Descartes et les fausses idees Emanuela Scribano 2001
"Descartes on False Ideas" by Emanuela Scribano 2001
- Translated from the original French into English by Google translate.
It is in the Third Meditation (TM) that Descartes introduces the notion of true and misconceptions. This last category of ideas attracted the attention of the interpreters, mainly because of the difficulty of identifying a coherence between the theory of misconceptions set out in the TM and that of the responses to the objections that Arnauld addressed to Descartes in this regard. This will be the subject of this discussion, which will therefore also focus on the doctrine of "material falsehood" of ideas.
2The TM divides ideas into two categories: on the one hand, those that represent something, and to which the idea name fits "cleanly"; on the other hand, those that represent nothing and are only modifications of thought, and to which, obviously, the idea name fits "improperly":
3
Quaedam ex his (cogitationibus) tanquam rerum imagines sunt, quibus solis proprie convenit ideae nomen: ut cum hominem, vel Chimeram, vel Coelum, vel Angelum, vel Deum cogito. Aliae vero alias quasdam praeterea formas habent: ut, cum volo, cum timeo, cum affirmo, cum nego, semper quidem aliquam rem ut subjectum meae cogitationis apprehendo, sed aliquid etiam amplius quam istius rei similitudinem cogitatione complector; et ex his aliae voluntates, sive affectus, aliae autem judicia appellantur. [1]
[1]
AT VII, p. 37.3-12. The references to Descartes' text are...
4Descartes then states that ideas, considered independently of any judgment, cannot be false: "Jam quod ad ideas attinet, si solae in se spectentur, nec ad aliud quid illas referam, falsae proprie esse non possunt; nam sive capram, sive chimeram imaginer, non minus verum est me unam imaginari quam alteram.... Ac proinde sola supersunt judicia, in quibus mihi cavendum est ne fallar. " [2]
[2]
AT VII, p. 37,13-22.
5The ideas themselves are a premise of the first demonstration of God's existence. These ideas have two sides: their "formal" reality, which makes them changes in thought capable of representing something, and their realitas objectiva, namely what they actually represent [3]
[3]
AT VII, p. 40-41.. Descartes develops proof of the existence of God through the search for a cause outside the thought of the objective reality of the ideas themselves, and in particular the idea of God. It is within this proof that Descartes distinguishes the ideas themselves into two categories: true ideas and misconceptions, depending on whether they represent beings who can exist or beings who cannot exist outside thought. Misconceptions are an exception to the initial declaration of the impossibility for an idea to be false:
6
Quamvis enim falsitatem proprie dictam, sive formalem, nonnisi in judiciis posset reperiri paulo ante notaverim, est tamen profecto quaedam alia falsitas materialis in ideis, cum non rem tanquam rem repraesentant: ita, exempli causa, ideae quas habeo caloris et frigoris, tam parum clarae et distinctae sunt, ut ab iis discere non possim, an frigus sit tantum privatio caloris, vel calor privatio frigoris, vel utrumque sit realis qualitas, vel neutrum. Et quia nullae ideae nisi tanquam rerum esse possunt, siquidem verum sit frigus nihil aliud esse quam privationem caloris, idea quae mihi illud tanquam reale quid et positivum representat, non immerito falsa dicetur, et sic de caeteris. [4]
[4]
AT VII, p. 43,26-44,8.
7The falsehood of ideas is called "material", insofar as it opposes the properly or "formally" falsehood called, which is only found in judgment; material falsehood therefore indicates falsehood without judgment.
8Arnauld interpreted this doctrine as referring to a case of misrepresentATION: what is nothing is represented as something. Material falsehood should concern the representation of false objects, in the metaphysical sense of falsehood, namely objects that cannot exist outside thought, and which are represented as if they were true objects, in the metaphysical sense of truth, namely as if they were objects that have a true nature and to which, therefore, a possible existence is suitable. [5]
[5]
The metaphysical sense of truth is used by Descartes... However, in his objections, Arnauld radically refused the notion of material falsehood. There is no sense to say of an idea that it is false, and the false representation is always impossible: if the idea represents the cold as it is, then it is the idea of the cold, but if the idea represents the cold as it is not, then it is not the idea of the cold. In other words, if cold is something negative, the idea of cold must represent something negative; if it represents something positive, this idea is not the idea of cold, and if we judge that it represents cold, it is, precisely, an error of judgment, and not an error of the idea: "Denique, illa frigoris idea, quam dicis materialiter falsam esse, quid menti tuae exhibet? Privationem? Ergo vera is. Ens positivum? Ergo non est frigoris idea. " [6]
[6]
AT VII, p. 207.17-19.
9In his answer, Descartes excludes that the material falsehood of an idea may have any relationship with the truth or metaphysical falsehood of the object represented. The "materiality" in question refers to the "material" side of the idea, namely to the capacity for representation it possesses as a modification of thought, and not to the content of the idea, to what it represents, namely to its "formal" side. Descartes here renames what, in the TM, constituted the two sides of the idea: its "formal" side is called "material", and the realitas objectiva becomes its "formal" side:
10
... cum ipsae ideae sint formae quaedam, nec ex materia ulla componantur, quoties considerantur quatenus aliquid repraesentant, non materialiter, sed formaliter sumuntur; si vero spectarentur, non prout hoc vel illud repraesentant, sed tantummodo prout sunt operationes intellectus, dici quidem posset materialiter illas sumi, sed tunc nullo modo veritatem vel falsitatem objectorum respicerent. [7]
[7]
AT VII, p. 232,12-19.
11Therefore, material falsehood does not constitute a case of misrepresentation, but a defect in the ability to represent the idea, a defect that is verified when the idea, being obscure and confused, does not make it possible to discern whether the object represented is an object (metaphysically) true or (metaphysically) false, which makes it an occasion for a false judgment:
12
Nec ideo mihi videtur illas alio sensu materialiter falsa dici posse, quam eo quem jam explicui: nempe sive frigus sit res positiva, sive privatio, non aliam idcirco de ipso habeo ideam, sed manet in me eadem illa quem semper habui; quamque ipsam dico mihi praebere materiam erroris, si verum sit frigus esse privationem et non habere tantum realitatis quam calor; quia, utramque ideam caloris et frigoris considerando prout ambas a sensibus accepi, non possum advertere plus realitatis per unam quam per alteram exhiberi. [8]
[8]
AT VII, p. 232,19-33,2.
13By denouncing the ambiguity into which Arnauld would have fallen, Descartes, as we can see, maintains that he has never spoken of a false representation and that he has always used the notion of material falsehood in the sense that the answers make more explicit: "Nec ideo mihi videtur illa alio sensu materialiter falsas dici posse, quam eo quem jam explicui... ”