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Academic Skepticism in Seventeenth-Century French Philosophy pp 97–125Cite as

Descartes’s Rehabilitation of Science

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Abstract

Descartes pretends to establish a new model of science, immune to the kinds of objections raised by Charron and disciples, but which could overcome their skepticism. Through careful analysis of the texts, this chapter shows the close presence of Charron in the preambles of Descartes’s philosophy and that the cogito, Descartes’s first principle, supposedly immune to skeptical doubt, is mainly based on the moral Academic self-assurance of Charron’s wise man. This brings a new perspective on the source of Cartesianism, since the main source for the cogito was thought to be found in Augustine’s reply to Academic skepticism. This new interpretation reverses the case, since the Academic skeptical position is not the enemy attacked by Descartes with the cogito, but the very source of it, so that the relevant kind of skepticism for Descartes is not the object of his refutation but the main inspiration for his own philosophy. However, Charron’s skeptical Academic wisdom is only the point of departure since through hyperbolic doubt Descartes transforms the self-assurance of the Academic sage into the mind/body metaphysical distinction.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Popkin (1954). It is rather odd that such an important connection has not been explored in recent Charronian scholarship. One remarkable exception is Paganini (1991, 28–29, 2008b), who indicates some innovations that Charron introduces in the skeptical tradition that become crucial in Descartes’s methodical doubt, notably, the active role of the will.

  2. 2.

    Groarke (1984, 297), Fine (2000, 200), Bermúdez (2000, 342).

  3. 3.

    See Paganini (2008a, 253).

  4. 4.

    There are two reasons why I think Descartes was not acquainted with Sextus’ books, besides the fact that he never mentions him. First, the diffusion of Sextus’ works was restricted, limited to expert scholars and skeptics. Secondly, there is no single text in Descartes directly reminiscent of Sextus. The situation is otherwise on these two grounds with respect to Cicero’s Academica. See Curley (1978, 58–69), Burnyeat (1982, 3–40), Williams (1986, 117–139), Groarke (1984), and Lennon (2008, 242–244, 2011).

  5. 5.

    Besides Charron’s Sagesse, Descartes probably read Montaigne’s Essais and probably at least one of François de La Mothe Le Vayer’s numerous skeptical works (see Mehl 1999; Cavaillé 2003; Paganini 2008a, 248–270). Descartes refers to Montaigne and Charron in a letter to Newcastle of 23 November 1646 (AT, IV, 573) and to La Mothe Le Vayer’s De l’instruction du Dauphin (Paris: S. Cramoisy, 1640), in a letter to Mersenne of 28 October 1640 (AT, III, 207). There are also textual indications that he read Francisco Sanches’ Quod nihil scitur (see Limbrick 1982 and Paganini 2009) and Agrippa de Nettesheim’s De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum (see Mehl 1999, 95–96). He may also have read Gassendi’s Exercitationes and Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola’s Examen vanitates doctrinae gentium.

  6. 6.

    The Duke de Luynes translates Descartes’s passage as follows: “ce ne fust pas sans quelque dégoust que ie remâchois vne viande si commune” (AT, IX, 103). “Commune,” which is not in Descartes’s Latin original, can have the more neutral meaning of quite diffused, as the skeptical views were among les “honnestes hommes”: “Un honneste homme n’est pas obligé d’avoir veu tous les livres, ni d’avoir appris soigneusement tout ce qui s’enseigne dans les escholes” (AT, X, 495).

  7. 7.

    Montaigne is this “habile homme”: “[Le sçavoir] est un dangereux glaive, et qui empesche et offence son maistre, s’il est en main foible et qui n’en sçache l’usage” (E, I, 25, 140).

  8. 8.

    “cuire et digerer les choses receuës par l’imagination, c’est raison … cette action de ruminer, recuire, repasser par l’estamine de la raison, et encores plus eslabourer, pour en faire une resolution plus solide, c’est le jugement” (S, I, 14, 132). Montaigne uses the same metaphor for judging: “L’estomac n’a pas faict son operation, s’il na faict changer la façon et la forme à ce qu’on luy avoit donné à cuire” (E, I, 26, 151).

  9. 9.

    “plustost se tenir au doute en suspens, principalement és choses, qui reçoivent oppositions et raisons de toutes parts, mal aisées à cuire et digerer; c’est une belle chose, que sçavoir bien ignorer et douter, et la plus seure, de laquelle ont fait profession les plus nobles Philosophes, voire c’est le principal effet et fruit de la science” (S, III, 6, 632–633).

  10. 10.

