# 046 - Modern Philosophy Chapter 54 Descartes

An episode of [History of Philosophy](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1877164155), 23 Feb 2026, 44 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/69897665/046_modern_philosophy_chapter_54_descartes.mp3

Dive into the captivating journey of philosophical thought through the ages with History of Philosophy. This podcast unravels the rich tapestry of philosophical opinions, systems, and schools of thought, exploring the lives of influential philosophers and the intricate connections between different schools of philosophy. Discover the origins of Ancient Philosophy across cultures like Babylon, China, India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as the profound insights of the Christian Era, featuring thinkers such as St. Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and William of Ockham. Journey into Modern Philosophy with giants like Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel, all guided by the insightful narration of Beth Thomas. This episode includes AI-generated content.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Chapter fifty four of History of Philosophy. Second Period from
[0:06] Speaker 1: Decar to Kant of History of Philosophy. This is a
[0:10] Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
[0:15] Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
[0:20] Speaker 1: Recording by David Brent. History of Philosophy by William Turner.
[0:26] Speaker 1: Second Period from Decar to Kant. The second period in
[0:31] Speaker 1: the history of modern philosophy extends from Decar to Kant,
[0:35] Speaker 1: that is, from the beginning of the seventeenth century to
[0:38] Speaker 1: the end of the eighteenth It comprises some of the
[0:42] Speaker 1: greatest modern systems of thought, namely the philosophies of Decara, Spinosa, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley,
[0:50] Speaker 1: and Hume, the last forming, as it were, the connecting
[0:54] Speaker 1: link with the period of criticism inaugurated by Kant. The
[0:59] Speaker 1: periods which we are about to study is one of
[1:01] Speaker 1: dogmatism and empiricism, although it includes, as we shall see,
[1:06] Speaker 1: more than one system of skepticism, partial or complete. It
[1:11] Speaker 1: is a period during which intellectual activity within the Church
[1:14] Speaker 1: is confined, for the most part to the domain of theology.
[1:18] Speaker 1: Philosophy no longer stands to theology in the close relation
[1:22] Speaker 1: in which it had stood during the Middle Ages, and
[1:25] Speaker 1: battles in which the most vital principles of the religion
[1:28] Speaker 1: are involved were fought outside the church and in the
[1:32] Speaker 1: domain of philosophy. This association of philosophy from theology is
[1:38] Speaker 1: one of the characteristics of the period. Chapter fifty four
[1:43] Speaker 1: Deka Life. Rene Deskar was born in La Haye in
[1:49] Speaker 1: Terrain in the year of fifteen ninety six. He studied
[1:53] Speaker 1: at the Jesuit College of La Fleche, and throughout his
[1:56] Speaker 1: life maintained the most friendly relations with his teachers, his
[2:00] Speaker 1: greatest regret being their refusal to accept his philosophy. On
[2:05] Speaker 1: quitting the College of La Fleche in sixteen twelve, he
[2:08] Speaker 1: went to Paris, where for a time he abandoned all
[2:11] Speaker 1: serious study. Later, however, in obedience with the maxim bene
[2:16] Speaker 1: vixitki bene Latute, which he made the guiding principle of
[2:20] Speaker 1: his life, he retired into seclusion in a lonely quarter
[2:24] Speaker 1: of the city, and there continued his studies. In sixteen seventeen,
[2:29] Speaker 1: determined to study the Great Book of the World, he
[2:32] Speaker 1: took service as a volunteer in the army of Prince
[2:34] Speaker 1: Maurice of Nassau, repairing first to Holland and afterwards to Germany,
[2:40] Speaker 1: where he left the army of Prince Maurice for that
[2:43] Speaker 1: of the Elector of Bavaria. While in winter quarters in
[2:47] Speaker 1: Newburgh on the Danube in sixteen nineteen to sixteen twenty,
[2:52] Speaker 1: he experienced the mental crisis of his life and discovered,
[2:56] Speaker 1: as he tells us, the foundries of a wonderful science,
[3:00] Speaker 1: the principle, namely that all geometrical problems can be solved
[3:04] Speaker 1: by algebraic symbols. It was in the same mental crisis
[3:09] Speaker 1: that the notion of universal methodic doubt first occurred to him,
[3:13] Speaker 1: as well as a thought that the mysteries of nature
[3:17] Speaker 1: and the laws of mathematics could both be unlocked by
[3:20] Speaker 1: the same key footnote in Bortus hibernes Naturai mysterior components
[3:28] Speaker 1: kumlegibus matthiesos utriusq aracana dumklave reserare pose aosus EspeRare epitaph
[3:39] Speaker 1: composed by Chenoux and a footnote. After a brief visit
[3:45] Speaker 1: to his native place, he took up his abode in
[3:48] Speaker 1: Holland in sixteen twenty nine, and there published his most
[3:52] Speaker 1: important philosophical works, the discour der Methud sixteen thirty seven,
[3:58] Speaker 1: made the Toscioneste pri My Philosophia in sixteen forty one
[4:03] Speaker 1: and Pentipia Philosophia in sixteen forty four. At the invitation
[4:08] Speaker 1: of Queen Christina of Sweden, he went to Stockholm in
[4:12] Speaker 1: sixteen forty nine, where he died in the early part
[4:15] Speaker 1: of the following year. Sources bescides the works mentioned in
[4:19] Speaker 1: the preceding paragraph. Deikar wrote a Tete de passionist de
[4:24] Speaker 1: la mout published in sixteen fifty. Amongst his posthumous works,
[4:30] Speaker 1: the most important was the Recesche de la Berte and
[4:34] Speaker 1: regle Pola derxion de la spirite, published in seventeen oh one.
