"Introspection is infallible" Yes but in what way? Descartes had no idea we posses a subconscious that is mostly unseen, and what is seen is mostly a lie
Yeah, it's not clear what people mean by "introspection is infallible", and that's part of the problem. It's true that Descartes wouldn't have talked about the "subconscious" but he was quite familiar with Plato (his preference for the mathematical over the sensible reflects an affinity, I think) and Plato is thought to have influenced Freud, particularly in his theory of recollection and tripartite division of the soul:
I'm definitely not a Descartes expert myself. My beef has more to do with the idea itself of infallible introspection (or resistance to following the implications of it being fallible) than who started the notion. I think Descartes, like Aristotle, has to be judged relative to what was known when he wrote. That doesn't mean we can't point out what he gets wrong in light of contemporary knowledge.
That's a pretty good translation of Meditations. Much easier than others I've attempted. I just read the first two meditations. I do come away with the impression that he's pretty unskeptical about knowing his mind, but I'll admit it's in relation to everything else. And, of course, as you noted, we won't find contemporary terms here, at least aside from what the translator introduces (like "robot"), so it's a matter of judgment.
That point about the translator is worth remembering. Sometimes translators (with the best of intentions) in their act of translation project contemporary concepts onto to someone who didn't hold them. I imagine a Descartes scholar would read him in the original Latin. Of course, the understanding of terms in ancient languages like Latin is not itself free from controversy. Maybe the best amateurs can do is read multiple translations.
I also wonder how much of the academic view comes from other material, like his correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia. From what I've heard, she put a lot of pressure on his ideas of the mind, and might have driven him to some clarifications.
Apparently Descartes wrote in both French and Latin. He wrote Meditations on First Philosophy in Latin and Discourse on Method in French, but he actually oversaw the translation from Latin into French of Meditations on First Philosophy, apparently.
Yeah, I thought that translation was pretty good too. I like that it sounds more contemporary and straightforward. It captures something of what I heard from philosophy professors when I was studying in France (I took a class on Descartes); they kept saying Descartes' writing sounds so fresh, like something written in our times. I was amazed by that characterization of his writing, since it didn't match my experience of reading him! I couldn't make sense of their saying this until I reflected on the way I was translating French speakers in my head, retaining the grammatical structure of French. But if you translate too literally, retaining the grammatical structure too strictly, you end up with a way more formal-sounding English than what the French hear. At least this is how I understand it. In my next couple of blog posts I translated the French myself (a long time ago, I took quotes from my senior thesis), but I actually like the translation posted here better than my own. My French really really sucks, so I didn't feel confident in departing from the grammar to the degree necessary, I think, to capture the freshness of his writing. The fact that I can even read Descartes in French with a dictionary is kind of amazing to me, since I struggle with reading even children's stories and YA novels in French, even with a dictionary. That's partly because they use literary forms that aren't used in spoken French, but also because my French sucks.
As for which language that translator worked with, I don't know. You can get Latin-French editions (that's what I have) so I imagine a really good translator would have knowledge of both, but I don't know. Or maybe in this case it wouldn't require knowing Latin since he oversaw the French translation himself. I don't know.
As for "robot", in the French there's a description rather than a single word. That part might translate to something like:
"What do I see out the window but hats and coats covering what could be specters and (fake? phony?) men who move by springs?" I think "automaton" is the usual translation there, but I think "robot" is fresher.
I haven't read that correspondence, so it's entirely possible he says introspection is infallible somewhere there. But it would make sense to mention that correspondence, in that case.
If Descartes oversaw the translation into French, that would be enough for me to consider it primary. Not that I know French. (I grew up around people who spoke Cajun French, but they never bothered to ensure my generations understood it. They actually seemed to like having a way to have discussions we couldn't follow.)
I found this site this morning, which has modern sounding translations of all his works, including correspondence, with a lot of translator notes where the translation was tricky.
