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ABSTRACT
This article shows that Descartes’ ontological argument in Meditation V is needed to ground essential distinctions, particularly the mind/body distinction. It does this by tracing out Descartes’ distinction between two types of falsity, and therefore truth, and the implications for the claim that all clear and distinct ideas are true. Clear and distinct ideas are formally true insofar as they represent true and immutable natures (actual essences). I argue that Descartes’ ontological argument shows that existence is an essential property of God, rather than simply that God exists, a point supported by the potential objections Descartes himself raises. Insofar as God is perfect, God is unchangeable; insofar as existence is an essential property of God, God always exists. Insofar as God is the cause of true and immutable natures, the perfection and essential existence of God are necessary and sufficient to ground the real distinction between mind and body.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Cottingham, “Sceptical Detachment,” 49.
2. Hereafter all references in the text are to the Oeuvres de Descartes, edited by Adam and Tannery, cited as AT, followed by volume and page numbers; Philosophical Writings of Descartes, translated by Cottingham, Stoothoff, and Murdoch, cited as CSM, followed by volume and page numbers; and Philosophical Writings: The Correspondence, translated by Cottingham, Stoothoff, Murdoch, and Kenny, cited as CSMK, followed by page number.
If Descartes held that all existence is of a single kind, namely, actual existence, as the French translation of the Meditations suggests (CSM II, 45 n.), then the ontological argument would also prove that God actually exists. I hope to show, however, that the focus of the argument is on the essentiality of existence of God understood as a perfect being. All the philosophical problems that attend to the ontological argument as simply an argument for God’s existence are present if one takes the argument to show that existence is an essential property of God, and I shall pass over those issues without comment. Of course, there are those who hold that Descartes did not take existence to be of a single kind, that he distinguished between necessary and contingent (possible) existence (e.g., Nolan, “The Ontological Argument”), and there is textual evidence that Descartes recognized such a distinction (see Principles I, §§14–15, AT VIIIA, 10; CSM I, 197–98; First Replies AT VII, 116; CSM II, 83; AT VII, 118–19; CSM II, 84–85, where Descartes is concerned with the “power to create itself or maintain itself in existence”; Second Replies, AT VII, 152; CSM II, 108; AT VII, 163; CSM II, 115; AT VII, 166–67; CSM II, 117; Fifth Replies, AT VII, 382–83; CSM II, 262–63). If Descartes understands ‘necessary existence’ to entail something more than actual existence at all times―what I call ‘essential existence’―then commentators must show precisely what more that entails. I shall proceed as if Descartes understands ‘necessary existence’ to be synonymous with ‘existence is an essential property’.
3. In my discussion of Descartes’ real distinction between mind and body in Meditation VI (AT VII, 78; CSM II, 54), I took the remark to Arnauld seriously and attempted to relate that discussion to its antecedents in Meditations III–V; see Flage, “Descartes and the Real Distinction.” What I didn’t do is show the role that the ontological argument plays in supporting the real distinction. I shall attempt to remedy that shortcoming.
4. Someone might cite an exception to this claim. In the Second Replies Descartes alludes to the material truth of arguments (AT VII, 151; CSM II, 107), that is, arguments with true premises. Our concern will be with the truth of ideas and the truth of judgments. Hence, the apparent exception may be ignored.
5. But omnibenevolence is not included. The description of God is virtually repeated in paragraph 23 (AT VII, 45; CSM II, 31), although the replacement of such terms as ‘omnipotent’ with ‘supremely powerful’ might be taken as a clarification of the ‘omni-’ prefix. Here, as before, there is no allusion to benevolence.
6. If Descartes’ discussion of the idea of the self in Meditation II (AT VII, 26–27; CSM II, 20)―his whittling away the elements of thought that might be related to the body―is a paradigm of the clarification of an idea (the idea of a thinking thing is the paradigm of a clear and distinct idea, AT VII, 35, CSM II, 24), then we may reasonably contend that the clarification of an idea consists in the reduction of an idea of a thing from a kind of thing having many properties to one having few, or, ideally, a single property. The idea of God as a perfect and infinite being subsumes all the omni-attributes under the notion of perfection. This implies that, as perfections, there are no real differences―only conceptual differences―among the omni-attributes of God. This is a long-standing theological contention. In Proslogium, Chapter 18, Anselm discusses the unity of God (Anselm, Major Works, 99). Insofar as God is one thing, the various attributes of God are not proper parts of God: they cannot exist apart from one another and are, therefore, not properly distinct from one another. So, the history of the ontological argument seems to provide a precedent for the kind of reasoning I believe is found in Descartes.
