Seminar Paper: Descartes

Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz ([dey-kahrt] [spi-noh-zuh][lahyb-nits])

Descartes is regarded to many as the beginning of modern philosophy, moving away from scholasticism and the traditional teachings of Aristotle and the Bible. He endeavours to construct a complete philosophic new structure. This is a sign of self-confidence from the progress of science, Descartes was anxious to communicate his findings. He wanted a theory of knowledge that could stand the test of time.

*CONTEXT* Western philosophy in the 17^th and 18^th century was divided between British empiricism and continental rationalism. Locke and Bacon are key empiricists at this time believing in the theory of no innate ideas, where knowledge is gained through experience only (sensory data). Locke battled against Plato’s Forms; the mind is a blank slate so no man, not even philosophers, could have any predetermined knowledge without any experience. This is impossible say empiricists. Bacon is recognisable for his scientific method of truth and observation being the same thing, avoiding idols of the mind. Increased knowledge is only possible with experience. Philosophical ideas are always on a spectrum: empiricism is on one side and rationalism is on the other. Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz are rationalists relying on pure reason for philosophy. The mind alone, or at least the pre-eminence, is responsible for knowledge and so sensory data is unnecessary.  *CONTEXT*

Descartes addressed his thoughts to the intelligent men of the world, not as previous philosophers did, to their pupils. He did not embrace the philosophical world as a fame concept – never wanting disciples. Descartes thought of his best doctrines using meditation, his mind is said to work best when he was warm whereas Socrates preferred the cold for his philosophy.

Holland was a significant country in Descartes’ philosophy; it had the freedom of speculation and is the place he is thought to have gone, to escape persecution. Being a Catholic, he shared Galileo’s heresies and perhaps had motives in persuading the Church to be less hostile to modern science. [Russell]. Descartes’ work, Le Monde, was never published in its entirety despite containing two heretical doctrines: the earth’s rotation and the infinity of the universe.

Descartes faced religious opposition throughout his life: Protestants were against him. They claimed that his views led to atheism and if it wasn’t for the French Ambassador and the Prince of Orange he would have been punished for his findings. As this attack against him failed, another attempt was made some years later by the University of Leyden who forbade all mention of Descartes whether good or bad, even a ban on the mention of his name. Again the Prince of Orange intervened illustrating the subordination of the Church to the State.

Aristotelian scholasticism was circular knowledge with little room for deviation. Descartes was quoted as saying: “I gained nothing but an increased recognition of my ignorance”. He had great concentration in short periods when developing his philosophical doctrines. Although Descartes rejected the majority of scholasticism, he continued to focus on The Bible but also read Thomas Acquinas. Philosophy and maths was recognised to be of supreme importance and Descartes’ speciality as he began to restart his knowledge.

Descartes’ books

• Principia Philosophiae 1644 (purely scientific)
• Essais philosophiques 1637 (optics and geometry)
• De la formation du foetus does not necessarily link to the Descartes we all recognise, he welcomed Harvey’s circulation of blood and it seemed to suggest that Descartes endeavoured to make a discovery in medicine.

Man and animals’ bodies are machines with minor differences separating them. Animals have an automata which is governed by the laws of physics and devoid of any feeling or consciousness. Whereas man has a soul, contained within the pineal gland therefore has contact with vital spirits an interaction between the body and soul.

The total quantity of motion in the universe is constant and so the soul has no effect but can alter the direction of the motion of vital spirits, this refers to other parts of the body. The physical action then produced is the nature of the impact. Later this theory was abandoned by his school, philosophers Geulincx, Spinoza and Malebranche believed the conservation of momentum and the quantity of motion in any direction is constant thus contradicting the idea that soul can alter direction.

