Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

Chapter XVII: Individual and Culture

Mohammad Ajmal

When we consider the relation between ‘Individual’ and ‘Culture’ we must be cautious about the mischief the word ‘and’ can make. It is a truism which still may need to be repeated that individuals compose cultures and that culture is a word which describes a set of complex interrelations between individuals. This set of interrelations involves proximity and distance in space and time, in economic class and status. But as a matter of fact we do tend to think of culture as if it were a person distinct from an individual. Even when we think of our culture, we are prone to personify it, give it individuality and feel as if it were an entity apart from us. It is very largely this tendency in us which makes us formulate hypotheses like that of the group-mind. Why do we tend to give personality to culture? The main reason is that we tend to project our ‘self’ onto culture, and remain mere appendages to this person. The concept of ‘self’ is the central theme of Intensive Psychotherapy, and it is from the point of view that I will discuss the relation between individual and culture.

Culture

Philosophers have discussed the nature of man both in its divine and diabolical aspects. Some, for example, Plato, have attempted to indicate the degree of the depth to which man can sink and also to describe the ideal-limits which he can approximate. Plato’s ‘Philosopher-king’ and Spinoza’s ‘God-intoxicated Man’ are two outstanding conceptions of ideal-limits which a man can strive to reach.

The conception of ideal-limit about human nature is derived from the ideal-limits in Nature which, according to Broad, have three characteristics:

- There is generally no lower limit to such series. There is a concept of a perfectly straight line, but there is no concept of a perfectly crooked line.

- When we have formed the concept of an ideal-limit we find that sometimes it is analysable and sometimes it is not.

- We could not reach the concepts of these ideal-limits unless we had the power of reflection on the series and of recognising the characteristic which is more and more adequately, though still imperfectly, realised in the higher members of the series.

These three characteristics apply to the ideal-limit of human nature: 1. although we can conceive of a ‘normal man’, we cannot conceive of a perfectly abnormal man; 2. the concept of a normal man is to some extent analysable; and 3. when we reflect on this series, we see the presence of those characteristics in the more normal members, although imperfectly.

The only discipline today which not only deals with the dynamics of the diabolical and the divine in man, but also appreciates the necessary relations between the two is Intensive Psychotherapy. The main tenet on which this discipline is based is that man is essentially creative. The basic theme which runs throughout Depth-analysis is not adjustment, but love. ‘Adjustment to environment’ is an ideal derived from the assumption that society or culture is morally and intellectually superior to the individual. The concept of the ‘group-mind’ entails the consequence that group possesses greater wisdom and a more subtle and stable moral fibre than the individual. Herbert Spencer, and in our own time Professor Waddington, detected a direction in the growth and development of the human species and have maintained that the individual ought to live in accordance with this direction which is determined by our capacity to adjust ourselves to environment. But there is a huge non-sequitur in the argument that because human evolution is unfolding in a direction, and therefore we ought to mould our lives in accordance with this direction. Moreover, it is quite doubtful whether there is such a direction. Adjustment is no longer the category which governs the concept of normality in Depth-analysis. One may be very well-adjusted in an authoritarian society and yet abnormal from the depth-analysis point of view. When the Nazis came to power in Germany, quite a few inmates of mental hospitals joined the Nazi Party and became well-adjusted. This does not mean that they had become normal by succumbing to the allurements of the symbols of power and destruction.

It is quite true that in our conceptions of ideal-limits we are greatly influenced by the archetype of the new man of our own age. This archetype or configuration has expressed itself in all ages in one form or another. The ‘new-man’ seems to be the ever-elusive goal for all generations to cherish and to pursue. He recedes into more distant future the closer one gets to him. But he perpetually goes on beckoning to us to move on and on, determining and designing a more or less definite shape and structure out of the future as the indeterminate and diffused end of the temporal dimensions.

