British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2014

Vol. 22, No. 4, 704724, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2014.962477

A RTICLE

FREEDOM AND THE COGITO1

Omri Boehm

Drawing on Descartes account of gnrosit, a reinterpretation of the

Cogito is offered, emphasizing the role of the will. The papers rst
part focuses on Cartesian ethics. It is argued that Descartes can be
viewed as a Stoical thinker rather than a Baconian one. That is, he
holds that theoretical contemplation is itself the primary ground of
human happiness and tranquility of mind experienced as the
feeling of gnrosit. The papers second part draws on the rst in
accounting for the relation between radical doubt and certainty. By
engaging with doubt, it is argued, the meditator comes to experience
gnrosit, assert freedom. This experience is not, then, as argued by
some, merely the Cogitos ethical counterpart. It is rather the
Cogitos foundation. The meditators assertion sum follows from
insofar as freedom is, as the denition of gnrosit asserts, the
only thing truly belonging to us, it consists in the assertion of
freedom.

KEYWORDS: Cogito; freedom; Descartes; gnrosit

In a notebook entry from the early 1840s Kierkegaard writes,

it is remarkable that Descartes, who in one of his meditations himself

explained the possibility of error by recalling that freedom in man is superior
to thought, has nevertheless made thought, not freedom, into the absolute. In
the latter, clearly, we have the position of the later Fichte not cogito ergo
sum, but I act ergo sum.2

Kierkegaard makes here two main claims. First, that Descartes views the will
as a higher faculty than the intellect. This is apt: the will in Descartess view
is free and active, whereas the intellect is passive; the will is unrestricted,
whereas the intellect is nite; and it is in virtue of the will, not the intellect,
1
Special thanks are due to Michael Della Rocca, Ulrika Carlsson, Elliot Paul, Anat Schecht-
man and Ariane Schneck.
2
Kierkegaard, Papers and Journals, 173.

2014 BSHP
 FREEDOM AND THE COGITO 705

that we bear the image and likeness of God. These advantages of the will
3

vis--vis the intellect well known from the fourth Meditation indeed
make it a more promising candidate for establishing the certainty announced
in the second. The will is better suited than the intellect for answering chal-
lenges potentially imposed on the mind by an omnipotent God or a supremely
powerful evil deceiver, for example. Kierkegaards second claim is that
despite these advantages of the will, Descartes considers the intellect as the
faculty doing the work in the Cogito. And, on this point, much of the scho-
larly literature would seem to agree. Unceasing attention has been given over
the years to the study of the Cogito, but little thought has been dedicated to the
role of the will, and to the wills freedom, in establishing Descartess Archi-
medean self-assertion. And conversely: while Descartess conception of the
will and its freedom is nowadays the object of much (and yet growing) inter-
est, relatively little attention has been given to the Cogito as a relevant case in
point one that could illuminate Descartess account of the will.4
One reason for this tendency may have to do with Descartess choice of
words. Emphasis on think in I am thinking therefore I am and its sister
formulations may create the impression that he views the intellect as the cer-
tainty-generating faculty the meditator does not assert Im willing there-
fore I am, Im desiring, I exist or anything of the sort. Moreover, later in
the text the meditator concludes, sum res cogitans (AT 7:27; CSMII:18).
Thought, this alone is inseparable from me, he asserts. Only thought, it
may appear insofar as the Cogito is concerned, thought qua intellectual
representation of ideas has survived the programme of doubt.5
Yet, in an important passage composed late in his career Descartes writes
that the virtuous person knows that nothing truly belongs to him but his
freedom (AT 11:446f; CSMI:384). This statement is telling, I shall argue,
among other reasons because it may illuminate the fundamental role that
freedom has to play in establishing the Cogito. If nothing truly belongs to
us but freedom, it may be that Descartes, ultimately, is committed to the
view that we know ourselves by knowing our freedom. As we will see,
that the meditators will is free is the rst certainty asserted in the Cartesian
philosophy. The meditators assertion sum follows from insofar as only
freedom truly belongs to us, it consists in the assertion of freedom.
The paper is divided into two parts. In the rst, before directly tackling the
Cogito, I offer a sketch of the relation, in Descartess thought, between ethics
and theoretical philosophy. I argue that Descartes is what we may call an
intrinsic-Stoical thinker rather than an instrumental-Baconian thinker.6
3
AT 7:57; CSMII:40. All references are taken from Descartes, Oeuvres de Descartes (AT 112).
Unless otherwise noted, translations are from Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Des-
cartes (CSMI/II), and Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (CSMKIII).
4
I interact with some important exceptions below.
5
Cf. Cottingham, Cartesian Reections, 99f.
6
Signicant contributions have been made recently to reading Descartes in this vein, including
works by Davies, Descartes; Alanen, Descartes Concept of Mind; Brown, Descartes and the
706 OMRI BOEHM

That is, he holds that the value of theoretical thinking consists in the happi-
ness afforded by contemplation itself, not by its technological fruits not (as
sometimes is assumed) by the mastery of nature.7 On Descartess account,
exercising virtue, which he identies as the highest good, is a necessary and
sufcient condition of happiness absolute containment of mind, complete
tranquillity. Virtue is the foundation of human happiness because it perfects
our highest faculty, the will; and because it is the only good that depends
exclusively on us other goods depend on natures contingent favour
(AT 4:264; CSMK:257). The self-contained tranquillity afforded by virtue
consists in the experience of gnrosit: ones knowledge, mentioned
above, that nothing truly belongs to him but his freedom, combined with
a feeling of a rm and constant resolution to use it [his freedom] well
(AT 11:445f; CSMI:384). Now, Descartes also holds that no conduct is
exclusively within our control but the conduct of our thinking and this
too only to the extent that our thoughts depend on us alone (that they are
not imposed on our mind, say, by an evil deceiver). Therefore, ensuring
the freedom of thought is for Descartes the primary ground of tranquillity
of mind. Theoretical contemplation, done virtuously, is in itself the principal
ground of human happiness. The project carried out in the Meditations
deserves to be studied in this light. Here, I consider the case of the Cogito.
Perhaps the pressing question surrounding the Cogito concerns the
grounding relation between the programme of doubt, specically its
radical stage, and the certainty asserted by the meditator. Existing literature
often fails to address this question accounts of the Cogito tend to render the
rst Meditations programme of doubt unnecessary to the certainty asserted
in the second.8 One way to explain this grounding relation, we will see, is to
do better justice to the role Descartes assigns to freedom. In a well-known
letter to Mesland, he writes that one can hold back from a clearly perceived
truth if he considers it a good thing to demonstrate the freedom of the will