    “Au reste certaines choses qui sembloient à aucuns trop cruës et courtes, ou rudes et dures pour les simples: car les forts relevez ont l’estomac assez chaud pour cuire et digerer tout, je les ay pour l’amour d’eux expliqué et addoucy en la seconde edition” (PTS, 864–865).

  11. 11.

    Descartes’s direct source for this passage, to which I return below, is in chapter 43 of book I De la Sagesse.

  12. 12.

    This is confirmed, for example, in Boase’s (1935) chapter on Montaigne’s influence on Descartes, where most of the textual sources given are from De la Sagesse, not from the Essais.

  13. 13.

    This evidence challenges Curley’s (1978, 37ff) hypothesis that Descartes becomes aware of the skeptical challenge posed by the skeptics of his time only after he wrote the Regulae.

  14. 14.

    Boase (1935, 223–224), Gouhier (1958, 50n18), Adam (1992), Rodis-Lewis (1994).

  15. 15.

    Faye (1998, 295). The point was first made by Boase (1935, 224). Descartes says in the Discours that his goal is to “marcher auec assurance en cete vie” (AT, VI, 10). See also the second maxim of Descartes’s provisional morals (discussed below) and the conclusion of the morals: “ie m’auisay de faire vne reueuë sur les diuerses occupations qu’ont les hommes en cete vie, pour tascher a faire chois de la meilleure; & … ie pensay que ie ne pouuois mieux que de continuër en celle la mesme ou ie me trouuois, c’est a dire, que d’employer toute ma vie a cultiuer ma raison, & m’auancer, autant que ie pourrois, en la connoissance de la verité, suiuant la Method que ie m’estois prescrite” (AT, VI, 27). Commenting on the discovery of a copy of De la Sagesse purportedly given to Descartes precisely in the winter of 1619 by a Jesuit named Molitor (see de Buzon 1994, 1–3), Rodis-Lewis suggests that this “personne sage” is this Jesuit (1995, 76). I find more likely that this is Charron himself.

  16. 16.

    “pour toutes les opinions que i’auois recuës iusques alors en ma creance, ie ne pouuois mieux faire que d’entreprendre, vne bonne fois, de les en oster” (AT, VI, 13). In the third part of the Discourse, also referring to the thoughts he had in 10 November 1619, he says that apart from the moral maxims (which, as I point out below, are also present in Charron’s Sagesse) and the truths of faith (which Charron also claims to exclude from the scope of the wise man’s épochè (PTS, 859–860), “pour tout le reste de mes opinions, ie pouuois librement entreprendre de m’en defaire” (AT, VI, 28).

  17. 17.

    In his commentary on the Discourse, Gilson says that Descartes’s conception of a human science independent of theology comes from Montaigne, Charron and the Christian stoicism of the period. The major difference according to him between the Cartesian and the Renaissance conceptions of wisdom is that while the latter is either based on erudition or empty (he cites Charron’s rejection of “wisdom” based on erudition and memory), “[a]vec Descartes, au contraire, la pensée moderne débouche en quelque sorte de la Renaissance. En choisissant les mathématiques comme type de la science, Descartes fait passer la science de la mémoire à la raison. Il peut donc joindre ses critiques à celles de Montaigne et de Charron contre l’érudition scolaire qui garnit la mémoire sans former le jugement.” (Gilson 1947, 94).

  18. 18.

    To Mersenne, 15 April 1630, Descartes says that “ce que ie nomme propremant Theologie” is “ce qui depent de la reuelation” (AT, I, 144).

  19. 19.

    More on Charron’s view of the excellence and limited perfection of wisdom in Chap. 2, Sects. 2.3 and 2.4.

  20. 20.

    A heresy combatted by Augustine which dismisses the consequences of original sin. Charron’s and Descartes’s replies are based on Molinism.

  21. 21.

    When Charron distinguishes human from divine wisdom and says that in De la Sagesse he deals only with the former, he says he discusses the latter in his theological works, Les Trois Veritez and the Discours Chrétiens (S, 28).

  22. 22.

    “Il faut que la preud’homie, naisse en luy par luy mesme, c’est à dire, par le ressort interne que Dieu y a mis, et non par aucun autre externe estranger, par aucune occasion ou induction … je veux en mon sage une preud’homie essentielle et invincible, qui tienne de soy mesme, et par sa propre racine, et qui aussi peu s’en puisse arracher et separer, que l’humanité de l’homme: Je veux que jamais il ne consente au mal” (S, II, 3, 421–422).

  23. 23.