[4:41] Speaker 1: His letters, published sixteen fifty seven to sixteen sixty seven,
[4:46] Speaker 1: are important for understanding his doctrines. The collected works of
[4:49] Speaker 1: des Car were published in sixteen fifty and seventeen oh one.
[4:54] Speaker 1: Cousins's edition eleven Volumes Paris eighteen twenty four to eighteen
[4:58] Speaker 1: twenty six long been the standard edition. It will doubtless
[5:03] Speaker 1: be superseded by the edition which is being prepared by
[5:07] Speaker 1: Messrs Adam and Tannery, and of which three volumes have
[5:11] Speaker 1: already in nineteen oh one appeared. With regard to secondary sources,
[5:16] Speaker 1: it is impossible to give here an adequate list. Mahaffey's Dycar,
[5:21] Speaker 1: included in Blackwood's Philosophical Classics Edinburgh and Philadelphia eighteen ninety four,
[5:27] Speaker 1: is an excellent manual for English students of Descares. Footnote
[5:32] Speaker 1: consult buller Istoire des le Philosophie Cartisien, the Troxieme Edition, Paris,
[5:40] Speaker 1: eighteen sixty eight. Also Wallace article on Descar in Encyclopedia Britannica. Translations,
[5:49] Speaker 1: Method Meditations et cetera by Weitsch, tenth edition, London, eighteen
[5:54] Speaker 1: ninety Meditations by Lowndes, London, eighteen seventy eight, Extracts by Tory,
[6:02] Speaker 1: New York, eighteen ninety two. End footnote Doctrines Physical and
[6:09] Speaker 1: mathematical doctrines. Descar's contribution to the mathematical and physical sciences,
[6:16] Speaker 1: important as they are, cannot be treated here except in
[6:19] Speaker 1: a general way. Descar is the founder of analytical geometry.
[6:24] Speaker 1: To the science of algebra, he contributed the treatment of
[6:28] Speaker 1: negative roots and the invention of the system of index notation.
[6:33] Speaker 1: To physics, he contributed the first statement of the law
[6:36] Speaker 1: of signs in reference to the refraction of light. This
[6:40] Speaker 1: last point is, however, a matter of dispute, this discovery
[6:45] Speaker 1: being by some authorities attributed to Snellius. Footnote cross reference
[6:52] Speaker 1: revue the metaphysic et de Morale Juliet eighteen ninety six,
[6:58] Speaker 1: and a footnote Descar's method. Dey Kar, as is well known,
[7:04] Speaker 1: advocates a universal methodic doubt as the beginning of philosophical thinking.
[7:10] Speaker 1: During his Sojohn at Newburgh, to which allusion has already
[7:14] Speaker 1: been made, he occupied himself with the project of finding
[7:18] Speaker 1: some one certain truth, and of discovering the true method
[7:23] Speaker 1: of attaining to the knowledge of all things of which
[7:26] Speaker 1: his mind was capable. With this purpose in view, he
[7:30] Speaker 1: first resolved to get rid of all prejudices acquired from books,
[7:34] Speaker 1: and to call in question all the principles and conclusions
[7:38] Speaker 1: of science and philosophy. It is to be remarked that
[7:42] Speaker 1: the kar did not propose this method of doubt as
[7:44] Speaker 1: a means to be used indiscriminately by all. The resolution
[7:49] Speaker 1: which he made was merely for his personal use. It
[7:53] Speaker 1: is to be noted in the second place, that they
[7:56] Speaker 1: Kr accepted from his universal doubt truths be belonging to
[8:00] Speaker 1: theology and to the political and moral sciences. Having resolved
[8:05] Speaker 1: then to doubt everything that his predecessors had taught, he
[8:09] Speaker 1: proceeded to draw up a set of rules for his
[8:12] Speaker 1: further guidance. The logic of the schools, he remarked, will
[8:17] Speaker 1: be of little avail in the systematic inquiry, because it
[8:22] Speaker 1: is suited rather to communication than it is to discovery
[8:25] Speaker 1: of truth. Accordingly, he proposed to substitute for the rules
[8:30] Speaker 1: of formal logic the four following principles. One to admit
[8:35] Speaker 1: nothing as true which is not perceived so clearly and
[8:39] Speaker 1: distinctly as to admit of no doubt. Two to divide,
[8:45] Speaker 1: as far as possible every question into its natural parts.
[8:50] Speaker 1: Three to pass synthetically from the easier to the more difficult.