Passionate Mind; Jones, The Good Life in the Scientic Revolution; Shapiro, Turn My Will in
Completely the Opposite Direction, 2139, as well as her Descartes Ethics, 44563;
Naaman-Zauderer, Descartes Deontological Turn.
7
The term Stoic is to be understood broadly. Descartess position has clear similarities to
Stoicism, but also profound differences. Descartes denies the Stoics eudaimonistic denition
of happiness as the highest good. He identies virtue as the highest good, and insists that
despite the fact that it is necessary and sufcient for happiness, it is not identical with it. More-
over, Descartes refuses the Stoics hostility to the passions. He names their hostility barbaric,
and considers gnrosit, a passion, as the key to all the virtues. See Cassirer, Descartes:
LehrePersnlichkeitWirkung, 10412 and Rutherford, On the Happy Life, 17797.
8
Margaret Wilsons nave account, for example, explains the certainty of sum as derived from
the certainty of cogito leaving the will irrelevant (see Wilson, Descartes, 5070; the term
nave is Wilsons). Other strategies, in which the meditators existence is assumed as a
formal condition of the thought I am deceived about x, or of I doubt that x (cf. Frankfurt,
Demons, Dreamers and Madmen, 136) underplay doubt as a programme. One important
exception is Broughtons Descartess Method of Doubt, 10843; another contribution here,
as of yet unpublished, is Paul, The Meditators Cogito.
 FREEDOM AND THE COGITO 707

by so doing (AT 4:173f.; CSMK:244f.). Indeed this is just what the medi-
tator does at the nal stage of doubt, when confronting the thought of the evil
deceiver. Here lies the grounding relation between doubt and the Cogitos
self-afrmation: by resolving to doubt everything he has a good reason to
doubt, and managing to achieve such doubt, the meditator comes to experi-
ence gnrosit he becomes aware that his will is free and that nothing
truly belongs to him but this freedom. On the basis of such experience
the self-knowledge afforded by determining that he is free the meditator
comes to assert, sum.9

1. It is often thought that Descartess role as the father of modern philosophy

can be traced back to his denial of an intrinsic conception of ethics. On that
intrinsic conception broadly, a Stoical conception theoretical thinking is
valuable in itself; contemplation is the highest good. One still nds a strong
expression of this older conception in Spinoza, who holds that the endea-
vour to understand is not undertaken for the sake of some further
purpose beyond it; rather, philosophical contemplation is itself the rst
and only foundation of virtue.10 Descartes, it is usually thought, atly
rejects this intrinsic conception in favour of a modern, Baconian approach.
Like us, he motivates his quest for truth by sheer theoretical interest; like
us, the value of this interest is understood instrumentally: acquiring knowl-
edge is not itself the highest good but it enables the mastery of nature; it
enables technological solutions to moral and practical problems. Vico has
this image of Descartes in mind when speaking of the barbarism of reec-
tion and Heidegger assumes it in his Nietzsche lectures, detecting in Descar-
tess position the nihilism inherent to Western thought. More recently,
Margaret Wilson provides a clear articulation of this reading:

For better or worse, Spinoza simply is not a modern (post-Cartesian)

thinker, if this designation implies accepting a merely extrinsic or instrumen-
tal relation between the pursuit of human knowledge and the achievement of
personal happiness For Descartes, knowledge even of God plays a primar-
ily instrumental role, isolating from any threat of doubt the clear and distinct
perceptions on which he seeks to found a rm and permanent science of
nature. Spinoza, on the contrary, denies that we legitimately seek to know
God for the sake of something ulterior: The minds Highest Good is the
knowledge of God, and the minds highest virtue is to know God.11

9
Marion reads gnrosit as the last formulation of the Cogito the ethical counterpart of the
theoretical Cogito (Marion, Gnrosit et phnomnologie, 517). I will claim that it is not
an ethical counterpart but the ground of theoretical certainty itself.
10
Spinoza, Ethics, pt. 4 prop. 26.
11
Wilson, Spinozas Theory of Knowledge, 90.
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Let us call this the HeideggerWilson reading of Descartes. Descartes seems

to say much that supports this reading an instrumental tendency certainly
exists in his thought. One piece of textual evidence that is often mentioned
here is the Discourse on Methods mastery manifesto:

The principles of my new physics opened my eyes to the possibility of gaining

knowledge which would be very useful in life we could use this knowledge
and thus make ourselves the masters and possessors of nature [matre et
possesseur de la nature].
(AT 6:62; CSMI:142f; cf. AT:9B 15;CSMI:186)

However, Descartes at times pronounces also a radically different ethical

conception. Surprisingly, he does so already in the Discourse itself. In the
third maxim of the morale par provision, Descartess early and not-quite-
provisional moral code,12 Descartes pledges to

always try to master [vaincre] myself rather than fortune, and to change my
desires rather than the order of the world; and in general, to accustom
myself to believe that there can be nothing entirely in our power but our
thoughts.
(AT 6:25f.; CSMI:123)

There is a tension between this maxim and the mastery manifesto quoted
above. Consider Descartess words master myself rather than fortune,
change my desire rather than the order of the world: they dismiss what
had been promised in the ideal of mastery; deny that mastery of nature is
something worth striving for. There are, then, in Descartes two competing
ethical strands:

(a) Mastery of nature as the value of theoretical inquiry. I will refer to this
strand of thought as the instrumental ethos.
(b) Mastery of the will rather than the nature (the order of the world) as
the key for ethics. I will refer to this strand of thought as a Stoic ethos,
and will later defend the terminology intrinsic.

