Descartes' Machines

Author(s): Betty Powell

Source: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, Vol. 71 (1970 - 1971), pp. 209-222
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The Aristotelian Society
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XII*-DESCARTES' MACHINES
by Betty Powell
The view of man which emerges from Descartes' philosophical
writings is that of an amalgam of two substances:one material,
and the other immaterial. Man has both body and mind.
These two substances interact in some way that remained
mysteriouseven for Descartes.The mind is a spiritualsubstance,
which is immortal and the source of man's freedom. Man's
body is a machine, although a very complicated one. In
Cartesian studies it is the mind which receives most attention,
and Descartes is regarded as the natural enemy of contemporary mechanists. In this paper, I want to take a somewhat
different view of Descartes and stress his mechanism instead of
his anti-mechanism. I shall suggest that Descartes considered
the possibility of a science of man; that he found (or thought he
had found) such a science to be untenable, and that he introduced mind because he found it to be untenable. I do not, of
course, wish to suggest that this was Descartes' only reason
for thinking of man as both mind and body, but one reason for
the introduction of mind was in defence of his scientific
interests.
There is no doubt whatsoever that Descartes consideredman
to be both mind and body, for he nowhere speaks of man in
any other way. Man is alone in being mind as well as body.
Animals have bodies but do not have minds. Animals can be
regarded as machines, to be explained in mechanical terms.
Men's bodies too are machines, although highly complicated
ones. They are, as a matter of fact, much more complicated
than any machine which man can make, which is not surprising,
since they are machines made by God. But however complicated
a machine might be, and however similar it might be to a man,
it will not be a man if it lacks a mind.
It may be that Descartes had always thought of man in this
way. But it is at least conceivable that he considered the
possibility of explaining man mechanically, that is, man as
such and not merely man's body, and that he had some reason
*Meeting of the Aristotelian Society at 5/7, Tavistock Place, London,
on Monday, ioth May 197I, at 7.30 p.m.

W.C.I,

209
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BETTY POWELL

for rejecting this possibility. I want to offer a kind of rational

reconstruction of Descartes' position on mechanism, and in
particular of his reasons for rejecting it. First, however, I shall
try to show that it is at least plausible that Descartes was at
some point a mechanist. By 'mechanism' I mean the doctrine
that man can be fully explained in mechanical terms.
Descartes was a scientist, and among his scientific interests
was physiology. If Descartes held that man was a machine,
then he did so as a scientist, not as a philosopher.His physiology
is outdated, but this does not matter here. What is important
is that he does consider that many, if not all, features of man
can be explained in mechanistic terms. Descartes had been
interested in physiology for many years before he wrote the
Discourse. According to a letter to MIersenne(20th Feb. I639,
K.63)1 he had spent much time dissecting for the previous
eleven years, that is, for nine years before the publication of
the Discourse. Nor were his dissections confined to animals.
He had also, so he says in another letter to Mersenne (i st April,
I 640, K. 7 I) dissectedhuman bodies.
According to Part V of the Discourse,his progressin explaining man mechanically was not inconsiderable. Besides explaining the workings of the heart, he says he had explained
many other features of man. His explanation of the heart is the
only one he gives in detail and most of the Discourseis taken
up with it. The account is prefaced by an invitation to the
reader who is 'not versed in anatomy' to procure and cut up
the heart of some large animal which has lungs, for such a
heart is similar to the heart of man. By doing so, the reader
will be better able to follow the explanation of its workings
that Descartes offers. We are, I suppose, to take this as a paradigm of the kind of explanation he has in view-a detailed
description of the workings.
He claims to have explained other features of man, but he
does not give details of these explanations in the Discourse.
They were given, so he says, in some detail in the Treatise
which he intended to publish, but which he suppressed. He
claims to have explained there the causes of wakefulness,
1 'K' refers throughout to: DescartesPhilosophicalLetters,translated and
edited by Anthony Kenny, Oxford, I970.