[8:56] Speaker 1: Four to make accurate and complete in nunis orations, both
[9:01] Speaker 1: in seeking middle terms and in considering the elements of
[9:05] Speaker 1: difficult problems. Footnote cross reference Disco de lamathud du parthis
[9:13] Speaker 1: ouvre Chois, page fourteen end footnote. These simple and elementary
[9:21] Speaker 1: rules are not difficult of observance. They indicate, and this
[9:25] Speaker 1: is the point with which we are chiefly concerned. The
[9:29] Speaker 1: essentially deductive nature of the method which they can introduced. Indeed,
[9:34] Speaker 1: during the winter of sixteen nineteen and sixteen twenty, when
[9:38] Speaker 1: they are started out to construct a system of knowledge
[9:41] Speaker 1: by the aid of these rules. He first applied them
[9:44] Speaker 1: to the mathematical sciences, but finding the method to be
[9:49] Speaker 1: at once easy and fertile of results, and considering that
[9:53] Speaker 1: the principles of all sciences are derived from first philosophy,
[9:58] Speaker 1: he determined to apply to all all branches of physical
[10:01] Speaker 1: and philosophical science the method which he had so successfully
[10:05] Speaker 1: used in mathematical studies. Descar's own statements preclude all possible
[10:11] Speaker 1: doubts as to the deductive nature of his physical and
[10:15] Speaker 1: scientific method. Tut maphysique ne autre chu ku geometry, mathematics
[10:22] Speaker 1: sonles principont from de Mois sur la quignepi two may
[10:27] Speaker 1: raschimont aput mee Omnia, sund Mathematica and Natura footnote cross
[10:37] Speaker 1: reference Lectre in Cousins edition of Descar's work seven page one,
[10:43] Speaker 1: twenty one and Regle et cetera passen starting point. The
[10:50] Speaker 1: plan conceived during the winter of sixteen nineteen and sixteen twenty,
[10:56] Speaker 1: that namely of applying to all branches of knowledge in
[11:00] Speaker 1: mathematical method, which starts from an intuition and proceeds by deduction,
[11:06] Speaker 1: was perfected in the Discourse on Method, which appeared in
[11:11] Speaker 1: sixteen thirty seven and in the Meditations published in sixteen
[11:15] Speaker 1: forty one. In these treatises, Descars attempts to discover an
[11:21] Speaker 1: incontrovertible truth, a liquid inconcossoum, known to us by a
[11:27] Speaker 1: clear and distinct intuition, and from that single truth to
[11:32] Speaker 1: deduce all science. The truth, which he discovers to be
[11:36] Speaker 1: beyond all possibility of doubt, and which he accordingly selects
[11:40] Speaker 1: as the beginning of all scientific knowledge, is the fact
[11:44] Speaker 1: of his own conscious thought. I may doubt he observes
[11:49] Speaker 1: about everything else, but I cannot doubt that I think,
[11:54] Speaker 1: for what doubt is to think? But if I think,
[11:58] Speaker 1: I exist Kujito ergossum footnote cross reference the scour catro
[12:06] Speaker 1: parti uver rechois, page twenty five, also du parti medetacion
[12:14] Speaker 1: ogpus sitatum, page seventy nine, and footnote to this. Gassendi
[12:20] Speaker 1: objected that one may infer existence from any external action,
[12:25] Speaker 1: such as walking and argue ambulo ergo sum, But the
[12:30] Speaker 1: Kar protested that the ergo sum is not an inference,
[12:35] Speaker 1: as indeed it cannot be if kujito is the first truth.
[12:39] Speaker 1: It is, however, evident that the Kar himself, by the
[12:43] Speaker 1: use of the word ergo, gave rise to the misunderstanding
[12:48] Speaker 1: the complex proposition. Therefore, kugito ergo sum merely expresses the
[12:54] Speaker 1: undeniable certainty of the self evident intuition that I think,
[12:59] Speaker 1: and of the equally self evident intuition that I exist.
[13:04] Speaker 1: No doubt, Decar selected thought rather than an external action
[13:09] Speaker 1: such as walking, because though I may be deceived as
[13:13] Speaker 1: to whether I am walking or not, I cannot be
[13:15] Speaker 1: deceived as to whether I am thinking. He felt too,
[13:20] Speaker 1: that sought in some way implies existence, and he had,
[13:24] Speaker 1: perhaps in mind Saint Augustine's called cephalor sum. He does, not, however,
[13:31] Speaker 1: appear to have realized the difference between an indirect argument
[13:35] Speaker 1: such as Saint Augustine's was merely a reductio ad absurdum
[13:40] Speaker 1: of the opponent's contention and a direct proof or demonstration.
[13:47] Speaker 1: Des Kar might have turned at this point to the
[13:50] Speaker 1: consideration of matter or extension. He might have considered that
[13:54] Speaker 1: we have a clear and distinct idea of extension, which
[13:58] Speaker 1: is as primitive an undrived as is our idea of
[14:02] Speaker 1: thought and thinking subject. But instead of doing this, he proceeded,
[14:07] Speaker 1: like the mathematician that he was, to deduce all knowable
[14:12] Speaker 1: truth from the fewest possible premises. He passed therefore deductively
[14:17] Speaker 1: from his own existence to the existence of God, and
[14:21] Speaker 1: from the existence of God to the existence of the
[14:24] Speaker 1: extended matter external world the existence of God. Descar reduces
[14:32] Speaker 1: his proofs of the existence of God to two footnote
[14:38] Speaker 1: cross reference responses or premier objecchion opuschitatum, page one forty six.
[14:45] Speaker 1: Elsewhere ouver schois edited by Cousin Volume nine, page one
[14:51] Speaker 1: hundred and sixty four. Descar enumerates three proofs end a footnote,
[14:57] Speaker 1: the a posteriore argument from effect to cause, and the
[15:02] Speaker 1: a priori argument, which proceeds from the idea of God
[15:07] Speaker 1: to the existence of God. We take up first the
[15:10] Speaker 1: a posteriori argument. Having established the truth that I think
[15:16] Speaker 1: and therefore I exist, Descar goes on in the third
[15:20] Speaker 1: meditation to argue deductively, as follows of the ideas which
[15:26] Speaker 1: I find in my mind, some arise from external causes
[15:30] Speaker 1: and others from the mind itself. Now among the ideas
[15:35] Speaker 1: which I possess is the idea of God, that is,
[15:39] Speaker 1: the idea of a most perfect being. This idea, however,
[15:44] Speaker 1: cannot have been produced by me, for the fact that
[15:47] Speaker 1: I doubt proves that I am an imperfect being, and
[15:51] Speaker 1: an imperfect being cannot cause that which is most perfect.
