Science contra the Meditations: The Existence of Material Things

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the Sixth Meditation, Descartes intends to prove that material things exist. His proof, which centers on the origin of the ideas of material things, has frequently been judged weak. But there is another proof—centered on the existence of one’s own body—that assumes as a starting point the feelings of pain and pleasure, which recent interpreters consider more substantial than the proof from the ideas of external objects. I argue that the doubt raised in the Sixth Meditation regarding the deceptions of internal senses, such as pain and pleasure, suggests that the most critical doubt about the existence of one’s own body comes from that very science that the Meditations intend to validate, in particular from physiology. As the proof of the existence of one’s own body grounded on pain and pleasure exploits the results of Cartesian physiology, it is precisely these feelings that show that it is not possible to prove that one’s own body and external bodies exist. Thus, instead of permitting a simpler answer to the question of the existence of one’s own body and external bodies, Descartes’ novel theory of physiology makes it impossible to give a satisfactory solution to exactly this question. This conclusion, moreover, is confirmed by Descartes’ followers such as La Forge and Malebranche.