Will, Doubt, Belief

While walking, one might pause because one suddenly suspects that the pavement directly ahead might be covered in black ice. Entailed in that hesitation is--an impulse to step, a belief that the pavement ahead is as stable as that behind has been, and a doubt that the pavement ahead is as stable as it appears to be. By comparison, Descartes' doubt that his situation is as it appears to be is exposed as abstracting not only from some ongoing Motility, but from the context of the appearance--that it is the content of a belief. In other words, the immediate object of Cartesian doubt is not some data, but some belief regarding that data, a belief that is in the service of Motility. Thus, by suppressing the role of Belief in his meditative scenario, Descartes effects the abstraction of Intellect from its more fundamental function as a structurer of Will. Similarly, just as the hesitancy to step is a prelude to skirting the patch, the doubt of given data is an abstraction from nascent variation of Motility, and is not the effecting of detachment from corporeality, as Cartesianism and other doctrines have it.