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for the Real Distinction, as produced in the Sixth Meditation,
the real distinction 91
which could not equally well have appeared in the Second? If there
is not, and if (as is so) Descartes supposes himself in that argument
to have shown that he is essentially a thinking thing, and distinct
from any body he has, we shall have to admit that the only reasons
he has for these beliefs are reasons which were in fact available in
the Second Meditation; though he himself seems anxious to stress
that he was not in a position to reach these conclusions on the
strength of the Second Meditation alone. But it is hard at first to
see anything of importance in the argument for the Real Distinc-
tion which was not available in the Second Meditation. It is inter-
esting, moreover, that the second quotation that I gave above from
the Recherche, while it corresponds in effect to the Second Medita-
tion, is obviously a crude expression of the Real Distinction. There
is another passage, too, in which Descartes himself seems to base
the Real Distinction very directly on the cogito. Writing to Colvius
(14 November 1640), who (referring to the Discourse) had drawn
his attention to the use of the cogito by Augustine, Descartes
replies that Augustine and himself do not put the argument to the
same use:  I make use of it to make known that this I that thinks is
an immaterial substance, which has nothing corporeal about it (III
247, K 83 4). Yet, not only in the reply to Hobbes, but repeatedly in
his replies to other objectors, Descartes insists that he does not
determine that  there is nothing corporeal in the soul , nor that
mind and body are really distinct, until the Sixth Meditation (II
Rep.: VII 129, HR2 30; V Rep.: VII 357, HR2 211; to Clerselier: IX 1
205, HR2 133). Interpretation should certainly try to make sense of
this repeated insistence if it can.
What more is there in the final argument for the Real Distinc-
tion? Part of the answer, the lesser part, is that by the Sixth Medita-
tion he has a better concept of body: his body is referred to there in
terms of  extension , a more refined conception of matter which he
has not reached at this point of the Second Meditation, though he
makes a step towards it later in the same Meditation (see Chapter
8). This, as we shall see, plays some role in the argument. More
important than this, however, is the role of God: certainly a further
thing he has done by the Sixth Meditation is to prove the existence
of God (twice: see Chapter 5). But how is God involved? We must
92 the real distinction
remove first a way in which he is not involved. Since the Real
Distinction is actually explained by Descartes in terms of the idea
of two things which God at least could separate, it might be thought
that this idea will have no application until God has been shown to
exist. But this cannot be right. First, Descartes goes out of his way
in the passage quoted to say that it makes no difference  by what
power this [separation] should come about, for one to consider the
things as different . Second, and more basically, God s power can-
not play an essential part in the notion of a real distinction, because
of Descartes s other views about the power of God. Descartes
believes that God s power is such that even logical truths and the
vérités éternelles which appear to us as absolute necessities are the
products of God s will (see letters to Mersenne, 15 April, 6 and 27
May 1630: I 145, 149 50, 152, K 11, 13 15; to Mesland, 2 May
1644: IV 118, K 151; to Arnauld, 29 July 1648: V 223 4, K 236; VI
Rep.: VII 431 2, HR2 248). This being so, the fact that God could
separate A from B could not in Descartes s view tell us anything
about A and B at all, for God could create, if he so willed, any-
thing apart from anything, including a triangle apart from three
sides. By the criterion of what God can bring about, on Des-
cartes s view of God s powers, everything is really distinct from
itself. Hence if there is to be any content at all to saying of two
things that they are really distinct, this must mean not just that
God could separate them, but that we can conceive of what it would
be like if God had separated them; which comes to no more than
saying that we can conceive of them as separate, which is indeed
what Descartes does in effect say, and this makes no reference to
God at all.
It is thus misleading of Descartes to say (IV Rep.: VII 219, HR2
96 7) that the point turns on proving that God exists,  that God
who is capable of everything that I clearly and distinctly understand
as possible  an emphasis to be found also at the beginning of the
crucial passage from the Sixth Meditation, given above (pp. 89 90).
The point should rather be about the validity of what he clearly and
distinctly understands, and his insistence that the Real Distinction
is proved only after the proof of God should stem rather from the
idea that it is only after proving the existence of God that he can be
the real distinction 93
sure that what he can conceive of as distinct will objectively be
distinct; this being a particular application of a more general point
which he appears sometimes to make, that only then can he be
assured that what he can  clearly and distinctly perceive to be so
will be true. He makes this point when he writes to Gibieuf (19
January 1642: III 478, K 125) that the objective truth cannot con-
tradict our clear and distinct ideas about the Real Distinction
 otherwise God would be a deceiver, and we should not have any
rule by which to assure ourselves of the truth ; and he states it
plainly in a later passage of the Fourth Replies (IV Rep.: VII 226,
HR2 101). This is the major part of what Descartes had in mind
when he so insisted that the doctrine of the Real Distinction was to
be found in the Sixth, and not in the Second, Meditation. But this
answer involves a difficulty: since it is only by relying on the valid-
ity of clear and distinct ideas that he proves the existence of God, to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]