Geulincx produced the theory of the two clocks. Having two clocks but if you only saw one and heard the other, one would assume there was a causal link. The two clocks in this theory represent the mind and body, which are under God’s control to keep time with each other based purely on physical laws. This idea, however, is flawed as physical series are determined by natural laws and the mental series which runs parallel to this is equally deterministic. If the theory was true, there would be a possible dictionary for every corresponding action between mental and physical occurrences calculated by the laws of dynamics. Merits shadowed the flaws at first as it made the soul independent of the body and is never acted on by the body. It also allowed the general principle that ‘one substance cannot act on another’; mind and matter were so dissimilar that an interaction seemed inconceivable. The body may not even exist, we cannot be sure of its integrity. Geulincx explained the appearance of interaction while denying its reality.

Discourse on Method and Meditations discussed Descartes’ cogito and theory of Cartesian doubt. He came to doubt everything just as the rotten apple analogy suggests. Corporeal nature in general is harder to question than beliefs on particular things; this is where Descartes strained boundaries of the mind never before questioned. He believed that corporeal nature could be illusions made by God or a demon, playing a game with the created world just as the doctor can be seen to do so in The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The doctor takes control over the girl in forcibly making her erase memory of their affair and when the truth is revealed to her she reveals ‘the game’ to man. Descartes asserts that the personal mind is more certain than matter; this is our only form of reliance on what truly exists. Once we cease to think, there is no evidence of existence – dreams are a form of thinking. The mind has the knowledge of external things not the senses as the empiricists suggest.

If Descartes was to get stuck in the cogito, how could we establish that the outside world existed at all? He needed to avoid collapsing into solipsism – beliefs that nothing exists apart from yourself; everything else becomes a figment of your imagination. Descartes established that God exists and doesn’t deceive as he is benevolent; he recognised that God gave man idea – a trademark upon creation. Descartes’ ontological argument for his existence is a priori argument; he states that if God is a truly perfect Being he must exist to be perfect. The cosmological argument, according to Descartes, for his existence is that everything must have a cause but the existence of the first cause proves an uncaused cause which in turn must be God.

Descartes’ mechanics contains a very important theory: the theory of the formation of vortices. This produced further opposition to his philosophy as the idea stated that the Sun was surrounded by a vortex in the plenum which carries the planets. Descartes couldn’t explain why the planets’ orbits were elliptical and the entire theory was soon ousted by Newton who believed God was required to set the planets in motion not towards the Sun.

Descartes’ epistemology sets off the European philosophy of idealism – theories famously associated with Kant and Hegel.

Spinoza is ethically supreme to many philosophers; considered as a man of appalling wickedness. He explored the rationalist ideology further, taking Descartes’ doctrines and modifying them to his own findings.

Similar to Descartes, Christians abhorred him and being Jewish Spinoza was excommunicated despite his philosophy being dominated by the idea of God. He was a man attracted to the simple life, who was indifferent to money and escaped the Inquisition. This event made it impossible for Spinoza to remain orthodox; he was offered 1000 florins per year to conceal his doubts but refused payment. The Dutch government tolerated his theological opinions but he sided against the House of Orange in bad favour. Leibniz concealed his debt to Spinoza, abstaining from any praise towards him and lied about the extent of the personal acquaintance.

Books

Ethics: published posthumously

Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (biblical and political)

Tractatus Politicus (political only)

Spinoza held modern biblical views, contained within the Old Testament rather than traditional medieval teachings – his scriptures were compatible with liberal theology. Political theory in his third book derived from Hobbes ideology, there is no right or wrong; wrong only consists in disobeying the law. The sovereign can do no wrong and the Church is subordinate to the State. Spinoza opposes all rebellion but differs to Hobbes in that democracy is the most natural form of government and subjects under the sovereign shouldn’t sacrifice all their rights. The right to a freedom of opinion is most important to Spinoza whereas Hobbes only maintains the right to self-preservation. Under his philosophy, the state should decide on religious questions as they would be more tolerant than the Church at this time.

Spinoza’s Ethics expressed his philosophy on three distinct matters, these being: metaphysics, psychology of the passions and the will and, ethic based on preceding metaphysics and psychology. Spinoza’s metaphysics was a modification of Descartes, his psychology was reminiscent of Hobbes but ethic was original to Spinoza. Ethics was written in definitions, axioms and theorems as Spinoza believed the geometrical method was necessary, high detail for no rigorous proofs. Ethically and metaphysically Spinoza maintained that everything could be demonstrated therefore his style was essential; a method could not be accepted.