    The passage of the Discourse which suscitated the accusation of Pelagianism is the following: “nostre volonté ne se portant a suivre ny a fuir aucune chose, que selon que nostre entendement luy represente bonne ou mauvaise, il suffit de bien juger, pour bien faire, & de juger le mieux qu’on puisse, pour faire aussy tout son mieux, c’est a dire, pour acquerir toutes les vertus, & ensemble tous les autres biens, qu’on puisse acquerir” (AT, VI, 28). The similarity with Charron’s position is remarkable.

  24. 24.

    See also the letter to Mersenne of March 1642: “Pelagius a dit qu’on pouuoit faire de bonnes oeuures & meriter la Vie eternelle sans la Grace, ce qui a esté condamné de l’Eglise; & moy, ie dis qu’on peut connoistre par la raison naturelle que Dieu existe, mais ie ne dis pas pour cela que cette connoissance naturelle merite de soy, & sans la Grace, la Gloire surnaturelle que nous attendons dans le Ciel. Car, au contraire, il est euident que, cette Gloire estant surnaturelle, il faut des forces plus que naturelles pour la meriter” (AT, III, 544).

  25. 25.

    Although Charron, like Descartes, conceives of theology as supernatural revealed theology and uses this conception to claim the autonomy of philosophy, he is not as coherent as Descartes on this separation between divine and humane wisdom for he argues that human wisdom is necessary—although not sufficient, else he would be Pelagian—for receiving grace (see S, II, 3, 434). In Maia Neto (1997), I suggested that Descartes finds in the Molinist theologians his argument against the charge of Pelagianism. I now think that Descartes’s relation to Molinism was probably mediated by his close and early reading of Charron.

  26. 26.

    Montaigne, Essais, II, 12, 501–502.

  27. 27.

    “For, after our solid arguments, we deem it quite proper to poke fun at those conceited braggarts, the Dogmatists” (PH I.62).

  28. 28.

    Charron uses extensively the 10th mode based on the discrepancy of values, customs, and beliefs (PH I. 145–163), that was fed, re-enforced, and enlarged at the time by the reports coming from the new world. Of course a major source for him is Montaigne’s Essais, in particular the one on the cannibals (E, I, 31). See Chap. 4 for La Mothe Le Vayer’s exploitation of this mode. For the impact of the New World in modern skepticism, see Marcondes (2009).

  29. 29.

    “Mais ils [the dogmatists] veulent que l’on se sous-mette souverainement et en dernier ressort à certains principes, qui est une injuste tyrannie” (S, II, 2, 402). “A ceux qui combatent par presupposition, il leur faut presupposer, au contraire, le mesme axiome dequoy on debat. Car toute presupposition humaine et toute enunciation a autant d’authorité que l’autre, si la raison n’en faict la difference. Ainsi il les faut toutes mettre à la balance; et premierement les generalles, et celles qui nous tyrannisent” (E, II, 12, 540–541).

  30. 30.

    I return to this point in connection to Descartes’s first moral maxim.

  31. 31.

    See Charron, Les Trois Vérités, chapter 1 “Discours de la cognoissance de Dieu” and his Discours Chrétiens, “de la cognoissance de Dieu” in Oeuvres (1970). Charron’s source is Montaigne: “Or n’y peut-il avoir des principes aux hommes, si la divinité ne les leur a revelez: de tout le demeurant, et le commencement, et le milieu, et la fin, ce n’est que songe et fumée” (E, II, 12, 540).

  32. 32.

    “Qui est celuy au monde qui aye droit de commander et donner la loy au monde, sassujetir les esprits, et donner les principes qui ne soyent plus examinables, que l’on ne puisse plus nier ou douter, que Dieu seul le Souverain esprit et le vray principe du monde, qui seul est à croire pour ce qu’il le dit? Tout autre est sujet à l’examen et à opposition, c’est foiblesse de s’y assujettir. Si l’on veut que je m’assujetisse aux principes, je diray … accordés vous premierement de ces principes, et puis je m’y sous-mettray” (S, II, 2, 403). Of course this concerns only genuine divine revelation. Religion as a mere human institution often constitutes superstition, which is entirely subject to skeptical zetesis and épochè. See Chap. 4 for La Mothe le Vayer’s development of Charron’s attack on superstition. Note also that Descartes’s exception of revealed theology from the scope of his doubt (AT, VI, 28) has a similar justification.

  33. 33.

    In Chap. 4, Sect. 4.2, I argue that Charron’s view is similar to Plutarch’s—and, though to a less extent, also Cicero’s—Academic one. In the previous chapters, I argue that the skepticism of Charron’s, La Mothe Le Vayer’s and the Gassendi of the Exercitationes can be characterized as ephetic

  34. 34.

    “tournoyant tousjours et tatonnant à l’entour des apparences … nous sommes nais à quester la verité: la posseder appartient à une plus haute et grande puissance” (S, I, 14, 138). See Cicero, Tusc disp I.23.

