Receptions of Descartes: Cartesianism and Anti-Cartesianism in Early Modern Europe

Receptions of Descartes The French thinker René Descartes (1596–1650) is widely regarded as the father of modern philosophy and his thought dominated intellectual life in Europe in the century following his death. This volume offers original contributions from a group of distinguished scholars on the prominence of the Descartes-influenced movement, “Cartesianism.” Topics covered include: • the French reception of Descartes’s thought; • the role of Baruch Spinoza (1632–77); • the lasting legacy of Descartes on philosophy. This original and insightful volume will find a ready audience among scholars with an interest in Descartes as well as all serious students of modern philosophy. Tad M.Schmaltz is Professor of Philosophy at Duke University, USA.

Routledge Studies in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy The Soft Underbelly of Reason The passions in the seventeenth century Edited by Stephen Gaukroger Descartes and Method A search for a method in meditations Daniel E.Flage and Clarence A.Bonnen Descartes’ Natural Philosophy Edited by Stephen Gaukroger, John Schuster and John Sutton Hobbes and History Edited by G.A.J.Rogers and Tom Sorell The Philosophy of Robert Boyle Peter R.Anstey Descartes Belief, scepticism and virtue Richard Davies The Philosophy of John Locke New perspectives Edited by Peter R.Anstey Receptions of Descartes Cartesianism & Anti-Cartesianism in Early Modern Europe Edited by Tad M.Schmaltz

Receptions of Descartes Cartesianism and anti-Cartesianism in early modern Europe

Edited by Tad M.Schmaltz

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2005 Selection and editorial matter, Tad M.Schmaltz, individual chapters: the contributors. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-35666-7 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-68252-1 (OEB Format) ISBN 0-415-32360-6 (Print Edition)

Contents

Contributors Acknowledgments References and abbreviations Introduction TAD M.SCHMALTZ

vii viii ix xi

PART I The initial reception among women philosophers 1 Women philosophers and the early reception of Descartes: Anne Conway and Princess Elisabeth SARAH HUTTON

3

PART II The French reception and French Cartesianism 2 Desgabets’s Indefectibility Thesis—a step too far? PATRICIA EASTION 3 A reception without attachment: Malebranche confronting Cartesian morality JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BARDOUT 4 Huet on the reality of Cartesian doubt THOMAS M.LENNON 5 French Cartesianism in context: the Paris Formulary and Regis’s Usage TAD M.SCHMALTZ

25 38

58 73

PART III Spinoza and the Dutch reception 6 Descartes’s soul, Spinoza’s mind STEVEN NADLER 7 Wittich’s critique of Spinoza THEO VERBEEK 8 Burchard de Volder: Crypto-Spinozist or disenchanted Cartesian? PAUL LODGE

90 103 117

PART IV The reception in Rome and Naples 9 Cartesian physics and the Eucharist in the documents of the Holy Office and the Roman Index (1671–6) JEAN-ROBERT ARMOGATHE

136

10 Images of Descartes in Italy GIULIA BELGIOIOSO

157

PART V The reception across the Channel 11 Mechanism, skepticism, and witchcraft: More and Glanvill on the failures 183 of the Cartesian philosophy DOUGLAS JESSEPH 200 12 Descartes among the British: the case of the theory of vision MARGARET ATHERTON Bibliography Index

215 227

Contributors Jean-Robert Armogathe is Directeur d’études, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Section des Sciences religieuses, at the Sorbonne in Paris. Margaret Atherton is Professor of Philosophy at the University of WisconsinMilwaukee. Jean-Christophe Bardout is Maître de Conférences en philosophie at Université de Brest. Giulia Belgioioso is Professore ordinavio di storia della filosofia at Università degli Studi de Lecce and Direttore del Centro Inter-dipartimentale di Studi su Descartes e il Seicento. Patricia Easton is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Dean of the Centers for the Arts and Humanities at Claremont Graduate University. Sarah Hutton is Professor of Early Modern Studies at Middlesex University. Douglas Jesseph is Professor of Philosophy at North Carolina State University. Thomas M.Lennon is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. Paul Lodge is Fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford, and University Lecturer in Early Modern Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Steven Nadler is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Mosse/ Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Tad M.Schmaltz is Professor of Philosophy at Duke University and Editor of the Journal of the History of Philosophy. Theo Verbeek is Professor of Philosophy at Universiteit Utrecht.

Acknowledgments Earlier versions of several of the chapters in this volume were presented at the conference “Receptions of Descartes” which was held at Duke University during 14–17 March 2002. Both the conference and work on this volume were made possible by funding from the Florence Gould Foundation, the Franklin J.Matchette Foundation, and the Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation. Support was provided at Duke University from the Office of the Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies and the Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs and Development, and also from the Center for European Studies, the Center for French and Francophone Studies, and a grant from the Arts and Sciences Committee on Faculty Research.

References and abbreviations References in the notes and text are keyed to the bibliography at the end of the volume, and take the form: (author, year, page). Abbreviations specific to an individual chapter are cited in the notes of that chapter. The following abbreviations are used throughout the volume. AT

Descartes 1964–74 (ed. C.Adam and P.Tannery) (cited by volume (-part) and page, e.g. 7:41 and 8–1:61)

C

Spinoza 1985 (trans. E.Curley)

CSM

Descartes 1984–5 (trans. J.Cottingham, R.Stoothoff and D. Murdoch) (cited by volume and page)

CSMK

Descartes 1991 (trans. J.Cottingham, R.Stoothoff, D.Murdoch and A.Kenny)

DM

Descartes’s Discourse on the Method (Discours de la méthode) (cited by part)

E

Spinoza’s Ethics (Ethica) (cited by part, definition [def], proposition [p], or scholium [s], e.g. Idef3 and Ip15s)

G

Spinoza 1972 (ed. G.Gebhardt) (cited by volume and page)

LO

Malebranche 1997 (trans. T.Lennon and P.Olscamp)

OCM

Malebranche 1958–84 (Œuvres Complètes de Malebranche) (cited by volume (-part) and page)

PP

Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy (Principia philosophiae) (cited by part and article, e.g. I.51)

Introduction Tad M.Schmaltz

In his classic study of Cartesianism, the nineteenth-century historian Francisque Bouillier proposed that “during tnore than half a century [after Descartes’s death], there did not appear in France a single book of philosophy, there was not a single philosophical discussion that did not have Descartes for its object, that was not for or against his system” (Bouillier 1970: vol. 1,430). Not surprisingly, no unqualified form of this thesis can be sustained. Even so, it is no exaggeration to say that the thought of the French philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) dominated intellectual life during the early modern period, not only in his native country but elsewhere on the Continent and even across the English Channel. This volume offers a new consideration of the reception of Descartes in early modern Europe. The focus here is not so much on Descartes but more on “Cartesianism,” an international movement that his “new philosophy” spawned. Apparently it was the Cambridge Platonist Henry More who introduced the term for this movement—from the Latin form of Descartes’s name, ‘Cartesius’—into the English language. But though the term is settled, it is far from clear that it denotes a clearly defined object. As Patricia Easton and Thomas Lennon have observed in their study of the “Cartesian empiricism” of the seventeenth-century French physicist Francois Bayle, “there was hardly a doctrine, view or argument that was advanced by everyone thought, and rightly thought, to be a Cartesian” (Easton and Lennon 1992:1). Such an observation indicates the difficulties of providing an abstract characterization of Cartesianism that adequately characterizes all of its concrete instantiations. With respect to this point concerning Cartesianism, we can draw on a suggestion that Dan Sperber has made concerning the contagion des idées (Sperber 1996; for the application to Cartesianism, cf. Des Chene 2000:161–3). Sperber has compared the spread of ideas to a viral epidemic. Just as a successful explanation of the spread of a virus must take into account the impact of different environments, so a successfiil explanation of the spread of an intellectual system must take into account how that system transformed in response to local conditions. Cartesianism provides a striking example of a system, or rather a collection of systems, deriving from the work of Descartes that took hold and spread throughout early modern Europe. The lesson of the virus analogy is that an adequate understanding of this phénomène cartésien is not possible without a consideration of the various ways in which Descartes’s views adapted to particular intellectual environments. The Cartesian movement had its origins both in the Protestant United Provinces (where Descartes spent most of his adult life) and in Catholic France (the place of his birth and his first philosophical investigations). In the United Provinces, Descartes’s views gained

a hearing in the academy, though their dissemination was subject to various official restrictions in 1642 in Utrecht and again in 1647 in Leiden, during his own lifetime. In contrast, the French universities for the most part ignored Descartes’s writings prior to 1650. Soon after his death, though, his thought had a profound influence on intellectual discussions in various Parisian salons, conferences and académies. By the 1670s, interest in Cartesianism was significant enough that university officials pressed for an official ban on the teaching of this system. Louis XIV obliged with a 1671 decree against academic deviations from Aristotelianism that started an official campaign against the teaching of Cartesianism in the French universities. However, the antiCartesian decrees no more retarded the growth of Cartesianism in France than earlier restrictions on the teaching of Descartes’s views in Utrecht and Leiden had prevented increased interest in his thought among Dutch thinkers. Nor was the influence of Cartesianism confined to the United Provinces and France. It spread from the Netherlands, through Johannes Clauberg and others, to Protestant German territories, and from France, through Tomaso Cornelio and others, to Catholic Italian states. And though the movement did not hold up quite as well on the trip westward across the Channel, it had a significant impact even on the British Isles. In each of the new locations there were of course different conditions for the reception of Descartes’s thought. In addition to variations in reception among different nations and religions, moreover, commentators have emphasized recently that Descartes was received in a distinctive way among women philosophers in the early modern period. This is not to deny that there are connections that cross national, religious or gender boundaries. Indeed, contributors to this volume explore certain connections that have not received the attention they deserve (e.g. the international influence of the Censura philosophiae cartesianae of the French erudite Pierre-Daniel Huet and the role of the controversial Dutch thinker Baruch Spinoza in the Italian reception of Descartes). However, a principle that guides the discussions here is that a proper appreciation of such commonalities requires a consideration of Descartes’s influence that takes into account the historical particularities. What is offered here, then, is an exploration not of the reception but rather of diverse receptions of Descartes in early modern Europe. This volume considers in particular the receptions of Descartes during a period bounded on one end by the responses to Descartes in the correspondence that Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia had with him during the 1640s, and on the other end by the various reactions to Descartes during the 1730s from Neapolitan thinkers on the Continent and from Berkeley across the Channel. The emphasis in this volume is not merely on those sympathetic to Descartes, but includes the effects in this period of various forms of anti-Cartesianism. In some cases, indeed, it is difficult to distinguish Cartesians from anti-Cartesians. This is especially so in the case of Spinoza, who though influenced by Descartes differed from him in fundamental respects. Moreover, various Cartesians were concerned to disown Spinoza in part to respond to critics who took him to exhibit the pernicious nature of Cartesianism. It also must be said that the early modern reaction to Descartes was never as straightforward as the contrast between Cartesianism and anti-Cartesianism suggests. It always was an option to choose certain elements of Descartes’s system while rejecting others, or to combine certain principles in Descartes with tenets that he never explicitly

considered. And sometimes even those who were overt critics of Cartesianism worked within a framework set by Descartes. What emerges from the complex process of assimilation and critique are different forms of Cartesianism that are related in varying ways to Descartes’s thought, but that include philosophically significant elements that go beyond what we find in his own texts. The treatment here of early modern receptions of Descartes is divided into five main parts. Part I, “The initial reception among women philosophers,” comprises an essay by Sarah Hutton, in Chapter 1, on the reception of Descartes by two of his younger contemporaries, Princess Elisabeth and Lady Anne Conway. Hutton takes the case of these two women to indicate the need for a re-evaluation of the objection that Cartesian philosophy is inherently misogynist. Her counter-thesis is that in its earliest reception Cartesianism in fact made openings for women. Princess Elisabeth provides an example of a woman who actually shaped Descartes’s own thinking through correspondence. Conway was more concerned than Elisabeth to offer an alternative to Descartes’s system. She was very much like Elisabeth, however, in attempting to address problems in Descartes concerning the relation between mind and body. Far from excluding the female perspective, Cartesianism provided the framework for the discussion of philosophical issues by these two women. Part II, “The French reception and French Cartesianism,” opens with an essay by Patricia Easton, in Chapter 2, on the development of Descartes’s metaphysics in the work of the French Cartesian, Robert Desgabets. Easton begins with a consideration of the French controversies over the Eucharist during the 1670s (which are connected in Chapter 9 to discussions of Cartesianism in the Roman Curia). Her treatment of Desgabets’s role in these controversies leads her to examine his “Indefectibility Thesis,” according to which all substances, including material substance, have an indivisible and eternal existence and so cannot be annihilated, even by God. Easton’s central philosophical claim is that though this thesis is not found in Descartes, it is “a natural and logical development of Descartes’s view of matter.” In Chapter 3, which is dedicated to the memory of Ferdinand Alquié, Jean-Christophe Bardout proposes to evaluate Alquié’s powerful interpretation of Malebranche’s relation to Cartesianism by considering the reception of Cartesian morality in Malebranche’s Traité de Morale. Bardout takes the discussion in this text to show that Alquié’s distinction among received, modified and ruined Cartesianism in Malebranche is too simple since Malebranche was led by his commitment to “epistemological Cartesianism” to reject the maxims of the “provisional morality” that Descartes offered in the Discours de la méthode. One conclusion that Bardout draws is that the reception of Descartes in Malebranche involved the use of elements of Descartes’s system in a manner fundamentally contrary to his own intentions. In Chapter 4, Thomas Lennon considers perhaps the most important critique of Cartesianism in the early modern period, namely the 1689 Censura philosophiae cartesianae of the French anti-Cartesian Pierre-Daniel Huet. As Lennon notes and as shown further by the discussion in Chapter 8, the Censura was widely read by and drew an international response from Cartesians. What is distinctive about Huet’s text is that it placed the stress not on the sort of theological difficulties with Cartesianism that Easton discusses, but rather on philosophical difficulties concerning Descartes’s method of

doubt. Lennon discusses Huet’s specific charge that the status of Descartes’s hyperbolic doubt is problematic since it is supposed to be a doubt that has serious effects but that Descartes himself did not take seriously. This discussion takes into account the main response to this charge in the work of the French Cartesian, Pierre-Sylvain Regis. What results is a new perspective on the issue of Cartesian skepticism. In Chapter 5, I consider the views of Regis in the context of the formulary issued at the University of Paris in 1691 that attempts to connect Cartesianism to condemned views on grace and free will in the work of the followers of the Louvain theologian Cornelius Jansenius. The formulary seems at first to support Bouillier’s thesis that there was a “natural alliance” in the early modern period between Cartesianism and Jansenism. However, the work of Regis introduces important complications for such a thesis. In his 1704 Usage de la raison, Regis proposed a distinction between faith and reason that is in line with certain Jansenist views (as well as with views in Wittich that are the focus of Chapter 7), but that is not clearly compatible with his acceptance of the Indefectibility Thesis in Desgabets that is the focus of the discussion in Chapter 2. Moreover, the Usage endorses a philosophical account of human freedom that runs counter to Jansenist theology. I take the case of Regis to reveal the need to rethink the whole issue of the theological implications of Cartesian philosophy. Part III, “Spinoza and the Dutch reception,” includes essays that explore the complex relation between Descartes and the Dutch thinker Baruch Spinoza. In Chapter 6, Steven Nadler emphasizes not Spinoza’s connections to Cartesianism but rather his distance from Descartes. Nadler argues in particular that Spinoza’s metaphysics was motivated principally by his rejection of Descartes’s doctrine of the immortality of the soul. For Nadler, Spinoza’s claims concerning the “eternity of the mind” mark a fundamental departure from Descartes’s views. In Chapter 7, Theo Verbeek considers the critique of Spinoza in the work of the German-born and Dutch-trained Cartesian, Christopher Wittich. As Verbeek shows, Wittich was concerned, along with many other Dutch Cartesians, to purge Cartesianism of Spinozism and to protect Calvinist theology from the incursions of philosophy. In Wittich’s case, the strategy was to argue against Spinoza’s use of technical language in his metaphysics. Drawing on a nominalism reflected in the work of the Renaissance Paduan scholar Zabarella, Wittich claimed that terms like ‘substance’ are “second notions,” which do not refer to objects. Instead of starting first with the universal terms, as Spinoza did, Wittich insisted that one must follow the analytic method of beginning with reflections on what we know about particular thinking and extended things. Verbeek concludes that though this line of argument is somewhat tenuously connected to Descartes’s own views, it does serve to cast doubt on the depth of Spinoza’s Cartesianism. In Chapter 8, Paul Lodge considers the Cartesianism in the work of the Dutch Cartesian Burchard de Volder. Lodge addresses the claim in the recent work of Wim Klever and Jonathan Israel that De Volder was not really a Cartesian but rather a “Crypto-Spinozist.” In response, he claims that there is no good evidence of any commitment in De Volder to Spinozism. Indeed, Lodge shows that in his response to Huet’s Censura De Volder explicitly defended a Cartesian form of dualism at odds with Spinoza’s own substance monism. He admits that De Volder became disillusioned with

Cartesianism as his career progressed. But Lodge argues that far from leading De Volder to Spinozism, these difficulties seem to have led him rather to a skepticism about the possibility of a satisfactory metaphysics. Part IV, “The reception in Rome and Naples,” begins with a consideration by JeanRobert Armogathe, in Chapter 9, of the discussions of Cartesianism in the Roman Curia during the 1670s, following the 1663 placement of Descartes’s writings on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum with the proviso donec corrigantur (until corrected). Drawing on several newly discovered documents from the Archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Armogathe shows that Church officials were suspicious of Cartesianism during this period due in part to the perception that Descartes advocated an atomistic view inconsistent with the Catholic doctrine of the “real presence” of Christ in the Eucharist. The charge of atomism may now strike us as odd given that Descartes himself had offered a plenism that he took to be incompatible with the existence of indivisible atoms and the void. However, the charge itself shows that Cartesian plenists and Gassendist atomists tended to be lumped together by their traditionalist critics. Moreover, what also concerned critics in Rome were the perceived connections of Descartes’s physics to the earlier non-atomistic eucharistic theologies of Giuseppi Balli and Giovani Battista Chiavetta. These concerns in Rome over the theological implications of Cartesian physics helped to fuel critical investigations of Cartesianism during the period under consideration in Paris, Cologne, Louvain, and Naples. In Chapter 10, Giulia Belgioioso considers the later Neapolitan reception of Descartes. She begins with a dispute over Cartesianism in early eighteenth-century Naples between Paolo Mattia Doria and Francesco Maria Spinelli. As Belgioioso indicates, Doria began as a leader among the Neapolitan Cartesians, but he became a confirmed critic around 1724, in part because he took Cartesianism to lead inevitably to the excesses of Spinoza. Spinelli responded to this line of objection by linking Descartes’s views to what he took to be the anti-Spinozistic ontology of the scholastic Francisco Suárez. The focus here on Cartesian ontology contrasts with a reception of Descartes in the work of the Neapolitan thinker Giacinto Gimma, which emphasizes the transition present in all areas of the history of thought from “fable” to empirical science. Although in an earlier Cartesian phase Gimma praised Cartesianism for its role in purging science of “occult causes,” his later work emphasizes the need to purge science of the Cartesian fable of the “beast machine.” However, Belgioioso suggests that Gimma ultimately had a more ambivalent attitude towards Cartesian fables insofar as he linked them to the sort of method of empirical research by way of hypothesis and conjecture that he himself took to be a distinctive feature of modernity. Part V, “The reception across the Channel,” comprises two essays that consider the mixed legacy of Descartes on the British Isles. In Chapter 11, Douglas Jesseph discusses the rejection of the Cartesian philosophy in the work of two members of the Royal Society, Henry More and Joseph Glanvill. These two figures approached Cartesianism from very different directions, with More emphasizing Platonism and Glanvill skepticism. As Jesseph shows, however, in both cases there was a gradual estrangement from Descartes that was fueled by a concern that Cartesian mechanism is but one step from Hobbesian atheism. For both More and Glanvill, moreover, opposition to Cartesianism is connected to the project of proving the reality of ghosts and witchcraft.

This is an odd rejection of Descartes, to be sure, but as Jesseph suggests toward the end of his essay, it does help to explain why the English were more willing than their continental counterparts to accept the various forces that seemed to many to be required by Newtonian mechanics. Though the cases of More and Glanvill indicate the considerable antipathy toward Cartesianism across the Channel, there is evidence that Descartes’s thought made some significant inroads there. This evidence is provided in Chapter 12, where Margaret Atherton considers the influence of Descartes on discussions especially in Locke but also in Berkeley of the role of the mind in vision. For Atherton, the move in Descartes that was decisive for later work across the Channel on vision science was his insistence that it is the mind that sees. More specifically, Descartes held that sensation involves two different grades of mental response, the first of which involves basic sensory consciousness and the second of which involves further judgmental activity. Atherton finds in Locke’s Essay as well an emphasis on the role of the mind both in the passive reception of sensory input and in the active construction of perceptual beliefs about the world. Her conclusion is that these Cartesian elements of Locke’s account set the stage for Berkeley’s later theory of vision. In the case of major post-Descartes thinkers such as Malebranche, Spinoza, and Locke, it comes as no surprise that Descartes’s views were not simply accepted by his immediate successors but revised and challenged. Even so, this collection provides original considerations of the relations of these thinkers to Descartes. Moreover, the essays gathered here are distinctive in discussing the contributions of lesser-known figures such as the women philosophers Conway and Princess Elisabeth, the French philosophers Desgabets, Huet, and Regis, the Dutch philosophers Wittich and De Volder, the Neapolitan philosophers Doria and Spinelli, and the English philosophers More and Glanvill. What emerges is a set of new perspectives on Descartes’s system. Though Descartes himself often presented that system as something that is a complete and seamless whole, the history of the different receptions of that system serves to highlight rather its openended and multi-layered nature. Descartes’s later followers confronted challenges from critics of Cartesianism that Descartes himself never had to face, and in addressing those challenges they responded in ways that go beyond anything he ever proposed. For these reasons, there is a difference between an understanding of Descartes that focuses on his own writings and authorial intentions and an understanding that emphasizes how those writings were interpreted and read by early modern defenders and critics. This difference matters for our understanding both of the history of early modern philosophy and of the issues and problems that this history has bequeathed to us.

Part I The initial reception among women philosophers

1 Women philosophers and the early reception of Descartes Anne Conway and Princess Elisabeth Sarah Hutton

Philosophy the great and only Heir Of all that Human Knowledge which has bin Unforfeited by Mans rebellious sin, Though full of years He do appear, (Philosophy, I say, and call it, He, For whatso’ere the Painters Fancy be, It a Male-virtue seemes to me) Has still been kept in Nonage till of late Nor manag’d or enjoy’d his vast Estate. (Abraham Cowley, “Ode to the Royal Society”)

So wrote Abraham Cowley, celebrating the newly founded Royal Society of London. History seems to endorse Cowley’s seventeenth-century claim that philosophy is a masculine enterprise. In spite of the heroic efforts of modern scholars to recover from oblivion the women philosophers of the past, it is painfully evident that women have little or no place in the existing philosophical canon and are practically invisible in the history of the subject. In particular, the key contribution of the philosophical developments of the seventeenth century to the formation of modernity seems to justify the charge that the very developments in philosophy which paved the way for the age of Enlightenment were ones that excluded women and female ways of thinking. The period bristles with the names of canonical figures: Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Hume; yet in this period there were strikingly few women who practiced philosophy, and none who have been accorded any significance in the shaping of the philosophical canon. From within philosophy, two related explanations have been offered for the absence of women from philosophy: first of all that there is something in the nature of philosophy, something intrinsic to philosophy, which has excluded women and continues to exclude them. This appears to be confirmed by the fact that, when one looks at the few accredited woman philosophers, there appears to be something about particular types of philosophy

Receptions of descartes

4

which has resulted in women’s marginalization by the male-dominated mainstream. According to a tradition dating back at least as far as Hegel, and accepted by most philosophers today, it was the Cartesian revolution which marked the starting point of modern philosophy.1 In this scenario, Descartes bears a heavy responsibility for the absence of women from philosophical history, and Descartes has come to be viewed as “the epitome of the alleged maleness of philosophy.”2 In identifying Cartesianism as the root of the problem, feminist philosophers have singled out for critique the Cartesian emphasis on the power of transcendent reason and mechanical models of natural philosophy.3 Above all, Descartes’s mind-body dualism has come to figure as the central component of the unfeminine direction in which philosophy is perceived to have developed. This is the process dubbed by Susan Bordo as “the Cartesian masculinization of thought.”4 Among many variants on these, Joanna Hodge argues, it is Descartes “who installs the theme of subjectivity at the centre of philosophical enquiry,” and that the resulting concept of the subject “has served both to exclude women from philosophy and to obscure how that exclusion has taken place.”5 Until recently, feminist thinkers have been reluctant to acknowledge that the impact of Cartesianism was not as baleful as their earlier analyses suggested. Though Genevieve Lloyd, for example, is more forgiving than many in so far as she recognizes that Descartes offered a new egalitarianism in knowledge through a philosophical method accessible to all, including women, she nonetheless argues: “But in practice, sharp separation of truth-seeking (reason) from practical affairs of everyday life reinforced already existing distinctions between male and female roles, opening the way to the idea of distinctive male and female consciousness.” The resulting sexual division of labor assigned women to the sensuous, and man to transcendent reason.6 Even Erica Harth, who acknowledges a liberating role for early Cartesianism (as a “university without walls” for educated women) in her historically grounded study of Cartesian women, argues for the negative impact of Cartesianism, claiming that the Cartesian denial of sexual difference of the mind entrapped women in an essentially masculine universalism.7 This negative view of Cartisianism is beginning to change. Even the most forceful champions of the “masculinization” thesis acknowledge diversity of views within their ranks: Susan Bordo prints alternative views alongside her own in her Feminist Interpretations of Descartes (1999), allowing that the problem is not Descartes himself, but the appropriation of Cartesianism. Geneviève Lloyd’s Feminism and the History of Philosophy (2002) goes further by proposing that the Meditations affords two contrasting interpretations of Descartes. This change comes in response to two recent developments which have complicated the received picture of the impact of Cartesianism. First, the tide is beginning to turn against the reductionist view of Cartesianism on which the “masculinization” thesis rests: new work on Descartes’s conception of body and, above all, on his theory of the passions are beginning to make headway against the metonymy that makes Cartesian reason stand for the whole Descartes.8 Second, historical studies of early women philosophers have begun to look closely at the philosophical formation of Descartes’s female contemporaries. In recent years the work of Eileen O’Neill, Susan James, Patricia Springborg and others has been immensely productive in tracking down and publishing the work of the forgotten female philosophers of the seventeenth century.9 To the pantheon of better-known figures like Queen Christina and Margaret Cavendish is

Women philosophers and the early reception

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now added a constellation of salonistes such as Madame de Sevigné and Madame de la Sablière, and Cartésiennes including Anne de la Vigne, Marie Dupré and Descartes’s own niece, Catherine Descartes. The availability of modern editions of texts by these women (where they exist) and the appearance of studies of the women in question by scholars like Ruth Perry, Eileen O’Neill, Margaret Atherton, and Jacqueline Broad have greatly increased our knowledge of the context in which they practiced philosophy.10 This new research shows that, although their numbers were small, there were more female philosophers in the seventeenth century than in any previous century. Furthermore, if we look at the small band of seventeenth-century woman philosophers in terms of the kind of philosophy in which they engaged, it is an inescapable fact that most of this tiny number were highly receptive of new developments in contemporary philosophy. Although their numbers were few, a significant proportion of them found a route to philosophy through Cartesianism: Princess Elisabeth, Anne Conway and Mary Astell all found a way to philosophy via Descartes.11 Even Queen Christina was sufficiently interested in Descartes to summon him to Sweden to discuss philosophy with her. The receptivity of women to Cartesianism is something to weigh in the balance when considering the claims of those who argue that it either destroyed the inherently female elements in philosophy as it had hitherto been practiced, or that it conspired with other philosophical developments to discourage women from becoming philosophers. The conclusion to be drawn from these twin developments is that, at the very least, we need to review the charge that any inherent misogyny in modern philosophy derives from its Cartesian foundations. In this paper I propose to take a step in that direction by examining two of the most important woman philosophers to figure in the early reception of Descartes, Princess Elisabeth of the Palatinate (1630–1714) and Lady Anne Conway (1630–79), both of whom were younger contemporaries of Descartes. I shall argue on the basis of these two examples that far from impeding or preventing women from becoming philosophers, Cartesianism was more woman-friendly than has hitherto been allowed. Furthermore, since both Princess Elisabeth and Anne Conway advanced objections of Descartes, even his critics can still be said to owe much to Cartesianism. I shall place both in the context of the earliest reception of Descartes, in particular the role of Cartesianism in the circumstances within which they practiced philosophy, particularly in relation to philosophical education and the discursive framework within which philosophical debate was conducted. To place them in that context requires both recognizing the particular circumstances which applied to them as women, but also viewing them in relation to the broader historical narrative of early Descartes reception, and not as separate from it. By focusing on historical Cartesianism, I shall argue that, in its earliest reception, Cartesianism made openings for women. I hope in this way to offer a corrective to a number of modern misconceptions of Descartes. Of the two female philosophers I shall discuss, Princess Elisabeth was the only one to have had personal contact with Descartes, and the only one to have had a shaping impact on Descartes’s thinking. For it was as a result of his discussions with her that he wrote Les passions de l’âme, with its important clarifications of soul-body interaction. Princess Elisabeth was the daughter of Frederick, the exiled elector Palatine, and his wife, Elizabeth Stuart, the so-called Winter Queen. Her interest in philosophy is known largely through her correspondence with Descartes, which she commenced in 1643, when she

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was twenty-three years of age and he was old enough to be her father. They exchanged letters until his death, and also met on a number of occasions, the last being in the summer of 1646. Their correspondence has attracted the attention of Descartes scholars largely on account of the light it sheds on the writing of Les passions de l’âme. From Descartes’s replies and the discussion that ensues emerge the first sketches of that treatise, of which he sent her a draft version in April 1646. It is probably no exaggeration to say that we owe to her his taking his philosophy in the direction of ethics, and, indeed, his having completed a treatise on the subject of the passions. Anne Conway would appear to be a prima facie case of female anti-Cartesianism. For she proposed a metaphysical system which dispensed with soul-body dualism altogether. Her anti-Cartesian stance is announced in the subtitle of her posthumously published Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy. In place of the dualism of soul and body, spirit and matter of Descartes, she propounds a vitalist philosophy that attributes life to body, rejecting the Cartesian mechanist conception of matter as inert extension, differentiated by shape, size and position. As in the case of Elisabeth, one of the main grounds of her objection to dualism is that Descartes cannot account for soulbody interaction. In this respect there is a striking parallel between the grounds of her objections to Cartesian dualism and those advanced by Princess Elisabeth. The condition of philosophy The reason for an increased participation of women in philosophy in the seventeenth century may be attributed, in part, to non-philosophical factors pertaining to the circumstances under which philosophy was practiced. These are factors which Cartesianism shared with the other new philosophies of the seventeenth century. First of all, the preferred language of philosophy was, increasingly, the vernacular. Second, in the seventeenth century philosophy became an extra-mural activity: Hobbes, Descartes and Locke were not university professors. To this may be added the point that philosophy at this time was more open than ever before to those without specialist academic training in philosophical discourse. All the new philosophies just mentioned adopted radically simplified logical apparatuses, and eschewed the kind of specialist vocabularies and logical procedures which characterized scholastic philosophy, and by definition excluded non-initiates. These factors meant that these new philosophies were more accessible to lay people—at least to literate lay persons—a category which included women or, to be more exact, literate women. In point of historical fact, many of the supposed characteristics of masculine reason which are said to characterize Cartesianism are unquestionably features of the syllogistic reasoning that was the hallmark of the scholastic philosophy which antedated Cartesianism, and which were repudiated during the so-called Cartesian revolution. By comparison with the thorny rigors of scholastic exercises in logic, which characterize the philosophy taught in universities, Cartesianism was closer to experience and common sense. Notwithstanding the fact that the seventeenth century apparently offered a more conducive environment for the lay study of philosophy, we should not overstate the advantages that seventeenth-century philosophical women had over their Renaissance

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forbears. We should not forget the limitations of circumstances and sources that obtained for women philosophers in the seventeenth century. Even if there was an increase in numbers, the smallness of that number cannot be denied. Nor can the fact that none of them is considered today to be of the first rank. It is undeniable that the philosophical environment of Descartes’s time was a male environment, for philosophy and the institutions of learning were the preserve of men. This was not a new situation in the seventeenth century. But it meant that, in history, those women who did philosophize did so in a male context. Although the move of seventeenth-century philosophy out of the academies into the more accessible realm of vernacular print made new opportunities for access, women did not have the opportunities for education, converse and writing enjoyed by their male counterparts. Even a relatively privileged woman like Princess Elisabeth was restricted by her class and circumstances, as her correspondence with Descartes makes plain and as Descartes acknowledges in his dedication to her of the French translation of his Principles of Philosophy, when he comments, “Neither the diversions of the Court nor the customary education that so often condemns young ladies to ignorance has been able to prevent you from studying all the worthwhile arts and sciences” (AT 9–2:20/CSM 1:190). The new institutional guardians of philosophy and science, such as the Académie Royale and the Royal Society, were no more hospitable to female participation than the universities.12 Furthermore, evidence of female philosophical activity is often contained only in correspondence. In very few cases do we have treatises or other systematic discussions. So, where, for their better-documented male colleagues, letters are ancillary to their philosophical productions,13 for the women, more often than not, the primary sources of their thought are contained in what, in the case of their male colleagues, is normally regarded as secondary material. To compare female philosophers with men in the early modern period, is not to compare like with like. When considering the early reception of Descartes in historical perspective, seventeenth-century philosophical debate presents a very different picture of Cartesianism from modern assumptions. Modern discussions routinely treat Cartesianism as dogma rather than a method. And it has become customary to assume that Cartesianism was universally accepted from its earliest appearance on the intellectual scene. However, in its early reception, Cartesianism was never as widely or uncritically accepted as some of Descartes’s modern critics assume.14 As the papers in the present volume show, Descartes’s philosophy was, from the beginning, the subject of lively debate. He himself engaged in that debate through his correspondence. Moreover, Cartesianism was usually modified by those who, like Robert Boyle, adopted its principles. To criticize Descartes did not necessarily mean repudiating Cartesianism in toto. Descartes himself set up his philosophy as the subject of debate by inviting Objections to which he replied. Arguably, the true Cartesian is precisely the philosopher who adopts the method but not necessarily Descartes’s conclusions. Even Descartes’s most faithful followers can, arguably, be considered to have been in dialogue with Cartesianism. It is therefore not surprising to find that, among Descartes’s female philosophical readers, even those who begged to differ (as did Anne Conway) had high regard for aspects of his philosophy.

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Pedagogy Let us begin with the educational context. Historians of seventeenth-century France have interpreted Cartesianism as a positive development for women.15 For confirmation of the practical value of Cartesianism in increasing the intellectual participation of women, we need look no further than François Poulain de la Barre (1647–1723) whose De l’égalité des deux sexes (1673)16 is one of the first philosophically based arguments for female equality. Poulain’s book may be characterized as a positive contributor to the wellestablished querelle des femmes. But what marks it out as different from this essentially rhetorical tradition of arguments for and against women is that it is grounded in philosophy. And the philosophy he uses is Cartesianism. Poulain’s case for gender equality in De l’égalité is premised on commonsense Cartesianism, which he contrasts with the pedantry of educated men. Taking as his starting point the Cartesian view of the mind as ungendered, Poulain uses the epistemological criterion of clear and distinct ideas to sweep aside prejudices and traditionalism, and to draw the radical conclusion that the only impediments to female attainment are male obstructiveness and misogyny. On this analysis, the uneducated woman has a distinct advantage over men, because her head has not been filled with the errors for which education is responsible. If De l’égalité and its Cartesian foundations are vulnerable to dismissal as an exercise in rhetoric, the seriousness of Poulain’s Cartesianism and its radical implications can be measured from his highly influential text, De l’éducation des dames (1677), written as a sequel to De l’égalité. In this, Poulain’s admiration for Descartes is made explicit. Although he does not regard Descartes as infallible, he recommends Cartesianism because [n]o one has discussed prejudice nor countered it more convincingly. His philosophy presupposes common sense and enough reason in the majority of men to lead their lives; it gives clear and distinct ideas of truth, reason, the mind and the body. (Poulain de la Barre 2002:242) Descartes is, he writes, one of the most reasonable philosophers we have, whose method is the most universal and the most natural, the one that most closely conforms to good sense and the nature of the human mind, and the one most likely to distinguish the true from the false, even in the works of the one who is their author. (Poulain de la Barre 2002:243) High on his list of recommended reading are Cartesian texts: the Discourse, Meditations, Passions of the Soul, De l’homme, as well as Rohault’s textbook of Cartesian physics. Poulain notes that Descartes’s letters to Queen Christina and to Princess Elisabeth show that he had a high opinion of women. Poulain’s recognition of the educational potential of Cartesianism that stemmed from Descartes’s own, claims that it was, in a sense, a philosophy for amateurs. For Descartes

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insisted that his philosophy required no more than literacy and common sense as prerequisites for study. This would be particularly useful in the case of women, since they were denied formal academic training. Whether or not we accept the assertion he made to Père Vatier that it was sufficiently simple for even women to understand it (AT 1:560/CSMK 86), from the pedagogical point of view, part of the attraction of Cartesian philosophy was that it addressed itself to a lay readership. Its accessibility to people outside the university system, especially women, was enhanced by the fact that, in France at least, it was available in the vernacular. In the “Author’s Letter to the Translator” which prefaces the French translation of his Principles (1647), Descartes offers his reader guidelines on how to read his philosophy. You should, he tells his reader, read and reread the text, without pausing over difficulties: I should like the reader first of all to go quickly through the whole book like a novel, without straining his attention too much or stopping at the difficulties which may be encountered. The aim should be merely to ascertain in a general way which matters I have dealt with. After this, if he finds that these matters deserve to be examined and he has the curiosity to ascertain their causes, he may read the book a second time in order to observe how my arguments follow. But if he is not always able to see this fully, or if he does not understand all the arguments, he should not give up at once. He should merely mark with a pen the places where he finds the difficulties and continue to read on to the end without a break. If he then takes up the book for the third time, I venture to think he will now find the solutions to most of the difficulties he marked before; and if any still remain, he will discover their solution on a final re-reading. (AT 9–2:11–12/CSM 1:185) In this prefatory letter, Descartes is particularly concerned to reassure the uneducated (“those who have never studied”; AT 9–2:8/CSM 1:183) that his philosophy is accessible to them. Indeed, he expresses the view that to have a traditional philosophical education may be a disadvantage. An examination of the nature of many different minds has led me to observe that there are almost none that are so dull and slow as to be incapable of forming sound opinions or indeed of grasping all the most advanced sciences, provided they receive proper guidance. (AT 9–2:12/CSM 1:185) This is, essentially, a repetition of the claim he made to Mersenne in 1636 about his projected Discourse, that it will be written “in such a way that even persons who have never studied can understand them” (AT 1:339/CSMK 51). Descartes’s claims regarding the accessibility of his philosophy are, of course, partly the rhetoric of selfrecommendation. But, as it happens, contemporary corroboration of his pedagogical claims is to be found in the case of a woman studying philosophy. For Descartes’s advice to his reader in the preface to the French translation of the Principles finds a distinct echo in Henry More’s advice to his pupil, Anne Conway. When, in 1650, More presented her with an English translation of the Principles of Philosophy, he advised her how to tackle

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the text he set her to study. Onely lett me be bold to commend to you this rule, Though I would have you to habituate your self, compos’dly, and steddily to think of any thing that you think worth the thinking of, and to drive it on to as clear and distinct approbation as you can, yett do not think of anything anxiously and solicitously, to the vexing or troubling of you spiritts at all. What you would force at one time may happily offer it self at another. (Conway 1992:52) More’s endorsement of the approach to the text recommended by Descartes underlines the appeal of Cartesianism to those without a formal academic training, and that of course meant women. That is not to say that he did not teach Descartes’s philosophy to his male pupils—on the contrary, he was one of the first Englishmen to advocate the inclusion of Cartesianism on the university curriculum.17 The correspondence course in Cartesianism which More provided for the young Anne Conway is important for a number of reasons. First of all, the philosophy lessons which Anne Conway was fortunate to receive from Henry More are one of the only cases of Cartesianism functioning, in Erica Harth’s phrase, as a “university without walls.” As Harth amply demonstrates, for most women Cartesianism was a philosophy of the salon, not the classroom. Anne Conway was unusual in being able to overcome the ban on women attending university, to receive a degree-level introduction to philosophy from Descartes. Second, her Cartesian correspondence with Henry More is a rare document of the pedagogical application of Cartesianism in practice.18 Although these letters are few in number, we can glean from them important information about the curriculum of her studies and the pedagogical method through which she was introduced to philosophy. The first point to make is that, unlike in modern philosophy courses, the textbook in use was the Principles of Philosophy,19 not the Discourse or the Meditations. Furthermore, these letters indicate that More taught Cartesianism not as dogma but as a training in philosophical argument, and a method for obtaining a grounding in metaphysics without the added encumbrance of performing formal exercises in logic or the need to absorb bodies of doctrine. The expertise in logic which More’s pupil required was no more than what might be learned from Descartes himself. Furthermore, More’s method of instruction amounted to textual reading supplemented by a series of objections and replies. These were not necessarily a standard set supplied by him. Rather, he expected his pupil to raise queries or objections concerning the passages prescribed for reading, to which he would then respond. She was therefore taught, from the beginning, not to treat Cartesianism as a dogma, but to be critical of Descartes’s philosophy. This critical habit of mind remained with Anne Conway for the rest of her philosophical life, and resulted, ultimately, in her repudiating dualism and the philosophy of her teacher, Henry More.20 Objections and replies: Anne Conway It is probably true to say that every seventeenth-century woman philosopher who discusses Cartesianism advances objections. In so doing they contributed to an

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established mode of response to Cartesianism that was initiated by the Objections and Replies to the Meditations. Many such objections centre on problems concerning the relationship of soul (or mind) to body. One such set of objections was raised by Anne Conway’s philosophy teacher, Henry More, in letters he wrote to Descartes in the late 1640s.21 In this short correspondence, More took issue with Descartes on a number of topics, including the infinity of the world, the existence of a vacuum, final causes, and animal souls. But central among his concerns was that Descartes could not explain how soul interacts with body. Among the issues which More raised with Descartes was the question of the transmission of movement from one body to another. In response to Descartes’s explanation of local motion as the transfer of motion from one body to another (“motion is the transfer [translatio] of one piece of matter, or one body, from the vicinity of the other bodies which are in immediate contact with it, and which are regarded as being at rest, to the vicinity of other bodies”; AT 8–1:54–5/CSM 1:233), he objects, another difficulty occurs to me concerning the nature of movement. For if movement is a mode of body, like figure [shape], the arrangement of the parts, etc., how is it possible that it passes from one body to another, rather than the other corporeal modes? (AT 5:382) Henry More proposed a solution to the problem in terms of affect rather than impact: motion is not transmitted from one body to another, but activated in the other body by the moving body. He believed that motion is brought about not by matter, but by spirit infusing the matter. I am led to believe that there is no communication of movement, except that by the mere impulse of one body, another body is woken, so to speak, from its state of indolence to enter into movement, just as the soul has one particular thought on account of such and such an occasion, and that the body does not so much receive motion, as put itself into motion, having been aroused by another. (AT 5:383) More’s female pupil too was exercised by the problem of soul-body interaction. And she was well aware that this was a contentious issue in contemporary philosophy. [I]t is a matter of great debate how motion can be transmitted from one body to another since it is certainly neither a substance nor a body. If it is only a mode of the body, how can this motion be transmitted from one body to another since the essence or being of a mode consists in this, namely that it inheres or exists in its own body. (Conway 1996:69) Anne Conway did not agree with her teacher in everything, least of all on the distinct natures of soul and body,22 but her answer to this particular problem bears some striking similarities with More. She too agrees that motion, being a mode of body, cannot “pass

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properly from one body to another.” She denies that “motion is communicated from one body to another by local motion” on the grounds that it is not passed from one body to another but is propagated or activated in one body by another, by what she calls “real production or creation” (modus ergo istius propatationis est per realem productionem vel creationem) (Conway 1996:70). Anne Conway’s posing of the question of “how motion can be transmitted from one body to another” is testimony to the importance of Cartesianism in setting much of the agenda in seventeenth-century philosophy. This particular question was a live issue in seventeenth-century philosophy, and it is one which takes up a substantial portion of Conway’s treatise. Her answer to the question of how souls move bodies has similarities with the solution offered by at least one of Descartes’s critics. Even though Anne Conway’s philosophical system differs from Descartes in fundamentals, especially in her repudiation of soul-body dualism, she expressed high regard for Descartes in her Principles, especially for his physics. [I]t cannot be denied that Descartes taught many remarkable and ingenious things concerning the mechanical aspects of natural processes, and about how all motions proceed according to regular mechanical laws. (Conway 1996:64) Furthermore, her critique of dualism notwithstanding, she remained philosophically indebted to Cartesianism in two important respects. First of all, it was Cartesianism which provided her with a starting point in philosophy—thanks to her introduction to philosophy by Henry More. Second, it was Cartesianism that set the philosophical agenda on questions relating soul, substance, and motion. Even though she proposed her own answers to these questions, her treatise was in many ways a response to issues arising from Descartes’s philosophy. In this respect it can be seen as a contribution to the wider philosophical debates provoked by Cartesianism. And here she was in good philosophical company—with Spinoza and Leibniz, to name but two seventeenth-century philosophical critics of Descartes. Anne Conway’s esteem for Descartes is not at odds with her repudiation of Cartesian dualism when it is seen as part of an on-going philosophical discussion in which Descartes set the agenda even among the opponents of Cartesianism.23 Objections and replies: Princess Elisabeth Correspondence with Descartes Nothing is known about what Princess Elisabeth may have had by way of a philosophical education. The earliest and chief evidence for her interest in philosophy is the correspondence she had with Descartes. But it is clear from this that the mind she brought to this exchange was not a tabula rasa. As Lisa Shapiro has cogently argued, she writes as someone with a philosophical position of her own.24 Philosophical interest in the correspondence between Elisabeth and Descartes has, until now, been one-sided, because it has normally been treated as a preview to what Descartes had to say on the subject of

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the passions. Elisabeth’s own philosophy and her part in the development of his thought are usually ignored, and her letters are omitted from editions which print Descartes’s side of the correspondence—this despite the fact that most of his discussion of the passions in these letters occurs in his answers to her questions on the subject. In addition to this, the omission of non-philosophical information from one-sided printings of the correspondence also removes the personal dimension of Descartes’s dealings with Elisabeth. Since her contributions to the correspondence are essential for what they can tell us about her own philosophy, they do deserve to be read, as Shapiro has done, without treating her as subordinate or irrelevant to Descartes. However, since my main concern here is to examine her relationship with Cartesianism, the focus of my discussion will be on that aspect of her discussions with Descartes. Elisabeth’s entire correspondence stems from the initial question posed by her, “How can the soul of man, make corporeal spirits perform voluntary actions, when it is only a thinking substance?” (comment l’âme de l’homme peut determiner les esprits du corps, pour faire les actions volontaires (n’estant qu’une substance pensante?)) (AT 4:661).25 From this simple question developed an entirely new dimension of Descartes’s thinking—his explanation of soul-body interaction through the theory of the passions. So there is a sense in which it is true to say that the entire correspondence constitutes an attempt to bridge the divide between soul and body. Elisabeth’s first letter sets out the problem in straightforwardly Cartesian terms. If, in accordance with Descartes’s philosophy, the movement of bodies is caused by the impact of extended bodies, how can un-extended substance produce movement in extended substance? I ask you to tell me how the soul of man (which is only a thinking substance) can make the corporeal spirits produce voluntary actions. For it seems every determination of movement results from an impulsion of the thing moved, according to the manner in which it is pushed by that which moves it, or else, it depends on the qualities and shape of the superficies of this latter. Contact is required for the first two conditions and extension for the third. You entirely exclude extension from your notion of the soul, and contact seems to me incompatible with an immaterial thing.26 Elisabeth understands the problem as an inadequacy in the Cartesian definition of the soul. The only solution as she sees it is for Descartes to provide a fuller account of the properties of the soul than he has hitherto, “a more precise definition of the soul more particular than in your Metaphysics—that is to say, for a definition of its substance separate from its action, thought.” She suggests, furthermore, that one solution to the difficulty would be to propose that immaterial substance is extended: in other words, a revision of the Cartesian concept of the soul as non-extended. In his reply, Descartes admits that she has a valid point, and that it arises directly from his philosophy. He also admits that the matter of soul-body interaction is one to which he has not, hitherto, given a great deal of thought. I may truly say that the question Your Highness poses seems to me the one which can most properly be put to me in view of my published writings. There are two facts about the human soul on which depend all the knowledge we can

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have of its nature. The first is that it thinks, and the second is, that being united to the body, it can act and be acted upon along with it. About the second I have said hardly anything; I have tried only to make the first well understood. But because Your Highness’s vision is so clear that nothing can be concealed from her, I will try now to explain how I conceive the union of the soul and the body, and how it has the force to move the body. (AT 3:664–5/CSMK 217–18) Elisabeth was not satisfied with the explanation offered by Descartes (that there are two different kinds of force, and that we must not confuse “the notion of the soul’s power to act on the body with the power one body has to act upon another”; 3:667), and she continued to press him: if soul and body have nothing in common, how can one move the other? I hope to excuse my stupidity in being unable to comprehend…how the soul (non-extended and immaterial) can move the body… I admit it would be easier for me to concede matter and extension to the soul, than the capacity of moving a body and or being moved, to an immaterial being.27 In the letters just quoted Elisabeth does not question the fundamental principle that the soul can move the body: she accepts Descartes had demonstrated this adequately in principle in the Meditations (AT 3:685/Blom 1978:111–12). And she agreed sense experience confirms “that the soul moves the body.” She suggested, instead, that the only way to account for how this happens contradicts the Cartesian view of the soul as nonextended. There must be, she argued, further properties of the soul that explain its action: I too find that the senses show me that the soul moves the body, but they fail to teach me…the manner in which she does it. And, in regard to that, I think there are unknown properties in the soul that might suffice to reverse what your metaphysical meditations, with such good reasons, persuaded me concerning her inextension.28 Passions of the soul This pattern of persistent questions followed up with requests for clarifications on the answers continues through the correspondence as the topic of the passions emerges as the central theme of their discussion. Elisabeth’s contributions to the discussion have the hallmarks of cooperative interchange rather than repudiation. Rather than expressing irresolvable doubts about Descartes’s views, she repeatedly asks for clarifications of the points he makes. It is Elisabeth who gives the discussion direction. It is her insistence on answers to the difficulties she raises which pushes Descartes towards a fully worked theory of the passions. So, for example, their reading of Seneca in 1645 leads to an extended discussion of the impedimenta to true happiness, especially the indispositions of body (e.g. illness or dreams) which interfere with the process of reasoning. Elisabeth leads with a number of difficulties which are summarized in Descartes’s reply, where he acknowledges that to deal with the difficulties she raises, he must qualify his own

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position: You observe very truly that there are diseases that take away the power of reasoning and with it the power of enjoying the satisfaction proper to a rational mind. This shows me that what I said in general about every person should be taken to apply only to those who have the free use of their reason, and in addition know the way to reach such happiness. (AT 4:281–2/CSMK 262) He then proceeds to give examples of mental states which interfere with our freedom to act and our ability to think—namely, dreams and emotional states like anger or sadness, or “some other passion,” he generalizes vaguely. Virtuous conduct, he concludes, is conditional upon us being able to exercise our reason “without passion.” And he remarks, somewhat casually, that the passions nonetheless have a useful role to play. In her reply to this, Elisabeth demands to know more about them (“I would also wish you to define the passions”), concurring in the view that they should not be regarded as entirely negative. It is misleading to regard them as “perturbations of the soul” (perturbations de l’âme), since experience has shown her that “there are passions that carry us to reasonable actions” (AT 4:289). This demand elicits from Descartes a first attempt at an indepth analysis of the passions, which he does in his letter of 6 October 1645, saying, “But I must examine these passions more particularly so as to be able to define them” (mais il faut que j’examine plus particulierement ces passions afin de les pouvoir definir) (AT 4:309–10/CSMK 270). Here, after giving a physiological account of how the passions are produced, he defines them as “caused by some special agitation of the spirits, whose effects are felt as in the soul herself.”29 Elisabeth continues to tease out more clarifications from Descartes, linking one point with another. For example, in her ensuing letter she returns to an earlier point made by Descartes that abundant passion can be beneficial if subjected to reason (AT 4:310/Blom 1978:166). This is contradictory, she argues, “for it seems to me that they cannot both be excessive and subjected to reason.”30 In reply, Descartes qualifies his earlier point, acknowledging that “when I said there are passions which are the more useful the more they tend to excess, I only meant to speak of those which are altogether good” (AT 4:331/CSMK 276). By this time he saw the need for a more detailed analysis of the passions. These last few days I have been thinking about the number and order of all the passions, in order to examine their nature in detail. But I have not yet sufficiently digested my opinions on this topic to dare to tell them to your Highness. I will not fail to do so as soon as I can. (AT 4:332/CSMK 277) The outcome of his thinking further on the subject was the preliminary draft of a treatise on the passions, which was later published as Les passions de l’âme. Elisabeth praises this first draft highly for “the order, definition, and distinctions you have given to the passions,” and for the ethical content which, in her judgment, “surpasses everything that has ever been said on this subject” (l’ordre, la definition & les distinctions que vous donnez aux passions, & enfin toute la partie morale du traité, passe tout qu’on a iamais

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dit sur ce suiet) (AT 4:322). She nonetheless qualifies her praise by observing that the physical part was less clear. But since the physical part is not so clear to the ignorant; and I do not see how one can know the different movements of the blood that cause the five primitive passions, since these passions can never exist alone. For example, love is always accompanied by desire and joy, or by desire and sadness. (Blom 1978:178)31 Descartes sought to supply this defect in his next letter. Whether she was satisfied by his answer we have no means of knowing, as we do not have her reply. We do, however, have the Passions of the Soul, where Descartes gives a separate physiology for each of these five passions, and takes occasion to note that the symptoms he associates with love are observable “when it occurs on its own—that is, unaccompanied by any strong joy, desire, or sadness.” Elisabeth’s comments on Descartes’s account of the passions are far more extensive than the selection on which I have focused. But I hope these examples are sufficient to show how closely they follow Descartes. These discussions show that Elisabeth was indeed a perceptive critic of aspects of Cartesianism. But her objections must be put in the context of the fact that she was also one of Descartes’s earliest philosophical admirers. Before they met she had read the Meditations and Principia philosophiae. She tells him that she finds his “manner of reasoning the most natural I have encountered” (AT 4:269/Blom 1978:135), and she expresses confidence in his abilities to explain the problems that she raises. For example, responding to Descartes’s comments on Seneca, she voices doubts as to whether we can reach happiness solely through our own self-directed actions. But she is optimistic about Descartes’s ability to guide her. But I am assured you will illuminate these difficulties for me, as well as a number of others I am not clear-sighted enough to see now… Do not fail, I beseech you, to oblige me by informing me of your teachings, and be assured I hold them in as great esteem as they deserve. (AT 4:270/Blom 1978:136) Comments like these do not mean that Elisabeth was a passive recipient of the wisdom of Descartes. On the contrary, her self-deprecating remarks about her own “stupidity” (stupidité) belie the fact that she was also a perceptive critic of her mentor. The very issues she raises are the fruit of astute thinking, and her self-deprecating comments are more often than not the cloak of sharp criticisms. To gauge the extent and character of Elisabeth’s critique of Descartes, it is instructive to set it in the wider context of the early reception of Descartes. Here we find that her questions about soul-body interaction and her solution to the problem of how soul operates on body anticipate Henry More’s objections to Cartesianism and his solution to the problem. More first proposed that spirit, like body, is extended, in a letter to Descartes written some five years later. In so doing, he went much further than Elisabeth by elaborating a pneumatology that led, eventually, to his rejection of Cartesianism in fundamentals.32 There is no evidence in Elisabeth’s exchange with Descartes that she

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contemplated such a move. On the contrary, she accepted (though not without criticisms) the explanation Descartes worked out, namely his theory of the passions. In an important respect this entailed a modification of his philosophy—in the sense that it constitutes an additional element, but not in the sense that it constitutes a departure from or revision of Cartesian principles. To be sure, Descartes’s theory of the passions does entail extensive analysis of physical and emotional states. But the resulting theory is perfectly consistent with his statement in his first letter to Elisabeth that we have an idea of the union of soul and body “which depends on the soul’s power to move the body, and the body’s power to act on the soul and cause its sensations and passions” (AT 3:665/CSMK 218). Descartes’s theory of the passions does not entail revision of the idea of the soul as nonextended. Furthermore, Elisabeth was not a passive bystander but took an active part in the discussions leading up to the formulation of the theory of the passions. On the basis of these letters, it is difficult to interpret her as standing at a distance from Descartes. Her questions result not in the closing down of Cartesian positions, but the opening up of the domain of enquiry to address issues treated nowhere else in Descartes’s philosophy, and they do so from a Cartesian perspective. Her critique is a critique from a Cartesian perspective. She was certainly not a critic of Descartes in the sense that she could not agree with him on anything, or in the sense that she took a very different philosophical view from his. She was, it is true, not easily satisfied by his answers. And she certainly notes problems which have the potential to undermine his position—for example, that what seem to be sentient properties of the soul must mean that it is nonextended. But, in the end, she accepts answers that are consistent with Cartesian principles. Although Elisabeth challenges Descartes on many things, she does not abandon her commitment to Cartesianism. It is therefore difficult to accept Erica Harth’s claim that she “questions the epistemological foundations of a new era” or that she “proposed a new epistemology.”33 Elisabeth’s epistolary debate with Descartes does indeed raise epistemological points, but the central issues are ethical. Impressions A further insight to be gained from Elisabeth’s correspondence with Descartes is that it is not just a record of a sustained intellectual exchange, but it is an important document in the biography of both, revealing a relationship of deep mutual and affectionate respect. Descartes is as unstinting in his admiration for the princess as she is respectful of his philosophical acumen. Of course, we have to be wary of compliment, both public and private, when assessing Descartes’s expressions of respect for Elisabeth. However, Descartes’s choice of Elisabeth as dedicatee of the French edition of his Principles of Philosophy is some indication of his esteem for her. The letters endorse his public appraisal of her in the dedication of the Principles. His praise for “the outstanding and incomparable sharpness of your intelligence” is comparable with his comments on her arguments in his letters. For example, in June 1645 he commends her “clarity of thought and soundness of reasoning” (j’y remarque toujours des penses si nettes et raisonnemens si fermes) (AT 4:236/CSMK 253). Again, his letter of 3 November 1645 opens: “so seldom do such good arguments come my way—not only in the conversations I encounter in this isolated place, but also in the books I consult—that I cannot read those

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which occur in your Highness’s without feeling an extraordinary joy.”34 Elisabeth clearly enjoyed exercising her intellectual powers: she admits to Descartes of having “enjoyed using my reason,” and acknowledges the therapeutic value of reason for one like her with a personal history of misfortune: “since my birth and fortune forced me to employ my judgment at an earlier period in order to manage a life that is sufficiently troublesome and free of those prosperities which might prevent me from thinking about myself” (Blom 1978:148).35 The “fortitude of mind” acquired in this way is borne out in the letters, which record her struggles to overcome ill health as well as family tragedy. This stoicism, forged in experience, goes some way towards explaining her interest in the passions, and the mechanisms by which the mind deals with destructive emotions or physical indisposition. We might also note that the image of Descartes, man and thinker, that comes across in his correspondence with Elisabeth differs sharply from the caricature of solipsism for which Cartesianism has, in certain circles, come to stand. We find him upholding the view that mental activity occupies only a tiny portion of human lives, and recommending that we must give priority to the body’s needs. The mind, he tells Elisabeth, needs relaxation. Our nature is so constituted that our mind needs much relaxation if it is to be able to spend usefully a few moments in the search after truth. Too great application to study does not refine the mind but wears it down. (AT 4:307/CSMK 268–9) In these letters to Elisabeth, we have a rare glimpse of Descartes reading and commenting on ancient philosophy (Seneca, De beata vita) and of Descartes as political philosopher (commenting on Machiavelli’s The Prince). His reflections on ethics, furthermore, show that he did not hold to an isolationist ideal of knowledge, but a socialized application of it. Conclusion Both Anne Conway and Princess Elisabeth were philosophically active at a time when Cartesianism was a new philosophy and had not yet established itself as the dominant mode of philosophical discourse. If we want an example of a woman who rejected Descartes outright, we would need to look further, to the next century, when Madame du Châtelet took up the cause of Newtonianism against Cartesianism. By that time Cartesianism was entrenched as the orthodoxy.36 In their engagement with Cartesianism, both Anne Conway and Princess Elisabeth were taking up the challenge of the new. In Cartesianism they found an accessible philosophy which opened the way for them to participate in philosophical debate. The creative potential which Cartesianism offered them is confirmed by the fact that through the philosophy of Descartes they were able to develop beyond the boundaries of Cartesianism. For Princess Elisabeth played a key role in extending Descartes’s philosophical coverage to ethics, while for Anne Conway Cartesianism was a beginning-point in the evolution of a philosophical system distinctly different from Descartes’s.

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Notes 1 See Ayers and Garber 1998, and Sorrell 1993. 2 Lloyd 2002:9. 3 See, for example, Bordo 1987; Merchant 1980; Hekman 1990. 4 Bordo 1986, selections of which are reprinted in Bordo 1999. 5 Hodge 1988:153. 6 Lloyd 1984. 7 Harth 1992. 8 See, especially, James 1997. Cf. Carter 1983. 9 Eileen O’Neill has edited Margaret Cavendish’s Observations on Experimental Philosophy (Cavendish 2001), Susan James has edited Cavendish’s Political Writings (Cavendish 2003), and Patricia Springborg has edited Astell’s Political Writings (Astell 1996). 10 Perry 1985:472f; O’Neill 1998; Atherton 1993 and Atherton 2002; Broad 2002. 11 The first person to defend John Locke publicly in print was a woman, Catharine Trotter Cockburn; see Kelley 2002. Mary Astell was an admirer of Malebranche. Where women espoused no particular brand of contemporary philosophy, they offered their own new systems, having benefited from contact with modern philosophy: such is the case with Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway. Maria van Schurman is an exception to this general rule. See de Baar 1996. 12 Harth 1992. See Schiebinger 1989. 13 I say this notwithstanding the fact that, in the case of Descartes, to cite Anthony Kenny, the correspondence is “of unique philosophical interest” on account of the fact that “no philosopher of comparable stature has left such a corpus of letters about epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of mind, and many branches of science” (in Descartes 1970:vii). 14 On the changing fortunes of Descartes in France, see Azouvi 2002; cf. the discussion of the French reception in Part II of this volume. On the reception of Descartes’s natural philosophy, see Méchoulan 1988; Clarke 1989. For the English reception, see Arrigo Pacchi 1973; Lamprecht 1935; Rogers 1985. Cf. the discussion of the English reception in Part V of this volume. 15 See Gibson 1989:30–8, who suggests that part of the attraction of Cartesianism may have been that it was not considered acceptable. 16 See Poulain de la Barre 2002. The best philosophical discussion of Poulain is Desmond Clarke’s “Introduction” in Poulain de la Barre 1990. 17 See Of the Immortality of the Soul, p. 13, in More 1662: vol. 2. On More, see Hutton 1995. On More’s changing assessment of Cartesianism, see Gabbey 1982. Cf. the discussion of More’s view of Descartes in Chapter 11 in this volume. 18 This is discussed more fully in Hutton 2004a. 19 More made a translation of Principles of Philosophy for Lady Conway but it is no longer extant. For a discussion of these Cartesian letters, see Gabbey 1977. 20 See Hutton 1995. 21 More’s correspondence with Descartes is reprinted with a French translation in

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Descartes 1953. These letters are discussed in Gabbey 1982. 22 See Hutton 1995. 23 See Rogers 1985; cf. Chapter 12 in this volume. 24 See Shapiro 1999. 25 At the time of writing there is, unfortunately, no modern edition of this correspondence, and no satisfactory translation of Elisabeth’s letters. For the most part, I have had to use the less than perfect translation in Blom 1978. An edition of the letters is currently being prepared by Erik Jan Bos, and a new English translation by Lisa Shapiro. 26 En vous priant de me dire comment l’ame de l’homme peut determiner les esprits du corps, pour faire les actions volontaires (n’estant qu’une substance pensante). Car il semble que toute determination de mouuement se fait par la pulsion de la chose mue, a maniere dont elle est poussée par celle qui la meut out bien, de la qualification & figure de la supeficie de cette dermiere. L’attouchement est requis aux deux premieres conditions, & l’extension a la troisiesme. Vous excludez entierement celle-cy de la notion que vous auez de l’ame, & celuy-la me paroist incompatible auec vne chose immaterielle. Pourquoy ie vous demande une definition de l’ame plus particuliere qu’en vostre Metaphysique, c’est a dire de sa substance, separé de son action de la pensée. Car encore que nous les supposions inseparables (que toutefois est difficile a prouuer dans le ventre de la mere & les grans euanouissements), comme les attributs de Dieu, nous pouuons, en les considerant a part, en acquerir une idée plus parfaite. (AT 3:661) Cf. Blom 1978:106. 27 I’espere, d’excuse a ma stupidité, de ne pouuoir comprendre l’idée par laquelle nous deuons iuger coment l’ame (non estendue & immaterielle) peut mouuoir le corps par celle que vous auuez autrefois de la pesanteur … Et I’auoue qu’il me seroit plus facile de conceder la matiere & l’extension a l’ame, que la capacité de mouuoir un corps & d’en extre emeu. (AT 3:684–5) Cf. Blom 1978:111–12. 28 le troue aussi que les sens me montrent que l’ame meut le corps, mais ne m’enseignent pont (non plus que l’Entendement & l’lmagination) la fasson dont elle le fait. Et pour cela, ie pense qu’il y a des proprietés de l’ame qui nous sont inconnues, qui pourront peut ester renverser ce que vos Meditations Métaphysiques m’ont persuade, par de si bons raisons de l’inextension de l’ame.

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Cf. Blom 1978:117. 29 Ainsy il ne reste que les pensees qui viennent de quelque particuliere agitations des esprits, & dont on sent les effets comme en l’ame mesme, qui suivent proprement nommées des passions. (AT 4:311). 30 “Qu’il semble qu’elles ne peuuent point ester excessiues & soumises” (AT 4:322). 31 Mais puisque sa parti physique n’est pas si claire aux ignorants, ie ne vois point comment on peut sauoir les diuers mouuements du sang, qui causent les cinq passions primitiues, puisqu’elles ne son iamais seules. Par exemple, l’amour est touiours accompagnée de desir & ioye, ou de desir & de tristesse, & a mesure qu’il se fortifie, les autres croissent aussi. (AT 4:404–5) 32 Gabbey 1982. 33 Harth 1992:67 and 74. 34 Il m’arrive si peu souvent de rencontrer de bons raisonemens, non seulement dans les discours de ceux que je frequente en ce desert, mais aussy dans les livres que je consulte, que je ne puis lire ceux qui sont dans les lettres de votre Altesse, sans en avoir un resentiment de joye extaordinaire. (AT 4:330) 35 J’ay joui de l’usage de la raison, qui m’a esté d’autant plus long qu’a d’autres de mon age, que ma naissance & ma fortune me forcerent d’employer mon jugement de meilleure heure pour la conduit d’une vie assez penible & libre des prosperités qui me pouvoient empescher de songer a moi, comme de la sujection m’obligeroit a m’en fier a la prudence d’une gouvernante. (AT 4:288) 36 On Descartes in eighteenth-century France, see Hankins 1985. See also Azouvi 2002. For Madame du Chatelet, see Hutton 2004b and Hutton 2004c.