I'm onboard with "robot". The translation on Gutenberg (which is from 1680 I think) uses "artificial machines", and it's in italics, indicating, I think, where the translator felt the need to translate more aggressively. But the version you describe is interesting, and sounds more what I would expect from that period.
Oh wow, cool—there's audio readings of the Meditations! Very cool site, Mike. Thanks!
I think what you describe with the Cajun French being used as a way of carrying on a private conversation happens a lot. Same with older generations not feeling the need to teach their kids their language. My mother never really cared whether I learned or not, I don't think, but then she was explicitly told not to speak Korean to me by my idiot kindergarten teacher after I said "fart" in Korean in class. She told my mom I was getting confused. So not true! I actually remember the incident because the teacher made such a big deal out of it. I just thought it was really funny that I could get away with saying "fart" in class by saying it in Korean. I mean, what else do you expect of a four year old? They think that sort of thing is hysterical (and don't care that no one else is laughing). It's not likely a four year old would be able to explain such a dumb joke to a teacher. I don't recall whether I told her what the word meant. I'm thinking probably not; I was probably afraid of getting into trouble.
Honestly, I never grew out of this stupid joke. Throughout middle school and even high school I'd let out a stream of curse words or shout "penis!" in Korean while at the supermarket with my mom. I thought it was funny watching her get embarrassed even though no one had a clue what I was saying.
I’m a Descartes supporter too. I think the “I think therefore I am” observation should be the foundation that we use for both existence and epistemology. Lots of modern silliness might be avoided if people could get back to this fundamental truth. And I think Dennett shares a good deal of the blame given his promotion of “functional computationalism”. From this perspective we don’t begin with indisputable consciousness, but rather with the speculative notion that the processing of information is what creates it. Furthermore I argue that this requires magic.
I guess you’re going on to do more Descartes next Tina, and so you’ll show that he ends up reasoning that his thought must be a product of God. But that’s where I think he made his true mistake since it reduced back to a faith that he didn’t quite grasp. And yes a clever princess worked him hard about that. Conversely Dennett and apparently many other notable philosophers have merely been whacking a straw man!
I wouldn't call myself a gung-ho Cartesian, but on the cogito, yeah, I totally agree. I'm not sure what people have a problem with there. It seems to me he found a golden nugget of truth! I think that deserves some more attention too. Edmund Husserl returns to the Cartesian cogito in his phenomenology, which both illuminates Descartes' original insight and moves far beyond it in interesting ways, but contemporary analytic philosophers don't seem to care for him much for some reason, or at least that's my impression. Maybe because his writing is atrocious...I won't deny that.
"From this perspective we don’t begin with indisputable consciousness, but rather with the speculative notion that the processing of information is what creates it."
Couldn't agree more! I take experience (broadly construed) to be the foundation of knowledge. You can be skeptical about some conscious experiences, or some kinds of experience, but not all conscious experience all at once, otherwise you have nothing stand on.
"...so you’ll show that he ends up reasoning that his thought must be a product of God"
Yep! I'm doing a fairly straightforward explanation of his work in the upcoming posts, but I don't get into what I really think about those arguments for the existence of God, so I can tell you here (though I'll warn you, this is going to sound a bit like a conspiracy theory): I think those arguments are suspiciously bad. I think Descartes was probably aware of his circular reasoning and did it on purpose. We must think of the Inquisition going on in the background of his life. In the end, his arguments separate religion from science in his philosophy; his God doesn't do very much. But I'm no historian; this is just my speculation!
Good to hear that you think his horrible mistake was even “suspiciously bad”. If he hadn’t resorted to “God did it”, would he have been persecuted? Have historians delved into this question specifically? Sounds like you’re not planning to go that way with your coming posts, but it’s something to think about. The mere thought of what was actually done to people who crossed the Catholic Church, should have had a general effect. These horrors were meant to be publicized.
