descartes one will see that there is a great difference as regards both. Aristotle in his Metaphysical approach was more practical. Aristotle was concerned with explaining the things in the world other than of another world. For Aristotle, the soul was the form of the body with the corollary that disembodied existence. The medieval Aristotelian saw man as a rational animal while for Descartes, man’s whole essence is mind. In the discourse he says: “I recognise that I was a substance whose whole essence or nature is to think and whose being requires no place and depends on no material thing.” He holds that in our present life our minds are intimately united with our bodies, but it is not our bodies that make us what we really are. For Descartes, man is a thinking thing, thus, he realizes his existence because he was thinking. To say man is a thinking thing is to de-existentialize man and perhaps to reduce the human person to a mind.  7.0 The Reception of Descartes’ Meditations of First Philosophy. Lex Newman in his article, “Descartes’ Epistemology,” remarks that, “Descartes’ methodic emphasis on doubt, rather than on certainty, marks an epistemological innovation.” Lex Newman, “Descartes' Epistemology”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (Ed.). This Cartesian epistemological innovation and many other aspects of Descartes’ theory of knowledge have attracted criticisms down the centuries. This notwithstanding, Descartes epistemology also wielded a lot of influence on many of his contemporaries and successors. In this part of the presentation, we will focus on some of the criticisms that have been directed at Descartes epistemology. Pierre Gassendi, who was a contemporary of Descartes, accused the latter of perverting, in his conceptualization, the skepticism of such Greek skeptics as Sextus Empiricus. Skepticism for Gassendi aims at showing that we cannot know things in their inner nature. However, Descartes employing the same method, aims at arriving at certain and indubitable knowledge about the inner nature of things. Descartes also perverts the skeptical doctrine by calling phenomena or appearances into question. The skeptics, unlike Descartes, never questioned the existence of the external world. They only claimed that we cannot know its inner nature. Cf. Nicholas Jolley, “The Reception of Descartes’ Philosophy” in The Cambridge Companion to Descartes, John Cottingham (Ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp.408-409. Of course, Descartes as we noted above, held that his method was different from that of the skeptics. Gassendi’s point however is that, “Descartes has perversely failed to grasp the force of the skeptical attack on the power of human intellect.” Nicholas Jolley, “The Reception of Descartes’ Philosophy” in The Cambridge Companion to Descartes, John Cottingham (Ed.), p. 409. Put differently, by employing methodological skepticism to arrive at certain knowledge, Descartes seems to have underestimated the potency of the skeptical challenge that we cannot arrive at certain knowledge of the inner nature of things. The plausibility of Gassendi’s critique seems to have been validated by the apparently obvious circularity of Descartes argument for certainty and indubitability. Descartes claims that he has discovered the true, internal nature of things. He claims he arrived at this through the reliability of clear and distinct perception - according to his truth rule, anything he perceives clearly and distinctly is true. If asked how he arrived at the certainty of the verity of his clear and distinct perceptions, he would appeal to his awareness of the existence of (a non-deceiving) God - the root of his epistemology. Now, when asked how he came about the awareness of the existence of God, he will appeal to his truth rule. The problem with this is that there seems to be a reciprocal containment between the perception of clear and distinct ideas and the existence of God as a foundation for knowledge. In other words, while the perception of clear and distinct ideas gives legitimacy to the proof of the existence of God, the existence of (a non-deceiving) God in turn legitimizes the veracity of the perceived clear and distinct ideas. The question then is: which is foundational to the other since there seems to be a reciprocal dependency? This apparent circularity in Descartes’ epistemology is known as the problem of the Cartesian Circle. It is perhaps best captured in the words of one of Descartes’ contemporary critic, Antoine Arnauld . In his objections to some arguments in Descartes’ Meditations, had this, inter alia, to say: I have one further worry, namely how Descartes avoids reasoning in circle when he says that we are sure that what we clearly and distinctly perceive is true only because God exists. But we can be sure that God exists only because we clearly and distinctly perceive this. Hence before we can be sure that God exists, we ought to be able to be sure that whatever we perceive clearly and evidently is true. Fourth Set of Objections, AT VII, 214. Leibniz also criticized Descartes’ manner of proving the existence of God. According to him, Descartes revived the scholastic argument for the existence of God which runs as follows: Whatever follows from the idea or definition of a thing . . . is predicable of the thing itself. Now existence follows from the idea of God as the most perfect or greatest possible being. For the most perfect being includes all perfections within himself, and existence is one of them. Therefore, we can predicate existence of God. Cf. Philip P. Wiener (Ed.), Leibniz Selections (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951), p.283. Leibniz points out that this way of proving the existence of God is tenable only if the possibility of God is already proven. Put differently, the argument takes the possibility of God for granted. Leibniz concludes that, “the validity of the argument depends on proving or presupposing the possibility of the most perfect being. . . . It is absolutely true that the most perfect being is possible and even necessary; yet the proof given is not conclusive, and had already been rejected by Thomas Aquinas.” Cf. Philip P. Wiener (Ed.), Leibniz Selections, p. 287. If, as Leibniz holds, Descartes proof of the existence of God is inconclusive, then the Cartesian epistemological foundation built on the awareness of the existence of God is undermined. Foucher also argued that contrary to Descartes’ opinion, the essences of mind and body cannot be thought and extension respectively. Foucher’s argument can be reconstructed to read: if one holds that cause and effect must be of the same essence, and if the mind and the body are radically different, then there can be no interaction. Descartes seems to be caught in a quandary here. If Descartes holds, as he did, that the mind and the body interact, then following the cause and effect premise, he must give up his position that mind and body are essentially