The distinction between the mental operations of abstraction and exclusion is recognized as playing an important role in many of Descartes’ metaphysical arguments, at least after 1640. In this paper I first show that Descartes describes the distinction between abstraction and exclusion in the early Rules for the Direction of the Mind, in substantially the same way he does in the 1640s. Second, I show that Descartes makes the test for exclusion a major component of the method proposed in the (...) Rules. Third, I argue that in Rule 14 the exclusion-abstraction distinction is connected to a theory of distinctions, which includes a notion of real distinction as essentially tied to the imagination. This sheds light on Descartes’ development in and after the Rules. (shrink)

A close reading of Descartes’ works, particularly his Regulae ad Directionem Ingenii, calls into question the common interpretation of Peirce’s ‘Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man’ and ‘Some Consequences of Four Incapacities’ as being anti-Cartesian. In particular, Descartes’ conception of intuition differs from Peirce’s, and on one plausible reading of Descartes his intuitionism actually mirrors Peirce’s inferentialism in key respects. Given these similarities between Descartes and Peirce, the dogmatic status of the anti-Cartesian interpretation of Peirce becomes evident.

What is, after all, the famous method of Descartes? The brief and vague passages devoted to this subject in Descartes’ corpus have always puzzled his readers. In this paper, I investigate not only the two essays in which it is directly addressed (the Regulae ad Directionem Ingenii, and the Discours de la Méthode), but also his scientific works and correspondence. I finally advocate an interpretation that makes the best sense of his overt comments as well as of his actual scientific (...) practice. Contrary to widely accepted views, I argue that there are no substantial discontinuities in his understanding of his own method, or between his theory and practice. I claim, by contrast, that Descartes advocated a minimal method: a method that says little, but that, nonetheless, marks a revolutionary rupture with the existing forms of explanation. (shrink)

During the 1630s Descartes recognized that he could not expect all legitimate claims in natural science to meet the standard of absolute certainty. The realization resulted from a change in his physics, which itself arose not through methodological reflections, but through developments in his substantive metaphysical doctrines. Descartes discovered the metaphysical foundations of his physics in 1629-30; as a consequence, the style of explanation employed in his physical writings changed. His early methodological conceptions, as preserved in the Rules and sketched (...) in Part Two of the Discourse, pertained primarily to his early work in optics. By the early 1630s, Descartes was concerned with new methodological problems pertaining to the postulation of micro-mechanisms. Recognition of the need to employ a method of hypothesis led him to lower the standard of certainty required of particular explanations in his mature physics. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to address a specific issue underpinning Cartesian metaphysics since its first public appearance in the Discourse right up until the Meditations, but which definitely came to the surface in the Second and Fifth Replies. It involves the possibility that to be thinking and to be extended do not actually contrast as two entirely different properties; hence, these two essences cannot serve as the basis for a disjunctive, real distinction between two corresponding substances, the mind and (...) the body. I dub this problem the ‘thinking matter issue.’ I suggest that Descartes’s concerns about the ‘thinking matter issue’ characterizes and structures the entirety of Meditation Two and its connection with Meditation Six, especially in the attempt to covertly implement what I refer to as Descartes’s ‘prejudice strategy.’ The core of the ‘prejudice strategy’ lies in the idea that the ‘thinking matter issue’ is just a false problem, one raised by the inadequate notions of the mind and the body that we apply to this problem. In section 1, I set out the way in which the ‘thinking matter issue’ emerged in Descartes’s philosophy after the first exposition of his metaphysics in the Discourse. Section 2 deals with the new argumentative path Descartes draws for the Meditations and with the new role that he assigns to the inference about the mind’s non-physical nature after the cogito. In section 3, I contend that the ‘prejudice strategy’ structures Meditation Two and, partially, Six. Section 4 shows that Descartes himself reveals this in his Replies to the Second and the Fifth Set of Objections. In section 5, I delve into Descartes’s foundational theory of the ‘prejudice strategy,’ i.e. his theory of infancy as set out especially in the Replies to the Sixth Set of Objections. -/- . (shrink)

The topic of the paper is the notion of intuition in Descartes’ philosophy and its epistemic functions. Descartes introduces his notion of intuition in the context of a description of his method and process of knowing and doing science. Intuition is a significant component of this process. I intend to show that the main epistemic functions of intuition in Descartes’ philosophy are differentiated. Intuition is essential not only in the context of justification (the Cartesian synthetic method of proof) but also (...) and especially in the context of discovery (the Cartesian analytic method of discovery). It plays not only a role in the foundation of cogito but also on different stages of constructing the system of knowledge. Intuition has important functions in grasping simple natures, forming primary concepts, comprehending complex natures, forming primary propositions (including primary principles), and capturing relationships between them and building deductive reasoning (the role of intuition in deduction). Hence, intuition is the foundation for all primary stages of producing knowledge. It is active and important element of pure thinking (a priori) in human knowledge, and science. It fulfils these functions due to its specific epistemic properties. I also argue that intuition is not an autonomous and complete type of knowledge. Nor is it an intuitive thesis, but rather the basis of a justification for theses (including cogito). (shrink)

In this paper I consider the possibility of a kind of a priori cognition that serves the purposes of metaphysics, given that metaphysics involves the search for modal knowledge. Necessary or, better, modal knowledge is a priori; so metaphysical knowledge is likewise a priori. Here I argue that intuition is the route to modal knowledge in metaphysics, and I insist that conceivability or knowledge of conceptual truths does not lead towards the modal realm of metaphysics.

