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A review by iwb
10 Books That Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn't Help by Benjamin Wiker
1.0
[Please Note: This review was written initially at a time in which Goodreads had a markedly shorter limit on the number of characters one could use; thus the review reflects this fact as I tried to use characters and glyphs as economically as possible. Also, I had so much more to say about this book than just Wiker's poor take on Descartes. At the time, I wanted to further comment on his deplorable sections on Darwin, Hobbes, Marx (Wiker just has no idea what Marx is talking about) and Nietzsche. Now, I simply don't have any desire to rummage through his garbage anymore.]
This book is a dogmatic polemic, full of personal attacks, sarcasm, & metaphor ridden “analysis.” Anyone who wants a clear, analytical critique had better go elsewhere. This book is terrible, contains no serious scholarship, & is an uncritical diatribe, strong on emotive language & cutesy analogies, but weak in substance & precise reasoning. Not only is the book full of ad hominem & circumstantial fallacies, but also substantive mistakes & interpretive caricatures. He doesn’t define the technical terms he uses, nor does he situate them historically. An instance of this is his remarks about skepticism, which he says is an “intellectual disease that arises among people who are both well fed & well read.” The book is full of this drivel. We get incomplete descriptions, more rhetorical than lexical. This book is intellectually irresponsible & reflects the extent to which many Christian authors perpetuate anti-intellectualism.
Here are a few problems with Wiker’s claims in his Discourse section. He sums up Descartes’ project “Descartes attacked skepticism, but only by denying reality. He proved God’s existence, but only by making it depend on our thinking Him into existence."
This is all wrong. Descartes didn’t attack skepticism directly, as if his entire project was the negative one of refuting skeptical arguments. His project was a positive one of finding a necessarily certain basis of knowledge. He did this via a method in which he would assent to what is true just in case its falsehood is inconceivable. The epistemic intuition here is that all judgments of knowledge should be free from relevant defeaters, & Descartes took possible falsehood as a relevant defeater. Consider Descartes’ method, which Wiker maligns more than explains. Wiker is wrong to say that the method is “doubt everything.” The mere act of doubting does not constitute a method anymore than the mere act of believing does. Descartes uses a specific kind of method for arriving at knowledge. This includes the act of doubting, but is not limited to it. For Descartes, knowledge admits of degrees corresponding to degrees of reality. The object of knowledge is substance, with God as ultimate object of knowledge, but the secondary substances of thought & extension can be known also. Descartes arrives at certainty that he is a thinking substance, that God exists, & that there is an external world of extended substance. Descartes’ method is an intellective approach for gaining indubitable knowledge. The key notion that Wiker misses is ’hyperbolic’. Descartes asks that we take our beliefs & subject them to a strict scrutiny of indubitability; he wants us to take all beliefs as possibly false until we can show them to be certain. His method is a skepticism that is exaggerated in that it is used as a theoretical tool, to be dissolved after he demonstrates that the method allows us to arrive at certain knowledge. Wiker interprets Descartes’ method as a practical one, for our daily use. That isn’t how Descartes intends the method to run. It’s a theoretical method, not a practical one. Wiker gets it wrong.
The method of doubt is the means by which one arrives at the indubitability of the claim: I am thinking, therefore I am. After doubting his beliefs, Descartes still knows that if he thinks, there must be something existing that is doing the thinking. He realizes that even if his sense perceptions deceive him, even if he can’t tell his dreaming experiences from his wakeful ones, & even if an evil demon were deceiving him about the veracity of his mental operations, he is still thinking. The method of doubt has thus yielded a certain truth.
