MEDITATION ON THE FIRST MEDITATIONrepo.komazawa-u.ac.jp/opac/repository/all/29139/rgs001-05.pdf ·...

－ 109－

D. Morgan Pierce

MEDITATION ON THE FIRST MEDITATION

D. Morgan Pierce

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Methexis .............................................................................................110Hylomorphism...................................................................................112Substance Ontology ..........................................................................112Veridical Illusion ...............................................................................122Teleological Explanation...................................................................124Homogeneity of Cognition................................................................127Essence and Existence ......................................................................129Causality ............................................................................................130Innate Ideas .......................................................................................142Reference ...........................................................................................147Abstraction ........................................................................................150BIBLIOGRAPHY.............................................................................163

My main inquiry concerned why Descartes was motivated to break with the natural

philosophy of Aristotle and scholasticism; what alteration of philosophic premises

in his scientifi c project made the divergence propitious? Presumably this engendered

the famous Cartesian epistemological turn from ontology to epistemology. These

presumptions now appear to me to be false. Although Descartes intentionally

－ 110－


abandoned Aristotelianism, he saw nothing defective in pursuing an ontological

account, nor had he deliberately supplanted ontology with epistemology. The

epistemological turn, though unintended by Descartes, was indeed a reality, and in fact

the greatest consequence of Cartesian rationalism was to suppress substance ontology

for the following four centuries.

Methexis

The Platonic approach to scientifi c knowledge built upon the premise that universals

are conceptual truths; although discernment of them may be occasioned upon a

particular instance, once recognized, the necessity one apperceives in the universal is

not by virtue of anything in the instance as such, but by a necessity implicit in bringing

it to conception; the particular that one perceives is existentially contingent, but the

necessity perceived in the structure of the particular is immutability. This is perhaps

the more straightforward sense of Plato’s assertion that the Forms are transcendent.

Mutability of the empirical world had suggested that knowledge of such a world

would render knowledge as transient and unreliable as the objects of knowledge. The

particular as such cannot be an object of knowledge because it is not characterized by

necessity.

⇒

That there is no science of the accidental is obvious; for all science is either of

that which is always or of that which is for the most part.1

The immutability of universals, now characterized as transcendent forms, provide the

only account for scientifi c knowledge of transient things.

⇒

1 Cf, Barnes, Jonathan, editor; The Complete Works of Aristotle, Princeton University Press,

1985; Metaphysics, Volume II, Book E, 2, 1027a20,p. 1622.

－ 111－

D. Morgan Pierce

Since, among the things which are, some are always in the same state and

are of necessity (nor necessity in the sense of compulsion but that which

means the impossibility of being otherwise), and some are not of necessity

nor always, but for the most part, this is the principle and this is the cause

of the existence of the accidental; for that which is neither always nor for

the most part, we call accidental.2

The Platonic approach accounted for permanence in empirical knowledge but did

not acquit itself uncontroversially of its concept of participation (methexis); if an object

was knowable because of its participation in transcendent Forms, and knowledge was

primarily of Forms, then this left the impression that the empirical world is not the real

world, a conclusion with which Plato was comfortable. Assume that a horse exists and

is known by its participation in the Form horse; we recognize the horse because of its

affi nity to the Form. But if we recognize that the Form and the horse resemble each

other, then there must be a third thing in virtue of which one has the basis to judge their

similarity, and this may reiterate ad infi nitum.

Consequently Aristotle saw no benefi t in hypothesizing a second order of existence,

one of transcendent Forms, to account for empirical knowledge. To preclude the infi nite

regression of the Third Man Argument, Aristotle needed to posit the immanent presence

of the universal element in the empirical objects themselves. Thus a horse is such

because the form horse constitutes the object in question; otherwise the form has no

existence. He maintained the necessity of the universal in knowledge, supposing with

Plato that universals are the only object of knowledge, but posited that such universals

exist only in sensory particulars, without methexis. Such universals are apprehended

not by intellectual intuition of a separate noetic world but by composition from several


1985; Metaphysics, Volume II, Book E2, 1026b27-33, p.1621.

－ 112－


particular judgments. This relieves us of a second abstract world of forms, doubles

of the objects in the empirical world, but this eventuates in the tentativeness of any

assertion of universality: validity depends on the soundness of the particular judgments

from which the universal is composed. This is perhaps the sense of Aristotle’s dictum

that forms do not exist in transcendence: the form exists embedded in its instance.

Hylomorphism

Aristotle proposed that perception of the object occurs as the form of the object

impinges directly on the retina; the correspondence of idea and object is due to the

identity of form in the mind and body: hylomorphism. The embodied form in the

object passes as the same but disembodied form in the retina: this self same form that

communicates is termed by Aristotle the sensible species; it is the material by which

the intellect forms knowledge. The sensible species is not merely a modifi cation of

consciousness, because it is quite literally what inheres in the object as its substantial

form. As it is not a modifi cation of consciousness, but the thing itself, misperception

was precluded. The ancients and scholastics were able to adhere to a form of

ontological realism because their account of knowledge rested on epistemic realism;

the object in some way caused the perception of the object to be a copy of the object.

Despite variations this account of perception persisted in that there was no contending

theory to vie with this simplistic notion of mental causation. Ancient skepticism never

formulated a doubt of the existence of the external world. An account of perceptual

delusion was sought in the external conditions of perception, or in the ontological

structure of the object itself, but it was never proposed that the having of sensory

perception was itself a delusion.

Substance Ontology

All empirical things are composite particulars; any particular exists either as a

substance or in a substance. An attribute may determine what a substance is, or trivially

－ 113－

D. Morgan Pierce

describe it. If apple determines what its substance is, then the substance is an apple,

where it would sound incongruous to suppose that if the substance were red, that the

substance would be a red, or a redness. If on the other hand all attributes were

like red, then for instance saying that a substance is an apple would describe the

substance, but the substance would not be in itself an apple, well though it would be

apple-ish. The oddness of such expressions does not guarantee the accuracy of our

intuition, which may merely have shaped our linguistic usage to refl ect our habituated

psychological proclivities; the question is whether our language and intuition have

been formed by a real correlate in the object, or whether this linguistic distinction is

purely conceptualistic convention, with no support from the object spoken of. Aristotle

assumes a realist position by adverting that a predicate such as red cannot be a trope,

instantiated in existence, without dependence on an attribute such as apple, as can be

stated to exist without presupposing the existence of red:

⇒

And so one might raise the question whether “to walk” and “to be healthy” and

“to sit” signify in each case something that is, and similarly in any other

case of this sort; for none of them is either self-subsistent or capable of

being separated from substance, but rather, if anything, it is that which

walks or is seated or is healthy that is an existent thing. Now these are

seen to be more real because there is something defi nite which underlies

them; and this is the substance or individual, which is implied in such a

predicate; for "good" or "sitting" are not used without this. Clearly then it is

in virtue of this category that each of the others is. Therefore that which is

primarily and is simply (not is something) must be substance.3


1985; Metaphysics, Volume II, Book Z, 1, 1028a20-29, p.1623.

－ 114－


Substance is present in the predication of any type of being; every other instance of

being is expressed through its relation to substance. Whatever substance is, it will fulfi ll

the following requirements. It must be something, i.e. have a defi nite characteristic; it

will be a separate entity that supports whatever other things are presented as existing.

⇒

There are many senses in which a thing may be said to "be", but they are

related to one central point, one defi nite kind of thing, and are not

homonymous. Everything which is healthy is related to health, one thing

in the sense that it preserves health, another in the sense that it produces

it, another in the sense that it is a symptom of health, another because

it is capable of it. And that which is medical is relative to the medical art,

one thing in the sense that it processes it, another in the sense that it

is naturally adapted to it, another in the sense that it is a function of the

medical art. And we shall fi nd other words used similarly to these. So,

too, there are many cases in which a thing is said to be, but all refer to

one starting-point; some things are said to be because their substances,

others because they are affections of substance, others because they are

a process towards substance, or destructions or privations or qualities of

substance, or productive or generative of substance, or of things which

are relative to substance, or negations of some of these things or of

substance to itself. It is for this reason that we say even of non-being that

it is non-being. As, then, there is one science which deals with all healthy

things, the same applies in the other cases also. For not only in the case

of things which have one common notion does the investigation belong to

one science, but also in the case of things which are related to one nature;

for even these in a sense have one common notion. It is clear then that

it is the work of one science also to study all other things that are, qua

being.- But everywhere science deals chiefl y with that which is primary,

－ 115－

D. Morgan Pierce

and on which the other things depend, and in virtue of which they get their

names. If, then, this is substance, it is of substances that the philosopher

must grasp the principles and the causes. 4

Accordingly substance is a composite of matter and two types of form, substantial and

accidental, out of which only substantial is knowable, while matter and the composite

plus form are knowable anaclitically.

Among the three instances, form is prior in being to both matter and the composite.

⇒

Therefore if the form is prior to the matter and more real, it will be prior to the

compound also for the same reason. We have now outlined the nature of

substance, showing that it is that which is not predicated of a subject, but

of which all else is predicated. 5

Substrate connotes form, matter, and composite, of which form is the primary

instance; in other words, matter and composite have being only by their dependence

on the form, because form is their determination. Similarly, accidents have being only

through their dependence on substance, as refl ected through the circumstance that the

defi nition of an accident always includes reference to substance, as refl ected through

the circumstance that the defi nition of an accident includes its substance, whereas the

defi nition of a substance does not include reference to its accidents. In consequence

accidents are known only by ad hoc perception; the accident merely exists or merely

does not exist, but since it is not entailed by the essential qualities of a substance the


1985; Metaphysics, Volume II, Book , 2, 1003 a33-b18, p. 1584.


1985; Metaphysics, Volume II, Book Z, 3, 1029a5-9, p. 1625.

－ 116－


accident cannot be captured in scientifi c knowledge.

Substance is a unity of these factors. The substantial form (i.e., not the mind) functions

to unify the components in such a way that the components metamorphose from an

aggregate to a particular.6 The particulars of which substance is composed cannot exist

except in the substance; the substance abolishes the aggregate of particulars by forming

a unit, e.g. we do not perceive a red in the apple, but a red apple. The red is never

a this in the manner of the substance, apple.

The substance thus has its primacy in its logical sense because it is the entity on

which any other determination of being depends, but in this role substance cannot be

equated with a universal, because substance must be a this while the universal is

common to many:

⇒

While “being” is expressed in so many ways, it is obvious that of these primary

being is the one-is, which signifi es the entity. For when we say of what

quality a thing is, we say that it is good or bad, not that it is three cubits

long or that it is a man; but when we state what it is, we do not say "white"

or "hot" or "three cubits long," but a "man" or a "God." And all other things

are called beings because they are, some of them, quantities of being in

this primary sense, others qualities of it, others affections of it, and others

some other determination of it.7

All other instances of being are such only when they are modifi cations of

substance.8

6 Cf. Scaltsas, Theodore; Substances and Universals in Aristotle's Metaphysics, Cornell

University Press, Ithaca, 1994, p. 4.


1985; Metaphysics, Volume II, Book Z, 1, 1028 b13-19. p. 1623.

－ 117－

D. Morgan Pierce

All other types of being can be only as modifi cations of substance, but substance

itself cannot be a universal, in the regard in which apple is true of many substances.

