Descartes’ Philosophy: Substance, Attributes, and the Path to Truth
Descartes’ Core Concepts
Attribute: The essence of each substance (e.g., the attribute of bodies is extension). Idea: Thought. Reason: The power to distinguish the true from the false. Mode: Ways to express a substance (e.g., listed as a way of a body). Nature: (1) Essence. (2) Joint natural beings. Opinion: Knowledge not recognized as formally true. Reality: The reality of things in themselves. Objective Reality: The reality of things as they are represented. Substance: Everything that exists in such a way that it needs nothing else to exist (except God or a finite extended thinking substance).
Descartes’ Method for Truth
For Descartes, the method is essential to reach the truth. He follows three steps:
- From the complex to the simple: Problem analysis, data synthesis, and enumeration.
- Intuition of evidence: Evidence is the criterion of certainty, what appears to reason as a clear and distinct idea (that which is presented to reason beyond doubt or confusion).
- From the simple to the complex: Deductive process from evidence.
Methodical Doubt and the Cogito
When applying Descartes’ method, methodical doubt arises about knowledge infused by the deception of the senses, the difficulty in distinguishing waking from dreaming, and the possibility of being deceived by an evil genius. However, the very act of doubting, and generally thinking, is proof of something indubitable: the existence of a thinking consciousness (Cogito).
Types of Ideas
The ‘I’ consists of ideas that are:
- Adventitious: Coming from outside.
- Innate: From birth.
- Fictitious: Made from others.
Ideas are states of consciousness and are formally equal. However, they differ in terms of their objective reality or content (what the idea represents).
Analysis of Adventitious Ideas
Applying the method, Descartes removes everything that comes from the senses. Therefore, according to Descartes, bodies are reduced to extension. This provides the self or the existence of bodies in the outside world. Yet, the problem of being deceived remains.
Analysis of Innate Ideas
The idea of God exists in our consciousness and represents an infinite substance. The reason for this idea cannot be other than the existence of God, and that the self is finite. The idea of God is therefore innate. This rules out the existence of an evil genius, since God exists and is not misleading, nor would allow the existence of a deceiving body. Extended beings, therefore, exist, and these cause the ideas of extended bodies in consciousness.
Having overcome all reasons to doubt, and applying the method exhaustively, we can say that there are three substances:
- Res Cogitans: The thinking self, consciousness.
- Res Extensa: Bodies.
- Res Infinita: God.
Descartes distinguishes between modes and attributes of a substance. Modes are accidental properties, while attributes are essential properties. For bodies, modes are position, shape, etc., and the attribute is extension. For the mind, modes are thinking, willing, etc., and the attribute is consciousness.