Note
1: The problem with this noble project is
that, as stated, it is impossible to achieve: the
very least that one must retain are one's
capacity to reason and express one's thoughts in
language. Perhaps one may doubt even that, but
this one can do only piece-meal (in
language), and while one retains at least part
(which one may consider later on and seek to replace
by something better). Back.
Note
2: This clearly implies Descartes presumes logic
is not given up. Back.
Note
3: First, it may be doubted whether all one
had learned has arrived through the senses (and
Leibniz would have exclaimed here "perhaps
everything - but the sense of self", as
seems indeed to be presumed by Descartes' own
"cogito ergo sum").
Second, the fact that
it was sometimes proved to Descartes that his senses
deceived him entails something was sometimes proved.
(Indeed, in a sense one can claim that even if one
can prove one is sometimes mistaken, one
cannot prove one is always mistaken, for if
one could prove that it would have to be true (if
what one proves is true), and so one would not be
mistaken about something.) Back.
Note
4: But how does Descartes know he is not mad?
Because others tell him he is not? Amd why are these
others not mad? In short, if one agrees that some
people have been mistaken because their minds were
deranged, one cannot simply decide one is oneself
not deranged simply by declaring one is not: a
madman is equally capable of affirming he is
sane. Back.
Note
5: This may be called Chuang-Tzu's problem
- who dreamt he was a butterfly, and woke up asking
himself how he could know that he was a man who
dreamt he was a butterfly or a butterfly who dreamt
he was a man. (One of my answers to that predicament
is that the former is much more probable, since we
know that men may dream they are butterflies, but do
not know that butterflies may dream they are men.) Back.
Note
6: It is an interesting observation that
mathematics is of "that kind
which only treat of things that are very simple
and very general, without taking great trouble to
ascertain whether they are actually existent or
not" and also that mathematical truths seem
to be and remain the same in any case. Back.
Note
7: Let's again remark one may suppose what
one pleases, but it doesn't follow one need or
indeed can believe everything one supposes.
(I can suppose I don't believe anything, but
personally I find this hard to believe.)
Next, given this, the
general answer to such suppositions is: one can confirm
and infirm suppositions by finding their
logical consequences exist or fail to exist.
Finally, the last
passage is of some importance for Descartes'
argumentation, in that he grants that the God he
believes in has permitted it that Descartes is
sometimes mistaken. Back.
Note
8: Let's again note that there is a
considerable difference between merely supposing
something is contrary to one's belief, and being
able to support such a supposition. Here and
elsewhere Descartes tends to speak as if these are
the same. Back.
Note
9: It is again a fact that Descartes keeps
presupposing logic, which means he does not doubt
everything and mewhich ans also, and more
importantly, he has a class of very important
beliefs he does not doubt at all, whatever he does
say. Back.
Note
10: This is clearly a highly rhetorical
passage. Why not rather assume straightaway the
Zoroastrians were right, and in fact there is both
aGod and a malevolent and deceitful devil?
Next, it seems rather
odd that one at the same time can insist that there
is something much like a deceitful divinity and that
one can oneself - a mere mortal - outwit it by
thinking hard and careful enough. (This seems like a
5-year old who just learned chess, who believes he
can beat everyone. Not even Capablanca could.)
Finally, Descartes is
assuming lots of things might be different from what
he thinks they are, but again he neither questions
his capacity to use language nor his capacity to
reason logically, nor in fact his memory.
This is rather odd, for
if one starts imagining one may be deceived, it
seems to me that one should also at least consider
one may be deceived about language or logic
or one's use of it. Back.
last update: Jun 23 2003