But it appears that, if substance is a composition of nothing but universals, it should be

impossible for substance to be a particular. If the constituents are equally universals, it

should appear just as possible to refer to the substance just as legitimately as a red as

to refer to it as an apple; why not use the nominative form of red and the adjectival

form of apple? If the linguistic preference indicates that the substance is identical with

apple, but not identical with red, then it is necessary to account for this. Supposing

Apple is true of many particulars, and red is true of many particulars, why should

linguistic modifi cation of apple allow it to name the substance in which apple inheres,

but no such modifi cation allows a predicate such as red to name the substance in which

it inheres? If the substance is not identical with red as it is identical with apple, then

does a difference of inherence account for this, considering that basically, apple and

red, being universals, are both incapable of being identical with a particular.

Furthermore, predications can be made of the ultimate substratum, i.e. the matter,

or of the substance, i.e. composite of substantial form and its matter. Matter as such

has no characteristic, so why does it need to be compounded with form to constitute

substance? Inasmuch as matter is a lack of characteristic, how can matter contribute

anything to substance? If a form were substance, then there would be only one

substance for every form, as is the case in Platonism. However, many things instantiate

a form; presumably the embodiment of the same form in indefi nite matter accounts for

the plural instantiation of one and the same form. The substantial form, being common

to many substances, cannot be what makes the substance a separate this, while the

matter of the substance, being as such indefi nite, cannot individuate by itself because it

imports no characteristic to separate it from other substances.


1985; Metaphysics, Volume II, Book Z, 1, 1020b11-12, p. 1611.

－ 118－


Logically regarded, substance must be that of which all other things are predicated; for

instance, as apple is predicated of something, the something should be substance

more strongly that apple, because it receives apple as predication. This something

would then be the primary instance of substrate, because it receives all predications but

is not itself predicated of anything. In its primary instance substrate is matter, prima

materia, because matter is that which in itself has absolutely no determination; it alone

underlies all predications. This appears to make sense, because, whereas red can be

predicated of an individual apple, red cannot be predicated of the Form apple, for that

would entail that all apples are a priori red. However, the material substrate, of which

all things are predicated, is, therefore, in itself nothing. Not even spatial dimensions or

weight characterize matter per se, because they as well are merely predicated of matter.

Since however matter once stripped of its predications is not even a particular thing,

it is impossible that it should be substance, because substance performs the function

of giving unity to the manifold of the object’s qualities; substance must therefore

be a separate this here, but as matter has no per se characteristic, it is incapable of

providing unity and separation. Substance must be a separate this here :

⇒

There are several senses in which a thing may be said to be, as we pointed

out previously in our book on the various senses of words; for in one

sense it means what a thing is or a “this”, and in another sense it means

that a thing is of a certain quality or quantity or has some other predicate

asserted of it.9

Matter cannot exist separately because no determination marks it off from anything

else.


1985; Metaphysics, Volume II, Book Z, 1, 1028a10-13 p. 1623.

－ 119－

D. Morgan Pierce

⇒

And so one might raise the question whether “to walk” and “to be healthy”

and “to sit” signify in each case something that is, and others some

determination of it. And so one might raise the question whether “to walk”

and “to be healthy” and “to sit” signify in each case something that is,

and similarly in any other case of tis sort; for none of them is either self-

subsistent or capable of being separated from substance, but rather, if

anything, it is that which walks or is seated or is healthy that is an existent

thing. Now these are seen to be more real because there is something

defi nite which underlies them; and this is the substance or individual,

which is implied in such a predicate; for “good” or “sitting” are not used

without this. Clearly then it is in virtue of this category that each of the

others is.10

Inasmuch as pure matter cannot be a this here, it cannot be individual; it therefore

cannot be the principle of individuality for a substance. As some per se characteristic

must constitute the substrate as substance, it appears that in some way the substantial

sense of substrate must be either form, or a composite of form and matter.

⇒

We have now outlined the nature of substance showing that it is that which

is not predicated of a subject, but of which all else is predicated…The

statement itself is obscure, and further, on this view, matter becomes

substance. For if this is not substance, it is beyond us to say what else

is. When all else is taken away evidently nothing but matter remains. For

of the other elements some are affections, products, and capacities of



－ 120－


bodies, while when length, breadth, and depth are taken away we see

nothing left except that which is bounded by these, whatever it be; so

that to those who consider the question thus matter alone must seem to

be substance. By matter I mean that which in itself is neither a particular

thing nor of a certain quality nor assigned to any other of the categories

by which being is determined. For there is something of which each of

these is predicated, so that its being is different from that of each of the

predicates; for the predicates other than substance are predicated of

substance, while substance is predicated of matter. Therefore the ultimate

substratum is of itself neither a particular thing nor of a particular quality

nor otherwise positively characterized; nor yet negatively, for negations

also will belong to it only by accident. For those who adopt this view,

then, it follows that matter is substance. But this is impossible; for both

separability and individuality are thought to belong chiefl y to substance,

rather than matter.11

But if form imparts a characteristic to substance, it cannot be what makes substance

a separate individual, because the form, being universal, would then be what is

common to several individuals. On the other hand matter cannot individuate because

it carries no characteristic by which to identify substance. The Form cannot resolve

this quandary because predication of a form of a substance entails identifi cation of the

substance being predicated, but this tactic is excluded by the premise that matter has

no defi nite characteristic prior to predication of its form. This presents the hypothesis

of a certain form that could not be predicated of substance, inasmuch as the predication

would imply a real distinction between the two, but rather that the substantial form be



－ 121－

D. Morgan Pierce

the substance, without possible distinction. This form, termed the essence, would then

be structured as the substantial subject:

⇒

The absurdity of the separation would appear also if one were to assign

a name to each of the essences; for there would be another essence

besides the original one, e.g. to the essence of horse there will be a

second essence. Yet why should not some things be their essences from

the start, since essence is substance? But not only are a thing and its

essence one, but the formula of them both is also the same.12

In effect, a double meaning of matter is introduced. A secondary sense of substrate

signifi es a substrate of which all attributes are predicated. Since a substrate with

no intrinsic character cannot exist, this second substrate signifi es a composite of

pure matter with the fi rst form. All accidental qualities are predicated of the second

substrate, while the second substrate is predicated of fi rst substrate.

⇒For there is something of which each of these is predicated, so that its being is

different from that of each of the predicates; for the predicates other than

substance are predicated of substance, while substance is predicated of

matter.13

The predication of Form of the fi rst substrate has no treatment in the logical context,

but in the physical context prima materia is indispensable. As prime matter, substrate is


1985; Metaphysics, Volume II, Book Z, 6, 1031b28-1032a1, p.1629.


1985; Metaphysics, Volume II, Book Z, 3, 1029 a22-24, p. 1625.

－ 122－


matter without any determination whatever, whereas, in the logical treatment, substrate

is the composite form-matter. The composite is the substrate of accidents, able to

provide a this for predication, while the undetermined fi rst substrate fails in this, but

is entailed for the conceptual accountability of substantial change.

⇒

As the substrate and the essence and the compound of these are called

substance, so also is the universal. About two of these we have spoken;

about the essence and about the substrate, of which we have said that it

underlies in two senses, either being a “this” ? - which is the way in which

an animal underlies its attributes-, or as the matter underlies the complete

reality.14

Resulting senses of predication, accidental or essential, of primary matter or

substance, create the possibility of misappraising the attributes of the object. Moreover

the particularity of the substance is not a primitive given, but an as yet unexplained

result of the unifying property of the substantial form: attributes cannot exist except

as belonging to a substance. Consequently, ultimate simples are never given as such

in empirical intuition, but arise only in consequence of abstraction from the substance

to which they belong. Where Aristotle would puzzle over how a plurality of forms and

matter combine nevertheless to be one substance (not an aggregate), Descartes refl ects

through the same puzzlement as to how ideas are combined in the mind.

Veridical Illusion

The new attribution of misperception to epistemological factors was consequent

to the Cartesian formulation: what we see are mental images. Once a certain kind of


1985; Metaphysics, Volume II, Book Z, 13, 1038 b1-7, p. 1639.

－ 123－

D. Morgan Pierce

image is mentally formed with the additional illusion that it is primarily perceived as

outside, as the real object, in consequence of the mental handling of sense data, then

we do not see an image; rather, the image that we see is the real object. Given that

this veridical image is now perceived as being the real object, out there, it becomes

appropriate to understand veridical perception (or misperception) in terms of the mental

production of this veridical image rather than as a consequence of the ontological

structure of the real object.

Regarding the ontological structure of the object, perhaps the greatest illusion of

all is the exteriority of images. When we see objects, what we see is not images, but

objects; looking at a dog, I do not fi rst see an image, and then processing through a

refl ective act infer that it is a veridical perception of a dog outside my mind. It is the

reverse; I see a dog, and only by the most counterintuitive refl ection do I conclude

that the dog I see is in reality a mental image I formed and consequently modifi ed so

as to make it appear to be outside. While most of my images of things I do receive as

images, not as veridical perception, in neither case do I need an additional refl ection

to constitute it as one or the other. Yet, all of my veridical perceptions are images,

not objects themselves; a supposedly veridical perception is simply an image that

is so constituted that I cannot help but receive it not as an image, but as the original

in the external world. This formula is incomplete inasmuch as it should assert the

exact identity of the image with that of which it is the image; but given the Cartesian

premises, there are no truth conditions for being the same, until it can be devised

how a mental image represents. I fi rst become conscious of my images as real, external

objects, although upon refl ection, perhaps on the occasion of incoherence, I redact my

external, real object as at root merely my haywire mental image.

The Aristotelian sensible species, by the new Cartesian standard, is not something

that is patently present amongst my received sensory impressions; four legs, two ears,

a tail etc are among sensory data, but the recognition of such data and not others has no

sensory correlate. As idea, sensible species is the form disembodied, while in the object

－ 124－


it is the same form, but embodied. This manner of thinking emphasizes the conformity

of thought to object: nihil in intellectu quod non in sensu fuerit. If all thought is an

isomorphic manufacture from sense data, no reference to a non-sensory source is

requisite to explain knowledge. If the hypothesis of sensible species is admitted, then

it suggests kindred scholastic properties such as fi nal cause, also without sensory

evidence. Under the Cartesian principle that anything we know must be mediated by

self-evident sensibilia, such Aristotelian terms associated with sensible species ought to

be evidenced in that of which we are plainly conscious.15 Assuming that knowledge

must build upon what is originally given, our representative ideas of things, rather

than of things themselves, are the only infallible basis of what knowledge, if any, is

possible. The ancient-scholastic conception that knowledge is an act of conformity of

the intellect to the thing then has no basis.

Teleological Explanation

Descartes shifted the idea of knowledge from the objects to the ideas we have of

objects. Given the Aristotelian conclusion that essences must inhere in particular

objects, essences were not predicated of particular objects; they were particular

objects; this tenet was necessary to avoid supposing that the essence, predicated of the

particular, meant that the particular was something separate from the essence, leading

to infi nite regress. Instead, the substratum was to be identifi ed by its essence, and

without that essence, substratum also did not exist.