Part II The French reception and French Cartesianism

2 Desgabets’s Indefectibility Thesis—a step too far? Patricia Easton Introduction The history of Cartesianism is fraught with defenses, corrections, emendations, and repudiations of the original doctrines Descartes proposed in his writings. Some of these developments by Descartes’s successors are friendly, others not so friendly. What is at least initially surprising is the great range and variance of views from within the Cartesian school in the thirty or so years following Descartes’s death. Among the adherents to the Cartesian philosophy was a great deal of disagreement about what constituted an enrichment of the true philosophy versus a radical departure from it. Could atomism be substituted for Descartes’s plenum theory in physics as Cordemoy proposed? Could, as various Cartesians proposed, the method of doubt, the doctrine of pure intellection, innate ideas, or the demonstration of the existence of body be modified or even abandoned without substantial loss to the Cartesian system? Several such controversial developments of the Cartesian principles can be seen in the work of the Cartesian Robert Desgabets (1610–78).1 The focus of this examination is Desgabets’s Indefectibility Thesis as it is applied to material substance, and the reception of this thesis by early defenders of the Cartesian philosophy. Desgabets argued that material substance, in its essence and existence, was eternal, indivisible, immutable, and indestructible—which is to say, indefectible. One commentator has remarked that this thesis fills an important lacuna in the history of philosophy since it points the way to Spinoza and explains Leibniz’s comment that Spinozism is nothing but an immoderate Cartesianism (Retz 1887:218–19). The view I defend here is that Desgabets did not take the Cartesian doctrine of matter a step too far in developing the Indefectibility Thesis, but rather, quite reasonably, developed it as a logical and ameliorating step of the Cartesian metaphysics. Specifically, I argue that Desgabets worked out, where Descartes did not, the Cartesian vision of a mathematized physics—one in which the indestructible, extended body of physics is one and the same as the three-dimensional, necessary solid of geometry. It is uncontroversially a feature of Descartes’s physics that all bodies, of the cosmos and earth, possess the same nature as extended things. Mathematics is thus sufficient to provide a complete physical description of the universe. Yet, unless matter could be shown to be immutable and indestructible, mathematics itself would be on unstable and uncertain ground. In establishing the indefectibility of matter, Desgabets sought to establish the metaphysical foundation for the certitude of Cartesian physics. In order to set the stage for the problems the Indefectibility Thesis was intended to

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solve, and the sorts of resistance from within and without the Cartesian school that Desgabets encountered, I begin in the first section by visiting two Cartesian controversies that occurred in the early to mid 1670s. The first of these emerged from a series of exchanges beginning in the early 1650s concerning the Cartesian position on the doctrine of the Eucharist, which has come to be called the “Eucharist Affair.” The second of these controversies is recorded in the proceedings of the Cartesian conferences held at Commercy in the mid 1670s in which the “defenders of Descartes,” led by Cardinal de Retz, undertook a refutation of Desgabets’s views on matter, motion, and duration. In the second section, I examine Desgabets’s arguments for the Indefectibility Thesis, drawing principally on his Traité de l’indéfectibilité des creatures. In the final section, I argue that while we might be tempted to think that Descartes would have rejected the indefectibility of matter for its unorthodox theological consequences, by allegiance to his own principles he ought to have embraced it. Two Cartesian controversies The first controversy: the “Eucharist Affair” Armogathe (1977) recounts in detail the exchanges that took place over twenty years that led up to the public retraction of Desgabets’s views on the Eucharist. In Chapter 9 of this volume, Armogathe provides us with further insight into the political and theological dimensions of such controversies. The Eucharist Affair was sparked by the anonymous and unauthorized publication of Desgabets’s Considérations sur l’état present de la controverse touchant le T.S.Sacrament de l’autel.2 Desgabets sent this curious work to Pierre Nicole and Antoine Arnauld who, instead of offering support, actively distanced themselves from the author and views they took to be heretical.3 While Arnauld acknowledged the nobility of attempting to reunite the Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists on the question of the Eucharist, he expressed dismay at Descartes’s views on the matter, and anger at the opinions Desgabets was now expressing on Descartes’s behalf, which ran counter to all Church authority and tradition (Arnauld 1727: vol. 2, 527–9). Some twenty years earlier, Arnauld had raised the question of real presence for Descartes’s account of matter. How could Christ be really present in the bread, without being locally extended in the same physical space occupied by the bread? How could there be real presence without the annihilation of one body (the bread) for another (Christ’s body)? In Considérations, Desgabets warns against the dangers of taking Scholastic ideas as the proper tradition of the Church, and proposes instead to follow the path of the philosophical reformation led by Descartes, which reunites philosophy and mathematics (Desgabets 1671:5). According to Desgabets, it is the Cartesian doctrine of matter that holds the key to this reunion and to the explanation of real presence and transubstantiation. Desgabets was aware of Arnauld’s concern over the issue of the real presence of the body of Christ in the host, and of the importance of this issue for the Cartesian metaphysics of matter. According to Desgabets, the matter of the bread is

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joined to the soul of Christ by a conjunctive union, which operates according to the general laws of mind-body union. In effect, the bread remains unchanged in its local extension while being joined to the non-extended soul of Christ; the body of Christ becomes the local extension of the bread in virtue of the composite union of two substances, in just the way the human soul is united to a particular, locally extended body. Christ is really present in the locally extended bread in virtue of this conjunctive union. It is worth noticing that the account of the conjunctive union also provided Desgabets the means to explain the unity and multiplicity of hosts. Multiple hosts (one, ten, twenty, a thousand, etc.) could be conjoined to Christ’s soul, and each find unity in the indivisibility of Christ’s soul. Desgabets was also aware of the concern to have genuine transubstantiation versus a mere conversion of the bread into the body of Christ. Here, Desgabets again appeals to the Cartesian doctrine of matter and the general laws of union and avoids appeal to the Scholastic metaphysics of form and accident. On the Cartesian metaphysics of matter, the substance or essence of the bread is its extension in three dimensions, and the same is true of Christ’s body. What is formed at the time of the Holy Sacrament is a new mode of being for the union of matter and spirit, not the annihilation or creation of a new material substance. To explicate the idea of this sort of change, Desgabets appealed to the analogy of a clock: just as when the wheels of a clock cease to turn and we say that the clock is destroyed but no substance has been destroyed, so too, in the Holy Sacrament we say that the bread is gone but we don’t suppose that any material being has been lost (Desgabets 1671:9). Thus, the bread transubstantiates into the body of Christ by means of a real change, not a mere conversion; what was previously unleavened bread is now the body of Christ. The substantial change concerns the conjunctive union of the local extension of the bread with Christ’s soul, not any change in material substance itself. It was Desgabets’s insistence on the impossibility of the annihilation of material substance in the Eucharist that brought charges of Calvinism and its doctrine of conversion against him. As I show in the second section, “The Indefectibility Thesis,” it was the Indefectibility Thesis developed in the Traité that makes it clear that: first, substances are immutable, indivisible, and eternal in their being because God created the world in a single, immutable, indivisible, eternal act of the will; hence the matter of the bread is indestructible and transubstantiation cannot involve annihilation; second, individual material things (specific local dispositions of matter) are states or modal beings of material substance, whereas material substance is the totality of matter and motion, i.e. its total quantity; thus the change of the unleavened bread into the body of Christ is a modal change for matter, not the annihilation of one thing/substance and the creation of another. The turn of events in the Eucharist Affair leading to Desgabets’s retraction and premature retirement may be partly responsible for Desgabets’s main philosophical writings not being published in his lifetime. The Eucharist Affair ended with Desgabets’s identity as the author of the Considérations revealed, and an interrogation in which Desgabets publicly retracted his views and retired to a small monastery at Breuil in 1672.4 Fortunately, the controversy attracted the attention of Cardinal de Retz, who was known for his radical spirit of reform among conservative ecclesiastics in France. The Cardinal invited Desgabets to Cartesian conferences held at his residence, Château de

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Commercy. Under Retz’s protection, Desgabets criticized and corrected what he saw as the errors of Descartes, and completed his important philosophical works, Traité and Supplément à la philosophie de Monsieur Descartes. The second controversy: the Commercy conferences The second controversy, unlike the Eucharist Affair, was more or less a friendly series of philosophical exchanges at the Cartesian conferences at Château Commercy, although it earned Desgabets the unhappy title “éplucheur d’écrevisses” (crayfish cleaner).5 Desgabets’s principal philosophical opponent and respondent was Cardinal de Retz, and respondents are known to have included Malebranche and Corbinelli.6 The Commercy conferences were modeled on academic and literary proceedings common at the great Benedictine abbeys of Lorraine, where the spirit of reform was strong and the early reception of Descartes’s philosophy enthusiastic. Victor Cousin has recounted that the verbal proceedings of the Cartesian conferences at Commercy typically pitted Desgabets’s views up against the “disciples of Descartes” (Cousin 1852:145). Cartesian participants clashed over many issues, including the validity of the cogito, the method of doubt, the doctrine of objective being, and the nature of soul and matter. It is worth noting that Desgabets’s revisions of the Cartesian philosophy had few supporters, with the notable exception of Pierre-Sylvain Regis.7 Retz, who closely studied Desgabets’s unpublished Traité, objected to Desgabets’s attribution of both indestructibility and eternality to created material substance. Retz argued that indestructibility and eternality can only be features of God, not of created substances, and that Descartes explicitly addresses this in Principles I.51.8 He concludes that Desgabets has read Descartes too liberally and against his meaning and that the Indefectibility Thesis amounts to the view of the Stoics, who saw the world as forever existing—indestructible in its essential nature. Cousin comments, “If the cardinal had known of Spinoza, he would not have failed to see him in Dom Robert” (Cousin 1852:190). The Cardinal is then reported to have said: To conceive the true state of the question of the indefectibility of substances, it seems to me that it is necessary that Dom Robert explain it clearly, and he say whether his idea is that God, in creating substances, could, if he wanted, have created them defectible, or whether God was constrained to create them as indefectible. (Cousin 1852:191) Retz goes on to explain that if God could have made substances defectible, and the Indefectibility Thesis is only of consequential necessity, then Desgabets has said nothing new. If, on the other hand, Desgabets was proposing that God was constrained to make substances indefectible, then he offends the principles of both Augustine and Descartes. Desgabets’s response is not recorded in the proceedings, but judging from Retz’s comments two issues dominated: (1) the question of what God was constrained to do or not do in creation (i.e., is it possible that God destroy matter once He creates it?); and (2) the nature of duration (i.e. whether matter can properly be said to endure or be eternal). In

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the Traité, it is precisely these two issues that Desgabets examines in connection with the Indefectibility Thesis. Thus, the doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths and substances, and of the eternality of matter, take central stage in the demonstration that material substance is indefectible. The Indefectibility Thesis Desgabets’s writings deal with a broad range of philosophical, scientific, and theological issues. Among the many revisions Desgabets made to the Cartesian philosophy, the Indefectibility Thesis stands out as his most original, if not radical.9 As Geneviève RodisLewis puts this: However this Cartesian conception of matter, forever existing in its unity (through the incessant renewal of modes by the respective shifting of figures that divide up the diverse movements), conjoined with the creation of the eternal truths, founds Desgabets’s most original thesis, the indestructibility of substances. (Desgabets 1983–5: op. 1, xxxvi)10 In a letter from Desgabets to Malebranche, we learn that he had begun the Traité as early as 1649 (OCM 2:85). The thesis and its foundations are central to Desgabets’s philosophy and run throughout his philosophical writings. According to Desgabets, although Descartes attributed duration and destructibility to matter, it was in error, and not from any necessary connections to his entire body of philosophy (Desgabets 1983–5: op. 2, 29). By means of an appeal to Descartes’s own principles—his doctrine of matter and his doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths— Desgabets claimed to correct Descartes’s errors and show the indefectibility of material substance. Desgabets was convinced that Descartes would have agreed had he been shown that it was in virtue of the indestructibility and eternality of both mind and matter that the Cartesian philosophy provides a solid proof of the immortality of the soul and the certainty of physics. According to Desgabets, the indestructibility, eternality, and indivisibility of matter and motion follow from the fact that God created matter by a free and indifferent will. Thus, the key to understanding Desgabets’s Indefectibility Thesis lies not only in his analysis of the Cartesian doctrine of matter, but in his interpretation of Descartes’s notoriously opaque doctrine of the free creation of the eternal truths. The “Creation Doctrine” asserts that the eternal truths were created by a free and indifferent act of God’s will. Among Descartes’s interpreters, both past and present, there is little agreement on what the Creation Doctrine amounts to, especially concerning the contingency/necessity and eternality of certain truths. The proper meaning of the Creation Doctrine, according to Desgabets—and here is his original contribution to the Creation Doctrine—applies equally to created substances. Hence, once matter and mind are created, they, like the eternal truths, must remain forever unchanged in their being and essence. It follows that substances are incapable of change or annihilation—they are indefectible. What is contingent is what God chose to create by His free and indifferent

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will, which happened to be finite matter and minds. What is necessary is that once God willed, what He willed is forever unchanging in its being. Matter is indestructible in its being as an extended thing, and mind is forever unchanging in its being as a thinking thing. What is subject to change are the modes or states of substance from one moment to the next (Desgabets 1983–5: op. 6, 21–2). Now we can construct Desgabets’s response to Retz’s first worry about the Indefectibility Thesis, namely that God is not constrained by what He has created; He could destroy material substance after having created it. Desgabets’s reply is that it doesn’t make sense to say that God could have destroyed material substance after having created it. Terms like “after” make no sense applied to substance. If God is eternal, and the act of creating mind and matter is indivisible, eternal and immutable, then to say that God could take away what He has already done is akin to saying that God could take away at one time what He does at another. But time is not properly applied to God or His act of creation. Matter is indefectible because it was created from the immutable, indivisible, and atemporal act of God’s will. Thus, it is not that God was constrained in any way to create matter, but once He did create matter, it could not be otherwise. For God’s will is immutable and eternal; His creation must possess a consequent and necessary indestructibility and eternality. To say otherwise is to commit contradiction: it is to say that God creates/does not create a thing in its essence and existence at the very same indivisible “moment” of creation. Retz’s second worry concerned the nature of time and duration. Recall Cardinal de Retz’s worries about applying eternality and indestructibility to finite substances and his claim that Desgabets had gone completely against Descartes’s views. According to Retz, Descartes was careful and correct in attributing eternality only to God. Retz’s basic worry about Desgabets’s view that time and duration depend upon matter was that Desgabets was pushing Cartesianism towards materialism. In the case of minds, Desgabets’s view would mean that to the extent that minds and thoughts are said to endure, it is a function of their dependence on matter. Desgabets’s response is not to be found in the conference proceedings. However, one can be found in his Traité, as well as a manuscript entitled “Reflexions de Dom Rober sur les propositions de M.Corbinelli touchants la dependence que D.Robert pretend que l’ame pensante a du corps” (Epinal ms. 64:177–8). Desgabets forgave Descartes for his errors on the difficult question of the nature of time, because he thought that with all Descartes had to do, he succumbed to common prejudice. Experience tells us that movement and duration are two separable things: when we consider that a horse and a tortoise both walk for an hour and perform different movements, we conclude that duration and movement are different things (Desgabets 1983–5: op. 6, 42). However, when one reflects on the fact that speed and duration must be compared in the same subject, we can see that movement and duration are one, inseparable thing. That is, when we see that the horse and the tortoise move with regard to the sun, which does not move faster or slower with respect to the horse or the tortoise, then we see that duration is dependent upon motion. Almost everyone attributes time and duration not only to corporeal things that move, but also to the simplest creatures and God himself …but we must say

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simply that time, duration, successions of parts, which precede and follow, belong properly to local movement from which they are inseparable. (Desgabets 1983–5: op. 2, 43–4) Desgabets does not grant that this is tantamount to materialism. Motion itself derives directly from God’s power. Modal beings, including individual thoughts and their succession, depend upon local motions only for their duration, not their being. Thus, although particular thoughts depend upon local motions, thought or thinking substance itself does not. Dualism is preserved at the level of substance. I claimed in the first section that the Indefectibility Thesis responds to the problems of real presence and transubstantiation raised by the Eucharist, as well as the problems raised in Desgabets’s exchanges with Retz. We have just seen how it accounts for problems about divine restraint and worries of materialism raised by Retz, and we are now in a position to see how it answers to metaphysical questions raised by the Eucharist. According to Desgabets, the real material substance is the total quantity of extended matter in the universe. The corporeal form of all particular bodies results from an assemblage of the local dispositions of matter, and these dispositions of matter in turn come from extended matter. Thus, in the same way that Descartes would have it that sensible qualities are nothing outside us but the local dispositions of matter, sensible objects are nothing outside us but assemblages of local dispositions of matter. Desgabets’s metaphysical view is that the physical world is really a single object or substance whose parts, under various divisions, shapes and arrangements, form all the appearances in the “grand theatre of nature.” Thus, the physicist’s object really is the solid of the mathematician (Desgabets 1983–5: op. 5, 166; op. 4, 110). Individual bodies are not the true object of science or mathematics; they are but parts of matter that are assembled and disassembled through time. Local dispositions of matter, and thus individual bodies themselves, depend essentially on motion, and possess only a temporal existence.11 Conversely, material substance as the totality of extension is indivisible, immutable, and forever existing in its unity. To reiterate, material individuals are merely modal beings on Desgabets’s view. Although I’ve said almost nothing of Desgabets’s account of thinking substance, what is true of material individuals is also true of thinking individuals. For example, human individuals are a composite modal being, i.e. they have modes belonging to both material and thinking substance. Thus, human individuals are best understood as a state of being that emerges out of the conjunction of the modes of two substances, rather than as a substance in the primary sense. Man, like the host of the Eucharist, is a modal being, not itself a substance. This of course has the consequence that individual souls are really just modes of matter and mind conjoined locally, and death consists in the dissolution of the local union. It is a consequence that Desgabets never acknowledged in writing, although it is unlikely that he didn’t see it, for it leaves little room for personal immortality. Once an individual in its united body and soul ceases to exist in its state of modal being, it ceases to exist. The mystery of the Eucharist thus raises questions for Cartesianism regarding the ontology of unity and multiplicity. Desgabets’s Indefectibility Thesis provides his account of material unity and multiplicity: there is only one material substance, forever existing in

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its unity; individuals (the multiplicity) are various divisions or modal states of that single substance, or some composite of the modes of matter and mind. What should Descartes have said about the Indefectibility Thesis? There are clear reasons why Descartes would have objected to the Indefectibility Thesis had he been confronted with it. The first set of reasons would have centered on Desgabets’s interpretation of the Creation Doctrine, and its consequential claim that matter is indestructible in its essence and existence. The second set of reasons would have centered on Desgabets’s developments of the Cartesian doctrine of matter, which expounded views on the indivisibility, eternality, unity, and indestructibility of matter and motion, the reducibility of duration to motion, and the modal being of individuals. It is my contention that although Descartes would have objected, he ought not to have. The Indefectibility Thesis works out in philosophical detail Descartes’s vision of a mathematized physics—one in which the existence of a single, immutable quantity grounds the necessity of its being and the certitude of our knowledge. Take the first cluster of reasons for rejection of the thesis, which derive from Desgabets’s reading of the Creation Doctrine. As Retz objected on Descartes’s behalf, making indefectibility necessary to matter seemed to require that God’s actions be constrained so that matter could not be created as defectible. Putting limits on God’s power would seem to counter Descartes’s claim that God could have created the universe such that the truths of mathematics not apply. However, Desgabets rightly argued that the sense of ‘could’ here is problematic. Possibility is framed by what God actually created, and it just doesn’t make any sense to say that God could have made matter defectible. And here Descartes would agree: God’s power is beyond our grasp; we know only what He did create, not what He might have created (AT 1:146/CSMK 23). So, one can’t say that God could have created matter as defectible, now that it exists as indefectible, for that would entail that His will, once willed, could be undone. Whether Descartes would have accepted Desgabets’s formulation of metaphysical possibility here is unclear, but the weaker epistemological sense of ‘could’ would be inadequate to account for the kind of necessity and eternality of the eternal truths that Descartes seemed to grant. At least, Desgabets makes sense of Descartes’s claim that the eternal truths, once willed, are necessary but are not willed necessarily (AT 4:118–9/CSMK 235). As Tad Schmaltz has argued, Desgabets addresses a number of problems raised by Descartes’s Creation Doctrine.12 One such problem is the “scope problem” since in Descartes’s 1630 announcement of the doctrine (AT 1:145–6/CSMK 22–3), God is the free and indifferent cause of mathematical truths, but in a 1641 discussion (AT 7:431– 3/CSM 2:291–2) he seems to hold that God’s free and indifferent will extends to all things without limit. According to Desgabets, God is the free and indifferent cause of everything, including the eternal truths and essences. Desgabets reasoned that since everything was created completely by an immutable, indivisible act of God’s will, substances were created in their essence and existence. A second problem is the “ontological problem,” which is raised by Descartes’s claim that the Creation Doctrine provides the metaphysical foundation for physics. Descartes

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never provides any explanation as to how this was to be the case. Desgabets’s account of the Creation Doctrine provides such an explanation. According to Desgabets, matter (and mind) was created from all eternity. That is, strictly speaking, substances are atemporal since God created them in an immutable, indivisible act of the will. In this way, the truths of physics, which are grounded in the eternal being of material substance, are unchanging. Thus, the certitude of physics can be grounded in the unchanging essence of material substance. One might object on Descartes’s behalf that he would have had concerns about extending the Creation Doctrine beyond the eternal truths to include essences and substances. And without this extension, Desgabets’s treatment of the Cartesian conception of matter is highly questionable. But as Schmaltz has argued, it not only solves the scope and ontological problems raised by Descartes’s assertions on the Creation Doctrine, but it also gives a good account of how mathematics and physics can be combined in the way that Descartes envisioned (Schmaltz 2002:128). It’s not just that God made the universe so that 1+1 must equal 2, but that He made the universe such that the quantity expressed in the properties of geometry is the very same quantity expressed in material extension. The solid of geometry is the object of physics (Desgabets 1983–5: op. 5, 166; op. 4, 110). The necessity and certitude of geometry and physics is thus grounded in the immutability of God’s creation. This would surely be a welcome result for Descartes. Let us turn to the second related cluster of reasons Descartes might have objected to the Indefectibility Thesis, reasons that would have centered on Desgabets’s developments of the Cartesian doctrine of matter. It should first be noted that Descartes himself held that all substances by their nature are incorruptible, and that the quantity of matter and motion never changes.13 What Descartes did not do was provide the metaphysical grounding for the claim of incorruptibility. In fact, he could not do so without having extended the application of the Creation Doctrine to material substance. As a result, Descartes never consistently, and sometimes not at all, attributes the features of eternality, indivisibility, immutability, and indestructibility to matter. After reflecting on Desgabets’s arguments, however, one begins to wonder why. Desgabets makes explicit what is only at best implicit in Descartes’s doctrine of matter, and repairs a number of difficulties. I look briefly at three such problems that Desgabets addresses. The first problem is what constitutes the unity of matter in the Cartesian metaphysics. From the general standpoint of Descartes’s dualism, it seems obvious that there is only one res extensa. However, Descartes often also claims that matter, whose essence is extension, is infinitely divisible. How is it that extension in three dimensions constitutes the essence of matter if there is no ultimate extended thing not subject to division? Spinoza saw the absurdity of attributing divisibility to the ultimate extended substance: either its various divisions possess infinitude or they do not; in the former case there would be more than one substance of the same nature, and in the latter case there would be no extended substance at all (E Ip13; G 2:55/C 419). At least one Cartesian besides Desgabets recognized the difficulty of reconciling the attributes of unity and infinite divisibility in extended substance. Cordemoy defined matter as an assemblage of bodies, each one of which is ultimately indivisible in its extension. This was Cordemoy’s attempt to explicate how the essence of matter can be extension, and yet how matter also can be

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infinitely divisible. Desgabets saw the problem but expressed shock at Cordemoy’s solution.14 He entreats Clerselier, in his role as the adjudicator of which developments enrich Cartesianism and which combat it, to speak against Cordemoy’s atomism and the schism it creates for the Cartesian philosophy.15 The problem, according to Desgabets, is that Cordemoy failed to penetrate the true nature of the continuum and of infinite divisibility. Desgabets’s diagnosis is that Cordemoy confuses the formal or general sense with the material or specific sense of “matter.” Desgabets’s solution to the problem of unity and infinite divisibility is that the total quantity of matter and motion constitute material substance. The total quantity of matter is indivisible, while the parts of matter are infinitely divisible. In Chapter 6 of the Traité, Desgabets puts the point this way: “The indivisibility that we are looking for is an indivisibility of existence and not of quantity” (Desgabets 1983–5: op. 2, 37). Descartes himself speaks to the question, although not consistently. In the Principles he writes, How this division comes about; and the fact that it undoubtedly takes place, even though it is beyond our grasp. It should be noted, however that I am not here speaking of the whole of this matter, but merely of some part of it. (PP II.35, AT 8–1:60/CSM 1:239) This carries with it the suggestion that the totality of matter is not subject to division, only the parts within the totality. Given the choice between Cordemoy’s atomism and Desgabets’s version of the plenum theory, Descartes ought to have preferred the latter. A second problem concerns the Cartesian account of individuation. Again, Desgabets takes on directly what Descartes did not, namely the ontology of individual bodies and minds. Descartes often, although not consistently, endorses the view of individual material bodies as modal beings that we see in Desgabets. For example, in Principles II.23, Descartes writes: The matter existing in the entire universe is thus one and the same, and it is always recognized as matter simply in virtue of its being extended. All the properties, which we clearly perceive in it, are reducible to its divisibility and consequent mobility in respect of its parts, and its resulting capacity to be affected in all the ways which we perceive as being derivable from the movement of the parts. If the division into parts occurs simply in our thought, there is no resulting change; any variation in matter or diversity in its many forms depends on motion. (AT 8–1:52–3/CSM 1:23) Desgabets’s account of individual material bodies explains how there is one substance whose various divisions are nothing more than modal beings. Individuals are real and actual divisions of matter, and are themselves capable of change (corruption) in their specific dispositions, but not in their essence. The rub comes in generalizing the ontology to a treatment of individual thinking things as modal beings. Theological concerns about personal immortality aside, and perhaps moral ones about personal identity, it solves many metaphysical inconsistencies in the Cartesian metaphysics.

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A third problem concerns Descartes’s account of time and duration. Desgabets’s claim that time and duration are dependent upon and reducible to motion earned him charges of materialism (and later of Spinozism). The main concern was not the claim that the duration of a material modal being was dependent upon motion, but rather the consequence that thoughts depended upon motions of bodies for their duration. This indeed is a radical suggestion for any Cartesian to contemplate, but when understood in light of Desgabets’s analysis of the Creation Doctrine, it is not as radical as it first seems. It is perhaps easiest to appreciate the point at the level of substances. If thinking and extended substances are created but eternal, then it is clear why attributions of temporality to substance are inappropriate. In the case of modes of substances, like particular local dispositions of matter, it is clear how such beings come into being and perish. However, to claim that thoughts come into being and perish on the basis of the local motions of matter is an obviously contentious point. Yet should it be so? On the basis of what, internal to the essence of thinking substance itself, could thoughts be said to come into being, endure, and perish? Thinking substance itself is eternal, immutable, and unchanging; its changing modes need a source for change. Desgabets proposed that since God is the motor of all motion in the universe, the duration and individuation of thoughts as well as bodies, depend upon the motions that God imparted. Motion finds its source in the power of God’s will, so there is no issue of subordinating thoughts or thinking substance to material substance. This proposal does raise the question of whether motion can strictly be said to be a mode of matter, but so long as one distinguishes two senses of motion, the general sense referring to God’s power, and the specific sense referring to local motion, some sense of it can be made. For Desgabets was careful to say that the being of thought depends only on mind; it is the duration, succession, and individuation of thoughts that depends on motion. Thus, Desgabets’s solution has the virtue of retaining the eternality and immutability of substance while providing an account of material and mental change that does not violate the Cartesian dualist metaphysics. In conclusion, I have argued that Desgabets’s Indefectibility Thesis was a natural and logical development of Descartes’s view of matter. It was in recognizing certain problems in the Cartesian system, and in attempting to keep the Cartesian conception of matter consistent, that Desgabets was able to assert and defend the Indefectibility Thesis as a loyal and genuine Cartesian.16

Notes 1 Dom Robert Desgabets (1610–78) was Benedictine, and an early defender of the Cartesian philosophy in France. He was quite active and known in the Cartesian circles of Paris and Toulouse between 1660 and 1678, most notably Clerselier, Rohault, Malebranche, Cordemoy, and Regis. Among Desgabets’s controversial views were his rejection of Descartes’s doctrines of pure intellection and innate ideas, the method of doubt, the cogito as the first principle of knowledge, and Descartes’s doctrine of objective being. See Desgabets’s Supplément in Desgabets 1983–5: op. 5–7.

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2 Lemaire credits the Considérations (Desgabets 1671) with having been the primary cause of censorship of Cartesian philosophy in France in the latter half of the seventeenth century, since it brings to light the incompatibility of the Cartesian philosophy with the official Church doctrine on the mystery of the Eucharist (Lemaire 1901:124). 3 Against claims of heresy, Desgabets cites St Jean Damas as a predecessor. He seems to be writing of Jean Damascène, one of the last Greek Christian Fathers of the seventh century AD. Because of Damascène’s systematic treatment of theological problems, he is said to be a precursor to the Scholastics. 4 It is likely through his acquaintance with Nicole and Arnauld that the nonCartesian Le Géant learned of the document and the identity of its author. Le Géant alerted the Procurer General of the Congregation of Benedictines, who ordered Desgabets to report to his superiors concerning the matter. This led to an interrogation and the subsequent issuance of an order on 15 December 1672 that Desgabets renounce his views on the Eucharist. 5 Reportedly it was the Cartesian Madame de Grignan who gave Desgabets this name. 6 On Malebranche, see OCM 11–1:122–4. This is a brief recording of a conference that took place between 1676 and 1677; the original recording is in Epinal Ms. 64:159–60; reprinted in Cousin 1852:110–13; on Corbinelli, see Cousin 1852:136– 9. 7 For more on Regis, see Chapter 5 in this volume. 8 Retz is referring to Principles of Philosophy I.51, in which Descartes distinguishes finite substances (matter and mind) from infinite substance (God) (AT 8–1:24/CSM 1:209). Retz’s point here is that just as only God can be truly independent of all other creatures, so too only God can truly be said to be indestructible and eternal. However, Descartes does not address the eternality or indestructibility of substance directly in Principles I.51, as Retz suggests. 9 For an excellent discussion of the radical nature of the doctrine, see part II of Schmaltz 2002. 10 As Rodis-Lewis puts the significance of the indefectibility doctrine, Or cette conception cartésienne de la matière, existant à jamais dans son unité (à travers l’incessant renouvellement des modes par le glissement respectif des figures que découpent les divers mouvements), conjointe avec la creation des vérités éternelles, fonde la thèse la plus originale de Desgabets, l’indéfectibilité des substances. (in Desgabets 1983–5: op. 1, xxxvi) 11 I thank Tad Schmaltz for encouraging me to make this point explicit. 12 See Schmaltz’s excellent discussion of the “scope problem,” the “similarity problem,” and the “ontological problem,” in Schmaltz 2002: ch. 2. 13 On the indestructibility of matter: First, we need to know that absolutely all substances, or things which must be created by God in order to exist, are by their nature incorruptible and cannot ever cease to exist unless they are reduced to nothingness by God’s denying

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his concurrence to them. Secondly, we need to recognize that body, taken in the general sense, is a substance, so that it too never perishes. (Synopsis to the Meditations, AT 7:14/CSM 2:210) On the indestructibility of motion, “moreover, the same quantity of motion is always preserved in the universe” (PP II.36, AT 8–1:61/CSM 1:240): The other principle is that whatever is or exists remains always in the state in which it is, unless some external cause changes it; so that I do not think there can be any quality or mode which perishes of itself… I prove this by metaphysics; for God, who is the author of all things, is entirely perfect and unchangeable; and so it seems to me absurd that any simple thing which exists, and so has God for its author, should have in itself the principle of its destruction. (AT 3:649/CSMK 216–17) 14 Lettre écrite à M.Clerselier (Epinal Ms. 64). 15 L’étroite amitié que vous avez eue avec M.Descartes, la succession de son esprit et de ses écrits qui vous est échue…vous donne quelques droits sur tout ce qui se fait de nouveau pour l’enrichir et pour le combattre. Et comme le livre que vous avez envoyé fait une espèce de schisme dans cette philosophie…j’ai pu mettre en de meilleures mains les remarques que j’ai faites pour soutenir la vérité des principes de notre philosophe, qui sont maintenant attaché à la doctrine des atomes, du vide, et des autres choses qui s’en suivent, sont tombés dans cette erreur faute d’avoir bien pénétré ce que la vraie philosophie enseigne, touchant la composition du continu et de la divisibilité à l’infini. (quoted in Lemaire 1901:79) 16 I would like to thank many members of the audience who heard an earlier version of this paper at the “Receptions of Descartes” conference held at Duke University in March 2002. Special thanks go to Tad Schmaltz for his numerous helpful suggestions and questions, and Jean-Robert Armogathe for our many conversations on Desgabets and for pointing me to many helpful texts. The errors that remain are mine.

3 A reception without attachment Malebranche confronting Cartesian morality Jean-Christophe Bardout Translated by Sarah A.Miller and Patrick L.Miller In memory of Ferdinand Alquié Introduction Thirty years ago, Ferdinand Alquié published his magisterial study of the Cartesianism of Malebranche (Alquié 1974). Oddly enough, although all the commentators, referring to Malebranche’s formal statements, had agreed for a long time to see in Descartes his primary philosophical source, no large-scale study had yet attempted to evaluate the nature and impact of the Cartesian influence.1 The primary interest of Alquié’s book, however, does not lie only in its analyses that suggest a re-reading of Malebranchean thought from within its Cartesian horizon. Refusing both the genetic hermeneutic and structural interpretation,2 this book turns out to be exemplary with respect to its problematic and the methodology that it employs. From Alquié’s perspective, Malebrancheanism must be situated by measuring the impact of Cartesian thought, and an appropriate means of inquiry should be devised in order to do so.3 In a word, the book deploys what we may call a genuine hermeneutic of reception. In order to do so, it is not enough to note methodically the clues of a greater or lesser influence by way of a simple history of sources, to make textual comparisons, or to locate doctrinal differences. Rather, following the suggestion of Alquié, one must mobilize a differential analytical framework for reading in order to organize methodically the modalities of the Malebranchean reception of the Cartesian corpus, modalities necessarily diverse according to various themes and explicit theses. Thus, Malebranchean thought does not maintain a uniform relation with Cartesianism: besides what is called “received Cartesianism” (concerning the conception of science, psychophysical dualism, and God), Ferdinand Alquié believes it is possible to discern an enterprise of transformation (concerning sensible and intellectual knowledge as well as causality), and in the end the clues of a destruction, to the point of anti-Cartesianism in, for example, morality and natural theology.4 But now one can ask why it is advisable today, regarding Malebranchean morality, to revisit the very question posed by Ferdinand Alquié. Moreover, why focus a study on the Malebranchean reception of Descartes on moral issues, especially since, as Alquié granted, Malebranchean morality shines with anti-Cartesianism?5 Two main types of response can be provisionally advanced: 1 In the first place, if it seems appropriate for us to recognize the criteria of distinction

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put forward by Alquié, it is nonetheless advisable to discuss their alternative and exclusive character. Let us be precise: instead of juxtaposing a received Cartesianism, modified and then ruined, while sorting these qualifications according to the questions at hand, it seems to us just as legitimate to emphasize how, concerning the same question, these determinations can be superimposed while nevertheless preserving their legitimacy. This hypothesis would explain the historic paradox of a morality that, as we will see, allows a received Cartesianism to become clear, while nevertheless illuminating the motives of Malebranche’s fundamental anti-Cartesianism. 2 It is advisable, in the second place, to test this suggestion by posing the following hypothesis: the Malebranchean rejection of Cartesian morality, such as that which finds its first explicit formulation in the third part of the Discours de la méthode under the name of provisional morality (AT 6:22/CSM 1:122), results in the explicit revival and reinterpretation of certain elements of the Cartesian conception of knowledge. Malebranche’s Traité de morale, then, should be read with a double perspective in mind. Following the decisions taken from his Recherche de la verité, Malebranche recognizes in the Traité the Cartesian demand for certainty, which entails the epistemological exclusion of probability and of verisimilitude, all the more since the Cartesian ideal of science is here served by a new theory of knowledge, founded as we know on that “vision in God” of ideas that are in themselves immutable and necessary. But refusing to distinguish between “practical life” and contemplation of truth,6 and seeking to build a “demonstrable morality” (TM 1.10.11, OCM 11:120–1), the Oratorian attempts to apply, without hesitation, this conception of knowledge to morality, in order not to compromise its strictly scientific character. This fidelity to what we will call, for simplicity’s sake, “epistemological Cartesianism” will lead morality to a rejection of the Cartesian conception of morality. As we will see, this conception essentially involves the distinction between theoretical knowledge and practical action—that is to say, the disjunction between a knowledge which can remain doubtful in speculation, at the same time that the decision of the will is established as certain in practice—which, in our opinion, crystallizes the whole debate. In other words, it is because Malebranche was, to a certain extent at least, Cartesian in metaphysics that he was not so in morality.

The epistemic position of morality Desiring to establish morality on indubitable foundations, Malebranche extends to the problem of action the formal demands implied by the Cartesian paradigm of certain science. Let us remember, first of all, that since his first work, Malebranche accepts without reserve the Cartesian concept of knowledge (even more than that of science). From Descartes he borrows his conception of certainty, the demand for evidence that underlies it, the criterion of clarity and distinctness, the concept of the role of method and most of its rules.7 But in order to ensure a greater certainty for evident knowledge, it is necessary (this is the one primary but capital distortion to which Malebranche subjects Cartesianism) to reconsider the origin of the evidence, by securing it no longer in the finished thought of

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the ego guaranteed by God, but immediately in the vision in God of ideas:8 to know clearly and distinctly—that is to say, to know in truth—is to know henceforth in some ways as God knows (OCM 2:168/LO 364).9 From our point of view, the consequences of this displacement are twofold. 1 Malebranche appropriates the epistemological exclusion of probability as well as that of verisimilitude.10 Probability and truth are therefore mutually exclusive, to the point that necessary truths are truths par excellence, to the exclusion of contingent “truths” and verisimilitudes that produce no science.11 2 Originating from a unique foundation, all the sciences therefore obey a criterium of homogeneous scientificity. This foundation consists precisely in the immutability of the relations of magnitude and of the relations of perfections that constitute respectively theoretical and practical truths, to which God himself “submits.” If we adopt another point of view about the foundation, for example the Cartesian thesis of a free establishment of eternal truths by God, such as what Descartes upheld in his letters to Mersenne—notably, of April and May 1630—the foundation of the sciences becomes inconceivable: “No longer is there science, morality, incontestable proofs of religion” (OCM 3:84/LO 586).12 Morality is no exception, therefore, to this foundation in archetypes seen in God: it has in God its object perceived with evidence, such that “the immutable Order” constituted by the “relations of perfection” that rank all of God’s essential perfections, those which, in turn, represent to human understanding the objects knowable and consequently lovable.13 Thereby, Malebranche extends to morality the Cartesian paradigm of knowledge, and identifies values, at least in the beginning, for objects evidently perceived.14 As a result, morality becomes, at least as far as the certainty of its principles is concerned, a science formally comparable to mathematics, and directly grounded in metaphysics.15 Speaking of the first principle of morality, Malebranche writes: “This principle is abstract, metaphysical, purely intelligible; it does not feel, it does not imagine” (OCM 2:20/LO 271).16 It follows that, contrary to its Cartesian position, morality becomes a science in principle identical to others, and it refuses, as we will see, every diminution of the certainty of its principles, under the pretext that it should ground the value of human acts, and not speculate about intrinsically immutable and necessary essences. The distortion that Malebranche imposes on the Cartesian conception of truth,17 and the consequences of this distortion for the determination of the object of morality remain, at first glance at least, paradoxically governed by a Cartesian intention, since the Oratorian intends to make a true science of morality, and therefore to give a greater systematic connection to the work of his illustrious predecessor, by completing it with a demonstrative morality.18 However, it is at the very moment when he wishes and believes himself to be nearest to Cartesianism—by extending the Cartesian ideal of knowledge, and by appropriating its morality—that the Oratorian belies most clearly the intentions (and the explicit theses) of Cartesian morality. This becomes clearer when one briefly compares this new determination of the principles of morality that Descartes proposes in the third part of the Discours de la méthode under the name of provisional morality. In order to better appreciate the discrepancy, then, let us try to relate the main theses of the Malebranchean

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Traité to the three maxims that epitomize the morality of the Discours de la méthode. Provisional morality as temporary morality Descartes and Malebranche First of all, let us observe the chief but seldom noticed point that separates Descartes from Malebranche: provisional morality is closely linked to the context of its formulation. Even though Descartes submits all of his opinions to doubt and is therefore “irresolute in his judgments,” he is no less obliged to act, and thus to grant himself the rules of a morality that remain practically valid, even though it is not able for all that to aspire to the highest degree of speculative certainty.19 In order to act, it is necessary first of all to follow the opinions of the “more sensible” and therefore the most probable,20 and also to determine oneself to act, and to hold fast to one’s resolution, even though conscience is neither totally nor perfectly clear about what it must do.21 In other words, taking up the theses developed by the Jesuit moralists of his time, Descartes affirms the complete disjunction between speculative and practical conscience, and maintains that the former may be doubtful, even when the latter remains certain: “And so, since the actions of life allow no delay, it is most certainly true that, when it is not in our power to discern the truest opinions, we must follow the most probable” (DM III, AT 6:25/CSM 1:123).22 Now, despite superficial similarities,23 the conception of the relations between understanding and will—or, if one prefers, the manner of articulating truth and action— will be exposed as fundamentally divergent. Malebranche will refuse in particular every sort of distinction between speculative certainty, founded on a clear vision of “relations among ideas,” and whatever might resemble a practical certainty, cut off from any rational foundation. Before showing briefly how the very intention of the maxims of the Discours is fundamentally abandoned, let us take stock of an important fact: in Malebranchean terms, one cannot assign any distinction between the certainty that is properly metaphysical and the certainty required in morality. Between the truths called speculative and practical truths, there is not, strictly speaking, any difference of nature, but only a gradual difference as far as our cognitive capacity is concerned.24 “Two sorts of truths or relations are distinguishable in God: relations of magnitude and relations of perfection, speculative truths and practical truths; relations that demand by their clarity only judgments, and other relations that arouse movements in addition” (OCM 12:191).25 That which concerns the practical, therefore, no longer comes under a certain sort of truth that would be intrinsically different from theoretical truths, since the practical truths that constitute Order are, just like speculative truths, immutable and universal.26 The principal and distinctive criterion rests in the ability of practical truths to move the will, whereas purely scientific truths do not urge any movement of the soul, with the exception of a pure judgment, or consent of the will to the true.27 It seems to us that this doctrine follows logically from the assertion of the vision in God of Order, the foundation of moral truths. This assertion indeed implies that the principles that govern morality ultimately come under the same science as the axioms of purely speculative sciences,

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such as mathematics or metaphysics itself. Henceforth we can envisage why Malebranche was not able to adopt a morality that, at least provisionally, roots the rightness of action in the constancy of the will, even while the understanding remains hesitant in the face of purely probable options. Let us now take up the reading of the Cartesian maxims in light of these few remarks. The first maxim The first of Descartes’s provisional maxims instructs one to rely on “the laws and customs” of the country in which one is living, and to govern oneself “according to the most moderate and least extreme opinions,” those that are “commonly accepted in practice by the most sensible of those with whom I would have to live” (DM III, AT 6:23/CSM 1:122). Let us emphasize here three points that, in advance, seem to explain the future Malebranchean disavowal of this maxim. 1 It is legitimate to rely on customs and to follow the “opinions” that seem best, without having acquired a complete certainty concerning their truth, and thus their intrinsic goodness (AT 6:22–3/CSM 1:122).28 2 This implies that the “probable”29 character of the opinions depends only on the fact that they seem more generally approved, in other words that they win the majority of votes. The majority of authorities, or of those who approve, constitute in this way a determining element of their moral validity. The opinion of others therefore makes, in morality, a recourse that the first two parts of the Discours nonetheless seemed to exclude. 3 The first maxim is asserted at a moment when metaphysics was not yet developed for its own sake; the decision to leave it to the most moderate and most frequently followed opinions therefore implicitly entails the doubting of (or at least a lack of factual certainty about) the foundations of knowledge.30 However, even if Malebranche has never commented upon this text, nor explicitly alluded to the third part of the Discours,31 one may say that his philosophy sets against this first Cartesian recommendation a triple kind of rejection. In a word, the Oratorian will reject the probabilistic framework of Cartesian maxims, since his morality eschews every practical use of probability.32 Let us take up again the theses contained in the first maxim. 1 Inasmuch as we reach the true by vision in God of the ideas and by applying the rules of the method, the truth, for Malebranche, can be captured only by a strictly personal experience. Faithful to the spirit of Cartesianism,33 the Oratorian does not concede to others any particular function in the search for truth.34 Developing the originally Cartesian analogy between the use of the eyes and the use of the mind,35 he often insists on the irreplaceable nature of the search in the first person. It is quite difficult to understand how it is possible that those who have a mind prefer to use the mind of others in the search for truth, instead of that which God gave them. There is without doubt infinitely more pleasure and honor in behaving according to one’s own eyes, rather than according to the eyes of

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others; and a man who has good eyes never thinks to close them, nor to pluck them out, in the hope of having a guide… Why does the fool walk in darkness? It is because he sees only with the eyes of someone else, and seeing only in this way, properly speaking, is seeing nothing at all. The use of the mind is to the use of the eyes what the mind is to the eyes… Men, however, always use their eyes for their conduct, and they almost never use their mind to discover the truth. (OCM 1:2811/LO 138)36 2 In these conditions, the search for different opinions in order to determine which is the most often followed and most moderate must be sterile, in morality as in philosophy.37 The opinion, never more than apparent,38 comes from an abusive narrowing of horizon, which stops at an aspect of the object or of the situation under consideration.39 Starting with the preface of the Recherche, Malebranche therefore relates the multiplicity of human opinions back to the universal transcendence of reason that judges them, and alerts us. I give this opinion, that one must not reject offhand, when one finds things that shock the ordinary opinions that one has believed all one’s life, and that one sees generally approved by all men in all ages. These are the most general errors that I try principally to destroy. If men were exceedingly enlightened, universal approval would be a reason; but it is quite the opposite. Let us be warned once and for all that reason alone must preside over the judgment of all human opinions, which have little to do with faith, in which God alone instructs us in a manner completely different from how he reveals natural things to us. (OCM 1:25/LO xlii) In other words, the search for the majority opinion in morality seems, at the very least, unreasonable, not to say irrational, inasmuch as the genesis of opinion always returns us to the activity of the imagination, never to judgment founded in reason. Just as the Traité de morale confirms: If we should wish to behave by example and to judge things by opinion, we would make mistakes at every moment. Since there is nothing more equivocal and more confused than human actions, and often nothing more false than what passes for certain among entire peoples. (TM 1.5.15, OCM 11:66)40 The adherence, even if provisional, to customs necessarily diverse and founded on simple opinions seems henceforth incompatible with free inquiry into moral good, even if it can turn out to be temporarily useful. Since it is never necessary to believe before evidence forces us to do so: it is never necessary to love what one can keep oneself from loving without remorse. I am speaking of a reasonable man, or of a man who conducts himself by reason alone… But when Faith determines nothing, one must believe only what one sees. When custom prescribes nothing, it is only necessary to follow Faith and

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Reason: whatever human authority requires or what custom allows, if one recognizes clearly and evidently that one is wrong, it is better to renounce everything than to renounce Reason. (TM 1.6.2, OCM 11:71)41 The existential insertion of the moral subject in this or that community (“the more sensible of those with whom I would have to live”) cannot justify by itself the choice of common practice.42 The eventual adherence to custom or to human authority, therefore, is not first and cannot be set up as the maxim of action, since this adherence is itself legitimate only if it is ratified by the clear perception of its founding motives. The problematic difference therefore leaps out immediately: though Descartes accords to custom a value that is relative but indefeasible until one has made up one’s mind concerning the foundations, Malebranche denies it all value, enjoining us always to prefer the examination of action according to the principles previously and clearly known by the intellection of Order. 3 This difference returns us to a more profound opposition, because of its metaphysical origin. Though doubt constitutes for Descartes the first stage of the metaphysical determination of true foundations, Malebranchean philosophy believes it possible to do away with it, inasmuch as the demonstration of the “vision in God” of ideas, substituted for the Cartesian cogito, immediately assures for knowledge an unshakeable foundation. In Malebranchean philosophy, doubt preserves only an “ascetic” value when it concerns knowledge acquired by the senses, but loses all hyperbolic character, and thus, all heuristic function.43 But henceforth, what rendered intelligible the Cartesian dichotomy between speculative and practical conscience44 loses all sense, since no speculative doubt comes to suspend the certainty characterizing the unique foundation of the sciences and morality. Malebranche was then unable to reject the theoretical horizon in which Cartesian morality operates. This is more than a difference over the response that should be made to a common question: how to arrive at practical certainty within the system of speculative doubt? It is a matter of a fundamental disagreement concerning the relevance of the question as Descartes poses it. This is what will confirm for us the retrospective examination of the second maxim, by showing how Malebranche tries, in morality, to substitute evidence of an objective principle of action for subjective certainty of correct will.45 The second maxim Descartes’s second maxim is to be “as firm and constant in my actions as I could,” and to adhere to even doubtful opinions “with no less constancy than if they had been quite certain” (AT 6:24/CSM 1:123). With respect to this maxim, two points will especially hold our attention. 1 Pressed by the urgency of circumstances, we must resolve ourselves to act without being enlightened. Practical conscience, speaking in the terms of the moralists, must then make a resolution, and the will must firmly hold to its resolution, even though the foundation of the latter remains theoretically doubtful.46

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2 This speculative indeterminacy constrains us to a strategy of “as if,” in the sense that conscience resolves to choose an option which remains intrinsically probable, as if it were certain. It is not a question, therefore, of confusing the probable and the certain, but of acting as if conscience were enlightened about its obligations, even though it remains in doubt.47 Certainty does not therefore focus on the object, that which is to be done, but on the necessity of determining one’s actions. However, Malebranche is going to reject precisely the principle of this maxim, that is, the possibility of a certain practical determination of the will within the system of speculative uncertainty, and displace the location of certainty, refocusing it upon the object.48 Even so, let us note that Malebranche seems from the beginning to uphold the Cartesian problematic, and to proceed straight to the inherent constraints of the practical order. He expresses an opinion on the problem of action and of its specific demands in a passage of the Traité de morale that we must now analyze, in order to better understand a position in which his anti-Cartesianism is at once manifest, and nonetheless implicit.49 In appearance, Malebranche subscribes to the framework of the Cartesian problematic by recognizing that the temporal constraint particular to action, which is often urgent, forbids complete deliberation: “Often one is obliged to act before having clearly recognized what one must do.” This absence of delay, in Descartes’s terms, is insufficient to justify the solution, or rather the Cartesian inconsistency. “But although one must act, one must never believe before evidence obliges one.” In other words, the necessity of action without delay will never justify the decision to hold what is speculatively doubtful for certain in the practical order. The steadiness and constancy of the will cannot, in any case, be substituted for the search for truth, nor carry moral value. One must always clearly know verisimilitude in order to dismiss it without appeal to its own inadequacy. I no longer pretend that it is always required to remain in doubt. After all, between doubting and believing there are infinite differences that have no particular name… But, as there are infinitely bigger and smaller verisimilitudes, the mind must assign each thing its rank in order to be a good judge:50 and it is always light and evidence that must rule its decisions. (TM 1.6.12, OCM 11:76) Opinions that are equally probable or “more probable” will never be able to take the place of maxims or rules of the will. The passage that follows brings to light the epistemological foundations of the Malebranchean position, by confirming that the search for certainty concerns never merely the necessity of choice, but first of all the objective representation of its founding motives. Dissociating the representation of a principle and the reflection of thought upon its knowledge of it, Malebranche is able to evoke a kind of evidence of verisimilitude, if it is understood that verisimilitude is revealed as such to thought, and evidently attests to its own inadequacy. “After all, although a principle may not be evident, it is perhaps evident that this principle is apparent.” But from this inadequacy, the Oratorian will draw some consequences that could be called Cartesian, although the Descartes of the third part of the Discours would probably not have underwritten them. Although the evidently apparent principle (the probable, or more probable, opinion, for example) can

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nevertheless claim to orient the will, one should, as in any given situation within the speculative order, suspend consent until a fuller examination.51 But we must note that the justification of this prescription explicitly brings together the Cartesian doctrine of error, developed in the Fourth Meditation: Although the soul must suspend its consent and examine it, if there is time it must consider this consent as apparent, and grant it the degree of verisimilitude that light and evidence give it. In the end the judgments of the will must not be extended further than the perceptions of the mind:52 it is necessary to follow the light step by step, and not to forestall it. (TM 1.6.12, OCM 11:76) This is to say that it is necessary to apply to the question of action and to the solution of a moral problem what Descartes prescribes in the order of science, and it is necessary to consent only to what is evidently known, in other words to be resolved upon it. Let us conclude this point.53 1 Malebranche refuses the probabilistic framework in which Cartesian morality is inscribed,54 in order to preserve its authentically scientific status.55 To the Cartesian certainty according to which the probable, recognized as such, does not preclude action, Malebranche opposes the certainty according to which the probable, recognized as such, must be well distinguished from the certain, and banished thereby from morality, even at the cost of a delay in the execution of the action.56 This explains notably why the Oratorian recommends a veritable daily meditation upon Order, so that there will be no need to deliberate, and to retreat into the consideration of probabilities that are always uncertain. 2 Malebranchean morality appears to us, then, much more oriented toward determining the means of knowing and loving Order and of neutralizing the imagination, than it is preoccupied with determining particular duties.57 This morality is therefore before anything else a doctrine of man, his faculties, and his means of preserving the intellectual and affective conditions of virtue, and it is this conception of morality that permits him to remain largely programmatic concerning acts and the circumstances of their execution. Here the point to note is that Malebranchean morality accords a singularly reduced role to that operation of the application of the universal moral law to singular circumstances belonging to every action—namely, to conscience. With Malebranche, conscience ceases to be the place where practical truth is unveiled in a privileged manner,58 and is understood henceforth as that which assures the presence of the soul to itself, in the absence of a clear idea of the soul.59 If conscience continues to accuse, or to oblige, this power of obligation is taken up and reinforced by the purely rational consideration of Order.60 3A provisional morality would necessarily be provisional, because it is fundamentally imperfect.61 The very project to grant itself such a morality, while awaiting its own metaphysical foundation, seems in the end as useless as it is uncertain. Nevertheless, this reintegration of morality into the common field of science (by fidelity to the Cartesian conception that Malebranche maintains) opens the door to a paradox that perhaps he never completely resolved, and explains the vicissitudes of the Oratorian’s

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moral reflections: how to aspire to construct a scientific morality, or, if one prefers, a science of action, even though the paradigm of science retained here seems incompatible with the very nature of its object. In other words, by applying the demand for evidence to the principles of action, is there not a risk of compromising the very possibility of constructing a morality? The determination of right action that always involves the contingency of the existing world cannot be satisfied by the contemplation of truths that are general, eternal, and necessary.62 But if, conversely, one gives up this need for scientism, one relegates morality to the rank of customary and mechanical practice, or unconscious habits.63 The project of constructing a moral science comparable to the speculative sciences implies, therefore, treating moral values as objective, at the risk of compromising at once the practical efficacy upon the will, and the noetic relevance, whenever the determination of single actions with precision is concerned.64 But Malebranche was aware of this difficulty, to the point of profoundly modifying his moral conceptions beginning in the 1690s, and to the point of making pleasure and the desire of being happy come together as the only motive for the will.65 We will henceforth witness a complete uncoupling of the practical order from speculative truth. The moral act will no longer be interpreted as the result of the preliminary intellection of Order, but rather as the product of an extrinsic attraction of anticipated pleasure. From lack of being contemplated, Order is made the object of a delight capable of moving the will towards the good.66 If fidelity to Cartesianism leads Malebranche to break with Cartesian morality, the difficulties provoked by this same fidelity lead him to a second break with his own conception, insofar as his final reflections bring him to question the driving force of the evidence, and to discover a new modality of certainty.67 The third maxim Descartes’s third maxim, which calls for mastery of the self and the restriction of desire to thoughts within one’s own control (AT 6:25/CSM 1:123), will occupy us only very briefly. Besides the fact that Malebranche had certainly disapproved of its Stoicism (genuine or supposed),68 above all it seems that it was incompatible, once more, with the project of an objectively founded morality. In fact, the third maxim sets in place what we could call a strategy that optimizes point of view, or of what Descartes calls many times the “angle” (biais) from which things must be considered. It is necessary to dissociate what things are in themselves from what they represent to us in order to “make us happy” (AT 4:26).69 A theory of perspective such as this, which, to a certain degree, refrains from questioning the objective truth of acts in order to consider only how they relate to us, can appear incompatible with direct contemplation of Order. However, we understand the always desirable conformity of will to an intangible rule, and independent of circumstances. Being happy does not depend on the manner in which one considers, but rather on what is considered. Malebranchean morality seeks to dehumanize the finished point of view, in order to bring us into conformity with Order, by elevating us as well to the very viewpoint of God.

