Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy (6 page)

THE TRADEMARK ARGUMENT

Trusting clarity and distinctness, Descartes indulges a piece of reasoning. Looking into his own `self, which is all that he has at this
point, Descartes discovers that he has an idea of perfection. He
then argues that such an idea implies a cause. However, the thing
that caused it must have as much `reality, and that includes perfection, as the idea itself. This implies that only a perfect cause, that is,
God, will do. Hence God exists, and has left the idea of perfection
as an innate sign of his workmanship in our minds, like a craftsman leaving a trademark stamped in his work.

Once Descartes has discovered God, the seas of doubt subside in
a rush. For since God is perfect, he is no deceiver: deceiving is
clearly falling short of goodness, let alone perfection. Hence, if we
do our stuff properly, we can be sure that we will not be the victims
of illusion. The world will be as we understand it to be. Doing our
stuff properly mainly means trusting only clear and distinct ideas.

What are we to make of the `trademark' argument? Here is a reconstruction:

I have the idea of a perfect being. This idea must have a
cause. A cause must be at least as perfect as its effect. So
something at least as perfect as my idea caused it. Therefore
such a thing exists. But that thing must be perfect, that is, God.

Suppose we grant Descartes the idea mentioned in the first
premise. (There are theological traditions that would not even do
that. They would say that God's perfection defies understanding,
so that we have no idea of it, or him.) Still, why is he entitled to the premise that his idea must have a cause? Might not there be events
that have simply no cause? Events that, as we might say, `just happen'? After all, sitting on his rock, Descartes cannot appeal to any
normal, scientific, experience. In his bare metaphysical solitude,
how can he deny that events might just happen? And if he thinks
the contrary, shouldn't he then worry whether the Demon might
be working on him, making him think this although it is not true?

However, it gets worse when we arrive at the next step. Consider
my idea of someone who is perfectly punctual. Does this need a
perfectly punctual cause? Surely a better thing to think would be
this. I can simply define what it is for someone to be perfectly
punctual. It means that they are never late (or perhaps, never early
and never late). To understand what it would be for someone to be
like that, I do not have to have come across such a person. I can describe them in advance. I understand what condition they have to
satisfy without any such acquaintance, and indeed even if nobody
is ever like that.

Probably Descartes would reject the analogy. Perhaps he thinks
of it more like this. Do I have an idea of a perfect mathematician?
Well, I can start by thinking of a mathematician as one who never
makes mistakes. But that is hardly adequate. A perfect mathematician would be imaginative and inventive as well. Now, with my very
limited knowledge of mathematics, I only have a very confused understanding of what that would be like. In general, I cannot clearly
comprehend or understand inventions before they come alongotherwise, I would be making the inventions myself! So perhaps it
would take a perfect mathematician to give me a good idea (a `clear
and distinct' idea) of what a perfect mathematician would be like.

Well, perhaps; but now it becomes doubtful whether I do have a
clear and distinct idea of a perfect mathematician, and analogously, of a perfect being. Generally, what happens if I frame this
idea is that I think more as I did when thinking of someone perfectly punctual. I think of an agent who never makes mistakes,
never behaves unkindly, never finds things he cannot do, and so
on. I might add in imagination something like a kind of glow, but
it is clear that this will not help. It surely seems presumptuous, or
even blasphemous, to allow myself a complete, clear, comprehension of God's attributes.

In fact, elsewhere in his writings Descartes gives a rather lovely
analogy, but one which threatens to undermine the trademark argument:

/W/e can touch a tnountain with our hands but we cannot
put our arms around it as we could put theta around a tree or
something else not too large for theta. To grasp something is to
embrace it in one's thought; to know something it is sufficient
to touch it with ones thought.

Perhaps we can only touch God's supposed qualities by way of definition, but cannot comprehend them. In that case we cannot
argue hack to an ideal or archetype that enabled us to comprehend
them.

So, the trademark argument is one that strikes most of us as far
from demon-proof-so far, in fact, that it seems pretty easy to resist even if we are not at all in the grip of extreme doubt. At this
point some suppressed premises suggested by the history of ideas
may be used to excuse Descartes. He was undoubtedly more optimistic about the trademark argument than we can be because he inherited a number of ideas from previous philosophical traditions. One very important one is that genuine causation is a matter
of the cause passing on something to an effect. Causation is like
passing the baton in a relay race. So, for example, it takes heat to
make something hot, or movement to induce motion. This is a
principle that surfaces again and again in the history of philosophy, and we shall encounter it more than once. Here it disposed
Descartes to think that the `perfection' in his idea needed to be secreted into it, as it were, by a perfect cause.

But this principle about causation is scarcely demon-proof. In
fact, it is not even true. We have become familiar with causes that
bear no resemblance to their effects. The movement of a piece of
iron in a magnetic field bears no resemblance to an electric current, but that is what it causes. In fact, it seems as though Descartes
(once more influenced by ideas from previous philosophical traditions) may have slipped into thinking that an idea of X actually
shares X. So an idea of infinity, for instance, would be an infinite
idea. (Would an idea of something solid be a solid idea?) Similarly an
idea of perfection would be a perfect idea, and would require a perfect cause. But again, it might be the Demon that makes you think
any such thing, and again there is no good reason to follow him.