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DESCARTES'

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2II

sleep and dreams, as well as the way in which external objects

cause changes in the brain. (H.R. I 15.)2 Unlike the heart,
these are not so obviously features of the body. Dreams, for
instance, might well be regarded as part of mental, as opposed
to physical life, yet Descartes claims to have given an account
of the changes necessary in the brain to cause them. And his
claim to have given a causal account of wakefulnessmight be
regarded as at least a partial account of consciousness. In
addition to features such as these, he claims to have explained
much of man's overt behaviour in mechanical terms. In fact,
he offers a purely causal account of much of man's behaviour.
This behaviour he regards as a response to external stimuli,
via the mediation of the animal spirits, without any intervention of the mind.
H.R. I I5: I had explained all these matters in some detail in
the Treatise which I formerly intended to publish.
And afterwards I had shown there, what must be
the fabric of the human body in order that the
animal spirits therein contained should have the
power to move the members, just as the heads of
animals, a little while after decapitation are still
observed to move and bite the earth, notwithstanding that they are no longer animate; what
changes are necessary in the brain to cause wakefulness, sleep and dreams; how light, sounds, smells,
tastes, heat and all other qualities pertaining to
external objects are able to imprint on it various
ideas by the intervention of the senses; how hunger,
thirst and other internal affections also convey
their impressionsupon it .... (how the distribution
of the) animal spirits through the muscles can
cause the members of such a body to move in as
many diverse ways, and in a manner suitable to
the objects which present themselves to its senses,
and to its internal passions as can happen in our
own case apart from the direction of our freewill.

2 'H.R.' refers throughout to: Descartes

PhilosophicalWorks,Haldane-Ross,
Vol. I, Cambridge (also Dover).

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BETTY POWELL

And this will not seem strange to those, knowing

how many different automata or moving machines
can be made by the industry of man, without
employing in doing so more than a very few parts
in comparison with the great multitude of bones,
muscles, nerves, arteries, veins or other parts that
are found in the body of each animal. From this
aspect, the body is regarded as a machine, which,
having been made by the hand of God, is incomparably better arranged, and possesses in itself
movements which are much more admirable, than
any of those which can be invented by man.
Descartes' claim to have given an account of these movements
of the body "as can happen in our own case apart from the
direction of our freewill" may be read in either of two ways. He
may mean that he can explain in this fashion only some movements of the body, namely those involuntary reflex actions
which can be compared with those made by the heads of
animals which still move and bite the dust even when they are
no longer animate. But it can also be read as a claim to be able
to explain all of the actions of men (or of the human body)
without reference to freewill. In favour of the latter interpretation, it is to be noticed that the actions he is concerned
with are those which are performed in response to some
stimuli " ... in a manner as suitable to the objects which present

themselves to its senses"; in other words, they are not purely

reflex actions. And secondly, we know from the Discourseat
least, that he thought it possible that there should be machines
which could do everything that a man could do, except think.
His tests for distinguishing between men and machines are not
whether machines respond appropriatelyto their environment.
Not only does Descartes tell us in the Discourseof the discoveries he has made and of the explanations he has given, he
also records a resolve to continue his search for further explanations (H.R. I50). He envisages a science of man which
will be of tremendous value in improving man both in mind
and body.
H.R. i20:

I am sure that there is no one, even among those

who make its study a profession, who does not

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213

confess that all that men know is almost nothing in

comparison with what remains to be known; and
that we could be free of an infinitude of maladies
both of mind and body, and even also possibly of
the infirmitiesof age, if we had sufficientknowledge
of their causes, and of all the remedies with which
nature has provided us.
Descartes' faith in the possibility, and in the immense practical
value of a science of man, as exemplified in this passage, is
hardly less than that of many a present day scientist.
Even if we restrict ourselves to Descartes' explicit assertions
in the Discourse,there can be no doubt that he was interested
in mechanism. So much so that it is surely unreasonable to
represent him as the enemy of mechanism or as terrified by
'the bogy of mechanism'. Whilst he ultimately held that man
was composed of both mind and body, there is no reason to
suppose that he ruled out, right from the start, the possibility
that man was just a machine. It would not, I think, have been
particularly surprising had Descartes believed, qua scientist,
and particularly as a result of his scientific investigations, that
man was a machine. It does seem to me that the passages I
have quoted lend plausibility to the assumption that he did
hold this view, but they do not, of course, constitute evidence
that he did so. Moreover, it has to be admitted that there is not,
as far as I have been able to discover, any direct evidence
for it.
There is none that I can find in that part of Le Mondewhich
is concerned with man. The account of his scientific discoveries
given in Part V of the Discourseis, Descartes says, a summary
of Le Monde, which "certain considerations" prevented him
from publishing. Descartes begins the Traite'de l'hommeby
saying that he will tell us about the body, then about the soul,
and finally about the way in which the two are conjoined. In it
Descartes writes not of men but of machines which resemble
men, and it is the workingsof these machines which he explains.
When the soul is added, they will be men, and able to judge.
The machines resemble men in every respect, both in behaviour
and in appearance. They can do everything that men can do
(exceptofcourse, think)and all their actions can be mechanically