  35. 35.

    “ie reputois presque pour faux tout ce qui n’estoit que vraysemblable”(AT, VI, 8). In Maia Neto (2013), I examine Descartes’s attack on probability against the background of the reception of this skeptic Academic doctrine by Montaigne, Charron and La Mothe Le Vayer.

  36. 36.

    Note that presumption here appears in the context of diaphonic established philosophy. It will not appear, according to Descartes, in the context of his new philosophy, where the work of hyperbolic doubt restored the purity of the natural light of reason, thereby eliminating any ground for conflict or diaphonia. I return to this point below, showing that Descartes takes into account Charron’s own explication of diaphonia.

  37. 37.

    “Entreprendra d’examiner tout, et juger la pluspart des choses plausiblement receuës du monde, ridicules et absurdes, trouvant par tout de l’apparence, passera par dessus tout: et ce faisant il est à craindre qu’il s’esgare et se perde” (S, I, 14, 140).

  38. 38.

    Montaigne is, once more, Charron’s likely source: “Les sçavans à qui touche la jurisdiction livresque, ne connoissent autre prix que de la doctrine, et n’advouent autre proceder en noz esprits que celuy de l’erudition et de l’art: … Qui ignore Aristote, selon eux s’ignore quand et quand soymesme. Les ames communes et populaires ne voyent pas la grace et le pois d’un discours hautain et deslié. Or, ces deux especes occupent le monde. La tierce, à qui vous tombez en partage, des ames reglées et fortes d’elles-mesmes, est si rare que justement elle n’a ny nom, ny rang entre nous: c’est à demy temps perdu, d’aspirer et de s’efforcer à luy plaire” (E, II, 17, 657). Charron gives a name to this third type, the Academic wise man, who has an esprit strong enough to avoid error by suspending judgment.

  39. 39.

    See Sirven (1928, 262–273), Boase (1935, 209–237), Rodis-Lewis (1994), Faye (1998, 296–299).

  40. 40.

    “Aprés m’estre ainsi assuré de ces maximes, & les auoir mises a part, auec les veritez de la foy, qui ont tousiours esté les premieres en ma creance, ie iugay que, pour tout le reste de mes opinions, je pouuois librement entreprendre de m’en defaire” (AT, VI, 28).

  41. 41.

    “& que faisant, comme on dit, de necessité vertu, nous ne desirerons pas dauantage d’estre sains, estant malades, ou d’estre libres, estant en prison” (AT, VI, 26). “Il n’y a point de meilleur remede, que de vouloir ce qu’elle veut; et selon l’advis de sagesse faire de necessité vertu” (S, III, 20, 734).

  42. 42.

    Charron acknowledges that he has “fort servy” of Du Vair in the chapters on the passions (S, I, 153). On Du Vair’s influence on Charron’s De la Sagesse, see Kogel (1972, 30) and Tarrête (2008).

  43. 43.

    See also Charron’s chapter on the will: “La volonté est un grande piece, de tresgrand importance, et doibt l’homme estudier sur tout à la bien regler … elle seule est vrayement nostre et en nostre puissance” (S, I, 17, 151).

  44. 44.

    See also the Petit Traité: “Le sixiesme office et traict du sage qui regarde la volonté, est une forte et ferme probité et preud’hommie, laquelle naisse en luy par lui-mesme, c’est à dire par la consideration qu’il est homme” (PTS, 842). The seventh feature of wisdom in the PTS is “viser et se conduire tousjours selon nature et raison” (PTS, 845). Faye and Kogel give Charron’s probable source (which could also have been Descartes’s) in Du Vair: “Le bien donc de l’homme consistera en l’usage de la droite raison, qui est à dire en la vertu, laquelle n’est autre chose que la ferme disposition de notre volonté à suivre ce qui est honnete et convenable … le bien de l’homme et la perfection de sa nature consiste en une droite disposition de sa volonté à user des choses qui se présentent selon la raison” (Philosophie Morale, pp. 66–67, apud Kogel 1972, 62).

  45. 45.

    “Le vray office de l’homme, son plus propre et plus naturel exercice, sa plus digne occupation est de juger” (S, I, 2, 389).

  46. 46.

    The originality of Charron’s definition of preud’homie in face of Du Vair’s (which makes him a much more likely source of Descartes than the neo-Stoic) lies in this application of the firmness of the will to follow a skeptical reason.

  47. 47.

    Voluntarism is also required to take as false what is just doubtful (AT, VI, 31).

  48. 48.