This reminded me of a Catholic friar 300 years earlier that Descartes must have known all about. William of Occam. He reasoned that it was heretical to even speak of God in an earthly capacity, and thus people like Thomas Aquinas who thought mortals like himself could prove His existence, were thus heretics. Occam barely escaped a sitting pope’s fury, though knew of several contemporaries burned at the stake.
By "suspiciously bad" I mean so bad I have a hard time thinking such a well-educated bright mind could have made such a freshman mistake, which is why I think it's possible he did it on purpose. I think it's a clever way of giving lip service to God while also separating God from having any real effect on his philosophy. But I could be wrong! I don't know much about the history. Pure speculation on my part.
So yeah, there's the Church looming in the background, but it's hard to say whether his circular argument was intended, and even then it's hard to say it's just a matter of the evil Inquisition coming down on him since apparently people were already breaking away from Scholasticism, and there were splits and factions going on within science and philosophy as well as within the church. You know, life as usual. :)
"He moved to the Netherlands in order to achieve solitude and quiet that he could not attain with all the distractions of Paris and the constant intrusion of visitors. It is here in 1629 that Descartes began work on “a little treatise,” which took him approximately three years to complete, entitled The World. This work was intended to show how mechanistic physics could explain the vast array of phenomena in the world without reference to the Scholastic principles of substantial forms and real qualities, while also asserting a heliocentric conception of the solar system. But the condemnation of Galileo by the Inquisition for maintaining this latter thesis led Descartes to suppress its publication. From 1634-1636, Descartes finished his scientific essays Dioptique and Meteors, which apply his geometrical method to these fields. He also wrote a preface to these essays in the winter of 1635/1636 to be attached to them in addition to another one on geometry. This “preface” became The Discourse on Method and was published in French along with the three essays in June 1637."
"Introspection is infallible" Yes but in what way? Descartes had no idea we posses a subconscious that is mostly unseen, and what is seen is mostly a lie
Yeah, it's not clear what people mean by "introspection is infallible", and that's part of the problem. It's true that Descartes wouldn't have talked about the "subconscious" but he was quite familiar with Plato (his preference for the mathematical over the sensible reflects an affinity, I think) and Plato is thought to have influenced Freud, particularly in his theory of recollection and tripartite division of the soul:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-would-aristotle-do/201912/did-plato-lay-the-groundwork-freud-s-psychoanalysis
So we might say Descartes could have been aware of the subconscious, albeit not by that name.
Oh yes thank you Tina Lee. Freud was deeply influenced by the Greeks, clearly. It's the Oedipal complex, not the Abe Lincoln complex : )
I'm definitely not a Descartes expert myself. My beef has more to do with the idea itself of infallible introspection (or resistance to following the implications of it being fallible) than who started the notion. I think Descartes, like Aristotle, has to be judged relative to what was known when he wrote. That doesn't mean we can't point out what he gets wrong in light of contemporary knowledge.
That's a pretty good translation of Meditations. Much easier than others I've attempted. I just read the first two meditations. I do come away with the impression that he's pretty unskeptical about knowing his mind, but I'll admit it's in relation to everything else. And, of course, as you noted, we won't find contemporary terms here, at least aside from what the translator introduces (like "robot"), so it's a matter of judgment.
That point about the translator is worth remembering. Sometimes translators (with the best of intentions) in their act of translation project contemporary concepts onto to someone who didn't hold them. I imagine a Descartes scholar would read him in the original Latin. Of course, the understanding of terms in ancient languages like Latin is not itself free from controversy. Maybe the best amateurs can do is read multiple translations.
I also wonder how much of the academic view comes from other material, like his correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia. From what I've heard, she put a lot of pressure on his ideas of the mind, and might have driven him to some clarifications.
Apparently Descartes wrote in both French and Latin. He wrote Meditations on First Philosophy in Latin and Discourse on Method in French, but he actually oversaw the translation from Latin into French of Meditations on First Philosophy, apparently.
