Important sceptical arguments by Sextus Empiricus, Hume and Boghossian (concerning disputes, induction, and relativism respectively) are based on circularities and infinite regresses. Yet, philosophers' practice does not keep circularities and infinite regresses clearly apart. In this metaphilosophical paper I show how circularity and infinite regress arguments can be made explicit, and shed light on two powerful tools of the sceptic.

When I take a sip from the coffee in my cup, I can taste that it is sweet. When I hold the cup with my hands, I can feel that it is hot. Why does the experience of feeling that the cup is hot give me justification for believing that the cup is hot?And why does the experience of tasting that the coffee is sweet give me justification for believing that the coffee is sweet?In general terms: Why is it that (...) a sense experience that P is a source of justification—a reason—for believing that P? Call this the Question. I will discuss various answers to the Question, and defend the one I myself favor. (shrink)

I argue that we can achieve certainty about some empirical propositions. When someone is having a migraine and attending to it, she can be certain that she is in pain. I show that examples intended to undermine claims of certainty or to raise doubts about the reliability of introspection do not touch such cases. Traditional foundationalists have held that epistemically certain beliefs can serve as the basis for all one’s other justified beliefs. This is not so, because those beliefs that (...) are certain are spread too thinly to serve as broad justificatory foundations. Certainty has a different role. The best explanation for the existence of epistemically certain empirical beliefs is experientialism, the view that nondoxastic sensory experiences can justify beliefs. Experientialism then offers a framework for showing how the stream of sensory experiences can provide an adequate basis for the justification of our ordinary beliefs about the external world. (shrink)

A central problem in epistemology concerns the justification of beliefs about epistemic principles, i.e., principles stating which kinds of beliefs are justified and which not. It is generally regarded as circular to justify such beliefs empirically. However, some recent defenders of foundationalism have argued that, within a foundationalist framework, one can justify beliefs about epistemic principles empirically without incurring the charge of vicious circularity. The key to this position is a sharp distinction between first- and second-level justifiedness.In this paper I (...) first argue that such versions of foundationalism end up giving their approval to circular chains and are therefore unmotivated; if circular chains are acceptable, the classic regress argument for foundationalism does not go through. I then consider and reject two other ways in which the foundationalist might motivate his position. At the end of the paper I draw from this discussion a moral concerning the airns of epistemological theorizing. (shrink)

Ernest Sosa's virtue perspectivism can be thought of as an attempt to capture as much as possible of the Cartesian project in epistemology while remaining within the framework of externalist fallibilism. I argue (a) that Descartes's project was motivated by a desire for intellectual stability and (b) that his project does not suffer from epistemic circularity. By contrast, Sosa's epistemology does entail epistemic circularity and, for this reason, proves unable to secure the sort of intellectual stability Descartes wanted. I then (...) argue that this leaves Sosa's epistemology vulnerable to an important kind of skepticism. (shrink)

The traditional argument for skepticism relies on a comparison between a normal subject and a subject in a skeptical scenario: because there is no relevant difference between them, neither has knowledge. Externalists respond by arguing that there is in fact a relevant difference—the normal subject is properly situated in her environment. I argue, however, that there is another sort of comparison available—one between a normal subject and a subject with a belief that is accidentally true—that makes possible a new argument (...) for skepticism. Unlike the traditional form of skeptical argument, this new argument applies equally well to both internalist and externalist theories of knowledge. (shrink)

The recent literature on the epistemology of disagreement focuses on the rational response question: how are you rationally required to respond to a doxastic disagreement with someone, especially with someone you take to be your epistemic peer? A doxastic disagreement with someone also confronts you with a slightly different question. This question, call it the epistemic trust question, is: how much should you trust our own epistemic faculties relative to the epistemic faculties of others? Answering the epistemic trust question is (...) important for the epistemology of disagreement because it sheds light on the rational response question. My main aim in this paper is to argue—against recent attempts to show otherwise—that epistemic self-trust does not provide a reason for remaining steadfast in doxastic disagreements with others. (shrink)

This article explores the vocabulary of knowing in Descartes’ Meditations. It offers a detailed and in part sequential examination of his use of cognitio and scien...

