CARTESIAN

STUDIES

Edited by

R. J. BUTLER
Professor of Philosophy,
University of Kent at Canterbury

BASIL BLACKWELL
OXFORD
1972
J
 © Basil Blackwell, 1972

All rights reserved. N 0 part of this publication may

be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or trans­
mitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Basil Blackwell and
Mott Limited.

I S B N 0 631 13750 s

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 7 1 - 1 4 9 1 3 9

 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
B Y A. T. BROOME AND SON, 18 ST. C L E M E N T ' s , OXFORD
AND BOUND B Y T H E K E M P H A L L B I N D E R Y , OXFORD
 CONTENTS

Preface ... ... ... ... vi

I Descartes on the Will, by Anthony Kenny, Balliol

College, Oxford ... ... ... ... ... 1

II Innate Ideas, by Robert McRae, University of

Toronto ... ... ... ... ... ... 32
III Descartes' Definition of Thought, by Robert McRae,
UniversityofToronto ... ... ... ... 55

IV 'Cogito Ergo Sum': Inference or Argument? by

Andre Gombay, Makerere University, Uganda 71

. V Descartes' Theory of Clear and Distinct Ideas, by

E.J.Ashworth, UniversityofWaterloo ... ... 89

VI The Problem of Metaphysical Doubt and its Removal,

by Robert E. Alexander, Waterloo Lutheran
University ... ... ... ... ... ... 106

VII The Reliability of Reason, by Stanley Tweyman,

Glendon College, York University, Toronto ... 123

VIII On the Non-existence of Cartesian Linguistics, by

W.KeithPercival, UniversityofKansas ... ... 137
 PREFACE
This volume has grown out of two Workshops on Descartes
held at the University of Waterloo. The first, sponsored by the
university, met in April, 1968, and the second, sponsored by
the Canada Council, met in October, 1968. The first four papers
in this volume and the sixth were given at these Workshops: the
remaining three have been contributed subsequently.
The following abbreviations have been used: C. Adam and P.
Tannery's Oeiwres de Descartes (Paris, 1897-1913) is referred to
by ' A T ' followed by the volume, and then the page number. C.
Adam and G. Milhaud's Correspondence de Descartes (Paris,
1926-63) is referred to by ' A M ' followed by the volume, and then
the page number. The Philosophical Works ofDescartes translated
by E.^S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross (Cambridge, 1911) is
indicated by TIR' followed by the volume and the page number.
Descartes: Philosophical Writings translated by E. Anscombe and
P. T. Geach (London, 1954) is referred to by ' A G ' followed by
the page number.
I wish to thank the University of Waterloo and the Canada
Council for underwriting the Workshops in the first place, and
the contributors to this volume for their encouragement and
support.
R.J.B.
 D E S C A R T E S ON T H E W I L L
ANTHONY K E N N Y

The problems I wish to discuss concern two developments

which took place, or are alleged to have taken place, in Descartes'
teaching concerning the relation of the intellect and the will.
The first is this. I n the Regulae (AT X, 420) Descartes says
that we must distinguish the faculty of the intellect by which it
intuits and knows things from the faculty by which it makes
1
affirmative and negative judgements. I n the same book he says
that belief in revelation, by contrast with science, 'is not an act of
2
the mind but of the wuT. On the other hand, in the Principles of
Philosophy we are told that, while sensation, imagination, and
pure intellection are modes of perception, desire and aversion,
3
affirmation, denial and doubt are different modes of willing.
This classification of affirmative and negative judgements as an
act of will is anticipated in the Fourth Meditation, where he
distinguishes the intellect or faculty of knowing (facultas cognos-
cendi) from the wall or faculty of choosing (facultas eligendi) and
4
says that the intellect merely perceives ideas for judgement and
5
that judgements are acts of the w i l l ; the cause of erroneous
judgement is the fact that our will extends further than our
6
intellect.
In the same passage of the Meditations occurs the sentence
which introduces the second of the two contrasts I want to discuss.
T could not refrain from judging' Descartes says 'that what I so
clearly understood was true . . . because from a great light in my
7
intellect there followed an inclination of will.' The assertion that
1
Distinguamus illam facultatem intellectus per quam res intuetur et cognoscit
ab ea qua judicat affirmando vel negando.
2
Non ingenii actio sit sed voluntatis (AT X , 370).
3
Sentire imaginari et pure intelligere sunt tantum modi percipiendi; ut et
cupere aversari, affirmare, negare, dubitare sunt diversi modi volendi (AT V I I I ,
17).
4
Per solum intellectum percipio tantum ideas de quibus iudicium ferre
possum (AT V I I , 50).
5
Illos actus voluntatis, sive illa iudicia, in quibus fallor (AT V I I , 60).
6
Latius pateat voluntas quam intellectus (AT V I I , 50).
7
Non potui non iudicare illud quod tam clare intelligebam verum esse . . .
quia ex magna luce in intellectu magna consequuta est propensio in voluntate
A T V I I , 59).
2 ANTHONY KENNY

the will is determined by the intellect is generalised in the geo­

metrical exposition of theMeditations which follows the Second
Objections. 'The will of a thinking substance is impelled—
voluntarily and freely, since that is of the essence of the will, but
8
none the less infallibly—towards a good clearly known to it.' And
in the reply to the same objections he gives examples of proposi­
tions which are so clearly perceived by the intellect that we cannot
think of them without believing them to be true (AT V I I , 145).
In a letter perhaps written to Mesland in 1645, on the other hand,
Descartes wrote as follows. ' I t is always open to us to hold back
from pursuing a clearly known good, or from admitting a clearly
perceived truth, provided we consider it a good thing to demon­
9
strate the freedom ofthe will by so doing/
We have, then, two contrasts. I n the Regulae, Descartes treats
judgement as an act of the intellect; in later works he treats it as
an act of the will. I n the Meditations Descartes says that clear
perception determines the will; in the letter to Mesland he says
that clear perception can be rejected by the will. I want to take
each of these contrasts in turn to see how far they represent a real
change of mind in Descartes.

I. Descartes' Theory ofJudgement

To the modern philosopher, the statement of the Regulae that
judgement is an act of the intellect, seems more natural than the
theory of the Principles that judgement is an act of the will. A
practical judgement, a decision what to do, may perhaps be
regarded as an act of the will; but a speculative judgement, a
decision that such and such is the case, an assent to a proposition
rather than to a proposal: this seems, if we are to talk of faculties
at all, to belong to a cognitive rather than to an appetitive faculty.
vSuch too was the opinion of the scholastics of Descartes' time.
To see what he is likely to have been taught by the Thomists of La
Fleche, we may consider the following text of St. Thomas, one of
many quoted in Gilson's Index Scolastico-Cartesien. I n Ia IIae
17, 6 St. Thomas inquires whether the act of reason can be com­
manded by the will. He replies as follows. 'Since reason reflects
8
Rei cogitantis voluntas fertur, voluntarie quidem et libere—hoc enim est
de essentia voluntatis—sed nihilominus infallibiliter, in bonum sibi clare
cognitum (AT V I I , 166).
9
Semper enim nobis licet nos revocare a bono clare cognito prosequendo,
vei a perspicua veritate admittenda, modo tantum cogitemus bonum libertatem
arbitrii nostri per hoc testari (AT VI, 197).
 DESCARTES O N T H E W I L L 3
on itself, it can order its own acts just as it can order the acts of
other faculties; and so its own act can be commanded. But it must
be observed that the actof reason can be considered in two ways.
First we may consider the exercise of the act: in this sense the
act ofreason can always be commanded, as when someone is told
to pay attention and use his reason. Secondly, we may consider
the object of the act; and in this connection there are two different
acts of reason to be considered. The first is the apprehension of
truth about something, this is not in our power but comes about in
virtue of a natural or supernatural light; and so in this respect the
act of reason is not in our power and cannot be commanded. But
there is another act of reason which consists in assent to what is
apprehended. Where what is apprehended is something like the
first principles to which the intellect naturally assents, to assent or
dissent is not in our power but in the order of nature; and so,
strictly speaking, it is at the command of nature. But there are
some things apprehended which do not so convince the intellect
as to take away its power of assent or dissent; these leave it free at
least to suspend its assent or dissent for some cause; and in such
10
cases assent and dissent areinourpowerand subjecttocommand.'
Any reader of Descartes will notice great similarities between
his doctrine and that of St. Thomas. Descartes distinguishes
frequently between what we perceive or understand and what we
judge: out of many passages, we can quote the letter to Hyper-
aspistes; Ί have frequently observed that what men judge to be
11
the case differs from what they really understand to be the case'.
Descartes' distinction between perception and judgement corres­
ponds to Aquinas' between apprehension and assent. Like
10
Respondeo dicendum quod quia ratio supra seipsam reflectitur, sicut ordinat
de actibus aliarum potentiarum, ita etiam potest ordinare de suo actu; unde etiam
actus ipsius potest esse imperatus. Sed attendendum est quod actus rationis potest
considerari dupliciter: uno modo quantum ad exercitium actus, et si^ actus
rationis semper imperari potest, sicut cum indicitur alicui quod attendat, et
rationi utatur. Alio modo quantum ad objectum, respectu cujus duo actus
rationis attenduntur: primo quidem, ut veritatem circa aliquid apprehendat; et
hoc non est in potestate nostra; hoc enim contingit per virtutem alicuius luminis
vel naturalis vel supernaturalis. Et ideo quantum ad hoc actus rationis non est
in potestate nostra, nec imperari potest. Alius autem actus rationis est, dum his
quae apprehendit assentit. Si igitur fuerint talia apprehensa, quibus naturaliter,
intellectus assentiat, sicut prima principia, assensus talium vel dissensus non
est in potestate nostra, sed in ordine naturae; et ideo, proprie loquendo, naturae
imperio subjacet. Sunt autem quaedam apprehensa, quae non adeo convincunt
intellectum, quin possit assentire vel dissentire, vel saltem assensum vel dis-
sensum suspendere propter aliquam causam; et in talibus assensus vel dissensus
in potestate nostra est, et sub imperio cadit.
1 1
Frequenter animadverti ea quae homines iudicabant ab iis quae intellige¬
bant dissentire (AM V, 52).
B
4 ANTHONY KENNY

Aquinas, Descartes thinks that there are some truths which are
perceived in such a way as to forced assent; Aquinas calls
these first principles, Descartes calls them clear and distinct
perceptions. As he wrote to Regius in 1640: our mind is of such a
12
nature that it cannot fail to assent to what is clearly understood.
Like Aquinas, Descartes thinks that in other cases the mind is
free to assent or dissent; but whereas Aquinas says that assent or
dissent in such a case is at the command of the will, Descartes as
we have seen regards assent as being, not just commanded by the
will but as itself an act of the will. I know of no scholastic prior to
Descartes who held this view, and I am unimpressed by the
attempts of Gilson and Koyre to find precedent for it in Augustine,
13
Thomas and Scotus.
When he wrote the Regulae, Descartes still held the orthodox
Thomist view, as we have seen. There is, it is true, one passage
which Leslie Beck sees as presupposing the later view 'that judge­
ment whether in its pure or practical use is an assent or dissent,
14
an act of wilP. But the passage is most naturally interpreted as
applying only to practical matters. Descartes exhorts us, in
studying, 'to think solely of increasing the natural light of reason,
not with a view to solving this or that scholastic problem but in
order that in all the happenings of our life, our intellect may show
15
our will what alternative to choose'. I n this passage it is choice,
and not judgement, not even practical judgement, which is
attributed to the will; though i f Descartes had called the choice
following deliberation 'judgement' he would not have been
16
departing from scholastic usage. So pace Beck, the Regulae do
1 2
Mens nostra est talis naturae, ut non potest clare intellectis non assentiri
<ATi11,64).
1 3
Koyr6 quotes a passage from Augustine in which a judgement is attributed
to the will; but this concerns the act of faith, and not regular speculative judge­
ment (Essai dur Videe de Dieu et les preuves de son existence chez Descartes, Paris,
1922, p. 78).
Gilson's best text for the assimilation between St. Thomas and Descartes is
the following:
Conclusio syllogismi quae fit in operabilibus ad rationem pertinet, et dicitur
sententia vel iudicium, quam sequitur electio; et ob hoc ipsa conclusio pertinere
videtur ad electionem tanquam ad consequens.
This is far from Descartes' identification of judgement and election; and in any
case applies only to practical reasoning (in operabilibus) (S. Th. Ia IIae, 13 1 ad 2).
1 4
L . J . Beck, The Method ofDescartes (Oxford, 1952), p. 17.
1 5
Cogitet tantum de naturali rationis lumine augendo, non ut hanc aut illam
scholae difficultatem resolvat, sed ut in singulis vitae casibus intellectus voluntati
praemonstret quid sit eligendum.
1 6
Iudicium est quasi conclusio et determinatio consilii. Determinatur autem
consilium primo quidem per sententiam rationis, et secundo per acceptationem
appetitus . . . et hoc modo ipsa electio dicitur quoddam iudicium a quo nominatur
liberum arbitrium S. T h . I, 84 3 ad. 2.
 DESCARTES O N T H E W I L L 5
not differ from the Thomist doctrine that judgement is an act of
the intellect.
Some time, then, between 1628 and 1640 Descartes changed
his mind about the nature of judgement. I t is not easy to discover
when or why he did so. The Discourse on Method is not helpful: it
hardly mentions the will. I n the Third Section, while urging the
importance of following men's practice rather than their preaching,
Descartes observes that many people do not know what they really
believe. 'For the mental act of believing a thing is different from
the act of knowdng that one believes i t ; and the one act often
17
occurs without the other.' I n his commentary Gilson cites here
a passage from Regis: 'According to Descartes, the mental act by
which we judge something to be good or bad is a function of the
will, and the action by which we know that we have judged thus is
a function of the intellect. I t is no wonder i f two functions, one
of the intellect and one of the will, are different and can occur
18
apart.' Regis' annotation shows that what is here said is coherent
with Descartes' mature theory ofjudgement; but it does not establish
that he already held it. First of all, the passage concerns practical
and not speculative judgement; secondly, even someone who
thinks that both belief and the knowledge that one believes are
acts of the intellect can think it possible for one of them to occur
19
without the other.
We may turn next to Descartes' unpublished writings for a
clue in this matter. I n 1630 in letters to Mersenne Descartes put
forward his famous doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths.
It was the common scholastic doctrine that the truths of logic and
mathematics were necessary in such a way that not even God
could change them: they were not altogether independent of him,
because they depended for their truth upon his essence or nature;
but they did not depend on his free will in the way that the
17
L'action de la pensee par laquelle on croit une chose, etant differente de
celle par laquelle on connait qu'on la croit, elles sont souvent Tune sans Tautre
(AT V I , 23).
18
Exactement commente par Pierre-Silvain Regis: 'Car il faut savoir que,
selon M . Descartes, Taction de Tesprit par laquelle nous jugeons qu'une chose
est bonne ou mauvaise est une fonction qui appartient ä la νοΙοηίέ, et que
Taction par laquelle nous connaissons que nous avons juge ainsi est une fonction
qui appartient ä Tentendement. Ou, ce n'est pas une grande merveille que deux
fonctions, dont Tune appartienent ä Tentendement et Tautre ä la volont6 soient
difTerentes, et que Tune puisse etre sans Tautre.' Gilson, op. cit., p. 238.
1 9
The difficulty is to reconcile what Descartes says here with Passions,
article 1,19. See the remarks ofProfessor R. M. McRae in this volume, pp. 61, 68.
6 ANTHONY KENNY

existence of the world did. Descartes argued that the scholastics

talked of God 'as if he were Jupiter or Saturn, subject to Styx and
fate': in contrast he insisted that it is God who has established
these laws in nature just as a King establishes laws in his kingdom.
The eternal truths 'are true or possible because God knows them
as true or possible; they are not, contrariwise, known to God as
true as though they were true independently of him . . . in God
knowing and willing are but one thing; so that from the very fact
of his willing something he knows it, and for this reason alone is
20
such a thing true'.
Attempts have been made to find sources for this doctrine in
Scotus and Ockham; like the attempts to find scholastic precedents
21
for the theory of judgement, they are unconvincing. Both the
doctrine of the creation of eternal truths and the theory that
judgement is an act of the will are, of course, examples of a
'voluntarist' tendency—a tendency to attribute to the will (human
or divine) things which might be attributed to something else (the
intellect, or the nature); and such a tendency is to be found in
Scotus and Ockham (the happiness of the blessed resides primarily
inthe will; good and evil are as they are because God so wills).
But the resemblance seems to end there. And the connection, i f
there is one, between the two Cartesian doctrines, is fairly tenuous.
It is true that if in God knowing and willing two and three to make
five is one and the same act, then we have an act which can be
regarded as at the same time an act of the intellect and of the will.
But that this is the case with God, whose nature is simple and
undivided, does not tell us anything about what is the case in man
where intellect and will are distinct. Descartes does not even use
the word 'judgement' about God in this context, though no doubt
if he did, he would say that in God judging, just like willing and
creating, was identical with seeing, knowing or understanding.
Mersenne informed Descartes that his doctrine resembled that
of the Oratorian P. Gibieuf, who published in 1630 his De Libertate
Dei et Hominis. Descartes, on receiving the book from Mersenne
2 0
Sunt tantum verae aut possibiles quia Deus illas veras aut possibiles
cognoscit, non autem contra veras a Deo cognosci quasi independenter ab illo
sint verae . . . en Dieu ce n'est qu'un de vouloir et de connaitre; de sorte que
ex hoc ipso quod aliquid velit, ideo cognoscit, et ideo tantum talis res est vera
(ATI,149).
2 1
There is no real evidence for Koyre's view that Descartes read Scotus in
the 1620's. Even according to Koyre, Scotus held only that God could change
moral laws such as the decalogue,> not logical or mathematical truths.
 DESCARTES O N T H E W I L L 7
(cf A T I , 153, 174, 220) had pleasure, as Baillet says, to find
wherewithal to authorize what he conceived of indifference and
freewill. But though Gibieuf's views on the liberty of God, and
on the Jesuit doctrine of liberty of indifference, were very close to
those of Descartes, there is nothing in his De Libertate to suggest
that speculative judgement is an act of the will. On the contrary,
the book reaffirms the traditional doctrine on this point. ' I t is to
be observed that liberty is an appetitive, not a cognitive faculty;
because it is a faculty whose object is the end or the supreme good,
Avhich is an object of appetite not of intellect. I t is no objection to
this that it is called the faculty of free decision or judgement, and
that judgement or decision is an act of reason. For it is called the
faculty of free decision, both because it is moved by the free
decision or judgment, and because free decision or judgment,
when it is perfect and, as they say, practico-practical, includes its
22
acceptance; not that its actual act is a Judgement or decision.'
Altogether, I can find no passage in Descartes' letters prior to
the writing of the Meditations which clearly teaches that judge­
ment is an act of the will. This makes it the more surprising that
when it is put forward there it is not presented as a novel thesis
which needs to be argued for, but is presupposed and applied
before being stated in so many words. Only Gassendi seems to
have objected, and that not in his first objections, but in his
Instances, of which one is thus summarised: 'To avoid confusion
the intellect and the will should be so distinguished that whatever
concerns cognition and judgement should be attributed to the
intellect, and whatever concerns appetition and choice should be
,23
attributed to the w i l l .
Being unable to find a historical source from which Descartes
might have borrowed the doctrine that judgement is an act of the
will, we must ask what philosophical considerations may have led
him to devise it for himself. The one which first suggests itself is
22
Observandum secundo, libertatem esse facultatem appetitivam, non
cognoscitivam: quia est facultas cuius objectum est finis, sive summum bonum,
quod est appetitus non intellectus. Nec refert quod vocetur facultas liberi
arbitrii sive iudicii, iudicium autem sive arbitrium sit actus rationis. Vocatur
enim facultas liberi arbitrii, tum quia movetur a libero arbitrio sive iudicio, tum
quia liberum arbitrium sive iudicium (quando perfectum est et practice prac-
ticum, ut vocant) eius iam acceptationem includit; non autem quod actus eius
elicitus sit iudicium ipsum sive arbitrium (op. cit., 355).
23
Vitandae confusionis gratia debere intellectum et voluntatem ita distingui
ut quicquid cognitionis et judicii est, ad intellcetum pertineat; quicquid appeti-
tionis electionisque, ad voluntatem (AT V I I , 404).
8 ANTHONY KENNY

the fact that judgement, even speculative judgement, is, often at

least, a voluntary matter. What we believe is influenced by our
desires; rash judgement or stubborn incredulity is blamed as a
moral fault; courage and effort may be required to retain rational
conviction in face of emotional pressures. I n the controversy with
Regius there is some evidence that this consideration was the
origin of Descartes theory. I n the Notes on a Programme, Descartes
ubjects to Regius' dividing understanding into perception and
judgement. ' I however saw that, over and above perception,
which is required in order that we may judge, there must needs be
affirmation or negation to constitute the form of judgement, and
that it is often possible for us to withhold our assent, even if w e r

perceive a thing. I attributed the act of judging, which consists

solely in assent, that is in affirmation or negation, not to the
perception of the understanding, but to the determination of the
24
will.'
In his doctoral thesis, La doctrine Cartesienne de la liberte,
Etienne Gilson argued, on the basis of this and other texts, that
r
the origin of Descartes' theory of judgement was to be sought in
his desire to adapt Aquinas' theodicy to his own purposes. The
problem of evil presented itself to Descartes above all as the
problem of error. There existed a set of arguments in Aquinas
to show how God could be exonerated from blame for human sin.
By making judgement an act of the will, Descartes assimilated
erroneous judgement to sinful volition. Thus he was able to use
Aquinas' arguments to exonerate the author of nature from blame
for human fallibility. 'The problem of sin is the theological form
of the problem of error and the problem of error is the philoso­
25
phical form of the problem of sin.'
T w O objections may be made to Gilson's thesis, one sound and
T
the other unsound. The unsound objection runs as follow s. I t is
just not the case that all judgement is voluntary in the sense of
being avoidable. There are many judgements, as Descartes is the
24
Ego enim, cum viderem, praeter perceptionem, quae praerequiritur ut
iudicemus, opus esse affirmatione vel negatione ad formam iudicii constituen-
dam, nobisque saepe liberum esse ut cohibeamus assensionem, etiamsi rem
percipiamus: ipsum actum iudicandi, qui non nisi in assensu, hoc est, in affirm­
atione vel negatione consistit, non retuli ad perceptionem intellectus, sed ad
determinationem voluntatis (AT V I I I a 363).
25
*La probleme du peche est la forme theologique de celui de Perreur et la
probleme de Terreur est las forme philosophique de celui de la pech6 (op. cit.,
p. 284).
 DESCARTES ON T H E W I L L 9
first to admit, that we cannot help making. Even the Notes on a
Programme merely say 'nobis saepe liberum esse ut cohibeamus
assensionem', and it appears disingenuous for Gibson to para­
phrase this, as he does, 'nous savons par experience que cette
affirmation et cette negation sont toujours en notre pouvoir' (op.
cit., p. 276).
This objection is unsound because Descartes does not consider
it necessary for a judgement to be voluntary that it should be
avoidable. Like most scholastics, Descartes was willing to call an
r
act voluntary if it was in accordance with the agent's desires,
T r
w hether or not it was avoidable; indeed, unlike most scholastics,
he was prepared to call an unavoidable, but welcome, action 'free'
26
as well as 'voluntary' (AT IV, 116). Moreover, it is undoubtedly
true, as Gilson says, that in the Fourth Meditation Descartes does
use in the interest of theodicy arguments very parallel to those of
Aquinas.
The crucial objection to Gilson's thesis is that it was not
necessary, for Descartes to be able to exploit Aquinas' arguments,
that he should have made judgement an act of the will; it was
sufficient for him to make it a voluntary act of the intellect. I n
scholastic terminology, he did not need to regard judgement as an
actus elicitus voluntatis; it was perfectly sufficient for him to
regard it, as Aquinas himself did, as an actus imperatus a voluntateP
Not all voluntary acts are acts of the will: walking, for instance,
may be a voluntary act but it is an act of the body rather than of
the will. Descartes might reject this example because, as he says
often, nothing is completely in my power but my thoughts (e.g.
Discourse, Part I I I ; letter 154). But imagination, and intellectual
thought are under the control of will—we can decide what we are
going to think about—but are not acts of the will. O u r desires
are of two sorts: one of which consists in the actions of the soul
T
which terminate in the soul itself, as w hen we desire to love God,
or generally speaking, apply our thoughts to some object which is
not material.. . . When our soul applies itself to imagine something
which does not exist, as when it represents to itself an enchanted
26
Moreover any erroneous judgement was for Descartes voluntary in the
sense of avoidable.
27
Descartes does not, so far as I know, use the pair actus elicitus actus
imperatus. But he frequently uses the terminology of eliciting acts (e.g. Med.
IV, A T V I I , 6o; N. in P, A T V I I I a , 363) and the terminology of actus imperatus
is implied in the letter 463.
10 ANTHONY KENNY

palace o r a chimera, and also when it applies itself to consider

something which is only intelligible and not imaginable, e.g. to
consider its own nature, the perceptions which it has of these
things depend principally on the act of will which causes it to
perceive them.' Such perceptions, then are voluntary; but they
are perceptions of the intellect, not inclinations of the will
(Passions, articles 18, 20). The problem we might say is not that
error belongs to philosophy and sin to theology; it is that the
object of the intellect is truth, and that of the will is goodness; that
error is a matter of falsehood, and sin of badness. And this
problem Gilson's theory is impotent to solve.
Put in less scholastic terms, the problem is why, and with what
justification, Descartes should lump judgement together with
desire and aversion and separate it from perception and imagin­
ation. One reason might be that judgement and desire are, on
Descartes' theory, the only acts which we perform if and only if we
want to perform them. Walking is something which we do only if
we want to; but not every time we want to walk do we succeed in
walking. I f we want to imagine something, on the other hand, we
T
succeed in doing so; but we often have thoughts in our imagination
which we do not will to be there. Neither of walking nor imagina­
r
tion, therefore, is it true that they are acts which we perform if and
T
only if w e want to. Judgement and desire, of which this is true,
T
are therefore voluntaryin a special w ay.
But there is a further reason for regarding judgement as an
act of the will: and light may be thrown on this from an unexpected
quarter. I n modern times Frege has taught us to make a sharp
distinction between the sense of a sentence which remains the
same whether a sentence appears as a complete unit of com­
munication or as a hypothetical clause in a longer sentence, and
the assertion of a sentence which he marked by a special sign whose
function was to indicate that the reference or truth-value of what
28
follows it is 'the true'. Many other writers have followed Frege,
notably R. M . Hare, who in The Language of Morals made a
distinction in sentences between a phrastic (which contains the
descriptive content of the sentence) and a neustic (which marks the
mood of a sentence, and of which Frege's assertion sign would be
28
The Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, ed. Geach and Black (Oxford,
1952), pp. 62ff.
 DESCARTES O N T H E W I L L 11
29
an example). The two sentences 'You will shut the door' and
'You, shut the door' have something in common—the state of
affairs which wOuld verify the prediction is the same as the state of
r
affairs which w ould constitute obedience to the command, namely
your shutting the door. But as sentences in different moods they
differ; and the similarity and differences might be brought out by
rephrasing them

Your shutting the door in the immediate future, please

Your shutting the door in the immediate future, yes.

It is not difficult to see a similarity between Descartes' theory

of judgement and the theory of Frege and Hare. The perceptions
T
of the intellect, it might be said, are concerned w ith the unasserted
phrastics; an affirmative judgement is as it were the mental attach­
ment of the neustic 'yes' to the phrastic presentedby the intellect,
the mental attachment of the assertion sign to the Fregean 'sense'
which is the object of perception. There is of course the difference
that neither Frege nor Hare has a negative neustic; negation is
regarded not as the polar opposite of assertion, but as the assertion
of a phrastic with a negative sense, containing within itself the
logical constant for negation.
In two passages Descartes seems to make the contrast between
phrastic and neustic in the scholastic terminology of matter and
form. I n the Third Meditation, having said that only those of his
thoughts that are like pictures really deserve the name of 'idea', he
goes on to say Other thoughts have other forms in addition: when
I will, am afraid, assert, or deny, there is always something which.
I take as the subject of my thought; but my thought comprises
more than the likeness of the thing in question; of these some are
3(>
termed volitions or emotions, others are termed judgements'.
The word 'subjectum' suggests to a modern reader the translation
'topic'; but in fact it is used in scholastic terminology as a synonym
29
The Language ofMorals (Oxford, 1952), pp. 18ff. In his more recent work
Hare distinguishes what he called a neustic into neustic, tropic and elistic.
These refinements are not necessary for a comparison with Descartes, who
does not make any analogous distinctions.
30
Aliae vero alias quaedam praeterea formas habent; ut cum volo, cum
timeo, cum affirmo, cum nego, semper quidem aliquam rem ut subjectum meae
cogitationis apprehendo, sed aliquid etiam amplius quam istius reisimilitudinem
cogitatione complector; et ex his aliae voluntates, sive afTectus, aliae autem
iudicia appellantur ( A T V I I , 37).
12 ANTHONY KENNY

for 'materia' in contrast to 'forma', which is explicitly used to

31
refer to what differentiates a judgement from a pure idea.
In this passage judgements are contrasted with volitions rather
than classified as a species of volition; this makes clear that
Descartes uses 'volition' in a narrow sense as well as a broad sense,
volitions strictly so called being a species of a genus of acts of
32
ΛνίΙΙ which includes also judgements. I n the other passage which
uses scholastic terminology we are told very explicitly that judge­
ment is an act of the will. This is in the passage already quoted
from the Notes on a Programme, where Descartes is objecting to
Regius' classification of mental phenomena. 'Then he divides
what he calls the intellect into perception and judgement, which
does not accord with my view. I observed that besides the per­
ception which was required for judgement there must also be an
affirmation or negation to constitute the form of judgement; and
that it is often open to us to withhold our assent even if we perceive
a thing. And so I attributed the act of judging, which consists
purely in assent, i.e. affirmation and negation, not to the perception
of the intellect, but to the determination of the will' (AT V I I I
303).
The statement that the intellect is concerned with the un­
asserted phrastics needs some qualification; for Descartes uses
*intellect' no less than 'will' in two senses. I n one sense the
intellect is the possession of the power to recall and combine
ideas; it is in this sense that everyjudgement presupposes an act
of the intellect, since judgements must concern ideas, neustics
must be attached to phrastics. I n another sense the intellect is the
faculty which produces clear and distinct ideas and intuits their
truth; it is in this sense that Descartes can explain error by saying
that the faculty of judging extends farther than the faculty of
understanding. He explained this to Gassendi in the Fifth
3 1
Cf. also I I replies: distinguendum est inter materiam sive rem ipsam cui
assentimur, et rationem formalem quae movet voluntatem ad assentiendum.
32
On the basis of this passage Brentano argued that Descartes did not really
regard judgement as an act of the will at all; he explains away Principle 32 and
the Notes on a Programme by saying that Descartes means judgement is an
actus imperatus voluntatis and not an actus elicitus voluntatis. He does not seem
to have noticed that in the Fourth Meditation Descartes speaks of'eliciendos illos
actus voluntatis, sive illa iudica, in quibus fallor* (AT V I I , 60). The French makes
«ven clearer the identity of the act of the will and the judgements: 'Dieu concourt
avec moi pour former les actes de cette volont6, c'est ä dire les jugements dans
lesquels je me trompe' (AT I X , 48). See Brentano, The True and the Evident
<London, 1966), pp. 28-32.
 DESCARTES O N T H E W I L L 13
Replies (AT V I I , 376). 'When you judge that the mind is a
rarefied body, you can understand that it is a mind, that is, a
thinking thing, and you can understand that a rarefied body is an
extended thing; but you do not understand that one and the same
thing is both thinking and extended; this is something you merely
will to believe because you believed it before and you do not like
changing your mind. When you judge that an apple, which
happens to be poisoned, is suitable food, you understand that its
odour and colour etc. are pleasant, but not that it is a good thing
for you to eat; but because you want it so, you judge it so. And so
I agree that we do not will anything about which we understand
nothing at all; but I deny that we understand as much as we will;
because we can, about one and the same thing, will much and know
33
very little.'
The ambiguity of Descartes' 'intellectus' can be paralleled i n
the English word 'understanding' which is the nearest word to
Descartes' French 'entendement'. When we use the word 'under­
standing', like Locke, as a name for a very general faculty, we
might say that the belief that eighteen is a prime number is an
operation of the understanding; but of course in another sense
ho-one can understand that eighteen is a prime number since it is
not. So, in this passage of the reply to Gassendi, Descartes
restricts the verb 'intelligere' to his adversary's correct perform­
ances—understanding what mind is, and what body is—and refuses
to apply it to his mistaken idea that mind is a kind of body.
There is a difference between phrastics and the 'materia' of
Descartes' judgements in that phrastics are unambiguously
composite, propositional, containing argument and function;
whereas the matter of Cartesian judgement is ideas, and ideas may
be simple (e.g. the idea o/mind) or composite (e.g. the idea 'horse
with wings') and composite ideas seem sometimes to be expressed
nominally (idea of a horse with wings) and sometimes proposition-
ally (idea that a horse has wings). Sometimes Descartes writes as
3 3
Ita cum iudicas mentem esse tenue quoddam corpus intelligere quidem
potes, ipsam esse mentem, hoc est, rem cogitantem, itemque tenue corpus esse
rem extensam; unam autem et eandem esse rem quae cogitat et quae sit extensa,
profecto non intelligis, sed tantummodo vis credere, quia iam ante credidisti nec
libenter de sententia decedis. Ita cum pomum, quod forte venenatum est,
iudicas tibi in alimentum convenire, intelligis quidem eius odorem, colorem, et
talia grata esse, non autem ideo ipsum pomum tibi esse utile in alimentum; sed
quia its vis, ita iudicas. Atque sic fateor quidem nihil nos velle de quo non
aliquo modo intelligamus; sed nego noe aeque intelligere et velle; possumus
enim de eatem re velle permulta et perpauca tantum cognoscere (AT V I I , 377).
14 ANTHONY KENNY

if even a non-propositional idea can be asserted; whereas of course

it would be impossible to attach a neustic to a name standing alone.
In such a case, presumably the assertion amounts to the assertion
34
of an extra-mental existence of the thing represented by the idea.
The work of the intellect in the strict sense involves not only
the understanding of ideas but also seeing the combination
between ideas (as, that thought is linked with existence). The
intellect, in the wide sense, includes the imagination, whose
function is to combine together the ideas of various bodily objects
(forming, say, the idea of a goat-stag out of the idea of a goat and
the idea of a stag). But it is not clear, in Descartes' system, what
faculty is responsible for linking together non-corporeal ideas
which do not belong together in reality: e.g. what links the ideas
together in the idea that mind is a rarefied body? I n Gassendi, one
might think, it is the will that links these ideas together, just as it
is the will which judges the composite idea so formed to be true.
7
Eutthis will not apply in the case of Descartes, w hose will makes
no such judgement, and who yet in order to reject the judgement
has to put the two ideas together in the sentence 'The mind is not
a rarefied body.'
The comparison between Descartes' perceptions and Hare's
phrastics, then, though illuminating, needs qualification. Let us
now turn to the other element, the neustic. Does a consideration
<of this throw any light on why Descartes considered judgement an
act of the will? I f the command 'Jones shut the door' can be
rewritten 'Shutting of the door by Jones, please', it seems that
Jones's acceptance of, or assent to, this command, might be
expressed by 'Shutting of the door by Jones, yes'. Elsewhere I
have suggested that wishes, desires and other pro-attitudes could
be similarly expressed artificially by a unit consisting of a phrastic
describing the approved state of affairs, and a neustic indicating
the attitude of approval.
Now of course when Jones agrees to the order 'shut the door'
by saying 'yes', he means 'yes I will', not 'yes that is the case'.
None the less, it is a striking fact that we can give an affirmative
response not only to propositions and questions, but also to
es u r
commands and projects, by the same word ' y ' - O attitudes to

