In Descartes’ Second Meditation he describes what it is that we know about a piece of wax and how it is that we know it. The purpose of this paper will be to briefly describe the point of Descartes’ mentioning the example of the wax, it being to tease apart what is known by way of the imagination from that which is known by way of the intellect. The second purpose will be to describe how it is that this example fits in with Descartes’ project of setting human knowledge upon a stable Archimedean point, namely by both illustrating the nature of clear and distinct knowledge as well as emphasizing how the mind is better known by way of intellect than the body is by way of imagination.
Suppose, writes Descartes, that we have a piece of wax, fresh from the hive. It has a particular texture, odor, savor, appearance and even sound which it emits. Nevertheless, once this piece of wax is melted down, each and every one of these qualities is changed, and yet the same piece of wax remains. “What then did I know so distinctly in this piece of wax?” (218) Whatever it is that we know about the piece of wax from beginning to end simply cannot be anything gained by way of sensory perception, for everything we know about the wax by way of sensory perception has changed. Nevertheless, there is some knowledge about the wax which remains constant in spite of the fact that every physically perceivable quality has changed.
At this point it becomes imperative that we recognize the difference which Descartes sees between imagination and intellect. Imagination is that which produces images or sensory perceptions as I have been calling them. In our example, everything known about the piece of wax by way of imagination has changed. Intellect, on the other hand, is the only way in which a true and distinct perception of an object can be achieved. “Abstracting from all that does not belong to the wax, let us see what remains. Certainly nothing remains excepting a certain extended thing.” In other words, while the imagination perceives the qualities of an object, the intellect perceives the wax as an extended thing; it perceives the substance beneath the qualities: “I could not even understand through the imagination what this piece of wax is, and that it is my mind alone (intellect) which perceives it.” (Ibid.)
It must be understood that Descartes uses the word “perceive” in a rather specific manner here which can lead to serious misunderstandings of what he says. For example, the perception of the unchanged element in the wax “is neither an act of vision, nor of touch, nor of imagination … but only an intuition of the mind.” (Ibid.) What the imagination perceives, to make the distinction even clearer, are the secondary qualities; those qualities such as color, smell and taste which require a mind to exist at all. What the intellect perceives, on the other hand, are the primary qualities, those qualities such as shape, extension and mass which can be mapped in the xyz-coordinates; the qualities which (as Descartes will later show in his Sixth Meditation) exist independent of the mind. With this distinction in mind any confusions or ambiguities in Descartes’ intended meaning should vanish.
There are two conclusions which Descartes attempts to draw from his example of the wax in relation to his attempt to establish human knowledge upon an uncontestable foundation. The first is that while the knowledge which is gained by way of imagination is subject to change and doubt, that knowledge which is gained by way of intellect is clear and distinct. Later in his meditations, he will appeal to the existence of God to prove that it is logically impossible that such a God would allow us to be systematically deceived with regard to our ideas or perceptions of things which are clear and distinct. Thus, Descartes rightly ends up allowing for us to be mistaken in the knowledge which we gain by way of imagination while holding that our clear and distinct ideas gained by way of intellect cannot be systematically deceived, by an evil genius as it were. Our perception of external objects as essentially extended things cannot be mistaken.
The second, and more important point which Descartes attempts to draw from his example of the wax is that our mind is known better than our body, or any other extended thing is. “For if I judge that the wax is or exists from the fact that I see it, it certainly follows much more clearly that I am or that I exist myself from the fact that I see it… With how much more evidence and distinctness must it be said that I now know myself, since all the reasons the reasons which contribute to the knowledge of wax … are yet better proofs of the nature of my mind!” (219) Thus, Descartes introduces what he sees as the incorrigibility of the mind, in that while we may be mistaken about the nature of the object that we seem to be perceiving by way of imagination or intellect, we simply cannot be mistaken about the nature of those perceptions and ideas. While we can perceive extended objects only by mediated means, our perceptions are presented to us immediately and as such cannot be wrong.