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POWELL

explained. Their responses to their environment are exactly

the same as those of men, and Descartesexplains the mechanism
by which they act. The focal point of all the mechanism is the
pineal gland, which is movable by the animal spirits, and
which in its turn, gives movement to the animal spirits. This is
the place where, ultimately, the soul will be.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Traite'de
l'hommepublished posthumously is not the same as that
which was summarized in the Discourse.For if we take that
summaryas a guide, there are omissionsin the publishedversion
of the Traite. Although Descartes says in the summary in the
Discoursethat he has explained "the changes necessary in the
brain to cause wakefulness, sleep and dreams", there are no
details of these in the Traite, although vision is treated at
length. Certainly this work is not the slightest help in deciding
whether Descartes at any time believed that men were
machines, or whether he always held the view that man was
both mind and body.
Yet, according to the summary, the Traite'ought to have
been of great help. There is, from my point of view, a particularly important omission. In the DiscourseDescartes says:
"I had describedafter this the rational soul,3 and shown that it
could not be in any way derived from the power of matter, but
that it must be expressly created". As far as I can see, there is
no mention of this in the Traite'.It would have been most
instructive to see why Descartes thought that the rational
soul couldnot be derived from the power of matter, but no
doubt we shall never know. Nevertheless, that Descartes says
he has shownthis, does indicate that he had some reasons for
his view. It is perhaps not too much of an exaggeration to
3 There is some reference to this topic in a letter (3 Oct. i637, K.36) in
which Descartes remarks on the distinction between the souls of animals
and those of men:
... the souls of animals are nothing but their blood, the blood which
is turned into spirits by the warmth of the heart and travels through
the arteries to the brain and from it to the nerves and muscles.
This theory involves such an enormous difference between the souls
of animals and our own that it provides a better argument than any
yet thought of to refute the atheists and establish that human minds
cannot be drawn out of the potentiality of matter.
(I do not understand how this establishes it.)

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2I5

interpret this passage as indicating that Descartes had at least

considered the possibility that man was a machine, and that
he had some argument designed to show that there is something
about man which could not be explained in mechanical terms.
I take it that at least one of the things Descartes thinks cannot
be so explained, is man's ability to distinguish between truth
and falsities. This, I assume, is what he is referringto when he
says that the men-machines cannot judge or think until the
soul is added.
The passage in the Discourseis the only piece of textual
evidence that I have been able to find which might be interpreted to indicate that Descartes, at any time, considered that
man was a machine. One can, of course, explain the lack of
evidence. If Descartes had ever held that man was a machine,
it is likely that he would not have said so in print. He was
anxious not to fall foul of the authorities, and he admits to
having prudently suppressed some of his work. He was not
even prepared, as we shall see, to divulge all the reasons for
his doubt. La Mettrie apparently regarded Descartes as the
intellectual ancestor of L'HommeMachine.4In fact, La Mettrie
claims that Descartes' views about the immortal soul were a
sop to the theologians.
There is then, no real evidence that Descartes believed that
man, not just man's body, was a machine. Nevertheless it
seems to me that the assumptionthat he did so is not completely
outrageous. I shall assume that he did, at one point, wish to
hold as a scientific thesis that man is a machine and that he
had great hopes of a science of man. Since he ended by holding
that man is both mind and body, he abandoned or modified
his mechanistic view of man. Since he says that he has shown
that the rational soul could not be derived from the power of
matter, he had reasonsfor rejecting mechanism. That is to say,
he does not simply reject mechanism out of hand, on some such
presupposition as that matter cannot think.
What reason could Descartes have had for rejecting
mechanism? His religion need not have been a bar to his
acceptance of mechanism on scientific grounds. There need
4La Mettrie's' I'HommeMachine': A Studyin the Originsof an Idea, Aram
Vartanian, Princeton, I960.