    “l’epoché si configura nelle pagine charroniane come un moto energico di liberazione dal complesso delle credenze, moto che richiede dunque una disciplina ed un esercizio intenzionali tanto dell’intelletto quanto della volontà, secondo una linea di pensiero che giungerà sino a Descartes, con la trasformazione del dubbio da accadimento subìto in metodo consapevole e riflesso” (Paganini 1991, 28). See also Paganini (2008b).

  49. 49.

    See Chap. 2, end of Sect. 2.3.

  50. 50.

    The maxim is presented in Sextus as one of the four practical rules followed by the Pyrrhonians—PH I.24. It is crucial to explain the Academic position (against philosophical religion but not at all irreligious) in Cicero’s De Natura Deorum (see Chap. 4, Sect. 4.2).

  51. 51.

    “Or les loix se maintiennent en credit, non par ce qu’elles sont justes, mais par ce qu’elles sont loix. C’est le fondement mystique de leur authorité” (Essais, III, 13, 1072).

  52. 52.

    Gilson, who remarks the presence of the maxim in De la Sagesse, points out that it “n’engage … aucunement l’adhésion de la pensée aux usages reçus et laisse intact le problème théorique de la vérité qui s’y rapporte” (Gilson 1947, 235). This maxim is also related—as Gilson notices—to the political conservatism of Charron and Descartes. In this same chapter, Charron has a paragraph “Contre les novateurs des loix.” He notes that although there are and have been many “loix au monde injustes,” people have lived with them “en profonde paix et repos” for “la nature humaine s’accommode à tout avec le temps.” For this reason, attempts at radical social and political reform “produit tousjours plus et plustost mal que bien, il apporte des maux tout certains et presens, pour un bien à venir et incertain” (S, II, 8, 498–499). Descartes says that social institutions and laws should not be reformed in the radical way he is reforming his thoughts “[p]uis, pour leurs imperfections, s’ils en ont, comme la seule diuersité qui este entre eux suffit pour assurer que plusieurs en ont (a Charronian skeptical point), l’vsage les a sans doute fort adoucies … Et enfin, elles sont quasi tousiours plus supportables que ne seroit leur changement” (AT, VI, 14). See Battista (1966) for a detailed analysis of the skeptical trust of Charron’s political thought and its differences from Montaigne’s.

  53. 53.

    Myles Burnyeat argues that idealism is not a philosophical position tenable in the context of ancient philosophy. The “appearances” or phenomena that the Pyrrhonians accepted as guide of their practical life could not possibly be considered as (philosophical) true. Referring to Descartes’s certainty of his subjective states in the beginning of the Second Meditation, Burnyeat comments that “subjective truth has arrived to stay, constituting one’s own experience as an object for description like any other” (1982, 38–39).

  54. 54.

    Although there is no such abyss with respect to Descartes’s own personal doubt as described in parts I-III of the Discourse.

  55. 55.

    This is the aspect of Charron’s skepticism most developed by La Mothe Le Vayer (see Chap. 4).

  56. 56.

    “en voyasgeant, ayant reconnu que tous ceux qui ont des sentimens fort contraires aux nostres, ne sont pas, pour cela, barbares …” (AT, VI, 16). Charron says in the chapter on the three kinds of sprits that the pedants “pensent que par tout est ainsi, ou doit estre: que si c’est autrement, ils faillent et sont barbares” (S, I, 43, 291). Gilson (1947, 291) refers to Montaigne’s essay on the cannibals (E, I, 31, 205): “chacun appele barbarie ce qui n’est pas de son usage.” The wording and the context of Descartes’s passage suggest that his source is Charron, not Montaigne. Charron is also the probable source of a similar passage in Gassendi’s Exercitationes cited in Chap. 3, Sect. 3.1.

  57. 57.

    For Descartes’s view of the skeptics in his whole corpus, see Lennon (2008, 62–77) and Paganini (2008a, 229–312).

  58. 58.

    To begin with, the resolution of the will to get rid of all opinions, except those of faith, is a Charronian position. In the chapter on intellectual freedom (first disposition to wisdom), in which Charron recommends that one examine everything but assent to nothing, he says that “par toutes choses, et aucune chose (car il est dit, juger toutes choses, ne s’assurer d’aucune) nous n’entendons les veritez divines qui nos ont esté revelées, lesquelles il faut recevoir simplement avec toute humilité et soubmission … Mais nous entendons toutes autres choses sans exception” (S, II, 2, 388). Further, the detached attitude that Descartes expresses in the dramaturgic model is also recommended by Charron, “demourant au mond sans estre du monde,” it is necessary that the wise man “[descharge] son ame de tous vices et opinions populaires, et la r’avoir de cette confusion et captivité, pour la retirer à soy, et la mettre en liberté” (S, II, 1, 379).

