Meditation II

Descartes on Body

Throughout Meditation II Descartes deliberately supposes that no bodies exist, and hence, that he does not have a body. However, he does allow himself to investigate the nature of body, without supposing that there are any. He considers a piece of "wax", i.e. a piece of honey, from a honeycomb. He first describes its various properties, all of which are found out by the senses:

"Let us take, for instance, this piece of wax. It has been taken quite recently from the honeycomb; it has not yet lost all the honey flavor. It retains some of the scent of the flowers from which it was collected. Its color, shape, and size are manifest, It is hard and cold; it is easy to touch. If you rap on it with your knuckle it will emit a sound." (p. 32)

These properties are as follows:

(1) Flavor (sweet)

(2) Scent (flowery)

(3) Color (white)

(4) Shape (comb-shaped)

(5) Size (small)

(6) Texture (hard)

(7) Temperature (cold)

(8) Sound (rapping sound)

Descartes next brings the piece of wax close to the fire, and the result is that the eight properties of the wax listed above change:

"But notice that, as I am speaking, I am bringing it close to the fire. The remaining traces of the honey flavor are disappearing; the scent is vanishing; the color is changing; the original shape is disappearing. Its size is increasing; it is becoming liquid and hot; you can hardly touch it. And now, when you rap on it, it no longer emits any sound." (p. 32)

What Descartes wants to say is that there remains a piece of wax, despite the changes in all of these properties of the piece of wax.

"Does the same wax still remain? I must confess that it does; no one denies it; no one thinks otherwise." (p. 32)

"But indeed when I distinguish wax from its external forms, as if stripping it of its clothing, and look at the wax in its nakedness..." (p. 33)

Since all of the properties of the piece of wax have changed, and yet the piece of wax remains, it follows that, whatever the piece of wax is, it is not something that is known through the five senses -- taste, smell, sight, touch, and hearing:

"So what was there in the wax that was so distinctly grasped? Certainly none of the aspects that I reached by means of the senses. For whatever came under the senses of taste, smell, sight, touch or hearing has now changed; and yet the wax remains." (p. 33)

Descartes's conclusion is that what the piece of wax truly is is extended stuff, which can take on a multitude of different shapes and sizes. However, this understanding of what the piece of wax is -- that it is extended stuff -- is an insight which is reached by the intellect, and not by the senses or by the imagination.

"Let us focus our attention on this and see what remains after we have removed everything that does not belong to the wax; only that it is something extended, flexible, and mutable. But what is it to be flexible and mutable? Is it what my imagination shows it to be: namely, that this piece of wax can change from a round to a square shape, or from the latter to a triangular shape? Not at all. For I grasp that the wax is capabale of innumerable changes of this sort, even though I am incapable of running through these innumerable changes by suing my imagination. Therefore this insight is not achieved by the faculty of imagination. What is it to be extended? Is this thing's extension also unknown? For it becomes greater in wax that is beginning to melt, greater in boiling wax, and greater still as the heat is increased. And I would not judge correctly what the wax is if I did not believe that it takes on an even greater variety of dimensions than I could ever grasp with the imagination. It remains for me to concede that I do not grasp what this wax is through the imagination; rather, i perceive it through the mind alone... But I need to realize that the perception of the wax is neither a seeing, nor a touching, nor an imagining. Nor has it ever been, even though it previously seemed so; rather it is an inspection on the part of the mind alone." (p. 33)

Descartes's conclusion is that the nature of body (the piece of wax is a body) is extension, and that a body is an extended thing (res extensa), or extended substance. This knowledge is not gained from the senses or the imagination. This knowledge is gained through the intellect.

"For since I now know that even bodies are not, properly speaking, perceived by the senses or by the faculty of imagination, but by the intellect alone, and that they are not perceived through their being touched or seen, but only through their being understood" (p. 33-34)

Body, or extended substance, is the other half of Cartesian Substance Dualism, along with mind.

There is one ambiguity in Descartes's account of extended substance, however. In the Synopsis of the Meditations, Descartes appears to suggest that it is possible to think of all bodies as forming one body, or one extended substance:

"Second, we need to realize that body, taken in a general sense, is a substance and hence it too can never perish." (p. 26)

The point is that for Descartes there are no 'gaps' between bodies. There is no vacuum between them. But if that is so, then where does one body 'end' and another body 'begin'?

It does at least seem to be true that the mind or soul has causal influence over one body (or one part of body), namely, the human body. But it remains unclear why it has influence over just this body (or this part of body) and not others (or other parts of body).