Yeah, I thought that translation was pretty good too. I like that it sounds more contemporary and straightforward. It captures something of what I heard from philosophy professors when I was studying in France (I took a class on Descartes); they kept saying Descartes' writing sounds so fresh, like something written in our times. I was amazed by that characterization of his writing, since it didn't match my experience of reading him! I couldn't make sense of their saying this until I reflected on the way I was translating French speakers in my head, retaining the grammatical structure of French. But if you translate too literally, retaining the grammatical structure too strictly, you end up with a way more formal-sounding English than what the French hear. At least this is how I understand it. In my next couple of blog posts I translated the French myself (a long time ago, I took quotes from my senior thesis), but I actually like the translation posted here better than my own. My French really really sucks, so I didn't feel confident in departing from the grammar to the degree necessary, I think, to capture the freshness of his writing. The fact that I can even read Descartes in French with a dictionary is kind of amazing to me, since I struggle with reading even children's stories and YA novels in French, even with a dictionary. That's partly because they use literary forms that aren't used in spoken French, but also because my French sucks.
As for which language that translator worked with, I don't know. You can get Latin-French editions (that's what I have) so I imagine a really good translator would have knowledge of both, but I don't know. Or maybe in this case it wouldn't require knowing Latin since he oversaw the French translation himself. I don't know.
As for "robot", in the French there's a description rather than a single word. That part might translate to something like:
"What do I see out the window but hats and coats covering what could be specters and (fake? phony?) men who move by springs?" I think "automaton" is the usual translation there, but I think "robot" is fresher.
I haven't read that correspondence, so it's entirely possible he says introspection is infallible somewhere there. But it would make sense to mention that correspondence, in that case.
If Descartes oversaw the translation into French, that would be enough for me to consider it primary. Not that I know French. (I grew up around people who spoke Cajun French, but they never bothered to ensure my generations understood it. They actually seemed to like having a way to have discussions we couldn't follow.)
I found this site this morning, which has modern sounding translations of all his works, including correspondence, with a lot of translator notes where the translation was tricky.
https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/authors/descartes
I'm onboard with "robot". The translation on Gutenberg (which is from 1680 I think) uses "artificial machines", and it's in italics, indicating, I think, where the translator felt the need to translate more aggressively. But the version you describe is interesting, and sounds more what I would expect from that period.
Oh wow, cool—there's audio readings of the Meditations! Very cool site, Mike. Thanks!
I think what you describe with the Cajun French being used as a way of carrying on a private conversation happens a lot. Same with older generations not feeling the need to teach their kids their language. My mother never really cared whether I learned or not, I don't think, but then she was explicitly told not to speak Korean to me by my idiot kindergarten teacher after I said "fart" in Korean in class. She told my mom I was getting confused. So not true! I actually remember the incident because the teacher made such a big deal out of it. I just thought it was really funny that I could get away with saying "fart" in class by saying it in Korean. I mean, what else do you expect of a four year old? They think that sort of thing is hysterical (and don't care that no one else is laughing). It's not likely a four year old would be able to explain such a dumb joke to a teacher. I don't recall whether I told her what the word meant. I'm thinking probably not; I was probably afraid of getting into trouble.
Honestly, I never grew out of this stupid joke. Throughout middle school and even high school I'd let out a stream of curse words or shout "penis!" in Korean while at the supermarket with my mom. I thought it was funny watching her get embarrassed even though no one had a clue what I was saying.
I’m a Descartes supporter too. I think the “I think therefore I am” observation should be the foundation that we use for both existence and epistemology. Lots of modern silliness might be avoided if people could get back to this fundamental truth. And I think Dennett shares a good deal of the blame given his promotion of “functional computationalism”. From this perspective we don’t begin with indisputable consciousness, but rather with the speculative notion that the processing of information is what creates it. Furthermore I argue that this requires magic.
I guess you’re going on to do more Descartes next Tina, and so you’ll show that he ends up reasoning that his thought must be a product of God. But that’s where I think he made his true mistake since it reduced back to a faith that he didn’t quite grasp. And yes a clever princess worked him hard about that. Conversely Dennett and apparently many other notable philosophers have merely been whacking a straw man!
