Doubts About "Descartes' Self-Doubt"

Author(s): James M. Humber

Source: The Philosophical Review , Apr., 1978, Vol. 87, No. 2 (Apr., 1978), pp. 253-258
Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical Review

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2184755

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 The Philosophical Review, LXXXVII, No. 2 (April 1978).

DOUBTS ABOUT "DESCARTES'S SELF-DOUBT"

James M. Humber

In a recent article, Donald Sievert advances a new and interesting

interpretation of the cogito.1 Supposedly, this interpretation enjoys
an advantage over all others in that it explains how Descartes could have
expressed both doubt and certainty regarding his own existence without
falling victim to self-contradiction. In briefest outline, the view Sievert
would have us adopt is this: First, Descartes is said to "observe"
occurrent mental acts (S, 55).2 When these observations take place,
Descartes ". . . does not doubt, and cannot imagine doubting, the
existence of what he observes. . . . " (S, 58). That is to say, when
Descartes "observes" mental acts, he has knowledge of (S, 51),
or is certain of (S, 57), the existence of such acts. Further, particular
thoughts or mental acts cannot be conceived of by Descartes as existing
apart from a thinking substance (S, 55) or self (S, 51, note 1).
Thus, whenever Descartes observes a mental act, he must conclude that
there is an existent thinking substance or self in which that act
"resides" (S, 55). Still, because this conclusion rests upon an inference
or judgment, and reasoning of this sort "carries with it the risk of
doubt," Descartes cannot know that he exists as a thinking substance
until a veracious God has been proven to exist (S, 51, 55, 58). However,
if Descartes considers himself only "in terms of the acts which he
observes" (that is, if he takes himself to be the mental acts which are
observed), he can know that he exists, for it is impossible to doubt the
existence of observed mental acts (S, 55-56).
I believe that Sievert is correct when he insists that Descartes expresses
both doubt and certainty concerning his own existence.3 I also believe
that Sievert is pursuing a proper course when he tries to explain
this vacillation in Descartes' thought. However, I do not think that
Sievert's interpretation of the cogito is correct; and in what follows
I am going to argue that his analysis must be rejected because it

'Donald Sievert, "Descartes's Self-doubt," The Philosophical Review Vol. 84

(1975), pp. 51-70. Hereafter cited as S.
2 Sievert uses "mental acts" to designate occurrent states of mind,
e.g., my now remembering an appointment I have (S, 53, note 3). He
interprets "observe" to mean "introspect", (S, 55, note 7).
3 Sievert's arguments are convincing on this score. However, the first (and in
my opinion, best) argument for Descartes' self-doubt was proposed by
Alan Gewirth, "The Cartesian Circle," The Philosophical Review, Vol. 50 (1941).

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 JAMES M. HUMBER

explains neither Descartes' expressions of self-doubt, nor his expressions

of self-certainty.

In order to show that Descartes can express both doubt and

certainty concerning "I exist" without falling victim to self-contradic-
tion, Sievert argues that Descartes uses two different proofs of
his own existence-one dubitable, the other not. The dubitable proof is
held to be an inference, and by its means Descartes is said to
seek knowledge of his own existence as a thinking substance:

Thus I submit that Descartes, at least sometimes, views self-knowledge as a

matter of inference involving moving from claims about the occurrence of
thoughts (or ideas) to claims about the existence of a thinking substance. Yet
inference, for Descartes, carries with it the risk of doubt.... He [Descartes]
does not doubt, and cannot imagine doubting, the existence of what he observes
at a given moment [viz., occurrent mental acts]. Doubt arises when
inference is introduced, when he [Descartes] judges or infers that what he
observes is related to something else. [S, 58]

When Descartes "observes" occurrent mental acts, he cannot doubt that

those acts exist. Furthermore, he cannot conceive of occurrent mental acts
as being anything else than qualities or properties of thinking substance;
that is to say, Descartes cannot conceive of mental acts existing
"on their own," apart from a thinking substance.4 Thus, whenever
Descartes observes an occurrent mental act he (1) knows (by direct
"observation") that that act exists, and (2) concludes (by deductive
inference) that a thinking substance exists in which that act resides.
If the cogito has the character attributed to it by Sievert, Descartes'
proof of his own existence as a thinking substance must be viewed
as the immediate deduction of one thing (the existence of a mind)
from another (the existence of a quality or property of mind). In
addition, it is only because the proof involves a deductive inference
that Descartes is able to experience self-doubt. However, there are
two difficulties with Sievert's explanation of Descartes' self-doubt.
First, Descartes defined "deduction" as "all necessary inference from
other facts that are known with certainty" (HR I, 8. Emphasis added.)5

'On Sievert's view, Descartes has "built the notion of being in a substance
into the notion of being a quality" (S, 56, note 8). As a result, Sievert
believes the inference from the existence of an occurrent mental act (quality
of thinking substance) to the existence of a thinking substance is conceptually
necessary.
'All such references are to The Philosophical Works of Descartes,
E.S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross, trans. (Cambridge: 1967), Vols. I and II.