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BETTY POWELL

be no impiety in the view that man is a machine, if Descartes

were prepared to allow that men are machines made by God.
Moreover, he sees a need to keep separate religious and
scientificbeliefs. This is evident from a letter (Aug. i638, K.6o)
in which he complains that he cannot approve the work of
some young man who "seems to want to combine religion and
revealed truths too closely with the sciences which are acquired
by natural reasoning".
It is true that we are obliged to take care that our
reasonings do not lead us to any conclusions which
contradict what God has commanded us to believe; but
I think that to try to derive from the Bible knowledge of
truths which belong only to human sciences, and which
are useless for our salvation is to apply the holy scripture
to a purpose for which God did not give it, and so to
abuse it.
I suggest that his reason for abandoning mechanism and
introducing mind may have been, paradoxical as it may seem,
in the interest of sciences and especially in the interest of his
physiology. To see this it is necessary briefly to consider the
doubt.
Descartes'doubt of the senses is supposed to lie in his realisation of the possibility of illusion. He gives the slenderest of
reasons for his doubt, saying simply (H.R. I45) that "it is sometimes proved to me that these senses are deceptive and that it
is wiser not to trust to any thing by which we have sometimes
been deceived". Two objections have been raised at this: first,
that because we have sometimes been deceived, it does not
follow that we are always deceived, and second, that we can
only have grounds for saying that we are sometimes deceived
if we take it that we are sometimes not deceived. I am by no
means sure however, that Descartes is unaware of the possibility of the first criticism, and had he revealed his real
reasons for doubt, the second would have been met.
In The Searchafter Truth,he has Polyander refuse to agree
that it is wiser not to trust the senses because they have sometimes deceived us:
H.R.3I3: I am well aware that the senses sometimes deceive
us when they are ill affected, just as a sick person
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217

thinks that all food is bitter; when they are too far
from the object this is also so, just as when we look
at the stars they never appear to us as large as they
really are; and in general when they do not act
freely according to the constitution of their nature.
But all their errors are easily known, and do not
prevent my being now perfectly persuaded that I
see you, that we walk in a garden, that the sun
gives light, and, in a word, that all my senses
usually offer to me is true.
This suggests that Descartes realises that to point out that the
senses sometimes deceive us provides insufficient reason for
supposing that they may always do so, for he has Eudoxus
agree, and offer as in the Discourse,first the example of the
madman, and then point out that sometimeswe dream. "How",
he then asks,"can you be certain that your life is not a perpetual
dream and that all that you imagine you learn by means of
your senses is not as false now as it is when you sleep?" To
pose a question is hardly to provide a more cogent reason for
doubt.
But Descartes, on his own admission, is not honest about his
grounds for doubting the senses. In a letter to Mersenne (I5th
April, I630, K.3i),

replying to an objection that he has not

sufficiently explained how he knows that the soul is distinct

from the body and that its nature is nothing but thought, he
says:
But I could not deal any better with this topic without
explaining in detail the falsehood or uncertainty to be
found in all the judgements that depend on the senses and
the imagination, so as to show in the sequel which judgements depend on the pure understanding and what
evidence and certainty they possess. I left this out on
purpose and after deliberation, mainly because I wrote
in the vernacular. I was afraid that weak minds might
avidly embrace the doubts and scruples which I would
have had to propound.
He says much the same in a letter to Vatier (22nd Feb. I638,
K.46).

