Three Cheers for Descartes

I must remember that I am a man, and that consequently I am in the habit of sleeping, and in my dreams representing to myself the same things or sometimes even less probable things, than do those who are insane in their waking moments. How often has it happened to me that in the night I dreamt that I found myself in this particular place, that I was dressed and seated near the fire, whilst in reality I was lying undressed in bed! At this moment it does indeed seem to me that it is with eyes awake that I am looking at this paper; that this head which I move is not asleep, that it is deliberately and of set purpose that I extend my hand and perceive it; what happens in sleep does not appear so clear nor so distinct as does all this. But in thinking over this I remind myself that on many occasions I have in sleep been deceived by similar illusions, and in dwelling carefully on this reflection I see so manifestly that there are no certain indications by which we may clearly distinguish wakefulness from sleep that I am lost in astonishment. And my astonishment is such that it is almost capable of persuading me that I now dream. – Descartes

This last weekend, I held a little conference. I called it “Philosophical Lives.” I invited three people with whom I had been in graduate school at Rochester in the early 1960s, now like me drawing towards the ends of their careers – two already retired and two (including me) still planning on going on for a few more years. I asked them to reflect on their years as academic philosophers, and to try to give our graduate students some idea of both the profession and what it meant to be a philosopher. Everyone read a paper written at some point in their career, not necessarily the best but one that conveyed some sense of what it has all been about.

It was great fun and I think a success. Both my old fellow-students and my own present students had a great time and both sides came away feeling that they had learnt something. The last session was a round table and inevitably we came to the topic of the first-year undergraduate course in philosophy. I am far from the only one who has spent many hours in department meetings arguing about that course. My experience is that we veer from a course that is based on the classics in philosophy to a course based on a recent textbook that introduces all of the concepts and problems in a neat and steady manner. And then, a couple of years later, we veer back again!

At some point, one of us said: “For me it was that first class and we started with Descartes’ Meditations. As soon as I opened the first page I was hooked. I knew I wanted to be a philosopher and I have never changed my mind.” Even before he had finished speaking, two other of us (including me) said exactly the same thing. Three people out of four. Descartes’ Meditations had determined our careers. And more than that, as the mini-conference made very clear. The Meditations had determined what sort of people we are and what we think and, simply, what has been the overall passion and obsession of our lives. I don’t mean that we became scholars of seventeenth-century French thought, but that that work set us off on a path that we still follow fifty years later. Gladly, for one thing that did come through loud and clear was how much we had enjoyed our lives as academics, and more – as philosophers.

After everyone had left, I went back to the Meditations. The magic is still there. I truly remember my first day in philosophy class and thinking: “Gosh, I am not the only person who really wonders if they are awake or asleep. I have been thinking about this since I was a kid and never could solve it. I am not a nut-case to be worrying about this.” I should say that this was followed in subsequent classes by David Hume – “How do I know anything exists behind me when I am not looking?” and Bertrand Russell – “Is it possible that everything is getting twice as big every second and we don’t notice it?” – and here I am five decades later doing the same thing.

I don’t want to draw much of a moral from this – well actually I do, but I really think I should give a short break to the choleric types who comment on my pieces for Brainstorm – so I am not going to claim that those of us who are philosophers are superior beings. At least, I am not going to argue for it, mainly on the grounds that if this is not already self-evident then no amount of argumentation is going to bring you out of the darkness. Plato made this point about poor old Socrates in the Republic.

Rather I want to suggest that the Meditations is a bit of a litmus test. Either you are hooked or you are not. Lizzie, my wife, is not. She is very intelligent but Cartesian doubt leaves her cold. “Of course,” she said some years ago when I brought it up, “everyone thinks about that as a kid, but then they get over it.” As far as she is concerned, the best thing that can be said about philosophy was sung on Monty Python: “The Philosopher’s Drinking Song.” About Descartes, it contains the memorable lines:

And René Descartes was a drunken fart:
“I drink, therefore I am.”

(Incidentally, if you don’t know this song, do look it up. You can also catch it on You Tube. It is rather good on Socrates, obviously referring to the end of the Symposium.

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he’s pissed.

My favorite lines however are about that somewhat ethereal thinker from the Victorian era, John Stuart Mill: “John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, after half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.”

That just about sums him up. Shandy, I should explain to the unaware, is a peculiarly revolting drink made of half a glass of beer topped up with either lemonade or ginger beer. I am told that it is very refreshing on a hot day. I wouldn’t know, regarding it with the horror I normally reserve for Bud Lite.)

So this is my reflection for the day. Humans are divided by nature into two essential types. This is not male or female, or straight or gay, or whatever. It is between those who think that philosophy, as marked by Descartes’ Meditations, is the only thing that truly makes worthwhile the life of a human being, and those who think that philosophy is really a little bit daft but we have to let our spouses have their silly enthusiasms. After all, they might have taken up golf, and look where that led Tiger Woods.