Therefore, the conception of the individual which intensive psychotherapy works on is that the font of one’s thoughts, feelings and actions is love and creativity. By ‘love’ is meant not amorous emotions, but care. The ‘ideal’ individual is one who, in the words of Jung, has attained "individuation." This, he says, "has two principal aspects: in the first place it is an internal and subjective process of integration; in the second place it is an equally indispensable process of objective relationship. Neither can exist without the other...." Both these aspects can be characterised as ‘love’. For one who seeks internal and subjective integration loves his own talents, abilities and potentialities of growth and expansion. He loves not only his positive, but also his negative attitudes. He cares for his negative attitudes in the sense that he assimilates them in his consciousness and attempts to canalise (channelise) their energy to the supreme task of fulfilling his vocation. Such a being loves not only himself but others in the sense that he is capable of entering into personal relationship with his fellow beings and of fostering their growth. This is the ideal-limit of the growth of an individual. Whether the culture to which an individual belongs encourages or thwarts the individual in the loving realisation of possibilities, this seems to be the ideal-limit he is trying to attain. It means that one can assess and evaluate cultures in the light of this ideal-limit. Some cultures are nearer this limit than others, but the criterion of the value of a culture is the individual: the kind of individuals a culture produces is the criterion of its worth.

The degree to which a culture realises this ideal-limit can be ascertained by the nature of the symbols it employs to reinforce its institutions. Symbols carry the emotional or numinous energy of the individuals composing the group and evince the constellation of forces operating in a group at a particular time in history. In Nazi Germany the symbols which cast a spell of fascination over the Germans were not ‘Christ as a child’ or ‘Virgin Mary’ but the ‘Swastika’ and the ‘Wotan’. The primitive and archaic ideas of racial superiority and the inherent devilishness of the nearest out-group could be emotionally supported only by a ‘collective regression’ to the pre-Christian symbols. Thus Nazi Germany had a culture which did not tolerate the growth of the individual in the sense in which we have conceived of him as an ideal-limit. The ideal-limit for the Germans was the ‘Nazi-type’ which crusades against evil and breeds death and destruction on the Jews. Love and creativity were abandoned and tabooed.

This is an example of one culture which had developed symbols to express its peculiar psychic situation at a particular stage in history. But we can find symbols in every culture which represent its attitude towards this ideal-limit. Are we aware of the symbols of our own culture, which express our own psychic condition today? There are some symbols which, according to this ideal-limit, a culture ought to have. If it is dynamic and vital a culture must have the ‘child’ as one of its basic symbols for the child expresses not only a fresh birth, but also infantile possibilities of development. A child is not only infantile, but also childlike; he or she has that ‘seriousness at play’ which is the goal of all mature development: intense but relaxed concentration, insatiable curiosity, readiness to be surprised and eagerness to explore, to seek and to experiment. If we are a newly-born culture, does the ‘child’ play any part therein? Have our artists and literary writers, our myth-makers and dreamers expressed the ‘child-archetype’ in any of its forms in their creative work? We cannot smother the child archetype without in some way surrendering our freedom and responsibility to others. A closed society has no place for the child who carves out his own destiny from a ‘blooming and buzzing confusion’. I cannot understand why in our culture -- unless it is for the reason that we are doomed to remain patriarchal, authoritarian and closed -- Id-i-Milad-un-Nabi is not celebrated with intense and wild jubilation and merry-making. For what could be more significant and numinous for a Muslim than the birth of our Prophet?

Again, we have no symbol analogous to the crucifixion in Christianity. Crucifixion, if I understand it aright, is a symbol of universal love, affirming individuality against social tyranny, and symbolising self-realisation. It emphasises the need for withdrawal from social life in order to contact our genuine desires and goals. It represents an existential angst -- the need to experience one’s loneliness, to feel that one is the carrier of one’s life and not a mere derivative of social life. The individual who is crucified is a person who is set for a serious reckoning with himself in order to be reborn.

