The Myth of Cartesian Qualia

The standard view of Cartesian sensations (SV) is that they present themselves as purely qualitative features of experience (or qualia). Accordingly, Descartes’ view would be that in perceiving the color red, for example, we are merely experiencing the subjective feel of redness rather than seeming to perceive a property of bodies. In this paper, I establish that the argument and textual evidence offered in support of SV fail to prove that Descartes held this view. Indeed, I will argue that there are textual and theoretical reasons for believing that Descartes held the negation of SV. Qualia aren’t Descartes’ legacy. To claim that Cartesian sensations are qualia is to claim that they lack intrinsic intentionality, that is, they present themselves as non-relational or purely qualitative features of experience. 1 Nicholas Malebranche interpreted Cartesian sensations this way. According to Malebranche, Descartes held the view that sensations of color, taste, pain and the like are nothing but modes of the mind because they neither represent nor seem to represent anything in the external world. 2 Since then many scholars have followed in Malebranche’s footsteps in interpreting Descartes this way. 3 Moreover, this interpretation of Cartesian sensations as qualia is seen by contemporary philosophers of mind as part and parcel of Descartes’ internalist account of mental content (i.e. the view that mental states are individuated non-relationally) and its (allegedly) related skepticism of the veil of ideas. 4 It is Descartes, after all, who opened up the problem of our knowledge of an external world and created an epistemological gap between the mind and the world. And Cartesian qualia are perfect candidates for those third entities between the mind and the world. For example, one may argue that Descartes’ dream and deceiver arguments are arguments for qualia as follows. Suppose Mary is dreaming of a red rose. What Mary is dreaming of is not a real red rose because Mary isn’t seeing 182 PACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY © 2007 The Author Journal compilation © 2007 University of Southern California and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. anything. So, the color Mary is experiencing is a property of her own experience. But if dreaming is indistinguishable from veridical experience, then qualia occur in veridical experience also. 5 Finally, this reading of Cartesian sensations fits the more general view that the Rationalist Descartes denied that the senses play any cognitive role in the search for truth. This role is allotted to the intellect alone. Sensations are mere impressionistic modes of the mind and do not serve any cognitive purpose. 6 So, in many ways, the view that Cartesian sensations aren’t intrinsically representational is the standard view of Cartesian sensations (SV). 7 In this paper, I argue contra SV that qualia aren’t Descartes’ legacy. 8 I use two different strategies. First, I establish that the argument and the textual evidence offered in support of SV fail to prove that Descartes held SV (sections 3 and 4). Second, I argue that there are textual and theoretical reasons for believing exactly the opposite, that is, that Descartes held that sensations are intrinsically intentional (section 5). I conclude that we ought to abandon SV and that this is a preliminary step towards understanding the distinctive role of sensations within the cognitive architecture of the Cartesian mind. 1. The Standard View (SV): the arch-argument and its variations Nicholas Malebranche distinguishes between sensations and ideas. 9 According to Malebranche, in the case of sensations of color, taste and the like we must keep separate the sensation proper (i.e. the what-it-feels-like-tosee-red, for example) from the natural judgment of projecting what the mind senses onto external bodies (S I.x.52–3). 10 Sensations of color and the like are devoid of intrinsic intentionality. They are qualitative aspects of experience (or qualia). The fact that when we feel pain or we see color we see them in objects, explains Malebranche, is only the result of an involuntary natural judgment (S I.x.52–3 and S I.xiii.68–69). The intentionality of sensations is then inherited. That is, sensations per se lack in intentionality but are mistakenly believed to be intentional because of some associated judgment. On the contrary, in Malebranche’s view, ideas have intrinsic representational content because they represent objects in the external world and their properties. Our idea of extension, for example, according to Malebranche, suffices to provide information about all the properties of bodies (S III.vii.237 and S Elucidation III, 561). Malebranche’s view on sensations of secondary qualities is supposed to be Descartes’ legacy. As Simmons puts it, the interpretation of sensations as qualia is believed to be Descartes’ legacy because “having excised colors, sounds [ . . . ] from the corporeal world [ . . . ] [Descartes] relocated them THE MYTH OF CARTESIAN QUALIA 183 © 2007 The Author Journal compilation © 2007 University of Southern California and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. in the mind in the form of sensations that do little more than give an ornamental [ . . . ] flair to our sense perceptual experience.” 11 The argument by which Malebranche attributes this view to Descartes is precisely along these lines: (1) According to Cartesian physics, bodies are modes of res extensa , viz., modifications of the essential property of body (i.e. extension). (2) Therefore, colors, tastes, pains and the like are banished from the corporeal world. (3) Therefore, according to Descartes, sensations of pain, color and the like do not resemble any real quality of corporeal substance. (4) Therefore, Cartesian sensations are devoid of any intrinsic representational content. They are mere modes of the mind. (5) Therefore, any appearance of representational content that sensations exhibit must be inherited from the implicit judgment we make that what is present to the mind has a similar counterpart in reality. 