Divine simplicity and the eternal truths in Descartes (original) (raw)
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Divine Simplicity and the Eternal Truths: Descartes and the Scholastics
Philosophia, 2009
Descartes famously endorsed the view that (CD) God freely created the eternal truths, such that He could have done otherwise than He did. This controversial doctrine is much discussed in recent secondary literature, yet Descartes's actual arguments for CD have received very little attention. In this paper I focus on what many take to be a key Cartesian argument for CD: that divine simplicity entails the dependence of the eternal truths on the divine will. What makes this argument both important and interesting is that Descartes's scholastic predecessors share the premise of divine simplicity but reject the CD conclusion. To properly understand Descartes, then, we must determine precisely where he diverges from his predecessors on the path from simplicity to CD. And when we do so we obtain a very surprising result: that despite many dramatic prima facie differences, there is no substantive difference between the relevant doctrines of Descartes and the scholastics. Or so I argue.
"Descartes without Clear and Distinct Ideas. A Proposal", Dianoia 34 (2022), 31-48.
The article advances a reading of Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy that dispenses with "clear and distinct ideas". Since Descartes's lifetime, these concepts have become a trademark of his philosophy and a target for his critics, on account of their vagueness and inconsistency. The article provides evidence that, by and large, "clear and distinct ideas" were intended by Descartes to convey in simpler, catchier terms a much more elaborate argument, ultimately grounded on the system of the mind's faculties. The article argues that, through this enquiry, Descartes meant to provide a space of reasons wherein to establish key contentions of his philosophy, to include those involving the existence of both mind and bodies. The article concludes by showing that the traditional portrayal of Descartes as an unmitigated intuitionist is, at best, one-sided.
The Paradox of Foundation: Descartes’ Eternal Truths and the Evil Genius
P. Allen, F. Marcacci (eds.) Divined Explanations. The Theological and Philosophical Context for the Development of the Sciences (1600-2000), Brill, 2024
In light of a specific reading of Descartes’ theory of the creation of the eternal truths, this chapter analyzes and interprets the figure of the evil genius in the Meditations. In sections 1 and 2, I reconstruct Descartes’s theory of eternal truths, highlighting its relationship with Suárez’s and Mersenne’s ideas, and setting out what I call Descartes’ “instituted innatism,” i.e. the theory that God was not only absolutely free in creating the essences of the world, but also instituted their truths by endowing all his intelligent creatures with the same notions about them. In section 3, I argue that Descartes’s First Meditation is wholly built upon “instituted innatism” as a fundamental and self-evident assumption, and that Descartes’s text is structured as a reductio ad absurdum argument; indeed, here he accepts the possibility of a world not created by an absolutely good and omnipotent God, which is for him a plain contradiction, given that God necessarily exists. Here I stress the role played by the evil genius in Descartes’s argument. In section 4, I dwell more specifically on the character of the evil genius, arguing that Descartes draws from medieval and early modern angelological and demonological debates, and contending that he especially plays with the topic of the ordered/disordered thought of separate substances.
