Descartes Theory of Perception - Essay Example

Descartes’ Theory of Perception According to Descartes, we can literally see other people (as opposed to, say, hats and feet from an upper-story window); this is because our minds make judgements that what we have seen are indeed people, even if we did not clearly see real people. Descartes’ theory of perception is deeply embedded on the premise that perception has nothing to do with hearing, seeing, touching or imagining. In this regard, some people have erroneously been swayed into believing that Descartes, in his conclusions, disqualifies the importance of sense perceptions in understanding ‘truth’ or the true nature of things. However, in real sense, Descartes actually posits that humans can understand their minds more readily than they can possibly ever understand their corporeal nature, which is subject to doubt (Newman). The theorist bases his arguments on the example of wax in its various forms i.e. solid and liquid form; according to Descartes, the perception senses cannot recognize the semblance in the different forms. In other words, the human senses are inadequate in themselves to effectively describe whether or not the molten wax is similar to the solid wax. Failure by the senses to recognize that both forms of wax are indeed indistinguishable calls us to the overall unreliability of human senses; they cannot provide adequate cognition about the nature of the wax, thus the two different forms of wax are inevitably differentiated. In this regard, Descartes eventually theorizes that perception is a function of the mind alone (Card). In the second part of his argument, Descartes posits that senses provide humans with a better and refined understanding of the nature of things, only that the senses in themselves are not sufficient to determine truth (Newman). Therefore, the senses are constrained by certain limitations thus implying that certain knowledge can only be achieved through judgment, understanding in human minds and thinking. However, it is noteworthy that Descartes, in his almost incredible wisdom, does not at any point rule out the contribution of senses in the process of understanding the nature of things. Rather, Descartes only seems to emphasize that sense perception in humans relies on the mind more than it does on the body. He is nothing else apart from a thinking thing/ a mind/ an intellect/ understanding or reason (“The Meditations”); this way, Descartes draws an obvious parallel between the mind and the soul. Descartes begins his investigations into perception by disbelieving/ deconstructing his prior knowledge on the nature of things (Newman); he questions even the truth of his own existence thus concluding with certainty that the only possible truth about it was, “I am, I exist”. However, this conclusion is still constrained with the fact that Descartes does not yet understand the nature of his being. This line of argument also leads him into drawing the second conclusion, equating intellect, reason, understanding, mind and soul with thinking. In this manner, Descartes has successively assigned himself a trait in an attempt to define his nature as a ‘thinking thing’ that can exist independently from the body (“The Meditations”). Thus, he still advances this further by stating that his thinking encompasses doubting, understanding, affirmation, refusal, imagination and sense. Having successively drawn a supposedly absurd parallelism between thinking and sensing, Descartes clarifies by stating that certain truth is established out of a combination of perceived sensations and thought processes. In other words, Descartes theorizes that that which is knowledge to the human mind, whose nature has been perceived by the senses is more embellished than that which is mysterious or imaginable (Card). In that case, it is easier for us to see people, as opposed to hats and feet, because our thoughts usually form images of human bodies which are then examined by our senses; other things like hats and feet do not fall in the scope of our imaginations because their images are not registered in our thoughts and our senses cannot examine them either. Descartes thus concludes that human mind is necessary in the understanding of abstract concepts, but senses are necessary in the exploration and examination of the physical things. Descartes uses the wax example to further emphasize that in as much as senses are necessary in understanding the physical things, we cannot thoroughly understand the physical things by solely relying on our senses. In this respect, for us to understand the physical things, we need the mind to examine and evaluate the physical things (“The Meditations”); this is because our senses may sometimes be biased or constrained by other inhibiting factors that render them ineffective/ unreliable. For instance, wax has varying sensory attributes in its varied forms; by relying on the unstable physical senses of wax in its different forms, one is likely to be fooled into believing that wax in its original form differs from its variants. In this respect, we are unable to understand the essential features of wax because its sensory elements are unstable and thus unreliable; however, we cannot define wax by our imaginations either, because there are infinite possible forms of wax. This automatically disqualifies the assumptions that our imaginations and senses are sufficient to make us achieve an understanding of the nature of things such as wax, which leaves us with one alternative explanation, the mind. According to Descartes, we understand wax to be extended, flexible and mutable, a perception that is not visual, auditory or imaginative, because that is how mind judges wax to be. Even though our senses have revealed the wax to us in its varied forms, our minds operating singly from our senses have been able to understand that wax may be presented in different forms. However, our understanding can either be imperfect and confused (as only seeing people as opposed to hats and feet), or clear and distinct; this depends on how closely one examines the composition of things. At this point, Descartes does not at any point state the insignificance of our senses, but only highlights the argument that understanding is a function of the mind rather than of the senses; in this respect, any understanding, be it of the abstract things or of the corporeal things, can only be achieved through the mind. However, Descartes in his judgment still acknowledges the imperfection of our mind in forming judgments about the nature of things; that our understanding is formed from our judgments about the existence of things even though we have perceived them. This does underscore the fact that our truth is based, not on imaginations or senses but on our intellect, and our perceptions are based on our understanding. Descartes goes further to conclude that our minds are better known to ourselves than any other corporeal body because, of all the things imaginable, none of them can ever be perceived much more easily than our own minds. This leads us to Descartes’ conclusion that reason/intellect has a much greater value than sense perception (Card), but not that the two are mutually exclusive of one another. He demonstrates that even though we may easily understand the existence of things through our senses, thinking must be invoked, in order to understand the corporeal things that lie outside our minds, and even more so the mind itself. However, Descartes’ conclusion only applies to human beings as opposed to other animals because the power of thought and thinking is only distinctively possessed by human beings. He argues that there exists a clear distinction in kind between men and all other living creatures and then goes on to equate living creatures and machines (Avramides 55). Descartes thus restricts the term ‘mind’ to cover only the thinking aspect of man, hence, given that mind is equal to soul, other living creatures have neither a mind nor a soul. Therefore, in his conclusions of ‘I think, therefore I am’, Descartes inevitably classifies all other living creatures with automations or machines, with neither a mind nor a soul (Avramides 56). Ultimately, Descartes concludes that our perception through senses is not reliable, and cannot form the basis of our knowledge about existence of things, whether corporeal or abstract; this also leads him to disqualify the adequacy of our imaginations in forming perceptions about our surroundings as well. Therefore, according to Descartes, perception is independent of our sense experiences and imaginations, but rather a function of the mind. We see people as opposed to hats and feet because our minds have a prejudgment about the existence of people even though we may not have judged them to exist through our sense perceptions. However, Descartes also acknowledges that our minds alone are not adequate in themselves in forming our perceptions; that our senses provide the sensory input that our minds work upon in order to generate plausible truths about existence of things. This highlights the fact that in as much as senses are not entirely reliable in establishing truths, they are still necessary; however, our minds are far more important than our senses when it comes to understanding. For us to understand the existence and nature of other corporeal bodies outside our minds, including our own minds and their contents, we must invoke the function of thought, which is only distinctively unique to human beings. Works Cited Avramides, Anita. “Other Minds: The Problems of Philosophy”. London: Routledge. 2001.Print. Card, James. “Descartes’ View of Sense Perception”. 1997. Web. 21st Feb, 2013 Newman, Lex. "Descartes' Epistemology". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.l 2010. Web. 21st Feb, 2013. “The Meditations”. Oregonstate.edu. n.d. Web. 21st Feb, 2013. Read More