E LECCIÓN DE LOS EXPERTOS

Although it is possible to appreciate Descartes's pride in the distinctive features of his Meditations, his claim that the work as a whole exemplifies a reliable new method of discovery cannot in the end be made good. To the modern reader, indeed, the very idea of a canonical method for the discovery of the truth may seem to be something of a fantasy. The field of natural science seems today to provide the most obvious story as far 'discovering the truth' is concerned, but it has become plain that

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the activities of the scientist do not, and cannot, conform to any ideal 'logic of discovery';

there is simply no canonical set of investigative procedures that can guarantee progress. As for the metaphysical foundations of science, there is nowadays widespread scepticism about the prospects for finding an indubitable bedrock of certainty on which to base our

philosophical and scientific theories; to many, indeed, the very notion that there could be such permanent and guaranteed foundations rests on a misconception. Any system, it seems, must be open to revisions and adjustments in the quest for a more coherent and workable body of

knowledge, and these revisions and adjustments may well include truths previously taken to be fundamental, and will perhaps encompass even the very methodological rules that

determine how we proceed in our investigations. ²⁰

Apart from this characteristically 'modern' worry about the general nature of Descartes's enterprise, there are other difficulties that arose even for those who accepted his general terms of reference. Descartes hoped, in writing the Meditations, to create a friendly audience among the leading theologians of the day. He knew, such was the power and influence of the

theology faculties in the universities of the seventeenth century, that his metaphysical views, let alone his physics (most of which had yet to be released), stood little chance of a favourable reception without their approval. In the Dedicatory Letter to the Theology Faculty of the Sorbonne which was printed at the front of the first edition of the Meditations, in 1641, Descartes extols the virtues of philosophy as an instrument for defending the cause of

religion, and instances the knockout blow to atheism which he hopes will be delivered by his own proofs in the Meditations of the existence of God and the 'real distinction' between the human soul and the body ( AT VII. 2 and 6; CSM II. 3 and 6). It soon became all too clear, however, that the approval which Descartes sought was not to be forthcoming from the theologians. His proofs of the existence of God were widely attacked as inadequate or invalid (cf. AT VII. 206; CSM II. 145); almost every step of his route for establishing firm

foundations for knowledge was criticized ( AT VII. 413 ff.; CSM II. 278 ff.): and, worst of all, the very method of

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doubt which he had introduced as an for uncovering certainty was itself attacked as deliberately subversive and damaging to the faith (cf. AT VII. 573-4; CSM II. 387).

Some of these criticisms, particularly the last, can be dismissed as unfair and maliciously motivated. But although Descartes's own intentions were to refute scepticism, the extreme or 'hyperbolical' doubt that he employed as part of his method for reaching the truth was

something that many came to find genuinely alarming; it seemed to add fuel to the fires of radical scepticism that burned strongly in the latter half of the seventeenth century. In his Pensées, published posthumously in 1670, Blaise Pascal ( 1623-62) fiercely attacked

Descartes's attempted validation of human knowledge and poured scorn on the whole process of hyperbolical doubt as a kind of wilful madness: 'What shall man do in this state? Shall he doubt everything? Shall he doubt if he is awake? If he is being pinched? If he is being

burned? Shall he doubt if he doubts? Shall he doubt if he exists? It can never reach this stage.

. .' ²¹

Other critics of Descartes, including those who commented on the first edition of the

Meditations, discerned serious structural problems in the logical plan of the work. One such difficulty is that as Descartes proceeds beyond the awareness of his own existence to the proofs of a perfect God which are needed to establish the basis for a reliable system of knowledge, he is increasingly forced to import into his argument premisses which, far from being methodically unearthed by the technique of systematic doubt, are simply declared to be true. In the Third Meditation, in arguing that the idea of God which he finds within him can only be explained by supposing that it was placed in him by a perfect being, Descartes baldly introduces, in the very first sentence of the proof, a complex and controversial causal maxim:

'It is manifest by the natural light that there must be at least much reality in the efficient and total cause as in the effect of that cause' ( AT VII. 40; CSM II. 28). It is interesting to note that

when Descartes did eventually and somewhat reluctantly accede to Mersenne's request to provide a 'geometrical style' exposition of his reasoning, this maxim, or something very close to it, is simply

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listed without comment as having the status of an 'axiom or common notion'. ²²

A closely connected problem that worried many of Descartes's contemporary critics and has continued to vex commentators ever since is the notorious problem of the 'Cartesian circle'.

The problem comes down, in its most general form, to this: if Descartes's programme is indeed the radical one of 'demolishing everything and starting again right from the foundations' ( AT V II. 17; CSM II. 12), will he not inevitably be forced, in taking his first steps in reconstruction, to presuppose results on which, given his wholesale rejection of previous beliefs, he is not yet entitled to rely? How, for example, can the meditator prove God's existence from his clear and distinct perceptions, when it seems that the veracity of clear and distinct perception can be guaranteed only after God's existence is known? This issue was raised by several critics in the Objections published with the Meditations in 1641, perhaps most devastatingly by Antoine Arnauld in the Fourth Set of Objections ( AT VII. 214;

CSM II. 150); indeed the 'circle' objection was often referred to as 'Arnauld's circle' in the later part of the seventeenth century.

The young Dutchman Frans Burman, who interviewed Descartes in 1648, focused on

Descartes's comment, in his reply to Arnauld, that 'the only reason we have for being sure that what we clearly and distinctly perceive is true is the fact that God exists' ( AT VII. 245; CSM II. 171). How in that case, asked Burman, is Descartes entitled to presuppose the truth of the axioms he needs to prove God's existence ( AT V. 148; CB5). Descartes's reply suggests that at the time when I am actually attending to a proposition which is completely clear and distinct, no divine guarantee is needed; a clear and distinct proposition has no extraneous implications beyond what I am immediately aware of, so there is no sceptical scenario, however radical or extreme, that could possibly cast doubt on its truth. ²³

Many of Descartes's critics, notably Leibniz, were somewhat scathing about his reliance on the notions of clarity and distinctness. People may think something is clear and distinct, and yet be wrong, objected Leibniz; the principle that what we clearly and

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distinctly perceive is true is useless unless further criteria for clarity and distinctness can be specified ( GP IV. 425; L294). In fact, Descartes does supply a criterion of distinctness, namely that a distinct idea must contain only what is clear (so that my judgement does not involve any claim that goes beyond what I am directly aware of). But the trouble is that only exceedingly simple and uninformative propositions (such as 'I am thinking' or 'two plus two is four') seem able to meet this criterion. In order to build a substantive body of knowledge, Descartes needs to advance hypotheses which go beyond such thin and unexciting truths; he needs to run risks which his austere requirements for the foundations of knowledge do not strictly permit him to take. ²⁴

In view of the fierce criticisms which Descartes's procedures aroused, it is perhaps not surprising that neither Spinoza nor Leibniz modelled their philosophies on the Cartesian

'method of analysis'. Indeed, it is one of the ironies of philosophical history that Spinoza, whose metaphysics is deeply imbued with Cartesian language and Cartesian ideas, chose to present his own philosophical system in that very geometrical manner which Descartes had declared to be unsuitable for metaphysical enquiry.