Math Teacher/ Preacher

To discover truth we must look deeper into our own thoughts instead of thoughts of things outside us. So, now that we have abandoned the question for a brief moment on our ideas that come from the existence of things outside ourselves and move toward knowing where our own ideas come from. With so many of our ideas subject to doubt finding what is true becomes the Meditator’s mission. Descartes, almost romantically, explains that there are some ideas whose truth is, “so open and so much in harmony with my nature, that on first discovering them it seems that I am not so much learning something new as remembering what I knew before” (CSM 44). Hatfield explains this distinction in ideas as establishing what ideas are inventions or discoveries. When the truth of a thing is so clear and distinct in my mind it is as if it was a part of my nature, but not dependent on me. Up to this point we have not proven that we can know assuredly of the existence of anything outside ourselves. So, the things that we perceive as these clear and distinct truths in our mind do not necessarily need to exist for them to be true.

One of Descartes justifications for this is the fact that we do not will the ideas into our mind. Hatfield explains the difference between this unwilled idea of something with an immutable nature to the unwilled idea of something shown to us through the senses as the former does, “not fill her [the meditator’s] experience, as the heat of the fire might, but they compel recognition, or cognitive acknowledgment” (Hatfield 209). Descartes explains that these certain undeniable ideas have a “determinate nature” also called “essence” or “form” (CSM 45). This determinate nature can be demonstrated and has undeniable properties, which, “I now clearly recognize whether I want to or not” (CSM 45). The properties are in no way dependent on me, we assume by reason of doubt that they do not even necessarily exist outside of me, and I did not will the idea into my mind or invent it. Therefore in our thoughts we can have an idea of a thing without the use of any of the faculties of our mind, but once we clearly and distinctly perceive its properties the truth of the nature of the thing is undeniable. Descartes mostly uses the examples of simple maths and God as the examples of these innate ideas that are not of our own creation.

I did not will them. I did not invent them. They are not by my mind, but they are not from outside me either. So, my question here is whether the truth/essence/nature (?) of these ideas was already in my mind or if through discovering their properties I came to know them. I suppose that Descartes believes in the former- that these truths were already pre-stocked, in a sense, in our mind and it is just up to us to rediscover them. But then does that mean that our mind is already stamped with all truths therefore inward reflection in the discovery of truths is all that is necessary? Things may exist outside of us, but if our mind already has knowledge of all truths than the real world does not seem to hold anything unique, new, or valuable.