Cf. Third Meditation, A T V I I I , 33 ;and the letter to Mersenne, no. 308,

84

in which Descartes says that all ideas not involving affirmation or negation are
innate.
 DESCARTES O N T H E W I L L 15
both assertions and proposals may be described in terms of
affirmation and negation; both may be characterised as 'assent' or
*dissent'; both as forms of commitment. Assent to both a proposi­
tion and a proposal may be sincere or insincere, rash or cautious,
right or wrong.
It is this, I think, which provides the main justification for
Descartes' treatment of judgement as an act of the will. For what
is it, after all, to ascribe particular actions to one or other faculty?
It is to group those actions together in virtue of common features
of description and assessment which apply to them. I f we take
together all those mental activities which can have rightness or
wrongness ascribed to them, we will find that they include all
those activities which Descartes ascribed to the will and exclude
r
those w hich he ascribed to the intellect.
But this justification of Descartes' procedure suggests immedi­
ately an objection to it. I t may be wrong to think that the earth is
larger than the sun, and wrong to have vengeful desires; but the
wrongness in the one case consists in falsehood and in the other
case in evil. The right, we might say grandly, is a genus of which
the species are the true and the good; and Descartes' classification
emphasizes the unity of the genus at the cost of ignoring the
diversity of the species.
It would be open to Descartes to make the following reply. I t
is indeed the case that judgement, unlike desires, can be classified
as true or false. But it is not true that judgements cannot be
classified as good and evil. Believing that the human mind,
properly used, was infallible, Descartes believed that every
erroneous judgement was a moral fault. 'What theologian or
philosopher' he asked 'or indeed what rational man has ever
denied that we are in less danger of error the more clearly we
understand something before assenting to it, and that it is a sin to
35
make a judgement before the case is known?' Moreover, the
truth and falsehood which belongs to a judgement, Descartes
might have said, belongs to it not in so far as it is an assent, but in
so far as what is assented to—what is presented by the intellect—
corresponds or does not correspond to reality. Erik Stenius has
pointed out that unasserted phrastics possess a truth-value
35
Quis unquam vel Philosophus vel Theologus, vel tantum homo ratione
utens non confessus est eo minori in errandi periculo nos versari, quo clarius
aliquid intelligimus, antequam ipsi assentiamur, atque illos peccare qui causa
ignota iudicium ferunt ( I I Replies, A T V I I , 147).
16 ANTHONY KENNY

independently of being asserted; what is contained in an if-clause,

for example, either is or is not a description of what is the case,
even though, since it occurs in an if-clause, it is not being put
36
forward as such a description. This is a fact which is pre­
supposed in the truth-tabular definition of the logical constants.
The truth of assertions might be regarded as parasitic on this: an
assertion is true i f and only i f what is asserted is true, i.e. is a
description which corresponds to reality.
In fact Descartes does not answer along these lines. Instead he
says: 'Ideas considered in themselves and not referred to some­
thing else, cannot strictly speaking be false; whether I imagine a
she-goat or a chimera, it is not less true that I imagine the one
rather than the other. Again, falsehood is not to be feared in the
will or the emotions; I may desire what is evil, or what does not
exist anywhere, but it is none the less true that I desire it. Only
judgements remain: it is here that I must take precautions against
37
falsehood/ This, as I have remarked elsewhere, is a strange
38
argument. One could as well argue that judgements in them­
selves could not be false, on the grounds that whether what I judge
is true or false, it is none the less true that I judge. I think this
reveals a genuine confusion in Descartes. His theory of judgement
39
involves an important insight which he failed to follow up.
The point which Descartes has missed is what we may call—to
0
adapt an expression of J. L . Austin's—the onus of match* I f we
express assent to a proposition or a project in the phrastic-neustic
form, each expression will containa description of a possible state
of affairs, plus an assent-indicator. But let us suppose that the
possible state of affairs does not, at the relevant time, obtain.
Do we fault the assent, or the state ofaffairs? Do we condemn the
original assent as a false assertion, or do we complain about the
36
Wittgenstein's *Tractatu$' (Ithaca, N.Y., 1960), p. 165fr.
37
Quad ad ideas attinet, si solae in se spectentur, nec ad aliud quid illas
referam, falsae proprie esse non possunt; nam sive capram, sive chimaeram
imaginer, non minus verum est me unam imaginari quam alteram. Nulla etiam
in ipsa voluntate, vel afTectibus, falsitas est timenda; nam quamvis prava,
quamvis etiam ea quae nusquam sunt, possim optare, non tamen ideo non verum
est illa me optare. Ac proinde sola supersunt iudicia, in quibus mihi cavendum
set ne fallar (AT V I I , 37).
38
Descartes (New York, 1968), p. 117.
39
A further example of the same confusion occurs in the reply to Gassendi:
Cum autem prave iudicamus, non ideo prave volumus, sed forte pravum quid;
nec quidquam prave intelligimus, sed tantum dicimur prave intelligere, quando
iudicamus nos aliquid amplius intelligere quam revera intelligamus ( A T V I I ,
377).
4 0
*How to Talk', Philosophical Papers, p. 190.
 DESCARTES O N T H E W I L L 17
subsequent state of affairs as an unsatisfactory outcome? Elsewhere,
I have tried to clarify this point by considering the different
relation of an architect's plan, and a plan in a guidebook, to a
building. ' I f the building and the plan do not agree, then if the
plan is in a guidebook, it is the plan which is wrong; i f the plan
41
was made by an architect, then there is a mistake in the building.'
I n the relation between the guidebook and the building, the onus
of match is on the plan; in the relation between the architectural
drawing and the building, the onus of match is on the building.
So, in general, in assenting to a proposition, we place an onus on a
phrastic to match the world; in assenting to a command or project
we place an onus on something non-linguistic (primarily, our own
actions) to match a phrastic.
Descartes, in lumping together affirmation and desire, negation
and aversion, confounds the different onus of match involved in
the two different kinds of assent and dissent. This, it seems to me,
is the fundamental defect in his theory of judgement as an act of
the will. The absence of the notion of onus of match at this point
is the more surprising as a very similar notion plays a fundamental
part in Descartes' moral theory. ' M y third maxim was to try
always to conquer myself rather than fortune; to change my desires
rather than the order of the world' (Discourse, part 3).
9
II. The Evolution ofDescartes Doctrine ofFreedom
Throughout the history of philosophy there have been two
contrasting methods of expounding the nature of human freewill.
The first is in terms of power: we are free in doing something if
and only if it is in our power not to do it. The second is in terms
of wanting: we are free in doing something i f and only i f we do it
because we want to do it. This is the distinction which Hume made
when he urged us to distinguish 'betwixt the liberty of spontaneity,
as it is call'd in the schools, and the liberty of indifference; betwixt
that which is oppos'd to violence, and that which means a negation
of necessity and causes' (Treatise, I I I , I I , I I ) . Liberty defined in
terms of wanting is liberty of spontaneity; liberty defined in terms
of power is liberty of indifference. As Hume observed, the former,
but not the latter, is compatible with causal determinism.

'Practical Inference', Analysis 26.3.68. The point was first made by Miss
4 1

Anscombe (Intention, p. 56), who modestly but incorrectly attributes it to

Theophrastus.
18 ANTHONY K E N N Y

In their accounts of human freedom most philosophers have

combined both elements and Descartes is no exception. I n the
Fourth Meditation we read 'Freewill consists simply in the fact
that we are able alike to do and not to do a given thing (that is,
can either assert or deny, either seek or shun); or rather, simply in
the fact that our impulse towards what our intellect presents to us
as worthy of assertion or denial, as a thing to be sought or shunned,
is such that we feel ourselves not to be determined by any external
42
force\ This appears tantamount to saying 'Freewill consists in
liberty of indifference, or rather in liberty of spontaneity'. One
immediatelywants to ask: what is the force of the *or rather' here?
Does it mark second thoughts, so that Descartes is withdrawing the
statement that freewill consists in liberty of indifference and
replacing it with the more correct statement that it consists in
liberty of spontaneity? Or does it mean that liberty of indiffer­
ence, properly understood, is identical with liberty of spontaneity
so that the 'velpotius' means something like 'or, in other words'?
The answer, I think, is not quite either of these: it is rather that
Descartes thinks that freewill often does consist in liberty of
indifference, but that sometimes it consists only in liberty of
spontaneity, and that is all that is essential to it. He goes on:
'There is no need for me to be impelled both ways in order to be
free; on the contrary, the more I am inclined one way—either
because I clearly understand it under the aspect of truth and good­
ness, or because God has so disposed my inmost consciousness—
43
the more freely do I choose that way.' I n this passage there is a
difficulty in the translation of the phrase 'in utramque partem
ferri posse'. I f this is taken to mean 4here is no need for me to be
able to go both ways'—i.e. to act either way—then the sentence
contains an outright denial that liberty of indifference is necessary
for freewill. Geach, however, takes the passive sense of ferri
seriously, and translates 'there is no need for me to be impelled
both ways'—i.e. to have reasons on both sides. Taken this way,
4 2
Voluntas, sive arbitrii libertas, . . . tantum in eo consistit quod idem vel
facere vel non facere—hoc est affirmare vel negare, prosequi vel fugere—possi-
mus, vel potius in eo tantum quod ad id quod nobis ab intellectu proponitur
afErmandum vel negandum, sive prosequendum vel fugiendum, ita feramur, ut
a nulla vi externa nosad id determinari sentiamus (AT V I I , 57).
4 3
Neque enim opus est me in utramque partem ferri posse, ut sim liber, sed
contra, quo magis in unam propendeo, sive quia rationem veri et boni in ea
evidenter intelligo, sive quia Deus intima cogitationis meae its disponit, tanto
liberius illam eligo.
 DESCARTES O N T H E W I L L 19
the sentence is not incompatible with the view that liberty of
indifference is essential to genuine freedom; for a full-blooded
liberty of indifference would be a freedom to act either way even
though the reasons for acting might be all on one side.
I think that Geach's rendering is correct: it is borne out by
the French version of the Duc de Luynes which, we are told, was
revised by Descartes himself. This reads 'I1 n'est pas necessaire
queje sois indifferent a choisir l'un ou l'autre des deux contraires'.
At first sight this too looks like a denial of the need for liberty of
indifference: but in fact when Descartes uses the word 'indiffer­
ence' he does not mean what Hume and thescholastics meant by
indifference. This point is made explicitly in the correspondence
with Mesland which we shall consider later; but it is clear enough
from what follows in the Meditations. 'The indifference that I am
aware of when there is no reason urging me one way rather than
44
the other, is the lowest grade of liberty.' But the indifference
which is the balance of reasons is not the indifference which is the
abilityto act either way. The present text does not by itself tell us
whether Descartes believed such an ability to remain when all the
reasons are on one side. ' I f I always saw clearly what is good and
true, I should never deliberate as to what I ought to judge or
choose; and thus, although entirely free, I could never be indiffer­
45
ent.' The fact that I would not have to deliberate ('je ne serais
jamais en peine de deliberer' as the French has it) i f I always saw
what was good does not establish that I would always do what was
good. So the indifference which is here said to be inessential to
freedom is the indifference which consists in the balancing of
reasons and not the indifference which is the ability to act either
way.
However, shortlyafterwards, in the case of the cogito Descartes
expressly denies that such an ability exists. Ί could not butjudge
to be true what I understood so clearly; not because I was com­
pelled to do so by any external cause, but because the great
illumination of my understanding was followed by a great inclina­
tion of the will; and my belief was the more free and spontaneous
4 4
IndifTerentia illa, quam experior cum nulla me ratio in unam partem magis
quam in alteram impellit, est infimus gradus libertatis.
45
At V I I , 58: si semper quid verum et bonum sit clare viderem, nunquam de
eo quod esset iudicandum vel eligendum deliberarem; atque ita, quamvis plane
liber, nunquam tamen indifTerens esse possum.

C
20 ANTHONY KENNY
46
for my not being indifferent in the matter.' A truth so clearly
seen, then, cannot but be judged to be the case; so the ability not
tojudge, which in this case would constitute liberty of indifference,
is lacking. Where there is no such clarity, however, indifference
remains and this is true not only where there are no reasons, or
equal reasons, on either side, but wherever the reasons on one side
fall short of certainty. For the thought of their uncertainty itself
constitutes a reason on the other side. 'However much I may be
drawn one way by probable conjectures, the mere knowledge that
they are only conjectures and not certain and indubitable reasons
47
is enough to incline my assent the other.' God, we are told, has
*given me the liberty to assent or not to assent to things of which
48
he put no clear and distinct perception in my understanding'.
The Fifth Meditation and the Second Replies make clear that
God has given me no such liberty in cases where I do have clear
and distinct perception. 'There are some things which are so
clear and simple that we cannot think of them without believing
49
them to be true.' The Seventh Axiom, quoted earlier, says 'The
will of a thinking thing is impelled, voluntarily of course and freely,
since this is of the essence of the will, but none the less infallibly,
50
towards a good clearly known to i t ' .
The Principles repeats and expands the doctrine of the
Meditations. But when freewill is first mentioned in Principle 37 it
looks as i f Descartes is attributing liberty of indifference to the
assent of clear truths. He writes: 'It is a supreme perfection in man
to act voluntarily or freely, and thus to be in a special sense the
author of his own actions, and to deserve praise for them. . . . I t
is more to our credit that we embrace the truth when we do,
because we do this freely, than it would be i f we could not but
4 6
Non potui quidem non iudicare illud quod tam clare intelligebam verum
esse; non quod ab aliqua vi externa fuerim ad id coactus, sed quia ex magna
luce in intellectu magna consequuta est propensio in voluntate, atque ita tanto
magis sponte et libere illud credidi, quanto minus fui ad istud ipsum indifferens
<ATVII,59).
4 7
Quantumvis enim probabiles conjecturae me trahant in unam partem, sola
cognita quod sint tantum conjecturae, non autem certae atque indubitabiles
rationes, sufficit ad assensionem meam in contrarium impellendam.
4 8
Mihi libertatem dederit assentiendi vel non assentiendi quibusdam,
quorum claram et distinctam perceptionem in intellectu meo non posuit ( A T
VII, 6i).
4 9
Quaedam sunt tam perspicua, simulque tam simplicia, ut nunquam
possimus de iis cogitare, quin vera esse credamus (AT V I I , 145).
6 0
Rei cogitantis voluntas fertur, voluntarie quidem et libere, hoc enim est de
essentia voluntatis, scd nihilominus infallibiliter, in bonum sibi clare cognitum
{ A T V I I , 166).

ν
 DESCARTES O N T H E W I L L 21
51
embrace i t . ' He goes on to say that in many cases 'we have power
52
to assent or not assent at our pleasure'. During the exercise of
Cartesian doubt 'we were conscious of freedom to abstain from
5a
believing what was not quite certain and thoroughly examined'.
However, this freedom does not hold in all cases, as soon
transpires. I t does not extend to things which are certain and
examined: because there were some things which even to a
Cartesian doubter were beyond doubt.
The impossibility of withholding assent from clearly perceived
truths is explicitly reasserted in Principle 43. This (principle) is
imprinted by nature on the minds of all in such a way that as
often as we perceive something clearly, we spontaneously assent to
54
it, and we cannot in any way doubt that it is true. Despite a
superficial impression, therefore, there is no difference of doctrine
between the Meditations and the Principles.
The Principles were published in 1644. On the 2nd of May of
the same year, Descartes wrote to the Jesuit Denis Mesland, then
in his final year as a theology undergraduate at La Fleche, a letter
which contains his fullest treatment of the problem of freewill.
The most important part of the letter is a commentary on the
passage from the Meditations 'ex magna luce in intellectu sequintur
9
magnapropensio in voluntate . Descartes agrees with Mesland that
one can suspend one's judgement; but only by distracting one's
attention; one cannot refrain from desiring a good clearly seen
to be good. ' I f we see very clearly that something is good for us
it is very difficult—and on my view impossible, as long as one
continues in the same thought—to stop the course of our desire.
But the nature of the soul is such that it does not attend for more
than a moment to a single thing; and so as soon as our attention
5 1
Summa quaedam in homine perfectio est quod agat per voluntatem, hoc
est libere, atque its peculiari quodam modo sit author suarum actionum, et ob
ipsas laudem mereatur. . . . Magis profecto nobis tribuendum est, quod verum
amplectamur, cum amplectimur, quia voluntarie id agimus, quam si non
possemus non amplecti ( A T V I I I , 19). At first sight this appears to mean that
when we embrace truth clearly seen we are free not to embrace it; but from the
sequel it is clear that this is not so. Perhaps Descartes means that in such a case
the credit goes not to us but to the author of our nature, as the credit for the
precise operation of a machine goes to its maker.
52
Multis ad arbitrium vel assentiri vel non assentiri possimus.
53
Hanc in nobis libertatem esse experiebamur, ut possemus ab iis credendis
abstinere, quae non plane certa erant et explorata.
5 4
Ita omnium animis a natura impressum est, ut quoties aliquid clare
percipimus, ei sponte assentiamus, et nullo modo possimus dubitare quin sit
verum ( A T V I I I , 21).
22 ANTHONY KENNY

turns from the reasons which make us know that a thing is good
for us, we can call up before our mind some other reason to make us
doubt of it, and so suspend our judgement, or perhaps even make
55
a contrary judgement.' This is in perfect accord with the
Meditations theory; indeed it is simply an application to the will's
function of pursuing the good of a principle explicitly stated in the
Fifth Meditation, and more clearly in the Second Replies, about
the will's other function of judging the truth. Ί am indeed so
constituted that I cannot but believe something to be true at the
time of perceiving it clearly and distinctly. But I am likewise so
constituted that I cannot fix my mind's eye constantly on the same
object so as to perceive it clearly; and the memory of a previous
judgement often comes back to me when I am no longer attending
to my arguments for having made it. Consequently, other argu­
ments might now be adduced which would readily upset my view
56
if I had no knowledge of God.'
I n the Meditations Descartes did not explain how the will falls
into sin as explicitly as he explained how the will falls into error.
This, he told Mesland, was because he wanted io stay within the
limits of natural philosophy and not to involve himself in theo­
logical controversies. I n this private letter, he is willing to be
explicit. ' I f we saw clearly (that what we are doing is evil) it
would be impossible to sin as long as we saw it in that fashion;
57
that is why they say that whoever sins does so in ignorance.'
This was no novelty, but something which he had said in private
as early as 24 April, 1637. Defending against Mersenne the state­
ment in the Discourse that in order to do well it was sufficient to
Voyant tres clairement qu'une chose nous est propre, il est tres mal ais6,
55

et meme, comme je crois, impossible, pendant qu'on demeure en cette pensee,

d'arreter le cours de notre dέsir. Mais, parce que la nature de Гате est de
n'etre quasi qu'un moment attentive ä une meme chose, sitot que notre attention
se d6tourne des raisons qui nous font connattre que cette chose nous est propre,
et que nous retenons seulement en notre m6moire qu'elle nous a paru dέsirable,
nous pouvons representer a notre esprit quelque autre raison qui nous en fasse
douter, et ainsi suspendre notre jugement, et meme aussi peut-etre en former un
contraire (AM V I , 144).
56
Etsi enim eius sim naturae ut, quamdiu aliquid valde clare et distincte
percipio, non possim non credere verum esse, quia tamen eius etiam sum
naturae ut non possim obtutum mentis in eandem rem semper defigere ad illam
clare percipiendam, recurratque saepe memoria iudicii ante facti, cum non
amplius attendo ad rationes propter quas tale quid iudicavi, rationes aliae
possunt quae me, si Deum ignorarem, facile ab opinione deiicerent ( A T V I I ,
69).
67
Si nous le voyions clairement, il nous serait impossible de pecher, pendant
le temps que nous le verrions en cetter sorte; c'est pourquoi on dit que omnis
peccans est ignorans (AM V I , 145).
 DESCARTES ON T H E W I L L 23
judge well Descartes had adopted a familiar scholastic viewpoint.
'The will does not tend towards evil except in so far as it is
presented to it by the intellect under some aspect of goodness—
that is why they say that everyone who sins does so in ignorance.
So that if the intellect never presented anything to the will as
good without its actually being so, the will could never go wrong
in its choice. But the intellect often presents different things to
58
the will at the same time.' This passage clearly implies that the
will cannot go against the intellect unless the intellect itself is
somehow on both sides of the fence at the same time. I n such a
case, of course, the perception of the intellect would be confused
rather than clear and distinct; and so once again we can draw the
conclusion that the will cannot resist the clear and distinct percep­
tions of the intellect.
In the letter to Mesland Descartes ventures so far into theology
as to discuss the merits of Christ. 'A man may earn merit, even
though, seeing very clearly what he must do, he does it infallibly
and without any indifference, as Jesus Christ did during his
59
earthly l i f e / How is this to be reconciled with the teaching of
the Principles that we deserve no praise for what we cannot but
do? Descartes explains that the praise is for paying attention.
*Since a man has the power not always to attend perfectly to what
he ought to do, it is a good action to pay attention and thus to
ensure that our will follows so promptly the light of our under­
,6
standing that it is in no way indifferent. °. The doctrine then is
clear. I n the face of clear and distinct perception, freedom to act
in a contrary sense is possible only by inattention.
In this letter Descartes makes a comparison between his
terminology and that used by the scholastics, especially Jesuit
58
Voluntas non fertur in malum, nisi quatenus ei sub aliqua ratione boni reprae-
sentatur ab intellectu, d'ou vient ce mot: omnis peccans est ignorans; en sorte que
si jamais Tentendement ne repr6sentait rien ä la volonte comme bien, qui ne le
fut, elle ne pourrait manquer en son election. Mais il lui represente souvent
diverses choses en meme temps' ( A T I, 367). Most commentators seem not to
have noticed—and perhaps Descartes himself was not aware—that the dictum
he here quotes approvingly 'omnis peccans est ignorant is a quotation from his
adversary Aristotle (agnoei ounpas ho mochtheros, N. Eth. I I I , 1110b28).
69
On ne laisse pas de meriter, bien que, voyant tres clairement ce qu' il faut
faire, on le fasse infailliblement, et sans aucune indifference, comme a fait Jesus-
Christ en cette vie (AM V I , 145).
6 0
Car l'homme pouvant n'avoir pas toujours une parfait attention aux
choses qu'il doit faire, c'est une bonne action que de Tavoir, et de faire, par son
moyen, que notre volonte suive si fort la lumiere de notre entendement qu'elle
ne soit point du tout indifferente (ibid).
24 ANTHONY KENNY

scholastics such as those who taught Mesland. For him, indiffer­

ence does not mean complete absence of knowledge; but the more
the known reasons balance each other out, the more indifference
there is. 'You regard freedom as not precisely indifference (in
this sense) but rather as a real and positive power to determine
oneself; and so the difference between us is a merely verbal one,
since I agree that the will has such a power. However, I do not see
T
that it makes any difference to the power w hether it is accompanied
by indifference, which you agree is an imperfection, or whether
it is not so accompanied, when there is nothing in the understand­
T
ing except light, as in the case of the blessed w ho are confirmed in
grace. And so I call free whatever is voluntary, whereas you wish
to restrict the name to the power to determine oneself only i f
accompanied by indifference. But so far as concerns names, I
61
wish above all to follow usage and precedent.' Indeed, in treating
'voluntary' and 'free' as synonymous, Descartes was following the
precedent of Gibieuf's De Libertate Dei et Creaturae. But Gibieuf
was consciously going against the prevailing scholastic tradition
which made a distinction between the two. According to most
scholastics, the saints in heaven loved God voluntarily (because
they did so willingly and not reluctantly) but not freely (since,
62
clearly seeing the goodness of God, they could not do otherwise).
On this view, everything free was voluntary, but not everything
voluntary was free; and the will, as such, was the capacity for
voluntary action, and so not synonymous with the free will or
liberum arbitrium.
Thus far, Descartes' doctrine of liberty is all of a piece. But
there remains one crucial document to consider. This is the letter
61
Ainsi, puisque vous ne mettez pas la liberte dans TindifTerence precisement,
mais dans une puissance r6elle at positive de se determiner, il n'y a de difference
entre nos opinions que pour le nom; car j'avoue que cette puissance est en la
volonte. Mais, parce que je ne vois point qu'elle soit autre, quand elle est
accompagn6e de TindifTerence, laquelle vous avouez etre une imperfection, que
quand elle n'en est point accompagn6e, et qu'il n'y a rien dans Tentendement
que de la lumiere, comme dans celui des bienheureux qui sont confirmes en
grace, je nomme generalement libre, tout ce qui est volontaire, et vous voulez
restreindre ce nom ä la puissance de se determiner, qui est accompagn£e de
TindifTerence. Mais je ne d6sire rien tant, touchant les noms, que de suivre
Tusage et Texample (AM V, 144).
Op. cit., 56. Voluntati qua natura inest sua libertas . . . Video responderi
62

posse rationem liberi non esse rationem voluntatis, latiusque patere voluntatem
quam libertatem: quippe voluntatem ad omne bonum se extendere, libertatem
autem ad is tantum quod possit amari vel non amari cum indifTerentia . . . sed
si radix libertatis attente consideretur, facile erit non deprehendere solum sed
convincere voluntatem nihil esse nise libertatem.
 DESCARTES ON T H E W I L L 25
listed by Adam and Milhaud as being written to Mesland on 9
February 1645; it is number 463 in their collection. M . Alquie,
in his La Decouverte Metaphysique de ГНотте chez Descartes**
and in the notes to the Garnier edition of Descartes' works,
regards this as marking a decisive break in Descartes' thought.
Now at last, in this letter, according to Alquie, Descartes admits
that one can reject an evident perception at the moment of per­
ceiving it. Ί1 est donc possible, selon Descartes, (contrairement a
l'avis de presque tous les commentateurs) de nier l'evidence en
presence de l'evidence meme de se detourner du bien sous le
charme meme de son attrait' (op. cit. 289). Hitherto, it was only
by ignorance or inattention that Descartes allowed the possibility
of sin or error; in this letter, Alquie believes, Descartes' doctrine
*permet de refuser l'evidence et le bien en connaissance de
cause'. Alquie quotes from the letter: ' I t is always open to us to
hold back from pursuing a clearly known good or from admitting
a clearly perceived truth, provided we consider it a good thing to
demonstrate the freedom of our will by so doing.' And he con­
cludes 'I1 ne s'agit pas, en la lettre de 9 fevrier, de la faiblesse d'une
attention se pouvant malaisement fixer sur un object unique, ni de
l'elan qui, dans les Meditations, empechait la conscience de se
limiter ä des objects finis et la portait vers l'infinie lui-meme
par un perpetuel depassement. Ce qui nous detourne du bien,
c'est la mauvaise foi que commande l'ego'isme, et sans doute ce
desir d'etre Dieu qui, dans la Bible, apparaissait deja comme la
source premiere du peche. Qu'est en effet ce libre arbitre qu'il
s'agit d'attester, sinon precisement nous-memes?'
No-one, says Alquie, has tried to expound Descartes' doctrine
of freedom in this letter 'sans essayer d'en affaiblir le tragique'. I
fear I must range myself with the commentators who have been
insensitive to the tragedy. I observe first that to base on this letter
a theory of an evolution in Descartes' thought is to build on sand.
No one knows for certain to whom this letter was written or when.
I t is given by Clerselier in French as part of a composite letter to
Mersenne whose other parts date from 1630 and 1637; but as it
alludes to the Meditations it must be later than 1640. Adam and
Tannery printed it in their third volume in French as a letter to
Mersenne with the hypothetical date of May 1641. Alquie says
that at this date the letter 'serait incomprehensible, les affirmations
6 3
2 ed. (Paris, 1966).
26 ANTHONY K E N N Y

qu'elle contient ne pouvant se situer qu'au terme d'une evolution

de pensee comprenant elle-meme les Principes et la lettre de 2 mai
1644, contemporaine de leur impression\ But as the only evidence
for this evolution is Alquie's interpretation of this very letter, the
progress of the evolution cannot be used to date it. Adam and
Tannery later found a Latin text of the letter in a MS of the
Bibliotheque Mazarine which gave it as a continuation of the
letter in French to Mesland of 9 February 1645; accordingly they
inserted it in their fifth volume after this letter, and it is retained
in this place by Adam and Milhaud in their collection. On internal
evidence there seems little doubt that this Latin text is more
64
likely to be the original than the French text given by Clerselier ;
but the attachment to the letter to Mesland is very dubious. A l l
Descartes' letters to Mesland, as almost always to French-speaking
correspondents, are in French, not in Latin. I f this fragment
belongs to the letter of 9 February, we have a change of language
in the middle: why should a letter begun in French end in Latin?
Moreover, there is no illusion to the previous letter on freewill to
Mesland, though some of the same points are covered. I t seems
most likely that the compiler of the Bibliotheque Mazarine
collection put together letters on transubstantiation and liberty,
most but not all of which were to Mesland, rather in the way that
Clerselier put together the composite letter to Mersenne from
various draft documents he found among Descartes' papers. We
must resign ourselves to the fact that we know neither the date nor
the destination of this letter.
Whatever the date of the letter, there is in fact no contradiction
between its teaching and that of the earlier letter to Mesland. The
passage on which M . Alquie builds his theory can easily be
explained in accordance with Descartes regular doctrine; and
there are other passages which flatly contradict the interpretation
put on the letter by Alquie. The letter is so short and so important
that I propose at this point to insert a translation of the whole of it.

Descartes (to Mesland) 9 February 1645

As for the freedom of the will, I entirely agree with what the
Reverend Father here wrote. Let me explain my opinion more
fully. I would like you to notice that 'indifference' seems to me to
64
A note in the Institut copy of Clerselier mentions both that the original of
the fragment given by Clerselier is in Latin, and that the date and destination
must be considered unknown (AT I I I , 378).
 DESCARTES O N T H E W I L L 27
mean here the state of the will when it is not impelled one way
rather than another by any perception of truth or goodness. This
was the sense in which I took it when I said that the lowest degree
of liberty was that by which we determine ourselves to things to
which we are indifferent. But perhaps others mean by 'indiffer­
ence' a positive faculty of determining oneself to one or other of
two contraries, that is to say to pursue or avoid, to affirm or deny.
I do not deny that the will has this positive faculty. Indeed, I
think it has it not only with respect to those actions to which it is
not pushed by any evident reasons on one side rather than on the
other, but also with respect to all other actions; so that whena
very evident reason moves us in one direction, although, morally
speaking, we can hardly move in the contrary direction, absolutely
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 consider it a good thing to demonstrate the freedom
of our will by so doing.
It must be noted also that liberty can be considered in the
actions of the will before they are elicited, or after they are elicited.
Considered with respect to the time before they are elicited,
it entails indifference in the second sense but not in the first.
Although, when we contrast our own judgement with the com­
mandments of others we say that we are freer to do those things
which have not been prescribed to us by others and in which we
are allowed to follow our own judgement, we cannot similarly
make a contrast within the field of our ownjudgements and thought
and say that we are freer to do those things which seem neither
good nor evil, or in which there are many reasons pro but as many
reasons contra, than in those in which we see much more good
than evil. For a greater liberty consists either in a greater facility
in determining oneself, or of a greater use of the positive power
which we have of following the worse although we see the better.
I f we follow the course which appears to have the most reasons in
its favour, we determine ourselves more easily; i f we follow the
opposite, we make more use of that positive power; and thus we
can always act more freely in those cases in which we see much
more good than evil than in those cases which are called adiaphora
or indifferent. I n this sense too the things which are commanded
us by others, and which we would not otherwise do spontaneously,
we do less freely than the things which are not commanded;
because the judgement that these things are difficult to do is
28 ANTHONY KENNY

opposed to thejudgement that it is good to do what is commanded;

and the more equally these two judgements move us the more
indifference, in the first sense, they confer on us.
But liberty considered in the acts of the will at the moment
when they are elicited does not entail any indifference either in the
first or second sense; because what is done cannot remain undone
once it is being done. But it consists simply in ease of operation;
and at that point freedom, spontaneity and voluntariness are the
same thing. I t was in this sense that I wrote that I took a course
more freely the more reasons drove me towards i t ; because it is
certain that in that case our will moves itself with greater facility
and force.

In the first part of this letter Descartes makes explicit a dis­

tinction between two senses of 4ndifferent' which was implicit
in his 1644 letter when he said that indifference did not imply
ignorance, and that wherever there was occasion for sin there was
ignorance. When he said that, Descartes clearly did not mean that
there could only be sin where the reasons for acting were equally
balanced on either side; consequently, he must have meant that
there was an indifference which consisted in the possibility of
acting against the weight of reason. I t is this ability—which we
65
might nickname 'the liberty of perversion' —which Descartes
now explicitly distinguishes from indifference in the sense of a
balance of reasons. Adding this distinction to the distinction
between two kinds of liberty which we saw in the 1644 letter, we
get the following table.
Liberty of spontaneity
Liberty
Perversion
Voluntas > Liberty of indifference
Balance
So far the two letters are perfectly compatible. According to
Alquie, the two letters differ crucially because according to the
1644 letter we do not enjoy liberty of perversion while we have a
clear perception of good whereas in letter number 463 we do so.
However, it is perfectly possible to reconcile the two. When
Descartes says in letter 463 that it is always open to us to hold
back from pursuing a clearly known good, or from admitting a
65
Potestas . . . sequendi deteriora, quamvis meliora videamus (AM V I , 198).
 DESCARTES O N T H E W I L L 29
clearly perceived truth, he need not mean that we can do this at the
very moment of perceiving the good and the true. Rather, we
must distract our attention, as he said in the 1644 letter. One way
of doing this would be to dwell on the thought that it would be a
good thing to demonstrate our freewill by perversity. This would
provide a reason in the contrary sense, without which the will
could not act; and eo ipso this would render the perception of truth
and goodness unclear; we would, as he said in the 1644 letter,
'merely see confusedly that what we are doing is bad, or remember
that we judged it so in the past'. I n the 1644 letter he says that we
can suspend our judgement Ъу representing to our mind some
reason to make us doubt of the truth/; letter number 463 suggests
66
a reason one could use.
Alquie sees the possibility of such an interpretation, but says
that it would satisfy a merely conceptual demand and would
ignore the conflict of our life. But it is possible that Descartes
shared a concern for merely conceptual demands; and after all,
this is not a minor point in his system. To abandon the theory
that clear and distinct perception necessitates the will is to call in
question the whole validation of reason in which the Meditations-
culminates. The mark of a clear and distinct idea is that it is one
which however much we may exercise our free will we cannot
doubt; the only way to find truth is to stick to clear and distinct
ideas; the only way to find out which ideas are clear and distinct is
to do our damnedest to doubt them and fail to do so. But if clear
and distinct ideas can be doubted at the moment they are intuited,
we should never have genuine and certain knowledge of anything,
we would be back in the morass of doubts of the First Meditation.
The interpretation I have suggested is confirmed by the
passage of the letter which immediately follows that on which
Alquie rests his case. Descartes distinguishes liberty before the
will's act, and liberty during the act. This suggests that we must
make a further distinction in the chart we drew, a distinction
between simultaneous and subsequent perversion. Thus we have
Spontaneity
Liberty
=Voltuntas
{ Indifference

6 6
Without some such reason, doubt would be impossible, as Descartes
explained to Gassendi ( A T X , 205).
30 ANTHONY KENNY

Combining together the data of the two letters, we get the following
results. The Blessed in heaven and Christ on earth enjoy liberty of
spontaneity, but no liberty of indifference, of any kind, not even
the liberty of subsequent perversion. An ordinary man with a
clear and distinct idea of what is true and what is good enjoys
liberty of spontaneity and liberty of subsequent perversion, but
not liberty of simultaneous perversion nor indifference in the
sense of balance. An ordinary man with a confused idea of what is
true and good enjoys liberty of simultaneous perversion, but only
a man who sees no reason to one side rather than another enjoys
the full indifference. Such a man, Descartes says, does not enjoy
67
the liberty of spontaneity enjoyed by the others. His argument
for this will be considered in a moment.
The final paragraph of the letter 463 is reminiscent of an argu­
ment which occurs in Gibieuf's De Libertate Dei against the
Jesuits who define liberty in terms of an absolute indifference to
68
act o r n o t to act. I f that is what liberty consists in, Gibieuf
argued, then a man never acts less freely than when he acts freely.
For when a man acts, he is not indifferent with regard to acting,
but is determined by his very act. To say that it is enough that he
could not act when he was on the point of acting, Gibieuf argued,
is to say that liberty is only for future acts qua future. On Gibieuf's
own view, a man was free if he acted for the sake of the supreme
69
good; and this could be true of him while he was actually acting.
I think that the argument of Gibieuf and Descartes is confused,
though it is not easy to explain just where it goes wrong. I do not
think, as I once did, that it depends simply on a fallacious inference
of modal logic from
67
Blessed C & D Prob. Balance
Liberty of Spontaneity Yes Yes Yes No (Yes)
Liberty of Subs. Perversion No Yes Yes Yes (No)
Liberty of Simul. Perversion No. No Yes Yes (No.)
Liberty of Balance No. No No Yes
68
This is one of several indications that the Reverend Father mentioned at
the beginning of the letter is, as Baillet said, Gibieuf. Another is that the
definition of indifference Descartes attributes to the Reverend Father is the one
Gibieuf uses, and not the Jesuit one which Mesland accepted and Gibieuf
attacked. This suggests that Adam and Tannery's first thoughts on the dating
of the letter were perhaps better than their second, since it was in the 3o's that
we know Descartes was interested in Gibieuf's book.
69
Quarta probatio ducitur ex contradictione aperta quam includit natura
libertatis, ut eam exponere consueverent per indifferentiam absolutam ad
agendum et non agendum. Si enim ea sit conditio libertatis, homo nunquam
minus libere agit quam cum libere agit. Qui enim agit, non est indifFerens ad
agendum, sed determinatur actu suo (op. cit. 13; cf. also 165).
 DESCARTES ON T H E W I L L 31
It is not possible that both p and not p
to I f p, then it is not possible that not p.
I n addition to modality, the argument involves subtle points about
tense and action which it would take us too far round to investigate.
But the paragraph does contain a point which tells against Alquie.
Once one acts, Descartes says, the notions of liberty and spon­
taneity collapse into each other. This would be altogether untrue
on Alquie's view, because in the case of someone with a clear and
distinct idea acting with simultaneous perversity, there would be
free action, but not spontaneous action; since the man would not
be acting with that preponderance of reasons on his side which
makes the operation easy and constitutes spontaneity.
Finally I wish to consider the penultimate paragraph of the
letter. There is something very dubious about Descartes' argu­
ment here to show that indifference of balance is the lowest degree
of liberty. He argues that a man enjoys least liberty when the
reasons are balanced, because he then enjoys less liberty of
spontaneity than when he acts in accord with the greater array of
reasons, and less liberty of perversity than when he acts in accord
with the lesser array of reasons. He could just as well have argued
that a man was most at liberty when the reasons were balanced,
since he then enjoys more liberty of perversity than when the
majority of reasons are on his side, and more liberty of spontaneity
than when the majority of reasons are against him. I n fact, having
once distinguished liberty of spontaneity from liberty of perversity,
Descartes should have said that in the one sense of liberty, action
in indifferent matters was freer than action upon clear reasons,
and in another sense it was less free. But then he could not have
said, what he also wanted to say, that there was a single scale of
freedom on which the liberty of indifference occupied the lowest
place. This shows that Descartes' theory of freedom will not do
as a philosophical account; but it is an incoherence which was
present in the theory from the beginning. The doctrine of the
Meditations, the Principles and the letters is all of a piece. I see no
reason for thinking that at the age of forty-nine Descartes under­
went a spectacular conversion from rationalism to existentialism.
 INNATE IDEAS
ROBERT M c R A E

Descartes and Leibniz are the two philosophers who are most
closely associated today with innate ideas. At the time at which
they wrote there was nothing unusual or original in such support.
Gilson remarks that Descartes could not fail in 1628 to have
encountered innateness all around him, and it is possible to see
in Yolton's Locke and the New Way of Ideas how general a stir
Locke caused when he attacked innate ideas in the Essay concerning
Human Understanding. What Locke had in mind when he attacked
innate ideas was a theory of Ciceronian and Stoic origin, which
associated them with universal consent. Locke states it very
briefly in this way:
There is nothing more commonly taken for granted than that
there are certain principles, both speculative and practical (for
they speak of both), universally agreed upon by all mankind:
which therefore, they argue, must needs be constant impressions
which the souls of men receive in their first beings, and which
they bring into the world with them, as necessarily and really
1
as they do any of their inherent faculties.
Locke was attacking what he regarded as so widely held a theory
that he does not seem to have had any particular philosopher in
mind: certainly not Descartes, for what he attacks cannot be attri­
buted to Descartes. The one philosopher he mentions is Lord
Herbert of Cherbury, but only as someone whose writings he has
consulted after having already stated his case against innate ideas.
*When I had writ this, being informed that my lord Herbert had
in his books De Veritate assigned these innate principles, I
presently consulted him, hoping to find, in a man of so great parts,
something that might satisfy me in this point and put an end to my
2
enquiry.' Both Descartes and Leibniz dissociated their views
from those of Herbert. 'The author [of De Veritate], says Des­
cartes, 'takes universal consent for the rule for his truths; while I
x
An Essay concerning Human Understanding, I . ii, 2.
2
Ibid, I , iii, 15.
 I N N A T E IDEAS 33
have the natural light for mine. Mine agrees with his in some
respect, for i f all men have the same natural light, they ought
seemingly all to have the same notions; but it also differs greatly
in that there is almost no one who makes good use of this light.
Consequently many (for example everyone we know) can consent
to the same error, and there are many things which can be known
3
by the natural light, on which no one has yet reflected.' With
regard to Herbert, as cited by Locke, Leibniz, in turn, says, 'For
myself, I make use of universal consent, not as a principal proof,
but as a confirmatory one; for innate truths taken as the natural
4
light of reason bear their mark with them as does geometry'.
But i f Descartes and Leibniz both dissociate themselves from
Herbert's theory of innate ideas, neither has a single alternative
theory of innate ideas. There are at least three separate concep­
tions of innateness in Leibniz. For convenience we can call the
first of these the reflective theory of innateness, the second a
modified version of anamnesis, and the third the dispositional
theory of innateness. I n the case of Descartes, there is a version
of the reflective theory in the third Meditation, a modified version
of anamnesis in the fifth Meditation, and in the Notes against a
Programme, there is what looks like a dispositional theory. Whether
it is, is something which must in due course be examined. Finally
we must ask whether there is some common ground for the three
conceptions of innateness. I n the case of Leibniz it may well be
that they have no common ground; in the case of Descartes they
do.