Can we show that our senses are reliable sources of information about the world? To show this, we need to establish that most of our perceptual judgments have been true. But we cannot determine these inductive instances without relying upon sense perception. Thus, it seems, we cannot establish the reliability of sense perception by means of an argument without falling into epistemic circularity. In this paper, I argue that this consequence is not an epistemological disaster. For this purpose, I defend (...) a normative claim that it is reasonable to accept the general reliability of our perceptual judgments, instead of a factual claim that our perceptual judgments are generally reliable. More specifically, I offer a normative practical argument which explains why it is reasonable to accept the general reliability of our perceptual judgments, even though we cannot establish the general reliability of our perceptual judgments by means of theoretical reasoning. (shrink)

Descartes is traditionally accused of reasoning circularly in the _Meditations. Yet, it seems clear that there is no formal or logical circularity in his reasoning. There is another kind of circularity that William Alston calls epistemic circularity, and Descartes's reasoning seems to be circular in this sense. The question is whether this makes his reasoning viciously circular. It is argued that it does if we assume that his aim was to resolve the ancient Pyrrhonian problematic. Because of epistemic circularity, the (...) problematic cannot be resolved by his project. (shrink)

The first part of the paper argues that there is no analysis of (or statement of sufficient conditions for) "justification." The problem is that as an analysis it would have to be lawlike. But if it were lawlike it could be used to support a counterfactual conditional to the effect that if I were justified in believing it I would satisfy its analysans. I argue that since no analysis can be so used there is no such analysis. In part II (...) I show how the conclusion of part I supports naturalism and clarify one version of naturalism. (shrink)

If Husserl is correct, phenomenological inquiry produces knowledge with an extremely high level of epistemic warrant or justification. However, there are several good reasons to think that we are highly fallible at carrying out phenomenological inquiries. It is extremely difficult to engage in phenomenological investigations, and there are very few substantive phenomenological claims that command a widespread consensus. In what follows, I introduce a distinction between method-fallibility and agent-fallibility, and use it to argue that the fact that we are fallible (...) phenomenologists does not undermine Husserl’s claims concerning the epistemic value of phenomenological inquiry. I will also defend my account against both internalist and externalist objections. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn answering the circularity charge, Descartes consistently distinguished between truths whose demonstrations we currently perceive clearly and distinctly and truths whose demonstrations we merely remember having perceived clearly and distinctly. Descartes uses C-truths to prove God’s existence, thus validating R-truths. While avoiding one form of circularity, this introduces another circle, for Descartes believes that God’s existence validates R-truths even when itself an R-truth. I consider Newman and Nelson’s grounds enhancement strategy according to which this problem is solved when God’s existence (...) is rendered axiomatic. I argue that since it is still possible to doubt axioms when not directly apprehending them, this strategy cannot work; having to reproduce the argument for God’s existence in face of sceptical doubt is unavoidable. Drawing both on Newman and Nelson’s notion of grounds enhancement and on repr... (shrink)

Some foundationalists have argued that epistemic warrant may be in some measure determined by features of a doxastic agent's circumstances that are not necessarily accessible to the agent. 'externalist' views of this sort have been attacked recently by laurence bonjour on the grounds that they are at odds with the ordinary notion of "epistemic rationality". I suggest that this need not be so and argue that bonjour fails to provide convincing reasons for the rejection of externalist forms of foundationalism.