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 DESCARTES'S SELF-DOUBT

Now clearly, the inference which Sievert claims is present in Descartes'

proof of his existence as a thinking substance is a single-step
inference of this sort. If Sievert is to provide support for his
explanation of Descartes' self-doubt, then, he must give some evidence
for the view that Descartes doubts logically necessary immediate
inferences simply because they are inferences. However, in defending
his view, Sievert cites the following passage:

But the principal error and the commonest which we may meet with ...
consists in my judging that ideas which are in me are similar or conformable
to the things which are outside me.... [S, 58; HR I, 159-160]

Sievert acknowledges that in this passage Descartes is talking about

the error which may occur when a person judges (or infers) that
his ideas conform to material objects. Yet he goes on to insist that
Descartes believes the same possibility of error is present whenever a
person tries to relate his ideas to anything beyond certain modes of
thought. And given this view, Sievert concludes that "doubt about the
conformity of [Descartes'] idea of himself [as a thinking substance]
to something else, such as a thinking substance, is presumably
an instance of the kind of possible error or doubt in question" (S, 59).
Now all of this is interesting, but quite mistaken. If the above-quoted
passage is to provide any support at all for Sievert's explanation of
Descartes' self-doubt, one must assume (as Sievert apparently does) that
Descartes is using "judge" to mean "deductively infer." But this is
not Descartes' use. In the pages immediately following the passage
quoted by Sievert, Descartes gives two reasons why he must doubt
judgments affirming an idea-ideate correspondence. First, because
Descartes has ideas of extra-mental objects during sleep, he concludes
that it is not necessary that there be material objects in order for
there to be ideas of such objects in his mind. And second, even if
Descartes were sure that some of his ideas were caused by material
objects, "it is not a necessary consequence that they [the material
objects] should resemble these [ideas]" (HR I, 161). In the end, then,
judgments to the effect that ideas resemble corporeal objects are
dubitable, precisely because inferences of this sort are not
necessary, that is, not deductive. Descartes makes this point even more
clearly in Meditation VI:

And I easily conceive that if some body exists with which my mind is
conjoined and united in such a way that it can apply itself to consider
it when it pleases it may be that . .'. it [the mind] turns toward the
body, and there beholds something conformable to the idea.... And because
I can discover no other convenient mode of explaining it, I conjecture with
probability that body does exist; but this is only with probability, and although

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 JAMES M. HUMBER

I examine all things with care, I nevertheless do not find that from this
distinct idea of corporeal nature . .. I can derive any argument from which
there will necessarily be deduced the existence of body. [HR I, 186-87. Emphasis
added.]

Clearly, Descartes believes that judgments affirming an idea-ideate

correspondence are dubitable because inferences of this sort are probable
rather than necessary. And in this case, the passage quoted by
Sievert provides no support for his explanation of Descartes' self-doubt.
And since Sievert offers no evidence for his view other than the passage
in question, his position is left without any support at all.
If it were simply the case that Sievert's explanation of Descartes'
self-doubt were unsupported, one might be inclined to accept his theory
as a "likely hypothesis." In point of fact, however, there is
good reason to reject Sievert's theory; for rather than expressing
doubt about single-step deductive inferences, Descartes actually claims
that inferences of this sort are equal in certainty to intuitions. Indeed, in
the Regulae Descartes even goes so far as to allow that inferences
of this sort may be called intuitions:

In one passage we opposed it [intuition] to deduction.... But the simple deduc-

tion of one thing from another, we said . . . was effected by
intuition. . . . As for deduction, if we are thinking of how the process
works . . . it appears not to occur all at the same time, but involves
a sort of movement on the part of our mind when it infers one thing
from another. We were justified therefore in distinguishing deduction ... from
intuition. But if we wish to consider deduction as an accomplished fact ... then
it no longer designates a movement, but rather the completion of a movement,
and we therefore suppose that it is presented to us by intuition when it
is simple and clear, but not when it is complex and involved . . . because it
cannot then be grasped as a whole at the same time by the mind, and its
certainty depends to some extent on memory. [HR I, 33]

What distinguishes inferences from intuitions is that while inferences

involve "some sort of movement on the part of our mind," intuitions
involve no such movement. However, when an inference is simple, it can
be "grasped as a whole by the mind," and so be as certain as
an intuition.6 Thus, simple deductions either can be described as
inferences (if one considers the movement of thought they involve), or as
intuitions (if one considers their degree of certainty):

6Thus in interviewing Descartes, Burnian claimed that Descartes' third

Meditation proof of God was a deduction, and so not intuitively certain.
Descartes admitted that the proof was an inference, but insisted that it could
be grasped in a single thought, and so possess intuitive certainty. See
Oeuvres de Descartes, C. Adam and P. Tannery, eds. (Paris: 1913), Vol. V, 149.

