Gijsbert Voet and Discretio Spirituum after Descartes (original) (raw)
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The Discernment of Spirits: Vision and Knowledge in an Early Modern Religious Context
Unpublished Conference Paper, 2014
This essay derives from a paper given to the conference on "Vision and Knowledge in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries" at the William Andrews Clark Library, Los Angeles, October 14-15, 2011. The paper was revised in 2014 for publication in the conference proceedings but this publication never appeared. It remains unchanged except for minor corrections and small alterations to the footnotes.
Tampere University Dissertations, 2021
I offer a novel reading in this dissertation of René Descartes’s (1596–1650) skepticism in his work Meditations on First Philosophy (1641–1642). I specifically aim to answer the following problem: How is Descartes’s skepticism to be read in accordance with the rest of his philosophy? This problem can be divided into two more general questions in Descartes scholarship: How is skepticism utilized in the Meditations, and what are its intentions and relation to the preceding philosophical tradition? I approach the topic from both a historical and a text-based analysis, combining textual and contextual research. I examine Descartes’s skepticism against two main traditions in the historical analysis: philosophical skepticism and Aristotelian Scholasticism. I argue that skepticism in the Meditations is intended to oppose and upheave both Scholasticism and skepticism. The intended results of the work are not merely epistemological but also metaphysical and even ethical. Furthermore, these ambitions cannot be neatly distinguished but merge into each other. The third historical context against which the skeptical meditations are examined is the literary genre of meditative exercises, particularly from the 1500–1600’s, which, while religiously and spiritually oriented, likewise provided the practitioner with an enlightened understanding of self-knowledge and their cognitive place in the world on the way to closer spiritual proximity to God. I argue by this reading that the skepticism of the Meditations is an attentive, meditational cognitive exercise that is not merely instrumental and methodological but is to have a genuine and serious (psychologically real) effect on our thinking. The skeptical meditation is not simply a theoretical thought experiment but is to be seriously practiced as a transformative process of reorienting one’s cognitive framework to discover truth, certainty, and a way to a happy, tranquil, and virtuous life. I offer a close reading in the textual analysis of the first three meditations of the Meditations. I argue that the meditative skepticism employed in the work does not reject the previous beliefs but suspends judgment on them, withdrawing assent until further evidence can be found. I introduce a new term into Descartes scholarship in this analysis, based on the terminology of ancient skepticism: Cartesian epochē (gr. epochē, suspension, withdrawal). Instead of rejecting previous beliefs or assenting to the probably false, the skeptical procedure of the Meditations is argued to emulate in important ways the suspension of judgment on equally balanced reasons in ancient Pyrrhonian skepticism. Novel interpretations are presented along the way of the will’s freedom, of the First Meditation’s skeptical scenarios, of the cogito, and of the vindication of metaphysical certainty, as well as a clarification of the Cartesian Circle problem. Reinterpreting the relation of Descartes’s skepticism to the preceding historical and literary traditions leads to a new look at the skeptical method itself. Presenting a new interpretation of skepticism in the Meditations leads at the same time to a new look at its relation to the historical context. The two research questions are, then, intrinsically tied together. My focus in the study is on the Meditations, but I also reference and discuss Descartes’s other philosophical works, as well as his correspondence, when necessary.
In the beginning of the skeptical argumentation of the Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes’s meditator states: “Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either from the senses or through the senses”. However, since the senses are occasionally in error, she concludes that one should not trust them completely. (AT VII, 18; CSM II, 12.) The laid Empirical Principle, though not upheld by Descartes himself, is the starting point of the Cartesian skepticism and along with its preliminary questioning, sets the stage for the famous scenarios of dreaming and deceiver to follow. However, although the later scenarios have garnered much attention in the secondary literature, Descartes’s approach to skepticism based on particular sensory experience has in most readings been almost completely skipped. Part of the reason might be the anticipation to get to the more interesting argumentation. Another part of it might be the abrupt nature by which Descartes seems to treat the scenario. Despite this abruptness, I maintain that Descartes’s treatment of particular sensory skepticism is crucial to his overall argument and for the achievement of the goals in the Meditations. In this paper, I analyze the skeptical scenario of Occasional Sensory Errors or OSE, arguing for its naturality and reasonable nature, while separating it from systematic doubt of the senses. I read OSE as generating a seriously taken skeptical puzzle for the background of Aristotelian theory of cognition and pre-philosophical naïve realism of everyday life, both of which I identify as models for the Empirical Principle in the beginning of the First Meditation. I also argue that the scenario of OSE can be likewise understood from the point of view of the renaissance and early modern skeptical tradition. However, while succeeding as a serious skeptical scenario, I argue that OSE scenario is not enough for Descartes to generally doubt sensory experience and consider that the senses might be systematically in error. In order to succeed in the systematic doubt of the senses by the dreaming doubt, Descartes needs to guide the meditator from the natural common sense attitude, used in practical everyday life, to the unnatural metaphysical doubt, used in the skeptical project of the Meditations. These two should be considered two different states of mind, with the latter being the metaphysical attitude required for the Cartesian suspension of judgment.