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BETTY POWELL

What then are his reasons for doubting the deliverances of

the senses? I suggest that his real reasons for doubt lie in his
scientific works. It is not the fact that illusions occur which
gives rise to his doubt, but his explanations of the way in which
the mechanism of the senses work. It is not merely that for
example he has:
H.R. I89: learned from some persons whose arms or legs
have been cut off, that they sometimes seemed to
feel pain in the part which had been amputated,
which made me think that I could not be quite
certain that it was a certain member which pained
me, even though I felt pain in it.
Rather, it is that he has (or thinks he has) an explanation of
why it is that such people seem to feel pain. His physiology and
his physics teach him, so he says in MeditationVI (H.R.I 967)
that when he feels a pain in his foot:
this sensation is communicated by means of nerves dispersed through the foot, which, being extended like cords
from there to the brain, when they are contracted in the
foot, at the same time contract the inmost portions of the
brain which is their extremity and place of origin, and then
excite a certain movement which nature has established
in order to cause the mind to be affected by a sensation of
pain represented as existing in the foot. But because these
nerves must pass through the tibia, the thigh, the loins,
the back and the neck, in order to reach from the leg to
the brain, it may happen that although their extremities
which are in the foot are not affected, but only certain
ones of their intervening parts (which pass by the loins or
the neck), this action will excite the same movement in
the brain that might have been excited there by a hurt
received in the foot, in consequence of which the mind will
necessarily feel in the foot the same pain as if it had
received a hurt. And the same holds good of all the other
perceptionsof our senses.
If the same kinds of movements go on in my brain when I have
a pain in my foot, as when I simply seem to have a pain in my
(non-existent) foot, then I do have reason to doubt the deliverances of the senses. If the same kinds of movements go on in my
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brain when I am dreaming as when I am awake, then this is a

reason for asking how one can tell one is not dreaming now.
If Descartes retained his physiological explanations, and
indeed found in them reason to doubt the deliverances of the
senses, he can hardly, as he claims, have rid himself of all the
opinions he formerly possessed. Yet he was supposed to be
submitting to doubt everything he possibly could.
It is worth noting that there are other scientific beliefs which
he does not submit to doubt. He does not doubt his beliefs
about the workings of the heart, nor his belief that the sun is
many times larger than the earth, for instance. On the contrary,
he relies on beliefs like the latter in order to give examples of
illusions. He assumesthat his physics and physiology are basically sound. It is true that he doubts all that he has believed to
have come to him by way of the senses, but he does not doubt
his scientific beliefs as such. However, since the doubt, and the
search for a criterion of truth were undertaken in the interests
of science, it is not to be expected that he should submit his
scientific findings to doubt.
Moreover, if he wishes to give some grounds for his doubt,
as indeed he does, then there must be something that he accepts
without question. And indeed there is something, even if we
take his writings at face value. He accepts the fact of illusion,
as is evident from his assertionthat the sensessometimesdeceive
us. Had he added that perhaps he was mistaken in thinking
that the senses ever deceive us, his doubt would have appeared
to be completely without reason.
We are now in a position to see why Descartes rejects the
possibility of mechanism and introduces mind. Descartes
wishes to defend the scientific discoverieshe has thus far made.
He wishes to be in a position to expound as true his scientific
explanations including his physiological explanations of man.
It is for this reason that he searches for a criterion of truth
which he finds ultimately in the mind. He is then able to
expound his explanations, as he does at the end of the Discourse.
His causal account of perception is in itself insufficient to
explain why he needs to introduce a mind in order to account
for our ability to distinguish between true and false beliefs.
Even if the same movements go on in the brain in veridical as
in non-veridical perceptions, it does not follow that we can
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BETTY POWELL