In his more elaborate ethical writings, Descartes gives clear precedence to

the second, Stoic ethos. He denes virtue as the highest good, and under-
stands it as a rm and constant will to bring about everything we judge to
be the best and to employ all the force of our intellect in judging well
(AT 7:277; CSMK:262). Virtue is the necessary and sufcient cause of
genuine happiness a perfectly unshakable tranquillity, [an] inner satisfac-
tion which is acquired by the wise without fortunes favour (AT 4:264;
CSMK: 257). Its role in establishing happiness depends, rst, on the fact
12
Cf. Cottingham, Philosophy and the Good Life, 77.
 FREEDOM AND THE COGITO 709

that it is the only good, among those we can possess, which depends
entirely on us hence, it is the only good that does not depend on
natures contingent favour (AT 4:276; CSMK:261); and second, on the
fact that virtue consists in perfecting our greatest faculty, the will, whose
proper use renders us in a certain way like God by making us masters of our-
selves (AT 6:446; CSMI:384). Free will is in itself the noblest thing we can
have, Descartes says, since it makes us in a way equal to God and seems to
exempt us from being his subjects; and so its correct use is the greatest of all
the goods we possess (AT 5:85; CSMK 326).
The mark of the state of mind of a virtuous person is the experience of
gnrosit ones knowledge, rst, that nothing truly belongs to him but
[the] freedom to dispose his volitions that he ought to be praised or
blamed for no other reason than his using this freedom well or badly; and
second, that there is within him a rm and constant resolution to use it [his
freedom] well that is, never to lack the will to undertake and carry out what-
ever he judges to be best (AT 11:446f; CSMI:384). Gnrosit is according to
Descartes a species of the passion esteem [estime], an inclination that the
soul has to represent to itself the value of the thing that is esteemed (AT
11:443f.; CSMI:383); and esteem he understands as a type of the feeling
of wonder [admiration], a sudden surprise of the soul which brings it to
consider with attention the objects that seem to it unusual and extraordinary
(AT 11:380; CSMI:353). Gnrosit, then, is the feeling of awe we experience
when surprisedly confronted with the value of ourselves. We experience gn-
rosit when (in fact, if) we come to discover that nothing truly belongs to
us but our freedom, which is unrestricted and in some sense godlike; when
we feel we have resolved to use it as well as we can.13
Clearly, Descartes is not orbiting an instrumental, Baconian ethos. Den-
ing the highest good in terms of virtue and gnrosit, in terms of mastering
the will rather than nature, he reiterates the Stoic ethos preluded in the
morales third maxim. While theres nothing surprising or contentious
about this observation the position Descartes takes in his ethical writings
is clear it is surprising when his Baconian, modern approach is taken
into view. Cottingham suggests that this stoical tendency in Descartess
ethical (and thus later) writings shows a genuine development even a
change of mind occurring after the death of his child, Francine. Reection
on the extent to which human life must remain hostage to the unavoidability
of pain and loss, Cottingham writes, led Descartes to retreat into a broadly
Stoical kind of resignation, and identify the domain of the ethical with the
only sphere wholly and entirely within our control.14 This goes in the

13
Cf. Cassirer, Descartes: LehrePersnlichkeitWirkung, 93102; Shapiro, Cartesian
Generosity, 24975. For an extremely important accounts of the sense in which our will is
godlike, see Naaman-Zauderer, Descartess Ontological Turn, 1448 and Ragland Alterna-
tive Possibilities in Descartess Fourth Meditation, 379400.
14
Cottingham, Philosophy and the Good Life, 102.
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right direction insofar as it does not mitigate the discrepancy between Des-
cartess Stoic ethos and his instrumental approach, but two points call for
attention. First, what sphere or domain is said here to be entirely within
our control? Is it indeed entirely within our control? Second, Descartess
retreat to Stoical resignation is not the result of a late change of mind.
As we have seen, the Stoic ethos has been competing with the instrumental
ethos in Descartes all along in fact, as Cottingham himself observes earlier
in the same essay, the treatment of virtue and gnrosit in the ethical writ-
ings only echoes the position Descartes had taken in the third maxim of the
morale.
But then, how does the Stoic ethos illuminate Descartess theoretical phil-
osophy? To the extent that the project of pure enquiry the project of
achieving truth and certainty gains value by enabling the mastery of
nature, it ultimately loses its signicance. For according to Cartesian
ethics the highest good, and human happiness, are achieved by mastering
the will rather than nature. How, then, is the value of theoretical thinking
understood in light of the Stoic ethos?
The Discourse provides a beginning of an answer. Immediately following
the third maxim of the morale, Descartes puts forward another, concluding
maxim: [T]o devote the whole of life to the cultivation of reason, and pro-
gress, as far as I will be able to, in the knowledge of the truth, according to
the method that I had given myself (AT 6:27f.; CSMI:124). Whether this
should count as a fourth maxim is controversial Descartes introduces the
morale saying he will mention just three or four maxims, and he formulates
this maxim in a rather personal tone but theres no need to enter a debate
about it here. Signicant for our purposes is that the maxim he here formu-
lates can be deduced from the one preceding it. The pledge to dedicate my
life to the cultivation of reason and to knowing the truth follows from the
morales third maxim to limit my will to what depends on me, master
the will rather than nature if an intermediate premise is assumed,
namely that mastery of the will, and limiting my desire to what depends
on me, is rst and foremost possible in the cultivation of reason and the
pursuit of truth. Descartes makes this assumption, in the transition from
the third maxim to the one following it, and he explicitly connects it to an
ancient, intrinsic ethos. In the realization that nothing lies entirely in our
power but our thoughts, he writes, lies the secret of those philosophers
who in earlier times were able to escape from the dominion of fortune
and, despite suffering and poverty, rival the gods in happiness, Descartes
writes:

Through constant reection upon the limits prescribed for them by nature,
they became perfectly convinced that nothing was in their power but their
thoughts, and this alone was sufcient to prevent them from being attracted
to other things. This mastery over their thoughts was so absolute that they
had reason to count themselves richer, more powerful, freer and happier
 FREEDOM AND THE COGITO 711

than other men who, because they lack this philosophy, never achieve such
mastery however favoured by nature and fortune they may be.
(AT 6:27; CSMI:124)

