Descartes

The problem with three waves.

The metaphor of something arriving in waves is, unfortunately, only too familiar. Its effectiveness as an image means that it has not only been applied to pandemics but many other things. It is not surprising that it has also been applied to Descartes' method of doubt. A quick search shows that there are many web pages and assorted text books that refer to Descartes' three waves of doubt. This may, at least in part, be because it has been given quasi-official status by being specifically included in the AQA's A and AS level syllabus and specimen question paper:




This is unfortunate because it is a decidedly problematic way of describing Descartes' text. For one thing there seems to be a correlation between those sources describing Descartes' 'three waves' and those that skate over the deceiving God or conflate the deceiving God with the malicious demon. Apart from that, it is not at all obvious that there are just three waves.

It is difficult to identify who introduced the notion of Descartes' 'three waves of doubt'. In any case, since it is such a common metaphor, it is entirely possible that it was introduced independently by more than one writer.

One contender is John Cottingham. In 'Rationalism' published in 1984 Cottingham writes:

Descartes' doubt comes in three waves.

  • First, the testimony of the senses is rejected...
  • Next, even judgements about present experience are rejected... The scope of this argument (the dreaming argument' as it has come to be known) is extended to cast doubt on any judgement whatsoever which I may make about the external world; however, it does not impugn the truths of logic and it does not impugn the truths of logic and mathematics...
  • But now the third and most devastating wave of doubt arises. Suppose there is a deceiving God who systematically makes me go wrong whenever I add two and three or count the sides of a square. If there is such a 'malignant demon' - and I cannot so far disprove this possibility then absolutely nothing seems free from doubt...


As you can see, in this passage Cottingham has three waves and runs together the deceiving God and the 'malignant demon'. Given Cottingham's status as a scholar perhaps that should be the end of the matter. Unfortunately, things are not so straightforward. In his 1988 book, 'The Rationalists', Cottingham writes:

Descartes's doubt comes in four successive waves, and each succeeding wave is designed to demolish an apparently secure area left standing by the preceding wave.

  1. First, we are reminded that the senses sometimes deceive us (sense-based judgements such as 'that tower is round' can turn out, on closer scrutiny, to be mistaken); and 'it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once'.
  2. The argument so far has left unscathed a large number of seemingly quite unproblematic sense-based judgements such as 'I am holding my hand in front of my face'; these, it seems, I would be mad to doubt. But now the second wave of doubt arrives: it is possible that even the judgement that I am holding my hand up could be false; for I might at this very moment be dreaming--not holding my hand up before my eyes, but asleep in bed with my eyes closed.
  3. The possibility that I am now dreaming leaves unscathed my belief in the existenoe of at least general kinds of things such as heads, hands, and faces (for though a particular judgement about this hand may be false if I am dreaming, dreams are presumably formed from ingredients taken from real life). But now the third wave of doubt arrives: a dream may be compared to an imaginative painting--and though some paintings are formed by rearranging ingredients taken from real objects, it seems possible that a painting could depict 'something so new that nothing remotely similar has even been seen before-- something which is therefore completely fictitious and unreal'. Could it not be, then, that my dreams have no foundation in reality whatever? (Later this doubt is reinforced by the scenario of a malicious demon who has brought it about that 'the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds and all external things are merely the delusions of dreams which he has devised to ensnare my judgement'.)
  4. Despite the disturbingly radical implications of the doubt so far raised, Descartes notes that it nevertheless leaves unscathed at least his grasp of what he calls 'simple universals' such as extension, size, quantity, and number. These general categories appear unaffected by the possibility of wholesale deception about the external world; and they seem to provide the basis for reliable mathematical judgements that can be made regardless of what exists around me. For 'whether I am awake or asleep two and three added together are five, and a square has no more than four sides; and it seems impossible that such transparent truths should incur any suspicion of being false'. But now the final and most devastating wave of doubt arrives. If, as I have been taught, there is an omnipotent God, it may be, for all I know, that he makes me go wrong 'every time I add two and three or count the sides of a square'; while if, on the other hand, my existence is not due to God but to some random chain of lesser causes, then it seems even more likely that I am so imperfect as to go astray even in my intuition of the simplest and seemingly most transparent truths.


So now we have four waves of doubt. The second and third are both associated with dreaming and the fourth is a combination of a God who might be making me go wrong and the possibility of me having an unreliable origin which results in me going astray.

The idea of four waves is also seen in the earlier article by Hiram Caton (The Theological Import of Cartesian Doubt,International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Winter, 1970). Caton somewhat poetically writes:

The drama is so pronounced that it is possible to discern something like a plot line. A solitary wayfarer sets out on a spiritual journey to discover certain knowledge. After three waves of doubt, he finds what at first appears to be terra firma, only to be overwhelmed by dark thoughts about his "author." In order to escape this condition, by an act of will he imagines the worst possible condition - his author is a malignant and omnipotent demon. By dint of his own efforts he triumphs over the evil demon in the self-certitude of the cogito. From this Archimedian point he gradually emerges from the wilderness of doubt.

Here we have three waves of doubt, which will be the unreliable senses and the two dreaming doubts, followed by the tentative conclusion, before being 'overwhelmed' by a fourth wave which is doubts concerning his 'author', whether that be God or something lesser, before finally moving on to the evil demon.

Returning to Cottingham, in his book 'Descartes' first published in 1986, he says,

"Descartes dramatic presentation of the successive waves of doubt that engulf him may be divided for convenience into twelve phases."

To be clear, Cottingham hasn't suddenly discovered twelve doubts, rather these phases are a useful summary of the to and fro of Meditation One. However, of the twelve points, five might be classified as doubts and then as a sixth the demon is put forward as a means of sustaining these doubts.

From the above I think it is clear that it is both unhelpful and misleading to teach that Descartes' has 'three waves of doubt'. For candidates who need to be familiar with the text, Cottingham's twelve phases is much better. Alternatively, since it is important to grasp that Descartes has created a first person narrator who is on a philosophical journey, Larmore's presentation of the material as dialogue between an empiricist narrator and a sceptic challenger is also helpful. Both of these summaries can be found here.