This paper poses a problem with respect to Husserl’s concept of evidence in The Idea of Phenomenology. In the beginning, Husserl approaches phenomenology as theory of knowledge, focuses on the essence of knowledge, and defines it in terms of evidence. In the middle, he shifts his attention to the definition of evidence as “self-givenness” but gets carried away by the search for a preferred kind of evidence, namely, the evidence of essences. In the end, he remains preoccupied with eidetic knowledge (...) and describes “evidence in the pregnant sense” as absolute, adequate, and apodictic “self-givenness”. The paper shows that these developments have serious consequences for an interpretation of The Idea of Phenomenology as a reliable introduction to Husserl’s phenomenological epistemology and important implications for the phenomenology of evidence beyond this work. (shrink)

Znaczenie epistemiczne aktualnie jasnych i wyraźnych ujęć w epistemologii Kartezjusza W niniejszym artykule omawiam kwestię dotyczącą roli, jaką Kartezjusz wyznaczył w budowie gmachu wiedzy pewnej temu, co można określić mianem aktualnie jasnych i wyraźnych ujęć. Powyższa kwestia jest od dawna przedmiotem ożywionej dyskusji wśród komentatorów epistemologii Kartezjusza. W współczesnej literaturze historyczno-filozoficznej spotkać można dwie zasadnicze interpretacje na temat funkcji jaką pełnią w systemie Kartezjusza aktualnie jasne i wyraźne ujęcia. Pierwszą można nazwać interpretacją psychologiczną, drugą zaś normatywną. Ta ostatnia głosi, że (...) aktualnie jasne i wyraźne ujęcia są całkowicie odporne na wątpienie zanim jeszcze dowiedzie się istnienia Boga i ustali ogólną regułę prawdy. Z tego względu ich pewność nie ogranicza się u Kartezjusza jedynie do pewności psychologicznej, lecz ma charakter normatywny. Opowiadam się za interpretacją normatywną. Przemawiają za nią – moim zdaniem – liczne racje. Ale rodzi ona także pewne trudności. Dlatego po przedstawieniu argumentów przemawiających na jej rzecz i niewątpliwych zalet wynikających z jej przyjęcia, omawiam szczegółowo pewne trudności zarówno tekstowe, jak i merytoryczne, którym musi sprostać ta interpretacja, jeśli mamy ją utrzymać. (shrink)

La epistemología contemporánea sostiene la imagen de Descartes como un fundamentalista epistemológico clásico, apelando, para ello, a las certezas metafísicas y a la presunta deducción del resto de conocimiento a partir de dichos principios. Con todo, un examen más detallado del proyecto epistemológico cartesiano pone en cuestión esta interpretación. El presente artículo analiza el papel de la deducción y la certeza moral a fin de redefinir el fundamentalismo de Descartes en términos moderados.

There is a traditional conception of knowledge but it is not the Justified True Belief analysis Gettier attacked. On the traditional view, knowledge consists in having a belief that bears a discernible mark of truth. A mark of truth is a truth-entailing property: a property that only true beliefs can have. It is discernible if one can always tell that a belief has it, that is, a sufficiently attentive subject believes that a belief has it if and only if it (...) has it. Requiring a mark of truth makes the view infallibilist. Requiring it to be discernible makes the view internalist. I call the view Classical Infallibilism. (shrink)

Although it has been largely neglected in contemporary philosophy , the problem of the criterion raises questions which must be addressed by any complete account of knowledge . But the problem of the criterion suffers not onl.

The sceptic about the external world presents us with a paradox: an apparently acceptable argument for an apparently unacceptable conclusion—that we do not know anything about the external world. Some paradoxes, for instance the liar and the sorites, are very hard. The defense of a purported solution to either of these two inevitably deploys the latest in high-tech philosophical weaponry. On the other hand, some paradoxes are not at all hard, and may be resolved without much fuss. They do not (...) contain profound lessons about the human condition. Where should we place the sceptical paradoxes? (shrink)