No wonder, then, that the morale concludes with a maxim prescribing the
cultivation of reason. The pursuit of the truth expressed in this maxim is
indeed Descartess personal choice but, on his premises, all those who seek hap-
piness should choose the same. From this perspective, theoretical contemplation
is valued for its own sake not for its consequences.15 In line with this intrinsic
ethos, Descartes writes in the Rules that theoretical contemplation is practically
the only happiness in this life that is complete and untroubled by pain (AT
10:361; CSMI:10). The Discourse repeats this almost to the word: Since begin-
ning to use this method [devoting life to truth], Descartes writes, I have felt
such extreme contentment that I did not think one could enjoy any sweeter
or purer one in this life (AT 6:27; CSMI: 124). It is sometimes overlooked
that the Meditations shows no less of an intrinsic tendency. Having proved
Gods existence in the third Meditation, the meditator says, echoing the
words of the Rules and the Discourse,

I would like to pause here and spend more time in the contemplation of God;
to reect on his attributes, and to gaze with wonder and adoration on the
beauty of his immense light, so far as the eye of my darkened intellect can
bear it. For just as we believe through faith that the supreme happiness of
the next life consists solely in the contemplation of the divine majesty, so
experience tells us that this same contemplation, albeit much less perfect,
enables us to know the greatest joy of which we are capable in this life.
(AT 7:52; CSMII:36)

A reading like the HeideggerWilson reading, then, according to which for

Descartes knowledge even of God plays a primarily instrumental role, can
only be a part of the truth. By the third day of meditations the meditator gains
supreme happiness by contemplating the idea of God. The supreme joy of
which we are capable in this life is achieved through theoretical contempla-
tion itself.
2. One problem with Descartess intrinsic ethos has to do with the assump-
tion that only our thoughts depend exclusively on us. While it seems plaus-
ible that if anything depends exclusively on us it is our thoughts, it is not
obvious that they do indeed depend exclusively on us. Many of our
beliefs were acquired unreectively in our youth, and have never been sub-
jected to critical scrutiny. The intellect presents us with notions that seem to
force themselves on our mind (2+2 = 4, for one; the principle of non-contra-
diction, for another). And one may add to this more recent worries, such as

15
This, I take it, is the source of Naaman-Zauderers ingenious interpretation of this philos-
ophy as a deontology.
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Freudian theories about the inuence of the unconscious or Nietzschean

worries about the inuence of fear and resentment on theoretical thinking.
In light of each of these challenges, not even our thoughts would seem to
depend exclusively on us; human happiness threatens to turn out to be, by
Cartesian standards, beyond reach.
Those are worries to which the programme of doubt is designed to
respond. Alongside the well-known epistemological interest in rejecting
all belief in order to discover a foundational truth that can ground a
science thats stable and likely to last (AT 7:17; CSMII:17), the meditator
also expresses a motivation thats ethical rather than merely epistemological
securing the sovereignty of his assenting/withholding assent. I shall stub-
bornly and rmly persist in this [rst] Meditation, the meditator says,

and even if it is not in my power to know any truth, I shall at least do what is in my
power, that is, resolutely guard against assenting to any falsehoods, so that [atque
ita; Cest pourquoi] the deceiver, however powerful and cunning he may be, will
be unable to impose [imponere; imposer] on me in the slightest degree.
(AT 7:23; CSMII:15)16

The aspiration to avoid imposition on the will emerges, in this passage, as in

some sense prior to the motivation of eliminating error: the meditator guards
against falsehoods in order to guard against imposition. The meditator then
adds that in undertaking a programme of doubt he knowingly deceives
himself (AT 7:22; CSMII:15), by positively denying ideas that may well be
true. In so doing he becomes his own deceiver but, thereby, ensures that his
will is not constrained by anothers. The problem of deception, then, is not
merely that of being deceived simpliciter but also of who is doing the deceiving;
the problem is the wills sovereignty in thinking. Descartes then concludes the
rst Meditation with the meditator complaining about his inability to stay in a
steady state of doubt. He continuously falls out of doubt back into his old
and under-examined system of beliefs: I am like a prisoner, he says,

who is enjoying an imaginary freedom while asleep; as he begins to suspect

that he is asleep, he dreads being woken up, and goes along with the pleasant
illusion as long as he can. In the same way, I happily slide back into my old
opinions and dread being shaken out of them.
(AT 7:23)

Motivating the programme of doubt then is not only and not merely the
problem of deception as an epistemological worry. At stake is the freedom
of the will the meditator aspires to ensure that his assent to ideas indeed
is entirely within his control, as required by Descartess intrinsic ethics.
As we will see, fullling this aspiration is the ground of the Cogito.

16
See de Araujos discussion in Scepticism, Freedom and Autonomy, 89f.
 FREEDOM AND THE COGITO 713

II

1. In a 1637 letter to Silhon, Descartes concedes that there is a great defect

in the way that the programme of doubt is presented in the Discourse. I have
not expounded, he explains,

in a manner that everybody can easily grasp, the argument by which I claim to
prove that there is nothing at all more evident and certain than the existence of
God and of the human soul. But I did not dare to try to do so, since I would
have had to explain at length the strongest arguments of the sceptics to show
that there is no material thing of whose existence one can be certain I would
have shown that a man who thus doubts everything material cannot for all that
have any doubt about his own existence.
(AT 1:353; CSMK:55)