Critique of Descartes Concerning the Relationship Between Philosophy and Theology
as a Negative Rule for Philosophy. For the rationalist Descartes, theology (sacred theology or supernatural theology) is not a science, which is the opposite of the position of someone like St. Thomas Aquinas, for whom theology (sacred theology or supernatural theology), philosophy, and the particular sciences, are all sciences. "Descartes was dedicated to the proposition that all sciences are one…all sciences are one owing to the unity of their common method…" 1 (the mathematical method). "Descartes regarded philosophy as the sole science 2 of which the others were but parts…For Descartes philosophy absorbs the other sciences-is the whole of science." 3 In spite of the fact of having studied with the Jesuits at La Flèche for many years, Descartes's new rationalist philosophy rejected the traditional harmonious relationship between reason and faith, philosophy and sacred theology (supernatural theology). With Descartes there emerged a rationalist and immanentist philosophy which was to be absolutely independent from theology; sacred theology or supernatural theology would not provide anymore a negative rule for philosophy. Regarding the father of modern philosophy's pivotal role in the tragic separation, and opposition or antinomy, between faith and reason, theology and philosophy, Maritain writes: "In the seventeenth century the Cartesian reform resulted in the severance of philosophy from theology, 4 the refusal to recognize the rightful control of theology and its function as a negative rule in respect of philosophy. This was tantamount to denying that theology is a science, or anything more than a mere practical discipline, and to claiming that philosophy, or human wisdom, is the absolutely sovereign science, which admits no other superior to itself. Thus, in spite of the religious beliefs of Descartes himself, Cartesianism introduced the principle of rationalist philosophy, which denies God the right to make known by revelation truths which exceed the natural scope of reason. For if God has indeed revealed truths of this kind, human reason enlightened by faith will inevitably employ them as premises from
Descartes: God as the Idea of Infinity
International Journal of Systematic …, 2008
This article returns to Descartes' texts and correspondence and looks to recent scholarship to reveal three key elements of Descartes' distinctive epistemological structure. It shows that because objectors ignore Descartes' opposition to the 'order of being' they are led to a binary and incorrect reading of his argument. However, by correctly following Descartes' own logic, the method of doubt can be used to prove the existence of an infinite God.
Taking the Fourth: Steps Toward a New (Old) Reading of Descartes
Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol 35, 2011
Please direct your attention to the traditional problem of the Cartesian Circle: In order to answer the skeptic, Descartes needs to show that his clear and distinct ideas (whatever they are) are true, and to show this, he needs to show that God exists and is not a deceiver. In arguing for these conclusions in the Third Meditation, Descartes seems to rely on certain premises precisely because they are clear and distinct. Thus, Descartes seems, in the course of his argument for the claim that clear and distinct ideas are true, to presuppose-illegitimately-that clear and distinct ideas are true. And that would seem to be pretty bad. This is a famous problem and I thank you for considering it. But now, forget about it because that is not the problem that I want to focus on. Instead, I want to begin by stressing the often overlooked way in which the Fourth Meditation-not the Third-threatens to generate a fascinating and perhaps more virulent form of the Cartesian circle. I will then argue that this new Cartesian circle serves as a surprising stepping stone toward the rehabilitation of the much-maligned interpretation of Descartes as holding a coherence theory of truth, an interpretation so maligned that its main (and perhaps only) defender-Harry Frankfurt-came to repudiate it. 2 I will then argue that the coherentist interpretation receives further, significant support from
THE HIGHLIGHTS OF DESCARTES' EPISTEMOLOGY (AN INTRODUCTION
Roczniki Filozoficzne / Annales de Philosophie / Annals of Philosophy, 2020
JOURNAL ARTICLE THE HIGHLIGHTS OF DESCARTES’ EPISTEMOLOGY (AN INTRODUCTION) PRZEMYSŁAW GUT and ARKADIUSZ GUT Roczniki Filozoficzne / Annales de Philosophie / Annals of Philosophy Vol. 68, No. 2, Descartes’ Epistemology Special Issue (2020)
Auslegang, 1997
My aim in this paper is to examine the nature of and the relation between Descartes' three proofs of God's existence in the Meditations. Within this aim I want to pursue and argue three interrelated theses: (I) that Descartes' three proofs of God's existence in the Meditations are in fact (or rather function as, were intended by Descartes as) deductive demonstrations, (II) that all three proofs are logically independent of each other, and (III) that the ordering of the three proofs in the Meditations was for psychological rather than logical or methodological reasons.
It is well known that the demonstration of God's existence is a crucial problem in early modern theology and philosophy. In contrast to the medieval period, in the seventeenth century atheism became not only an individual standpoint, but a true philosophical and epistemological position. Accordingly, any attempt to prove the existence of God had to address both atheist and libertine attacks against the classical proofs of his existence. In this sense, it is not possible to understand fully Descartes's metaphysical project, including his proposal of new proofs for the existence of * To the memory of Ettore Lojacono