Husserl claims that his phenomenological–epistemological system amounts to a “universal” form of empiricism. The present paper shows that this universal moment of Husserl’s empiricism is why his empiricism qualifies as a rationalism. What is empiricist about Husserl’s phenomenological–epistemological system is that he takes experiences to be an autonomous source of immediate justification. On top of that, Husserl takes experiences to be the ultimate source of justification. For Husserl, every justified belief ultimately depends epistemically on the subject’s experiences. These are paradigms (...) of empiricist claims and thus Husserl seems to subscribe to empiricism. However, what is universal about Husserl’s “empiricism” is that he does not limit the concept of experiences to sensory experiences or sensory experiences plus introspective intuitions but broadens the concept of experience such that also a priori intuitions are included. Husserl insists that logical, mathematical, and phenomenological intuitions such as ~, 2 + 2 = 4, and “Experiences necessarily bear the mark of intentionality” provide non-inferential justification analogous to how sensory experiences can non-inferentially justify beliefs such as “There is a table in front of me.” Importantly, Husserl makes clear that such a priori intuitions are not about our concepts but about reality. This is why Husserl’s universal empiricism is a rationalism. Husserl differs from traditional rationalism as he allows that a priori intuitions can be fallible and empirically underminable. This distinguishes Husserl’s rationalism from Descartes’ and makes him a proponent of moderate rationalism as currently championed by Laurence BonJour. (shrink)

If the reliability of a source of testimony is open to question, it seems epistemically illegitimate to verify the source’s reliability by appealing to that source’s own testimony. Is this because it is illegitimate to trust a questionable source’s testimony on any matter whatsoever? Or is there a distinctive problem with appealing to the source’s testimony on the matter of that source’s own reliability? After distinguishing between two kinds of epistemically illegitimate circularity—bootstrapping and self-verification—I argue for a qualified version of (...) the claim that there is nothing especially illegitimate about using a questionable source to evaluate its own reliability. Instead, it is illegitimate to appeal to a questionable source’s testimony on any matter whatsoever, with the matter of the source’s own reliability serving only as a special case. (shrink)

The dissertation examines the nature and epistemic implications of epistemic source circularity. An argument exhibits this type of circularity when at least one of the premises is produced by a belief source the conclusion says is legitimate, e.g. a track record argument for the legitimacy of sense perception that uses premises produced by sense perception. In chapter one I examine this and several other types of circularity, identifying relevant similarities and differences between them. In chapter two I discuss the differences (...) between internalist and externalist analyses of justification. I examine in detail foundationalist and non-foundationalist versions of internalism, and go on to consider how one might characterize externalism: either negatively, by denying particular internalist theses, or positively, in terms of a theory offering different conditions for justification. I discuss the views of reliabilist foundationalists at length. In chapter three I present the internalist objection to externalism that the latter mistakenly permit one to be justified in believing the conclusion of an epistemic source circular inference. I explain the externalists' response that it is not in virtue of their externalism that they permit epistemic source circularity but rather their foundationalism; thus, internalist foundationalists must permit epistemic source circularity as well. I evaluate the positions of several internalists, most of them explicitly foundationalists, and argue that they too cannot avoid permitting epistemic source circularity. In the final chapter I consider whether such circularity is vicious, even though both internalist and externalist foundationalists permit it. I argue that one can sustain an objection to epistemic source circularity by imposing a non-question-begging requirement on justification and explain how respecting this requirement leads one to a non-foundationalist view. I conclude by considering the objection that question-begging leads to a certain arbitrariness in belief formation that should give the foundationalist pause when it comes to determining, at the beginning of inquiry, which beliefs are justified and which are not. The dissertation is primarily concerned with making clear the possible skeptical and non-skeptical positions one can take towards epistemic source circularity. I do not argue for the truth of a particular metaepistemology. (shrink)