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 DESCARTES'S SELF-DOUBT

The upshot of the matter is that it is possible to say that those propositions
indeed which are immediately deduced from first principles are known now by
intuition, now by deduction, i.e., in a way that differs according to our point
of view. [HR I, 8]

The conclusion seems obvious. If the cogito is an inference having

the character ascribed to it by Sievert, it is a single-step deduction
having intuitive certainty-the highest degree of certainty possible
in Cartesian epistemology. And in this case, Sievert cannot explain
Descartes' self-doubt by referring to the cogito's inferential character;
for if the cogito is an inference, it is an inference equal in
certainty to an intuition.

II

After arguing that Descartes can doubt that he exists as a thinking

thing because this is an inferred belief, Sievert attempts to account
for Descartes' exclamations of self-certainty:

[T]here is a sense in which he [Descartes] can be certain that he exists; insofar as

he considers himself in terms of the acts which he "observes," he can be certain
that they exist whether or not there is a demon or a good God
because he "observes" them. On the other hand, insofar as he considers
himself in terms of a thinking substance (something different from the acts
which he "observes" and something itself "unobservable"), there is need to
justify his belief that (to put it briefly) where there is an act there is
a thinking substance. [S, 67-68]

If we accept this explanation of Descartes' self-certainty, we have

no choice but to conclude that Descartes becomes certain of his own
existence by conceiving of occurrent mental acts as independently
existing things, that is, as things which do not need the support of
an underlying substantia cogitans. This must be so, for if mental acts
could not be conceived to exist except as modes or properties of a thinking
substance, the existence of mental acts and thinking substance would
be indissolubly joined, and Descartes could not be both: (a) certain
that he existed as observed mental acts, and (b) doubtful that he existed
as a thinking substance. (Or to put it another way, Descartes could not
conceive of himself existing as occurrent mental acts and possibly not
existing as a thinking substance.) But to accept the view that Descartes
becomes certain of his own existence by conceiving of mental acts
as self-subsisting things is extremely difficult, for in the Principles
Descartes adamantly insists that anyone who conceives of mental acts as
independently existing things does not perceive them clearly and
distinctly:

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 JAMES M. HUMBER

We may likewise consider thought . .. as the modes which are found in

substance; that is, in as far as we consider that one and the same mind
may have many different thoughts.... We then distinguish them [thoughts]
modally from substance, and they may be conceived not less. clearly and
distinctly, provided we do not think of them as substance or as things
separate from others, but simply as modes of things. Because when we regard
them as in the substances of which they are modes, we distinguish
them from those substances, and take them for what they actually are; while,
on the contrary, if we wish to consider them apart from the substances in
which they are, that will have the effect of taking them as self-subsisting
things and thus confounding the ideas of mode and substance. [HR I, 246]

In effect, to accept Sievert's explanation of Descartes' self-certainty

is to assert that Descartes is sure of his own existence when he
fails to perceive his thought-acts clearly and distinctly. And given
Descartes' many statements to the effect that it is only those things which
are clearly and distinctly perceived which can be known with certainty,
this seems patently unacceptable.
We have argued that Sievert's interpretation of the cogito ought
to be rejected because it explains neither Descartes' expressions of
self-doubt, nor his expressions of self-certainty. When all things are
considered, however, there is an even more important reason for
rejecting Sievert's thesis. As we have seen, Sievert's account of Descartes'
self-certainty presupposes that Descartes can conceive of occurrent
mental acts as independently existing things. But in explaining
Descartes' inference from occurrent mental acts to the existence of
an underlying substantive support, Sievert repeatedly states that
Descartes cannot conceive of occurrent mental acts existing apart from
a thinking substance (S, 55). Thus Sievert has a choice: he either must
reject his explanation of Descartes' self-doubt, or he must reject his
explanation of Descartes' self-certainty. Our choice is much less difficult;
for it is simply that of choosing to accept or reject a theory which
is inconsistent.

Georgia State University

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