A few announcements first:

I have created a Facebook page for the blog. I don’t plan on using it for much more than information on new blog posts, but you never know. If you’re especially enthusiast about this blog (crazier things have happened), you might even use it to promote it.

I have transcribed certain reactions on reddit in a separate blog post. Rather than edit it, I will add that another comment from nappeunnom has enlightened me as to the fact that Nietzche’s objection to the Cogito was actually first formulated by Pierre Gassendi, a contemporary of Descartes.

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“The God excuse, the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument.” (George Carlin, It’s Bad for Ya)

The below post is an attempt to translate in my own terms the proof of the existence of God offered by Descartes in the Second Meditation. While I think some points are made that will be useful at a later point, I fully acknowledge that it is also an expression of doubt about Descartes’ reasoning on this matter and my understanding of it.

I also feel that the below post is missing a discussion of the notion of “clear and distinct ideas” as used by Descartes. A further post will try to explain my refusal of that notion, but an easy (and sufficient for the below) answer can be provided here: if the idea of the existence of God is for Descartes the prime and necessary example of a clear and distinct idea, then the “clear and distinct idea” notion must be flawed, as not everyone is instantly convinced of the existence of God by reading Descartes (in fact, I personally only find it illuminating because it describes beautifully my own preexisting belief in God, which makes me think that it is not convincing in the sense that it could convince an atheist).

A final remark: I will use the term “adequation” even though it is not that common in English. It is common in my native language (French) and proposed translations do not convey what I mean to say.

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The Cartesian answer to the isolation of the self relies on the consciousness of its own limitation. The fact that I know that I am in doubt proves that I have an idea that it is possible to know more than what I know. Knowledge of your own limitations cannot be self-taught. I should not be able to know what I am unable of doing without the example of someone who is able to do what I am unable to do. That knowledge cannot originate from within myself. To put it otherwise, knowledge of my own limitations implies knowledge of the idea of the infinite, but limited beings should not have an idea of the infinite. I should be perfectly happy as a being limited to phenomenon and should not experience frustration. From my knowledge of myself, which is knowledge of my own deficiencies, I derive the fact that I wish to have no deficiencies, and that I believe it to be possible. Only a being with no deficiencies can be the origin of the idea of no deficiencies.

We can write it from our own perspective. I have distinguished between myself and phenomenon. I am looking for other things in themselves. Myself is accounted for. I therefore have to look through phenomenon for things in themselves. What would a phenomenon look like if it was related to another thing in itself? It would at least look like a phenomenon that could not have its origin in the one thing in itself that I know of, that is to say myself. What does Descartes tell us? That there is a phenomenon that points towards a thing in itself that would be more in itself than myself. But can I have such an idea? That is to say, can such a phenomenon exist without being related to another thing in itself, which is the same thing as saying that it takes its origin in myself?

Descartes’ answer is no. The idea of limitations implies the idea of the infinite, and only an infinite being can be at the origin of an idea of the infinite. The knowledge of only phenomena is not satisfying to me because I have an idea of knowing things in themselves. This idea cannot be derived from the knowledge of phenomena only, hence I have an idea (or there is a phenomenon) that is not derived from phenomena.

I know of myself as a thing in itself. Could that be the reason why I am able to want to know things in themselves? No, because the fact that I know myself as a thing in itself cannot be dissociated from the fact that I know the difference between phenomena and things in themselves. In a way, it is only because I know that it is possible to know things in themselves that I am able to understand what phenomena are. Phenomena are things that manifest to myself. Hence I am not a phenomenon, hence I am a thing in itself.

This has always been to me the hardest part of the Cartesian doctrine. The fact that knowledge of the finite implies knowledge of the infinite and that knowledge of the infinite cannot originate from the finite. Put in my terms, I would say that knowledge of phenomena as phenomena implies knowledge of the difference between phenomena and things in themselves, and that knowledge should not have its origin in a being that would be only exposed to phenomena.

But that is not my case, as I am not only exposed to phenomena, but also to a singular thing in itself, my own self. Hence, I cannot be satisfied with the above paragraph because I still have the feeling that if I compare my relationship with myself with my relationship with my thoughts and perceptions, I know instantly the difference between phenomena and things in themselves.

Let’s try to take the problem from another vantage point.

What is the Cartesian doubt in my scheme? The doubt that phenomena are a source of knowledge of things in themselves. This means, in other words, that I am unsure of knowing things that are not illusions, phenomena adequate to things in themselves. In fact, on a scale presenting the adequation between phenomena and things in themselves, I am unable to place myself. There could be no link between the things that manifest themselves to me and things in themselves as I am sure that some of the things that have manifested themselves to me had no link with things in themselves. Nevertheless, I do have an idea that phenomena should only be manifestations of things in themselves allowing us to know and learn about things in themselves. I have an idea of a state where there would be a perfect adequation between phenomena and things in themselves but the truth is that this idea cannot be derived from phenomena and that the only thing in itself of which I have knowledge of is myself, and that knowledge of myself is despite phenomena, not born out of phenomena. It is not through the study of phenomena that I have acquired my knowledge of myself as a thing in itself but because of my rejection of phenomena. Hence, even though I have an example of things in themselves through my knowledge of myself, it cannot be the source of an idea about adequation between phenomena and things in themselves (unless I am to consider that my phenomenal appearance is obviously adequate to my transcendent self). Moreover, without this idea, I would not have been able to reject phenomena, as my rejection is based on the inadequation between phenomena and things in themselves. Hence a singular idea is at the origin of both my discovery of myself and my rejection of knowledge based on the things that manifest themselves to me.

This phenomenon about phenomena (as an idea is a thought hence a phenomenon) cannot for Descartes be explained without it having its origin outside of myself, which implies that it points to a thing in itself. The idea that I am imperfect because my phenomena are not clear manifestations of things in themselves means that I have an idea of perfect adequation between phenomena and things in themselves that cannot have come from me as thing in itself and hence comes from another thing in itself in which the adequation between phenomena and things in themselves can find its origin (this adequation, which is a phenomenon in its idea form to us, would then also a thing in itself). This is God for Descartes, the being that enjoys perfect adequation between phenomena and things in themselves and can therefore be the origin of the idea that such adequation is possible.

I hope I have appropriately translated the Descartes idea of God. The main differences between man and God are rooted in the fact that man’s knowledge of itself as a thing in itself is rooted in its rejection of phenomena adequate to things in themselves whereas God’s knowledge of all things as things in themselves is rooted in the perfect adequation of phenomena as perceived by God with things in themselves (or, more probably, in an unmediated knowledge of things in themselves by God, a sort of universal consciousness). Man knows itself through its weaknesses and such knowledge has to be second, whereas God’s knowledge makes sense alone.

Unless I am mistaken, Descartes then solves the question of the adequation between phenomena and things in themselves by giving to God the part of inventor of the translation between phenomena and things in themselves that is given to us through phenomena, such translation being sufficient to our purposes in the world.