I discuss Descartes’ metaphysics of selfhood, and relevant parts of contemporary philosophy regarding the first person. My two main concerns are the controversy that surrounds Descartes’ conception of conscientia, mistranslated as ‘consciousness’, and his conception of selfhood and its essential connection to conscientia. ‘I’-thoughts give rise to the most challenging philosophical questions. An answer to the questions concerning the peculiarities of the first person, self-identification and self-ascription, is to be found in Descartes’ notion of conscientia. His conception (...) of selfhood insightfully informs his conception of personhood. I offer a unified account of selfhood, conscientia, the first person, and personhood anchored in the self’s authority of reason and autonomy of freedom. (shrink)

Descartes is notorious for holding a strong anti-vacuist position. On his view, according to the standard reading, empty space not only does not exist in nature, but it is logically impossible. The very notion of a void or vacuum is an incoherent one. Recently Eric Palmer has proposed a revisionist reading of Descartes on empty space, arguing that he is more sanguine about its possibility. Palmer makes use of Descartes’ early correspondence with Marin Mersenne, including his commentary (...) on Galileo’s Two New Sciences. I argue that Palmer’s reading is mistaken, and that it relies on an understandable but faulty inference—i.e., that if Descartes considers the implications of an opposing view, he must find it at least coherent. Descartes, as I show from his correspondence and other texts, uses a variety of persuasive strategies, and levels charges of different logical strength, against positions which he takes to be incoherent. Thus we cannot infer from the fact that Descartes argues, e.g., that something is a superfluous theoretical entity, that he admits that entity’s coherence. He often chooses to argue a weaker thesis against an opponent so that he can use an argument to which the opponent is more likely to agree. (shrink)

Descartes is widely portrayed as the arch proponent of “the epistemological transparency of thought” (or simply, “Transparency”). The most promising version of this view—Transparency-through-Introspection—says that introspecting (i.e., inwardly attending to) a thought guarantees certain knowledge of that thought. But Descartes rejects this view and provides numerous counterexamples to it. I argue that, instead, Descartes’s theory of self-knowledge is just an application of his general theory of knowledge. According to his general theory, certain knowledge is acquired only through (...) clear and distinct intellection. Thus, in his view, certain knowledge of one’s thoughts is acquired only through clear and distinct intellection of one’s thoughts. Introspection is a form of intellection and it can be clear and distinct. Ordinarily, however, introspection isn’t clear and distinct but is instead confused with dubitable perceptions of bodies. To make introspection clear and distinct, we need to “sharply separate” it from all perceptions of bodies by doubting all perceptions of bodies. Without such radical doubt, introspection remains confused and we lack certain knowledge not just of the specific features of our thoughts, but even of the minimal claim that a thought exists. Far from being the high priest of Transparency, Descartes is radically opposed to it. (shrink)

Centuries ago, Descartes and Locke initiated a foundational debate in epistemology over the relationship between knowledge, on the one hand, and practical factors, on the other. Descartes claimed that knowledge and practice are fundamentally separate. Locke claimed that knowledge and practice are fundamentally united. After a period of dormancy, their disagreement has reignited on the contemporary scene. Latter-day Lockeans claim that knowledge itself is essentially connected to, and perhaps even constituted by, practical factors such as how much is (...) at stake, how important the situation is, or how one should act. Latter-day Cartesians claim, by contrast, that knowledge is entirely constituted by truth-related factors such as truth, belief, and evidence. Each side has supported its case with claims about patterns in ordinary behavior and knowledge judgments. Lockeans argue that these patterns are best explained by positing a fundamental and direct link between knowledge and practical factors. Cartesians argue that the patterns can be equally well explained by positing an indirect link, entirely mediated by the traditional factors of truth, belief, and evidence, thereby rendering the Lockean hypothesis unnecessary. We argue that Cartesians are right about some practical factors, in particular stakes and how important a situation is, which have, at best, a modest indirect relationship to knowledge. However, Lockeans are right about actionability: whether a person should pursue a course of action is unquestionably very powerfully and directly connected to knowledge. (shrink)