7. Cf. Flage and Bonnen, Descartes and Method.
8. I leave this question open, but see Flage and Bonnen, Descartes and Method, 253–57.
9. Substances retain identity through a change in modes. These are ordinary changes, such as changes in color. Substances can retain identity through a change in qualities, for example, the butterfly is the same thing that was once a caterpillar. Attributes are essential properties; a change in attribute entails a change in substance.
10. It is worthy of notice that Descartes acknowledges two kinds of demonstration: analysis and synthesis (AT VII, 155; CSM II, 110). Synthesis is the standard deductive method found in Euclid’s Elements and Spinoza’s Ethics. When discussing what can be known regarding the essential properties of triangles, Descartes could be understood as making the standard Euclidean moves: we are deducing properties given a certain set of axioms, postulates, and definitions. Some of these theorems prove and explain what was already “known” by experience, such as that the longest side of a triangle is opposite its greatest angle, while others draw out facts that were not immediately recognized, such as that the interior angles of a triangle equal 180° (cf. AT II, 64; CSM II, 45). Analysis is the means by which we discover and prove these basic elements. It consists of two phases. The upward phase, by which we discover the elements, is comparable to the best explanation. The downward phase―the proof of the analysis―draws out the implications of those basic principles (see Flage and Bonnen Descartes and Method, 13–71; Hintikka and Remes, The Method of Analysis). The proof of the analysis is deductive insofar as it draws out what must be the case given what we already know. Insofar as it is based on verbal propositions, it sometimes appears to lack the evidence and rigor of a proof in formal logic, but this is also true in a purely synthetic system. For example, some of Spinoza’s demonstrations leave the reader puzzling over what Spinoza saw in some of his basic elements. So, Descartes can argue that, since clear and distinct ideas are formally true (AT VII, 62; CSM II, 45), since ideas are formally true insofar as they represent nonmental entities (AT VII, 37; CSM II, 26), and since clear and distinct ideas represent essences, there must be actual essences, true and immutable natures. Similarly, insofar as geometric propositions are known by demonstration, insofar as we know that we cannot retain all elements of a lengthy demonstration in our minds at a single time (cf. AT X, 368–70; CSM I, 14–15), and insofar as God is not a deceiver, we must reach the (surprising?) conclusion that God must guarantee that our memories of clear and distinct ideas are correct (AT VII, 69–70; CSM II, 48). If Descartes was using the method of analysis in the Meditations―as he says he is (AT VII, 156; CSM II, 111)―then we should expect all the conclusions in the last three Meditations to follow deductively from his earlier conclusions, particularly from the conclusion that God is not a deceiver. Nonetheless, since “there are many truths which―although it is vital to be aware of them―this method often scarcely mentions, since they are transparently clear to anyone who gives them his attention” (AT II, 156; CSM II, 110), we shall sometimes have to carefully ferret out his missing premises.
11. As we shall see shortly, he later alludes to the true and immutable nature of God, AT VII, 68; CSM II, 47.
12. My concern is with what these arguments can prove, assuming they are sound or at least cogent. I shall not evaluate the arguments themselves.
13. Aquinas, Summa, Part 1, Question 2, Article 3. Hereafter abbreviated as (P), (Q), and (A).
14. I leave open the question whether Descartes’ discussion at AT VII, 48–49; CSM II, 33 constitutes Descartes’ account of the nature of time (cf. Levy, “Was Descartes a Temporal Atomist?”) or is little more than a thought experiment (cf. Flage and Bonnen, “Descartes: The Matter of Time”).
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Daniel E. Flage
Daniel E. Flage, PhD, is the author of Berkeley’s Doctrine of Notions (1987), David Hume’s Theory of Mind (1990), Descartes and Method, with Clarence A. Bonnen (1999), and Berkeley (2014), and numerous articles.