[15:55] Speaker 1: He alone, who is himself endowed with all perfection, can
[16:00] Speaker 1: produce in my mind the idea of the most perfect being. Therefore,
[16:05] Speaker 1: from the idea of God which I possess, I am
[16:08] Speaker 1: warranted in concluding that God exists footnote ouver Acheois, page
[16:14] Speaker 1: one hundred three end footnote. The existence of God is
[16:19] Speaker 1: then not an intuitive truth, but rather a truth inferred
[16:24] Speaker 1: from an intuition of the contents of the mind. The
[16:27] Speaker 1: most serious flaw in the cars a prosterior a argument
[16:32] Speaker 1: is the assumption of the principle of causality. De Cahr,
[16:36] Speaker 1: it must be remembered, has resolved to doubt about everything,
[16:40] Speaker 1: and up to this point he has established merely the
[16:43] Speaker 1: truth that he thinks and that He exists. He has
[16:46] Speaker 1: no right therefore to assume the principle of causality in
[16:51] Speaker 1: virtue of which it is affirmed that whatever perfection is
[16:54] Speaker 1: in the effect must also be in the cause, if
[16:58] Speaker 1: he assumes it is invert virtue of clear and distinct perception.
[17:03] Speaker 1: Here must abandon the attempt to deduce all truth from
[17:06] Speaker 1: one intuition. Apart from this flaw, which may be called accidental,
[17:12] Speaker 1: the argument is intrinsically invalid. It is not true that
[17:16] Speaker 1: an idea cannot contain representatively a perfection which is neither
[17:21] Speaker 1: formally or eminently in the mind that conceives the idea.
[17:26] Speaker 1: I may form in my mind an idea of the infinite,
[17:30] Speaker 1: without possessing the perfections which the idea of the infinite represents.
[17:36] Speaker 1: The principle that the effect is not greater than the
[17:39] Speaker 1: summer of its causes is true in the order of being.
[17:43] Speaker 1: But in the argument which we are studying, the effect
[17:46] Speaker 1: is in the order of representation, while the cause is
[17:50] Speaker 1: in the order of existence, and the transition from the
[17:54] Speaker 1: ideal order to the real order is always fallacious. We
[17:59] Speaker 1: next come to the a priori, where as Descar calls
[18:03] Speaker 1: it the geometrical proof of the existence of God. We
[18:08] Speaker 1: find in our minds certain ideas possessing properties so fixed
[18:11] Speaker 1: and immutable that we cannot acquire such ideas without holding
[18:16] Speaker 1: to the truth of the properties which are necessarily connected
[18:19] Speaker 1: with them. We cannot, for example, possess the idea of
[18:24] Speaker 1: a triangle and understand what the idea means without admitting
[18:28] Speaker 1: that the sum of the angles of the triangle is
[18:31] Speaker 1: equal to two right angles. Now, when we examine the
[18:36] Speaker 1: idea of God, we find that is the idea of
[18:39] Speaker 1: the most perfect being, an idea, namely, which comprises all perfections,
[18:45] Speaker 1: including that of existence. If existence were not comprised among
[18:50] Speaker 1: the perfections of God, he would not be the most
[18:52] Speaker 1: perfect being. Therefore, from the fact that we possess the
[18:57] Speaker 1: idea of a supremely perfect being, we are warranted in
[19:01] Speaker 1: concluding that such a being exists. The arguments may be
[19:05] Speaker 1: stated in scholastic form and phraseology. Thus ends the cul
[19:11] Speaker 1: juice esentia as existentia necessario existi Archidius asked, ends the
[19:20] Speaker 1: cujuice essentia is existentia ergo dius necessario existe. Footnote cross
[19:28] Speaker 1: reference Revu de Metaphysique at the Morale Juliet, eighteen ninety six,
[19:35] Speaker 1: page four hundred and thirty six. The argument is found
[19:40] Speaker 1: in the fifth volume Mettaes Uvreschois, page one twenty. In
[19:46] Speaker 1: the footnote, Deska's geometrical or ontological argument raised the perfect
[19:53] Speaker 1: tempest of controversy. It was attacked on all sides as
[19:57] Speaker 1: being a mere restatement of center Enselms argument, as containing
[20:01] Speaker 1: an illogical transition from the ideal to the real order,
[20:06] Speaker 1: and as falsely assuming that existence is a perfection. Despite
[20:11] Speaker 1: these objections, the argument gained many supporters and remained in
[20:15] Speaker 1: honor among Cortesians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Having
[20:20] Speaker 1: thus demonstrated the existence of God, Descar next proceeds to
[20:24] Speaker 1: infer from the goodness and wisdom of God the veracity
[20:27] Speaker 1: of the faculties of the human mind, and to build
[20:30] Speaker 1: on this basis the whole superstructure of philosophy. The suculus
[20:36] Speaker 1: vitiosis is flagrant. Decar proves the existence of God, and then,
[20:42] Speaker 1: from the veracity of God infers the reliableness of the
[20:46] Speaker 1: cognitive powers by which the existence of God has been established.
[20:51] Speaker 1: If Deycar proceeds to argue, our faculties of knowledge are reliable,
[20:56] Speaker 1: our senses are to be believed when they testify to
[20:59] Speaker 1: the existence of the external world, The existence of material
[21:04] Speaker 1: extended being is not known therefore by intuition, but rather
[21:08] Speaker 1: by way of inference, from the primitive intuition of my
[21:12] Speaker 1: own existence and from the truths deduced therefrom doctrine of
[21:17] Speaker 1: two substances. By direct intuition, then we know that there
[21:23] Speaker 1: is a thinking substance self, and by inference we know
[21:27] Speaker 1: that there is an extended substance matter, Now substance being
[21:33] Speaker 1: that which so exists as to need nothing else for
[21:35] Speaker 1: its existence. Ras kwai ita.