This volume takes cue from the idea that the thought of no philosopher can be understood without considering it as the result of a constant, lively dialogue with other thinkers, both in its internal evolution as well as in its reception, re-use, and assumption as a starting point in addressing past and present philosophical problems. In doing so, it focuses on a feature that is crucially emerging in the historiography of early modern philosophy and science, namely the complexity in the (...) production of knowledge. The book explores the applicability of this approach to a long-considered armchair philosopher, namely René Descartes, who is now more and more understood as a full-blown scientist, networker, and intellectual éminence grise rather than as the mere philosopher of the cogito, as well as the originator of different ‘Cartesianisms’ which encompassed many ideas and approaches for long captured by dichotomic historiographical categories as rationalism and empiricism, or speculative and experimental philosophy. The essays gathered in the volume aim to address the ways in which Descartes’s philosophy evolved and was progressively understood by scientists, philosophers, and intellectuals from different contexts and eras, either by considering direct interlocutors of Descartes such as Isaac Beeckman and Elisabeth of Bohemia, early modern thinkers who developed upon his ideas and on particular topics as Nicolas Malebranche or Thomas Willis, those who adapted his overall methodology in developing new systems of knowledge as Johannes Clauberg and Pierre-Sylvain Régis, and contemporary thinkers from continental and analytic traditions like Emanuele Severino and Peter Strawson. (shrink)

Descartes's approach to practical judgments about what is beneficial or harmful, or what to pursue or avoid, is almost exactly the opposite of his approach to theoretical judgments about the true nature of things. Instead of the cautious skepticism for which Descartes is known, throughout his ethical writings he recommends developing the habit of making firm judgments and resolutely carrying them out, no matter how doubtful and uncertain they may be. Descartes, strikingly, takes irresolution to be the (...) source of remorse and repentance, of vice, and of a weak soul. In order to explain its dangerousness, this essay offers an analysis of irresolution as a failure of the will to determine itself to follow a judgment in the face of ignorance or uncertainty. This analysis connects irresolution to weakness of will and explains why Descartes regards resolution as an essential component of virtue. (shrink)

This paper is on Descartes’ account of modality and, in particular, his account of the necessity of the laws of nature. He famously argues that the necessity of the “eternal truths” of logic and mathematics depends on God’s will. Here I suggest he has the same view about the necessity of the laws of nature. Further, I argue, this is a plausible theory of laws. For philosophers often talk about something being nomologically or physically necessary because of the laws (...) of nature, but this necessity is thought to be metaphysically contingent. However, they struggle to explain how the laws could be genuinely necessary while being metaphysically contingent. The chief advantage of Descartes view, I argue, is that God’s will can plausibly explain both the necessity of the laws and the contingency of the laws. So, Descartes’ theistic account of laws provides a plausible explanation, perhaps the best explanation, of the contingent-necessity of laws of nature. (shrink)

An early modern scholastic conception of moral possibility helps make sense of Descartes's own perplexing use of that concept and solves the exegetical puzzles surrounding Descartes's conflicting remarks about free will.

The paper advances the hypothesis that René Descartes presents a skeptical system of philosophy in Thomas Reid’s reading. There is a sort of ‘involun-tary’ or ‘accidental’ skepticism that results from the adoption by Descartes of both a skeptical method and a skeptical principle. The first section shows to what extent the Cartesian method of doubt – which focuses on the reliability of the faculties of the mind - is a skeptical demand that cannot be satisfied. The second section (...) shows how the principle of the Cartesian system – which establishes that ideas are the immediate objects of the operations of the mind – is not only skeptic but leads exactly and naturally to the most radical form of skepticism, namely, solipsism. The third section discusses the Cartesian sources of the doubt on the existence of external world according to Reid. (shrink)

This paper examines Descartes' problematic relational theory of motion, especially when viewed within the context of his dynamics, the Cartesian natural laws. The work of various commentators on Cartesian motion is also surveyed, with particular emphasis placed upon the recent important texts of Garber and Des Chene. In contrast to the methodology of most previous interpretations, however, this essay employs a modern "spacetime" approach to the problem. By this means, the role of dynamics in Descartes' theory, which has (...) often been neglected in favor of kinematic factors, is shown to be central to finding a solution to the puzzle of Cartesian motion. (shrink)

Despite what you have heard over the years, the famous evil deceiver argument in Meditation One is not original to Descartes. Early modern meditators often struggle with deceptive demons. The author of the Meditations is merely giving a new spin to a common rhetorical device. Equally surprising is the fact that Descartes’ epistemological rendering of the demon trope is probably inspired by a Spanish nun, Teresa of Ávila, whose works have been ignored by historians of philosophy, although they (...) were a global phenomenon during Descartes’ formative years. In this paper, I first answer the obvious question as to why previous early modernists have missed something so important as the fact that Descartes’ most famous publication relies on a well-established genre and that his deceiver argument bears a striking similarity to ideas in Teresa’s final work, El Castillo Interior? I discuss the meditative tradition at the end of which Descartes’ Meditations stands, present evidence to support the claim that Descartes was familiar with Teresa’s proposals, contrast their meditative goals, and make a point-by-point comparison between the meditative steps in Teresa’s Interior Castle and those in Descartes’ Meditations which constitute their common deceiver strategy. My conclusion makes a case for a broader and more inclusive history of philosophy. (shrink)