The Reflective Theory of Innateness

This theory is stated in its clearest form in Leibniz's often
quoted comment to Locke in the New Essays. 'You oppose to me
this axiom received by the philosophers, that there is nothing in the
soul which does not come from the senses. But you must except the
soul itself and its affections. Nihil est in intellectu quod nonfuerit in
sensu, excipe: nisi ipse intellectus. Now the soul comprises being,
substance, unity, identity, cause, perception, reason and many
5
other notions which the senses cannot give.' This theory of
innateness is far removed from that which maintains that there are
3
To Mersenne, 16 October, 1639, A T I I , 597f.
4
New Essays concerning Human Understanding, I, ii, 20.
δ
Ibid, I I , i, 2.
34 ROBERT MCRAE /

certain ideas imprinted on the soul at birth, or which makes of the

mind what Malebranche, in attacking the doctrine of innate ideas,
called 'a storehouse'. I t asserts rather that in 'the acts of refection'
we 'think of that which calls itself " I " , and . . . observe that this or
that is within us; and it is thus that in thinking of ourselves, we
6
think of being, of substance, . . . of the immaterial. . . .' Having
got these ideas from the reflection on the self we can then extend
them to all other beings. This theory of innateness belongs as an
integral part to Leibniz's conception of consciousness or apper­
ception. There is in Descartes also an account of innate ideas
directly related to his conception of consciousness. We have
something very close indeed to Leibniz's statement, just quoted, in
Descartes' reference in Meditation III to certain ideas which
'seem as though I might have derived them from the idea which
I possess of myself, as those which I have of substance, duration,
number, and such like'. For example, if I am able to think of a
stone as 'a substance, or at least as a thing capable of existing of
itself, this is possible because I am conscious of myself as a
substance or self-subsistent thing. Similarly, because I am con­
scious of existing now, and remember existing earlier, and because
I am capable of enumerating my thoughts, ' I acquire ideas of
duration and number which I can afterwards transfer to any
7
object that I please'. Descartes' concepts, 'substance', 'duration',
'number', which can be derived from reflection on the self are
extended in Meditation III from the self to corporeal things.
Elsewhere he refers to them along with 'existence', 'order', and
'possibly such other similar matters', as the most general concepts
8
we have, applying to all classes of real things.
Like Descartes Leibniz never gives a definitive or exhaustive
list of the general concepts applicable to all beings, concepts
which are discovered by reflection on the self. The most frequently
named by him are 'being', 'substance', 'action', 'cause', 'unity',
'identity', 'similarity', 'duration'. On occasion he says that there
are thousands of such ideas.
This version of innateness, based on consciousness or apper­
ception, is repeated often in Leibniz's writings, but the derivation
of ideas in this way is never given the detailed treatment which it
6
Monadology, Section 30.
7
A T IX, 35. H R I, 165.
8
Principles ofPhilosophy I, 48. A T I X , 45. H R I , 238.
 I N N A T E IDEAS 35
would seem to deserve. On the other hand, because the relation
of innateness to consciousness is so closely involved in the develop­
ment of the argument of the Meditations, there is detail in
Descartes' account which is quite lacking in Leibniz's, and with
Descartes there is much more to go on in considering the relation
between innateness and consciousness.
It is in Meditation III that Descartes first mentions innate
ideas, contrasting them with adventitious and fictitious ideas. He
says of the innate ideas, 'for as I have the power of understanding
what is called a thing, or a truth, or a thought, it appears to me
9
that I hold this power from no other source than my own nature'.
The examples which are given of innate ideas, 'thing', 'truth', and
'thought', have in the context in which they appear an obvious
relation to the cogito ergo sum. I t should therefore be fruitful i f
we wish to determine what Descartes means by innateness, to
examine the relationship of these concepts to the cogito. All three
are involved in the experiences he has recounted of what had
occurred in the first two days, and has now occurred at the begin­
ning of the third day. On the second day Descartes began with a
reflection on what had occurred on the previous day, when he
'doubted', then 'denied', and was finally 'persuaded that there was
nothing. . . .' etc. He finally concluded that this proposition: I
am, I exist, is necessarily true each time I pronounce it or mentally
conceive it. His next question was, What am I? The answer, ' I
am a thinking thing', is derived wholly from reflection on the
cogito ergo sum. I n this indubitable statement, I am a thinking
thing, there are two general concepts involved: 'thing', and
'thought', two of the three which Descartes gives as examples of
innate ideas. The third concept 'truth' is involved in his next
reflection on the cogito ergo sum, which occurred at the beginning
of the third day. ' I shall now look around more carefully to see
whether I cannot still discover in myself some other things which
I have not hitherto perceived. I am certain that I am a thing
which thinks; but do I not then likewise know what is requisite to
render me certain of a truth? Certainly in this first knowledge
there is nothing excepting the clear and distinct perception of that
10
which I state.'
But these three are not the only concepts which Descartes
9
А Т I X , 29. H R I , 160.
Meditation I I I , A T I X , 27 H R I , 157f·
1 0

D
36 ROBERT MCRAE

elicited from the argument of the cogito. I n reflecting on the

experiences leading up to the assertion, Ί am, I exist', I see that
I am conscious of myself as doubting and desiring to know and
therefore as lacking something or as imperfect. But to be con­
scious of myself in this way would not be possible unless I already
had the idea of the perfect being. Thus reflection on my nature as
involved in the cogito yields a still further innate idea. Finally in
Meditation I V reflection on the experiences leading to the ' I am,
I exist', reveals the idea of freedom. I t was already on the first day
that Descartes had discoveredthat no matter how great the power
of the evil genius to deceive him, he was still free to withhold his
belief or to deny. This freedom of doubting and denying is
experienced on the first day. The freedom of asserting is experi­
enced on the second day, when he asserts his own existence,
conscious of being uncompelled by any external cause. Freedom
of the will is described as 'one of the first and most ordinary
11
notions that are found innately in us'.
How Descartes conceives the nature of the relation of these
ideas to the cogito ergo sum becomes clearer if we look at his reply
to the criticism that logically the cogito ergo sunt cannot satisfy the
requirements of a first principle, the requirement, namely, that
'There is no other principle on which it depends, nor anything
12
which can be more readily discovered'. His claim for the primi-
tiveness of our knowledge of the cogito ergo sum might, he antici­
pates, be challenged on the ground, first, that we should have to
have a prior knowledge or understanding of the concepts involved,
namely, 'thought' and 'existence', and secondly, that the cogito
ergo sum is really an enthymeme whose suppressed major premise
is the general principle, 'he who thinks exists'; consequently the
validity of the conclusion, ' I exist', rests on the prior knowledge of
that general principle. Descartes' reply necessitates a consider­
ation of his conception of the philosophical method which he used
in the Meditations, a method of argument or proof which he
contrasts directly with that of the syllogism. The authors of
Objections I I suggested to him that it would make things easier for
his readers were he to put his argument in the form of definitions,
axioms, and postulates, as premises and then go on to theorems as
conclusions from these premises. For Descartes to do this would
11
Principles, I, 39. A T I X , 41. H R I , 234.
1 2
To Clerselier, June or July, 1646. A T IV, 444.
 I N N A T E IDEAS 37
be, in effect, to meet the demand of the critics of the primacy of
the cogito ergo sum that we first need to have the definition of
'thought* and 'existence' and the axiom 'he who thinks exists',
before we can proceed to the syllogism of which ' I exist' is the
conclusion.
I n response to the advice given him by the authors of Objections
I I Descartes distinguished for them between the analytic and
synthetic method of proof, remarking that in his Meditations he
had used only analysis. Analysis as a method shows how a truth
is discovered, while synthesis, though it proceeds from definitions,
axioms, and postulates, to theorems and conclusions, conceals
how the truth was discovered and is useful only as a pedagogic
device for teaching to others what has already been discovered.
Descartes then obliged his critics by showing how his metaphysics
would appear when put in the synthetic form. First, he gives
definitions (including the definition of 'thought'), then postulates,
and then axioms; these are followed by propositions, each proved
in strict syllogistic form, the major and minor premises in each
syllogism being taken from the set of definitions, postulates and
axioms. Notable in this presentation is the total absence of the
cogito ergo sum in the argument.
Descartes uses the contrast between the analytical method and
the synthetical or syllogistic method to meet Gassendi's objection
that the cogito ergo sum implies the assumption of the major
premiss, 'he who thinks exists'. Gassendi's great error is

the assumption that the knowledge of particular truths is

always deduced from universal propositions in consonance
with the order of the sequence observed in the syllogism of
dialectic. This shows that he is but little acquainted with the
method by which truth should be investigated. For it is certain
that in order to discover the truth we should always start with
particular notions, in order to arrive at general conceptions
subsequently, though we may also in the reverse way, after
having discovered the universal deduce other particulars from
them. Thus in teaching a child the elements of geometry we
shall certainly not make him understand the general truth that
'when equals are taken from equals the remainders are equal' or
that 'the whole is greater than its parts' unless by showing him
13
examples in particular cases.
1 3
To Clerselier, 12 January, 1646. A T I X 205f, H R I I , 127.
38 ROBERT MCRAE

The same point is made to the author of Objections I I :

When we first become aware that we are thinking beings, this is a
primitive act of knowledge derived from no syllogistic reasoning.
He who says, ' / think, hence I am, or exist does not deduce
existence from thought by a syllogism, but, by a simpler act of
mental vision, recognizes it as if it were a thing that is known per
se. This is evident from the fact that i f it were syllogisticaUy
deduced, the major premiss, that everything that thinks is, or
exists, would have to be known previously; but yet that has
rather been learned from the experience of the individual—
that unless he exists he cannot think. For our mind is so con­
stituted by nature that general propositions are formed out of
14
the knowledge of particulars.
Descartes's account of how we come to have the knowledge
of universal principles is the same as Aristotle's account of
induction in the Posterior Analytics, the kind of induction which
has aptly been called 'intuitive induction' by W. E. Johnson. For
Aristotle our knowledge of the primary premises of scientific or
demonstrative knowledge is derived from 'exhibiting the universal
15
as implicit in the clearly known particular'. While Descartes
regards this kind of induction as including the derivation of the
universals of geometry from the experience of the particular, it is,
nevertheless, its role in connection with the derivation of universal
concepts and principles from the cogito which is of paramount
concern to him. The experiential character of the knowledge of the
cogito ergo sum is vividly described to the Marquis of Newcastle.
'Will you not admit that you are less assured of the presence of the
object you see than of the truth of this proposition: / think,
therefore I ami Now this knowledge is not the product of your
reasoning, norsomething taught you by your masters; your mind
16
sees it, feels it, and handles it. . . . ' Must we first define 'doubt',
'thought', and 'existence', before we can say ' I doubt, therefore
I exist', or ' I think, therefore I exist?' 'One learns those things in
no other way than by one's self and that nothing else persuades us
of them except our own experience and this consciousness or
internal testimony (eaque conscientia vel interno testimonio) that
17
each finds within himself when he examines things.'
1 4
А Т I X , iiof. H R I I , 38. An. Post. 71a, 7.
lb

1 6
March or April, 1648. A T V, 138.
17
The Search after Truth, A T X , 524. H R I, 324f.
 I N N A T E IDEAS 39
Taking experience now in this special sense in which it is to be
identified with consciousness, or internal testimony, we find that
Descartes distinguishes within experience between the 'explicit*
and the 'implicit', or between what I directly attend to and what
I do not directly attend to or reflect upon. I n the Conversation
with Burman, Burman refers to Descartes' statement in Replies I I
that the I think therefore I am is a primitive act of thought derived
from no syllogistic reasoning. Burman asks whether this is
consistent with what Descartes has said in Principles, I , 10.
Plainly it does seem contrary, for there Descartes said, 'When I
stated that this proposition I think, therefore I am is the first and
most certain which presents itself to those who philosophize in
orderly fashion, I did not for all that deny that we must first of all
know what is knowledge, what is existence, and what is certainty,
and that in order to think, we must be, and such like; but because
these are notions of the simplest kind, which of themselves give
us no knowledge of anything that exists, I did not think themworthy
18
of being put on record'.
I n reply to Burman's question Descartes says that we do need
the major, everything that thinks is. I t is prior to the conclusion,
I think, therefore I am, and the conclusion depends on it. For that
reason he had said in the Principles that it precedes 'because
implicitly it is always presupposed and prior. But I do not always
have an express and explicit knowledge of this priority, while I do
have a prior knowledge of my conclusion because I pay attention
only to that which I experience in myself, namely, / think, there¬
fore I am, while I do not direct the same attention to this general
notion, everything which thinks exists: in short, as I have pointed
out, we do not separate the proposition from particular things; it
is in this sense that the words quoted [from the Principles] should
19
be understood.'
Just as there are principles contained in our experience,
principles upon which we may direct no attention nor abstract in
their generality from particular things, so also there are ideas
which are implicit in our experience or consciousness of ourselves,
but to which we do not necessarily direct our attention nor render
explicit, and on which some men will never reflect. Thus, con­
cerning the idea of the perfect being, which is logically presupposed
1 8
A T I X , 29. H R I, 222.
19
Conversation with Burman, A T V, 147.
40 ROBERT MCRAE

in my knowledge of my own imperfection, Descartes says to

Burman that although he has not recognized the perfection of
God 'explicitly', nevertheless he has 'implicitly'. 'For, explicitly,
we can know our own imperfection before the perfection of God,
because we are able to pay attention to ourselves before attending
to God, and come to see our own finitude before coming to see his
infinitude; but implicitly, the knowledge of God and of his
perfections must always precede the knowledge of ourselves and
our imperfections. For, in truth, the infinite perfection of God is
prior to our imperfection, because our imperfection is the lack or
negation of God's perfection; now, all lack, like all negation, pre­
20
supposes the thing of which it is a lack or a negation.'
When Descartes maintains the primitive character of the
cogito ergo sum, asserting that the general proposition whatever
thinks exists is derived from it, rather than vice versa, and adds, 'for
our mind is so constituted by nature that general propositions are
formed out of the knowledge of particulars', he is not asserting the
the logical priority of the knowledge of the particular; rather he is
concerned wdth the transition from the implicit to the explicit
within 'experience' or 'consciousness'. Descartes' entire activity
in the first four Meditations of extracting the concepts of 'thing',
'thought', 'truth', 'substance', 'God', 'freedom', is that of directing
T
attention to, or reflecting upon, w hat I am pre-reflectively con­
scious of in the cogito. I t is this which constitutes the passage from
the experience of the individual to general notions and principles.
These notions are innate in the sense that they are implicit in
experience or consciousness. They are not prior to experience or
consciousness, they are prior only to reflection on experience.
Thus Descartes says

It is indeed true that no one can be sure that he knows or that

he exists, unless he knows what thought is and what existence is.
Not that this requires a cognition formed by reflection or one
acquired by demonstration; much less does it require a cognition
of this reflective knowledge by which we know that we know,
and again know that we know that we know and so ad infinitum.
Such knowledge could never be attained of anything. I t is
altogether enough for one to know it by means of that internal
cognition which always precedes reflective knowledge, and
2 0
I b i d . A T V , 153.
 I N N A T E IDEAS 41
which, when the object is thought and existence, is innate in all
men. . . . When, therefore, anyone perceived that he thinks
and that it then follows that he exists, although he chanced
never previously to have asked what thought is, nor what
existence, he cannot nevertheless fail to have a knowledge of
21
each sufficient to give him an assurance on this score.

Certain universal concepts such as 'thought', 'existence',

*thing', 'substance', 'duration', 'number', and the universal
principle 'He who thinks exists', are all capable of being derived
by intuitive induction from my experience or consciousness of any
individual act of thinking. Every rnan has an implicit knowledge
of these concepts from the mere fact that he thinks and is conscious
of thinking. I n that sense they are innate in all men. When
Aristotle raised the question as to the source of our knowledge of
the premises of science or demonstrative knowledge, he maintaind
that these must either be innate or acquired from sense perception.
He eliminated the first of these possibilities in favour of the
second. When Descartes maintained that our knowledge of the
principles of philosophy is innate, he plainly did not mean what
Aristotle meant by innate. He meant that besides sense experience
of particulars from which we derive by intuitive induction the
imiversals of geometry, there is also the internal experience or
consciousness of any individual act of thinking from which by a
similar intuitive induction we can derive certain primitive notions
which belong among the principles of philosophy. They are innate
in that we find them in ourselves when we reflect on what is
implicit in our consciousness or experience of ourselves as thinking.
There is absolutely nothing in this version of innateness to
suggest that these ideas are in any way in the mind prior to its
first act of thinking, or to the experience or consciousness of that
act of thinking, any more than Aristotle's universals were for him
in the mind prior to knowledge of the particular. They are innate
only in the sense that they are found in the mind when the mind
reflects on what it is already conscious of when it thinks and which
is implicit in the experience of thinking. What, however, about
the idea of God? Is this not an idea imprinted on the mind in its
original condition? Descartes says 'One certainly ought not to
find it strange that God, in creating me, placed this idea within me
2 1
Reply V I , A T I X , 225. H R I I , 241.
42 ROBERT MCRAE
22
to be like the mark of the workman imprinted on his work'.
r
Everything hinges on the meaning to be attached to the w ord
4mprinted'. Here we must note that Descartes says that the idea
23
of God 'is innate in mejust as the idea of myself is innate in me'.
He says moreover that 'it is not essential that the mark [of the
T
workman imprinted on his w ork] should be something different
from the work itself. Thus, he explains to Gassendi, a picture
whose inimitable technique showed that it was painted by Apelles
could be said to carry the mark which Apelles imprinted on all his
24
pictures. This makes it clear that it is on my nature not in my mind
—that God has imprinted his mark. That is why reflection on the
self of which I am conscious yields not only the idea of what I am
but the idea of God too. The two ideas are innate inthesamesense.
They would not be innate in the same sense, however, if the idea
of God was an idea imprinted in the mind at birth. I t is the latter
kind of innateness which Locke's polemic against innate ideas was
directed against.

The Innate Ideas of Mathematics

So far as the two sciences of arithmetic and geometry are
concerned, for both Descartes and Leibniz the concept of number,
but not that of extension, can have its origin in self-consciousness.
'When I remember,' says Descartes, 'that I have various thoughts
of which I can recognize the number I acquire the idea . . . of
number which I can afterwards transfer to any object that I
25
please.' And Leibniz says, 'Number is perceived by all the
external senses, but because it is also perceived by the internal
sense, and even more so, arithmetic is more rightly subordinatedto
26
metaphysics.' The basic concept of geometry, extension, does
not have this origin in internal sense. Nevertheless both Descartes
and Leibniz maintain the innate character of the ideas of geometry.
Hence we must enquire whether the ideas of geometry are not
innate in some sense which is different from that of the general
concepts of metaphysics, including among these the concept of
number which is the foundation of arithmetic. The difficulty of
Meditation I I I A T IX, 41. H R I , 170.
22

2 3
Ibid.
2 4
Ibid.
Meditation I I I I X , 35. H R I, 165.
25

Methodfor Learning and TeachingJurisprudence, Part I, Section 36, revision

26

note. Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, ed. L . E . Loemker, Chicago

(1956), 557.
 I N N A T E IDEAS 43
answering this question is accentuated by the fact that both
philosophers regard the concept of extension as derived from
external sense. Thus Leibniz in contrasting geometry with
arithmetic observes that, although the concept of number is
derived pre-eminently from internal sense, 'extension, which is
perceived by sight and touch alone, involves number but adds
situation to it, or the order of coexistence, and hence adds quality
to quantity. Thus figures arise as modifications of extension;
21
hence geometry'
In commenting on Meditation III Gassendi does not miss the
opportunity of taunting Descartes with the problem of how he is
going to get the idea of corporeal things—things possessing
extension, figure, situation and motion—out of the idea of himself.
' I have,' says Gassendi, 'doubt only about the ideas of corporeal
things, and this is due to the fact that there is no small difficulty in
seeing how you are able to deduce them from yourself, and out of
the idea of yourself alone, as long as you pose as incorporeal and
consider yourself as such. For, if you have known only incorporeal
substance, how can you grasp the notion of corporeal substance as
well. . . ? Certainly if the mind can, out of that incorporeal sub­
stance, form the idea of corporeal substance, there is no reason
why we should doubt that a blind man, even one who has been
completely enshrouded in darkness from his birth, can form in
28
his own mind the idea of light and of the colours.' In reply
Descartes denies having asserted 4hat I deduce the ideas ofmaterial
thingsfrom the mind, as you rather insincerely here pretend I do.
For afterwards I showed in express terms that they often come
from bodies, and that it is owing to this that the existence of
29
corporeal things was demonstrated.' This is a denial that the
idea of extension is innate, though the use of the expression, 'often
come from bodies', seems to leave open the possibility of an
alternative origin for the idea.
There are occasions, indeed, when Descartes maintains very
explicitly that the idea of extension is innate. For example, in
writing to the Princess Elizabeth, 21 May, 1643, he distinguishes
r
three primitive notions. For bodies we have the primitive notion
of extension, for the soul that of thought, and for mind and body
27
Ibid.
28
Objections V, A T V I I I , 293. HR I I , 163.
29
Reply, V, A T V I I I , 367. H R I I , 217f.
44 ROBERT MCRAE

as found together in the unity of a person, we have the primitive

notion of their union. 'We should not look for these simple
notions elsewhere than in our own soul which through its own
30
nature possesses all of them.' He is equally explicit in Principles
I I , 3. 'The perceptions of the senses tell us what is beneficial or
harmful to us as being possessed of both a mind and a body, but
with regard to things as they are in themselves we should rely on
our understanding alone, by reflecting carefully on the ideas
31
implanted therein by nature.'
Where we should expect to find the clearest statement on the
subject is in Meditation V, where Descartes set out to determine
whether anything certain can be known regarding material things.
Moreover this meditation contains one of Descartes' most
important references to innate ideas. While the ideas of geo­
metrical figures are said not to be derived from the senses nor
invented by me, and hence by implication are innate, nothing is
said about the source of the idea of extension itself. Descartes'
first step in determining the essence of material things is 'to
consider the ideas of them in so far as they are in my thoughts, and
to see which of them are distinct and which confused'. ' I n the
first place, I am able distinctly to imagine that quantity which
philosophers commonly call continuous, or the extension in
length, breadth, or depth, what is in this quantity, or rather in the
32
object to which it is attributed.' Descartes says, 'imagine', not
'conceive'. I t might be said that he was using the word 'imagine'
in a loose way in which ordinarily it covers 'think of' or 'conceive',
except for the fact that in the next Meditation he carefully explains
bow different the two are. To imagine a triangle is not to conceive
i t as a figure enclosed by three straight lines, but to have the three
straight lines present before the mind's eye. Imagining seems to
involve the body, and it may be because of our relation to the
body that we are able to imagine corporeal things; 'so that this
mode of thinking differs from pure intellection only inasmuch as
mind in conceiving in some manner turns on itself and considers
some of the ideas which it possesses in itself; while in imagining
i t turns toward the body, and there beholds something conform­
able to the idea which it has either conceived of itself or perceived

3 0
А Т I I I , 665.
3 1
А Т I X , 64f. HR I, 255.
3 2
А Т I X , 50. H R I , 179.
 I N N A T E IDEAS 45
33
by the senses'. The extension which he examines in Meditation
V is extension as visualized or imaged. This would be in accord­
ance with the rule he has laid down in the Regulae) ' i f the under­
standing proposes to examine something that can be referred to the
body, we must form the idea of that thing as distinctly as possible
34
in the imagination'. He does not say whether this imagined
extension is, in the words of the next Meditation, something
'conformable to the idea which the mind has conceived of itself,
or perceived by the senses'. Descarte's datum is extension as
imaged or visualized. Given this imaged extension, he finds that
he can number in it different parts and attribute to its parts an
infinitude of particulars respecting numbers, figures, movements,
and other such things 'whose truth is so manifest and so well
accords with my nature, that when I begin to discover them, i t
seems to me that I learn nothing new, or recollect what I formerly
knew—that is to say, that I for the first time perceive things which
were already present to my mind, although I had not as yet
35
applied my mind to them'.
The first thing clearly and distinctly perceived in extension is
its divisibility. From this all the rest follows. For if it is divisible,
then extension contains within it the unlimited possibilities
of parts possessing different sizes, figures, situations and local
motions, and from these I can go on to make an infinitude of
discoveries respecting numbers, figures, and motions. Thus there
arises the whole science of geometry in which as I proceed
deductively 'it seems to me that I learn nothing new but recollect
what I formerly knew'.
According to this account the whole of geometry may be
described as innate in that it draws out by deduction what is
implicit in an idea already existing in the mind, that of extension.
But the question still remains untouched, is the idea of extension
itself, on which all the rest depends, innate or is it acquired? The
answer in the next Meditation is quite clear: it is acquired through
the senses. God has given me a very strong inclination to believe
that my ideas of corporeal things are caused in me by corporeal
things themselves, hence ' I do not see how he could be defended
from the accusation of deceit i f those ideas were produced by
33
Meditation V I . A T IX, 58. H R I, 186.
34
Rule X I I . A T X , 416f. H R I, 40.
35
Meditation, V. A T I X , 50. H R I, 179.
46 ROBERT MCRAE
36
causes other than corporeal objects\ Our idea of bodies as
extended comes from bodies acting on us through the senses.
Much that comes to us through the senses, however, is obscure.
That is why at the beginning of Meditation V Descartes' first task
was to separate out wbat is distinct in our ideas of body from what
is obscure. And in Meditation VI, after unequivocally asserting
that the idea of extension is produced in us by bodies, and is
therefore not innate, he goes on to warn that 'they are not always
perhaps just as we perceive them by the senses, for sense percep­
tion is in many cases obscure and confused; but at least it can be
said that everything in them which I clearly and distinctly conceive,
that is to say everything which is comprised within the subject of
37
pure mathematics, is truly to be found in them.'
The distinction made between clear and distinct ideas on the
one hand, and obscure and confused on the other, is not the same
as that between innate ideas and adventitious ideas, or ideas
derived from the senses. The latter distinction is one between two
kinds of ideas according to their origin. The former distinction is
based on differences of degree, and can be found within all per­
ception, whether the ideas involved are adventitious or innate.
The work of attending and distinguishing whereby what we
perceive is made clear and distinct is the work of the understanding
as opposed to the senses, but this work of the understanding can
equally well be directed at either the innate or the adventitious.
When Descartes describes in Meditation V a kind of knowledge
which is drawn out of his mind by invoking the simile of reminis­
cence he is not, then, referring to ideas which are got by reflecting
on his own nature as he does in the first four Meditations. Nor is
the simile of reminiscence appropriate to that earlier account of
innateness. Descartes means something quite different from what
is discovered by reflection on the self when he says in Meditation V
concerning the concepts of geometry Ί for the first time perceive
things which were already present to my mind, although I had
not yet applied my mind to them'. This statement is best under­
stood by the contrast of these ideas with adventitious and factitious
ideas. In the first place they stand contrasted with adventitious
ideas in that they are not derived from the senses. For while the
idea of extension itself be adventitious, my ideas of the infinity of
3 6
А Т IX, 63. H R I, 191.
3 7
Ibid.
 I N N A T E IDEAS 47
possible figures in extension are not. On the contrary they are
the logical consequence of the divisibility which I clearly and
distinctly perceive in extension. I n the second place these ideas
stand contrasted with factitious ideas, in that the various properties
of these figures, as for example, in the case of the triangle, that its
three angles are equal to two right angles, are not invented by me,
but are logically determined by the nature of the figures, or
in Descartes' words: Ί can nevertheless demonstrate various
properties pertaining to their nature as well as to that of the
triangle'. Leibniz too sometimes quite directly takes knowledge
through demonstrative proof as what is meant by the term innate.
This is the import of his use of the analogy of reminiscence. ' I t
must be said that all arithmetic and all geometry are innate, and
are in us virtually, so that we can find them there i f we consider
attentively and set in order what we already have in the mind
without making use of any truth learned through experience or
through the tradition of another, as Plato has shown in a dialogue
in which he introduces Socrates leading a child to abstruse truths
by questions alone without giving him any information. We can,
then, make for ourselves these sciences in our study, and even
with closed eyes, without learning through sight or even through
38
touch the truths which we need . . . . '
I f Descartes regards the ideas and truths of geometry as innate
in the mind they are so in the sense that they are logically entailed
by an idea which is in the mind, namely extension, without
reference, however, to whether the idea of extension itself origin­
ates in sense experience or not. That it does originate in sense
experience is irrelevant to this conception of innateness, as is the
case also for Leibniz.
It will be useful here to note that Spinoza was just as concerned
as either Descartes or Leibniz with the contrast between logically
derived knowledge, 'which depends on the actual power and
nature of the understanding', and the empirically given, that is
39
knowledge which is 'determined by an external object'. The
soul acting according to to 'its own fixed laws', the laws of logic,
is described accordingly by Spinoza as 'an immaterial automaton',
an expression which Leibniz approved so much that he adopted it
for his own use. No one, on the basis of this description of the
38
New Essays I, i, 5.
39
Treatise on the Improvement of the Understanding, Section 71.
48 ROBERT MCRAE

mind's power 'to arrive at knowledge independently of the senses',

has, so far as I know, attributed a doctrine of innateness to Spinoza,
even if what he taught here is identical with what Descartes and
Leibniz designated as 'innate'. Indeed one may wonder why the
two latter called logically derived knowledge innate except for its
striking resemblance to recollection, which provided the earliest
form of a theory of innate knowledge.
Professor Vlastos in Anamnesis in the Meno maintains that
Leibniz correctly interpreted the Platonic doctrine of anamnesis.
'Reduced to its simplest terms what Plato means by "recollection"
in the Meno is any enlargement ofour knowlege which results from the
perception of logical relationships. When these are inter-proposi-
tional to "recollect" a previously unknown proposition is to come
to know it by seeing that it is entailed by others already known.
Or if the relations are intra-propositional, as in the case of the true
answer to the "What is X?" question, then to "recollect" is to
gain insight into the logical structure of a concept, so that when
faced with its correct definition one will see the concepts mentioned
40
are analytically connected'. Plato's 'assertion that to acquire
knowledge is only to recover what is already " i n " us could not but
have the force of an implicit denial that knowledge can be acquired
by sense experience . . . Plato's formula is equivalent to the denial
that sense-experience can, or need, provide the slightest evidence
for propositions known in the special way in which knowledge is
41
here construed: demonstrative knowledge.'
I leave aside the question whether Professor Vlastos is right in
saying that this is what Plato meant by recollection. But he is
right in saying that this is how Leibniz interpreted the doctrine of
recollection, and he could perfectly well have added that this is
what Descartes meant when he used the expression 'seem to
recollect'. Both Descartes and Leibniz reject, of course, the notion
that the soul acquired its mathematical knowledge in a precedent
existence. I n the fifth Meditation's account of innate knowledge
as quasi recollection, there are no geometrical ideas in the mind
prior to the mind's first sensible experience of extension.

