1 Introduction

Notes 1 Introduction 1 . Dialogues faits à l’imitation des anciens, published under the pseudonym Oratius Tubero. 2 . The history of scepticism in the Early Modern period has been amply docu- mented. For a classical exposition, see Popkin (2003; first edition 1960). Popkin also describes how Descartes failed to convince his contemporaries in his answer to scepticism (ibid., Chapter 10). For a more recent survey of the history of Early Modern scepticism, see Larmore (1998). Floridi (2010) contains a concise survey of the rediscovery and reception of Sextus in the Renaissance, and the book also contains an up-to-date bibliography of literature on the subject (§ 4.6). 3 . For Cicero see (Academica II (Lucullus) XXVII.88–XXVIII.90); for Sextus, ( Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Book I, § 104; Adversus Mathematicos 7.402–8); for Augustine ( Contra Academicos , 3.11.25); for Montaigne, ( Apology for Raymond Sebond , Book II, Essay 12; Vol. II, pp. 44–45 in Montaigne (1946)) 4 . Not only Hobbes but many of Descartes’ contemporaries were quick to note the variety of influences on his ideas, or at least the significant convergences in positions (I shall mention several other such observations in the course of the book). Descartes rarely credits his predecessors or contemporaries, and this lack of credit brought about accusations of plagiarism, vehemently put forward by Pierre-Daniel Huet in his Censura Philosophiae Cartesianae (1689) and repeated by others since. While doing historical justice is not a purpose of this work, I shall nevertheless often try to trace the influences on Descartes, in order to determine where in fact his indisputable originality does lie and how he arrived at his philosophical innovations. 5 . A deceiving God has already been mentioned by Cicero ( Academica II (Lucullus) XV 47) and Augustine ( On the Trinity 12.15.24), and I shall later discuss their possible influence on Descartes in this respect. The possibility of a deceiving omnipotent God was also discussed in the middle ages, by Ockham, Nicholas of Autrecourt and others. For a concise survey, see Groarke (1984, § 5). For more on these authors and their scepticism, see Kretzmann et al. (1988). 6 . See Jean de Silhon, The Immorality of the Soul ( L’immortalité de l’âme , 1634), selections translated on pp. 199–200 of Ariew et al. (1998). See also Tommaso Campanella, Universalis philosophiae, seu metaphysicarum rerum, iuxta propria dogmata (Paris 1638), p. 32, where Campanella uses the cogito to refute scepticism and ascribes it to Augustine, whom he quotes. 7 . See also Bernard Williams (1996), who writes that ‘the rewriting of Descartes’ story in that way has constituted a good deal of modern philosophy’ (p. viii). 8 . Epicurus might appear to be an exception: in his letter to Herodotus (38 ff ) he tries to derive the foundations of his atomic theory deductively from a very 228 Notes 229 small number of evident propositions, some of which we would classify as conceptual while the others are derived from observation. For instance, that nothing comes into being out of what is non-existent (a conceptual principle) or that bodies plainly are in something and move through something (as attested by the senses – from this observation Epicurus infers the existence of space). But Epicurus does not present this part of his theory-construction as resulting from a general foundationalist methodology. Moreover, later in his letter – when he starts discussing perception, for instance (46ff ) – his method changes, and he can be seen as attempting to argue for hypotheses that are supported by experience although not derived from it. Yet this change of method is not presented as such but rather appears to be methodically contin- uous, from Epicurus’s point of view, with the method he follows in the earlier parts. It would therefore probably be more accurate to see the first part of his letter not as a result of a foundationalist methodology but as originating in an attempt to argue as powerfully as possible for his position, relying wherever possible on deduction and a minimal number of observations. 9 . In Descartes’ discussions of method we find a variety of methodological distinctions, some of which are relevant to the Meditations . In the Second Replies he distinguishes the analytic from the synthetic method or style (he does not use ‘method’ at that place), describes the inquiry in the Meditations as analytic, and explains why this way of inquiry is preferable in metaphysics to the synthetic one (AT VII 155ff ). However, the analytic inquiry of the Meditations is of a specific kind: it starts by casting all preconceived opinions in doubt, arrives at secure foundations, and then builds our knowledge on these. Descartes describes this way of inquiry as the method of the Meditations at several places; see for instance Fifth Replies, AT VII 361–362 and Seventh Objections and Replies, AT VII 514, where he also calls it his method . In a letter to Clerselier (AT IXA 203) he calls this method ‘the method [ méthode ] of doubting everything’. 