Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

A ‘Feuerbachian’ Objection to Descartes’ First Meditation III God Argument

Descartes gives three arguments for the existence of God  in his Meditations on First Philosophy.  This entry discusses the first argument and commenter Elliot's objection to it. We can call it the argument from the representational content of the God-idea.  In a subsequent entry I hope to set forth the argument in full dress and point out its weaknesses. For now I offer a quick sketch of it as I interpret it. After the sketch, Elliot's objection, and finally Descartes' anticipation of the objection.  It will lead us into some deep waters. So put on your thinking caps and diving gear.

Sketch

The argument attempts to move from the idea of God, an idea that we find in ourselves, to God as the only possible cause of the idea. It is not the mere occurrence of the idea in us, the mere fact of our having it, that is the starting point of the argument, but what I will call the representational content of this idea. Ideas are representations. They occur in consciousness as representings, acts of representation, but they purport to refer beyond themselves to realities external to consciousness.  Which ones? The ones indicated by their representational contents. A three-fold distinction is on the table: mental act, representational content  of  the act, extramental thing presented to consciousness under the aspect of the content.  Cogitatio, cogitatum qua cogitatum, res extramentem. (An anticipation of Husserl's noesis-noema schema?)

In the jargon that Descartes borrows from the scholastics, the representational content of an idea is its realitas objectiva. By 'objective reality,' Descartes does not mean something mind-independent; he means the representational content of the act of representing which, while distinguishable from the act, is inseparable from it.  Every act has its content, and every content is the content of an act. By 'formal reality,' he means items that exist in themselves and thus independently of us and our representations. The direction of the first argument is thus from the realitas objectiva of the idea of God to the realitas formalis of God.

Descartes takes it for granted that there are degrees of reality, and therefore degrees of objective reality. Thus an idea that represents a substance has a higher degree of objective reality than one that represents an accident. The idea of God, Descartes writes, "certainly contains in itself more objective reality than do those by which finite substances are represented." (Adam-Tannery Latin ed., p. 32) 

Now according to Descartes, the lumen naturale (natural light) teaches that "there must be at least as much reality in the total efficient cause as in its effect, for whence can the effect derive its reality if not from the cause?" (Ibid.) The more perfect cannot be caused by or be dependent upon the less perfect. The more perfect is that which contains more objective reality. This holds not only for external things existing in formal reality, but also for  ideas when one considers only their objective reality. And so the realitas objectiva of the God-idea can only have God himself as its cause. Ergo, God exists!

I will note en passant, and with a tip of the hat to Etienne Gilson, just how medieval this reasoning by the father of modern philosophy is! It is very similar to the reasoning found in the Fourth Way of Aquinas. Descartes takes on board the degrees-of-reality notion as well as the idea of efficient causality together with the related notion that the efficient cause must be at least as real as its effect. These are stumbling blocks for post-Cartesian thinkers, a fit topic for  subsequent posts. 

Elliot's Objection

I hold Descartes in high regard, but I have doubts about the claim that no human is sufficient to cause the idea ‘God.’ Suppose a human who is (a) aware of himself as a person, and thus has the idea ‘person,’ (b) aware of axiological relations such as ‘greater than,’ and (c) understands the concepts of infinity and supremeness. Why couldn’t such a human come up with the idea ‘God’ by reflecting on ‘human person,’ ‘greater than,’ 'supremeness,' and ‘infinity’? Why can't an Anselm come up with the idea of the greatest conceivable being? Why can't a Plato come up with the idea of a perfect being (Republic, Book II)?

Elliot's objection has a 'Feuerbachian' flavor. Ludwig Feuerbach held that God is an anthropomorphic projection.  What he meant was that there is no God in reality, there is only the idea of God in our minds, and that this idea is one we arrive at by considering ourselves and our attributes.  We take our attributes and 'max them out.' We are powerful, knowing, good, and present, but limitedly, not maximally. Although we are not  all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good or omnipresent, we can form these maximal predicates and imagine them true of one and the same being, which we then project into external reality. By this unconscious mechanism we fabricate the idea of God. But since the mechanism of fabrication is unconscious or perhaps subconscious we fool ourselves into thinking that there really is such a being as we imagine. The God idea, then, turns out on my reading of the Feuerbachian analysis to be factitious in  Descartes' tripartition. (He distinguishes between innate, acquired, and factitious (made up, from the L. facere, to make)  ideas. As examples of the last-mentioned, Descartes cites sirens and hippogriffs.)  In sum, the presence in us of the God-idea is adequately explained by our own  unconscious or subconscious doing. No God need apply.

Descartes' Anticipation of the Objection

Descartes seems to have anticipated the objection. He writes:

But possibly I am something more than I suppose myself to be. Perhaps all the perfections which I attribute to the nature of a God are somehow potentially in me, although they [(are not yet actualized and)] do not yet appear (47) and make themselves known by their actions. Experience shows, in fact, that my knowledge increases and improves little by little, and I see nothing to prevent its increasing thus, more and more, to infinity; nor (even) why, my knowledge having thus been augmented and perfected, I could not thereby acquire all the other perfections of divinity; nor finally, why my potentiality of acquiring these perfections, if it is true that I possess it, should not be sufficient to produce the ideas of them [and introduce them into my mind].