Of course, we have ‘individuals’ in our culture who are too ready to defy and flout social values. But such individuals are more in the nature of the son-lovers of the great mother than genuine individuals. They are irresponsible and immature, creating illusory storms in empty tea-cups. But as soon as it is a question of a real encounter with the social forces they cower and shrivel back in the womb of the great mother. They masquerade as heroes, but their approach is primarily negative. They are anxious to play with ideas, but without committing themselves to them. They have what Kierkegaard calls an aesthetic attitude, as opposed to the moral attitude of the real ‘individual’.

In his book, Islam in Modern History, Wilfred Cantwell Smith criticises the role of intellectuals or its absence of in the religious and social movements of Pakistan. He castigates and provokes our intellectuals, but does not tell us why they donot feel committed to any religious or social movement. He does not see that they are irresponsible ‘son-lovers’; suffering from what David Riesmann calls ‘the nerve of failure’. They have swallowed Western liberal values, but are afraid of testing them out in this country lest they should fail. However, this possibility of failure, defeat and crucifixion are no part of our spiritual resources. We regard history as both significant and decisive, regard community as sacred and important, yet there is scant provision for defeat and disaster in our faith. Fright, therefore, holds back the Muslim intellectual from venturing forth and texting in reality; basically this is the ‘fright of failure’.

Individual

To talk about the individual in relation to ‘culture’ generally means three things:

(1) ‘Individual’ can mean what in mythological terms can be called the son-lover, the irresponsible ‘Don Juans" of a culture. They prattle and sparkle a great deal without committing themselves to any definite set of values. Their sweet and adorable appearances are a glamorous facade, but it is more froth than substance. They defy social values and live safely on the periphery of danger, but they bolt as soon as they come in precarious proximity to it. They fight cultural values without having assimilated them or comprehended their significance. "Implicit in this stage," says Erich Neumann, "is the pious hope of the natural creature that he, like nature, will be reborn through the great Mother, out of the fullness of her grace, with no activity or merit on his part.... Masculinity and consciousness have not yet won independence, and incest has given way to the matriarchal incest of adolescence. The death ecstasy of sexual incest is symptomatic enough of an adolescent ego not yet strong enough to resist the forces symbolised by the great Mother." Such an individual’s defiance or denial of social values, or any values for that matter, is more in the nature of self-immolation. His is a negative protest, for the more he protests, the more he yields to the guiles of his culture. These ‘son-lovers’ are individuals, but have no individuality; they are neither integrated nor have their personal relations outgrown the narcissistic stage.

(2) The second kind of individual is the one who breaks his dependence on his family by being initiated into his culture -- another but larger mother in which he is completely contained. He the average individual, moderate in his attitude. He does not transgress social and cultural norms but lives by them for they are the only sanctions of life he has. He grows and develops in grooves set by his culture, and his inner peace and security depend on conformity to the customs, mores, and attitudes of his culture. He feels secure because for him these embody ancient and repeatedly tried wisdom. The individual accepts the authoritarian father, and through him acquires ideas like social ambition, fame, pride of birth, feelings for his tribe, clan or nation, hope of future riches, and social position. This individual has some consciousness, but most of his life is spent in a ‘participation mystique’ with the other members of the group. His relations are unconscious and institutionalised. He uncritically accepts, like a person hypnotised or infatuated, all his cultural institutions or institutional symbols. Whether he loves or hates, competes or struggles for success, his initiative and energy are confined to the moulds and forms laid down by the culture he belongs to. Such an individual invests most of his energy in his persona. In less complex societies, people can easily live with their personas but in highly differentiated and technically advanced cultures the persona, or what Erich Fromm calls marketing orientation, can cause intense neurotic pain and suffering.