Descartes maintained substance dualism, the thesis that no substance has both mental and material properties. His main argument for this thesis, the so-called separability argument from the Sixth Meditation (AT VII: 78) has long puzzled readers. In this paper I argue that Descartes’ independence conception of substance (which Descartes presents in article 51 of the Principles) is crucial for the success of the separability argument and that Descartes used this conception of substance to defend his argument (...) for substance dualism from an important objection. (shrink)

How coherent is Descartes' conception of vacuum in the Principles? Descartes' arguments attacking the possibility of vacuum are difficult to read and to understand because they reply to several distinct threads of discussion. I separate two strands that have received little careful attention: the scholastic topic of annihilation of space, particularly represented in Albert of Saxony, and the physical arguments concerning vacuum in Galileo that are also continued after the publication of the Principles in Pascal. The distinctness of (...) the two sorts of opponent accounts for Descartes' odd habit of summarily declaring vacuum "contradictory" in some contexts, while providing extended conceptual and physical arguments meant to establish its "impossibility" in others. In several passages late in the Principles, Descartes also considers the physical ramifications of "empty space," including a discussion of the appearance of a star, were an empty space situated at the center of the celestial vortex. I argue that the discussion allows for a sensible conception of space with extension, but without matter, quite adequate to the physical discussions of vacuum among Descartes' contemporaries. (shrink)

This essay explores the vexed issue of individual corporeal substance in Descartes' natural philosophy. Although Descartes' often referred to individual material objects as separate substances, the constraints on his definitions of matter and substance would seem to favor the opposite view; namely, that there exists only one corporeal substance, the plenum. In contrast to this standard interpretation, however, it will be demonstrated that Descartes' hypotheses make a fairly convincing case for the existence of individual material substances; and (...) the key to this new found individuation is a long neglected set of passages in the Principles of Philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore René Descartes' conception of human freedom. I begin with the key interpretive challenges of Descartes' remarks and then turn to two foundational issues in the secondary literature: the philosophical backdrop of Descartes' remarks and the notions of freedom that commentators have used to characterize Descartes. The remainder of the paper is focused on the main current debate: Descartes' position on the relationship between freedom and determinism.

Review of Desmond M. Clarke. Descartes: A Biography. xi + 507 pp., apps., figs., bibl., index. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. $40 (cloth).; Richard Watson, Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes. viii + 375 pp., figs., bibl., index. Boston: David R. Godine, 2002. $35 (cloth).

In this paper, I join the so-called voluntarism debate on Descartes’s theory of will and judgment, arguing for an indirect doxastic voluntarism reading of Descartes, as opposed to a classic, or direct doxastic voluntarism. More specifically, I examine the question whether Descartes thinks the will can have a direct and full control over one’s suspension of judgment. Descartes was a doxastic voluntarist, maintaining that the will has some kind of control over one’s doxastic states, such as (...) belief and doubt. According to a long-held reading, the control that the will has over doxastic states in Descartes’s theory is direct; the doxastic states are affected by the mere act of will. This reading is called direct doxastic voluntarism (DDV), or direct voluntarism (DV) for short, and it states that we are capable of assenting, rejecting and suspending a judgment based only on our will to do so. Thus, these actions would be utterly and merely volitional. DV can be divided into two further positions, direct positive voluntarism (+DV) and direct negative voluntarism (-DV). Direct positive voluntarism deals with the act of forming judgments, maintaining that one can accept or deny a proposition wilfully and either merely believe or not believe something voluntarily. Direct negative voluntarism deals with the suspension of judgment, maintaining that it can likewise be accomplished by a simple act of will. However, I support an alternate account of Descartes’s voluntarism, which is called indirect doxastic voluntarism (IDV), or indirect voluntarism (IV) for short. By this account, the will is capable of affecting a doxastic state indirectly by making one concentrate on essential tasks for forming that state, such as gathering up and paying attention to strong reasons and evidence. IV is also possible to divide into indirect positive voluntarism (+IV) and indirect negative voluntarism (-IV). Per indirect positive voluntarism the will needs to pay attention to reasons for accepting or denying some proposition. Likewise, by indirect negative voluntarism, in order to suspend judgment the will needs to direct this attention to the reasons for doubt. By attending to these reasons, the will also comes face-to-face with its own freedom. This feeling of freedom can be described as affectivity of the reasons for belief (assent) and doubt (suspension). (shrink)