  59. 59.

    Descartes denies that he had produced any positive philosophy before 1628/1629, despite the rumors to the contrary. “Ie ne sçaurois pas dire sur quoy ils fondoient cete opinion; & si i’y ay contribué quelque chose par mes discours, ce doit auoir esté en confessant plus ingenuëment ce que i’ignorois, que n’ont coustume de faire ceux qui ont vn peu estudié, & peutestre aussy en faisant voir les raisons que i’auois de douter de beaucoup de choses que les autres estiment certaines, plutost qu’en me vantant d’aucune doctrine” (AT, VI, 30). Descartes is probably alluding to his rejection of Chandoux’s philosophy on the bases that it was only “vraisemblable.” See Baillet (1691, vol. 2, 160–166).

  60. 60.

    Montaigne, defending épochè against assent to probabilty, says that it is “la plus seure assiete de nostre entendement, et la plus heureuse,” a mental position “rassis, droit, inflexible, sans bransle et sans agitation” (E, II, 12, 562).

  61. 61.

    Gassendi says, in a passage commented in Chap. 3, Sect. 3.3, that the skeptics, unlike the dogmatists, preserve freedom: “Nisi forte libertas illa nihili aestimanda est? quam qui semel adepti sunt, in asylum adeo tutum sese receperunt” (Ex, I, II, 7, 59).

  62. 62.

    “Il n’y a point de secte de Philosophie qui presente une fin plus souhaittable, ny qui conduise à un port tant à l’abry des orages et agitations, que celle-cy” (“De la philosophie sceptique,” DIA, 60). This and a number of other similar passages are examined in Chap. 4, Sect. 4.1. See Chap. 4, note 40, for the similarities between this dialogue of La Mothe’s and Descartes’s unfinished dialogue La Recherche de la Vérité.

  63. 63.

    Gassendi (1962, instantia 2, 68–70).

  64. 64.

    “Neque putandum est eorum sectam dudum esse extinctam. Viget enim hodie quàm maxime, ac fere omnes, qui se aliquid ingenii prae caeteris habere putant, nihil invenientes in vulgari Philosophià quod ipsis satisfaciat, aliamque veriorem non videntes, ad Scepticam tranfugiunt… Quippe omnes hodierni Sceptici non dubitant quidem in praxi, quin habeant caput, quin 2 & 3 faciant 5, & talia; sed dicunt se tantum iis uti tanquam veris, quia sic apparent, non autem certo credere, quia nullis certis rationibus ad id impelluntur” (AT, VII, 548–49). The only historically problematic claim of Descartes to Bourdin about the skeptics is that they doubt the existence of God. Paganini (2008a, 243–248) discusses in detail this passage, agreeing that these skeptics referred by Descartes are atheists, the main one being La Mothe Le Vayer. In Chap. 3, I provide a different interpretation of the relationship between La Mothe’s skepticism and religion.

  65. 65.

    See Second and Third Replies, respectively (AT, VII, 130 and 171–172), and Notae in programma quoddam (AT, VIII, 367).

  66. 66.

    To Reneri through Pollot, April or May 1638 (AT, II, 38).

  67. 67.

    In his edition of Descartes’s philosophical works, Alquié finds “curieux qu’en ce texte la mise en jeu de celle-ci [the recovery of the integrity of natural light] soit attribuée à un grand naturel ou aux instructions de quelque-sage” (Descartes 1992, II, 1106n2). CSM (II, 400), probably to avoid the puzzle, take “naturel” and “sage” as adjectives modifying, respectively, “talent” and “teacher,” nouns which are absent from the text.

  68. 68.

    I note above that Descartes’s claim in Olympica that “dicta sapientum ad paucissimas quasdam regulas generales possum reduci” (AT, X, 217) seems related to this title of book II. The reappearance of the claim in the opening paragraph of La Recherche shows the early and deep influence of Charron’s Academic pedagogical view in Descartes’s thought.

  69. 69.

