The Curious Sensations of Pain, Hunger and Thirst. Reliabilism in the Second Part of Descartes’ Sixth Meditation

Keywords: bodily sensations, errors of nature, nature’s teachings, reliabilism, the empirical space of causes, the logical space of reasons

Abstract

This paper discusses the epistemic status of bodily sensations—especially the sensations of pain, hunger and thirst—in the second part of Descartes’ Sixth Meditation. It is argued that this part is an integral component of Descartes overall purely epistemological project in the Meditations. Surprisingly perhaps, in contrast with his standardly taken infallible, internalist and foundationalist position, Descartes adopts a fallibilist, externalist and reliabilist position as regards the knowledge and beliefs based on bodily sensations. The argument for this conclusion is justified by an analysis of both the criterion of nature’s teachings and the concept of true errors of nature in terms of Wilfrid Sellars’ distinction between the logical space of reasons and the empirical space of causes.

Author Biography

Stefaan E. Cuypers, University of Leuven (KU Leuven)

Stefaan E. Cuypers is full professor at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven). He is the head of the Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science at the KU Leuven Institute of Philosophy

References

Armstrong, David M. Bodily Sensations. London: Routledge and Paul, 1962.

Armstrong, David M. A Materialist Theory of the Mind, 306–22. London: Routledge and Paul, 1968.

BonJour, Laurence. Epistemology. Classical Problems and Contemporary Responses. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002.

BonJour, Lawrence. “A Version of Internalist Foundationalism.” In Laurence BonJour and Ernest Sosa, Epistemic Justification. Internalism vs. Externalism, Foundations vs. Virtues, 3–96. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.

BonJour, Lawrence. “Internalism and Externalism.” In The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology, edited by Paul K. Moser, 235–63. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Cottingham, John. “The Mind–Body Relation.” In The Blackwell Guide to Descartes’ Meditations, edited by Stephen Gaukroger, 179–92. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006.

Cottingham, John. “Descartes and Darwin: Reflections on the Sixth Meditation.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 87 (2013): 259–77.

Detlefsen, Karen. “Teleology and Natures in Descartes’ Sixth Meditation.” In Descartes’ Meditations: A Critical Guide, edited by Karen Detlefsen, 153–75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Rodis-Lewis, Geneviève. “Descartes and the Unity of the Human Being.” In Descartes, edited by John Cottingham, 197–210. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Goldman, Alvin I. “Internalism Exposed.” In Alvin I. Goldman, Pathways to Knowledge, 3–23. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Goldman, Alvin I. “A Causal Theory of Knowing.” The Journal of Philosophy 64 (1967): 357–72. Goldman, Alvin I. “What is Justified Belief?” In Justification and Knowledge, edited by George S. Pappas, 1–23. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1979.

Hoffman, Paul. “The Union and Interaction of Mind and Body.” In A Companion to Descartes, edited by Janet Broughton and John Carriero, 390–403. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008.

Morris, John. “Descartes and Probable Knowledge.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 8 (1970): 303–12.

Manning, Gideon. “Extrinsic Denomination” in The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon, edited by Lawrence Nolan, 276–78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Newman, Lex. “Error, Theodicies of.” In The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon, edited by Lawrence Nolan, 240–46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Patterson, Sarah. “Descartes on the Errors of the Senses.” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 78 (2016): 73–108.

Ragland, C. P. The Will to Reason: Theodicy and Freedom in Descartes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Rozemond, Marleen. “Descartes, Mind-Body Union, and Holenmerism.” Philosophical Topics 31 (2003): 343–67.

Sellars, Willfrid. Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. Introduction by Richard Rorty and Study Guide by Robert Brandom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.

Wilson, Margaret D. “Descartes: The Epistemological Argument for Mind-Body Distinctness.” Noûs 10, no. 1 (1976): 3–15.

Published
2020-06-30
Section
Articles