Zenni
PHIL Kara 1100
Jolley
Descartes and Wittgensteins Arguments of the Use of I
In Descartes Philosophical Writings and Wittgensteins The Blue Book, both
philosophers help the reader approach their thoughts on many insightful topics. Descartes
discusses the body and soul and helps us navigate through their distinguishes. He then
joins together with Wittgenstein to further explain the word I, its use and what it really
means to them. Although Descartes and Wittgenstein may not always agree on these
matters, they make clear arguments to help support their beliefs.
In his writings, Descartes distinguishes between the soul and body. Although
many may perceive these as one, Descartes demonstrates to us their many differences.
Descartes believes the body occupies space, which he defines as being extended. He says
that the body is a corpse with a mind (soul) attached to it. This means that the body can
still exist after we are deceased. Similar to the body, the mind exists without the body,
which serves as just a sailor in the ship (body). Descartes sees this to be a problem.
Descartes believes in doubting all of his beliefs, and then seeing which are strong enough
to survive his testing. To make this possible, Descartes creates what he calls an evil
demon. An evil demon can deceive you with every action and allow yourself to distrust
all that you have known. After much deliberation, Descartes finds that the body has been
confirmed dubitable and says that we cannot actually know if we have a body. Descartes,
however, believes that the soul is something to trust.
Descartes describes the soul as a gas inside the body. He explains that the soul is
not extended in space, meaning it does not occupy space, but extended in time because
our conscious mind has a history. Just like the body can exist without the soul (mind), the
soul can exist without the body. Therefore they are not connected. To prove this,
Descartes goes back to the idea of his evil demon. Descartes concluded that the evil
demon rendered the body as dubitable and he surprisingly enough said that the soul is
something certain. The only belief that is in Descartes possession is I think therefore I
am. He believes the mind is transparent to itself, therefore making it known to itself.
This complicates things. When using the term I who/what are we talking about?
Descartes believes that because we concluded that the body was dubitable due to the evil
demon, this means the only thing certain is the soul, therefore defining the term I.
Even though Descartes makes a good argument while defining I, Wittgenstein
has a different outtake on these matters. While trying to describe what I means,
Wittgenstein explains solipsism and how these two things connect. A solips is someone
who embodies very egotistical characteristics. They believe, only my experiences are
real and that those are the only real things in the world. Because we really have no
access to other peoples experiences, how could we know that they really exist? A solips,
however, does not disregard what others are feeling. Wittgenstein writes,
[a solips] does not thereby disagree with us about any practical question of fact,
he does not say that we are simulating when we complain of pains, he pities us as much
as anyone else (59).
This shows a solips does empathize with others and their feelings, but what he does not
necessarily do is call these experiences real because we do not have access to the way
others really feel through their experiences. If someone says they have a toothache, how
do we know that they are not just lying? The only pain that could really exist is your own,
how could anyone deny this? Here is where Wittgenstein brings in the evil demon. He
says that the demon can fool him in some aspects but not in everything: he cannot fool
me that I am in pain.
Wittgenstein further explains his argument by including his idea of the two Is:
one that describes Ludwig Wittgenstein (LW) and the other being the pronoun I. LW
uses I as an object and is used in the way of my arm is broken or I have grown six
inches. In these examples, we recognize a particular person, which could cause a
difficulty in identifying who exactly they are talking about therefore making error
possible. For example, if you were in a car accident and feel a pain in your arm and then
go on to see the other passengers arm broken then there is a possibility that you may
misidentify the arm and think it is yours because of that pain. In this case, LW is used to
recognize a particular person. This is where the two differentiate. When we speak of I
in the way of being a pronoun and use it as a subject, we are not using it to recognize a
specific person; therefore there is not room for error and misidentification. This is
possible because when we say I you cannot make a mistake because you are speaking
about your own experiences. Wittgenstein makes this very clear when he says,
But surely the word I in the mouth of a man refers to the man who says it; it
points to himself; and very often a man who says it actually points to himself with
a finger (67).