    The dialogue has three characters. Epistemon is a typical representative of dogmatic/pedantic Science. He “sçait exactement tout ce qui se peut apprendre dans les escholes” (AT, X, 499). Eudoxe, who stands for Descartes himself, is “un homme de mediocre esprit, mais duquel le jugement n’est perverti par aucune fausse creance, & qui possede tout la raison selon la pureté de sa nature” (AT, X, 498). He is someone who has done exactly what Descartes says in the Discours (parts I-III) he did after he left college. Poliandre, Eudoxe’s disciple, “n’a jamais estudié” for, he tells the other two, his parents “s’estants persuadés que l’exercice des lettres rendoit les courages plus lasches, m’ont envoyé si jeune à la Cour & dans les armées,” an itinerary Descartes said he choose to follow: “C’est pourquoy, sitost que l’aage me permit de sortir de la suietion de mes Precepteurs, ie quittay entierement l’estude de lettres. Et me resoluant de ne chercher plus d’autre science, que celle qui se pourroit trouuer en moymesme, ou bien dans le grand liure du monde, i’employay le reste de ma ieunesse à voyasger, a voir des cours & des armées, a frequenter des gens de diuerses humeurs & conditions” (AT, VI, 9). For Charron’s influence on this topic, see Sect. 5.6 above and his chapter on “des devoirs de parens et enfans” : “Quelle plus notable folie au monde, qu’admirer plus la science, l’aquis, la memoire, que la sagesse, le naturel? … ils veulent l’art et la science: Car c’est un moyen maintenant en l’Europe Occidentale d’acquerir bruit, reputation, richesses. Ces gens cy font de science mestier et marchandise, science mercenaire, pedantesque, sordide, et mecanique … Au rebours je ne puis que je ne blasme et ne note icy l’opinion et la façon d’aucuns de noz Gentilshommes François … qui ont à tel desdain et mespris la science, qu’ils en estiment moins un honneste homme pour ce seulment qu’il a estudié, la descrient comme chose qui semble heurter aucunement la Noblesse” (S, III, 14, 686).

  70. 70.

    This brings to mind Charron’s figure of science in the frontispiece of his work, a woman who holds an open book where one reads “oui et non,” which also recalls Descartes’s Olympica (see Sect. 5.1 above).

  71. 71.

    “Foiblesse” is precisely how Charron describes the senses in book I. “De la foiblesse et incertitude de nos sens viennent ignorance, erreurs, et tout mesconte” (S, I, 9, 112). The other major source of beliefs is hearsay and the authority of preceptors, parents, etc: “Presque toutes les opinions que nous avons, nous ne les avons que par authorité” (S, I, 16, 150).

  72. 72.

    The context of the chapter is the distinctions that can be remarked among men. The first one dealt with by Charron in the previous chapter concerns the differences due to different climates and temperaments, in which Charron borrows respectively from Jean Bodin and Juan Huarte de San Juan. For the skeptical thrust of this first kind of distinction, see Gregory (1967). For its place in De la Sagesse and relation to the differences due to “l’esprit,” see Paganini (1987).

  73. 73.

    Charron says that judging is what is most proper to man, what differs him from the beasts. All men judge, but only the sage does it perfectly (S, II, 2, 389–90).

  74. 74.

    “Or ne trouver pas le vray, ce n’est pas mal juger; mal juger c’est mal peser, balancer … les oppositions et contradictions raisonées sont les vray moyens d’exercer cet office de juger” (S, II, 2, 399).

  75. 75.

    That this view of Charron’s, which is crucial for Descartes, is Academic is clear in passages such as the following: “surseance et indifference de jugement, par laquelle l’homme considerant tout comme dict est … ne s’aheurte, ny se lie ou oblige à aucune chose, mais se tient libre, universel et ouvert à tout, tousjours prest à recevoir la verité, si elle se presente, adherant cependant au meilleur et plus vray semblable qui luy apparoit tel, … C’est la modestie Academique tant requise au Sage par laquelle il est tousjours prest et capable de verité et raison quand elle se presente” (PTS, 838–39).

  76. 76.

    “Vixdum mihi exiguam illam, quam habemus de rerum, quarum cognitio non nisi sensuum auxilio ad nos pervenit, existentià, certitudinem ostenderas, cùm de iis dubitare incepi, idque simul ad mihi meam dubitationem ejusdemque certitudinem commonstrandum suffecit: ita ut possim adfirmare, simulac dubitare sum adgressus, etiam cum certitudine me cognoscere occepisse. Sed non ad eadem objecta mea dubitatio, meaque certitudo referebantur. Quippe mea dubitatio circa eas tantùm versabatur res, quae extra me exsistebant; certitudo verò meam dubitationem, meque ipsum, spectabat” (AT, X, 524–525).

  77. 77.

    It has been noticed, notably by Mehl (1999, 83–91), that Descartes derives here the cogito directly from doubt, and not from thought, what makes, according to Mehl, the version of the cogito in La Recherche a less developed one than that of the Meditations. According to Mehl, a still earlier formulation of the cogito appears as Socratic assurance in the Regulae: “si Socrates dicit se dubitare de omnibus, hinc necessariò sequitur: ergo hoc saltem intelligit, quòd dubitat; item, ergo cognoscit aliquid posse esse verum vel falsum, &c., ista enim naturae dubitationis necessariò annexa sunt” (AT, X, 421). This formulation is even closer to Charron’s avowedly Socratic certainty that he knows nothing.

