The best I can explain it, Rene Descarte locks himself up in the prison of his mind, and then sets about trying to escape. This is the image I keep coming back to as we discussed this fifth Master Metaphor, Descartes Evil demon.
Here is the conversation with Dr. Schulz, which I think is as good a place to start as any.
Here is the conversation with Dr. Schulz, which I think is as good a place to start as any.
| mastermetaphorsdescartes_mixdown.mp3 |
Here, next, is the text from Descartes:
Here are Dr. Schulz's notes on this master metaphor:
Descartes’ Evil Demon
a) Read Rene Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy with particular attention to Meditation 1 and Meditation 3. Then reread these two Meditations!
The Classical Library posting at http://www.classicallibrary.org/descartes/meditations/ is somewhat searchable. There is a basic outline of Descartes’ arguments at http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/medol.htm, but D. Weiss’s annotated version at http://www.faculty.ycp.edu/~dweiss/phl321_epistemology/descartes gets five stars for its annotations and thought-provoking questions embedded in Descartes’ text.
(The Descartes’ Introduction, Meditation 1 and Meditation 3 from the Weiss version is posted above for your reference.)
b) We’re moving now into the modern period of Western Thought (1600 – the present), a period characterized by the messy divorce of faith by reason. Think of Descartes (1596 – 1650) as the keynote speaker of modernity. Descartes ushers in a sea change for Western thought. It’s the tectonic shift from looking to God for salvation to looking to science for salvation.
So, we will begin our understanding of what’s going on in modernity with a consideration of Descartes’ scientistic philosophy and move from there into his treatment of God as a philosophical idea.
c) As a warm-up to a fundamental, Cartesian problem and for a glimpse at the consequences of this sea change in modernity, please view the first 25-30 minutes of the Princeton lecture, Toward a More Perfect Human by Leon Kass at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N_BOyGFekA
This will introduce you to Kass’s critique of scientism or the modern penchant for replacing Christ crucified with salvation-by-science. It’s a longer introduction to Descartes than you may expect – it’s a bioethics lecture, in fact – but do stick with it. There’s a method to my madness; I’m setting the stage for the madness of Descartes’ method for doing philosophy!
d) After the video lecture read Kass’s diagnosis of the root of scientism in Descartes’ way of doing philosophy at http://log24.com/log07/saved/071024-KassApp.html I’ve included this below for you, with my highlighting added.
e) Now we are in a position to see what an innovator Descartes is in his philosophy – an innovator of the sort that C.S. Lewis refers to in The Abolition of Man.
It’s the Cartesian Two-Step:
1. First, reduce philosophy, the befriending of wisdom, to a scientific project that methodologically reduces our human quest for understanding creation to a sort of science for manipulation of nature.
2. Second, treat God as a mental idea.
My analysis
Descartes’ treatment of God as a mental idea is innovative, but unwarranted. Prior to Descartes and modernity ideas were not assumed to originate within one’s mind, but were, already and always, in the public domain. Recall Plato’s Cave, where the Idea of The Good is “beyond being” or Aristotle’s intellectual confidence that ideas and the truth of reality were located in language or logos. Think of how language has us – how language shapes our neuro-architecture, rather than the other way around.
It is a newfangled idea (!) that God (or God as an Evil Demon!) could be approached as a mental idea in the first place. Note the scientism and the mathematical manhandling of creation and the human creature involved in this methodological innovation. See Leon Kass on Descartes’ Innovative method below.
Consider the methodological diminution of Descartes’ Methodism, so to speak.
Observe how it reroutes the philosophical inquiry away from the theology of the cross and toward science for salvation. (For the Lutheran theologia crucis as an epistemological recognition regarding God, see Article 4 of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, an article on Justification: “But God cannot be treated with, God cannot be apprehended nisi per Verbum, except through the Word.”)
Observe further how Descartes’ Methodism reduces our working understanding of the human being as the sort of living creature that is characterized by logos.
Consider the Cartesian hangover in relation to our understanding and practice of the Gospel ministry, given that the office of the ministry is not assessable scientifically. See my LOGIA article, On the Terminating of the Church’s Professors (Vol 19, No 4, Reformation 2010).
Here is the Leon Kass article with Dr. Schulz's highlights:
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