René Descartes and his philosophical contributions

Descartes Meditation

Mediation

In this Book 1 meditation on the objective existence of human reality, Descartes takes on the object of the human mind when it is constructing a fantasy world. "Let us suppose, then, that we are dreaming, and that all these particulars -- namely, the opening of the eyes, the motion of the head, the forth- putting of the hands -- are merely illusions; and even that we really possess neither an entire body nor hands such as we see." In this supposition, Descartes is responding to his self-created philosophical query, if all of human life is generated in the individual consciousness, perhaps his own consciousness?

Perhaps, in fact, all of life is a dream -- but, "nevertheless it must be admitted at least that the objects which appear to us in sleep are, as it were, painted representations which could not have been formed unless in the likeness of realities; and, therefore, that those general objects, at all events, namely, eyes, a head, hands, and an entire body, are not simply imaginary, but really existent." In other words, even in dreams, dreams correspond to another source of truth, namely what Descartes considers the objective reality of the physical world.

Even when he doubts the body as part of his philosophy, as a mental exercise, the proof in the existence of the physical world lies in this sameness between dreams and real life. This is also true of art, "for, in truth, painters themselves, even when they study to represent sirens and satyrs by forms the most fantastic and extraordinary, cannot bestow upon them natures absolutely new, but can only make a certain medley of the members of different animals; or if they chance to imagine something so novel that nothing at all similar has ever been seen before, and such as is, therefore, purely fictitious and absolutely false, it is at least certain that the colors of which this is composed are real." An artist attempts to create something imaginary -- but a satyr, for example, is merely a human torso stapled to a horse, both of which exist in nature and thus are mental constructs with correspondents in a reality outside of the mind of the artist. To have a nightmare about appearing in one's underwear in school, one must have a mental representation of what a real school looks like, its discipline, and why this is horrific to a student.

And on the same principle, although these general objects, viz. [a body], eyes, a head, hands, and the like, be imaginary, we are nevertheless absolutely necessitated to admit the reality at least of some other objects still more simple and universal than these, of which, just as of certain real colors, all those images of things, whether true and real, or false and fantastic, that are found in our consciousness (cogitatio), are formed." Thus, Descartes states that when we are dreaming or creating the dream world of art, we still use forms and shapes that have a physical reference in the real world, even the very colors we use on the canvas. In other words, rather than creating out of whole cloth, dreams and art both have a basis in physical reality of non-dreaming life. One cannot be completely creative either in painting or in dreams, for even paintings of fantasy have some referents to lived, human existence in 'reality.'

Descartes uses this as evidence, as constructed over the course of the first book, that there is an objective, rational reality outside of the subjective data of the human senses and empirical or subjective data gleaned by those senses. But one could as easily argue that the limits of human creativity and the limits of the human mind in postmodern sense highlight that there are many, subjective realities depending upon what cultural and imaginary constructs one is exposed to -- this is not proof of an objective reality outside of the mind, but the limited capacity of human creativity and mental, cognitive capacity.