To have knowledge of some object was to attain knowledge of its essence, which,

embodying the fi nal cause, explained the unique development of every individual.

15 Moyal makes a precipitate leap to suppose that objects must conform to the operations of

the intellect, but this might be true only if the statement were more refi ned than as it appears

in this context. cf. Georges J. D. Moyal, "Descartes Method: From things to Ideas", in Renée

Descartes: Critical Assessments, Vol. I, ed. Georges D. J. D. Moyal, Rutledge, 1991, p. 20.

－ 125－

D. Morgan Pierce

⇒

All the things mentioned plainly differ from things which are not constituted

by nature. For each of them has within itself a principle of motion and of

stationariness (in respect of place, or of growth and decrease, or by way of

alteration). On the other hand, a bed and a coat and anything else of that sort,

qua receiving these designations. i.e. in so far as they are products of art- have

no innate impulse to change. But in so far as they happen to be composed of

stone or of earth or of a mixture of the two, they do have such an impulse, and

just to that extent- which seems to indicate that nature is a principle or cause of

being moved and of being at rest in that to which it belongs primarily, in virtue

of itself and not accidentally.16

Natural objects are guided by an internal principle of growth, whereas artifacts have

no internal principle except for the matter from which they are composed. Aristotle

allowed for substances to undergo causal change by mutual infl uence, but in the

long term a substance’s development was governed by an internal principle, not

fundamentally by affection from other objects, and the substance would develop into

a defi nitive terminus, insofar as the substance was not violently deterred by external

causation.

Teleology stressed that different methods of investigation were germane to different

types of object; one could not approach mathematics with the same methods as one

applied to biology or meteorology. This meant that causal interaction could be only a

quite limited explanatory principle; authentic explanation depended on grasping the

essence of each substance taken in isolation, and ultimately grasping the essence of the

object was equivalent to grasping its telos. Whatever we know about polar bears does

16 Cf. Barnes, Jonathan, editor; The Complete Works of Aristotle, Princeton University Press,

1985; Physics, Volume I, Book II, 1, 192b12-22, p. 329.

－ 126－


not easily apply to the knowledge we might seek of tornadoes, because difference in

the manner of acquiring knowledge of different essences entails incommensurability

of knowledge obtained of one essence and that obtained of another. Commonality of

knowledge would be possible only if the principles of each object were not isolated

by virtue of different essences. Polar bears behave as they do because they are

governed by the fi nal cause of polar-bearness, whereas tornadoes are governed by

the fi nal cause of tornadoness; nothing from either will render light on the behavior

of the other. Inasmuch as common principles do not apply across essences, it would

be methodologically misfi red to attempt clarifi cation of unintelligible phenomena by

the discovery of interconnecting minute structures between different essences. The

explanatory gaps produced by teleological explanation gradually stocked the scholastic

cabinet with occult terms such as potentiality, act, disposition, essence, accident,

fi nal cause, prima material, etc., which gave accounts of those objectual phenomena

otherwise unexplained. What is meant by occult is that disposition, essence, act,

potential etc. were indispensable to fi ll gaps in our account of things on the basis of

scholastic substance philosophy, but were not intuitively evidenced in our sensory

observations of things; they were therefore posited, as if they were given outside of

sensory evidence, to maintain the coherence of Aristotelian substance theory.

Despite the groundlessness of the occult qualities of objects, the Aristotelian theory

presumes an immediate cognitive presence with the object in the place of the Cartesian

premise: we are merely acquainted with our received ideas of objects, never with

an immediate knowledge of objects unobscured by mediating ideas. The Cartesian

initiative is, therefore, a case of paradigm shift. One might persist in sustaining the

substance theory, but at the cost of introducing dubious postulates such as disposition,

fi nal cause etc. in order to sustain the coherence of the theory. The contemporary

astronomical postulation of epicycles needed to persist in describing planetary orbits

as perfect circles rather than as ellipses refl ects a cognate mentality. Or, one might

eliminate the occult qualities, insofar as sense experience does not support belief in

－ 127－

D. Morgan Pierce

their existence; this would destroy the substance theory for which they had become

indispensable supports. In their place one could then introduce Cartesian premises, but

since doing so introduces a new (insurmountable) problem, namely uncertainty over

whether we ever reliably experience the external world, one may reasonably wonder

whether supplanting the former substance theory is worth the price.

Homogeneity of Cognition

All of the substantive features of the object, insofar as intelligible in the scholastic

concept of substance, are unverifi able in the Cartesian context in which all knowledge

must be based upon our representative ideas of an object. The occult qualities of the

object were justifi ed preliminarily from the aporia that such qualities, and nothing

else, could account for certain features of empirical knowledge; though unaccountable

they were established by the fact that observed phenomena would have no account

if these principles were abolished. If on the other hand what is to our immediate

acquaintance not objects but exclusively our ideas of objects, then argument from

default fails. Substance, that in which occult qualities are supposed to inhere, is

suspended, and occult qualities cease to be pertinent when that which they presuppose

is in suspension. If the world is mediated solely through sensory ideas of things,

substance must be evidenced through sensibilia, which however do not evidence

substance.17 If, however, the notion of substance is insupportable, the notion that our

ideas represent things becomes perplexed (A: How do I know my idea represents the

world? B: There is no world. A: Yes, but how does my idea represent it?), even prior to

the question of the veracity of their representational function.

Different objects are not governed by internal rules (fi nal cause) different from

those of other substances, if different objects do not have different natures. The

17 cf. Georges J. D. Moyal, "Descartes Method: From Things to Ideas", in Renée Descartes:

Critical Assessments, Vol. I, ed. Georges D. J. D. Moyal, Rutledge, 1991, p. 19.

－ 128－


supposition of having a unique nature (essence) falls on the skeptical divide. Objects

are preliminarily uniform in nature insofar as Descartes supposes them all to be parts

of one uniform, homogenous space, subject entirely to uniform geometrical laws of

one space. If objects have natures, i.e. are unique substances with laws of movement

all of their own, this would need to be demonstrated a posteriori, i.e. after we construe

what objects are by a uniform geometry, solely from what we can construe from their

representative ideas.

Repudiating the Aristotelian division of essences, Descartes reduced the

knowledge of objects to a level at which all objects are the same, to their status as

conglomerations of sense data. Knowledge thus focused on ideas, i.e. to sensory

representations of objects. Prescinding from the Aristotelian intuition of essences as

the route to knowledge, our ideas, of whatever objects they may be, do not differ qua

representations; if a characteristic internal to our consciousness of an idea accounts

for how we make reference from it to polar bears and tornadoes, the characteristic of

reference should be the same in consciousness of all ideas. The Aristotelian teleology

(differences in the essences of objects entailed differences in knowledge acquisition for

objects of different sorts) would imply that knowledge of relations between different

essences is unobtainable, as the methods of their attainment are incommensurate. By

the supposition that objects are never directly known because of the physiological

mediacy of cognition, in the night all cows are black; since the natures of objects are

not directly accessible, the difference in nature between two essences is a matter of

indifference.18 Since both objects are accessible only through the representational ideas,

if at all, representation provides an undifferentiated methodology at the basis of

knowledge. The possibility that an epistemic quality discovered by refl ection on any

one representational idea might be true of all representations might then supply an

18 cf. Georges J. D. Moyal, "Descartes Method: From Things to Ideas", in Renee Descartes:


－ 129－

D. Morgan Pierce

epistemic homogeneity to all episodes of knowledge of the external world. When all

empirical observation is resolved into ultimate simples, barring in principle reliance on

occult qualities, these homogenous sense data appear without structure; how are these

data to be construed as collections of objects?

Knowledge acquisition would fi nd its account in the rules by which we manipulate

sense data, namely intuition and deduction. If all knowledge ultimately depends on

intuition and deduction, analysis of these functions would pertain to all genera of

sensory knowledge. Scholastic supposition of ultimate properties such as potentiality,

disposition, fi nal cause, etc. preserved a realism, inasmuch as they kept intact faith in

the direct knowledge of the external object, locating all the problems of knowledge in

the object’s ontological structure. Reduction of knowledge to sensibilia, rather than to

Forms, eliminates the scholastic machinery, but shifts knowledge from objects to ideas

of objects.19

Essence and Existence

A common theme in Aristotle and Descartes had been

E

(a) = Fa. If a substance (a) is

defi ned by a formula F, then any instance of (a) will be an instance of F; we identify

E

(a)

by F, by which F is understood to formulate the essence of (a). But at this point Descartes

diverges from Aristotle and the scholastics. Aristotelianism supposes the priority of the

knowledge of the existence of a substance over the knowledge of its essence. The

question an est precedes the question quid est, in which quid signifi es the essence of

a substance. Descartes, to the contrary, posits that quid est , knowledge of the essence

of a substance, necessarily precedes knowledge of whether the substance exists.20

19 cf. Georges J. D. Moyal, "Descartes Method: From Things to Ideas", in Renee Descartes:


20 Cf. Secada, Jorge; Cartesian Metaphysics The Scholastic Origins of Modern Philosophy,

Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 8.

－ 130－


According to Aristotle and his scholastic successors, one can know that (a) exists without

knowing that F is the essence of (a): {

E

(a) = Fa}. Recognition of (a)’s existence does

not depend on prior knowledge that F is (a)’s essence. In consequence it is impossible

to know that (a) is essentially F without a prior knowledge that (a) exists: existence

precedes essence. The thesis that one can know that (a) exists without knowing that (a)

is essentially F is however highly suspect, assuming that the form is the only method to

identify and refer to (a). It is important to notice that this position was taken posterior

to Aristotle’s distinction of essential and accidental attributes. Descartes to the

contrary proposes that it is impossible to know that (a) exists unless one knows that F

is the essence of (a); the essence, as the sole means to identify an (a), follows from the

original position taken by Socrates in the reminiscence argument: one cannot even

search for (a) unless one knows what (a) is, that one is searching for; possibly the

position is defective because it predates Aristotle’s distinction of attributes into

essential and accidental. The Aristotelian thesis partially explains why the scholastics

could assume the existentialist position, whereas we are left hanging as to why

Descartes took the essentialist position.

Causality

The radicalism in Descartes’ thought perhaps stems from his studies of optics.

Suppose that the object does not transmit its form (sensible species) to the retina;

suppose instead that sensory impressions are received by the retina, transferred through

a nervous system, and delivered to the brain, where a visual image is fi rst constituted,

and where, although the image is located in the brain, it is manufactured to appear to be

outside the brain, there from where the sensory data originated.

Assume that pain causally originates from an affection of my big toe. I do not

transparently perceive the causal interaction; I do not perceive the existence of the

material basis of the pain (combustion of the carbon-bearing elements of big toe

cells), the material basis of corporeal pain. Most importantly, I do not perceive a pain

－ 131－

D. Morgan Pierce

originating in my big toe, or feel the pain as it travels up my nerve cells into a pain

in the nerve ganglia of my lower back, traveling further as a felt pain up my spine

and fi nally feeling a big toe pain in a specifi c location of my brain. Whatever the big-

toe pain is, it apparently travels in code until it is transformed in my brain into a

manifest pain in my big toe. This would on the contrary fi t with the notion of sensible

species, which would not code in the transmission process and decode in the brain.