(3) The third kind of individual, who is the theme of this paper, is what mythology call a hero Freud calls the ‘genital’ character and Jung calls the ‘individuated’ person. Such an individual is an ‘accident’ par excellence in the sense that his personality owes its uniqueness to a socially uncommon set of circumstances. The unusual circumstances which mould the personality of the hero are known in mythology as the miraculous birth of the hero. It seems as if the web of cultural traditions and values had an undetected and unaccounted for cleft or crevice from which emerges the unusual habitat which moulds and rears the hero. In mythology the miraculous birth of the Hero stands for his basic independence. It means that the Hero because of his unusual upbringing is perpetually exploring and seeking ‘roots’. This exploration leads to an ardent curiosity about the foundations of the traditions and values of his culture. His attempt, therefore, is to conquer the darkness of the unconscious and to live by the light of consciousness. He tries to live by the light of consciousness in the full realisation that the unconscious is the fount of his energy. This realisation engenders in him a feeling of the ‘self’, which is different from the ego-consciousness. This ‘individuated’ person is the ‘ideal-limit’ referred to earlier.

The ‘individuated’ person combines in himself two opposite kinds of masculinity. One is the phallic masculinity, which for Freud and Wilhelm Reich is the epitome of humanity. This is the masculinity which reaches its peak development in a full-blooded orgasm. The second is the solar masculinity, the higher masculinity which "is correlated with light, the sun, the eye and consciousness." That Freud ignored this important distinction (which was first made by Bachofen and later incorporated into analytical psychology by Erich Neumann) is evident from the fact that in his description the genital character of determinism occupies the central place. The scientific attitude is an expression of the genital character and there is no reference to arts or creativity. In fact it seems as if Freud’s genital character passively suffers determinism and does not proffer bold and challenging hypotheses founded on the perception of new relations. Freud’s normal man does not take risks about truth; he observes, but does not experiment. His knowledge is Spinoza’s second kind of knowledge. But the individuation to which Jung refers as the ideal-limit, emphasises both kinds of masculinity, genital and solar. Jung’s normal man creates positive values and productively exploits his phantasy in the formation of new hypotheses. Both artists and scientists can combine in themselves those two strands of masculinity. The aim of intensive psychotherapy is to unite these two forms of creativity.

The dangers inherent in technological change have been described very well by Dr. Sailer: The individual is threatened with becoming a robot. We, who have lagged behind in the race for technology, as Dr. Hamiduddin has pointed out, have been more concerned with the subtle nuances of religious institutions and religious experience. This indeed might be a blessing in disguise, for as we are balancing on the verge of considerable industrial endeavour, we can derive spiritual sustenance from our religious orientation which we change and transform in a manner that may avoid the unconscious transition to the ‘marketing orientation’ which is the bane of a modern industrialised society. We can succeed in this only if we try to incorporate into our culture symbols which represent individuality.

Chapter XVIII: Descartes’ Concept of a Person

Shahid Hussain

Descartes is sure that he exists;1 but he wants to discover what he actually is, and how he becomes involved in the concept of a person. He is in pursuit of that which constitutes him, i.e., his essence or nature. The terms ‘essence’ and ‘nature’ for him refer to those properties without which a thing will no longer remain what it is. He says: "There is however one principle property of every substance, which constitutes its nature or essence."2 This is supposed to be permanent, never changing, and both necessary and sufficient to establish the existence of a thing with certainty. It may be objected that it cannot be both necessary and sufficient, since in that case the essence of a thing will imply its existence, and this, according to Descartes, is true only of God. There is no doubt that God is defined by him in this manner, but he maintains that created things also can be called things, because they need only the ‘concourse of God’3 in order to exist; hence, the same principle will be applicable to them as well.

Descartes proposes to examine himself as clearly and as attentively as possible to determine his essence, of course, through sense perception. He mistrusts senses not only because they can be deceptive, but also because they can be called away. He does not intend to hold himself before himself, as Malcolm suggests, like an object O, having an essence, so that the perception (according to Malcolm some other verbs of cognition can be substituted for perception such as ‘be aware of’ or ‘apprehend’) of E may be the perception of O and vice versa, in which case E may as well be the essence of O.4 He certainly does not appeal to the principle suggested by Malcolm:

X is my essence if it is the case that if I am aware of x then (necessarily) I am aware of myself and if I am aware of myself, then (necessarily) I am aware of X.