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Conclusion Let us now offer the conclusions that this brief inquiry suggests to us. 1 Charmed by the new philosophy, and especially by his appetite for a certainty more “assured” than the verisimilitudes conveyed by common philosophy,70 Malebranche extends to the problem of moral action the search for a foundation that is certain. While thinking he can prolong and complete the program of the Cartesian search, he understands morality as a particular science founded by metaphysics, “this general science that is privileged over all the others.”71 2 But such a demand was able to succeed only by abandoning provisional morality, such as the Discours de la méthode had formulated it, on the basis of a dissociation between certain conscience and objective certainty. But this disjunction turns out to be absolutely unacceptable, since it disregards precisely the Cartesian injunction to restrict oneself to clear and distinct ideas. It is therefore because he wished to be rigorously Cartesian that Malebranche was forced, in the end, to abandon Descartes. But this abandonment was not only for the purpose of a new conception of the will,72 as Ferdinand Alquié thought, nor only the disavowal of the Cartesian doctrine of liberty. The Malebranchean attitude seems to us more deeply linked to his conception of truth, and to his refusal to dissociate certainty of judgment from rightness of action. 3 More broadly, this brief study illustrates a phenomenon of great importance concerning the history of the reception of Cartesianism. With those accustomed to be called the great Cartesians, the philosophy of Descartes ceases to be considered as a doctrinal whole that is both homogeneous and intangible, but appears rather as an ensemble from which one may draw at will.73 We then see the Oratorian taking certain elements from Cartesianism (particularly, the Cartesian conception of method and of knowing) in order to integrate them into a new context and to make use of them contrary to the very intentions that had dictated them.74 In the end, the question remains whether Malebranche was able to complete the project of a demonstrative morality, understanding by this the anchoring of morality in theoretic and scientific reason. The evolution of morals in the eighteenth century towards the primacy of sentiment, while awaiting the Kantian invention of an autonomous practical reason, responds to this question. The merit of Malebranche, however, remains his contribution—including the aporiai that tax his reflection—to the formulation of the problem of morality’s epistemic status. Aiming to resolve a Cartesian problem by its own means, the Traité de morale poses this sole question: How can morality be a science? Notes 1 Let us note henceforth that Descartes is the only “philosophical authority” whom Malebranche recognizes: “I owe to Mr. Descartes the sentiments that I oppose to his and the boldness to revise him” (OCM 2:449/LO 526; cf. OCM 1:64/ LO 15). Although I cite the standard English language translations of original language texts,

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all translations of passages are from the latter. 2 These two tendencies of Malebranchean interpretation are illustrated, respectively, by the classic texts, Gouhier 1926 and Gueroult 1955–9. 3 If Descartes cannot explain Malebranche by himself, the indisputable and multifarious presence of the Cartesian corpus in Malebranchean thought must, however, be analyzed, inasmuch as it is true that one can explain a philosophy by its succession, as well as by its provenance. That which a philosophical discourse makes possible among its inheritors, for receiving or rejecting it, constitutes, up to a certain point at least, an integral part of its own understanding. 4 Let us recall that these are the three parts of the work, each one corresponding to one of the three principal modalities of the Cartesian presence. The framework must be further refined, however, and this is why the assumed revival of Cartesianism, examined in the first part, becomes the subject of a distinction between explicit and implicit Cartesianism. 5 Significantly, the two chapters dedicated to the study of morality are found in the third part (“Cartesianism Ruined”). Chapter 7 places morality under the sign of the transformation of Cartesianism, although Chapter 8 (focused on the study of the will and freedom) shows how Cartesianism is therefore abandoned. Let us add that Descartes is never mentioned in the Traité de morale which, consequently, introduces no discussion of his morality. 6 This distinction allows Descartes, as we know, to conceive the difference between speculative science and morality, and itself articulates the specific constraints of action that cannot suffer from delay. See DM III, AT 6:25/CSM 1:125; AT 7:149/CSM 2:106; and PP I.3, AT 8–1:5/CSM 1:193. Malebranche attempts, by contrast, to conceive a contemplation of Order, so as to ensure for action all desirable rightness; see Traité de morale (TM) 1.1.5, OCM 11:18–19. 7 Here we subscribe without reservation to the analyses of Alquié 1974, ch. 1, to which we refer the reader for more details. Cf. OCM 2:295–6/LO 437–8. Let us note, however, that a detailed study of the respective influence of the Discours de la méthode and the Regulae ad directionem ingenii (inasmuch as Malebranche had access to them) on the Malebranchean concept of method remains to be undertaken. 8 This famous thesis is expressed for the first time in the Recherche, at OCM 1:437437–47/LO 230–5, then in Eclaircissement X, at OCM 3:127–61/LO 612–32, before being taken up again in Chapter 1 of the Traité de morale, as an indispensable preliminary to the account of a morality that wishes to be founded in reason. 9 From this cognitive univocity, Malebranche immediately draws the thesis of a univocity, at least a relative one, of truths and of moral laws: to know that God allows us to want what He wants; see Conversations chrétiennes, OCM 4:135. Hence, morality sets as its ultimate goal to ensure the conformity of our wishes to those of God. 10 This exclusion is acquired from Rule II (AT 10:362–3/CSM 1:10–11). The Cartesian rejection of verisimilitude is explained notably by its refusal to grant some kind of truth-value to the plurality of converging opinions. See DM II, AT 6:12– 13/CSM 1:117. For Malebranche, see especially this passage:

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It is required therefore that one observe exactly the rule that has just been established in the search for necessary truths, the knowledge of which can be called science, and that one be content with the greatest verisimilitude in history, which includes contingent things. (OCM 1:63/LO 15) It is noteworthy that, properly speaking, there are only necessary truths in science, to the exclusion of contingent ones. Besides, truth is never equivalent to the greatest verisimilitude, but is of another nature (see OCM 1:57/LO 11, and 4:165). Truth is distinguished from verisimilitude as evidence from instinct, or reason from imagination (TM 1.2.11, OCM 11:33–4). 11 See OCM 1:63/LO 11. Except for the cogito, Malebranche never grants to contingent truths a certainty comparable to that achieved by the evident perception of the necessary connections between ideas. The existence of the external world, free product of the omnipotent divinity, is therefore considered to be rationally indemonstrable; see especially Eclaircissement VI. The laws of nature are themselves known through experience, and not in the divine Word: they are, then, known certainly, but not evidently. Up to a certain point, probability, contingency, and verisimilitude are therefore collectively expelled from the field of authentic science. 12 The critique of this famous Cartesian doctrine is a commonplace of Malebrancheanism; see, notably, Marion 1996. But see also the discussion of Desgabets’s development of this doctrine in Chpater 2 of this volume. 13 The representation of archetypal essences in Order therefore constitutes the principle of evaluation, that is to say of “the love of esteem” (TM 1.1.10, OCM 11:20), according to which we love each thing in proportion to its real worth. The vision of Order in God is therefore the foundation of morality, which explains why the study of the conditions of a good conception of Order becomes the object of the first chapter of the Traité de morale, specifically at TM 1.1.4 and 7, OCM 11:18 and 19. See also TM 1.1.19, OCM 11:24. Concerning the doctrine of Order, cf. OCM 10:39, and 3:131–2/LO 614–15. 14 This extension was already noticed by Alquié 1974:308–9. 15 “This is good metaphysics, which must solve everything, and I will try to establish there the primary truths that are the foundation of religion and morality” (Letter to Pierre Berrand, 26 December 1686, OCM 18:427). One should not, nevertheless, identify the Malebranchean conception of relations between metaphysics and morality with the Cartesian affirmation of the dependence of the second on the first. For Malebranche, indeed, morality sees its principles (and notably the affirmation of the vision of Order in God) directly demonstrated by metaphysics, which he understands above all as science of the principles of knowledge, or as “general science,” upon which depend the particular sciences; see Entretiens sur la métaphysique, at OCM 12:132. 16 That is to say that morality is intrinsically as certain as metaphysics itself. On this point, see Bardout 2000: ch. 1, § 1. 17 We understand by this the assumption of truths in God, who is no longer the author

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of them, and the correlative affirmation of a universal community of truths as well as values, neatly affirmed in the preface to the Traité de morale: “The Reason that enlightens Man is the Word or the Wisdom of God himself. Since every creature is a particular Being, and the reason that enlightens the mind of Man is universal” (TM 1.1.1, OCM 11:17). 18 Beginning with his Regulae, Descartes intends to increase “the natural light of reason, not in order to resolve some difficulty of the school, but in order that understanding indicates to the will which option to choose in each of the opportunities of life” (AT 10:361/CSM 1:10). After having asserted in the summary of the Discours that he would propose the rules of morality that he has “taken from the method” (AT 6:1/CSM 1:111), the prefatory letter to the French translation of the Principia takes up, in order to consider the relations between the different types of knowledge, the famous image of the tree, according to which morality depends on previously acquired sciences, notably metaphysics (AT 9–2:14/CSM 1:186). 19 Therefore, in order that I not remain irresolute in my actions, while reason requires me to be so in my judgments, and in order that I not cease to live henceforth as happily as possible, I created for myself a provisional morality that consisted of only three or four maxims, of which I am happy to inform you. (DM III, AT 6:22/CSM 1:122) 20 This is naturally the hint of the first maxim (see DM III, AT 6:22/CSM 1:122). 21 The second maxim is recognizable: My second maxim was to be as firm and as resolute in my actions as possible, and to follow no less constantly the most dubious opinions, once I had become determined upon them, than if they had been confirmed with certainty. (DM III, AT 6:24/CSM 1:123) The certainty secured by conscience that one has acted as well as possible can therefore compensate for a potential weakness of reason (see To Elisabeth, 4 August 1645, AT 4:266/CSMK 258). 22 It is notable that if the motives of choice remain intrinsically uncertain, it remains nevertheless “secure” and certain that it is necessary to act (this is a “most certain truth”) and therefore to determine oneself. See moreover Descartes’s commentary on this passage in a letter of March 1638, AT 2:34/CSMK 97. Here we borrow the hypothesis developed in Carraud 1997. Carraud notably relates provisional morality to the doctrine of practical certainty in a system of speculative uncertainty, such as Francisco Suárez notably develops in his De bonitate et malitia actuum humanorum. See also Spaeman 1972. 23 The two philosophers try to construct a morality that could qualify as intellectualist inasmuch as it claims to be founded directly upon the dictamen of reason; voluntary action always requires a prior judgment of the understanding in order to be morally

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good and well-ordered. See To Elisabeth, 4 August 1645, AT 4:265/CSMK 257–8 (recalling the second maxim of the Discours, precisely by weakening it), and also AT 4:266–7/CSMK 258; 1 September 1645, AT 4:284/CSMK 263–4; DM III, AT 6:28/CSM 1:125; AT 7:58/CSM 2:40. For Malebranche, see, for example, TM 1.4.18, OCM 11:58. 24 Although the relations of perfection are not commensurable as are the relations of magnitude (TM 1.1.6, OCM 11:19), the axiological hierarchy that they found is nevertheless perceived with a clarity that renders them indubitable (TM 1.1.13, OCM 11:21–2). 25 Cf. TM 1.1.14, OCM 11:22 and, notably, TM 1.1.19, OCM 11:24. 26 There is not, therefore, reason to distinguish, as in the tradition that stems from Aristotle, the speculative intellect, in which truth is achieved by conforaiity with the thing, and the practical intellect, in which truth is achieved by conformity with the corrected appetite. Just as there is only one sort of truth, in the final analysis, one can conceive only one form of intellection for all truths. It is appropriate therefore to underline its unity at once noetic and objective (see TM 1.1.7, OCM 11:19). 27 Malebranche will try, therefore, to conceive identity, and not only convertibility, of the true and the good. See, for example, the superimposition of the true and the just, on the one hand, and the false and the unjust, on the other hand, in the Traité (TM 1.1.7, OCM 11:19). 28 This extrinsic probabilism will find its ultimate justification in the intrinsic probabilism of the second maxim. 29 Here let us understand this word in its etymological sense, as that which is worthy of being approved: dignum quod probetur. 30 “For, beginning henceforth to discount my very own, since I wished to put them all to the test, I was assured that I could not manage better than by following those of the more sensible” (DM III, AT 6:23/CSM 1:122). This project of discounting one’s own opinions is the same as the project of doubt developed in the Fourth Part of the Discours and in the first Méditation (AT 7:17/CSM 2:12). It is wise therefore to be attentive to the specifically Cartesian context in which this project comes to light. 31 We should make clear that he possessed in his personal library most of the works of Descartes published in his time, including the three volumes of “letters of Mr. Descartes in which the finest questions of morality, physics, medicine, and mathematics are treated” (containing notably the letters to Elisabeth of 1645) published by Claude Clerselier between 1657 and 1669. See numbers 142 to 144 of the reconstructed inventory of his library, OCM 20:261. He possessed as well the original edition of the Discours de la méthode. 32 And so he seems, as we shall see, to take the opposite view from the contemporary moralists, and although he does not speak directly to this point, he can henceforth appear like a resolute adversary of the morality of the Jesuits, and of the casuistry that follows from it. 33 And so I thought that the sciences in books (at least those whose reasons are only probable, and that have no proofs, being composed and augmented little

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by little with the opinions of many different people) are not as close to the truth as the simple reasoning that a man of good sense is able to make concerning anything that might present itself. (DM II, AT 6:12–13/CSM 1:117) 34 Only the union with the “inner Master” is cognitively fruitful, when other people are nothing but onlookers; see TM 2.3.10, OCM 11:173. 35 Nothing can replace clear perception, obtained by l’intuitus mentis. The famous sentence of the Recherche, “In order to be faithful it is necessary to believe blindly, but in order to be a philosopher it is necessary to see clearly” (OCM 1:62/LO 14), echoes the inaugural formula of Rule II, “Every science is a clear and certain knowledge” (AT 10:362/CSM 1:10). 36 There is the claim in this passage that to prefer the authority of others to the use of the mind is “subversion of the mind.” The Recherche is full of criticism of the erudition of scholars who wish to substitute their own and all-too-human authority for the search for truth. See notably, OCM 1:304–9/LO 152–4; cf. OCM 1:197/LO 91–2, concerning the harmful consequence of enslavement to the authority of the ancients. 37 Inasmuch as the best opinion will never be simply the most probable, but will correspond to the truth, Malebranche does not accord a particular value to the criterion of moderation, which Descartes seems to add to that of the highest probability. The ancient Aristotelian notion of a proper mean loses all ethical sense. 38 Malebranche never seems to grant to an opinion the possibility of being true: his doxastic status excludes it from science, and condemns it ipso facto to the insignificance of verisimilitude (OCM 1:306–7/LO 153–4). 39 Speaking of the admirers of the erudite, Malebranche writes: They are inwardly pleased by the survey of their work, and by the esteem that they hope to receive from it. They only endeavor to consider the image of truth that their truth-like opinions carry. They hold this image fixed before their eyes, but they never regard with a firm view the other facets of their sentiments, sentiments which would reveal its falsehood. (OCM 1:304–5/LO 152) 40 To the plurality of votes, be it a majority, Malebranche prefers the necessary unity and unanimity of rational judgment. 41 Cf. TM 1.2.8, OCM 11:31: “Surely universal Reason is always the same: the Order is immutable, however Morality changes according to countries and according to times.” 42 See TM 1.5.16, OCM 11:66–7. 43 Thus the first Entretien sur la métaphysique begins with a demonstration of the distinction between soul and body that arises from their respective ideas, before deploying the proof that we see divine ideas. The cogito is recalled only by way of confirmation, since we are able to think without recourse to the body. This disappearance of doubt was revealed by Alquié 1974:73–81. 44 As far as Descartes is concerned, only the project of submitting all opinions to

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doubt warrants trust in the opinions of another: Since God has given each of us some light in order to discern the true from the false, I would not have believed myself obliged to be satisfied with the opinions of others for a single moment, if I had not intended to use my own judgment to examine them whenever it was appropriate. (DM III, AT 6:27/CSM 1:124) 45 The moral inquiry of the Oratorian would return us therefore to older historical forms of ethics beyond Cartesianism and the second Jesuit scholasticism, notably Thomism. Descartes recalls the traditional doctrine in his letter to Mersenne, commenting on the Discours de la méthode (May 1637, at AT 1:366/CSMK 56). 46 Carraud notes that with Descartes we move from a first problematic (of Aristotelian origin), where conscience is defined as the place in which an objective moral order is manifest, to a second where conscience continues to obligate without unveiling any truth; everything happens therefore as if the praxis characteristic of morality is disjoined from the unveiling of truth (Carraud 1997:271). It is precisely this problematic change that Malebranche energetically denies. 47 And thus, while the actions of life permit no delay, it is a very certain truth, that, when it is not in our power to discern the truest opinions, we must follow the most probable; and furthermore, that although we hardly notice more probability in the one type than in the other, we must nevertheless resolve upon one of them, and afterwards consider it no longer as doubtful, since it concerns practice, but as very true and very certain, since the reason which resolved us upon it is of this sort. (DM III, AT 6:25/CSM 1:124) 48 Malebranche’s refusal appears therefore as the consequence of his own Cartesianism, inasmuch as the second maxim contravenes the Cartesian prohibition of prejudice and haste (see DM II, AT 6:18/CSM 1:120). 49 We extend here analyses sketched elsewhere; see Bardout 2000:90f. 50 This “assigning of rank” (mise en rang) according to the greater or lesser degree of verisimilitude returns us to the putting in order (mise en ordre), that is to say, to the evaluation of each being or each principle according to the clearly known Order. 51 See further TM 2.1.4, OCM 11:155, and 1:55–6/LO 10. 52 Let us recall that in the Fourth Meditation, Descartes considers error to be produced by the excess of the will which judges and affirms the true on the perception of the understanding (AT 7:58/CSM 2:40). 53 It is possible to read in the lines that follow a subtle critique of the second maxim, and of the voluntarism that it seems to presuppose. As soon as one judges precisely, because one wants to, and before one is obliged to by the evidence, this judgment coming from our depths, and not the action of God in us, is subject to error: and although it may be just by

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chance, it is not justly rendered, because it is necessary to make use of one’s freedom, as much as one is able, as I have already said many times. (TM 1.6.12, OCM 11:77) To judge “because one wants to” means precisely to resolve oneself to act voluntarily without having theoretical certainty of the good foundations of the act. 54 The vocabulary of probability is singularly absent from Malebranchean morality; both the word itself and technical terms of the same family do not appear a single time in Traité de morale. The Recherche blames charlatans who, imitating Aristotle, are content with probability in morality as in physics (see OCM 1:58/LO 12). 55 Many passages confirm this status of authentic science: see, for instance, TM 1.2.3, OCM 11:30, and TM I.5.11, OCM 11:64–5. 56 The indecision of judgment will necessarily entail suspension of consent and thus delay of action, to the extent that every action which is not accomplished through love of Order clearly known will not have by itself any moral value. If the circumstances constrain us sometimes to act without delay, we will be dealing with action without moral qualification, and dictated only by the immediate preservation of the body. It is therefore appropriate to distinguish actions accomplished through duty, that is to say through love of Order, from acts conforming simply to what Order prescribes, but which are not for all that willed through love of Order; see TM 1.2.5, OCM 11:30–1. 57 See TM 1.10.10, OCM 11:120; TM 2.1.6, OCM 11:155–6; and TM 2.14.8, OCM 11:272. 58 Conscience is indeed traditionally conceived as the intellectual act by which reason applies itself to action. See, for example, Aquinas 1964–81, Ia, q. 79, a. 13, resp. 59 See OCM 1:448–9/LO 236. Contrary to the eminent function that moralists recognized in it, conscience is consequently obscure, or at the very least foreign to the evidence of the idea. In morality, the interior sentiment is thus radically ambivalent, and the impression of being in good faith cannot suffice to guarantee our justification. See TM 1.5.20, OCM 11:68. The text continues by recommending that there be a return to the light: “Nothing is therefore more sure than the light: one cannot worry too much about clear ideas” (TM 1.5.21, OCM 11:69). 60 See for example this passage which compares and seems to rank conscience and reason, by considering conscience as the place of a simple certainty, and reason as the operator of evidence: What we clearly conceive to conform to Order, God wishes; and what we clearly conceive to be contrary to Order, God does not wish. This truth, which is certain by the interior sentiment of conscience, is evident to all those who are able to consider, with a view that is fixed and purified, the infinitely perfect Being who contains this immutable Order, the law of all intelligent beings, and of God himself. (OCM 3:71/LO 579) Conscience, as the place of moral obligation, will be progressively supplanted by an affective conception of rationality, to the point of the idea of a “sentiment of reason.”

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See, for instance, Entretiens sur la mort, at OCM 13:425. 61 We are not here entering the debate concerning the provisional character of morality as presented in the Discours de la méthode, remaining content to remark that the word “provisional” (provisoire) does not appear there. 62 Yet Malebranche admits that he holds himself to general principles of action, and thus concludes the Traité de morale: I am not spelling out the details of all of this, because I have only aspired to delineate the general principles on which each person is obliged to regu-late his conduct in order to arrive happily at the veritable place of his rest and pleasures. (TM 2.14.9, OCM 11:273; cf. TM 2.1.6, 11:155) I have drawn attention to this difficulty, which according to us is inherent in a morality which comes under such epistemological presuppositions (see Bardout 2000:91–2). 63 See notably TM 1.2.1, OCM 11:28–9. 64 It is not because Order is known that it is willed. Malebranche has strongly expressed this difference, and this tension between theoretical and practical reason, in a passage of the Traité: For Order, taken speculatively and precisely inasmuch as it contains the correspondences between perfection, illuminates the mind without shaking it; and Order, considered as the law of God, as the law of all minds, considered precisely inasmuch as it has the force of law…as principle and rule, both natural and necessary, of all the movements of the soul, touches, penetrates, convinces the mind without illuminating it. (TM 1.5.19, OCM 11:68) The synthesis of reason and the law remains, in a sense, an ideal never completely realized. 65 Concerning these disruptions of moral principles, and the movement from a metaphysical morality to a morality of sensation, see Bardout 2000: ch. II, §§ I-II. 66 The difficulty will therefore reside in the principle of distinction between good and bad pleasures, between pleasures aroused by sentiment, and those which are occasioned by the activity of bodies. 67 With the sentiment of pleasure, indeed, we are in the presence of a doctrine of certainty disjoined from evidence, and likewise from clarity and the distinction of ideas. Without being able to develop this point here, let us venture the hypothesis according to which the debate with Cartesianism would be implicated even in the internal tensions of Malebranchean moral thought, and not simply, as we have tried to establish, in the rupture with the maxims of the Discours. 68 See notably the development in DM III, AT 6:26/CSM 1:124. For Malebranche, Stoicism is first of all a morality of pride that makes happiness depend on the will alone, and not on the efficacy of God, as the exclusive cause of the sentiments. In certain passages at least, Descartes seems to place happiness in the contentment of

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oneself alone; see, for example, To Elisabeth, 21 July 1645, AT 4:252/CSMK 256. 69 This prescription to consider things only from the point of view that makes them as little disagreeable to us as possible, will be taken up in the letters to Elisabeth. See the letter of May or June 1645, AT 4:221/CSMK 251; June 1645, AT 4:237/CSMK 253; and especially this passage: And also, for the reason that nearly all things of the world are such that one can regard them from any side which makes them appear good, and from any other which causes one to notice their faults, I believe that, if we must use our dexterity in some matter, it is principally to know how to regard them from an angle that makes them appear the most to our advantage, provided that we are not deceived. (6 October 1645, AT 4:306/CSMK 268) 70 The simultaneously psychological and intellectual impact of Cartesianism upon the Malebranchean vocation, as well as the violent anti-scholastic reaction that followed, were frequently emphasized from Gouhier 1926 to F.Alquié 1974: ch. 1. 71 See the letter to Berrand of 27 December 1686, OCM 18:427, already cited. On the relationship between morality and metaphysics, see Bardout 1999:53–6. 72 See also the classic work, Dreyfus 1958. 73 We then observe in the work of Malebranche some transplantation of Cartesian theses into a theoretical horizon that is no longer that of Cartesianism: “some entire fragments of Descartes’s philosophy are maintained in some syntheses for which the inspiration is no longer Cartesian” (Alquié 1974:300). This remark is an exemplary illustration of the situation of morality. 74 We should therefore qualify a little the judgment of François Azouvi who dated to about 1730 the moment when the Cartesian “bloc” fragments under the impulse of authors who are not averse to calling themselves Cartesian in metaphysics, even though they adopt without remorse the principles of Newtonian physics. The Malebranchean attitude towards Cartesian morality suggests that this movement of dispersal and doctrinal distortion began much sooner. See Azouvi 2002, notably ch. 5.

4 Huet on the reality of Cartesian doubt Thomas M.Lennon

I am not claiming infallibility, and I shall waste no time answering merely possible or pretended objections to what follows. Doubt and disbelief are not worth dispelling unless they are real. (Mellor 1981:14)

Descartes was uninterested in arbitrary doubts, which offer no reason for doubt. (Larmore 1998:1173, parenthetical comment)

There are two main points I want to make about Descartes’s use of the method of doubt. The first is that the doubt is artificial; it is strategic in character. (Broughton 2002:xi)

With respect to the reality of the doubt that he famously employs, Descartes seems to want it both ways. On the one hand, there are texts in which Descartes insists that in applying his method of doubt he is fully serious (as opposed to the skeptics, who doubt for the sake of doubting), that he has good reasons for applying the method, and that his doubt is entirely real. For example, he says in the first of the Meditations that his doubt based on a deceiving God whether he is ever anything but deceived is not a “flippant or ill-considered conclusion, but [one] based on powerful and well thought-out reasons” (AT 7:21–2/CSM 2:15). On the other hand, Descartes explicitly qualifies this last claim in response to Bourdin’s objections: I said this because at that point I was dealing merely with the kind of extreme doubt which, as I frequently stressed, is metaphysical and exaggerated1 and in no way to be transferred to practical life. It was doubt of this type to which I was referring when I said that everything that could give rise to the slightest suspicion should be regarded as a sound reason for doubt. But my friendly and ingenuous critic here puts forward as an example of the things that I said we could doubt “for powerful reasons” the question of whether there is an earth, or whether I have a body, and so on; the effect is that the reader, if he knows

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nothing of my “metaphysical” doubt and refers the doubt to practical life, may think that I am not of sound mind. (AT 7:460/CSM 2:309) He makes a similar claim in the Synopsis, that “no sane person has ever doubted [that there really is a world, and that human beings have bodies and so on].” Here he says that the point of his arguments resolving such doubts is not to establish the truth of the things doubted, but rather to show the relatively lesser strength of those arguments and lesser certainty of what they establish vis-à-vis those with respect to our minds and God (AT 7:16/CSM 2:11). In short, what Descartes appears to be doubting is accepted as true all along, and never really doubted, even if it is not well established or certain. So, does Descartes really doubt or not? The question arose, as will be seen below, as early as the Objections and Replies, and has arisen ever since. The question is exceedingly difficult, first of all because it is far from clear exactly what is being asked. Consider the difference made if we ask, instead, did Descartes doubt? In its first formulation, the question occurs in the eternal realm of reasons and asks about the grounds of doubt. In its second formulation, the question occurs in the temporal realm of history and asks about a matter of fact. Distinguishing the realms of reason (philosophy) and fact (biography), and then relating them in the appropriate way, is very sensitive in the case of Descartes. With respect to the reality of doubt, it involves explicating the conceit of “the Meditator” that now seems ubiquitous in the literature. Who is “the Meditator” who doubts? (Only then can the tensions among the epigraphs above be sorted out.) Here, there is no need to fully resolve such difficult matters. The concern will be the more limited one of how the reality of Descartes’s doubt figured in a crucial episode in the reception of his philosophy. The tool for this investigation will be the criticism of Descartes’s doubt lodged by Pierre-Daniel Huet, in his Censura philosophiae cartesianae, the most comprehensive, unrelenting and devastating reception Descartes’s philosophy ever received. But first, something about Huet and his Censura, for neither he nor it are very well known. Pierre-Daniel Huet (1630–1721) was an erudite. He was also many other things: a cleric, an ecclesiastical administrator, a teacher, an experimental scientist, a poet, a novelist, a literary theorist, a geographer, an historian of commerce and trade and, of course, a philosopher. But the key to his polymathic personality and interests—to his lifestyle and career decisions, as we might say—lay in the sort of learning that can be had only from the study of old books. His antiquarian erudition explains his break from the Cartesianism that fascinated him in his early years. I cannot easily express the admiration which this new mode of philosophizing excited in my young mind [which was ignorant of the ancient sects], when, from the simplest and plainest principles, I saw so many dazzling wonders brought forth, and the whole fabric of the world and the nature of things, as it were, spontaneously springing into existence. In fact, I was for many years closely engaged in the study of Cartesianism…and I long wandered in the mazes of this reasoning delirium, till mature years and a full examination of the system from its foundations, compelled me to renounce it, as I obtained demonstrative proof

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that it was a baseless structure, and tottered from the very ground.2 The re-examination was occasioned, it would seem, by the appearance, in 1674–5, of Malebranche’s Search After Truth. There he found, elaborated to a degree far beyond anything in Descartes’s works, the Cartesian disdain for the humanist values dearest to Huet’s antiquarian psyche. Worse, what he found was that the study of history, of geography, of dead languages, etc., was ridiculed by Malebranche in a way that could be attributed only to pride, arrogance, and vanity, a vicious attitude that he came to perceive as an invariant feature of Cartesianism itself. The result of Huet’s re-examination of Descartes was the Censura, which appeared for the first time in 1689. The Censura makes Descartes out to be an arrogant cheat, like Malebranche and his other followers. The cheating was required because Descartes is unable to deliver on what he promises, and his inability cannot be acknowledged precisely because of his pride, arrogance, and vanity. Nor is his failure superficial or peripheral; it is profound, systematic, and irremediable. The Censura argues, at length, that his philosophy fails with respect to the sorts of issues, and for the sorts of reasons, that have most occupied Cartesian scholarship for the past half-century: doubt, the cogito, proofs for the existence of God, clarity and distinctness as criteria of truth, the circularity of the Meditations, etc. No one in the period, or in any period before our own time, went after Descartes in these terms to such an extent. Because it was not only Descartes but also his followers who were attacked, and not in kind terms, a response to the Censura was assured, especially since the work was quickly and widely read, going through four editions in less than five years. The response that Huet describes in his foreword to the edition of 1694 was international, and curiously professorial, coming from Eberhard Schweling, professor at Bremen, Johannes Schotanus, professor at Franeker, Andreas Petermann, professor at Leipzig, Burchard de Volder, professor at Leiden, and others.3 The step-by-step refutation of the Censura, or the attempt thereat, even became a student exercise at the University of Leiden. Whether by default or by election, Pierre-Sylvain Regis, whom Huet dubbed the “Prince of the Cartesians,” was the principal voice responding from the French Cartesians. Pasquier Quesnel took Regis’s Système (1690) to be, in part, a response to Huet. But his main rebuttal, obviously, was the Réponse à la censure, which appeared in 1691. This is an exceedingly important document in the history of Cartesianism, since it purports to reply in defense not just of Descartes, but of the Cartesians.4 Huet was led by Regis’s Réponse to publish the much-expanded edition of the Censura of 1694, in which he interpolated rebuttals of Regis’s replies to the first chapter, which is on the Cartesian doubt. As he explained in the foreword, he restricts his attention to this first chapter since it contains the foundation of the Cartesian system, such that its demise spells the demise of the whole. Huet also left an unpublished manuscript entitled Censure de la réponse à la censure, from which the additions to the edition of 1694 might have been derived, although the reverse derivation seems more likely. This reply to Regis is a 125-page text that was likely intended by Huet to be a complete work and, at some point, to be published as such. It contains an extensive index, a stylized title-page with pseudonym, as well as a letter, in Huet’s hand, from the “publisher” of the work which states that, when he was sent the work from France, he was not informed as to why the

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work was incomplete.5 If Regis was the main French defender of Cartesianism, he was not the only one. In what opened up a complicated, multi-cornered struggle, the disciple of Malebranche, Henri Lelevel, in 1694 defended the Oratorian against not only Huet but also, to some extent, the Paris professor Jean Du Hamel, who had attacked Regis as well. But Lelevel was responding primarily to Regis, whose Système had attacked Malebranche. The intervention by Lelevel represents an attempt to claim the pure line of Cartesianism, one of many such attempts that were contested more openly and with greater venom than any extramural battle had been. (Only the Censura itself ever unleashed the sort of fury to be found in the exchange between Malebranche and Arnauld, for example.) In any case, Lelevel’s intervention may have been part of the reason why Malebranche himself did not engage the battle with Huet. Not all of the reaction to the Censura was negative, of course. Most notably, Leibniz, after reading what must have been a manuscript of De Volder’s reply to Huet, thought so highly of the Censura that in a letter to Huet of 1692 he proposed adding some of his own criticisms to a future edition of it. Four years later, in a letter to Nicaise, he still had the same thought. What would have been a very interesting collaboration came to naught, however. If the work is so important, why isn’t it better known? Because it was published in Latin, and it has not been translated because once it did its job on the audience for which it was initially intended, it slipped into obscurity, just as the language in which it was written was later to do. It was the last philosophical attack on Descartes of any historical importance, the last nail in the coffin of Cartesianism, which was buried along with it. It needs to be disinterred, beginning with the first chapter, which deals with doubt.6 The very first section of the first chapter of the Censura is on doubt—appropriately so, since, as the title of the section indicates, Huet takes doubt to be the foundation of the Cartesian philosophy.7 He takes it to be universal in scope, to be so sweeping that “no certainty at all was left to the mind on which to secure a footing.” It involves taking things to be not just uncertain, but completely false (omnino pro falsis). Huet takes Descartes’s reasons for proceeding in this way to be the following: the senses are often deceptive; we are unable to distinguish between dreams and the waking state; reason is unreliable, or at least we are unreliable in applying it; and, worst of all, we do not know whether God has made us such that we always err. Regis replied that, according to Descartes, completely evident truths should be doubted until recognized as such, not that they should be taken to be false.8 Moreover, according to Regis, Descartes’s doubt is not a real doubt, but a methodological, hyperbolical or, simply, feigned doubt. (Regis uses these terms synonymously.) Real doubt, by contrast, is applicable only to things whose nature is such that they are not evident to the mind; feigned doubt applies to everything, including what is evident, but only for purposes of examination. Presumably, one begins with feigned doubt, which becomes real with respect to everything that fails the test of evidence.9 Huet rejects this distinction in kinds of doubt as useless in the search for truth and as leading only to contradictions. Instead, for several reasons he takes Descartes’s doubt to have been real: (1) Descartes himself said it was real (AT 7:21–2, 257–8, 350/CSM 2:15, 180, 243); (2) Descartes’s distinction of his doubt from the (real) doubt of the skeptics

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does not mean anything. He drew this distinction only because he was ignorant of their philosophy; they doubted not just to doubt, as he claimed (DM III, AT 6:28–9/CSM 1:125), but for the same reasons he did; Descartes called his doubt metaphysical and hyperbolical, not because it was unreal, but because it applies to metaphysical issues as opposed to the practical affairs of daily life—again as per the skeptics, it might be added. Why did Descartes engage in real doubt, according to Huet? Because, as Descartes himself indicates, there are good reasons for doubting. The alleged distinction between real and feigned doubt is crucial. Regis appeals to it repeatedly, with Huet no less frequently rejecting it. Alas, neither of them elucidates the distinction to the extent one might wish, at least not in the published exchange. Some enlightenment is forthcoming from hitherto unpublished manuscript material of Huet. In his book-length text, the Censure de la réponse à la censure, Huet replies to Regis at far greater length than does his expanded Censura. “I maintain,” he says, that the distinction between real and feigned doubt is useless, that all doubt is real doubt, and that the feigned doubt appealed to by Regis is not a doubt at all. Doubt is the mind’s balance between competing beliefs [opinions]. Belief is the mind’s determination on an idea as in conformity with its object. The cause of doubt is the apparent equality of conformity of two competing ideas. (Huet ms: 9–10) Huet then gives an example of the difference between belief and doubt. I see a dog nearby in full daylight. I form the idea of a dog. This idea seems to me to conform to its object; I conceive the belief that I see a dog. I see a dog at a distance at nightfall; I form two ideas, the one of a dog, the other of a wolf. Since these two ideas appear to me equally in conformity to their object, my mind is balanced between two competing beliefs; my mind is balanced between the two competing beliefs, that I see a dog, and that I see a wolf. My mind’s balance here is the doubt whether I see a dog, or whether I see a wolf. With this understood, it is clear that the doubt comes from the nature of the object. Now let’s see what feigned doubt is. I see a dog nearby in full daylight; I conceive the belief that I see a dog; but I resolve to doubt whether I see a dog. I can form this doubt only by balancing my mind between the competing beliefs that I see a dog and that I see a wolf. But my mind, having already conceived the belief that I see a dog and being determined to it, and the mind’s balance being contrary to its determination, must be undetermined. Thus, my mind will be both determined and undetermined by this feigned doubt. Since this is contradictory and impossible, feigned doubt is not possible. (Huet ms: 9–10) Now, a great deal more needs to be said here. For example, how is it that both the idea of a dog and the idea of a wolf have the same object, with only one conforming to it? More importantly, why is it that feigned doubt determines the mind to a belief? The point is, or should be, that in doubt there is no determination, not even feigned determination. But Huet’s main point is nonetheless tolerably clear. Feigned doubt is no more in a category

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with weak and strong doubts, short-lived and enduring doubts, than is fool’s gold in a category with real gold. One’s doubt is feigned, perhaps, only in the sense that one pretends to doubt, for example, in order to mislead others into thinking that one is really doubting. The suggestion is that this histrionic head-scratching is a reprehensible form of deception, like trying to pay a debt with fool’s gold, a suggestion that is strengthened as the text continues: And indeed a feigned doubt is no more a doubt than a bogey man is a man. And since they have nothing in common but their name, while their essences are different, they are strictly equivocal. Thus when Regis comes and tells us that Descartes’s doubt is a feigned doubt, he attempts to make use of an equivocation, which, unpacked, means that when Descartes said that to find the truth it is necessary to doubt, he meant that in order to find the truth it is not necessary to doubt at all. Using this artifice and seeking a false escape in the ambiguity of words, Regis, like most of the Cartesians, both contravenes, and makes Descartes contravene, his principle that clear and distinct ideas should be attached to terms.10 For that, before entering into discussion with them, we shall ask them for a dictionary of their language in order to know what they mean and what use they will make of it. (Huet ms: 9–10) Not just Descartes but his followers as well are cheats; they say one thing and mean another. That one should speak at all, if it is only in order to be misunderstood, is a paradoxical strategy that will come up again below.11 Meanwhile, to return to the Censura, even in the first edition there are indications that Huet takes Descartes’s use of doubt to be problematic. Recall that he sees Descartes as attempting to hold that everything is not just uncertain, but false. But to doubt something, according to Huet, is no more to consider it as false than as true; it is to withhold judgment concerning its truth or falsity.12 Now Descartes had been accused of a contradiction in this regard, in the Seventh Objections, by the Jesuit Bourdin, who reasoned as follows: if the statement “two and three make five” is uncertain, then according to Descartes I should take it for false; but that it is false is also uncertain, so I should assert that two and three do make five (AT 7:458/CSM 2:307). Descartes replied that “only someone who would not blush to be called a quibbler could pretend that it was my intention to believe the opposite of what is doubtful.” His view of the contradictory statements is that we should “dismiss them [both] completely from our thought,” so as not to affirm first one, then the other (AT 7:460–1, 462/CSM 2:309, 310). But this is to take back with one hand what he had given with the other, unless, perhaps, one focuses on the distinction between regarding, considering and taking, on the one hand, and believing, on the other. The injunction is to consider everything as false, not to believe that it is. Something like this distinction is appealed to by Regis when he tries to overcome the opposition Huet sees between doubting something and taking it to be false. The falsity involved, according to him, is hypothetical falsity. Huet was not impressed. In the later edition he argued that hypothetically doubting something and taking it to be hypothetically false are no less problematic than really doubting something and really

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taking it to be false. Perhaps his general point might be put by saying that contradictions are contradictions in all possible worlds. But there is a deeper point to be made. Huet doesn’t put it this way, at least not here, but just as only the dubious should be doubted, so only what is, or at least appears to be, false should be taken to be false. The deeper issue is that hypothetical falsity is, like feigned doubt, a cheat—a violation of intellectual honesty.13 Thus the first three sections of the Censura. The next ten sections of book one, amounting to almost a quarter of this lopsided work, deal primarily with the cogito. Huet returns to the issue of doubt in the last two sections; the penultimate section is entitled as follows: “At the outset of his philosophy Descartes joined the Academics and skeptics, but then immediately went astray when he abandoned them.” Here, Huet repeats his criticism that Descartes was mistaken in his claim that the skeptics doubt for the sake of doubt. In particular, the skeptics doubt the cogito because it, like everything else, lacks evidence. The argument for this is contained in the previous ten sections, the upshot of which is that the cogito must be understood to mean either “I am thinking, therefore I will be,” or “I thought, therefore I am,” although there is a great deal else that Huet has to say about it that is of no direct relevance here.14 Not incidentally, this section, fourteen, offers the best justification, most of it in response to Regis, for classifying Huet as a skeptic. Although it is not conclusive evidence, it is stronger than anything else to be found in the Censura, or, certainly, in the better-known Traité philosophique de la faiblesse de l’esprit humain, which is often taken to be a skeptical tract. (In fact, skepticism comes under attack there no less than any other philosophy.) In addition to the defense against the doubt-for-the-sake-of-doubt objection, which Huet sets aside with the distinction between the proximate goal of epoché and the ultimate goal of ataraxia,15 there are two other considerations of interest. One is that the skeptics were not so crippled by their epoche as not to avoid danger and even death. This allegation, he says, is a canard from Antigonus Carystius as related by Diogenes Laertius, “in a hastily written and crude work without polish,” a canard that is shot down, as it were, by Sextus Empiricus. There is an historical fact of the matter, and Descartes, according to Huet, does not take the trouble to get it straight. This sort of historical, literary scholarship is, of course, typical of the argument, and general methodology, soon to be made famous by another alleged skeptic, Pierre Bayle. Second, Huet also defends the skeptics’ position that even an argument for which no equipollent rebuttal is available should be rejected, since, just as that argument had to await discovery, so its rebuttal might be awaiting discovery. Against Regis’s ridicule of this position, Huet gives a general argument for epoche: “aren’t all men made wiser by age, experience, study, and meditation, and by the correction of childhood beliefs and the elimination of error?” (Huet 1694:80). What this shows is that skepticism, at least in the hands of Huet, is not the mute disbelief of the Pyrrhonians. If Huet is a skeptic, he is one who clearly thinks that progress can be made in the acquisition of knowledge; for how else could error be corrected? If the program is primarily negative, it is not exclusively so. The upshot is that Huet evinces, not principled rejection of all belief, but practical suspicion of possible falsity until proven otherwise, which in the event at least sometimes occurs. In short, Huet seems to be less a Pyrrhonian than an Academic skeptic. The section ends with a text that indicates Huet’s motivation, not only for the long

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reply to Regis on behalf of the skeptics, but also for his initial break from the Cartesians and perhaps for the Censura as whole. For what he has to say here is later developed at much greater length, and with even greater vehemence, not to say vitriol. The Cartesians, he says, calling them “that proud clan of Descartes,” should understand that their customary condemnation of ancient doctrines, their admiration of their own, and their boasting of their ignorance, are ridiculous and inappropriate, since they wish to appear to know what in fact they do not know. Let them understand that it is far more advisable to free themselves somewhat from this contempt, and to set their minds to the study of ancient philosophy, than to bring disgrace to themselves because of their unseemly ignorance. (Huet 1694:80–1) Here, implicitly but not incidentally, we have the reason why Descartes did not take the trouble to get the facts straight about skepticism. The last section of Chapter 1 is entitled, “Descartes admits that we have no rule of truth unless he establishes that we were not created by God so as always to err.” The argument of the 1689 Censura is that in attempting to overturn the skeptical doctrine, Descartes in fact strengthened it, since he failed in his attempt to rule out the possibility of universal divine deception. Huet’s position, and his arguments for it, anticipate the familiar Popkin thesis of Descartes the skeptic malgré lui, of Descartes who begins as a dogmatist, but who ends as a skeptic because of the impossible success conditions that he sets for his own arguments. But here, skepticism malgré lui is not introduced as the main, overarching dialectic of the Meditations, which according to Huet is dogmatism malgré lui. Descartes begins as a skeptic, but then, because of his pride, arrogance, and vanity in the face of a failed program, slips into dogmatism. Nonetheless, the result in a secondary, internal dialectic is skepticism, indeed skepticism malgré lui, because dogmatism fails on the grounds just mentioned, ultimately that universal divine deception cannot be ruled out. Once again, Huet’s motivation is revealed by his reply to Regis in the expanded Censura, this time the motivation for his analysis of Cartesian doubt. It deserves lengthy quotation. Huet agrees with the Cartesians when they say that the skeptics really doubted, but he of course disagrees that Descartes only feigned doubt. For by what mark can the feigned doubt of Descartes be distinguished from the real doubt of the skeptics? The skeptics philosophize in the same way as does Descartes: they each search after truth, they each avoid error, they each think that error can be avoided through doubt, which they therefore advocate. But when each of them is pressed by adversaries, Descartes, caught in an obvious contradiction and inconsistency of views, abandons his previous doubt and, misusing its advantages to the benefit of his philosophy, he pretends to pretend, lest he be forced to expose the faults [noxas praestare] of sincere doubt—which ill befits philosophical candor. But the skeptics remain notably faithful to themselves. They defend their doubt through doubt and so do not relinquish their principles, since they are able to defend their cause with the same arts, the same pretense, and with equal justification as are the Cartesians.

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Descartes’s failing is a moral one: he pretends to pretend in order to avoid responsibility for the “faults” of real doubt. Meanwhile, the skeptics by contrast are morally admirable. They “remain notably faithful to themselves,” not because of some dogmatic adherence to doubt, as Descartes had charged, but by honest adherence to the rule never to accept what is not evidently true, as Descartes himself had prescribed.16 To use a formula that was employed repeatedly by Cartesians who departed from Descartes’s verba ipsissima while nonetheless thinking themselves to be adhering to his principles, the skeptics were more Cartesian than Descartes himself.17 But why would Descartes himself have been so un-Cartesian in this crucial instance? A related, good question concerns what Huet might have had in mind by the “faults of real doubt” and how Descartes by pretending to pretend might be thought to avoid them. One sort of answer might come from recent dissimulation theorists, who see Descartes as a subversive: Descartes only pretends to pretend to doubt in order to avoid admitting after all that he doesn’t believe in God, or perhaps in anything else that he is generally taken to assert in the Meditations. That is, Descartes fully realizes that real doubt undoes his arguments for the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, etc., and therefore he substitutes an anodyne doubt, easy of resolution at a superficial level. The attraction of this double pretence for him is that it does not threaten his real project, which is not to respond to the appeal of the Lateran Council to prove the immortality of the soul, or to do anything else but insinuate a secular worldview as part of his new science. In short, Descartes’s whole story of doubt and its resolution is a subversive smokescreen. But this sort of subversion cannot be what Huet has in mind. He agrees that Descartes really does doubt, but he does not think that the failure to overcome this doubt leads to atheism and a secular worldview. Huet cannot hold the subversion account because in his view Descartes’s doubt is not just real but well-founded and insurmountable; that is, Huet shares the doubt, and yet he himself is undeniably a religious theist. His interpretation of Descartes is thus very far from the Enlightenment interpretation of Bayle, for example, as a crypto-atheist. This reading of Bayle gained currency in the eighteenth century because it came from people who, unlike Huet, were themselves atheists. Still, the subversion hypothesis suggests another, more plausible answer to the question of what exactly Huet was charging Descartes with. The “faults of real doubt” may be simply that real doubt cannot be answered, or resolved, at least not philosophically. The thrust would be that Descartes fails to see, as Huet himself does see, that ultimately only faith can overcome the sorts of doubts that Descartes raises. Pursuing this line would be too digressive, since it obviously entails an investigation of all the arguments Huet gives for Descartes’s failure to overcome doubt. Another tack, meanwhile, is to investigate the plausibility of Huet’s charge that Descartes’s doubt is real and that he only pretended to pretend to doubt. And here it is of use to consider some of the previous reception of Descartes’s use of doubt. For, while Huet’s criticisms on this topic were rare in the period, they were not unique. What we find earlier is the same ambivalence on Descartes’s part. Most notably, Gassendi was exercised by the topic.18 Indeed, Bouillier in the nineteenth century found that the “purely philosophical objections” of the Censura all came from either Sextus or

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Gassendi. (This was in addition to the “melange of scholastic subtlety, satire, irony, and gross insolence” that he also found there; Bouillier 1970: vol. 1, 594).19 He was wrong about Sextus who, while certainly defended in the Censura, does not provide any of the objections there. More plausible is the connection with Gassendi, of whom Huet was clearly a reader. (The annotations that Huet interleaved in his own copy of the 1694 Censura demonstrate this, although obviously they don’t demonstrate that he read Gassendi before writing the 1689 Censura.) In his objections to the First Meditation, Gassendi found the doubt exaggerated and unnecessary—the “darkness of the human mind” and the “weakness of our nature” need no argument in his view. In order to call everything into doubt you pretend that you are asleep and consider that everything is an illusion. But can you thereby compel yourself to believe that you are not awake, and to consider as false and uncertain whatever is going on around you? Whatever you say, no one will believe that you have really convinced yourself that not one thing you formerly knew is true, or that your senses, or God, or an evil demon, have managed to deceive you all the time. Would it not have been more in accord with philosophical honesty and the love of truth simply to state the facts candidly and straightforwardly, rather than, as some critics might put it, to resort to artifice, sleight of hand and circumlocution? (AT 7:257–8/CSM 2:180) Here we have the charge, or at least the suggestion, that Descartes is being deceptive; he is not acting “in accord with philosophical honesty and the love of truth;” he might be said to be employing “artifice, sleight of hand and circumlocution.” But Gassendi, unlike Huet, obviously takes Descartes to be pretending to doubt. Gassendi takes his doubt to be unreal, and it is to this that Descartes replied, making two points of interest here in response to what Gassendi perceived as the unnecessary and exaggerated suppositions of the First Meditation. First, a reason is necessary to doubt. One can’t just doubt anything at will; hence the supposition of dreaming, a deceiving God, etc. Second, a bare appeal to the darkness of the mind is insufficient; one wants to know why the mind is dark: that is, what reason there is for taking it to be dark. Huet could have cited this text against Regis; because Descartes’s doubt is real, it needs a sufficient reason to occur. If the reasons for doubting are good reasons, if the reasons for taking the mind to be in darkness are good reasons, then the doubt is not feigned but real. The very beginning of Descartes’s reply to the objections against the Second Meditation seems to make Huet’s case: “Here you [Gassendi] continue to employ rhetorical tricks instead of reasoning. You pretend that I am playing a game when I am serious.” However, the text continues in a way that leaves open the door to Regis’s view that real doubt is never applied to what is evident, that only feigned doubt is until the grounds of its evidence are discovered: “and you take me to be making serious statements and genuine assertions when I am merely raising questions and putting forward commonly held views in order to inquire into them further” (AT 7:349–51/CSM 2:242–3). The question of doubt arises, of course, in the lengthy response to Descartes’s Replies,

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the Disquisitio metaphysica; but here, Gassendi raises an objection based on the reality of Cartesian doubt (Gassendi 1962:36–7). He argues that Descartes cannot do with it what he claims to do, namely free the mind from all previous judgments (a praejudiciis omnibus); judgments persist in memory, and some of them are invariable because what they are about is (or at least appears to be) invariable. For example, the judgment that the sun is circular and bright, and that two right angles equal a straight angle, are invariable, as opposed to the judgment that a certain stick is straight, which varies with its position in air or in water. Gassendi here does a bit of empirical psychology with respect to actual belief formation, rather than conceptual analysis of the grounds for belief. But Descartes implicates himself in Gassendi’s argument with his reply to the Disquisitio, or at least to the summary of it. This is the letter to Clerselier, which has not received the attention that it deserves.20 There Descartes concedes, first of all, that it is impossible to get rid of all previous notions. This impossibility is clearly not a conceptual impossibility. He then insists that in doubting he was concerned only with what we continue to accept on the basis of previous judgments, and this is not impossible because it depends on the will, which of course requires reasons for acting (or for acting the way it does when it suspends a previous judgment). This is not conceptual analysis of the grounds of belief; instead, it can only be directed at what is causally necessary for belief. Indeed, it is because previous judgments can be so difficult to suspend, says Descartes, that he provided the reasons for doubting that he did in the First Meditation (AT 9–1:204/ CSM 2:270).21 Another example of Descartes taking doubt to be a psychological, real event occurs in his reply to the Seventh Objections, from Bourdin. Here the objection concerns worries over the strength of Descartes’s “well-thought out” reasons for doubting and what compels him to renounce his former beliefs. According to Descartes, Bourdin fatuously plays on the word “compel.” There may be reasons which are strong enough to compel us to doubt, even though these reasons are themselves doubtful, and hence are not to be retained later on… The reasons are strong so long as we have no others which produce certainty by removing doubt. Now since I found no other countervailing reasons in the First Meditation, despite meditating and searching for them, I therefore said that the reasons for doubt which I found there were “powerful and wellthought out.” (AT 7:473–4/CSM 2:319) Even though the reasons are later given up and the doubt with them, this is not at all to say that the doubt was not real at the time he had those reasons. On the contrary, it is to say for that very reason that the doubt was real. As in his replies to Gassendi, however, Descartes here insinuates the unreality of doubt. The issue is the “minimal element of doubt” (minimum dubitatonis) sufficient for regarding something as false (AT 7:24/CSM 2:16). According to Bourdin’s understanding of the Meditations, there are two relevant categories: what is not evident, for example whether there is an earth, and what is evident, for example whether two and three make five. Things in the second category contain a small element of doubt based

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upon the possibility of an evil demon, “which although ‘minimal’ is sufficient to justify the label ‘doubtful’ and to make the doubt a real one” (AT 7:455/CSM 2:305). This is Huet’s view too. But in response, Descartes worries over doubt about not the second category but the first category, what is not evident, which he describes as “extreme… metaphysical… exaggerated and in no way to be transferred to practical life” (AT 7:458– 61/ CSM 2:307–9). He says that anyone transferring it to practical life would give the impression of not being of sound mind, thus making the same point he had made in the Synopsis, viz. that “no sane person has ever seriously doubted that there is a world” (AT 7:15–16/CSM 2:11).22 The result is that we are pretty much back to where we started, with Descartes seeming to have it both ways on the reality of doubt. But in the meantime, Huet has been seen to elaborate this ambivalence into a dilemma. If doubt is real, it is unanswerable; for Huet takes the grounds of Descartes’s doubt to be real and ineradicable. If it is unreal, it is dishonest; certainly if it feigns to be real, it is dishonest. But why can’t unreal doubt be honest by pretending to be just what it is—honest fool’s gold as it were? In response to Gassendi, Descartes suggested that his doubt was hyperbolical in the sense of the contrary-to-fact suppositions of astronomers, who for purposes of their calculations suppose that there are lines across the sky. The doubt is, like such lines, nothing more than a heuristic that should mislead only the hopelessly naïve. But how might the doubt help us to understand in the way the astronomer’s lines might help? One answer might be that, in general terms, the doubt is not real but theoretical in the sense that one mentions the doubt, as it were, to show where it leads. A specific version of this strategy would be that the hyperbolical doubt figures as a premise in a reductio of the skeptic’s position, roughly in the familiar way that Frankfurt understands Descartes’s validation of reason. The argument is that doubt consistently applied leads, not to the demise of reason, but to its validation. But this is not to pretend that the doubt is real. It is only to really consider the doubt that others take to be real. Nor, of course, is it to endorse the doubt as real.23 For what it is worth, the kind of rebuttal that Huet would mount against this answer is that the heuristic fails. It fails both philosophically, for the reasons he gives, but which have not been examined here, and psychologically, as is evidenced by Huet himself, who has followed Descartes’s meditation and finds himself unconvinced. Huet mocks Descartes and his followers for claiming that the mind’s attention picks out the clear and distinct ideas that show his philosophy to be true. To the contrary, his attention shows it to be a failed doctrine of “empty visions,” and that it is they who have followed “the errors of a rambling mind” (Huet 1694: ch. 2, sec. 16). The upshot is that Descartes is either deluded in thinking that he has answered skepticism, or, as Huet undoubtedly sees it, dissimulating and dishonest in pretending that he has answered it. To conclude, it will be useful to summarize Huet’s view and indicate how it differs from the subversion view, according to which Descartes also dissimulates. According to Huet, because there are real grounds for doubt that he recognizes, Descartes really does doubt. For the same reason, he cannot merely pretend to doubt. But Descartes discovers, as he must, that the grounds for doubt and hence the doubt itself cannot be overcome. This is a defeat that he cannot accept because of his pride, arrogance, and vanity. So he resorts to pretence. He could pretend to overcome doubt if he could merely pretend to

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doubt. But this he cannot do. So he feigns to feign doubt and thus is able to feign having overcome it. Huet and the subversion theorist thus agree on the following three points: (1) Descartes really does doubt (although they might differ on just what the doubt is, the grounds for it, and how it is expressed); (2) Descartes fails to overcome his doubt; (3) Descartes feigns having overcome it. They disagree on Descartes’s strategy in feigning and his intention in doing so. According to the subversion theorist, Descartes feigns overcoming doubt, in fact even feigns the attempt to do so, in order to hide his atheism. According to Huet, Descartes feigns that he feigns the doubt in order to feign having overcome it. And he feigns having done so in order to hide his inability to do so, which is an affront to his pride, arrogance, and vanity. Notes 1 quam…hyperbolicam (AT 7:460). Marjorie Grene says that “it is unfortunate that the Cambridge translators render ‘hyperbolic’ as ‘exaggerated,’ thus missing the technical rhetorical significance of the term, which Descartes would certainly have been aware of.” She cites Martial Gueroult: “in rhetoric it designates a figure by which one gives the object in consideration a higher degree of something, whether positive or negative, it does not possess in reality.” The upshot for Gueroult is that “methodological and systematic doubt, which is fictive and proceeds not from things but from the resolution to doubt, differs from true doubt which results from the nature of things and can result in skepticism” (Grene 1999:553, n. 1). 2 This account was written, and certainly was published, many years after the events related here, but in manuscript material from the period Huet indicates much the same relation to Cartesianism, saying that he was an impassioned partisan, and that he was disabused of Cartesianism “only when age, study and reflection yielded maturity of mind” (Huet 1718:2:182f; Huet 1853:2:23; Huet ms: 3). 3 For more on De Volder, see Chapter 8 in this volume. 4 See Chapter 5 in this volume for more on Regis’s brand of Cartesianism. 5 This was not the only instance of indirection on Huet’s part. See, most notably, his Nouveaux mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du cartésianisme. For more on this text, see Rodis-Lewis 1994. 6 For more biblio-biographical information on Huet, see the introduction to Huet 2003. 7 As an indication of how the exchange between Huet and Regis proceeded, Regis replied that not doubt but the cogito was the foundation of Descartes’s philosophy, and that while Descartes began his philosophy with doubt, by the foundation “he and all other philosophers mean a simple truth, known in itself, on which all other truths of the philosophy are based” (Regis 1691:2). In the edition of 1694, Huet explained that he spoke of a foundation “in Vitrivius’s sense of a place that is excavated in order for a solid substructure to be built there,” elaborating his point in the Censura de la réponse á la censura with a citation of Cicero’s De officiis to the effect that the first foundation of justice is to harm no one, and only secondarily to do them good, thereby showing how a negative proposition (doubt everything you

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can, or, believe nothing you can avoid believing) can be a foundation. Huet’s attitude was to concede nothing, to buttress his arguments by citing authorities in just the way that the Cartesians refused to do, etc. 8 A modern version of this saw-off over Cartesian doubt occurs between Bernard Williams and Robert Wachbrit (Wachbrit 1996:112–13). The dispute is relevant to the topic here. Wachbrit argues against Williams that Descartes never embraces the view that all his ordinary opinions are false and he never wonders if they might be… The step he does take is, in his own words, the step of “pretending…that these former opinions are utterly false and imaginary.” 9 See Gilson, who sees two kinds of doubt in Descartes: “as a skeptic he doubts what really seems to him doubtful, and he willfully [volontairement] extends this skepticism to what he does not really doubt, but whose abstract possibility of being doubted he conceives for reasons that he imagines” (Gilson 1925:286). Gueroult later took a similar line, explicitly citing Regis (see Grene 1999: nn. 4 and 6). 10 Huet’s note: Principles I.74. 11 The strategy, or at least the accusation of having deployed it, occurred often enough in the period. Consider William Carroll’s accusation of Spinozism against Locke, for example (Lennon 1993:327–8; and sec. 28). 12 Yvon Belaval points out that Gassendi and Leibniz also take Descartes to relinquish doubt when he takes the doubtful for false: “it is incontestably a mistake against formal logic” (Belaval 1960:37). 13 Gilson thinks that Regis’s claim that “the falsity that Descartes attributed to uncertain things, being only hypothetical, did not prevent him from doubting them,” is supported by what Descartes says in response to Hobbes: “the arguments for doubting which [Hobbes] here accepts as valid [verae], are ones that I was presenting as merely plausible” (AT 7:172/CSM 2:121); see Gilson 1925:285. 14 The more humorous reformulation quoted by Popkin, “I thought, therefore perhaps I was,” occurs not here but in the Censure de la réponse (Popkin 1964:204). 15 Just what the relation is between suspension of judgment (epoche) and the tranquility it is supposed to produce (ataraxid) is a question that cannot be pursued here. However, if it turns out that there is no distinction between the two, then Huet’s reply is in trouble. 16 What Huet meant by evidence is rather different, however, from what Descartes or any of his followers meant by it. For Huet, evidence is the criterion of belief; we thus call true what seems true to the greatest number, or at least to the greatest number of the learned; the more a thing is generally believed, the more its truth is obvious… Cicero got it right when he said, general agreement is the voice of nature. (Huet 1679: preface, n.p.) 17 On this point, see Malbreil 1991:326; 1985:129. 18 Aside from Bourdin, whose contribution is examined below, the only other objector

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to the Meditations to raise doubts about doubt was Hobbes, who rather liked what Descartes had to say about it, and complained only about Descartes’s digging up old arguments in its behalf (AT 7:171/CSM 2:121). 19 “The tone of the polemic is disagreeable and not serious” (Bouilllier 1970: vol. 1, 594). 20 It is here that Descartes responds to what he calls the “objection of objections,” which no one but Popkin seems to have noticed. See Lennon 2004. 21 See also Gouhier’s distinction between the deceiving God as a “metaphysical hypothesis” concerning the origin of his existence that affects the ability to secure “authentic evidence,” and the evil demon as a “methodological artifice” to forestall the encroachment of customary belief whose force is based simply on habit. (Gouhier 1925:113–21). 22 An additional problem here is that Bourdin had also included in the first category the existence of colors, which winds up being doubted because false. 23 Nor is it to endorse reason, for that matter. As Frankfurt insists, Descartes validates reason only by showing that a line of argument against the validity of reason fails.

5 French Cartesianism in context The Paris Formulary and Regis’s Usage Tad M.Schmaltz

It is beyond doubt that Cartesianism and Jansenism both played a dominant role in the intellectual life of early modern France. However, there is some question concerning the relation between these two movements. It might seem initially that there is little connection between them. Jansenism was born of the Augustinus of the Louvain theologian Cornelius Jansenius (1585–1638), which called for a return to the Augustinian emphasis on the importance of the workings of divine grace in the salvation of the elect. The preoccupation here was with theological rather than philosophical issues; indeed, Jansenius himself expressed a disdain for a philosophy that exalts corrupt human reason. In contrast, Cartesianism was born of the writings of the French philosopher René Descartes. Descartes’s main concern was to defend his natural philosophy, and he showed an extreme reticence to involve himself in theological disputes. Cartesianism and Jansenism would therefore seem to be separated by a divide between revealed theology and natural philosophy. Even so, it is something of a textbook view that these two movements are intimately related. Such a view is reflected in the claim of the great nineteenth-century historian of Cartesianism, Francisque Bouillier, that there was a “natural alliance” in the early modern period between Cartesianism and Jansenism. Bouillier’s specific proposal is that this alliance derives from the fact that the Cartesians “make God the unique efficient cause, the only actor who acts in us,” while the Jansenists “give everything to the grace that operates in us without us” (Bouillier 1970: vol. 1, 432–3). In order to evaluate Bouillier’s abstract characterization of this relation, we need to consider some concrete historical realities. An initial fact that must be taken into account is that Descartes’s contemporaries did not associate him with Jansenius, despite the fact that Jansenius’s Augustinus was published during Descartes’s lifetime, in 1640. The link between Cartesianism and Jansenism is a genuinely post-Descartes phenomenon. Thus, the historical trail we must follow begins after Descartes’s death in 1650. Our investigation starts with the official condemnation of Cartesianism in early modern France. Particularly relevant is a formulary condemning various Cartesian and Jansenist propositions that Louis XIV imposed in 1691 on the philosophy faculty at the University of Paris. Though several considerations are raised in the Paris Formulary (as I call it), two main issues there concern the conflict of the views of Descartes with the priority of faith and the conflict of the views of Jansenius with Church teachings regarding human freedom. The first issue bespeaks the influence of the 1689 Censura philosophice cartesianœ of Pierre-Daniel Huet.1 What is especially relevant is Huet’s objection in that

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work that Descartes arrogantly took his own reason to be equal to faith. The second issue reflects an attempt to link Cartesianism to an officially prohibited Jansenism. The charge of Jansenism in fact came to dominate academic debates over Cartesianism in France during the first decade of the eighteenth century. After considering these various points concerning the Paris Formulary, I show how the two main issues it broached were addressed in the work of the French Cartesian, PierreSylvain Regis (1632–1707). Regis was known primarily as a popularizer of Cartesian natural philosophy. However, as its title indicates, his last work, the 1704 Usage de la raison et de la foy, concerns primarily the relation between faith and reason. Regis’s central thesis there that reason and faith govern separate realms was anticipated in the work of Antoine Arnauld (1612–94), who embraced both Cartesian philosophy and Jansenist theology. It turns out, however, that the doctrine in Regis and Arnauld of a strict separation of faith and reason conflicts with the proposition in the Paris Formulary that is most relevant to the connection between Cartesianism and Jansenism. Regis’s account also is itself somewhat problematic, but the difficulties are instructive. One problem serves to reveal the inadequacy of the depiction of Cartesianism in Huet’s Censura that provides a likely source for the Paris Formulary. A second difficulty is connected to Regis’s endorsement in the Usage of a philosophical account of human freedom that has theological implications. The fact that these implications run counter to Jansenist theology further undermines the suggestion in the Paris Formulary, reflected in Bouillier’s thesis, of a natural alliance between Cartesianism and Jansenism. The Paris Formulary: Cartesianism and Jansenism The first shot in the war against Cartesianism in France was fired in 1671, when Louis XIV ordered the Archbishop of Paris, Harlay de Champvallon, to issue a decree to officials at the University of Paris that enjoins them to enforce statutes directed against the teaching of views that bring “some confusion in the explication of our mysteries.” Though the relevant views and mysteries were not specified, it is significant that the decree was issued at just the time that Louis’s confessor, the Jesuit Jean Ferrier, condemned as “very heretical and pernicious” a Cartesian tract concerning the mystery of Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist. Ferrier objected in particular to the claim in this tract that Christ is present in this sacrament only by means of the union of His soul with the matter of the eucharistic elements. This context explains the fact that the decree was used throughout the 1670s and 1680s to suppress Cartesianism in the French universities and religious orders, and that the most prominent charge directed against the Cartesians during this time was that they denied Church teachings regarding the Eucharist.2 Though the faculties of theology and medicine at the University of Paris issued declarations in support of the new campaign against Cartesianism, the Paris Faculty of Arts was silent. This situation changed in 1691, however, when the Archbishop of Paris, still Harlay de Champvallon, offered for the signature of the members of this faculty a formulary condemning the following propositions that “His Majesty desires not to be taught in the schools.” 1 One must rid oneself of all kinds of prejudices and doubt everything before being

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certain of any knowledge. 2 One must doubt whether there is a God until one has a clear and distinct knowledge of it. 3 We do not know whether God did not create us such that we are always deceived in the very things that appear the clearest. 4 As a philosopher, one must not develop fully the unfortunate consequences that an opinion might have for faith, even when the opinion appears incompatible with faith; notwithstanding this, one must stop at that opinion, if it is evident. 5 The matter of bodies is nothing other than their extension and one cannot exist without the other. 6 One must reject all the reasons the theologians and the philosophers have used until now (with Saint Thomas) to demonstrate the existence of God. 7 Faith, hope, and charity, and generally all the supernatural habits are nothing spiritual distinct from the soul, as the natural habits are nothing spiritual distinct from mind and will. 8 All the actions of the infidels are sins. 9 The state of pure nature is impossible. 10 The invincible ignorance of natural right does not excuse sin. 11 One is free, providing that one acts with judgment and with full knowledge, even when one acts necessarily. (Duplessis d’Argentré 1728–36: vol. 3–1, 149–50) Here we have not a vague censure of unspecified views that introduce confusion into the explication of some unnamed mysteries, as in the 1671 decree, but rather the condemnation of a specific set of philosophical and theological propositions.3 The fifth proposition touches on matters relevant to earlier condemnations of Cartesian eucharistic theology. However, the initial propositions of the Paris Formulary focus on a Cartesian epistemology that relies on the method of doubt and knowledge deriving from clear and distinct perception. One reason for the shift to epistemology is almost surely the publication in 1689 of Huet’s Censura.4 The initial sections of this critique of Descartes emphasize the radical nature of his doubt, the fact that this doubt covers even the belief that God exists, and the skeptical suggestion that God could deceive us even in matters that seem most evident. To be sure, there were other critiques of Descartes that highlighted these same points.5 However, there is no clear anticipation in these earlier works of the condemnation in the Paris Formulary of the fourth proposition. By contrast, the discussion near the end of the Censura mentions as one of Descartes’s principal faults that he did not accept that “it is necessary to submit his mind to all that God proposes for belief,” but instead “has dared to compare the truth of his opinions with the truth of the dogmas of the faith” (Huet 1971:172). Here we have the source of the condemnation in the Paris Formulary of the philosopher who follows reason to conclusions that conflict with faith. In this same section of the Censura, Huet claimed that Descartes himself realized that there were dogmas of the faith that conflicted with his philosophy. Instead of rejecting this philosophy, however, Descartes appealed to the fact “that God can make things that conflict with reason and with themselves, because they do not conflict with reason by themselves, but by the will of God” (Huet 1971:174). The proposal here is that Descartes

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used his doctrine that God is the free cause of the eternal truths to save the basic principle of his system that his own thought can serve as “the rule of truth,” at least with respect to matters that pertain to reason. Huet condemned Descartes’s purported belief that reason conflicts with faith principally on the grounds that the belief itself conflicts with faith, and in particular with the determination of Lateran Council that reason and faith are compatible. For Huet, the preferred option to accepting Descartes’s bizarre doctrine of created eternal truths is to adhere to the decree of the Church that faith is compatible with reason, and in general to subordinate reason to faith (Huet 1971:176–7). Though the Censura emphasizes the tension between faith and Cartesian reason, it does not mention the specific theological issues concerning sin, grace and free will that are prominent in the last four propositions of the Paris Formulary. Indeed, it is not Cartesianism that is directly concerned here, but Jansenism. This is especially clear from the last proposition of the Formulary, which asserts the compatibility of freedom with necessity. Two papal bulls dating from the 1650s specifically condemn the proposition, purportedly endorsed in Jansenius’s Augustinus, that “for merit or demerit in the state of lapsed nature, freedom from necessity [libertas a necessitate] is not necessary in man, but freedom from constraint [libertas a coactione] suffices” (Denzinger 1963:445–6). This proposition stood in opposition to the standard Jesuit view, defended in the sixteenth century by the Spanish Jesuit Molina, that freedom requires an “indifference” in action that is incompatible with necessity. The supporters of Jansenius charged that such a view supports the heretical doctrine of Pelagius, which Augustine had condemned, that our salvation is due to our free action rather than to the working of grace. For their part, the Jesuits countered that the Jansenist position supports the heretical Calvinist doctrine that God determines our salvation in complete independence of the works of our will. The anti-Jansenist bulls bespeak the victory of the Jesuits over the Jansenists in this battle. The final proposition of the Paris Formulary obviously was drawing attention to this victory, which placed the Jansenist account of freedom in opposition to official Church policy. Here we have some connection to the condemnation of the first four propositions, which in light of the work of Huet we can take to be a rejection of Descartes’s own attempt to rely on reason even when it conflicts with faith. Cartesian epistemology and Jansenist theology are of a piece insofar as both fail to respect the boundaries provided by Church tradition. The connection here is important since the Church had not condemned Descartes’s method of doubt as it had the theological views of Jansenius. Thus, there was a need to add to the critique of Cartesian epistemology the insinuation that it leads ultimately to a heretical Jansenist theology. The insinuation of a connection between Jansenism and Cartesianism does not end with the Paris Formulary. Indeed, Jansenius’s views on freedom were prominent in a later stage of the campaign against Cartesianism at the University of Paris. In 1706, for instance, one member of the Sorbonne, Edme Pirot, attacked the Cartesian philosophy professor Jean-Gabriel Petit de Montempuis by claiming that “Cartesianism is scarcely one step distant from Jansenism.”6 The Archbishop of Paris, now Louis-Antoine de Noailles, rebuked Pirot for making such an accusation without supporting evidence. However, the following year the faculty at the Sorbonne claimed that the thesis of Petit de Montempuis that our free will is only “formally” rather than “actively” indifferent and that it excludes only necessity deriving from “constraint or natural propensity” and not

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necessity tout court tends toward Jansenism (Jourdain 1862–6: vol. 2, 151). These charges indicate a heightened sensitivity to even the most minor deviations from the establishment position on free will. Surely it is not coincidental that there was such a sensitivity at just the time that Jansenism was becoming again a particularly hot political issue. In 1705, Clement XI issued the bull Vineam Domini, which prohibited the “respectful silence” on the “question of fact” as to whether the propositions condemned in the anti-Jansenist bulls are present in Jansenius’s Augustinus.7 Clement’s bull was a reaction to the affair in 1701 involving the cas de conscience, where certain members of the Sorbonne declared that a priest could absolve a penitent who admitted to believing that Jansenius did not endorse these propositions. Initially, Louis was reluctant to involve the government in this dispute. However, Jesuit charges that the Jansenists formed a subversive network that posed an imminent threat to both Church and State were substantiated in Louis’s mind by his reading of the correspondence of the new leader of the Jansenists, Pasquier Quesnel. After his discovery of this correspondence in 1703, Louis attempted to join with Rome to strike the final blow against Jansenism. During this time, it would have been particularly effective to argue against Cartesianism by connecting it to this condemned movement. Indeed, Petit de Montempuis proposed in 1707 that his critics found it easier to attack him by emphasizing his views on human freedom and their connection to a “frightening and abandoned Jansenism” than by stressing the familiar problems with the theological implications of his Cartesian physics (Jourdain 1862–6: vol. 2, 152r). Regis’s Usage: faith and free will We have seen that the Paris Formulary introduces into debates over Cartesianism the issues of the relation between faith and reason and the nature of the freedom of the human will. There is an important Cartesian reaction to these same issues in the writings of Regis. Indeed, the title of Regis’s final work, the Usage de la raison et de la foy, indicates a direct concern with the issue of the relation between faith and reason. The account of this relation in that text bears a certain resemblance to one found in Jansenius. However, the account itself is in some tension with other features of Regis’s form of Cartesianism. Moreover, the Usage offers a view of human freedom that is similar in important respects to that offered by Jesuit critics of the Jansenists. A consideration of the case of Regis thus serves to illustrate that the alliance between Cartesianism and Jansenism was far from natural or straightforward. Faith and reason The main thesis of Regis’s Usage is provided in its subtitle: L’Accord de la foy et de la raison.8 More specifically, there is the claim in the “avertissement” to this text that reason and faith “can have no opposition” since “their objects are so disproportionate that it is impossible to explicate one by the other” (Regis 1996:14). The objects of reason are found only in “the order of nature,” whereas the objects of faith are restricted to “the order of grace.” Regis presented this position as a middle way between those who hold

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that “it is necessary to submit faith to reason, since reason is the sovereign human law,” on the one hand, and those who hold that “it is necessary to submit reason to faith, since faith is more assured than reason” (Regis 1996:14–15), on the other. In this way, then, Regis set himself in opposition to the position, which the Paris Formulary had condemned, that one must follow reason even when it appears incompatible with faith, and at the same time rejected the suggestion in Huet that reason must submit to faith. In the Usage proper, Regis emphasized the distinction between truths that are contrary to reason and truths that are above reason. Reason rules out conclusively the possibility of any objects that are contrary to reason in the sense of containing “in their essential concept, attributes the ideas of which are clear and clearly incompatible.” Thus, we know by reason that there cannot be a whole that is not as great as its part. However, reason cannot rule out the possibility of objects pertaining to the order of grace, since such objects “contain attributes the ideas of which are essentially obscure” and thus are not demonstrably “compatible or incompatible” (Regis 1996:609). A primary example of such an object is provided by the case—especially significant in the context of the French reception of Descartes—of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Against both the scholastics and their Cartesian opponents, Regis argued that we can know only obscurely the manner in which Christ’s body and blood are physically present in this sacrament. Because this is so, reason cannot rule out the claim, which the authority of Church tradition supports, that this body and blood are so present. In support of this account of truths of faith, Regis offered the example of Arnauld, who in his battles with the Calvinists over the nature of the Eucharist had restricted himself to what the Church teaches concerning this sacrament (Regis 1996:700–1). Indeed, Regis’s account of the relation between faith and reason is right in line with the Augustinian slogan, which Arnauld was fond of citing, that “what we know, we owe to reason; what we believe, to authority.” As Arnauld himself was well aware, such a slogan also was prominent in Jansenius’s Augustinus. In a book “on reason and faith in theological matters,” which serves as a preface to the second volume of this text, Jansenius claimed that the corrupting influences of scholastic philosophy account for theological conflicts within the Church. His solution involved a return to the authority of the Church Fathers, especially that of Augustine. Though the Usage defends a Cartesian conception of what can be known by reason, its main thesis, in line with Jansenius’s position, is that claims concerning the Christian mysteries must be grounded in Church tradition rather than in philosophy. Here we have some alliance between Jansenism and Cartesianism. However, when Jansenius spoke of scholastic philosophy, he had in mind primarily the Molinist account of freedom. As we will see, Regis had some sympathy for such an account. Moreover, it is somewhat ironic that the alliance is connected to Regis’s response to the suggestion in the fourth proposition of the Paris Formulary that reason has priority even in matters pertaining to faith. If I am right, this was the very proposition that was supposed to link Cartesian epistemology and Jansenist theology. The case of Regis illustrates that the sort of “haughty” rationalism criticized in this proposition is in some tension with the Jansenist emphasis on the limitations of reason. As in the case of Arnauld, Regis attempted to save Cartesian reason by banishing it from the realm of faith. In commenting on this line of argument in Regis, a nineteenth-century translator of

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Huet charged that the attempt to distinguish reason and faith “by a sort of treaty of partition between the two” is problematic since the “apparent preciseness [of the partition] vanishes in practice.”9 One problem that Regis has in erecting such a partition derives from his requirement that truths of faith be merely above and not contrary to reason. In Regis’s own view, then, no claims concerning the order of grace can be demonstrably incompatible with what Cartesian reason reveals to be the case. In the case of the Eucharist, for instance, the Cartesian identification of body with extension would rule out the scholastic claim that the body of Christ in present in the sacrament without its extension. The scholastics urged that such a claim is required by the Church teaching that the quantity of the eucharistic elements does not inhere in Christ’s body. When confronted with this argument, Arnauld was forced to show that this teaching is consistent with the dictates of Cartesianism. His strategy here was to argue that the extension of Christ’s body is not necessarily linked to the quantity of the elements.10 This position is not clearly consistent with Descartes’s own suggestion that the extension of a body is merely rationally distinct from its quantity (see, for instance, PP II.8, AT 8–1:44– 5/CSM 1:226). But the point here is that Regis cannot merely remain silent on this issue. He must either hold that Cartesian reason allows for the distinction between extension and quantity, as Arnauld did, or argue, with more orthodox Cartesians, that the scholastics were simply wrong in holding that Church tradition requires that the two can exist apart. Huet’s reading of Descartes suggests another option for Cartesians, namely to claim that though it is impossible for Christ’s body to be present without its extension, a God who is powerful enough to alter the eternal truths can produce this separation. Indeed, in one polemical tract, a Jesuit critic offered that Descartes’s doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths is “the final stronghold of the Cartesians” that allows them to say that God can bring about the impossible in the case of the Eucharist (La Ville 1680:226). This point may seem to apply to Regis, since he was one of the few followers of Descartes to embrace his views on the eternal truths. In the Usage itself, Regis devoted a chapter to the defense of the thesis “that the possibility and impossibility of things depends uniquely on the will of God, as on their immediate cause” (Regis 1996:189). According to Regis’s official view, of course, truths of faith cannot be demonstrably impossible. But doesn’t his claim that impossibilities derive from the divine will indicate that God can bring about the impossible in the order of grace? Actually, not. As a matter of fact, Regis’s development of this claim creates difficulties for his view of what God can do in the order of grace. In order to see the difficulties, we need to consider the rough outlines of Regis’s version of Descartes’s doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths. In this version, God creates the possibility that a substance receive certain modes by creating that substance with a certain nature. The possibilities are immutable since the created substance or nature (which Regis simply identified) are incapable of change; it is only the modes of the substance that are mutable. Regis provided as a primary reason for the immutability, or what he called the “indefectibility,” of substances the fact that “they depend immediately on the will of God, as on their sole and unique principle, and the will of God cannot change” (Regis 1996:265).11 The principle invoked here is that the immediate effects of God’s will must be as immutable as His will is.

