The Socratic Dictum

There is little doubt in intellectual history that Rene Descartes is a formidable and influential philosopher. In many standard philosophy textbooks, Descartes is often considered the father of modern philosophy. For example, Descartes is frequently cited for providing the groundwork for the modern impulse to base all truth and knowledge on mathematical certainty, giving philosophy the traditional mind/body problem, substance dualism, and individual subjectivity (based on his teaching of the “cogito”). An important ramification of Cartesian subjective individualism is that it leads to the metaphysically neutral or even anti-metaphysical perspective of democracy since modern liberal states tend to minimize metaphysics and base political truth on the subjective individual. In addition, Descartes’ philosophy can be seen as a forerunner of Kantian idealism and British empiricism. The influence of Descartes is vast and can be found in many areas of Western philosophy. These articles will explore some overlooked insights of Cartesian thought from the vantage point of the traditional realist tradition, primarily using Aristotle as a guide. Since the ideas of Descartes are complex, this will be the first in a series of articles focusing on Descartes’ ideas of teleology or final causality and his overall conception of metaphysics.

In classical philosophy, and primarily with Aristotle, the chief end of philosophy is to examine the first principles and causes of the world. Philosophy begins, as Aristotle explains in his Metaphysics, with wonder about the world that surrounds us, or more technically, wonder about the reality of Being. Getting at how causation and change work as the first principles in reality was thought to unlock the mystery of Being and the place of human being and becoming in this world. (Just as an aside, Teleology or what is sometimes called teleological realism is the idea that things in the realm of becoming can be accounted for in terms of some goal, end or purpose they help bring about. The term teleology was first used by the philosopher Christian Wolff in 1728 to describe the role of final causes in regards to change. In Western thought, the foundation of teleology was laid by Aristotle and then developed by Thomas Aquinas and others. In these articles, I refer to final causation or purpose as a“telos” or teleology, the science of describing purpose and goal-directedness in the world around us.) If there is a place for causes, effects, order, and even goal-directedness (final causes) in this world, it has important implications for how humans view each other and human purposes. The curious thing about human beings is that they seem to be defined by the commitments, purposes, goals, and projects to which they give themselves. Politicians, for example, serve the purpose of good social order, teachers serve the purpose of educating their students, and social cooperation in economics serves the purpose of monetary stability and economic growth in trade and industry. Human beings tend to be naturally oriented to things they hold to be good or important. This was so obvious to Aristotle that the claims purpose in human action was a “first principle” of all social order and individual action. When discussing happiness as a final end, Aristotle explains, “It seems to be so also from the fact that it is a first principle; for it is for the sake of that we all do all that we do, and the principle and cause of goods is, we claim, something prized and divine” (Aristotle II 347). Aristotle very clearly helps us to understand that human beings always act with some good, goal, end, or purpose in mind.

To unpack these ideas more explicitly, however, it is insightful to investigate what Descartes has to say about final causality. This inquiry might hold significant ramifications for developing a robust view of human nature and how that leads one to view human existence with meaning, purpose, and significance. In the history of Western thought, two very different traditions have developed regarding the place of final causation in understanding reality. The first tradition in the lineage of Aristotle, Aquinas, and other neo-Aristotelians holds that the world is significantly better understood with a firm grasp of final causality. On the other hand, a tradition in the trajectory developed by Hobbes, Bacon, and Descartes is more skeptical about the place of final causation and believes, instead, that the natural world is better explained in terms of simple matter, mechanics, and mathematics. These articles seek explores the conversation that takes place between these two positions and, specifically, between Aristotle and Descartes regarding final causality.

The conversation that takes place between Aristotle and Descartes has a preliminary point that needs to be understood. Descartes has some broad agreement with Aristotle. For example, Descartes agrees with Aristotle that humans are basically rational beings, that God is pure“act” (act and potency are central concepts to Aristotle’s metaphysics) and with Aristotle’s conception of efficient causes. It is very important to point out that Descartes does not exactly deny final causation—he is just skeptical that he or anyone else can discover it. What we shall see, however, is that Descartes very methodology leaves him at a loss to explain change in a robust way and only allows him to explain change in purely mechanical and mathematical terms. He thinks the matter of final causation is entirely theological and that no one can really know God’s ultimate purposes (441). However, it will be seen that his methodological skepticism runs the risk of being unable to account for a large portion of human action, cultural production, and social order.

Aristotle and Descartes really are two very different thinkers despite their broad agreements. Descartes (due to his doctrine of the “cogito” or the mind, and ultimately his starting point from the existence of God) tends to be a “top-down” philosopher in the rational tradition of Plato, while Aristotle takes a “bottom-up” approach and reasons from empiricism, or that which can be discerned from the sense experiences common to everyone and the cognitive capacities of the mind, and then reasons to greater and greater abstract principles about the world. These are very different methodologies. Essentially, Descartes begins with epistemology (how we know what we know) and Aristotle begins with ontology (the nature and character of being and that which is becoming). One question that will be explored here is whether or not epistemology should determine ontology or metaphysics. It is important to note that Descartes seeks epistemological certainty akin to mathematical certainty, “the Method which teaches us to follow the true order and enumerate exactly every term in the matter under investigation contains everything which gives certainty to the rules of Arithmetic”(272). Furthermore, he explains:

Considering also that of all those who have hitherto sought for the truth in the Sciences, it has been the mathematicians alone who have been able to succeed in making any demonstrations, that is to say producing reasons which are evident and certain…And for this purpose it was requisite that I should borrow all that is best in Geometrical Analysis and Algebra, and correct the errors of the one by the other (271).

This is the discussion that becomes evident when exploring each philosopher’s metaphysical contributions, and a careful analysis of these two different approaches high lights the issues involved when understanding and discussing change, the nature of existence, final causality, and human agency. Descartes seeks mathematical certainty and is skeptical about what is not absolutely certain while, on the other hand, Aristotle does not require mathematical precision—especially in the areas of metaphysics, moral, and practical reasoning. Aristotle reminds his readers, “And we must…not look for precision in all things a like, but in each class of things such precision as accords with the subject matter, and so much as is appropriate to the inquiry” (Aristotle II 434). Because Aristotle is not confined by mathematical precision, he is able to examine the notion that human beings have intrinsic intentionality and agency in a way that Descartes does not. Next, we will explore how the concepts of act and potency relate to teleology and purpose in human action.

In the meantime, here’s a scientist who is rediscovering purpose in biology (and who does not assume the mechanistic starting point of intelligent design theory). http://natureinstitute.org/txt/st/org/comm/news.htm#mar3117a

Works Cited

Aristotle. The Works of Aristotle: 2. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 8. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.

Descartes, Rene. Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 28. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.