Descartes' Temporal Dualism

by Lloyd Waller, Rebecca;

  This analysis provides an explanation for why Descartes seems to use a language slippage when he described the parts of time. As others have noted,[32] Descartes varied between describing the parts of time as separable as opposed to being actually independent. In the 1st Set of Replies, Descartes described “the divisions of time as being separable from each other” as opposed to separate.[33] Likewise, in Med III, Descartes just says that “a lifespan can be divided into countless parts, each completely independent of the others,”[34] whereas in Principles I.21, he simply asserts that “the nature of time is such that its parts are not mutually dependent, and never coexist.”[35] In comparing these various phrasings, it seems that one might sense a sort of discrepancy in the different descriptions. While Med III and the Replies each seem to be discussing potential parts, insofar as time is “separable” and “can be divided,” Principles I.21 appears to simply be stating a fact about the nature of time as it is. According to my interpretation, this apparent discrepancy is explained. The parts of duration are both potentially separable and actually distinct insofar as God could actually separate any moment from the previous if he so willed. If God willed to withdraw his conservation at any of the points of division that time-in-thought enables us to conceive, then the duration of any substance would cease at that precise moment. If such withdrawal is not willed, however, then the various moments remain continuous and thus are separable without their actually being separated. Through the idea of time-in-thought, God has endowed us with “the faculty of conceiving” which tells us that any amount of enduring is divisible. Thus, “absolutely speaking” there is a genuine distinction between the parts of duration, and not merely a potential one.

  The type of distinction between the parts of duration is a bit less clear. I’ve used the reasoning that distinguishes one substance from another (real distinction), but real distinctions only exist between substances. I argued, however, that duration is an attribute in chapter 2, while I elsewhere noted that Descartes claims there is only a conceptual distinction between a “substance and its duration.”[36] Descartes identifies a conceptual distinction as follows: “A conceptual distinction is a distinction between a substance and some attribute without which the substance is unintelligible; alternatively, it is a distinction between two such attributes of a single substance.”[37] It was further noted that the distinction between a substance and its duration is a classic example of this sort of distinction—since you cannot conceive of a substance apart from its enduring. When conceiving of distinct parts of duration, however, one might have supposed that the latter half of Descartes’ account of a conceptual distinction would apply, that is, “a distinction between two such attributes of a single substance.” However, Descartes further explains that a conceptual distinction between attributes is “recognized by our inability to perceive clearly the idea of one of the two attributes if we separate it from the other.”[38] Though we do not clearly and distinctly conceive each subsequent moment of duration per se, we do so conceive the various stages of an enduring substance. We do not conceive of each subsequent moment per se because these are essentially related (in the ways discussed in chapter 2). That is to say, you cannot recognize some particular moment without determining that moment in relation to the surrounding moments. Yet, the enduring substance itself, which is what would be picked out at any particular moment, is a thing that can be clearly conceived. Thus, there is a real (and not merely conceptual) distinction between these moments.[39]

  Insofar as time-in-thought determines a real distinction between the moments of a thing’s enduring, it offers significant benefits for my position. The parts that are distinguished via time-in-thought are not indivisible atoms that would conflict with Descartes’ general rejection of atomism. Indeed, the measuring stick idea of time-in-thought tells us that any bit of duration is divisible at any point. Thus, the view is consistent with Descartes’ arguments against atomism. Moreover, this account grants really distinct (non-atomistic) parts to duration without thereby running into the problem of non-durational instants being incapable of “adding up” to an extended duration. This is because duration’s continuity is ontologically prior to its really distinct parts. In other words, the whole is prior to its parts; a duration first exists as caused by God, and only has parts in virtue of the divisions that could be made in the duration, which correspond to the sustaining that could be withdrawn by God at a moment determinable via time-in-thought.

  I am assuming the same sort of continuity offered by Richard Arthur and others.[40] Arthur looks at Descartes’ correspondence with Gassendi and notes Descartes’ emphasis on individual moments of time seems primarily focused on the radical contingency of substances and not on the nature of time itself. Descartes claims, “We are considering the time or duration of the thing which endures, and here you would not deny that the individual moments can be separated from those immediately preceding and succeeding them, which implies that the thing which endures may cease to be at any given moment.”[41] When interpreting this passage, Arthur’s analysis (which itself looks to the work of Jean-Marie Beyssade) seems exactly right.