One peculiarity about Descartess statement is the order in which things are
presented. He speaks of nothing being more certain than the existence of
God and of the human soul perhaps this is just a slip of the tongue, but
one would expect him to mention the human soul rst. We will consider
below the sense in which this is not just a slip; but for the moment the obser-
vation can be put aside.
Descartess words in the letter make two things clear. First, the
Cogitos certainty does not merely survive doubt if confronted with it.
The Cogito is not established in spite of doubt but, somehow, by it.
Otherwise, the argument presented in the Discourse would not suffer
from the great defect that it does. Indeed, this is just whats innovative
about Descartess manoeuvre: other philosophers had tried to answer
scepticism before him; Descartes promises to turn scepticism on its
head, introduce the deceiver, to use doubt in establishing Archimedean
certainty.17 The eventual result of this doubt, Descartes writes in the
Synopsis of the Meditations, is to make it impossible for us to have
any further doubts about what we subsequently discover to be true
(AT 7:12; CSMII:9; my emphases). In fact, doubt is so signicant as
the ground of certainty that at least on one occasion Descartes refers to
doubt, not to the Cogito, as the Archimedean origin itself. In The
Search for Truth he has Eudoxus, a Cartesian philosopher, instruct Poly-
ander, the innocent pupil of common sense:

just give me your attention and I will conduct you further than you think.
For from this universal doubt, as from a xed and immovable point, I
propose to derive the knowledge of God, of yourself, and of everything
in the universe.
(AT 10:514f.; CSMII 409)

17
Cf. Broughton, Descartess Method of Doubt, esp. 97174.
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Second, Descartess words to Silhon imply that not just any form of doubt is
sufcient. To achieve certainty, it is necessary to achieve full doubt. This is
the step Descartes did not dare to try in the Discourse: he provided the
argument against the veracity of the senses, as well as the dream argument,
but not the evil deceiver hypothesis. In short, the Cogitos certainty is
grounded in the programme of doubt, of which the last radical phase, doubt-
ing such transparent truths as contained in arithmetic, geometry and other
subjects of this kind, is an indispensible component. To the extent that the
challenge of understanding the Cogito consists in understanding how Des-
cartes puts scepticism on its head, the challenge consists in understanding
this grounding relation.18
The prevalent literature on the Cogito tends to overlook this challenge
available accounts often render the programme of doubt unnecessary, if not
atly irrelevant, to the certainty asserted in the second Meditation. Janet
Broughtons account has contributed signicantly to our understanding of
doubts relation to certainty, but it cannot explain Descartess insistence that
without going through doubts last radical phase, the Cogito suffers from a
great defect; and it licenses merely a conditional conclusion of the Cogito
not I exist but if I use a consideration to doubt, I exist.19 Fruitful as
they may be,20 conditional reconstructions of the Cogito do not do much
justice to Descartess bolder, Archimedean aspirations. (It is not clear, for
example, to what extent hypothetical Cartesianism provides an answer to a
sceptic.) The task of explaining the Cogito seems to consist in showing
how, by achieving radical doubt, the meditator achieves an assertoric sum.
3. In fact, Descartes says something that may illuminate this grounding
relation. In a well-known passage from his 1645 letter to Mesland a text
thats normally mentioned in connection with Descartess theory of
freedom, not the Cogito Descartes writes:

When a very evident reason moves us in one direction, although morally

speaking we can hardly move in the contrary direction, absolutely speaking
we can. For it is always open to us to hold back from pursuing a clearly
known good, or from admitting a clearly perceived truth, provided we con-
sider it a good thing to demonstrate the freedom of our will by so doing.
(AT 6:173f.;CSMK:244f.)

Readers from Gassendi (cf. AT 7:315; CSMII:219) to Cassirer sometimes

think that Descartes simply takes freedom for granted. He afrms human

18
One plausible approach is to assume that given the Cogitos sheer basicness, it is not
grounded at all: doubt at most removes the misconceptions that dim the Cogitos self-evi-
dence. (Arguably, Descartes ontological argument proceeds similarly.) I argue in the fol-
lowing that doubt grounds the Cogito in a more fundamental way: by removing
misconceptions, it reveals to us our freedom. It is this truth that is then self-evident.
19
Broughton, Descartess Method of Doubt, 11420.
20
See also Frankfurts reductio.
 FREEDOM AND THE COGITO 715

freedom on the basis of the simple evidence of inner experience, Cassirer

complains, and believes that freedom cannot receive, and does not
require, better proof than experience itself.21 Accepting freedom uncriti-
cally, Cassirer continues, shows that the decree of methodological doubt
has been forgotten.22 In light of the letter to Mesland, however, nothing
can be further from the truth. If by holding back from distinct ideas we
demonstrate our freedom then, at the last stage of radical doubt, the meditator
has demonstrated his freedom.23 To be sure, while the transparent ideas
that are negated by the meditator at the radical stage of doubt are not of-
cially clear and distinct, they include ideas that will be, embracing arith-
metic, geometry and other subjects of this kind, which deal only with the
simplest and most general things (AT 7:20; CSMII: 14). The signicant
point, then, is that the meditator comes to doubt notions that supposedly
force themselves on the will insofar as we attend to them.24 In fact, Descartes
implies in the letter that a condition for doubting clear and distinct ideas is
that we seek thereby to demonstrate our freedom. As we have seen, this
coheres well with Descartess words in the rst Meditation: the meditator
pledges to stubbornly and rmly persist in doubt, so that even if it is not
in his power to know any truth he shall at least guard against assenting
to falsehoods, so that the deceiver, however powerful and cunning he
may be, will be unable to impose on him in the slightest degree (AT
7:23). The meditator knows well that the transparent ideas hes doubting
might be true: he undertakes nevertheless to deceive himself in order to
ensure that he is not deceived by another. The meditator brings himself to
doubt clear and distinct ideas because he considers it a good thing to demon-
strate the freedom of his will in so doing.
Moreover, Descartess words in the letter imply that there is exactly one
thing that the meditator would not be able to successfully doubt once under-
taking the project of doubting everything. This is not his existence quite yet,
but his freedom his freedom is demonstrated by doubting clear and distinct
ideas.