Malcolm is wrong when he says that ‘sense perception’ is the same as ‘intellectual awareness’. He takes "I am aware of myself" as equivalent to "I am aware that I exist". Descartes, on the other hand, is of the view that his existence is not something he is aware of; rather it is a conclusion of an inference. He tells us:

We do not have immediate cognition of substances..., rather from the mere fact that we perceive certain forms or attributes which must inhere in order to have existence, we name the thing in which they exist a substance.5

Malcolm is not right in saying that nothing implicitly is concluded by Descartes about his essence in the ‘Second Meditation’. It is true that he does not say that thinking is his essence, but he does say that it is his only inseparable property. In Descartes own words: "Thinking is another attribute of the soul; and here I discover what property belongs to myself. This alone is inseparable from me."6

In order to know what actually pertains to himself, Descartes adopts the method of doubt. He calls into question everything about which he finds the slightest uncertainty. He finds that he can doubt his body, but not his existence. In his celebrated Discourse, he tells us:

I attentively examined what I was, and as I observed that I could suppose that I had no body, and that there was no world nor any place in which I might be; but that I could not therefore suppose that I was not; and that, on the contrary, from the very circumstance that I thought to doubt the truth of other things, it most clearly and certainly followed that I was; while, on the other hand, if I had only ceased to think, although all the other objects which I had ever imagined had been in reality existent, I would have had no reason to believe that I existed; I thence concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking, and which, that it may exist, has no need of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing.7

In the Principles, Descartes suggests that we can doubt the existence of God, sky, physical objects, and a body having hands, feet, etc., but we cannot call into question our own existence.8 In ‘The Search After Truth’, Polyander declares that he is sure that he exists, but that he is not a body, "otherwise doubting of my body, I should at the same time doubt myself and this I cannot do, for I am absolutely convinced of it, that I can in no wise doubt of it."9 Descartes thus discovers his essence in thinking. He moves from the premise that ‘he can doubt the existence of his body not his own existence’ to the conclusion that he as such is either different from his body or there is no necessary connection between him and his body.

The remarks in ‘The Search After Truth’ contain the following argument:

I can doubt the existence of my body.

I cannot doubt that I exist.

My body is not the same as I.

This argument, as it runs, gives the impression as if it were based on the principle that if two things are identical, then whatever is true of one is true of the other. It follows from this that if something can be said to be true of X, but not of Y, then X is not identical with Y. This principle has not been explicitly enunciated by Descartes but, perhaps, this might have been in his mind while framing the above argument.

It is true that Descartes can doubt the existence of his body, and not his existence, but from this it does not follow that he is different from his body. Let us take a counter example to see the falsity of this principle. If some one doubts whether or not the Prime Minister of England exists and proceeds in the Cartesian fashion, then he cannot resolve his doubt by arguing:

I can doubt if a Prime Minister of England exists.

I cannot doubt if I exist.

I am not a Prime Minister of England.

In the passage quoted above from Discourse, Descartes draws rather a stronger conclusion. He not only asserts that he is not identical with his body, but also that he is not dependent for his existence on his body. He notices that the proof of his existence depends upon his thinking and not on his body or the world. It appears as if he were employing some general principle of the kind that the existence of X depends upon Y, if the proof of existence of X depends upon Y. But he cannot accept this principle, because he offers a proof of God’s existence which depends upon his idea of the existence of God. And he would not be prepared to say that the existence of God is dependent upon his idea of God, for God could exist without anybody having an idea of Him. This argument, however, suggests an interpretation different from that given in ‘The Search After Truth’. Let us consider the following propositions:

(a) I think (b) I have a body (c) I am in the world (d) I am in a place (e) I am.