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Regis insisted that faith requires that God can immediately produce changes “by himself in the order of grace,” such as “the resurrection of Lazarus, the conversion of water into wine, the multiplication of the loaves of bread” (Regis 1996:274). However, there is the question of whether the principle underlying his argument for the indefectibility of substances even allows for such changes. The fact that there is any conflict at all here is ironic in light of Huet’s discussion of Descartes. As we have seen, Huet charged that Descartes appealed to his eternal truths doctrine in order to overcome the conflict between the results of his reason and what faith requires. However, it is precisely Regis’s development of this doctrine that creates the difficulties I have noted for his views concerning faith. Moreover, it is clear that Regis did not understand this doctrine to be an ad hoc device that the philosopher uses to save the authority of reason. Instead, the doctrine is for him something that derives from reason itself. Here it is significant that most of the discussion of this doctrine in the Usage is restricted to the second part of the first book, which concerns the use of reason in the order of nature. The doctrine plays no important role in the second and third books, which are devoted to issues pertaining to faith. According to Regis, then, it is natural reason that dictates that possibilities have an immutability that derives immediately from the divine will. But he is committed by his own system to showing that whatever is believed by faith must be compatible with this result. The partition between faith and reason cannot be as impermeable as Regis’s official view takes it to be. Grace and freedom In the third book of the Usage, which concerns the incommensurability of faith and reason, Regis highlighted “one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian religion,” namely, “the mystery of grace and gratuitous predestination” (Regis 1996:675). He distinguished three main accounts of this mystery. On the first account, which he claimed to find in Augustine, God created the first humans in a state of innocence in which, with the help of a “sufficient grace” that preserves “a perfect state of indifference of equilibrium to incline toward whatever side they want,” they could merit eternal life through the proper exercise of their free will. Due to the Fall, they and their offspring lost the ability to merit this reward with the help of sufficient grace alone. Nonetheless, God gratuitously granted to some of the fallen certain “efficacious and invincible graces” that allow them to be “governed by grace” and thereby merit this reward (Regis 1996:676–9). On the second account, which is attributed to Thomas Aquinas, God from the beginning planned for the salvation of certain humans and the damnation of others, and executed this design through the exercise of an “invincible and all-powerful physical predetermination” that dictates how the human will acts. In this view, there is no difference between pre- and post-lapsarian condition; even before the Fall, human action was physically predetermined by God (Regis 1996:679–81). On the final account, the post-lapsarian state “is nearly the same as that of Saint Augustine for the state of innocence,” where God grants a merely “sufficient grace” that allows us to act as we will. There is no grace “efficacious by itself,” and also no gratuitous predestination, since God’s decision to save some and to damn others is based on a certain “prevision of merits” (Regis 1996:681–2). Though this account is attributed

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only to certain unnamed “philosophers,” it clearly is supposed to reflect the Molinist view dominant among the Jesuits. The main difficulties with the accounts in Augustine and Aquinas concern the manner in which God predestines to salvation through the work of grace. Regis faulted Augustine for failing to emphasize God’s justice and power, and Thomas for failing to emphasize God’s goodness. This assessment is somewhat surprising since the Jesuits typically charged that the Jansenist position provides an overly harsh interpretation of Augustine’s view of grace that overlooks the softer line present in the Thomistic tradition. Given this context, it is even more surprising that Regis held that the view of the Jesuit theologians in the end reduces to the hard Thomistic line insofar as it concedes that the choice to create certain agents that God knows will be damned is merely a manifestation of the free exercise of His power. Yet Regis’s main concern here was not to endorse one particular account of grace over the others, but rather to urge an end to “the disputes over efficacious grace and over sufficient grace.” As an example of how to end such disputes, he cited the case of the use of “royal authority and ecclesiastical power” to bring it about that “the vague and odious accusation of Jansenism no longer serve to describe anyone” but also that no one “teach vive vox or by writing some of the propositions condemned by the Church” (Regis 1996:702). The reference here was to the “Peace of the Church,” the truce in the war against Jansenism that Pope Clement IX and Louis XIV declared in 1669 and that lasted for a decade. Regis took this case to show that it is best to deal with theological conflict in the Catholic Church by requiring an adherence to Church teachings and by prohibiting any further controversies over the proper philosophical explication of those teachings. However, it is one thing to say that the Church should not take sides in philosophical disputes where adherence to Church doctrines is not in question, and quite another to say that philosophy has nothing to say about such doctrines. Indeed, Regis’s philosophical views commit him to a particular position with respect to the doctrine, which he explicitly endorsed, that while “man is moved and excited by God,” he nevertheless “can fail to consent to [receiving justifying grace] if he wills” (Regis 1996:687). Regis devoted a section of the first book of the Usage, concerning the use of reason, to a consideration of the nature of our free will and of its relation to God’s own “concurrence” with our actions. There he claimed that in acting freely, “one acts with an indifference very real and very positive,” and that this positive indifference itself involves “the power to do the contrary of what one does actually” (Regis 1996:391–2).12 Regis noted that though this power cannot involve the ability to act in contrary ways in the “composed sense,” that is, to act in contrary ways at the same time, it does involve the ability to act in contrary ways in the “divided sense,” that is, to bring about the counterfactual case in which an action is produced that is the contrary of the action actually produced (Regis 1996:395–7). The paradigmatic case here of free action is our love or hate of a particular object.13 What Regis took philosophical reason to require is that in freely loving an object, “we always retain the power not to love it, or to love the contrary of what we love, in the sense that is called divided” (Regis 1996:395).14 Regis’s endorsement of the positive indifference of free action may seem to set him in opposition to Descartes, who stressed in Meditation Four that indifference is involved merely in the lowest grade of freedom, and is not essential to freedom as such. However,

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in the later Principles, Descartes himself referred to our consciousness of “the freedom and indifference that is within us” (PP I.41, AT 8–1:20/CSM 1:206). We can explain this shift by taking Descartes to understand the notion of indifference in different ways. In the Meditations, he was concerned primarily with a “balance of reasons” that fails to pull the will in any particular direction. In the Principles, however, he was concerned with a kind of indifference indicated by his comment in a 1645 letter to an unnamed correspondent— most likely the Jesuit Denis Mesland—that one can identify indifference with “a positive faculty of determining oneself to one or other of two contraries, that is to say, to pursue or avoid.” Descartes’s claim there is that our free action always involves such a power, since “absolutely speaking” we can always do the contrary of what we freely do (AT 4:173/CSMK 245). It is no doubt passages such as this that prompted Arnauld to complain that Descartes’s letters “are full of Pelagianism, and that, outside of points of which he is persuaded by philosophy, as the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, all that one can say for him is that he always appeared to submit himself to the Church” (Arnauld 1967: vol. 1, 167). This remark indicates the desire on Arnauld’s part to purge Cartesianism of its anti-Jansenist elements. In Regis, however, we have an example of someone who shared Descartes’s own anti-Jansenist intuition (at least in the Principles and related correspondence) that our freedom requires an indifference that consists in our ability to do otherwise. Regis did emphasize that free actions are conditioned by perceptions that are not themselves free. Thus, our love of an object is conditioned by the perception that that object is conducive to our good. Regis held that God’s concurrence involves His causation, either immediately or through secondary causes, of the perceptions required for free action.15 Since the objects we perceive are only contingently related to our good, however, further investigation could lead us to perceive that this relation does not hold. Even though the perceptions that derive from divine concurrence lead us to freely love certain objects, then, the fact that we can act so as to have different perceptions reveals that we retain the power not to love or even to hate those objects. Regis’s conclusion is that “God governs humans without wounding their freedom” (Regis 1996:389). It is true that this reconciliation of divine concurrence with human freedom does not eliminate the mystery of how gratuitous predestination could be consistent with God’s goodness. However, Regis’s philosophical account of human freedom clearly commits him to rejecting the claim that God predetermines our action in a manner that precludes any sort of freedom of indifference. He did attempt to distance himself from the view of the Jesuit theologians that even in our present post-lapsarian state we have an “indifference of equilibrium.” Regis noted somewhat obliquely that this sort of indifference is “incompatible with the exercise of freedom” (Regis 1996:685), but the objection is presumably that our own indifference is not entirely one of equilibrium since it is conditioned by our perceptions. Here he went beyond even Descartes in rejecting the possibility of freedom involving indifference in the sense of a balance of reasons. However, given Regis’s claim that our freedom requires the power to act otherwise in a divided sense, it seems that he must reject the claim, which he attributed to Aquinas and perhaps also to Augustine, that meritorious action is produced by “invincible” graces that fully determine it.16 At least, Regis cannot accept such a claim insofar as it precludes a

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“real and positive” indifference toward the action on our part. The issues here are admittedly subtle, and even the most ardent supporters of Jansenius tended to follow Arnauld in claiming that the Augustinus allows for the requirement that we have the power to resist divine grace.17 Nonetheless, Arnauld did rail against the “Pelagianism” present in Descartes’s discussions of free will. He used the same epithet when railing against the claim in the French Cartesian Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) that our consent to grace derives from our own free will rather than from God.18 Indeed, it was due to the machinations of Arnauld and other Jansenists that the Holy Office of the Roman Index condemned in 1690 Malebranche’s Traité de la nature et de la grâce and his published responses to Arnauld’s objections to this text.19 The report of the Holy Office on the Traité emphasized, among other things, that Malebranche’s view that “the determination of sufficient grace depends on man alone, and that it is the inefficacy of free will that renders [sufficient grace] efficacious” is “contrary to the doctrine of S.Augustine” (OCM 19:554).20 Malebranche himself complained in a 1690 letter to Cardinal de Bouillon, the secretary of the Holy Office, that Arnauld was leading the campaign against him because “he found that I have refuted the opinions that the Church has condemned in Jansenius” (OCM 19:548). The proceedings against Malebranche actually started in 1689,21 at the tail end of the reign of Innocent XI. This pope was a friend of Arnauld and also was known to be sympathetic to the cause of the Jansenists. Seven months after the Holy Office of the Roman Index issued its condemnation of Malebranche, however, the Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition decreed against various Jansenist propositions concerning sin and grace (Denzinger 1963:480–4).22 After Innocent’s death, the tide in Rome turned against the Jansenists, leading ultimately to the battle over Jansenism triggered by the papal bull, Unigenitus. I have proposed that this shift serves to explain, at least in part, why after 1700 there was an increasing tendency for criticisms of Cartesians at the University of Paris to focus on issues involving the Jansenist account of free will. Yet Malebranche and Regis were two prominent Cartesians who expressly rejected such an account. To be sure, Malebranche anticipated the previously noted rejection in Regis of a kind of indifference that renders our action wholly independent of the perceptions that God causes in us.23 Even so, Regis and Malebranche alike insisted that our freedom of action consists in a “consent” to those perceptions that is indifferent in the sense that it is not necessitated by them.24 There is, however, one difference between the accounts of free will in Regis and Malebranche that is important for our purposes. This difference is connected to the claim in the report of the Holy Office of the Roman Index that for Malebranche it is an inefficacious free will that renders grace efficacious. The reference here is to the conclusion in Malebranche that our free will consists in a “passive” power of consent that cannot produce any “real beings” in nature.25 This conclusion is connected in turn to his own occasionalist thesis that God alone has the power to bring about any “real or positive” effects in nature. In the Usage, however, Regis explicitly rejected the view that events in nature are merely occasions for God’s action. He endorsed the alternative position that creatures are “instrumental causes” that “modify the action of the principle cause,” namely God himself (Regis 1996:409–17).26 One reason that Regis gave for this position is that God cannot cause successive modifications of motion since “God being

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immutable, He can produce immediately nothing successive” (Regis 1996:412). However, he emphasized elsewhere in the Usage that God can no more be the immediate cause of the love and hate of particular objects that underlies our free action. One problem here, which I mentioned above, is that the principle concerning divine action that underlies the argument against occasionalism creates difficulties for his attempt to partition reason off from faith. Yet we have additional problems for this attempt that are connected to Regis’s insistence that it is our will, rather than God’s, that immediately determines our free action since “the human will can act by an intrinsic power [vertu] that God communicates to it,” and since it is by means of such a power that the soul “determines itself of itself and by itself” (Regis 1996:364–5). The claim here that we have such an “intrinsic power” surely is not incidental to matters pertaining to the order of grace insofar as it has implications for the issue of divine preordination. In concluding I want to return to the beginning, and in particular to the claim in Bouillier cited at the outset that there is a “natural alliance” between Cartesianism and Jansenism. Recall Bouillier’s view that just as the Cartesians make God the only cause, so the Jansenists attribute everything to grace. Malebranche provides an example of a Cartesian who made God the only cause but who resisted the Jansenist conclusion that everything is to be attributed to grace. But Regis was a Cartesian who resisted Malebranche’s occasionalism at least in part to allow for the position that we have the power to determine the modifications of our own soul. Regis’s account of secondary causation, which concerns the order of nature, thus provides the basis for an account of freedom that is incompatible with central features of Jansenist theology. The fact that philosophical reason yields such an account indicates that there is a breakdown here of the Jansenist partition between reason and faith that Regis’s Usage attempts to erect. But the account itself requires a disassociation of Cartesianism, or at least Regis’s version of it, from the Jansenism that the Paris Formulary and its supporters attempted to foist on the followers of Descartes. Notes 1 For more on Huet and the critique of Cartesianism in his Censura, see Chapter 4 in this volume. 2 For further discussion, see McClaughlin 1979 and Schmaltz 1999. Cf. Chapters 2 and 9 in this volume. For the text of the Archbishop’s decree, see in this volume Chapter 9, note 34. 3 For a broader discussion of the issues raised in the Paris Formulary, see Schmaltz 2004. 4 See the related consideration of this point in Schmaltz 2002:§5.1, and Schmaltz 2004. 5 See, for instance, the Jesuit Pierre Bourdin’s critique of Descartes’s views on these points in his Seventh Objections to the Meditations. 6 From Petit de Montempuis’s “Journal” in Jourdain 1862–6: vol. 2, 148v. In his 1692 letter to Bossuet, Huet mentioned Pirot as among those who encouraged him to publish the attack on Descartes in the Nouveaux Mémoires (in Bossuet 1909–25:

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vol. 5, 109). 7 For the bull itself, see Denzinger 1963:489. 8 The remarks in this section draw on the discussion of Regis’s views on faith and reason in Schmaltz 2002: §5.3, though this section does not consider the issue of the relation to Jansenism. 9 From the editorial notes in Huet 1810: vol. 2, 308–9. 10 For discussion of Arnauld’s position, see Schmaltz 2002:54–62. 11 Regis borrowed the doctrine of the indefectibility of substance from the Cartesian, Robert Desgabets. For discussion of Desgabets’s Indefectibility Thesis, see Chapter 2 in this volume as well as Schmaltz 2002: ch. 2. 12 In contrast to Descartes, however, Regis claimed that no such power is present in the case of our assent to clear and distinct perceptions, which occurs voluntarily but also by necessity. See, for instance, Regis 1996:99. 13 This case concerns libre-arbitre, which is restricted to the perception of the good. Liberté in a general sense also includes free actions that involve the perception of contingent relations. See Regis 1996:958–9. 14 In scholastic terminology, the freedom not to love would be “freedom of contradiction” and the freedom to love the contrary “freedom of contrarity.” 15 Regis mentioned in this context the dispute over the nature of divine concurrence between those who held that God predetermines action by means of a “physical premotion” (prémotion physique), and others who insisted that God concurs only by a “simultaneous concourse” (concours simultanée) that takes place at the same time as the action. He then argued that one can hold that God acts both by physical premotion in sustaining the bodily and mental causes of the perceptions required for free action, and also by simultaneous concourse in sustaining the perceptions themselves at the time of action (Regis, 1996:383–7). In the case of actions from grace, God presumably produces a perception that derives immediately from Him rather than from other secondary causes. 16 I say that he “perhaps” attributed such a view to Augustine because though he referred to the ‘efficacious and invincible graces’ that Augustine posited, he was not as explicit as he was in the case of Aquinas that these graces completely determine action. 17 These supporters pointed to the claim in the Augustinus, offered against the “opinion of Calvin,” that we have a power to resist the effects of grace that coexists with the operation of this supernatural state. However, there is the suggestion in this text that such a power can never be actualized as long as the grace is present. See Jansenius 1964:878–83. 18 Malebranche responded to the charge of Pelagianism by claiming that Arnauld’s denial of free consent leads to Jansenism and Calvinism; see OCM 6:275–98. 19 For an account of the machinations and of the condemnation itself, see the documents in OCM 18:534–8, and 19:550–8. 20 The claim that the inefficacy of free will renders grace efficacious is a reference to Malebranche’s position that when we freely consent, we do nothing but merely permit that the motion of the will is directed to a particular object. 21 The first meeting of the Congregation occurred on 4 July, about one month prior to

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Innocent’s death on 12 August 1689. Arnauld seems to have complained to the Roman authorities about Malebranche’s views as early as 1687; see OCM 18:536. 22 The condemnation of the Holy Office was published 29 May 1690, and the decree of the Sacred Congregation 7 December 1690. This case serves to illustrate that various elements even of highly controlled bureaucracies do not always march in lock step. 23 For Malebranche’s rejection of this indifference, see OCM 678), 24 Regis used the language of indifferent consent in the 1704 Usage; see Regis 1996:399. Malebranche had introduced this language in the 1674 Recherche; see OCM 1:52–3/LO 8–9. 25 For discussion of Malebranche’s various attempts to explicate the nature of this power, see Schmaltz 1996:220–8. 26 I consider Regis’s argument against occasionalism in more detail in Schmaltz 2003.

Part III Spinoza and the Dutch reception

6 Descartes’s soul, Spinoza’s mind Steven Nadler Introduction The inquiry into Descartes’s reception in the Netherlands in the mid to late seventeenth century must always, in the end, come down to a discussion of Spinoza.1 I do not mean to minimize the important and sometimes courageous efforts of men such as Henricus Regius, Johannes de Raey, Christopher Wittich and others who were responsible for turning leading Dutch schools into Cartesian redoubts. These academic philosophers were at the heart of the battle over Cartesianism in the Republic’s universities. And it was radical, non-academic Cartesians such as Lodewijk Meyer and Adriaan Koerbagh who took the lead, much to the horror of more moderate partisans, in extending at least what they took to be the spirit of Descartes’s philosophy into domains that Descartes himself feared to tread, namely, theology and the interpretation of Scripture. But all roads here lead eventually to and from Spinoza. Cartesianism’s opponents in the Netherlands, rightly or wrongly, saw Spinozism as the natural development of Cartesian/ Cocceian (i.e. liberal Reformed) principles.2 This is why the moderate Cartesians worked so hard to attack Spinoza: they were trying to save their own skins. The thing is, the mature Spinoza was not a Cartesian. Yes, he did compose history’s most famous exposition of Cartesian principles, his Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy, which appeared in 1663. This was the only work that he published under his own name in his lifetime, and (until the stunning publication of the Theological-Political Treatise in 1670) it was responsible for his public reputation. And yes, this book was the inspiration for much of the Cartesian activity in Amsterdam and elsewhere in the 1660s. But today we are far from the simplistic picture—so popular in textbook histories of early modern philosophy—of Spinoza as nothing but a more extreme (or more consistent) Cartesian, as someone who simply took Descartes’s principles to their ultimate logical conclusion. Spinoza had his own philosophical agenda. He may have been first inspired to philosophy by Descartes, and he may have used Cartesian principles to further that agenda. But I am essentially in agreement with Wiep van Bunge when he insists that we should not think of Spinoza “as the philosopher who somehow ‘completed’ Cartesianism, but rather as the one who destroyed some of its basic tenets” (Bunge 2001:122). As anyone who has ever taken a course in the history of modern philosophy knows, one of the “basic tenets” of Descartes’s philosophy that Spinoza rejected was mind-body dualism. Rather than thinking of the human mind and the human body as Descartes did, that is, as two distinct substances, radically different in nature and ontologically independent of each other, Spinoza insisted that the human mind and the human body are, in fact, two modal expressions of the same underlying reality. Their metaphysical identity

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goes much deeper than their manifest differences. They are, in fact, one and the same thing. The human mind is, in essence, nothing but the idea or the correlate in Thought of the human body in Extension. The question I would like to address here is why did Spinoza reject Descartes’s substance dualism of mind and body and replace it with his own monistic picture? What moved him to deny perhaps the most important principle in all of Descartes’s philosophy? Spinoza’s doctrine of the mind Let me begin with a brief excursion into Spinoza’s metaphysical conception of the mind as this is presented in the Ethics. There are, in God or Nature, two known attributes: Thought and Extension. These are the most general natures of things. The particular modes of Extension—that is, its specific manifestations or instantiations—are material bodies. The particular modes of Thought are called “ideas.” The realm of Thought and the realm of Extension are ontologically distinct and causally closed systems; bodies causally interact only with bodies, and ideas or events in the realm of Thought causally interact only with other ideas. So there is, to be sure, a kind of categorical dualism in Spinoza’s metaphysics. Nonetheless, despite this separation between bodies and ideas, there is still the underlying unity in Nature stemming from the fact that these two realms are attributes of one and the same infinite substance. Thus, there is a correlation and correspondence between bodies and ideas, since each system is simply a specific manifestation under one attribute of a more primordial unity. As Spinoza says, “a mode of extension and the idea of that mode are one and the same thing, but expressed in two ways” (E IIp7s, G 2:89–90/C 451). One kind of extended body, however, is significantly more complex than any others in its composition and in its dispositions to act and be acted upon. That complexity is reflected in its corresponding idea. The body in question is the human body; and its corresponding idea is the human mind or soul. The first thing that constitutes the actual being of a human mind is the idea of a singular thing which actually exists. (E IIp11, G 2:94/C 456) The object of the idea constituting the human mind is the body, or a certain mode of extension which actually exists, and nothing else. (E IIp13, G 2:96/C 457) The human body, like any other body, is a particular parcel of extension (or mode of Extension). It is a specific ratio of motion and rest among material parts that constitutes a relatively stable collection, related in space and time to other relatively stable collections of material parts (E IVp39, G 2:239/C 568). And for the human body, as for any body in nature, there is a corresponding mode of (or expression within) Thought (that is, an idea). This corresponding idea is the human mind. Spinoza thus rejects some of the most basic elements of Descartes’s conception of the

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mind. Spinoza’s mind is most definitely not a substance, nor does it have the requisite ontological independence from the body. It is, like any other idea, simply one particular mode of God’s attribute, Thought. It is the expression in Thought of the human body, which is a particular mode of the other attribute, Extension.3 Now since the mind just is the expression in Thought of the body in Extension, it follows that every aspect of the body has a corresponding aspect in the mind. Whatever is true of or happens in the body is necessarily reflected or expressed in the mind. More particularly, every event or effect in the body is represented by an “idea” in the mind. In this way, the mind perceives, more or less obscurely, what is taking place in its body. This is true for all affections—both passive and active—of the body. Not all of these perceptions are at a conscious level, of course, but they are nonetheless a part of the makeup of the human mind. Whatever happens in the object of the idea constituting the human mind must be perceived by the human mind, or, there will necessarily be an idea of that thing in the mind; i.e., if the object of the idea constituting a human mind is a body, nothing can happen in that body which is not perceived by the mind. (E IIp12, G 2:95/C 456) Through its body’s interactions with other bodies, and particularly the effects those bodies have in the human body, the mind is also aware of (or represents) what is happening in the physical world around it. But the human mind no more interacts with its body than any mode of Thought interacts with a mode of Extension. Spinoza’s account of the nature of the human mind grounds it deeply in the nature of the human body.4 The richness of activity and capacity of the human mind is a function of the greatness of structure and aptitude of the human body. In proportion as a body is more capable than others of doing many things at once, or being acted on in many ways at once, so its mind is more capable than others of perceiving many things at once. And in proportion as the actions of a body depend more on itself alone, and as other bodies concur with it less in acting, so its mind is more capable of understanding distinctly. And from these [truths] we can know the excellence of one mind over the others. (E IIp13s; G 2:97/C 457) The human mind is capable of perceiving a great many things, and is the more capable, the more its body can be disposed in a great many ways. (E IIp 14; G 2:103/C462) Indeed, as propositions eleven and thirteen from Part Two of the Ethics indicate, the existence of the human mind depends on the existence of the human body. There is a fundamental unity in these two aspects of a human being. Spinoza may be a dualist when it comes to the natures of things, but it is not a dualism that gives the human mind any kind of ontological autonomy.

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The problem with dualism The same textbooks that tell us that Spinoza represents the culmination of Cartesian philosophy also tell us that the reason he rejected mind-body dualism was a fundamental inconsistency at the heart of the Cartesian picture of a human being. Spinoza substituted his own conception of the human mind for the orthodox Cartesian soul as an independent thinking substance because substance dualism rules out, or at least makes extremely problematic, any kind of intelligible understanding of causal interaction between mind and body. Given the radical difference in nature between extended bodily substance and unextended thinking substance, the argument goes, there is no way of explaining how these two constituents of a human being might causally engage each other and thus no way of explaining the evident correlation between states of the mind and states of the body. Something has to go—either the dualism or the interaction. Spinoza, according to the story, drops both. By making the mind and the body not two distinct substances, but rather two modes of one and the same substance; and by ruling out causal interaction between them, and offering instead a theory of mind-body correlation that relies on mutual expression—a mental state being nothing other than the expression in Thought of exactly the same thing that expresses itself as a bodily state in Extension—Spinoza, on this reading, does an end-run around the difficulty. Spinoza’s retreat to his own idiosyncratic conception of the human mind and its relationship to the body, in other words, is taken to be a response to the classic mind-body problem. This way of reading Spinoza’s rejection of Descartes’s conception of the mind is not limited to textbooks. For a time, it was also standard fare in the scholarly literature. Thus, one Cartesian scholar notes that Spinoza’s “monism” is “in large part a development of the implications of Cartesianism…[he] can be seen as giving a monistic solution to Cartesian problems,” in particular, the problem concerning interaction between unlike substances (Watson 1987:117). It is an adjustment in the system to save the system. Another scholar, while muting the connection with Descartes, nonetheless notes that mind-body interaction was one of “the two biggest problems that Spinoza’s metaphysic was meant to solve” (Bennett 1996:62–3). Now I do not wish to assert that concerns over mind-body interaction, and especially problems raised by Descartes’s account of the mind, played no role in Spinoza’s rejection of that account and in the development of his own metaphysics of the mind. However, it is not, I think, the most important part of the story. Another approach to the question of why Spinoza abandoned Descartes’s mind also has him trying to salvage an essentially Cartesian system by responding to an internal tension generated by mind-body dualism. This time, however, the tension is not between the doctrine of dualism and the question of mind-body interaction, but rather between dualism and the question of the unity of the person. Spinoza, on this view, rejects substance dualism and Descartes’s concomitant conception of the mind because if the mind is indeed a substance distinct from the body, then it is hard to see how they can together form a true union that is a person. Thus, Ed Curley insists that Spinoza “is responding to the tension…between the Cartesian doctrine of real distinction and the Cartesian doctrine of substantial union.” On the one hand, Descartes says that the mind

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(and, thus, consciousness) is an ontologically distinct substance from the body. On the other hand, as Curley puts it, “I take a very personal interest in my body… I and my body are one. That is why I have the concern for it that I do and why I have the awareness of it that I have.” How is the intimate relationship between mind and body possible? This is, according to Curley, “the question that lies at the heart of Spinoza’s theory of mind-body identity.” It is, he insists, “more important in the genesis of the Spinozistic position than any concerns about the intelligibility of interaction between distinct substances” (Curley 1988:59–62). Spinoza, by making the mind the idea of the body, has again short-circuited the problem. No longer is it a matter of bringing together into a union two distinct substances. Rather, the unity is what is metaphysically prior. Mind and body are simply two distinct expressions, under different attributes, Thought and Extension, of one and the same thing. As Spinoza says at Ethics IIp21s, The mind and the body are one and the same individual, which is conceived now under the attribute of thought, now under the attribute of extension. (G 2:109/C 467) One way of putting this is to say that for Spinoza, the unity and identity of the person, rather than resulting from the coming together of two substances, comes before the distinction between mind and body. Now I am very much in agreement with Curley’s belief that this question of saving personal identity or the substantial union of the person played a role in the genesis of Spinoza’s anti-Cartesian conception of the mind and its relationship to the body. And yet, as I said in the case of the interaction problem, I want to argue that this issue, too, must take a back seat to an even more important question—one which, I believe, played the crucial role in Spinoza’s “reception” of Descartes’s substance dualism. The eternity of the mind: the idea of the body Descartes prided himself on the felicitous consequences of his philosophy for religion. In particular, he believed that by so separating the mind from the corruptible body, his radical dualism offered the best possible defense of and explanation for the immortality of the soul. In the Letter to the Sorbonne that accompanies the Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes explicitly says that one of his aims in the book is to combat those who would deny the immortality of the soul and to take up the call to arms to demonstratively establish the truth of that doctrine. Disappointingly, Descartes does not explicitly offer any full demonstration for the immortality of the soul in the Meditations. The Synopsis that prefaces the work indicates that Descartes believes that the immortality of the soul follows immediately from the real distinction between mind and body. But he says that while these arguments “are enough to show that the decay of the body does not imply the destruction of the mind, and are hence enough to give mortals the hope of an after-life,” nonetheless a full demonstration of the fact that “the mind is immortal by its very nature” would require “an account of the whole of physics.” We need to know that substances are, by their nature, incorruptible and cannot ever cease to exist unless they are reduced to nothingness by an act of God; and that while body or matter per se is a

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substance, and thus just as imperishable as a soul, any particular human body, being nothing but a collection of material parts, lacks the integrity of a true substance and is subject to decay (AT 7:13–4/CSM 2:9–10). In the Second Replies, Descartes claims that “Our natural knowledge tells us that the mind is distinct from the body, and that it is a substance… And this entitles us to conclude that the mind, insofar as it can be known by natural philosophy, is immortal” (AT 7:153/CSM 2:109). Though he cannot with certainty rule out the possibility that God has miraculously endowed the soul with “such a nature that its duration will come to an end simultaneously with the end of the body,” nonetheless, because the soul is a substance in its own right, and is not subject to the kind of decomposition to which the body is subject, it is by its nature immortal. When the body dies, the soul—which was only temporarily united with it—is to enjoy a separate existence. Unlike Descartes, Spinoza’s views on the immortality of the soul are notoriously difficult to fathom. He seems to flirt with the doctrine in the early and abandoned Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being, but the relevant chapter is highly cryptic and ambiguous.5 Part Five of the Ethics, in which he lays out his mature doctrine of the eternity of the mind, has caused great perplexity among commentators and has led many to pull out their hair. “Rubbish which causes others to write rubbish,” claims Jonathan Bennett. This part of the Ethics, he insists, “has nothing to teach us and is pretty certainly worthless” (Bennett 1984:372, 374). In fact, Bennett is absolutely wrong. Part Five is the culmination of the metaphysical, theological, moral and even political project of the Ethics. And it is, I believe, absolutely clear that in it Spinoza intends to deny the personal immortality of the soul. Moreover, the denial of personal immortality is an essential element in his overall philosophical program. I shall briefly argue for that below. But my main point here is that what Spinoza found most unacceptable in Descartes’s dualism of mind and body, and what moved him to promote his own monistic conception of the person and the metaphysical identity of mind and body, was the support that Descartes’s view lends to the doctrine of personal immortality, in his mind one of the most pernicious doctrines around. In other words, perhaps the most important factor—and, I would argue, the most overlooked factor—in Spinoza’s reception of Descartes’s philosophy was the question of the immortality of the soul. According to Spinoza, the human mind partakes of eternity in two distinct ways. First, there is the eternity that belongs to it because it is the idea—or the expression in the attribute of Thought—of the material essence—in the attribute of Extension—of the human body. In God there is necessarily an idea that expresses the essence of this or that human body, under a species of eternity [sub specie aeternitatis]. Demonstration: God is the cause, not only of the existence of this or that human body, but also of its essence, which therefore must be conceived through the very essence of God, by a certain eternal necessity, and this concept must be in God. (E Vp22, G 2:295/C 607)

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Any actually existing human body persists durationally, in time and within the causal nexus of other finite things that affect it and determine it. Toes stub against tables; arms throw balls; snow forts come crashing down on us. This sequence of affairs begins in time, pursues its course in time, and comes to an end in time. The duration of the body as actually existing is limited; so are all the numerous modifications of the body that come about through its interactions with other finite modes. But every human body— in fact, every existing body of any type—also has an aspect sub specie aeternitatis, “under a form of eternity.” There is an essence of that body in its extensional being, an extended nature abstracted from its temporal duration. Whether it is a case of a table, a baseball, a snow fort or a human body, its essence would be a type of formulaic mathematical or dimensional mapping of that body that identifies it as the particular parcel of extension that it is, as the particular possible way of being extended that that body represents. Any body is nothing but a specific ratio of motion and rest among a collection of material parts. Its unity consists only in a relative and structured stability of minute bodies.6 And this is what is reflected in its essence, its eternal being. At this level, no question whatsoever is raised about whether the body actually exists in nature or not. Because it is outside all duration, making no reference to time, this essence of the body is eternal. Now given Spinoza’s general parallelism between the attributes of Extension and Thought, and given the resulting and more particular parallelism in a human being between what is true of the body and what is true of the mind, there are, then, likewise— and necessarily—two aspects of the human mind, which is nothing other than the idea of the body. First, there is the aspect of the mind that corresponds to the durational existence of the body. This is the part of the mind that reflects the body’s determinate relationships in time with the other bodies surrounding it. Sensations and feelings—pain, pleasure, desire, revulsion, sadness, fear, and a host of other mental states—are all the expression in the mind of what is concurrently taking place in the body in its temporal interactions with the world. I feel pain when I stub my toe. These passions belong to the mind to the extent that the human being is a part of “the order of nature” and, through his body, subject to being affected by the world around him. The parallelism also requires, however, that this part of the mind comes to an end when the duration of the body comes to an end, that is, at a person’s death. When the body goes, there are no more pleasures and pains, no more sensory states. All of the affections of the body of which these sensations, images and qualia are mental expressions cease at death—the body is no longer “in the world” responding to its determinations. Thus, their correlative expressions in the mind cease as well. But there is another part of the mind— namely, that aspect of it that corresponds to the eternal aspect of the body. This is the expression in the attribute of Thought of the body’s extended essence. Like its correlate in extension, this aspect of the mind is eternal.7 It is a part of the mind that remains after a person’s death. The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body, but something of it remains which is eternal. Demonstration: In God there is necessarily a concept, or idea, which expresses the essence of the human body (by Vp22), an idea, therefore, which is necessarily something that pertains to the essence of the human mind. But we

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do not attribute to the human mind any duration that can be defined by time, except insofar as it expresses the actual existence of the body, which is explained by duration and can be defined by time, i.e. we do not attribute duration to it except while the body endures. However, since what is conceived, with a certain eternal necessity, through God’s essence itself is nevertheless something, this something that pertains to the essence of the mind will necessarily be eternal. There is, then, this idea which expresses the essence of the body under a species of eternity, a certain mode of thinking, which pertains to the essence of the mind, and which is necessarily eternal. (E Vp23, G 2:295/C 607) The mind thus includes, as an essential and eternal component, an idea-correlate in Thought of the essence of the body in Extension. This idea-correlate is eternal because it, like the essence of the body it represents, is situated non-durationally within one of God’s/Nature’s eternal attributes. The mind as the idea of (the eternal essence of) the body is itself eternal. Notice, however, that this is a very minimal kind of eternity. It is not something in which human beings can take any pride or comfort, for it is an eternity that belongs to all things, human and otherwise. Given Spinoza’s metaphysics, and especially the universal scope of the parallelism between Extension and Thought, or bodies and ideas, there is nothing about this eternity of the mind that distinguishes the human being from any other finite being—or, more properly, there is nothing that distinguishes this eternity belonging to the human mind from the eternity belonging to the idea of any other finite body. Human minds are, naturally, significantly different from the Thought-modes or ideas corresponding to other, non-human bodies—they have more functions and greater capacities (including memory and consciousness), because the actually existing bodies of which they are the ideas are themselves more complex and well-endowed than other bodies (such as trees). But this means only that what remains in Thought after a person’s death is, like the essence of the body it expresses, more internally complex, so to speak, than the ideas that remain after the dissolution of some other kind of body.8 It is not, however, more eternal. Nor is it more “personal.” It is only the correlate in Thought of a specific ratio of motion and rest in Extension. It expresses a particularly complex ratio, to be sure, but it is generically no different from the idea of the essence of any other body. And there is nothing distinctly personal about this eternal idea of the body—nothing that would lead me to regard it as my “self,” identical to the self I currently am in this life. The eternity of the mind: the third kind of knowledge There is another variety of eternity for the mind in Spinoza’s system. It, too, involves the kind of atemporal being characteristic of ideas of essences.9 But it is, in fact, an eternity that is available only to human minds, since it is acquired by rational agents alone. Human beings, when they are acting rationally, strive naturally for knowledge. Since we are, among all creatures, uniquely endowed with reason and the capacity for

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understanding—that is, with intelligent minds—we recognize that our own proper good, our ultimate perfection and well-being, consists in the pursuit of what benefits this our highest part. But what else could benefit our highest intellectual faculties except knowledge?10 But Spinoza is concerned here not just with the pursuit of any ordinary kind of knowledge. Rather, what is most beneficial to a rational being is a particular sort of deep understanding that he calls “intuitive knowledge,” scientia intuitiva, or “the third kind of knowledge.” This is an intuitive understanding of individual things in their relations to higher causes, to the infinite and eternal aspects of Nature, and it represents the highest form of knowledge available to us. It consists in the systematic acquisition of what Spinoza calls “adequate ideas.” Adequate ideas are necessarily true and reveal certain essential natures of things. The third kind of knowledge situates a thing immediately and timelessly in relation to the eternal principles of Nature that generated and govern it. We strive to acquire an intuitive understanding of the natures of things not merely in their finite, particular and fluctuating causal relations to other finite things, not in their mutable, durational existence, but through their unchanging essences. And to truly understand things essentially in this way is to relate them to their infinite causes: substance (God) and its attributes. What we are after is a knowledge of bodies not through other bodies but through Extension and its laws, and a knowledge of ideas through the nature of Thought and its laws. It is the pursuit of this kind of knowledge that constitutes human virtue and the project that represents our greatest self-interest as rational beings. We conceive things as actual in two ways: either insofar as we conceive them to exist in relation to a certain time and place, or insofar as we conceive them to be contained in God and to follow from the necessity of the divine nature. But the things we conceive in this second way as true, or real, we conceive under a species of eternity [sub specie aeternitatis], and to that extent they involve the eternal and infinite essence of God. (E Vp29s, G 2:298–9/C 610) Sub specie aeternitatis: when we understand things in this way, we see them from the infinite and eternal perspective of God, without any relation to or indication of time and place. When we perceive things in time, they appear in a continuous state of change and becoming; when we perceive them “under a form of eternity,” what we apprehend abides permanently. This kind of knowledge, because it is atemporal and because it is basically God’s knowledge, is eternal. It is, above all, not connected to the actual existence of any finite, particular thing, least of all the existence in time of the human body. Now Spinoza suggests, first of all, that the acquisition of true and adequate ideas is beneficial to a person in this lifetime, as the source of an abiding happiness and peace of mind that is immune to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. When a person sees the necessity of all things, and especially the fact that the objects that he or she values are, in their comings and goings, not under their control, that person is less likely to be overwhelmed with emotions at their arrival and passing away. The more this knowledge that things are necessary is concerned with singular

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things, which we imagine more distinctly and vividly, the greater is this power of the Mind over the affects, as experience itself also testifies. For we see that Sadness over some good which has perished is lessened as soon as the man who has lost it realizes that this good could not, in any way, have been kept. Similarly, we see that [because we regard infancy as a natural and necessary thing], no one pities infants because of their inability to speak, to walk, or to reason, or because they live so many years, as it were, unconscious of themselves. (E Vp6s, G 2:285/C 599–600) The resulting life will be tranquil, and not given to sudden disturbances of the passions. But there is an additional reason why we should strive to acquire and maintain our store of adequate ideas: they represent for us the closest thing available to what is usually called ‘immortality’. Because adequate ideas are nothing but an eternal knowledge of things, a body of eternal truths that we can possess or tap into in this lifetime, it follows that the more adequate ideas we acquire as a part of our mental makeup in this life—the more we “participate” in eternity now—the more of us remains after the death of the body and the end of the durational aspect of ourselves. Since the adequate ideas that one comes to possess are eternal, they are not affected by the demise of the body and the end of our (or any) temporal and durational existence. In other words, the more adequate knowledge we have, the greater is the degree of the eternity of the mind. The more the mind understands things by the second and third kind of knowledge, the less it is acted on by affects which are evil, and the less it fears death. Demonstration: The mind’s essence consists in knowledge; therefore, the more the mind knows things by the second and third kind of knowledge, the greater the part of it that remains, and consequently the greater the part of it that is not touched by affects which are contrary to our nature, i.e. which are evil. (E Vp38, G 2:304/C 561) Now it is a bit misleading to say, as I have, that this eternal knowledge is a part of me that remains after death. Rather, what remains is something that, while I lived and used my reason, belonged to me and made up a part—the eternal part—of the contents of my mind. The striving to increase my store of adequate ideas is, in this way, a striving to increase my share of eternity. Thus, Spinoza claims, the greater the mind’s intellectual achievement in terms of the acquisition of adequate ideas, “the less is death harmful to us”. Indeed, he insists, “the human mind can be of such a nature that the part of the mind which we have shown perishes with the body is of no moment in relation to what remains” (E Vp38s, G 2:304/C 613). However, if what one is looking for after this temporal existence is a personal immortality of the soul, then the eternity of the mind held out by Spinoza will seem a very thin and disappointing recompense for having lived a life of good. Since the pursuit of knowledge just is virtue, for Spinoza, it can indeed be said that, in a sense, the increased share in eternity that accrues to a person from the acquisition of adequate ideas is the

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“reward” for virtue in this life. The degree of one’s participation in eternity is thus affected by a person’s virtue in his or her lifetime. Nonetheless, it is hard to see Spinoza’s account of the eternity of the mind as a doctrine of personal immortality of the soul. Indeed, it is clear to me that he set out to deny, in his own terms, that there is any such thing. Suffice it to say that the adequate ideas that I acquire in this lifetime, and that remain after my death, are, after death, no longer identifiable as “mine.” They are not linked to my consciousness, neither by memory nor by awareness itself. Indeed, they are not linked to the life I led in duration by any means whatsoever. What remains is simply a body of eternal, abstract knowledge that, after my demise, bears no personal relationship to me whatsoever. It certainly cannot be identified as my mind or my self. I offer more detailed arguments for this reading elsewhere.11 But let me say here that anyone who even seeks to find in Spinoza a doctrine of personal immortality fails to grasp one of the essential, large-scale aspects of his philosophical project. Regardless of what one thinks of my reading of Spinoza’s doctrine of the eternity of the mind, and irrespective of the strength or weakness of the arguments that I offer for that reading, there is one very good reason—indeed, to my mind the strongest possible reason—for thinking that Spinoza intended to deny the personal immortality of the soul: such a religiously charged doctrine goes against every grain of his philosophical persuasions. Seeing how this is so requires standing back from a minute analysis of the propositions of the Ethics a bit to consider his entire philosophical project, particularly its moral and political dimensions. It is clear from the later books of the Ethics and the Theological-Political Treatise that one of the major goals of Spinoza’s work is to liberate us from the grip of irrational passions and lead us to an abiding state of eudaimonia, of psychological and moral wellbeing, in the life of reason. And the two passions that he is most concerned about are hope and fear.12 These are the passions that are most easily manipulated by ecclesiastic authorities seeking to control our lives and command our obedience. These preachers take advantage of our tendency toward superstitious behavior by persuading us that there is an eternal reward to hope for and an eternal punishment to fear after this life. This constitutes the carrot and stick that they wield to move people into submission. What is essential for them to succeed in their appeal to our hope and fear is our conviction that there is such an afterlife, that my soul will continue to live after the death of my body and that there is a personal immortality. I believe that Spinoza thought that the best way to free us from a life of hope and fear, a life of superstitious behavior, was to kill it at its roots and eliminate the foundational belief on which such hopes and fears are grounded: the belief in the immortality of the soul. Maybe there is an eternal aspect—or two eternal aspects—of the mind. But, he is saying, it is nothing like the personal immortality perniciously held out to or over us by the leaders of organized religions. In this way, the denial of personal immortality is fundamental not only to Spinoza’s metaphysics, but also to his moral and political thought. To want to find in Spinoza’s philosophy a robust doctrine of personal immortality is deeply to misunderstand Spinoza.

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Conclusion In his preface to Spinoza’s Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy, his good friend Lodewijk Meyer notes that the reader should not confuse the philosophical ideas synthetically presented in this work with the author’s own thinking. Our author has only set out the opinions of Descartes and their demonstrations, insofar as these are found in his writings, or are such as ought to be deduced validly from the foundations he laid… Let no one think that he is teaching here either his own opinions, or only those which he approves of. Though he judges that some of the doctrines are true, and admits that he has added some of his own, nevertheless there are many that he rejects as false, and concerning which he holds a quite different opinion. (G 1:131/C 228–9) Meyer offers a number of examples of Cartesian doctrines rejected by Spinoza: the distinction between will and intellect; the identity of thinking substance and the finite human mind; and the limits of human understanding. He does not mention the issue of the immortality of the soul. He had a good opportunity to do so, however, since the immortality of the human soul is one of the issues treated in the Metaphysical Thoughts appended to the treatise. Despite the fact that Spinoza’s own opinions appear more clearly in this Appendix, much of it, as Meyer notes, is still intended to be an elaboration of Descartes’s principles. This is particularly the case in Chapter 12, where Spinoza summarizes a Cartesian argument for immortality—just the kind of argument, in fact, that, in the Meditations, Descartes says is required. But he does not note any disagreement with them (see G 1:275–81/C 340–6). There are good reasons why Spinoza (and Meyer) would have been reluctant to advertise his rejection of this doctrine. But reject it he did. And this, I believe, played the crucial role in Spinoza’s departure from Cartesian philosophy, and especially from the dualism that formed its metaphysical core. Notes 1 See, for example, van Bunge 2001 and Verbeek 1992. 2 For more on Coccejus, see in this volume Chapter 7, note 4. 3 At an earlier stage in his thought, however, Spinoza seems to have been thinking that the mode of Thought that is the mind and the mode of Extension that is the body were distinct from each other; see the Short Treatise on God, Man and His WellBeing, appendix II; G 1:118/C 153. 4 This has led Curley to claim that Spinoza’s view on the nature of the mind is a kind of “materialism”; see Curley 1988:74–8. 5 In this text, see chapter 23 and appendix II, G 1:102–3, 117–21/C 140–1, 152–6. 6 See G 3:99–100. 7 In fact, this aspect of the mind is eternal because the mode of extension of which it is

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an expression is eternal. 8 The intrinsic complexity of the body is reflected in the variety and multiplicity of ideas that make up the human mind; see E IIp11–13, G 2:94–103/C 456–62. 9 There is a good deal of debate in the literature as to whether the eternity of the mind (and of its adequate ideas) is an atemporal eternity or a sempieternity. See, for example, Donagan 1974 and Kneale 1979 (sempieternity) vs. Hampshire 1951 and Harris 1971 (atemporality). 10 See E IVp20–6, G 2:224–7/C 557–9. 11 Nadler 2002, ch. 5. 12 See, for example, his Preface to the Theological-Political Treatise.

7 Wittich’s critique of Spinoza Theo Verbeek

Together with his contemporary Johannes de Raey (1622–1702), the German-born Christopher Wittich or Wittichius (1625–87) is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant Cartesians of the Low Countries. As a student of Tobias Andreae (1604–76) in Groningen and a colleague of Johannes Clauberg (1622–65) in Herborn (1651) and in Duisburg (1653), and finally as the author of a series of books on theology and philosophy, he was actively and permanently involved in rethinking Cartesian philosophy and accommodating it with the Calvinist faith. Like many academic Cartesians he strictly separated philosophy and theology and denied that the first could ever have any detrimental effects on the second—the two were simply unconnected. As the successive editions of his various works show, his argument is complex and highly flexible. For on one hand he argues that if we read Scripture carefully we see that it is the intention of its author (the Holy Spirit) to teach, not the truth of nature, but the mysteries of faith, whereas on the other he claims that given the fact that Scripture is written in ordinary language and addresses itself to the common people we should not expect it to be accurate in its expressions. Finally, he completes his argument by claiming that the aim of Scripture is salvation, a practical goal, whereas the aim of philosophy is theoretical, namely, the contemplation of nature. In any case, he enthusiastically embraces Johannes de Raey’s proposal that philosophy has nothing to do with common sense, something both see reflected in the fact that Descartes starts his philosophy with an exercise in doubt. Doubt provides the transition from common sense to pure science, its only purpose being to identify the object of philosophy (that is, basically, the clear and distinct ideas of mathematics). Accordingly, “clearness and distinctness” is not primarily a criterion of truth but a criterion of demarcation. These are interesting developments which in a way anticipate the Kantian distinction between theoretical reason and practical reason and serve the same purpose as in Kant, namely, to protect traditional religious ideas and values from the intrusion of philosophy. Wittich was known as a theologian rather than a philosopher. After a short career in philosophy and mathematics it was to teach theology that he was appointed in Nijmegen (1655) and in Leiden (1671).1 Still, it seems that apart from his public lectures on theology he also found the time (or needed the money)—maybe in Nijmegen but in any case in Leiden—to give private seminars and tutorials on Cartesian philosophy. To the notes prepared for those activities we presumably owe two posthumous works: a commentary on Descartes’s Meditations, which was published by Wittich’s student Salomon van Til (1643–1713), and an examination and refutation of Spinoza’s Ethics, the publication of which was directed by a certain Willem Anslaar.2 Of these works, the second is by far the more important. Indeed, it is one of the earliest and among those I

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believe one of the most intelligent and thorough discussions of Spinoza’s Ethics. As I have already said, Wittich’s general position can be described as a combination of Cartesianism and Orthodox Calvinism—orthodox in the sense that he subscribed to the confessional basis of the Dutch Reformed Church.3 It should be pointed out, though, that there were strong forces moving the Church towards the expulsion of Coccejo-Cartesians, the group to which Wittich belonged.4 But despite some apparent victories—the general prohibition of Cartesian teaching by the States of Holland in 1656 and the official condemnation of some twenty Cartesio-Coccejan positions by the University of Leiden in 1676—Wittich managed to survive, as a result undoubtedly of his diplomacy and moderation. In Leiden at any rate he seems to have attracted a large audience, to which, as Pierre Bayle remarks, not only the clearness of his ideas contributed but likewise his attachment to the doctrine of Des Cartes and Cocceius, which is indeed the least in favour with the great and powerful in Holland but is most to the relish of young people and of those who set up for men of wit.5 In this paper I shall concentrate on Wittich’s relation to Spinoza and see to what extent his criticism can help understand the differences between Cartesianism and Spinozism. Wittich’s refutation of Spinoza is based on three closely connected points: (1) “synthetic” demonstration is unsuitable for metaphysics; (2) secundae notiones are meaningless in themselves; (3) Spinoza arbitrarily changes the meanings of words belonging to common language. I shall state these three arguments briefly, then discuss their implications. The method of demonstration Anti-Spinoza is preceded by a short introduction on method: de methodo demonstrandi (on the method of demonstration). According to Wittich, the method used by Spinoza is the “synthetic” method, which proceeds from definitions, axioms and postulates to propositions, “after which he [Spinoza] frequently adds corollaries and scholia” (Wittich 1690: A r°).6 Wittich insists on the limits of the synthetic method, whose aim is persuasion rather than illumination.7 Since its only purpose is to extort the readers’ assent, it “often treats of things of which, if it would follow the order of nature, it could treat only much later” (Wittich 1690: A v°-A2 r°). Accordingly, it often deviates from the order of nature and “ever so often things are demonstrated in difficult ways which are not natural but farfetched, unnatural, and artificially contrived” (Wittich 1690: A2 r°). In all this Wittich paraphrases Descartes’s Second Replies, where we find the same opposition between the analytic and synthetic methods (AT 7:155–9/CSM 2:110–13). However, he interprets that distinction in terms of what he calls “the order of nature,” by which presumably he means the order of causes and effects; indeed, analysis “respects the order of nature accurately and proves everything by the causes and principles of things” (Wittich 1690: A2 r°).8 Wittich turns this into an accusation of inconsistency against Spinoza himself, not only because he “admits much that is contrary to his own synthetic method” (Wittich 1690: A2 v°), but also because in the Treatise on the

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Improvement of the Intellect (which Wittich seems to have studied rather closely), Spinoza recommends the analytic method. As proof Wittich quotes two passages: [T]he true method is the road by which the truth itself or the objective essences of things or the ideas (for all those words have the same meaning) are sought in the right order [which is fairly general, but he adds] therefore it is necessary to understand what a true idea is, by distinguishing it from other perceptions and by investigating its nature, so that we may know our power to understand and direct the mind in such a way that it understands everything according to that norm [by which he means “to the norm of a true idea” as becomes clear by the sequel]. (Wittich 1690: A2 v°)9 So, if we start with an idea true and known to be true, using that idea as a “norm” for understanding everything else, we follow a true method or road which, according to Wittich at any rate, would not be synthetic at all but truly analytical and therefore Cartesian. This is even more clear in the way Wittich quotes a second passage from the same Treatise: The right way of finding the truth is to form thoughts on the basis of some given definition, which is more successful and more easy according as we better define the thing in question. (Wittich 1690: A2 v°, quoting G 2:34/C 39) Wittich does not object to the use of definitions, provided they are based on true ideas, that is, on clear and distinct ideas. So to start with a definition is not in itself constitutive of the synthetic method—if Spinoza had followed the program outlined in the Treatise on the Improvement of the Intellect and had started with a true idea, his method would be analytical. Wittich’s point is that Spinoza is unfaithful to that program: “I do not believe that in his Ethics Spinoza actually observes the rule that he should direct everything according to the norm of a given true idea, let alone of the given true idea of the most perfect being” (Wittich 1690: A3 r°). According to Wittich, Spinoza’s definition of God is not “a given true idea” but an “artificially contrived notion,” which does not correspond to any external reality. Referring to Spinoza’s famous letter to De Vries, in which various types of definitions are distinguished, Wittich claims that Spinoza only nominally adheres to the distinction between real and verbal definitions but in fact ignores it.10 This is shown, again according to Wittich, in the peculiar way he handles “second notions.” Second notions Second notions (notiones secundae) are notions like genus, species, substance, attribute, etc. According to Wittich these terms are not objects of a real definition because they have nothing “real.” The argument is put forward right from the start in Wittich’s commentary of Spinoza’s first definition: “Under causa sui I understand that whose

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essence involves existence, that is, that whose nature cannot be conceived but as existing” (E Idefl, G 2:45/C 408). But according to Wittich: if we follow the order of nature second notions cannot be taken into account before first notions, given the fact that they are nothing but general ways of considering things, which, as much as possible, are abstracted from particular and really existing things, without falling under the common knowledge and understanding of men. Indeed, they were invented by philosophers on the basis of a comparison of really existing things or of things which exist only in thought or in sense perception. (Wittich 1690:7) So ‘substance,’ ‘essence,’ ‘subject,’ ‘attribute,’ ‘accident,’ ‘mode,’ ‘cause,’ ‘effect,’ do not directly refer to things or classes of things but belong to philosophy and logic. To assume that they have “a fixed and unchangeable nature which is common to all and can be predicated from many,” that is, that they are universals, is a grave error (Wittich 1690:7–8). If Spinoza “wanted to proceed distinctly and orderly,” what he should have done is “to consider particular things, which fall under the common understanding, like God, mind, etc., and, after having observed those real things, form the various second notions of cause, substance, etc.” (Wittich 1690:8). So neither the notion of causa sui, nor those of cause and effect, nor those of substance and attribute, can be defined out of the blue. They are parasitical on the concepts of real things. Thus, for example, geometers take the word ‘cause’ in such a large sense that it comprises any reason why this or that property can be attributed to something. And in that large sense one could say that God is causa sui—indeed, the only reason why he exists is his very perfection. But that does not mean that one can meaningfully say that his perfection is the “cause” of his existence (in the sense in which the movement of a body would be caused by a collision with another body). There simply is no efficient cause for God’s existence (Wittich 1690:8–9). In any case, “a true definition of God should precede any definition of abstract and secondary terms, if only to prevent these from being confused with the things themselves or from being taken in their place.” But, Wittich pursues, Spinoza is “so far removed from providing a true definition of God that he confuses him with the world.” What he, Spinoza, actually means with his claim that God is causa sui is not that God needs no efficient cause to exist but that he coincides with his effects, that is, with the “created” world: “This is where Spinoza’s system leads us: that we should believe that the world is God and in that way deny the true God” (Wittich 1690:9). This criticism is repeated over and over again, especially, as one imagines, with respect to the first eight propositions of Part I of the Ethics, which all concern the notion of substance. According to Wittich, substance is typically a second notion. By basing his argument on a definition of ‘substance,’ Spinoza invites us “to take a shadow for the thing itself and do violence to human thinking because, as far as really existing things are concerned, all men understand ‘substance’ to be a particular thing such as God, mind, body” (Wittich 1690:11). Reflecting on those particular things we find in God infinite thought, in mind finite thought and in body extension. So, if a philosopher reflects on this and considers these: infinite thought, finite

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thought, extension, which are real and existing, and realizes that they can be understood and represented separately by an idea per se to the extent that there is nothing in those things to which they can be reduced, he concludes that these alone have the form of an existing thing, that he may call them ‘substances’ and must form the abstract notion of substance as a thing that can be understood per se and which therefore is per se to the extent that there is nothing else to which it can be reduced. (Wittich 1690:12) Even so, a thing can be per se in various different ways: “It can be truly per se, like God, mind, body, or it can be per se from a certain point of view only, as in the case of a square, a movement, etc.” (Wittich 1690:12). So one and the same thing can be said to be a substance in some respects and an accident in another.11 In fact, all we mean by saying that this or that is a substance is that this or that really exists. That is the ordinary meaning of the word and that is also what Spinoza should have stuck with if he really wanted to speak of the natural world, that is, the world as it exists outside the intellect. And that is also the reason why Spinoza can be accused of inconsistency: According to him a true definition must have a determinate object. It is not enough if someone says that by this or that word he understands something in a way different from the common use. Nor is it, if the argument is on really existing natural things, legitimate to understand by the words by which these things are normally signified, something different from what rational people commonly understand by them, unless one wants to be reckoned among those who do not philosophise about the things that exist in the world but rave about the fictions of their own brain. (Wittich 1690:14–5) The concept of substance as used by Spinoza is a fictitious idea and on the basis of the Treatise on the Improvement of the Intellect should be considered a false idea (Wittich 1690:14). As a result the conclusions based on Spinoza’s definition of ‘substance’ can be dismissed entirely and that means, according to Wittich, that Spinoza does not manage to make his point that there is no more than one single substance, of which all particular things are parts or modi. Now before going on, let us see what is the origin of this idea of secundae notiones which, if one may trust Giancotti’s Lexicon Spinozanum, occurs only twice in Spinoza himself and only as a subject on which he does not say anything.12

Historical background Although the terms notio prima and notio secunda seem to have been coined only by Zabarella (1533–89), their origin is much older. They go back to a scholastic distinction, first carried through by Henry of Ghent (†1293) and further elaborated by Johannes Duns Scotus (c. 1270–1308), between intentiones primae and intentiones secundae (or impositiones).13 According to Scotus, the first belong to metaphysics and the second to

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logic because their only origin is the intellect.14 For Zabarella, in turn, who replaces intentio with notio, the distinction mainly serves to drive home a somewhat similar point, namely that logic is not a science: first notions are names [nomina] which immediately signify things by means of a concept of the mind, like ‘animal’ and ‘man,’ that is, the very concepts of which those names are signs; second notions are other names imposed upon the first, like ‘genus,’ ‘species,’ ‘name,’ ‘verb,’ ‘proposition,’ ‘syllogism,’ and so on, or rather on the concepts signified by those (first) names.15 In other words, logic is a formal discipline, which does not deal with things themselves or with the concepts of things but with the elements of what we would call a “metalanguage.” Notiones secundae are human inventions, whereas the object of a notio prima exists without the mind. In sum, the former are a kind of fiction: “second notions are our own work and fictions of our minds” (Zabarella 1966:6 C). This distinction has nothing to do with that between particular and general, singular and universal, for Zabarella sees the concept man for example, which is universal, as a prima notio. A proper name, on the other hand, designating a particular thing, is not a concept at all: If we consider Socrates and Plato and Callias and realize that they are similar to the extent that all are men, we form in our mind the common concept man, which is called the concept of a thing and therefore a primus conceptus or prima notio. (Zabarella 1966:6 D) A secunda notio is produced if we further reflect on the concept man, conclude that all men, although numerically different, share a common nature and form the notion of species. Similarly animal would be a first notion or primary concept, whereas if we realize that the notion of animal covers various species we form the second notion of genus (Zabarella 1966:6 F-7 A). Now since logic deals with second notions only, there is no good reason why it should be called a science, given the fact that “science relates only to things that are necessary” (Zabarella 1966:7 D—E).16 Dealing with man made things logic is more like an art or technique (Zabarella 1966:8 B—C). It is not knowledge of things although it helps us to produce knowledge of things (Zabarella 1966:8 E).17 Similar distinctions are found in several seventeenth-century dictionaries. Thus Rudolph Goclenius (1547–1628) deals with primae and secundae notiones in basically the same terms as Zabarella, emphasizing like him that primae notiones deal with things outside the intellect, whereas secundae notiones build on primae notiones. Secundae notiones are logical instruments, which although they direct the mind, are nothing but “an accident and an effect of the mind.”18 All agree that second notions are literally secondary and derive all their contents from a consideration of things themselves.19 Alsted (1588–1638) for example, who like the others speaks of primae and secundae notiones, calls them principia protonoëmatica and principia deuteronoëmatica if they are used as principles (Alsted 1989: vol. 1, 77, 80). So, obviously, Wittich has borrowed the distinction between prima notio and secunda

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notio, directly or indirectly, from Zabarella, who in turn has inherited it from the nominalist tradition. What is attractive in it is that it allows him to defuse the notions of substance and attribute, which he sees as Spinoza’s main tools to deduce that God coincides with whatever there is. According to Wittich, however, it is not by reflecting on the word ‘substance’ or ‘attribute’ that we know God but by reflecting on the idea of God that eventually we conclude that “God is a substance.” This implies, of course, that, whereas the meaning of words like ‘substance’ is not fixed, words like ‘God’ and ‘mind’ have a fixed meaning. It is to that aspect of Wittich’s critique that we must turn now. Common meanings Spinoza defines God as “an absolutely infinite being, that is, a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses an eternal and infinite essence” (E Idef6, G 2:45/C 409). According to Wittich there are two possibilities: Either Spinoza wants others to entertain a fiction of his mind or he means his definition to relate to a real thing or being. In the first case he cannot prove anything; in the second case he should take words in their ordinary sense, which according to Wittich he does not (Wittich 1690:16– 17). Wittich does little to explain this and it is not even clear what he means. In any case it cannot mean that there is truth in common language, for that would be contrary to the way he deals with Scripture. Presumably it means that words referring to things, their properties or relations (‘God,’ ‘world,’ ‘soul,’ ‘man,’ ‘red,’ ‘brother’) refer to a specific idea, which can be identified among those who use the same language. Everyone knows the meaning of the word ‘man’ because one can point to Peter, Paul and Mary as being typically ‘men.’ Similarly, we can direct others’ attention to the innate idea we all have of an infinitely perfect being. In cases like these a definition is not helpful at all: given the fact that the question here is about…really existing things, there is no point in presupposing nominal definitions or definitions of second notions but on the contrary it is fitting to accept and use all those words in the sense in which they are normally taken amongst men. (Wittich 1690: A3 r°) In sum, the meaning of the word ‘man’ can be elucidated by pointing to empirically given instantiations of that universal concept; the meaning of the word ‘God’ would be the idea we have of an infinitely perfect being which, being innate, is present in everybody. Both types of meanings are fixed in language. By contrast, words like ‘substance’ and ‘attribute’ do not have any fixed meaning, so are perfectly useless if we want to explain the meaning of words belonging to ordinary language, like ‘God,’ ‘mind,’ ‘man,’ and so on. So if a word refers to a specific class of things or of properties of things, that is, if a word expresses a first notion, it belongs to common language; if it refers to our ways of referring to things, that is, if it expresses a second notion, it does not belong to common language but to what one would now undoubtedly call “meta-language.” After reflecting on one’s idea of God and deducing from that idea that there must be a God one can legitimately claim that God exists and decide that the category that most befits him is that of “substance.” But by simply reflecting on the notion of substance one cannot

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legitimately claim that a substance exists because the notion of substance implies necessary existence—all one could say is that if a substance exists it exists necessarily (or, inversely, that if we find something that exists necessarily it is a good candidate for being categorized as a substance) (Wittich 1690:49). Finally, by saying that God is a substance we do not elucidate the ordinary meaning of the word ‘God’ nor make any significant addition to that meaning. Similarly, in his discussion of Spinoza’s definition of ‘God’ and especially the explicatio (“I say ‘absolutely infinite,’ not ‘in its own kind’; for of whatever is only infinite in its own kind we can deny an infinite number of attributes; but what is absolutely infinite, to its essence belongs whatever expresses essence and involves no negation”; Wittich 1690:17), Wittich insists on the obscurity and ambiguity of that definition (and the explanation). The fact that an infinite number of attributes can be denied of something does not mean that it is infinite “in its own kind.” A triangle is not infinite “in its own kind” even if there are an infinite number of things one cannot say of a triangle—and in that wide sense Spinoza takes the term ‘attribute,’ which he defines as “whatever the intellect perceives of a substance as belonging to its essence.” What Spinoza seems to mean with ‘attribute,’ according to Wittich, is essential attribute; however, of those there can be only one in each substance (Wittich 1690:15–16, 21).20 So if one defines ‘God’ as a “substance consisting of an infinite number of attributes,” one cannot mean by ‘attribute’ an essential attribute—unless one would be prepared to say that God is a substance consisting of an infinite number of substances (Wittich 1690:53). But Spinoza ultimately wants to prove that no substance can have any essential attribute at all unless the same attribute also belongs to its cause—the underlying axiom being that creation from nothing is impossible. Accordingly, Spinoza’s real argument would be that if God is the origin of all things he should have all the essential attributes of the things of which he is the cause. All Wittich’s arguments—those at any rate which I have discussed—can be reduced to an argument about the difference between first notions and second notions. First notions refer to things and properties of things; second notions refer to our ways of referring to things and properties of things. We know the meaning of ‘red’ if we have an idea of a particular color—and we can come to know that meaning by being confronted with various types of red. But there is no way of knowing the meaning of ‘substance’ without drawing on our knowledge of particular substances. Accordingly, Wittich’s idea is basically the same as Zabarella’s. Second notions form a categorial network, which it may be the task of logic to explore and develop but which, taken in themselves, are empty. In a vague sense they are Kantian categories: forms of thought (modi cogitationis), which without “matter” or “contents,” that is without the idea of a thing or its properties, remain empty. Problems Although Wittich’s argument is undoubtedly Cartesian, the relation to Descartes is tenuous and may rest on an over-interpretation of the relevant texts. Thus Wittich postulates a parallelism between the analytical method and the order of causes and

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effects—indeed, the analytical method follows the order of nature whereas the synthetic method rests on the use of second notions. But that seems to be contrary to the Cartesian requirement that we should “direct our thoughts in an orderly manner, by beginning with the simplest and the most easily known objects in order to ascend little by little, step by step, to knowledge of the most complex and by supposing some order even among objects that have no natural order of precedence” (DM II, AT 6:18–9/CSM 1:120; emphasis added). The reason for Wittich’s reading, presumably, is the confusion created by Descartes himself in the Second Replies, where he formulates the difference between the two methods in terms of a priori and a posteriori: The analytic method proceeds “as it were a priori,” whereas the synthetic method proceeds “as it were a posteriori, though the proof itself is often more a priori than it is in the analytic method” (AT 7:156/CSM 2:110–1). But that is not very helpful given the fact that it means that the synthetic method often actually proceeds from causes to effects, that is a priori, although from the point of view of the reader it proceeds a priori—not really but “as it were.” Wittich’s critique also presupposes a refinement of Descartes’s theory of ideas. Admittedly, Descartes several times makes an attempt to classify ideas or what he also calls ‘notions’ or even ‘perceptions.’ Thus in Part I of the Principles Descartes divides “simple notions” into two classes: perceptions of things and their affections, and eternal truths. The first are divided into two classes: “general items” like “substance, duration, order, number and any other items of this kind which extend to all classes of things,” and the ideas of things as such, which in turn can be divided in “intellectual or thinking beings” and “material things” (PP I.48, AT 8–1:22–3/CSM 1:208)—the second division being based, apparently, on the clear and distinct ideas of thinking and extension respectively. A similar distinction occurs in the correspondence with Elisabeth, where Descartes also refers to what he calls here ‘primitive notions’ (notions primitives) (AT 3:665/CSMK 218). Now, whether one calls them ‘primitive notions’ or ‘general items,’ it seems legitimate to wonder whether they are ‘ideas’ in the proper sense of that word— like the idea of a horse, of matter, of God. Do we really have an idea of time or duration or is it just the case that some of our ideas (movement, walking, thinking, etc.) are “temporal”? And do we have an idea of substance or are some of the objects of our idea such that the best way to refer to them is by calling them ‘substances’? I am not sure that there is a clear answer in Descartes, except that according to him the only idea we have of a substance relates to a particular property (“extension,” “thought”), which given its peculiar nature we call ‘attribute.’21 Finally, Wittich’s interpretation of the distinction between the analytic and synthetic method suggests a different reading of that distinction as it is found in Descartes. The synthetic method is actually a dialectical method, which by starting from a reformulated version of a principle adopted by the adversary forces him into accepting a position he does not like. In Descartes’s own words: It demonstrates the conclusion clearly and employs a long series of definitions, postulates, axioms, theorems and problems, so that if anyone denies one of the conclusions it can be shown at once that it is contained in what has gone before, and hence the reader, however argumentative and stubborn he may be, is compelled to give his assent.