21
Cassirer, LehrePersnlichkeitWirkung, 92 (translation mine).
22
Ibid.
23
For an excellent discussion of Descartess proof of freedom through doubt see Shapiros
Turn My Will in Completely the Opposite Direction. As Shapiro observes, radical doubt
provides the context in which the meditator arrives at the certainty he seeks (27).
24
Compare Shapiros discussion in Turn My Will in Completely the Opposite Direction (27).
In a footnote, Shapiro points out that if the meditator is actually negating the transparent
ideas in question in the rst Meditation, she isof mixed minds about whether this move
exemplies the sort of case described in the 1645 letter to Mesland. Given that the meditator
is impelled to afrm the cogito, shouldnt he too afrm spontaneously what the Fifth Medita-
tion will mark as eternal truths?
If, however, as I argue below, the cogito is achieved through freedom, which is itself
achieved by doubting the transparent ideas of the rst Meditation, there is no problem equat-
ing the rst Meditations procedure with described in the 1645 letter to Mesland.
716 OMRI BOEHM

Descartes seems to be committed to the same view also when answering

Gassendi, in the Fifth Set of Replies. In the Fifth Set of Objections, Gassendi
had assaulted the fourth Meditations theory of error by denying the freedom
of the will that this theory assumes (AT 7:315). In response, Descartes
writes, you O Flesh, do not seem to attend to the actions the mind performs
within itself. You may be unfree, if you wish; but I am certainly very pleased
with my freedom since I experience it within myself (AT 7:377; my empha-
sis). The ironical tone involved in this answer, you may be unfree, if you
wish, plays on the internal inconsistency involved in Gassendis doubt of
his freedom: in refusing to assent to the thought that he is free, Gassendi,
if attentive, should have come to see that he is exercising his freedom.25
To be sure, the fact that the meditator cannot doubt his freedom is no
infringement on his freedom.26 On the contrary: whereas Descartes counts
the ability to afrm or deny a certain idea as the lower kind of freedom,
he considers us free to the highest degree just when we cannot but afrm
a certain idea. In order to be free, Descartes famously writes,

there is no need for me to be inclined both ways; on the contrary, the more I
incline in one direction either because I clearly understand that reasons of
truth and goodness point that way, or because of a divinely produced disposi-
tion of my inmost thoughts the freer is my choice.
(AT 7:57;CSMII:39f.)

By using doubt exercising a lower degree of freedom in denying even

the transparent ideas of geometry and arithmetic, we ourselves ground
the determination of ourselves to the higher sense of freedom we
cannot but experience our freedom; we bring ourselves to incline in
one direction.
Paragraph 39 of the Principles conrms the same claim made in the letter
to Mesland doubt of clear and distinct ideas demonstrates freedom but,
unlike the letter, it relates this to the programme of doubt and the Cogito:

That there is freedom in our will, and that we have power in many cases to give or
withhold our assent at will, is so evident that it must be counted among the rst
and most common notions that are innate in us. This was obvious earlier on when,
in our attempt to doubt everything, we went so far as to make the supposition of
some supremely powerful author of our being who was attempting to deceive us

25
Shapiro observes here:Descartes takes Gassendi to have done exactly what the meditator
purports to do at the end of the First Meditation: deny self-evident propositions. Through
just this sort of denial we come to have the kind of experience of our own freedom. (Turn
My Will in Completely the Other Direction, 35)
26
I would not enter here the extensive literature on the (in)compatibilism debate. For compre-
hensive discussions, see Kenny, Descartes on the Will, 131; Chappell, Descartes Compa-
tibilism, 17790. Ragland, Was Descartes a Libertarian?, 5790 as well as his Descartes on
the Principle of Alternative Possibilities, 37794.
 FREEDOM AND THE COGITO 717

in every possible way. For in spite of this supposition, the freedom which we
experienced within us was nonetheless so great as to enable us to abstain from
believing whatever was not quite certain or fully examined. And what we saw
to be beyond doubt during the period of that supposition is as self-evident and
as transparently clear as anything can be.
(AT 8A:19f.; CSMI:205f.; emphases added)

The claim that the transition from doubt to freedom was obvious earlier on
is a reference to 6. Appearing after 15, which elaborate the method of
doubt and culminate with the hypothesis of the evil deceiver, and before
7, which asserts the meditators existence, 6 asserts: we have free
will, enabling us to withhold our assent in doubtful matters and hence
avoid error (AT 8A:6; CSMI 194). That we are free, then, is, according
to the Principles the rst certainty asserted in the Cartesian philosophy a
certainty that we experience in the midst of doubt. Using the lower grade
of freedom doubt the meditator achieved a state of the higher grade of
freedom assent to an idea namely, he cannot but afrm freedom itself.
Thus, despite the fact that the higher degree of freedom is a state of determi-
nation rather than choice, the meditator himself is the ground of this deter-
mination. If he had not used his will appropriately, he would not have
achieved it.
4. Descartes is not explicit about this, but the absolutely clear experience
of freedom achieved through doubt may be taken for the mode by which the
meditator becomes aware and certain of his own existence.27 To see this, it is
important rst to consider Descartess use of the term experience in this
context he consistently employs that term (experimenter; experior) and
no other to characterize the mode in which we are conscious of our
freedom.28 This term does not stand for sense, imagine or any of the
other technical terms on Descartess standard list of conscious mental
states; it stands rather for what Descartes denes as a passion, in the sense
that term is used in the Passions of the Soul. (The fact that Descartes
speaks interchangeably of experiencing and feeling freedom, e.g. in the cor-
respondence with Elisabeth, is strong evidence of this.)29 Thus, when

27
For a different approach, see Christodous recent confrontation with Kants criticism of the
Cogito (Self, Freedom, and Reason, 3975.) While I agree with Christodous claim that
drawing on freedom may effectively answer Kants objections to the Cogito, I believe this
answer has to draw on Kants analysis of respect as a pure feeling of freedom by
analogy to Descartes feeling of gnrosit. I interact with the Kantian position (and Christo-
dous reconstruction) in (Omitted.)
28
Other than the passage quoted above from the Principles (the freedom which we experi-
enced ), see Descartess words in the fourth Meditation: It is only the will, or freedom
of choice, which I experience within me to be so great (AT VII:57); as well as in the Prin-
ciples: we nonetheless experience within us the kind of freedom (AT VIIIA:6;CSMI:
194) and the correspondence with Elisabeth: the independence which we experience and
feel in ourselves (AT IV:332;CSMK:277).
29
Cf. also Shapiro, Turn My Will in Completely the Opposite Direction, 30.
718 OMRI BOEHM