The popular Cartesian reading of George Berkeley's philosophy of mind mischaracterizes his views on the relations between substance and essence and between an idea and the act of thought in which it figures. I argue that Berkeley rejects Descartes's tripartite taxonomy of distinctions and makes use of a fourth kind of distinction. In addition to illuminating Berkeley's ontology of mind, this fourth distinction allows us to dissolve an important dilemma raised by Kenneth Winkler.

Descartes claimed that he thought he could deduce the assumptions of his Meteorology by the contents of the Discourse. He actually began the Meteorology with assumptions. The content of the Discourse, moreover, does not indicate how he deduced the assumptions of the Meteorology. We seem to be left in a precarious position. We can examine the text as it was published, independent of Descartes’ claims, which suggests that he incorporated a presumptive or hypothetical method. On the other hand, (...) we can take Descartes’ claims as our guide and search for the epistemic foundations of the Meteorology independent of the Discourse. In this paper, I will pursue the latter route. My aim is to explain why, and how, Descartes thought that he had deduced the assumptions of the Meteorology. My interest, in this case, is solely Descartes’ physical foundation for the Meteorology, in the physics and physiology that resulted in Descartes’ explanation. With this aim, I provide an interpretation of Descartes’ World where many of its conclusions serve as evidence for the assumptions of the Meteorology. I provisionally conclude that Descartes thought that his World was the epistemic foundation for his Meteorology. (shrink)

That Descartes’ God is not a deceiver is amongst the canonical claims of early modern philosophy. The significance of this (purported) fact to the coherence of Descartes’ system is likewise canonical, infused in how we teach and think about the _Meditations_. Though prevalent, both ends of this narrative are suspect. We argue that Descartes’ color eliminativism, when coupled with his analysis of the cognitive structure of our sensory systems, entails that God is a deceiver. It’s doubtful that (...) Descartes recognized this, given his insistence that God is not a deceiver, and the role this plays in his system. But this is a concession Descartes can grant if we are careful about the kind of deception at play—a kind Descartes _does_ recognize, albeit not without some ambiguity. On our story, Descartes’ metaphysics and epistemology are not driven by concerns about deception _per se_, but by concerns about God’s _benevolence_. (shrink)

In two rarely discussed passages – from unpublished notes on the Principles of Philosophy and a 1647 letter to Chanut – Descartes argues that the question of the infinite extension of space is importantly different from the infinity of time. In both passages, he is anxious to block the application of his well-known argument for the indefinite extension of space to time, in order to avoid the theologically problematic implication that the world has no beginning. Descartes concedes that (...) we always imagine an earlier time in which God might have created the world if he had wanted, but insists that this imaginary earlier existence of the world is not connected to its actual duration in the way that the indefinite extension of space is connected to the actual extension of the world. This paper considers whether Descartes’s metaphysics can sustain this asymmetrical attitude towards infinite space vs. time. I first consider Descartes’s relation to the ‘imaginary’ space/time tradition that extended from the late scholastics through Gassendi and More. I next examine carefully Descartes’s main argument for the indefinite extension of space and explain why it does not apply to time. Most crucially, since duration is merely conceptually distinct from enduring substance, the end or beginning of the world entails the end or beginning of real time. In contrast, extension does not depend on any enduring substance besides itself. (shrink)

This book attempts to contribute a historical and interpretive study of Descartes' epistemology. It provides a systematic and exhaustive clarification of the mysterious and puzzling doctrine of "clear and distinct perception" and illuminates the relationships between this doctrine and four other central notions: "truth," "metaphysical doubt," "(metaphysical) certainty," and "knowledge." -/- Roughly speaking, a clear and distinct perception is a pure understanding, an intellectual perception, or a mental intuition in which a purified and attending mind has a simple mental (...) intuition of a simple proposition or a necessary deduction (i.e., a complex mental intuition) from such simple propositions to a complex proposition. A simple proposition can be regarded as a necessary conjunction of simple ideas. Descartes' composition theory of ideas, which supposes that all ideas are composed of simple ideas, provides a crucial basis for clear and distinct perception. -/- Descartes' doctrine of clear and distinct perception is an attempt at mathematizing epistemology and is the main content of his new "method" (for truth and knowledge), which he sought throughout his life. -/- This book attempts to shape a new image of Descartes' epistemology. (shrink)

I briefly consider why Descartes stopped work on the _Rules_ towards the end of my paper. My main concern is to accurately characterize the project represented in the _Rules_, especially in its relation to early-modern logic.