Here (b), (c), and (d) are uncertain, but (e) is certain. If (a) is true, and (b), (c), and (d) are doubtful, (e) is certain. From this, it follows that (a) is the premise both necessary and sufficient to establish the certainty of (e). It is true that each of he propositions from (a) to (d) entail (e), but they are neither individually necessary nor collectively sufficient to establish the truth of (e) because, in order to establish a conclusion to be certain, a premise should itself be certain. The premises (b), (c), and (d) are not necessary to establish the truth of (e), for even when each of them is doubtful the truth of (e) can be derived from the truth of (a). Moreover the truth of (b), (c), and (d) is not sufficient to establish the certainty of (e), not because they do not entail (e), but because, even if true, they are doubtful. The truth of (a), on the other hand, is necessary to establish the certainty of (e), for it cannot be doubted. The sense in which we cannot doubt the proposition "I think" is just this, that one’s doubting oneself presupposes its truth.

The principle, which Descartes appears to be following here is that those attributes constitute the essence of a thing which are individually necessary and collectively sufficient to establish the existence of that thing with certainty. As thinking is the only attribute both necessary and sufficient to establish his own existence, Descartes concludes his essence is thinking. One feels inclined to believe it, since it makes sense to say that those attributes constitute the essence of a thing which are individually necessary and collectively sufficient for the existence of that thing. Moreover, if a single attribute guarantees the certainty then it appears to establish it as true.

But this principle unfortunately is false, because it permits one to draw a false conclusion from premises which are true. In case we should suppose it to be true and affirm that thinking without possessing a body is not possible, then all the premises of Descartes remain intact and true. The proposition (a) will be both necessary and sufficient to establish the certainty of (e), since (b) though it follows from (a) in conjunction with the aforesaid supposition, it is not certain, because the supposition itself is doubtful. But the conclusion of Descartes that thinking is his essence will be false, since it may not be possible to think without possessing a body. Hence, it cannot be true that my essence is thinking, and at the same time that my existence is not dependent at all on the existence of my body.

In order to prove his thesis that thinking constitutes his essence, Descartes also resorts to the argument from clear and distinct ideas. He claims to have a clear and distinct idea of himself as a thinking and unextended thing, and concludes from this that he is distinct and separate from his body. He says:

I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in so far as I am only a thinking and unextended thing, and as, on the other hand, I possess a distinct idea of body, in so far as it is only an extended and unthinking thing.10

This argument can be formulated as follows:

Whatever is clearly and distinctly perceived by me is true.

I clearly and distinctly perceive X.

X is true.

The ‘clear and distinct perceptions’ are self-evident truths for Descartes; they are held to be ‘known by the natural light in our soul’, i.e., by our intuition. They are said to be mental operations, hence beyond any logical or mathematical proof. The distinct perception of a piece of wax is an excellent example offered by Descartes. The piece of wax perceived by mind and senses is the same, but the perception of it is not sensory. It is a mental act, which Descartes calls the intuition of the mind.11 In his words: "It is neither an act of sight, of touch, nor of imagination... but is simply an intuition (inspectio) of the mind." He further believes that what is produced by the light of nature or reason is indubitable. He is not prepared to doubt what nature makes him believe, for even if he tries to do so he cannot.

Descartes makes a distinction between intuition and deduction. He regards the principles of both as simple and self-evident. But they do not escape his systematic doubt. The reason for doubting mathematical demonstrations and their principles is that people make mistakes in such matters and regard as absolutely true and self-evident what, in fact, is false. Moreover it may be due to the deception of an All-Powerful God. He might have created the people in such a way that they are always deceived even regarding those things which they claim to know best. Descartes remarks:

... how do I know that I am not also deceived each time I add together two and three, or number the sides of a square, or form some judgement still more simple, if more simple indeed can be imagined? 12

The examples of intuition given by Descartes are of metaphysical nature, viz., "In order to think one must exist", "Nothing can be created out of nothing", and "If equals are added to equals, the result is equal". He does not regard them to be generically indubitable, rather extremely indubitable even to a prejudiced mind, for they are dictated by the light of nature. It is true that they are beyond doubt, but he does not hold that they are equally known to everybody, because people do lack clear and distinct apprehension of them. He says: "When we apprehend anything we are in no danger of error... we would never fall into error, provided we gave our assent only to what we clearly and distinctly perceived."13 So the fault lies with ourselves and not with the axioms.