Since even feeling the pain does not convey a knowledge of the essence of pain, it is

obscure how I can know that (whether) the event in my big toe in any way resembles

the manufacture in the brain of sensed pain, which is moreover manipulated by the

brain in which the signal is transformed into phenomenal pain, to be felt not as if the

pain were in the brain, but as if it were in the big toe.21

Perhaps one might say that we are not conscious of objects when we are conscious

of our ideas of them inasmuch as we do not know how the original material is altered

in the neurological production of their mental images (pain, incidentally, is an image

(i.e. representative) just as a sound or sight of a dog). Consequently study must focus

on mental images, because it is ultimately only that of which we are immediately

conscious.

Knowledge of the external world, being empirical, seems to depend on causality:

certainty of the existence of external objects is not evident directly from our ideas of

them, as that would not account for reference; rather, reference from images to specifi c

objects depends on the premise that the idea of the object correlates to the specifi c

time that the idea appears, and to adventitiousness: the idea presents itself in a way that

is not dictated by our will. The two conditions combine to create the impression that

ideas are caused by something other than ourselves.22 This sensation that we are forced

to be conscious of something we do not will to be conscious of is the basis of belief

21 cf. James M. Humber, "Recognizing Clear and Distinct Impressions, in Philosophy and

Phenomenological Research, Vol. 41, no. 4, 1981, pp. 487-507.

－ 132－


that there is an outer world.

But this means that if causality is imperfectly conceived, the reality of the external

world is impugned. The classical conception of causality had been of mutual affection

between substances. One might suppose that a tree causes me to see a tree in the same

sense as rain causes fl owers to grow, just as, for instance, Aristotle had supposed that

sight was caused by hylomorphic affection of the retina.

However, no one prior to Descartes had conceived consciousness to be a substance;

it is therefore questionable whether all of the results from the theory of causality,

conceived as affection of physical substances, can be unproblematically assumed

to explain affection of a non-physical substance by a physical substance. Thought

concerning substantial causality had never comprised the categorically different notion

of causal transaction between the physical and the conscious. As Aristotle established

that all accidental change is restricted to contraries, and that the new quality had to

be present in the subject in potency, it is cumbersome to suppose that one substance

(physical) should be able to bring about change in a completely incommensurate

substance (consciousness).

It is mysterious that a piece of wood corrupts when affected by fi re; nothing visible

elucidates why wood should react in this way. Mystery ceases when we penetrate

to a microscopic level, where the agent and the patient seem to be homogeneous;

the alteration consists in some electrons being pushed out of orbit by the presence

of others. This is more intelligible than macroscopic observation of the same thing,

because at the microscopic level the agent and patient are subsumable under the same

set of laws. Reduction of fi re and wood to the level at which they are homogeneous

produces the condition under which the microscopic can account for macroscopic

22 cf. Frederick P. Van De Pitte, Mathematics and the Doctrine of Eternal Truths in the

Development of Descartes’ Epistemology, in René Descartes: Critical Assessments, vol. I, ed.

Georges J. D. Moyal, Rutledge, 1991, p. 407.

－ 133－

D. Morgan Pierce

change. But this paradigm does not work for the equally mysterious episode, in

which a physical agent affects a mental patient. There is no microscopic reduction

at which physical and mental appear to be homogeneous. A wave length of so many

angstroms causes a perception of red. This is a reduction to the microscopic substrate,

just as in the case of wood and fi re, but in this case the reduction does not arrive to a

homogeneity between agent and patient: the two sides of the divide are describable

only by distinctly different sets of laws. This incommensurability is the quintessence of

Descartes’ ontology. Without the intractability of mental and physical explanation, the

Cartesian theory of innate ideas would collapse.

If the stimulus requires so much intermediate processing before being a visual (or

other) image, how can one suppose that the image as experienced should be identical

with its cause? Aristotle had postulated that (1) a cause resembles its effect, e.g. a hot

thing causes the effect of feeling hot, and (2) that the cause must contain at least as

much reality as its effect. This presupposes formal identity of cause and effect. An

effect can never have a greater magnitude of the given quality than is contained in its

cause. (3) Causality supposes consistency, i.e. that C1 (taken by itself) is invariably

the cause of E1, never of E2. Such a dogma of causality would be necessary to support

realism.

Number (2) has a venerable history. Early in Greek thought a principle of physical

continuity preshaped the concept of causality, to wit: whenever there is change, there

must be something that underlies the change, and remains itself unchanged throughout

the process of change. (a) was non-F and comes to be F; thus at one time non-F,

at another time F, is predicated of (a). Thus (a) persists through the change; the (a)

undergoing change is some sense must remain unchanged in order for change to take

place. If there were no underlying substratum that did not change, there would be no

same thing before and after the change, and hence no change either.

When (a) changes from non-F to F, the substance undergoes an accidental change

such that the unchanging substratum is the composite of form plus substance.

－ 134－


⇒

Things are said to come to be in different ways. In some cases we do not

use the expression “come to be”, but “come to be so-and-so”. Only

substances are said to come to be without qualifi cation. Now in all cases

other than substance it is plain that there must be something underlying,

namely, that which becomes. For when a thing comes to be of such a

quality or quantity or in such a relation, time, or place, a subject is always

presupposed, since substance alone is not predicated of another subject,

but everything else of substance.23

Given the premise that nothing can emerge from nothing, however, it appears

impossible that something should become, for instance, red, because the red,

appearing from what was not red before, would then emerge out of nothing.

The aporia was overcome by the thesis that change takes place only in pairs of

contraries. For instance, red cannot change into cold, because cold is not a contrary of

red. Red can change into blue, because, as members of the same species (color), they

are contraries. Thus something that is red can be indifferently hot or cold at the same

time it is red, but something red cannot be blue at the same time it is red. Furthermore,

the red thing can become blue, but the red of the thing never becomes blue; accidental

change is an exchange of contrary qualities which in themselves do not change.

Change takes place when the blue, which already exists in the thing qua potency,

becomes actual, while the actual red recedes into potency. This should account for why

accidental changes are not instances of emergence from pure nothingness; any quality

that appears had already existed in the bearer, but potentially. In the case of accidental

change the essence persists as the unchanging element of the change, while some

23 Cf. Barnes, Jonathan, editor; The Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume I, Princeton

University Press, 1985; Physics, Book I, 190a32-37, p. 325.

－ 135－

D. Morgan Pierce

accidental form is replaced entirely by its contrary form:

⇒

Thus, from what has been said, whatever comes to be is always complex.

There is, on the one hand, something which comes to be, and again

something which becomes that- the latter in two senses, either the subject

or the opposite. By the opposite I mean the unmusical, by the subject,

man; similarly I call the absence of shape or form or order the opposite,

and the bronze or stone or gold the subject;24

The underlying schema for the pairing of qualities into contraries is that (1) the same

effect E1 cannot be caused by opposite causes and (2) the same cause cannot produce

opposite effects, either E1 or E2.25 It follows that if A-ness is the authentic cause of F,

anything other than A, i.e. non-A, cannot be the cause of F. Furthermore, if something (a)

causes F, (a) cannot be non-F. If (a) causes F, merely because of being (a), then

inasmuch as (a) per se always causes F, (a) itself must be F. If on the contrary (a) is fi re

that cools, for instance, although it otherwise heats, then it is after all not (a), but

something in (a) that is always the cause of F, and is in itself the highest instance of F.

There can be only one cause for an effect E1; if there is change in an object, it must be

affected by an opposite cause such that the cause P of (o)’s being non-F must

surrender to the cause Q of (o)’s becoming F.

The postulate of the alternation of contraries however fails to sequester substantial

change from the simple exchange of one thing for another, i.e. the utter annihilation

of one substance into nothingness, replaced by creation out of complete nothingness


1985; Physics, Volume I, Book I, 7; 190b12-14, p. 325.

25 Cf. Hankinson, R. J,; Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought, Oxford University

Press, 2001, p. 89, passim.

－ 136－


of a new substance in its place. Qualities, such as red and blue, hot and cold, form

natural pairs of contraries, but, unlike a quality, substances have no opposites; a cat

is not the contrary or opposite of a dog, or a hippopotamus. Since substances do not

constitute contraries, a different substance cannot be conceived to be already existent

in the matter of another substance, though in potency. The corruption of one substance

and generation of another cannot be explained as the play of potency and actuality.

Without such an explanation, substantial change is indistinguishable from an absence

of change, in which one thing simply stands in the place of another. Since in substantial

change no essential property survives, no determination remains to identify something

as being the same thing as what had been prior to substantial corruption. The presumed

same thing (a) cannot refer to any form, for no form persists; (a) can refer only to

the underlying prima materia (prima materia, incidentally, is a medieval coinage; the

term was not used by Aristotle). The hypothesis of an underlying substrate that stays

the same throughout change is necessary to distinguish change from non-change, the

simple exchange of two different things. This account of substantial change is however

highly tenuous, because it involves depending on prima materia to account for identity

through change, but Aristotle has strongly argued that an entity that has absolutely no

determination cannot be said to exist.

Since Aristotle denies the possibility of creation ex nihilo, the idea of unchanging

substratum must somehow apply to the cases of substantial generation and destruction.

That is, when a substance passes out of or into existence, and all substantial forms are

lost, this must also be somehow understood as a transformation of matter that remains

the same throughout change:

⇒

But that substances too, and anything that can be said to be without

qualifi cation, come to be from some underlying thing, will appear on

examination. For we fi nd in every case something that underlies from

which proceeds that which comes to be; for instance, animals and plants

－ 137－

D. Morgan Pierce

from seed.26

By this hypothesis, instead of change there would be corruption into absolute

nothingness and spontaneous generation of something new out of absolutely nothing.

Given this dilemma, Aristotle adopted the tenet that nothing comes out of nothing, or

conversely, that there must be as much in the cause of something as in the effect.

⇒

Now we do not know a thing without its cause; and a thing has a quality in a

higher degree than other things if in virtue of it the similar quality belongs

to the other things (e.g. fi re is the hottest of things, for it is the cause of

heat of all other things); so that that which causes other derivative truths to

be true is most true.27

To surpass this incoherence Plato had attributed non-being to being in the sense that

what we mean by non-being is difference in being: Socrates is not, insofar as he is not

large. Aristotle accepts this interpretation of change:

⇒

Clearly then also to come to be so-and-so from what is not means “qua what is

not”. 28

The problem was the Parmenidean problem of how being can emerge from non-being.


1985; Physics, Volume I, Book Physics, Book I, 7 190b1-5, 325.


1985; Volume II, Metaphysics, Book II(a), 2, 1 993b24-26, p. 1570.


1985; Physics, Volume I, Book I, 191b9-10, p. 327.

－ 138－


If Socrates is non-musical, he cannot become musical because in that case musical

would come from nothing, i.e. something would materialize from nothing. Aristotle

paraphrased Plato’s solution:

⇒

But obviously it is not true that if Being means one thing, and nothing can at

the same time both be and not be, there will be nothing which is not; for

even if what is not cannot be without qualifi cation, there is no reason why

it should not be something or other.29

If something comes to be it does not come out of what is perfectly nonexistent, but out

of what is not such-and-such.