[21:39] Speaker 2: Existipe ut nulla aliyahre In the ji'ad ad existendom, it is.
[21:45] Speaker 1: Clear that God alone is properly and strictly speaking, a substance. Mind, however,
[21:53] Speaker 1: a matter, since they need nothing for their existence except
[21:57] Speaker 1: the corporation of God, may be called create substances. The
[22:02] Speaker 1: essence of mind is thought, the essence of matter is extension.
[22:06] Speaker 1: Everything that may be predicated of mind is a mode
[22:10] Speaker 1: of thought, while everything that is predicated of matter is
[22:14] Speaker 1: a mode of extension. Mind and matter therefore are antithetical.
[22:19] Speaker 1: Footnote cross reference volume six, Meditacion Opuscuitatom, page one, twenty
[22:27] Speaker 1: six end footnote. It remains to see how Descar applied
[22:31] Speaker 1: his doctrine of dualism to this concept of nature and
[22:35] Speaker 1: to anthropology. But before taking up Deska's philosophy of nature,
[22:40] Speaker 1: it will be convenient together from the foregoing doctrines the
[22:44] Speaker 1: principle of Deskar's epistemology deskars epistemology. When Descar makes the
[22:51] Speaker 1: veracity of God the all sufficient guarantee for the reliability
[22:56] Speaker 1: of our sense processes and of our thought processes, he
[23:01] Speaker 1: lays down a principle which he wishes to be regarded
[23:04] Speaker 1: as the ultimate metaphysical basis of certitude. But in every
[23:09] Speaker 1: system of epistemology, principles of psychology are applied. And we
[23:14] Speaker 1: may ask, for example, by what quality is the knowledge
[23:18] Speaker 1: which comes from the outside world to be distinguished from
[23:21] Speaker 1: the knowledge which comes from the world within us. How
[23:26] Speaker 1: can I distinguish the idea of a thing from the
[23:29] Speaker 1: idea of a mere mental fancy. How, for instance, does
[23:34] Speaker 1: my idea of Julius Caesar differ from my idea of
[23:38] Speaker 1: a Laddin? De Khar would answer that the mind being
[23:42] Speaker 1: a rascorjidance, a substance whose very essence is thought, must
[23:48] Speaker 1: be conscious of all its acts. When therefore I am
[23:52] Speaker 1: conscious of an idea which I myself formed idea a
[23:57] Speaker 1: mepe sufacta, I am conscious of having formed it. But
[24:01] Speaker 1: when an idea comes to me from outside idea aventiztia,
[24:07] Speaker 1: I am conscious of the non interference of my will,
[24:11] Speaker 1: And I know that, whether I will it or not,
[24:14] Speaker 1: the idea represents so much and no more. Ideas of
[24:19] Speaker 1: this latter class must therefore be caused by something outside
[24:24] Speaker 1: the mind, and I conclude that the something outside the
[24:28] Speaker 1: mind exists. The car is then a reasoned realist. Decar
[24:35] Speaker 1: maintains the existence of real substance as well as of
[24:39] Speaker 1: real qualities. For if qualities exist, substances.
[24:44] Speaker 2: Exist, since nothing can have no qualities neliinula sunt atributta. Thus,
[24:52] Speaker 2: in the Principia Philosophia, Volume two, page fifty two.
[24:57] Speaker 1: He writes, ex hoc quad ali a tributem adesse partipiamus
[25:04] Speaker 1: concludimus aliqua mades sa rem existend them see they substantium
[25:11] Speaker 1: qui ilutribui post Still, he teaches that the secondary qualities taste, color,
[25:18] Speaker 1: et cetera of material things are modes of consciousness rather
[25:22] Speaker 1: than qualities of the real substances. They are, indeed movements
[25:28] Speaker 1: of real substances which movements, on being communicated to the
[25:32] Speaker 1: nerves of filaments, are conducted to the pineal gland, where
[25:36] Speaker 1: they come in contact with the mind and are perceived
[25:39] Speaker 1: by it. It is not, however, the movement of the
[25:43] Speaker 1: substance in the world outside us that is perceived by
[25:46] Speaker 1: the mind, but merely the movement of the filaments, which
[25:50] Speaker 1: is caused by the movement of the external substance. There
[25:55] Speaker 1: is then a real cause of color, taste, et cetera.
[26:00] Speaker 1: Of the list, the color, taste, et cetera being only
[26:03] Speaker 1: modes of the subjective organism are strictly speaking, states of
[26:08] Speaker 1: self rather than states of not self. By this doctrine
[26:14] Speaker 1: of subjectivism, Deycar paved the way for the idealism of
[26:18] Speaker 1: subsequent philosophers. It was easy for Berkeley, for example, to
[26:23] Speaker 1: reason away the primary qualities of matter by reducing them
[26:27] Speaker 1: as they Car had reduced the secondary qualities to states
[26:31] Speaker 1: of self, and to conclude that the very substance of
[26:35] Speaker 1: matter has no existence except in thought. Deycar, it must
[26:41] Speaker 1: be remembered, is not an idealist. He maintains the existence
[26:46] Speaker 1: of an external world of matter with its qualities extension
[26:50] Speaker 1: and motion. Nevertheless, he is justly regarded as the founder
[26:55] Speaker 1: of modern idealism philosophy of nature. What is the essence
[27:02] Speaker 1: of material substance? The car, as we have seen, answered
[27:06] Speaker 1: that it is extension. The secondary qualities are merely states
[27:11] Speaker 1: of the perceiving mind, And among the primary qualities, extension
[27:15] Speaker 1: alone is so essential to matter that without it matter
[27:19] Speaker 1: is unthinkable. Now from extension proceede the divisibility, figurability, and
[27:25] Speaker 1: mobility of matter. Of course, the principle that matter is
[27:30] Speaker 1: nothing but extension, would, if pushed to its logical conclusions,
[27:34] Speaker 1: lead to subjectivism. They Car taught, as is well known,
[27:39] Speaker 1: that the essences of things depend on the will of God.