Here he is just reasserting the fact that there is no possible room for error when
speaking/using term the I. To compare this Descartes idea, LW would be the body and
I would be the soul.
Wittgenstein further explains this with the idea of the physical and geometric eye.
In this case, LW would be the physical eye because that is the eye that can be seen. The
geometric eye would then be considered the pronoun I because that is referred to as the
eye that sees and is always outside the visual field. This is important to understand
because it demonstrates how the two differentiate but are not completely two different
objects because they do not have a spatial difference.
At this point, Wittgenstein is trying to see where all this information stands and
how to organize it in a comprehensible matter. Wittgenstein proceeds and goes on to
explain his opinion on the cogito. Descartes described the pronoun I as something that
can be identified with the soul (mind). Wittgenstein disagrees with this idea. He goes on
to say,
We feel then that in the cases in which I is used as subject, we dont use it
because we recognize a particular person by his bodily characteristics; and this creates
the illusion that we use this word to refer to something bodiless, which, however, has its
seat in our body (69).
This quote is important to note because it helps clarify these ideas. It brings up what was
said about Descartes earlier, that he believes the mind is something that sits inside the
body and that he believes I can be used to define the soul. Here, Wittgenstein is
reiterating what has already been said; that we do not use I when it is a subject to
identify someone. He then proceeds and says, The word, mind has meaning, i.e., it has
a use in our language; but saying this doesnt yet say what kind of use we make of it
(69). This shows that Wittgenstein detects that there is a difference between the two Is
but has a different idea of what the I used as a subject exercises.
At this time we must identify the disagreements of the use of I between
Descartes and Wittgenstein. From the quotations previously stated, it is easy to make out
where each of them stand. Descartes believes that the use of I is referring to the soul.
He believes this simply because he does not know for certain that he has a body, so that
leaves the soul left to be certain therefore making that the use for I. Wittgenstein
recognizes that Descartes has thought about something interesting and that he makes a
good point by seeing that LW and I are different things, but this is where they begin to
differentiate things. They both believe that LW or the body are different than I or the
soul but Wittgenstein says that the two function differently when talking about language;
it is a logical difference. He says that LW is used as recognition of a person and that error
is possible but he goes on to say that I does not recognize a person and that there cannot
be any error because when you say I you cannot make a mistake on identifying
yourself. Descartes, however, does believe I recognizes something, he believes it
recognizes the soul. Therefore, the stem of the disagreement between Descartes and
Wittgenstein is that Descartes believes that I is used to identify the soul (mind) whereas
Wittgenstein says that I is used for something that does not recognize or refer to
anything.
When thinking about these two concepts, I find it difficult to deem one of them
correct from my perspective. After reading their arguments, I have come across many
strong points for them both but the one that stands the strongest are Descartes arguments.
By ruling out the weak, Descartes works hard to try and find a place for the soul and
body but because the evil demon deems the body to be dubitable, Descartes is left with
one thing certain, the soul. This makes it easy for him to see that I does actually refer to
something: the soul (mind). Each individual has a single soul that sails upon their body.
No two souls are alike; they each differ with the individual. I believe that Wittgenstein
was getting at something when he said that I has no room for error because you are
speaking about yourself and you cannot misidentify anything, but what I think helps
Descartes is the fact that when we speak of I we are talking about our own soul. There
cannot be any error in that. What I believed hurt Wittgensteins argument was that he
really never came up with a use of the pronoun I, he just said what it was not whereas
Descartes gives us a definite answer. With that being said, I agree with Descartes
argument stating that I refers to our soul.
By and large, both Descartes and Wittgensteins arguments in Philosophical
Writings and The Blue Book, had numerous points that kept the debate going back and
fourth upon the use of I. Wittgenstein helped develop his argument by demonstrating
the differences between I as an object (LW) and I as a subject while Descartes went a
different path of logic and proceeded to rule out the weak until he concluded that I
referred to the soul. Although their disagreements were well constructed, for me,
Descartes arguments seemed more reasonable. Wittgenstein, however, left the reader
with more questions than they started out with. Then again, what philosopher doesnt?