There are many important dimensions of epistemic evaluation, one of which is justification. We don’t just evaluate beliefs for truth, reliability, accuracy, and knowledge, but also for justification. However, in the epistemological literature, there is much disagreement about the nature of justification and how it should be understood. One of the controversies that has separated the contemporary epistemological discourse into two opposing camps has to do with the internalism-externalism distinction. Whereas internalists defend certain core assumptions about justification from the pre-Gettier (...) tradition, externalists generally think that the traditional conception is untenable and should be replaced. In this compilation thesis, I argue for, defend, and develop a particular brand of internalism, both in general and with respect to specific sources of justification. In papers 1 and 2, I defend a couple of well-known arguments for mentalism and accessibilism. Moreover, I also point out how prominent versions of these theses are vulnerable to serious problems (e.g., about over-intellectualization and vicious regresses). Part of my goal in the first couple of papers is to figure out what commitments the internalist should take on in order to avoid the externalist's objections, while at the same time receiving support from considerations that have motivated internalism in the past. In papers 3 and 4, I start from the assumption that mentalism is true and attempt to answer the following questions: 1) which non-factive mental states can play a justification-conferring role with respect to empirical belief? And 2) why does this set of states play the epistemic role it does? In response to question 1, I argue that all and only one's beliefs and perceptual experiences have justificatory relevance. In response to question 2, I argue that one's beliefs and perceptual experiences are one's strongly representational states, and that strongly representational states necessarily provide support to certain empirical propositions. Having done so, I then defend mentalism about scientific evidence from a couple of prominent objections in the recent literature. Lastly, in papers 5 and 6, I argue for a particular brand of internalism about testimonial and memorial justification and show how that position has a dialectical advantage over its main competitors. (shrink)

Most epistemologists agree that epistemic justification is required for knowledge. This requirement is usually formulated in one of two ways: S knows that p only if S is justified in believing that p. S knows that p only if S's belief that p is justified. Surprisingly and are generally regarded as synonymous formulations of the justification condition. In Chapter 1, I argue that such a synonymy thesis is mistaken and that, in fact, and specify substantively different requirements. requires that the (...) person be justified, whereas requires that the belief in question be justified, and intuitively, these constitute different requirements. Thus, it is concluded that and employ inherently different kinds of epistemic justification in their respective analysantia. I dub them "personal justification" and "doxastic justification", respectively. The remainder of the dissertation is devoted to demonstrating both the legitimacy and the importance of the personal/doxastic justification distinction. For example, the distinction helps account for the divergent intuitions that regularly arise regarding justificatory evaluations in demon-world contexts. ;In Chapters 2 and 3 I provide analyses for doxastic and personal justification. Chapter 2 spells out an externalist reliabilist account of doxastic justification which safely avoids demon-world counterexamples. Chapter 3 advances an internalist coherence account of personal justification. In defending this coherence theory, I argue that all foundation theories are false and that the regress argument on which they are predicated is unsound. ;In Chapter 4, I propose an analysis of ordinary knowledge which only requires doxastic justification. Nevertheless personal justification plays a negative, undermining role in the analysis. I then demonstrate that this analysis of knowledge is immune to typical Gettier examples. It also remains unscathed by Harman's beefed-up Gettier cases. Finally, I consider a stronger analysis of knowledge requiring both doxastic and personal justification. Though the latter analysis proves too strong for ordinary knowledge, it remains interesting as an analysis of a more intellectualistic kind of knowledge. ;The final chapter examines the internalist/externalist controversy and demonstrates that this controversy is yet another manifestation of the personal/doxastic justification conflation. (shrink)

In this paper, I join the so-called voluntarism debate on Descartes’s theory of will and judgment, arguing for an indirect doxastic voluntarism reading of Descartes, as opposed to a classic, or direct doxastic voluntarism. More specifically, I examine the question whether Descartes thinks the will can have a direct and full control over one’s suspension of judgment. Descartes was a doxastic voluntarist, maintaining that the will has some kind of control over one’s doxastic states, such as belief and doubt. According (...) to a long-held reading, the control that the will has over doxastic states in Descartes’s theory is direct; the doxastic states are affected by the mere act of will. This reading is called direct doxastic voluntarism (DDV), or direct voluntarism (DV) for short, and it states that we are capable of assenting, rejecting and suspending a judgment based only on our will to do so. Thus, these actions would be utterly and merely volitional. DV can be divided into two further positions, direct positive voluntarism (+DV) and direct negative voluntarism (-DV). Direct positive voluntarism deals with the act of forming judgments, maintaining that one can accept or deny a proposition wilfully and either merely believe or not believe something voluntarily. Direct negative voluntarism deals with the suspension of judgment, maintaining that it can likewise be accomplished by a simple act of will. However, I support an alternate account of Descartes’s voluntarism, which is called indirect doxastic voluntarism (IDV), or indirect voluntarism (IV) for short. By this account, the will is capable of affecting a doxastic state indirectly by making one concentrate on essential tasks for forming that state, such as gathering up and paying attention to strong reasons and evidence. IV is also possible to divide into indirect positive voluntarism (+IV) and indirect negative voluntarism (-IV). Per indirect positive voluntarism the will needs to pay attention to reasons for accepting or denying some proposition. Likewise, by indirect negative voluntarism, in order to suspend judgment the will needs to direct this attention to the reasons for doubt. By attending to these reasons, the will also comes face-to-face with its own freedom. This feeling of freedom can be described as affectivity of the reasons for belief (assent) and doubt (suspension). (shrink)