Innate Ideas as Tendencies or Dispositions

Confronted with the obvious fact that we learn as we grow and
that the newly born infant is in a state of virtually complete
4 0
Dialogue vol. IV, No. 2, 156.
4 1
Ibid. 160f.
 I N N A T E IDEAS 49
ignorance, there was a natural propensity for defenders of innate
ideas to explain them as innate faculties, dispositions, ortendencies,
which come into play as occasion arises and as life goes on. For
this Locke had small respect. T o say a notion is imprinted on the
mind, and yet at the same time to say that the mind is ignorant of
it, and never yet took notice of it, is to make this impression
nothing . . . . I f the capacity of knowing be the natural impression
contended for, all the truths a man ever comes to know will, by
this account, be everyone of them innate; and this great point will
amount to no more, but only to a very improper way of speaking;
which whilst it pretends to assert the contrary, says nothing differ­
ent from those who deny innate principles. For nobody, I think,
ever denied that the mind was capable of knowing several truths.
The capacity they say is innate, the knowledge acquired. But then
42
to what end such contest for certain innate maxims'.
The tabula rasa conception of the mind which Locke espoused
allows, of course, that all knowledge exists potentially in the mind,
for the blank sheet of paper or wax tablet has the capacity or
faculty for receiving any figures whatever which will be imprinted
or impressed on it in the fullness of time. But such potentiality
Locke justly considered hardly worth mentioning. I f we revert
now to whatDescartes has to say about ideas in relation to faculties
or innate capacities we find that he differs hardly at all from Locke.
I n a letter in which Descartes compares his own views with those
in De Veritate of Lord Herbert he refers, among other things, to
their differing conceptions of faculties. 'He [Lord Herbert]
would have it that there are as many faculties in us as there are
diversities of things to be known, which I can only understand to
be like saying that, because wax can receive an infinitude of shapes,
it has within it an infinitude of faculties for receiving them. I n a
sense this is true, but I do not see that anything useful can be had
from such a way of speaking. That is why I prefer to conceive
that wax, by virtue of its flexibility alone, receives all kinds of
shapes, and that the mind acquires all its knowledge by its reflec­
tion, either upon itself for intellectual objects, or upon the various
dispositions of the brain, to which it is joined, for corporeal
objects, whether these dispositions depend on the senses or on
43
other causes.'
42
Essay, I , ii, 5.
4 3
To Mersenne, 16 October, 1639. A T I I , 598.
50 ROBERT MCRAE

This is not the only occasion on which Descartes makes use of

the conception of the mind as a tabula rasa. 'There is for me no
other difference between the soul and its ideas than there is
between a piece of wax and the various figures which it can receive.
And just as it is not properly an action, but a passion in the wax,
to receive various figures, it seems to me that it is similarly a
passion in the soul to receive this or that idea, and that it is only its
44
volitions which are actions.' Descartes used the tabula rasa
analogy in his early work, the Regulae, where it is worked out in
detail. I n the first of the letters quoted he has been careful to
maintain his distinctions of ideas as innate, adventitious and
fictitious. The innate are those which the mind 'acquires'
(Descartes' word) from reflection on itself. We have already
considered what this means. The adventitious and fictitious ideas
are those which it 'acquires' from attending to images in the brain.
I n the case of adventitious ideas the images have been impressed
on the brain by external objects acting through the organs of
sense. I n the case of fictitious or imaginary ideas the images have
been imprinted on the brain by the mind itself, that is, themind
gives the images to itself. But in all cases the mind acquires its
ideas by attending to something present to it.
There is, however, an account of innate ideas in Descartes'
Notes Directed against a Certain Programme which appears to be
markedly at variance with the views which have just been con­
sidered, and which appears to identify the innateness of ideas
with the innateness of specific and active faculties, tendencies, or
dispositions. I n the Notes, Descartes protests that he has never
maintained that innate ideas are in any way different from the
faculty of thinking itself. Ideas are innate in the same sense as
when we say that 'in some families generosity is innate, in others
certain diseases like gout or gravel, not that on this account the
babes of these families suffer from these diseases in their mother's
womb, but because they are born with a certain disposition or
propensity for contracting them.' I n likening these dispositions
or tendencies of the mind to those of the body to contract certain
diseases, Descartes seems to suggest that these specific potentiali­
ties are passive, but then as he goes on he seems to be arguing, on
the grounds of the unlikeness between our ideas of things and
what is presented to us through the senses, that the dispositions
4 4
To Mesland, 2 May, 1644 (?) A T IV, 113f.
 INNATE IDEAS 51
are active, and that moreover, there are no ideas which are not
innate as active dispositions. ' I n our ideas there is nothing which
was not innate in the mind, or faculty of thinking, except only
those circumstances which point to experience—the fact, for
instance, that we judge that this or that idea, which we now have
present to our thought, is to be referred to a certain extraneous
thing, not that these extraneous things transmitted the ideas
themselves to our minds through the organs of sense, but because
they transmitted something which gave the mind occasion to form
these ideas, by means of an innate faculty, at this time rather than
at another. For nothing reaches our mind from external objects
through the organs of sense but certain corporeal movements—
but even these movements, and the figures which arise from them,
are not conceived by us in the shape they assume in the organs of
sense, as I have explained in my Dioptrics. Hence it follows that
the ideas of the movements and figures are themselves innate in us.
So much the more must the ideas of pain, colour, sound and the
like be innate, that our mind may on occasion of certain corporeal
movements, envisage these ideas, for they have no likenesses to
45
the corporeal movements.'
The difference between the forming of ideas and the occasions
for forming them is for Descartes the same as that between the
proximate or primary cause of a thing and its remote or accidental
cause, the latter providing the former with the occasion for pro­
ducing its effects at one time rather than at another. Workmen
are the proximate or primary causes of what they produce. Those
who commission their work are the accidental or remote causes,
without which the work would never have been produced.
We seem, then, to be confronted with two quite different
causal accounts of ideas. On the one hand there is the causal
account of ideas according to the tabula rasa conception of the
mind; on the other we seem to have one in which the mind is
conceived as possessing certain specific dispositions to knowledge.
By the latter, instead of the mind receiving its ideas, whether
innate or adventitious, the mind acts as circumstances provide the
occasion. Ideas would be powers or dispositions or pre-determin-
ations in the mind, native to it, to act in certain ways. Thus all
ideas would be innate. There would be no adventitious ideas, for
no ideas would be acquired.
4 б
А Т V I I I , 357f. H R I , 44zf.
E
52 ROBERT MCRAE

This second version of innateness which Descartes seems to

maintain in the Notes was one which Leibniz was to elaborate in
the New Essays, and what Descartes says in the Notes is strikingly
similar to what Leibniz was later to say. Moreover, it was certainly
the version of innateness which was to be presented by so faithful
a follower of Descartes as La Forge who no doubt derived it from
the Notes. We must not, however, fail to observe that in putting
it forward, La Forge had to introduce a very significant modifica­
tion into Descartes' use of the wax analogy. 'Ideas,' La Forge
says, 'are contained in the mind only in potency, and not in act,
almost in the way in which figures are contained in the wax, with
T
this difference, how ever, that in the wax this potency is merely
46
passive, while in the soul it is also active.'
Are we justified in accepting what might be called the La
Forge interpretation of the account of innateness given in the
Notes} There seems to be at least two strong reasons for not
accepting it. I n the first place it is, as noted already, so completely
at odds with Descartes' reiterated use elsewhere of the wax
analogy for conceiving the nature of the mind, and in the second
place, it is not borne out by the Dioptrics. This is where we should
go if we wish to understand what is said in the Notes for it will be
9

noticed that Descartes says in the Notes that he had already

explained himself at great length in the Dioptrics—a work in which
he was concerned with perceptual judgments.
I n this latter work Descartes tells us that we must not think of
an image as a copy or resemblance or picture in the head, but as
something analogous to signs or words. Vision to be properly
understood must be thought of in the way a blind man with a stick
is able, from the resistance offered to it, to observe all sorts of
differences between trees, stones, water, and so on, differences
which are just as great for him as those between different colours,
for the man who can see. The blind man obviously operates with
signs, not resemblances.
For Descartes all perceivable qualities in the objects of sight
can be reduced to six principal ones: light, colour, position,
distance, size and shape. Through colour, he says, we are able to
distinguish the parts of a body. He then goes on to show first
that our knowledge of the position of an object does not depend
on any image, and secondly that the perception of distance does
46
Traite de Vesprit de Vhomme, Geneva (1725), 25.
 I N N A T E IDEAS 53
not depend on any image, and thirdly, that our perceptions of size
and shape are a fortiori not determined by any images, since they
are determined by the way we see the distance and position of the
parts of the object. The perception of these latter four qualities
of the object are judgments which the mind makes on the basis of
sensory data—sensory data which function for it as signs, not
copes or resemblances. The signs give the mind the occasion for
judging or, in the language of the Notes, the occasion to form these
ideas by means of an innate faculty. I t is the faculty of judging
which is innate to the mind, and i f we speak of the conceptions
which we form throughjudgment as innate, it is only because they
are formed by that innate faculty, not produced by what comes
through the senses. I t is impossible to read into the Dioptrics any
conception of ideas as innate active dispositions. They are not
potencies prior to acts of judgment. They are products of judg­
ment. We cannot, therefore, on the basis of the Notes against a
Programme turn Descartes into a kind of Leibnizian. Their
conceptions of the mind are completely different.
Reference was made at the beginning to three senses of innate­
ness. Plainly, eliciting certain ideas by reflecting on myself as
thinking is very different from determining that the interior
angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, and these in turn
are both different from determining the real position, distance,
shape and size of a perceptual object. Are we to say that the only
thing that unites the three is that in none of them are my ideas
produced by the senses? What unites them is much stronger than
that. I n the first of the three we have a case of simple intuition.
I n reflecting on itself as thinking the pure and attentive mind sees
what is implicit in the individual act of thinking. The mind does
no more than attend—a word which is much emphasized in the
Conversation with Burman. I t is merely attention which renders
the implicit explicit. I n the second case the mind arrives at certain
ideas by exercising a logical function of deducing, e.g. deducing
the properties of a triangle from its nature. I n the third the mind
performs the logical deductions of a detective, who uses certain
clues provided by the senses to determine the actual position,
shape and size of an object. I n Rule I I I , Descartes maintains
that there are only two ways by which we can arrive at the know­
ledge of things, intuition and deduction. He then, however, goes
on to say that the steps in a deductive chain are nothing but a
54 ROBERT MCRAE

series of intuitions. Thus all that the understanding is capable of

reduces to the one thing, vision. I f this is so then there is no room
here for any conception of ideas as part of the original equipment
or possessions of the mind, or as predeterminations of what it will
think. On the contrary, what it will think will be entirely deter­
mined by what it will see. I t will see clearly and distinctly or
obscurely and confusedly to the degree to which it attends.
 III

DESCARTES' D E F I N I T I O N OF
THOUGHT
ROBERT M c R A E

Descartes defines thought in this way:

Thought is a word that covers everything that exists in us in
such a way that we are immediately conscious of it. Thus all the
operations of the will, intellect, imagination, and of the senses
1
are thoughts.
For such distinguished Cartesian scholars as Gilson, Laporte and
Alquie, this definition asserts that thought is simply a synonym
2
for consciousness.
There is another view of what Descartes meant by thought
taken by some scholars which is closely related to the onejust cited,
but which must be distinguished from it. This time it is not the
word 'conscious* in the definition which is remarked, but the list
of things included under thought which Descartes gives in
Meditation I I . 'What is a thing which thinks?' he asks. ' I t is a
thing which doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses,
which also imagines and feels'. Thus Koyre in his introduction
to Anscombe's and Geach's translation of Descartes' writings
maintains that in order to do justice to the far wider use of the
1
Reply I I , def. I A T V I I , 160, H R I I , 52. The Latin, 'ut ejus immediate
conscii simus', is given in the French translation as 'que nous en sommes
immediatement connaissants'. A T I X , 124. See also Principles I , ix, A T V I I I ,
7. H R I, 222. In the French translations of Descartes' Latin which were
approved by himself, the word conscience is avoided, with this exception in
Reply I I I : 'Entendre, vouloir, imaginer, sentir, etc., conviennent entre eux en
ce qu'ils ne peuvent e*tre sans pensee, ou perception, ou conscience et connais-
.sance.' A T I X . 137. G . Lewis remarks that this is perhaps the first use in
French of the word conscience in a non-moral sense. Le probleme de Vinconscient
et le cartesianisme, Paris (1950), 39.
2
E . Gilson, Discours de la Methode, commentaire, Paris (1947) 293; J .
Laporte, Le Rationalisme de Descartes, Paris (1950), 78; Descartes, OeuvresphiU
Osophiques ed. F . Alquie, Paris (1963, 1967), Vol. I I , 586 n. The passage from
Reply I I I quoted in Note 1, above, makes conscience a synonym of pensee, as
does also Descartes' phrase, 'ma propre pensee ou conscience', in a letter to
Gibieuf, 19 January, 1642. A T I I I , 474. It may, however, be questioned
whether the definitions of thought given in Reply I I and Principles I, ix, make the
two terms synonymous.
56 ROBERT MCRAE

word thought prevalent in the seventeenth century 'we have in

3
most cases to render "thought" by "consciousness".' This
decision is clearly reflected in the translation by Anscombe and
Geach.
It is possible that 'consciousness' is the best contemporary
idiomatic expression to convey what was called 'thought' by
Descartes. At least 'consciousness' is widely used in this way by
philosophers of very different philosophical persuasions. Consider
this passage by a writer of plain English. G. E. Moore says, 'We
believe that we men, besides having bodies, also have minds; and
one of the chief things which we mean, by saying we have minds,
is, I think, this: namely, that we perform certain mental acts or
acts of consciousness. That is to say, we see and hear and feel and
remember and imagine and think and believe and desire and like
and dislike and will and love and are angry and afraid, etc. These
things that we do are all of them mental acts—acts of mind or
consciousness; whenever we do any of them, we are conscious of
something; each of them partly consists in our being conscious of
something in some way or other: and it seems to me that the
things of which we are most certain, when we say that we are
certain that we have minds, is that we do these things—that we
4
perform these acts of consciousness.'
Those who share this use of the term consciousness with G. E.
Moore and with many others, going back in English to at least
James Mill, would, of course, be justified in rendering Descartes'
seventeenth centuxypenser or cogitare into English as to be conscious
of. But this would produce an awkward problem, for in translating
Descartes' definition of thought from Latin into English, cogitatio
would be rendered as consciousness, thus making it impossible to
render ut ejus immediate conscii simus by that we are immediately
conscious of it—for the expression conscious would already have
been used up.
As for the first thesis, that in his definition of thought Descartes
is asserting that thought is a synonym of consciousness, it is evident
that this cannot be so, for he gives to each a different object. For
Descartes, what I am conscious of, is what exists in me. What I
am thinking, i.e. what I am doubting, affirming, denying, imagin-
3
Descartes, Philosophical Writings, tr. and ed. Elizabeth Anscombe and P. T .
Geach, Edinburgh (1954), xxxvii, n. 2; see also 'Translator's Note', xlviif.
Some Main Problems ofPhilosophy, New York (1953), 16.
4
 DESCARTES' D E F I N I T I O N OF T H O U G H T 57
ing, perceiving or feeling, when I am thinking of 'the heavens, the
earth, colours, figures, sound and all other external things' are
plainly not what exists in me.
Taking our departure from Descartes' definition of thought
we can say that the difference between thought and consciousness
can be expressed in these two kinds of sentences :
(a) I think.
(b) I am conscious that I think.
For the variable 'think', in both of these sentences can be sub­
stituted the values 'doubt', 'understand', 'affirm', 'deny', 'desire',
'refuse', 'imagine', 'see', 'hear', 'feel'. No term other than a
synonym can be substituted for 'am conscious'.
All 'thoughts' according to Descartes belong to one or the
other of two kinds: perceptions of the understanding such as
sensing, imagining, and conceiving; or actions of the will, such as
desiring, holding in aversion, affirming, denying, doubting. I n
the Passions of the Soul he refers to these two kinds of thoughts as
being respectively the passions and the actions of the soul. Thus
we see that consciousness is for Descartes the kind of knowledge
we attribute to agents. To be conscious is pre-eminently to know
what we are doing or to know what is happening to us.
There are at least three things related to Descartes' definition
of thought, which deserve to be considered. The first is that
consciousness would appear by virtue of the word 'immediately' to
demarcate for Descartes an area of absolute certitude, one which
he totally exempts from hyperbolical doubt. The second is his
denial that we can have any thoughts, in his very wide sense of
thought, of which we are not conscious. The third is that being
conscious of whatever exists in us is not the same as thinking of
what exists in us.
First, the infallibility of consciousness which provides Des­
cartes with the initial certainty on which his whole metaphysics
rests: I f I think X, then there are three things of which I am
conscious, and accordingly three things of which I am certain:
(1) that it is / who think X, (2) that I am thinking X , (3) that X is
what I am thinking. None of these comes under the hyperbolical
doubt.
Am I not that being who now doubts nearly everything, who
nevertheless understands certain things, who affirms that one only
is true, who denies all the others, who desires to know more, is
58 ROBERT MCRAE

averse from being deceived, who imagines many things, some­

times indeed despite his will, and who perceives many likewise, as
by the intervention of the bodily organs? Is there nothing in all
this which is as true as it is certain that I exist, even though I
should always sleep and though he who has given me being
employed all his ingenuity in deceiving me? Is there likewise any
one of these attributes which can be distinguished from my
thought, or which might be said to be separated from myself?
For it is so evident of itself that it is I who doubts, who under­
stands, and who desires, that there is no reason here to add any­
thing to explain it. And I have certainly the power of imagining
likewise; for although it mayhappen (as I formerly supposed)
that none of the things which I imagine are true, nevertheless this
power of imagining does not cease to be really in use, and it forms
part of my thought. Finally, I am the same who feels, that is to
say, who perceives certain things, as by the organs of sense, since
in truth I see light, I hear noise, I feel heat. But it will be said that
these phenomena are false and that I am dreaming. Let it be so;
still it is at least quite certain that it seems to me that I see light,
that I hear noise andthat I feel heat. That cannot be false;
properly speaking it is what is in me called feeling; and used in
5
this precise sense that is no other thing than thinking.
Thus (1) ' I t is evident of itself that it is I who doubts, who
6
desires, and who understands.' (2) There is no uncertainty as to
what I am doing. No question can arise as to whether I am really
doubting rather than, say, affirming, desiring, or denying, or
imagining, or perceiving. Each of these is exactly what we are
conscious of it as being. The dubito ergo sum absolutely rests on
this certainty. I n the Search after Truth, Polyander says, ' I can
state for certain that I never doubted what doubt is, although I
never began to know it, or rather to think of it until the time when
Epistemon desired to place it in doubt. You no sooner showed
me the small amount of certainty which we have as to the existence
of things which are only known to us by the evidence of the senses,
than I commenced to doubt of them, and that sufficed to make me
know doubt and at the same time my certainty of it, in such a way
that I can affirm that as soon as I commenced to doubt I com-
Meditation I I , A T V I I , a8f. H R I , 153.
5

6 c
. . . it is impossible that we could ever think of anything without having at
the same time the idea of our soul as a thing capable of thinking everything
which we think.' To Mersenne, July 1641, A T I I I , 394.
 DESCARTES' DEFINITION OF THOUGHT 59

menced to know with certainty. But my doubt and certainty did

not relate to the same object; my doubt regarded only things
which existed outside me, my certainty concerned me and my
7
doubt.' What can be said of doubting, or affirming, or denying
can be said of understanding or knowing. I t is not by the appli­
cation of external criteria that I know that I know, any more than
I know that I doubt. (3) As for what I am thinking, Descartes
says, O f my thoughts some are, so to speak, images of things, and
to these alone is the title "idea" properly applied; examples are
my thought of a man or of a chimera, of heaven, of an angel, or
even of God. . . . Now as to what concerns ideas, i f we consider
them only in themselves, and do not relate them to anything
beyond themselves,—they cannot properly speaking be false; for
whether I imagine a goat or a chimera, it is not less true that I
8
imagine one than the other.' I t is only in myjudgments, according
to Descartes, that falsity can lie. If, however, p is what I judge,
that p is what I judge remains certain, no matter how false p may
be.
I t has been noted that under the heading 4hought', Descartes
puts everything of which I am conscious as operating in me,
either in the form of action or passion. This is not to say that I am
conscious of everything that operates in me. He is careful to state
to what extent my actions are the object of consciousness.
For i f I say I see, or I walk, I therefore am, and if by seeing
and walking I mean the action of my eyes or my legs, which is
the work of my body, my conclusion is not absolutely certain.
. . . But i f I mean only to talk of my sensation, or my conscious­
ness of seeing or walking, it becomes quite true because my
assertion refers only to my mind, which alone is concerned with
9
my feeling or thinking that I see and I walk.
When defining 'thought' in Replies I I as 'a word that covers
everything that exists in us in such a way that we are immediately
conscious of it', he emphasizes that he has said immediately in
order to exclude those bodily movements which are a consequence
of decision. Such acts depend on thought as to their cause but do
not themselves come under the heading of thought.
7
A T X , 524f,HR I , 325.
8
Meditation I I I , A T V I I , 37, H R I , 159.
9
Principles I , ix, A T V I I I , 7. H R I, 222.
60 ROBERT MCRAE

In the definition of thought as embracing everything which

exists in me in such a way that I am conscious of it, Descartes does
not mean exclusively by me, my mind. I t is true that by the end of
Meditation I I all he knows of himself with certainty is that he is a
thing which thinks. But in Meditation V I he knows now with
certainty that he is a human being, not just a thing which thinks,
i.e., he knows 'what everyone always experiences in himself
without philosophizing, namely, that he is a single person, who
has both a body and thought, and that these are of such a nature
that this thought can move the body and feel what is happening
10
to i t . '
If, then, thought is everything which exists in me in such a way
that I am conscious of it, the me is finally a person, not just a
xaind. Now he can say, 'there are certain things which we experi­
ence in ourselves, and which should be attributed neither to the
mind nor body alone, but to the close and intimate union that
exists between the mind and the body. . . . Such are the appetites
of hunger, thirst, etc., and also the emotions of passions of the
mind, which do not subsist in mind or thought alone, as the
emotions of anger, joy, sadness, love, etc.; and finally all the
sensations such as pain, pleasure, light and colour, sounds,
,n
odours, taste, heat, hardness, and all other tactile qualities.
Appetites, emotions, and sensations are all the objects of an
infallible consciousness; we experience them in ourselves, but the
self to which they are referred is not a mind nor a body, but the
union which constitutes a person. Besides these there are, of
course, acts of which we are conscious and which are acts of the
mind alone, such as understanding, doubting, affirming, denying,
but there are also some things which can be attributed to my body
alone, and these do not come within the scope of the consciousness
of what is occurring in me. With them certainty ends. M y body
taken without relation to the mind is only one body among others
in the world, and my knowledge of it is subject to the same uncer­
tainty as my knowledge of them. Viewed without relation to a
mind, walking consists only in the motion of a body, and from this
motion nothing about my existence follows. But what I am
conscious of in walking is what Descartes, in his larger sense of the
word, calls 'thought', a mode of thoughtwhich has to be referred to
To Princess Elizabeth, 28 June, 1643. A T I I I , 694.
1 0

^Principles, I, xlviii. A T V I I I , 23. H R I, 238.

 DESCARTES' DEFINITION OF THOUGHT 61
the union of mind and body and not to mind alone. As such it can
be subsumed under the word 'think' in Ί think, therefore, I am'.
Taken as what I am immediately conscious of in myself there is
no difference between Ί walk' and Ί think I walk', between ' I see
light' and 'it seems to me I see light'.
An obvious objection likely to be made to this doctrine of the
infallibility of consciousness is that in the case of such things as
believing, or desiring, or undergoing certain emotions, people are
far from being certain of what they believe, or even realizing that
they believe it, and that the same is true of desires. As for the
emotions, what can be more puzzling sometimes than what it is
we really feel? Did Descartes think that all beliefs, desires and
emotions are objects of an infallible consciousness, or did he just
ignore the question? He by no means ignored it. He remarks in
the Discourse on Method that in order to determine what people
really believed, he 'should observe what they did rather than what
they said, not only because in the corrupt state of our manners
there are few people who desire to say all that they believe, but
also because many are themselves ignorant of their beliefs. For
since the act of thought by which we believe a thing is different
from that by which we know that we believe it, the one often
12
exists without the other'. As for the emotions, or passions, under
which he includes desires, Descartes,after saying 'we cannot be
deceived regarding the passions, inasmuch as they are so close to,
and so entirely within our soul, that it is impossible for it to feel
13
them without their being actually such as it feels them to be',
nevertheless goes on to say, only two articles later, 'Experience
shows us that those who are most agitated by their passions are not
14
those who know them best'.
Let us leave this puzzle for the present and go on to consider
the second of Descartes' theses, which is closely related to that
of infallibility, namely, that there are no thoughts in us of which
we are not conscious. Arnauld interpreted Descartes as saying in
the Meditations 'that nothing exists in him in so far as he is a
thinking thing of which he is not conscious'. Descartes replied
thatthiswasself-evident. Howmuch,then,washeclaiming? 'Who
has ever,' he said, 'had such an acquaintance with anything as to
1 2
A T V I , 23 H R I , 95.
13
The Passions of the Soul, I, xxvi. A T , X I , 348. H R I, 343.
1 4
Ibid. I, xxviii. A T X I , 349. H R I , 344.
62 ROBERT MCRAE
15
know that there is nothing in it of which he was not aware?' At
the conclusion of Meditation I I , in which he is concerned with
showing that the mind is more easily known than the body, he
speaks of his coming to know more and more about the properties
of the mind as he considers the ways in which he comes to deter­
mine the nature of wax. When Descartes says, then, that there is
nothing in him in so far as he is a thinking thing of which he is not
conscious, he is not referring to the mind's properties or powers.
This point is made clearly in his reply to Arnauld's objection that
there may be in the mind much of which the mind is not conscious,
e.g., the infant in the womb possesses the faculty of thought
without being conscious of it. Arnauld adds that there are
innumerable other instances which he will pass by in silence.
Descartes replies:
There can exist in us no thought of which, at the very
moment that it is present to us, we are not conscious. Wherefore
I have no doubt that the mind begins to think at the same time
that it is infused into the body of an infant, and is at the same
time conscious of its thought, though afterwards it does not
remember that, because the specific forms of these thoughts do
not live in the memory. But it has to be noted that, while
indeed we are always in actuality conscious of acts or operations
of the mind, that is not the case with the faculties or powers of
mind, except potentially. So that when we dispose ourselves to
the exercise of any faculty, i f the faculty reside in us, we are
immediately conscious of i t ; and hence we can deny that it
16
exists in the mind, if we can form no consciousness of i t .
r
There are then no actions of the mind of which we are not im­
mediately conscious. But of the properties or powers of the
mind we can be unconscious until we exercise them. Neverthe­
less there are no powers of the mind which we cannot ever come
to know or which are in principle unknowable. I n the account
of Descartes' conception of consciousness we can now add to
consciousness of the mind's acts, the consciousness of its powers
when these have once been brought into play.
The principle contained in the statement: 'When we dispose
ourselves to the exercise of any faculty, i f the faculty reside in us,
**Reply I I . A T V I I , 129. H R I I , 31.
Reply IV. A T V I I , 246. H R I I , 115.
u
 DESCARTES' DEFINITION OF THOUGHT 63
we are immediately conscious of it, and hence we can deny that
it exists in the mind if we can form no consciousness of it,'
performs a crucial role at two points in the arguments of the
Meditations. I n the proof of the existence of God in Meditation
I I I Descartes considers the possibility that he has always existed
and hence does not need a God to account for his existence.
He observes that from the fact that I was in existence a short
time ago it does not follow that I must be in existence now,
unless some cause at this instant, so to speak, produces me anew,
that is to say, conserves me . . . . All that I thus require here is
that I should interrogate myself if I wish to know whether I possess
a power which is capable of bringing it to pass that I who am now
shall still be in the future; for since I am nothing but a thinking
thing, or since thus far it is only this portion of myself which is
precisely in question at present, i f such a power did reside in me,
I should certainly be conscious of it. But I experience nothing
of the kind, and by this I know clearly that I depend on some
17
being different from myself.'
The principle is invoked again in Meditation V I , in the proof
of the existence of material things. Descartes is conscious of a
certain passive faculty of perception. There must therefore be,
either in himself or in something else an active power of producing
the ideas of sensible things in him, 'But this active faculty cannot
exist in me [inasmuch as I am a thing that thinks] seeing that it
does not presuppose thought, and also that those ideas are pro­
duced in me without my contributing in any way to the same,
and often even against my will: it is thus necessarily the case that
18
the faculty resides in some substance different from me, . . , '
Descartes is here conscious of not contributing to the production
of these ideas in himself. Therefore the faculty of producing
them is not in him.
The clear statement which Arnauld elicited from Descartes,
and Locke's statement that 'Whilst (the soul) thinks and perceives
1 7
A T V I I , 49. H R I , 168f.
1 8
А Т V I I , 79. H R I, 191. In 'Descartes on Unknown Faculties: An
Essential Inconsistency,' Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. V I , July
1968, N0. 3, 245-256. D. F . Norton points to an inconsistency in Meditation
I I I where Descartes says of the ideas which appear to proceed from objects
outside him, 'perhaps there is in me some faculty fitted to produce these ideas
without the assistance of any external things, even though it is not yet known by
me'. Yet later he goes on to say that the power of self-preservation is not in him,
because if it were he would certainly be conscious of it.
64 ROBERT MCRAE
19
. . . it must necessarily be conscious of its own perceptions,'
came under an historically important attack from Leibniz, who
maintained that there are many perceptions within us of which
we are unconscious. I t might perhaps be said at once that Des­
cartes renders his position unassailable in principle by definition.
I f we mean by thought anything of which I am conscious as
operating in me, then anything of which I am not conscious is
not what is meant by thought, and this, of course, includes all
perceptions and appetites. However, it may serve to make
Descartes' position clearer i f we consider it in terms of Leibniz's
criticism. The first thing to be noted in this one-sided controversy
is that Leibniz does not maintain that there are any thoughts of
which we are unconscious, but only that there are perceptions
and appetites of which we are unconscious. This is evident from
Leibniz's own definition of thought. I n speaking of perception
as the representation of the many in the one, he says. 'The
possibility of such a representation of several things cannot be
doubted, since our soul provides us with an example of it. But
in the reasonable soul this representation is accompanied by
20
consciousness, and it is then that it is called thought.' I n
other words, consciousness transforms perception into thought.
Leibniz is a reductionist in his treatment of the actions and
passions of the soul. All states of the soul are perceptions. Actions
are distinct perceptions; passions are confused perceptions.
Moreover, appetite and perception are not two different things
but only the same thing viewed in two different ways. When
a present state is looked at as following upon the previous state
it is called a perception; when it is looked at as giving rise to the
succeeding or future state it is called an appetition. As for thought
it is a perception of which we are conscious, while volition is an
appetite of which we are conscious. Hence even thought and
volition are the same thing viewed differently. Descartes, on the
other hand, is not a reductionist. The different modes of thought
are distinct kinds of actions or passions. They do not, however,
form a heterogeneous collection of things, whose only common
denominator is that we happen to be conscious of them. Doubting,
affirming, desiring, imagining, perceiving, feelings are called

An Essay concerning Human Understanding, I I , i, 12.

19

To Arnauld, 9 October 1687, Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried

2 0

Wilhelm Leibniz, ed. C. I . Gerhardt, I I , 112.

 DESCARTES' DEFINITION OF THOUGHT 65
modes of thought by Descartes because 'they cannot be conceived
apart from . . . an intelligent substance in which they reside,
for . . . in their formal concept some kind of intellection is com­
21
prised.' By this he does not mean that they are species of
intellection, but that in the language of the Principles they 'pre­
suppose' intellection. For example, imagining a triangle is quite
distinct from conceiving a triangle, but is impossible without the
prior conception of a triangle. T h i s mode of thinking (i.e.
imagining) differs from pure intellection only inasmuch as mind
in its intellectual activity in some manner turns on itself, and
considers some of the ideas which it possesses in itself; while in
imagining it turns towards the body, and there beholds in it
something conformable to the idea which it has either conceived
22
of itself or perceived by the senses.' However, even to see a
triangle drawn on paperis to recognize a triangle, i.e. to see some­
23
thing conformable to an idea already possessed by the mind.
There is no need to recapitulate Descartes's account of the
perception of the piece of wax in Meditation I I , or the perception
of the size, distance, and shape of objects in the Dioptrics, to
emphasize this point that all sense perception of objects pre­
supposes intellection. What, however, about the awareness of
what in modern terms might be called a pure sense-datum, as
when, for example, Descartes says, ' I see light, I hear noise, I
feel heat'? What intellection is involved here? I f we may go by
the account given in the Passions of the Soul, we never have a
feeling which is not situated somewhere. I feel joy or anger in the
soul. I feel pain in the leg. I feel coldness in my hand, but
warmth in the flame. I feel at the same time warmth in my hand
but cold in the air. This necessary relating of feelings in one of
three ways,—to my own body, to an external body, or to the
soul—is, according to Descartes, ajudgment; and it would appear
then that there is no such thing in experience as a pure sense
datum or feeling datum in isolation from a judgment. All judging
involves conception—in the cases under consideration, concep­
tions of our bodies, of external bodies, or of our soul. Such
common expressions as ' I see light, I hear noise, I feel pain', are
all elliptical. Descartes maintains that it is only in our judgments

21
Meditation V I . A T V I I , 79. H R I, 190.
2 2
Ibid. A T V I I , 73. H R I , 186.
23
Reply V. A T V I I , 382. H R I I , 228.
66 ROBERT MCRAE

that we can err. We can be mistaken with regard to perceptions

which we relate to our body, e.g. I may feel pain in a leg which
has been amputated, and I may be mistaken with regard to those
which we relate to external bodies, though we cannot, he says be
mistaken with regard to those which we relate to the soul, 'inas­
much as they are so close to, and so entirely within our own soul,
that it is impossible to feel them, without their being such as we
24
feel them to be.' That there is a pain in my leg may be false,
but that I , an amputee, feel pain in my leg is certain, just as that
the world is flat may be false, while that I judge that the world is
flat can be certain. I t may well, however, be questioned in
passing whether relating joy and sorrow to the soul can for y

Descartes, be a judgment any more than relating doubt to the

soul is for him a judgement. But even i f feeling joy or sorrow in
the soul is not a judgment, nevertheless intellection is an essential
element in all the passions, for the six primitive passions, of
which all the others are composed or are species, namely, wonder,
love, hatred, desire, joy, and sadness, have objects and thus
presuppose conceptions of these objects. As such they are modes
of thought.
Descartes' thesis that there are no perceptions, appetites,
emotions, or sensations of which we are not conscious, can be
seen to rest on two premises. The first is that there is no intellec-
tion of which we are not conscious. This is absolutely assumed.
Here Leibniz goes beyond Descartes, and makes consciousness
a condition of the very possibility of intellection or rationality.
The second premise is that all perceptions, appetites, emotions,
and sensations involve intellection. I t follows that they must all
fall within the orbit of consciousness. I t is this second premise
which Leibniz disputes. But here one is tempted to invoke
against Leibniz Kant's dictum that percepts without concepts are
blind. Blind perceptions are not perceptions at all. But more can
be said on Descartes' side of the issue after we have considered the
third element in his conception of the relation of thought and
consciousness, namely that being conscious of what is occurring
in the mind is not the same as thinking of what is occurring in
the mind.
First, however, we must take note of a direct statement to the
contrary in the Conversation with Burman on the question whether
24
Passions of the Soul, I, xxvi. A T X I , 348. H R I, 343.
 DECSARTES' DEFINITION OF THOUGHT 67

there can be anything in our mind, in so far as it is a thinking

thing, of which it is not conscious. Burman raises the objection:
'But in what way could you be conscious, since to be conscious
is to think? To think that you are conscious, you go on to another
thought, and thus you are no longer thinking of what you were
thinking previously, and thus you are not conscious of thinking,
but of having thought,' To this Descartes replies, 'To be conscious
is certainly to think, and to reflect on one's thought, but that this
cannot occur so long as the previous thought remains, is false,
because, as we have already seen, the soul can think several
things at the same time, persevere in its thought, and whenever
it pleases reflect on its thought, and thus be conscious of its
25
thought.' I t must be observed that in this passage, in which to
be conscious, to think about thought, and to reflect on thought,
are all the same thing, thought is not something of which we are
always conscious. Rather Descartes is saying here that we can
reflect on our thought, or become conscious of our thought
whenever it pleases us to do so. This is very different from the
statement to Arnauld in Replies IV that 'There can exist in us
no thought, of which at the very moment that is present to it, we
are not conscious.' Because I can never think at any time without
being conscious of my thought, but can at pleasure reflect upon or
think about my thought, consciousness and reflection must be
distinguished in Descartes and indeed the distinction is of great
importance in Descartes' defence of his claim for the completely
primitive nature of the cogito ergo sum. He has to contend with
two criticisms, first, that prior to the cogito ergo sum he would
have to know what thought and existence are, and second, that
I exist is the conclusion of a syllogism whose premisses are, he
who thinks exists, and / think. The major premiss must be know
prior to the cogito ergo sum. As remarked in the previous paper on
26
'Innate Ideas', the priority for Descartes of the knowledge of
'thought' and 'existence' to the enunciated proposition ' I think,
therefore I am' in the priority of 'that internal cognition which
always precedes reflective knowledge,' while the relation of the
general proposition, 'he who thinks exists,' to ' I think, therefore
I exist,' is one between what is known implicitly and what is
known explicitly. We have implicit knowledge of everything
25
A T V, 149.
2 6
See above pp. 39-41.
F
68 ROBERT MCRAE

present to consciousness, and any part of this implicit knowledge

can be rendered explicit by the direction of attention upon it.
In defining clear and distinct perception Descartes says, ' I term
that clear which is present and apparent to an attentive mind . . .
But the distinct is that which is so precise and different from all
other objects that it contains nothing within itself but what is
27
clear'. Explicit knowledge, that which we get from attending to
what we are conscious of as being in ourselves is, then, the clear
and distinct perception of what we are pre-reflectively conscious of.
Error can arise, according to Descartes, only when we allow
ourselves to assent to what is not clearly and distinctly perceived.
Accordingly, it follows that wccan be mistaken about what is
occurring in the mind, in spite of the fact that there is nothing in
the mind of which the mind is not conscious. Moreover we can
be ignorant or partially ignorant of what is in the mind in so far
as ignorance is identified with lack of explicit knowledge. Thus
Descartes can say that many men are ignorant of their beliefs.
'For since', he says, 'the act of thought by which we believe a
thing is different from that by which we know that we believe it,
28
the one often exists without the other.' That act of thought by
which we know that we believe, to which Descartes here refers,
is the act of attending to our belief, so that we clearly and distinctly
perceive what it is, although prior to any such attention we are
conscious of our belief or have an implicit knowledge of it. And
Descartes can also say that 'those who are most agitated by their
passions are not those who know them best.' Powerful emotions
are inimical to that careful attention and scrutiny which is necessary
for the explicit knowledge of them, though we are nonetheless
perfectly conscious of them.
The original statement that consciousness appears to demarcate
an area of absolute certainty for Descartes must be amended in
the following way. I t demarcates an area of what is capable of
being known with absolute certainty and of being exempted from
hyperbolical doubt, provided we attend to what we are conscious
of as existing in us. But i f we all were in fact certain, or did in
fact possess the explicit knowledge of what is in us, there would
have been no need for Descartes to have pursued his Meditations,
or to have published them.
27
Principles I , xlv. A T V I I I , 22. H R I , 237.
28
Discourse on Method. A T V I , 23. H R I, 95.
 DESCARTES' DEFINITION OF THOUGHT 69
To return now to Leibniz's criticism. Leibniz's argument
for the existence of perceptions of which we are not conscious is
based on a consideration of the nature of attention. The relevance
of this consideration lies in the fact that Leibniz identifies con­
sciousness or apperception with reflection upon, or attention to,
what is in us, as Descartes does not. He says, There are a thou­
sand indications which make us judge that there are at every
moment an infinity of perceptions in us, but without apperception
and reflection, i.e. changes in the soul itself of which we are not
conscious, because the impressions are either too slight and too
great in number, or too even, so that they have nothing sufficiently
distinguishing them from each other; butjoined to others they do
produce their effect and to make themselves felt at least confusedly
in the mass. Thus it is that habit makes us take no notice of the
motion of a mill or a waterfall when we have lived quite near it
for some time. I t is not that the motion does not always strike our
organs, and that something no longer enters the soul corresponding
thereto, in virtue of the harmony of the soul and the body, but
these impressions which are in the soul and the body, being
destitute of the attractions of novelty, are not strong enough to
attract our attention and our memory, attached to objects more
engrossing. For all attention requires memory, and often when
we are not admonished, so to speak, and warned to take notice of
some of our own present perceptions, we allow them to pass
without reflection, and even without being noticed; but i f anyone
directs our attention to them immediately afterwards, and makes
us notice, for example, some noise which was just heard, we
remember it, and are conscious of having had at the time some
feeling of it. Thus there were perceptions of which we were not
conscious at once, consciousness arising in this case only from
29
the warning after some interval, however, small it may be.'
Over the psychology of attention itself there may be little in
what Leibniz says that Descartes would need to dispute, although
Leibniz is mainly concerned with the conditions under which
attention is captured, whereas Descartes is concerned with
attention as deliberately focussed, the directing of attention being
a principal element in his conception of method. The real issue
separating the two philosophers is whether attention to what is
29
New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, Preface, tr. A. G . Langley,
Chicago (1916) 47f.
70 ROBERT MCRAE

in us draws something up out of a subsconscious part of the mind,

as Leibniz maintains, or whether what is in us is already there to
consciousness for attention to be focussed on it, as Descartes
maintains, On this point Descartes would appear to be the
sounder psychologist. I f something is out of sight in a subcon­
scious, no amount of attention can perform the miracle of bringing
it into view. Attention is not a light beam. I t does not illuminate
an object. I t is possible only i f the object is already in the light.
 IV