Descartes argues that, apart from the existence of a veracious God, we can have no reason to believe that we possess reliable cognitive faculties, with the result that, if atheism is true, not even our seemingly most certain beliefs can count as knowledge for us. Since the atheist denies the existence of God, he or she will be precisely in this position. I argue that Descartes' argument is sound, and that atheism is therefore self-refuting.

Recent research has defended the surprising thesis that in many cases the search for truth is better off if the information exchanged between the members of an epistemic community is limited. This is what one may call the limited information thesis. There is, however, the possibility of an even more radical position than this: the thesis that any communication between peers has zero epistemic value and that the search for truth is better off if the truth-inquirer does not take into (...) consideration the truth-claims of her peers. This can be called the solitude thesis. The paper defends the claim that Descartes is a supporter of the solitude thesis with respect to metaphysical inquiry. The defense is facilitated by means of interpreting textual evidence found in Descartes’ essays Discourse on the Method, The Search for Truth and the Meditations on First Philosophy. (shrink)

Philosophy and Memory Traces defends two theories of autobiographical memory. One is a bewildering historical view of memories as dynamic patterns in fleeting animal spirits, nervous fluids which rummaged through the pores of brain and body. The other is new connectionism, in which memories are 'stored' only superpositionally, and reconstructed rather than reproduced. Both models, argues John Sutton, depart from static archival metaphors by employing distributed representation, which brings interference and confusion between memory traces. Both raise urgent issues about control (...) of the personal past, and about relations between self and body. Sutton demonstrates the role of bizarre body fluids in moral physiology, as philosophers from Descartes and Locke to Coleridge struggled to control their own innards and impose cognitive discipline on 'the phantasmal chaos of association'. Going on to defend connectionism against Fodor and critics of passive mental representations, he shows how problems of the self are implicated in cognitive science. (shrink)

In his Meditations Descartes concludes that he is a res cogitans, an unextended entity whose essence is to be conscious. His reasoning in support of the conclusion that he exists entirely distinct from his body has seemed unconvincing to his critics. I attempt to show that the reasoning which he offers in support of his conclusion. although mistaken, is more plausible and his mistakes more interesting than his critics have acknowledged.

In this paper, I present an interpretation of Descartes that deemphasizes his skepticism. I analyze a selection of remarks from Descartes’ correspondence in which he makes judgments about the skeptics. I argue that such remarks display Descartes’ attitude of contempt for skeptical philosophy. Since Descartes associates the skeptics with the activity of constant and total doubting and yet presents scenarios that seemingly arise from extreme doubt—like the malicious demon hypothesis—I look at what Descartes says in (...) the correspondence about his own use of doubt in his published works. Descartes distances himself from the skeptics because he claims that whereas they doubt everything and, in so doing, act heretically, he uses doubt for a noble purpose. I suggest that although Descartes is influenced by skeptical ideas and considers skeptical argumentation to be useful, his strategic use of such argumentation should not lead us to believe that he condones skepticism. Quite the contrary, most of his remarks on the subject show that Descartes is highly critical or dismissive of skeptical ideas. Therefore, I argue that it is more accurate to characterize Descartes as a philosopher generally opposed to skepticism. (shrink)

My thesis is that Descartes wrote the Discours as a plan for a universal science, as he originally entitled it. I provide an interpretation of his letters that suggests that after Descartes began drafting his Dioptrics, he started developing a system that incorporated his early treatises from the 1630s: Les Méteores, Le Monde, L’Homme, and his 1629 Traité de métaphysique. I argue against the mosaic and autobiographic interpretations that claim these were independent treatises or stages in Descartes’ (...) life. Rather, I hold that threat of condemnation concerning his heliocentric thesis resulted in him suppressing his larger project and, instead, he published a plan where he outlined his ongoing system of philosophy. (shrink)

