Descartes' second meditation: 1. "I am, I exist"

 

The second meditation is arguably the most important meditation of all. Continuing where he left off the day before, Descartes reinstates his radical doubt of the first meditation and tries to find any indubitable knowledge. According to Descartes, he is looking for an Archimedean point. This refers to Archimedes, who claimed he could lift the Earth if he had one solid point. In the same way, if we draw out the analogy, Descartes hopes to find any first truth that is so solid that he can build his entire system of knowledge on it. It is here that Descartes develops, for the second time in his oeuvre, his cogito, commonly expressed as “I think, therefore I am”.

Cogito, ergo sum?

Descartes starts the second meditation by reinstating the doubt he developed in the first meditation. Imagine there is an all-powerful and cunning evil demon who puts all his efforts into deceiving us; is there anything that can be true? Descartes seems to have some new insights, as he states, “He [the demon] will never bring it about that I am nothing as long as I think I am something. Thus, having weighed up everything adequately, it must finally be stated that this proposition ‘I am, I exist’ is necessarily true.” This is the formulation of Descartes cogito that is found in the meditations. This means he changed his formulation; what was “I think, therefore I am” in his Discourse on Method is now “I am, I exist”. Why reformulate this first principle? Let’s go over some interpretations of Descartes’ cogito in order to better understand this reformulation. What is Descartes cogito?

Syllogism

A simple and straightforward explanation takes the cogito for a syllogism that would have the following form: Everything that thinks exists; I think; therefore I exist. This seems to be a perfectly valid and solid interpretation of the cogito. However, there is a problem. Descartes has personally pointed out the problem with this interpretation. According to his replies to the objections of Mersenne: “And when we become aware that we are thinking beings, this is a primary notion that is not derived by means of any syllogism.” The problem, according to Descartes, is that we cannot rely on the major premise if we accept the hypothesis of an evil demon deceiving us. According to the first meditation, this evil demon could make it so that even the things that seem most certain to us are actually false. Descartes’ example for this in the first meditation is that the addition of 2 and 3 may not equal 5. If these simple mathematical truths are dubitable, then surely the premise “everything that thinks exists” is also dubitable. Therefore the whole syllogism becomes dubitable, and we have not found our point of Archimedes. 

Impossibility of doubt

While it is true that Descartes’ cogito is indubitable, this interpretation goes even further and suggests that the reason that makes Descartes accept the cogito as a first truth is his incapacity of doubting the cogito. While it is true that the cogito is indubitable according to Descartes, does Descartes’ incapacity to doubt this truth make it the first truth in his philosophy? According to this interpretation, the argument unfolds as follows: firstly, no hypothesis can cast a doubt on a proposition it entails; secondly, any hypothesis that makes me doubt entails my existence; therefore, no hypothesis can cast a doubt on my existence. While this is certainly true, I do not think these premises hold against the hypothesis of an all-powerful demon. And once again, if the premises are dubitable, so is the conclusion. 

Intuition and immediate inference

This interpretation is already more plausible and divides the cogito into two logical moments: the certainty of thoughts and the certainty of existence. The certainty of thought is grasped by intuition. These intuitions are defined by Descartes as “the conception of a clear and attentive mind, which is so easy and distinct that there can be no room for doubt about what we are understanding.” If the certainty of thought is acquired in this manner, then it becomes indubitably true and will resist the evil demon hypothesis. No premise has to be presumed to get to this first truth, not even the definition of these intuitions. If we believe, like Descartes, that we can gain knowledge from intuition, then we need not presuppose anything to do so; we just intuit the fact that we are thinking, and the act will precede the explanation. This gives us indubitable knowledge! However, what about the certainty of existence?

According to this hypothesis, our existence is immediately inferred from the certainty of our thought. Since thinking is an attribute, as there must be something these thoughts are attributed to (nothingness does not think), that means there must be something that exists. Therefore, if Descartes is certain of his thoughts, then he must also immediately be certain of his existence. This interpretation claims that this immediate inference is not a syllogism but rather an intuition in some extended sense of the word.

This interpretation does not seem to be the strongest, in my opinion. Does this inference, even if it is immediate, survive against the hypothesis of an all-powerful evil demon? I don't think so. If this demon is supposed to be powerful enough to make mathematical truths seem true but be false in actuality, then I cannot bring myself to believe that this immediate inference cannot be doubted. I also doubt that we can state that any knowledge gained by intuition qualifies to be the first indubitable truth that Descartes is looking for. If this were to be the case, then mathematical axioms take the place of being the first indubitable truth as well; however, this is clearly not what Descartes wants to show. 

Pure intuition

The final interpretation, and in my eyes the most likely hypothesis, suggests that the cogito is only an intuition of existence. This means that we no longer divide the cogito into two separate logical moments but only recognise one. The reformulation of the cogito found in the meditations seems to speak in favour of this interpretation. Whereas the formulation “I think, therefore I am” makes it seem as if we somehow, by some deduction, syllogism or inference, pass from thinking to being, the formulation “I am, I exist” does not imply this. I think it is very likely that Descartes changed his wording in order to be less misleading and to not be interpreted as an inference at all anymore. 

This would mean that the cogito is not the conclusion of any reasoning; rather, it is intuited; it is grasped intuitively. The cogito is indemonstrable by reason; rather, it must be intuited and grasped. This is by no means an illogical conclusion, as the role assigned to the cogito being the first truth and an Archimedean point is precisely to be indemonstrable. If the cogito was in some way demonstrable, then the premises of the demonstration would be the first truth. 

Even though there are many possible interpretations of Descartes’ cogito, I think the interpretation that is closest to Descartes has to be the last one. This is because Descartes explicitly denies that the cogito can be interpreted as a syllogism, a deduction or an inference, and because the cogito’s role, being a first principle, is exactly to be indemonstrable.

 

To further understand Descartes' second meditation, check out this post!