This dissertation is on infinite regress arguments in philosophy. Its main goals are to explain what such arguments from many distinct philosophical debates have in common, and to provide guidelines for using and evaluating them. Two theories are reviewed: the Paradox Theory and the Failure Theory. According to the Paradox Theory, infinite regress arguments can be used to refute an existentially or universally quantified statement (e.g. to refute the statement that at least one discussion is settled, or the statement that (...) discussions are settled only if there is an agreed-upon criterion to settle them). According to the Failure Theory, infinite regress arguments can be used to demonstrate that a certain solution fails to solve an existentially or universally quantified problem (e.g. to demonstrate that a certain solution fails to settle all discussions, or that it fails to settle even one discussion). In the literature, the Paradox Theory is fairly well-developed, and this dissertation provides the Failure Theory with the same tools. (shrink)

This dissertation examines Rene Descartes' view of certainty and defends the view that Cartesian certainty is possible. The first half of the dissertation includes an interpretation of Descartes' epistemology as well as an examination of other interpreters' readings. The second half of the dissertation is a defense of the claim that Cartesian certainty of a particular kind is possible; it includes a variety of contemporary objections and replies in defense of the possibility of certainty.

I want to talk about a certain epistemic quality that I call “justification,” and inquire whether that quality can ever be had “immediately” or “non-inferentially.” Before we get into substantive issues, we need first to agree about what epistemic quality it is we’ll be talking about, and then we need to clarify what it is to have that quality immediately or non-inferentially. When I say I call this epistemic quality “justification,” you’re liable to think, “Oh I know what that is.” (...) You may. But experience has taught me that different philosophers use and understand the term “justification” differently, even before they start spinning substantive theories about what “justification” amounts to. So we should proceed cautiously. You may use the term “justification” to describe the same epistemic quality as I do; or you may use it to describe some different status or quality. You may use some other term, or no term at all, to describe the quality I call “justification.” I say that you have justification to believe P iff you’re in a position where it would be epistemically appropriate for you to believe P, a position where P is epistemically likely for you to be true. I intend this to be a very inclusive epistemic status.1 Some philosophers say you can know P without “having any justification” for your belief. We can assume that whenever a subject knows P, she’ll be in a position where it’d be epistemically appropriate to believe P. So on my usage, whoever knows P has justification to believe P. (Perhaps she has that justification because she knows.) The philosophers who say otherwise are using “having justification” to mean something different, or more specific, than the epistemic status I am using it to mean. The same goes for philosophers who say a belief can be epistemically appropriate, and so play a role in justifying other beliefs, though you do not “have any justification” for it. On my usage. (shrink)

