ABSTRACT
In recapitulating his reasons for doubting the senses Descartes has remarked that his past judgments concerning sensible objects have merely been ‘taught him by nature,’ since
I persuaded myself they were constituted in a certain way, before I had considered any reasons by which this was proved. (AT VII, 76; HR I, 1889)
Apart from the ‘teachings of nature,’ however, Descartes does find a reason for supposing that sense experiences proceeded from a corporeal world external to his mind: sensory ideas came to him independently of his will, and were in a certain way more distinct than the ideas he was conscious of causing himself. However, he goes on to observe that he has come to mistrust ‘nature,’ and also that he cannot yet rule out the possibility that he has himself an ‘unknown faculty’ that produces the ideas of sense.19 The resolution of the problem is provided by his present knowledge of God:
Now, however, that I begin better to know myself and the author of my origin, I do not indeed think that all that I seem to have from the senses is to be rashly admitted; but neither should all be called in doubt. (AT VII, 77-8; HR I, 189-90)
In considering God’s benevolence in the Fourth Meditation Descartes maintained that such a benign creator could not have given him a faculty that would lead him into error if he used it rightly. The partial vindication of the senses, however, is made to rest on a different principle: that God would not allow me to fall into any error which he did not give me the power to correct. This principle is needed to affirm the existence of material objects, since Descartes apparently wants to hold back from saying their existence is clearly and distinctly perceived.20 Thus, God has given me a ‘great propensity to believe’ that my sense ideas are caused by physical objects, and ‘no faculty to recognize’ that they are caused by Him or ‘some other creature nobler than body.’ These considerations together with God’s benevolence allow us to deduce, so to speak, that our sense ideas really are caused by physical objects.