  What Descartes is concerned to refute is not that the durations of things are continuous, but the idea that their continuous existence does not require a cause. It is agreed that an enduring thing has a definite existence at any given moment of its duration. Yet since this existence depends on God’s continuous action, and a thing has duration only as long as it exists, there is no moment that is not contingent; without God’s action there would be no link between one moment and those that follow it. But provided God acts continuously over an extended time, a body will have a continuous duration.”[42]

  I agree with Arthur’s picture insofar as I think that if an immutable God acts always in the same way, then this would result in substances possessed of continuous durations. My interpretation adds an account of how this constancy and immutability would nonetheless create substances with genuinely distinct parts and contingency at every conceivable moment. These parts are the result of the innate idea of time-in-thought, which provides the method for conceiving of duration. This idea of a sequentially ordered measuring stick is such that we immediately apprehend that a thing so measured could be divided at any point—just as the number line of a measuring stick is divisible at any point. Thus, time-in-thought tells us of our radical contingency at every moment, and of the really distinct parts of our duration.[43]

  At this point it seems that one might criticize my account of helping itself to a number of goods, without acknowledging the genuine costs in my view. In particular, it might seem as though I must choose either to claim that divine conservation is perfectly immutable in its mode of creation, and thus that there is no genuine successiveness (perhaps just potential successiveness) in the nature of duration; or, that I must grant a genuine successiveness to duration and thereby acknowledge that this requires successive acts in the divine cause. I clearly cannot deny a genuine successiveness to duration. Not only is such successiveness clearly described by Descartes, but it is also what I employed in distinguishing duration from time-in-thought in chapter 3.[44] Given these compelling reasons, it might seem as though my view should not concern itself with arguing for God’s acting with one identical act of conservation. As, however, I believe that this genuine immutability is required for an accurate account of Cartesian metaphysics, I think my view would be flawed to whatever degree it failed to maintain this important tenet.

  I don’t believe there is any conflict between my claims that duration is genuinely successive (i.e., composed of the really distinct parts that time-in-thought determines) and that God could cause this duration by one simple act. The real distinction between mind and body provides a useful parallel to illustrate my point. Of course Descartes grants a real distinction between minds and bodies. Insofar as minds and bodies are both substances, they are genuinely distinct from each other. Nonetheless, Descartes does not argue that God must create them via disti
nct acts. Indeed, in the Principles, he supposes an opposite case.

  Even if we suppose that God has joined some corporeal substance to such a thinking substance so closely that they cannot be more closely conjoined, thus compounding them into a unity, they nonetheless remain really distinct. For no matter how closely God may have united them, the power which he previously had of separating them, or keeping one in being without the other, is something he could not lay aside.[45]

  In this passage, Descartes conceives that God may have created mind/body composites as unities that never exist separately. If these composites were created as unities, then there would be no reason to suspect that they would require separate acts of creation merely on the grounds that they are genuinely distinct substances. One should not be led to infer from the language of “composite” to think that these two substances would need to first exist independently before they might be joined into the composite. Rather, an omnipotent God is capable in one act of creating two distinct substances as a unity that always exist together.

  The parallel to the real distinction in minds and bodies provides the defense for my interpretation of Descartes’ account of time. A perfectly immutable God, can create perfectly continuous substances, which are nonetheless composed of really distinct parts. Insofar as these parts are really distinct and successively related in the ways that time-in-thought tells us that they are, duration maintains the genuine successiveness it must have to ground motion. Time-in-thought is truth-entailing, and it tells us that duration is extended in such a way that one part may possess characteristics that another lacks, just as minds possess characteristics that bodies lack—whether or not minds and bodies or various moments of duration are always unified. Accordingly, one really distinct part of duration can be in location B, while another can be in location C. Thus, these distinct parts are sufficient for grounding the possibility of motion.[46]

  If I am correct in claiming that duration possesses its successive character as a result of conceiving it via time-in-thought instead of as a fact about how our durations are caused, then this provides multiple benefits. First, this picture is consistent with the sort of divine immutability whereby “there is always a single identical and perfectly simple act by means of which [God] simultaneously understands, wills and accomplishes everything.”[47] Secondly, this explanation protects the eternity of God. In several recent works,[48] Geoffrey Gorham has argued that God’s duration must be successive, contrary to what he acknowledges is the more standard view that supposes Descartes follows the Boethian conception of divine eternity as God simultaneously possessing all of his infinite life. Though Gorham bases his argument on several points, a substantial ground for his view is an entailment on how God could be the cause of our successive duration.

  God is so intimately involved with the unfolding of the Cartesian world, it is hard to see how He could be removed from time. Consider, to begin, God’s creation of finite souls. Since the parts of my duration are ‘completely independent’, I will not continue to exist ‘unless there is some cause which as it were creates me afresh at this moment – that is conserves me’ (AT, 7, 49; CSM, 2, 33). In creating afresh the successive parts of my duration, God’s action is always characterized as an ongoing and temporally extended process rather than a ‘once and for all’ decree.[49]

  This discussion shows further support for holding that duration is successive as a result of conceiving it via time-in-thought rather than as an effect of our being successively caused. If time-in-thought is the ground of duration’s successiveness, then the divine nature is preserved. God’s causation can be perfectly immutable and simultaneous, and thus His nature can be the same.