[27:43] Speaker 1: Now the divine will is immutable, matter, having at its
[27:48] Speaker 1: creation been endowed with a certain measure of motion, and
[27:51] Speaker 1: rest retains this measure unchanged footnote Opus Guitatum, volume three,
[27:59] Speaker 1: age forty seven end footnote. Hence the laws of motion,
[28:04] Speaker 1: everything tends to continue in the state of rest or
[28:08] Speaker 1: of motion in which it is, and changes that state
[28:11] Speaker 1: only as a result of the interference of some extraneous cause.
[28:16] Speaker 1: Thus Descar's notion of matter harmonized with subsequent discoveries he
[28:22] Speaker 1: himself inferred from his notion of matter, the homogeneousness of space,
[28:28] Speaker 1: the existence of substance in the interstellar spaces, the formation
[28:32] Speaker 1: of the universe from a primitively homogeneous mass, the explanation
[28:37] Speaker 1: of the distinction between solid and fluid bodies, and so forth.
[28:41] Speaker 1: The only thing that extension confers on matter is mobility.
[28:47] Speaker 1: Matter is essentially inert. It receives its motion from the
[28:51] Speaker 1: first efficient cause. Descar devotes special attention to the application
[28:58] Speaker 1: of his mechanical concept of nature to diotrics. He discards
[29:03] Speaker 1: the entire scholastic system of forms, accidental and substantial, entitative
[29:10] Speaker 1: accounting for the qualities of things, and representative accounting for
[29:14] Speaker 1: our knowledge of things, and explains the phenomena of light, color, vision,
[29:20] Speaker 1: and so forth in terms of motion. All sensations he teaches,
[29:26] Speaker 1: including that of light, are accounted for by the motion
[29:29] Speaker 1: of particles. Light itself is a motion, not indeed a vibration.
[29:36] Speaker 1: Descar did not advance so far as this, but a
[29:40] Speaker 1: horizontal pushing of one particle by another. It is needless
[29:44] Speaker 1: to remark that long before the days of Dekar, Aristotle
[29:48] Speaker 1: denied the emission theory of light and held that light
[29:52] Speaker 1: is a mode of motion. Descar, however, advanced beyond all
[29:57] Speaker 1: his predecessors when he taught in volume eight of Discord
[30:02] Speaker 1: that the differences of one color from another is due
[30:06] Speaker 1: to the varying velocities with which the motions of light
[30:09] Speaker 1: reached the eye. Not less interesting is the portion of
[30:13] Speaker 1: the dioptric the sixth Discourse, in which he anticipates many
[30:17] Speaker 1: of Berkeley's contributions to the theory of vision psychology. It
[30:24] Speaker 1: is in de Scar Psychology that the disastrous consequences of
[30:28] Speaker 1: his doctrine of the two substances appear. If mind and
[30:32] Speaker 1: matter are so opposed as to have nothing in common,
[30:35] Speaker 1: the union of soul and body in man must be
[30:39] Speaker 1: merely a mechanical one. The body, Descar teaches, is a
[30:43] Speaker 1: machine so constructed that it carries its own operations by
[30:48] Speaker 1: virtue of the impulse received from the soul, which Descar
[30:52] Speaker 1: locates in the pineal gland. This portion of the brain
[30:56] Speaker 1: is selected as the seat of the soul because it
[30:59] Speaker 1: is the only part of the cerebral substance which is
[31:02] Speaker 1: not double, and it is evident their Car observes that
[31:06] Speaker 1: if the organ of the soul were double, we should
[31:09] Speaker 1: perceive two objects instead of one. It is important to
[31:12] Speaker 1: note that the Car attaches to the word mind a
[31:15] Speaker 1: meaning which is at once narrower than that of the
[31:18] Speaker 1: word soul and wider than that of the expression thinking faculty.
[31:24] Speaker 1: He defines mind as raise corgitans, but he includes under
[31:28] Speaker 1: the term thought sensation, imagination, and volition, as well as
[31:34] Speaker 1: the processes of ideation thought. In fact, he makes anonymous
[31:39] Speaker 1: with states of consciousness. Thought, however, does not include all
[31:44] Speaker 1: vital functions footnote Principia Philosophia, Volume one, page nine, and
[31:51] Speaker 1: a footnote. In his account of the physiological processes of
[31:56] Speaker 1: the body, as well in his doctrine regarding sensation, Descar
[32:00] Speaker 1: has recourse to the theory of animal spirits. The only
[32:04] Speaker 1: physiological principles which he admits are motion and warmth. God,
[32:10] Speaker 1: he observes, has placed in the hearts of men and
[32:13] Speaker 1: animals a vital warmth which promotes the circulation of blood. Footnote.
