Pieris Berreitter

Phil11 Gary’s 12:20 section

Response to Q4: Objective and Formal reality

The contrast of objects as they appear externally, to the senses, and internally, to the mind, is one of the several methods Descartes uses to prove the existence of God. Formal reality is the reality we perceive through the senses, the cause of ideas. The ideas in themselves represent objective reality (an objective idea in the Cartesian sense can be thought of as the object of thought, as opposed to the modern definition which implies a universal idea).

Descartes originally posits the concept of objective and formal reality as a way to explain the difference between an object in the real world, and the idea of that object in our minds. Descartes uses the sun as an example of the contrast of the two realities: the idea of the sun in our minds is as we perceive it to exist from the earth, namely, as a small two-dimensional circle in the sky. This objective idea of the sun is different from the formal, actual sun, which is very large, spherical, and very far away. Even though we may know the physical properties of the sun in detail, we nevertheless do not think of a massive, distant ball of hot gas undergoing sustained nuclear fusion and emitting a certain spectral pattern of radiation – we think of the sun as we see it in the sky.

Descartes continues to say that any object that is the effect of another may contain in it only the qualities expressed in the cause. For example, all qualities contained in a stone must have existed in the stone’s "maker." Furthermore, even the idea or of something, like the stone, cannot exist clearly and distinctly in one’s mind unless it was put there by a cause which contains at least as much reality as the object of the idea. "there must at least be as much reality in the efficient and total cause as in its effect; for whence can the effect draw its reality if not from its cause?" Concisely put, an object, or at least its constituents, must exist formally for it to exist objectively.

Now, this statement is completely ludicrous, because we can easily conceive of a tenth planet, for example, having certain characteristics and features, when there is no such planet in formal existence. Simply having a clear and distinct idea of an object does not magically bring it into existence.

The argument that all the objective ideas that one holds need a grounding or origin in formal reality is mirrored in the idea that something cannot come from nothing (ex nihilo nihil fit). Descartes does not want to point to one’s upbringing or even to society as the cause of these objective ideas; rather, he believes there is "a first idea" which is embedded in formal reality, an archetype for all objective ideas whose origins cannot be discerned. In examining his perceptions of formal reality, Descartes feels that

So, Descartes need not fall back on a "first idea" to explain physical things as they appear in objective ideas. Additionally, things that Descartes cannot conceive of without "obscurity and confusion" such as color, light, and heat do not require a "first idea" because, if they are "false," (that is to say, if we call an object hot, when heat is the privation of cold, then the concept of heat is false) then they are only phantasms of the mind to help explain reality. If these concepts are "true," then Descartes claims to be the originator of them because they "exhibit to me so little reality that I cannot even distinguish the object represented from nonbeing." In other words, we cannot conceive of a predicate (like heat) without a subject, and as long as we can conceive of the subject as a product of our own ideas, the predicate follows without need for justifying its existence. This is somewhat of a lousy excuse but we’ll let it slide in lieu of things to come.

Thus Descartes has supposedly proved that all things that can be perceived through the senses can be thought of objectively, and the originator of these ideas is none other than Descartes himself. This leaves only the concept of God, who escapes the qualities of the rest of formal reality in that he is "infinite, independent, all-knowing, all-powerful, and by which I myself, and every other thing that exists, if any such there be, were created." Because, as the reader will recall, an effect cannot contain within it qualities "more real" than its cause, and because Descartes does not have all the qualities that God has, God must exist.

Of course, to have any qualities at all, God must have existed to begin with. Indeed, Descartes claims in the previous quote that he was created by God, and without a priori existence it would be hard for even God to pull this off. Descartes goes on to say that he could not have the objective idea of "infinite" without God having given it to him. This argument hinges on the statement made earlier that all objective ideas must have a grounding in formal reality, which has already been proven to be flawed. There is no reason why the objective idea of God in Descartes’ mind cannot be a product of other ideas, objective or formal. Even if God is a unique idea with no grounding in reality, we must accept the concept that no effect can have within it greater "reality" than its cause. Yet a flower grows from a seed, and (if we do not discount evolution) humans evolved from apes. Descartes with his dubious degrees of reality would have trouble showing that there is more or even the same amount of "reality" in a seed than in a flower.