Nevertheless, [considering the matter more closely, I see that] this could not be the case. For, first, even if it were true that my knowledge was always achieving new degrees of perfection and that there were in my nature many potentialities which had not yet been actualized, nevertheless none of these qualities belong to or approach [in any way] my idea of divinity, in which nothing is merely potential [and everything is actual and real]. Is it not even a most certain [and infallible] proof of the imperfection of my knowledge that it can [grow little by little and] increase by degrees? Furthermore, even if my knowledge increased more and more, I am still unable to conceive how it could ever become actually infinite, since it would never arrive at such a high point of perfection that it would no longer be capable of acquiring some still greater increase. But I conceive God to be actually infinite in such a high degree that nothing could be added to the [supreme] perfection that he already possesses. And finally, I understand [very well] that the objective existence of an idea can never be produced by a being which [38] is merely potential and which, properly speaking, is nothing, but only by a formal or actual being.

And certainly there is nothing in all that I have just said which is not easily known by the light of nature to all those who will consider it carefully. But when I relax my attention some¬ what, my mind is obscured, as though blinded by the images of sensible objects, and does not easily recall the reason why my idea of a being more perfect than my own must necessarily have been imparted to me by a being which is actually more perfect.

Evaluation

I am actually powerful, but not actually all-powerful. And  likewise for the other attributes which, when 'maxed-out,' become divine attributes. Am I potentially all-powerful? No. Descartes is right about this. But if I am not potentially all-powerful, all-knowing, etc., then my fabricated ideas of omnipotence and omniscience, etc. lack the objective reality they would have to have to count as ideas of actual divine attributes.  That seems to be what Descartes is saying.  He seems to be assuming that the objective reality or representational content of an idea must derive from an actual source external to the idea. That source cannot be a human being since since no such being is potentially omnipotent, omniscient, etc. and so could not ever be actually omnipotent, omniscient, etc.

But none of this is very clear because the underlying notions are obscure: those of causation, degrees of reality, and realitas objectiva.

 

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Bill Vallicella

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27 responses to “A ‘Feuerbachian’ Objection to Descartes’ First Meditation III God Argument”

  1. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    Thanks for the substantive and thought-provoking post, Bill.
    You are right that my objection has a ‘Feuerbachian’ flavor. I should note, though, that I’m a theist, while Feuerbach seems to have been an atheist. And yet I’m open to the idea that we can reflect on our attributes and max them out to obtain the idea of a maximally great being, that is, God. I wonder if there is a middle way between Feuerbach’s claim that we can do so and Descartes’ view that we can’t. I suggest such as a middle path below.
    Descartes is correct that no finite being, limited in power, knowledge, etc., could become God by moving from potentiality to actuality. There might be a sense in which we can partake in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), but not by literally becoming divine ourselves. The idea of ‘becoming divine’ seems incoherent. In God, “nothing is merely potential [and everything is actual and real].” But this seems to be a point about the impossibility of humans becoming divine. I’m not sure I see, clearly stated in the passage from Descartes, why humans can’t generate the idea ‘God,’ though I see in your “Evaluation” section an argument for why we can’t have “ideas of actual divine attributes.” You wrote:
    >>But if I am not potentially all-powerful, all-knowing, etc., then my fabricated ideas of omnipotence and omniscience, etc. lack the objective reality they would have to have to count as ideas of actual divine attributes. That seems to be what Descartes is saying. He seems to be assuming that the objective reality or representational content of an idea must derive from an actual source external to the idea.<< Now, I said your post was thought-provoking. Perhaps these sentences of yours got me thinking the most. Is there a middle way between Feuerbach and Descartes? Some have claimed that the concept of God is incoherent because the divine predicates are inconsistent and thus can’t be possessed by one and the same being. One problem with the modal ontological argument (MOA) is its “possibility premise.” Although the possibility of God entails God’s necessary and thus actual existence, we can’t know with certainty that God is possible. Maybe the properties of maximal greatness can’t all be had by one being. Or maybe they can be so possessed. It seems there is nothing we humans know that definitively rules in or out either answer, although there are respectable arguments on both sides. So, on one hand, maybe humans can by human thought alone perform a rough estimate of maximizing our properties to obtain a conception of a supremely perfect God, but we can’t know with objective certainty that the idea is logically consistent. We might be intellectually sufficient to engage in conceptual analysis to accomplish a ‘God-estimate’ yet inadequate to achieve the required precision of a divine God-idea. Maybe we can form a human idea of ‘God’ “through a glass darkly*,” but can’t get a clear view to assess that hazy idea for accuracy, consistency, precision, etc. Made in God’s image, we can reflect on that image to arrive at the misty idea but, w/o divine assistance, can’t see through the mist to the divine clarity on the other side. On the other hand, God (if there is a God) has a divinely perfect idea of ‘God’ and knows with objective certainty that the idea is consistent. In this sense, it seems, only God can be the cause of a logically consistent, precise, fully accurate God-idea. Only God knows with certainty that the possibility premise of the MOA is true. If humans have a divinely perfect God-idea, then God is its source, not us. But do we have a divinely perfect God idea? If so, do we know w/ certainty that it is a consistent idea? *It’s interesting that both Plato and Paul use this phrase: Socrates: “I dare say that the simile is not perfect-for I am very far from admitting that he who contemplates existence through the medium of ideas, sees them only "through a glass darkly," any more than he who sees them in their working and effects.” (Phaedo, written ca. 360 BCE) Paul: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” (1 Cor. 13:12, written ca. 53 CE)