characterized by thought and extension respectively. Giving up the position will result in the breakdown of Cartesian metaphysics. This breakdown will consequently undermine Cartesian epistemology. If however, Descartes holds that they do not interact, he will be reneging on his earlier position that they interact and repudiating his whole life even. Moreover, Meditation II firmly asserts the certainty of the so-called ‘cogito argument,’ and dramatises it as the Archimedean point whose unshakeability conquers the effort of ‘a god’ to deceive him. Yet, in Meditation III, despite a vigorous repetition of this drama, Descartes declares that nothing is certain until the existence of an honest God is established. Cf. Akomolafe Akinola Mohammed, “A Critique of Descartes’ Mind-Body Dualism”, Kritike, vol. 6, no. 1, (June 2012), p.108. Notable also among Descartes’ critics was Thomas Hobbes. With Descartes’ Cogito submission, it implies that he equates himself with thought. This Hobbes sees as a misguided speculation. This is because as Hobbes disagrees, thought is an activity which a thing that thinks carries out. This means that some other thing must exist that does the thinking. Cf. Jean Hampton, Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 135. He says that Descartes erred by thought as the essence of his existence. He must exist as a being to think and not think to exist for we cannot think of leaping without thinking of that which leaps. That which thinks is material and thinking is immaterial. For if Descartes imagines himself as identical with the activity of thinking, then it follows that he who understands, and understanding are identical thereby implying that understanding understands or that thought thinks. This is illusorily absurd. Hobbes also accused Descartes of a genetic fallacy. That is, that something appears to be clear and distinct is not a sufficient proof that it exists. For example, a mirage may appear real, clear and distinct but does not exist. Cf. Janet Broughton, Descartes’s Method of Doubt (UK: Princeton University Press, 2003), p. 170. 8.0 ACTUALIZATION OF THE BOOK The Search for objective knowledge that is applicable to all. The certainty of knowledge should be universal and equally accessible. In our time when the search for knowledge by science has gone immoral, there is need for us to be more objective in our quest for the truth. Reason alone takes us nowhere; faith is needed to explain metaphysical reality. The fact that doubt could not be able to defend whole and entire Descartes’ philosophical scheme, which further necessitated the need to employ the idea of a God who is non-deceiving, evinces the truism that reason alone does not suffice. Consciousness of inquiry. We are not to take things hook, line and sinker. For Knowledge is essentially expected to possess the dateless seal of truth, certainty and objectivity. It is expected that it must have passed through the thorny vicissitudes and crucibles of doubt. The true and absolute knowledge is the knowledge of God, which is certain and cannot be gotten alone by reason for God even transcends the limited faculties of human reason. Doing away with authority and dogmatism, takes one nowhere. Descartes tried doing away with these, but finally found himself coming back to what he tried to fight or do away with.  9.0 CONCLUSION This presentation on Descartes’ Meditations on First philosophy has taken us from Descartes’ intellectual background, through his quest for knowledge, to the objections that have been raised in response to his epistemology and metaphysics. There is no doubt that the Cartesian epistemological project, the project of arriving at a certain, indubitable, incorrigible, stable, universal and reliable knowledge, was indeed a bold and daring one. For in a letter to Mersenne he writes: “We have to form distinct ideas of the things we want to judge about, and this is what most people fail to do and what I have mainly tried to teach by my meditations”. Janet Broughton and John Carriero (Ed.), A Companion to Descartes (UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2010), p.216. What was even bolder was the implication of Descartes’ methodic doubt for the history of and ideas in philosophy before Descartes. By declaring all received beliefs doubtful, by his skeptical deconstruction of received beliefs, Descartes was making the provocative assertion that all philosophies before his philosophical project was incapable of providing certain knowledge and are thus are mere footnotes to dogmatism. His project then was to engender a philosophy or a philosophical system that will guarantee certain knowledge. Considered this way, Descartes’ project was revolutionary, rectificatory, corrective and redemptive. His project was also revolutionary because it inaugurated the modern turn to the ‘subject.’ Thomas Lennon avers that Descartes’s epistemological turn led philosophy in the direction of subjectivity and a preoccupation with the question less of what we know than of how we know it. At the end of his meditations, a project carried out by a subject, Descartes believed that he had arrived at certain indubitable universal truths: his existence, the existence of God, the existence of the mind and the body and their ontological distinction, the existence of the external world, the validity of his criterion of truth, that is, that anything he perceives clearly and distinctly is true, and some mathematical truths. This putative success of his project is however open to questions. The criticisms that have contended and that still contend his claims testify to this. This notwithstanding, it is a credit to Descartes that he was able to offer a systematic and analytic understanding of the problem of epistemic certitude; having also proffered a possible (however implausible) solution to the same problem. Despite all odds, Descartes remains one of the foremost philosophers of the modern period, the inventor of analytic geometry, one of the greatest French philosophers of modern philosophy and an inaugurator of the ‘methodic turn’ in philosophy. All these, undeniably make us at this point to acquiesce to the very fact that Rene Descartes is the Father of Modern Philosophy. BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Texts Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy. Trans. Elizabeth S. Haldane. UK: Cambridge University Press, 1641. Descartes, Rene. “Letter to Mersenne.” Quoted in Margaret Dauler Wilson, Descartes. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978. Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy 3d Ed. Trans. Donald A. Cress. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993. Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy. Trans. Michael Moriarty. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Descartes, Rene. Discourse on Method. Trans. Richard Kennington. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2007. 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