'COGITO ERGO SUM':

I N F E R E N C E OR A R G U M E N T ?
ÄNDRE GOMBAY

Consider what one Cartesian scholar has recently written about

the Cogito and Meditation Two:
I t seems clear to me . . . that. . . Descartes regards his existence
as something inferred. The purpose of the inference, however,
is not to prove that sum is true . . . Descartes's concern is not
to decide whether or not he exists, or to offer a proof of sum,
but to establish that his existence is in a rather unusual sense
1
certain or indubitable.
This text contains three theses, of which I shall single out the
first for examination:
(1) Descartes regards his existence as something inferred.
9
(2) The purpose of the inference is not to prove that 'sum
is true;
(3) Descartes' concern is to establish that his existence is, in a
rather unusual sense of 'indubitable', indubitable.
M y question is this: is it true, as Frankfurt asserts, that Descartes
regards his existence as something inferred?
I t seems to me that we cannot begin to answer until we know
a little more clearly exactly what is being asserted. What is it,
to regard a state of affairs as something inferred} How does this
differ from regarding it as not inferred, or from not regarding it
as inferred? I t is these words—'infer', 'inference'—to which
I want to draw your attention.
Consider them for a moment as they might occur in one non-
philosophical context. I say: 'When General De Gaulle flew
precipitously to Germany last May, it was to make a bargain with
the French generals: in exchange for their support in putting
1
H . G . Frankfurt: 'Descartes' Discussion of his Existence in the Second
Meditation*, PhilosophicalReview, 1966, p. 333.
72 ANDRE GOMBAY

down a possible uprising in France, he agreed to an amnesty for

the Algerian diehards'. You reply: T h i s is all very well, but do
you know for sure or is this mere inference on your part?'. This,
I believe, is an entirely natural setting for the occurrence of the
substantive 'inference', and also the verb 'to infer' (for you might
have asked instead: 'Do you know for sure, or are you merely
inferring?'). And it seems to me worthwhile to examine some of
the features of this use of these words.
One fact is plain, of little philosophical interest, and I mention
it first merely to get it out of the way. Plainly, in my example,
inference is contrasted with knowledge, or at any rate first-hand
knowledge. To concede that I infer is to concede that I do not
really know. But plainly also, when Cartesian scholars worry
about whether or not Descartes' Cogito is an inference, this
contrast is not what they have in mind: whatever it comes to, the
claim that Descartes regards his existence as something inferred
is certainly not the claim that he regards his existence as something
of which he is not really assured. What is more, even in my
colloquial setting, this contrast is only one among several. Con­
fronted with my assertion about De Gaulle and the generals, you
might have asked: 'Is this something which you actually infer, or
is it just a hunch, or an intuition?'; and here inference is set
against guessing, or having an intuition (though of course not
'intuition' in the Cartesian sense, whatever that may be). For
the purpose of understanding the debate about the Cogito, none
of these contrasts is of any interest.
I now come to a second point, more important. That De Gaulle
made a certain bargain with the French generals may be an
inference on my part, without any inference on my part ever
taking place. I t may be something that I am inferring, and yet
T
not be anything which I have inferred or about w hich it will be
correct to say tomorrow that I inferred it yesterday. More
generally: it is possible to speak of inference on my part without
saying, or implying, that in my mind an inference took place.
Rather, it is a matter of what I am now prepared, or in a position
to do. I f I assert P and P is an inference, I must be prepared to
support my assertion with argument, to offer evidence; this
evidence, however, is not first-hand or absolutely conclusive.
No, I was not present when the agreement was being struck; and
I have not received the confidences of any witness or participant.
 'COGITO ERGO SUM*: INFERENCE OR ARGUMENT? 73

Yet, soon after May 29th, General Massu's tanks came for
'manoeuvres' to the outskirts of Paris; and a few days later,
General Salan was set free, and Georges Bidault returned from
exile unprosecuted. The evidence may not be incontrovertible,
but it is not easily dismissed. Notice that inferences, in this
T
setting of the w ord, are not normally called valid or invalid: they
are shaky, far-fetched, wild—when disparaged; reasonable, secure,
irresistible—when approved. They are such, according to the
strength of the evidence presented, or about to be presented.
My first thesis, then, is this: there exist settings where one
can speak of an inference on someone's part without speaking
about anything which is an event in that person's mental history.
What I am inferring today I may also be inferring tomorrow; but
it does not follow that I have inferred twice, or that it will be true
tomorrow that I inferred yesterday. I n speaking of inference, one
is sometimes not speaking about anything that takes place in a
mind.
But at other times, one is. Let me alter my example slightly.
I am a close observer of the French political scene. On May 29th,
I learn that De Gaulle is leaving Paris. A few hours later, a
friend telephones from Colombey-les-deux-Eglises: the General
has not arrived there. I then learn that the presidential limousine
headed North, not East, from the Elysee; also, that at about the
same time a helicopter from the Rhine Army landed in a remote
corner of Le Bourget airfield, and it later took off amid great
security precautions. I t does not take me long to infer that De
Gaulle has secretly flown to Germany. I n speaking of inference
here, I certainly seem to be speaking about something which took
place in a mind, about a piece of reasoning. This is mental
autobiography. Notice that in this setting, the verb 'to infer' is
tensed, or at least it has a past, a perfect and a future tense. I
might say: ' I promptly inferred (or 'drew the conclusion') that
De Gaulle had left for Germany; so I rushed to the telephone
and . . .' Anticipatorily, De Gaulle may have said: 'they will
doubtless infer that I have gone to Colombey; however . . .'
Notice also that people may infer wrongly.
It looks, then, as though inference is at least two things:
sometimes it is a dated event or achievement in the mental history
of a person, and sometimes it is not. I shall further conjecture that
the distinction between dated and undated corresponds to a
74 ANDRE GOMBAY

hiatus to be found in the tenses of the verb 'to infer': on one side
we have past, perfect and future; on the other, present and
continuous.
Now, about tensed inference (as I shall henceforth call it)
there is one further point worth noticing. I t is not customary to
speak of 'having inferred', of 'having drawn a conclusion', where
the matter is simple: that is, where the set of considerations
present to the mind of a person who enunciates a conclusion falls
below a certain level of complexity. I t would be pompous on my
part to say the following: Ί went to Colombey; saw that De
Gaulle was not there; and so inferred that he was somewhere
else'. I t is quite true, of course, that I came to know that De
Gaulle was elsewhere by finding out that he was not at Colombey;
and therefore that my thought that he was elsewhere was, so to
speak, the outcome of this other thought, the realisation that he was
not at Colombey. Yet this fact is not sufficient warrant for my being
said to have drawn a conclusion, or made an inference. At the
same time, I can readily imagine myself saying: 'A11 right, De
Gaulle is not here, so he is elsewhere'. More generally: there are
situations where it is perfectly appropiate to say 'P so 0', but
where it is inappropriate, or at any rate surprising, to be described
as having inferred that Q, or drawn the conclusion that Q, or
reasoned from P to Q. These last descriptions are naturally
applicable only in circumstances where a person has, as the
saying goes, to put two and two together, where at least a moder­
ately large number of facts needs to be marshalled, where a
modicum of ingenuity is required. I n my coming to know that
De Gaulle flew to Germany, these elements were present; in my
coming to know that he was elsewhere than at Colombey, they were
not.
My second thesis, then, is this: it is not colloquially appro­
priate to speak of a person making an inference in every situation
where that person offers an argument. The importance of this
point for understanding Descartes will, I hope, emerge soon.
For the moment, however, I return to my last example. I go
to Colombey, fail to find De Gaulle, and say: 'De Gaulle is not
here; so he is elsewhere'. This, I havejust claimed, is, with most
men, something too simple to be called inference (in the common
use of that word). But suppose now that an astute logician should
reply: 'But really, this is not simple at all. For there is a further
 'COGITO ERGO SUM': INFERENCE OR ARGUMENT? 75
u
propositioninvolved, namely this: A t every moment everybody
<< ,,
is somewhere". So why hold that no inference has occurred?'.
What are we to make of this objection?
It seems to me that we can offer at least this reply: that when
/ (in the example) said 'De Gaulle is not here, so he is elsewhere',
the thought of the proposition 'At every moment everybody is
somewhere' did not cross my mind. I t could have crossed, but it
didn't. Insofar as we allow to people the ability sometimes to
report correctly what goes through their minds when they say
7
what they say, there seems to be no reason w hy my report of
what went on, on this occasion, should not be accepted. A s a
matter of fact, there might be very good inductive evidence to
support aclaim suchasmine: themajorityof mankind isprobably
l
well capable of offering an argument of the form A is not here,
so A is elsewhere', yet most probably mcapable of having, let
alone formulating, the thought expressed in the sentence 'At every
moment everybody is somewhere'. So the argument can doubtless
occur without the thought.
T
At this point, the objector w ill probably reply that I am
cheating, that I have deliberately misrepresented the claim that,
in 'De Gaulle is not here, so he is elsewhere', the conclusion
depends on the further premiss 'At every moment everybody is
somewhere'. Well, whether I am cheating or not depends on
what the objector himself means by 'depends'. I f his claim was
that the thought of the premiss must in some fashion (perhaps
'implicitly') be present in the mind of any person who offers the
argument, then my reply is perfectly in order. The premiss is
not involved in the argument, if 'being involved' means that its
thought is a necessary episode in the mental history of anyone by
whom the argument is propounded.
But then, the objector probably meant something else. The
likelihood is that he was talking not about inference (in any sense
of 'inference' encountered so far), but about what logicians call
argument. And this is something quite different.
In logicians' language, to offer an argument is—typically—to
S 0 a n
say something of the form ' Р , P , · · · > ^n> Q* \ d most of the
г 2

time there is only one P. The occurrence of some such set of

sentences is a prima facie sufficient condition for the occurrence
of an argument. So much seems plain enough. Notice however,
that in actual life arguments (in the logicians' sense) can come to
76 ANDRE GOMBAY

be uttered in basically two distinct types of settings. Suppose

I say to my wife: Ί want to take the dog out tonight before dinner,
so I must be home no later than 8\ What I have done here is
first to state a certain fact, that I wish to take the dog out before
dinner, and then spell out a certain consequence of the fact. But
the same argument could have occurred, so to speak, from the
other end. I might have said to my wife: ' I must be home no
later than 8 tonight'; and perhaps she replied: 'Why? Dinner will
not be as early as that'; and I reply: 'Ah yes, but I want to take
the dog out tonight before dinner, so I must be home no later
than 8\ Here, the situation is different. I first utter my (eventual)
conclusion; am queried; so offer the (eventual) premiss in support.
Basically, then, arguments occur in these two ways in actual
discourse; they can be propounded from the premiss, as a spelling
out of alleged consequences, or they can be propounded for the
conclusion, as a means of providing support.
It is perhaps worth reminding ourselves that we have here a
semi-technical use of a word: in neither of my settings would
I normally be described as having offered an argument. I n
the second, for instance, I might be said to have offered an explana­
tion. Still, although not colloquial, the logicians' use is I think
not obscure.
An argument, then, occurs whenever anything of the form
*P, so <2' occurs, in thought, speech or print, and when these
words can be readily construed either as the putative spelling
out of a consequence of P or as the putative provision of support
for Q. Further, it makes sense, I think, to speak of the purpose of
an argument only if by 'argument' we mean argument as it
occurs in the second of these ways, as the provision of support.
And it makes sense to speak, as Frankfurt does, of the purpose of
an inference only if by 'inference' we mean argument. There does
of course exist such a use of that word, though it is one, I believe,
largely confined to philosophers.
There is one plain difference, which comes out in the grammar,
between offering an argument and (tensedly) inferring: an argu­
ment is something offered by A to B, an inference is something
made by A. I n this sense, I shall say that arguments are public
and inferences private. To say this is of course not to deny that,
sometimes, one argues to oneself and conducts the argument
just in one's head; but this does not turn the argument into an
 'COGITO ERGO SUM': INFERENCE OR ARGUMENT? 77

inference. That is a matter not of psychology, but of the descrip­

tion of what takes place. I t is also worth noticing that, unlike
'infer', the verb 'to offer an argument' conjugates smoothly
throughout its tenses.
Let me now, and for the last time, return to my 'De Gaulle
is not here, so he is elsewhere', and to the objection that the
premiss 'At every moment everybody is somewhere' is involved
in the argument. I n a fiercely obstinate and contrary mood, I
might still refuse to concede. I might reply: 'Well, the premiss
was not in my argument; I never uttered any such words'. But
this move, one feels, would not carry me very far. For it invites
the reply: 'Perhaps the premiss was not present in your argument;
however, it is involved in the argument'. Or better still: 'The
premiss may not actually have been in, but it is implicit in, your
argument; for your conclusion depends on it'. And here I should
have to concede.
My last obstinate reply had perhaps one merit: it helped to
bring out the fact that argument—like tenseless, but unlike tensed,
inference—leads a double life. On the one hand, it is something
personal, the propounder's words; but it is also something which
is no-one's property and is shared by all rational beings. I n this
fashion, one can speak of a premiss implicit in an argument: not
to mean that the thought of such a premiss is in some manner
present in the mind of anyone by whom the argument is propound­
ed, or that it exists as a mental capacity of which each propounding
is an actualisation, but rather that this premiss is the logically
weakest proposition required in addition to the existing premisses
in order to turn the argument into one which is deductively
valid. So when my objector insists that the premiss 'At every
moment everybody is somewhere' is involved, he means that a
sentence stating at least that proposition would have to be uttered
in addition to 'De Gaulle is here' i f one wanted to provide con­
clusive, or entailing, support for the utterance of 'De Gaulle is
elsewhere'. And of course he is right.
For convenience, I shall now introduce a piece of jargon: I
shall say that my first two replies to the objector ((a): 'The
thought never crossed my mind'; (b): 'The words never crossed
my Hps') are replies in thepersonal mode; and my third (conceding
the objection) a reply in the impersonal
So finally, let us turn to Descartes. Perhaps you have sensed
78 ANDRE GOMBAY

a certain affinity between the question involving De Gaulle and

Colombey with which I have been concerned, and the philosophers'
debate about whether the Cogito is, or is not, an inference. I
have delayed looking at the Cogito because I hold that the distinc­
tions which have been drawn so far are the ones required for
settling this debate; and there is everything to be gained from
drawing them in an atmosphere less paralysing than that of the
Cogito itself. For here, the reader is paralysed, or at least inhibited,
by a double uncertainty: what does 'cogito' mean?; what can 'sum'
possibly mean? With these substantial problems, I shall not in
any manner be concerned.
About the Cogito, two facts at least are plain: first, that the
words 'cogito ergo sum' do not occur anywhere in the Meditations;
secondly, that there is one thesis put forward in the third paragraph
of Meditation Two which Descartes, throughout his life, regarded
as correctly expressed by the words 'cogito ergo sum'. To my
knowledge, nowhere does Descartes disown the formula or declare
it in any way misleading.
Here are the last lines of that paragraph:
But I have convinced myself that nothing in the world exists—
no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies; so have I not also
convinced myself that I do not exist?' No: if I did convince
myself of anything [here the French adds: 'or i f I merely
thought of anything'], I must have existed. 'But there is some
deceiver, supremely powerful, supremely intelligent, who
purposely always deceived me.' I f he deceives me, then again
1 undoubtedly exist; let him deceive me as much as he may, he
will never bring it about that, at the time of thinking that I am
something, I am in fact nothing. Thus I have now weighed all
considerations enough and more than enough; and must at
length conclude (statuendum sit) that this proposition Ί am',
Ί exist', whenever I utter it or conceive it in my mind, is
2
necessarily true.

When the words Ί am', Ί exist' occur in the last sentence of

this text, it is undeniable that they occur as the conclusion of at
least one argument. First Descartes observes that he has con-
2
On the whole, the translation is that of Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter
Thomas Geach in Descartes: Philosophical Writings (London, 1954), p. 67.
Henceforth, 'AG'.
 'COGITO ERGO SUM*: INFERENCE OR ARGUMENT? 79

vinced himself of a number of things. He then wonders whether

he has also convinced himself that he does not exist. And he
replies that he hasn't, for he exists i f he has convinced himself of
anything. Schematically, it goes like this:
Observation: P ( = Ί have convinced myself of some things')
Question: Have I convinced myself that not-Q ( = 'that I
do not exist')?
Answer: No; for Q, i f P.
Clearly, this is an argument, offered in support of its conclusion.
I t deviates, however, in two—perhaps related—respects from
the standard pattern: (a) Descartes is soliloquising, so propounder
and recipient are one and the same; (b) the conclusion comes to be
entertained through its being asked whether a certain proposition,
incompatible with that conclusion, is true. These look like minor
deviations. But as we shall see later on, it may well be that
Descartes thought them important.
So one point has now been conclusively, and indeed very
easily, settled: in the first five lines of the third paragraph of
Meditation Two there is one argument whose conclusion is W
and whose premiss, adduced in support of that conclusion, is
l
recognisably like cogito\ Why then, one may ask, has there ever
been a debate about whether Descartes himself regarded the
Cogito as an inference?
There has been, because of Descartes' peculiar answers to
one objection with which he was confronted. Here is the objection,
as reported by Descartes himself:
. . . The author of the Rejoinders [Gassendi] will have it that
when I say I think therefore I am, I am presupposing the major
premiss: what thinks, is, and have thus already embraced a
prejudice.
This is Descartes' Letter to Clerselier (Jan. 1646) (AG 299-300).
I t is not difficult to make out in a general way what the objection
comes to: Descartes is being accused of inconsistency. I f it is
possible that an evil genius deceives Descartes even in those
matters which Descartes thinks he knows perfectly well, then it
is possible that the proposition 'whatever thinks, is' is false. But
4
this proposition is involved in ' I think thereforeI am '. So it is
possible that the conclusion ' I am' is false. Yet in Meditation Two
80 ANDRE GOMBAY

Descartes had claimed that Ί am' is necessarily true whenever he

utters it or conceives it in his mind. Hence, the inconsistency.
I n short then, the objection is that, i f the hypothesis of the evil
genius is taken seriously, Descartes is not entitled to assert, as
he does in Meditation Two: ' I am, I exist'. This objection pre­
occupied Descartes, and he repeatedly sought to meet it.
Basically, he offers what look like two lines of reply. The
first appears for the first time in a well known, and lately much
discussed, passage, in the Reply to the Second Set of Objections
(AG. 299):
. . . When we observe that we are thinking beings, this is a
sort of primary notion, which is not the conclusion of any
syllogism; and, moreover, when somebody says: / think,
therefore 1 am, or exist, he is not syllogistically deducing his
existence from a thought, but recognising it as something
self-evident, in a simple mental intuition. This is clear from
the fact that if he were deducing it syllogistically he would
first have to know the major premise: whatever thinks is or
exists; whereas really it is rather that this principle is learnt
through his observing in his own case the impossibility of
having a thought without existing. For our mind is so con­
stituted as to form general propositions from knowledge of
particular cases.
I n this Reply, two points stand out:
(1) The answer appears to be entirely in the personal mode; that
is, in terms of what does, and what does not, go on in the mind
of someone who says ' I think therefore I am'; and Descartes
denies—perhaps reasonably—that the thought'Whatever thinks,
is or exists' must occur. More questionably, he couples this
denial with a general theory of how thoughts of this kind come to
be entertained. So that the answer is perhaps not in terms of the
history of one mind, but in terms of the constitution of the mind.
(2) A certain contrast is drawn, but it is not one between argument
and intuition. What Descartes denies—perhaps again quite
reasonably—is that anything like a process of reasoning must take
place when a man says ' I think therefore I am'; and a similar
denial could, as we saw, be made in the case of 'De Gaulle is not
here so he is elsewhere'. But to deny this is not tantamount to
denying that the words constitute an argument. On this point, the
 'COGITO ERGO SUM': INFERENCE OR ARGUMENT? 81

French version is even more explicit than the Latin. For here,
the end of the first sentence reads like this:
. . . when somebody says: / think therefore I am, or exist, his
existing is a self-evident conclusion from his thinking, and not
one drawn via a syllogism; it is seen by simple mental intuition.
Here, we do not find, as in the Latin, even the possible suggestion
of a contrast between (a) concluding and (b) recognising as self-
evident: here, Ί am' is squarely called a conclusion. What is
contrasted is (a) coming to a conclusion by syllogism and (b)
coming to a conclusion by simple mental intuition. And incident­
ally, 'simple mental intuition' would not be out of place as the
description of what normally takes place in the mind of a man who
says 'De Gaulle is not here, so he is elsewhere': simple mental
intuition, because reasoning is not required.
Such, then, is Descartes' first line of defence. I t is deployed
in 1641, in the Reply which we have just been considering; and
again in 1646, in the Letter to Clerselier, which contains Gassendi's
objection (AG. 300):
. . . But the most important mistake here is that the author
supposes that the knowledge of particular propositions must
be deduced from universal ones, following the syllogistic order of
Dialectic. This shows how little he knows the right way of
seeking for truth; for in order to discover the truth one must
assuredly begin with particular notions, and then go on to general
ones afterwards; although, conversely, after having discovered
the general notions, one can likewise deduce further particular
notions from them. For example, when a child is taught the
elements of geometry, he cannot be made to understand in
general that if from equal quantities equal parts are subtracted
the remainders are still equal or that the whole is greater than its
parts, unless he is shown examples in particular cases. I t is from
ignoring this that our author has been misled into so many
fallacious reasonings, with which he has swelled his volume; he
has simply made up false major premises out of his own imagin­
ation, as though I had deduced from these the truths I explained.
Here, especially in the last sentence, we have again the answer in
the personal mode; and again conjoined with a theory about how
knowledge of certain kinds of propositions is generally acquired.
82 ANDRE GOMBAY

This defence is also deployed in the Conversation with Burman,

in 1648 ( I deliberately quote here only part of the text; the
omitted sentences will be supplied later):
Before reaching this conclusion / think therefore I am, one can
have knowledge of the major premiss whatever thinks, is . . . .

But I have a prior knowledge of my conclusion in that I attend

only to what I experience in myself, i.e. to / think therefore I
am, while not likewise attending the general principle, whatever
thinks is. As I have pointed out, we do not in fact separate
these general propositions from particular cases but rather take
notice of them in the particulars.
Together with this line of defence goes Descartes' insistence on
the simplicity of the Cogito. I n a Letter to Colvius (1640), Descartes
writes of Ί think therefore I am' that 'it is something so simple,
and so natural to infer, that it might have come from the pen of
anyone'. And in 1648, in a Letter to the Marquess of Newcastle
(AG. 300-301), he describes the Cogito as something which is
not a 'product of reasoning', but something which 'the mind sees,
feels, handles'. Once again, however, to insist on this point is
not to deny that the Cogito is an argument.
So much for one line of reply. But there is in Descartes yet
another. I t consists in his conceding that the disputed major
premiss is involved in the argument, but in claiming that this
premiss is not one whose truth is rendered doubtful by the
hypothesis of the evil genius. This thesis is stated—incorrectly
—in the Principles ( I , 10) (AG. 183-184):
When I said that the proposition I think therefore I am is the
first and the most certain of those we come across when we
philosophise in an orderly way, I was not denying that we must
first know what is meant by thinking, existence, certainty; and
again we must know such things as that it is impossible for that
which is thinking to be non-existent; but I thought it needless to
enumerate these notions, for they are of the greatest simplicity,
and by themselves they can give us no knowledge that anything
exists.
Now this text certainly seems at odds with the Reply to the
Second Set of Objections, and Descartes was questioned about this by
 'COGITO ERGO SUM': INFERENCE OR ARGUMENT? 83

Burman. He offered the following exegesis—and these are the

sentences omitted from my earlier quotation of the Conversation:
Before reaching this conclusion / think therefore I am, one can
have knowledge of the major premise whatever thinks, is,
because it is in reality prior to my conclusion, and my conclusion
depends on it. And this is the sense in which, in the Principles,
the author says it precedes the conclusion, since implicitly i t
is always presupposed and prior. But I do not always have an
explicit knowledge of its priority.
I f this is what Descartes meant in the Principles, he certainly put
3
it very badly there. But exactly what did he mean? I n the
Conversation he speaks of the dependence of the Cogito upon,
and of the priority relatively to the Cogito of, the premiss 'whatever
thinks, is\ I t seems to me entirely reasonable to interpret Descartes
as in effect offering here my impersonal answer to the De Gaulle-
argument objector; that is, as in effect saying that the proposition
'whatever thinks, is' is required in addition to ' I think* to complete
a set of propositions which would constitute entailing support for
the assertion of ' I am'. I t is in this sense that the contested
proposition is 'implicitly presupposed' and 'prior'.
Such is, I think, the thought which Descartes intended to
convey in Principles I, 10, concerning the Cogito and 'whatever
thinks, is'; and in the article immediately following, he goes on
to claim that the premiss is known by the natural light, Le. that
it is not of a kind to be made doubtful by the possible existence
of an evil genius.
So we find, or seem to find, in Descartes two main answers to
the charge that he has 'embraced a prejudice'. I n one mood,
Descartes denies that the proposition 'whatever thinks, is' is
involved in the Cogito; and these are the more numerous texts.
Here, Descartes is speaking about what occurs in people's heads,
or at least in his head; and he denies that the thought of a certain
proposition occurs. On the other hand, and in another mood, he
sometimes concedes that 'whatever thinks, is' is involved in the
Cogito, but asserts that it is a premiss to which he is entitled, the
3
It may look like dubious exegetical practice, on my part, to dismiss as
inaccurate one text (the Principles) which Descartes wrote and had published,
in the name of another (the Conversation), which is not from Descartes' pen, and
whose accuracy he is not known to have checked. The practice is dubious. But
here we are all clutching at straws.
G
84 ANDR6 GOMBAY

doubt notwithstanding. Here, Descartes is speaking about the

content not of a mind, but of an argument.
In short, then, we seem to have two theses:
(1) in Meditation Two, 'sunC is not the conclusion of a piece
of syllogistic reasoning, because no reasoning is required for
9
asserting 'cogito ergo sunt . Taken in the personal mode, the
Cogito is not a syllogistic argument.
(2) However, the Cogito is a syllogistic argument, if taken imper¬
9
sonally: in *cogito ergo sum , the premiss 4llud omne, quod cogitat,
9
est is implicitly presupposed.
As I have argued, these two theses are not in any way incompatible:
and when they are considered each by itself, they both look
reasonable, or at least defensible.
But surely, they are not both defensible as answers to the
charge with which Descartes was confronted. For when Gassendi
accuses Descartes of 'having embraced a prejudice', the charge is
hardly that, in the course of his meditations, Descartes came to
entertain some unworthy thoughts; but rather that he came to
assert what he was not entitled to assert. And this charge is
hardly met by insisting, as Descartes does, that his mind is
naturally so constituted as to entertain the thought of the Cogito
without also entertaining the thought that whatever thinks is.
I f De Gaulle were to say Ί am a Frenchman, hence I am right',
he would not I think be viewed as answering the charge of prejudice
were he to declare that this particular truth is one which his mind
'sees, feels, handles', whereas the thought that all Frenchman
are right was one which he had never entertained, his mind being
so constituted as to 'not in fact separate such general propositions
from particular cases, but rather take notice of them in the partic­
ulars'. I t looks, then, as though Descartes is either confused or
perverse: he is asked for entitlement, he offers personalhistory.
Yet it is unattractive to believe that Descartes could have been
delinquent so patently and so grossly. Surely, one feels, he must
have had a reason for persistently answering the objection in this
way. And the question is: what reason?
The answer, I think, lies in a strange theory that Descartes
seems to have held concerning the nature of demonstration, a
theory which is put forward in the Reply to the Second Set of
Objections, immediately before the so-called proof more geometrico.
 'C0GIT0 ERGO SUM': INFERENCE OR ARGUMENT? 85
Though the passage is rather long, I shall reproduce it in
full:
Demonstration is of two kinds, by analysis or by synthesis.
Analysis shows the very manner in which the thing has been
methodically discovered, so to speak a priori; so provided the
reader follows, and keeps his mind on every point, he will
understand what is demonstrated no less perfectly, and make
it no less his own, than if he had discovered it himself. However,
this kind of demonstration is not such as to compel assent in a
reader who is inattentive or hostile; and i f any point put for­
ward is inadvertently passed over, the conclusion will no longer
be seen as necessary. Also on many points which are clear
enough in themselves, analysis will not expatiate, though they
be precisely those which it is most important to keep in mind.
Synthesis, on the other hand, proceeds in the reverse manner,
so to speak a posteriori (though it may also contain proofs going
the other way). I t does indeed demonstrate its conclusions
clearly, by using definitions, postulates, axioms, theorems and
problems, so that i f any single step is challenged, it may at
once be shown to be contained in an earlier step; so the reader,
however obstinate and stubborn, is compelled to assent.
However, unlike analysis, this way of proving does not really
satisfy those who are eager to learn, because it does not show
4
in what manner the thing itself has been discovered.
Although Descartes is here speaking about geometrical proof, i t
is clear that he does not intend the distinction between 'analysis'
and 'synthesis' to apply only to geometry; for he immediately
goes on to say that he himself has followed the 'analytic' method
in the Meditations. Now, there is a good deal in this passage
which I find exceedingly difficult to understand. But at least
three general points seem assured:
(1) Descartes is contrasting two things, but they are not demon­
stration and discovery; they are two kinds of demonstration.
(2) To demonstrate P 'synthetically' is, inter alia, to offer entailing
support for the assertion of P; in fact, it looks as though the
Cartesian notion of 'synthesis' is roughly our informal notion of
proof.
4
An English translation of this passage is to be found in H R I I , 48-49.
86 ANDRE GOMBAY

(3) Descartes holds that, for at least some P, there is a method of

demonstrating P, which (a) shows how the demonstrator himself
discovered P, and (b) makes the person to whom P is demonstrated
in this fashion feel about P as though he had discovered it himself.
I t seems to me that Descartes' surprising mode of answer to
Gassendi begins to appear intelligible in the light of his belief in
the existence of this powerful kind of demonstration, 'analysis'.
For when he persists in replying in the personal mode, he is not
unwittingly confusing argumentation and personal history; rather,
he takes himself to be offering, or recalling, a proof, precisely by
recounting what went on in his mind when he came to assert Ί
think therefore I am'. The thought of the proposition 'Whatever
thinks, is' did not occur; however, 'analytic' proof proceeds by
displaying precisely what did occur; hence, that proposition is
not part of one 'analytic' proof of ' I am'. Descartes' answer is
not simple-minded autobiography, but autobiography qua demon­
stration.
To say that Descartes' procedure is intelligible in the light
of a certain belief is however not to say that that belief is itself
intelligible. For my part, I cannot see that it is. We are told
that the Meditations were written in the 'analytic' mode: plagiaris­
ing the first sentence of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, we
might construe Descartes as saying that the Meditations will be
understood only by someone who feels as though he himself has
had the thoughts which are expressed in them. Yet insofar as
anything in the Meditations is recognisably a piece of argumenta­
tion—say the third paragraph of Meditation Two—it scarcely
measures up to the general claims made in the Reply on behalf of
the 'analytic' mode of proof. There is of course the quasi-
historical setting, the narrative in the first person, the frequent
self-addressed questions: but it is difficult to regard these as
anything more than stylistic deviations from the pattern of proof
which Descartes calls 'synthetic'. I do not deny that there might
be ways of leading a person to see 'how things stand', which are
not those of deductive demonstration; but I do not discern any of
these anywhere in the Meditations; and I can conceive of none
that might accomplish what 'analysis' is said to accomplish. I n
the Reply, Descartes opines that the ancient Geometers knew
about 'analysis', but chose to present their proofs by 'synthesis'
 'COGITO ERGO SUM*: INFERENCE OR ARGUMENT? 87

because they set such high value on the former that they wished
to keep its existence secret. Alas, it has remained a secret.

