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Doubt and Descartes' Will

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

Nathan Brett
Nathan Brett
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Extract

In the Principles of Philosophy the first positive claim that Descartes makes after he has established his skeptical starting point is not the claim of the cogito. It is, rather, the claim that “we possess a free will.”

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , June 1980 , pp. 183 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1980

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References

Notes

1 Meditations and Selections from the Principles of Philosophy, Veitch, John translation (Open Court, 1962) p. 132Google Scholar. All references in parentheses are to this volume. The Haldane and Ross translation introduces difficulties which this one avoids: “That we possess a free will which causes us to refrain from giving assent to dubious things, and thus prevents us from falling into error.” One problem I wish to avoid is with the supposition that freedom of the will is the cause of what we do.

2 E.g. Baron d'Holback, “Of the System of Man's Free Agency,” in The System of Nature (1770), Chapter XI. Reprinted in Alston and Brandt, The Problems of Philosophy (second edition) pp. 367–376.

3 See B.F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, p. 49.

4 E.g. O.K. Bowsma, “Descartes Evil Genius,” in Sesonske and Fleming, Meta Meditations, pp. 26–49.

5 Principle 5, p. 131. In the Meditations the expression is “wholly certain and manifest”.(Med II. p. 43)

6 This distinction between the appearance and the reality of self evidence is, of course, a source of considerable difficulty for Descartes' system. The famous Cartesian circle is one unsuccessful attempt to escape the difficulty.

7 Gordon Nagel pointed this out to me.