[32:19] Speaker 1: Descar mentions in terms of praise harvees the montu cordis
[32:24] Speaker 1: et Sanguinius and Animalibus of sixteen twenty eight end footnote,
[32:30] Speaker 1: and separates from the blood its finest and most mobile particles,
[32:35] Speaker 1: which constitute the animal spirits. Spiritus animalis the fluid, a
[32:41] Speaker 1: very supple wind, as he sometimes calls it, conveys the
[32:44] Speaker 1: stimulation of the senses to the pineal gland, and returning
[32:49] Speaker 1: through the nerves to the muscles, conveys the impulse of
[32:52] Speaker 1: motion from the pineal gland to the limbs. In animals,
[32:57] Speaker 1: there is no conscious sensation, but only this automatic response
[33:01] Speaker 1: of the animal mechanism to stimuli, so that when an
[33:05] Speaker 1: animal on the dissecting table utters what is apparently a
[33:08] Speaker 1: cry of pain, the noise is, as the Cortesian with
[33:12] Speaker 1: a sectionists, contended, merely the crash of broken machinery. In man, however,
[33:18] Speaker 1: the motion of the animal spirits, on reaching the pineal gland,
[33:22] Speaker 1: enters into the region of thought, and thus there arises
[33:25] Speaker 1: a passio. In the same way, the motion imparted by
[33:29] Speaker 1: the mind from the pineal gland leaves the region of
[33:33] Speaker 1: thought and is an actio. Hence, the contents of the
[33:37] Speaker 1: human mind Courgitachians are divided into actionions and paschons. Their car, however,
[33:45] Speaker 1: does not maintain this discrimination in the details of his
[33:48] Speaker 1: account of the contents of the human mind with regard
[33:51] Speaker 1: to the origin of ideas. Their cart at one time
[33:55] Speaker 1: held a threefold classification of ideas, namely in nat Die
[34:00] Speaker 1: Aventicia and R. Mepso Factai. He saw fit, however, at
[34:05] Speaker 1: a later period, to explain that by innate ideas he
[34:10] Speaker 1: meant merely natural dispositions of the mind which enable it
[34:14] Speaker 1: to develop certain ideas in the same sense he observes
[34:19] Speaker 1: in his answer to Regis footnote Cousin's edition of One
[34:24] Speaker 1: in ten page seventy end footnote. We say that certain
[34:29] Speaker 1: illnesses are innate in certain families, by which we mean
[34:33] Speaker 1: merely that children are born to the disposition for developing
[34:36] Speaker 1: those illnesses. None of our ideas therefore are actually innate.
[34:42] Speaker 1: All our ideas are either occasioned by our sensations, that is,
[34:47] Speaker 1: they come apparently at least from the world outside, and
[34:52] Speaker 1: are therefore called adventicia, or result from voluntary combinations of
[34:58] Speaker 1: elements of thought, and hence are called idea. Are mapes
[35:02] Speaker 1: of factai. Besides these two classes, we must distinguish the
[35:07] Speaker 1: innate dispositions to develop certain ideas, and these dispositions we
[35:13] Speaker 1: may describe as innate potencies of ideas. Descar contrasts will
[35:18] Speaker 1: with mind. The mind is essentially limited, while the will
[35:23] Speaker 1: is unlimited. We are directly and immediately conscious of our
[35:28] Speaker 1: power to perform or to omit certain actions, and in
[35:32] Speaker 1: this power freedom consists. Footnote Volume four Meditacion end footnote.
[35:41] Speaker 1: From the freedom of will comes the power of choosing
[35:43] Speaker 1: to assert that which we do not understand. The will
[35:48] Speaker 1: is therefore the source of error. Passions of the soul
[35:52] Speaker 1: form as we have seen the subject of especial treatise
[35:57] Speaker 1: by Dekar. Passion, like every other state of consciousness, is
[36:02] Speaker 1: a thought. It is not a state of the body,
[36:05] Speaker 1: for every state of the body is either a figure
[36:09] Speaker 1: or a movement. Still, it is occasioned by the body,
[36:13] Speaker 1: for it arises in the following manner. When an impression
[36:17] Speaker 1: is conveyed to the brain, the animal spirits are disturbed,
[36:21] Speaker 1: and the commotion thus produced results in approach or flight
[36:26] Speaker 1: or attitude of defense. Now, in the lower animals this
[36:31] Speaker 1: is all that takes place. But in the case of man,
[36:34] Speaker 1: the mind perceives this commotion of the animal spirits, and
[36:38] Speaker 1: the thought of the commotion is emotion or passion. Passion
[36:43] Speaker 1: therefore is a specifically human phenomenon. Footnote cross reference Mahafi
[36:51] Speaker 1: des Kar, page one hundred eighty four end footnote. According
[36:56] Speaker 1: to Dakar, the primitive emotions are six in number, admiratiu, armor, Odium, Cupititas, Tessier, Gaudium,
[37:08] Speaker 1: and Testacia. The consideration of the emotions leads us to
[37:13] Speaker 1: the next and last division of Deska's philosophy, namely his
[37:18] Speaker 1: ethical doctrines. Ethical doctrines, Dekhar did not attempt to elaborate
[37:24] Speaker 1: a system of ethics from the principles of his speculative philosophy.
[37:29] Speaker 1: In his letters, and especially in those addressed to Princess Elizabeth,
[37:35] Speaker 1: daughter of Frederic fifth of the Palatinate, and in those
[37:39] Speaker 1: written to Queen Christina, he lays down certain ethical principles
[37:44] Speaker 1: which betray the influence of the Stoics. The highest happiness,
[37:48] Speaker 1: he teaches, is to attain by striving for a knowledge
[37:52] Speaker 1: of what is right and by cultivating the will in
[37:56] Speaker 1: order to strengthen it in its resolve to do what
[37:58] Speaker 1: is right. Knowledge of God as the author of all things,
[38:03] Speaker 1: knowledge of the universe as infinite in magnitude, knowledge of
[38:07] Speaker 1: the soul as distinct from the body, and knowledge of
[38:11] Speaker 1: self as part of the domestic and civil society. These
[38:15] Speaker 1: are the greatest aids to the attainment of virtue. And happiness.