For all the opacity of the doctrine of argumentation on which

they ultimately rest, Descartes' answers to the question of whether
'whatever thinks, is' is involved in the Cogito have two virtues
which are not shared by the writings of other philosophers
devoted to these answers.
One, Descartes makes it quite plain that, insofar as dependence
on a further premiss is concerned, the case of the Cogito is by no
means unique. Most clearly in the Letter to Clerselier, but
elsewhere also, Descartes points out that 'whatever thinks, is'
is but one of a class of truths which (a) are implicit in actually
presented arguments, and yet (b) are such that they cannot be
formulated, or even entertained, by the propounders of these
arguments. What holds of Ί think therefore I am' also holds
of—say—'Brittany is part of France, so France is larger than
Brittany'; and it would also hold of 'De Gaulle is not here, so he
is elsewhere* (provided that 'De Gaulle' is taken to stand for a
certain union-of-mind-and-body). Where Descartes is at pains to
9
point out that 'cogito ergo sum resembles countless other arguments
in being something perceived by simple mental intuition, his
modern commentators write as though precisely the opposite were
9 9
the case: they devote immense attention to 'cogito and to 'sum ,
but treat *ergo' as though it were something so transparent as to
require no discussion. This is no trifling oversight: for in the
9
end it is precisely his views about 'ergo which account for Des­
cartes' position.
The second difference between Descartes and his modern
commentators is this. Descartes' discussions of the Cogito and
'whatever thinks, is' take place in a well-defined setting: Descartes
is defending himself against the charge that the Cogito rests on a
premiss which he ought to have rejected. The modern discussions
occur against the background of a different, and much vaguer,
question: is the Cogito an inference, or is it something else? I n
one way, the question is not vague at all and admits of definite
T
answers. Is the Cogito an inference? Well, i f w e mean: 'Is it
tenseless inference (i.e. inference of the kind which I engage in
when I assert without conclusive evidence that De Gaulle flew to
make a bargain with the French generals)?', the answer is: 'Of
88 ANDRE GOMBAY
r
course not\ I f we mean: 'Is there anyw here a putative argument
offered by Descartes of which the conclusion is "sum" and the
premiss "cogito"V, the answer is: 'Yes, in the third paragraph of
Meditation Two'. I f we mean: 'Is the Cogito always the outcome
of a piece of reasoning?', the answer is: 'No', i f 'reasoning' is so
used as to exclude cases of simple mental intuition: and 'Yes',
r
otherwise. These answers are plain, decidable, and philosophically
unexciting. Yet when we look at the writings of the modern
commentators we find that, generally, they do not even take one
step in the direction of these answers. The reason is that they are
hunting for bigger game. They are struck by the non-straight­
forward character of the Cogito's premiss or conclusion, and it is
these that they wish to investigate. I t is of course highly desirable
that 'cogito' and 'sum' should be, i f they can be, adequately
understood. But understanding them does not seem to be either a
necessary or a sufficient condition of deciding whether the Cogito
is an inference. I t may well be, for instance, that the utterance of
the grammatical contradictory of 'sum' is in some unique fashon
self-stultifying. But why should this be held to show that the
Cogito is not an inference? On this point, some explanation is
required.
One final remark. Commentators sometimes point out that
in some places (e.g. his Reply to Father Bourdin—the 'basket of
apples' passage, HR I I , 282) Descartes writes, not 'cogito ergo
sum', but 'ego cogitans sum'. That, in my view, holds exactly as
much philosophical interest as the fact that, coming to Colombey, I
5
might have said: 'Well, not being here, De Gaulle is elsewhere'.
5
I have learned much about the matters discussed here from Harry Frankfurt,
Ian Hacking and Anthony Kenny.
 V

D E S C A R T E S ' T H E O R Y OF C L E A R AND
DISTINCT IDEAS
E. J. AsHWORTH

It is widely agreed that Descartes took ideas to be the objects

of knowledge and that his theory of clear and distinct ideas arose
from his attempt to find a way of picking out those ideas whose
truth was so certain and self-evident that the thinker could be
said to know them with certainty. To say of an idea that it is
clear and distinct was, he believed, to say of it both that it was
certainly true and that any claim to know it was justified. No
other criterion need be appealed to. I t is at this point, however,
that most of those who set out to expound Descartes' theory of
knowledge are brought to a standstill. The part played by clear
ideas is obvious enough, but what did Descartes mean by 'clear
and distinct'? This paper is an attempt, not to make an original
contribution to the study of Descartes, but to elucidate his terms
and evaluate his criterion in the light of what both he and others
have written. I n order to avoid restating the whole of his philosoph­
ical system, I shall begin with a brief statement of my general
assumptions about the nature of his endeavour.
Like most of his contemporaries, Descartes adopted a repre­
sentative theory of sense perception by which ideas are a necessary
intermediary between the mind and what is external to it, and he
extended this theory to apply not only to sensory objects but to
1
all external reality, including God and the eternal truths. Since he
believed that ideas were the only objects with which we were
immediately acquainted, he felt that any theory about their
external reference and the nature of their relationship with other
realities had to be consequent upon a thorough examination of
ideas and their properties. Ourjudgements must be in accordance
2
with our ideas; and our criteria must be criteria which are
applicable to ideas. Since his chief interest was in establishing a
1
А Т I I I , 474.
2
А Т I I I , 476.
90 E. J . ASHWORTH

body of certain knowledge, his first task was to settle upon an

idea which was known with certainty, so that he could formulate
a criterion for picking out other such ideas or statements in the
light of the evidence thus obtained.
He did claim that in a sense we already have a body of certain
knowledge before we begin the search for an example, and he
3
cited the cases of'thought', 'doubt', 'certainty', 'truth', 'existence'.
These are indefinable, like a colour. All we can do is open our
eyes and see, for words will never help us to grasp them. However,
while we recognize what 'doubt' etc. are and must know them
with certainty in order to be able to think at all, we cannot claim
that these ideas give us knowledge of anything that actually
4
exists. Hence they afford usno starting place; they are merely
necessary conditions for the making of a start. I n this discussion
Descartes seems to be suggesting that we have a series of special
intuitions of processes and states; but his point could also be
made in terms of an artificial language, in which a set of primitive
symbols and syntactical rules must be adopted before anything
can be said, whether in or about the language.
We can now see how Descartes came to pick out his first
piece of certain knowledge, and to use it in the formulation of
his criterion for knowledge. His own account of what he did is
most misleading, for he says that it was as i f he were separating
good from rotten apples; he just turned them all out of the
5
basket and put the good apples to one side. Chisholm rightly
remarks that this suggests that Descartes had a method of telling
6
evident beliefs from non-evident beliefs even before he began;
but the criticism does not apply to the procedure of the Meditations.
Here Descartes begins his search for the indubitable by doubting
all propositions, and then looking to see whether he is led to an
absurdity. I f —p is clearly untenable, then p must be a piece of
certain knowledge, and can be used as a paradigm case of knowledge.
To deny that I exist while I doubt or think or deny is clearly
absurd; hence " I think, therefore I exist" is our foundation stone,
our first certain truth. When Descartes examines the nature of
this statement, he finds that he has a clear and distinct perception
of it, and concludes: " I t seems to me that already I can establish
3
HR I, 222, 32S.
4
HR I, 222.
5
HR II, 282.
6
R. Chisholm, Perceiving (Ithaca, N.Y., 1957), pp. 32-3.
 DESCARTES* THEORY OF CLEAR AND DISTINCT IDEAS 91
as a general rule that all things which I perceive very clearly and
7
distinctly are true." Thus, he claims, he has discovered not
only an example of certain knowledge, but a distinguishing mark
of certain knowledge.
Descartes felt that some obvious difficulties still remained.
So long as it is possible that an evil genius exists, we have a reason
for doubting the general rule enunciated above, even if we are
incapable of doubting particular instances of that rule. Moreover,
the human mind is notoriously weak in its powers of attention,
and can easily lose grip on those truths it has momentarily
8
grasped. But the proof that God exists dispelled both these
difficulties, by removing any reason we might have for general
r
doubt, and by furnishing us with a guarantee that w hat we remem­
ber having perceived clearly and distinctly is true. Fortunately
the problems raised by the proofs for the existence of God, the
so-called vicious circle, the distinction between general and
particular doubt, and the nature of the cogito need not be discussed
here; and I shall now turn to a more detailed examination of
what Descartes had tosay about ideas.
The fact that Descartes adopted the word 'idea' is itself
significant. When scholastic philosophers discussed human
cognition, they spoke of the mind as containing concepts (species y

intentiones). They claimed that these concepts originated through

our sense perceptions, and hence that they stood in some relation
to external objects. The term 'concept' was contrasted with the
term 'idea'. Ideas were the eternal essences or archetypes contem­
plated by God, and the question of their external reference did
not arise. They were an integral part of God's mind. God could
create instances of one of his ideas, but his idea was in no way
dependent upon the existence of such instances. Descartes took
the word 'idea' and applied it to the contents of the human mind
because he wanted to escape the suggestion that these contents
must be in some sense dependent on the external wOrld as a
9
causal agent. He wished to establish the logical possibility that
a mind and the ideas contained within it are unrelated to other
existents, and can be discussed in isolation from them.
Descartes saw the term 'idea' as having a very wide extension.
7
H R I, 158.
8
А Т IV, 116; H R I , 167, 183.
ö
H R I I , 68.
92 E. J . ASHWORTH

He said " . . . Itake the term idea to stand forwhatever the mind
10
directly perceives," where the verb 'perceive' refers to any
possible cognitive activity, including sensing, imagining and
11
conceiving. Thus a sense datum, a memory, an image, and a
concept can all be called ideas. This, of course, leads to the
blurring of distinctions. For Descartes, " I have an idea of red"
may mean that I am now sensing something red, or that I have a
concept of the colour red, even if I amnot now picking out an
instance of that concept. Moreover, when Descartes speaks of an
idea, he may be taking it as representative of some object or
qualityin the physicalworld, as when he says " I have an idea of
the sky and stars," or he may be referring to the meaning he
assigns toaword, aswhen he says"I have an idea of substance."
Nor does he make any distinction between "having an idea" and
"entertaining a proposition." Such statements as "Nothing comes
from nothing" and "The three angles of a triangle are equal to
12
two right angles" are categorized as 'common notions', and are
included among the contents of the mind. Descartes does remark
that in some cases an idea may be expressed by a name, in other
13
cases by a proposition, but he doesnot bother to pursue this
line of inquiry.
One of the characteristics of an idea is 'objective reality', a
scholastic phrase which Descartes adopted, but used in a new
way. I n scholastic writings the terms 'subjective' and 'objective'
have meanings which are the reverse of the modern meanings.
An object like a table exists subjectively or as a subject i f it has
spatio-temporal existence, if it is real or actual. I n contrast, the
concept of a table can be looked at as having two kinds of
existence. The concept qua concept has formal existence, but
the concept as having some specifiable content is said to have
objective existence, or existence as an object of thought. The
concepts of a table and of a chair are formally similar but object­
ively different. So far as subjective realities were concerned, the
scholastics assigned them different grades of reality according to
their perfection and causal power. For instance, a substance is
more perfect and causally more efficacious than an accident,
hence a man has a higher grade of reality than the colour red.
1 0
HR II, 67-8.
1 1
HR I, 232.
1 2
HR I, 239.
13
А Т I I I , 395.
 DESCARTES' THEORY OF CLEAR AND DISTINCT IDEAS 93
I t was also held that every effect had a cause with either an equal
or a higher grade of reality. These doctrines were not seen as
having any relevance to concepts. As formally existent, a concept
has of course to have some cause, but the content of the concept
was not seen as having any independent reality. Descartes,
however, felt that the objective reality could be considered
independently of its formal reality, and that it must be graded
just as subjective reality was graded. The idea of a man, he felt,
has more objective reality than the idea of a colour. Moreover,
the cause of the idea containing a certain degree of objective
reality must have an equal or greater degree of subjective reality.
For instance, the idea of God has so high a degree of objective
reality that only God himself is perfect enough to be the cause
14
of such an idea.
I n the same way as an idea can be characterized as possessing
a certain degree of objective reality, it can be characterizedas
possessing a certain degree of truth. Sometimes Descartes treated
the predicate 4rue' as i f it were synonymous with 'reaF. He
15
claimed that "truth consists in being and falsity in non-being;"
and it followed that an idea was more or less true as it had more
or less being or objective reality. Our idea of the Infinite or God
16
is entirely true, because its object is entirely real. Descartes
seems to have had in mind the mediaeval doctrine of transcen-
dentals, by which the terms 'one', 'true', and 'good' are convertible
with the term 'being'. However, he recognized that truth is not
merely an intrinsic property of ideas, since it involves a relationship
between an idea and an object, whether actual or possible. I n
one of his letters, he said that to call some proposition or idea
true is to assert "a conformity between thought and object," and
that i f one refers to objects as being true, one means only that
17
they can be the object of a true thought. I n another letter, he
said that our clear ideas are true in the sense that their object does
exist, i f we see that it is not possible for it not to exist, and that
18
their object may exist, i f we see that its existence is possible.
Taking the terms 'true' and 'real' as synonymous helps one
to understand what Descartes meant by a 'materially false' idea.
1 4
H R I , 161-170.
1 5
А Т V, 356.
1 6
Loc. cit.
1 7
А Т I I , 597-
1 8
А Т I I I , 545.
94 E. J . ASHWORTH

This, he says, is an idea which representsso little reality that its

19
object cannot clearly be distinguished from non-being. The
examples he appeals to are the ideas of hot and cold. He assumes
that one of these must represent a positive quality, and the other
a negative quality, i.e., if hot is positive, then cold is merely its
negation. However, he says, our ideas of hot and cold are so
confused as to offer no grounds for deciding which is the positive
quality and which its negation. Neither idea has enough objective
reality to qualify for the title of a 'true' idea.
More important is his description of ideas in terms of complete­
ness and adequacy, two terms which are very closely linked,
although not identical in either intension or extension. I f an
idea is adequate, then it is complete, but completeness does not
entail adequacy. To have a complete idea of an object is to
include within that idea all the defining characteristics of the
object in question, or only those characteristics which cannot be
20
denied of it without contradiction. I f these are all included,
then the object itself is viewed as complete, for it can exist as an
independent entity. Incomplete, and hence inadequate, ideas
result from abstraction, for we are deceived into thinking that
i f one property, like that of being figured, can be abstracted from
others, like that of being an extended substance, then it can also
21
exist separately. Our ideas in general are sufficiently adequate
or comprehensive for us to be aware when one has been rendered
incomplete by abstraction, or when an object has sufficient
22
properties to exist independently; but our ideas can never be
entirely adequate. Only God possesses truly adequate ideas and
23
is aware that he does. However, if we begin with a complete
idea, perhaps of God or a triangle, then we can increase the
adequacy of that idea by drawing out more and more of its con­
sequences, although this process cannot be said to increase the
24
original idea. What Descartes had in mind may be illuminated
by an analogy with a semantically sound and complete logical
system, all of whose axioms and rules are independent. I f we
remove one of the axioms or rules, the calculus is no longer
complete, forat least onevalidwell-formed formulais not provable.
H R I, 164-5. For a discussion of the difficulties arising from this defini­
1 9

tion, see A. Kenny, Descartes (New York, 1968), pp. 118-121.

А Т I I I , 47<5.
2 0
H R I I , 98.
2 1

2 2
Loc. cit. ' HR II, 97.
2 3

2 4
HR I I , 220-221.
 DESCARTES' THEORY OF CLEAR AND DISTINCT IDEAS 95
However, it is possible to know the axioms and rules, and to know
that the system is semantically complete, without being aware of
all the theorems. A complete idea is like the set of axioms and
rules, but an adequate idea is like a system in which every theorem
has been listed.
Descartes' claim that our ideas may grow in adequacy with­
out being increased suggests the distinction which Gewirth made
25
between the direct and the interpretive content of our ideas; or
perhaps Descartes' own distinction between the idea "taken
materially, as an act of my understanding . . . or . . . taken object­
26
ively, as the thing which is represented by this act." I n one
sense, what we are aware of is static, unchanging, and immediately
given to us; but in another sense, it is full of potentiality. I t may
become more confused or more adequate, depending upon the
clarity of our thought. I t is a little like a kaleidoscope. The bits
of glass are given and do not increase, but the number of different
patterns perceived is ever-growing. We do not go outside our
idea, we work with it, and as we work we see what was never seen
before. The systematic content of our ideas is enlarged, but in
the material sense we are not getting new ideas, any more than
we acquire a new kaleidoscope for every new pattern. As a result
ideas taken objectively must be seen to be independent of the
perceiver in a way which ideas taken materially cannot be.
The most significant predicates that can be attached to an
idea are 'clear' and 'distinct', for it is only a clear and distinct
idea that can be the object of certain knowledge. However, before
I begin to examine the meaning of these terms for Descartes, it
must be noted that they were often applied to the act rather than
the object of perception. Descartes sometimes speaks of clear
and distinct ideas or notions or perceptions, but he also frequently
speaks of conceiving, perceiving or understanding clearly and
27
distinctly. I will use the adjectival rather than the adverbial
form.
2 5
Gewirth, A., 'Clearness and. Distinctness in Descartes', Philosophy 18
(1942), p. 23.
HRI,i38.
2 6

27
A selection of the different phrases he used is as follows: 'une perception
claire et distincte' (AT I X , 44); claram & distinctam perceptionem' (AT V I I , 61);
'clara & distincta idea' ( A T V I I 53); Tidee claire &distincte' (AT I X , 105);
'les notions claires & distinctes ( A T I I I , 395); 'clare & distincte intelligo' ( A T V I I ,
80); 'on congoit clairement & distinctement' (AT II, 3 8); *clare & distincte percipio'
( A T V I I , 68); 'nous appercevons clairement & distinctement' ( A T I X , p. 43).
96 E. J . ASHWORTH

Descartes' only definition of clearness and distinctness comes

in the Principles and must be quoted in full:
I term that clear which is present and apparent to an attentive
mind, in the same way as we assert that we see objects clearly
when, being present to the regarding eye they operate upon
it with sufficient strength. But the distinct is that which is so
precise and different from other objects that it contains within
28
itself nothing but what is clear.
Given this definition, one could take 'clear' as denoting
some kind of immediate awareness about which one cannot be
mistaken and draw an analogy between clear perceptions or
clear ideas and our sensations, sense data, sensings, or any other
favoured locution. Such an interpretation is easily supported,
for Descartes speaks of the jaundiced man who sees snow clearly
29
and distinctly as yellow, and he remarks "We have a clear or
distinct knowledge of pain, colour, and other things of the sort
30
when we consider them simply as sensations or thoughts." He
appeals to the example of severe pain to show how a perception
31
may be clear without being distinct. However, I find the
analogy drawn between a clear idea and our sensing of sense data
or consciousness of sensations somewhat misleading. The immed­
iate awareness of a sensation seems to be different in nature from
the immediate awareness of a concept, for I expect my claim
that I am at this moment aware of painful sensations to arouse
considerably more interest and agitation than my claim that I am
at this moment aware of the concept 'pain'. Moreover, we are
presumably not aware of all our sensations with equal clarity,
for we can have obscure aches and pains, we can be puzzled about
the relative blackness of two lines, we can be uncertain about
colours. Nor does the degree of our attentiveness make any
difference to these cases. A sharp pain will force itself upon our
consciousness, but concentration will not make an obscure ache
less obscure. Finally, it must be noted that while Descartes does
use the example of sensations on a number of occasions, at other
times he claims thatsensations are alwaysmisleading: " I n matters
perceived by sense alone, however clearly, certainty does not
28
HR I , 237.
29
HR I I , 43.
3 0
HR I , 248; Cf. H R I 238.
31
HR I, 237.
 DESCARTES' THEORY OF CLEAR AND DISTINCT IDEAS 97

exist . . . If, then, any certitude does exist, it remains that it must
32
be found only in the clear perceptions of the intellect.'' While
it is arguable that "the clear perception of the intellect" may in
fact have as object some kind of sense datum, it is obvious that
Descartes was not primarily interested in these phenomena, and
hence that any theory based upon treatment of them is likely to
be unreliable.
Whatever is the case with ideas of sense data, I do not think
that Descartes wished to assert that the clearness of ideas as
concepts consisted simply in one's immediate awareness of them
for this would entail both that one had a clear idea of anything
upon which one was reflecting, and that any of the empirical
concepts, such as 'dog', 'cat', and 'table', which people learn to
handle at an early age, could be said to be clear. He seems to
have believed that there was a group of ideas such that whenever
we reflect upon the contents of our mind, we are immediately
aware of these ideas. They include such notions as 'substance',
'extension', *thought', and 'God . Thus, there must be at least
two kinds of clear ideas. There are sensations or sense data which
are clear, i f at all, only at the moment they are sensed; and there
are innate ideas, which are conceptual in nature and can be said
to be clear even when they are not actually perceived or reflected
upon. How Descartes distinguished between these clear ideas
and acquired concepts is difficult to determine, but the distinction
is certainly there.
It should be added that innate ideas are presumably immed­
iately apparent to the reflecting mind in the same way as the
meaning of a familiar word is immediately understood when one
comes across it. Descartes would not wish to say that recognizing
the innateness of a particular idea consisted simply in recognizing
it as an idea ever-present in the mind; a grasp of the significance
of the idea is also implied. We both see and know what we see,
although whether what we see has any external referent or not
may not be immediately determinable. We have an innate idea|
of extension, according to Descartes, but we do not know that|
there are extended objects until we have considered what isj
1
entailed by the innate idea of God.
Fresh difficulties are raised at this point by the lack of pre­
cision in Descartes' account of innate ideas. Sometimes he
3 2
HR I I , 42.
98 E. J . ASHWORTH

suggested that to have an innate idea was simply to have "a

disposition or propensity" for acquiring ideas in the presence of
33
the right stimulus ; but at another time he wrote that a child in
its mother's womb has innate ideas of all self-evident truths no
34
less than adults do when they are not paying attention. "We
35
already possess within us the idea of a true triangle;" just as we
possess the idea of God; and although they are not always present
36
"we possess the faculty of summoning up" these ideas. I f these
ideas are indeed readily available, then all we need is an attentive
mind for them to become apparent and hence clear; but i f we
have only a propensity to acquire them, reflection will have to be
preceded by the appropriate experiences or conditions for aware­
ness of them to result. Moreover, Descartes seems to couple the
dispositional account of innate ideas with the claim that all our
ideas are in some sense innate, including those of pain, colour and
37
sound. I f this account of innate ideas were adopted, my previous
explanation of these ideas would have to be modified, so that
clear ideas were identified not with all innate ideas, but only with
those that do not need a specific experience to bring them into
play. The ideas of pain and red presumably only appear "on the
occasion of certain corporeal movements," but ideas like that of
God cannot be so limited.
The claim that an innate idea, or a certain kind of innate idea,
is clear in so far as it must always be immediatelyapparent to
the reflecting mind is not sufficient to explain all Descartes's
uses of the word 'clear'. He remarks, for instance, that i f one
considers substance and its attributes of existence and duration,
38
one cannot have a clear idea of one attribute without the other.
I n other words, i f I am to say what I mean by 'existence' as
predicated of substance, I must employ 'duration' in my definition
and vice versa. On the other hand, two clear ideas can be rendered
unclear or obscure i f I conjoin them, as in the case of the finite
39
and the infinite; but a fictitious idea, synthesized by us, can
40
be analyzed clearly and distinctly. These remarks are reminiscent
of the account he has alreadygiven of a complete idea as containing
all, and presumably only, defining characteristics; and it seems
that either the clarity of some ideas is a function of one's under-
8 3
H R I , 442-443. 34
А Т I I I , 424.
3 6
H R I I , 228. 3 6
H R I I , 73.
3 7
H R I , 442-3. 3 8
H R I , 245.
3 9
A T V , 161. 4 0
H R II, 20.
 DESCARTES' THEORY OF CLEAR AND DISTINCT IDEAS 99

standing of the concept in question, rather than of one's immediate

awareness, or that one can only be said to be immediately aware
of a concept i f one can give a full definition of the word which
expresses that concept. To adopt either alternative as exhausting
the meaning Descartes attached to 'clear' would prevent one from
referring to a pain sensation as clear, for to argue that the immedi­
ate awareness of a pain sensation must either include or be
dependent upon understanding of the concept 'pain' is to go
beyond the problem of the immediate awareness of sensations to
the problem of making judgements about these sensations or
categorizing them in some way. I t is also to introduce the possi­
bility of making a mistake about whatever it is that one is immedi­
ately aware of, which precludes these sensations from being the
objects of certain knowledge. Thus we have further support for
the division of clear ideas into clear ideas of sensations and clear
ideas of concepts.
Descartes is no more consistent in his use of the word 'distinct'
than he is in his use of the word 'clear'. For instance, his reference
to the jaundiced man 'clearly and distinctly' perceiving the snow
as yellow fits in with his definition in so far as the snow is seen as
distinct from the people walking about in it, the sky above and
so on; but it is inconsistent with his actual use of the word 'distinct'
in other passages. Usually, the predicate 'distinct' seems to
suggest two things: that the idea in question is complete, and
that we have an adequate basis for making some sort of judgment,
though only the second applies to ideas of sensations. For instance,
my ideas of the earth, sky and stars are not distinct, because the
bare ideas give me no basis for judging whether the earth and sky
41
exist, or whether they are like my sensations. Again, a severe
pain is perceived clearly but not distinctly because I confuse the
perception of the pain with my judgment about its nature, i.e. I
tend to think that the pain has a location and a physical cause,
42
although this may not be justifiable. Of course, Descartes does
occasionally suggest that i f we concentrate very carefully we may
have distinct ideas even of pains, for we may manage to forget
our notion of a cut finger altogether and focus on the bare sensation
so successfully as to justify us in making a judgment about that
sensation, though he does not tell us what such a judgment might
be.
4 1
H R I, 158. 4 2
H R I, 237.
H
100 E. J . ASHWORTH

Some of Descartes' remarks in his discussion of the distinct

ideas of concepts seem to suggest that a distinct idea is also a
complete idea. For instance, a clear and distinct idea of substance
43
will include the idea of its attributes. But other remarks suggest
that it is clearness rather than distinctness that entails completeness
for he claims thatwe can have a distinct understanding of duration,
order and number i f we do not mingle with these ideas what
44
belongs to the conception of substance. Presumably a complete
idea, since it is of a complete object, would have to include the
defining characteristics of substance. This raises a further
question about the presence of good grounds for judgment.
Only if we have a distinct as well as a clear idea of a sensation
can we make valid judgments; but if a clear idea of a concept is
a complete idea we already have good grounds for making judg­
ments; whereas if a distinct idea can be incomplete, we will not
have sufficient grounds.
To give a plausible interpretation of the terms 'clear' and
'distinct' which at the same time covers all Descartes' uses of
these terms is rendered almost impossible by the way in which
Descartes used the word 'idea' and by his general imprecision.
On the one hand, one must make a distinction between what is
said about sensations and what is said about concepts, but on
the other hand, one must refrain from trying to make a sharp
distinction between the properties of a clear idea and the properties
of a distinct idea. With these caveats in mind, a few concluding
statements can be made. The idea of a pain sensation is clear
and distinct only i f it is immediately apparent, and only if the
mind refrains from making false judgments on the basis of the
sensation in question. The case of the idea of a concept, or the
idea as a concept, is more complex and more important. A clear
and distinct idea in this sense must be both apparent to any
reflecting mind and understood by any reflecting mind. I t
contains all and only what is essential for this understanding,
and hence, it contains grounds for the making of judgments about
the idea. These characteristics do not belong only to concepts,
but also to propositions. Ί think, therefore I exist' for instance,
is a truth both immediately perceived and immediately understood
when one sets out to examine the contents of the mind; in contrast
4 3
HR I, 245.
4 4
H R I, 241.
 DESCARTES* THEORY OF CLEAR AND DISTINCT IDEAS 101

with the proposition Ί think, therefore I exist and have blue

eyes,' it contains nothing extraneous; and it contains all the
grounds we need for making the judgment that it is a true prop­
osition, i.e., we do not need to appeal for extra information or to
carry out empirical tests, any more than we do when we say
' 2 + 3 = 5 ' or Ί am now in pain.' Equally, we have here a firm
foundation for making further judgments about what the cogito
entails.
The only other remarks of note which Descartes has to make
about clear and distinct ideas, is that they may exhibit varying
degrees of clearness and distinctness. For instance, the idea of
God 'may become the most true, most clear and most distinct of
45
all the ideas which are in my mind.' Presumably an idea becomes
more clear and distinct as it becomes more adequate, and the
degree of adequacy to which it can attain depends both upon our
intellectual endeavour and upon the degree of reality or richness
of being contained in the object of our idea. There are more
truths to be discovered about God than about a triangle.
We must now consider the question of whether clearness and
distinctness is a satisfactory criterion. The most immediately
obvious objection is that it is perfectly possible to have a seemingly
46
clear and distinct idea of what is false; and although Descartes
was often called upon to deal with this point, he did so less by
rational argument than by a declaration of faith in his own
doctrines. He felt that i f an idea does not provide good evidence,
if it does not in fact justify a claim to knowledge, then it cannot be
clear and distinct, although it may at first sight seem so. We
cannot ultimately be deceived about the having of a clear and
distinct idea i f we examine our ideas with honest care; but
Descartes claimed that we could be prevented from carrying out
such an examination by the unreasoned prejudices we have been
47
absorbing from our youth onwards. How else could he explain
the fact that not all men admitted to having a clear and distinct
idea of God, whilst others claimed to have clear and distinct
ideas of false gods? Descartes avoided the pitfall of introducing
yet further criteria which would distinguish clear and distinct
ideas from those seemingly so; but he only did so by saying in
4 5
H R I, i66.
4 6
H R I, 220.
4 7
HR I I , 226; Cf. H R I I , 42.
102 E. J . ASHWORTH

effect that we can only be deceived when we have not looked hard
enough, and that we have only looked hard enough when we cease
to be deceived. The legitimacy of such a move is, at best, highly
dubious. Moreover, Kenny suggests that Descartes did fall into
the trap of rejecting seemingly clear and distinct ideas on the
grounds that they are not true, when the only criterion we have
48
for truth is clearness and distinctness !
The strongest point he put forward in support of clear and
distinct ideas was that they were indubitable. However, one may
mean various things by 'p is indubitable', and it is necessary to
canvass several interpretations before Descartes' claim can be
evaluated. Firstly, one may mean that it is logically impossible
to doubt p, provided that one understands what p means and is
uttering it as a statement and not simply as an exercise in voice
production or part of a play. I am using 'logically impossible'
in a wide sense, to include not only those statements whose
negation involves a logical contradiction, but some which are
dependent upon the context of their utterance, like first person
reports of experience and self-verifying statements like ' I exist.'
The denial of the last two types of statement is not a contradiction,
but there is something more than psychological absurdity attached
to such denials and doubts expressed by the speaker, however
one may wish to describe it.
Descartes would have accepted the logical impossibility of
doubting that he existed, or that he was in severe pain, but he
did not accept a class of truths whose denial is a logical contradic­
tion in the full sense. I t is true that he writes in one of his letters
that what is 'repugnant to our ideas is absolutely impossible and
49
implies a contradiction' and to illustrate this he cites the impos­
sibility of an indivisible extended atom; but this kind of contradic­
tion is contingent, for it rests upon God and the immutability of
his laws. Descartes places a very great emphasis on the power
of God, and where most scholastic philosophers had been content
to refer to the 'eternal truths', such as the truths of mathematics,
as being ideas in the mind of God, Descartes insisted that they
50
were truths not only known by God, but created by him. As a
product of his intellect they were also, and more importantly, a
48
A . Kenny, op. cit., 198-9.
4 9
А Т I I I , 476.
5 0
А Т I , 152-3. Cf. A T I, 145-6; A T I I , 138; A T IV, 118-9.
 DESCARTES' THEORY OF CLEAR AND DISTINCT IDEAS 103

product of his will, which entailed, for Descartes, that they

could have been otherwise. God could even have brought it
5 1
about that the radii of a circle were not equal. Descartes agrees
that we cannot comprehend this fact, but this argues a limitation
of our understanding rather than of God's power. We know that
these eternal truths as established, and as known by us, are
immutable; but this is a consequence of our knowledge of God's
immutability and of his desire not to mislead us. Hence the fact
that we can treat some truths as i f they were strictly analytic is
contingent upon God's nature, and it follows that we cannot use
a logical criterion to pick out the paradigm case of certain truth
that Descartes was searching for. The criterion had to be some
non-logical property of such ideas or statements.
Even if one were to agree that some of the ideas Descartes
called clear and distinct were indubitable in the first sense, it does
not follow that they are indubitable because they are clear and
distinct; nor does it follow that all of Descartes' clear and distinct
ideas are indubitable in this way, especially when analyticity has
been discarded. Hence, one may turn to a second sense of 'p is
indubitable,' namely, 'it is psychologically impossible to doubt
that p.' Here we are on much stronger ground with respect to
Descartes' expressed beliefs, for he does indeed seem to accept
the notion of psychological impossibility. I t is not possible for
52
me to withhold assent from what is clearly understood, he writes.
We cannot refrain from accepting our clear and distinct ideas as
53
true, or bring ourselves to deny any mathematical truths. I n so
far as a clear idea is one of which we are immediately aware, it is
true that we cannot doubt that we have this particular idea; but,
except where sense datum statements or the immediate report of
sensations are concerned, having a clear and distinct idea involves
more than immediate awareness, and what we are said not to be
able to doubt is not the having of the idea but the content of the
idea. Hence the appeal to psychological impossibility is not
satisfactory, for it is always possible to doubt even a logical truth.
A further difficulty is raised here by what he says of the
atheist, who has clear and distinct ideas but can never be entirely
free from doubt since he has no faith in God to rescue him from
51
А Т I, 152.
52
А Т I I I , 64. Cf. H R I I , 42.
5 3
H R I, 158-9.
 104 E. J . ASHWORTH
54
the pitfalls of scepticism. I f a belief in God is necessary, then
clearness and distinctness can never by itself be enough to ensure
than an idea is indubitable. Moreover, even were it psychologically
impossible for any man to doubt an idea, no matter what his
beliefs, this would only tell us something about man's psychology,
not about the idea.
Can one, then, claim that a clear and distinct idea is indubitable
in the third sense, whereby 'p is indubitable' means 'p ought not
to be doubted'? To make this latter claim is to commit oneself to
the assertions that p contains within itself no grounds for doubt,
and, moreover, that one has adequate evidence for p. What will
be accepted as adequate evidence varies in accordance with the
type of statement being considered, and the class of statements
that ought not to be doubted will include all those which it is
logically impossible to doubt, as well as many ordinary empirical
statements, but it may exclude some of those statements which a
given individual finds it psychologically impossible to doubt. So
far as Descartes was concerned, the notion of adequate evidence
collapses into the notion of containing no grounds for doubt.
His search for an internal criterion precluded any other possibility.
Given this limitation, he does indeed seem to think that clear
and distinct ideas are indubitable in the sense that they offer no
grounds for doubt. I n a letter to Regius he contrasts knowledge
(scientia) with opinion (persuasio), saying that in the case of
opinion there is always something which may impel us to doubt,
whereas knowledge must be supported by such strong reasons
55
that no stronger can ever be found to attack i t . Since the having
of a clear and distinct idea is generally regarded by Descartes as
a sufficient condition for a claim to know, it would seem that the
idea must be self-supporting. The 'strong' reasons must be
intrinsic to the idea. That this is the case is suggested by Descartes'
uses of the words 'clear' and 'distinct' to refer to a complete idea
which contains within itself all the necessary grounds for making
щ a sound judgment about that idea. Any grounds for attacking a
judgment about that idea must then be external to it, and hence
will not be strong enough to justify doubt.
But once more Descartes' arguments are vitiated by what he
has to say of the atheist. I t seems that one must disregard either
54
HR I I , 39.
б5
А Т I I I , 65.
 DESCARTES' THEORY OF CLEAR AND DISTINCT IDEAS 105

the claim that the clear and distinct idea is complete or the claim
that an atheist does not have sufficient grounds for being sure of
the judgments he makes. Either course will destroy theories
which were dear to Descartes, and either course will preclude
true indubitability.
But even i f these internal difficulties are disregarded, there
remains an objection which must be fatal. Why is it that we ought
not to doubt a clear and distinct idea; and how is it that their
possession, itself open to question, can justify our claims to know
about such matters as the existence of God and the nature of
substance? I f Descartes appeals simply to the intrinsic natufe
of the idea, then he can be told that the examination of an idea
will tell us only about that idea and nothing further. I f he appeals
to God as the guarantor of the truth of clear and distinct ideas,
then the attack can be turned to his proof of God's existence and
the circularity of his arguments. I f he puts it forward as a matter
of faith, then he could be accused of denying his attempt to
counter skepticism by rational argument. Finally, i f he justifies
it on the grounds that an idea is only clear and distinct if it justifies
a claim to know, then he can be accused of offering not a test
of clearness and distinctness, but an analytic proposition of no
particular value.
Although Descartes struggled to defend his criterion, his
struggles ended in an impasse. He had made the mistake of
trying to prove too much. He had wanted to develop an introspec-
tiye technique by which he could be sure of recognizing those
ideas which were objects of certain knowledge; but such an
enterprize was doomed from the start. He could only escape
from the objection that nothing about an idea can justify us in
making judgment about its external reference by entering into
an uneasy and unjustifiable alliance with God; and by such an
alliance he negated his claim that a single criterion for true and
knowable ideas could be found.
 VI

T H E PROBLEM OF M E T A P H Y S I C A L
1
D O U B T AND I T S R E M O V A L
ROBERT E. ALEXANDER

Those (like Arnauld in the Fourth Objection) who wish to

impute 'circular reasoning' to Descartes' epistemology, usually
see this issue arising in the Third Meditation. One way of
describing this circle is that 'in the order of reasons' Descartes
proves his own existence and later proves the existence of a non-
deceptive God. However, since there is no certain knowledge of
anything without already having proved God's existence, these
proofs presuppose the conclusion of the second. I believe an
equivalent way of formulating this is by saying that there is a
general rule or test of truth against which a metaphysical doubt is
raised. The circle comes about since the only way the doubt can
be removed is by using the rule itself to prove that God is non-
deceptive.
I f we use 'absolute' to refer to what is true or false for God,
we have the following possible results of using the rule.
R1—'The rule yields relative truth only, not absolute truth.'
R2—'The rule yields absolute truth, since God guarantees its
application to all propositions.'
R3—'The rule yields absolute truth with no guarantee needed.
The issues raised by the doubt and the circle depend on the
rule of truth, so the first section will deal with it. This will include
developing the theses that the rule of truth (clarity and distinctness)
yields necessary truth and that it yields absolute truth (i.e.,
Descartes does not hold the relativity position, R1). The second
section will develop the charge of circularity by showing that the
metaphysical doubt is not counterfactual and that it applies to
intuitions, not only conclusions of deductions. I will argue in the
third section that there need be no circle of any sort, since Des-
1
1 wish to gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council and
the helpful criticisms of Professor William Abbott.
 METAPHYSICAL DOUBT AND ITS REMOVAL 107
cartes ought to hold only R3. This will conclude with a discussion
of the oddity of the metaphysical doubt.