  78. 78.

    The tranquility of the mind is the “fruit et la couronne de sagesse.” “La tempeste et l’orage a beaucoup moins de prinse et de moyen de nuire, quand les voiles sont recueillies, que quand elles sont au vent; s’affermir contre tout ce qui peut blesser ou heurter [basically, opinions] … Et ainsi se tenir ferme à soy, s’accorder bien avec soy, vivre à l’aise sans aucune peine ny dispute au dedans … s’entretenir et demeurer content de soy, qui est le fruit et le propre effet de la sagesse” (S, II, 12, 540–541).

  79. 79.

    “Mais, aussitost aprés, ie pris garde que, pendant que ie voulois ainsi penser que tout estoit faux, il falloit necessairement que moy, qui le pensois, fusse quelque chose. Et remarquant que cete verité: ie pense, donc ie suis, estoit si ferme & si assurée, que toutes les plus extrauagantes suppositions des Sceptiques n’estoient pas capables de l’esbranler, ie iugay que ie pouuois la receuoir, sans scrupule, pour le premier principe de la Philosophie, que ie cherchois” (AT, VI, 32).

  80. 80.

    Referring to Sextus’ statement of the phenomenon as the practical criterion of the skeptics, Burnyeat (1982, 30) says that Sextus’ language is “not a language of a man afflicted with radical Cartesian doubt as to whether he has a body to act with and a world to act in at all. One’s own body has not yet become for philosophy part of the external world.” Burnyeat (1984) distinguishes modern Cartesian doubt from ancient doubt arguing that unlike the latter the former is “insulated” from practical life. See also Paganini (1991, 112–13), who contrasts Descartes’s position on this subject to Montaigne’s and Gassendi’s.

  81. 81.

    Wisdom is “une droicture et belle composition de tout l’homme” (S, 28—emphasis added).

  82. 82.

    Paganini (1991, 117–121) shows that with his hyperbolic doubt Descartes destroys the whole practical thrust of skepticism, the ancient and that of his contemporaries. This modification was decisive for the fate of the skeptical tradition, few today considering this philosophy as a philosophy to be lived by and not a merely abstract epistemological position.

  83. 83.

    Right after the passage in which Descartes attributes to the role of the “instructions de quelque sage” to get rid of false opinions and “jetter les premiers fondemens d’une science solide,” he says his proposal is “de mettre en evidence les veritables richesses de nos ames” (AT, X, 496).

  84. 84.

    Gassendi appears as a follower of Charron’s not only in his first published work, the Exercitationes examined in Chap. 3, but also in his rejection, in the dubitatio unica concerning the First Meditation, of Descartes’s skeptical arguments—the evil genius, the deceiver god, and the dream—on the grounds that they are artificial (note that Gassendi’s doubt is a doubt to be lived by, a doubt that leads to wisdom, this being the context in which he praises Descartes’s goal of getting rid of prejudices) and deviated from tradition (Gassendi 1962, 30). Gassendi sees well—and here as elsewhere in his Disquisitio denounces—that Descartes’s anti-skepticism begins with his doubt. See Gouhier (1958, 33).

  85. 85.

    “Ce n’est pas la verité ni le naturel des choses qui nous remuë et agite ainsi l’ame. C’est l’opinion … La verité et l’estre des choses n’entre ny ne loge chez nous de soy-mesme, de sa propre force et authorité: s’il estoit ainsi, toutes choses seroient receuës de tous, toutes pareilles et de mesme façon, sauf peu plus, peu moins, tous seroient de mesme creance: et la verité qui n’est jamais qu’une et uniforme, seroit embrassée de tout le monde; Or il y a si grande diversité, voire contrarieté d’opinionns …” (S, I, 16, 149). There is no diaphonia among the beasts which, because freed of opinions, remain in the realm of natural law. “Pour simplement vivre bien selon la nature, les bestes sont de beaucoup plus advantages; vivent plus libres; asseurées, moderées, contentes. Et l’homme est sage qui les considere, qui s’en fait leçon et son profit; en ce faisant il se forme à l’innocence, simplicité, liberté, et douceur naturelle, qui reluit aux bestes, et est tout alterée et corrompuë en nous par nos artificielles inventions, et desbauches, abusant de ce que nous disons avoir par dessus elles, qui est l’esprit et jugement” (S, I, 18, 219).

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Neto, J.R.M. (2014). Descartes’s Rehabilitation of Science. In: Academic Skepticism in Seventeenth-Century French Philosophy. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 215. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07359-0_5

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