⇒

We ourselves are in agreement with them in holding that nothing can be said

without qualifi cation to come from what is not. But nevertheless we

maintain that a thing may come to be from what is not in a qualifi ed sense,

i.e. accidentally. For a thing comes to be from the privation, which in its

own nature is something which is not- this not surviving as a constituent of

the result.30

The nonexistent here is in reference to a lack in something which is. Something

comes into existence from something else which is, but which caries the negativity of

the nonexistent in terms of the lack of some attribute. The Aristotelian solution for the

29 Cf, Barnes, Jonathan, editor; The Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume I, Princeton

University Press, 1985; Physics, Book I, 187a3-5, p. 319.

30 Cf, Barnes, Jonathan, editor; The Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume I, Princeton

University Press, 1985; Physics, Book 1, 191b13-16, p. 327.

－ 139－

D. Morgan Pierce

capacity of change rests in matter; nonsensory substances, which Aristotle allows, are

eternal and immutable, whereas sensible substances, i.e. those composed of matter, are

mutable per accidens only because of matter:

⇒

Therefore, since not all things are or come to be of necessity and always, but

the majority of things are for the most part, the accidental must exist; for

instance a white man is not always or for the most part musical, but since

this sometimes happens, it must be accidental. If not, everything will be of

necessity. The matter, therefore, which is capable of being otherwise than

as it for the most part is, is the cause of the accidental. And we must take

as our starting point the question whether everything is either always or for

the most part. Surely this is impossible. There is, then, besides these

something which is fortuitous and accidental.31

It has previously been established that accidents do not play a role in scientifi c

knowledge, because there is no bilateral implication between essence and accident.

Knowledge must be of what is universal; red cannot be located in the essence, so as to

be a universal, because that would entail that all apples are red. Although the being of

this red entails the existence of this apple, the existence of this apple does not entail

red. This apple may be this apple whether it is red or green. But if the apple does not

entail its being red, it follows that the accident does not exist as a further determination

of the form, apple. If red does not belong to the form, how is it possible, in any sense at

all, to belong to the substance, this apple? The substantial form can be, in actuality,

only in compound with the matter which it determines. Apparently, since red is not a

determination of the form apple, it must be a determination of matter that is identifi ed

31 Cf, Barnes, Jonathan, editor; The Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume II, Princeton

University Press, 1985; Metaphysics, Book E, 2, 1027a7-17, p.1621.

－ 140－


through the form, apple. But matter is per se indeterminate, so it is through the

contingency of matter that the substance is capable of having either red or not red,

indifferently, without alteration to the identity of substance. This is called per accidens

predication: it is analogous to a rose patch, in which the soil is necessitated for the

rose bush, but amongst which there is space for weeds to grow, which however do not

affect the identity of the rose bush. Barring substantial change, the changes effected by

causal interaction are of the accidental, not the essential, qualities. Although change is

from non-being to being, the conclusion that something emerges from nothing is not

entailed, but rather an emergence from another something that may be characterized as

nothing in the sense of a lack.32

In our context it is problematic that this account was concerned with causality

between physical substances, but was never considered in the case of the proposed

causal relation between physical reality and consciousness. If we cannot be directly

conscious of the object as we are of its idea produced in us (i.e. what we experience as

the object directly is in reality a mental image of it), our knowledge of the world is still

saved if the fi rst two rules of causal inference are valid. The distinction of the object

itself and the image of it was necessitated in the fi rst place because e.g. my perception

of a bridge, if it were the thing itself, would entail either the real presence in my mind

of something several hundred meters long, or the elimination of a mind in which

the perception was to reside. But suppose that rule (1) does not obtain, but rule (3)

does: e.g. the hot cause does not produce a hot effect (my brain does not feel hot at the

sight of a fi re), but what it causes is non-random. Thus, although what I experience as

heat does not resemble the property in the hot thing, the same property in the hot thing

consistently causes the feeling I call heat; the systematicity of knowledge would be

preserved without the identity of object and idea. Aristotle had perhaps presumed the

32 Cf. Scaltsas, Theodore; Substances and Universals in Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Cornell

University Press, Ithaca, 1994, p. 9

－ 141－

D. Morgan Pierce

identity of cause and effect because it would conveniently enable one to sort out what

is cause and what is effect; a hot thing, for instance, causes heat in the patient, but the

patient cannot grow hotter than the agent. But what supports this assumption? The hot

thing might for instance transfer the hotness to another thing, in such a way that the

property would be the same; but the transfer of the property, not to another material

substance, but to consciousness, is perhaps an equivocation of causality such that the

effect, consciousness of hot, is radically different from the transmission of a material

cause to a material effect.

The inquiry then turns to whether something internal to the consciousness of an

object marks out that the object is just like it is in its experience or, failing that, whether

some feature recognizable within the experience would at least signify that the same

experience E1 would reliably materialize when the same causal condition C1 obtains.

Perhaps this suffi ces to account for Cartesian skepticism of the external world. Insofar

as our consciousness of X were radically different from its external causes, the world of

which we are conscious could look the same regardless of whether or not the external

world existed. Only if (1) the idea were identical with the cause of the idea (sensible

species), and (2) no other causal event could produce the idea, could our consciousness

of the world guarantee the existence of an external world. If there is no identity

between cause and its effect, then our idea of the world could be instigated from causes

other than the presumed external objects. The dichotomy of object and idea of object

entails that nothing in immanent experience certifi es that objects are as they seem;

reception of our ideas qua objects of those ideas entails incorrigibly false knowledge of

the world. Thus Descartes stipulates that we must confi ne ourselves to study of ideas as

ideas, suspending their reference to the external objects they supposedly represent.33

How does a portrait of Descartes, though a perfect rendition in all detail, successfully

33 cf. Georges J. D. Moyal, "Descartes Method: From things to Ideas", in Renee Descartes:


－ 142－


function as a picture of Descartes? How does a photograph of a dog, Fido, represent

Fido? Normally we suppose that an image represents by virtue of its similarity,

although representation without similarity is also possible; how indeed does perfect

similarity enable representation? If similarity is entailed, how do we know when

representation and represented are similar?

A suitable approach is terrifi cally perplexed. The primary relation of a mental act

causally effected by an external object is obscure because minute transference structure

between external object and mental act is invisible; how could this connection possibly

be visible, under the premise that the mental act is the fi rst condition preceding any

consciousness at all? Inasmuch as the actual causal event is not conscious, but has to

be inferred, a person can relate a mental image to an object (o) under two conditions. (1)

He must posit the actual existence of (o). (2) He must judge the similarity of (o) to the

image it has presumably occasioned in his mind.

Nevertheless, the above has to be completely wrong. Since (o) is given to

consciousness only by representation through its idea (i), never without mediation, (3)

there is no test of the similarity of (o) and (i). (4) The object (o) having fallen out of

use in a method of verifi cation, one must wonder at the justifi cation for hypothesizing

the existence of (o) in the fi rst place. Presumably we are certain that (o) exists because

it is the necessary condition for the causal relation between (i) and (o). Given the

uncontested presumption of the existence of the external world in the ancient scholastic

tradition, inference to the causal relation is unproblematic, but as soon as the Cartesian

dichotomy removes the certainty of the fi rst premise, the argument is obviously

circular.

Innate Ideas

Assuming sensibilia are not organized through Aristotelian forms, fi rst, it is obscure

how the image is organized into resemblance, sensibilia not being given as such

prior to intellection, and second, presuming that the image is assembled into perfect

－ 143－

D. Morgan Pierce

resemblance, how does this resemblance isolate and refer to its intended object of

representation? Inchoate sensibilia are not given in a way that supports representation;

if sensibilia must be assembled, the assembly gets no help from the source of these

data. Instead, the sensibilia, are organized into physical objects solely by innate ideas,

and innate ideas derive from the mind alone, without original correlates in the source

of sense data.34

Though serving roughly the same role as Platonic Forms, Cartesian innate ideas

are neither transcendent (Plato), nor are they immanent like the substantial forms of

Aristotle. They are similar to the transcendence of Aristotelian forms in that they are

immutable; deriving from the mind but not from sense, they do not belong to the mind

from which they originate; that is, like adventitious idea, innate ideas are compulsory.

The mind does not create these forms arbitrarily, as if choosing to paint either a portrait

or a landscape. Although their source is the mind, their structure is pregiven; since they

do not derive from sensibilia, they are immutable, as sensory experience is the only

source of mutability. Because these forms are not transcendent, traditional objections

against Platonic/Aristotelian forms do not apply. As the mind itself generates the form,

there is no basis for requiring a standard in terms of which the mind commensurates

the form and the actual entity (the innate idea is what fi rst creates the “actual entity”.

The forms are not transcendent because there is no need to discover a resemblance

between the form and the object: hence the Third Man Argument cannot get started.

Partially this is true because Descartes does not embrace the traditional subject object

dichotomy, according to which the object is delivered to us ready-made. The Cartesian

forms operate to create the object in the workings of mental reception; in this regard

there is no need to validate application of the form to its object because the object

would not exist but for the instrumentality of the form. Instead of the recognition of

34cf. Frederick P. Van De Pitte, "Descartes Innate Ideas, in Kant-Studien, Band 76, no. 4,

1985, pp.363-384.

－ 144－


conformity between form and object in Platonic epistemology, recognition consists in a

mere appreciation of a necessity inherent across the simple features of the concept.35

Nevertheless the proposal of innate ideas doesn’t function at this point to

explain the organization of sensibilia into physical objects any better than Socratic

reminiscence, the Delphic oracle, or the rabbit in the hat; the establishment of innate

ideas is based on nothing more than the default argument that, since innate ideas have

no derivation from sensory input, they must be supplied by the mind. What can be

meant by the operation of an innate idea? Does this mean that innate ideas fi rst construe

sense data, for instance, as a dog, from a blur of sense data, or is this to mean that the

predication dog occurs simultaneously as the perceptual image of dog is organized

from the given sense data? Is predication somehow entailed in the mere capacity of

assembling sense data as objects? This would imply that perceptual substances are not

formed except as predication is made of them.

Raw sense data are already a mental state; once modifi ed by a mental operation

into an intelligible object, the fi nal product owes virtually nothing to the source of the

sense data. Differing with the Aristotelian notion of sensible species, external objects

are not thought to communicate an image of themselves to consciousness. Rather, they

stimulate an occasion upon which the innate ideas fabricate an image. The notion of

occasional causation conveys that the apparent cause of perception is not an instance

of authentic causality.

Under Cartesian premises even ideas of colors and sounds are innate, because the

physical movements involved in sensation cannot be cognitive:

⇒

The sense organs bring us nothing which is such as the idea which is

awakened in us on the occasion of them, and thus the idea must have

35 cf. Frederick P. Van De Pitte, "Descartes Innate Ideas, in Kant-Studien, Band 76, no. 4,

1985, pp.363-384.

－ 145－

D. Morgan Pierce

been in us previously.36

The mind does not perceive ideas, in the sense of receiving them, because no physical

event, not even in the nervous system, has the least element of consciousness or

sensation. Rather, the mind creates ideas wholly from innate ideas always potentially

present in the mind, when it is stimulated by physical, non-mental events in the

perceptual apparatus.37

The Cartesian theory of causation posits that the cause must contain more of the

same quality which it transfers to its effect; by characterizing perception as occasional

causality, it follows that the effect (perceptual image) does not bear any common

quality supposedly imparted by the cause. The sense data, as occasional cause, are

requisite merely as the occasion on which the innate ideas are stimulated to form the

image.38

As sense data are not the authentic cause of perception, nothing compels an

assumption of resemblance between ideas and the source of the correlative sense data.

