Xiaolin Wang

Knowledge and ideas in early modern philosophy, Fall 2010

Professor Emily J Carson
Short paper 1

The Wax Example

Body is easier to be understood than mind because we can access it through our
senses and imagination. However, by discussing the wax example, Descartes is trying to
establish that the nature of mind is more perceptible than that of body. He claims that his
perceptions or ideas can be obtained straightforwardly, but he needs to know the nature
of body with the help of senses or imaginations. Because senses and imagination fail to
distinguish a sequence of transformation of a piece of melting wax, senses and his
imagination do not enable him to understand the essence of body. Descartes proves that
the mind exists because he can understand what the wax really is but not just what its
characteristics are. The wax is not a composition with particular qualities such as shape,
colour, and smell. It is a substance that he is able to understand it without being sure its
existence. Descartes considers a piece of wax to be a representative example of body, and
use it as a mirror to perceive the nature of mind.
Descartes takes a piece of beeswax, which has a particular shape, smell and colour at
beginning, as a representative example of body. He gets all its outside features through
his senses. However, after placing it over the fire, it loses the honey flavour, and its shape
becomes irregular (René 21). All of the properties change, so the wax transform to
another form, which is exactly not the same as before. Can we tell that it is not the wax
anymore or it is something else? Apparently, it is still the wax. We easily make this
conclusion because our minds catch the essence of the wax, which means that our minds
comprehend what is in the wax. There is still something in common, which we grasp by
our minds, even though all its external characteristics changed. Through our senses we
can only recognize one instance at a time of the wax. Even by our imagination, we still
cannot perceive a full series of changes in shape, colour or smell of a piece of wax in all
statues, for the capabilities of imagination or senses to hold images are finite and limited.
However, by using our mind, it provides us with the features of the wax, so we are able to
perceive and understand it. Therefore, we get the essence of the wax, which is the internal
property of the wax instead of the changeable external properties.
According to Descartes, the wax, which can be considered as a particular body, has
flexible extension, which we get through our senses and imagination; nevertheless, the
faculties of senses and imagination cannot tell the whole story of a body because it has
infinite changes in shape. Senses and imagination are unable to follow each change
individually (Gray 130-134). If senses and imagination do not allow us to completely
understand the body, there must be something else, which Descartes answers that it is
done by the mind alone. As a result, it is a nature faculty of the mind to perceive the
essence of a body through experiences. Human mind can be directly perceived, which is
distinct and clear. Descartes acquires information through senses, but he uses his mind
alone to understand it. Moreover, in the first meditation, he claims that the senses can be
deceivable sometimes. For example, a straight stick looks bent if we put it in water, but
the fact is that we are deceived by our senses. Therefore, the information he obtains from
senses is not reliable to understand the body or the outside world. However, the body is
comprehended more deeply through mind, which involves mental act that is beyond
physical observations. Since the body is perceived by mind, it proves that human mind is
better known than the body.
Through the wax argument, Descartes switches his emphasis to that internal world is
more easily understanding than the external world. The way that we perceive the physical
world and abstract the nature of it through reason and logical deduction will provide us
knowledge with more certainty than the way relying on the sensory perception (Gareth
22-23). The knowledge of our own mind is much easier and certain than that of body or
the external world, for we understand things best through our intellect. This conclusion
provides conditions for the statement that mind and body are separate substances.
An Aristotelian thinks that the nature of wax is not comprehended by grasping its
capacities of shape and size’s changes but the wax’s features such as the properties of hot
or wet. Extension is considered to be a universal property instead of a part of body’s
nature according to Aristotelians. Furthermore, they want to capture different natures
from various bodies. Nonetheless, Descartes demonstrates how any kind of body is
understood using a piece of wax as a typical example, which clearly shows that extension
is a distinctive feature of the wax. The Aristotelian believes that senses and imagination
cannot be separated from the process of grasping the nature of bodies, which seems
contrary to Descartes’s point, which is that perception is “ done by the mind itself”, but it
is not what he is trying to say. Descartes is trying to say that although the act of
perceiving bodies involves senses and imagination, the process of understanding it is
done by the mind itself. He does not mean that we can see the colour of a piece of wax
without our visual sense. His point is that the nature of bodies is something more than
only the images we get through senses or imagination. Therefore, the acts of human
mind, which are judgement and intellect, are necessary in perceiving the body’s nature.
More importantly, the acts show the mind’s characteristics, which cannot be pictured or
imagined. (Gary 129-134)
In conclusion, the wax argument proves that human mind is better known than the
body in three ways. First, understanding the nature of body involves mind’s acts, which
confirms that mind undoubtedly exists, but the existence of body or the physical world is
not certain. Second, we need our mind to perceive body through senses and imagination
(Gary 135). It indicates that we can directly access our mind, but we access our body
indirectly. Third, the mind’s characteristics are revealed in the process of understanding
the nature of body.

Works Cited
René Descartes. Translated by Donald A. Cress. Meditations on First Philosophy, 3rd
Edition. 1993 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
Gareth Southwell. A Beginner’s Guide To Descartes’s Meditations. 2008 by Black
Well Publishing.
Gary Hatfield. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook To Descartes and the Meditations.
2003 by Routledge Taylor & Francis Group London and Newyork.