In the Second Meditation it seems that the meditator states that she both does not and does have sense perception. However, a difference can be brought out between what she is referring to in paragraphs 6 and 9. For my purposes I will consider this the difference between sensation and perception. Sensation is sensing in the actual bodily definition. Perception, however, refers to the thoughts that arise in one's mind due to sensations.
In paragraph 6 the meditator states that sense perception surely does not occur without a body. Since the body has been doubted, she is stating that sense perceptions do not occur. However, it seems that she implies here that sensations as I have defined them do not occur. Clearly, without a body, one cannot physically hear, smell, touch, see, or taste. However, come paragraph 9 she is not referring to this same idea.
In paragraph 9 the meditator discusses the sense perceptions she has but recognizes she could be dreaming and thus they are all false. However, she does state that she seems to see and hear. In this sense, she is having sense perceptions as her mind tells her she is having these experiences. That is, she is having what I defined as perceptions. Whether or not she is having physical sensations, she is still having perceptions as in her thoughts she seems to have these sense experiences.
Although it seems that the meditator is being inconsistent, she is able to state both that she has and does not have sense perceptions in that she is defining them in different ways. This similar divide between the physical and intellectual sides of sense-perception is drawn out in both Hatfield and Wilson. Hatfield seems to concentrate on the idea of the mind’s experience of the senses, and Wilson notes further sensations as either a mode of thought or matter. These two ideas are separable and thus allow the meditator to discuss both without contradiction.
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Very well stated and summarized! I came much to the same conclusion myself, that the sense-perception in the 6th and 9th paragraphs are not in contradiction because they are not actually referring to the same action or function. The only question that this distinction that Descartes has made between as you have stated, “sensation” and “perception” is that how can one be truly unattached from the other? Descartes explains that even in our imaginations it is just a compilation of fragments and ideas we have gathered and that even in our dreams when we come up with something original it is never truly unique because its creation has been influenced by everything else around us and everything that we experience. Since we have placed experience and all those nuggets of information, color, and shape gathered from the senses and compiled into different fanciful creations in the memory into a shadow of doubt and thus we cannot trust or use them in discovering anything of real worth or truth (at least not at this point) how can our mind think of senses without ever having experienced them? For if our imagination is reliant upon that which is already in existence and sense-perception is false, then I do not understand where the sense-perception of our mind (which you call just perception) comes from. This is not directly pointed at you or your argument, just one of many quandaries I now have inspired by a seemingly contradictory and not easily grasped argument created by Descartes. Excellent work, I really liked the distinction you made with sensation and perception, it is well worded and it makes it much clearer, now only if you could have told Descartes to make his sense-perception that clear maybe we could have avoided this confusion.
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