10 . The way Descartes’ method was abandoned is perhaps demonstrated by the contrast between Wittgenstein’s earlier Tractatus and his later Philosophical Investigations . See also Ryle’s contrast between Husserl’s Phenomenology and his own The Concept of Mind (Ryle 1962). 11 . Similar claims have been made in the literature on various specific points in the first two Meditations, for instance by Michael Williams (1986) and Gary Hatfield (2003); I compare my claims to theirs in the last chapter. But I differ from them not only in point of detail but also in seeing the whole methodology of the Meditations as misguided and in exposing Descartes’ implicit theoretical assumptions in order to demonstrate its necessary failure. 12 . In the Scholia, added in 1662 to his An Antidote against Atheism of 1652, where he is referring to Section 6 of the book. See page 145 in A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More , 2nd edition, London 1712. Quotation and reference taken from Rogers (1985, p. 292). 13 . However, unlike some recent Descartes scholarship, my purpose is not to emphasise Descartes’ interest in developing a new science: although science was more important to Descartes than metaphysics (see section 6.2), I am interested in Descartes’ philosophical contributions. I shall discuss Descartes’ scientific work only to the extent that it contributes to the understanding of his philosophical considerations. 230 Notes 2 Descartes’ Theory of Perception 1 . This blind man, or at least his stick, managed to travel a long distance over the centuries, demonstrating various features of theories of vision along its way. It started feeling its way around in Athens, third century BC, in Chrysippus’ Physics , and reappeared a century later in Apollodorus’ work (Diogenes Laertius 7.157). We find it again in Rome, in the second century AD, in Galen’s On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato (VII 7, 20). It then moved, in the fifth century, to Latin philosophy, and is mentioned by Augustine of Hippo, in North Africa ( De quantitate animae 23, 43). Later, in the ninth century, it makes its appearance in Islamic science, this time in Arabic, in Hunain ibn Is–Hâq’s The Book of the Ten Treatises on the Eye (University of Michigan 1928, p. 37). Somehow or other it found its way to Descartes’ seventeenth-century France, where its master is explicitly mentioned as well, and they are even granted an illustration. As in many other, more significant things, here too Descartes is deeply indebted to earlier discussions yet adds to them a new twist, while drawing the analogy in a more appealing and persuasive manner. 2 . Descartes occasionally distinguished mind from soul, but on other occasions, as in the mentioned Principles section, he used these terms interchangeably. I follow him here in the latter, interchangeable use. The sources and meaning of the distinction and of the identification will be discussed later in the book, once the distinction becomes relevant. For a careful study of Descartes’ use of these and related terms in the Meditations and related texts, see Fowler (1999, Chapter 5). 3 . Hardly any claim found in Descartes scholarship has not been contested, and that is true even of the claim that there is a causal relation between the bodies we perceive and their ideas in our mind. The distinction between mind and body as two different substances convinced some scholars, as well as many philosophers, that a causal relation between them should be impos- sible, and some of the former have consequently tried to read Descartes as if he is not committed to such a position. See Keeling (1968, p. 153) and Yolton (1984). Wilson (1991, p. 60) argues against alternative interpretations of the texts. 4 . The clause in diamond brackets was added to the French translation of 1647, most probably by Descartes himself. See CSM I 178. I use the same bracket convention as Cottingham et al. when inserting into the translation of the Latin text of the Meditations material found in its French translation. See CSM II 1–2. 5 . For a similar understanding of Descartes’ considered view of objective sensory qualities, see for instance Kenny (1968, pp. 217–219), Jolley (1990, pp. 82–83) and Dicker (1993, pp. 205–209). Although I defend the view that Descartes ascribes colour, light and other sensory qualities in an objective sense to physical reality, what is essential to my central claims in the text is not whether he thinks it is correct to call these dispositional properties ‘colour’, ‘light’ and so on, but whether our ideas of sensory qualities represent properties in bodies. I address below objections to this last claim.

Load more