But how can Descartes be sure that the light of nature is a true light and whatever it commands is never false? Here, he brings in the Author of this nature Who is veracious and never deceptive. His veracity being beyond question, and He being the creator of all things, whatever is clearly and distinctly perceived by us can never be false. It must be true, since it is in conformity with nature. He says: "After I have discovered that God exists, seeing I also at the same time observed that all things depend upon Him, and that He is no deceiver, and thence inferred that all which I clearly and distinctly perceive is of necessity true."14 Here it should be noted that when Descartes says that self-evident truths cannot be doubted, he does not mean that we should not doubt them; his point simply is that, even if we try to doubt them, we cannot but give them our assent.

There are, however, certain propositions which are held by Descartes to be generically free from all sorts of doubts. He had already concluded that "I think, therefore I am", but the second part of this proposition is re-assessed in the ‘Third Meditation’. He wonders about the source of his existence, and rejects it being himself or his parents. It cannot be himself, because then he would not have been so imperfect and ignorant as he is. It cannot be his parents, for they are primarily responsible for the existence of his body and not that of his mind. He asks: "From what could I in that case derive my existence?" once again affirming it to be his thinking. He also observes that as a thinking thing he possesses the idea of a Supreme Being, and therefore he must owe his existence to Him. The existence of God and that of himself is proved from the idea of a Supreme Being. Thus he concludes that thinking and the idea of God, or the propositions representing the mind’s consciousness of its ideas and thoughts, are beyond any doubt. In other words, the propositions that report the contents of the mind are unquestionable in the system of Descartes.

If the veracity of God is a ground for accepting the truths of intuition, then Descartes can be accused of arguing in a circle. Arnauld points to this circle thus: "We can be sure that God exists, only because we clearly and distinctly perceive that He does; therefore, prior to being certain that God exists, we should be certain that whatever we clearly and evidently perceive is true." Frankfurt is of the opinion that though Descartes was guilty of circularity, he could be acquitted of this charge provided we accept that while validating intuition, he was not trying to show that whatever was intuited was true, but rather that there could be no reasonable ground to doubt it. He further remarks that this is not the case with Descartes because he appears to be quite unconcerned about the truth of intuition; hence, there is a circle.15

But there, in fact, is no circle, for Descartes does not bring in God and His veracity to prove intuition to be valid. He regards simple intuition itself the ground for accepting its truth. The veracity of God is referred to not to prove the truth of what is intuited, but rather to indicate that what we have once intuited, can not be questioned. This does not show Descartes’ lack of interest in the truth of the principles and the conclusions he draws as Frankfurt believes; rather it indicates that there is no other reasonable way to establish the truth of a proposition but by intuiting it. Moreover, when something can be apprehended through intuition, a deductive proof is of no use. This is why Descartes did not think it necessary to demonstrate the veracity of God or to offer a deductive proof of His existence. When he moves from a clear and distinct perception of a thing to the affirmation of its truth, he does not appeal to the suppressed major premise, but affirms the truth of that thing directly from intuition. The veracity of God is brought in to avoid errors and to be sure that intuitions are true. He does not rely on an unproved assumption; he does not think that the veracity of God is a ground for accepting the truths of intuitions; Descartes does not at all doubt the individual intuitions. What he doubts is their universal validity, and it is in order to vindicate this fact that the individual intuitions are employed by him.