But Wiker thinks it “ridiculous to single out thinking as the act by which I know I am existing.” He thinks that Descartes’ cogito formula is: “While I am doing X, I can’t doubt my existence b/c I have to exist to do X.” He concludes that Descartes’ cogito “is not essentially tied to thinking.” Wiker’s position is that Descartes could have been just as certain about his existence if he had claimed: I smell, therefore I am. This misses the point. The point of the cogito is not to establish that one exists, but to establish an indubitable proposition from which to build a foundation of knowledge. Of course I must exist if I smell something, b/c non-existent objects do not smell things. That is not Descartes’ claim, contrary to Wiker’s analysis. Descartes arrived at a claim that admits of no relevant defeators-the claim cannot possibly be false. This is not the case with claims about physical actions such as smelling. That was the point of Descartes’ skeptical arguments. My sense perceptions might be wrong. I could have the sensation of smelling a rose, but unknowingly I may be smelling a rose scented candle. Worse, I may think I’m having the sensation of smelling a rose, but I could be dreaming it. Still worse, all of my experiences could be fabrications generated by a deceiving demon. In the first case the reliability of my perceptions are in doubt, but at least I seem to know that I’m having experiences of the world. In the second case, the possibility of experiencing the external world is in doubt, since if I can’t know if I’m dreaming or not, then I can’t trust that I’m having any actual experience. At least if that were the case, Descartes thinks, I still have knowledge of conceptual notions-whether I’m dreaming or not, all triangles have 3 sides. Even this can be brought into doubt by the evil demon, if he were tricking me into thinking all triangles have 3 sides. Suppose that all my mental operations were manipulated by the evil demon each time I perform mathematical operations so that, while in fact 2+2 does not equal 4, I still believe it does. It seems that the truth of any proposition can fall under one of these 3 skeptical hypotheses. Yet, Descartes realizes that there is one proposition whose truth is indubitable-I am thinking, therefore I am. Wiker is wrong.
In Descartes’ ontology, putatively real things such as color, sound, taste, odor do not exist in things. They are qualities of a thing relative to a perceiver’s sensations. Thus qualities are not modes of substances b/c qualities are not in substances. For Descartes, only substance exists. God is infinite substance, & thinking substance & extended substance are finite substances. We come to know substance by means of the attributes of that substance. We also come to know a substance by means of its modes. For instance, body is known to us by means of the attribute of extension; but we can understand this extended body has having varying shapes, lengths, widths, depths. Such variances of body are modes of body. This holds similarly for the substance of mind. Mind is known to us by means of the attribute of thought; but we can understand this thinking mind as having various thoughts over time. Each particular thought is a mode of thought itself.
Descartes’ ontology is intertwined with his epistemology. Only what is real can be known, what can be known is substance. A key to Descartes’ epistemology is the notion of clear & distinct perception. Whatever is clearly & distinctly perceived is real, since what is real is substance, we have clear & distinct perceptions of substance. This eliminates sense perceptions from being clear perceptions, since ideas generated from the senses are obscure. They are obscure b/c they never are solely accessible to the mind intellectively; rather they are always combined with other ideas, which results in a conflation of ideas of both mind & body. A distinct perception is a species of clear perception whose difference is that it is separate from any & all other ideas. Any idea that is part of another idea or shared with another idea is not a distinct perception. An idea of this sort is a confused idea. A distinct perception, thus, contains within itself only what is clear. Since what is real corresponds to what can be perceived clearly & distinctly, & conversely what can be perceived clearly & distinctly corresponds to what is real, any relation that holds ontologically will have epistemic consequences. It is Descartes’ theory of distinctions that expresses these epistemic consequences & ontological relations. Descartes could not have said, “I smell, therefore I am” for these reasons. 1) odors are mere qualities relative to an agent’s sensations. Qualities are not in objects; hence, they are not ultimately real. If something is not real, it cannot be the basis for knowledge. 2) We can only have knowledge of what is real, which is substance. Smelling gets us only to qualities, not to substance; it doesn’t even get us to modes of a substance. 3) We can only know substance by means of clear & distinct perceptions. Odors are confused ideas & cannot be objects of knowledge. All these reasons spell out why Wiker’s interpretation of the cogito is wrong. Contrary to Wiker’s claim, it was not ridiculous for Descartes to single out thinking.
Finally: Descartes never believed that his thoughts created reality. Descartes said the opposite: that thought can't “impose any necessity on things, but the necessity which lies in the thing itself determines me to think in this way.” Descartes’ proof for God’s existence purports to demonstrate that God’s existence is necessary. It follows from Descartes’ claim that God determines him to think, since what is necessary determines his thought & God is that necessity. This is contra Wiker’s claim that the proof for God’s existence makes God’s existence depend on our thought of Him. Descartes holds to the opposite view: our idea of God depends on the necessity of God’s existence, not the contingency of our own thought.