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  2. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    << But none of this is very clear because the underlying notions are obscure: those of causation, degrees of reality, and realitas objectiva. << I agree. It would be good to discuss these notions.

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  3. Michael Brazier Avatar
    Michael Brazier

    Descartes’ proof reminds me more of Anselm’s ontological proof than the Fourth Way, and like Anselm’s it falls to Aquinas’ objection that our concept of God is well short of God’s actual nature. If we understood God’s nature directly we would know immediately that He exists; but we do not, and must develop our concept of Him by other means.

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  4. BV Avatar
    BV

    Elliot writes,
    >>*It’s interesting that both Plato and Paul use this phrase:
    Socrates: “I dare say that the simile is not perfect-for I am very far from admitting that he who contemplates existence through the medium of ideas, sees them only “through a glass darkly,” any more than he who sees them in their working and effects.” (Phaedo, written ca. 360 BCE)
    Paul: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” (1 Cor. 13:12, written ca. 53 CE)<< I am guessing that the lines from the Phaedo you cite were translated by Benjamin Jowett. He also did work on St Paul. That might account for the sameness of phrase you mention. Jowett was quite a presence in his day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Jowett

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  5. BV Avatar
    BV

    MB writes, >>Descartes’ proof reminds me more of Anselm’s ontological proof than the Fourth Way,<< The difference is that the Cartesian argument invokes a causal principle whereas Anselm's does not.

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  6. John Avatar
    John

    Bill is correct to point out that this particular argument is more akin to Aquinas’s Fourth Way than it is to Anselm’s Ontological Argument because of its reliance on a causal principle. I will add, however, that later in the Meditations (Meditation V), Descartes gives another argument for the existence of God that is much more similar to Anselm’s than this argument.
    Back when I was in academia, students often pressed an objection like Elliot’s, but I confess that I find Descartes’s response quite plausible. Consider, for example, his claim that “even if my knowledge increased more and more, I am still unable to conceive how it could ever become actually infinite”. This seems quite plausible to me. I might approach infinite knowledge asymptotically, but I will never actually achieve it. There will always be a gap between my (perhaps vast!) finite knowledge and God’s infinite knowledge, and so on pain of violating the causal principle Descartes relies on, we must therefore conclude that I cannot be the source of my idea of God’s omniscience.
    The real issue with Descartes’s argument is the causal principle itself. Specifically, I have in mind the way in which Descartes sees it as a bridge between objective and formal reality. He writes: “But in order for a given idea to contain such and such objective reality, it must surely derive it from some cause which contains at least as much formal reality as there is objective reality in the idea” (trans. Cottingham, Stoothoff, Murdoch, p.28; emphasis mine).
    We may grant Descartes that an idea with degree D of objective reality must get that reality from something else with degree D* (where D* > D) of objective reality . We may also grant the same with respect to formal reality: a thing with degree D of formal reality must get that reality from something else with degree D* (where D* > D) of formal reality. The question is why Descartes thinks he is entitled to cross over, as it were, from objective to formal reality as he does in the passage quoted above. Why must the cause of a given idea have as much formal reality as the idea itself has objective reality?
    Descartes’s answer to this question seems to be that “if we suppose that an idea contains something which was not in its cause, it must have got this from nothing”. And, Descartes insists repeatedly, this is not possible. Thus, if I have an idea with degree D of objective reality, and its cause is something with degree D* (where this time D* < D) of formal reality, Descartes thinks that there is a kind of “leftover” reality possessed by my idea that appears to have come from nothing. And this, again, is supposed to be impossible. This is why God Himself is supposed to be the only possible cause for my idea of God.
    The problem is that these two notions of reality are supposed to be distinct. Even if God is the cause of my idea of God, my idea still contains something that was not in its cause, namely, objective reality. For while every idea has objective reality, nothing else does. External things have only formal reality. Thus, my idea of God has objective reality while God Himself does not. Therefore, my idea “contains something which was not in its cause”.
    Perhaps this is not fair to Descartes. Perhaps a defender of Descartes might say that objective reality is not really a distinct kind of reality, different from formal reality. It is just a way of speaking of the representational content of ideas. To say that an idea has degree D of objective reality, on this view, is just a way of saying that the idea in question represents something with degree D of formal reality. But if objective reality is not really a distinct kind of reality, then it is not clear to me how or why it would be subject to Descartes’s causal principle in the first place. If there is only formal reality to account for, my idea of God is easily accounted for.
    As Bill often says, brevity is the soul of blog, so I shall stop here. There is a great deal more to be said, of course.