Descartes offers another argument to supplement the previous one to prove mind to be distinct and separate from body. What strikes him is the divisibility of the body into its various parts, i.e., ears, nose, limbs, etc., and the indivisibility of the mind into different parts such as knowing, feeling, willing, etc. The thoughts of a mind, according to him, are not related to it as the members of a body are related to a body; therefore mind must be different from body:

There is a vast difference between mind and body, in respect that body, from its nature, is always divisible, and that mind is entirely indivisible. For in truth, when I consider the mind, that is, when I consider myself in so far only as I am a thinking thing, I can distinguish in myself no parts, but I very clearly discern that I am somewhat absolutely one and entire; and although the whole mind seems to be united to the whole body, yet, when a foot, an arm, or any other part is cut off, I am conscious that nothing has been taken from my mind.16

Descartes maintains not only that mind is distinct from body, but also that there is a bipolar opposition between the two. We are told that it is not possible "to conceive the half of a mind, as we can of any body, however small, so that the natures of these two substances are to be held, not only as diverse, but even in some measure as contraries."17

However, when Descartes says that if some parts of a body are lost, then nothing is taken away from the mind, he is wrong; for, if the head is lost, mind also is lost. But perhaps what Descartes wants to assert is that the facts about the body of a person are not the facts about him, for it is logically possible that someone’s body might have been the body of someone else or no one at all as is the case with the body of a dead person. It also makes sense to suppose that persons might switch bodies.18 If this is possible, then it follows that the fact that someone has a body is a mere contingent fact, so much so that the next moment one might find oneself with some other body or no body at all. Thus, what makes a particular person or a mind is entirely different from what makes his body the particular body it is.

This disparity between mind and body led Descartes to believe in the durability of the former. The body is destructible, because it has parts, and parts can be separated; but the mind cannot be destroyed, for it has no parts to be separated. It may, however, be pointed out that mind’s not containing extensive parts is no reason to infer its incorruptibility, because not all that ceases to exist is extensive. For example, a sound does not cease to exist by falling apart into pieces, but by diminishing in intensity, so a mind may pass out of existence in the same way. Descartes would, however, deny this to be applicable to the mind, for whereas the mind is a substance, sound cannot be said to be so. Moreover, he does not infer the indestructibility of the mind from its indivisibility only, but also from its being a dependent substance requiring the concurrence of God for its continuance. This is why he regards -- and rightly so on his premises -- the arguments commonly advanced against the durability of the mind or soul to be inconclusive, for they make presuppositions which are demonstrably false. Thus, he establishes at least the possibility of the mind surviving bodily death.

Notes

1. Cannot doubt my own existence without thereby affirming it: this is the paradox of ‘dubito ergo sum’.

2. Descartes, A Discourse on Method, Meditations, and Principles, tr. John Veitch (London: Everyman’s Library, ed.; J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1965), p. 185.

3. Ibid.

4. Cf. Norman Malcolm, "Descartes’ Proof that His Essence is Thinking", The Philosophical Review, LXXIV (July, 1965), reprinted in Descartes: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Willis Doney, Modern Studies in Philosophy (London: Macmillan, 1968), pp. 312-38.

5. The Philosophical Works of Descartes, tr. E.S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931), II, 98.

6. Descartes, op.cit., p. 88.

7. Ibid., p. 27.

8. Cf. ibid., p. 167.

9. The Philosophical Works of Descartes, I, 319.

10. Descartes, op.cit., p. 132.

11. Ibid., p. 92.

12. Ibid., p. 82.

13. Ibid., p. 178.

14. Ibid., p. 125.

15. Cf. H.G. Frankfurt, "Memory and the Cartesian Circle", The Philosophical Review, LXXI (October, 1962), 504-11.

16. Descartes, op.cit, p. 139.

17. Ibid., p. 76.

18. Cf. Anthony Quinton, "The Soul", The Journal of Philosophy, 1962.