This book is a dogmatic polemic, full of personal attacks, sarcasm, & metaphor ridden “analysis.” Anyone who wants a clear, analytical critique had better go elsewhere. This book is terrible, contains no serious scholarship, & is an uncritical diatribe, strong on emotive language & cutesy analogies, but weak in substance & precise reasoning. Not only is the book full of ad hominem & circumstantial fallacies, but also substantive mistakes & interpretive caricatures. He doesn’t define the technical terms he uses, nor does he situate them historically. An instance of this is his remarks about skepticism, which he says is an “intellectual disease that arises among people who are both well fed & well read.” The book is full of this drivel. We get incomplete descriptions, more rhetorical than lexical. This book is intellectually irresponsible & reflects the extent to which many Christian authors perpetuate anti-intellectualism.
Here are a few problems with Wiker’s claims in his Discourse section. He sums up Descartes’ project “Descartes attacked skepticism, but only by denying reality. He proved God’s existence, but only by making it depend on our thinking Him into existence."
This is all wrong. Descartes didn’t attack skepticism directly, as if his entire project was the negative one of refuting skeptical arguments. His project was a positive one of finding a necessarily certain basis of knowledge. He did this via a method in which he would assent to what is true just in case its falsehood is inconceivable. The epistemic intuition here is that all judgments of knowledge should be free from relevant defeaters, & Descartes took possible falsehood as a relevant defeater. Consider Descartes’ method, which Wiker maligns more than explains. Wiker is wrong to say that the method is “doubt everything.” The mere act of doubting does not constitute a method anymore than the mere act of believing does. Descartes uses a specific kind of method for arriving at knowledge. This includes the act of doubting, but is not limited to it. For Descartes, knowledge admits of degrees corresponding to degrees of reality. The object of knowledge is substance, with God as ultimate object of knowledge, but the secondary substances of thought & extension can be known also. Descartes arrives at certainty that he is a thinking substance, that God exists, & that there is an external world of extended substance. Descartes’ method is an intellective approach for gaining indubitable knowledge. The key notion that Wiker misses is ’hyperbolic’. Descartes asks that we take our beliefs & subject them to a strict scrutiny of indubitability; he wants us to take all beliefs as possibly false until we can show them to be certain. His method is a skepticism that is exaggerated in that it is used as a theoretical tool, to be dissolved after he demonstrates that the method allows us to arrive at certain knowledge. Wiker interprets Descartes’ method as a practical one, for our daily use. That isn’t how Descartes intends the method to run. It’s a theoretical method, not a practical one. Wiker gets it wrong.
The method of doubt is the means by which one arrives at the indubitability of the claim: I am thinking, therefore I am. After doubting his beliefs, Descartes still knows that if he thinks, there must be something existing that is doing the thinking. He realizes that even if his sense perceptions deceive him, even if he can’t tell his dreaming experiences from his wakeful ones, & even if an evil demon were deceiving him about the veracity of his mental operations, he is still thinking. The method of doubt has thus yielded a certain truth.