Much ado has been made regarding Descartes's understanding of the creation of what he called the "eternal truths" because he described them, paradoxically, as both the free creations of God, and necessary. While there are many varying interpretations of Cartesian modality, the issue has heretofore been treated in a vacuum, as a niche issue having little import beyond being an interesting puzzle for Descartes Scholars. I argue that this treatment is misguided, and that in order to properly understand Cartesian philosophy (...) at all, one must properly understand Descartes's theory of modality. This, however, is no small feat; in order to understand Descartes's seemingly peculiar view on modality, one must first make sense of what Descartes understood the nature of God to be. One reason for this, I argue, is the systematic nature of Cartesian philosophy; indeed when dealing with a dense inter-connection of philosophical issues, one must move from what is more known in itself to what is more known to us, and not the other way around. I argue that in the literature on Cartesian modality, insufficient attention has been paid to the influence of the French School of Spirituality on the Cartesian notion of the divine. I argue that this influence pushed Descartes to criticize traditional attempts to split the horns of Plato's Euthyphro dilemma as violating a proper understanding of the doctrine of divine simplicity. Descartes's commitment to a radical form of the doctrine of divine simplicity leads him to a version of divine voluntarism wherein all `things' depend on God for their existence, and God cannot have had antecedent reason to prefer the creation of anything over anything else. There is little doubt that Descartes embraced the voluntarist horn of the Euthyphro dilemma, but just what that means for Cartesian modality and philosophy generally remains a contentious issue. I argue that Descartes is best read as what I call an `agnostic quietist' regarding God given textual, historical, and systematic considerations. One virtue of an agnostic quietist reading is that I am able to square the passages where Descartes discusses the inconceivability of God's power with the conclusions reached regarding God's non-deceiving nature in the Meditations and elsewhere. Further virtues that I explore are the effects that a quietist reading has on the Cartesian scientific programme, the infamous mind-body problem, Descartes's seemingly inconsistent view regarding human free-will and Descartes's refusal to engage in "theology." Traditionally, Cartesian epistemology has been understood to be a purely a priori undertaking, which succumbs to deep and insurmountable problems. One of the greatest problems facing the Cartesian was the move from the mind to the world. Simon Blackburn, for example, says of the Cartesian epistemological project in the Meditations that Descartes "has put himself on a desert island from which there is no escape." This view is echoed by, and even motivates some of the contemporary views concerning Cartesian modality. I argue, however, that a proper understanding of the Cartesian doctrine of clear and distinct ideas circumvents this famous problem. By highlighting the proper understanding and application of the doctrine of clear and distinct ideas, I show that such ideas not only guarantee the existence of an external truth-maker, but also that such ideas do not do much more than show that there is a truth-maker. I argue that in instances of clear and distinct perception, the truth of the idea is normatively certain, but what makes it true is yet to be established. In this way, clear and distinct ideas are both powerful, in terms of guaranteeing truth, and relatively unhelpful, in that further work is required in order to determine to what the ideas conform. I argue that this is the case not only for actual truths, but for some clearly intuited truths about possibility. As an illustration of my overall thesis, I address the Cartesian argument for the separability of mind and body, and entertain the various interpretations of Descartes's view of human freedom. I argue that in order to understand Cartesian views on either of these issues, one must first make sense of his modal commitments. In both of these cases Descartes claims that finite minds can know that something is possible, even though what makes it possible is well beyond what they can understand. (shrink)

Descartes understood the subject matter of physics (or natural philosophy) to encompass the whole of nature, including living things. It therefore comprised not only nonvital phenomena, including those we would now denominate as physical, chemical, minerological, magnetic, and atmospheric; it also extended to the world of plants and animals, including the human animal (with the exception of those aspects of the human mind that Descartes assigned to solely to thinking substance: pure intellect and will). Descartes wrote extensively on physiology and (...) on the physiology and psychology of the senses. This chapter examines the notions of *physiology* and *psychology* in medical and natural philosophical works of Descartes' day; follows his efforts to bring physiology into his mechanistic idiom; considers the relation between physiology of the animal machine and psychological functions that yield functionally appropriate behavior; goes into his physiology and psychology of vision; and elaborates the tension in Descartes' works between his metaphysically supported micro-corpuscularism and his discussion of the animal machine as an organic unity comprising various functionally and teleologically characterized systems. The chapter draws on Descartes' works in both metaphysics and natural philosophy, including his Treatise on Man (originally published as L'Homme, 1664). (shrink)