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  7. BV Avatar
    BV

    Hi John,
    After I read a few lines of your comment, I said to myself, “This is an uncommonly good comment, who is this John guy?” The e-mail notification gave me the answer. Welcome back, John, great to hear from you. Don’t worry, I won’t blow your cover.
    The Meditation V argument John is referring to is the ontological argument (God has all perfections; existence is a perfection; ergo, God exists) which is similar to one of Anselm’s argument in his Proslogion. The other Anselmian argument, the modal OA, is rather more impressive.
    >>The real issue with Descartes’s argument is the causal principle itself.<< Yes, that's the problem, or one of them. >>The question is why Descartes thinks he is entitled to cross over, as it were, from objective to formal reality as he does in the passage quoted above. Why must the cause of a given idea have as much formal reality as the idea itself has objective reality?<< Spot on. That struck me too. The representational content, the *realitas objectiva* is something semantic-epistemic in nature. It is something like Husserl's noema. (*Obscurum per obscurius?*) But the cause, God, is an ontic item. How could there be something that deserves to be called causation that connects the latter with the former? The obscurity is compounded by the fact that Renatus speaks of the causation as efficient, whereas it strikes me as more like formal causation. And notice how much ancient medieval baggage Descartes is dragging along when he is wanting to make a fresh start! (HT: E. Gilson) >>The problem is that these two notions of reality are supposed to be distinct. Even if God is the cause of my idea of God, my idea still contains something that was not in its cause, namely, objective reality. For while every idea has objective reality, nothing else does. External things have only formal reality. Thus, my idea of God has objective reality while God Himself does not. Therefore, my idea “contains something which was not in its cause”.<< I think you are right, John. To make your point even clearer it may help to say that while God could be the efficient cause of my having an idea (representation), it makes little or no sense to say that God is the efficient cause of the content of this idea. God might well be the efficient cause of the mental act (the representing) but how on earth or in heaven could he be the efficient cause of the content of the act whereby the act targets a particular formal reality? Formal cause, maybe. After all God is forma formarum, ens reallissimum. But efficient cause? Just as Aquinas blends Platonic and Aristotelian thought-motifs, Descartes may be doing the same. >>But if objective reality is not really a distinct kind of reality, then it is not clear to me how or why it would be subject to Descartes’s causal principle in the first place.<< Right.

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  8. BV Avatar
    BV

    John,
    There are two other related topics that deserve discussion. One concerns the very idea of degrees of reality. The other concerns how exactly Cartesius is using *realitas.* It seems to smudge the distinction between quiddity and existence, and perhaps at the same time that between quiddity and haecceity.
    I would be interested in any thoughts you might have about these topics. I seem to recall that you wrote your diss. on Aristotle. Right?
    Anent my second point, when Kant tells us that Being (Sein) is no real predicate (kein reales Praedikat), what he means is that Being or existence is not a quidditative determination. Most analytic philosophers miss this because of their historical ignorance.
    Again, your comments were excellent and very stimulating and helpful.

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  9. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    Bill,
    You’re right. I used Jowett’s translation of Phaedo. I also have a translation by Hugh Tredennick in my library. I should check his treatment of that phrase.

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  10. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    Michael makes the interesting point that we: “must develop our concept of Him by other means.”
    The passage from Phaedo that I posted yesterday seems relevant here. Socrates/Plato is discussing our contemplation of matters metaphysical. We seem unable to grasp such matters directly, and so we need some other method. But which one?
    Socrates says (a few lines earlier) that, as a young man, he was attracted to the natural sciences and the use of empirical investigation. But he realized that this method was insufficient for the kind of metaphysical problems that interested him. So he adopted philosophical methods such as conceptual analysis (“contemplating existence through the medium of ideas”), which are no worse, and likely better, than the use of empirical investigation.
    And here we are, in Plato’s footnotes, investigating notions such as causation, degrees of reality, mental acts, representational content, etc.

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  11. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    >> Why must the cause of a given idea have as much formal reality as the idea itself has objective reality? << Yes. This is a concise expression of one of the questions I have regarding the claim that no human is sufficient to be the (efficient) cause the idea ‘God.’ I was thinking in terms of efficient causation. But, as Bill astutely notes, perhaps Descartes had formal causation in mind, rather than efficient causation.

