Sean Tarjoto
Prof. Robinson
Individual & Society III
Oct. 8, 2000

	The Circular and Non-Existent: Descartes and the Second Meditation
	In the Second Meditation Descartes persuades himself that the existence of everything is uncertain, and then concludes that the only thing certain to exist is himself.  In this fashion one may assume that Descartes has abandoned his Method of Doubt having faced the possibility that he himself does not exist.  The argument concluding the certainty of Descartes’ own existence has not fully incorporated the Method of Doubt.  In this paper, I will analyze the process of Descartes argument in the Second Meditation while considering the effects of doubts which he does not illustrate.
	Descartes consideration that God, or some other power with an malevolent purpose, has placed the ability to produce thoughts within Descartes, is immediately followed by the first proposition “I am, I exist.” If Descartes is being supplied by thoughts from a “deceiver both very powerful and very cunning,” this is not a persuasion that necessarily implies Descartes does not exist, but rather that his conception of his existence is what proves it every time it is conceived or furthermore, expressed. Between his assertion that an evil deceiver, no matter how powerful, cannot cause Descartes to be nothing (which would erase the purpose of the deceiver) and his assertion of his existence, Descartes states that, “after having ... scrupulously examined everything, one must then, in conclusion, take as assured that the proposition: I am, I exist is necessarily true” (103). 	The conclusion is intended as a superlative principle extending to all persons who assert the statement, though the next measure of doubt concerns the question of what exactly Descartes thinks he is. He “consider[s] afresh what I thought I was before I entered into these last thoughts...” Descartes first proposes he is a “man”, and then questions “what is man”, and then proposes he is a “rational animal”. However, from the questions of what is rational and what is animal, he concludes we would “fall unwittingly into an infinite number of other” questions. Thus, he stops “to consider here the thoughts which sprang up hithero spontaneously in my mind”.  Here we find ourselves, as Descartes dismisses his initial questions for the sake of spontaneity, also separated from spirit of the Method. Descartes is using spontaneity as his method, no longer doubt - which requires the restriction of spontaneity.  By considering the nature of himself at this juncture Descartes risks following an argument whose intrinsic form is of erroneous empirical notions. If empiricism is to understand knowledge directly by perceiving those bodies external to the observer, and Descartes issue is to explore the fallibility of this process, then his use of spontaneous thought is a tragic turn of events.  While flowing between ideas (i.e.. from the notion of a blue pen to the question of what is blue) allows a candid observation of what ones own ideas are, what is equally important to understand the infrastructure of ones whole collective of ideas. It is clearly decided in the beginning of the first meditation to apply such an observation: “I had to undertake seriously once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted... and to begin afresh from the foundations” (95). He previously states, “I had accepted many false opinions as being true, and that what I had since based on such insecure principles could only be most doubtful and uncertain...” It is difficult to believe that a thinker of Descartes’ caliber cannot see the disparity between qualities of immediate thought and their relation to empirical measures, and the challenge to those acts of thinking ensued by skepticism.
	The doubt of empirical faculties and senses which inspired his meditations steps aside to allow room for that which is “inspired by [his] own nature alone.” (104)  Descartes concludes he is composed of  “feelings and thought as actions of a soul [a soul composed of a flame or vapor, like a wind]” which are incorporated by a body which senses “any other body ... either by touch, sight, hearing, taste or smell.” It is difficult to believe Descartes would not consider any spontaneous notion of existence, although this is an determining element within the statement, “I am, I exist.” It seems as if the magnifier of doubt has been lifted away from most important aspect of his ideological infrastructure, that of himself.
	We are left as Descartes reconsiders the role of the evil deceiver against this new notion of self when he asks “who am I, now that I suppose there is someone who is extremely powerful and, if I may so say, malicious and cunning, who employs all his efforts and industry to deceive me?”  Here is the same error, as Descartes decides “[t]here is no need for me to stop and enumerate” the characteristics of this new relationship, and then passes to the attributes of the soul (or mind). The only attribute is thought, since it cannot be detached from Descartes as a soul, but can from his notion of his body.  It is implied to be possible with just the existing soul.  Here Descartes states, “I am, I exist: but for how long?  For as long as I think, for it might perhaps happen, if  I ceased to think, that I would at the same time cease to be or to exist” (105). What follows is a deductive self-analysis, though the elements removed are not aspects of himself, or even his notions of himself: Descartes declares he is not “a wind, a breath of air, a vapour, or anything I can invent or imagine” since they are supposed to be nothing by virtue they are conceptions, but that “without changing this supposition” Descartes is “nevertheless certain [he is] something.” This “something” is described as a thing that “doubts, perceives, affirms, denies, wills, does not will, that imagines also, and which feels” (107).  Descartes is the result, or indirectly mitigated by perception of the “intermediary organs of the[/his] body.” He is a “being who senses... apprehends and knows things, as by the sense-organs.” Although he allows the empirical nature of the notion, that “these appearances are false and that [he] is dreaming” Descartes immediately dismisses this potential for further doubt to immediately conclude perception, taken precisely, “is nothing other than thinking” (107).  The argument is circular, perhaps redundant, but not to the point - since it is concluded that Descartes cannot trust the world to exist, it is not necessary to illustrate that Descartes is not these things. But out of nothing Descartes seems to be something composed of the false notions of his world. If Descartes is a being put together by the thought/perception of a world does not exist, then Descartes himself is nothing but absurd. He is only salvageable by the notion of the evil deceiver, but then this is not explored. 	
	Though Descartes has formed a picture of himself as a “thinking animal who wills and perceives through the sense-organs”, this picture is aboard a poorly sewn-canvas. The sense-organs acting as an intermediary between the body of the soul/mind and bodies external to it are, in the act of perceiving, what should properly be termed thought. But Descartes conclusion is that the difference between the two is inconsequential enough to assert his perception of his existence is no different from his existence itself. Descartes does not question what the nature, or even his idea of existence, has in relation to the [power of the evil deceiver, since he concludes in the third meditation the higher power is benevolent].  Nor does he doubt the effect of his thought on his following spontaneous thoughts. To refine the details of his ill-framed nature, he uses a deductive argument where he underlies how as many things as he can imagine are not him, as opposed to isolating that which comprises a more immediate notion of what he believes he is. Descartes occasionally leaves little explanation for that which are left to doubt, and so with it the spirit of his Method.