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(AT 7:156/CSM 2:111; emphasis added) Wittich’s critique is perhaps even more interesting with respect to Spinoza, especially in so far as he postulates the existence of an essential difference between the method advocated in the Treatise on the Improvement of the Intellect and the method used in the Ethics. Presumably Wittich has an important point there, which can be divided into two subsidiary points. The first concerns the nature of the concepts necessary for a “demonstration” to be true and known to be true. On this point the author of the Treatise on the Improvement of the Intellect is comparatively clear. Those concepts should be intuitively true, that is, not stand in need of any formal demonstration, and that in turn is possible only in so far as we are dealing with particular essences. Above all we should avoid abstract ideas: “Those who conceive things abstractly and not in their true being are easily confused by the imagination” (G 2:11, note h/C 14). Indeed, that is the reason why Spinoza rejects “perceptions” of the second kind, which are simply irrelevant, and of the third kind, which to be known to be true would require an idea of the fourth kind.22 The same concern lies behind Spinoza’s discussion of entia rationis in the Metaphysical Thoughts, to illustrate which he uses the same examples as Zabarella, like genus, species, etc. The use of such notions is not forbidden but it should be realized that far from being things, they are no more than instruments of reason (G 1:233/C 299–300). On this point Spinoza could even be more nominalist than Zabarella and Wittich because for him any concept of a class is a product of the imagination and as such a source of confiision. A genus is a class of things that meets certain requirements which are independent of the things composing that class; indeed, it is a way of classifying classes. But it seems that if an idea does not relate to a true essence—which according to Spinoza is by definition a particular essence—it is an ens rationis. Indeed, there is nothing like whiteness or humanity (but only white things and human beings). However, whereas for Wittich clearly the notion of causa sui is a second notion and therefore in itself empty, the author of the Treatise does not consider this an abstract idea at all: “As far as the knowledge of the origin of nature is concerned there is no reason to fear that it is abstract” (G 2:29/C 34). Now in a way Wittich would of course agree, because for him the idea of God is not abstract either. For Spinoza, however, an idea can be intuitively true only if it reveals a causal structure: a proximate cause in the case of “created” things, the cause of itself in the case of “uncreated” things (G 2:35/C 39–40).23 Accordingly, for him the notion of causa sui, which is the object of the first definition of the Ethics, is an intuitively true notion, which has nothing, one would say of a “second notion.” In fact, Spinoza’s professed aversion from abstract ideas and entia rationis makes the way he seems to accord a privileged position to substance even more puzzling. This is particularly striking in Part I of Metaphysical Thoughts. In this text, Spinoza seems mainly concerned with making a rigid distinction between being and not-being, which is closely followed by an equally rigid distinction between necessary and impossible. A thing either is or is not; if it is its existence is necessary; if it is not its existence is impossible. Moreover, only real things that can be the object of ideas—all other things are “beings of reason” (entia rationis), that is, things that do not exist apart from the mind

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that thinks them. Time, for example, is not a thing or a being—all there is are things with a certain duration. But if we want to compare those things in so far as they have duration we need time, which accordingly is an ens rationis—something which does not really exist despite the fact that it is clearly and distinctly perceived. Accordingly, there is no idea of time—time is no more than a “way of thinking” (modus cogitandi). And the same applies to other items such as number and order—indeed, the argument seems to be directed specifically against Descartes who had lumped all those “general items” as “things” or “affections of things.”24 According to Spinoza, indeed, all those “things” are not things at all but entia rationis or modi cogitandi—except substance. The second point concerns Spinoza’s use of the “geometrical method” in the Ethics. There has been a long discussion (going back, in fact, to the end of the seventeenth century) on the significance of Spinoza’s use of the geometrical method.25 By concentrating on what is obviously Spinoza’s model (namely, Descartes’s Second Replies), Wittich indirectly suggests an alternative reading of the Ethics, namely as an exercise in which the definitions figure as dialectical principles, the imaginary adversary being, of course, Descartes and the Cartesians. In a way this is confirmed by Spinoza himself in an interesting scholium in Part V: Given the fact that the essence of our mind consists in knowledge alone, whose principle and foundation is God, it is also perfectly clear in what particular way our mind for its essence and existence follows from the divine nature and continually depends on God. All of which I have thought worthwhile to note here, in order to show how much the knowledge of singular things, which I have called intuitive or of the third kind, can achieve and to what extent it is better than universal knowledge which I have said to belong to the second kind. For although I have in the First Part [of the Ethics] shown in a general way that everything (including as a result the human mind) depends on God for its essence and existence, that demonstration, although legitimate and not subject to doubt, does not affect our mind so much as when the same thing is concluded on the basis of the very essence of each singular thing, which we said to depend on God. (E Vp36s, G 2:303/C 612–13) Now of course this is a difficult text in many ways. What it does show, however, is Spinoza’s fundamental agreement with Descartes (and presumably Wittich) on the effect of the synthetic method: its results are legitimate and beyond doubt but, being based on universal concepts and “common notions,” they do not affect the mind as powerfully as intuitive science. Still, on a theoretical level the result in both cases is the same. And that of course raises the question why Part I and a good deal of Part II of the Ethics was written at all, unless we assume that it was written for a peculiar class of people, namely those who work with a particular notion of substance. Although intelligent and original, Wittich is not a great thinker. However, his critique of Spinoza (as well as his other works) helps us to neutralize the unfruitful and uninteresting textbook idea of Spinoza as being in some way a “radical Cartesian.” Indeed, he is not, no more than Hobbes or Gassendi are radical Aristotelians. Descartes’s

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philosophy, and in particular his theory of ideas and judgment and perhaps even his idea of method, was an obstacle on his way, something to overcome rather than to build on.26 Despite the protests of more orthodox contemporaries like Voetius and Revius, he also shows that there is a fundamental affinity between Cartesian philosophy and a particular type of theology which, again, is based on Descartes’s theory of ideas and judgment. On the other hand one should realize that Cartesian philosophy is a highly complex and diversified phenomenon and that even in Descartes himself the “methods” of the various sciences were held together only by his metaphysics. In the Low Countries, however, where metaphysical speculation never was very popular, nothing could prevent the division of Cartesian philosophy into three distinct trends: One represented by Wittich and De Raey, which emphasized the peculiar nature of philosophic enquiry; a second found in physicians like Regius, Sylvius, and Bontekoe, who used the machine model as a heuristic tool for anatomical research; and a third, finally, based on Descartes’s Treatise of the Passions, which aimed at developing theories of action, spreading into the domains of politics, morality, the arts, etc. Undoubtedly Spinoza owes something to the second and especially the third trends. More specifically he must have been looking for a new unity that would leave intact the link between knowledge of nature and practical concerns, which in his view definitely included those traditionally associated with religion. Although therefore any assessment of the relation between Descartes and Spinoza remains hazardous, Wittich seems to me extremely useful in coming to terms with that problem. Notes 1 For all details see Bunge et al. (2003): vol. 2, 1083–6. 2 Wittich 1688 and Wittich 1690. A Dutch translation (by A. van Poot) was published in 1695; cf. Savini 2000. 3 This basis was formed by the Dutch Confession, the Heidelberg catechism and, after 1619, the “Five articles” (against the Remonstrants). 4 Johannes Coccejus (1603–69) based his theology on the notion of a divine covenant. He rejected scholastic methods and preferred a historical and prophetic interpretation of salvation. Although he himself had reservations about Cartesian philosophy (especially its use of doubt) many of his followers and associates (Wittich among others) developed a close relationship to Cartesian philosophy, possibly also because they had a common enemy in the form of the Voetians; see Asselt 2001. 5 Bayle 1964: vol. 5, 564. 6 References are to the collation figures, the essay on the method of demonstration not being paginated. 7 At methodus synthetica cum pro fine habeat potius ut mentem de veritate convincat quam ut clare explicet naturam rei, de qua vult convincere, congerit notiones et veritates natura cognitas, praemittit suis demonstrationibus,

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definitiones et axiomata evidentia, quorum assensum postulat, eoque impetrato, si in sequentibus conclusio obveniat, quae per se assensum non impetrat, ad eum mentem cogit per istas definitiones et axiomata praecognita et prius admissa. (Wittich 1690: A v°) 8 This may be an expansion of Descartes’s remark that with the analytic method the proof is often a priori, that is, proceeding from cause to effect, whereas with the synthetic method the proof is most often a posteriori. 9 Words between square brackets are added by Wittich. Cf. Spinoza, Tractatus de intellectus emendatione, §§36–7; G 2:15/C 18–9. 10 See Spinoza’s discussion of this point in his 1663 letter to De Vries, at G 4:43–4/C 194–5. 11 Cf. Descartes to Regius, January 1642, AT 3:492–4/CSMK 205–6. 12 Giancotti-Boscherini 1970: vol. 2, 770. 13 Knudsen 1982. 14 Swiezawski 1934. 15 De natura logicae, I, cap. 3, in Zabarella 1966:6 A. On Zabarella’s conception of logic as an instrument rather than a science, see Mikkeli 1992:45–58. 16 Cf. I, cap. 2, Zabarella 1966:3 F. 17 It is a habitus intellectualis instrumentalis; I, cap. 20, Zabarella 1966:52 B-C. 18 Goclenius 1966:767. 19 Cf. Micraelius 1967:635 (which speaks of intentio rather than notio); Chauvin 1967:442. 20 Cf. E Idef4, G 2:45/C 408. 21 This term [‘substance’] applies to everything in which whatever we perceive immediately resides as in a subject or to every thing by means of which whatever we perceive exists… The only idea we have of a substance itself, in the strict sense, is that it is the thing in which whatever we perceive…exists, either formally or eminently. (AT 7:161/CSM 2:114) 22 Cf. Tractatus de intellectus emendatione, §§ 21, 55, 62, 75–6, 93, 97; G 2:11, 20–1, 24, 28–9, 34, 35–6/C 14, 24–5, 28, 33–4, 39, 40. 23 It is not intuitively true if the effect is given only and the knowledge of the cause mediated by a universal concept. 24 Quaecunque sub perceptionem nostram cadunt, vel tanquam res rerumve affectiones quasdam consideramus; vel tanquam aeternas veritates nullam existentiam extra cogitationem nostram habentes. Ex iis quae tanquam res consideramus maxime generalia sunt substantia, duratio, ordo, numerus. (PP I. 48, AT 8–1:22–3)

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25 For a historical review of this discussion see Steenbakkers 1994: ch. 5. 26 See Verbeek 2003: ch. 6.

8 Burchard de Volder Crypto-Spinozist or disenchanted Cartesian? Paul Lodge

Burchard de Volder (1643–1709) is perhaps best known today through his correspondence with Leibniz which took place between 1698 and 1706. However, in his own time he was an eminent Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics at Leiden University and ultimately Rector of the same institution, who achieved notoriety as one of the three authors and defenders of a pamphlet which effectively ended the reign of Aristotelianism at Leiden and cleared the way for Cartesianism to flourish unchallenged. De Volder’s views have not received much attention from contemporary historians of philosophy. One notable exception, however, is an article written by Wim Klever in 1988, “Burchard de Volder (1643–1709), a Crypto-Spinozist on a Leiden Cathedra.” Here Klever provides a useful account of some of the themes in De Volder’s work. However, his main aim is to argue for the thesis that, public appearances notwithstanding, De Volder was not a Cartesian but one who “worked in the spirit of Spinoza himself” (Klever 1988:192).1 In this chapter I want to revisit the issue of De Volder’s Spinozism. It is my contention that, pace Klever, there is no compelling evidence that De Volder was a follower of Spinoza. Rather, I think that the intellectual biography presented by Jean Le Clerc soon after De Volder’s death is borne out by his writings. After an initial schooling in Aristotelianism, De Volder was attracted to a number of the central tenets of Cartesianism. As his career drew on, he rejected a number of the views of Descartes himself and was unwilling to embrace the solutions of later Cartesians such as Malebranche. But rather than constructing his own positive alternative, he gradually lost faith in the possibility that philosophy had anything to contribute to our knowledge of the world. I will begin by sketching the traditional view of De Volder which is based primarily on Le Clerc’s Elogé de feu Mr. De Volder Professeur en Philosophie et aux Mathematiques, dans l’Academie de Leide, written on the occasion of De Volder’s death in 1709 (Le Clerc 1709).2 This will be followed by a critical discussion of the case that Klever presents for De Volder’s Crypto-Spinozism. In the final section I will consider the issue of how we might best characterize De Volder’s philosophical views in light of the preceding evidence.

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Burchard de Volder—the traditional account De Volder began his academic life with traditional courses of study in philosophy, mathematics, and medicine in Amsterdam and Utrecht. However, he later worked under Francis de le Boë Sylvius in Leiden, where he received his doctorate in medicine in 1664. After gaining his doctorate, De Volder practiced medicine in Amsterdam, but he did not lose his more academic interests in mathematics and philosophy. Under Sylvius’s tutelage, De Volder had moved away from Scholastic Aristotelianism, and he appears to have devoted a good deal of time to the study of Descartes at this time. In 1670 he was offered a vacant chair in philosophy at Leiden, and he initially discharged his official duties in a traditional way, teaching the logic of Franco Burgersdijk. However, De Volder soon began to teach the philosophy of Descartes both in public and in private and gained great popularity as a lecturer due to the clarity of his explanations. It appears that one of his greatest concerns at this time was to show that Descartes’s views were not nearly as novel as people assumed. In his Elogé, Le Clerc observes, “People have assured me that sometimes he took [Aristotle’s] works onto the rostrum and read passages to his audience in order to show that the things people accused of novelty were found in that author” (Le Clerc 1709:352). Although he appears to have had a public reputation for being a Cartesian sympathizer from early on in his academic career, De Volder’s name became indelibly linked with that of Descartes in the mid 1670s. Difficulties arose at Leiden in 1674 when the Aristotelian Gerard de Vries left the university after disruption of one of his disputations by elements identified as Cartesian sympathizers. De Volder was among a number of professors called to account (Molhuysen 1913–24: vol. 3, 291–3). Despite the attempts of the Curators of the university to protect the Aristotelian faculty, the harassment appears to have continued, and things came to a head in January 1676 when 21 propositions were prohibited from being taught and discussed in the university (see Ruestow 1973:77). Along with his colleagues Christoph Wittichius (or Wittich) and Abraham Heidanus, De Volder published a pamphlet condemning the prohibition (Heidanus 1676). The subsequent furor led to the dismissal of the aged Heidanus, who insisted that he had been the sole author. Despite the support that the Curators had shown for the anti-Cartesian elements in the university, the ultimate upshot of the condemnation was a weakening of the conservative power base. Indeed, shortly after Heidanus’s expulsion, Cartesianism began to be taught openly again and was not subject to further suppression (see Ruestow 1973:78). According to Le Clerc, De Volder continued to teach Descartes’s physics and metaphysics after the controversies of 1676 had died down. Indeed, during the three years after the publication in 1690 of an edition of Huet’s Censura philosophiae cartesianae, De Volder and his students defended the views of Descartes against this critique in the Exercitationes academicae, a series of disputations that were published in 1695.3 However, as Le Clerc notes, early in the Exercitationes De Volder observes that he thinks Descartes’s views “should be followed in general, though by no means completely” (De Volder 1695: vol. 1, 3). And it is Le Clerc’s contention that in the 1670s and 1680s, De Volder “was a much greater admirer of them at that time than at the end of his life” (Le

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Clerc 1709:374; see also 386). This suggestion is further borne out by consideration of the most famous of De Volder’s philosophical ventures, namely his correspondence with Leibniz from 1698 to 1706. In the summer before he began his correspondence with Leibniz, he reportedly told Johann Bernoulli (who was to serve as an intermediary throughout) that he found the “Cartesian principles largely inadequate and many false” (Leibniz 1963: vol. 3, 558–9). And in his letter to Leibniz of 12 November 1699, it is clear that he was anxious to distance himself from at least some of the views of Descartes, since he complained that Leibniz had been unfairly labeling him as a disciple (see Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 198). Furthermore, it is notable that in the address that he delivered at the end of his term as Rector at Leiden in 1698, Oratio de rationibus viribus et usu in scientiis, De Volder refers to “the shining lights of this century” in mathematical physics as “Huygens, Newton, and Leibniz” with Descartes left conspicuously absent (De Volder 1698:22). In 1675, De Volder was successful in seeking permission to teach experimental physics at Leiden and became one of the first in Europe to supplement theoretical physics with classroom observations (De Pater 1975:315). Le Clerc suggests that De Volder’s drift away from Descartes was caused by his interest in the practical side of natural philosophy and, in particular, by his encounter with the experimentalism of Newton’s Principia which he studied thoroughly after its publication in 1687 (Le Clerc 1709:379–80). Indeed, following Le Clerc, it is Ruestow’s contention that toward the end of his life, De Volder became disenchanted with the possibility of a successful wedding between Cartesian philosophy (and metaphysics more generally) and experimental physics to such an extent that he had lost any real interest in the former by the beginning of the eighteenth century (see Ruestow 1973:111). De Volder’s Crypto-Spinozism The account that I offered in the previous section is at odds with the view of De Volder as a Crypto-Spinozist that Klever presents. The heart of my paper will be a consideration of the case that Klever offers for this characterization. If Klever’s thesis were that De Volder was genuinely a Crypto-Spinozist, this would be hard to assess. But in fact he goes further than this, claiming that De Volder secretly adhered to the views of Spinoza and suggests that there is clear evidence that he embraced them, both in his writings and from the testimony of his contemporaries. Thus, Klever presents De Volder as a Spinozist who left many traces, despite not broadcasting his identity to the world. However, I shall continue to employ the expression “Crypto-Spinozist” for ease of discussion. Evidence from Stolle and Hallman’s journal Klever begins his case for De Volder’s Crypto-Spinozism by turning attention to the journals of Gottlieb Stolle and a Dr. Hallman, extracts of which were published in J.Freudenthal’s Die Lebengeschichte Spinoza’s.4 At the request of his teacher, Christian Thomasius, Stolle gathered testimonials concerning Spinoza while on a tour of Europe that he undertook soon after graduation in 1703. Hallman was another member of this party. While in Holland, they interviewed a number of people, including De Volder, and

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from the transcriptions of these discussions Klever extracts the following: (1) De Volder was well versed in the details of Spinoza’s philosophy and implicitly claimed to be one of the few people who really understood them (Klever 1988:195–6); (2) De Volder can be plausibly identified as the “special friend” of Spinoza who was mentioned in an interview with Rieuwertsz, Jr., the son of Spinoza’s publisher (Klever 1988:196); and (3) De Volder defended Spinoza against the attacks that had appeared in Pierre Bayle’s Dictionary (Klever 1988:196). Klever clearly regards De Volder’s criticisms of Bayle to be compelling evidence, noting that “if we had no other testimonies, this frank concession alone would convince us of De Volder’s real position…his deep sympathy and agreement with Spinoza’s philosophy” (Klever 1988:196). But it seems to me that, even if we assume that the content of the journals is accurate, there is nothing in the data above that requires Klever’s explanation. Klever notes that it would have required “courage to oppose oneself” to Bayle’s critique in the climate of the day. However, he provides no reason to think that this courage could only have been fueled by agreement. Furthermore, if, as Klever contends, De Volder had been a close friend of Spinoza, it seems plausible that he would have had ample opportunity to learn the details of Spinoza’s philosophy and have been willing to defend his memory, without positively endorsing the claims that Spinoza had made. It is true that Klever supplements his observation that De Volder told Stolle and Hallman that he was one of the few who really understood Spinoza’s philosophy, with the claim that De Volder’s own epistemology entails that “it is impossible to have a clear understanding of something and not to adhere to it” (Klever 1988:196). But it seems to me that the evidence here remains defeasible at best. We must not forget that we are dealing with nothing other than a second-hand report, which provides little by way of conversational context. Klever also notes that Stolle found De Volder’s views to be so unorthodox that it seemed to him that they must “have an atheistic component” and he observes that “De Volder shares this accusation of atheism with Spinoza” (Klever 1988:198). It is hard to know what to make of the content of Stolle’s report here, especially in light of the fact that De Volder had presented a systematic defense of rational theology in the disputations which were published in 1685 under the title Disputationes philosophicae omnes contra atheos.5 But Stolle’s willingness to associate De Volder with Spinoza in a negative way during his lifetime and soon thereafter seems not to have been unusual. David Israel offers explicit evidence for this when he notes that Joachim Lange (1670–1744), professor of theology at Halle from 1709, referred to De Volder as that “little flower plucked from Spinoza’s garden” in his Causa Dei (Lange 1723:47), that De Volder’s reputation was “tarnished” by Spinozistic associations by Ruardus Andala (Israel 2001:480), and finally, that Johannes Regius spoke of a Leiden professor who had misled students so that they became “infected with Spinoza’s errors” (Israel 2001:482). But interesting as all this may be, it again provides defeasible evidence, at best, in connection with De Volder’s actual philosophical views. Evidence from De Volder’s writings While Klever seems to think that he has sufficient evidence for De Volder’s Crypto-

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Spinozism in the reports of Stolle and Hallman, he does not rest his case there. In addition he suggests that we find “traces of his Spinozism in [De Volder’s] writings” (Klever 1988:198). To my mind this evidence is far more interesting. Indeed, it seems to me that Klever’s contentions must ultimately stand or fall on the strength of the case that he makes here. The heart of this case lies in his contention that an analysis of De Volder’s writings reveals that, in opposition to Descartes, he shares a number of central theses with Spinoza. Four main issues receive attention.6 In particular, Klever attributes to De Volder a form of epistemological naturalism, necessitarianism, the rejection of mind-body interaction combined with a commitment to parallelism, and substance monism. I shall provide a critical examination of the evidence for each in turn. However, I shall devote considerably more time to the last of these. Epistemological naturalism The first Spinozistic thesis that Klever attributes to De Volder is epistemological in nature. More precisely, Klever suggests that De Volder eschews any reliance on revelation as a source of truth or any reliance on God as a guarantor for our naturally acquired beliefs. In the 1679 Oratio funebris, Klever finds a commitment to “math as the unique norm of truth” (Klever 1988:203) and he contends that in the 1682 Oratio de conjungendis philosophicis & mathematicis “like Spinoza in the TIE, De Volder defends epistemological naturalism” (Klever 1988:208). Finally, he claims that the 1685 Contra Atheos “develops the core of Spinoza’s epistemology” (Klever 1988:216) to support the ontological argument. I think there is a good deal more that could be said about this issue. However, I do not intend to dwell on it much further, since I think that Klever is right when he claims that De Volder’s epistemology bears strong affinities with that of Spinoza. Indeed, further evidence can be found in writings that Klever does not mention. The Exercitationes academicae, from 1695, contains an account of ideas, which includes a commitment to the fact that “in all ideas something is represented” (De Volder 1695: vol. 1, 60), and De Volder goes on to contend that in the case of clear and distinct ideas, what is represented is a nature which appears as it truly is (De Volder 1695: vol. 1, 60–5). Furthermore, a little later, speaking of mathematics, De Volder writes: Either, indeed, this [clear and distinct] perception makes us certain, or I will be able to know nothing certain. But I do know with certainty that two and three are five, and to that extent, I know I can possess certain knowledge of something. I know, therefore, this perception makes me certain. (De Volder 1695: vol. 1, 68–9) Nowhere do we find an appeal to God as underwriting the truth of clear and distinct perception in the way that is familiar from Descartes’s writings. Indeed, in the correspondence with Leibniz, De Volder makes it clear on more than one occasion that he has little sympathy with any supposed explanations that appeal to God’s intentions. Thus, in his letter of 13 May 1699, he notes that Malebranche’s arguments which derive from consideration of divine ordering or good will “seem to be derived from a very obscure principle which very often has no foundation except our ignorance” (Leibniz

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1965: vol. 2, 176).7 Necessitarianism Klever finds evidence of a commitment to a “scientific determinism, which separated [De Volder] from all Cartesians and from Descartes himself” (Klever 1988:198) in the memorial speech that was presented to the Senate by De Volder’s colleague Gronovius in 1709. Among other things, Gronovius suggested that a central principle in De Volder’s philosophy was the claim: “There is no free will in the mind or free cause in body” (Le Clerc 1709:28). However, Klever takes this a step further when he asks, “Isn’t this item fully identical with the first ‘Haupt irrtum’ (fatalis necessitas) attributed to Spinoza by De Volder in the Stolle Hallman report?” (Klever 1988:198). Here Klever equates Gronovius’s assessment with the well-known necessitarian component in Spinoza’s philosophy, which De Volder had identified in his conversation with Stolle and Hallman. But, although I know of nothing that clashes with Gronovius’s assessment, I see no reason to equate this with the “fatal necessity” which we find Spinoza’s Ethics (e.g. see G 2:70/C 433). The latter is explicitly derived from the infinite nature of God and permeates all of reality, including the “activity” of the divine nature. However, Gronovius seems to be speaking of nothing other than the finite world of minds and bodies. As we shall see below, it is clear that De Volder embraced a mind-body parallelism that brings a commitment to the claim that all corporeal changes have a corporeal cause and all mental changes have mental cause. Furthermore, he is willing to tell Leibniz that he thinks that “every cause seems to produce its effect necessarily” (Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 224). But as we saw above, De Volder appears to regard the divine nature as inscrutable. And I see no evidence that he is prepared to follow Spinoza in claiming that God produces the world necessarily. Indeed, the Exercitationes provide further evidence for the suggestion that De Volder admits contingency into his worldview. Here he speaks of the concept of an “infinite body with all its parts resting” and claims that we “could not deny that a thing corresponding to it can exist” despite recognizing that such a body would have no qualities, and is therefore not to be identified with the actual material world (De Volder 1695: vol. 2, 72).8 So while Gronovius suggests a deviation from Cartesian orthodoxy here, in that he claims that De Volder denies freedom of the will, it is far from clear that we find an adherence to Spinoza’s view that everything follows from God’s nature with necessity. Mind—body parallelism The quote from Gronovius hints at another issue that Klever considers, namely De Volder’s views on the relation between mind and body. As Klever points out, there are a number of places in De Volder’s writings where he rejects the interactionist account of the relation between mind and body that is generally attributed to Descartes. Evidence for this is found as early as 1681, in the Questiones academicae de aëris gravitate, where De Volder insists that the fleeing behavior of a human is just as susceptible to mechanical explanation as the motion of water when it is raised by a waterwheel (De Volder

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1681:44) and that the appeal of psychophysical explanations is simply the product of ignorance (De Volder 1681:49). But in his letter to Leibniz of 12 November 1699, De Volder is even more explicit: I do not understand at all what Descartes and the Cartesians mean when they speak about the human mind being joined to the body and acting on the body, and in turn, being acted upon by the body. In my view these are words which have no sense, until they have shown the way in which motion follows from thoughts, and thought from motion. But, I am so far from thinking that they do this, that, on the contrary, I believe that nothing is more absurd. (Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 198) Elsewhere in the correspondence, De Volder goes a step forther when he points out to Leibniz that he is no more sympathetic to the position of the occasionalists that the appearance of interaction is sustained by the direct activity of God (Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 199, 217 and 254–5). As a consequence, he praises Leibniz’s own view: This is also why your explanation of this conjunction pleased me so much, which, of course, explains not how the soul might act on the body, and the body on the soul, but how the changes in souls and bodies come about together, although each come about from their own principles. (Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 198) To this point, as Klever indicates (in Klever 1988:217 and 224), we have found a commitment to a form of parallelism in which mental and corporeal change must be explained autonomously. However, Klever takes this a step further, claiming this takes us straight to De Volder’s positive view, since “apart from Spinoza’s every theory is disqualified” (Klever 1988:228). In other words, Klever assumes that De Volder regards the parallelism as underwritten by a metaphysical monism in which mind and body are modes of one and the same substance. I find Klever’s argument from elimination unpersuasive. For one thing, it is obvious that there were other contenders, Leibniz’s pre-established harmony being the most obvious in the present context.9 But it must also be remembered that De Volder’s involvement in the correspondence with Leibniz was, by his own admission, motivated by the desire to find an explanation of such things as how the mind and body operate in tandem (Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 151 and 166). The hope here was that Leibniz could provide something that De Volder found lacking elsewhere. Had De Volder embraced Spinoza’s philosophy in the way that Klever suggests, he could have accepted the Spinozistic account, which would have left him needing no such explanation. In fact, the correspondence with Leibniz was of little use to De Volder in this regard. As his final letters show, he seems to be utterly confused by Leibniz’s attempt to explain the natural activity of body and its harmony with the mind.10 And I find no evidence that this was really just part of an elaborate hoax, with De Volder’s Spinozism lurking in the background all the time.

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Substance monism One final piece of doctrine on which Klever takes De Volder’s views to be Spinozistic is his view of substance. Spinoza is perhaps most famous for his claim in Proposition 14 of Part I of the Ethics that there is one and only one substance (G 2:56/C 420), and Klever claims that De Volder agrees with him. Klever’s support for this relies on his reading of remarks from the correspondence with Leibniz. He quotes the following passage: If I think of motion, I call this the concept of an accident or mode, whose object is an accident or mode. If in fact something represents only a single thing to the mind, as when I think of extension, from whose concept I can separate nothing, without the whole thing perishing, I call this concept the concept of a substance, and its object a substance. (Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 178) Klever reads De Volder as claiming here that the concept of substance “refers to one, indivisible unity…from which I know the incommensurable attributes of thought and extension” (Klever 1988:226). And he suggests that, for De Volder, “one cannot accept more than one substance, although one may understand it in more than one family of concepts” (Klever 1988:226). I find myself confused by Klever’s reading of this passage. On the face of it, it seems to suggest simply that the concept of a substance is always a concept that represents a single thing, not the stronger claim that whenever one has a concept of a substance it represents the very same thing. Indeed, De Volder appears to be saying that extension is a concept which represents to the mind a substance that is extended. Whether this substance is also represented through any other attribute, in particular the attribute of thought as Spinoza contended, is left open. In fact, if we look elsewhere, we find further reason to doubt Klever’s characterization of De Volder as a substance monist. I want to begin by returning to De Volder’s critique of Huet’s Censura, the Exercitationes academicae, a work which Klever does not discuss. Chapter 5 of Huet’s Censura begins with an enquiry which is supposed to show “what Descartes has to offer concerning the nature of bodies and on what foundation these claims are based” (as indicated in De Volder 1695: vol. 2, 36).11 Here De Volder devotes a good deal of time to defending the account of body which he believes has been “properly” attributed to Descartes by Huet (in Huet 1971:138) as follows: “Descartes holds that the nature of matter, or body considered in general, consists in the fact that it is extended in length, breadth, and depth” (De Volder 1695: vol. 2, 36). De Volder’s discussion is not based explicitly on any argument of Descartes’s. Rather, it appears to be based on an argument which De Volder himself had developed using broadly Cartesian principles.12 This argument relies in part on the presupposition that “body is a substance,” something “about which everyone agrees” (De Volder 1695: vol. 2, 39). This alone should be enough to cast some doubt on the characterization of De Volder as a substance monist. Although there is a sense in which a Spinozist would allow that there is extended substance, it would be a stretch to claim that this represented a view with which everyone would agree. However, further evidence emerges if we consider the

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strategy that De Volder employs when showing that extension is the nature of body. De Volder begins by spelling out the way in which he will approach the issue. First, he observes that we will only be able to determine what the nature of body is if “we have a certain notion…by means of which we distinguish everything which we call body from everything else” (De Volder 1695: vol. 2, 37). In other words, we need to pick out the notion that we express when we use the word ‘body.’13 De Volder suggests that there are two ways in which we might go about forming such a notion and proceeds to show how both approaches lead to the conclusion that the Cartesian account of body is correct. In forming a notion or concept of body, De Volder assumes that we will be given the nature of body. Although he is not explicit here about how notions and natures connect, as I mentioned in connection with the discussion of epistemological naturalism above, earlier in the Exercitationes De Volder presents an account of ideas according to which “in all ideas something is represented” (De Volder 1695: vol. 1, 60). And in the case of clear and distinct ideas he believes that what is represented is a nature which appears as it truly is (De Volder 1695: vol. 1, 60–5). Thus, I take his claims about the formation of notions in the following way. Provided that a notion can be formed which is clear and distinct, it will present the nature of the thing of which it is the notion. According to De Volder, there are two ways in which we may form the notion of body. The first proceeds “by examining our mind.” Someone taking this approach would need to “search out which of our concepts we designate by the word ‘body’” (De Volder 1695: vol. 2, 38). Again De Volder is not explicit, but it seems that he is recommending that we search through our innate ideas and look for the one that corresponds to the term body, much as Descartes had recommended in Principles I.53 (AT 8–1:25/CSM 2:210–11). The other way to form the notion of body is “by attending to those things which appear to our senses and supposing the things to be called bodies by whose efficacy or occasion, or some other means of intervention, these sensations seem to be excited in us” (De Volder 1695: vol. 2, 38). In other words, there is what we might call an a priori approach and an empirical or a posteriori one, each of which is a candidate for providing us with a clear and distinct notion of body. The a priori approach is more interesting for our broader discussion of De Volder’s Spinozism. Here we are looking for “what the concept which involves the nature of body represents to the mind” (De Volder 1695: vol. 2, 39). But De Volder has presupposed that body is a substance, and so this is quickly transformed into the search for the concept of the nature or attribute of some substance. Relying on “the common definition” of substance as “a thing which subsists per se” (De Volder 1695: vol. 2, 40), De Volder claims the only way in which we could have a concept of a substance would be if that concept represented something to us which could exist independently of everything else. This translates into the view that the concepts of substances are those that: 1 “are perceived on their own”; 2 “represent precisely one thing”; 3 “admit no separation and division”; 4 “either represent the whole thing or nothing of it.” (De Volder 1695: vol. 2, 40)14 With this account of the concept of substance in hand, it is now possible for De Volder to

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pick out the concepts from all those which he finds in his mind which are concepts of substances. They will all have the structure he has outlined above. De Volder describes this process as follows: If we now attend to our concepts again and examine all the recesses of our mind even the deepest, we will easily see that in the whole of heaven we only conceive two different attributes of substances, Thought and Extension. (De Volder 1695: vol. 2, 41) In other words, we have two and only two concepts that count as concepts of substance, or attributes, namely, thought and extension. With the claim that we conceive of two and only two attributes in place, De Volder returns to the task at hand, namely the provision of the nature of body. Given that he has assumed that body is substance, De Volder sees only three options. Either the nature of body is thought or extension, or it is some nature which is not made present to our mind, and of which we have no concept (De Volder 1695: vol. 2, 42). De Volder does not seriously entertain the idea that thought is the nature that is expressed by the word ‘body.’ This leaves two options: either the concept we pick out with the word ‘body’ is the concept of a substance whose nature is extension, or “we have no concept corresponding to the word ‘body’ and so we no more understand what someone means by the word ‘body’ than by the word ‘blictri’” (De Volder 1695: vol. 2, 42). Since the second disjunct above is intended as a reductio, we might expect this to be the end of the a priori story, but it is not. De Volder considers one last question, namely whether there might be something else “unknown to us which completes the nature of substance along with extension alone” (De Volder 1695: vol. 2, 43). Three options are presented for the kind of thing that this might be: 1 “[something that] necessarily follows from the nature of extension”; 2 “something which can be given to extension by an external cause”; or 3 “something completely different in kind to extension.” The first is deemed irrelevant because such a thing would not be really distinct from extension at all. The second does not count because it would be an accident rather than a nature, and it is the nature of bodily substance that is sought. Finally, option 3 is of no consequence because such a thing would either be a completely distinct substance or a mode of a completely distinct substance, and with words that augur badly for his correspondence with Leibniz, De Volder notes “no one that I know conjoins the idea of many substances with the word ‘body’” (De Volder 1695: vol. 2, 44). Thus, De Volder concludes that body is extended substance, whose nature consists in extension, as Descartes had claimed. De Volder argues that the nature of body is extension by assuming that body is a substance and then developing an argument from elimination based on the account of substance that he favors. In the process, he recognizes that the concept of thought also satisfies his criteria for being the concept of a substance and that it is the only other concept of this kind that he finds amongst his innate conceptual endowment. Thus, he relies on a form of substance dualism in order to defend the Cartesian claim that

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extension is the nature of body. Since the argument is conceptual, it establishes nothing more than the claim that we have the concepts of thinking substance and extended substance, respectively. But De Volder clearly follows Descartes in taking this to entail the further claim that such substances are possible. Furthermore, the a posteriori argument, which follows immediately after, establishes the reality of extended substance.15 It remains unclear here and throughout whether De Volder is arguing for a dualism of kinds of substances, or whether he thinks there are just two substances. The fact that he talks of “attributes of substances” might suggest the former. However, as I shall suggest below, there are reasons to think that he thinks of the material world as a single extended substance. But whatever the answers to these questions, it seems to me that the position of the Exercitationes provides clear support for my main contention, namely that Klever is wrong to take De Volder’s view of substance as monistic and thus Spinozistic. De Volder’s opposition to substance monism is seen a little later in the Exercitationes, in response to Huet’s suggestion that Descartes does not adequately distinguish the extension of a body from the body itself, failing to see there is “something…in the extended thing in which extension is received and for which it is the subject” (Huet 1971:142). The details of De Volder’s response are not important for present purposes. However, two features of this response are significant. First, De Volder reaffirms the radical distinction between extension and thought, claiming that the only sense in which extension and thought have something in common is that “the nature of thought and the nature of extension are conceived on their own.” And he adds, “there is nothing real in the one which is also in the other. For this cannot happen without an inconsistency” (De Volder 1695: vol. 2, 57). Second, in arguing about the way in which we conceive things, De Volder concludes that we must reach some attribute “which is one and the same as the thing of which it is an attribute” (De Volder 1695: vol. 2, 60), and that it is precisely this role which is filled by thought and extension on the Cartesian view. In opposition to Spinoza, De Volder affirms substance dualism once again. The considerations above might count as decisive evidence of De Volder’s opposition to substance monism were it not for one further factor. As noted above, the Exercitationes is a record of a series of disputations that De Volder conducted at Leiden between 1690 and 1693, which was published in 1695. What I did not mention above was the fact that these disputations, like the 1685 Contra Atheos, were published without De Volder’s permission. In fact, De Volder was clearly unhappy about the appearance of this work and published a letter in the 1695 issue of the Histoire des ouvrages des savants in which he notes that the disputations were written in his capacity as a professor and designed only for the use of the students at Leiden. Furthermore, he insists that his aims in writing the Exercitationes were to “report the opinions of Descartes, and defend them against [Huet’s] objections” and that he did “not at all intend to express his own views.”16 In light of this, one might wonder whether Klever was right to ignore the Exercitationes in providing an account of De Volder’s views. And, in particular, we might wonder whether the commitment to substance dualism that is evident in the a priori argument for the nature of body is really De Volder’s view, or just a report of Descartes’s view.17 I believe there are reasons to think that the voice here is De Volder’s

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own. However, the issue is a little complex. One thing that counts in favor of regarding the views expressed in the Exercitationes as De Volder’s own is the fact that the a priori argument cannot be traced directly to Descartes’s writings. But this turns out to be a double-edged sword. For the argument relies on considerations about the nature of the concepts which are concepts of substances rather than the substances themselves. This might lead one to wonder whether De Volder’s account of substance here might have a closer affinity with the one that we find in Definition 3 of Part 1 of Spinoza’s Ethics, which contains an explicitly conceptual element.18 It is true that Descartes’s account of substance is not quite like De Volder’s. Indeed, his official definition of substance at Principles I.51 is devoid of any consideration of the concept of substance, and couched instead in terms of the ontological notion of independent existence.19 But it is also clear that elsewhere Descartes offered similar criteria by which substances might be picked out (e.g. see AT 7:132/CSM 2:95) and the fact that these considerations do not find their way into Descartes’ account of the concept of substance itself may not represent difference of views on the nature of substance itself.20 Furthermore, whatever the formal similarities with Spinoza’s definition, the argument that De Volder constructs on the basis of this definition is anything but Spinozistic, since it embodies substance dualism. I think that these considerations provide compelling evidence for the claim that De Volder is defending a form of substance dualism in the Exercitationes. However, we are still left with the worry that he is merely defending Descartes in this work and that we should not take the views expressed too seriously. But, although this may be true of some of the things that De Volder says in these disputations, the correspondence with Leibniz contains strong evidence that De Volder is defending his own views on the nature of substance and the nature of body in the Exercitationes. Here De Volder presents essentially the same views as those which Leibniz must defeat if he is to convince De Volder of the truth of his own position.21 Early in the correspondence, in a letter from 18 February 1699, De Volder tells Leibniz: “You seem to me to deny that extension is a substance, when that, if anything, is conceived per se” (Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 166).22 We can express this argument more formally: 1 Anything that is conceived per se is a substance. 2 Extension is conceived per se. Therefore, 3 Extension is a substance. The first premise is simply shorthand for De Volder’s account of substance, and premise 2 the claim that extension satisfies this account. Shortly after, in a letter of 18 October 1700, De Volder presents Leibniz “the way in which I explain the notion of substance” (Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 215) as follows: If I consider my concepts, I seem to find this difference among them: either the concept represents one thing to me, and I can remove nothing from the

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representation without the whole thing perishing; or it represents two things to me, one of which I can conceive separately, the other of which I cannot. If the first occurs, I say that the concept is the concept of a thing or substance, and I call the object corresponding to it a thing or substance. However, if the latter occurs, I call those concepts the concepts of modes, and the objects of those concepts I call modes. (Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 215) Although the language is slightly different, the account that we find here is the same as the one that we saw in the Exercitationes. Substances are those things which have concepts that represent one thing, which is simple and cannot be broken down any further. The letter of 18 October 1700 also contains an explanation of why it is that extension satisfies the account of substance, in other words premise 2. [W]hen I conceive of extension, one thing is represented to me; I can indeed conceive of it as greater or less, but whatever the magnitude, I conceive of extension of one kind, of which I either conceive the whole of it or none of it, as one might say. (Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 216) To conceive of extension is to conceive of a single thing. It may be represented as having different magnitudes, but nothing can be taken away without the representation losing all content. This, De Volder claims, is what it is to be a substance. Clearly, this argument is not identical to the a priori argument from the Exercitationes. It is not designed to show that extension is the nature of body, but that extension is a substantial nature. However, the machinery on which it relies is essentially the same, namely an account of substance, which De Volder explicitly sanctions as his own in the present case. Furthermore, each of the discussions finds De Volder supporting the claim that extension is a substantial nature. The argument from the correspondence does not rely on a discussion of the attribute of thought, or any suggestion that De Volder is endorsing a form of substance dualism. However, the fact that De Volder’s correspondence with Leibniz contains a similar account of substance and an argument for the substantiality of extension strongly suggests that the material from the Exercitationes is an expression of De Volder’s views as well as a defense of the Cartesian position. This convergence receives yet further support from another characterization of his notion of substance that De Volder offers toward the end of his letter to Leibniz of 18 October 1700, when he notes that it “agrees very well with the common, if rather obscure, definitions of substance” given that substance in this sense “will exist through itself, that is, it will require no subject in which to exist… will sustain accidents, and, except for an efficient cause…will need nothing else in order to exist.” Indeed, a little later he adds that it is “like Descartes’s view” (Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 217). The argument from the De Volder correspondence is also like the a priori argument from the Exercitationes in another respect, namely that it is conceptual and does not tell us anything about De Volder’s views on the nature of the actual world of bodies. Unlike the Exercitations, the correspondence does not contain an a posteriori argument to link

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the notion of extended substance with the real world like Descartes’s view, and De Volder never presents a definitive statement of his view on this issue. However, he does suggest to Leibniz that “perhaps this whole corporeal universe is only one substance” (Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 255)23 and ascribes this view to Descartes himself (Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 266).24 Whatever De Volder’s ultimate view on this issue, the suggestion that the material world is a single corporeal substance is relevant to the issue of De Volder’s Spinozism for another reason. For Leibniz responded to De Volder by noting: “you suggest that perhaps the whole universe is only one substance… I do not see any likely argument for such a paradox, for those which B.d.S. offers for it do not contain the shadow of a demonstration” (Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 257–8). It is hard to believe that Leibniz really construed De Volder’s tentative suggestion as involving a commitment to substance monism. But it brought a swift response: I do not understand why that moved you to mix in the opinion of B.d.S. here, as if it were similar to mine. What I said about the corporeal universe is not what is peculiar to that view, but that it treats the faculty of thought and body as the same substance, which has always seemed most absurd to me. (Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 260) One could not really hope for a clearer repudiation of substance monism. Klever is not unaware of this passage. This is what he says in response. Whoever reads this statement…is likely to assume as its obvious meaning the fact of De Volder’s repudiation of Spinozism. Placed however in the context of the correspondence and further interpreted in relation to the written works of Spinoza, it is evident that it is De Volder’s intention to hide for the outsiders his true face. (Klever 1988:231) As one might imagine, I see nothing wrong with interpreting De Volder as subscribing to the “obvious meaning.” Certainly, I find nothing in the detailed consideration of the texts in which De Volder considers substance that suggests anything other than a commitment to some form of substance dualism. De Volder is tentative about the extent to which we should regard the material world as extended substance, but this should come as no surprise if we remember that he approached Leibniz because of the difficulties he found in explaining motion given the Cartesian account of body. His hope was that Leibniz had a better alternative, and he seemed genuinely willing to abandon the Cartesian position if Leibniz could really offer this. De Volder’s Crypto-Spinozism revisited Let us reconsider the evidence for De Volder’s Spinozism. I began by looking at the standard account of Spinoza’s intellectual biography, which portrays him as one who was

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broadly sympathetic to Descartes’s philosophy early in his career, but who became disenchanted with Cartesianism and the possibility of metaphysical explanation more generally in the last decade or so of his life. In contrast with this portrayal, Klever claims to find evidence of a secret follower of Spinoza based on the journals of Stolle and Hallman and an analysis of De Volder’s writings. I have argued above that, even if we take the journal references to De Volder seriously, they provide little if any evidence for Klever’s thesis. The stronger challenge is posed by his discussion of De Volder’s writing. Here Klever finds evidence for four Spinozistic theses: (1) epistemological naturalism; (2) necessitarianism; (3) parallelism; and (4) substance monism. I have suggested that there is compelling evidence only for the first of these. But I have devoted a large part of my discussion to showing that De Volder did not adopt a version of (4). So was De Volder a “Crypto-Spinozist”? As I have already noted, if the issue here is really one of Crypto-Spinozism, there is little more to say. Whatever evidence we might find in the text, those who thought De Volder kept his allegiance to Spinoza hidden could maintain their thesis. But Klever seems to be trying to establish something stronger, namely the claim that there are discernible traces of Spinozism in De Volder’s life and works. Klever never offers a general characterization of what would count as sufficient evidence for his thesis, which makes his case harder to assess. However, I think that it is reasonable to take the adoption of one particular thesis as a necessary condition for any Spinozist, namely substance monism. Indeed, it is interesting to note that Jonathan Israel reports that De Volder’s disciple Jacob Wittichus treated this as the crucial issue and the main source of Spinoza’s confusion: “Spinoza’s view concerning God’s Nature, combining as it does thought and extension, conflicts with reason” (Israel 2001:440). It is partly for this reason that I have devoted so much time to this issue, and on the basis of this discussion alone I would be willing to claim that Klever’s characterization of De Volder as a follower of Spinoza is incorrect. If my account of the texts runs counter to the claim that De Volder was a Spinozist, it seems reasonable to ask what kind of philosopher he was according to my analysis. Since I haven’t presented anything like an exhaustive treatment of De Volder’s writings, I certainly don’t claim to have a definitive answer here. But at the same time, I would say that I have found nothing that goes against the traditional account that I sketched in the first section. Thus, I would suggest that De Volder was sympathetic to an eclectic Cartesianism in his youth. And although this may well have been directly influenced by his acquaintance with Spinoza, nowhere do we find a commitment to the substance monism that provides the foundation of Spinoza’s ontology, or indeed a number of the other elements that Klever claims. As we have seen, there is some evidence that, later in life, De Volder appears to have become more and more disenchanted with Cartesianism. But there is no reason to think this was because he was a secret Spinozist.25

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Notes 1 This view of De Volder as a disciple of Spinoza has been further championed by Jonathan Israel in the account of Dutch natural philosophy that appears in his Radical Enlightenment (Israel 2001:705). 2 My sketch of De Volder’s life and work also relies on more recent accounts by Molhuysen 1913–24, Ruestow 1975, and De Pater 1975. 3 Also see the discussion of Huet’s Censura and Cartesian response to it in Chapter 4 of this volume. 4 Klever also consulted the original manuscripts in Breslau (Klever 1988:197). 5 Klever also suggests that De Volder’s response to the charge is reminiscent of Spinoza’s. However, what he attributes to them is nothing other than the rather generic claim that “a real scientist, who argues rationally, cannot be an atheist and that atheists are those people, for whom only material goods have some value. But people with an undeveloped mind see it differently” (Klever 1988:197). 6 I ignore the attribution of theses to De Volder such as the rejection of “endeavors, tendencies, sympathy and antipathy or internal orientations to natural things”, which Klever himself regards as “close to Spinoza, although not less to Descartes” (Klever 1988:204). 7 Also see the letter of 7 October 1701 (Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 228). 8 As I will note below, concerns might be raised about my reliance on the Exercitationes. However, I will make a case for their reliability at that time. 9 Indeed, in a letter to Leibniz from around this time, Johann Bernoulli claimed, “I have learned from certain Cartesians that they do not treat the matter any differently, and so their way of ‘assistance’ as you call it, coincides with the way of ‘harmony’” (Leibniz 1963: vol. 3, 714). 10 See Lodge 1998:56–9. 11 There are 43 theses, collected together under the headings De Corpore and De Mundo which are intended to be a response to Chapter 5 of the Censura. These run to 64 pages in total, with 17 of the theses (16 pages) constituting this preamble. 12 As I shall argue below, strong evidence for the claim that these are De Volder’s arguments comes from the fact that he advances very similar claims in his correspondence with Leibniz later in the same decade. The disputations from which the arguments are drawn took place in December 1691. 13 As far as I can ascertain the term ‘notion’ is equivalent to ‘concept’ and ‘idea’ in the present context. 14 A similar account is offered in connection with De Volder’s defense of the distinctness of mind and body (see De Volder 1695: vol. 1, 106). 15 Elsewhere in the Exercitationes De Volder defends Descartes’s claims in Meditations Two and Six about the reality of thinking substance and the distinction between mind and body (De Volder 1695: vol. 1, 33–46 and 94–133). 16 Cited in Wiesenfeldt 1999, 348. 17 It is worth noting, however, that some of Klever’s most important evidence comes from the Disputationes philosophicae omnes contra atheos. Although this is not an

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explicit defense of the views of another, it was also an unauthorized collection of university disputations and would be subject to similar concerns. 18 “By substance I understand what is in itself and is conceived through itself, i.e. that whose concept does not require the concept of another thing, from which it must be formed” (Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 45). 19 See AT 8–1:24/CSM 1:210; and AT 7:161/CSM 2:11. 20 Although it is notable that De Volder does not claim that his account of substance is not univocal with respect to God and creatures as Descartes does in Principles I.51 (AT 8–1:24/CSM 1:210). 21 See Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 152–3 and 166. 22 Also see Leibniz 1965: vol 2, 178, 215 and 222. 23 Also see Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 260 and 266. 24 It is interesting to note that Leibniz responds by insisting that Descartes was committed to the existence of many extended substances (see Leibniz 1965: vol. 2, 271). 25 Many thanks to Tad Schmaltz for comments on an earlier version of this paper and to Gerhard Wiesenfeldt for helping me obtain copies of De Volder’s writings.

Part IV The reception in Rome and Naples

9 Cartesian physics and the Eucharist in the documents of the Holy Office and the Roman Index (1671–6) Jean-Robert Armogathe Translated by Patrick Moran In 1671–3, several years after its condemnation, Cartesianism re-appears in the files of the Holy Office of the Roman Index.1 The elements of the censure that began the judgment donec corrigantur in 1663 concerned several philosophical points, deriving from the reading that Stephano Spinula and Giovanni Agostino Tartaglia, its two evaluators, made of the writings entrusted to them (viz., the Principia and the Passions of the Soul in the one case, and the Discourse and Meditationes in the other). The examination begun in 1671 is different: it bears on one proposition connected to the Catholic Doctrine of the Eucharist, particularly the physical explanation of the real presence: In what way can the Body and Blood of Christ be said to be “present” in consecrated bread and wine? One file in the Archives of the Congregation for the Doctrines of the Faith (ACDF) bring together what is essential in these documents.2 As is usual in proceedings that are a little complicated, the secretary of the Holy Office composed a posito (ponenza); that is, he composed a detailed account summarizing the history of the suspect propositions for the benefit of the commissioners.3 We will refer to it here to summarize the events that led to their condemnation. The secretary began by indicating the origins of the affair: It was the Jesuit father Honoré Fabri (1607–88) who first notified the Congregation’s secretary in this matter.4 He explained that French theologians follow a new theory of transubstantiation in accordance with Descartes’s philosophical system. The new theory on the continuing existence of the accidents of bread in the absence of a subject revive the errors of Berenger and Wyclif.5 Having reported this Jesuit father’s denunciation to a meeting of the Congregation on 28 October 1671, the secretary found himself assigned to three tasks: 1 to search the Archives for the solutions that had already been set out to these questions in an earlier case, namely the case of Giuseppe Balli;6 2 to ask Father Fabri for the names of the suspect French authors; and 3 to write to the Abbot of Vibò (at the Paris Nuncio’s office) to notify him of the matter and to ask him to send books or other writings that had been published on this subject to the Congregation. The secretary hurried to his tasks. A document indicates that he wrote to Paris on 3

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November 1671. He also found a file on Don Giuseppe Balli in the Archives and provided a dense analysis of it. The Balli-Chiavetta affair (1626–55) Don Giuseppe Balli is not a complete unknown:7 the Bibliotheca sicula sive de scriptoribus siculis by Antonino Mongitore contains a long article on this priest (see especially Mongitore 1708–14: vol. 1, 372–3). He was born in Palermo (on 29 July 1567) to a large Sicilian family, and he died in Padua on 2 November 1640. This biographical piece boasts of his theological knowledge: following his studies in Spain, Philip IV appointed him royal chaplain and canon of Bari, and he took up residence with the Paduan Jesuits in 1635. He published a book on theology, De foecunditate Dei circa productionem ad extra, which contains an important appendix enti tled Demonstratio de Motu corpum naturali. According to Pietro Redondi, it is one of the most elegant treatments of the principle of inertia in the seventeenth century. His way of approaching the new physics leads him to reconsider the scholastic definition of matter, and hence to propose a new physical theory of the Eucharist in his (never to be published) Aenigma resolutum. According to Antonino Mongitore, Don Balli discussed these matters with Cardinal Bellarmine (d. 1621), who convinced him to keep this treatise secret and not to publish his solution. Despite these tactless warnings, he was induced to compose a Resolutio (Balli 1640b), a Responsio (Balli 1640a), and lastly the Assertiones (Balli 1641), which all appeared between the years 1640 and 1641: that is, towards the end of his life and after his death in Padua. It is regrettable that, from the time of the eulogy J.F.Tomasini (Tomasini 1654) delivered for him up until the work of Corrado Dollo on Sicilian scholars, Balli’s theses on the Eucharistwere not better known. 8 The file found in the ACDF reveals new documents on him that are very specific and detailed. It is useful to begin by presenting the summary the secretary of the Holy Office prepared in Italian, for it establishes what points readers in the seventeenth century retained: He said that the accidents of bread and wine that we claim remain following consecration signify no quantity, color, or other such accident of bread, as though these same accidents which existed before the consecration remained or were in rerum natura after consecration. He claims that, as a consequence of consecration, these accidents dissi-pate or disappear with the very substance of the bread, and are replaced by the Body of Christ; but really and truly these accidents are nothing but a real image or real appearance of bread according to its being or sensible essence, and they proceed effectively from Christ who takes the place of the bread, changing intentional species which were produced or transmitted by the quantity, color, and other such accidents of bread. He maintained that many benefits accrued to this way of explaining the transubstantiation of bread into the Body of Christ. 1 That men who take only the Body of Christ without the accidents of bread or wine felt

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induced to love the Lord in a different way than they do in taking it with these accidents; 2 That with the help of this way of explaining the sacrament, one may remove an obstacle that impedes the understanding of many heretics, who cannot comprehend how the accidents of bread and wine can remain without the substance of bread and wine, or how, if the perse-ity and the subject of the accidents remains, the same accidents that inhered in the substance of the bread can be transmitted to the substance of the Body of Christ except by some unheard-of miracle, or how Christ can be drawn out only by the accidents of bread and wine and be united with them, or how accidents not belonging to the substance of the Body of Christ may be venerated in worship that is meant for God alone; 3 That through this wonderful theory one can truly say that the conse crated host is the real Body of Christ and that the consecrated chalice contains the real Blood of Christ, which is something that the existing teaching of the Church (which leaves the accidents of bread and wine untouched and teaches only the transubstantiation of the bread into the Body of Christ) cannot maintain except symbolically or figuratively; 4 That with this doctrine provision is made for the dignity of the Body of Christ, of which one can say more respectfully that it is to be found in the consecrated host, if one holds that it is found there alone, and by itself, and not attached to any accidents, from which it follows that this proposed union of the Body of Christ with the accidents of bread and wine is dissolved; 5 That it is very certain that if one had gathered together all the bread and wine that had been consecrated since the institution of this very holy sacrament, it would amount to an immense quantity. One would have to admit that such a large quantity of accidents (which had previously been part of the Body of Christ) would (according to popular opinion) have ended up in unclean places. This unfortunate result would be removed by his new doctrine, he says. He concludes by saying that since it is the duty of the good theologian to resolve such difficulties as attend the mysteries of faith, one must not make these difficulties worse, if one can help it, for a number of such difficulties are inevitable as it is.