  Insofar as my interpretation maintains that Descartes’ God is a strictly immutable and atemporally eternal while nonetheless describing how God is able to continuously conserve all substances in a way that leaves them radically dependent on God’s causation at every moment of their enduring, my interpretation has significant benefits for Cartesian metaphysics. As the view also avoids the pitfalls of conflicting with Descartes’ general rejection of atoms and voids, or of needing to explain how non-durational instants can add up to a thing’s possessing an extended duration, it seems that my view offers many advantages over competing theories. Indeed, I contend that the fact that my interpretation is able to address so many of these enduring problems in the scholarship suggests a final and powerful piece of support for the temporal dualism I have defended.

  Conclusion

  As a final conclusion, I would simply note that by focusing on time-in-thought, an attribute that has been noted but perhaps not properly appreciated by others, I am able to offer a new, and potentially valuable interpretation into the scholarship on Descartes’ account of time. My account is historically plausible (given its close resemblance to Suarez), historically significant (since it suggests a very interesting precursor to Kant), and of scholarly benefit (since it takes Descartes “parts of time” language seriously without thereby committing him to the troubling entailments of competing interpretations). As such, it seems that this new interpretation has many benefits and a solid ground of support. As such, I propose that Descartes should be read as a temporal dualist, who maintains two kinds of time: 1) intrinsic duration, and 2) the innate idea time-in-thought.

  Notes

  1. See, for example: Richard Arthur, “Continuous Creation, Continuous Time: A Refutation of the Alleged Discontinuity of Cartesian Time,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 25 (1988): 349-75; Bennett, Jonathan. Learning from Six Philosophers vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), 98; Jean-Marie Beyssade, La Philosophie première de Descartes (Paris: Glammarion, 1979); Jean Laporte, Le Rationisme de Descartes (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1950).

  2. Geoffrey Gorham,”Cartesian Temporal Atomism: A New Defence, A New Refutation,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 16 (2008): 626. Similar views are claimed by Arthur, “Continuous Creation, Continuous Time,” 350. For a few examples of the traditional view, see: Henri Bergson, L’evolution creatice (Paris: Alcan, 1907), 295, 365ff, 370, 373–374; Martial Guéroult, Descartes’ Philosophy Interpreted According to the Order of Reasons: The Soul and God vol. 1, ed. and trans. Roger Ariew (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984): Chapter 6; Norman Kemp Smith, Studies in the Cartesian Philosophy (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1902): 131–132.

  3. AT VII 49; CSM II.33, emphasis added.

  4. AT VII 109; CSM II.79, emphasis added.

  5. AT VIIIA 13; CSM I.200, emphasis added.

  6. Such debates are still occasionally appearing in the literature. See for example: Ken Levy, “Is Descartes a Temporal Atomist?” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 13 (2005): 627–674; Geoffrey Gorham, “Cartesian Temporal Atomism: A New Defense, A New Refutation.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 16 (2008): 625–637. Levy argues for a strongly discontinuous type of atomism and Gorham offers a direct refutation of Levy.

  7. AT VII 108, CSM II.78. See also: AT III 428, CSMK.193: “For I admit I am not subtle enough to grasp how something can be acted upon by something else that is not present—which may indeed, be supposed not to exist anymore. Like the whip if it should cease to exist after whipping the top.”

  8. For a good discussion on this causal demand for a simultaneous cause see: Jorge Secada, Cartesian Metaphysics: The Late Scholastic Origins of Modern Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 45–72. See also: E.M. Curley, Descartes Against the Skeptics (New York: Harvard University Press, 1978), 140; Geoffrey Gorham,”Cartesian Causation: Continuous, Instantaneous, Overdetermined,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 42 (2004): 396–400; Gorham, “Cartesian Temporal Atomism,” 629.

  9. Arthur, “Continuous Creation, Continuous Time,” 357.

  10. As described in Kemp Smith, Cartesian Philosophy, 132.

  11. AT V 343; CSMK 373.

  12. In “Cartesian Temporal Atomism,” Geoffrey Gorham points to an additional strong passag
e which conflicts with discontinuous atomism. He notes that Principles I.56 describes duration as a thing that “always remains unmodified.” (AT VIIIA 26; CSM I 211). Like Gorham, I think that a duration that admitted temporal gaps would be one that was significantly modified.

  13. See for example: Arthur, “Continuous Creation, Continuous Time,” 357; Martial Guéroult, Martial, Descartes’ Philosophy, 199; Geoffrey Gorham, “Descartes on Time and Duration,” Early Science and Medicine 12 (2007): 52; Geoffrey Gorham, “Descartes on God’s Relation to Time.” Religious Studies 44 (2008): 418.