Planteamos el problema siguiente: Descartes contesta la acusación irracional de Voetius interpretando, excepcionalmente, los Evangelios y afirma que las _leyes de caridad _son _afines _a las _leyes de la amistad natural _que rigen las funciones del pastor y del profesor. Proponemos que Descartes excluye el examen de las virtudes teologales e incursiona en el derecho privado y civil para probar que Voetius no es un _verdadero _profesor, ni un _verdadero _pastor, y usurpa las atribuciones del juez. Frente a (...) la irracionalidad, la búsqueda de la verdad se despliega en el alegato jurídico. -/- Descartes and the laws of charity. Public and private law in the Letter to Voetius Abstract. We pose this problem: Descartes responds to Voetius’ irrational accusation by resorting once, on his own initiative, to Gospel, an interpretation that reviews the laws of charity as akin to the laws of natural friendship governing pastor and teacher roles. We propose that the Letter be a legal argument. Descartes has no interest in theological virtues: facing irrationality, he delves into private law to prove that Voetius is not a true teacher, or a true pastor, and encroaches on the function of judge. (shrink)

There is a broad distinction in Descartes’s writings between doctrine and method. The staying power of these two elements has been unequal. Descartes’s doctrinal influence on contemporary epistemology has been largely as a foil against which some of its major currents have been developed. Few contemporary philosophers have adopted his positive doctrines. The situation is brighter on the methodological side. Here, Descartes’s practice of beginning with common sense and moving, step by step, to philosophical conclusions is a (...) model much admired by contemporary philosophers. Still, the negative verdict on doctrine stands as the main verdict. I maintain that this verdict is undeserved I first distinguish between Descartes’s general epistemology and the purpose to which he puts it – the quest for certainty. I then argue for a positive verdict for his general epistemology. I do so by showing that Descartes has a non-normative account of knowledge but an “ethics of responsible belief ” account of epistemic normativity. Unlike some contemporary accounts of epistemic responsibilism, e.g. Bonjour, in which epistemic responsibility is a condition for knowledge, on Descartes’s account, knowledge is a condition for epistemic responsibility. Descartes thus anticipates what Sylvan calls the “knowledge-first” approach in contemporary epistemology, which I defend in the paper. Relying on Audi’s distinction between “sources” and “reasons,” I show that Descartes’ analysis of knowledge proper, which I also defend in the paper, anticipates and improves on the “factive access” analysis of knowledge due to McDowell. (shrink)

The Cambridge Descartes’ Meditations—A Critical Guide, a recent addition to the numerous companion texts, guidebooks, introductions and commentaries already available, aims to provide novel approaches to important themes of Descartes’ Meditations by combining contextualism and analysis (of arguments). Organized in four parts (Skepticism, Substance and Cause, Sensations, and The Human Being), the volume contains contributions from (mainly) established scholars of Early Modern Philosophy.

Après avoir consacré à Descartes de nombreuses études, parmi lesquelles les monumentales L’homme des passions (Albin Michel, 1995) et Les Méditations métaphysiques de Descartes (PUF, 2005), ainsi que, plus récemment, Le style de Descartes (Manucius, 2013), Denis Kambouchner nous offre Descartes n’a pas dit. Ce livre contient un errata des propos prêtés à Descartes dans l’enseignement, dans les représentations collectives, dans des publications généralistes ou même dans certains travaux spécialisés, et propose de corriger quelques-unes des (...) erreurs les plus sérieuses. D’après Kambouchner, la philosophie cartésienne, en réalité très nuancée et raffinée, est régulièrement victime de simplifications excessives. (shrink)

This essay explores various problematical aspects of Descartes' conservation principle for the quantity of motion (size times speed), particularly its largely neglected "dual role" as a measure of both durational motion and instantaneous "tendencies towards motion". Overall, an underlying non-local, or "holistic", element of quantity of motion (largely derived from his statics) will be revealed as central to a full understanding of the conservation principle's conceptual development and intended operation; and this insight can be of use in responding to (...) some of the recent and traditional criticisms of Descartes' physics. (shrink)

I argue that Descartes uses his method as evidence in the Discours and Les Météores. I begin by establishing there is a single method in Descartes’ works, using his meteorology as a case study. First, I hold that the method of the Regulae is best explained by two examples: one scientific, his proof of the anaclastic curve (1626), and one metaphysical, his question of the essence and scope of human knowledge (1628). Based on this account, I suggest that (...) the form of his early metaphysics (not its content) is similar to the method of doubt of the Meditationes. Second, I argue that Descartes’ explanation of the cause of parhelia (1629) likewise contains a formulation of this procedure. I provide a novel reading of Les Météores, where, following Descartes’ guidance in the Discours and Correspondance, I interpret his meteorology by reasoning from effects to causes, in this case, from Christoph Scheiner’s 1626 observation of parhelia to his meteorological foundation. This backwards orientation to Les Météores, I argue, reveals an instance of Descartes’ scientific method. I conclude with remarks on Descartes’ concept of evidentia, in which I explain how he incorporates a posteriori evidence and an apparent hypothetical foundation into his rationalist epistemology where he uses his method as evidence for his claims. (shrink)