All knowledge is ultimately an explicit recognition of innate ideas; this is similar to the

Aristotelian tenet that knowledge is only of universals. Existence is therefore entirely

outside the scope of scientifi c knowledge. All necessary relations are entirely captured

in the essences of things; what is lost by abstracting from existence is any consideration

of accidental attributes, which cannot be inferred by the essence of the substance, and

are perceptible only on the level of sensation. What is excluded from this authentic

36 cf. Adam, Charles and Tannery, Paul, eds.: Oevres de Descartes, J. Vrin, Paris, 1996,

Volume III, Letter to Mersenne, 22nd July 1641, p. 41837 cf. Alan Gewirth, Experience and the Non-Mathematical in the Cartesian Method, in the

Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 2, 1941, pp. 183-210.


1985, pp.363-384.

－ 146－


knowledge is the sensory stimulation by virtue of which the innate ideas were induced

to formulate an experience.

⇒

Namely, that we know just that these or those ideas which we now have

present to our thought, refer to certain things situated outside us...because

these things have sent to our mind something which has given it the

occasion, through its innate faculty, of forming the ideas at this time rather

than at another.39

The act by which the mind projects the image into the external world is the only act

for which experience is responsible. Innate ideas, which had been undifferentiated and

without reference, are differentiated by reference to external objects on the occasion of

sensation.40

Sensory stimulation occasions ideas but does not cause them. Fine; they are

created by an innate faculty, perhaps similarly as sleep is caused by the presence of

vis dormativa. If not, what substantive meaning can be harbored in asserting that the

innate ideas are within the mind? Innate ideas connote knowledge that is not reducible

to the results of sensory consciousness.41 Incorrigibility of the innate ideas is to be

explained by the impossibility of tracing the content of innate ideas to sense data; thus

innate ideas cannot have derivation from empirical experience. But elimination of

sensory output does not establish mental derivation in any sense more illuminating than


Volume III, Notae in Progressu; VIII (2), p. 358.

40 cf. Alan Gewirth, Experience and the Non-Mathematical in the Cartesian Method, in the



1985, pp.363-384.

－ 147－

D. Morgan Pierce

Socratic reminiscence. Whether or not the notion of innate ideas is an instance of deus

ex machina depends on whether any gain in explanatory power arises from insistence

that knowledge depends on an element of experience underived from sense data. By

virtue of occasional causation sensory experience stimulates apprehension of innate

ideas; refl exive awareness of the innate idea is occasioned inasmuch as there would

never be apperception of the innate idea if there were never occasion for its use. It is

this apperception of the necessary structures of perception and thought that constitutes

knowledge, for the innate idea satisfi es the knowledge-criterion of universality. Sensory

experience is no part of knowledge at all, excepting its indispensability for putting

innate ideas in operation; knowledge consists solely in the articulation of innate ideas.

The construed perceptual object is then entirely mental, different from the

preperceptual givenness of the sense data. The thesis of mental construction from

nothing supports Cartesian rationalism; if the innate ideas are given from the mind,

they are immune to skeptical aversion from the external world. If innate ideas were

Platonic Forms, such that they were independent, then, being transcendent like the

empirical world, they would be subject to the same doubt, whether in their reception

they are the same as their originals, etc. But if sense data and the ideas operating

upon them are entirely mental, images are apodictic in a way they could not be if our

ideas were in any way received. Thus Descartes’ happy inference that I can be in

doubt about whether the object I see is green, while at the same instance it is certain

and beyond doubt that I seem to see a green thing. But by the same token, the theory

incapacitates any account of how such mental images successfully refer to the external

objects of which they are presumably ideas.

Reference

The notion of the innate idea has profound consequences. In both the Platonic and

Aristotelian approaches the universal is not only in the mind, but in the object; they

account for reference through the supposition that marks in the idea are isomorphically

－ 148－


present in the object; they support the correspondence theory of truth. But the theory of

innate ideas prescinds from this tenet. Scholasticism established, in consonance with

Aristotle, that although essence is the object of scientifi c knowledge, in the order of

knowing, we know the object’s existence before we know its essence. What is per se

most intelligible comes comes to be known last, whereas what is least knowable comes

fi rst in the order of knowing for us. Following two premises from Aquinas, if one is to

know the essence of something, one must fi rst know that it exists:42

⇒

Since there is no essence or quiddity of a non-being, no one can know the

nature of what does not exist; but one may know the meaning of a name,

or know an account composed from several names: thus one can know

what is the meaning of the name ‘goat-stag’, but it is impossible to know

the essence of a goat-stag, for there is nothing of such kind in reality.43

A partial articulation of Aquinas’ empiricist position (knowledge of existence

precedes knowledge of essence) is that knowledge of whether an essence is possible

only by actual encounter; only an actual essence proves that the essence is possible.

Aquinas supposes that two processes are ingredient in the formation of an empirical

concept. (1) The object must be received by the senses. (2) A faculty, the light of the

agent intellect then organizes that perceptual material into a concept. These being the

two comprehensive conditions in the formation of a concept, there is nothing in the

intellect (i.e. in concepts) that was not previously present in perception: nihil in

intellectu quod non prius in sensu fuerit.44 In this regard physical sensation is the sole

source of empirical knowledge.


1985; Metaphysics, Volume II, Book Cf. Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Book II, 7, 92b4-8.

43 Cf, Aquinas, Commentary on the Posterior Analytics, Book II, 6,2

－ 149－

D. Morgan Pierce

There is no a priori method to demonstrate that a non-existent essence could possibly

exist. Our knowledge of possible essences is limited to our knowledge of actual

essences. On the opposite camp stood the Platonic thesis that one must know what

X is before one could possibly know whether an X exists; for Plato this condition of

identifi cation signifi ed that one must already know the essence of X before one could

discover the existence of an X. Descartes resumed the Platonic thesis: knowledge of a

thing’s essence precedes knowledge of its existence:

⇒

According to the rules of true logic we must never ask whether something

exists [an est] unless we already know what it is [quid est].45

As he asserted in reply to Caterus in the fi rst series of replies to criticism of the

Meditations, similarly in a letter to Mersenne in the same year Descartes castigates

theologians who, following ordinary logic, ask whether God exists before asking what

His nature is’.46 The Platonic notion of the preexistence of essences accounted for the

non-absurdity of knowing the essences of which one has never encountered substantial

instances, or of knowing the essences of non-existent things. The empiricism of

Aquinas (priority of existence over essence) was tenable only because his substantial

theory of objects posits that essences actually exist in the object, before the mind

conceives the essence by which to identify the object. Aquinas supposed that one could

identify and speak of objects by secondary descriptions prior to knowing their essences.

44 cf. John Morris, Descartes’ Natural Light, in the Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol.

XI, 1973, pp. 169-187.


Volume VII, pp, 107-108.


Volume III, pp, 273.

－ 150－


Descartes did not want to claim merely that to know that something exists one must

have some answer, however elliptical, to the question: what is it that exists? Aquinas

grants that at least some description is needed to isolate an object of predication:

⇒

It is impossible for us to know that a thing exists except through some account

of that thing. 47

Aquinas admits that some background understanding is required to recognize the

existence of a substance, but denies that essential defi nition is necessary for reference:

⇒

Regarding a thing of which we have no account, we cannot know if it exists or

not. But there is some other account of a thing apart from the defi nition:

this is either an account which explains the meaning of a name, or an

account for the very thing named which, however, is distinct from the

defi nition because it does not express the nature as does a defi nition, but

perhaps some accident.48

Since the conception of the object for Descartes is solely constituted by innate ideas,

existing only in the mind, the supposition of the priority of existence would be

incoherent.

Abstraction

Descartes accordingly cannot regard abstraction as the source of concept formation.

Aristotelian abstraction involves a plurality and a variety of the same kind of object,


1985; Metaphysics, Volume II, Book Cf. Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Book II, 8,6.

48 Cf, Aquinas, Commentary on the Posterior Analytics, Book II, 6,2.

－ 151－

D. Morgan Pierce

from which determination is made of what universals commonly apply. Substantial

form is a universal that is abstracted from substances of the same kind; as it is not itself

a concrete particular, but a universal that designates the substance most specifi cally,

it is called second substance; it is then the universal denoting the concrete particular,

the fi rst substance. The form abstracted is not, however, a distinct entity within the

substance; it is separable by abstraction, but not separable in reality.

The notion of abstraction, i.e. the mental separability that has no correlate in reality

(divisibility) is implicated in Aristotelian ontology. In the Platonic scheme a particular

shared (methexis) in a form, making it what it was; but this formulation meant

that, insofar as the form was predicated, or shared in (the distinction had not yet been

discovered) the individual, the individual was something separate from the form

predicated of it, but had no attribute prior to the predication that would identify it as a

something . To overcome this incoherence Aristotle postulated that the substance

and the substantial form were identical.

Let us take up one of Aristotle’s examples: a severed fi nger is not a fi nger, except

paronymously. A fi nger attached to a body is radically different from the severed

fi nger because of its functions for the whole body; as it loses the several functions

and its relations with the other parts of the body, it remains a fi nger by appearance

only; its nature is determined by the other parts of the body of which it is a part. All

non-essential features change in their nature when the they are conceived as parts of

a substance. The only feature of the substance which is not altered in the least from

composition into a unifi ed substance is the essence, i.e. that feature which is termed to

be identical with substance. Whereas the actualization of a fi nger results in its being

Socrates’ fi nger, the actualization of the substantial form human being results in a

human being.

One could discern the substantial form and its substrate by abstraction, albeit that

these were inseparable in reality. The substrate and the form could be abstractly

considered, but neither form nor substrate could exist in separation. Thus, abstraction

－ 152－


enabled Aristotle to repudiate the independent existence of Platonic Forms. Although

human being may be thought separately from Socrates, in reality the two are

inseparable, and there is no need to postulate a separate Form (i.e. Platonic Form) to

account for the relation between the two: there is no relation, because the two are in

reality one. The empiricist element of Aristotle’s essentialism is due to the condition

that relations between universals derive from relations of the real substances from

which universals are abstracted. For Plato the interrelations of Forms are known

independently of empirical instances, because Forms are the authentic substances; for

Aristotle the truth conditions of universals derive from the substances of which they

are abstractions. Since the separation of forms by abstraction does not refl ect actual

divisions on the ontological level, validation of universal forms derives from primary

substances.49

Similarity consists in the capability of separating, by abstraction, not division, of

the same entity from two substances. The similarity on which abstraction is based

depends on the same entity that is not separable, but abstractable from, the different

substances.50 Concept formation is then taken to result from a plurality of particular

judgments. Abstraction, possible only because the concept is constructed by a series of

particular judgments, and can therefore undergo analysis in reverse order.

Descartes repudiates this account of concept formation, but he is in a weaker

position here. If I should judge that a certain quality is essential, because I cannot

conceive of the object without that quality, the inconceivability may be consequent to my

having included the quality when I fi rst naively learned the concept. The impossibility

of a dog having horns may be a psychological result of habituation. I may be unable


University Press, Ithaca, 1994, p. 5.