THE CARTESIAN CIRCLE

Descartes convinced himself that the argument was good: every
step in it was'clear and distinct'. So now he has God, and God is no
deceiver. Still, remember that to do this he had to trust his clear and distinct ideas as sources of truth. Nevertheless, isn't there an awful
hole in his procedure? What happened to the Demon? Might not
even our clear and distinct ideas lead us astray? To close off this
possibility, it seems, Descartes turns round and uses God-the
God whose existence he has just proved-as the guarantor that
what we perceive clearly and distinctly must be true.

It was one of his contemporaries, Antoine Arnauld (1612-94),
who cried `foul' most loudly at this point, accusing Descartes of arguing in a circle, the infamous `Cartesian circle. Descartes seems
committed to two different priorities. Consider the view that if we
clearly and distinctly perceive some proposition p, then it is true
that p. Let us abbreviate this to (CI)p - Tp), reading that if p is
clear and distinct (`CD'), then it is true (`T'). And suppose we symbolize `God exists and does not deceive us' by' (;'. Then the circle is
that at some points it seems that Descartes holds: I can know that
(CDp Tp) only if I first know G. But at other points he holds: I
can know that (;only if I first know (CDp - Tp). It is like the familiar impasse in the morning, when you need to have some coffee to
get out of bed, and you need to get out of bed to fix the coffee.

One or the other has to come first. There is a whole literature
trying to understand whether Descartes actually falls into this trap.
Some commentators cite passages in which it seems that he does
not really hold the first. The major suggestion is that G is necessary
only to validate memoryof proofs. So while you actually clearly and
distinctly perceive something, you do not need to trust anything at
all, even G, to be entitled to assert its truth. But later, when you have
forgotten the proof, only G underwrites your title to say that you
once proved it, so it must be true.

Other commentators suggest that Descartes does not need the
second. He sees that God exists, clearly and distinctly, but does not
need a general rule, of the kind (C1)p - Tp), to underwrite this
perception. He can be certain of this instance of the rule, without
being sure about the rule itself. This is itself an interesting form of
suggestion, and introduces a very important truth, which is that
very often we are more certain of particular verdicts than we are of
the principles that we might cite when we try to defend them. For
example, I might know that a particular sentence is grammatical,
without being sure of any general rule of grammar that allows it.
Philosophers have often been rather hard on this possibility. The
admired character Socrates, in Plato's Dialogues, is infuriatingly
fond of getting his stooges to say something, showing that they
cannot defend it by articulate general principles, and concluding
that they didn't really have any right to claim what they did. However, the case of grammatical knowledge suggests that this is a bad
inference. Consider as well how in perception, I may recognize
something as a Pomeranian, or a member of the Rolling Stones, or
my wife, without knowing any general principles that `justify' the
verdict. My perceptual system may operate according to some general principles or `algorithms' for translating visual input into verdicts, but I have no idea what they are. So I couldn't answer a
Socrates who asked for general principles underlying my recognition. I could only flounder and splutter. But I recognize the
Pomeranian, or Rolling Stone, or my wife, for all that. Socrates'
procedure is only apt to give philosophers a bad name.

StiII, we are bound to ask why Descartes thinks he can he certain
of this instance of the rule. Why is his`seeing'that God exists clearly and distinctly also a clear and distinct case of seeing the truth?
Some of us may have the dark suspicion that it is because mention
of God clouds the mind rather than clarifying it.

For our purposes, we can leave this issue. What remains clear is
that there is a distinct whiff of double standards here.The kind of
sceptical problem embodied in the Evil Demon is somehow quietly forgotten, while Descartes tries to engineer his way off the lonely
rock of the Cogito. And this might suggest that he has put himself
on a desert island from which there is no escape.

FOUNDATIONS AND WEBS

The great Scottish thinker David Hume (1711-76) criticized
Descartes like this:

7iic're is a species of scepticism, antecedent to all study and
philosophy, which is much inculcated by Descartes and others, as a sovereign preservative against error and precipitate
judgment. It recommends an universal doubt, not only of all
our firrrm'ropinions and principles, but also of "our very faculties; o.1-whose veracity, say they, we must assure ourselves, 17y a
chain of reasoning, deduce(! from sortie original principle,
which cannot possibly be fallacious or deceitt id. But neither is
there any such original principle, which has a prerogative
above others, that are sel fevident amt convincing: Or i f there
were, could we advancea step beyond it, but by the use of those
very faculties, of which we are supposed to be already diffident. The Cartesian doubt, therefore, were it ever possible to
beattained byanyhuman creature (asit plainly is not) would be entirely incurable; and no reasoning could ever bring us to
a state of assurance and conviction upon any subject.