*Spinoza to Descartes is Plotinus to Plato*

Primary concerns for Spinoza were religion and virtue. He accepted from Descartes a materialistic and deterministic physics and sought to find room within for reverence and a life devoted to the Good. There is only one substance in his philosophy and this is God or Nature; nothing finite is self-subsistent. Descartes thought there to be three substances: God, mind and matter. God as the creator and potential destroyer of everything and, mind and matter were independent substances defined by thought and extension. Spinoza disregarded the mind and matter as substances; thought and extension were merely attributes of God (he has an infinite number of unknown attributes). Individual souls and separate matter are not things but aspects of the divine Being. There is no such thing as a personal immortality like Christians believe but only an impersonal immortality becoming more at one with God. Finite things are defined by their boundaries, what they are not rather than what they actually are; “all determination is negation”. There is only one Being who is wholly positive and He must be absolutely infinite.

Everything is ruled by an absolute logical necessity; there is no free will in the mental sphere and no chance in the physical, merely a manifestation of God’s inscrutable nature. Sin proves problematic as everything is decreed by God and is therefore good. Negation only exists in finite creatures so in God there is none – evil in sins does not exist when they are viewed as parts of the whole. This in turn cannot be reconciled with the orthodox doctrine of sin and damnation linking to Spinoza’s idea to reject free will. Parts of the universe are not logical, for example scientific laws are discovered by observation and not reasoning alone.

Spinoza’s theory of emotions stated that passions distract and obscure the intellectual vision of the whole and could produce love, hate and strife. Hatred is increased by reciprocation and can be destroyed by love. Self-preservation is the motion of passions and alters character when we realise what is real and positive unites us and not what preserves separation.

We are in bondage in proportion because what happens to us is determined by outside causes and we are free in proportion as we are self-determined. All wrong action is caused by intellectual error because, according to Spinoza, adequate understanding produces wise acts. He makes no appeal to unselfishness but maintains that self-seeking and self-preservation govern all human behaviour.

“The mind’s highest good is the knowledge of God, and the mind’s highest virtue is to know God”

Emotions are passions when they spring from inadequate ideas; passions in different men may conflict whereas men who live in obedience to reason will agree.

Time is unreal therefore all emotions which have to do with an event as future or past are contrary to reason and affected equally. Whatever happens is part of the eternal timeless world as God sees it and a wise man endeavours to see. Ignorance makes us think that we can alter the future but in reality it is as fixed as the past. This explains why hope and fear are condemned; both depend on uncertainty which springs from low wisdom. The knowledge of evil is an inadequate knowledge. Evil is external causes – the universe is whole and therefore not subject to external causes only the universal nature which is a command. A man who is the unwilling part of the whole is in bondage but in understanding the sole reality he is free.

Spinoza doesn’t object to all emotions just passions: those which we appear to be passive in the power of outside forces. An emotion ceases to be a passion as soon as a clear and distinct idea is formed, understanding that all things are necessary to help the mind acquire power over passions. If this understanding is achieved, man loves God.

The intellectual love of God is a union of thought and emotion, it consists in true thought and joy in the apprehension of truth. This love contains nothing negative and is therefore truly part of the whole. Nobody can hate God but they cannot endeavour to be loved by God as this is a desire which would cause pain.

Personal survival after death is an illusion although something in the human mind is eternal. Blessedness is virtue itself; we don’t rejoice in it because we control our lusts. The natural reaction against the worst of men is revenge but Christ teaches us to have calm and ardent love towards all. Revenge carries an excessive motive because the assumption is always a worse punishment for the crime; it allows man to be the judge which laws aim to prevent.

Leibniz is destitute of higher philosophic virtues notable in Spinoza, industrious and frugal too. His philosophy was designed to win the approbation of princes and princesses. Leibniz’s philosophy consisted of two types: optimistic, orthodox, fantastic and shallow and, the best of all possible worlds theory. The best of all possible worlds philosophy was mocked by Doctor Pangloss so Leibniz was recognised for his first type of philosophy.