12 Some contemporary scholars have attributed to Descartes the view that sensations of color and the like are qualia on the basis of similar arguments. I will briefly present two different variations of Malebranche’s original argument in the following two sub-sections. 1.1 WILSON’S ARGUMENT 13 Margaret Wilson argues that Descartes in Principles I.66–71 distinguishes sensations from other perceptions as follows. 14 Since our sensations of color do not resemble any real property in things (CSM I 216–218; AT VIIIA 32–34) and so they “do not represent anything located outside our thought” (CSM I 219; AT VIIIA 35), colors and tastes are exhibited to the mind as sensations (CSM I 219; AT VIIIA 35). On the contrary, since our clear and distinct perception of size, shape and so forth “exactly corresponds” to real properties of objects (CSM I 218; AT VIIIA 34) size and shape are exhibited to the mind as of things (CSM I 219; AT VIIIA 35). 15 However, Wilson continues, Descartes points out that we don’t notice the difference between these two kinds of perceptions. When we perceive colors in objects, writes Descartes, “we cannot find any resemblance between the colour [ . . . ] and that which we experience in our sensation. But this is something we do not take account of; and what is more there are other many other features such as size, shape and number which we clearly perceive to be actually or at least possibly in objects in a way exactly corresponding to our sensory perception and understanding” (CSM I 218; AT VIIIA 34). 184 PACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY © 2007 The Author Journal compilation © 2007 University of Southern California and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Because we do not take account of the difference between perceptions of color and perceptions of size, we erroneously assimilate the two kinds of perceptions and so we make the mistake of “judging that what is called colour in objects is something exactly like the colour of which we have sensory awareness” (CSM I 218; AT VIIIA 35). Notice that as in Malebranche’s archetypical argument, Wilson argues that (i) sensations proper aren’t representational because they do not resemble any real property of bodies; and that (ii) the representational content of Cartesian sensations is the result of a judgment that in turn is the result of confusing sensations with ideas. 16 1.2 MACKENZIE’S ARGUMENT Ann Wilburn MacKenzie agrees with Wilson that Descartes distinguishes between mere sensations and representative perceptions of extension and figure. She also agrees with Wilson that what causes the error of believing that colors exist in bodies is not the intrinsic intentionality of sensations but the fact that mere sensations are mistakenly associated with the really representative perception of extension, figure, and size. She argues for the lack of intrinsic intentionality of sensations as follows: (1) There is an ontological difference between secondary and primary qualities. The former are qualities of embodied minds, viz., they are “qualia which embodied minds ‘have.’ ” 17 The latter are real qualities of bodies. (2) “Descartes’ [views about] the ontological status of [secondary qualities] puts pressure on his view that human sensing is in general a kind of representing.” 18 (3) Therefore, Descartes distinguishes two different categories of sensory perception: (i) in sensing secondary qualities we are having mere sensations devoid of any representational content; (ii) in sensing primary qualities we are acquainted with real properties of things. 19 Again, the key feature of the archetypical argument is in place here. The sensation of red, for example, does not represent the property of being red because there is no property of being red in objects. The sensation of red is an instance of the property of being red. Consequently, sensations proper aren’t representational. In conclusion, the standard view (SV) of Cartesian sensations consists of two related theses: (SV): (1) Cartesian sensations present themselves as the purely qualitative character of conscious experience. That is, they are qualia devoid of any intrinsic intentionality; and THE MYTH OF CARTESIAN QUALIA 185 © 2007 The Author Journal compilation © 2007 University of Southern California and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. (2) the intentionality they “appear” to exhibit is only the result of an implicit (and illicit) judgment. As we saw above, what motivates SV is a cluster of diverse argumentations that share a common-core. However, as I will argue next (sections 2 and 3), there are several reasons to doubt the conclusiveness of the argument for SV. 2. Descartes on ideas: terminological and conceptual distinctions Much of the confusion among Descartes scholars about Cartesian sensations is due to a lack of clarity (certainly encouraged by Descartes’ own carelessness) in the use of the relevant terminological and conceptual apparatus regarding ideas. One of the consequences of this lack of clarity is the conflation of concepts that should be kept distinct. Spelling out (some of) these distinctions is then a preliminary step in my discussion and criticism of SV. As is well known, Descartes distinguishes between two senses of ‘ideas’ (CSM II 7; AT VII 8. CSM II 27–8; AT VII 40). Ideas taken materially are nothing but modes of the mind. Ideas taken objectively are the objects represented by the ideas whether or not these objects actually exist. In reply to Caterus’ request for clarification of the notion of objective being Descartes replies: “Objective being in the intellect” [ . . . ] will signify the object’s being in the intellect in the way in which its objects are normally there. By this I mean the idea of the sun is the sun itself existing in the intellect – not of course formally existing, as it does in the heavens, but objectively existing, i.e. in the way in which its objects are normally in the intellect. (CSM