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  12. Tom Tillett Avatar
    Tom Tillett

    Bill: >> … how exactly Cartesius is using *realitas.* It seems to smudge the distinction between quiddity and existence, and perhaps at the same time that between quiddity and haecceity.<< Kant seems to use the same or similar notion of realitas. Here is a quote from Heidegger I stumbled on that may be relevant: “The concept of reality and the real in Kant does not have the meaning most often intended nowadays when we speak of the reality of the external world or of epistemological realism. Reality is not equivalent to actuality, existence, or extantness….When Kant talks about the omnitudo realitatis, the totality of all realities, he means not the whole of all beings actually extant but, just the reverse, the whole of all possible thing-determinations, the whole of all thing-contents or real-contents, essences, possible things. Accordingly, realitas is synonymous with Leibniz’s term possibilitas, possibility.” Martin Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans. by Albert Hofstadter, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press 1982, p. 34. I understand that the Kant/Leibniz formulation of realitas and possibilitas was taken from the same or similar scholastic source as Descartes. It seems likely then that Heidegger's explanation of realitas comes close to what Descartes had in mind. So, realitas is synonymous with possibility, and as such would exclude by definition actual being or existence - which is exactly what Kant claims. But I also perceive in realitas a sense of something stronger than a simple play of imaginative possibilities. Realitas seems to refer to possibilities developed with a singular intention outward, towards the externality in such a way that the conceptual possibility and the externality are separate but inextricably linked together. Of course, how this strong connection can be characterized is an open question, as is Descartes's use of the notion of causation in this context. Whether or not this tracks with Descartes's usage of realitas in his argument, I can't say. Its scholastic-medieval origins are not my forte, so I await other comments from you and your readers.

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  13. Joe Odegaard Avatar
    Joe Odegaard

    Isaac Newton said
    “What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean.”

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  14. John Avatar
    John

    Hi Bill,
    Thanks for the warm welcome back. I’m glad my comment has proven stimulating and helpful.
    I think you’re exactly right to notice the medieval flavor of Descartes’s Meditations. It is worth noting in this context that the First Set of Objections was written by a Catholic theologian, Johannes Caterus, who is clearly no “modern philosopher”. Telling the story of the history of early modern philosophy is made easier by identifying 1641 as a “new start”, but Descartes was himself well educated in Scholastic philosophy, and such “starting points” (even the “invention of philosophy” by Thales in roughly 585 B.C.E) are necessarily vague.
    The notion of degrees of reality is, as you say, deserving of discussion. It is, however, very obscure. Certainly on the standard analytic conception of reality (= existence), the idea would seem to be incoherent. When I try to think about it in more Scholastic terms, though, the obvious suggestion that pops into my mind seems like it cannot be right.
    What I have in mind is this: degrees of reality track levels of actuality as against potentiality. God, who is fully actual, is thus maximally real. Prime matter (if it exists), which is fully potential, would on this view be minimally real. The problem with thinking about degrees of reality in this way, however, is that both actualities and potentialities are real. (This is a mistake I believe I have seen you call out in other posts. Potentialities exist; possibilities do not.)
    If someone says, “Well, yes both actualities and potentialities are real, but actualities are more real than potentialities”, then we are simply back where we started.
    So I am not sure I know what to say about degrees of reality. As a purely sociohistorical point, it is interesting that this notion seems largely to have been taken for granted throughout the history of philosophy until the 20th century. Is this an example of progress? Did the invention of the predicate calculus make us collectively realize that this notion made little sense? Or is this instead another example of analytic philosophers getting confused because of our tendency towards ahistoricism?
    Speaking of the latter, I think there has been a great deal of confusion in most discussions of Kant’s claim that “existence is not a predicate”. Ironically, much of that confusion seems to be around the distinction between use and mention. The word ‘exists’ is very clearly a predicate. It is perfectly correct grammar to say “John exists”, using ‘exists’ as a grammatical predicate. The question seems to me to be whether this grammatical predicate should be taken to stand for some property I possess.
    Certainly you are right that all Kant meant was that Being or existence is not a quidditative determination. I suspect that the problem analytic philosophers have is that they tend to conflate properties and quidditative determinations. Thus, Frege for example says that “The content of a concept diminishes as its extension increases; if its extension becomes all-embracing, its content must vanish altogether” (Foundations of Arithmetic III.29; trans. Austin). Such a concept would thus make no quidditative determination, because it has no content. Frege’s purpose in offering this argument, however, is to show that such a concept could not be (or denote) a property. Since everything exists, the concept of existence is “all-embracing” and therefore has no content. Therefore, it is not a property. Analytic philosophers seem to have followed Frege in this.
    When I left academia, I spent a good year reading a lot about being and existence. Not only the so-called “greatest hits” of analytic philosophy (e.g., Frege, Russell, and Quine), but also more recent treatments: your book, Barry Miller’s The Fullness of Being, Kripke’s Reference and Existence, and a number of works on Meinongianism (including Karel Lambert’s Meinong and the Principle of Independence, Graham Priest’s Towards Non-Being, and Francesco Berto’s Existence as a Real Property). I still find thinking about it to be incredibly challenging, and I wish I had something more insightful to say about it.