speaking of experiencing or feeling our freedom, Descartes is referring to the

passion of gnrosit: the experience of wonder one has when discovering
his only true worth, the power to freely dispose his volition, knowing that
nothing truly belongs to him but his freedom to dispose his volition [il
connat quil ny a rien qui vritablement lui appartienne que cette libre dis-
position de ses volonts (AT XI:446; CSMI:384).30
This passage is telling because, by Cartesian standards, knowing the only
property truly belonging to us amounts to knowing our essence. In the
second Meditation, having proved the indubitability of his existence, the
meditator famously turns to inquiring what he is; and from the fact that
only thought is inseparable from him revealed as such by radical doubt
he concludes that he is a thinking thing. Thought? At least I have found
it thought; this alone is inseparable from me, he declares (AT 7:27;
CSMII:18). It is doubtful that at this stage in the Meditations the meditator
is entitled, or thinks he is, to knowing that thought is his essence (soon in
the text he retracts his bold sum res cogitans and suggests it is only possible
that he had cease to exist when not thinking; and concedes that it may turn
out that other properties are inseparable from him).31 This does not signi-
cantly affect our present concern, however, for Descartes does not abandon
the uniquely-inseparable-property criterion also in the sixth Meditation,
when conclusively identifying his essence: Simply by knowing that I
exist and seeing at the same time that absolutely nothing else belongs to
my nature or essence except that I am a thinking thing, the meditator
says, I can infer correctly that my essence consists solely in the fact that I
am a thinking thing (AT 7:78; CSMII:54).32
If property is the only property truly belonging to S, it is also the only
property belonging to its nature or essence. For if we assume that some prop-
erty other than belonged to Ss essence, then this property would be essen-
tial to S but would not truly belong to it. This would mean that an essential
property of S would not be essential to it, which is a contradiction. Thus if I
come to experience gnrosit know that nothing truly belongs to me but

30
It is important to recall that on Descartess denition passions are, strictly speaking, caused
by the body. One might therefore think that a passion (like gnrosit) is ill suited to ground
anything from the disembodied moment of radical doubt. However, gnrosit is in fact the
only passion that is not generated by a perception of the body; it is caused rather by a percep-
tion of the wills freedom, which is not bodily. Moreover, while in our day a disembodied
passion may sound like an oxymoron, this notion had signicant technical relevance in the
Middle Ages. Both Thomas and Ockham employ notions of passions of the will. Especially
the latter is clear about the existence of non-bodily emotions, caused by the rational soul. (For
a comprehensive discussion, see Perler, Can We Control Our Emotions?).
31
Cf. Schiffer, Descartes on his Essence, 2143; and Williams, Descartes, 10210.
32
The language Descartes uses in the sixth Meditation is in fact closer to the language used in
the denition of gnrosit, replacing the second Meditations haec sola a me divelli nequit
(Elle seule ne peut tre dtache de moi) by nihil plane aliud ad naturam meam pertinere (il
appartienne ncessairement aucune autre chose sinon que). The denition of gnrosit
uses rien qui vritablement lui appartienne que
 FREEDOM AND THE COGITO 719

freedom I come to know what essentially I am. Using strong terms such as
know (connat) and truly (vritablement), the denition of gnrosit
denes not merely what gnrosit is but what we are. In this light, the
knowledge that we are free achieved through radical doubt knowledge
that is transparent and clear as anything can be just is knowledge of our-
selves. By making us aware as generous subjects, radical doubt demonstrates
that we exist. In this sense, radical doubt can be viewed as the ground of the
Cogito.33
This analysis brings out an intriguing tension between the Passions
account of what we are and Descartess doctrine, as asserted in the Medita-
tions and in numerous additional texts, that we are essentially thinking
beings. If only freedom truly belongs to us, it is not the case that only
thoughts (as ideas) are inseparable. Indeed, the two accounts are not atly
contradictory, for even though many types of thoughts (having ideas,
sensing and imagining) are not free acts of will, some types of thought
(judging) are. Since the will is a type of thought, in other words, you con-
ceive yourself as a thinking being qua thinking yourselves as a willing
being34 (to that extent, theres no tension between the two accounts).
However, since not all thoughts are free, there is a tension: one is not essen-
tially free in virtue of being essentially (intellectually interpreted) thinking. I
will not speculate here about whether, or how, Descartess position changed
in his later writings, but it is worthy of notice that thoughts simpliciter do not
seem, strictly speaking, completely inseparable from us as the Meditations
suggests. While all ideas, including those implemented by an omnipotent
God or a supremely powerful evil deceiver, are our thoughts (metaphysically
depending on our mind), they are separable from us in the sense that they do
not depend on us exclusively; they are conditioned by a cause outside us.
There is, however, one type of thoughts that are inseparable from us in
any sense of that term, namely judgement. If a deceiver manipulates my jud-
gement, it is not free and in this sense it is not a judgement at all. But if my
judgement is free and this is something that radical doubt, as suggested,
establishes it is inseparable from me in every possible sense. Because Des-
cartes is in search of the one thing absolutely inseparable from us (the sixth
Meditation uses nihil plane), it would not be inappropriate for him ultimately
to conclude, as he does when dening gnrosit, that this is freedom and
hence judgement alone. One author who has recognized this tendency in

33
More specically, the meditator is entitled to experiencing himself as a generous subject
because he is aware not just of his freedom, but of the resolution to use this freedom well:
the undertaking of a programme of doubt in the rst place, the use of good reasons in gener-
ating doubt and the stubborn insistence to persist in doubt are expressions of this resolve. To
be sure, the meditator is not strictly speaking entitled to metaphysical knowledge of the struc-
ture of the will or the meaning of freedom. But the awareness he here achieves is the bit of
cognition that will be cashed out in terms of such knowledge later in the Meditations.
34
Cf. Principles I. 53 (AT 8a:25).
720 OMRI BOEHM

Descartes is Cassirer, though without full consciousness to the redenition of

our essence implicit in his insight:

[The nal ethical philosophy of Descartes] completes, more clearly than the
earlier writings do, the turn from Intellectualism to Voluntarism which is
appropriate to the Cartesian system. The centre of gravity of the I lies, as
the ethical writings emphasize, not in thought but in will: for this is the
only thing that is ours and inseparable from us.35