University Press, Ithaca, 1994, p. 5

－ 153－

D. Morgan Pierce

to distinguish a contingent, psychological incapacity from a logical incapacity, by

which an essential quality is such due to metaphysical necessity. Whereas attention

to whether an attribute is essential may consist in what relation the quality stands to

a context of other attributes, the devil is in the detail; what is it in relation to other

attributes that designates its compossibility or incompossibility?

Certain ideas e.g. God and the self are such that even after reduction to ultimate

simples there is still no sensory correlate. Mathematical objects do have sensory

correlates, but we can conceive mathematical objects never encountered in empirical

experience, and discover recondite truths about such objects that will be true in

examples of the object not as yet encountered. This supports Cartesian essentialism,

and leads to inquiry whether the properties of God, the self, but also of ravens and

writing desks might also be discovered by analysis of logical relations binding their

constitutive properties, without recourse to observation of an instance of the concept.

As with mathematical objects, a necessity that binds components such as color, fi gure,

extension, etc. might reveal the properties of empirical objects prior to experience. Any

logical connection between properties of an object, bound in necessity by virtue of

logical connection, should on this hypothesis be knowable a priori because its necessity

cannot be given from without; any necessity in the collection of conceptual marks

inherent in the parts of a concept is a mental ingredient.

The components of an Aristotelian substance do not stand in relations, as perhaps

sodium and chlorine; it is emphasized that they are amalgamated. In the Cartesian

project on the other hand necessity is somehow derived by refl ection on how sense data

are organized; innate ideas are supposed to account for why sense data appear in the

confi gurations they have; the sensory properties, though taken in themselves purely

contingent, by being organized in an object mutually limit each other so that each has

its logical location by virtue of the limitations posed by the other attributes.51 If the

attributes constituting a particular are interrelated in a context because they mutually

limit each other, what is it about the innate ideas that institutes this mutual limitation?

－ 154－


A thing’s being blue is compatible with being large or cold, but is incompatible with

the thing’s being red: why? How can blue preclude the thing’s being red; how can

we affi rm that there can or cannot be black swans? Or is the postulation of innate ideas

to answer this sort of objection circular? Supposing the linearity and infi nite divisibility

of time, the argument is to the effect that the organization of sensibilia in their context

is due entirely to mental operations, under the premise that sensibilia are at fi rst utterly

dissociated because they come to the mind one-at-a-time in discrete moments of time,

Indian-fi le through a pinhole, thus obliterating any hypothetical preperceptual

organization on the basis of which the mind might otherwise be supposed to synthesize

them. Given this repudiation of substantial unity on the Aristotelian model, one cannot

stand fi rm on the inherence of accidents and essences in substance; if there is a fi rm

concomitance of two attributes in a substance, there must be some logical trait to

account for their fi rm connection, vaguely on the analogy of chemical elements.

It is noticeable that the Cartesian cogito takes over the role attributed to the Species

Form. Plato and Aristotle had proposed that objects were composed of various qualities

because of the unifying feature of the Form predicated of the object, but not because

the Form is predicated. Following Aristotle and scholasticism the form actually exists

in the object prior to predication of the form of the object. Under Cartesian premises

things must be grasped as a unity because the ego is unitary; the object is synthesized

and structured as it is in order to sustain the unity of the ego. Because the Form of

the object is generated by the mind, the problem of how an immaterial aspect of the

object (its substantial form) is taken through the various senses and reconstituted by

the common sense, dissolves; there is no longer a need to demonstrate that the form

in the object and the form in the mind are the same. Eschewing this correspondence

Descartes can nevertheless assert that the form in the cognition is the identical form as

51cf. Frederick P. Van De Pitte, "Descartes Innate Ideas, in Kant-Studien, Band 76, no. 4,

1985, pp. 363-384.

－ 155－

D. Morgan Pierce

that in the external object.52 This hypothesis rests on two factors. Necessity

characterizes the internal relations of the conceptual components, but this necessity is

not a causal image of the object, but a refl ection of how the attributes mutually limit

each other as a condition of unity in the object. But this still seems to be a version of

deus ex machina; in regard to the unity of the ego, exactly how this combination of

attributes is necessary; given the sparsity of Descartes’ mention of mutual limitation,

one must wonder whether this approach is not too reliant on Kant. The second factor

is the necessary fi xation of the concept in a wider context of other concepts. Insofar

as the mind has no way to reject this necessity, it has no alternative but to accept the

perception obtained through it as veridical.

The Cartesian thesis is built upon the premise that necessity cannot be derived from

sensibilia: but why not? Why can we not determine that swans are necessarily white,

by an element within the substance swan? Why should it be impossible to discern

necessity in an empirical state of affairs whose necessity inheres in the object? There

is a merely epistemic ground for the thesis that all necessity is contributed by the

subject. If we pronounce that all swans are white, without merely intending a merely

verbal stipulation, then we might try to prove it by inspecting every swan. But the

aspiring universal statement would remain open ended either because we did not

fi nd every swan, or because a black swan might appear in the future; this is logically

possible because at the ouset we denied that all swans are white is a defi nitional

stipulation. An authentic universal proposition should preclude the liability of a future

disconfi rmation. The necessity of a universal statement must never depend on empirical

data, which might vary; therefore, if there is necessity, it must come from the mind.

This demonstration does not exclude the possibility that necessity derives from the

object, but merely that, if there were such a transcendent necessity, it could never be


1985, pp. 363-384.

－ 156－


recognized as such.

That I have never come across a dog with horns suffi ces for the existentialists,

Aristotle and Aquinas, to deny that we can know whether there is such an essence prior

to experience, for in their systems the only essences we can know to be possible are those

essences which are actual. In some cases we might know an unencountered essence

to be impossible, but we cannot conclude that a seemingly possible essence is indeed

possible, until its actual occurrence.

Notably in this context, Descartes’ affi rmation of the vis absoluta [contrast: vis

ordinata] of God conveys that not even the scholastic tenets on possible essences

are acceptable, because if He wished, God could make the logical and mathematical

axioms false. Absolute and eternal truths are necessarily true for me, and even for God

within the parameter of vis ordinata, the limits that God posits for his own power.

However, unless God had been able to entertain alternatives, God could not have

freely created the world, for in that case each feature of the world would have ensued

from necessity. God’s freedom therefore entails God’s power to imagine things the

imagination of which are impossible for a human. Despite a human’s inability to

conceive a necessary truth as anything but true, God in his vis absoluta could think and

create truths that are for humans contradictory. In consequence a proposition which for

me is absolutely false may nevertheless be true. It is easy to see how the notion of

perfect certainty does not guarantee truth for Descartes; the law of non-contradiction is

the basis of the inconceivability of any alternative, but on Descartes’ notion of God’s

omnipotence, he could have made contradictory propositions true if He had so willed.

Assume that all the logical axioms are inalterably true in the universe in which I exist,

but are not true in a possible universe; in that case I cannot evaluate the validity of

logical axioms from a viewpoint external to my universe. Such is Descartes’

voluntarism. For me, a proposition is necessarily true if its denial is inconceivable, but

for God it is necessarily true only in the sense that He decided it would always be true.

Concepts are contradictory only for a creature like me and only because God has made

－ 157－

D. Morgan Pierce

me so that I must apprehend them as such. Necessity is one thing for me and quite

another for God. The necessity I register is not the necessity that characterizes the

eternal verities; it is at best a distorted view of a connection which must remain

incomprehensible.53

Aquinas and scholasticism admit that the mind can conceive entities that do not and

have never existed, that nonexistent entities can be imagined. Such as can be imagined

is however made up exhaustively from material that has originally been given in

sensation. Nevertheless, the mind is incapable of determining what it has imagined

could possibly exist, short of encountering its actual existence. One might know

an essence in the absence of existence, but one cannot know whether this contrived

essence could be the essence of a possible substance. In this context the essence does

not amount to whether it can be linguistically formulated, a matter of stipulation of how

to call something by a name. The notion of essence entailed conditions of necessity and

possibility for a substance possessing that essence.54 Scholasticism rules out a

capability of knowing whether such an imagined essence is a possible essence.

But if, following Descartes, we can know whether a nonexistent essence is possible,

there has to be a logical device to distinguish psychological from metaphysical

necessity. Descartes argues that there is an indubitable distinction between logical and

conditioned intuition:

⇒

When I say that it seems that it is taught to me by nature, I understand by the

word "nature" only a certain inclination which leads me to believe a thing,

and not a natural light which makes me know that it is true. But these two

53 cf. Leonard G. Miller, "Descartes, Mathematics and God, in Philosophical Review, Vol.

66, 1957, pp. 451-465.

54Cf. Secada, Jorge; Cartesian Metaphysics The Scholastic Origins of Modern Philosophy,

Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 11.

－ 158－


things differ greatly between themselves; for I would not be able to cast

doubt upon anything that the natural light makes me see to be true, as it

has just made me see that, from the fact that I doubted, I was able to

conclude that I was. And I do not have in me any other faculty, or power,

for distinguishing the true from the false, which could teach me that what

the light shows me to be true is not true, and which I could trust more than

it.55

He argues that no faculty exceeds my Reason to determine truth or falsity, it would

be irrational to defer the verdict of Reason. Aquinas assigns to the natural light the

function of giving to man the "fi rst principles" upon which his reasoning is based:

⇒

The light of the agent intellect gives man immediate actual knowledge of

the fi rst principles which we know by nature, and in virtue of this actual

knowing he is led to actual knowledge of conclusions previously known by

him only potentially.56

The knowledge of Aquinas’ fi rst principles is infallible, and they are to be

distinguished from scientia, the result of investigation. Aquinas means by natural light

what we would probably call intuition: a power knowing the axioms of knowledge. He

distinguishes natural light from Reason, the power of ratiocinating deductive proofs.57


XI, 1973, pp. 169-187.

56 Cf. Aquinas, Commentary on De Anima, translators Foster, Kenelen and Humphries,

Silvester, Yale University Press, 1965; section 372, pp. 244-245.


XI, 1973, pp. 169-187.

－ 159－

D. Morgan Pierce

Descartes uses the same term natural light to convey infallibility, but meaning the

simple apprehension of the mind’s own contents. Such knowledge cannot be mistaken

with respect to their "proper" objects: when I am seeing green, I may be mistaken in

supposing that the given object is actually green, but I cannot be mistaken in thinking

that my sensuous experience is that of greenness. Whenever I form a given concept

(e.g. man) I may be mistaken in supposing that there are any actual men corresponding

to my concept, but I cannot be mistaken in judging that my concept, considered in and

of itself, is so-and-so. In considering its own contents, the intellect cannot be mistaken;

there is simply no room for deception to occur.58 Error is possible from mistaking my

apprehended mental contents as if they were an external object; this is especially

devious because nonveridical sensory perception is given as if it were veridical.

The fact that I think a dog to have four legs, essentially, but a dog with horns to

be impossible, signifi es that, be it psychological or metaphysical, I already take my

incapacity to be metaphysical, in that I can fi nd no way to second-guess myself, but

that further inability does not guarantee that my incapacity to condone possible dogs

with horns is not, nevertheless, merely psychological.