Bei den korpuskulartheoretischen Erklärungen von Naturphänomenen, wie sie Descartes in den Principia philosophiae vornimmt und im Discours de la methode anspricht, lassen sich zwei verschiedene und nur teilweise miteinander vereinbare Bedeutungsgruppen des Hypothesenbegriffs nachweisen. Sie verbinden sich mit unterschiedlichen Bewertungen des Status von Hypothesen im wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisprozeß. Einerseits findet man eine Verwandtschaft zum heute wissenschaftstheoretisch verbreiteten Verständnis von Hypothesen als positivem und integralem Bestandteil der Naturerkenntnis. Typischer für Descartes' Naturphilosophie ist jedoch die andererseits von ihm vertretene Vorstellung, daß (...) der Umfang des bloß hypothetischen Wissens im Fortgang der Naturerkenntnis zu minimieren sei. Mit dieser Forderung erweist sich Descartes als Vertreter einer neuzeitlichen Wissenschaftsauffassung, die deutlich vom modernen Verzicht auf ein ausschließlich geltendes System der Naturerkenntnis abgehoben ist. (shrink)

In Meditation I, Descartes dismisses the possibility that he might be insane as a ground for doubting that the senses are a source of knowledge of the external world. In this paper, I argue that Descartes was justified in so doing, and draw some general epistemological conclusions from this result.

This article addresses a debate in Descartes scholarship over the mind-dependence or -independence of time by turning to Merleau-Ponty’s "Nature" and "The Visible and the Invisible." In doing so, it shows that both sides of the debate ignore that time for Descartes is a measure of duration in general. The consequences to remembering what time is are that the future is shown to be the invisible of an intertwining of past and future, and that historicity is the invisible (...) of God. (shrink)

RESUMEN En la Carta a Voetius, Descartes escribe que su enemigo es el diablo, el enemigo. La acusación es etimológicamente coherente e introduce una excepción a la metafísica, una voluntad de mal. Finalmente, la malignidad odia la verdad : es deliberadamente irracional. Examinamos aquí la oratoria del mal: primero, sus recursos retóricos ; segundo, las pasiones que excita y su combinación en una pasión particular, la cólera piadosa; tercero, sus efectos: la disolución del vínculo civil entre ciudadanos y amistoso (...) entre familiares. -/- ABSTRACT In his Letter to Voetius, Descartes writes that his enemy is the devil, the enemy. The accusation is etymologically coherent and introduces an exception to metaphysics, a will to evil. Finally, malignity hates truth : it is deliberately irrational. The article examines the oratory of evil: first, its rhetorical devices ; second, the passions it elicits and their combination with a specific passion, pious rage; and third, its effects: the dissolution of the civil bond among citizens and the friendship bond family members. (shrink)

En la Carta a Voetius, Descartes escribe que su enemigo es el diablo, el enemigo. La acusación es etimológicamente coherente e introduce una excepción a la metafísica, una voluntad de mal. Finalmente, la malignidad odia la verdad : es deliberadamente irracional. Examinamos aquí la oratoria del mal: primero, sus recursos retóricos ; segundo, las pasiones que excita y su combinación en una pasión particular, la cólera piadosa; tercero, sus efectos: la disolución del vínculo civil entre ciudadanos y amistoso entre (...) familiares. -/- ABSTRACT In his Letter to Voetius, Descartes writes that his enemy is the devil, the enemy. The accusation is etymologically coherent (Voetius is the libeler, whose word divides men) and introduces an exception to metaphysics, a will to evil. Finally, malignity hates truth (absurditas): it is deliberately irrational. The article examines the oratory of evil: first, its rhetorical devices (in contrast with the rhetoric of Guez de Balzac); second, the passions it elicits (in contrast with Passions of the Soul) and their combination with a specific passion, pious rage; and third, its effects: the dissolution of the civil bond among citizens and the friendship bond family members. Keywords: R. Descartes, evil, oratory, passions, rhetoric. (shrink)

