Descartes
Rene Descartes famously argued ‘I think therefore I am.’ His method relied on him having a clear and distinct idea, in this case, ‘I think.’ A less famous argument, but one that has engaged philosophers since, is ‘I doubt therefore I may not be’ or perhaps ‘I may not be as I think I am.’ ‘I doubt’ is less ‘clear and distinct’ or certain than ‘I think’ because to doubt requires that I must be thinking, but to think does not require that I doubt. Revelation produces infallible faith. For those who have to rely on translated reports of revelation, Descartes argues that a benign God is required for all else to exist. This presumes that all other creation stories are mistaken. From the two certainties, ‘I think’ and ‘a benign God exists,’ clear and distinct deductions can be made to the knowledge of at least metaphysical truths and mental state claims where mind and body are distinct. Practical knowledge, based on truth corresponding with reality, is more problematic, notwithstanding Descartes’ assertion. Part of the problem faced by Descartes and his successors is an ambivalence towards trust.
The search for certainty is, in part, motivated by a lack of trust arising from the multiplicity of creation stories, among other things. The point of certainty is that it provides the basis of trust. That notwithstanding, there has been a remarkable lack of sustained attention to the concept of trust in its many manifestations. Truth, on the other hand, gets an inordinate amount of detailed consideration. Inordinate because the practical value of truth is as a certain basis of trust. In the case of the condition account of knowledge, truth is what justifies trust in justified belief. Given the lack of empirical means to establish the correspondence of a proposition or an utterance with reality, reliance is therefore placed on metaphysical accounts.
In 1619, Descartes was in the service of the Prince of Bavaria in the Thirty Years War, which was, at that stage, largely a vicious series of wars between parts of the Holy Roman Empire and various protestant German states. Descartes reports that on one day
undisturbed by any cares or passions, I remained the whole day in seclusion, with full opportunity to occupy my attention with my own thoughts. Of these, one of the very first that occurred to me was that there is seldom so much perfection in works composed of many separate parts, upon which different hands had been employed, as in those completed by a single master.
The attention Descartes gave his own thoughts was in the form of meditation, and his Mediations on First Philosophy warned
I should never advise anyone to read it excepting those who desire to meditate seriously with me, and who can detach their minds from affairs of sense and deliver themselves entirely from every sort of prejudice. I know too well that such men exist in a very small number. But for those who, without caring to comprehend the order and connections of my reasonings, form their criticisms on detached portions arbitrarily selected, as is the custom with many, these, I say, will not obtain much profit from reading this Treatise.
As one unable to meet Descartes’ requirements for reading his work, the arbitrarily selected detached portions above and elsewhere are not intended to deal with the order or connections of his reasoning but of examining some assumptions from which he may have been unable to deliver himself entirely. As one amid a religious war and meditating on the existence of God (a benign, perfect God at that), Descartes was able to concede that God has the power to create a different universe but with creatures unlike us. What Descartes seems unable to consider is that creatures quite like us (Greek, Roman, Jewish, Viking, Mayan, Hindu, etc.) existed in a similar universe to ourselves but with Gods who were neither benign nor perfect. So, it is possible that Descartes did not entirely deliver himself from the prejudices of a faithful French Catholic and a predilection for perfection.
Trust
One of the few places where Descartes mentions ‘trust’ is negative, when he states
But though I recognise my extreme liability to error, and scarce ever trust to the first thoughts which occur to me, yet the experience I have had of possible objections to my views prevents me from anticipating any profit from them.
Yet, in the passage cited above, he reports that ‘one of the very first [thoughts] that occurred to me’ was his trust in the work of a single master rather than collective works. The perfection seemingly inherent in the work of a single author is what justifies Descartes’ trust. Given that the two exemplars favoured by Descartes for creating a sound edifice based on solid foundations are geometry and architecture, the prejudice for individual over collective authorship seems strange. While Euclidian geometry may sound as though it had a single author, it seems improbable that it was so. But what is even more remarkable is that, given Descartes Catholic faith, he should regard the high point of Catholic architecture (the medieval cathedrals such as Notre-Dame of Paris) as less than buildings created by a single person. The medieval cathedrals were not only built over generations but not to any documented plan. The cathedrals are exemplars of collective works based on expertise and tacit knowledge. Descartes asserted,
It is thus quite certain that the constitution of the true religion, the ordinances of which are derived from God, must be incomparably superior to that of every other.
It is not clear whether Descartes’ trust in the Catholic faith is based on God as a single author, God as divine, or the constitution of the true religion as decreed by the assembled Council of Trent. It is a matter of faith as to whether the decrees are based on divine guidance or the outcome of Papal politics, theological disputation, and military battles. It is less clear how to determine whether divine guidance directly resolves contentions on more mundane matters or whether the resolution is an outcome (perhaps temporary) of political contest, intellectual disputes, and/or military conflict alone. It is possible, as some contestants have been known to claim, that the divine guidance is mediated by these other activities.