But Wiker thinks it “ridiculous to single out thinking as the act by which I know I am existing.” He thinks that Descartes’ cogito formula is: “While I am doing X, I can’t doubt my existence b/c I have to exist to do X.” He concludes that Descartes’ cogito “is not essentially tied to thinking.” Wiker’s position is that Descartes could have been just as certain about his existence if he had claimed: I smell, therefore I am. This misses the point. The point of the cogito is not to establish that one exists, but to establish an indubitable proposition from which to build a foundation of knowledge. Of course I must exist if I smell something, b/c non-existent objects do not smell things. That is not Descartes’ claim, contrary to Wiker’s analysis. Descartes arrived at a claim that admits of no relevant defeators-the claim cannot possibly be false. This is not the case with claims about physical actions such as smelling. That was the point of Descartes’ skeptical arguments. My sense perceptions might be wrong. I could have the sensation of smelling a rose, but unknowingly I may be smelling a rose scented candle. Worse, I may think I’m having the sensation of smelling a rose, but I could be dreaming it. Still worse, all of my experiences could be fabrications generated by a deceiving demon. In the first case the reliability of my perceptions are in doubt, but at least I seem to know that I’m having experiences of the world. In the second case, the possibility of experiencing the external world is in doubt, since if I can’t know if I’m dreaming or not, then I can’t trust that I’m having any actual experience. At least if that were the case, Descartes thinks, I still have knowledge of conceptual notions-whether I’m dreaming or not, all triangles have 3 sides. Even this can be brought into doubt by the evil demon, if he were tricking me into thinking all triangles have 3 sides. Suppose that all my mental operations were manipulated by the evil demon each time I perform mathematical operations so that, while in fact 2+2 does not equal 4, I still believe it does. It seems that the truth of any proposition can fall under one of these 3 skeptical hypotheses. Yet, Descartes realizes that there is one proposition whose truth is indubitable-I am thinking, therefore I am. Wiker is wrong.
In Descartes’ ontology, putatively real things such as color, sound, taste, odor do not exist in things. They are qualities of a thing relative to a perceiver’s sensations. Thus qualities are not modes of substances b/c qualities are not in substances. For Descartes, only substance exists. God is infinite substance, & thinking substance & extended substance are finite substances. We come to know substance by means of the attributes of that substance. We also come to know a substance by means of its modes. For instance, body is known to us by means of the attribute of extension; but we can understand this extended body has having varying shapes, lengths, widths, depths. Such variances of body are modes of body. This holds similarly for the substance of mind. Mind is known to us by means of the attribute of thought; but we can understand this thinking mind as having various thoughts over time. Each particular thought is a mode of thought itself.
Descartes’ ontology is intertwined with his epistemology. Only what is real can be known, what can be known is substance. A key to Descartes’ epistemology is the notion of clear & distinct perception. Whatever is clearly & distinctly perceived is real, since what is real is substance, we have clear & distinct perceptions of substance. This eliminates sense perceptions from being clear perceptions, since ideas generated from the senses are obscure. They are obscure b/c they never are solely accessible to the mind intellectively; rather they are always combined with other ideas, which results in a conflation of ideas of both mind & body. A distinct perception is a species of clear perception whose difference is that it is separate from any & all other ideas. Any idea that is part of another idea or shared with another idea is not a distinct perception. An idea of this sort is a confused idea. A distinct perception, thus, contains within itself only what is clear. Since what is real corresponds to what can be perceived clearly & distinctly, & conversely what can be perceived clearly & distinctly corresponds to what is real, any relation that holds ontologically will have epistemic consequences. It is Descartes’ theory of distinctions that expresses these epistemic consequences & ontological relations. Descartes could not have said, “I smell, therefore I am” for these reasons. 1) odors are mere qualities relative to an agent’s sensations. Qualities are not in objects; hence, they are not ultimately real. If something is not real, it cannot be the basis for knowledge. 2) We can only have knowledge of what is real, which is substance. Smelling gets us only to qualities, not to substance; it doesn’t even get us to modes of a substance. 3) We can only know substance by means of clear & distinct perceptions. Odors are confused ideas & cannot be objects of knowledge. All these reasons spell out why Wiker’s interpretation of the cogito is wrong. Contrary to Wiker’s claim, it was not ridiculous for Descartes to single out thinking.
Finally: Descartes never believed that his thoughts created reality. Descartes said the opposite: that thought can't “impose any necessity on things, but the necessity which lies in the thing itself determines me to think in this way.” Descartes’ proof for God’s existence purports to demonstrate that God’s existence is necessary. It follows from Descartes’ claim that God determines him to think, since what is necessary determines his thought & God is that necessity. This is contra Wiker’s claim that the proof for God’s existence makes God’s existence depend on our thought of Him. Descartes holds to the opposite view: our idea of God depends on the necessity of God’s existence, not the contingency of our own thought.