never make distinctions between veridical and non-veridical

perceptions by means of the senses. He might have offered some
sort of coherence theory of our ability to distinguish between
truth and falsity by means of the senses. There are other
possibilities too that one might have expected Descartes to
explore. For example, he might have considered the possibility
that we learn by experience, that we are 'taught by nature'
as his men-machines were. He might have given an account
in terms of repeated stimuli and response. He does none of
these things. Nothing he has thus far discovered about the
machine rules out the possibility of giving a mechanical
account of the way in which we distinguish between truth and
falsity. He was far from thinking that he had given all possible
explanations, for he looked forward to the developing science
of man. Many things, as he says himself, remain to be discovered. Yet he says that the ability to distinguish between
truth and falsity-the rational soul-cannot be derived from the
power of matter. But if it cannot be, why cannot it be?
I suggest that Descartes considered that any attempt to
explain in mechanical terms our ability to distinguish between
true and false beliefs would involve an infinite regress. Since
mechanism would then involve an infinite regress it could not
be a science. For, if it involved an infinite regress,then it could
not be a science, because, according to Descartes, a science
must be completeable. Mechanism is thus untenable in the
light of what he considered a science should be. His relevant
views on science are to be found in the Rules.
Science is the work of man.
("the sciencestaken all together are identical with human
wisdom" H.R. i.) This is not the trivial point it may seem
in the context.
2. In science we are concerned with truth as opposed to
opinion. ("Science in its entirety is true and evident
cognition" H.R.3.)
3. In matters of truth, unlike matters of opinion, it must be
possible to give grounds for holding that the belief is true.
("But whenever two men come to opposite decisionsabout
the same matter one of them at least must certainly be
in the wrong, and apparently there is not even one of them
i.

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who knows; for if the reasoning of the second was sound

and clear he would be able so to lay it before the other as
finally to succeed in convincing his understandingalso."
H.R.3.)
4. Descartes required of a science that it should be possible
to complete it. Here I refer to Descartes' optimism in
scientific matters, to his belief that there is nothing
beyond our reach if we but use the right method. (See
H.R.9 and H.R.92.)
H.R.92:

...

provided

only

that we abstain

from

receiving anything as true which is not so, and

always retain the order which is necessary in
order to deduce the one conclusion from the
other, there can be nothing so remote that
we cannot reach it, nor so recondite that we
cannot discoverit.
Mechanism fails to satisfy the completeness requirement.
That is to say, mechanism, regarded as the science of man,
as opposed to a science of man's body is untenable as a science
because it can never be completed. Descartes might have
argued in the following way. Suppose he, quascientist, were to
give an explanation of the way the man-machine distinguishes
between veridical and non-veridical perceptions. Then,
according to (3) above, he, Descartes the scientist, must be able
to give grounds for holding that this explanation is true. But
by hypothesis, Descartes is also a man-machine, so there is
something about the machine that he has not yet explained.
The man-machine has now given grounds for holding that the
explanation is true, and the giving of these grounds remains to
be explained. Suppose he, quascientist gives an explanation of
the way the machine distinguishes between true and false
beliefs. Again, he must be able to give grounds for holding that
his explanation is a true (the correct) one. And again, if he can
do this, then there is something about man the machine that
he, quascientist has not yet explained. Since he the scientist is
also a machine, he can never complete his explanation of the
machine. Mechanism can never be a complete science; there
is always some bit of possible knowledge out of his reach.
It is to remedy this that Descartes introduces mind. The 'I'
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222

BETTY POWELL

that thinks-that offers and assessesexplanations is the mind.

That which is explained, the body, is the machine. The science
of the body, at least, can be complete.
The first thing to notice about this infinite regress argument
is that it is not concerned with things, but with explanations.
It is not concerned with machines, but with explanations of
machines. Now there are two things that might be meant by
'mechanism'-one, that men are machines; and two, that men
can be fully explained in mechanical terms. These two claims
are not equivalent, on the grounds that p may be true, although
no one may know it. It may be true, that men are machines,
but false that men may be fully explicable in mechanical terms.
In maintaining that men are mind and body, Descartes denies
that men (as such) are machines. But all the infinite regress
argument warrants is that men cannot be fully explicable in
mechanical terms. From the fact-if it is a fact-that men
cannot be completely explained in mechanical terms it does
not follow that men are not machines, yet it appears that
Descartesthinks that it does.
Much depends on the nature of the regress. In a way it is
concerned with Descartes' inability to give a complete explanation of the workings of the machine. This inability,
however, is not the result of supposing that he himself is a
machine, but of his own epistemological requirements. Given
any explanation, it must always be possible to assess it as
correct or incorrect. Given any belief, it must always be
possible to assess it as true or false. It is not the kind of thing
Descartes is, which engenders the regress, but the kind of
requirements for explanation. All that the regress shows in
fact, is that any assessmentof an explanation must be separate
from that explanation. No explanation can contain within
itself its own assessment-or it would be an untestable explanation. And this seems to be a regressof an innocuous kind.

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