I
Descartes wants to 'establish [a] firm and permanent structure
2
in the sciences.' To do this he puts forward his famous method of
doubt by supposing that 'some evil genius not less powerful than
3
deceitful, has employed his whole energies in deceiving me.' He
intends to accept as true only what can withstand such a doubt.
I n the Second Meditation he finds his 'Archimedian point'—the
cogito ergo sum.
1 am, I exist, is necessarily true each time that I pronounce it,
or that I mentally conceive it, [since even if the evil genius]
deceive[s] me as much as he will, he can never cause me to be
4
nothing, so long as I think that I am something.
Thinking (whether it is deceptive or not) is a mental activity
which necessarily presupposes an actor or agent. Because of what
is involved in the cogito, we can say that Descartes knows two
things for certain at this stage: ' I am' and ' I am a thing which
5
thinks'.
Descartes is interested in the cogito not only as a piece of
factual knowledge, but also and more significantly as something
from which he can derive principles which will make up the
foundation for science. Thus, his immediate concern is to
generate a rule or test of truth from his first known truth.
A. The relation between clarity, distinctness, and necessary truth.
I will now try to clarify what Descartes thinks is involved in the
rule. I t is introduced in the Third Meditation two paragraphs
before he mentions the slight, metaphysical doubt.
Certainly in this first knowledge [that I am a thing which
thinks] there is nothing that assures me of its truth, excepting
the clear and distinct perception of that which I state, which
would not indeed suffice to assure me that what I say is true,
if it could ever happen that a thing which I conceived so clearly
and distinctly could be false, and accordingly it seems to me
2
HR I, 144.
3
H R I, 148.
4
HR I , 150.
5
We learn that this is not the first knowledge simpliciter, but only the first
knowledge of anything that exists. See Principle X .
108 ROBERT E. ALEXANDER

that already I can establish as a general rule that all things

6
which I perceive very clearly and very distinctly are true.
I n this passage Descartes derives a rule of evidence and truth
from the cogito. We are all familiar with his result which is
founded on clarity and distinctness. But how are we to under­
stand the qualification that clarity and distinctness is insufficient
to guarantee truth ' i f it could ever happen that a thing which I
conceived so clearly and distinctly could be false?'
L. J. Beck, in commenting on this passage in The Metaphysics
of Descartes, holds that
the criterion itself is subjected by Descartes to a condition:
that is, that a proposition is clearly and distinctly perceived to
7
be true only when every possibility of its being false is excluded.
This is a plausible interpretation of this slippery passage, and
one with which I agree. However, it can also be considered as a
preview of the metaphysical doubt which follows almost immedi­
ately. From this point of view, the qualification shows Descartes'
concern about justifying the rule. Beck's interpretation is more
important for us at this stage, so I will take up the issue of whether
this qualifier does restrict the application of the rule.
Descartes has just claimed that clarity and distinctness is
the only thing that assures him of the truth of the cogito. Then, in
the context of the metaphysical doubt, he says that the cogito is
based on the fact that its opposite is a 'manifest contradiction.'
Let who will deceive me, He can never cause me to be nothing
while I think that I am, or some day cause it to be true to say that
I have never been, it now being true to say that I am, or that two
and three make more or less than five, or any such thing in
8
which I see a manifest contradiction.
The fact that he does not refer to clarity and distinctness here
{even though he has just said that 'there is nothing that assures
me of its [the cogito] truth, excepting the clear and distinct
perception of that which I state') seems to mean that Descartes
does not intend to draw any distinction between clarity and
6
HR I, 158.
7
L . J . Beck, The Metaphysics qfDescartes: A Study of the Meditations,
(Oxford, 1965), p. 142.
8
HRI,i58-9.
 METAPHYSICAL DOUBT AND ITS REMOVAL 109
distinctness and denial of a contradiction; otherwise he would be
giving up the rule, but there is no indication of that. And we
have seen that Descartes referred to the cogito as 'necessarily
true' in the Second Meditation. I n the Synopsis he says that
'mind . . . recognizes that it is however absolutely impossible that
9
it does not itself exist.' This impossibility is called a 'contradiction'
1 0
in Principle V I I . So, a proposition which is clear and distinct
is a proposition whose opposite is a contradiction.
I f my argument is correct, it has the following important
consequence. A proposition which is really clear and distinct is
also the opposite of a contradiction, and this means that it is an
analytic or necessarily true proposition. I n short, the correct
application of the rule yields necessary truths. I will not propose
an analysis of the concept of necessary truth, but it is clear that
Descartes construes necessity in such a way that ' I , while I think,
exist' is so as well as the more usual examples of 'two and three
11
are five' and 'what is done cannot be undone.'
B. R1 is not Descartes' position as Frankfurt maintains. What
kind of truth does the rule yield? Though I will not discuss
Descartes' theory of truth in a general way, we have seen that it
at least yields necessary truth. Could such truth nevertheless
be absolutely false from God's point of view, i.e., could R1 be
his position?
Harry G. Frankfurt maintains that it is when he says that
the Meditations is designed not so much to prove that what is
intuited is true as to show that there are no reasonable grounds
for doubting this. Now it may be objected that in that case
he leaves the main question still open, since it may be that
what we intuit is sometimes false even if we can have no reason­
able grounds for supposing so. Whatever may be the weight of
this objection, it bears against Descartes' doctrines, and not
my interpretation of them. Indeed, some confirmation for my
interpretation is to be seen in the fact that Descartes acknowledges
12
that an objection of this sort may be raised against his position.
9
HRI,i4o. 1 0
HRI,22i.
1 1
For a discussion of the kind of necessity involved in the cogito, see Jaakko
Hintikka, 'Cogito, Ergo Sum: Inference or Performance', Philosophical Review,
L X X I , (1962) and Harry G . Frankfurt, 'Descartes' Discussion ofHis Existence
in the Second Meditation', Philosophical Review, L X X V , (1966).
1 2
Harry G . Frankfurt, 'Descartes' Validation of Reason', American Philos­
ophical Quarterly, I I , (1965), p. 156.
110 ROBERT E . ALEXANDER

This objection is raised as a difficulty in the fourth section

of the Second Reply. Descartes is here redeveloping the argument
for certainty which culminates in such truths as the cogito. He
says that we can use the rule to determine the truth, i f we think
we have 'rightly perceived' a given proposition.
Further, if this conviction [of the truth] is so strong that we
have no reason to doubt concerning that of the truth of which
we have persuaded ourselves, there is nothing more to inquire
about; we have here all the certainty that can reasonably be
desired. What is it to us, though perchance some one feigns
that, of the truth of which we are so firmly persuaded, appears
false to God or to an Angel, and hence is, absolutely speaking,
false? What heed do we pay to that absolute falsity, when we
by no means believe that it exists or even suspect its existence?
We have assumed a conviction so strong that nothing can remove
13
it, and this persuasion is clearly the same as perfect certitude.
From this passage Frankfurt comes to the conclusion that 'the
notions of absolute truth and absolute falsity are irrelevant to
14
the purposes of inquiry.' And so, his position is what I have
called R1, viz., that the rule yields relative truth only, not absolute
truth.
There are two quite different reasons for treating absolute
falsity as irrelevant. Frankfurt's reason is that absolute falsity is
irrelevant because absolute truth is irrelevant, too. Descartes'
15
reason, as Anthony Kenny points out, is that absolute falsity
is irrelevant because clear and distinct propositions are absolutely
true. Such falsity is of no concern to Descartes because it can be
dealt with in terms of clarity and distinctness.
This is shown just five paragraphs later where Descartes
again considers the 'objection' that the rule might yield absolute
falsity.
Again there is no difficulty though some one feign that the
truth appear false to God or to an Angel, because the evidence
of our perception does not allow us to pay any attention to
16
such a fiction.
1 3
H R II, 41. 14
Loc.cit.
15
Anthony Kenny, Descartes: A Study of His Philosophy, (NewYork, 1968),
p· 195.
HR I I , 42.
1 6
 METAPHYSICAL DOUBT AND ITS REMOVAL 111
Contrary to what Frankfurt believes, Descartes does not 'acknowl­
edge that an objection of this sort may be raised against his
position.' The objection is 'feigned'; the possibility that the rule
might yield absolute falsity is a 'fiction'. After all, i f the rule were
unable to cope with absolute falsity, then Descartes would end
up being deceived.
At this point one might object that the concept of absolute
falsity is empty or, as some prefer to say, is meaningless, since
deception which cannot in principle be detected is not deception
at all. I have some sympathy with this thesis, but Descartes does
not. He is not disturbed by the concept of absolute falsity in
what was quoted above nor in Principle V where he talks of being
17
'always' and 'continually' deceived. He is only worried about
whether his mind is such that it exemplifies such a concept. Thus,
the objection fails, not for the reason that Frankfurt thought
(viz., relative truth or falsity is the best man can obtain), but
because Descartes believes he can obtain absolute truth. Instead
of Frankfurt's gaining 'some confirmation of my [his] interpreta­
tion' from this passage, I believe there is a disconfirmation only
five paragraphs later.

II
The charge of circularity develops as a result of Descartes'
introduction of the slight, metaphysical doubt immediately after
he states the general rule of truth. Things 'very simple and easy
in the sphere of arithmetic or geometry . . . e.g. that two and three
18
together made five,' seem to be indubitable. Yet
Certainly i f I judged that since such matters could be doubted,
this would not have been so for any other reason than that it
came into my mind that perhaps a God might have endowed
me with such a nature that I may have been deceived even
concerning things which seemed to me most manifest. . . . it
is easy to Him, i f He wishes it, to cause me to err, even in
matters in which I believe my self to have the best evidence.
And, on the other hand, always when I direct my attention to
things which I believe my self to perceive very clearly, I am so
persuaded of their truth that I let myself break out into words
such as these: Let who will deceive me, He can never cause
1 7
HR I , 220.
1 8
H R I , 158.
112 ROBERT E . ALEXANDER

me to be nothing while I think that I am, or some day cause it to

be true to say that . . . two and three make more or less than
five, or any such thing in which I see a manifest contradiction.
And, certainly, since I have no reason to believe that there is a
God who is a deceiver, and as I have not yet satisfied my self
that there is a God at all, the reason for doubt which depends
on this opinion alone is very slight, and so to speak metaphysical.
But in order to be able altogether to remove it, I must inquire
whether there is a God as soon as the occasion presents itself;
and if I find that there is a God, I must also inquire whether
He may be a deceiver; for without a knowledge of these two
truths [viz., the existence of a non-deceptive God] I do not
19
see that I can ever be certain of anything.
At this stage in 'the order of reasons,' i.e., the chronological
order of Descartes' arguments, he has not yet established God's
existence. However, since there is no certain knowledge of
anything without already having a proof of a non-deceptive God,
the certainty of this proof presupposes its own conclusion.
We can also consider the same problem in terms of the rule
or test of truth. I n the above reference, Descartes' thoughts
about being deceived even by the most obvious clearly refers to
the rule, since the most obvious is clear and distinct perception
20
(mentioned in the rule). Thus, his doubts are doubts about
whether the rule will do the job, whether even the most obvious
is good enough to yield the truth. His conclusion is that apparently
the best is not good enough, since the best only yields truth if we
have a proof for God's existence. But the only rule available for
the latter is an (as yet) unjustified rule, so to have both a justified
rule and a proof of God's existence entails the circle. This is
Arnauld's formulation of 'circular reasoning' in the Forth Reply.
But we can be sure that God exists, only because we clearly and
evidently perceive that; therefore prior to being certain that God
exists, we should be certain that whatever we clearly and evidently
1
perceive is true?
The main issues that arise from the remarkable passage on
1 9
H R I, 158-9.
2 0
See also the Fifth Meditation (Ibid., I, 183-4) where clarity and dis­
tinctness is explicitly referred to as the object of the doubt only God can remove.
2 1
H R II, 92.
 METAPHYSICAL DOUBT AND ITS REMOVAL 113

metaphysical doubt are the following: whether the doubt is

counterfactual; what the doubt applies to; and how we are to
understand Descartes' apparent ability and also inability to doubt
that 'two and three are five'.
A. The metaphysical doubt is not counterfactuaL The doubt
refers to the possibility that we have such a deceptive nature that
even the best evidence is not good enough. Can I doubt 'two and
three are five?' This doubt is introduced by the hypothetical 'if'.
A few lines below Descartes admits that the opposite of this
arithmetic proposition is a manifest contradiction and, therefore,
is itself indubitable. I t appears, then, that the antecedent ( ' I f I
judged that such matters could be doubted') is false. For this
reason the doubt appears to be so slight as to never get ofT the
ground.
This is an inadequate solution on two counts. First, instead
of concluding that his nature is such that it cannot be deceived
about what is most obvious in at least some cases (e.g., the cogito
and 'two and three are five'), Descartes claims that the doubt must
be removed by a proof of a non-deceptive God. Since he does
not have this proof yet, and he must still allow a deceptive nature,
the Cartesian circle again rears its ugly head.
Second, in Principle V, the doubt is not hypothetical at all,
but categorical.
We shall also doubt of all other things [i.e., non-sensible things]
which have formerly seemed to us quite certain, even of the
demonstrations of mathematics and of its principles which we
formerly thought quite self-evident. [One of the reasons is
that] He may . . . have desired to create us in such a way that
we shall always be deceived, even in the things that we believe
2 2
ourselves to know best. . . .
This occurs before the cogito and God's existence and is only
removed in Principle X X X after it is shown that God is no deceiver.
I n removing this doubt Descartes identifies a non-deceptive
nature with an affirmation that the rule of clarity and distinctness
never fails to yield the truth. Such a justification
should deliver us from the supreme doubt which encompassed
us when we did not know whether our nature had been such that
2 2
H R I , 220.
114 ROBERT E . ALEXANDER

we had been deceived in things that seemed most clear . . . .

The truths of mathematics should now be above suspicion,
23
for they are of the clearest.
Thus, the doubt is reaffirmed as applying even to two and three are
five in the absence of a proof of the existence of God and is now
described as 'supreme,' rather than 'slight.' Whatever description
we use, we can conclude about the doubt both: that its import is
serious because the rule must be immune to i t ; and that it is
categorical, not counterfactual.
B. The doubt is intended to apply to conclusions only. When
Descartes says that he can never be certain of anything without
knowing that a non-deceptive God exists, does he include in
'anything' the cogito, two and three are five, and the proof of God?
I f so, we again have the circle. Since this seems too obvious for
him to have fallen into, we will look further before coming to a
decision.
Principle X I I I , titled 'In what sense the knowledge of all other
things depends on the knowledge of God' picks out deductions
whose premises are no longer attended to. These conclusions
(like 'the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles')
are subject to the metaphysical doubt until the mind is 'acquainted
24
with its creator'. However, the next Principle refers to the fact
that God's existence can be 'demonstrated'. This would leave him
in the bind of guaranteeing deductions by a deduction, such that
the conclusion that God exists (if the premises were no longer
attended to) would depend on itself.
He does seem to leave himself open to this objection in his
answer to Anauld's charge of circularity.
For first, we are sure that God exists because we have attended
to the proofs that established this fact; but afterwards it is
enough for us to remember that we have perceived something
clearly, in order to be sure that it is true: but this would not
suffice, unless we knew that God existed and that he did not
25
deceive us.
The Second Reply gives the clearest statement of Descartes'
intent.
2 3
H R I, 231.
2 4
HR I, 224.
2 5
H R II, ιις.
 METAPHYSICAL DOUBT AND ITS REMOVAL 115
Thirdly, when I said that we could know nothing with certainty
unless we were first aware that God existed, I announced in
express terms that I referred only to the science apprehending
such conclusions as can recur in memory without attending
further to the proofs which led me to make them. Further, know­
ledge of first principles is not usually called science by dialect­
26
icians.
The cogito is expressly excluded from the doubt, because it
is a primitive act of knowledge derived from no syllogistic
reasoning. He who says, ' / think, hence I am, or exist,' does
not deduce existence from thought by a syllogism, but [recog­
2 7
nizes it] by a simple act of mental vision . . . .
But God's existence is not explicitly excluded from the doubt.
However, it may bethat Descartes would want to argue that one
sees that God's essence necessarily includes his existence by a
simple act of mental vision too, even though he often refers to
it as a demonstration or proof.
I n any case, whether God's existence is an intuition or a
deduction, we still have the apparent inconsistency (established
in I I . A) of doubting and yet being unable to doubt two and three
are five. Given that it is listed with the cogito as something whose
opposite is a manifest contradiction, it is plausible to assume that
it is no mere conclusion of a deduction, but is rather an intuition.
Whenever Descartes wants to give an example of a demonstrated
conclusion, he uses the geometrical example where 'the three
28
angles are equal to two right angles,' not the arithmetical one.
Since this is the case, and since Principle V includes the meta­
physical doubt of first principles of mathematics as well as demon­
strations, Descartes' intended restrictions to conclusions is not
compatible with what he says here or in the Third Meditation.
Prima facie, we ought to take what Descartes says in the
Replies as more authoritative than the Meditations, since the former
is his considered attempt to clarify and defend the latter. But in
this case the third section of the Second Reply does not seem to
clarify the Third Meditation, because they are about different
things. I n the latter he is concerned with a distinction between
2 6
H R I I , 38.
27
Ibid.
2 8
H R I, 184. See also H R I I , p. 39 and H R I , 224.
I
116 ROBERT E . ALEXANDER

directly and indirectly doubting something and the sort of things

referred to are intuitions, not only conclusions. I n the next section
we will see that there is a way of explicating what Descartes seems
to be concerned with in the Third Meditation. And we will see
that this analysis might lead him to talk about only doubting
conclusions, but that nevertheless he should have talked about a
special manner of doubting anything—intuitions included.

III
The key to disentangling God's justificatory role from the
alleged circle, according to Kenny, is a distinction between
first- and second-order doubt.
Take the proposition 'What's done cannot be undone.' I f I
explicitly think of this proposition, Descartes says, I cannot at
that moment doubt it, that is, I cannot help judging that it
is true. However, though I cannot doubt this proposition
while my mind's eye is on it, I can, as it were, turn away from
it and doubt it in a roundabout manner. I can refer to it under
some general heading, such as 'what seems to me most obvious';
and I can raise the whole question whether everything that
seems to me most obvious may not in fact be false . . . . The
[metaphysical] axioms are thus generically doubtful while
severally indubitable. While in doubt about the author of my
nature, I do not know whether the light of nature is a true light
or a false light. This second-order doubt is the metaphysical
doubt that cannot be removed except by proving the existence
29
of a veracious God.
To engage in metaphysical doubt is . . . to betray the weakness
of the human intellect that is incapable of holding intuitions
steady [which will] be remedied by the consideration of God's
veracity . . . . The simple intuition by itself provides both
psychologically and logically the best grounds for accepting its
truth. Thus, there is no circle. Deduction is called in question,
and deduction is vindicated by intuition. The truth of particular
intuitions is never called in question, only the universal trust­
worthiness of intuition, and in vindicating this universal
30
trustworthiness only individual intuitions are utilized.
This is a very persuasive reconstruction of Descartes' belief that
29
Op. cit., 183-4. 3 0
Ibid.y 194.
 METAPHYSICAL DOUBT AND ITS REMOVAL 117

there is a metaphysical doubt which God must remove and that

this removal does not involve him in a circle. Because of the
importance of the issues involved (some of which have not been
made explicit, and some of which I want to disagree with),
Kenny's discussion is worth a careful scrutiny.
A. The metaphysical doubt applies to propositions 4n generaT
only. To say that propositions are 'generally doubtful while
severally indubitable' is, I assume, the same as to say that 'one
can doubt all such propositions, in general, but not in particular.'
To be true to the style of the Meditations, I will focus on the
following open sentence: ' I , Descartes, doubt, in general, all
propositions of a certain type.' (The type in question will be
specified by one of the three descriptions, D 1 , etc., discussed
below.) The first thing to notice about this sentence is that the
phrase 'in general' does not mean something like the phrase 'in
most cases, but not in all' as it does in the sentence, ' I n general,
philosophers have their heads in the clouds.' Descartes does not
usually, or customarily, doubt propositions of a certain type; nor
does he doubt them serially, one by one, for this would be what
is meant by the phrase 'in particular.' Rather, he doubts them
qua a certain type or under a 'general heading' or description
without attending to the content of any instance.
The second thing to notice is that doubting, like believing, is
31
'referentially opaque', to use Quine's phrase. As I use this
expression, a sentence is referentially opaque i f and only i f it
violates Leibniz's Law, i.e., the substitution of co-extensive
phrases does not invariably yield the same truth-values. One of
Quine's examples is of Tom who believes something about Cicero
that he does not believe about Tully because he is unaware that
Cicero is Tully.
The referential opacity of doubting is essential for Kenny's
argument. I f doubting were referentially transparent, then there
would be no difference between doubting 'in general' and doubting
'in particular', and thus, there would be no way of turning 'my
mind's eye' away from a proposition and 'doubt[ing] it in a
roundabout manner.' However, this opacity is not that between
two names for the same object as in the standard Tully-Cicero
case that Quine was concerned with: that Cicero was also Tully
is a contingent matter. Rather, it is the opacity between a propo-
31
W. V. O. Quine, Word and Object, (New York, 1960), ch. IV.
118 ROBERT E . ALEXANDER

sition with regard to its type only and with regard to it as a partic­
ular: this relationship is not contingent.
B. Descartes ought not appeal to God's veracity to remove the
doubt. I t is now time to consider various closures for our open
sentence. Consider the following descriptions: D 1 - 'which are
written on this piece of paper;' D 2 - 'which are most obvious to
me;' D 3 - 'which are clearly and distinctly perceived, i.e., which
I cannot doubt.' I f we fill in our sentence with D 1 , so that it
reads ' I doubt, in general, all the propositions written on this
piece of paper,' no difficulty arises. The propositions are surely
doubtful until more is known about them than the mere fact that
they are written here, and there is no guarantee (or even liklihood)
that they will be indubitable when taken singly. This is not the
metaphysical doubt at issue, so D1 is not a plausible candidate for
Kenny's 'general heading'.
D3 does not seem to fulfill Kenny's requirements, either. I
have shown in section I.A that propositions which are clearly
and distinctly perceived (i.e., necessary truths whose opposites
are manifest contradictions) are the same as those propositions
which cannot be doubted. Thus, our open sentence becomes ' I
doubt, in general, all the propositions I cannot doubt.' But this
is absurd. Even the phrase 'in general' does not save this from
being a manifest contradiction itself.
This leaves us with D2, Kenny's own suggestion. (Descartes'
own phrases are 'most manifest' and 'best evidence;' for my
32
purpose I will consider these synonymous with 'most obvious'.)
This is the heading most likely to fit his proposal, since it is
possible to doubt even what is 'most obvious to me'. However,
this doubt is possible only in case one is not thinking of any
particular kind of obviousness, but is instead just contemplating
the possibility that the best kind of obviousness (whatever it
might amount to) may not be enough to remove all doubt. This
is not a doubt all things considered; rather, it is a prima facie
doubt which may or may not stand up under an analysis of what
counts as really obvious. This seems to leave room to doubt in
32
It is not strictly true that 'obvious' is synonymous with 'clear and distinct'.
What is obvious is clear and distinct, but not everything that is clear and
<Hstinct is obvious. Obvious' applies to intuitions, or axioms, only; whereas
'clear and distinct* applies equally to intuitions and deductive conclusions which
are themselves not obvious. However, this does not affect my argument, since
I am only arguing from what is obvious to what is clear and distinct. See Kenny,
Op. cit., p. 175.
 METAPHYSICAL DOUBT AND ITS REMOVAL 119
general what, when confronted in particular, is indubitable.
Kenny is implying that Descartes finds himself in a situation
similar to the half-hearted Nazi who believes that he hates Jews
in general, but has never met a Jew he didn't like!
So, Kenny's argument works when D2 is used, but only prior
to an analysis of what really counts as being obvious. But at this
stage in the order of reasons in the Meditations (i.e., where the
metaphysical doubt enters in the Third Meditation) this analysis
has already taken place. Thus, D2 without such an analysis is
not available and yet it should be to make sense of the metaphysical
doubt. And Descartes knows (or ought to know from what he
says) that D2 with an analysis is equivalent to D3. And since D3
fails to leave room for the doubt, so does D2.
To put this in a slightly different form, Kenny would be
correct in maintaining, as it seems he has to, that: (a) doubting is
referentially opaque; (b) referential opacity and the phrase 'in
general' provide a distinction between doubting propositions en
masse with respect to certain features only, and doubting them in
particular; (c) the above distinction warrants the conclusion that
Descartes may doubt all propositions which are most obvious with­
out thereby doubting, e.g., that ' I , Descartes, while I think, exist'—
at least, prior to an analysis of what obviousness amounts to. This
means that we now have an explanation of the sense in which
Descartes holds both R2 and R3. R2 becomes
R2'—'The rule yields absolute truth, since God guarantees its
9
application to propositions in general
R3 becomes
R3'—'The rule yields absolute truth with no guarantee needed,
9
when applied to propositions in particular
Thus, Descartes' references to justifying the rule, which occur
throughout the Meditations, Replies, and Principles, must be
taken in the sense of R2'.
My disagreement with Kenny can be summed up in thefollow-
ing argument:
(i) ' I , Descartes, doubt, in general, all propositions which are
most obvious.'
{ii)'I, Descartes, know that all propositions which are most
obvious are propositions which are clear and distinct, i.e., those
which I cannot doubt.'
120 ROBERT E . ALEXANDER

(iii) Ί , Descartes, doubt, in general, all propositions which are

clear and distinct, i.e., those which I cannot doubt.'
Here, Kenny would also be correct in maintaining that (iii) does
not follow from (i) alone. But I have argued that (ii) is available,
and now claim that (i) and (ii) do entail (iii), since knowing that
the terms in (i) and (iii) are co-extensive makes the argument go
through. That is, the second premise renders the reference of (i)
and (iii) transparent with respect to each other and collapses D2
33
into D3. But (iii) is a contradiction itself because it amounts to
' I doubt what I cannot doubt.' So, R2' becomes untenable and
we are left with R3" (=R3), viz., no guarantee of the rule is needed
when applied to propositions in particular nor in general.
I agree with Kenny that Descartes believes that there is a
metaphysical doubt of propositions when applied in general which
God must remove. I agree that 'the truth of particular intuitions
is never called in question.' I assume that when Kenny says 'only
the universal trustworthiness of intuition' is called in question,
that he means that the rule when applied only in general is called
in question. And I agree with Kenny that 'in vindicating this
universal trustworthiness [of the rule] only individual intuitions
are utilized.'
But there are two alternative ways of using individual intuitions
to vindicate the rule in this way: (a) an intuition qua the information
yielded by this token only; (b) an intuition qua the information
yielded by any token at all. I agree with Kenny that Descartes
uses the former method, since no other intuition can give us the
necessary information about God as our non-deceptive creator.
However, this is redundant as Descartes has already decided that
the denials of clear and distinct propositions are contradictions.
I have maintained that Descartes has already removed the doubt
about the rule by reference to the cogito. The cogito does not
vindicate anything in so far as it is merely a piece of information
about my existence. But in so far as its denial is self-contradictory,
it shows that there is no room for any doubt about it for God to
remove. I t also shows that any doubt about intuitions in general
3 3
I believe that the opacity between a proposition with regard to its type
only (doubting 'in general') and with regard to it as a particular instance (doubt­
ing 'in particular') is equivalent for Descartes to the opacity between two
different general descriptions of the same proposition. This follows from the
fact that particular propositions which are clearly and distinctly perceived are
also seen to be instances of the general type which I cannot doubt.
 METAPHYSICAL DOUBT AND ITS REMOVAL 121
will be removed by something that they all share qua intuitions
(viz., that their opposites are contradictions and therefore cannot
be doubted), instead of being removed by something pecul''ar to
one intuition (viz., that God is non-deceptive). Thus, the cogito
is the vindicating intuition in a somewhat accidential way, i.e., it
happened to be the first available intuition. The cogito also has
a logical primacy amongst intuitions since any other intuition can
be prefaced by ' I think. . . .'
C. The metaphysical doubt is an odd sort of doubt. But whether
or not one agrees with my thesis about the doubt is removable
independently of any appeal to God's existence, the doubt itself
needs some discussion. This need arises when one wonders what
the doubt amounts to. I f we suppose that Descartes has not yet
removed the doubt, what does he lack? He does not lack certainty
about the truth of any intuition he considers while considering it,
so he must lack such certainty while not considering it. This
means that the metaphysical doubt is a doubt by inattention.
This way of describing it sheds some light on his explicit
intention to doubt only conclusions whose premises have been
forgotten. Both the doubt of intuitions in general and the doubt
of conclusions (without premises) are doubts by inattention; they
only differ in what is attended to. I n the former, one attends to the
rule only and in the latter, one attends to a particular conclusion
only.
But what can happen to an intuition (or a premise) when one
is not attending to it? Whether anything happens to an intuition
or not, Descartes may just be worried that something might
happen. As Kenny was quoted earlier as saying, 'To engage in
metaphysical doubt is . . . to betray the weakness of the human
intellect that is incapable of holding intuitions steady.' I f the
doubt is a purely human weakness like a neurotic anxiety, then
the removal of the doubt by God is akin to therapy by a trustworthy
friend in that nothing changes except our attitude towards
intuitions while not attending to them. But if it is not neurotic,
but well-founded, then it must be based on something about
intuitions themselves and not merely our attitude toward them.
The only possibility is that all we know for certain is that they
are true while under consideration. We do not know that the
truth-values of intuitions do not change while we are not presently
attending to them. This presents the metaphysical doubt as a
122 ROBERT E . ALEXANDER

sort of 'problem of induction', an uncertainty about whether

perceived truths remain true even while no longer being perceived.
Either we try to show that the doubt is empty because intuitions
are necessary truths and leave no room for a change of truth-values,
or we appeal to God's free but good will to 'hold them steady'.
Unfortunately, the latter appeal begs the issue, since the intuition
of God may (for all we know) change while we are not attending
to it and turn up false the next time we consider it.
Finally, then, what can we conclude about the criterion, the
doubt, and the circle? I believe I have shown that the criterion
of truth is not clarity and distinctness simpliciter, but the clarity
and distinctness of necessary truth. I f this is true, then there need
be no circle of any kind involving the metaphysical doubt and the
intuition of God's existence as a non-deceptive creator, since the
rule needs no justification when applied to propositions in partic­
ular nor in general (R3").
I f we discount this analysis of the rule, there is still no circle
about individual intuitions while attending to them, since they
are indubitable and need no justification at all (R3'). Whether or
not the metaphysical 'doubt by inattention' yields a circle will
depend on how one understands the doubt. I f it is only a neurotic
fear, then there is no circle, since Gods' function is therapeutic,
not justificatory. I f it is more than this, and implies that God's
role is justificatory, then there is indeed a genuine Cartesian
Circle. But since I do not have a clear and distinct perception of
any truth about the nature of the metaphysical doubt, I cannot
conclude for certain that there is a circle nor that there is none,
only that there need not be one.
 VII

THE R E L I A B I L I T Y OF REASON
STANLEY TWEYMAN

In the first meditation Descartes seeks to show that two

different hypotheses—that of a deceiving deity and that of a malig­
nant demon—stand as obstacles to gaining knowledge. Accord­
ingly, each must be dealt with, for until this is done the reliability
of reason remains suspect; that is, only in this manner can Descartes
show that reason is able to set up canons for its own trustworthi­
ness. The concern of this paper will be to determine just how
Descartes carries out this programme.
Several commentators have held that the indubitability of the
Cogito destroys the hypothesis of the evil genius since the demon
1
was imagined to possess full powers of deception. As everyone
knows, the Cogito is uncovered in the second meditation when
Descartes begins his quest for at least one thing which can with­
stand his hyperbolic doubt; for no matter how much he doubts
his former beliefs, he cannot at the same time doubt his existence.
Now, since Descartes' own existence was not called into question
in the first meditation, the extent of the deceptive powers there
attributed to the evil genius are in no way affected by the Cogito,
and consequently, the recognition of the Cogito does not, by
2
itself, disprove this hypothesis. Besides, Descartes' usual mode
of speaking about the evil genius does not support the view being
examined: he usually speaks of the evil genius as employing his
1
For example Beck writes: 'The force of the hypothesis of the Malignant
Spirit breaks on the rock of the Cogito. The recognition of one truth as indubit­
ably true, and self-evidently so, gives a rational conviction which is sufficient
to destroy the hypothesis once for all. The Cogito destroys the very basis of the
postulate of an all-powerful deceiving being' ( L . J . Beck, The Metaphysics of
Descartes (Oxford, 1965), p. 143). Similarly Versfeld states: 'His [i.e. the evil
genius's] essence was to possess full powers of deception. Without that he is
1
nothing. The evil genius, then, disappears with the affirmation of the Cogito .
(M. Versfeld, An Essay on the Metaphysics ofDescartes (London, 1940), p. 49).
2
It is also abundantly clear that in the first meditation Descartes already
possessed the knowledge of one truth, namely, that by suspending his judgment
he cannot be imposed upon by the evil genius. Therefore, if any truth indubit­
ably known were sufficient to shatter the evil genius hypothesis, then Descartes
already possessed a knowledge of it before he came to the Cogito.
124 STANLEY TWEYMAN
3
whole energies in deceiving him, and not as necessarily possessing
full powers of deception. As such, it is a non sequitur to conclude
that the recognition of the Cogito disproves the hypothesis, for
the evil genius may not be able to deceive him in regard to this
matter, and yet be able to do so in others. The recognition of
the Cogito shows a limit to the evil genius's power, but it does not
disprove his existence. Putting the matter generally, we can say
that what Descartes wants to know is not only whether the evil
genius possesses full powers of deception, but also whether he
possesses any at all, and it simply will not do to try to answer this
latter question with a reply to the former. Therefore, to disprove
this hypothesis more is needed than the indubitability of the
Cogito.
Two passages in the text support this interpretation:
But there is some deceiver or other, very powerful and very
cunningwho employs his ingenuity in deceiving me. Then
without doubt I exist also i f he deceives me, and let him deceive
me as much as he will, he can never cause me to be nothing so
4
long as I think I am something.
But what am I , now that I suppose that there is a certain
genius which is extremely powerful, and, if I may say so,
5
malicious, who employs all his powers in deceiving me.
The italicized portion of the first passage is significant because,
being spoken at the point at which Descartes first recognizes the
indubitability of the Cogito, it confirms the continued viability of
the evil genius hypothesis. The second passage is important
inasmuch as it appears after the recognition of the Cogito when
Descartes is concerned with making the self an object of thought
in order to determine what he is now that he knows that he is.
Yet even here he is still entertaining the possibility of being
deceived by the evil genius.
The view of the evil genius discussed above can be called the
postulational view; that is, Descartes has postulated the evil genius
as existing independently of himself. The text, however, can also
support an alternative interpretation. I f the synopsis of the first
6
meditation is read in conjunction with the concluding paragraphs
3
See, e.g., H R I , 148.
4
H R I, 150 (my italics).
5
HR I , 151.
6
HR I, 140.
 THE RELIABILITY OF REASON 125
of the first meditation it becomes clear that the evil genius embodies
those very functions which Descartes attributes to hyperbolic
doubt, namely, the ability to unprejudice the mind, and to set the
mind on the path of acquiring knowledge. Accordingly, the evil
genius can also be regarded as merely personifying his hyperbolic
doubt—a devicejust as effective as that of postulating the existence
of a malignant being in that both help to emphasize the present
uncertainty in his opinions. Since the hypothesis is susceptible
to these two interpretations it is important to see how Descartes
deals with each. At this stage of the argument, however, the
indubitability of the Cogito is no more able to destroy the personi­
fication view than it is able to destroy the postulation view. The
personification view will be destroyed when the continued
viability of hyperbolic doubt is removed, and this requires more
than the Cogito as it is apprehended in the second meditation.
That more than the Cogito is required to treat satisfactorily of
7
the evil genius hypothesis should occasion no surprise, for the
Cartesian enterprise as presented in the first two meditations is a
systematic attempt through the use of this hypothesis to search
for but one thing which is indubitable, or to convince himself
8
that such a thing cannot be found. Hence, there is no need at
this stage to try to disprove the evil genius hypothesis if—as he
found to be the case—the hypothesis itself is instrumental in
uncovering this one certain thing. Descartes' success with the
Cogito impelled him in the third meditation to examine this first
instant of knowing with a view to acquiring even more knowledge.
We shall see that it isthis enlarged enterprisewhichforces Descartes
to consider a final solution to the problem of the evil genius.
By reflecting on the Cogito Descartes sought to determine what
it was that convinced him of its truth. His considered view was that
in this first knowledge there is nothing that assures me of
its truth, excepting the clear and distinct perception of that
which I state, which would not indeed suffice to assure me
that what I say is true, if it could even happen that a thing which
I conceived so clearly and distinctly could be false; and accord­
ingly it seems to me that I can establish as a general rule that all
9
things which I perceive very clearly and very distinctly are true.
7
From this point on, I will refer to the hypothesis of the evil genius to cover
both interpretations discussed when it is not necessary to make a distinction
between them.
8
HR I , 149. 9
H R I , 158.
126 STANLEY TWEYMAN

I t should be noticed that Descartes is not questioning whether the

Cogito is perceived clearly and distinctly, nor whether the Cogito
is true. Beyond this, however, Descartes' meaning is far from
clear.
The passage above can be taken to mean that Descartes is not
yet convinced that whatever is perceived clearly and distinctly is
true simply because the truth of the Cogito was apprehended
through the fact that it it was perceived clearly and distinctly.
Accordingly, to show that whatever is perceived clearly and
distinctly is true it must be shown that nothing which is perceived
clearly and distinctly can be false. The reason for doubting the
truth of the principle concerning clarity and distinctness is said
to be the possibility of a deceiving deity who could 'cause me to
err, even in matters in which I believe myself to have the best
10
evidence.' That is, so long as I am attending to something
which is very clearly and very distinctly perceived, I am entirely
11
persuaded of its truth. However, after I cease attending to it, I
can, through the employment of hyperbolic doubt, consider that
even in this persuasion I was deceived since I can entertain the
possibility of a deity who deceives me into believing that what I
am perceiving clearly and distinctly is true, whereas in actual
fact it is false. The Cogito has withstood the doubts caused by
these reflections, but yet if he is ever to be certain of any other
truth he must go on to prove that there is a deity who is not a
deceiver. I f he succeeds in this then the Cogito is shown to be the
unconditional paradigm of knowledge, and the reliability of
reason is established.
It is this interpretation of the matter at which Arnauld and
others arrived in an effort to understand the role of the divine
guarantee. Such an attempt, however, was held to be circular for
the very criterion employed in proving God's existence was to be
guaranteed by the proof itself:
The only remaining scruple I have is an uncertainty as to how
a circular reasoning is to be avoided in saying: the only secure
reason we have for believing that what we clearly and distinctly
1 0
Ibid.
1 1
'And even although I had not demonstrated this (viz. all that I clearly
know is true) the nature of my mind is such that I could not prevent myself from
holding them to be true so long as I conceive them clearly'. (HR I, i8o) . . it
is only those things we conceive clearly and distinctly that have the power of
persuading me entirely.' (HR I, 183). See also Principle X L I I I .
 THE RELIABILITY OF REASON 127
perceive is true, is the fact that God exists. But we can be sure
that God exists only because we clearly and evidently perceive
that; therefore prior to being certain that God exists, we should
be certain that whatever we clearly and evidently perceive is
12
true.
In response to Arnauld's charge, Descartes says that 'we are
sure that God exists because we have attended to the proofs that
established this fact, but afterwards it is enough for us to remember
that we have perceived something clearly in order to be sure that
it is true, but this would not suffice, unless we knew that God
13
existed and that he did not deceive us.' Further clarification of
14
his position is offered in the replies to the second set of objections
wherein Descartes maintains that the persuasion attending matters
seen very clearly and very distinctly is tantamount to perfect
certitude. As a result, the truth of such matters cannot be doubted.
There are other matters, however, which are perceived very
clearly and very distinctly so long as we attend to the reasons
leading us to them, 'but since we can forget those reasons and yet
remember the conclusions deduced from them, the question is
raised whether we can entertain the same firm and immutable
certainty as to these conclusions, during the time that we recollect
that they have been deduced from first principles that are evident;
for this remembrance must be assumed in order that they may be
15
called conclusions.' I n other words, the divine guarantee
concerns the reliability of memory in the case of valid demon­
strations as opposed to the truth of what is now being perceived
clearly and distinctly.
As so interpreted, Arnauld's change is out of place, since the
scope of hyperbolic doubt extends only to the memory of valid
16
demonstrations. However, unless Descartes can show that there
is no employment of memory in proving God's existence, the
charge of circular reasoning will again be applicable. There are
at least two passages in the Meditations which indicate that the
employment of memory is not required in proving God's existence.
1 2
H R I I , 92.
1 3
HRII,ii5.
1 4
See especially H R I I , 38, 41-3.
HRII,42-3-
1 5

1 6
The points to be made in the remainder of the article will not require a
review of the proofs for the existence of God in the third meditation. I am
assuming that the reader has some familiarity with them.
128 STANLEY TWEYMAN

The first occurs in the third meditation immediately after the

first line of argument for God's existence has been presented.
He says that 'to speak the truth, I see nothing in all that I have
just said which by the light of nature is not manifest to anyone who
desires to think attentively on the subject, but when I slightly
relax my attention . . . I do not easily recollect the reason why the
idea I possess of a being more perfect than I , must necessarily
17
have been placed in me by a being which is really more perfect.'
Similarly, in the fifth meditation he says that 'for a firm grasp of
this truth [viz. that God exists] I have need of a strenuous applica­
18
tion of mind.' Therefore, so long as one attends to the proof
memory need not be employed, and there is no possibility of
circular reasoning.
Even so, a further difficulty presents itself, because although
Descartes can be assured of the existence of God while attending
to the proof, he must, if the charge of circular reasoning is to be
avoided again, show that even when he is not attending to the
proof, the knowledge of God's existence is in no way dependent
on memory; for if it is, then it cannot be employed to dispel his
doubts about the reliability of memory. Thus far the Cogito
alone has been able to withstand hyperbolic doubt. Certain
passages following the proofs for God's existence in the third
meditation, however, indicate that Descartes holds that the idea
of God is contained in the intuition of the self.