This paper explores the Cartesian physics of circular motion, in particular, the long-standing puzzle concerning the possible role of a circular inertial concept in Descartes' theories. Although some commentators have claimed that Descartes' famous "rotating sling" examples favor a rotational component of "striving" towards motion, and that this aspect of his project constitutes a form of inertial thinking, it will be argued that a much stronger case for a Cartesian brand of rotational inertial motion can be constructed from (...) a little-known correspondence, the letter to Ciermans, dated 1638. (shrink)

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)

This essay explores two of the more neglected hypotheses that comprise, or supplement, Descartes’ relationalist doctrine of bodily motion. These criteria are of great importance, for they would appear to challenge Descartes’ principal judgment that motion is a purely reciprocal change of a body’s contiguous neighborhood. After critiquing the work of the few commentators who have previously examined these forgotten hypotheses, mainly, D. Garber and M. Gueroult, the overall strengths and weaknesses of Descartes’ supplementary criteria will be (...) assessed. Overall, despite their ingenuity, it will be demonstrated that Descartes’ criteria cannot rescue his brand of natural laws from the inherent limitations of his strong relational account of motion. (shrink)

As a practicing life scientist, Descartes must have a theory of what it means to be a living being. In this paper, I provide an account of what his theoretical conception of living bodies must be. I then show that this conception might well run afoul of his rejection of final causal explanations in natural philosophy. Nonetheless, I show how Descartes might have made use of such explanations as merely hypothetical, even though he explicitly blocks this move. I (...) conclude by suggesting that there is no reason for him to have blocked the use of hypothetical final causes in this way. (shrink)

I critically examine the view that Descartes’s independence conception (IC) of substance plays a crucial role in his “separability argument” for substance dualism. I argue that IC is a poisoned chalice. I do so by considering how an IC-based separability argument fares on two different ways of thinking about principal attributes. On the one hand, if we take principal attributes to be universals, then a separability argument that deploys IC establishes a version of dualism that is unacceptably strong. On (...) the other hand, if we take principal attributes to be tropes, then IC introduces challenges which undermine the argument. This is partly because the assumption of tropes makes it possible to distinguish several versions of substance dualism, versions which differ with respect to their degree of generality. I argue that taking principal attributes to be tropes makes it challenging to establish any of these versions by way of an IC-based separability argument. I conclude the paper by suggesting a way forward for the proponent of the separability argument. (shrink)

There is an interesting historical detour in the dissemination of one of the seventeenth century’s most praised discoveries: the reception of Harvey’s account of the circulation of the blood is closely intertwined, especially in the Low Countries, with Descartes’ account of the origin of the heartbeat. Descartes was one of the first figures to support the circulation of the blood and to give credit to Harvey for it, although he presumably arrived at the same conclusion independently through his (...) own anatomical experiments. He did so while vocally rejecting Harvey’s views on the muscular nature of the heart and his explanation of cardiac motion, to promote his own mechanistic solutions instead. Although Descartes’ .. (shrink)

The attention paid in the Giornale critico della filosofia italiana to the major exponents of seventeenth-century philosophical rationalism, from its foundation by Giovanni Gentile in 1920 until 1979, reveals important changes that provide us with interesting information on Italian Neo-idealism. The small number of articles on Descartes can be interpreted as the result of an overall approach – sanctioned by Gentile – different from that of Hegel, who considered Descartes as the founder of modern philosophy. For Gentile, (...) class='Hi'>Descartes represents a stage in the history of philosophy spanning from Humanism to Spinoza, and, in a more particular Italian perspective, from Campanella to Vico. This interpretative scheme persisted also under the direction of Ugo Spirito, when Cartesianism continued to receive little theoretical and historical attention, with the exception of Eugenio Garin’s contributions. In the years from 1945 to 1979, the Giornale critico emphasized instead the interest for Spinoza, a very important author for Gentile, up to the double monographic issue published on the occasion of the third centenary of Spinoza’s death (1977). In turn, the lack of interest for Leibniz was constant and evident from the small number of articles published from 1920 to 1979, which were furthermore not particularly connected with the international, coeval Leibniz scholarship. (shrink)

Commentators have neglected a tension in Descartes’s virtue theory. In some texts, Descartes seems to argue that there are distinct virtues. In other texts, Descartes seems to argue that there is only a single virtue—the firm and constant resolution to use the will well. In this paper, I reconcile this tension. I argue that Descartes endorses a specific version of the unity of the virtues thesis, namely, the identity of the virtues. Nonetheless, Descartes has the (...) resources to draw conceptual distinctions between various virtues. Distinct virtues are conceptually generated when we regard the firm and constant resolution to use the will well in different ways, that is, based on the different ways this resolution manifests in moral situations. (shrink)