Descartes lack of trust in collective projects arises from the diversity of contesting outcomes of those endeavours. Given his assumption that there can only be one true or perfect outcome, some or all the extant outcomes must be false. It then becomes that task of outstanding and exceptional individuals to identify the truth. Descartes declared,
as for the opinions which up to that time I had embraced, I thought that I could not do better than resolve at once to sweep them wholly away, that I might afterwards be in a position to admit either others more correct, or even perhaps the same when they had undergone the scrutiny of reason. I firmly believed that, in this way, I should much better succeed in the conduct of my life than if I built only upon old foundations, and leant upon principles which, in my youth, I had taken upon trust.
As noted above, Descartes was convinced that such a project required particular abilities and ‘I know too well that such men exist in a very small number.’ Descartes here acknowledges that he, and all other youth, acquire the foundations and principles required for the conduct of their life ‘taken on trust.’ Trust is, therefore, the central feature of the education of all youth as they are incapable of Descartes’ Meditation and the application of his Method. Trust is also the central feature of most adults’ endeavours to succeed in the conduct of their lives. Apart from the few for whom reading the Meditations and (possibly) the Discourse would be profitable, adults fall into two classes, ‘in the first place, of those who with more than a due confidence in their own powers’ who will lose themselves and wander in life. The second class, perhaps the majority, are
those who, possessed of sufficient sense or modesty to determine that there are others who excel them in the power of discriminating between truth and error, and by whom they may be instructed, ought, rather, to content themselves with the opinions of such than trust for more correct to their own reason.
Thus, for Descartes (2022, Part Two), both classes of adults should trust the opinions of those who excel them in power to discriminate between truth and error. So, for most of the population, trust in the opinions of authorities rather than individual investigation is the basis of the education of children and adults. This is justifiable on the grounds that the authorities, having properly meditated and applied the Method, will have identified the one and only truth. For others to engage in this activity would likely produce error and frustration and, moreover, be a waste of time more usefully devoted to other more practical tasks. To assist this majority trust his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes presented his treatise ‘to the most wise and illustrious Dean and Doctors of the Sacred Faculty of Theology in Paris’ because
whatever force there may be in my reasonings, seeing they belong to philosophy, I cannot hope that they will have much effect on the minds of men, unless you extend to them your protection.
What this leaves unresolved is the original problem that prompted Descartes to engage in his meditations – the multiplicity of conflicting authorities. This multiplicity includes not only several authorities propounding conflicting views at any one time but also authorities who change their established view. Descartes considered that if he had only one teacher then he would not have confronted the problem of multiple authorities and could confidently trust that authority. That was the situation in closed societies whose traditions were handed down orally and by imitation. It remains the situation for the early education of most children for whom their experience is only of their family. For many, the certainties upon which they base their life are those they gained from their parents. Thus, what these people regard as certain depends more on who their parents were rather than on any other factor. This is compounded if their early schooling reinforces those parental teachings. Trust becomes a possibility only after a child is aware of having been misled or of having a choice between authorities.
Truth and the accompanying certainty are matters of concern for the few intellectuals capable of reading Descartes’ work and profiting from it. Truth stripped of any claim of correspondence to an independent reality loses much of its attraction for even these few. For the rest, whether over-confident or not, truth is, at best, a sub-species of trust. A true statement is trustworthy but there are many more forms of trust that are relevant in a range of circumstances that are of real concern to most people wishing to live the good life. Unlike Richard Rorty, who claimed that freedom rather than truth is the ‘social glue,’ I suggest that the various forms of trust relations serve as the social glue required in a functioning society. In particular, personal trust involves a commitment to particular relations upon which individuals live or die. This is a more powerful decision-making procedure than any personal certainty arising from truth, particularly any certainty in the absence of assured correspondence to reality.
Unquestioning trust in authorities, as represented by the parent and teacher, is the model of education that most accords with Descartes’ views. Individual investigation of contending opinions is likely to produce error, confusion and/or frustration and so only the truth as endorsed by authorities should be taught. However, Descartes was somehow comforted by the self-imposed limitation on his meditations:
I cannot at present yield too much to distrust since I am not considering the question of action, but only of knowledge.
Descartes managed to consider the existence of God, mind/body, and algebra. From the first two, he managed to deduce a range of matters with certainty. Whether the one true way to teach reading (phonics) and all other things (direct instruction) is action or knowledge and capable of determination by Cartesian Method is a matter for consideration.
Descartes’ conclusions regarding truth were based on controversial assumptions and dubious method. His Method was intended for use by a limited number of persons for limited uses. What was ‘established’ by the application of this method was to be trusted as authoritative by most people. What remained unresolved by Descartes is how most people should assess whether to trust the outcomes of reasoning based on other assumptions and different methods. Instead of Cartesian meditation and application of his Method, painstaking identification of criteria of significance together with empirical investigation of trust relations relevant in the particular circumstances serve as the basis for careful description and evaluation of the alternative kinds of traditions in contestation. Judgement is then required to choose which kind of life is more attractive according to the selected criteria, i.e., the good life and commit to those trust relations until circumstances change in such a way as to require reconsideration.