. . . when I reflect on myself I not only know that I am something

incomplete and dependent on another, which incessantly
aspires after something which is better and greater than myself,
but I also know that he on whom I depend possesses in himself
all the great things towards which I aspire, and that not indefin­
itely or potentially alone, but really, actually and infinitely;
19
and that thus he is God.
And when I consider that I doubt, that is to say, that I am an
incomplete and dependent being, the idea of a being that is
complete and independent, that is of God, presents itself to my
mind, with so much distinctness and clearness—that I do not
think that the human mind is capable of knowing anything
20
with more evidence and certitude.
1 7
H R I, 167. 1 8
H R I, 183.
1 9
H R I , 170. 2 0
H R I , 171-2.
 THE RELIABILITY OF REASON 129
Once one attends to the proofs for the existence of God the mind
is led to see the incomplete nature of the intuition of the self as it
was previously apprehended, for it is now clear that this intuition
is also capable of revealing the true God upon which he and
whatever else which exists depends. The proofs for the existence
of God, therefore, only serve as a didactic device to unprejudice
the mind so far as the existence of God is concerned, and to lead
the mind to a fuller appreciation of the original intuition. Conse­
quently, there is no circle here either, for ultimately knowledge
of God is obtained through the Cogito, and the latter as we have
seen escapes all hyperbolic doubt.
From the fact that the existence of a veracious God has been
established, it does not follow that there is no possibility of
deception with regard to any other matter. Descartes himself
realized this early in the fourth Meditation:
And no doubt respecting this matter would remain, i f it were
not that the consequences would seem to follow that I can thus
never be deceived; for i f I hold all that I possess from God,
and i f He has not placed in me the capacity for error, it seems
as though I could never fall into error—[but] experience shows
21
me that I am nevertheless subject to an infinitude of errors—
Accordingly, it is at this point that Descartes will deal with the
evil genius hypothesis—the second hypothesis charged with being
an obstacle to knowing, and in fact that hypothesis which has
sustained his suspense of judgment—and do so in such a way
that this hypothesis will never again threaten his knowing anything.
Since the fourth meditation is largely concerned with discovering
the nature and source of error, it is through an examination of
this topic that Descartes' treatment of the evil genius is revealed.
On the nature of deception and error he writes:
Whence then come my errors? They come from the sole fact
that since the will is much wider in its range and compass than
the understanding, I do not restrain it within the same bounds,
but extend it also to things which I do not understand: and as
the will is of itself indifferent to these, it easily falls into error
and sin, and chooses the evil for the good, or the false for the
22
true.
2 1
H R I, 172.
2 2
H R I, 175-6.
130 STANLEY TWEYMAN

Concerning the source of error he asserts:

But i f I abstain from giving my judgment on any thing when I
do not perceive it with sufficient clearness and distinctness, it
is plain that I act rightly and am not deceived. But if I determine
to deny or affirm, I no longer make use as I should of my free
will, and if I affirm what is not true, it is evident that I deceive
23
myself—
In addition, this knowledge of the source of error can be immunized
from hyperbolic doubt:
He [i.e. God] has at least left [it] within my power—to adhere
to the resolution never to give judgment on matters whose
truth is not clearly known to me; for although I notice a certain
weakness in my nature in that I cannot continually concentrate
my mind on one single thought, I can yet, by attentive and
frequently repeated meditation, impress it so forcibly on my
memory that I shall never fail to recollect it whenever I have
24
need of it, and thus acquire the habit of never going astray.
I f Descartes intended to postulate a being existing independently
of himself when he introduced the evil genius, then in dealing
with such a being he has but two alternatives: he must show either
that such a being cannot exist, or i f he cannot do this he must
establish that even i f such a being does exist, he is rendered
irrelevant to Descartes' argument. Now the most that has been
accomplished through gaining knowledge of the source of error is
to find a way of immunizing himself from the evil genius, i f such
a being exists. For he now knows that so long as he does not extend
his will beyond his understanding, he cannot be imposed upon by
such a being. Nowhere in the Meditations, however, does Des­
cartes show that i f God exists the evil genius cannot exist; in
other words, Descartes has not established that the universe
cannot be dualistic, which is what is required i f the non-existence
of the evil genius is to be shown.
If, on the other hand, the evil genius is employed as the
personification of hyperbolic doubt, this hypothesis will be
destroyed if and only if the purpose for the doubtitselfisremoved.
Hyperbolic doubt was introduced in the first meditation to
prevent Descartes from assenting to what is false while he was
2 3
H R I, 176. 2 4
H R I, 178.
 THE RELIABILITY OF REASON 131
ignorant of how to distinguish the true from the false. Since
knowledge of how to make this distinction is obtained in the
fourth meditation, hyperbolic doubt need no longer be employed.
Thus at the beginning of the fifth meditation he writes:
Now (after first noting what must be done or avoided, in order
to arrive at a knowledge of the truth) my principal task is to
endeavour to emerge from the state of doubt into which I have
25
these last days fallen—
Having now shown that God exists and cannot be a deceiver, and
having also shown that the evil genius hypothesis will never
again be troublesome, the reliability of reason has been established
for he can now accept the general rule that whatever is perceived
very clearly and very distinctly is true:
In the fourth Meditation it is shown that all these things which
26
we very clearly and distinctly perceive are true—
Thus when he asserts in the third meditation that his acceptance
of this rule depends only on proving that God is not a deceiver,
this must be considered a stage in his argument and not his final
pronouncement on the subject.
Having now discussed how Descartes establishes the reliability
of reason when hyperbolic doubt extends to the memory of valid
demonstrations, I now proceed to examine how the reliability of
reason can be established i f hyperbolic doubt is regarded as
covering what is clearly and distinctly perceived. To this end I
shall examine again the charge of circular reasoning in proving
God's existence, and I shall also consider the possibility in the
fourth meditation of circular reasoning in establishing the principle
that whatever is perceived very clearly and very distinctly is true.
Since hyperbolic doubt now extends to principles which are
perceived clearly and distinctly, it appears that Arnauld's charge
of circular reasoning is well founded. However, Descartes had a
way of avoiding this difficulty. What throws doubt on the demon­
stration of God's existence is that the demonstration may entirely
persuade us in so far as each step is seen clearly and distinctly
and yet it may lead to a false conclusion. The truth of
the conclusion could be established, however, i f there were
25
HR I , 179.
26
H R I, 142; see also H R I , 140.
K
132 STANLEY TWEYMAN

an additional factor which was not only known to be true, but

also showed conclusively that the demonstration itself is altogether
trustworthy. Since the Cogito is the only truth which has managed
to escape hyperbolic doubt, it is to it that we must look as the
guarantor of the soundness of this demonstration.
We have already examined two passages in which Descartes
holds that once one attends to the proof of God's existence it
becomes manifest that the idea of God is contained in the original
intuition of the self, and consequently by attending to this intuition
one is assured of God's existence as well as the existence
of the self. Accordingly, the truth of the conclusion is estab­
lished by the fact that the conclusion is contained in the
original intuition of the self—an intuition already accepted
as true. I n addition, since it is not solely because each premise
was seen clearly and distinctly that the conclusion is accepted,
there can be no circle here. Only if the original intuition contained
no more than an apprehension of the self would the proofs for
God's existence in the third meditation be circular and valueless.
It cannot be emphasized too strongly that it is in the fourth
meditation and not in the third that Descartes claims to have
established the principle that whatever is perceived clearly and
distinctly is true. The synopsis to the fourth meditation also
indicates that Descartes holds that the truth of this principle has
been established 'at the same time—[as]—it is explained in what
27
the nature of error or falsity consists'. We saw that error arises
through allowing the will to extend beyond the understanding,
i.e. from assenting to matters which the understanding does not
perceive clearly and distinctly. However, if this explanation is
based solely on the fact that its truth is seen clearly and distinctly
then Descartes' attempt to establish the principle that whatever
is perceived clearly and distinctly is true is circular. Therefore,
if this principle is to survive it must be based on something other
than merely perceiving it clearly and distinctly.
One passage indicates that Descartes intends to found his
knowledge of the source of error on the fact that it is seen clearly
and distinctly:
—the light of nature teaches us that the knowledge of the
understanding should always precede the determination of the
28
will.
27
HR I, 142. 2 8
HR I, 176.
 T H E R E L I A B I L I T Y OF REASON 133
I n other places he claims that the principle in question has
29
actually been demonstrated. Guidance in locating his demon­
stration is provided by a passage in the fifth meditation:
But after I have recognized that there is a God—because at the
same time I have also recognized that all things depend upon
Him, and that he is not a deceiver, and from that have inferred
30
what I perceive clearly and distinctly cannot fail to be true—
According to this passage establishing the principle in question
requires showing first that there is a veracious God upon whom
all things depend and then that there is an inference from this
knowledge to the truth of the principle concerning clarity and
distinctness.
As this argument stands it is an enthymeme, and the premise
required to validate it is found in the fourth meditation. I n the
last paragraph he explains that
every clear and distinct conception is without doubt something,
and hence cannot derive itsorigin from what is nought but
31
must of necessity have God as its author.
Therefore Descartes' full argument for the truth of the principle
that whatever is perceived clearly and distinctly is true is:
I There exists a non-deceiving God upon whom all things
depend.
II Every clear and distinct perception is something.
-•.III Every clear and distinct perception must have God as its
author.
,".IV There can be no deception concerning any clear and
distinct idea.
V What I perceive clearly and distinctly cannot fail to be
true.
I t is this argument which dispels the fear expressed early in the
third meditation that a clear and distinct idea might be false.
There is, as it were, an alliance established between God and the
self so that the problem of the evil genius and that of error need
29
'. . . I have already fully demonstrated that all that I know clearlyis true.*
<HR I, i8o) See also H R I, 140.
HR I, 184.
3 0

For further comment on this passage see HR I, 105.

8 1
134 STANLEY TWEYMAN

never arise again. What is equally important is that the principle

concerning the truth of clear and distinct ideas has been established
without circularity since it is not accepted merely because it is
32
apprehended with clarity and distinctness.
Even though the arguments in the first meditation threatened
the reliability of reason, by the end of the fourth meditation
Descartes claims to have established that reason can prove its
own reliability through its ability to establish the existence of a
veracious God. I n response to this attempt to establish the
33
reliability of reason Frankfurt writes:

But Descartes' reasoning may well be defective and it may even

be circular. Indeed, the following serious question must be
raised about it. Given that reason leads to the conclusion that
reason is reliable because a veracious God exists, may it not
also lead to the conclusion that there is an omnipotent demon
whose existence renders reason unreliable? Of course, these
conclusions are incompatible, and i f the proper use of reason
established both of them it would mean that reason is unreliable.
But surely Descartes cannot take for granted that this is not the
case. His procedure does, therefore, seem to beg the question,
though in a rather different way than has generally been
34
thought.

Let 'P' stand for 'reason concludes that a varacious God exists',
35
'R' stand for 'reason concludes that an omnipotent demon exists'
and *Q' stand for 'reason is reliable'. We can then symbolize
Frankfurt's claim concerning what Descartes has established as
follows:
3 2
In the Reply to Objections II Descartes offers another proof for the truth
of this principle based on the fact that God is not a deceiver and that all things
stem from God. He argues there that since we can imagine no other correct use
of our faculty for distinguishing truth from falsehood than to assent only to clear
and distinct perceptions, and since this faculty has been given to us by God,
what is clearly and distinctly perceived must be true, or God can be charged
with being a deceiver (HR I I , 42). This proof also escapes all charges of
circularity.
3 3
H . G . Frankfurt, 'Descartes' Validation of Reason', The American
Philosophical Quarterly, I I (1965), pp. 148-156.
3 4
Ibid., footnote 22.
3 5
Since my paper has shown that Descartes has not necessarily established
that non-existence of the evil genius although he has established the way of
immunizing himself from all error, in the context of my paper 'R' must be
understood to represent 'the reliability of reason is threatened by the possibility
of the evil genius'.
 THE RELIABILITY OF REASON 135
(P=>Q). ( R ^ ~ Q )
P

Therefore Q
However, in order to establish conclusively the reliability of
reason Descartes had to establish a second premise containing not
only 'P' but the conjunction of T ' with ' ~ R,' for only in this way
can it be shown that reason will not lead to 'Q and ~ Q\ That is,
according to Frankfurt Descartes had to show that
(P=>Q).(R=>-Q)
P.-R

Therefore Q
Otherwise, Descartes merely supposes but never establishes that
reason will not lead to
(P=>Q). (R=>-Q)
P. R

Therefore Q. ~ Q
Accordingly, in proving that reason is reliable Descartes is
assuming that reason is consistent; but since part of establishing
the reliability of reason rests on proving reason consistent, it
appears that Descartes is begging the question he is attempting
to answer.
The Meditations, however, does not contain thepetitioprincipii
for which Frankfurt argues. Descartes holds that reason is
reliable i f it can be established that whatever is perceived clearly
and distinctly istrue, and the truth of this principle is established
by proving that a veracious God exists. That Descartes has
actually established the consistency of reason is clear from the
fact that the Cogito is consistent.
Let who will deceive me, He can never cause me to be nothing
while I think that I am, or some day cause—any such thing to
36
be true in which I see a manifest contradiction.
3 6
H R I , 158-9. Similarly in Principle V I I he writes: 'We cannot in the
same way conceive that we who doubt these things are not; for there is a contra­
diction in conceiving that what thinks does not at the same time as it thinks,
exist. And hence this conclusion I think, therefore I am, is the first and most
certain of all that occurs to one who philosophizes in an orderly way.' (HR I ,
221)
136 STANLEY TWEYMAN

Since knowledge of God's existence ultimately depends not on

argument but on grasping the fullness of the Cogito, and since
there is no contradiction in the Cogito, it follows that if the Cogito,
supports a belief in the existence of a veracious God, which in
turn establishes the reliability of reason, it is logically impossible
for the Cogito to support any conclusion which would render the
reliability of reason suspect. Therefore, once Descartes showed
that the Cogito leads to the conclusion that a veracious God exists
he believed himself to have establishedthe reliability of reason.
We can say that it was the Cogito which assured him that by
establishing T ' he had also established *~R'.
 VIII

ON T H E N O N - E X I S T E N C E O F
CARTESIAN LINGUISTICS
W. K E I T H PERCIVAL

In a number of recent monographs Chomsky has attempted

to demonstrate the existence of an intellectual movement for
1
which he has suggested the name 'Cartesian Linguistics'. Accord­
ing to Chomsky this movement is responsible for the universal
grammars which appeared in France beginning with the famous
Port Royal Grammar of 1660 and culminating in the work of
du Marsais in the eighteenth century. I t is also responsible for
many of the linguistic notions basic to the writings of Herder,
Wilhelm von Humboldt, and August Wilhelm von Schlegel.
Chomsky locates the major stimulus setting this movement going
in certain remarks made by Descartes in the Discourse on Method
and feels justified, therefore, in applying the epithet 'Cartesian'
to the movement. However, in proposing this term Chomsky is
careful to point out that he does not claim that all the representa­
tives of the movement, from the Gentlemen of Port Royal to the
German Romantics, felt themselves to be followers of Descartes
2
in the philosophical sense. With this reservation, then, Chomsky
regards the term 'Cartesian Linguistics' as appropriate.
I shall not argue here that the term is inappropriate, but
rather that Chomsky has not demonstrated that an intellectual
movement such as he has in mind really ever existed, call it what­
ever you will. For a number of crucial historical assumptions
are involved here which can be seen to be highly questionable
once they are brought out into the open. The first of these
historical assumptions is that Descartes' statements about language
represent a novel departure from the traditional position. The
second is that Descartes' ideas about language influenced the
writers of universal grammars in fundamental respects. The
1
See in particular Cartesian Linguistics (New York, 1966) and Language and
Mind (New York, 1968).
2
Cartesian Linguistics, pp. 75ff.
138 W. KEITH PERCIVAL

third assumption, and one which I shall not have time to go into
in this paper, is that the whole movement which Chomsky
designates by the term 'Cartesian Linguistics' forms a reasonably
homogeneous whole.
The important facts to establish then are the following:
1. Was what Descartes said about language in some interesting
sense different from, and let us say, more insightful than anything
that had been said before?
2. Were the universal grammarians crucially influenced by
Descartes?
Let us start with the first of these two questions and review
what beliefs Chomsky ascribes to Descartes with respect to
language. According to Chomsky, Descartes was the first to
champion 'the creative aspect of language use'. By the expression
4he created aspect of language use' Chomsky means the following
three things. First, that the normal use of language is innovative.
Second, that speech is free from the control of detectable stimuli,
either external or internal. And third, that utterances are approp­
3
riate to the situations in which they are uttered.
Let us now examine Descartes' own statements to discover
whether he can be said to have believed in the creative aspect of
language use in the sense that Chomsky has in mind. How did
Descartes characterize human language, and what place did it
occupy in his general scheme of things? Let me recall a few
basic facts about Descartes' general philosophical position. He
considered, first of all, that there are two and only two kinds of
creative substance, namely, spiritual and corporeal. Living
bodies, he reasoned, are obviously not in the class of spiritual
substances. On the other hand, the human soul is something
which can hardly be ascribed to the class of corporeal substances.
Human beings, then, are creatures which are in some sense both
corporeal and spiritual, while inanimate nature is squarely in the
corporeal sphere. But what of animate nature other than the
human species? Here the decisive point is provided by Descartes'
conception of the soul as a substance whose principal attribute is
thinking, the capacity for thought. Human beings are the only
living creatures capable of thought; hence they are the only
3
The clearest exposition of what Chomsky means by 'the creative aspect of
language use' is to be found in Language and Mind, pp. iofF. See also Cartesian
Linguistics, pp. згГ.
 ON THE NON-EXISTENCE OF CARTESIAN LINGUISTICS 139

creatures which have immortal souls. Descartes' conclusion

therefore is that the whole realm of animate nature apart from
the human species must be relegated to the sphere of corporeal
substance. Animals then are in essence no different from machines.
So, on the psychological level the crucial difference between
man and the rest of animate nature is that man is capable of
thought and animals are not. But thought, the activity of the
soul, is unobservable, as indeed is spiritual substance itself.
Hence the absence of such an activity cannot be ascertained by
the senses. But thought is expressed and conveyed from one
human being to another by means of language. Where linguistic
behavior takes place, therefore, the creatures exhibiting this kind
of behavior betray themselves as endowed with immortal souls.
That animals are not so endowed is clearly shown by the fact that
they do not indulge in linguistic behavior.
Obviously, however, animals are not completely devoid of
communicative skills, and some of them can even be trained to
produce reasonable imitations of human speech. Hence in order
to show convincingly that animals do not think, and are not
endowed with immortal souls, it is necessary for Descartes to
distinguish between animal communication and human language,
or at least to define what he means by 4rue discourse' (vera
loquela), to use Descartes' own term. I n a letter to the English
Platonist, Henry More, dated February 5, 1649, Descartes faced
the problem in the following way: 'No animal', he says, 'has
attained a degree of perfection such that it can use true discourse
(vera loquela), that is to say, indicate something either by using
its voice or by nodding, which could be ascribed to thought alone
4
rather than to natural impulse.' True discourse, in other words,
occurs when a communicative act takes place which must be
ascribed to thought and nothing else.
Note the curious circularity of the argument. A creature has
a soul only if it is capable of using true discourse; discourse is of
the genuine variety only i f it can be ascribed to thought alone,
thought being an activity which can be carried out only by a creature
with a soul! Clearly i f this latter were the only characteristic of
true discourse, Descartes' discussion would be completely unin¬
formative. However, he does present a somewhat fuller picture
4
А Т V, 278. Note that Chomsky cites this same passage from Descartes'
letter to Henry More in Cartesian Linguistics, p. 6.
140 W. KEITH PERCIVAL
5
of human language in the Fifth Part of the Discourse on Method.
The following characteristics of speech are mentioned in that
work:
6
1. Words reveal thoughts.
2. True speech differs completely from natural cries in that it
7
does not indicate corporeal impulses.
3. Words used in true discourse are not merely sounds
8
repeated by rote, but are directly expressive of thoughts.
Let me pause here to point out that all the characteristics so
far enumerated reduce to the proposition that words reveal
thoughts and nothing more, as Descartes expressed it in his letter
to More many years later. But let me add one final characteristic
of human language mentioned by Descartes in the Discourse on
Method:
4. I n genuine human discourse, what a person says is approp­
riate to 'whatever is said in his presence', or is 'relevant to the
9
subjects at hand'.
Note in this connection that we are not told anything about
the range of possible 'subjects at hand', nor do we know in what
the relevance of utterances to subjects at hand consists. Let me
pursue this point a little further since this fourth characteristic
is the only one which removes Descartes' theory of language from
the level of vicious circularity. I t is tempting to speculate that
what Descartes meant by 'relevance to subjects at hand' was
'logical connection'. Hence Descartes may be thought to be
6
See A T V I , 55-9, 571-3. For an English translation of this passage see
HR I , 116-7.
6
Descartes uses the expression declarer nos pensees (cogitationes nostras
aperire in the Latin version of the Discourse on Method which he himself
authorized), A T VI, 56, line 22, and A T V I , 571.
7
А Т V I , 58, line 16, and A T V I , 572. The Latin version is especially clear
on this point: 'Notandumque est loquelam, signaque omnia quae ex hominum
instituto cogitationes significant, plurimum differre a vocibus et signis naturali¬
bus quibus corporei affectus indicantur' A T V I , 572.
8
А Т V I , 57, line 25, and A T V I , 572. Here Descartes points out that
although Magpies and parrots are capable of uttering the same words as we do,
they are nevertheless unable to speak like us, that is to say, in such a way as to
show that they understand what they are saying: . . videmus enim picas et
psittacos easdem quas nos voces proferre, nec tamen sicut nos loqui posse, hoc
est, ita ut ostendant se intelligere quid dicant."
9
А Т V I , 56, line 30, and A T V I , 572. In this passage Descartes imagines
a machine built to resemble a human being outwardly and so designed internally
that it is able to produce a different utterance depending on how its various parts
are manipulated from outside. Such a machine, Descartes believes, wOuld still
be distinguishable from a real human being in that it would be unable to put
words together in response to whatever might be said in its presence.
 ON THE NON-EXISTENCE OF CARTESIAN LINGUISTICS 141

claiming that what a person says is logically connected to the

subject at hand.
This is quite a plausible interpretation in the light of some
other remarks he makes in the same passage of the Discourse on
Method. Here he contrasts human reason on the one hand, and
the faculties animals are endowed with on the other, pointing
out that, unlike animal capacities, reason is a 'universal instrument
which can function in all kinds of situations'. However, he goes
on to point out the fact that even the most stupid human being is
fully capable of using genuine language, and that even the most
gifted animal is incapable of the same, and infers from this that
very little reason is required to be able to speak, and that animals
have no reason whatever.
A similar argument is developed in a letter Descartes wrote
to the Marquis of Newcastle, dated November 23, 1646. I n this
letter he asserts that none of our external actions offers more
convincing evidence that 'there is a soul in us which has thoughts'
than the fact that we use words appropriately to the matter at
issue. He then goes on to say that he emphasizes the notion of
appropriateness in order to make it clear that parrots are incapable
of true speech, but that madmen are, since although what a
madman says is devoid of reason it is nevertheless relevant to
10
the subject at hand. Clearly then Descartes' notion of the
appropriateness of utterances means no more than that what we
say is always related to a subject matter which includes more
than the meaning of the particular sentence being uttered.
At this point let us glance back at Chomsky's three defining
attributes of the creative aspect of language use, namely (1)
innovativeness, (2) freedom from the control of detectable
stimuli, and (3) appropriateness to situations. Descartes obviously
subscribed to the third of these notions. Concerning the second,
'freedom from the control of detectable stimuli', we must be
careful not to confuse Descartes' and Chomsky's notions of the
mind. Recall that Chomsky attacked behavioristic approaches to
11
such problems as verbal behavior on empiricalgrounds. Descartes,
1 0
'Je dis . . . que ces signes soient ä propos, pour exclure le parler des
perroquets, sans exclure celui des foux, qui ne laisse pas d'etre a propos des
sujets qui se presentent.' A T IV, 574.
1 1
See Noam Chomsky, 'Review of B. F . Skinner, Verbal Behavior\
Language 35 (1959), pp. 26-58, republished in J. A. Fodor and J. J. Katz (eds.)>
The Structure ofLanguage (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1964), pp. 547-578.
142 W. KEITH PERCIVAL

on the other hand, had no behaviorists to contend with, and

refused to allow the soul to be subject to the laws of efficient
causation not merely for empirical reasons but, more importantly,
because of certain general philosophical positions he adopted,
notably the decision to dichotomize nature into corporeal and
spiritual substance. While the results of Descartes' and Chomsky's
trains of thought may seem superfically similar, the differences
between them are in reality profound.
Finally, the property of innovativeness which Chomsky
ascribes to the use of natural language is difficult to identify in
Descartes' explicit statements about human discourse. The
nearest thing to this notion is perhaps to be found in the implica­
tion of the universal quantifier in the phrase 'appropriate to
whatever is said in the speaker's presence' (from the Discourse on
12
Method). I t is just conceivable that Descartes realized that since
the number of possible questions is infinite, the number of
possible answers to them is also infinite. At all events, even if this
interpretation is forced on the text the notions of innovativeness
and potential unboundedness which are basic to Chomsky's
view of language play a negligible role in Descartes' discussion of
the subject.
As for the novelty of Descartes' positions, his critics concentrated
almost all their fire on his characterization of animals as machines,
13
rather than on his statements about the nature of language.
After all, what Descartes said about language boils down to two
propositions: one, that language serves no other function than
to convey thoughts; and the other, that when a person says
something, there is some connection between what he says and
the general topic being discussed. The first of these is novel only
in the sense that at least some earlier theorists emphasized that
speech also has functions other than the obvious one of conveying
14
thought. Descartes' theory, if it is to be considered novel at all,
12
А Т V I , 57, line i ('pour repondre au sens de tout ce qui se dira en sa
presence'). Emphasis mine.
1 3
See, for example, Henry More's letters to Descartes in the period 1648-49,
ATV,244ff;311.
1 4
See, for example, the discussion of Aquinas' views of language and its
various functions in Franz Manthey, Die Sprachphilosophie des heiligen Thomas
von Aquin, Paderborn, 1937, especially pp. 59-61. It may also be recalled that
Aristotle characterized speech as something which is accompanied by an act of
the imagination and is produced by a creature that has soul in it (De anima I I ,
8 ) . Like Descartes he too insisted that speech does not exist merely to reveal
pleasure and pain (Politics I , 2).
 ON T H E N O N - E X I S T E N C E OF CARTESIAN L I N G U I S T I C S 143
represents rather a backward step from the teachings of previous
centuries. The second of the two propositions, the one which
concerns appropriateness, I have already pointed out, amounts to
nothing more than a commonplace.
As regards the putative Cartesian origins of the Port Royal
approach to universal grammar, a few brief critical remarks
suggest themselves.
Chomsky claims, first of all, that in accordance with the
Cartesian body-mind dichotomy the Port Royal grammarians
15
assume that language has two aspects, sound and meaning. Now
it is true of course that Descartes himself would have dealt with
the phonetic aspects of language in terms of corporeal substance,
and the semantic aspects in terms of spiritual substance, i f he had
ever thought about the matter. The difficulty is, however, that
all previous grammarians had treated language as having these
aspects ever since language began to exercise the curiosity of man.
To claim that Descartes is responsible for the Port Royal gram­
marians' distinguishing between sound and meaning, one would
have to produce specific documentary evidence of Cartesian
influence, which Chomsky has so far failed to do.
The second claim that Chomsky makes is that a distinction
similar to that between deep and surface structure in his own
grammatical theory was already drawn by the Port Royal gram­
marians, and attributes this again to their Cartesian approach.
Whether in fact the Gentlemen of Port Royal can be said to have
drawn such a distinction is a moot point which I cannot go into
16
here, but that such a notion could be the result of assimilating
Descartes' ideas about language I find difficult to believe. Indeed,
17 18 19
research by Gunvor Sahlin, Robin Lakoff, and Vivian Salmon
1 5
Chomsky, Cartesian Linguistics, p. 32.
1 6
Briefly, Chomsky makes the mistake, in my view, of equating his notion
of deep structure with the set of basic propositions, which, the Port Royal
grammarians claimed, underlie complex sentences. I assume that for Chomsky
a deep structure merely determines the semantic interpretation of a sentence.
The Port Royal grammarians believed, on the other hand, that the set of under­
lying propositions was the same thing as the semantic interpretation of the
sentence. For an interesting discussion of the difference between Chomsky's
position and that of the Port Royal grammarians, see Karl E . Zimmer, "Review
of CartesianLinguistics", InternationalJournalofAmerican Linguistics, 34 (1968),
pp. 290-303, especially 295ff.
1 7
Gunvor Sahlin, Cesar Chesneau du Marsais et son role dans Vevolution de la
Grammairegenerale, Paris, 1928.
1 8
Robin Lakoff, 'Review of Herbert H . Brekle (ed.), Grammaire Generale et
Raisonnee', Language 45 (1969), pp. 343-364. In this review Lakoff shows in
what specific ways the writers of the Port Royal grammar were indebted to
144 W. K E I T H PERCIVAL

has produced abundant evidence that the Port Royal theory of

syntax rests on a tradition going back a good hundred years before
the publication of the Grammaire Generale, namely the gram­
matical tradition represented by such works as the Elder Scaliger's
De Causis Linguae Latinae of 1540 and Sanctius' Minerva of 1587.
A component in this tradition which still awaits investigation is a
type of pedagogically oriented universal grammar which began
appearing in Germany about 1615, twenty years before Descartes
20
published his first book. That universal grammar began with
Port Royal and had Cartesian origins is a hypothesis which
sounds less and less plausible the more we learn about the develop­
ment of linguistic theory since the Renaissance.
Finally, let me formulate my general conclusion in the follow­
ing way: Chomsky has so far failed to show convincing proof that
Descartes had any influence on the French universal grammarians
of the late seventeenth century. Hence the term 'Cartesian
Linguistics' would appear to be thoroughly misleading. I t should
be emphasized, however, that my arguments have not shown that
Descartes had no impact whatever on grammatical theory. A t
present I lean toward the view that, unlike most of the other
major philosophers of the seventeenth century, Descartes was
relatively uninterested in language. I t seems more likely therefore
that the upsurge of interest in grammatical theory sprang from
sources other than Descartes' philosophy. While I would be the
last person to discourage attempts to demonstrate historical
connections between philosophical and linguistic theorizing,
the persistence of a long established grammatical tradition
independent of the intellectual climate of each period has to be
reckoned with. I t goes without saying that this grammatical
tradition itself has philosophical bases, though obviously of much
greater antiquity than the ideas we have been concerned with in
this paper.
Sanctius. Her analysis, however, suffers from the same historical na'ivete as
Chomsky betrays in Cartesian Linguistics. Like him she believes that current
transformational linguistics has a historical origin separate from that of non-
transformational linguistics. She differs from him in that she portrays Sanctius
rather than Descartes or Lancelot as the founding father of transformational
linguistics in the early modern period.
1 9
See Vivian Salmon, 'Review of Noam Chomsky, Cartesian Linguistics\
JournalofLinguistics, 5, N 0 . 1, (1969), pp. 165-187.
2 0
Max Jellinek provides some interesting information about these peda­
gogical general grammars in his monumental Geschichte der neuhochdeutschen
Grammatik, (Heidelberg, 1913), vol. 1, pp. 88-94.
 ON T H E N O N - E X I S T E N C E OF CARTESIAN L I N G U I S T I C S 145

This conclusion should not, it seems to me, daunt the investi­

gator, and it is greatly to Chomsky's credit that he has boldly
advanced historical hypotheses which more pedestrian scholars
would not have had the courage to publish. For in committing
what might seem like an academic indiscretion, Chomsky has
revealed the true extent of our present ignorance in this whole
area.