I wouldn't call myself a gung-ho Cartesian, but on the cogito, yeah, I totally agree. I'm not sure what people have a problem with there. It seems to me he found a golden nugget of truth! I think that deserves some more attention too. Edmund Husserl returns to the Cartesian cogito in his phenomenology, which both illuminates Descartes' original insight and moves far beyond it in interesting ways, but contemporary analytic philosophers don't seem to care for him much for some reason, or at least that's my impression. Maybe because his writing is atrocious...I won't deny that.
"From this perspective we don’t begin with indisputable consciousness, but rather with the speculative notion that the processing of information is what creates it."
Couldn't agree more! I take experience (broadly construed) to be the foundation of knowledge. You can be skeptical about some conscious experiences, or some kinds of experience, but not all conscious experience all at once, otherwise you have nothing stand on.
"...so you’ll show that he ends up reasoning that his thought must be a product of God"
Yep! I'm doing a fairly straightforward explanation of his work in the upcoming posts, but I don't get into what I really think about those arguments for the existence of God, so I can tell you here (though I'll warn you, this is going to sound a bit like a conspiracy theory): I think those arguments are suspiciously bad. I think Descartes was probably aware of his circular reasoning and did it on purpose. We must think of the Inquisition going on in the background of his life. In the end, his arguments separate religion from science in his philosophy; his God doesn't do very much. But I'm no historian; this is just my speculation!
Good to hear that you think his horrible mistake was even “suspiciously bad”. If he hadn’t resorted to “God did it”, would he have been persecuted? Have historians delved into this question specifically? Sounds like you’re not planning to go that way with your coming posts, but it’s something to think about. The mere thought of what was actually done to people who crossed the Catholic Church, should have had a general effect. These horrors were meant to be publicized.
This reminded me of a Catholic friar 300 years earlier that Descartes must have known all about. William of Occam. He reasoned that it was heretical to even speak of God in an earthly capacity, and thus people like Thomas Aquinas who thought mortals like himself could prove His existence, were thus heretics. Occam barely escaped a sitting pope’s fury, though knew of several contemporaries burned at the stake.
By "suspiciously bad" I mean so bad I have a hard time thinking such a well-educated bright mind could have made such a freshman mistake, which is why I think it's possible he did it on purpose. I think it's a clever way of giving lip service to God while also separating God from having any real effect on his philosophy. But I could be wrong! I don't know much about the history. Pure speculation on my part.
So yeah, there's the Church looming in the background, but it's hard to say whether his circular argument was intended, and even then it's hard to say it's just a matter of the evil Inquisition coming down on him since apparently people were already breaking away from Scholasticism, and there were splits and factions going on within science and philosophy as well as within the church. You know, life as usual. :)
"He moved to the Netherlands in order to achieve solitude and quiet that he could not attain with all the distractions of Paris and the constant intrusion of visitors. It is here in 1629 that Descartes began work on “a little treatise,” which took him approximately three years to complete, entitled The World. This work was intended to show how mechanistic physics could explain the vast array of phenomena in the world without reference to the Scholastic principles of substantial forms and real qualities, while also asserting a heliocentric conception of the solar system. But the condemnation of Galileo by the Inquisition for maintaining this latter thesis led Descartes to suppress its publication. From 1634-1636, Descartes finished his scientific essays Dioptique and Meteors, which apply his geometrical method to these fields. He also wrote a preface to these essays in the winter of 1635/1636 to be attached to them in addition to another one on geometry. This “preface” became The Discourse on Method and was published in French along with the three essays in June 1637."
https://iep.utm.edu/rene-descartes/
I find amusing that our instropection alone can verify the reality that envelops us....
But i am not sure I undestood Descartes..
Tina you are using math as *word for scientifiical knowledge....or so. Remember Math is only a language. That's why it's so perfect.