Summary

The Third Meditation, subtitled "The existence of God," opens with the Meditator reviewing what he has ascertained to date. He is still doubtful of the existence of bodily things, but is certain that he exists and that he is a thinking thing that doubts, understands, wills, imagines, and senses, among other things.

He is certain that he is a thinking thing and he clearly and distinctly perceives this fact. He could not be certain unless all clear and distinct perceptions can be certain. Therefore, he concludes, whatever he perceives clearly and distinctly must be true.

Before, he thought he was certain of all sorts of things that he has now cast into doubt. These things are all apprehended by the senses, and he must acknowledge now that he did not perceive the things themselves, but only the ideas, or thoughts, of those things, which appeared before his mind. He does not even now deny that he perceives ideas of material objects, but concedes that he was mistaken in inferring from these ideas that his perception could inform him about the things themselves. He also seems quite certain of arithmetic and geometry, though he cannot be absolutely certain since God might be deceiving him. To assure himself that he is not deceived, he must inquire into the nature of God.

Before he can do so, however, the Meditator resolves first to classify his thoughts into different kinds. First, there are simply ideas, which he says "are as it were the images of things...for example, when I think of a man, or a chimera, or the sky, or an angel, or God." Second, there are volitions, emotions, and judgments, where there is an idea, which is the object of a thought, and also a further thing, such as an affirmation or a fear, which is directed toward the object of that thought.

The Meditator reasons that he cannot be mistaken with regard to ideas on their own, nor with regard to volitions or emotions: he can only make mistakes with respect to judgments. The most common error in judgment is to judge that the ideas in one's mind conform to, or resemble, things outside the mind. Considering ideas in the mind only as modes of thought and not referring them to anything outside the mind should render him immune from doubt.

It seems there are three sources for ideas: they can be innate; they can be adventitious, coming from outside of us, as with our sensory perceptions; or they can be invented by us, such as our ideas of mermaids or unicorns. The Meditator concedes that he cannot yet be certain which ideas come from where, or even if perhaps all of our ideas are innate, adventitious (not inherent but added extrinsically), or invented. For the moment, he is concerned with adventitious ideas, and why he thinks they come from outside. His will has no effect on adventitious ideas: he cannot prevent himself from feeling hot when it is hot simply through the will, for instance. He has thus come to assume that whatever outside source transmits these adventitious ideas transmits its own likeness rather than something else.

The Meditator then contrasts his natural assumption that adventitious ideas represent outside objects with his knowledge that he exists. He cannot doubt that he exists or that this fact follows from the fact that he doubts, because that truth is "revealed...by the natural light." Natural assumptions, on the other hand, are far less certain than the natural light, and have misled him in the past. Further, he has no reason to suppose that these ideas are adventitious at all. The will may have no effect on them, but they still may be produced from within him. And if they do come from without, there is no reason to think that they resemble the objects that they represent. For instance, the sun looks very small according to our senses, but astronomical reasoning suggests that it is in fact very large.

Analysis

Having ascertained that he exists and that he is a thinking thing, the Meditator tries to determine how he can know these things, and whether he might come to know other things as well by similar means. He concludes that his knowledge of the cogito and the sum res cogitans are clear and distinct perceptions. Thus, he concludes, all clear and distinct perceptions (which he sometimes refers to as "the natural light") must be certain.

The reasoning here might seem a little circular. On one hand, the cogito is certain because it is clearly and distinctly perceived. On the other hand, clear and distinct perceptions must be certain because they are the means by which the certainty of the cogito is achieved. There is also the difficulty raised with the case of geometry and arithmetic. These truths seem clear and distinct to us as well, but there is still the possibility that we are deceived with respect to them. And if God can deceive us of our clear and distinct perceptions, perhaps even the cogito can be cast back into doubt.

Descartes seems to want to escape the problems involved in clear and distinct perceptions by relying on God's existence to make them true. However, Descartes also seems to want to prove God's existence by claiming it as a clear and distinct perception. This further conundrum is famously called the "Cartesian Circle," and we will look at it more closely in the commentary to the Third Meditation, Part 3.

The discussion of the theory of ideas is a preamble to Descartes' attempt to prove the existence of God. According to Descartes, ideas are the atoms of thought, and all thought is made up of composite ideas. Descartes' suggestion that ideas are "as it were the images of things" is not meant to reduce ideas to being simply visual representations. We can have ideas of God, of justice, of how to fix the kitchen sink, none of which are necessarily accompanied by an image—hence the "as it were" that qualifies "the images of things."

Some ideas are ideas in the strict sense only, while others are ideas in the strict sense as well as something else. That "something else" can be volition, emotion, or judgment. Descartes is particularly interested in judgments, since these are the things we can be wrong about, and he wishes to identify the source of error in order to identify the source of doubt. Most error in judgment has to do with identifying things in the material world, since that is where the mind tries to pass judgment regarding things outside of it. Thus, of innate, invented, and adventitious ideas, Descartes takes the greatest interest in adventitious (not inherent but added extrinsically) ideas. He realizes that often we assume we are perceiving things outside our mind without any degree of certainty or justification.

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