Will, Doubt, Think

Descartes' project in the Meditations is based on the premise that Doubting and Knowing are both species of Thinking. In contrast, according to the model of Experience being developed here, they are incommensurate with one another--Doubting is a discrescent process, while Knowing is concrescent. That is, according to this model, Doubting is a mode of the Material Principle of Experience, i. e. of Will, and Knowing is a mode of its Formal Principle, i. e. of Comprehension. On that basis, Descartes' inferences, first from 'I doubt' to 'I think', and then from 'I think' to 'I know', entail an equivocation. In particular, insofar as 'cogito', derived from 'agitare', as has been previously discussed, means 'I set in motion', the second inference, which initiates the constructive phase of the Meditations, remains ungrounded.