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A Defense of Cartesian Certainty

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A DEFENSE OF CARTESIAN CERTAINTY by STEPHANIE LARSEN WYKSTRA A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in the Philosophy Department Written under the direction of Ernest Sosa And approved by _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey October 2008 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION A Defense of Cartesian Certainty By STEPHANIE LARSEN WYKSTRA Dissertation Director: Ernest Sosa This dissertation examines Rene Descartes’ view of certainty and defends the view that Cartesian certainty is possible. The first half of the dissertation includes an interpretation of Descartes’ epistemology as well as an examination of other interpreters’ readings. The second half of the dissertation is a defense of the claim that Cartesian certainty of a particular kind is possible; it includes a variety of contemporary objections and replies in defense of the possibility of certainty. ii Acknowledgments My thanks to Martha Bolton and Ernie Sosa as well as members of the epistemology dissertation group: Matthew Benton, Pavel Davydov, Carl Feierabend, Jonathan Ichikawa, Alex Jackson and Josh Orozco. For ongoing conversation about Descartes and philosophy in general, I am very grateful to Geoff Anders. iii Table of Contents Introduction...................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Descartes’ View of Certainty......................................................................5 Chapter 2: Other Interpretations Considered ...........................................................29 Chapter 3: Memory.....................................................................................................53 Chapter 4: The Creation of the Eternal Truths .........................................................63 Chapter 5: On the Meaning of “Cartesian Certainty” ..............................................84 Chapter 6: A Defense of Cartesian Certainty ..........................................................107 Chapter 7: When Not to Avoid Begging the Question .............................................128 Chapter 8: Objections to the Possibility of Certainty..............................................141 Chapter 9: The Possibility of Strong Rationalism....................................................162 Bibliography ..............................................................................................................184 iv 1 Introduction All roads in philosophy lead to epistemology. When one asks questions in ethics, metaphysics, aesthetics, or another area, sooner or later epistemology rears its head: how do I justify any of my claims? Do I know any of the things I think I know? What is the right way to go about answering philosophical questions? I began with metaphysics. Soon into my studies, methodological questions morphed into methodological discontents. Contemporary analytic philosophy favored and still favors common sense mixed with philosophical intuitions of unknown provenance. I found little to assuage my worry that hunches were not to be trusted, that disagreement points to unreliability, and that metaphysics built on such a foundation is unlikely to last. Such was my preparation for Descartes. Aware of the need for a method I could count on if I was to continue philosophizing in good faith, I found myself drawn to an epistemology promising certainty. My thought on undertaking a study of Descartes’ method was as follows. If certainty turned out to be possible, then I would have found a way out of my worries. If not, this would also be good to find out. In neither case would I be wasting time on the project. My project is two-fold. In the first half of the dissertation, I interpret Descartes’ epistemology – specifically, his view of certainty. I have tried to be faithful to the text while being as charitable to Descartes as possible. There are two main features of my 2 reading that I want to mention here. First, there is no “circle” in the Meditations (this is essential to any good reading of Descartes). Second, I interpret Descartes as having two distinct concepts of knowledge, which I call cognitio and scientia. Cognitio is the concept that I focus on, because unlike scientia, it does not require any successful proof of God’s existence and non-deception. The “Cartesian certainty” that I am interested in is, as Michael Della Rocca has put it, epistemology without God.1 In the second half of the dissertation, I defend cognitio – which I call certainty – against contemporary objections. Many contemporary epistemologists are anti-skeptics in the sense that they defend “knowledge” and repudiate Cartesian skepticism. Many are also skeptical, however, in the sense that they would deny the possibility of Cartesian certainty, which is different from what they call “knowledge” in that it’s infallible.2 It is my aim in the second half to answer their objections. A brief chapter summary will set the stage for what is to come. In the first four chapters, I lay out my interpretation of Descartes. Chapter 1 lays out my two-concept interpretation of “certainty” and uses the text to defend such the reading. Chapter 2 includes synopses of five competing interpretations- those of Edwin Curley, Janet Broughton, Louis Loeb, Harry Frankfurt and James Van Cleve- and presents textual and philosophical evidence against each of them. Chapter 3 is an explanation of Descartes’ view of memory. Chapter 4 deals with the issue of the eternal truths; I argue that 1 Della Rocca “Descartes, the Cartesian Circle, and Epistemology without God” 2 See chapter 5 for elaboration on what I mean by Cartesian certainty. 3 Descartes’ stance on the creation of the eternal truths is inconsistent with other parts of his system, and argue that several attempts to render his views consistent fail. In the second part of the dissertation, I begin by explaining my view of “Cartesian certainty” in Chapter 5, first describing what my concept of certainty is not, and then drawing on Richard Fumerton’s work to explain what it is. In Chapter 6, I take on the skeptic who demands that we fulfill certain criteria in order to attain Cartesian certainty by arguing that such a skeptic is not justified in his claims. In Chapter 7, I argue that begging the question against the skeptic is not only acceptable but good, in cases of certainty. In Chapter 8, I respond to contemporary objections taken from the work of Keith Lehrer, Bruce Aune, and Timothy Williamson. In Chapter 9, I respond to further objections made by Laurence Bonjour and Ernie Sosa. In the course of writing this dissertation, I have had the opportunity to learn a lot about philosophy. In the end, I have ceased to ask some questions and have begun to ask others. I have come to believe that many questions of the form “What is X?” have little to offer us even if we could answer them definitively.3 In their stead, however, I have discovered many other questions pertaining to what is valuable in philosophy and in life. Though I am critical of Descartes in some regards, studying his philosophy has also made me more optimistic. I have come to believe that certainty is possible (and, to a very limited extent in my own case, actual). Objections which once seemed devastating are no longer devastating. As a result, I am hopeful that there is a way to make progress 3 See the final section of chapter 9. 4 in philosophy and move beyond the “inextricable darkness” of the problems that we cannot and should not avoid. 5 Chapter 1: Descartes’ View of Certainty Interpreters of Descartes have struggled to attribute to him a view which fits with the Meditations and his other writings, while also avoiding the Cartesian circle. In this chapter, I will present an interpretation which fulfills both criteria. 4 On my interpretation, “certainty” for Descartes picks out two philosophically valuable types of knowledge, which I will refer to as cognitio and scientia.5 The two types of knowledge have very different requirements, and play different roles in Descartes’ method. I will argue that whereas cognitio is the type of knowledge one has when one infallibly connects with the truth, scientia is the state of securing this knowledge in place. In the first section, I will briefly explain the problem of the Cartesian circle. In the second section, I will give Descartes’ reply to the circle objection (made by Arnauld and Mersenne), and explain how my interpretation of Descartes coheres with his reply. In the third section, I will look at the passages which seem to conflict with my interpretation. I will then give a reading on which the passages and my reading are compatible. In the fourth section, I will raise a possible philosophical difficulty for the view I propose, and suggest two ways in Descartes could respond to it. 4 Anthony Kenny’s view (Ch 8, Descartes, 1968) is probably the most similar to mine, though we differ in some regards. Michael Della Rocca (“Descartes, the Cartesian Circle, and Epistemology Without God”), and James Van Cleve (“Foundationalism, Epistemic Principles, and the Cartesian Circle”) also have similar views, though we diverge at certain key points (see Ch 2 and Ch 4 for examples). 5 I will use the terms “certainty” and “knowledge” interchangeably throughout the dissertation; where
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