This is the substance of what I can gather from his defence of this chimerical novelty. He endeavours beyond that to re-enforce his doctrine with proofs and appeals to authority, but I will leave these to one side for the sake of brevity. According to Antonino Mongitore, Balli had worked on this doctrine for more than thirty years.9 On 13 February 1626, several years after Bellarmine’s death, Balli submitted an account of the theory he presented in the Aenigma dissolutum manuscript to the judgment of the Roman Inquisition.10 He asked that his theory be acknowledged and perhaps corrected. In his placet, he summarizes his own theses in Latin himself: 1 Although it represents a new idea, there is nothing new that cannot benefit by the approval of a proven Catholic doctor, 2 and he offers a perfect demonstration of the argument by which all stubborn opposition

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is necessarily overcome. 3 Nothing that is asserted, even before an inquest into heresy, may give rise to disputes among Catholics. 4 Its truth or falsity depends on the truth or falsity of this one proposition: regarding the accidents belonging to bread, the Church has determined that following consecration all that remains is what is necessary to hide the mystery, and Church Fathers and the Councils have always referred to this by the name of species.11 If faith or a consensus of Church doctors reject this proposal expressing their disapproval explicitly and in clear terms, let this book be burnt. Otherwise let it be taken up freely for consideration as something that may bring in a great yield for the Church. May it be sifted, winnowed, and mulled over. Three months later, a decree was issued (on 6 May 1626) that led to doctrinal limbo. No condemnation was issued on substance. The Congregation of the Holy Office merely stated that it did not conform to what the Church had always taught on this matter. Consequently it commanded that the author hand over all his writings to the Holy Office, that he discuss the matter with no one, and that he state whether he had made disciples of anyone or presented this opinion to anyone else. This decree that was issued to the Sicilian Inquisition contains no theological remark or modification having to do with Balli’s proposals. For this reason Balli took it that the substance of his proposals had not been condemned: and so he sent off a request for a doctrinal review. He must have marshaled powerful support through his family, for, as of 9 August 1626, the Holy Office entrusted his writings to the judgment to two of its experts, the Cistercian Hilarion Rancati and Augustine Oreggio (the future Cardinal), both very close to Pope Urban VIII Barberini.12 Balli defended himself forcefully and tenaciously. A manuscript, Epilogus Apologeticus (no date, circa 1628) appears in his file.13 Bound in red ribbons and a silvergilt cover, this calligraphied manuscript opens with a superb dedication to Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, the Archbishop of Bologna (1595–1632).14 In defense of his position, the author lists numerous authorities, though mainly Bellarmine and Suarez. After having called to mind the principle that, if a teaching bears on the reality of Christ’s presence, the manner of that presence may not be determined assuredly (asseueranter), but only probably (probabiliter), he shows how continuous theological tradition has maintained a distinction between the accidents of bread and the substance of the Body of Christ, without so much as referring to transubstantiation. He insists on the vinculum efficientiae uniting Body to species.15 The Epilogus was taken under consideration on 22 January 1629. Three theologians, the Carmelite Father Dominic Campanella, the Franciscan Luke Wadding (a friar of Strict Observance)16 and the Cistercian Rancati gave out a harsh notice on its substance: “They decreed that this position was formally heretical, absurd, and a doctrinal novelty.” Despite the opinion of these theologians, the Congregation did not condemn it. Why not? Was it the awkwardness of condemning a Spanish canon under the protection of the King of Spain, the house of Ludovisi, and the Senate of Palermo, or was it to do with the difficulty of finding reasons intrinsic to his position that warranted condemnation? In 1671, having examined all relevant archives, the secretary was able to conclude that:

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It does not seem that anything was determined by the Congregation of the Holy Office; for, even though he had been commanded to hand over all that he had written on this subject, and to speak of it to no one, not even with those he had previously consulted in Rome and Sicily during the two years he spent there; and even though all that he had done in the accounts that he entrusted to the Holy See of Pope Urban and to the Congregation and to Cardinal Ludovisi, was to ask for a committee of theologians to review his book, about which only a few doubtful things had been detected, it does not appear that these accounts were discussed, nor that there had been any decree about or condemnation of them of any kind. Although he had not been condemned, Giuseppe Balli had obeyed the Congregation and kept his writings to himself: we have seen that they were only published in 1640, the year he died. The Resolutio bears the stamp of approval of the Inquisition of Padua as well as a long testimonial by the printer protesting the treatise’s orthodoxy.17 In these writings, Balli returned to speak of his opinions affirming the existence of the vinculum efficientiae between the reality of the substance (viz., the Body of Christ) and the sensible species that allowed him to eliminate all non-substantial causes of visible effects: Body is miraculously substituted for bread, but it produces the same effects (Balli 1640b: 16). This is consistent with his physical views which attribute the energy necessary for substance to produce all the effects of bodies.18 Balli’s theories were not held by him alone: they were taken up by Giovanni Battista Chiavetta, another Sicilian priest.19 In 1643 Chiavetta published the Trutina, qua Josephi Balli sententia…de modo existendi Christi Domini sub speciebus panis et vini…expeditur through Pietro Scaglione in Monreale. He was supported by fourteen Sicilian theologians, of whom some were advisers to the Holy Office. According to the Jesuit Théophile Raynaud, among their number was the Dominican Giovanni Vincenzo Candia (or Candidus),20 a formidable ally (Raynaud 1665). He was born in Syracuse in 1573, was an important theologian, and two years after Chiavetta’s publication, Pope Innocent X named him Master of the Holy Court. He died in Rome at the Convent of the Minerva in 1654. Balli’s theories (as they had been taken up by Chiavetta in the Trutina) were the subject of fresh discussions which were apparently halted by official intervention. It seems that the first prohibition was issued in Sicily on the order of the Spanish Inquisition.21 It wasn’t until 1653 that the work was attacked by Raynaud22 when it appeared before the Holy Office.23 We do not have the details of the proceedings, but we have recovered one main document: the minutes of a meeting of evaluators convened on 9 November 1653 for the purpose of examining the following proposal, taken from Chiavetta’s Trutina: In the Sacrament of the Eucharist, 1 Accidents of bread and wine do not remain, 2 only the intentional species of bread and wine that the Body of Christ emits 3 or such species as the bread and wine leave behind remain.24 The congregation was composed of Cardinal of Saint-Clément, Cardinal Juan de Lugo, Vincent Preto, the Commissioner-General of the Holy Office, Raphael Aversa, the

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General of the Minorites, Modesto de Ferrare, a conventual friar and adviser, Thomas Campanella, a Carmelite, Paul Luchini, Prior General to the Augustinians, Marc Antonio de Brescia, Prior General to the Capuchins, and Jean Augustin de la Nativité, a Whitefriar.25 The proposal was examined by evaluators whose vota were kept in the unpublished document to which we refer (fos 68–9). They gave out their opinions in reverse order of rank and seniority. The first to give out his opinion was Jean Augustin de la Nativité (Tartaglia). He thought that it represented theological error, and was worthy of the label heresy. The Capuchin Marc Antonio de Brescia was hardly less severe, but he added a subtle difference: the error, he said, was foolhardy and it was either formally heretical or bordered on heresy. According to the Prior General to the Augustinians, if the first part of the proposal were taken together with the second part, it would be completely heretical, but if it were only taken together with the third part, it would only be foolhardy and erroneous. In a long declamation, the Carmelite Tommaso Campanella opined that the proposal is heretical and contrary to the determinations of the Councils; that it is a novelty and without basis; that it contradicts common sense, the Holy Fathers, particularly St. Thomas and all the Scholastics, even Pierre d’Ailly; that moreover it is inexplicable and unintelligible; that it is an artificial and chimerical accretion, contrary to the information of all the senses, which unanimously converge in examining an object, such that it is impossible that they be mistaken; finally and worst or all, it unleashes a notorious blasphemy which will give heretics a chance to mock and slander this venerable mystery of the Catholic Faith. Father Modesto de Ferrare, the conventual friar, described the proposal as foolhardy, dangerous, scandalous, and heretical. Father Raphael Aversa, the Minorite, judged it wildly contrary to reason and the senses, and heretical to the faith. Vincent Preto, Commissioner-General to the Holy Office, considered it bizarre, arrogant, foolhardy, and borderline heresy. Cardinal Jean de Lugo also considered it borderline heresy, while the Cardinal of Saint-Clément considered it foolhardy and heretical. So the conclusion, prohibetur liber in quo continentur propositio, “Let the book containing this proposal be banned,” followed naturally, and the Trutina, qua Josephi Balli sentential…de modo existendi Christi Domini sub speciebus panis et vini… expeditur, published at Monreale by Pietro Scaglione (1643), was accordingly placed on the Index in the spring of 1655. Comparison with the Cartesian doctrine Balli’s ideas seem to anticipate Descartes’s later theories about the Eucharist, according to Redondi (see Redondi 1983:354). This comparison had not escaped the seventeenthcentury Inquisitor’s notice, but the secretary also underscored the theoretical differences between the two cases: Balli’s errors bear on the same question and subject matter as those we consider to have re-appeared in France, except that their means are different; for [Balli’s]

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errors would have it that the consecration destroys the accidents, and that the object of our senses is but a modification of the intentional species generated by the Body of Christ. Those Frenchmen who follow Descartes surely do advance the idea that the accidents are destroyed, and when they are, the miraculous or natural co-operation of atoms makes up for these accidents of bread; but in their writings they maintain that these atoms replace the accidents of bread; so they should also say that these accidents exist without the substance of the bread, only not properly speaking, for it is easier to understand how accidents that have once belonged to a substance may remain after this substance has corrupted and taken on another nature, than it is to understand how accidents may remain without ever having belonged to another substance through the co-operation of divers atoms. And if accidents could exist without substance by means of atoms, one would, quite apart from the mysteries of the Eucharist, have to examine whether there were any other object that might continue to exist by its accidents alone without a proper substance. Unless they say that there are no accidents, and that these atoms may make up a substance without accidents, this theory would only raise more insoluble problems. It may seem surprising to introduce talk of atoms into Descartes’s physics, and this accusation of atomism may even seem completely fantastical. For Descartes speaks of surfaces (superficies), not atoms, and the doctrine being attributed to him seems strictly alien to him. But before charging the Roman judges with ignorance (or bad faith in the case of the Jesuit plaintiff), one must remember that the association of Cartesian physics with atomism is very old. As Frédéric de Buzon26 has shown, this association even precedes the publication of the Discourse and the Essays. Indeed, in the first general preface to the Universal Harmony of 1636, when Mersenne speaks of “one of the top minds of our day,”27 he is referring to his friend Descartes, even though he does not name him. He says that this learned gentleman explains the reflection and repulsion of bodies by reference to “a certain very subtle matter.” And he concludes that “it seems that these subtle bodies of which he speaks may be easily interpreted to be atoms in perpetual motion; but that we will have his own explanation when it suits him to give it”—a reference to the publication of Le Monde. Many of Descartes’s critics would criticize him for this ambiguity,28 while many of his disciples would associate Cartesianism with atomism.29 Having completed his doctrinal analysis, the secretary of the Holy Office returned to the matter at hand. He remarks that if Father Fabri had drawn up a list of philosophers who had accepted Descartes’s position, he did not go so far as to list the names of those among them who had applied the new physics to the doctrine concerning the Eucharist (and that, adds the examiner, despite the fact that Fabri had mentioned “the priests of Port-Royal and the Oratorians”). That was why (this summary text concludes) it was necessary to appeal to the Abbot of Vibò in Paris to obtain all books and other writings bearing on this question, as well as to get the names of all their authors.30 At the same time the conventual Franciscan Lorenzo Brancati de Laurea (who had produced many vota over this same time period)31 is asked to send his advice. We have recovered Laurea’s important votum on this matter and we will return to it later on.

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Paris determines against the Cartesians In a dispatch dated 14 August 1671,32 the Abbot of Vibò reported the details of the meeting he had had with François de Harlay de Champvallon (1625–95), the Archbishop of Paris, at the start of August 1671. The Archbishop explained that if he had acted against Descartes’s doctrines, it had been because he saw that a school of philosophers, calling themselves Cartesians,33 had begun to form, and that they were making public their theses on matter, form, accidents, and substance in such a way that their intention to attack the transubstantiation of the Eucharist was clear, and also because throughout France no philosophy except Descartes’s is being taught nowadays with the effect that the seeds of the denial of transubstantiation are being sown in the minds of the young. The Archbishop also said that he had similarly informed the King before he took leave for Fointainbleau. The King had hence declared himself opposed to this philosophy; since an injunction had already been issued against it, he wished furthermore that steps be undertaken against not only its professors, but also its disciples. The Royal Attorney General was advised to proceed against them without delay, in the light of the aforesaid injunction. Lastly the Archbishop explained that he had summoned these professors, given them a warning, and had received a promise from them to give up teaching these doctrines.34 Vibò thanked Harlay, and the two proceeded to speak of Godfrey Hermant, whose Life of Athanasius (Hermant 1671) seemed for the most part to be a tract against Pope Liberus. The Archbishop asked the Nuncio to relay his negative opinion of Hermant to Rome. Lastly, at the end of their one-hour conversation, the Archbishop came around to the topic that was, to his mind, the point of the meeting. He explained to Vibò that “in this Court there is no lack of people to summon up against me squalls and storms, as on a stirring sea. If it happens that you hear of someone moving against me, make sure you apprise me of it.” Vibò finished by noting that this last appeal probably derived from a fear that the Nuncio had been told of the Archbishop’s pretension of standing at the vanguard of all the Cardinals in official functions in which he had to carry the processional cross. A message from Barberini on 18 November 1671 asked his secretary to: 1 thank Vibò for having sent the royal injunction as well as the affected books, and to please ask the Archbishop for news on the spread of the Cartesian doctrine. The message adds that the Archbishop should rest assured of the respect that the Holy See continues to command with regard to its official dignity; 2 write to the Internuncio in Brussels and the Nuncio of Cologne “to get news of the spread of the doctrine in question”; and 3 make the same request of the Archbishop of Naples and the Nuncio of Naples, as well as the Inquisitor of Venice. The 1671 inquest: Italy, Germany, and the Spanish Low Countries

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We may reconstruct this correspondence beginning with a message sent to Naples on 21 November 1671.35 A call for an inquest was made because it is conceivable that there are some people in this city who, for reasons of intellectual vanity, uphold the philosophical views of René Descartes, a philosopher who had recently published a New Philosophical System that revives the old ideas of the Greek atomists; and that, using this new doctrine, certain theologians would try to show how the accidents of bread and wine may remain after consecration and the transformation of the substance of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.36 Results of this Inquest into Cartesianism may be found in the same file: 1 The Nuncio from Naples responded to the “investigation into René Descartes’s position on the subject of atoms”: “I have hurried to do my work in the brief time granted,” he says, but he had found no devotee of this position, nor any speech, not even a book on it. But he promises to continue looking. 2 Cardinal Innico Caracciolo, the Archbishop of Naples answered Barberini’s request of 21 November on the 28th of that same month. He writes, “You ordered me to find out whether there was anyone in this city who had adopted the position of René Descartes. As of this moment I have been able to find nothing out, but I saw to it at once that all necessary inquiries be made, and if anyone afflicted with this evil is identified, I will immediately inform your Eminence of it” (fo. 334).37 3 Francesco Buonvisi,38 the Nuncio for Cologne, was more eloquent in his response. On 13 December 1671, he replied that he had received information from Mr. Wallemburch, the Elector, who, having the duty of answering heretics, was apparently able to have news of René Descartes from Suvre. He told me that Descartes’s philosophy had been rejected by all the Universities in Germany and that only the University of Duisburg in the Calvinist Duchy of Cleves had accepted it. And he said that, in his opinion, neither a single Catholic theologian nor a Protestant doctor had tried to apply the Theory of Atoms to the Transubstantiation of the Eucharist. And he said that Descartes himself had complained that this application cannot be made. Next I spoke to the Rector of the Jesuits, who is also one of the heads of the Faculty of Theology, and he too has heard nothing of such a position being published and spread across the land. I will continue to make fresh inquiries into this important matter which Your Eminence has entrusted to me with so much confidence.39 (fo. 336) 4 Vibò responded on 4 December 1671: he had hastened to find affected books and authors who held the new Cartesian views in convents of regular religious as well as in the keeping of the Archbishop. But in both cases he was assured that theologians who held this position had published none of their writings—so much the better for public religion. The Archbishop had explained that following his warning to the Regents of the University to stick to Aristotle in Philosophy and St. Thomas in theology, all

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novelties had ceased to exist. Besides that, he had managed to install a man loyal to him as the Chancellor of “Sorbonne University” to keep him informed of all the novelties that might appear in books or public theses. (On the back of the summary of this response are the words relata et invigelet: “Let him be watchful.”) In another letter on 25 December, Vibò reports that he had asked the prelate to encourage the King to exert his influence “in the borderland of his Most Christian Majesty’s realm, and in Holland, and elsewhere” in order to prevent Learned Doctors from spreading this doctrine through the schools, and using it in resolving (or complicating) disputes. The Archbishop replied that the royal injunction had been taken into the records of all Parliaments and that all bishops had been notified that they should not allow that the philosophy or views of Descartes be taught in their dioceses. The Archbishop assured Vibò that he had not heard of any new book or other writing professing to teach how accidents may remain in the Eucharist. Vibò concluded his correspondence by noting that he had asked some of his friends among the doctors of the Sorbonne to monitor these matters and to keep him abreast of them. Vibò did indeed keep abreast of these matters, for, on 5 February 1672, he managed to obtain the second volume of the Perpétuité de la foi, in which the authors Arnauld and Nicole reply to one Father Claude on the matter of the real presence in the Eucharist. Vibò said that because this book was fairly large he would not send it in the regular dispatch, but would have it delivered by messenger at another time. He said that volume one had been published some sixteen or seventeen months ago, before he had come to the Abbey. Not knowing whether his predecessor, Bargellini, had sent this first volume to Rome, and unable to find any mention of it in the Abbey’s records, he asked the Cardinal to tell him whether Rome had already received it. He added that Cortesia and Benzoni, the bankers, had fully reimbursed him for the books he had sent already, and that this second volume had cost ten francs. 5 The last to respond to the November 1671 Inquest was the Internuncio from Brussels, Carlo-Francesco Airoldi. He had waited until 23 April 1672 to reply, and he begins by apologizing: the lateness of his reply is due to his keen intent to obtain information on what was being taught at the University of Louvain. First he notes that some professors of philosophy and two physicians40 make bold to teach that there are no accidents added on to substances: “Certain professors of philosophy and two physicians from Louvain think that there are no accidents super-added and they teach that accidents are separate from the substance itself.” He goes on to give the specific example of a professor of theology and a religious of the third order of St. Francis (called the Bogards).41 Without naming him, the Nuncio relates that he has given him a reprimand and prohibited him from teaching such views.42 He suggests inserting this prohibition against new views in the Bull restoring the University’s privileges. Moreover, the views of these innovators are not very popular, even if there are a few preachers who speak of it from the pulpit. And lastly, if it came to a choice between Jansenism and Cartesianism, the philosophy of Descartes is the less dangerous alternative: “May it please God that this [Jansenist] doctrine should be like the Cartesian doctrine, because that way we might expect its end as being not far off.” Airoldi then laments the propagation of Jansenism by way of priests and religious spreading its pernicious ideas among the faithful.43 The reply from Rome asks for details: titles of affected books and

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writings of all kinds, affected theses and determinations, as well as the names of the people to whom the Internuncio had made reference. The theses of Louvain, July 167344 In June 1673, a great stir was made in Louvain when the Faculty of Theology denounced the Dominican Raymondo Capizucchi,45 Master of the Holy Court, and “the views of certain contemporary” authors, neotericorum quorumdam placita.46 Towards the end of the summer of that year, an anonymous paper (preserved in Rome among the Archives of the Whitefriars) called for a prohibition on reading Cartesian books.47 In September of that year, Libert du Pape, the Abbot of the du Parc Abbey,48 visited the University. On 27 September, he remarks on a fierce opponent to the rising Jansenism, one Nicolas Du Bois (who had succeeded Libert Froidmont in the chair of Holy Scripture in June 1654),49 who was now complaining that Cartesianism was still being taught, notwithstanding its official condemnation by Rome (a copy of which condemnation he sent him on 2 October).50 This news was sent to Rome several weeks later on 24 October, to the office of the Cardinal-nephew, Paoluzzo Altieri,51 via one Ottavio Falconieri, the Internuncio for Brussels, along with fourteen theses the Internuncio thought merited censure. These theses, De Universa Philosophica, had been defended before the Oratorians of Louvain on 17 July 1673. The theses were then entrusted to two advisers, Lorenzo de Lauria, a conventual Franciscan, and Raymondo Capizucchi, the Master of the Holy Court. The most remarkable of these theses was drawn from the Physica, and was defended by Louis Flémalle,52 professor primarius of philosophy at the Castle Pedagogical School.53 It was transcribed by one Valois,54 a Jesuit, who translated it into French as follows: The mass of matter which makes up the whole of space was made as big as it is by God at the creation of the universe, and extension is so intrinsic to it that one misconceives it if one tries to extract extension from its essence.55 Louis Flémalle is a part of the history of Jansenism. Learning of his death in 1690, Arnauld called him “our dear friend.” Indeed, Arnauld had visited his vicarage in Brainel’Alleud near Brussels. (He spent five days there in May 1683.)56 Valois refers to another physical thesis, accredited to Robert de Noville, who was also (or would become) an acquaintance of Arnauld.57 This thesis, Valois writes, under the pseudonym of La Ville, “appears to me to be very equivocal and might be interpreted in several ways”: “materia dicitur illud corporis, quod praecise extensum est.” Valois translates it in several different ways: One might say that it means that extensions of body are what we call matter or that it means what we call matter is more precisely the extension of any body or that it means bodies, when considered strictly as extensions, are what we call matter. (La Ville 1680:81) A short, undated message from Laurea expresses the same ironic confusion as Father Valois:

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These theses have been expressed in a style so obscure that their meaning may only be grasped with difficulty. The person who has advanced them displays his intelligence by using outlandish expressions to prove views that he does not accept. But I see nothing here expressly contrary to the doctrines of faith, or anything that might be deduced as a necessary consequence that is contrary to the faith. The author always leaves himself a means of escape. Father Capizucchi gives a detailed notice of advice (on 15 November 1673) on these same theses, which, he says, are likewise open to a good as to a bad interpretation. So, for example, he explains that when their author asserts that if accidents were not distinct from substances there would still be a mystery of the Eucharist, the author does not thereby mean to maintain that there is no difference between substance and accidents. Rather, he means merely to assert divine omnipotence. The whole affair seems to have ended in a kind of limbo. The Internuncio asked the Faculty of Theology not to give Flémalle his degree until after he had explained his theses,58 which he did on 28 March 1674.59 The Roman Inquisition’s 1673 letter against atomism The stakes of this game were indeed changed in the meantime by a decision issued by the Roman Inquisition on 2 October 1673. This was a decision in relation to disciplinary proceedings and not a determination on doctrine. In the first place, this meant that this decision applied only in geographic areas within the jurisdiction of the Roman Inquisition, that is, within the Papal States, more or less. Second, by taking such legal measures, the Roman Inquisition was trying to withdraw approval to print authors who denied the existence of accidents and favored atomism. If you receive a request to print a book containing the sentence “complex substances are not made up of matter and form, but small bodies or atoms,” you must expressly forbid it going to print; the minds of these authors are such that I must order you to carry out this ban with extreme precision.60 The replies from the Inquisitors, preserved in this same file, are nothing but notices confirming receipt, but they allow us to know the geographical boundaries of this operation (listed in the order in which they were received, starting with the earliest): Milan, Belluno, Pisa, Sienna, Reggio, Bologna, Modena, Piacenza, Padua, Mantua, Parma, Perosa, Avignon,61 Alexandria, Asti, and Saluzzo. This prohibitive measure is interesting for two reasons. First, it would be invoked to justify the doctrinal condemnation of atomism. Second, it exposes the weakness of such a condemnation, for it did not derive from a theological decision, but wound up being enforced through legal means forbidding the publication of books containing the offending theses—it did nothing to prevent either teaching these theses or their circulation in manuscript form.62

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Lorenzo de Laurea’s votum on Descartes We have also recovered a long censor’s document by the conventual friar Lorenzo de Laurea, detailing the impact of the new philosophy on the Catholic theory of the Eucharist.63 We have seen that Laurea carried a certain amount of authority, and his document is extremely carefully composed. The adviser begins by claiming that even if the new philosophy is not erroneous or heretical, it is still scandalous, foolhardy, and male sonans: it had already been refuted five years earlier (viz., in the case of Berenger), but some people had tried to revive it and had presented it with vigor, maintaining that “there is no entity or any other real thing in the Holy Eucharist apart from the Body of Christ.” He goes on to say that Balli and Chiavetta had taken this position when they taught that “all the sensible effects of bread and wine that continue to appear after consecration are put there by God, or at least are supplied by the Body of Christ through the accidents proper to it, subject to modification by this or that means.” Laurea continues: Cartesians do not acknowledge the existence of accidents in the physical world, and so they assume that there is nothing real in the sacrament apart from the Body of Christ. They say that God provides the missing sensible effects of bread and wine to the sensory organs, or, if not God, then the Body of Christ itself provides them, by means of taking on new surfaces [superficies], similar to those of bread and wine. Many things follow from this doctrine that are either theologically absurd or absurd from the perspective of the faith: 1 no transubstantiation occurs in this mystery; 2 the Eucharist is not a true and real sacrament, for there is no sensible and real sign in it; 3 the sacrament is only consumed in the imagination [phantastice]; 4 nothing of the bread and wine remains after consecration; 5 St.Anselm, the Master of Sentences (i.e. Peter Lombard), the Angelic Doctor (i.e. Thomas Aquinas), St. Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, and almost all Catholic theologians without exception for over five hundred years were completely mistaken in what they had taught and written on this sacrament, despite the fact that the Church had used their ideas to explain this sacrament in numerous general Councils, including the Lateran Council, and the Councils of Constance, Florence, and Trent; 6 that, similarly, bishops, vicars, preachers, and catechism teachers, as well as all other religious writers were mistaken when they explained this mystery to the Christian community; 7 that the Council of Constance was wrong to condemn Wyclif for his proposal that “Accidents of bread and wine do not remain in the Eucharist without a subject.”64 Besides the two books named above (i.e. those by Balli and Chiavetta), other books containing this new doctrine are:

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René Descartes, Meditationes Metaphysicae: all of this author’s books are condemned. Father Emmanuel Maignan, T.2 Philosophiae Naturalis; Theologia of the same, and the appendix to volume one. The book by Thomas Bonart Anglus, which was condemned by the Congregation. The same of many other books published in France, in which Cartesian physics is presented and defended. We might even very precisely say that the gentlemen of Port-Royal, as well as their followers, along with all the Fathers of the Oratory, as they are called, are the disciples of Descartes. The Cardinals approved Laurea’s letter of advice on 22 November 1673.65

Conclusion The years considered here attest to the persistence of Cartesianism in Flanders and Italy. Rome’s vigilance is justified by the widening concern of its offlcials. From that time forward the problem concerned physics, not metaphysics. By denying the existence of accidents, Cartesian physics seemed to endanger the reality of the Eucharist. Cartesian physics overturned the traditional theory, and what it proposed in its place seemed either insufficient or reductionistic. And Descartes’s ambiguity on the subject of atoms, together with the ease with which some of his disciples (such as Cordemoy) adapted atomism to Cartesianism, explains the simultaneous attack on both Cartesians and atomists. Plempius had for a long time accused Descartes (Renatus) of being Renatus Democritus; in a letter (dated 28 June 1662) that had attacked the proceeding that ended in the censure of 1663, the Internuncio de Vecchio speaks of the teachings of the Church Fathers making “it clear and sure that all such people, from Democritus and Epicurus on down to the man who revived them, René Descartes,66 had done something profoundly abominable.”67 The most well-worked-out critique is the long attack made by the Dominican Antoine Goudin who, having finished his refutation of the Epicureans, moves on to refute the Cartesians: in his careful reading of the Principia he comments on the similarities and differences between the atoms of either the Ancients or Gassendi and the elements of the Cartesian universe.68 The inquests that we have just now been calling to mind did not result in a fresh condemnation (it was enough merely to re-affirm the condemnation issued in 1663). They did, however, free the lead prosecutors to systematically indict Cartesianism— which was condemned by the University of Angers in 1675, and the University of Caen in 1677—on the grounds of the threat that the New Physics posed for the theory of transubstantiation.69 Notes 1 These documents are edited and annotated in Armogathe and Carraud 2001. For his help in the case of this paper and the current chapter, we would like to acknowledge Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,

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and Mgr. Cifres, manager of the Archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (hereafter, ACDF), for opening the Archives and making them accessible to scholars. 2 In the eighteenth century many file series were drawn up around important questions in order to spare secretaries lengthy investigations of acta and statements of protocol. The back of the book St. St. O3-f bears the label “Acta in Proposition. delat. ad S.Offm. ab Anno 1626 ad 1676: circa Accidentia Euch., Circa Atomos et Form. Substant. Peripatetic. Circa usum in conficiend .Eucharist. Eccles. Lat. Circa Animam rationalem Acta in prop 38 trasmiss. ab Archiepisc. Mechlin. Acta in prohibition. facta a Rect. Univ Lovaniens libri Dni Du Boys.” 3 ACDF St. St. O-3f (s/file 5, part 1). Summarizing the file was a part of his usual duties (De Luca 1683:95). 4 We have not yet recovered this document, which seems to be separate from the censure that the Jesuit Fabri composed in 1660 while he was theologian of the Holy Penitentiary Court (Municipal Library of Chartres, ms 366, 26–98; this text appears in Sortais 1929:51, n2). In his account the secretary writes: “riferi all’EEE nella congregne. sotto li 28 8bre 1671 come dal Pe Fabri Gesuita ero stato avvertito.” 5 The secretary copies Fabri’s denunciation again: (che) i Tologi (!) di Francia seguaci della dottrina di Renato di Cartes, havevano, secondo il sistema filosofico insegnato da questo autore, introdotto nuova maniera di spiegare come transustantiato per la forza delle parole della consacrazione il pane nel corpo di Christo Signore nostro, potessero senza soggetto rimanere gl’ accidenti del pane istesso e che seguendo da simil dottrina a molti inconvenienti gravissimi et errori gia condannati da Nicolo papa nel Concilio romano nella causa di Berengario e dal Concilio di Costanza contro Wiclef, parea necessario che si applicasse dalle Sede apostolica qualche remedio prima che questa novità facesse più profondi radici. 6 Some historians refer to Ballus as Ballo. We prefer Balli, the form of the name found in documents in Italian in the ACDF. 7 See Cappelletti 1963; cf. Baldini 2002. Pietro Redondi devotes several of the final pages of his text to him in Redondi 1983:350–4; see also Giacomelli 1914, and the note in Redondi 1983:401. In his presentation of Balli’s teachings, Redondi emphasizes both his Dionysian and Neoplatonic influences. See also Dollo’s suggestive remarks in Dollo 1984:92–4. 8 The manuscript of the Aenigma seems to have been lost. 9 “Opus hoc de SS. Eucharistia Sacramento antequam typiis tradidisset per triginta annos secum revolverat, eiusque sententiam,” ait Thomasinus, “Bellarmino Cardinali saepe communicauerat: cuius editionem suis adhuc uotis superesse credidit. Arduum quidem uidebatur hoc opus in publicum producere, attamen cum difficultates omnes cum Romanis Theologis, cum Siculis pariter primi nominis euentilasset, majori posteritatis studio, quando

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valetudinis aut aetatis an. 1640 denuo Patavium accessit, ut commentaria sua in lucem proferret.” Lastly the biographer mentions some writings that were either published or unpublished: Sub praelo reliquit magnum volumen in-fo. de rebus mathematicis et astrologicis, nondum absolutum, aliasque lucubrationes theologicas mss. Scripsit etiam de casu malignei Pontis Panormi Poema, Carmina et Anagrammata. Italice etiam Rime. 10 Balli’s file may be found at ACDF, St. St. O-3f (1), and St. St. I-4a (1626 Italian memorandum by Balli published in Baldini 2002:57–67). 11 “De accidentibus, quae dependebant a pane, Ecclesia non decernit remanere post consacrationem alia, praeter ea quae necessario requiruntur pro occultatione Mysterii, et haec perpetuo Patres et Concilia species nominant.” 12 From a note in Balli’s file, fo. 13v. Agostino Oreggio, the Bible scholar and theologian associated with the Barberinis, was born in 1577. He became an adviser to the Holy Office and personal theologian to Maffeo Barberini, Pope Urban VIII. He was made a Cardinal and Archbishop of Beneventi in 1633. He died in 1635. Hilarion Rancati, the Cistercian (b. 1594), was named an evaluator of the Holy Office in 1624 by Urban VIII, and later an adviser in 1629. We have recovered nothing on this matter in the volumes of Consulta preserved with Rancati’s papers at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan. 13 ACDF, O3-f s/file 1, fos 20–62. 14 The choice of dedication tells of its Jesuit milieu (Ludovico had been raised by Jesuits at the Collegio Germanico) as well as of the power that the Cardinal-nephew retained in Rome after his uncle, Pope Gregory XV, disappeared (Urban VIII only managed to get him to retake Bologna in 1632). 15 This is a reference to Suárez 1988: V.3, disp. 47, sec. 3 § dico secundo (where Suárez refers to Claude des Sainctes, Palacios, and Guillaume de Paris). 16 Luke Wadding and Hilarion Rancati were friends from the time they were students together at Salamanca (see Harold’s Vie de Wadding, in Wadding 1931–5: vol. 1, 75); the Rancati files at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan have preserved a letter from Luke Wadding to Rancati (Bibl. Ambr. B-263 suss., fo. 364). 17 The printer was anonymously attacked by Girolamo la Chiana (1590–1664), a Jesuit from Palermo (La Chiana 1642?). La Chiana taught mathematics at the College of Palermo. 18 “Quantity and the whole package of quality are to be found passing under the label of bread [sub nomine panis, veniunt quantitas et qualitatum complexio]” (Balli 1640b: 6). 19 For more on Giovanni Battista Chiavetta (d. 1664), see Mongitore 1708–14:191, which indicates that he was born and educated in Palermo, and had a brilliant career in the Church as royal chaplain, then canon, and then Vicar General for Luis de los Cameros, the Archbishop of Monreale. 20 For more on Candia, see Pezzella 1974. He was the author of the laxist-leaning

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Disquisitiones morales (1st edition, Rome 1637) and he died under suspicion of sainthood. He was one of the most influential Roman theologians of his time. 21 We have found mention of this in Garcia 1701–4 in the course of a long welldocumented anti-Cartesian discussion of Transubstantiation. There Garcia makes second-hand reference to Descartes through a long chain of other authors. On condemnation of Cartesianism, he refers to “Muniessa disp. 27 de Eucharistia, sect. 2 n. 15 [= Thomas Muniessa, s.j.] et Liber Trutinae a Joanne Baptista Chianeta [sic], Panormitano doctore, cujus erat scopus quod accidentia Eucharistica non sunt accidentia realia, sed mere illusiones, & praestigia oculorum. Prohibitum fuit: ab Inquisitione Panormitana jussu Hispanicae. Item a Sacra Congregatione Romana anno 1649.” 22 The text by Raynaud, to which we referred above, must have been written around 1653: first he attacks Balli-Chiavetta, the Sicilians, and next he attacks the French Minim Emmanuel Maignan. We will return to this polemic later. 23 Contra questa dottrina di Giuseppe Balli seguita da Giov Bta Chiavetta e da quatordici altri theologi siciliani, ha scritto un breve trattato Theophilo Rainaudo posto nelle sue opere et intitolato exuviae panis et vini in eucaristia al tomo 6 nel qualo con l’autorità particolare di Lanfranco, Guitmondo et Algero che scrissero contra Berengario, mostra qual sia stata sempre la dottrina della Chiesa in questa parte, quali gli errori e la censura che merita questa nuova introdotta dal Balli. (from the positio we have already referenced, ACDF St. St. O-3f s/file 5, part 1) 24 ACDF, St. St. O-3f s/file 2. We reproduce this proposal with numbers representing the three different elements some evaluator identified. 25 Jean Augustin de la Nativité is related to Tartaglia, who would be one of the two evaluators of Descartes’s writings in 1663. 26 Buzon 1999. In Buzon’s work one may find references to attempts made by Ismaël Boulliau, Gassendi, Sorbière et al. to draw connections with Democritean atomism, as well as vigorous defenses of Descartes. Sophie Roux has excellently clarified this point by showing how complex this question is (Roux 2000). 27 Mersenne 1965, from the first general preface, vol. 1, fo. A i/v–ii/r. 28 Daniel 1690:208; Rapin 1709: vol. 5–2, 423; Du Hamel 1692; Huet (in the article Leucippus in Bayle 1984); La Grange 1675:54. 29 For more on Cordemoy, see Prost 1907; for more on Heereboord 1650, see Dibon 1954:116–9, and Verbeek 1992:34–40. 30 Dal P.Fabri mi è stata data una nota delli autori che hanno seguito la dottrina del Cartesio, ma di quelli che hanno particolarmente scritto sopra l’applicatione di detta dotrino all’ accennato misterio dell’Eucharistia (benche dica che sono molti e noti in particolare i Preti di Porto Reale, e quelli del’Oratorio) non mi ha dato però il nome d’alcuno di essi. Onde è stato

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scritto in Prigi all’Abb. di Vibò che vegga di raccogliere li libri o scritture usciti intorno a tal materia, e che nel mandarle dia anche avviso de i fautori e seguaci di questa nuova dottrina, e di quel più che stimarà necessario portare a notitia dell’EE. Vostre. 31 Brother Lorenzo (Brancati) de Laurea’s services were acknowledged in a pastoral letter dated 20 January 1671, by Clement X, granting him the most extensive powers of his Order. He was made a Cardinal in 1681. For more on him see Ceyssens 1940. 32 It was only sent to the Secretary of State for the Holy Office on 14 November. The Holy Office answered Vibò on 24 November (with manuscript messages on the dispatch). The contents of these messages were cited by Father Raimondo Nidi, o.p., the censor of a 1673 anti-Aristotelian text (see reference to Francesco Pisolini’s Physica Antiperipatetica below). 33 Boileau’s Arret burlesque (which appeared in August of 1671) speaks of “certain unidentified parties who have taken the family names Gassendians, and Cartesians” (Malebranchistes and Pourchotistes would be added in the Complete Works edition of 1701, in Boileaux-Despréaux 1747). 34 Having learned that some of the views that the Faculty of Theology had previously censored and that Parliament had forbidden to be either taught or published were being spread (either by citizens or foreigners) in the University and in the rest of the city, as well as other parts of the kingdom, and wishing to halt the spread of a view that could muddle the explanation of our sacred mysteries, the King, motivated by zeal and simple piety, has commanded me to tell you his intentions. The King asks you, Sirs, to arrange it that no other doctrine except those laid down by the Rules and the Statutes of the University be taught at the University, and that no new doctrine be presented in theses. The King leaves it to your wisdom and discretion to take the necessary steps to this effect. (from a speech by Harlay to an assembly of the Faculty, dated 4 August 1671) 35 This document is reprinted in Amabile 1987: vol. 5–2, 53n. 36 potendosi dubitare che in questa città si trovino di quelli, che per far prova de‘loro ingegni promuovano alcune opinioni filosofiche d’un certo Renato de Cartes, che gli anni passati diede alle stampe un nuovo Sistema filosofico, risvegliando le antiche opinioni de’ Greci intorno a gli atomi, et che da questa dottrina pretendano alcuni Teologi provar il modo come rimangano gli accidenti del Pane et del Vino dopo la consacrazione mutata la sostanza di d.to. pane et vino in quella del Corpo e sangue di N.ro S.re Giesù Cristo. 37 Evidence of a knowledge of Descartes in Neapolitan circles may be found in an unpublished manuscript of the National Library of Naples, Cl.m. viri Joannis

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Alphonsi Borelli Philosophia (Ms. XIII, B 93). It is undated, but it is probably from the years 1670–80, and it is described by Cacciapuoti 1997:165. The Neapolitan Trial of 1693 is examined by Osbat 1974. For more on the later Neapolitan reception of Descartes, see Chapter 10 in this volume. 38 He would be made a Cardinal in 1681. 39 Father Nidi, o.p., mentions this letter as well as the letter from Vibò dated August 1671, in the censure of Francesco Pisolini’s Physica Antiperipatetica. The file on “atomism” in the ACDF was very quickly put together in 1671–3, allowing the advisers to find relevant documents easily. 40 Mention of these two physicians may be found in a statement of the condition of Jansenism in the Low Countries enclosed as an appendix to instructions sent by the Holy Office to Galeazzo Marescotti, the Nuncio of Madrid, on 24 September 1672. These instructions were probably also drawn up by Airoldi: “li professori di medicina sono solamente quattro, e questi non s’ingeriscono in materie dogmatiche, altri che due di loro, che seguono il De Cartes” (from a document published in Ceyssens 1968; the mention is made on p. 533). 41 Osservai sin da piu mesi che un professore di teologia del 3° ordine di S. Francesco insegnava qualche parte di questa dottrina; onde lo ripresi e gl’ incaricai espressamente che non dettasse piu tali dogmi, ordinando a suoi superiori ch’invigilassero che non trasgredisse il comando. One order of Bogards, founded in Louvain in 1120, became very small and merged with the Benedictines of Vlierbeek in 1596 before selling their college to the Oratorians in 1642. Another order of Bogards, a dependent chapter from Zepperen, moved into Louvain in the meantime and in 1640 had their college made a part of the University (De Vocht 1927:233). 42 Another file recovered from the Archives of the Holy Office allows us to identify the religious the Nuncio admonished for his new views: his name was Gilles Gabrielis, a man known for his rigorist views in moral philosophy. 43 For more on the connection between Jansenism and Cartesianism, see the discussion in Chapter 5 in this volume. 44 From a file in the ACDF, St. St. G-3-i, fo. 34. 45 Capizucchi was appointed to this position by Innocent X (in 1654), but he was dismissed from it by Alexander VII in 1663. He had just been restored to it by Clement X Altieri at this time. 46 From documents published in Ceyssens 1968:68f. 47 From documents published in Ceyssens 1968:87. 48 Libert du Pape (1619–82) was the brother of Leon-Jean du Pape (c. 1610–85), president and chair of the Private Council of the Low Countries (1671–85). It was his duty to make the visitatio to the University of Louvain in 1674 to check that Albert’s and Isabelle’s orders were still being enforced. For more on him, see the editor’s note in Van Even 1876. 49 For more on Nicolas Du Bois (c. 1620–96), see the note in Reusens 1876.

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50 Reusens 1876:84. 51 Officially Francesco Nerli was the Secretary of State, but the cardinale padrone Altieri enjoyed the powers of a prime minister compared to those of his adopted uncle Pope Clement X, otherwise known as Emilio Altieri. He signed the messages of the Secretary of State and letters from Nuncios were addressed to him. 52 For more on Flémalle (c.1636–90), see the note on him in Ceyssens 1981–2. 53 Originally these “Pedagogical Schools” were private homes where the regentes of the University stayed and received students for instruction. Four of them (viz., the Castle, the Pig, the Lily, and the Falcon) would endure by becoming university colleges. 54 La Ville 1680:81. 55 “Materiae molem, quanta est, totam ab initio condidit Deus, spatium omne constituentem, & cui est extendi adeò proprium, ut dum ab ejus essentia tentas extensionem sejungere, ipsa quoque elabatur ex mente.” 56 See Jacques 1976:426–7 and notes 58–9. 57 From Liége, a professor at the Falcon Pedagogical School. There is little information on him, but we find him again in the roles of censor for the diocese of Liège and canon for St. Paul, and he was one of the people who approved Neercassel’s Amor poenitens in 1682–3. We know that, when he was in Delft, Arnauld made significant contributions to the composition of this work (Neercassel referred to the book as liber noster. See Arnauld 1967: vol. 26, 16). Here again we find links between Arnauld and a man condemned for Cartesianism. It is possible that Arnauld was the author of Several Reasons for Impeding the Censure or Condemnation of the Philosophy of Descartes, an anonymous work vigorously attacking one Claude Morel, the Dean of the Faculty of Theology, who is otherwise known for his opposition to Jansenism. The manuscript of Several Reasons…was (cautiously) attributed to Arnauld and published by Victor Cousin in 1838 (Cousin 1852:7–22). 58 From the Archives of the University of Louvain, Acta Facultatis S.Theologiae, vol. 389, fo. 147–8 (16 December 1673), a document published by Ceyssens 1968:107– 8. 59 A document cited in Ceyssens 1968:170. 60 There are many copies of this decision in the ACDF. Here we reproduce a copy that may be found in Prot V.4, fo. 415r, in 1707, regarding the case of the Minim Maignan. 61 Avignon’s Inquisitor received this decree on 2 October and he consigned it to the Confraternitas mancipiorum Beatae Virginis. 62 This case was heard immediately, at the request of Father Cermelli, the Inquisitor for Faenza. In November 1673, Father Cermelli sent a manuscript by the noteworthy Francesco Pisolini of Ravenna to the Holy Office. The manuscript bore the title Compendiola Physica Antiperipatetica. We make a study of Pisolini’s file elsewhere. Pisolini had set the physics of Democritus up against Aristotle’s physics. Father Raymundus Nidi (Soncinas), o.p. (author of several works on Inquisitorial Law, who was made Inquisitor general for Pavia in 1674, and died in 1682), obtained a censure forbidding the publication of Pisolini’s work by recalling that the

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King of France and the Archbishop of Paris had already forbidden this view. In another place we also make a study of the iubente hac sacra congregatione, a message from the Nuncio for Cologne (Buonvisi) from 1671, for its use of the phrase “when the philosophy of René Descartes seemed to be taking root” (quando pedem figere videbatur Philosophia Renati Descartes). 63 We would like to thank the late Professor Bruno Neveu for generously pointing this document out to us. It is filed at fo. 328r/v of the ACDF volume mentioned above. 64 The forty-five theses of Joannes Wyclif (c. 1330–84) were condemned by the Council of Constance (1415). Wyclif presents his atomism in his Tractatus de Logica (Wyclif 1893–9). See Pabst 1994:306–16. 65 The file would not be complete without mentioning the case of Andrea Pissini, the last case recovered from the Archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Pissini, a religious of the Olivite order, had already published the Discorso filosofica sopra le comete (Pissini 1665)—a physical and astrological work—and had set to publishing his Naturalium doctrina in Ausburg in 1673. One proposition that was repeated in the 1675 edition was expressed in this way: species nil pluris de fide important, quam pura sit apparitio, image et similitudo panis & vini, which repeated the denial of the existence of accidents. Condemned on 22 August 1675, at a General Congregation, Pissini published a detailed retraction in Italian. Even if he did not directly support atomism, his condemnation belongs in the context at hand, because it has to do with the physical reality of the sacrament, the existence of its accidents included. 66 Plempius 1654:376. The comparison of Descartes and Democritus may be found in the appendix Doctorum aliquot virorum iudicia de Philosophia Cartesiana in a letter from Plempius dated 21 December 1652. 67 “Quos omnes a Democrito et Epicuro et adeo ab eorum resuscitatore Renato Carthesio certum et clarum est penitus abhorrere,” Document 2 in Armogathe and Carraud 2001. On 27 August 1662, the Nuncio writes again: “ut conaretur epicureis dogmatibus cartesianae philosophiae obsistere, et antiquam aristotelicam doctrinam tueri” (Document 7). 68 For more on Antoine Goudin, o.p. (1639–95), see Coulon (1947). Goudin’s Philosophia juxta inconcussa tutissimaque Divi Thomae Dogmata (which contains the lecture notes for the course he taught around 1666–7) appeared in Lyon in 1671 (2nd edn, Paris, 1673). We used volume 2 (Primam partem Physicae complectens) of the Paris 1685 edition, in-16 (BNF R-9787). The polemic against Descartes may be found in Goudin 1685:20–52. 69 On this point, see also Decker 1675.

10 Images of Descartes in Italy Giulia Belgioioso Translated by Julie Singer Introduction To describe the cultural phenomenon known by the name of Cartesianism is nearly impossible: that would mean retracing the complex, often contradictory, events that took place over a span of time from the latter half of the seventeenth century to the first half of the eighteenth century. I have chosen, therefore, to sketch the portraits of three personages representative of a phase in Neapolitan history during which Cartesian philosophy is no longer the only model of modern philosophy which is opposed to Aristotelian philosophy. In the first thirty years of the eighteenth century, in fact, there came to Naples the philosophies of Locke, Spinoza, and Malebranche, the physics of Newton, and the enthusiastic exegesis of Voltaire’s Lettres anglaises. The personages that I am presenting are therefore not veteres (as the Aristotelians were known). Additionally, we are speaking of characters who no longer occupy the prominent positions they once enjoyed, three personages symbolic of different positions within the front of the moderns (called novatore): the nobleman Paolo Mattia Doria (1661–1746), a repentant Cartesian; the prince Francesco Maria Spinelli (1658–1752), a firmly convinced Cartesian; the abbot Giacinto Gimma (1668–1735), favorable to an intermediary stance between Aristotelianism and Cartesianism. All three made pronouncements on Cartesian metaphysics, sometimes in the thick of violent debate. Their stances in regard to Cartesianism share a common denominator: they are inspired by Descartes, but they go forther. Doria and Spinelli discuss whether, and to what degree, Cartesian metaphysics can be considered the veritable matrix of the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. The question is not a neutral one, insofar as a positive response implies that the French philosopher is judged as the mauvais génie, the bad influence having fostered the propagation of atheism (the philosophy of Spinoza being universally judged atheist), the corruption of studies and hence of the young. In redefining the concepts ancient/fabulous and modern/scientific, Giacinto Gimma—the only one of the three to have undergone a regular course of study in Jesuit schools, of Bari and then of Naples—demonstrates in what manner ancient and modern may be considered as meta-concepts. In order to make explicit the meaning of the cultural choices of these three personages, I will give a brief timeline of Cartesian philosophy in Naples,1 referring wherever possible to the divisions established in 1725 by Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) in his Autobiography:

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1649: The year in which the Calabrian doctor Tommaso Cornelio (1614–84) introduced the writings of Descartes to Naples. They aroused the interest of physicists and doctors who read, above all, the Principia.2 A few years later, in 1667, they brought forth in Naples the Academy of the “Investiganti.”3 1700–25: The context has completely transformed. In 1696, for example, Vico, having returned to Naples, discovers that “one had begun to cultivate the Méditations métaphysiques”; shortly thereafter, the Neapolitan Cartesians become metaphysicians. One reads in the Autobiography that at this time, in Naples, in order to say that someone was a great philosopher, one said: “He understands René’s Méditations” 1732: Establishment in Naples of the Academy of Sciences by Celestino Galiani (1681–1753). Galiani’s Academy opens the city to Newtonian science, and hence to a new cultural era.4 Paolo Mattia Doria and Francesco Maria Spinelli Paolo Mattia Doria5 repeats like a refrain: “At the beginning of [their] studies all of the Neapolitans were Gassendists; no one recited anything but the poet Lucretius’s verse, ‘Tangere, vel tangi praeter corpus nulla potest res’”6 It was a vogue that did not last long, for soon the Epicurians were banished and the philosophy of René Descartes was embraced. No one spoke, then, of anything but confused ideas, provisional ideas, clear and distinct ideas, real distinction, and other such terms.7 Corpuscular philosophy had transformed the Neapolitans from the Aristotelians that they were, first into atomists and then into Cartesians. It had even come to pass that they eventually became aware that they were true Platonists or authentic Ficinists. This reconstruction confirms what we have just learned: the Catholic Descartes had been an authorized supporter of corpuscular physics and of Gassendism. In Naples, Doria writes, people underline that they are antiAristotelian atomists in order to demonstrate that any good Christian can be.8 That this is an expression of a widespread opinion is confirmed by numerous sources. I will limit myself to citing that which Eleonora Barbapiccola underlines in 1722: Descartes was a “Catholic Christian… having written his Métaphysique under the inspiration of Saint Augustine, and his experimental Physics…submitting himself to the judgment of the most wise as well as to the authority of the Catholic Church.”9 Around 1724, Paolo Mattia Doria joins the anti-Cartesian faction. The story of this conversion, which the Neapolitan writer will present as a repentance, was the obsessive object of many of his works.10 Because of his choice, Doria will become the object of attacks on the part of both the mathematicians (the Neapolitan writer proposed, against Descartes, a sort of synthetic imaginative geometry) and the modern philosophers. The most violent of these attacks will be launched by the Cartesian philosopher Francesco Maria Spinelli, disciple of the Cartesian Gregorio Caloprese (1650–1715). Spinelli— apparently without any precise reason—will wait nine years before publishing his Riflessioni in 1733.11 In this work, Spinelli accuses Doria not only of having betrayed the Cartesians for personal motives, but also of having placed himself alongside the abject

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Spinozists, and he takes up the defense of all Neapolitan Cartesians (Spinelli 1733: n.p.). The object of the dispute between Spinelli and Doria is the metaphysics of Descartes, or rather the Cartesian ontologia. The dispute can be traced back, then, to the Discorsi critici filosofici, the work in which Doria had related the story of his anticartesian choice in 1724. The repentant and irritated Doria describes, in the Discorsi, the degenerative process that besieged all of the classes and orders of the Kingdom, as well as philosophy. Philosophy is thereafter deprived of the dignity it enjoyed among the Greeks and Romans.12 In particular, Doria—under the auctoritas of Marsilio Ficino, Morcillo Sebastian Fox (and his commentaries on the Platonic dialogues), and works such as Le philosophe de Rotterdam accusé Atteint et convaincu à Amsterdam13 and Cartesius verus spinozismi architectus of Johannes Regius—examines the theories of Descartes, Locke, Voltaire, Spinoza. Doria designates the latter as “minor masters à la mode” and he judges them in light of their heterodoxy, blasphemy, and atheism (Doria 1733:6). In Naples, he was said to have been not unfamiliar with the condemnation of Locke’s works by the Holy Office, and it seems that he wanted to act as ecclesiastical censor in the case of Descartes. Genovese in origin, Doria came to Naples to take care of family business. There, he was fascinated by the vitality of intellectual life in the capital of the Kingdom.14 Consequently, he decided to devote himself to the study of Cartesian philosophy. He very rapidly became leader of the Neapolitan Cartesians and even he describes himself as surrounded by intellectuals who were never sparing with their praise: Vico dedicates an oration to him, De antiquissima italorum sapientia; Gravina (1664–1718) writes him some verses;15 his friends “are in the habit of coming to visit me regularly” (Doria 1718: n.p.). Descartes had excited the enthusiasm of Doria, who became “desirous to study philosophy.” Going beyond that which was normally taught in the schools, he turns to the natural philosophy of Epicurus and Empedocles among the ancients, and Gassendi and Descartes among the moderns. He is guided in this choice by the judgment of “very learned men” who maintained that Aristotle “was an obscure and confused philosopher” and that “his philosophy was made up of words and distinctions between words. A philosophy, then, that affirmed without demonstrating, a philosophy in which the definitions were even more obscure than the things they were supposed to define” (Doria 1724:11). As for Plato, these learned men judged that he was more of a poet than a philosopher. They considered monstrous and chimerical the “sentences” of Thales and Pythagoras and the moral precepts of the Stoics and the ancient philosophers. For them it was instead the virtues of the ancient republics and heroes that were extraordinary. Incited by these venerable men, Doria writes, “I undertook right away the study of René’s Métaphysique” Doria’s adherence to Cartesianism is complete and he soon becomes the recognized leader of the Cartesian sect. He remains fascinated, at first, by the “geometric” method followed in the first three Meditations and by the recourse to doubt in order to arrive at certainty (Doria 1724:13). Even Spinelli will recognize it: Doria had won for himself the sympathy of all of the “orders,” “most of all of the Cartesians, with whom he had forged a deep friendship.”16 His success was, at that time, at its apogee: Paolo Francone dedicates to him his 1713 translation of Baillet’s biography, Ristretto della vita di Renato

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Descartes;17 and Eleonora Barbapiccola, in her preface to the translation of the Principia philosophiae, already sings his praises—fascinated, besides, by his defense of women.18 Let us return to the Discorsi. In this text, Doria describes the Neapolitan Cartesians as having previously become “slaves of foreign nations.” In this he agreed with Vico: the Neopolitans embraced first of all…the theories of Pierre Gassendi. For this reason, they were persecuted by the scholastics… At that time, however, René Descartes …was looked down upon and considered extravagant. La Dioptrique was the only one of his works that anyone read. From the outset, because René had demonstrated the existence of God in his metaphysics, the savants thought they could make use of him against the Aristotelians. This was the reason for which they embraced René’s philosophy. (Vico 1990: vol. 1, 121–5) At the same time as “René’s philosophy spread Jansenist morality,19 it was also used against the scholastics and the religious orders; particularly, though in a less than explicit manner, against the Jesuits and Rome, whose power many wanted to limit” (ibid.). It seemed to Doria that the Cartesians displayed the same faults that they recognize in the Aristotelians. They too, in fact, swear in verba magistri and are content to repeat that which Descartes taught, namely: (1) that all men are equally equipped to acquire wisdom; (2) that what counts in reasoning is method.20 They are, besides, moral rigorists and they believe in the doctrine of sufficient grace as Nicole teaches in the Essai de Morale. Finally, they underestimate the civil value of virtuous passions: it is in this way, Doria adds, that they encourage social disintegration and political corruption. Descartes therefore encourages the abandonment of studies and morals, whose propagation in Naples Doria has just described. Additionally, Descartes has in effect fallen into metaphysical “errors,” precisely in Meditation Four (De vero et falso), Meditation Five (De essentia rerum materialium, et iterum de Deo quod existat), Meditation Six (De rerum materialium existentia, et reali mentis a corpore distinctione) and in articles 8, 9, and 51–4 of the First Part and 2–4 of the Second Part of the Principia. There, the discussion concerns the theory of the mindbody distinction. Doria’s reasoning is the following: a rational demonstration of the mind-body distinction is impossible; having wanted to prove himself on this ground, Descartes was obligated to contradict himself because he surpassed the limits of human understanding, and hence those of rational investigation, leading it into a domain that even he had defined as forbidden to philosophers. Moreover, Descartes did not behave as a good Christian should. Only an act of faith permits the acceptance of a distinction between God and matter. It is in this Cartesian error, Doria adds, that Malebranche’s metaphysics of the vision in God and Spinoza’s metaphysics of infinite substance found their source.21 Doria recognizes that on a rational level, Spinoza’s Ethica and Malebranche’s Recherche de la vérité are proposed as the only possible corrective to the error of Descartes. However, these works reject—the consequence is implicit—the Christian dogma of creation. Both of them, in fact, elaborate a rational and rigorous, but irreligious, metaphysics of Unity.22

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In order to understand this line of objection, one must not forget that the Discorsi make reference to a specific episode that came to pass “one evening, when I [Doria] went, as usual, to engage in a conversation among friends.” Doria discussed metaphysical questions and, as he tells us, “on the way home the next day, I began to compose certain Dialogues.”23 It will be those Dialoghi in particular that become the object of Spinelli’s attack on Doria. The explanation can be found in Spinelli’s Autobiography and in other recently rediscovered documents. Spinelli, and the Cartesian circle, are greatly worried by certain decisions made by the Viceroy, Cardinal Michael Friedrich Althann. In short, Althann “strongly warned against any philosophy that was not purely scholastic,”24 had made a resolution “against those Cartesian men of letters” in Naples, accused of being “irreligious and… Spinozist.” Behind this “resolution,” it is probable that Spinelli perceived the shadow of Doria, who had already resorted, in other circumstances, to this sort of maneuver.25 Spinelli knew all too well that, in his Dialoghi, Doria unequivocally established a direct lineage from Descartes to Spinoza to atheism. The consequences of these events showed that Spinelli’s concerns were not unfounded. Doria responded to Spinelli without hesitation, publishing, also in 1733, his Risposte to Spinelli’s Riflessioni. In his work, Doria went further: the Cartesians, with Spinelli at their head, should all be considered atheists. It was even necessary for the censor to intervene as soon as possible to prevent atheism from propagating itself in Naples. The ecclesiastical censor, invoked with such ardor, did indeed intervene, pronouncing the condemnation of Spinelli who, in his Riflessioni, had praised Descartes with “outrageous exaggerations” (strabocchevoli esagerazioni); the censor absolved Doria with the argument that he, in fact, had not “understood Descartes.”26 The Riflessioni of Spinelli, in returning to the distant episode that led to the composition of Doria’s Dialoghi, will clarify (1) that, that evening, the participants in the “conversation” had been struck by the conclusions Doria drew from Cartesian metaphysics; and (2) that the author of the “Dialoghi in which he examined the entire philosophy of René…had read no more than ten or so pages of the author” (Spinelli 1733:66). The Dialoghi would then have proposed a reform of Cartesian metaphysics without any comprehensive knowledge of what Descartes had written. They would have confused synthesis and analysis, and used terms that were obscure and “no longer used in the common language,” “distant” from those used by Descartes and belonging in fact to the Spinozist lexicon.27 If we bear in mind the tableau that I have just described, we can understand that the Riflessioni are meant to disqualify Doria, who for that matter was purely and simply dismissed as confused and ignorant. “I fear greatly,” Spinelli writes, that some Spinozist may have fabricated a book in the same form as René’s Méditations, with the same division in six Meditations, and that he might then have presented it to you, passing it off as the six Meditations of René…and that you might have taken this book for René’s.28 Spinelli’s true interlocutor seems to be the political powers-that-be, embodied specifically in the person of Cardinal Althann. It was he who had to be shown that a direct lineage between Spinoza’s metaphysics and that of Descartes was theoretically untenable. In order to do so, Spinelli proposes reading the Disputationes metaphysicae of

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Suárez before the Meditationes and the Principia. Suárez had in fact defined all that which is proper to metaphysics, is appropriate to the subject, and is relevant to the understanding of things themselves.29 Spinelli uses the Disputationes as a reference text, and he goes directly to the metaphysical concepts illustrated in Suárez’s Disputationes. Taking these as his starting point, he considers the validity of the Spinozist theories of substance and unity, and the Cartesian theories of substance and distinction. He distances himself from the logic of a confrontation between Aristotle, scholasticism, Descartes, and Spinoza in order to establish to whom, Descartes or Spinoza, belonged the theories which, according to some, were responsible for the propagation of atheism in Naples. He goes, then, to the object of meta-physics, to the concepts of being, substance, unity, etc., and he examines the metaphysics of Descartes and Spinoza from this point of view. Spinelli makes no direct citations, but he makes reference to the definitions of causa sui, of God, and of substance that are expounded in the first part of the Ethics.30 He notes that Spinoza, in effect, attributed to unity the properties of being: he defined it as first principle, unique substance, God, containing in itself all real things. Thus, beings are contained in Unity; that is, all things, material and spiritual, are transformed into modes or forms of the Unity (Spinelli 1733:23), and he replaced the creation in time with eternal production (ibid.: 11). In this way every difference and distinction “between the Creator and the creatures…between bodies and minds, even [between] all the creatures themselves” disappears. The sole property of being that is not recognized as being part of unity is that of being separate. In reality, Spinelli writes, “Every thing would be at the same time that thing, Being, Unity, True, and Good, in such a way that if the Things are multiple, the Truths and the Unities will also be multiple (ibid.: 20). The primary principle can therefore be not Unity but the separate being that consists of God and his creatures: “The unities, along with all of the other attributes, belong to the creatures and to God” (Spinelli 1733:46). Whence there are at least five consequences: (1) that things are not within the Unity, but Unity is in things; (2) that Unity, posited as subject of the True and of things, is a predicate, and therefore an attribute of things; (3) that the Unities of things are different from one another; (4) that there exists no one Unity that contains all of the Unities; and (5) that the Unity is not identifiable with God. Read through the lens of the Disputationes, the substantial Unity of Spinoza shows itself to be ambiguous: the mind of man can form only simple ideas (that of spiritual substance) or simple ideas that represent a whole composed of parts (that of material substance), starting from accidents. Spinoza thus used the word substance in an equivocal way, indifferently indicating the predicate (as when he affirms that “in all things, which is to say in individuals, there is substance” [Spinelli 1733:49], or that “substance belongs to all things”) but also the subject, when he concluded: “All things are therefore in substance, and substance is their subject.” In fact, the idea of God as an “infinite in the multiplicity” is repugnant to reason, as God, like every real individual, cannot be at once one, simple and multiple, constrained and free, omnipotent and conditioned. And man comes to know himself by means of simple ideas: that of spiritual substance and that of material substance composed of parts. Because the mind of man can only form simple ideas or simple ideas that represent a whole composed of parts, the substantial Unity of Spinoza is unknowable.31 It is at this point that the analysis of Cartesian metaphysics is added, that is, at the point

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where every man experiences in his mind the two simple ideas relative to thought and to extension, particularly at the point where the modes of these two ideas, respectively pain, pleasure, will, and shape, movement, rest, reveal to man that he is composed of a body that is divisible in parts and a thought that is indivisible and therefore simple—a discovery that is made on the level of essence and not of existence. If the analysis of Spinoza’s metaphysics was developed around the term and concept of unity, that of Cartesian metaphysics develops around the term and concept of distinction and the relation between essence and existence. In the beginning, Descartes places himself above metaphysics. In effect, he posits the existence of spiritual things before that of material things: that of the self and of God before that of bodies. This beginning is extra-metaphysical and, for that reason, those who maintain that “his [Descartes’s] philosophy had begun with metaphysics” (Spinelli 1733:53) are mistaken. Descartes did not deny the existence of bodies—he wrote, after all, “nemo unquam sanae mentis [serio] dubitavit” (AT 7:16)—but he foregrounded the problem of essence, deriving from it the existence of spiritual and material things. The cogito, which is the first thing that presents itself to the intellect, is not a set of members (“compagem… membrorum”), nor is it a wind, a fire, a vapor, or a breath (“ignis,… vapor…halitus”). It is a spiritual individual or thing, and Descartes abstracts the attributes of his thought from it by means of dubitans, affirmans, negans (AT 7:28). Metaphysics intervenes, for him, only with the modal determination (affirmans, negans, dubitans) of nature, that is, the essence of his thought, and therefore of an individual ego. Descartes draws, then, from metaphysics the concepts that guide him in the search that, starting from “ego existo” and from the question “sed quid igitur sum?” (AT 7:28), found the answer: “Res cogitans” (AT 7:28). With the ego, Descartes effectively discovered that the subject (subjectum) of the affirmans, the negans, and the dubitans is the thinking substance, in the same way that the modes of the tablet, wax, etc., determine the nature common to each bodily individual, which is the extension. It is therefore in the “science of Universals, the one commonly called Metaphysics” (Spinelli 1733:128), that Descartes found his concepts. It is there that he discovered that the concept of the Universal does not contain real things and is not, unlike modes, a parte rei (ibid.: 139). “Ego existo,” he wrote in the Second Meditation (AT 7:25), and not “cogitatio existit”; and in the sixth he wrote “ac proinde res corporeae existunt” (AT 7:80) and not “extensio existit”. Descartes correctly demonstrated the real existence of the Self (“ego existo”), of God (“Evidentissime demonstrari Deum etiam existere” [AT 7:51], and “ac proinde illum [Dio] revera existere” [AT 7:67]), and of corporeal things (“ac proinde res corporeae existunt” [AT 7:80]), starting from their essence. And he determined the essence of substances, both spiritual and material, starting from the metaphysical theory of distinction. From it he derives the attributes and the omnipotence of God. In the Third Meditation, unity reveals God’s belonging to Being. Because every thing is in itself, even God, like every created thing (“all things exist in themselves”), Unity is a “quality that belongs to created things and to God” (Spinelli 1733:68, 72). But things are not created by themselves, whereas God is “substantiam et summe potentem, a qua”— Spinelli stresses that Descartes uses the expression a qua, not in qua—“tum ego ipse, tum aliud omne quodcumque extat etc. sit creatum.” The Cartesian theory of distinction is therefore a correct application of the theory of distinctio sola rationis on which Suárez

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had based the distinction between essentia and existentia. Spinelli again reviews the Cartesian texts. In article 51 of the First Part of the Principia, it is specified explicitly that the term substance does not apply univocally to God and to created things, as they say in the Schools; which is to say that one cannot distinctly conceive any substantial meaning common to God and to His creations (AT 8– 1:24/CSM 1:210; Spinelli 1733:117).32 Substances are in singular things, in me, in a stone, and in all corporeal things, and there exists no single unique substance. He observes that in article 52 the expression sint res signifies that for Descartes the common concept includes many elements, not just one; whereas the other Dei concursu differentiates the res extensa and the res cogitans as substances, modes that, in order to exist, need the support not of God but of substance (AT 8–1:24–5/CSM 1:210; Spinelli 1733:118). In article 53, the emphasis is placed on the difference in nature between the two substances, said to derive from the principal property of each one—the one that constitutes its nature and essence (AT 8–1:25/CSM 1:210; Spinelli 1733:118). All of the texts show that for Descartes substance cannot be determined a parte rei, but nor is it a generic predicable, common to all substances, to God and to the creatures: corporeal substance and the mind can be classified within a single common concept. Both are things that, in order to exist, require God’s support. In the Second Replies, Descartes clarifies that with the term infinite he means not that which excludes the existence of finite things—besides, the infinite power of an imaginary infinite that could never create anything would be useless (AT 7:125, 141–2/CSM 2:89, 101; Spinelli 1733:119). God can therefore be understood as infinite and as the creator of all things. Examined in light of “metaphysical concepts,” the paths of Spinoza and Descartes are presented as being very different. Spinelli juxtaposes the definition of God given by Spinoza, absolutely infinite substance that possesses infinite attributes (substantiam constantem infinitis attributis), and that given in the Second Replies, in which Descartes is “constrained by others, and against his will, to order the first philosophy according to Euclid’s method.”33 God is the substance that we understand as absolutely perfect and in which we cannot conceive of anything characterized by any fault or limitation of perfection (AT 7:162/CSM 2:114). On the one hand, then, there is Spinoza, who: (1) reduces being to a “predicable”; (2) admits the sole existence of a predicable of being; (3) denies the existence of individuals; (4) assimilates individuals into modes. On the other, there is Descartes, who, making use of doubt, “perceives that he cannot himself place in doubt the thought that represents his own existence” (“ego sum, ego existo”);34 he then observes “that the certainty of this thought was born in him from distinction, that is, from the fact of having distinguished himself, separate from all others.”35 The theory of “distinction” is key: the ideas of the ego and of that which “had first presented itself in the conscience,” that is, God, seem different from the ideas that represent things; the distinction between the idea of God and that of the ego stems from the fact that they are both ideas of my mind, for it is the idea of the infinite that reveals me in my finiteness. The distinctio realis is thus “the foundation of René’s philosophy”: all of his philosophy “is based on this distinction.” For given this distinction, “René was certain of existence, and more precisely of the existence of the first two things, on which all philosophy founds itself, namely the existence of the self