Deborah Brown, analysing the Cartesian subject from the embodied biologi-
cal position of the sixth Meditation and the Passions rather than the epis-
temological perspective of the second Meditation, goes in a similar
direction, observing that whereas the meditator knows herself as a res cogi-
tans the moral sage recognizes herself as res volans:

The Passions carries the reader to the conclusion that what is known indubi-
tably in the moral domain is the essential freedom of ones own will This is
the crowning achievement of the treatise, just as the discovery of the intellec-
tual nature of the soul is a pivotal moment in the Meditations.36

As we have seen, there is a current in Descartes suggesting that also the dis-
embodied thinking subject considered from the theoretical epistemological
perspective is essentially a willing subject. Freedom, not only in the moral
but also in the theoretical domain, is the rst indubitable discovery, ground-
ing the philosophers assertion of his existence. The res cogitans is a res
cogitans not qua an intellectual thing but qua res volans.
5. Importantly, the same current does work in the Meditations as well.
There, too, radical doubt leads the meditator to experience freedom and
in experiencing freedom the meditator experiences himself. This becomes
clear once Descartess account of innity, freedom and self-knowledge, as
elaborated in the third and fourth Meditations, is brought to bear on the
second Meditation. In the following third Meditation passage, the meditator
says,

I clearly understand that there is more reality in an innite substance than in a

nite one, and hence that my perception of the innite, that is God, is in some
way prior to my perception of the nite, that is myself.
(AT 7:45f.; CSMII:31)

As Anat Schechtman has recently shown, the passage contains Descartess

argument, necessary for the third Meditations proof of Gods existence,
for the existence of an idea of an innite being. The argument, in nuce, is
that I must have the idea of an innite being, an idea with innite objective
35
Cassirer, Descartes: LehrePersnlichkeitWirkung, 93 (translation mine).
36
Brown, Descartes and the Passionate Mind, 25.
 FREEDOM AND THE COGITO 721

reality objective reality, because that idea is a necessary condition of my

understanding of myself as nite. Given that the idea of a nite being
depends on that of an innite, my idea of the innite is not derived from
that of the nite. (Nor is it derived, for the same reason, from the idea of
the indenite, which is itself derived from the idea of the nite).37 This
analysis brings out nicely Descartess argument for his claim that we have
an idea of an innite being but, in fact, the meditators words suggest also
how we come to posses that idea: the meditator speaks of a perception of
the innite [perceptionem inniti] perception that precedes in some
sense his perception of himself. How then does the meditator perceive the
innite? Does he perceive the innite, God, before perceiving himself and
asserting the Cogito in the second Meditation?
It is worth recalling here the letter to Silhon in which Descartes claims that
nothing is more certain to him than the existence of God and of the human
soul God, it was observed, comes rst. The same pattern occurs in The
Search for Truth (also mentioned above), where Eudoxus promises Polyan-
der: from this universal doubt I propose to derive the knowledge of God,
of yourself, and of everything in the universe (AT 10:514f.; CSMII 409). It
seems then that the meditator does in some sense perceive God before per-
ceiving himself in the time of the Cogito. Understanding in what this percep-
tion consists may illuminate both the Cogito and Descartess account of how
we come to possess the idea of the innite.
Descartes continues in the third Meditation:

The fact that God created me is a very strong basis for believing that I am
somehow made in his image and likeness, and that I perceive this likeness,
which includes the idea of God, by the same faculty which enables me to per-
ceive myself [a me percipior per eandem facultatem, per quam ego ipse a me
percipior].
(AT 7:51f; CSMII:35)

The claim that we come to posses the idea of the innite by perceiving it is
reiterated, and the way in which we perceive that idea before perceiving our-
selves is illuminated somewhat further. We perceive our likeness to God, the
innite, by the same faculty with which we perceive ourselves. Of course,
one may still want to know in what this perception of ourselves and of the
innite consists; what is it that we perceive when perceiving the innite
and ourselves. And, insofar as the common interpretation of Descartes
goes e.g. when attributing to him the view that our mind is immediately
known, or transparent to us, through representation of ideas one might
expect that the faculty enabling us to know ourselves is the intellect. But
in fact already on the account offered in the Meditations, the faculty we

37
Schechtman, Descartess Argument for the Existence of the Idea of an Innite Being, 487
517.
722 OMRI BOEHM

experience when perceiving ourselves is not the intellect but the will; and
what we experience in this moment is freedom:

It is only the will, or freedom of choice, which I experience within me to be so

great that the idea of any greater faculty is beyond my grasp; so much so that it
is above all in virtue of the will that I understand myself to be in some way in
the image and likeness of God. [ ] The will simply consists in our ability to
do or not to do something (that is, to afrm or deny, to pursue or avoid); or
rather, it consists in the fact that [ ] our inclinations are such that we do
not feel that we are determined by any external force.
(AT 7:57f.; CSMII:40)

Descartes denes here freedom as the feeling that is, a passion that we
are not determined by any external force. He is referring to the experience of
freedom gnrosit. Just this experience of self-esteem is achieved by the
meditator, discovering his own worth, in the transition from doubt to cer-
tainty: let him deceive me as much as he can, the meditator announces
of the supremely powerful deceiver; he will never bring it about that I am
nothing so long as I think that I am something (AT 7:25; CSMII:17).
To bring the Meditations, the Principles and the Passions together, there is
a sense in which we perceive the innite, God, before perceiving ourselves.
Moreover, we perceive both the innite and ourselves by the same faculty.
This faculty is the will, not the intellect; and the content of that perception
is freedom, consisting in the experience of gnrosit. That experience
grounds our knowledge that nothing truly belongs to us but our freedom;
and that we are not determined by any external force, be it of an omnipotent
God or a supremely powerful evil deceiver. This transparently clear experi-
ence of freedom of ourselves does not merely survive the programme of
doubt; it is generated by it. For insofar as nothing truly belongs to us but
freedom, the meditators assertion I am, I exist consists in the assertion of
freedom.

Submitted 3 December 2013; revised 6 May and 3 August 2014;

accepted 3 September
The New School for Social Research

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