In the recently discovered Cambridge manuscript, widely regarded as an early draft ofRules for the Direction of the Mind, Descartes does not describe the mind as a ‘purely spiritual’ force ‘distinct from the whole body’. This has led some readers to speculate that Descartes did not embrace mind-body dualism in the Cambridge manuscript. In this article, I offer a detailed interpretation of Descartes's mind-body dualism in the established Charles Adam and Paul Tannery edition ofRules, and argue that, while differences between (...) the Cambridge manuscript and the established version ofRulesare significant, the relevant passages in the Cambridge manuscript preclude interpretation along both materialist and hylomorphic lines. I then offer an account of the development of Descartes's mind-body dualism between the Cambridge manuscript and the established version ofRules. What the Cambridge manuscript reveals is not Descartes before dualism, but rather Cartesian dualism in its barest form. (shrink)

Résumé Lucien Febvre proposait d’étudier comment se formait la raison des gens du XVIe siècle, notamment en langue, logique et mathématiques. Il se trouve que c’est autour de ces trois éléments que Jacques Peletier du Mans écrivit son L’algèbre en 1554 et René Descartes ses Regulae. J’avais montré ailleurs, par une étude lexicale, comment la notion de problème est cruciale dans les Regulae. Je mets ici en évidence les nombreuses correspondances entre les textes algébriques du XVIe siècle et les propos (...) de Descartes concernant la formulation de problèmes, où ils sont transformés en équations. Je montre aussi que, quand Peletier écrit « L’algèbre apprend à discourir », il explicite une posture épistémologique interne à l’algèbre abaciste qui prit consistance en Occident avec la réforme de la dialectique. L’algèbre en particulier et les mathématiques en général ont ainsi peu à peu pris la place de la dialectique comme un art de penser. (shrink)

This compelling reevaluation of the relationship between logic and knowledge affirms the key role that the notion of judgement must play in such a review. The commentary repatriates the concept of judgement in the discussion, banished in recent times by the logical positivism of Wittgenstein, Hilbert and Schlick, and the Platonism of Bolzano. The volume commences with the insights of Swedish philosopher Per Martin-Löf, the father of constructive type theory, for whom logic is a demonstrative science in which judgement is (...) a settled feature of the landscape. His paper opens the first of four sections that examine, in turn, historical philosophical assessments of judgement and reason; their place in early modern philosophy; the notion of judgement and logical theory in Wolff, Kant and Neo-Kantians like Windelband; their development in the Husserlian phenomenological paradigm; and the work of Bolzano, Russell and Frege. The papers, whose authors include Per Martin-Löf, Göran Sundholm, Michael Della Rocca and Robin Rollinger, represent a finely judged editorial selection highlighting work on philosophers exercised by the question of whether or not an epistemic notion of judgement has a role to play in logic. The volume will be of profound interest to students and academicians for its application of historical developments in philosophy to the solution of vexatious contemporary issues in the foundation of logic. ​. (shrink)

The main goal of the article is to demonstrate that (against general opinion) Wolff used not one but few different research methods in his philosophy. Except mathematical (more geometrico), there were semiotic, eidetic and reflective ones. Moreover I indicate the presence of reductive, transcendental, and rhetorical method elements in Wolff's works. Each of this methods are represented in this article in details with an examples of their usage by Wolff. The choice of the methods and the structural relation between them (...) are not coincidental. In the current article I try to prove that the heuristic epistemological primacy in Wolff's philosophy belongs not to the mathematical but to eidetic method. Speaking of the relation type between eidetic method and the rest of them – semiotic, reflective and axiomatic (mathematical one) – I would define it as: (1) genetic dependence, since eidetic method is the reason of existence of the rest of the methods, (2) heuretic dependence, while eidetic one gives the opportunity for the reflection over the rest of the methods, and (3) epistemological dependence, while eidetic method provides criteria of truth (reliability) of the knowledge for the rest of methods. (shrink)

Descartes afirma que el cogito se "experimenta en uno" (apud se experiatur)o se "siente en uno mismo" ("il sent in lui-même"), pero también ha señalado que uno no siente sino a través del cuerpo. El problema es que, en las Meditaciones, el cogito fue caracterizado cuando todavía no se había demostrado la existencia del cuerpo. Pese a esto, Descartes parece haberse dejado influir por ciertas sensaciones internas de duda y certeza. En el trabajo se sostiene que esto fue posible porque (...) esas sensaciones internas son efecto de una ratio implícita: la existencia de un Dios no engañador. (shrink)