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and the existence of God.”36 The distinctio realis of Descartes consists of the distinction operated by the mind between two single substances—thought and God—and all other substances. Doubt is a procedure of abstraction that leads to individual determination, to consciousness, to “ego sum, ego existo.”37 Besides, Descartes’s God, Spinelli recalls—citing article 60 of the First Part of the Principia, devoted to De distinctionibus, ac primo de reali—can produce all that which we distinctly conceive (AT 8–1:28/CSM 1:213; Spinelli 1733:128). Unlike Spinoza, Descartes considered the idea of substance as a particular idea that represents the individual. Corporeal substance and the mind, that is, the thinking-created substance, can be understood through this common concept—says article 52 of the First Part of the Principles—that they are things which, in order to exist, need the sole support of God. One cannot know substance through the sole fact that it is an existing thing, because that, in and of itself, does not affect us. Rather, we easily know it from any one of its attributes. In fact, the perception of some attribute brings us to conclude that a thing exists, that is, that there exists a substance to which that attribute can be attributed (AT 8– 1:24–5/CSM 1:210; Spinelli 1733:142). The difference between Spinoza and Descartes arises from this analysis. The former assimilates substance to Being, unaware, on the one hand, that that there is not a type of Substance that encompasses the Creator and the creatures and, on the other hand, that the concept of being is “commonly” more abstract and more ambiguous than substance. Descartes, through the ego existo, supposes the existence not of a Universal substance, “but of his own, and hence of a singular individual conscience, namely the ego. René therefore traced the existence only of his own conscience, of the Self, and not of any Universal” (Spinelli 1733:143). The mind, we read in the Sixth Meditation, must “accept as clear and distinct these (sensible) ideas that it is obligated to receive as such from the body and, in order to make use of them in the quest for Truth, to examine their clarity and distinction” (Spinelli 1733:424; AT 7:83/CSM 2:57). Ideas, those which represent corporeal things as well as the idea of God, “derive from [God] himself.” Spinelli returns to the texts. In his opinion, Meditation Three is the one in which we find the most analytical exposition of the theory of the universal in repraesentando. As for the ideas of corporeal things, actually, if I observe more deeply and if I consider every idea just as yesterday I considered the idea of wax, I notice that I don’t perceive anything so great in them that it could not have derived from myself in a clear and distinct way save a few aspects: namely height, length, width, and depth; the figure, which is born of the limits of these extensions; space, which bodies having different figures occupy in relation to one another; and movement, which is the change in place; to these one might add substance, duration, and number (Spinelli 1733:205). Likewise, the properties or attributes that Descartes finds in corporeal things belong not to things, but to the ideas that they represent (perpauca tantum esse quae in illis clare et distincte percipio). Substance, for Descartes, is therefore not “a real thing that exists in itself,” but “a concept of our mind, that is, a property, an attribute that percipitur in illis, in material things” (Spinelli 1733:209). Every material thing is the subject in which and of which one must consider the substance: “It is precisely,” Spinelli observes, what Aristotle says (as I have already said) about first substances, which are the

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subject of second substances; that is, that corporeal things are the first substances from which secondary substance derives: this allows us to understand that extension, substance, etc. are not, in some manner, fundamental ideas, but rather reflected ideas that derive from the ideas of the individuals on which they are founded. (Spinelli 1733:210) Among the attributes of corporeal things, substance, duration, and number are taken from the idea “of myself” (AT 7:44/CSM 2:29–30; Spinelli taken from 1733:211). And it is precisely the word mutuari that indicates, for the moment, the inessentiality of the existence of material things, in which existence presents itself as an “aptitude to exist” (AT 7:44/CSM 2:30; Spinelli 1733:211). The other properties of the body, namely extension, figure, place, and movement, are contained eminenter and not formaliter in the mind, for they are not modes of thought (AT 7:45/CSM 2:30; Spinelli 1733:213). Descartes correctly uses the concept: to contain something eminenter means, in effect, for all philosophers and for all schools, to contain it “tanquam in causa”; to be contained in the cause gives no actual reality to the thing, neither in substance nor in mode, which means that as long as the thing remains thus, that is, eminently contained, and as long as it is not put in action by its cause, it will not be, it will not exist, in short it will be a true nothing, as were all created things before having been put in act by their Creator, even though He eminently contained them within Himself! (Spinelli 1733:215) A body, however, will contain more actual reality than the idea that represents it; if indeed, the objective reality of the idea of a thing corresponded to the reality of the thing in itself, the mind would understand the thing in its totality. In this case, again, Descartes correctly uses the concept: this “mode of being that is certainly much more imperfect than the one for which things exist outside of the intellect.”38 This analysis is contradicted neither by article 63 of the First Part of the Principles, in which cogitatio and extensio are considered the thinking and corporal essence of substances (AT 8–1:30–1/CSM 1:215; Spinelli 1733:217), nor by the improper use of the term mode in article 64. Indeed, in this article, the expression “cogitatio et extensio sumi etiam possunt pro modis substantiae” is corrected by the plural “in substantiis” and by the expressions “una et eadem mens,” “unum et idem corpus” that “ipsas in substantiis quarum sunt modi consideramus, eas ab his substantiis distinguimus, et quales revera sunt agnoscimus.”39 It is only in considering the cogitationes as modes of substance that we can distinguish them and truly recognize them as they are (AT 8–1:31/CSM 1:215). The last Meditation, too, considered cogitationes, ideas, as “organizations of the mind” and established that the idea of thinking substance derives from the innate idea of perfection, infinity, which is to say, the idea of God; whereas the idea of extension derives from my mind: The mind, as it is knowing, turns toward itself and considers some of the ideas that are to be found in it; while it imagines, on the contrary, it turns toward the

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body and sees in it something that conforms with the idea, whether it has conceived it by itself or perceived it through the senses. (AT 7:73/CSM 2:51) And the First Replies established that it is not in the Unity of God that “we must see things, but through the Unity of our mind we must form ideas of them” (Spinelli 1733:225). I not only sought the cause of my being, because I am a thinking creature, “but also, above all and principally,” Descartes writes, because I recognize that, among other thoughts, there is in me the idea of the very perfect being. All the force of my demonstration depends solely on that, first of all because in that idea is contained that which God is, at least within the limits of my understanding—and, according to the laws of true Logic, one must never ask oneself what a thing is if one does not know beforehand what it is. (AT 7:107–8/CSM 2:78) Infinite substance reveals itself as infinite perfection, most intelligent and providential. Descartes bases his demonstration of His existence, and the existence of matter, on these two attributes: And thus there remains the sole idea of God, in which one must consider whether there is anything therein that could not have come from me. By the name of God I understand a substance that is infinite, independent, very intelligent, very powerful, and by which I and all other existing creatures—if there is anything else—were created. (AT 7:45/CSM 2:31) The essence of God presents itself to the mind as that of an infinite Being containing the perfections that I do not possess: I must not think that I conceive of the infinite by way of its true idea, but only through the negation of the finite, as I perceive calm and darkness through the negation of movement and light; on the contrary, I understand clearly that there are no more realities in infinite substance than in that which is finite, and therefore, in a certain sense, I know the infinite in me more than I know the finite, I know the substance of God more than the substance of myself. In what way, really, could I understand that I doubt, that I desire? (AT 7:45–6/CSM2:31) If all of my imperfections belong to the cogitatio, all of the perfections in God will belong to the cogitatio. In contrast to the essence of man, “dubitans, pauca intelligens, multa ignorans, cupiens,” God’s essence is a substance that is “infinitam, summe intelligentem, summe potentem a qua …ego ipse…sum creatus.” In the essence of God is contained His existence and mine (AT 7:55–6/CSM 2:39). Perfection is an attribute of the Being, that across which “we know that which is positive, and Real.” There is, then, on the one hand, the infinite Being that is infinite perfection and that

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creates finite Beings, and on the other, the finite perfections of finite Beings: This distinction between God and all other things is the most perfect …because it does not allow for the least bit of confusion, nor any union with other substances, not permitting the infinite perfection of this substance to belong, either in genus or species, to the other substances. (Spinelli 1733:356) There, again, the matter at hand is a Cartesian concept which, according to Spinelli, finds an exact correspondent in Suárez. It is what Spinelli, in a more emphatic manner, defines as the miracle effected by Descartes: What really seems a miracle of method, discovered by the unique René, is beginning with the thoughts God placed in our minds. It is in this way that from the very union of our mind with our body we deduce the real distinction of these two substances from one another.”40 From the “dependence” of the essence of our “mind” on God, Descartes deduces the distinction between God and our “mind”; from the dependence of certain “modes” of our mind on the body, he deduces the distinction between our body and our “mind.” The order of these meditations “is thus made, such that he begins them in one way, and he finishes them in another” (Spinelli 1733:436). And thus, to uncover the thought, he begins with his existence in the famous Cogito, but to uncover the Body, he had to begin with his essence; in thought, the starting point was the first individual substance of the Ego; in the Corps, it was necessary to begin with its attributes, like extension, and its Modes, such as figures; the knowledge of thought began with its own consciousness (conscietà) and ended in the ideas that we form of it; for the knowledge of the body it was necessary to begin with the ideas that we form of it and to end in sensible consciousness, thanks to which we are sure of its existence. (Spinelli 1733:437) Spinelli set himself the goal of demonstrating to the redoubtable Cardinal Althann that Cartesian metaphysics does not lead to Spinozism, as Leibniz believed. Beyond the reasons that spurred him to compete with Doria, Spinelli offers the early eighteenthcentury reader one of the most caustic analyses of Cartesian metaphysics in general and of the theory of distinction in particular. This analysis is even more significant in that it depends upon the definitions of fundamental metaphysical concepts established by Suárez in the Disputationes. With texts in hand, Spinelli shows how Descartes cannot be considered the ancestor of Spinoza, meaning indirectly to demonstrate that all forms of atheism were foreign to the French philosopher. As for Doria, the infamous suspicion of having encouraged the censorship of the Holy Office will not prevent one of his posthumous works from being condemned to burn.41

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Giacinto Gimma We return to History with the work of the abbot Giacinto Gimma, an erudite, voluminous author who left Apulia to complete his education in Naples. Empiricist and Gassendist, Gimma, too, was a Cartesian in the larger sense, which is to say that he is neither hostile to the moderns nor favorable to the ancients. He revindicated the modernity of the ancients who relied on observation and natural explanation of phenomena and he pointed out the fabulous elements that persist in the philosophies of certain moderns’ theories. For example, Gimma recalls the existence of the Rosicrucians and, in general, the survival in his era of esoteric proceedings (Gimma 1723: vol. 2, 686). Modernity, he forcefully emphasized, resides in the choice of the method of empirical observation and of experimental verification, and as such, does not characterize one historical period more than another; modernity must be restored to its specific nature, which is essentially to constitute a method of research. These convictions form the framework of the writings of Giacinto Gimma who, even as he decides to take up the defense of Italian genius and to demonstrate its superiority, in reality does not believe in the existence of barriers, whether they be chronological or geographic. He even shows himself to be deeply convinced—and it is not by chance that he writes it in the Idea dell’Italia letterata, published in 1723—that knowledge constitutes a supranational identity. In Idea, Gimma proposed to defend “lettered Italy” “from the Censures by which certain foreigners sought to obscure it” (Gimma 1723: vol. 1, 740). It is a work that was supposed to demonstrate that the Italians were not contemptible, even if they were judged by foreigners to be “all…of a corrupted genius in this century, for they apply themselves to the study of the doctrines of the Arabs and the Sophists” (Gimma 1723: vol. 1, 740). Giacinto Gimma introduces two principal assertions: the possibility of composing an encyclopedia of all knowledge, and the remark that knowledge—in all epochs, and not just in the modern era—produced within itself an opposition between veteres (“ancients”) and novatores (“moderns”). Every century had its ancients and its moderns. Gimma is convinced that knowledge is a supranational fact, even if its origin is Mediterranean, and more precisely Egypto-Italico-Greek, as classical sources indicated. Gimma refuses the identification of the veteres with the Aristotelians and the novatores with the Cartesians. “All sciences …and all Arts are so many members that, once united, form a single body,” Gimma wrote, “divided in many members” (Gimma 1730: vol. 1, 7). One could say that Gimma, in his revindication of libertas philosophandi, is antiAristotelian. Nonetheless the anti-Aristotelianism of Gimma manifests itself above all as a critique of the abuses of the peripatetics, that is, of the philosophers who termed Aristotle Magnum Oraculum and who, in fact, effundent tenebras (Gimma 2000:2). In short, there is lacking in the writings of the Abbot of Bari that which an Investigante like Valletta would have done, namely the putting-down not just of Jesuit and Aristotelian scholasticism but also of the very philosophy of Aristotle and thus the revalorization of the Platonic-Pythagorean vein. On the contrary, Gimma writes that the Aristotelian logic, rhetoric, ethics, and politics “maxime aestimanda sunt”; that metaphysics is “in multibus notionibus acuta”; but that

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the principles of Aristotelian philosophy (matter, form, substance) are unacceptable (Gimma 2000:2). Intellegere falsa and cognoscere vera are therefore the bases of the perfecta philosophiae cognitio. If to them we add praxis anatomiae and intellectio medicinae we obtain appreciable results, as happened in the case of research on the generation of living things that permitted us to verify that generation occurs through the fertilization of the egg by the sperm, thus contradicting the theories of the moderns and the ancients alike (tum recentiores, tum veteres). Observation is therefore not in itself a guarantee of truth in science, for at least three reasons. First, experiments, “even when carried out many times and by expert hands” are, in reality, unproductive and fallacious, as Boyle demonstrated. Second, “as we see every day…man is naturally inclined to general Notions.” Finally, there exists in us a certain “laziness” (svogliatezza) in regard to rigorous analyses of observed phenomena (Gimma 1730: vol. 1, n. p.). In short, numerous “reasons” have “misguided” the search for truth, as it is taught, among the recentiores, by “Bacon, Boyle, Descartes, Gassendi, Malebranche, Amoldo, Muratori, Newton” and, as he well understood, among the veteres, by Agrippa, connoisseur (cultore) of vanitates, fully conscious that the survival of mystery and fable is completely natural in a learning that is ignorant of the concept of proof and verification (Gimma 1730: vol. 1, n.p.). The history of the fable must therefore retrace the steps of human knowledge in its totality, from the ancient Egyptian tradition to the Hebrew, to Greek philosophy, to Christianity, to arrive at the “conjecture” that is the characteristic fable of modern thought and of experimental philosophy. Among these conjectures can be found the Cartesian theory of the souls of beasts, typical example of a modern fable concerning the phenomenon of generation. It would perhaps be useful to take a closer look at some examples of the comparison Gimma establishes so precisely between “moderns” and “ancients” in a few particular cases: Aristotle says that the celestial arch cannot appear greater than a half-circle… Whereas Pico della Mirandola, Campanella, Gassendi, Giuseppe Blancandi, and still others say they have seen it in its entirety … Albertus Magnus considers it false; Capua says it is possible. That the water at the bottom of the ocean is fresh. Scaliger confirmed it… and Boyle says that not only have English fisherman tasted that it is salty at the bottom, but also that in certain areas of the tropics fishermen sometimes found chunks of salt that they used to season their food… That the lion only has marrow in his paws… That a lion’s urine stinks, as do his entrails. (Gimma 2000:237–8) As the first appreciable result of his investigation of fables, Gimma essentially establishes the arbitrariness of the identification of the ancientfabulous and the modern-scientific, confirmed by the fact that Cartesian corpuscular philosophy continues to be defined as modern even though it by no means avoids the fabulous. He therefore suggests new classifications in which a philosopher is called ancient when, in the presence of new “doctrines,” he reproposes those of the past simply because he is pushed by habit and not

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because he has compared these doctrines and established those which best explain the examined phenomena; and the label “modern” is applied to those who carry out this critical comparison after having corrected the fabulous elements of the doctrines of the past. Consequently, the Idea was devoted to the analysis of one aspect of fabulous natural history and was supposed to be concurrent with the completion of Gimma’s planned encyclopedic or universal history. The naturalis historia fabulosa, planned by Gimma in accordance with these premises, is at once a history of fables and scientific theories, a history of their intersections and their differences, and of the primacy of science over the fable which, for the moderns, has become nothing more than the cover of deliberate lies or incapacities and theoretical limitations. Gimma’s history is developed around the problem of the generation of living things and examines this problem in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms; and, confronting in an orderly fashion the fables “introduced” by the ancients and the moderns, he finally arrives at the scientific theory of the generation of living things. In applying this method, Gimma was able to delimit the very concept of “living thing,” which he applies only to animals and vegetables; whereas the Platonic-Pythagorean theory of the existence of a world-soul seems to be nothing but a “fable.” The function of the historian is the following: “to purge” (ispurgare) natural history of its “numerous hidden virtues…sympathies or antipathies …imaginary properties of plants and animals…and influence of the Stars and evil spirits on natural things” (Gimma 1723: vol. 1, 740), and penetrate (penetrante), though not without difficulty (non sine taedo), the labyrinth of fables (Gimma 1714:2). Refined in 1714, as he wrote and published the first volume of the Dissertationum, this position synthesizes two elements of Gimma’s thought in those years: the Cartesian component, the refusal of “occult causes” defined in the Sylvae as being admirable effects whose causes are unknown; and the Baconian component, the interest accorded to forms of prescientific knowledge and the persistence of these forms even in modern thought. Studium and experimentum, theory and experimentation, liberate the naturalem philosophiam from the fabulous that obscures it and restore its candor through an attentive analysis that emphasizes the differences between fables invented by historians, by poets, and by natural philosophers. Pliny is the prototype of the lying philosopher who uses the principle of authority to disclose, as if he had direct experience of them, things he has neither seen nor heard: in short, he “plura Poëtarum figmenta commiscuit” and in this way “plures quidem Poëtarum fabulae apud Historicos pro veris reperiuntur” (Gimma 1732: vol. 2, 56). After him, a number of naturalists and physicians admitted, after Pliny’s example, many things inverisimiles e assueti “opinionibus de illis dubitarum.” This habit also prevailed among the recentiores, in such a way that philosophy was plunged into vanis imaginationibus and fabricationibus phantasiae.42 Fables thus surpassed the limits of the territory reserved for them, the territory delimited by ratio and judicio. In short, fables are to be found throughout the field of natural history, from the Egyptian “symbols” to the lying fables of the naturalists, to the great fatras of modern experiments which often, instead of serving as an instrument capable of putting an end to differences of opinion, becomes a means of amplifying them. The limits to the efficacy of experimentation in the search for a veritable science are

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not lost on Gimma, who provides a complete list of them: (a) the experiment is a concept that varies over the course of the centuries, so that it is difficult to accept as experiments those that even Aristotle judged as such; this is because of the use of modern instruments unavailable to Greek researchers; (b) the isolated and unrepeated experiment cannot confirm a theory; Redi himself ends up expressing reservations on the role of observation in natural research and affirms that, in any case, the effect in nature is never that confirmed by a single experiment; (c) experiments typically have as their final result the legitimation of opposing conjectures about things that are verisimiles, probabiles, if not impossibiles; and, if that were not enough, (d) their inessential character (inessenzialità) is sufficiently confirmed by the persistent impossibility of writing a true and universal natural history.43 These are the premises on which Gimma constructs his historia naturalis fabulosa, which may be followed chronologically starting from the two volumes of the Dissertationum. Among the modern fables, the “Cartesian” Gimma enumerates in 1714 those of Paracelsus; while in 1732, in a period when he seems to waver in his Cartesianism, he discusses, and not by chance, what seems to him to be a modern fable, the theory of the souls of beasts. Cartesian theory is therefore a fable, an error that we must correct or even expellere as we have the phantasma antiquorum. It is only afterward that we can research the causes of things. Against Cartesianos one must admit that animals possess a sensitive soul, a sort of natural instinct. They are therefore Machinae, in the larger sense, as are men.44 To sum up the entire question, Gimma—who uses Cartesian sources such as the Franciscan Antoine Le Grand, who “suos… Cartesianos mirabiliter cogit principium aliquot admittere, per quod Brutus vivant”—recalls that duo sententiae contrary to one another in substance vigent: the Aristotelian theory, according to which beasts possess a natural instinct, is opposed to the Cartesian theory, according to which animals are machines. If the Commentaria to De Anima and to the Fisica of the Conimbricenses constitute the authorized source of Aristotelian and classical tradition, Antoine Le Grand, Edmond Pourchot, and Ignace-Gaston Pardies are the corresponding source of Cartesian and modern tradition (Gimma 1730: vol. 2, 22, 75). The previously cited works are the Dissertatio and the Institutiones, by Le Grand and Pourchot respectively, and the Discours de la connaissance des bestes by Pardies, but also the works of Del Rio, Gassendi, Toledo, Willis, Scott, Fracastoro: recentiores contrary to Cartesian theory and defenders of the sensitiva cognitio of animals (Gimma 1732: vol. 2, 85–119). Cartesian theory, in short, is not new: as early as 1554 the Spanish doctor Gometius Pereira had made himself its promoter in the Antoniana Margarita and even earlier, as Plutarch attests, it had been maintained by Diogenes the cynic, according to whom “belluas non intelligent, nec sentient” (Gimma 1732: vol. 2, 59). Cartesian theory is therefore situated among the admirabilia. The argument of Albertus Magnus (God “si potuit, ergo creavit”; Gimma 1732: vol. 2, 12) proves that beasts are not machines solely because God, in his sovereign power, could have created them thus. The sovereign power of God, Gimma comments, is eventually proven by the liberty that allows every man to conceive of creation in his own manner (“Deus nihil amplius fabbricare valeat, quam quod homo possit concipere”; Gimma 1732: vol. 2, 126). There therefore exists but one possible reading of Cartesian theory, and it is the one

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that can be drawn from Borelli’s De motu animalium and that can perhaps be traced back to Aristotle: the reading according to which not only animals, but also men, can be defined as machines because they are composed of organs that move mechanically (Gimma 1732: vol. 1, 50). Gimma shows, however, that he considers fabulous and hypothetical conjecture to be an inevitable part of natural research; that is, of a research that aims to understand the causes and principles of phenomena. He is conscious of at least three limits characterizing this type of research: the first is linked to the capacity to find the researched causes; the second, well known to Aristotelians, is caused by the difficulties in linking a determined effect to a determined cause; the third derives from the capacity to orient one’s own work. Because of these difficulties, Kircher, in order to explain these “prodigious crosses” that appeared on clothing after the eruption of Vesuvius, “either by the ignorance of the acting causes such as Stars; or by the nearly infinite multitude of causes, or by the lack of direction in his research” (Gimma 1730: vol. 2, 506) resorts to fantastic hypothesis, and Agostino Nifo can believe in the existence of prodigious rains that produce fish, frogs, and worms (Gimma 1730: vol. 2, 512). The fable therefore takes over where scientific research reaches its limit. Gimma demonstrates that Aristotle was fully aware of the fundamental uncertainty of natural research. On the other hand, Gassendi, Descartes, and Boyle, allowing their conjectures to approach the status of modern fables, demonstrate the survival of the fabulous in modern physics. Universality, abstraction, and “metaphysicality” are the characteristics of this knowledge: whatever form it may take, cultivated by the Rosicrucians, Gassendi, Descartes, or Boyle and the researchers associated with the Royal Society, this knowledge cannot be confined to one particular nation or era. In reality, the path of research followed by the recensiores has its practitioners in every civilized European country and particularly in Italy, homeland of Galileo, Borelli, Campanella, and Della Porta. Conclusions I can now propose conclusions—conclusions, however, which are of a strictly provisional nature. The spectrum of inquiries examined is too narrow and concerns only the two cases of Paolo Mattia Doria/Francesco Maria Spinelli and Giacinto Gimma. In the third decade of the eighteenth century, Cartesian philosophy in Naples continues to undergo major contaminations: if in the first phase of its diffusion it relied upon the philosophy of Gassendi (and thus returned to the Italo-Galilean tradition), it soon comes to depend on the philosophy of Malebranche and Spinoza. The background against which the Doria-Spinelli conflict appears is unfortunately disrupted by an appeal to the ecclesiastical censor, demonstrating (through the refusal of the different points of view to confront one another) not only philosophy’s inability to find possible combinations of diverse theories, but even the uselessness of all such attempts. Philosophers then delegate to diverse and authoritarian instances the care to resolve philosophical discussions, refusing to maintain the reasons for the distinction between philosophy and religion, reasons defended forcefully in Naples by the first wave of Cartesians. Among the physicists we find the antiauthoritarian indictments of Giuseppe Valletta and Francesco

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D’Andrea. On another note, the experience of the Cartesian physicists to whom Vico referred is already distant in 1723, when Gimma theorizes the impossibility of reducing the “ancients” to Aristotelians and the “moderns” to Cartesians. The abbot lacks the courage to deny facts that seem evident to him: on the one hand, the survival of the “fabulous” in the spaces that science failed to occupy, and on the other, the possibility of a scientific use of cabbalistic techniques and the recuperation, on historic grounds, of Aristotelian “science.” For him, moderns and ancients represent only generally, and for convenience’s sake, Cartesians and Aristotelians. In reality moderns and ancients are equally shared among the Aristotelians, Cartesians, empiricists, probabilists, astrologers, alchemists, magicians, Rosicrucians, etc. In Gimma’s discourses we find the overcoming of the schematic distinction between veteres and recentiores, which had been able to work as long as it had seemed possible to erect barriers between the old and the new: in them we also find the proposition of a “metaphysical” reading of the fabulous which, in reducing the fable to mere “conjectures” or “hypotheses,” eventually shifts attention to the very model of modern science. We can conclude our analysis with a significant citation from Gimma’s Idea dell’Italia Letterata: But if for every art and doctrine we wished to describe the Italian Works and Authors of this century, we would certainly grow dull, and quite long, for there is no subject that has not been treated fully by both the School of the Ancients and the School of the Moderns… and if there are any adherents of either School in Italy, so too there are [vi sono eziandio] in the other Nations.

Notes 1 Cf. Ricci 1997. From the province in which he was working as a private tutor, Vico confirms for us, in his Autobiography, that the first Cartesians were scientists, and he notes: “I received the news that the physics of René Descartes had overshadowed the renown of all past philosophies” (Vico 1990: vol. 1, 20). Cf. Lojacono 1997 and Belgioioso 1999. 2 This work of Descartes was translated into Italian in 1722 by G.E.Barbapiccola. 3 The Academy of the Investiganti will have as its epigraph (esergo) vestigia lustrat. Taking it upon themselves to research “latentem veritatem in libro naturae” (Lobkowitz 1670:678), the Investiganti are atomists, Baconians, and Gassendists. They therefore present corpuscular philosophy as an updated version of the Italic philosophy of antiquity (antiquissima italorum sapientid). The latter, they maintain, had picked up the ancient Hebrew-Egyptian tradition of Mocho, or the Hebrew Moses, in the reelaboration of Pythagoras and Plato. As for Descartes, Vico (Vita scritta da se medesimo) traces him back to Plato; Giuseppe Valletta (1636– 1714) presents him (Lettera in difesa della moderna filosofia) as the heir of Augustine and of the Platonic tradition. Cf. Vico 1990: vol. 1, 21, 29.

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4 In a certain sense, with Vico’s Scienza Nuova, published in 1744 (3rd edn), one can symbolize the end of a cultural season that lasted almost a century. 5 Doria publishes numerous works of philosophy and has copyists transcribe thirtyfive works that will remain in manuscript form. He takes care to leave them to a library, Sant’Angelo a Nido, so that the memory of them might be maintained: cf. Belgioioso et al. 1979–86:167–398, and Belgioioso 1985a. The most recent essay dedicated to the cogito in the Discorsi is Marcialis 1996. 6 “Tangere enim et tangi, nisi corpus nulla potest res” (Lucretius 1937: I.304). This is the verse cited by H.More in the letter to Descartes dated 11 December 1648 (AT 5:239). 7 Doria 1732; but cf. Doria 1718. 8 The meeting points between Gassendism and Cartesianism are many. One example among others: Le Journal des scavans of 1689–90, reviewing Voet 1688, writes: He follows the opinion of M.Descartes on that [on time], as in his explanation of most of the Phenomena that depend on heat, cold, and fermentations. In all the rest he is more Gassendist than Cartesian, as he will appear to those who will have the curiosity to look at it. 9 See Barbapiccola 1722. She specifies that Doria had won himself “an infinity of disciples” and that he had the merit, which was no small achievement, of having broken the firmly rooted taboo according to which philosophy is not well suited to women. And in the introduction to her Italian translation of the Principia, she will remember that women, “as René confirms…have a greater aptitude for philosophy than do men,” stressing that the Principia were dedicated to the Princess Elisabeth. This account is important for two different reasons: Barbapiccola, as we have just said, is the translator of the Principia into Italian; she wrote interesting notes on Doria—to whom she dedicates her translation—and on Spinelli. About the former, two years before he abandons the Cartesian camp, Barbapiccola remembers that he took up the defense of women in a work dedicated to the Duchess d’Este. And she adds that this was possible only because he was a Cartesian. As for the latter, she writes: “Mister D.Francesco Spinelli, Prince della Scalea, was ready to publish a very learned work in which he outlined all of the errors that had been attributed to Descartes, especially in metaphysics, where he had had his most dogged adversaries” (idem.) Among these errors Spinelli will include, in 1733, those of Doria. 10 Cf. Belgioioso 1985b. 11 As for the place of publication of the Discorsi, the Giornale de’ letterati, in 1724 (XXXVI:367) clarified: Tutto ché col nome di Venezia, fu però impressa in questa città [Napoli] in 8 l’opera infrascritta Discorsi…di Paolo Mattia Doria. Quest’opera, che è pag. 224 oltre ad una tavola delle materie che vi si trattano, e può servire d’un ristretto della stess’opera, è tessuta con molta sottigliezza di dottrina e varietà d’erudizione.

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On the polemics in which Doria was involved, cf. Badaloni 1968, and Badaloni 1961:272–86; Belgioioso, “I Discorsi critici filosofici di Paolo Mattia Doria, I manoscritti napoletani di Paolo Mattia Doria, Note sul Doria inedito,” in Belgioioso 1992:167–322. 12 This decline begins with the propagation of Christianity: “i primi cristiani furono da vivacissimi raggi della Divina grazia sì fattamente accesi della virtù della carità, che niun conto credeano dover fare dell’umana sapienza” (Doria 1724:20). 13 In 1723, that is, a year before I published my book of Critical Discourses, Mister Giovanni Regio published a book under the title Cartesius verus Spinozismi Architectus, sive vherior Assertio, et Vindicatio Tractatus, cui titulus Cartesius Spinosae praelucens antehac vernaculo sermone aediti; quibus quam clarissime nec non certissime demonstratur, in Cartesio reperiri primaria fundamenta Spinozismi. Auctore Johanne Regio Med. et Philos. Doctore hujusque Professore Amstelodami quod Balthazarum Lakeman 1723. Cartesius verus spinozismi architectus by Johannes Regius is published in 1718. The topos of Spinozan metaphysics as filiation of Cartesian metaphysics was present in texts widespread in Europe and in Naples such as the anonymous L’impie convaincu ou dissertation contre Spinoza published in 1684, considered by Pierre Bayle to be a jumble of insults and bitterness (Bayle 1964: vol. 1, 157), or the 1704 Le philosophe de Rotterdam accusé atteint et convaincu, attributed by A.A.Barbier to Pierre Jurieu (1637–1713), French theologian and controversialist taking refuge in Holland, animator of Huguenot resistance to Louis XIV, first the friend and later, for religious and political reasons, the avowed enemy of Pierre Bayle (see Barbier 1822). Doria makes abundant use of the text. 14 Cf. L’arte di conoscere se stesso, in Doria 1982–6: vol. 4, 411–31. 15 Doria 1718: n.p.: “The celebrated, illustrious, late Lord D.Giovan Vincenzo Gravina in the verses that are dedicated to me, in the preface of his very learned Tragedies printed in Naples in the year 1717.” 16 Calogerà 1753: vol. 41, 499. 17 That is, the Italian translation of the Abregé of Baillet 1691. Francone wrote in the Dedica (n.p.): La cagione più forte…per cui deve quest’operetta portare in fronte il vostro nome, si è che a voi parmi che veramente si appoggi in cotesta città la Scuola cartesiana, e voi senza fallo siete il sostegno della sua eccellente filosofia. 18 See note 9 above. Giambattista Vico, in his Autobiografia, clarifies: “what Doria admired as sublime, great, and novel in René, Vico finds old and vulgar in the Platonicians” (Abbagnano 1976:80). Doria’s spirit, he adds, often “was unconsciously Platonic” (ibid.: 17). Vico, in the years when Doria published his Scienza civile, criticizes, in De nostri temporis studiorum ratione, the analytic method, exposing the risks that could derive therefrom in the formation and instruction of the young: “a fanciulli appena usciti dalla grammatica—écrit-il—si

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apre la filosofia sulla logica che si dice di Arnaldo” which is abstract and distant “dal comun senso volgare.” A logic that prematurely “transports” the young toward criticism, that brings them “a ben giudicare prima di ben apprendere,” while algebra “affligge l’ingegno” instead of aiding the fatigued intellect. In De nostri temporis studiorum ratione (in Vico 1990: vol. 1, 89–215), Vico compares the methods of the ancients and the moderns in order to determine “Utra studiorum ratio rectior meliorque, nostrane, an antiquorum” (Vico 1990: vol. 1, 94). The principal error of the moderns (Arnauld) consists of overestimating criticism, “che ci rende veraci,” but suffocates youthful imagination to the detriment of the topic that renders us “eloquenti” and that, in contrast, is vaunted by the ancients (Cicero) (ibid.: 108). Today, Vico continues, innovators follow the arid and deductive method of the Stoics, while the Aristotelians follow the varied and multiple method of the academics. The two methods are defective: topics, which can consider something to be true that is in fact false, and criticism, which refuses even the plausible. The two methods must be used in conjunction (ibid.: 110). It is useful to learn logic in order to avoid two inconveniences: “quelli di Arnauld, il quale, benché porti esempi utili, si capisce a stento, e quelli degli aristotelici, i cui esempi, sebbene si capiscano, sono affatto inutili” (ibid.: 112). Analysis, Vico writes, must not be considered as anything but an “artifice” to which the instruments of synthesis show themselves to be insufficient (ibid.: 121–5). 19 For more on the connections between Jansenism and Cartesianism, see Chapter 5 in this volume. 20 They repeat, for example, that “tutti quelli i quali possono intendere che due e tre fan cinque, possono intendere dello stesso modo le più grandi verità della Filosofia” (Doria 1724:20). 21 These are the parts of Descartes’s works analyzed and discussed by Doria and, above all, by Spinelli. It therefore does not seem possible to share the point of view expressed in Ferrone 1982: “More than the Principia philosophiae, the scientific limitations of which were not slow to become evident, the clear and convincing arguments of the Discours de la méthode constitute during this time the banner of the novatores” (465). The already-cited essay by Ettore Lojacono at the very least sheds light on the absence of the Discours in Naples. The work of Descartes had suffered the same fate in France; cf. Garber 1988. In the texts concerning the DoriaSpinelli polemic, too, there is but one indirect allusion to the Discours: Renato Des-Cartes…ha fatto un Trattato di metodo, nel quale egli insegna buone massime generali di Logica, ed ordina sempre, che nella Filosofia si siegua il metodo, che sieguono li Geometri; ma poscia il suo Trattato di Metodo è un Discorso, una Disertazione, e non è mai un vero Trattato di logica metodico, ed ordinato, ed egli stesso è il primo che non osserva nella sua Filosofia le Massime, ch’egli consiglia. (Marangio and Spedicati 1900: vol. 5, 289) 22 Doria thus keeps his distance from the two solutions, proposing his own metaphysics which he defines through “the immaterial Unity.” In this, he attempts

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an extravagant graft of Plato onto Spinoza—the Plato christianized by Marsilio Ficino, of course. He advances the argument that numerous Fathers of the Church believed that in the ancient philosophers, particularly in Plato, “the love for God contained, in an implicit manner, faith in Christ.” He also recalls that “many believe that Saint Augustine said it was possible that Plato had been saved, as we read in Motte Levayer in Volume V of the virtues of the pagans” (Doria 1724:97, 148). 23 According to the summary he provides in the Discorsi, it is precisely at that moment—that is, once, after the end of his conversation with friends, he began to rethink the entire course of the Meditationes—that he becomes aware of the contradictions contained in the theory of the mind-body distinction. 24 “Pregiudicatissimo contro ogni filosofia che non fosse stata pura scolastica,” cited by Ajello, “Cartesianismo e cultura oltramontana,” in Ajello 1980:125f. 25 Cf. Casini 1985. 26 On this question I refer the reader to Ajello’s article cited in note 24. On the DoriaSpinelli polemic, see G.Belgioioso, “Discoursi critici filosofici de Paolo Mattia Doria,” in Belgioioso 1992; and Belgioioso 1988. 27 Doria, for his part, will admit: accennato mio libro [Discorsi] alla pag. 24 fino alla fine ho rifiutato, come non miei a cagione che in quelli, senza avvedermene mi era con Spinosa incontrato, per conseguenza dello studio, che avea fatto nelle Meditazioni di Renato, voi dalla pag. 66 alla pag. 71 criticate quei miei Dialoghi da me stesso rifiutati. An unconscious error, in light of which Spinelli’s rigor seems to him to be excessive: Ora io gli errori, che innocentemente feci in quei Dialoghi gli ho detestati, e voi mi condannate di Spinosista per quelli? Oh, Signor Principe, va troppo oltre il vostro rigore, o per meglio dire il vostro livore; ma sapete perche avete criticato quei Dialoghi, voi li avete letti, e forse li tenete nelle vostre mani, perche io 1’improntai a primo al Sig. Gregorio Caloprese, ed egli tanto gli stimò forti, che non volle più restituirmeli, anzi si partí da Napoli senza niente avvisarmene, e se li portò alle vostre terre in Calabria, ove poi avendo con voi dimorato lungo tempo prima che fosse morto gli avete insieme letti ed esaminati, ed è probabile, che come erede di tutte le sue scritture voi li teniate ancora nelle vostre mani; ma io vi protesto, Signor Principe, che se voi mai li pubblicarete si dovranno rimirar, come vostri, non come miei, perché io come miei li ho già rifiutati, e perciò mai non gli ho colle stampe pubblicati. (Doria 1733:105, 106f) 28 The immediate conclusion is that Doria must not even have read Descartes’s books: “You undertook the reading of René (if, that is, you have ever read from his books) with prejudice.” Finally, Spinelli provides Doria with an essential bibliography of anti-Spinozist literature:

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Lami the Benedictine was Cartesian, as were Regis, il Valdovisio, Vittichio, and many others, who refuted that author [Spinoza] in their most learned treaties; and more than the others, one can label not only Cartesian but Descartes himself my master Gregorio Caloprese who, in one of his works that has not yet been published, dealt in such a fashion with that Author [Spinoza], particularly unmasking his innumerable contradictions, that he left him without a leg to stand on. (Spinelli 1733:6) 29 “Ea omnia quae hujus doctrinae [metaphysics] sunt propria, quaeve subjecto ejus sub ea ratione, qua in ipsa consideratur conveniunt” and which “ad rerum ipsarum comprehensionem et ad brevitatem aptior sunt” (“Proemium,” in Suárez 1988). 30 Cf. Ethics Idef1: “By its own cause I understand that of which essence implies the existence; which is to say that of which nature cannot conceive but as existing” (G 2:45/C 408); in Idef3: “By substance I mean that which is in itself and is conceived for itself: that is, that whose concept does not necessitate another concept from which it would derive” (G 2:45/C 408); in Ip14c1: “God is unique, that is…that in the nature of things he gives himself only a single substance” (G 2:56/C 420); in Ip15d: “One can neither give nor conceive of any other substance outside of God” (G 2:56/C 420); and in Ip21: “All of the things that derive from the absolute nature of some attribute of God had to exist as eternal and infinite, which is to say that they are eternal and infinite by virtue of the attribute itself’ (G 2:65/C 429); but cf. Ip22–6 (G 2:66–8/C 430–2). 31 Cf. the discussion in Chapter 7 of Wittich’s critique of the Spinozistic account of substance. 32 Although standard English language translations of original language texts are cited, all translations are from the latter. 33 “Da altri costretto, e contra la sua volontà [Descartes] diede quel saggio di ordinar la prima filosofia secondo il metodo di Euclide” (Spinelli 1733:169). 34 “S’avvide che il pensiere che gli rappresentava la propria esistenza, non poteva da lui esser messo in dubbio” (Spinelli 1733:121). 35 “Che la certezza di questo pensiere era stata in lui cagionata dalla distinzione, cioè dallo essersi esso distinto, e separato da tutti gli altri” (Spinelli 1733:121). 36 “Renato ha avuta la certezza della esistenza, e più propriamente delle esistenze delle due prime cose, su le quali poggia tutta la filosofia, dico della esistenza di se stesso, e poi di quella di Iddio” (Spinelli 1733:127). 37 Ma quando Renato cacciò nel dubbio tutti gli altri pensieri, anche quel di Dio, il proprio pensiere insieme con la sua esistenza, volle restarsi per forza in quell’Ego sum, ego existo, il quale tutto solo, tutto in se stesso si restò; dunque essendo questo rimasto solo esistente, non ebbe bisogno di altre sostanze nelle quali esistesse, e per conseguenza essa, sostanza separata, così come restò in quel punto che si conobbe, dovrà sempre essere. (Spinelli 1733:128)

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38 The citation is taken from the First Replies, AT 7:103/CSM 2:75. 39 “Thus, René says that, in this case, it is considered in substantiis, which is to say in individuals, and qualis revera est, because one always observes it as varied in the individual”; “in making of its variabilities a collective concept, we come to call them mode” (Spinelli 1733:220). 40 Ciò che veramente sembra un miracolo del metodo di seguir’il naturale attacco che Iddio ha posto ne’ nostri pensieri, discoperto dal solo Renato, si è che dalla stessa unione della nostra mente con il nostro corpo, si ricava la distinzione reale di queste due sostanze tra loro. (Spinelli 1733:428) 41 Cf. P.Zambelli, “Il rogo postumo di Paolo Mattia Doria,” in Zambelli 1973. 42 Cf. D.A.Lopes, Lectori candida, in Gimma 1732: vol. 1, 6. 43 Cf. Belgioioso 1992:32. 44 Cf. Belgioioso 1992:36; Gimma 1732: vol. 2, 136–7.

Part V The reception across the Channel

11 Mechanism, skepticism, and witchcraft More and Glanvill on the failures of the Cartesian philosophy Douglas Jesseph Introduction The reception of Cartesian philosophy in England is a complex phenomenon that resists any simple characterization. Nevertheless, one pattern stands out, and I shall take that theme as the organizing principle for my remarks here. The theme I have in mind is the embrace of Cartesianism in the 1640s and 1650s and a subsequent disenchantment with Cartesian principles in later decades. Once hailed as the great genius who had put natural philosophy and metaphysics on an unshakable foundation, Descartes had by the eighteenth century acquired a reputation among the English as one who propounded a collection of “notional” speculations and poorly founded hypotheses that were taken up by his slavish followers and maintained on no more serious ground than the master’s authority. Some measure of the depth to which Descartes’s reputation had declined can be found in the 1734 Compendious System of Natural Philosophy by the Englishman John Rowning. He complained that So wild and extravagant have been the Notions of a great part of Philosophers, both ancient and modern, that it is hard to determine, whether they have been more distant in their sentiments from truth, or from one another; or have not exceeded the fancies of the most fabulous Writers, even Poets and Mythologists. (Rowning 1734:1) These errors, he explained, were “owing to a precipitate proceeding in their searching into Nature,” and “their neglecting the use of Geometry and Experiment” (Rowning 1734:1). In common with many proponents of the “New Philosophy” Rowning discerned such shortcomings in the work of the Ancients and the Scholastics, but among the moderns, he found none more guilty of these extravagances than Descartes. As he explained with remarkable condescension: So unaccountable are the notions of this great Philosopher, that it is surprizing his doctrine should have met with such universal reception, and have got so strong a party of Philosophers on its side, that notwithstanding it was more absurd, than the Schoolmens Substantial Forms, they might all be exploded to

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make way for his ingenious Hypothesis. (Rowning 1734:4) Rowning’s work is little read today, although it was a publishing success in the eighteenth century and went through many editions from the 1730s to the 1770s. Its interest lies in the fact that it expresses the sort of condemnation eighteenth-century Newtonians would regularly level at Descartes, accusing the French philosopher of precipitously introducing hypotheses to explain away mysteries of his own making, rather than proceeding by a careful observation of nature. The figure of Descartes thereby came to occupy the sort of rhetorical role that Galileo had assigned to Aristotle—the head of a school of natural philosophy in which the master’s ridiculous tenets were obstinately upheld by his followers, contrary to experience, reason, and truth itself. My point here is not that Rowning or other Newtonians had anything like an adequate interpretation of Descartes’s philosophy. Rather, I wish to take this sort of condemnation as a starting point and ask how Cartesianism came to be held in such low esteem, for indeed things were not always so. In the 1640s leading English philosophers and scientists were all but unanimous in their admiration for Descartes, author of fundamental contributions to mathematics, optics, mechanics, and first philosophy. Indeed, William Cavendish (then Marquess of Newcastle) attempted to bring Descartes to England in 1640 and apparently envisaged setting him up as a savant in the court of Charles I. If we are to believe Descartes’s biographer Adrien Baillet, this scheme was brought to grief by the outbreak of the English Civil War, whose cost was too great to permit the king to realize the plan (Baillet 1970: vol. 2, 67–8). Baillet, at least, seems to have found a positive aspect of the Civil War in that it kept his hero Descartes from becoming the greatest philosopher in England. Some thirty years after these events, the English man of letters William Petty could look back and see Newcastle as the center of an intellectual network of French and English virtuosi devoted to the task of founding a new philosophy.1 Petty’s portrayal of Descartes as one member of a happy group of learned men collaborating in the search for truth contrasts vividly with Rowning’s depiction of him as the imperious head of a party of philosophers united by their devotion to the master’s extravagant hypotheses. One might think that Rowning’s distaste for Descartes is entirely explained by the triumph of the Newtonian system. The 1687 appearance of the Principia occasioned a surge of chauvinistic anti-Cartesian polemics among the English, but hostility to the Cartesian system among English thinkers pre-dated the appearance of Newton’s works and developed through the 1650s and 1660s. This mounting distaste for things Cartesian can be seen with particular clarity in the reactions of Henry More and Joseph Glanvill, and these are the two figures on whom I wish to focus. A number of significant similarities in philosophical outlook unite More and Glanvill, but their approaches to the perceived shortcomings in Cartesianism also differ in important ways. Both men have been classified as Cambridge Platonists,2 although in the case of Glanvill this classification seems dubious for want of both a link to Cambridge and any consistent attachment to Platonism.3 More’s avowed philosophical allegiance was to the principles of Plato, and he clearly merits inclusion among the Cambridge Platonists. In contrast, Glanvill was a self-professed skeptic who insisted that “It is the shallow unimprov’d

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intellects that are confident pretenders to certainty; as if contrary to the Adage, Science hath no friend but Ignorance” (Glanvill 1665:7). Nevertheless, Glanvill was a great admirer of More and the two were close associates in the 1660s and 1670s who shared a particular interest in witchcraft. They were also both connected to the early Royal Society, More being one of the first elected a Fellow in 1661 and Glanvill in 1664. In addition, Glanvill was a tireless propagandist for the Society who published several tracts in defense of its activities and contributions both to learning and piety (see Glanvill 1970: xvii–xxi). Any study of the English reception of the Cartesian philosophy must also concern itself with Thomas Hobbes. His Third Objections to the Meditations (AT 7:171–96/CSM 2:121–37) are of obvious importance in assessing the English response to Descartes, but Hobbes’s real significance in this context lies in the fact that his thoroughly materialistic version of the mechanical philosophy so horrified other English philosophers that it became the object of almost universal denunciation. As a result, the main source of the decline in Descartes’s reputation among English philosophers was the suspicion that the Cartesian system was tainted by a too-great similarity with monstrous Hobbesian materialism. There is considerable irony here. In the 1640s Hobbes was one of the few English philosophers to critique the Cartesian system, and he directed his strongest objections at the conception of the mind as an immaterial, thinking substance; but the complaint English philosophers would most often voice against Descartes in later decades was that his philosophy led to the denial of spiritual substances and the danger of outright atheism. This criticism was, in the first instance, concerned with difficulties in Descartes’s natural philosophy, but the conclusions drawn from it bore on issues in metaphysics and theology. At first glance it may be difficult to believe that More’s Platonism, Glanvill’s skepticism, their shared interest in witchcraft, and ties to the Royal Society can plausibly be read against the background of Descartes’s philosophy. Notwithstanding the appearance of incongruity, there is a unifying theme here. What brings these seemingly disparate items together is opposition to Cartesian mechanism, and more specifically the view that the mechanistic principles set out by Descartes are inadequate to account for the phenomena of the natural world. Unresolved tensions in the Cartesian account of body, mind, causation, and explanation led on the one hand to More’s doctrine of an essentially active “hylarchic principle” animating bodies, and on the other to Glanvill’s mitigated skepticism in the service of empirical science. These come together in the treatment of the mechanical philosophy in the Royal Society, where Cartesian themes involving mind, mechanism, and theology were modified and reinterpreted in a variety of ways, not least in investigations into witchcraft and demonic possession—phenomena thought to require explanatory resources exceeding those of the mechanical philosophy. Henry More and the defects of Cartesianism More’s engagement with the philosophy of Descartes is an instance of the pattern I noted at the outset—an initial embrace of that philosophy followed by a hostile rejection. The story of More and Descartes is well known,4 but it merits a brief sketch here. In the 1640s

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More proclaimed the virtues of the Cartesian philosophy, and specifically Descartes’s natural philosophy, even to the point of teaching it to his students at Cambridge and advocating its incorporation into the university curriculum generally. In a 1648 letter to Descartes, More was effusive in his praise, writing that “all the masters of the secrets of nature who have ever been or are now appear as mere dwarves or pygmies in comparison with you” (AT 5:237). Even making allowances for the rhetorical flourishes one might expect in seventeenth-century correspondence, it is clear that More was deeply impressed with Descartes’s achievements. One attraction the Cartesian system held for More was its success in accounting for the phenomena of the natural world without recourse to the Scholastic apparatus of forms and qualities, which had come into disrepute among the learned of the 1640s. More was every bit a modern in his holding that the “occult qualities” of Aristotelian natural philosophy should be banished from accounts of the natural world.5 However, he was interested in keeping mechanism in its place, because he was convinced that a full account of the world must make recourse to active “spiritual” principles that go beyond mere mechanism. For all his praise of the Cartesian system in the late 1640s, More eventually became disenchanted with it and went on to become one of the most outspoken and persistent critics of Cartesianism. This change in view was not a decisive break with Cartesian principles, but rather the gradual development of critical tendencies present even in his earliest reactions to Descartes. Alan Gabbey has argued that the points raised in More’s letters to Descartes contain “almost all the criticisms that More was ever to level at Descartes on purely philosophical or physical grounds…either fully fledged or in embryo, either explicitly or implicitly” (Gabbey 1982:193). We should therefore seek the grounds of More’s disaffection for Cartesianism in certain of his philosophical commitments that remained constant from the 1640s to the 1670s and which ultimately overcame his enthusiasm for the Cartesian program. In my view, the source for More’s eventual hostility toward the philosophy of Descartes was his overriding interest in theology. More’s scheme of things made philosophy (and particularly natural philosophy) subservient to theology. As he explained in the Preface to his Collection of Several Philosophical Writings, his intention in “interweaving of Platonisme and Cartesianisme so frequently as I do in these writings,… is not to Theologize in Philosophy, but to draw an Exoterick Fence or exteriour Fortification about Theologie” (More 1662: vol. 1, vi). In the 1640s More thought the Cartesian philosophy of nature fit this apologetic scheme quite nicely, but beginning with his 1653 Antidote against Atheism his criticisms of Descartes mounted, to the point that in his 1671 Enchiridion Metaphysicum he denounced Descartes as the “chief Author and Leader” of the philosophical sect he dubbed the nullibilists, or those who deny that immaterial spiritual substances have spatial location.6 More’s venomous characterization of Descartes in 1671 contrasts sharply with his adulation from the 1640s. As More put the matter: [W]e will now propose and confute the Reasons of…the Nullibilists. Of whom the chief Author and Leader seems to have been that pleasant Wit Renatus des Cartes, who by his jocular Metaphysical Meditations, has so luxated and

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distorted the rational Faculties of some otherwise sober and quick-witted persons, but in this point by reason of their over-great admiration of Des Cartes not sufficiently cautious, that deceived, partly by his counterfeit and prestigious subtilty, and partly by his Authority, have perswaded themselves that such things were most true and clear to them; which had they not been blinded with these prejudices, they could never have thought to have been so much as possible. And so they having been so industriously taught, and diligently instructed by him, how they might not be imposed upon, no not by the most powerful and most ill-minded fallacious Deity, have heedlessly, by not sufficiently standing upon their guard, been deceived and illuded by a meer man, but of pleasant and abundantly cunning and abstruse Genius; as shall clearly appear after we have searched and examined the reasons of this Opinion of the Nullibilists to the very bottom. (More 1689:134–5) It is remarkable that More’s language here resonates with that of Rowning—Descartes is the leader of a philosophical sect, whose devotees swallow down any absurdity offered by their cunning and deceitful master. More’s attack on Descartes the “nullibilist” was directed in the first instance against the metaphysics of the Meditations rather than the natural philosophy of the Principles, but he eventually came to regard the entire Cartesian enterprise as theologically suspect. Although he always insisted that Descartes himself was free of any suspicion of atheism,7 More complained that Cartesian mechanism could mislead the unwary into atheism because they might not appreciate its limitations. The danger, as he put it, was that the Mechanical part of the Cartesian Philosophy has by its own nature so enticed scholiasts and half-educated men in that it brags that all the phenomena in the World can be explained from local motion and matter alone, and that there exists no extension that is not material or corporeal.8 More reasoned that if all extension is corporeal, and if material motions and impacts can explain the whole of nature, then not only is there literally no place for an incorporeal spirit, but spiritual principles themselves are explanatorily superfluous. Yet a world devoid of spirit is equally devoid of God. As he famously framed the issue in concluding his Antidote against Atheism: “assuredly that Saying is not more true in Politicks, No Bishop, no King; then this in Metaphysics, No Spirit, no God” (More 1662: vol. 1, 142). In the Preface to his 1660 Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness, More identified the source of his disillusion with Descartes when he remarked, the more I read, the more I admired [Descartes’s] Wit; but at last grew more confirmed That it was utterly impossible that Matter should be the onely essential Principle of all things, as I have in several places of my writings demonstrated. (More 1660:vii) More’s Antidote was first published in 1653 and marks the beginning of his decidedly

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critical attitude toward Cartesianism. The date is significant because it helps explain what led More to see the mechanical philosophy as less consistent with theology than he had earlier supposed. The 1651 publication of Hobbes’s Leviathan made clear the challenge mechanism could pose to any traditional theology. Hobbes’s thoroughgoing materialism equated substance with body and ruled out the possibility of an incorporeal spirit or God of the traditional sort. Openly contemptuous of the Aristotelian-Scholastic philosophy and its associated “School Divinity,” Hobbes called into serious question any project like More’s which attempts to harmonize the mechanical philosophy with standard theological notions. Horrified by what he found in Leviathan, More denounced the Hobbesian philosophy. Indeed, Hobbes has been aptly described as the figure who gave the entire Cambridge Platonist movement “the means of concentrating its thought and giving dogmatic direction to it” (Tulloch 1872: vol. 2, 26). More’s encounter with Hobbes’s philosophy convinced him that mechanism threatened the “Exoteric Fence” he intended to protect theology from philosophical encroachment. From 1651 on, More’s emphasis would be not on how much could be explained mechanically, but rather on how little the mechanistic model can contribute to our understanding of the world (Hall 1996:124–5). He still regarded Descartes’s system as the best available model of the “mechanical philosophy,” but in his grand theological scheme of things this turned out to be faint praise indeed. This disaffection with Cartesian mechanism gave form and content to More’s mature metaphysical system, which has three salient fundamental theses. The first of these is the essentially negative claim that mechanical principles leave much unexplained. Matter, More insisted, is utterly passive and cannot be the source of motion (More 1662: vol. 2, 44). Further, such elementary facts as the cohesion of bodies, the communication of motion through impact, gravitation, the growth of plants, or the “spring” of air resist explanation in purely material terms. Indeed, More took the wonderful order, harmony, and evident design in the natural world as convincing evidence of a rational spirit that directs and animates matter. In the seventeenth century’s most hilarious instance of the design argument, More observed that “Nature has made the hindmost parts of our body which we sit upon most fleshy, as providing for our Ease, and making us a natural Cushion,” a fact he regarded as inexplicable in terms of the blind motion of senseless matter, and from which he concluded “that it is manifest that a Divine Providence strikes through all things” (More 1662: vol. 2, 81). If human anatomy were the result of nothing beyond matter and motion, our lives would apparently be much less comfortable. The explanatory inadequacies of mechanism lead to the second fundamental thesis of More’s metaphysics, namely the existence of an active spiritual force in the world. More dubbed this force the “Spirit of Nature” or the “Hylarchic” principle. As he defined it: The Spirit of Nature…is, A Substance incorporeal, but without Sense and Animadversion, pervading the whole Matter of the Universe, and exercising a Plastical power therein according to the sundry predispositions and occasions in the parts it works upon, raising such Phœnomena in the World, by directing the parts of the Matter and their Motion, as cannot be resolved into mere Mechanical powers. (More 1662: vol. 2, 193)

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It is worth pointing out that More used this principle to resolve an important tension in Cartesianism concerning the extent of divine causality. The Spirit of Nature brings activity to an otherwise inefficacious material world, while at the same time avoiding the pitfall of occasionalism. In More’s philosophy, it is not God himself who actually moves material bodies but a sort of “junior God” who gets things done; as More defined it, the Spirit of Nature is the “Vicarious power of God upon Matter” (More 1662: vol. 2, 13). Furthermore, human (and animal) souls are immaterial, active principles distinct from both God and the Spirit of Nature. The point here is that the inefficacy of matter need not carry the pantheistic or occasionalistic implication that God is the sole causal agent; rather, More took all of the natural world to be literally animated but without making God himself the soul of the world. It would be obvious madness to attempt to defend the adequacy of this theory. Yet we should note that, in keeping with the principle that occult causes are to be banished from natural philosophy, More went to some lengths to argue that the Spirit of Nature is not an obscure principle that might “enervate or foreslack the useful endeavours of curious Wits, and hinder that expected progress that may be made in the Mechanick Philosophy” (More 1662: vol. 2, 11). Therefore, at least in More’s estimation, the doctrine of the Spirit of Nature has all the advantages of the Cartesian mechanical philosophy and none of its defects. We should consequently read his theory of the hylarchic principle as More’s way of resolving key metaphysical problems he discerned in the work of Descartes. The third central thesis in More’s metaphysics is that both spirits and bodies are extended substances, differing in that spirits are penetrable and indivisible while bodies are impenetrable and divisible. This explains how mind and body can interact, or more generally how a spiritual substance can affect a material substance. In addition, it avoids the unpalatable consequence that God and souls lack spatial location and are literally nowhere. More aired this thesis as early as his first letter to Descartes,9 and it became more important as his criticism of the Cartesian system mounted in the 1650s and 1660s, when he argued that the attempt to explain mind-body interaction in terms of a nexus at the pineal gland was a useless hypothesis intended to dissolve a problem of Descartes’s own making (More 1662: vol. 2, 80–4). The influence of Hobbes can be detected in this aspect of More’s philosophy, since it was crucial in his response to the Hobbesian criticism of immaterial substances as unintelligible (Mintz 1962:90). As More came to understand the issue, the identification of body with extension forced the Cartesians to deny that minds are spatially located, leaving them without the means to counter Hobbes’s insistence that “that which is not Body, is no part of the Universe: And because the Universe is All, that which is no part of it, is Nothing; and consequently no where” (Hobbes 1991:463). More’s way out is to declare minds extended, which entails a denial of the claim that extension is the essence of body. Space itself, as More famously concluded, is something distinct from mere extension and has attributes of eternity, omnipresence, and other characteristics that liken it to the Deity. I will return to this matter shortly, but would first like to consider Glanvill’s reaction to Cartesianism.