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  15. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    For what it’s worth, here are three translations of Phaedo, 99d – 100a.
    Jowett:
    “Socrates proceeded: I thought that as I had failed in the contemplation of true existence, I ought to be careful that I did not lose the eye of my soul; as people may injure their bodily eye by observing and gazing on the sun during an eclipse, unless they take the precaution of only looking at the image reflected in the water, or in some similar medium. That occurred to me, and I was afraid that my soul might be blinded altogether if I looked at things with my eyes or tried by the help of the senses to apprehend them. And I thought that I had better have recourse to ideas, and seek in them the truth of existence. I dare say that the simile is not perfect-for I am very far from admitting that he who contemplates existence through the medium of ideas, sees them only “through a glass darkly,” any more than he who sees them in their working and effects. However, this was the method which I adopted: I first assumed some principle which I judged to be the strongest, and then I affirmed as true whatever seemed to agree with this, whether relating to the cause or to anything else; and that which disagreed I regarded as untrue.”
    https://faculty.history.umd.edu/RFriedel/Hist175/phaedo.html
    Tredennick:
    “Well, after this, said Socrates, when I was worn out with my physical investigations, it occurred to me that I must guard against the same sort of risk which people run when they watch and study an eclipse of the sun; they really do sometimes injure their eyes, unless the study its reflection in water or some other medium. I conceived of something like this happening to myself, and I was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes and trying to comprehend them with each of my other senses I might blind my soul altogether. So I decided that I must have recourse to theories, and use them in trying to discover the truth about things. Perhaps my illustration is not quite apt, because I do not at all admit that an inquiry by means of theory employs ‘images’ any more than one which confines itself to facts. But however that may be, I started off in this way, and in every case I first lay down the theory which I judge to be the soundest, and then whatever seems to agree with it – with regard either to cause or to anything else – I assume to be true, and whatever does not I assume not to be true.”
    (From Plato: Collected Dialogues. Eds. Hamilton and Cairns, p 81.)
    Fowler:
    “After this, then,” said he, “since I had given up investigating realities, I decided that I must be careful not to suffer the misfortune which happens to people who look at the sun and watch it during an eclipse. For some of them ruin their eyes unless they look at its image in water or something of the sort. I thought of that danger, and I was afraid my soul would be blinded if I looked at things with my eyes and tried to grasp them with any of my senses. So I thought I must have recourse to conceptions and examine in them the truth of realities. Now perhaps my metaphor is not quite accurate; for I do not grant in the least that he who studies realities by means of conceptions is looking at them in images any more than he who studies them in the facts of daily life. However, that is the way I began. I assume in each case some principle which I consider strongest, and whatever seems to me to agree with this, whether relating to cause or to anything else, I regard as true, and whatever disagrees with it, as untrue.”
    https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DPhaedo%3Asection%3D100a
    —

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  16. BV Avatar
    BV

    Tom T,
    The Heidegger quotation is relevant. He is making that same point that I made about Kant’s use of ‘real.’ In fact I may have picked up the point from Heidegger back in the ’70s when I spent a year in Freiburg im Breisgau.
    Prominent analytic philosophers lacking historical sense often make the mistake of reading Frege back into Kant. Kant is not saying that existence is a second-level property; it’s a first-level property but not one that adds anything to the realitas/quidditas of the thing that exists. And for that very reason, the Cartesian ontological argument “from mere concepts” (as Kant says) must fail.

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  17. BV Avatar
    BV

    John writes:
    >>What I have in mind is this: degrees of reality track levels of actuality as against potentiality. God, who is fully actual, is thus maximally real. Prime matter (if it exists), which is fully potential, would on this view be minimally real. The problem with thinking about degrees of reality in this way, however, is that both actualities and potentialities are real. (This is a mistake I believe I have seen you call out in other posts. Potentialities exist; possibilities do not.)<< It seems to me that the issue is more clearly formulated as one about degrees of being (existence) rather than one of degrees of reality given that *realitas* as Tom and I have both pointed out is not the same as being (existence). Yesterday, in Conversation with Berman, I found the Latin *maxime ens,* 'maximally being.' It helps to bear in mind that ENS is a present participle: it 'participates' in ESSE (to be) but can also function as a noun that can be either singular (a being) or plural ENTIA (beings). The lack of articles in Latin contributes to the murkiness of this discussion. So God, who is fully actual, *actus purus,* is maximally being or maximally existence. He IS to the highest degree. *Materia prima* if it exists at all is minimally existent: It IS to the least degree. Prime matter is a problem unto itself. If change is the conversion of potency into act, and there is substantial change in addition to accidental change, where a substantial change is a substance's coming to exist or ceasing to exist, then we need prime matter as the substratum of the change. So prime matter exists. But this is hard to swallow since prime matter is wholly devoid of form. How could anything exist that is wholly devoid of form? But more on this in a separate post.

