Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Sources
- 1 The Logic of Omnipotence
- 2 Descartes's Discussion of His Existence in the Second Meditation
- 3 Descartes on the Creation of the Eternal Truths
- 4 Two Motivations for Rationalism: Descartes and Spinoza
- 5 Continuous Creation, Ontological Inertia, and the Discontinuity of Time
- 6 Concerning the Freedom and Limits of the Will
- 7 On the Usefulness of Final Ends
- 8 The Faintest Passion
- 9 On the Necessity of Ideals
- 10 On God's Creation
- 11 Autonomy, Necessity, and Love
- 12 An Alleged Asymmetry between Actions and Omissions
- 13 Equality and Respect
- 14 On Caring
2 - Descartes's Discussion of His Existence in the Second Meditation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Sources
- 1 The Logic of Omnipotence
- 2 Descartes's Discussion of His Existence in the Second Meditation
- 3 Descartes on the Creation of the Eternal Truths
- 4 Two Motivations for Rationalism: Descartes and Spinoza
- 5 Continuous Creation, Ontological Inertia, and the Discontinuity of Time
- 6 Concerning the Freedom and Limits of the Will
- 7 On the Usefulness of Final Ends
- 8 The Faintest Passion
- 9 On the Necessity of Ideals
- 10 On God's Creation
- 11 Autonomy, Necessity, and Love
- 12 An Alleged Asymmetry between Actions and Omissions
- 13 Equality and Respect
- 14 On Caring
Summary
The epidemic doubt that Descartes generates in the First Meditation is arrested early in the Second, when he finds in his own existence a belief apparently immune to even the most virulent skepticism. There are versions of this discovery in many of Descartes's works, but it is the Meditations which provides his most mature and fully developed account of it. Moreover, some of his most important statements elsewhere concerning the belief that he exists refer to the discussion in the Second Meditation. My aim here is to understand what he says in that discussion.
A novel and provocative interpretation of Descartes's views concerning his existence has recently been proposed by Jaakko Hintikka. According to Hintikka, Descartes's assertion of his existence in cogito ergo sum is best understood as performatory in character rather than as primarily a matter of inference. Although I find Hintikka's approach fresh and interesting, it is difficult for me to evaluate his analysis of the cogito because I cannot make good sense out of the logical apparatus which he brings to bear in the course of developing his interpretation. Let me illustrate this difficulty by considering what he says about construing the cogito as an inference.
While he naturally places most emphasis on his original notion that cogito ergo sum has a performatory aspect, Hintikka does not deny that sum may also be regarded as inferred:
There is no incompatibility whatsoever between saying that cogito ergo sum is a performance and that it is an inference.
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- Information
- Necessity, Volition, and Love , pp. 3 - 23Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998