Normally one legitimates the conception that dogs have four legs by the fact that

one’s perception of dogs with four legs is universal. The position that concept

formation is posterior to abstraction of course coheres with the thesis that we cannot

know that a substance is possible until we know that it is actual. However, in denying

that abstraction is the method of concept formation, there is no basis for appeal to

ordinary observation; if the concept of dog is an innate idea (albeit occasioned by

sensory experience), then experience is not a basis to assert that four leggedness is

essential to a dog, i.e. all dogs have four legs. A further inconsistency crops up; the

notion that abstraction is the basis of concept formation appears to confl ict with the

58cf. John Morris, Descartes’ Natural Light, in the Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol.

XI, 1973, pp. 169-187.

－ 160－


falsity of: all swans are white. If empirical enumeration cannot support a universal

necessary judgment, it should be impossible to formulate essences from empirical

abstraction. In the Cartesian approach the imagination is integral to concept formation

(i.e. mentally varying sensory data, arms, legs, horns, to determine whether one would

still call the result a dog), but the intellect is somehow supposed to judge what qualities

from this imaginary variation turn out to be essential for the referent of the concept one

formulates. Deployment of imaginary variation demotes real sensory perception nearly

to insignifi cance in the process of concept formation. Accordingly concept formation

is not a process of abstraction because it is ultimately the act of judgment, aided by

imagination, which determines conceptual marks.59 Despite the empirical source in

science, Descartes excludes experience in the process of discovering essences;

empirical experience, understood as correlations of essences and accidents, still

contains much that is composite, and therefore liable to confusion. Descartes supplants

scholastic discourse of essences and accidents with ultimate simples, which are built up

into composites by minute steps of clear and distinct perception. The reduction of

experience into ultimate simples, which are not given in experience, is supposed to

prevent the possibility of error by subjecting each step in cognition to clear and distinct

perception. The premise is that ultimate simples, unlike empirical intuitions, cannot be

mistaken for anything else because there is no complexity to confuse.

I do not see how this can support the denial of abstraction in concept formation; if

one decides by imaginative variation that one conceptual mark rather than another is

essential for predication of a concept, it nevertheless remains possible that verdict over

the essentiality of an attribute is due to psychological, not metaphysical necessity. The

criterion of clear and distinct is question-begging unless it is refi ned. Anyone who

asserts a proposition ipso facto believes that his belief is clear and distinct; if he did not,

59 cf. Frederick P. Van De Pitte, "Descartes’ Innate Ideas, in Kant-Studien, Band 76, no. 4,

1985, pp.363-384.

－ 161－

D. Morgan Pierce

it would be false to assert that he believes it. Clear and distinct serve as criteria for

truth only if these criteria can distinguish between intuitions, all of which the subject

has already credited with being clear and distinct. Accordingly intuitions should have

logical marks that distinguish authentically clear and distinct intuitions, and which are

entirely immune to psychological factors.60 A logical mark is one that is compelling

for everyone, whereas psychological necessity, which may in the end be indiscernible

for the subject entertaining the belief, does not guarantee truth because what goes into

the psychological core of one individual may differ greatly from that of another.

All philosophers agreed that knowledge could be of universals alone; the thematic

problem had been to establish universals upon a basis of particular and contingent

sense data. Plato supplied transcendent forms and participation to account for the

caesura between particular and universal; Aristotle attempted the same account of

knowledge by locating universals in immanent forms.61 That is, it is due to a certain

kind of universal resident in the substance, and identical therewith, that there can be

knowledge: the only direct object of knowledge is the universal, but the universal is

identical with individual substance.

⇒

If there is nothing apart from individuals, there will be no object of thought, but all

things will be objects of sense, and there will be no knowledge of anything,

unless we say that sensation is knowledge. Further, nothing will be eternal

or unmovable; for all perceptible things perish and are in movement.62

60 cf. Alan Gewirth, "Clearness and Distinctness in Descartes, in Philosophy , Vol. 18,

1943, pp. 17-36.

61 cf. Frederick P. Van De Pitte, "Descartes’ Innate Ideas, in Kant-Studien, Band 76, no. 4,

1985, pp.363-384.

62 Cf, Barnes, Jonathan, editor; The Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume II,Princeton

University Press, 1985; Metaphysics, Book B, 4, 999b1-4, p.1578.

－ 162－


The reason offered by Aristotle for the needed something over and above the

particulars, if there is to be knowledge, is that:

⇒

For all things that we know, we know insofar as they have some unity and

identity, and in so far as some attribute belongs to them universally.63

In Plato’s terms the one over the many is what accounts for predication, and hence

of knowledge; the principle of our recognition of objects is the identifi cation of an

object in terms of what it has in common with other objects.

⇒

And how will it be possible to know, if there is not to be something common to

a whole set of individuals? 64

Both Aristotelian-scholastics and Descartes diverted the object of knowledge from the

particular and contingent. Descartes, supposing the nugatory knowledge value of the

particular-contingent, undertakes to derive knowledge from innate ideas. One might

have the impression that Descartes fi rst impugned empirical knowledge in pursuit of a

higher objective but that, upon his proof of the existence of God, redeemed empirical

knowledge in the Sixth Meditation. This is not quite cogent; empirical knowledge is

left unredeemed, and Descartes never purposed to give it an infallible foundation. His

redemptive argument in a nutshell had been: (1) God exists. (2) A perfect being, such

as God is by defi nition, could not be perfectly good and also deceive. (3) Therefore I

can rely on God’s benevolence to trust that the external world is exactly as He makes


University Press, 1985; Metaphysics, Book B,4, 999a28-29, p. 1578.


University Press, 1985; Metaphysics, Book B,4, 999b26-27, p. 1579.

－ 163－

D. Morgan Pierce

it appear to me. It is conspicuous that in this redemption of knowledge of the external

world he never attempts to undo his skeptical argument in its own terms.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barnes, Jonathan, editor; The Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume I, Princeton

University Press, 1985, 1250 p.

Barnes, Jonathan, editor; The Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume II, Princeton

University Press, 1985, 2,487 p.

Bennett, Jonathan; Learning from Six Philosophers, Volume 1, Oxford University

Press, 2003, 399 p.

Clarke, Desmond M.; Descartes’s Theory of Mind, Oxford University Press, 2005,

267 p.

Cottingham, John, editor; Descartes, Cambridge University Press, 1992, 441 p.

Cottingham, John, editor; Descartes, Oxford University Press, 1998, 326 p.

Cottingham, Stoothoff, & Murdoch, editors: The Philosophical Writings of Descartes,

Volume I, Cambridge University Press, 2005, 428 p.

Cottingham, Stoothoff, & Murdoch, editors: The Philosophical Writings of Descartes,

Volume II, Cambridge University Press, 2005, 428 p.

Des Chene, Dennis; Physiologia Natural Philosophy in Late Aristotelian and Cartesian

－ 164－


Thought, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 426 p.

Doney, Willis, editor; Descartes, Macmillan, London, 1970, 386 p.

Gewirth, Alan; Clearness and Distinctness in Descartes, in Philosophy, Vol. 18, 1943,

pp. 17-36.

Gewirth, Alan; Experience and the Non-Mathematical in the Cartesian Method, in the


Grayling, A.C.; Descartes The Life of René Descartes and Its Place in His Times, Free

Press, 2005, 352 p.

Hankinson, R.J.; Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought, Oxford University

Press, 2001, 499 p.

Hart, Alan; Descartes’s “Notions”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol.

31, no. 1, September 1970, pp. 114-122.

Hatfi eld, Gary; Descartes and the Meditations, Routledge, London, 2003, 353 p.

Hooker, Michael, editor: Descartes Critical and Interpetive Essays, Johns Hopkins

University Press, 1998, 322 p.

Humber, James M.; Recognizing Clear and Distinct Impressions, in Philosophy and

Phenomenological Research, Vol. 41, no. 4, 1981, pp. 487- 507.

Irwin, T.H.; Arisotle’s First Principles, Oxford University Press, 1995, 702 p.

－ 165－

D. Morgan Pierce

Kenny, Anthony; Descartes A Study of his Philosophy, Random House, New York,

1968, 242p.

Markie, P,; Clear and Distinct Perception and Metaphysical Cetainty, Mind, Vol.

LXXXVIII, 1979, pp. 97-104.

Miller,Leonard G.; Descartes, Mathematics, and God, in Philosophical Review, Vol.

66, 1957, pp. 451-465.

Morris, John; Descartes’ Natural Light, in the Journal of the History of Philosophy,

Vol. XI, 1973, pp. 169-187.

Moyal, Georges J. D., editor; René Descartes, Volume I, Routledge, London, 1991,

540 p.

Moyal, Georges J. D., editor; René Descartes, Volume II, Routledge, London, 1991,

380 p.

Nussbaum, Martha C. & Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg; Essays on Aristotle’s De Anima,

Oxford University Press, 1992, 439 p.

O’Neill, Brian E.: Cartesian Simple Natures, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol.

X, 1972, pp. 161-179.

Owens, Joseph, The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics, Pontifi cal

Institute of Medieval Studies, Toronto, 1963, 535 p.

Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg, editor; Essays on Descartes’ Meditations, University of

－ 166－


California Press, Berkeley, 1986, 534 p.

Scaltsas, Charles, & Gill, editors: Unity, Identity and Explanation in Aristotle’s

Metaphysics, Oxford University Press, 1994, 381 p.

Scaltsas, Theodore; Substances & Universals in Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Cornell

University Press, Ithaca, 1994, 292 p.

Secada, Jorge; Cartesian Metaphysics The Scholastic Origins of Modern Philosophy,

Cambridge University Press, 2004, 333 p.

Sim, May, editor; The Crossroads of Norm and Nature Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics and

Metaphysics, Rowman & Littlefi eld Publishers, Inc.; Lanham, 1995, 342 p.

Van De Pitte, Frederick P.; Descartes’Mathesis Universalis, from Archiv für Geschichte

der Philosophie, Band 61, 1979, pp. 154-174.

Van De Pitte, Frederick P.; Descartes’s Innate Ideas, Kant Studien, Band 76, no. 4,

1985, pp. 363-384.

Van De Pitte, Frederick P.; Intuition and Judgement in Descartes’s Theory of Truth,

Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. XXVI, no. 3, 1988, pp. 453-470.

Wedin, Michael V.; Aristotle’s Theory of Substance, The Categories and Metaphysics

Zeta, Oxford University Press, 2002, 482 p.

Williams, Bernard; Descartes The Project of Pure Inquiry, Penguin Books, New York,

1978, 320 p.

－ 167－

D. Morgan Pierce

Wilson, Catherine; Descartes’s Meditations, Cambridge University Press, 2003, 271 p.

Wippel, John F.; The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas From Finite Being to

Uncreated Being, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 2000,

630 p.

Witt, Charlotte; Substance and Essence in Aristotle An Interpretation of Metaphysics

VII-IX, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1994, 201 p.

Date post:	22-Jun-2020
Category:	Documents
Upload:	others
View:	9 times
Download:	0 times

MEDITATION ON THE FIRST MEDITATIONrepo.komazawa-u.ac.jp/opac/repository/all/29139/rgs001-05.pdf ·...

Documents