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Glanvill’s skepticism as a response to Descartes Glanvill’s attitude toward Descartes and Cartesianism conforms to the pattern of early enthusiasm followed by growing disillusionment, although it lacks the extremes we saw in the case of More. Glanvill’s first published work was his 1661 essay, The Vanity of Dogmatizing, in which he made clear that his skeptical stance was taken in the service of theological ends. He had previously written two works, one a treatise on the immortality of the soul and the other a “Vindication of the use of Reason in matters of Religion” which was intended to serve as a “Corrective of Enthusiasm” (Glanvill 1661: Preface, sig. A3r). However, events made the publication of either treatise moot: “The latter being rendered less necessary by his Majesties much desired, and seasonable arrival; and the former by the maturer undertakings of the accomplisht Dr.H.More” (Glanvill 1661: Preface, sig. A4v). Glanvill’s concern to defend religion did not disappear with the Restoration and the appearance of More’s Immortality of the Soul. The learned world’s increasing tendency to abandon Aristotelianism in favor of the new “mechanical philosophy” raised the question whether theology ought not undergo a radical revision. Glanvill was one among many to propose that scholastic “School Divinity” should be cast aside.10 The difficulty for Glanvill is that his condemnation of Aristotelianism and its associated School Divinity is indiscernible from that offered by Hobbes. Indeed, both Hobbes and Glanvill suggested that one sure means of detecting the intellectual fraud perpetrated by the Aristotelians was to translate their technical vocabulary from Latin into plain English to make its absurdity apparent.11 In fact, Glanvill mentioned Hobbes approvingly as one who had helped to undermine the authority of Aristotelianism (Glanvill 1661:161). Too close an alignment with Hobbes’s philosophical program would be fatal to Glanvill’s theological ambitions, but the difficulty could be avoided by interpreting the central tenet’s of the “new philosophy” as essentially skeptical and anti-dogmatic. Hobbes was routinely denounced for his dogmatic attachment to materialism, and he is notable by his absence from Glanvill’s list of “Illustrious Heroes” of philosophy, which includes Descartes, Pierre Gassendi, Galileo, Tycho Brahe, William Harvey, More, and Kenelm Digby (Glanvill 1661:240). On Glanvill’s reading, the Cartesian method of doubt is a kind of skepticism whose intent is to undermine dogmatic assurance. Hobbes’s insistence on the unintelligibility of the notion of an incorporeal substance is exactly the kind of dogmatism Glanvill sought to overthrow, and he thought that the correct interpretation of Cartesian principles would bring Hobbes’s dogmatic system to grief. Skepticism does not, however, impede the progress of science. Glanvill held “the method of the most excellent Des-Cartes [is] not unworthy its Author; and (since Dogmatical Ignorance will call it so) a Skepticism that is the only way to Science” (Glanvill 1661:73–4). Not rashly accepting the evidence of the senses, but understanding that things might always be other than we imagine them, is actually part of the proper method of inquiry. According to Glanvill, the senses can provide (nonconclusive) evidence of the way nature works, and empirical observation invites us to frame hypotheses to explain the more remote workings of nature. This is the Cartesian method as understood by Glanvill, which never takes its hypotheses for certainties:

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[T]hough the Grand Secretary of Nature, the miraculous Des-Cartes have here infinitely out-done all the Philosophers [who] went before him, in giving a particular and Analytical account of the Universal Fabrick: yet he intends his Principles but for Hypotheses, and never pretends that things are really or necessarily, as he hath supposed them: but that they may be admitted pertinently to solve the Phœnomena, and are convenient supposals for the use of life. Nor can any further account be expected from humanity, but how things possibly may have been made consonantly to sensible nature. (Glanvill 1661:211–12) Not being one to regard his natural philosophy as so much fallible conjecture, Descartes could scarcely have recognized his system in Glanvill’s characterization of it. We should consequently take Glanvill’s esteem for Cartesianism as based on fundamental misunderstandings. It is worth observing that More had objected to Descartes’s tendency to attribute mathematical necessity and certainty to his conclusions (as indicated in Gabbey 1982:193), and Glanvill’s opposition to misplaced dogmatic certainty would apply quite fittingly to much of Descartes’s natural philosophy; and in time he became ever less enamored of the Cartesian system. Glanvill employed his skepticism in the service of a fideistic religious epistemology underwritten by the Augustinian doctrine that humankind’s fallen state makes it incapable of knowing things as they truly are (see Glanvill 1970:xxii–xiv). In contrasting our epistemic limitations with the knowledge possessed by Adam, Glanvill remarked that: [W]hereas we patch up a piece of Philosophy from a few industriously gather’d, and yet scarce well observ’d or digested experiments, [Adam’s] knowledge was completely built, upon the certain, extemporary notice of his comprehensive, unerring faculties. His sight could inform him whether the Loadstone doth attract by Atomical Effluviums; which may gain the more credit by the consideration of what some affirm; that by the help of Microscopes they have beheld the subtile streams issuing from the beloved Minerall. (Glanvill 1661:6) In the face of our cognitive limitations, the best we can hope for is to find empirically supported hypotheses and avoid dogmatic attachment to any particular hypothesis. The interests of faith are secured, however, because the denial of God’s existence is an untenable exercise in dogmatism, while close scrutiny of nature renders the existence of God a plausible hypothesis worthy of rational acceptance. The waning of Glanvill’s admiration for Descartes’s philosophy becomes apparent in a survey of his works after 1661. A subtle but significant shift in attitude appears in the 1665 revised version of The Vanity of Dogmatizing which Glanvill published under the title Scepsis Scientifica; or Confest Ignorance the Way to Science. This contained a reply to criticisms leveled against the earlier version, but more noteworthy is the fact that the revised work was addressed to the Royal Society. In the address that serves as the preface, Glanvill made plain his admiration for the Society’s undertakings and expressed

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his confidence that these will bring thinking people to religion rather than lead them from it. Like More, Glanvill had become alarmed at the prospect that “divers of the brisker Geniusses, who desire rather to be accounted Witts, then endeavour to be so, have been willing to accept Mechanism upon Hobbian conditions, and many others were in danger of following them into the precipice” (Glanvill 1665: Preface, b1r–b1v). The corrective to this contagion lies in the work of the Society “by which the meanest intellects may perceive, that Mechanick Philosophy yields no security to irreligion, and that those that would be gentilely learned and ingenious, need not purchase it, at the dear rate of being Atheists” (Glanvill 1665: Preface, b1v). The Society was so pleased with this work that Glanvill was elected a Fellow on the strength of it (see Greenslet 1900:64). Glanvill did not remove all his earlier praise for Descartes from the Skepsis Scientifica,12 but it is noteworthy that his list of “Illustrious Heroes” of philosophy (in which Descartes had enjoyed top billing) was replaced by reference to “that Constellation of Illustrious Worthies, which compose The ROYAL SOCIETY” (Glanvill 1665:176). Glanvill’s endorsement of Cartesianism was also tempered by his allusion to the lack of empirical confirmation of its chief hypotheses. Sounding the tone that would be echoed by opponents of Cartesianism in the Royal Society for decades to come, Glanvill lauded the project of experimental science and insisted that “while we frame Scheames of things without consulting the Phœnomena, we do but build in the Air, and describe an Imaginary World of our own making, that is but little a kin to the real one that God made” (1665: Preface, sig. b4r). This, of course, is precisely the criticism Rowning and other Newtonians would bring against the Cartesian system. Glanvill shared More’s belief that Cartesian mechanism leaves much unexplained, but he did not follow him in proposing a hylarchic principle to remedy its defects. Instead, Glanvill held that the explanatory failures of mechanism strengthened the case for his brand of skepticism. The problem of accounting for mind-body interaction is central to this project, and Glanvill was happy to note that “The Dogmatist knows not how he moves his finger; nor by what art or method he turns his tongue in articulating sounds into voyces” (Glanvill 1665:9). Instead of offering a satisfying account of the world, Cartesianism issues in intractable mysteries that underscore our cognitive limitations. Glanvill announced it was “clear as Noon” that humans “are a Compound of beings distant in extremes,” but insisted that “how the purer Spirit is united to this clod, is a knot too hard for our degraded intellects to unty” (Glanvill 1665:15). For all its virtues, the mechanical philosophy fails to make sense of the mind’s power to move the body, and the Cartesian doctrine that voluntary actions involve the will directing “animal spirits” through the nervous system raises more questions than it answers: That it is performed by meer Mechanisme, constant experience confutes; which assureth us, that our spontaneous motions are under the Imperium of our will. At least the first determination of the Spirits into such or such passages, is from the Soul, what ever we hold of the after conveyances; of which likewise I think, that all the Philosophy in the world cannot make it out to be purely Mechanical. (Glanvill 1665:19) Descartes took the soul’s power over the body as an unproblematic feature of daily

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experience that needed no complex explanation. Glanvill, however, was happy to draw skeptical conclusions from Cartesian premises, even if Descartes would not have granted the inference. Glanvill discerned mysteries in other parts of the Cartesian program, arguing (as had More) that the complexity and order of the natural world cannot be explained in purely mechanistic terms. He concluded that “had heaven afforded that miracle of men, the Illustrious Des-Cartes a longer day on earth, we might have expected the utmost of what ingenuity could perform herein” (Glanvill 1665:36). But he immediately followed up this praise of Descartes by cataloging numerous fundamental physical phenomena that cannot be explained in terms of mechanism; these include the cohesion of bodies, the nature of fluidity, and the composition of bodies out of parts. In the end, Glanvill concluded that the Cartesian system could offer no true knowledge because knowledge must be based on a grasp of causes and our causal knowledge of nature is founded only on the observation of regularities and falls short of certainty. As he summed up this part of his skeptical philosophy in the heading to the thirteenth chapter: “We cannot know any thing to be the cause of another, but from its attending it; and this way is not infallible; declared by instances, especially from the Philosophy of Des-Cartes” (Glanvill 1665:141). It should come as no surprise that by 1676, when Glanvill published the third version of the Vanity of Dogmatizing as the essay “Against Confidence in Philosophy and Matters of Speculation,” praise for Descartes had been further diluted. Instead of dominating the stage as the great “secretary of nature,” Descartes does not stand out from the crowd. Glanvill’s progressive estrangement from Cartesianism is also discernible in his 1668 tract Plus Ultra, or the Progress and Advancement of Knowledge since the Days of Aristotle, which he published to defend the Royal Society against the charge that its pursuit of the new science promoted irreligion. Intended as a supplement to Thomas Sprat’s 1667 History of the Royal Society, Glanvill’s Plus Ultra reviewed the progress of science and portrayed the Royal Society as “that Illustrious Assembly, which I look upon as the great ferment of useful and generous Knowledge” (Glanvill 1668: Preface, 24). Descartes is notable by his nearly total absence from the pantheon of scientific and philosophical heroes of Plus Ultra, where the work of Robert Boyle is singled out and commended at length. Glanvill does offer praise for the “inimitable Des Cartes” whom he describes “as one of the greatest wits that ever the Sun saw” (Glanvill 1668:24, 33). However, his positive references to Descartes are confined to his mathematical work, and even in that realm Glanvill finds the contributions of John Wallis worthy of equal billing. It is hardly surprising that in a piece devoted to the Royal Society Glanvill should focus on the notable achievements of Englishmen and Fellows of the Society, but his pronounced retreat from previous enthusiasm for Descartes is still remarkable. By the time of his 1676 essay “Anti-Fanatical Religion, and Free Philosophy,” Glanvill had little good to say about Descartes and his reservations echoed those of More. This essay continues the conceit of Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, describing the ideal world of Bensalem, a society consisting of wise and happy sages who discuss theology and philosophy. The judicious virtuosi of Bensalem found in Descartes a prodigious wit, and clear thoughts, and a wonderfully ingenious Fabrick of Philosophy, which they thought to be the neatest Mechanical System of things

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that had appear’d in the World; However, they adhered not to it, as the certain Account of Nature; nor yielded their assent as to positive and establish’d Truth; But entertain’d what they thought probable, and freely dissented in other matters. Yea some of them, who thought highly of his Mechanical wit, and believ’d he had carried matter and motion as far they could go; declar’d earnestly against the completeness, and perfection of his Hypothesis; and learnedly shew’d, That the Mechanical Principles alone would not salve the Phœnomena; and that his accounts though they were pretty, and ingenious, were yet short, defective, and unsatisfying; and in some things not very agreeing, and consistent. (Glanvill 1970:50–1) Among the Cartesian principles dismissed as “ridiculous fancies” by many sages of Bensalem, Glanvill listed the doctrine “That all things were Mechanical, but Humane thoughts, and operations; and that the Beasts were but meer Automata, and insensible machins” (Glanvill 1970:53). Glanvill thus came to see the Cartesian philosophy as, at best, a system of hypotheses with some plausibility, but he stressed that it was radically incomplete in scope and contained its share of absurdities. It is interesting to observe that More’s philosophy met a similar fate in Glanvill’s Bensalem—its critique of Cartesian mechanism is portrayed as having significant merit, although the hypothesis of a Spirit of Nature was a bit too far-fetched for some of the wise men of that fictional island to take seriously (Glanvill 1970:51). Glanvill’s disaffection for the Cartesian system developed during the same time that he became interested in witch-craft, and we need now to turn to a brief consideration of that aspect of his thought, as well as its connections to the work of More and the Royal Society. Witchcraft, mechanism, and natural philosophy Glanvill’s investigations into witchcraft seem to have begun in the early 1660s, although it is unclear exactly when his interest in the subject was aroused. The first publication to result from his studies appeared in 1665 as A Philosophical Endeavour towards the Defence of the Being of Witches and Apparations. This was a commercial success and was published in numerous other editions over the next few years, eventually appearing in 1681 in an expanded posthumous version (edited by none other than Henry More) under the title Sadducismus Triumphatus.13 It certainly seems odd that a professed skeptic should spend time on such a project, all the more so when we realize that Glanvill must have been writing and revising his first essay on the reality of witchcraft even as he was re-issuing his Vanity of Dogmatizing under the title Scepsis Scientifica and being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. The mystery is solved, however, by understanding Glanvill’s witchcraft writings as part of a broader program to combat atheism and evince the reality of a world of spirits. Indeed, Chapter 24 of the Scepsis Scientifica, which concerns “Instances of reported Impossibilities,” recounts remarkable tales of happenings closely allied to witchcraft. These include telepathic “secret influence” of spirits on one another, the “secret

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conveyance” by which remote objects act on one another, and “sympathetic Cures.” In the context of the Scepsis Scientifica, these tales of mysterious powers are put in the service of Glanvill’s skeptical program, with the intent of illustrating that “what seems impossible to us, may not be so in Nature” (Glanvill 1665:152). Although Glanvill took the trouble in Scepsis Scientifica to sketch possible mechanical explanations of these mysteries, his emphasis on the limits of mechanistic explanations eventually led him to conclude that the entire realm of spirits would have to be explained by extra-mechanical means. Glanvill’s purpose in devoting himself to the study of witchcraft, ghosts, and other “occult” phenomena was to make the case against materialism and its atheistic implications, and his target was the extreme Hobbesian version of materialism as well as the Cartesian natural philosophy. Glanvill pointed out that belief in any spiritual thing— the soul, angels, demons, God, witches, etc.—must rest on essentially the same sorts of evidence in every case, and those who reject one sort of spiritual entity might find no principled reason for rejecting them all. Hobbes had notoriously dismissed belief in witchcraft as superstitious nonsense arising from ignorance,14 and the first objection to the existence of witches that Glanvill sought to turn back was the typically Hobbesian assertion that “The NOTION of a Spirit is impossible and contradictious; and consequently so is that of Witches, the belief of which is founded on that Doctrine” (Glanvill 1689:69). Hobbes was the main “sadducist” against whom Glanvill sought to strike a blow, but Cartesians—or at any rate over-zealous proponents of mechanism—were not far behind. Glanvill imagined that people of this sort will object to the possibility of witches on the grounds that “There are Actions in most of these Relations ascribed to Witches, which are ridiculous and impossible in the nature of things” (Glanvill 1689:70). Glanvill’s reply to this potential objection is that the strange Actions related of Witches, and presumed to be impossible, are not ascribed to their own Powers, but to the Agency of those wicked Confederates they imploy: And to affirm that those evil Spirits cannot do that, which we conceit impossible, is boldly to stint the powers of Creatures, whose Natures and Faculties we known not; and to measure the world of Spirits by the narrow Rules of our own impotent Beings. (Glanvill 1689:72) This is a thesis familiar from Glanvill’s skeptical writings, and he supports it by referring to the familiar litany of natural phenomena which mechanism fails to explain. He then proposes various means by which these remarkable things might be accomplished, but it is noteworthy that he never attempts to describe a mechanistic account of how witches or demons might operate. Instead, he offers to explain the phenomena associated with witchcraft in terms drawn from the philosophy of Plato, even insisting that “there is none of the Platonical Supposals I have used, but what I could make appear indifferently fair and reasonable” (Glanvill 1689:11). A few points should be stressed in considering Glanvill’s treatment of witchcraft phenomena and its relationship to Descartes. The first is that Glanvill’s method was very

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much empirical in its orientation. He gathered evidence through his own investigations as well as testimony of others, taking care to see that the events in question were well attested and presenting the material in a way consonant with the methods and principles of enlightened natural philosophy. In the “Publisher’s Address” to the reader of Sadducismus Triumphatus, we learn that among the stories included in that work there are “none admitted but such as seemed very well attested, and highly credible…and such as rightly understood contain nothing but what is consonant to right Reason and sound Philosophy” (Glanvill 1689:2). Witches and other demonic entities appear not as utterly fantastic or other-worldly beings whose actions are inexplicable, but as spirits on a par with human minds and having powers analogous to those that the mind has over the body. In short, there are no occult qualities in Glanvill’s studies of the occult. A second point worth making in this context is that, although Hobbes’s metaphysical system has no place for witches or ghosts, there is nothing in Cartesianism that rules such things out a priori. I know of no evidence that Descartes himself ever discussed witchcraft, and in fact seventeenth-century France saw far less concern with witchcraft than did England. The general tenor of Descartes’s approach to natural philosophy is to de-mystify matters and conceive nature as simply extended bodies moving and colliding in accordance with mathematical laws, all without animal minds, substantial forms, or other extraneous spiritual agents. Notwithstanding his extreme reductionist program, Descartes certainly could admit the possibility of witches, since the power of God would permit him to create any number of malevolent spirits and set them loose on the material world. Glanvill was unconcerned with this possibility, however, because his efforts were focused on opposing those who embraced mechanism and took it to imply that spiritual agency could be quite banished from the scientific account of the world. In other words, Glanvill saw evidence of witchcraft as refuting Cartesian mechanism, even if Descartes himself would not have seen such evidence as relevant to the case. A third point worth stressing here is the connection between More and Glanvill, who appear as a sort of “dynamic duo” of seventeenth-century English demonology. Glanvill’s developing interest in the subject in the 41660s was probably inspired by More, and the two seem to have been part of a circle devoted to the study of supernatural phenomena (see Greenslet 1900:66–7). More’s interest in witchcraft antedated his acquaintance with Glanvill and is discernible in his discussion of witches and other spiritual phenomena in the early 1650s as part of the Antidote against Atheism. In the third book of the Antidote, More contrasted the demonology of the sixteenth-century French scholar Jean Bodin with the mechanism of Descartes, concluding that Bodin’s views were worthy of rational acceptance and compared favorably to Descartes’s overestimation of the virtues of mechanism (More 1662: vol. 1, 24). The capstone of the More-Glanvill collaboration on witchcraft was the posthumous 1681 publication of Sadducismus Triumphatus, which More edited and to which he appended an English translation of material from the last two books of his Enchiridion Metaphysicum, under the title “The Easie, True, and Genuine Notion, and consistent Explication of the Nature of a Spirit.” Not surprisingly, this translated material contained More’s lengthy vituperation against Descartes the “nullibilist” and firmly established the connection between the hunt for witches and the rejection of Cartesian mechanism. A final point to consider here is the place of the Royal Society in both More’s and

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Glanvill’s gradual estrangement from Cartesianism. Both were Fellows of the Society, with Glanvill playing the role of defender of the group against the charge that its activities promoted irreligion. As it turned out, Glanvill thought this could best be done by insisting that, when properly understood, the mechanical philosophy would lead the sober inquirer to admire God’s creation rather than scoff at the pretenses of religion. By emphasizing the explanatory failures of Cartesian mechanism and the necessity of introducing active spiritual principles into the account of nature, More and Glanvill undertook a project not unlike Boyle’s campaign to show that the new science would promote piety. Indeed, one of the more influential (if remote) consequences of More’s attack on the Cartesian principle that extension constitutes the essence of body was Newton’s famous doctrine that absolute space is the infinite, eternal, omnipresent, immovable sensorium of the Deity.15 To conclude, the reception of Descartes among English philosophers can be summarized by considering its odd ironies. First, in seeking to avoid atheistic consequences in the philosophy of Hobbes—who, after all, was Descartes’s bitter contemporary opponent—More and Glanvill rejected Cartesianism and embarked upon the hunt for witches and demons. Second, Descartes’s emphasis on de-mystifying nature and making its causal connections transparent was spurned out of fear that such a demystified nature would lead to the rejection of God. In place of the austere Cartesian world containing only extended bodies in motion, More and Glanvill offer a bizarre amalgam of “hylarchic principles,” skeptical doubts, and ghost stories. Finally, this whole course of events is part of the background to Newtonian mechanics, with its doctrine of forces, absolute space, and gravitation. That, one must say, is a very odd consequence indeed. Notes 1 As Petty put the matter in a 1674 address to Newcastle: [Y] our Grace doth not onely love the search of Truth, but did Encourage Me 30 yeares ago as to Enquiries of this kind. For about that time in Paris, Mersennus, Gassendy, Mr. Hobs, Monsieur Des Cartes, Monsieur Roberval, Monsieur Mydorge and other famous men, all frequenting and caressed by your Grace and your memorable brother Sir Charles Cavendish, did countenance and influence my studies as well by their Conversation as their Publick Lectures and Writings. (Petty 1674: Epistle, sig. A8v–A9r) 2 See Cassirer 1932 and Tulloch 1872 for influential earlier studies of the Cambridge Platonists. Rogers et al. 1997 contains more recent work on the school. 3 Hall notes that Glanvill’s lack of any tie to Cambridge makes Glanvill an unlikely Cambridge Platonist (Hall 1996:61). Cope’s essay “Glanvill’s Platonism” (1956: ch.5) seeks to put Glanvill in the tradition of “Middle Platonism.” However, Glanvill’s eclecticism and pronounced skepticism make such an identification problematic. Greenslet acknowledged Glanvill’s eclecticism, but held that his

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philosophy “finally culminated in a reasonable and broad-minded Platonism” (Greenslet 1900:89). Yet there is little content to the “broad-minded Platonism,” as Greenslet himself admitted with the observation that “apart from his belief in soul-substance, there is little specifically Platonic doctrine to be found in [Glanvill’s] writings” (Greenslet 1900:122). 4 For studies of More, see Gabbey 1982, Hall 1996, and the collection Hutton 1990. cf. the discussion of More in Chapter 1 in this volume. 5 Mintz makes the point that the Cambridge Platonists generally were opposed to occult causes (Mintz 1962:100). In the case of More, this becomes obvious in his 1671 Enchiridon Metaphysicum, where he goes to great length to argue that the notion of an immaterial substance is fully comprehensible, so that materialist objections likening immaterial spirits to occult qualities are misplaced. See More 1679: vol. 2, 131–4. 6 See More 1679: vol. 2, 307–34, for the Enchiridion’s attack on the “nullibilists.” I quote from More’s own translation of this material published in Glanvill 1689:133– 88. 7 This point is made most clearly in section 12 of the “Epistola H.Mori ad V. C” (More 1662: vol. 1, 108–33). In the Preface to this Collection of Several Philosophical Works, More explains that “My main design in my Letter was to clear Cartesius from that giddy and groundless suspicion of Atheism” (More 1662: vol. 1, xi). 8 More to Phillipus van Limborch, 28 June 1669, quoted in Gabbey 1982:246. 9 In the letter of 11 December 1648, More’s first point of disagreement with Descartes was that “the definition of matter or body you use is much too broad. For God seems to be an extended thing, and also angels, and indeed any other self-subsistent thing” (AT 5:238). More then argues that it is better to conceive of mental and material substances as extended, differing in that minds are indivisible and penetrable while bodies are impenetrable and divisible. 10 “The Volumes of the Schoolmen, are deplorable evidence of Peripatecik depravations: And Luther’s censure of that Divinity, Quam primum apparuit Theologia Scholastica, evanuit Theologia Crucis, is neither uncharitable, nor unjust” (Glanvill 1661:166). 11 Only to give a hint more of this verbal emptiness; a short view of a definition or two will be current evidence: which, though in Greek or Latine they amuse us, yet if we make them speak English, the cheat is transparent. (Glanvill 1661:156) Hobbes makes essentially the same point in Leviathan (Hobbes 1991:14, 35). 12 He retained, for example, the judgment that “what I have said here in this short Apology for Philosophy, is not so strictly verifiable of any that I know, as the Cartesian” (Glanvill 1665:183). Elsewhere, his discussions of the progress of science make it clear that the Cartesian is the most fruitful approach available to the learned world.

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13 Greenslet reports that “The book was revised, enlarged, and reprinted at least seven times; in 1667, 1668, 1681, 1683, 1689, 1700, and 1726” (Greenslet 1900:71). In addition, the 1676 Essays contain one entitled “A Blow Against Modern Sadducism,” which is a shortened version of the 1665 book. I use the 1689 second edition of Sadducismus Triumphatus. 14 From this ignorance of how to distinguish Dreams, and other strong Fancies, from Vision and Sense, did arise the greatest part of the Religion of the Gentiles in time past, that worshipped Satyres, Fawnes, Nymphs, and the like; and now adayes the opinion that rude people have of Faryies, Ghosts, and Goblins; and of the power of Witches. For as for Witches, I think not that their witchcraft is any reall power; but yet that they are justly punished, for the false beliefe they have, that they can do such mischiefe, joyned with their purpose to do it if they can. (Hobbes 1991:18) 15 See Koyré 1957: chs. 5–7, for an account of the doctrine of space from More to Newton.

12 Descartes among the British The case of the theory of vision Margaret Atherton

Very few people in London read Descartes, whose works, practically speaking, have become out of date. (Voltaire 1733:71)

Since the time of Voltaire, it has been a commonplace that it is useless to look for the influence of Descartes among the British, that any influence Descartes might have had was brought to a halt by the two-fold barrier of Locke and Newton.1 This commonplace has insinuated itself almost without examination so effectively that it became traditional to portray most eighteenth-century British philosophers as learning from and reacting exclusively to Locke. For example, despite the many references to Descartes, both explicit and implicit, in Berkeley’s texts, George Pitcher nevertheless tells us that “Locke is The Philosopher for Berkeley” (Pitcher 1977:91). Whenever this commonplace was more closely examined, however, as it was, for example, by Sterling Lamprecht in 1935 and later by G.A.J.Rogers, it was found to be in need of qualification, for both the interest in and the influence of Descartes’s ideas were not negligible. According to Rogers, “We might say that in England at least…cartes created a new philosophy without creating a school of philosophy” (Rogers 1985:281). I do not intend here to take issue with Lamprecht’s or Rogers’ conclusions, but instead to accept the invitation Rogers issues in his piece to extend his work. I am going to follow up a hint provided by Voltaire, who is of the opinion that, even though “all the other works of Descartes are full of errors” (Voltaire 1733:71), nevertheless his work on dioptrics has proved fruitful. I will look at the ways in which the development of the theory of vision could not have proceeded in Britain along the lines it took without the influence of Descartes. As Rogers emphasizes, a good deal of that influence is negative—Descartes, he says, made the British think—but, as Lamprecht highlights, he also provided them with some general and almost unexamined assumptions.2 Both of these sources of influence are clearly at work in Berkeley’s summary account of his project on vision in The Theory of Vision Vindicated. To explain how the mind or soul of a man simply sees is one thing, and belongs to philosophy. To consider particles as moving in certain lines, rays of light as refracted or reflected, or crossing, or including angles, is quite another thing, and appertaineth to geometry. To account for the sense of vision by the

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mechanism of the eye is a third thing, which appertaineth to anatomy and experiments. These two latter speculations are of use in practice, to assist the defects and remedy the distemper of sight, agreeably to the natural laws obtaining in this mundane system. But the former theory is that which makes us understand the true nature of vision, considered as a faculty of the soul. (TVV 43)3 The matters Berkeley describes as belonging to geometry and to anatomy are ones about which Berkeley learned from Descartes, among others, since much of this material Descartes adopted from earlier thinkers. They are also areas in which Descartes made him think, since an important motivation for Berkeley, as this paragraph spells out, was to develop a psychology of vision independent of the physical and physiological considerations Descartes incorporated into his theory of vision. But the project Berkeley regards as absolutely central to his theory of vision, “to explain how the soul or mind of a man simply sees” is one that he could not have embarked upon without the influence of Descartes, for it was Descartes who first made the claim that it is the mind that sees. In so doing, Descartes introduced a sharp contrast with earlier accounts, in which seeing was a corporeal process. What I want to do here is to explore the links between Descartes’s claim that it is the mind that sees and Berkeley’s similar claim. I am going, first, to try to uncover the underpinnings to Descartes’s claim in order to understand exactly what is the doctrine whose influence I am tracing. Second, I am going to examine a trajectory that transfers the implications of the doctrine that it is the mind that sees from Descartes to Berkeley via Locke. While I think that it is clear that much of what is important about this notion survives intact, there are also significant alterations that are important for our understanding of the nature of the theory of vision. Descartes Descartes first tells us that it is the mind that sees in the Fourth Discourse of the Dioptrics (AT 6:109/CSM 1:164). It is a significant but seldom noticed fact that he makes this remark not once but twice, once in the Fourth Discourse and once in the Sixth. There are interesting differences both in the context and in the consequences of his claim in the two occurrences. I will for the moment concentrate on the Fourth Discourse. The Fourth Discourse is about sensing in general, so Descartes’s remark is general in scope. He says: We already know sufficiently well that it is the mind which senses, not the body; for we see that when the mind is distracted by an ecstasy or deep contemplation, the entire body remains without sensation, even though it is in contact with various objects. (AT 6:109/CSM 1:164) The thrust of this remark is to foreground the importance of the functioning of the mind in sensation, in addition to the body. He is calling our attention to examples, presumably reasonably familiar ones, where all the right things can be happening in the body, but we do not want to say sensation is occurring, because the mind is not engaged. Sentience is

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not a consequence simply of corporeal processes because it can be turned off by distracting or turning off the mind. I want to point out this is a somewhat different way of establishing the mental nature of sensation than the way that is quite often assumed to be Descartes’s. He is not saying that all those different corporeal processes he is going to describe in some detail in the Dioptrics fall short of providing a satisfactory account of qualitative states like pain or color, so they must be in the mind. He is not, that is, giving what is sometimes called a “dustbin argument”: anything unaccounted for on physical principles must be mental. Rather he is saying, sensation is something lost when we take away the mind. Descartes can be supposed moreover to have other grounds for locating sensations in minds. As he points out repeatedly, as a mode of thought, sensations require a thinking mind to exist. This is how he makes the point in the Sixth Meditation: Besides this, I find in myself faculties for certain special modes of thinking, namely imagination and sensory perception. Now I can clearly and distinctly understand myself as a whole without these faculties; but I cannot, conversely, understand these faculties without me, that is, without an intellectual substance to inhere in. This is because there is an intellectual act included in their essential definition; and hence I perceive that the distinction between them and myself corresponds to the distinction between the modes of a thing and the thing itself. (AT 7:78/CSM 2:54) What is crucial to this account is the claim that an intellectual act, that is, thinking or consciousness, is included in our understanding of what it is to be a sensation. A sensation is just a way of feeling the mind falls into. What then is the intellectual act? One plausible answer, it seems to me, is to say that sensations don’t exist unless minds think or are conscious of them. The intellectual act included in their essential definition consists in this consciousness that constitutes their existence. This means that we don’t have to look about us for another home for sensations when we find they cannot be explained mechanically or materially. Their very occurrence is the occurrence of something mental. Thus, the account of the corporeal process of sensing in the Fourth Discourse of the Dioptrics is an account that is necessarily completed in the mind. Descartes has set himself up in that Discourse, by means of his claim that it is the mind that sees, to be able to describe the physiological speculations that follow as a process that occurs when “the mind, located in the brain, can thus receive impressions of external objects through the mediation of the nerves” (AT 6:109–10/CSM 1:164–5). Descartes is committed to a process that is both psychological and physical. It has been enormously frustrating for Descartes’s readers, starting notoriously with Princess Elisabeth, that Descartes has developed an account of sense perception, apparently with great satisfaction, that, on the one hand, solves the problem of how to link the physical object perceived to the appropriate sense organs of the perceiver in entirely material terms, while, on the other, insisting that the process culminates in a state that is entirely mental.4 It is easy to see, of course, what can be found to be satisfying in this account. Descartes thinks he has found a way of conceptualizing the process of sense perception that links, in a regular manner, the qualities of perceptual objects with states of

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sense organs, by hypothesizing such entities as globules of matter, each with distinctive spins, whose actions can be taken to terminate in the mind’s feeling a certain way, sensing light and color for example. Each of the characteristic ways in which the human mind senses can be shown to be derived from the activity of the appropriate area of the nervous system, as Descartes explains at the beginning of the Sixth Discourse of Dioptrics: And first of all, regarding light and color, which alone properly belong to the sense of sight, it is necessary to think that the nature of our mind is such that the force of the movements in the areas of the brain where the small fibers of the optic nerves originate cause it to perceive light; and the character of these movements cause it to have the perception of color; just as the movements of the nerves which respond to the ears cause it to hear sounds, and those of the nerves of the tongue cause it to taste flavors, and, generally, those of the nerves of the entire body cause it to feel some tickling, when they are moderate, and when they are too violent, some pain; yet in all this, there need be no resemblance between the ideas that the mind conceives and the movements which cause these ideas. (AT 6:130–1/CSM 1:167) Descartes has in fact described a process in which the character of the sensation felt by the mind depends entirely on the nature of the nerves stimulated and not at all on the source of the stimulation. We sense as we do because of the kind of bodies that we have; sensing in one way or another is a passive process the mind falls into as a result of corporeal stimulation. As has been frequently pointed out,5 a passage such as this one anticipates in outline the development of psychophysics in the nineteenth century. In fact, Descartes may fairly be said to have invented psychophysics. There is, however, no way round the fact that the psychophysics Descartes invented is implacably dualist. Even though what makes psychophysics possible is the substantial union of mind and body, as Descartes describes it to Elisabeth, it is clear that what psychophysical laws describe for Descartes are entirely distinct states of mind and body. Descartes explains things this way in a letter for Arnauld: But it is true that we are not conscious of the manner in which our mind sends the animal spirits into particular nerves; for that depends not on the mind alone but on the union of the mind with the body. We are conscious, however, of every action by which the mind moves the nerves, in so far as such action is in the mind, where it is simply the inclination of the will towards a particular movement. The inflow of spirits into the nerves, and everything else necessary for this movement, follows upon this inclination of the will. This happens because of the appropriate way the body is constructed, of which the mind may not be aware, and because of the union of the mind with the body, of which the mind is certainly conscious. Otherwise it would not incline its will to move the limbs. (AT 5:222/CSMK 357)

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We wouldn’t will at all were we not conscious of the union of mind and body, but this sensory apprehension of the union does not give us an apprehension of the movements of the animal spirits as they set our limbs in motion. These movements are entirely physical in nature, and hence beyond the reach of our consciousness. What we are conscious of is the act of the will, for this is mental. Thus psychophysical laws for Descartes are laws describing the action of physical states of bodies to produce such mental states as sensations of light and color, or the action of mental states of willing to bring about physical alterations in the moving bodies. However Descartes conceived of the union of mind and body, the laws describing the activities of this union mention two different kinds of states, those that are mental and those that are physical. So when Descartes tells us that it is the mind that sees, he is telling us that sense perception is a dualist process, involving to be sure corporeal processes, since each sensation is the passive product of corporeal forces, but also culminating in a state that is, on its face, mental. The first time Descartes points out that it is the mind that sees heralds therefore the general outline of his distinctive psychophysical approach to sense perception. When he repeats this remark in the Sixth Discourse of Dioptrics the context has changed. This time he says: But in order that you may have no doubts whatever that vision works as I have explained it, here again I would have you consider the reasons why it occasionally deceives us. First of all, it is the mind which sees, not the eye; and it can see immediately only through the intervention of the brain. (AT 6:141/CSM 1:172) There are two considerations in this new passage that deserve consideration. The first is obviously the new issue of deception, which is now accounted for by the presence of the mind. Second, there is an interesting change in Descartes’s wording. Instead of telling us that it is not the body but the mind that sees, he specifically mentions the eye. Is this significant? Descartes had earlier described a process in which what we see is determined by corporeal events initiated when light hits the retina. Under standard conditions, for example, the surface of an object perceived reflects light globules with a certain spin which imparts that spin to portions of the retina, resulting ultimately, say, in a sensation of red. Hence corporeal changes in the eye are a first step in a causal process of seeing a perceptual object. The first point Descartes seems to want to make is that corporeal changes past the eye can influence what we end up seeing. He instances his notorious case of dreaming, in which seeing takes place as a result of vapors in the brain without any involvement from the eye. In this and similar examples, Descartes is pointing out that the nature of the causal process is such that the bare fact of seeing is not enough to be sure seeing is successful. Since the act of seeing can be caused by some non-standard method, nothing can ensure that each act of seeing is of the perceptual object. This is of course an important consequence for Descartes of abandoning the hylomorphic approach of the Aristotelian tradition. Seeing is no longer explained as activated by the very same form that constitutes the perceptual nature of the object and so is no longer guaranteed to be a successful seeing of that object, or guaranteed to provide us with information about

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the essence of that object. We see only as our bodies are equipped to register, and this alone is no guarantee of successful seeing. Descartes completes his account of deceptions that arise because it is the mind that sees by talking, not about non-standard causation, but about ways in which we are deceived because we misjudge. He mentions mistakes we make when looking through lenses and mirrors about the size and position of objects, he mentions mistakes we make about the distance of remote objects and about the size of very bright ones. In these cases, Descartes seems to be relying on features of the accounts he has just given of the way in which we see position, shape, size and situation, which Descartes has portrayed as involving acts of imagination or judgment as well as sensation. To give one telling example, discussing the way in which we see shape, Descartes says: And it is also obvious that shape is judged by the knowledge or opinion, that we have of the position of various parts of the object, and not the resemblance of the picture in the eye, for these pictures usually contain only ovals and diamond shapes, yet they cause us to see circles and squares. (AT 6:140–1/CSM 1:172) In cases like these, Descartes can be imagined to be arguing that it is the mind and not the eye that sees because the nature of what is registered on the retina is insufficient to account for what we are able to see. We need to supplement the corporeally derived sensations with additional mental acts of the imagination or judgment. So long as the ideas in the mind associated with seeing are only those that can be traced in a mechanical causal process through the body, they turn out to be limited to just those ideas that can be understood to be the passive result of corporeal stimulation, that is, light and colors. This picture of the need for mental supplementation is supported by Descartes’s account of sense perception in the Sixth Set of Replies to the Objections to the Meditations. There Descartes describes a passive stage, in which the mind’s response to corporeal stimulation takes us only to sensations of light and color. The objects of the outside world we say we see are actually the result of further mental activity, referred to in the Sixth Replies as judgments. Unlike the accounts that Descartes is rejecting, which speak of substantial forms and intentional species, Descartes’s causal account does not terminate in perceptual objects, but only in sensible qualities. The dictum that it is the mind that sees has given rise, in Descartes’s hands, to a way of conceptualizing sense perception that embodies a number of influential elements. The first is an approach that regards sense perception as ultimately explicable in terms of psychophysical laws, laws that link a subjective, perceiver-dependent element with states of the perceiver’s body and with the external world. The second is the notion that sense perception is a multi-stage process, requiring reference to ways of feeling our mind falls into upon stimulation as well as to some more intellectual element, linking the sensations to beliefs about the external world. Although both of these elements are very familiar components of theories of perception after Descartes, it is worth pausing for a moment to ask how it is that Descartes’s approach was able so successfully to displace its scholastic rival. For Descartes’s account is not, after all, without its problems, many of which were raised by his contemporary critics, and have been the topic of considerable discussion in

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the recent literature. For example, getting rid of the intentional species has left the representational nature of perception quite unclear. There is no agreement about whether sensations represent,6 and the nature of the perceptual judgment that results in the belief in external objects has also been found to be very puzzling.7 Exactly how the process Descartes describes results in a perception of some object located in external space, like a tree or a chair, remains extremely controversial. Descartes is also unhelpfully casual about respecting the psychophysical boundaries of the elements that go into his laws. In his discussions, for example, of the nature of color perception, he appears to be perfectly willing to identify color with strictly mental states, sensations, strictly physical states, spins on particles, and everything in between.8 Finally, of course, while Descartes is very sure that his account of the causation of sensation is intelligible in a way that appealing to substantial forms or intentional species is not, many of his readers have not been able to enter into his confidence in this matter, and I think there are grounds for discomfort here. For example, consider this superbly confident passage from Principles of Philosophy IV. 198: Now we understand very well how the different size, shape, and motion of the particles of one body can produce various local motions in another body. But there is no way of understanding how these same attributes (size, shape and motion) can produce something else whose nature is quite different from their own—like the substantial forms and real qualities which many [philosophers] suppose to inhere in things; and we cannot understand how these qualities or forms could have the power subsequently to produce local motions in other bodies. Not only is all this unintelligible, but we know that the nature of our soul is such that different local motions are quite sufficient to produce all the sensations in the soul. What is more, we actually experience the various sensations as they are produced in the soul, and we do not find that anything reaches the brain from the external sense organs except motions of this kind. (AT 8–1:321/CSM 1:284) It seems that any reader might well be puzzled to understand how it is that something whose whole nature it is to think can in fact be operated on by local motion, or even why this is so clearly more intelligible than talk of substantial forms. So long as the intelligibility of talk of either minds or bodies depends upon an understanding of the essence of mind or body respectively, it is not at all obvious how to understand psychophysical laws linking the two. In fact, given the many indubitable difficulties that have been raised about Descartes’s theory, it might even be thought surprising that it was so successful against a nice simple account in terms of intentional species. In order to get some insight into the causes of Descartes’s success, it is useful to look at some later accounts of perception. Locke Locke does not have a fully worked out theory of vision, such as that found in Descartes’s Dioptrics and other writings or in Berkeley’s New Theory of Vision. His use

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of Descartes’s ideas, then, must be gleaned from passages throughout the Essay Concerning Human Understanding,9 but a good place to begin is with his only sustained discussion, chapter 2.9, “Of Perception.”10 For our purposes the chapter on perception makes rewarding reading, for quite early on in the chapter Locke says the following: This is certain, That whatever alterations are made in the Body, if they reach not the Mind; whatever impressions are made on the outward parts, if they are not taken notice of within, there is no Perception. Fire may burn our Bodies, with no other effect, than it does a Billet, unless the motion be continued to the Brain, and there the sence of Heat, or Idea of Pain, be produced in the Mind, wherein consists actual Perception. How often may a Man observe in himself, that whilst his Mind is intently employ’d in the contemplation of some Objects; and curiously surveying some Ideas that are there, it takes no notice of impressions of sounding Bodies, made upon the Organ of Hearing, with the same alteration, that uses to be for the producing the Idea of a Sound? A sufficient impulse there may be on the Organ; but it not reaching the observation of the Mind, there follows no perception: And though the motion, that uses to produce the Idea of Sound, be made in the Ear, yet no sound is heard. Want of Sensation in this case, is not through any defect in the Organ, or that the Man’s Ear’s are less affected, than at other times, when he does hear: but that which uses to produce the Idea, though conveyed in by the usual Organ, not being taken notice of in the Understanding, and so imprinting no Idea on the Mind, there follows no Sensation. So that where-ever there is Sense, or Perception, there some Idea is actually produced, and present in the Understanding. (2.9.3–4) Like Descartes, Locke is saying that sensing cannot be considered a corporeal activity because corporeal activity alone is insufficient to result in sensing; we need the cooperation of the mind. Like Descartes, Locke uses as his evidence for this claim that when the mind is distracted, corporeal motions in the body don’t produce a sensory result. Locke too thinks that it is demonstrable that if you take away the mind, you take away the sensation. And finally, Locke, like Descartes, thinks that sensations are conspicuously mental, they are ideas. And, as he says, “To ask, at what time a Man has first any Ideas, is to ask, when he begins to perceive; having Ideas and Perception being the same thing” (2.1.9). Like Descartes, Locke thinks that the only way for an idea or sensation to exist is for a mind to be conscious of it. Locke, then, is fully in agreement with Descartes on the way to think about the role of the mind in sense perception. And Locke is willing as well to accept the general outlines of the psychophysics into which Descartes incorporates his account of mental processes. Here, for example, is a characteristic way in which Locke describes the causal process of sensing. If it should be demanded then, When a Man begins to have any Ideas? I think, the true Answer is, When he first has any Sensation. For since there appear not to be any Ideas in the Mind, before the Senses have conveyed any in, I conceive

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that Ideas in the understanding are coeval with Sensation; which is such an Impression or Motion, made in some part of the Body, as produces some Perception in the Understanding. ‘Tis about these Impressions made on our Senses by outward Objects, that the Mind seems first to employ it self in such Operations as we call Perception, Remembring, Consideration, Reasoning, etc. (2.1.23) There is of course a specifically Lockean point being made in this passage about the experiential origin of our ideas, but it is being made in the context of a generally Cartesian psychophysics. The ideas in the mind are the result of external bodies acting on our sense organs, which, in turn, through motion, produce sensations. While Locke never himself attempts any physiological theorizing and refuses to endorse any specific details of any existing theory, he nevertheless remains comfortable with the general outlines of a psychophysics that links motions of impacting bodies with sensations in the mind. The general reluctance Locke exhibits to endorse the details of any physical theory stems from the aversion he feels to the essentialism that, for Descartes, provides the theoretical underpinnings to any specific account. Locke argues that thinking is something the mind does, it is not something the mind essentially is. He sees thinking in the mind theoretically as on a par with motion in a body; in both cases they are activities of, respectively, minds and bodies, but in neither case are we able to say much about the conditions that make these activities possible. While Locke was notoriously willing to leave open the possibility that matter could think, his more usual position is summed up in this way: Sensation convinces us, that there are solid extended Substances; and Reflection, that there are thinking ones: Experience assures us of the Existence of such Beings; and that the one hath a power to move Body by impulse, the other by thought; this we cannot doubt of. Experience, I say, every moment furnishes us with the clear Ideas, both of the one and the other. But beyond these Ideas, as received from their proper Sources, our Faculties will not reach. If we would enquire farther into their Nature, Causes, and Manner, we perceive not the Nature of Extension, clearer than we do of Thinking. If we would explain them any farther, one is as easie as the other; and there is no more difficulty, to conceive how a Substance we know not, should by thought set Body into motion, than how a Substance we know not, should by impulse set Body into motion. So that we are no more able to discover, wherein the Ideas belonging to Body consist, than those belonging to Spirit. From whence it seems probable to me, that the simple Ideas we receive from Sensation and Reflection, are the Boundaries of our Thoughts; beyond which, the Mind, whatever efforts it would make, is not able to advance one jot; nor can it make any discoveries, when it would prie into the Nature and hidden Causes of those Ideas. (2.23.29) While agreeing with Descartes, to talk in terms of the broad categories of mind and body, Locke does not think that we are in any position to demonstrate the dependence of qualities of mind or body on a clearly conceived essence.

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The consequences of Locke’s caginess are very plainly displayed in a passage where he appears to make use of the general account of color perception developed by Descartes. This passage is in fact cited by Rogers as an example of a place where Locke’s familiarity with Descartes is manifest. Locke says: For supposing the Sensation or Idea we name Whiteness, be produced in us by a certain number of Globules, which having a verticity about their own Centres, strike upon the Retina of the Eye, with a certain degree of Rotation, as well as progressive Swiftness; it will hence easily follow, that the more superficial parts of any Body are so ordered, as to reflect the greater number of Globules of light, and to give them that proper Rotation, which is fit to produce this Sensation of White in us, the more White will that Body appear, that, from an equal space sends to the Retina the greater number of such Corpuscles, with that peculiar sort of Motion. (4.2.11) Rogers is quite correct, it would seem, to point out the resemblance between this passage and the kind of explanation Descartes liked to put forward. There are a couple of things about the use of this passage, however, that distinguish Locke from Descartes. The first is that he immediately divorces himself from this account, pointing out that he is using it only in an example, and does not intend to endorse it. The second is that Locke is actually using this example to make a very non-Cartesian point. He wants to argue that, even if we imagine there is a quantifiably specifiable way of distinguishing amounts of color, we are not able to in fact distinguish color by these quantifiable means. Nevertheless, he argues, we can clearly distinguish the qualities of red and blue, and demonstrate with certainty their difference one from the other. His actual point is that demonstration is not limited to quantity, but extends to qualities. We can demonstrate not just about the primary, quantifiable qualities of bodies, but about their secondary qualities as well. In making this point, Locke is picking up on an issue he had raised more generally when he first introduced the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. In that chapter, he writes: A Painter or Dyer, who never enquired into their causes, hath the Ideas of White or Black, and other Colours, as clearly, perfectly, and distinctly in his Understanding, and perhaps more distinctly, than the Philosopher, who hath busied himself in considering their Natures, and thinks he knows how far either of them is in its cause positive or privitive; and the Idea of Black is no less positive in his Mind, than that of White, however the cause of that Colour in the external Object, may be only a privation. (2.8.3) Locke, unlike Descartes, sees no virtue in trying to write specific psychophysical laws that will link specific states of the external world, via specific states of the nervous system, to some sensory state. He is skeptical of the metaphysics that drives such a project and is dubious about the payoff, as far as our knowledge of the natural world is concerned. He accepts in broad outline the Cartesian account about how our ideas are

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caused, but his interest does not extend to detailing the causal process. What he is inclined to recommend instead, as the passages I have quoted show, is that we pay attention to the various ways in which our ideas go together. Locke, then, fully incorporates the implications of the first of Descartes’s assertions, that it is the mind that sees, into his account, with the proviso that he is less sanguine than Descartes about working out the details of the psychophysics underlying this claim, and more inclined to construct a psychology based on what is present in the mind. But does he accept the implications of the second occurrence of the claim that it is the mind that sees, that there are specifically mental contributions necessary to the perceiving process? It seems the answer to this question must be yes, since in the chapter on perception Locke gives an account of a phenomenon which bears a considerable resemblance to the sort of thing Descartes is talking about in the Sixth Replies, where he is very specific that perception is a multi-stage process. Locke writes: We are farther to consider concerning Perception, that the Ideas we receive by sensation, are often in grown People alter’d by the Judgment, without our taking notice of it. When we set before our Eyes a round Globe, of any uniform colour, v.g. Gold, Alabaster, or Jet, ‘tis certain, that the Idea thereby imprinted in our Mind, is of a flat Circle variously shadow’d, with several degrees of Light and Brightness coming to our Eyes. But we having by use been accustomed to perceive, what kind of appearance convex Bodies are wont to make in us; what alterations are made in the reflections of Light, by the difference of the sensible Figures of Bodies, the Judgment presently, by an habitual custom, alters the Appearances into their Causes: So that from that, which truly is variety of shadow or colour, collecting the Figure, it makes it pass for a mark of Figure, and frames to it self the perception of a convex Figure and a uniform Colour; when the Idea we receive from thence, is only a Plain variously colour’d, as is evident in Painting. (2.9.8) Locke is here claiming, it would seem, that we see, not as we sense, but in accordance with judgments made by the mind, judgments which, moreover, correct the sensation in the direction of its cause. Thus, we see, not what our senses passively receive, but what we come to believe is present. Like Descartes, then, Locke finds it necessary to attribute some kind of supplemental, judgmental role for the mind. Locke, however, seems to think the phenomenon he is instancing here is not very widespread. He attributes it to a peculiarity of vision, which is capable of receiving not only light and color, but also spatial qualities like flgure and motion. There is another line of thought in Locke, however, which he does not raise specifically in the context of a theory of vision, but which at least raises the possibility of a theory of mental supplementation of a different sort than that found in Descartes. When Locke talks about sensations, he calls them “simple ideas” and describes some of them as follows: There are some Ideas, which have admittance only through one Sense, which is peculiarly adapted to receive them. Thus Light and Colours, as white, red,

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yellow, blue; with their several Degrees or Shades, and Mixtures, as Green, Scarlet, Purple, Sea-green, and the rest, come in only by the Eyes: All kinds of Noises, Sounds, and Tones only by the Ears: The several Tastes and Smell, by the Nose and Palate. And if these Organs, or the Nerves which are the Conduits, to convey them from without to their Audience in the Brain, the mind’s Presence-room (as I may so call it) are any of them so disordered, as not to perform their Functions, they have no Postern to be admitted by; no other way to bring themselves into view, and be perceived by the Understanding. (2.3.1) These are the ideas, as Descartes also held, we have by virtue of the kinds of sense organs we have, red or blue because of our optic system, loud or high because of the auditory system, and so forth. But in singling them out and calling attention to the fact that what our sensory systems present us with are single sense qualities, Locke is making possible the observation that these are not what we typically report we see. Typically we say we see perceptual objects, which we describe in terms that identify kinds of things of one sort or another, like trees or chairs, for example. In these cases, according to Locke, we are exhibiting another kind of mental activity, the construction of complex ideas, framed when the mind notices that some simple ideas “go constantly together” (2.23.1). This kind of approach allows the possibility of addressing the problem how, within the framework of a causal account in terms of a body that allows our mind to register only simple sense qualities, we come to perceive a much more complicated external world. It allows the development of an account in which, based on the sensations we receive, we construct complex ideas of what we are seeing. It allows us, moreover, to follow Descartes in framing the solution to this problem in terms of the mind, since complex ideas, for Locke, are “the workmanship of the understanding.” Nevertheless, the operations he ascribes to the mind constructing complex ideas of substances are not intellectual judgments about the causes of our ideas, but are instead about other ideas. This approach, therefore, capitalizes on Locke’s crucial insight, that our account of the human mind shouldn’t extend beyond the ideas we know to be present in it. It is this approach too that we find significantly developed by Berkeley. Berkeley By the time Berkeley undertook to explain how the mind or soul simply sees, much of what was new when Descartes claimed it is the mind that sees had become a commonplace. So instead of arguing that it is the mind and not the body that sees, Berkeley could assume that at this time it seems agreed on all hands, by those who have any thoughts of that matter, that colours, which are the proper and immediate object of sight, are not without the mind. (NTV 43) Berkeley adopts the view that the immediate objects of a sense faculty are those sensible

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qualities proper to it and that the existence of these sensible qualities consists in our consciousness of them: that is, in their being perceived. Berkeley fully endorses the psychological part of Descartes’s psychophysics. It also has to be acknowledged that there are considerable portions of the physical part of Descartes’s psychophysics that find a place in Berkeley’s account. The notorious onepoint argument with which Berkeley sets the stage for his account of distance perception presupposes it is not irrelevant to a theory of vision to talk about light rays reflecting from the object striking the retina. That argument, which Berkeley took over from William Molyneux but which can also be found in Malebranche, claims that distance cannot be immediately perceived by sight because an object at any distance along the line of sight will project the same point on the retina. Berkeley is fully prepared to endorse the notion that facts about the interaction between other bodies and our own body, in particular the retina, are an important element in an account of seeing. Facts about the retina are again crucial to the problem of the inverted image. In raising that problem, Berkeley says, There is at this day no one ignorant that the pictures of external objects are painted on the retina, or fund of the eye: that we can see nothing which is not so painted: and that according as the picture is more distinct or confused, so also is the perception we have of the object. (NTV 88) Berkeley is fully prepared here to commit to a correlation between a perceptual state, the confused perception of the object and a corporeal state, the confused picture on the retina. It is true that he later wishes to correct our understanding of the “pictures,” to make sure we take them to be tangible and not visible, but this is no more than the same correction that Descartes makes when he insists that what is crucial is the pattern of excitations, and not any resemblance of any picture on the retina to some outward object. Berkeley also accepts the terms of the problem laid down by Descartes’s second reference to the mind that sees. He agrees that the proper objects of the senses, the ways of feeling the mind falls into upon stimulation, require mental supplementation before we have a fully satisfactory account of perception. But Berkeley extends Locke’s skepticism about the possibility of identifying what is essential about material substance into a fullblown rejection of the coherence of such a notion. Therefore, he is not willing to conceptualize the perceptual task of mental supplementation as consisting of “judgments about things outside us”, as Descartes did in the Sixth Replies, if the things outside us are assumed to be essentially material causes of our perceptions. For, as he writes in Theory of Vision Vindicated, it would be wrong if one about to treat of the nature of vision, should, instead of attending to visible ideas, define the object of sight to be that obscure cause, that invisible power or agent, which produced visible ideas in our minds. (TVV 18) Instead, Berkeley follows up on a suggestion of Locke’s. Locke put forward the view that since some ideas are constructions of other ideas, then some ideas can represent other

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ideas so that one, viz. That of sensation, serves only to excite the other and is scarce taken notice of it self; as a Man who reads or hears with attention and understanding, takes little Notice of the Characters, or Sounds, out of the Ideas, that are excited in him by them. (2.9.9.) In Berkeley’s hands this hint turns into the Language Analogy, the view that the mental task of perceiving is one of giving meaning to the immediate deliverances of the senses by observing the uniformities among ideas so that the occurrence of some ideas come to suggest what further ideas will follow.11 In Berkeley’s eyes, the task of understanding natural events and processes is one of uncovering uniformities and does not require that we discover the way in which attributes or properties depend upon a material essence. It is therefore easy to see that Berkeley would be, as indeed he is, more sanguine about the possibilities of Cartesian psychophysics even than Locke. For Berkeley has no reason to take a psychophysical law to be a matter of bridging an ontological divide. Berkeley is not inhibited, as Locke was, by skepticism about the possibility of bridging the divide, and is perfectly free to look for uniformities linking sensory states to states of bodies, including our own. There is naturally a cost to Berkeley’s carefree attitude and that is his immaterialism, a cost that not all his successors were willing to pay. It would not be accurate therefore to claim that the widespread acceptance of Cartesian psychophysics that prevailed among English-speaking theorists of vision is entirely due to Berkeley. Indeed, I think the full story of the development of psychophysics as a widely accepted research paradigm has yet to be written. I am willing to maintain, however, that when such a history is written, it will endorse Rogers’ claim that Descartes did create a new philosophy in England, even though the roadblock of Locke prevented him from creating a new school. Notes 1 For such an account, see Jolley 1992. 2 Lamprecht in fact has a more complicated and thought-provoking story to tell. He thinks that Locke passed on a good deal of unacknowledged Cartesian philosophy while at the same time propagating a truncated caricature of Descartes as a vehicle for criticism (see Lamprecht 1935). 3 All references to Berkeley’s work will be to Berkeley 1948. References to Theory of Vision Vindicated will be to TVV and section number, references to Essay towards a New Theory of Vision will be to NTV and section number. 4 On Elisabeth’s exchange with Descartes, see the discussion in Chapter 1 in this volume. 5 See Atherton 1997 and Hatfield 2000. 6 For some recent and divergent views out of a vast literature, see Keating 1999 and Simmons 1999. 7 See Wilson 1993 and Atherton 2002.

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8 For more on these issues, see Atherton 2004. 9 All references to the Essay will be to Locke 1975 by book, chapter and section number. 10 Locke is using “perception” in a somewhat special sense in this chapter, and indeed throughout the Essay his terminology can be challenging. He says here that “perception” can be considered to be the same as “thinking in general,” but also “in bare naked Perception, the Mind is, for the most part, only passive; and what it perceives it cannot avoid perceiving” (2.9.1). 11 See especially NTV 147.

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Index Airoldi, C-F. 145 Alexander 145 154n45 Alquié, F. xiii, 38 Alsted, J.H. 108 Altieri, P. 146 Althan, M. 161,168 Andala, R. 120 Andreae, T. 103 Anglus, T.B. 149 animals: as machines xv, 172 Anselm 148 Anslaar, W. 103 Antigonus Carystius 64 Aquinas, T. 80, 82, 85n16, 148 Aristotle 159, 165, 169,172 Aristotelianism xii, 117, 157, 169,173, 185, 187, 190, 204 Armogathe, J-R. 26 Arnauld, A. 26, 74, 78,82–3,85n18, 85n21, 145, 146, 155n57, 203 Astell, M. 5, 19n9 atheism xv, 66, 157, 159, 161,168, 187 atomism xv, 142,143–4,147, 157 attribute 91, 109, 111, 124–5,162, 163, 164, 165; see also body, nature of; mind, nature of; substance Augustine 28, 80, 82, 85n16 Aversa, R. 140–1 Azouvi, F. 57n74 Bacon, F. 193 Baillet, A. 184 Balli, G. xv, 136–41,150n6 Barbapiccola, G.E. 158, 175n9 Bayle, R 64, 66, 104, 176n13 Bellarmine, R. 139 Benedictines 27, 36n Bennett, J. 95 Berkeley, G. xvi, 200,211–3; see also vision, theory of, in Berkeley

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Bernoulli, J. 132n9 Bodin, J. 196 body: divisibility of 33, 162–3; and extension 25, 27, 33, 126–7,146; human 27, 90–2,95–6; indefectibility of xiii, 25, 27, 28–32 (see also Desgabets, Indefectibility Thesis in; substance, indefectibility of); as mode 27, 31, 33–5; as single substance 27, 31–2,129– nature of 25,124– see also dualism; mind, distinction from body; Volder, on body Bonaventure 148 Bontekoe, C. 114 Bordo, S. 4 Bouillier, F. xi, xiv, 67, 73, 84 Bourdin, P. 58, 68 Boyle, R. 173, 211 Bresciea, M.A. de 140 Buonvisi, F. 144 Burgersdijk, F. 118 Buzon, F. de 142, 152n26 Caloprese, G. 158 Calvin, J. 85n17 Calvinism 27, 76, 78, 103–4 Campanella, D. 139 Campanella, T. 141 Candia 140, 152n20 Capizucchi, R. 146,154n45 Caracciolo, I. 144 Carraud, V. 54n46 Carroll, W. 71n11 Cartesianism: condemnations of xi, xiv, 73–5,136, 143, 145–6,147–9,160–1,173; epistemological 39, 75, 78; variations in xi–xii, xvi, 7, 25, 38, 48, 57n73, 60, 73,90, 113–228,157; see also Huet, involvement in discussions of Cartesianism Cavendish, W. 4, 19n9, 184 Chatelet, E. de 18, 210n36 Chiavetta, G.B. xv, 140, 151n19 Christina (queen of Sweden) 4 Clauberg, J. xii, 103 Clement IX 81 Clement X 153n, 153n46, 154n51

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Clement XI 77 Coccejus, J. 101n2, 114n4 Cockburn, C.T. 19n11 cogito 28, 44, 50n11, 53n43, 64, 70n7, 163, 164–5,168 Commercy conferences 26, 27–8 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith xiv, 149n1, 156n65; see also Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition conscience 41,44, 46, 48, 51n21, 54n46, 55n58 Conway, A. xiii, 5, 9–11, 18; rejection of dualism in 10, 12; on transmission of motion 11 Corbinelli, J. de 27 Cordemoy, G. de 25, 33 Cornelio, T. xii, 158 Cousin, V. 28 Cowley, A. 3 Creation Doctrine 29, 32, 43 Curley, E. 93, 101n4 Damascène, J. 35n3 Desgabets, R. xiii, 25–35n, 85n3; duration in 30–1,35; Indefectibility Thesis in 25,28–31,32–3 (see also body, indefectibility of; substance, indefectibility of); see also eternal truths, creation of, in Desgabets Diogenes Laertius 64 Doria, P.M xv, 157, 158–61,173, 175n5, 175n9, 176n18, 177n22, 177n27, 178n28 doubt: hyperbolic xiv, 44, 61; method of xiii, 28, 58,65–6,70–,75, 164, 190; real vs. feined 61–3,64–5,67, 69–70; theoretical vs. practical 39, 40–1,44, 62, 69; see also Gassendi, on doubt; Huet, on doubt; Regis, on doubt dualism 4, 6, 10, 29, 90, 92–3,126–8,203; see also Conway, rejection of dualism in; mind, distinction from body; Spinoza, monism in Du Bois, N 145 Du Pape, L. 145, 169n48 Duns Scotus, J. 107, 148 Elisabeth (princess of Bohemia) xii, 5, 12–8, 202; correspondence with Descartes 12–4; on passions 14–6 equality:

Index of gender 8 essence: and existence 25, 30, 32, 34, 96, 106, 163 eternal truths: creation of, in Descartes 32,39, 75, 79; in Desgabets 29, 32; in Regis 78–9; Malebranche’s rejection of 39; see also Creation Doctrine Eucharist: accidents in 136–8,139–40,143, 145, 147, 148; and transubstantiation 26, 143. 148, 149; real presence in xv, 26,73–4,78, 136 experiment 169, 170–1,183, 191 fable xv, 170–3 Fabri, H. 136, 142, 150n4, 150n5 Falconieri, O. 146 Ferrare, M. de 140–1 Ferrier, J. 74 Ficino, M. 178n22 Flémalle, L. 146–7,155n52 Frankfurt, H. 69 freedom see will, freedom of Gabbey, A. 186 Galiani, C. 158 Gassendi, P. 67–9,158–61,173; on doubt 159–61 (see also doubt; Huet, on doubt; Regis, on doubt) Gimma, G. xv, 157, 169–74 Glanvill, J. xv 184, 189–96,197n3 Goclenius, R. 108 God: as cause of motion 34–5; concurrence of 82, 85n; as deceiver 64, 71n21, 75; definition of 105, 109,168; distinction from creatures 163, 164, 167–8; eternity of 29–30,97–8; indifference of 29, 32 (see also will, and indifference) Goudin, A. 149, 156n68 Gouhier, H. 72 grace 76, 78–80 Grene, M. 70n1

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Gronovius, J. 122 Gueroult, M. 70n1 Harlay de Champvallon, F.de 74, 143 Harth, E. 4, 10 Heidanus, A. 118 Henry of Ghent 107 Hermant, G. 143 Hobbes, T. 185, 188, 189,195–6 Hodge, J. 4 Holy Office of the Index 83, 85n, 136,138–9,140, 158, 168 Huet, P-D. xii, xiii, 5–70n7, 71n16, 73, 75, 78, 84n6, 118, 124, 127; as Academic skeptic 64 (see also skepticism); on doubt 61–6, 69–70 (see also doubt; Gassendi, on doubt; Regis, on doubt); on faith and reason 75, 78 (see also Regis, on faith and reason; theology, and philosophy); involvement in discussions of Cartesianism xiii, xiv,59–60,70n7, 73, 76, 124, 126, 127 ideas: adequate 98–9; clear and distinct 8, 39, 48, 56n67, 63, 69, 75, 103, 104–5,111,121, 125, 158, 165 Index of Prohibited Books xv, 136; see also Holy Office of the Index individuals 31–2,34,97, 105–6,162–3,164–6 Innocent X 140, 154n45 Innocent XI 83 interaction: of mind and body 5, 10–4, 92–3,120, 122–3,189, 192 Israel, J. xiv, 120, 131n1 James, S. 4 Jansenius, C. xiv, 73 Jansenism xiv-xiv, 73,76–7,78–,84, 145, 146, 154n57, 159 Jean Augustin de la Nativité 140 Jesuits 40, 52n32, 76–7,81, 151n14, 160, 169 Kant, I. 48, 103 Kenny, A. 19n13 Klever, W. xiv, 117, 119–20,122–4,127,127,–30 Koerbagh, A. 90 Lange, J. 120

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Lateran Council 66, 76, 148 Laurea, L.B. de 142, 146–8,152n31 Le Clerc, J. 117–8 Le Géant, T. 35n4 Leibniz, G.W. 61, 117, 121, 124, 126, 129132n24 Leiden, University of 60,103, 117–8,127 Lelevel, H. 61 Lemaire, P. 36n2 Lloyd, G 4 Locke, J. xvi, 19n11, 159, 200,206–13,213n2; see also vision, theory of, in Locke Louix XIV xii, 73, 77, 81, 176n13 Luchini, P. 141 Lugo, J. de 140–1 Machiavelli 18 Maignan, E. 149, 152n22 Malebranche xiii, 19n11, 28, 29, 38–48, 60, 83,85n18, 85n20, 85n21, 86n25, 121, 160, 173, 212; occasionalism in 84; order in 39–40,45–7,50n13; rejection of moral probabilism in 38, 41, 42, 45–6,52n37, 55n54; vision in God in 38, 39, 42, 43, 160; see also eternal truths, creation of, Malebranche’s rejection of materialism 30–1,101n4, 188, 190, 195, 196 matter see body mechanism xvi, 4, 122, 187–8,189, 192–4,195, 196 Mersenne, M. 9, 142 Mesland, D. 142 method; synthetic vs. analytic 104–5,111–3,161 Meyer, L. 90, 101 mind: as mode 31, 25, 91; as substance 31, 34; distinction from body 11, 13, 53n43, 93, 132n14, 160, 163, 166 (see also dualism); as extended 13, 186–7,189; human 27, 91–2,95–6,96–7; immortality of 31, 94–5,99–100,190; nature of 14, 34–6,126–7,163; see also Spinoza, eternity of mind in modernity 3, 169–74 Molina, L.de 76 Molyneux, W. 212 Mongitore, A. 137, 138 monism see Spinoza, monism in More, H. xi, xv, 9–10,16, 183–91,196,197n5, 197n9; attack on nulllibilism in 187;

Index hylarchic principle in 185, 188–9; as teacher of Conway 9–10 Morel, C. 155n57 motion 11, 29, 34; see also Conway, on transmission of motion Newton, I. 119, 157, 184, 197, 200 Nicaise, C. 61 Nicole, R 26, 145 Nerli, F. 155n51 Neveu, B. 156n63 Noailles, L-A. de 76 notions: general 169; primitive 111; see also Wittich, first and second notions in Noville, B. de 146 O’Neill, E. 4 Oreggio, A. 139, 151n12 Paris, University of 73–4,76–7,143, 144 Paris Formulary 73–7 passions 5, 13, 14–6; see also Elisabeth, on passions Peace of the Church 80 Pelagianism 80–3 perceptions see ideas Pereira, G. 172 Peter Lombard 148 Petermann, A. 60 Petit de Montempuis, J-G. 76–7 Philip IV 136 physics xv, 10–2,25,32, 118, 142, 149, 157, 173 Pirot, E. 76, 84n6 Pisolini, F. 153n, 154n62 Pissini, A. 156n65 Pitcher, G. 200 Plato 159, 178n, 184 Platonism xv, 157, 170, 184, 197n3 Popkin, R.H. 65, 71n20 Poulain de la Barre, F. 7, 8 Preto, V. 140–1 provisional morality xiii, 38, 40–2,43–4, 47, 51n22 psychophysics 203, 207,210, 212, 213; see also sensation; vision, theory of 60, 77

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Quesnel, P. Raey, J. de 90, 103, 114 Rancati, H. 139 Ratzinger, J. 150n1 Raynaud, T 140, 152n22 Redondi, P. 137, 141, 150n7 Regis, P xiv, 28, 60–1,70n7, 73, 77–84, 85n15; on doubt 61–2 (see also doubt; Gassendi, on doubt; Huet, on doubt); on faith and reason 75, 77–9 (see also Huet, on faith and reason; theology, and philosophy); freedom in 79–84 (see also will, freedom of); see also eternal truths, creation of, in Regis Regius, H. 90, 114 Regius, J. 120, 159, 176n19 Retz, cardinal de 25, 27–31 Rodis-Lewis, G 29 Rogers, G.A.J. 200,209 Roux, S. 152n26 Rowning, J. 183, 187 Royal Society 3, 7, 173, 185,191, 193, 196 Ruestow, E.G 118 Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition 83, 85n22, 147 Schmaltz, T. 32 Schotanus, J. 60 Schweling, E. 60 Seneca 14, 18 sensation: in the mind 200–6,206–7,211; stages of 205–6,209–10,212–3; see also psychophysics; vision, theory of Sextus Empiricus 64, 67 Shapiro, L. 12 skepticism xiv, xv, 64,185, 189–91; see also Huet, as Academic skeptic soul see mind Sperber, D. xi Spinelli, F.M. xv, 157, 158, 161–8,173, 177n21 Spinoza, B. xii, xiv, 90–100, 101n3, 103, 105–7,109,112–4,119–21,123, 127, 130–1,160, 162, 164, 173; epistemological naturalism in 121;

Index eternity of mind in xiv, 94–100,101n9; geometrical method in 112–3; monism in xiv, 90, 93, 123–4,130–1; necessitarianism in 121–2; parallelism in 96, 122–3; unity in 162 see also Spinozism Spinozism xiv, 25, 117119–,130–1,160; see also Volder, as Crypto-Spinozist Sprat, T. 193 Springborg, R 4 Stoicism 47, 57n68 Stolle, G. 119–20,122, 131 Suárez, F. xv, 139, 161, 168 substance: definition of xiv, 106–7,125,128–9,162, 165; indefectibility of 25, 28, 29, 79, 85n11 (see also body, indefectibility of; Desgabets, Indefectibility Thesis in); unity of 31–2,124, 162; see also attribute; body, nature of; mind, nature of;) Sylvius, F. 114 theology: and philosophy 103,114–,173, 186, 188, 189; see also Huet, on faith and reason; Regis, on faith and reason union: of mind and body 13–4, 26, 31, 93–4,122–3,203 Valois, L.de 146 Van Bunge, W. 90 Van Schurman, M. 19n11 Van Til, S. 103 Vatier, P. 9 Vibò, abbé de 143, 144 Vico, G. 157, 159, 174n3, 174n4, 176n18 vision: theory of, in Berkeley 211–3; in Descartes 200–6; in Locke 206–11; see also psychophysics; sensation Volder, B. de xiv, 59–60,117–31; on body 124 as Crypto-Spinozist 117, 119–24,124,

235

Index (see also Spinozism); as disenchanted Cartesian 117, 130–1 Voltaire 200 Vries, G. de 117 Wachbrit, R. 71n8 Wadding, L. 139 will: constancy of 44–5; freedom of 49, 76,76,–84; and indifference 76, 80,80,–3; see also God, indifference of Williams, B. 71n8 witchcraft xv, 185, 194–6 Wittich, C. xiv, 90, 103–14,118; first and second notions in xiv, 105–9; nominalism of 105–9; relation to Descartes 110–1,113–4 women philosophers xii, 3–4, 5–7, 19n11 Wyclif, J. 156n64 Zabarella, F. xiv, 105, 107–8,112

236