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  18. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    >> I will note en passant, and with a tip of the hat to Etienne Gilson, just how medieval this reasoning by the father of modern philosophy is!<< Descartes’ argument looks like what the medieval thinkers called a “quia” demonstration. He reasoned from an effect (the idea ‘God’) to its cause (God). I raised the objection that perhaps we can form the God-idea by considering ourselves and our properties. (I need to strengthen my understanding of Scotus, but didn’t he hold something like this view as well? i.e., that we can understand ‘God’ by natural reason alone, via reflection on our attributes?) One might worry that my objection presupposes that God is like us but greater, something like a supercharged version of ourselves. But God is wholly other than us. He is not like us, and hence my objection fails. Rejoinder 1: the terms we use to discuss God and ourselves (powerful, wise, good, etc.) must somehow be univocal. The wisdom of Socrates is in some way like the divine wisdom. Otherwise, we don’t know what we’re talking about when we talk about God. If these terms are univocal, then God is like us in some way. (Again, I recall Scotus saying something like this.) Rejoinder 2: Descartes’ argument already presupposes that God is like us insofar as God can, like us, cause ideas.

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  19. Tom Tillett Avatar
    Tom Tillett

    Bill. >>It seems to me that the issue is more clearly formulated as one about degrees of being (existence) rather than one of degrees of reality given that *realitas* as Tom and I have both pointed out is not the same as being (existence).<< As much as I like it when you agree with me, Bill, I have to say that technically, that's not quite correct. Degrees of reality are about being, but only insofar as it is considered in realitas. My reading of Kant is that the degrees of reality are about being vis a vis the realm of essences, properties, qualities, predicates, etc., where the principles of negation and contradiction apply. As such, such degrees are only applicable in realitas as Heidegger's totality of "possible thing-determinations." Being as existence, actuality, the haecceity of things, would not permit of degree - they either are or are not. As Kierkegaard, in agreement with Kant on this point, says, "A fly, when it is, has just as much being as the god; … the stupid comment I write here has just as much being as Spinoza’s profundity …. " As for Descartes's degrees of reality, this probably points to the fact you have already mentioned, that he seems to "smudge" this difference between quiddity and existence/haecceity. This is interesting, b/c he clearly differentiates b/t the ideas of God and the formal reality of God - hence his need for causation as a middle term.

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  20. BV Avatar
    BV

    Tom writes, >> Degrees of reality are about being, but only insofar as it is considered in realitas.<< You need to explain that. As it stands it is not clear what you mean. You have to realize that I do not distinguish being from existence, but I do distinguish between existence and essence (quiddity or whatness in the broad sense). For Kant, realitas = quidditas. A real predicate, then is a quidditative determination. Kierkegaard and Kant are 'on the same page' as the fly remark indicates. What makes Medieval philosophy so murky, and Descartes too to the extent that he relies on Medieval conceptuality, is the blurring of the distinction between quiddity and existence, and perhaps at the same time that between quiddity and haecceity. It is clear in Kierkegaard that existence is intimately tied to haecceity (nonqualitative thisness). His beef against Hegel is that there is no place for the existing individual (S.K. for example) in the Swabian's system. The existing individual is vaporized as it were in the bloodless ballet of categories, to borrow a phrase from F H Bradley.

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  21. Tom Tillett Avatar
    Tom Tillett

    Bill << For Kant, realitas = quidditas. A real predicate, then is a quidditative determination.>>
    Yes. And it is in a quidditative determination in realitas in which degrees of reality may be assessed. To paraphrase something I read, predicates in reality/quiddity are subject to affirmation, negation, and gradation, such as Kant’s remark that the sun is 200,000 times brighter than the moon. Being as existence is not a predicate and permits no degrees. Hence, my correction between you and John that “degrees of being” are more aptly put as “degrees of reality (realitas/quidditas).”
    >> “Degrees of reality is about being, but only insofar as it is considered in realitas.” You need to explain that. As it stands it is not clear what you mean … You have to realize that I do not distinguish being from existence<< I was referring to being as existence. A quidditative real predicate is about a being or existence, but as quidditative, it is in the realm of realitas (as you said, realitas = quidditas). >>What makes Medieval philosophy so murky, and Descartes too to the extent that he relies on Medieval conceptuality, is the blurring of the distinction between quiddity and existence<< Correct. Especially so in respect to "being." In my early years, I understood being in the modern, existence, sense, but got confused in reading older philosophies until I realized they were talking more about essences or some blend of essences and existence. Kierkegaard, by the way, refers to essences and existence as "beings", but is clear that he considers them both ontologically real but quite distinct. In this and other ways, he incorporated older philosophical concepts into modernity. >>His beef against Hegel is that there is no place for the existing individual (S.K. for example) in the Swabian’s system.<< Yes, but no less important for SK is that Hegel left no place for a transcendent God. He wanted to free both from the strictures of the Hegelian system and at the same time, preserve the essential individual relationship in freedom between a man and God. To do so, he developed a set of philosophical commitments (not a theology) with which to critique Hegel and support the reality of the existing individual and God and their relationship. He very much considered his philosophical commitments to be important innovations within the philosophical conversations of his time. He was disappointed that his work was not better received (and in many cases, completely ignored). But that was doubtless because he insisted on couching his philosophy in an artful play of irony, humor, aporia, and other literary tools in service of his larger commitment to indirect communication as the only metaphysical (and moral) approach to other human beings. SK's philosophical commitments, by the way, seem to keep recurring or are suggested in various puzzles or issues in your blog; hence my tiresome references to SK in the comments on seemingly unrelated posts.