[38:19] Speaker 1: We should realize the unlimited power of the will, for
[38:24] Speaker 1: from this feeling of power springs the virtue of magnanimity,
[38:28] Speaker 1: which is the foundation of all other virtues. Footnote cross
[38:33] Speaker 1: reference hoff Thing History of Modern Philosophy, Volume one, pages
[38:38] Speaker 1: two forty and two forty one. Historical position. Dai Khar
[38:44] Speaker 1: exercised a profound influence on his own and subsequent generations.
[38:49] Speaker 1: He stirred the thinking world of his time to its
[38:52] Speaker 1: very depths. His doctrines left the impress on the theology, science,
[38:58] Speaker 1: and literature, as well as on the philosophy of the
[39:02] Speaker 1: seventeenth century. His philosophy was adopted and defended by religious orders.
[39:09] Speaker 1: He had for patrons the Prince of Conde, the ablest
[39:13] Speaker 1: general of the age, and such was the greatness of
[39:16] Speaker 1: his fame that more than one royal personage sought admission
[39:20] Speaker 1: to the ranks of his pupils. All this enthusiasm produced, however,
[39:25] Speaker 1: a natural reaction against his teachings. His works were placed
[39:30] Speaker 1: on the index dornek Kurigondur November twentieth, sixteen sixty three.
[39:37] Speaker 1: The Calvinist universities in Holland proscribed his writings and the
[39:42] Speaker 1: University of Oxford forbade the teaching of his philosophy footnote
[39:47] Speaker 1: cross reference Gonzales Oppersitatum, Volume three, page two hundred and
[39:53] Speaker 1: thirty nine, end footnote. But in spite of all opposition,
[39:58] Speaker 1: Deskar's influence continued, and it is hardly an exaggeration to
[40:02] Speaker 1: say that his thought determined the whole course of the
[40:05] Speaker 1: development of modern philosophy. Deska's philosophy is original in form
[40:10] Speaker 1: rather than content. His most noteworthy contribution to philosophy is
[40:15] Speaker 1: his method. His method is, as we have seen, essentially mathematical,
[40:21] Speaker 1: the very opposite of what is known as the scientific model.
[40:25] Speaker 1: Yet by a strange irony of fate, physical science owes
[40:29] Speaker 1: more to Descar than to Bacon, who sought to reform
[40:33] Speaker 1: the sciences by their introduction of the inductive in lieu
[40:37] Speaker 1: of the syllogistic process. De car has been compared to Socrates,
[40:42] Speaker 1: and indeed he is in a sense the Socrates of
[40:46] Speaker 1: modern thought. He called attention, as Socrates has done to
[40:50] Speaker 1: the necessity of studying the nature of thought and the
[40:53] Speaker 1: conditions of knowledge. But unfortunately for the subsequent development of philosophy,
[41:00] Speaker 1: he did not base his system of psychology on experience
[41:05] Speaker 1: all his psychological inquiry was vitiated by his preconceived doctrine
[41:10] Speaker 1: of the absolute antithesis of mind and matter, a doctrine which,
[41:16] Speaker 1: by creating an imaginary chasm between the subject and object,
[41:20] Speaker 1: underd all that Socrates, Aristotle, and the schoolmen had accomplished.
[41:25] Speaker 1: This doctrine is the luckless legacy of Cartesianism to modern thought.
[41:31] Speaker 1: For how to bridge the imaginary chasm between mind and
[41:36] Speaker 1: matter came to be the problem which almost every great
[41:40] Speaker 1: philosopher since Descartes has striven in vain to solve. From
[41:45] Speaker 1: this fundamental misconception of the relation between mind and matter
[41:50] Speaker 1: followed a complete misunderstanding of the purpose of philosophical inquiry.
[41:56] Speaker 1: After decar philosophy once more becomes anthrope eccentric. It produces
[42:01] Speaker 1: itself to the study of individual consciousness, to a geometry
[42:06] Speaker 1: of deductions from internal experience and the objective world. Its origin,
[42:13] Speaker 1: plan and destiny, the place of man in nature, and
[42:16] Speaker 1: even the existence of an intelligent first cause are all
[42:20] Speaker 1: made secondary subjects of our inquiry, to be decided according
[42:24] Speaker 1: to the result of the study of our own consciousness.
[42:29] Speaker 1: This inversion of the natural perspective is what a modern
[42:32] Speaker 1: writer has characterized as the topsy turvidom of Cortesianism. To Deskar,
[42:38] Speaker 1: too may be traced the misunderstanding which prevails between those
[42:43] Speaker 1: who believe in the spirituality of the human soul and
[42:47] Speaker 1: those who rightly insist on the value of experimental methods
[42:51] Speaker 1: in the study of psychic phenomena. For the concrete dualistic
[42:55] Speaker 1: spiritualism of Aristotle and the Schoolman substituted the absolute dualistic
[43:02] Speaker 1: spiritualism of Plato, thereby establishing at the outset of the
[43:08] Speaker 1: modern period an altogether unnecessary antagonism between spiritualism and empiricism,
[43:16] Speaker 1: an antagonism which eventually drove the empirical psychologist to adopt
[43:21] Speaker 1: the materialistic concept of the soul as the only concept
[43:24] Speaker 1: which justified the study of the correlation between psychic phenomena
[43:30] Speaker 1: and physiological processes. End of Chapter fifty four.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.