Intellectual History Review, 2019
This article studies the extant class notes of a course on Descartes’s Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) and (part of) the Principles of Philosophy (1644), which was given by the reformed theologian Christoph Wittich (1625–1687) at the former Dutch University of Nijmegen (1655–1679). This manuscript contains dictata, taken (presumably in 1664) under the title Observationes in Renati Descartes Meditationes de prima philosophia. Observations in ejusdem Principiorum philosophiae partem primam. This article mainly considers three themes surfacing in Wittich’s classes: (a) doubt and scepticism; (b) “vulgar” and “proper philosophy”; (c) philosophy and Scripture. On the one hand, this study explains how Wittich tried to harmonise Cartesian metaphysics with his Calvinist faith by defining them as two autonomous fields of knowledge. On the other hand, Wittich’s ideas are shown to have met with much resistance on the part of some of his contemporary theologians. The study of Wittich’s course supplies new knowledge concerning the teaching of one of the first theologians to openly seek to combine Descartes’s ideas and Copernican astronomy with the Bible. In so doing, this article offers direct insight into the way in which the new philosophy was taught in Nijmegen, and in the seventeenthcentury Dutch Republic in general.
Cartesian skepticism: Arguments and antecedents
This chapter begins by tracing the complex argumentation of Meditation One. The second section explores the differences between Cartesian skeptical arguments and the skeptical arguments discussed in the ancient world, while the third section considers whether there might be medieval antecedents for the radical doubts that end Meditation One. The final section suggests that the radical nature of the doubts raised in Meditation One has its sources in two fundamental characteristics of Cartesian science: the radical error that Cartesian science posits in our everyday experience of the world, and the hypothetical and (only) morally certain nature of the scientific edifice that is proposed to replace the commonsense view of the world enshrined in Aristotelian science.
Descartes and the suspension of judgment – Considerations of Cartesian skepticism and epoché
In this paper I will argue that Descartes in the First and Second Meditation of the Meditations uses a very clear suspension of judgement or assent that in many ways resembles the epoché of the ancient scepticism, especially that of Pyrrhonistic variant. First I show how the Pyrrhonistic epoché works and what purpose it was used for. After that I show how this Cartesian epoché both resembles and differs from the ancient epoché. My main argument is that Descartes, when using the method of doubt, doesn’t really dismiss or abandon earlier knowledge or beliefs, as he is sometimes been viewed, but more likely doesn’t take any stance on them, suspending his judgment on the existence of the external world. I base my argument on my reading of Meditations, the “as it were sensing” -interpretation of Descartes’s use of method of doubt by John Carriero and the discussion of ancient sceptical influence on Descartes by Janet Broughton. My own main contribution here is to complement Carriero’s and Broughton’s views, since Carriero doesn’t compare Descartes to the ancient skeptics and Broughton doesn’t discuss “as it were sensing”. By this I am able to get a better picture of what Descartes was trying to do.
The Meditations and the Objections and Replies
2006
There is a line of interpretation for Descartes' Meditations that treats the work as an attempt to construct a self-consistent unity, a geometrical whole whose structures can be revealed or whose elements can be shown as interconnected, a totality, however, that cannot fruitfully be analyzed by psychological or historical methods. The Meditations, it is asserted, resembles Euclid's geometry and to understand a given geometrical system it is necessary to grasp its demonstrations and its sequences.
In Stephen Gaukroger (ed.), Blackwell Guide to Descartes’ Meditations. Wiley-Blackwell 122--141., 2006
The problem of the Cartesian circle, as it is called, has sparked ongoing debate, which intersects several important themes of the Meditations. Discussions of the circle must address questions about the force and scope of the famous method of doubt introduced in Meditation I, and they must examine the intricate arguments for the existence of God and the avoidance of error in Meditations III to V. These discussions raise questions about the possibility of overturning skepticism, once a skeptical doubt has been introduced. More generally, the problem of the circle resonates with recent questions about the foundations of knowledge: Must we be able to validate our methods of reasoning or of knowing before using them? If we must, wouldn't we be forever stuck at the beginning, unable to use our methods of reasoning or of knowing in their own validation? The problem of the Cartesian circle raises general questions about the validation of reason and the possibility of knowledge. This chapter examines the Cartesian circle in the context of Descartes' central project in the Meditations, to secure the foundations of metaphysics. In carrying out this project, Descartes felt the need, or adopted the strategy, of examining the possibility of human knowledge more generally. Such an examination can be interpreted in various ways. Depending on the interpretation given, the roles assigned to the method of doubt and the proofs about God may differ, thereby altering how we see the problem of the circle. We therefore need first to consider Descartes' metaphysical project along with the methods and strategies he adopted in carrying it out. Subsequently, I explain and evaluate several main approaches to the problem of the circle. The chapter concludes with some reflections on the relation of Descartes' metaphysics of knowledge to other prominent positions in the history of philosophy.
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