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  22. Tom Tillett Avatar
    Tom Tillett

    Bill & John: But back to the Cartesian degrees of reality and causation. We are all, I take it, in agreement that Descartes fudges the distinction b/t essence and existence. So, why does he not just fudge the distinction between objective ideas about God and the formal reality of God and be done with the whole issue? John seems to be saying something like this above when he says that
    >> … if objective reality is not really a distinct kind of reality, then it is not clear to me how or why it would be subject to Descartes’s causal principle in the first place. If there is only formal reality to account for, my idea of God is easily accounted for.<< This seems important to me in understanding Descartes's argument. As far as I can understand it, ideas of reality in general are all representations of a formal reality. So why does Descartes think that there needs to be a special argument connecting objective ideas of God (with the highest degree of reality) with that of the formal reality of God?

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  23. BV Avatar
    BV

    Tom,
    Thanks for your comments.
    I have been studying Martial Gueroult, a most impressive Descartes scholar. There is a wealth of distinctions that need to be clarified before we can profitably continue this discussion. I’ll post something at the top of the queue before too long.
    So Tom, are you a grad student in phil? If you are so inclined, say something about yourself.

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  24. Tom Tillett Avatar
    Tom Tillett

    I’ll look forward to that post. I have in mind an answer that involves a fairly generic Platonic scheme, but would rather get a rationale more specific to Descartes.
    Grad student? My school days are well behind me. I hesitate to re-count my background in all of this because it is a rather thin resume.
    I majored in philosophy at a large, state university, whose only advantage was that no one majored in philosophy at the time and the department was about 7 or 8 full-time professors to 6 majors. It made for a very intimate and rewarding learning experience in which I caught the philosophy bug, particularly around issues of epistemology.
    My course of study followed the standard philosophy timeline, but my most serious grounding from those days was in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. A new hire was the top student out of Princeton (he couldn’t find a better job), and the first course he offered was on the CPR. It was an intensive study, with only about 5 students, all philosophy majors, in which he took us through the CPR from start to finish. It was about 30 pages a week, with a very focused and guided discussion on each reading.
    The rest of my education has come in a personal reading program. I re-acquired the philosophy bug well after graduation, and a couple of decades ago, I began carving out “free time” from 5:00 to 7:00 am before the children got up. For about ten years, I only read primary sources, predominantly Kierkegaard, but also using Kierkegaard as a kind of gateway into various authors in modern, post-modern, literary, and other current philosophic and theological trends. It was all very unsystematic, which became nearly chaotic in the last decade when I discovered the academic articles on the internet, predominantly the random, free stuff academia.edu would send me periodically.
    I am currently trying to focus my reading more and plug some large gaps. My first comments when I discovered your blog got me back into Kant, as well my discovery of Ronald Green’s books on the Kantian influence in Kierkegaard. I just finished reading, for instance, the 2017 Cambridge Guide to the CPR, and plan on re-reading it (and some other things) a few more times. Kant touches on so many things …
    I am sure that’s more than you wanted to know, but there it is. Again, I look forward to your further postings on Descartes.

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  25. BV Avatar
    BV

    Tom,
    Thanks for the report. I read it all with considerable interest. Who was the new hire out of Princeton?
    Green’s books (plural) on the Kantian influence on S. K.? I’ve got one of them. Is there more than one?
    All the best to you. I’ll have something to say about Descartes before too long.

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  26. Tom Tillett Avatar
    Tom Tillett

    The new hire: I was intentionally vague about that. I don’t want to go into much detail because, out of respect for your blog, I originally recorded my real name. But I live a quiet life with some heavy family responsibilities and would not want the real world to intrude on our little fortress of solitude.
    But I will tell you a little more about that new hire. He was not expecting much when he signed on to a 2nd tier university in a state university system. So, he was surprised and excited by the quality of the interactions he found in that first class. But then we all graduated and the bloom wore off. After a few years, he went back to some Ivy League law school, graduated top in his class, and forged a very successful career in constitutional law with a focus on municipal finance. From the glorious heights to the mundane, you might say.
    Green also wrote “Kant and Kierkegaard on Time and Eternity,” 2011 Mercer University Press. Green makes a good case in both books, although he is a bit too schematic in some places. It is a significant part of SK’s arguments that he actively avoided the schematic. Green’s thesis may also be overstated to some extent; SK takes off from many different threads, some of which may only parallel Kantian formulas.

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  27. BV Avatar
    BV

    Thanks, Tom. I understand your reticence. And thanks for the Green reference. Will head to Amazon pronto.

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