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Cartesian Semantics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Hugh S. Chandler
Hugh S. Chandler*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 810 South Wright St., Urbana, IL, 61801, U.S.A.
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Extract

Descartes thought he could suppose he was the victim of massive deception in regard to the external world. In fact he undertakes the supposing of it.

I will … suppose that … a certain evil spirit, not less clever and deceitful than powerful, has bent all his efforts to deceiving me. I will think that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, shapes, sounds, and all other external things are nothing but illusions and dreams that he has used to trick my credulity. I will regard myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, nor any senses, but believing falsely that I have all these things.

Seated comfortably by his fire, Descartes imagines a remote possibility. Perhaps he is just a mind in the clutches of a deceiving demon. If Descartes is this man lounging here in his dressing gown, he is not vastly deceived; but if he is that mind, he is deceived indeed. The two possibilities are taken to be experientially indiscernible; and Descartes is assuming that the contents of his beliefs and the senses of his claims remain the same in either case. Thus, for example, whether he is this man or that mind, he believes he has two hands. But, and this is crucial, his belief is false if he is that mind, and true if he is this man. We begin to see what is required of cartesian semantics, and cartesian theories of the content of belief.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , March 1987 , pp. 63 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1987

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References

1 Descartes, Meditations metaphysiques, Meditation premiere

2 Mill, John Stuart An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, second edition (London: Longmans/Green & Co. 1865) 198Google Scholar

3 This view is defended in Dretske's, Fred paper ‘The Epistemology of Belief,’ Synthese 55 (1983) 3–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See Patricia, and Churchland's, Paul ‘Stalking the Wild Epistemic Engine,’ Nous 17 (1983) 5–18Google Scholar.

5 See Putnam, Hilary Reason, Truth, and History (New York: Cambridge University Press 1981) 5–8; 12-15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 I don't mean to suggest that Lewis is likely to adopt this theory. I only say that his views make the construction of such a theory fairly easy.

7 Cartesians can hold that this experiment is wicked. The brains are people, and have a right to face the real world.

8 See Owens, Joseph ‘Functionalism and Propositional Attitudes,’ Nous 17 (1983) 529–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 This sort of argument is a favorite of Michael Dummett. See, for example, ‘The Reality of the Past,’ in Truth and Other Enigmas (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1978) esp. 362.

10 That I am a thinking thing is part of the sense of the term ‘I’ as I use it. That I am human in origin is not part of this sense. But it it does not follow that God could make me non-human in origin. I suspect that Descartes got mixed up here.