*CONTEXT* In 1667, Leibniz entered the service of the archbishop of Mainz which was heavily oppressed by Louis XIV. He tried to persuade Louis to invade Egypt and not Germany but was reminded that holy war against infidel was out of fashion. This project remained out of the public eye until Napoleon discovered it during his occupation of Hanover in 1803 – four years after his aborted Egyptian expedition. Leibniz moved to Paris, which at this time led the world in philosophy and maths, there he invented infinitesimal calculus in ignorance of Newton’s unpublished works. Ever since this there has been a dispute on the priority of this calculus; Leibniz published his findings in 1684 and Newton in 1687. *CONTEXT*

Leibniz had been taught neo-scholastic Aristotelian philosophy and so forth abandoned trivial schools. In Paris he came to know of cartesianism and materialism which influenced him and brought him away from his educational origins. His popular philosophy can be found in the Monadology and the Principles of Nature and of Grace; the basis of his theological optimism is contained in Theodicee. Leibniz held the view that extension cannot be an attribute of a substance; it involves plurality so can only belong to an aggregate of substances where each substance must be unextended. He believed in an infinite number of substances called monads which were windowless. Each monad would have some of the properties of a physical point when viewed abstractly; and are souls and immortal. The only essential attribute is thought, which led Leibniz to deny the reality of matter and substitute an infinite family of souls. Descartes’ doctrine that substances cannot interact was retained by Leibniz; no two monads can hold causal relations and if it seems so, appearances are deceptive. This doctrine led to difficulties: one in dynamics, where bodies seem to affect each other especially in impact; the other relating to perception which seems to be an effect of the perceived object upon the percipient.

Every monad mirrors the universe; God has given it a nature, a pre-established harmony between the changes in one monad and those in another is the semblance of interaction. Leibniz is seen to extend the theory of the two clocks; he has an infinite number of clocks, all perfectly accurate mechanisms. Monads form a hierarchy; some are superior to others in that they are higher in clearness and distinction of mirroring the universe. The human body is made up entirely of monads and one dominant monad is the soul of the body; it has the clearest perception. Changes in the body happen because of this dominant monad.

Space isn’t real but merely a real counterpart that is a three dimensional order of monads which mirror the world. Each monad sees the world in a certain perspective, peculiar to itself; having a spatial position. No two monads are alike; this is Leibniz’s principle of the identity of indiscernibles. When we are concerned with free agents, the reasons for their actions incline without necessitating. Humans always have a motive but the sufficient reason of the action has no logical necessity. God has freedom over his actions; He acts for the best but is under no logical compulsion to do so. He cannot act contrary to the laws of logic but can decree whatever is logically possible with great latitude of choice.

The God of the Old Testament is a God of power, the God of the New Testament is also a God of love but the God of the theologians is one whose appeal is intellectual: His existence solves puzzles which would create argumentative difficulties in the understanding of the universe.

Leibniz’s arguments for the existence of God derive from the previous rationalists: the ontological argument, the cosmological argument, the argument from eternal truths and, the argument from the pre-established harmony.

The ontological argument depends on the distinction between existence and essence. With every finite substance, its essence does not imply its existence. God is defined as the most perfect Being and if he is not the best possible Being, he does not exist. No perfections can be incompatible so there must be a subject of all perfections; existence is among the number of the perfections. Kant encountered this argument by maintaining that existence is not a predicate.

The cosmological argument is a form of the First-Cause argument deriving from Aristotle. The series of causes cannot be infinite therefore the first term must be uncaused; the only logical solution is that this is God. Leibniz believes that everything in the world is contingent, this is true of the whole universe; there is no proof except that everything has to have a sufficient reason. The universe as a whole must have a sufficient reason and that must exist outside the universe, which in turn must be God. There is a difference between necessary and contingent propositions; the former follow the laws of logic and all propositions asserting existence are contingent. God is the exception as he has free choice motivated by His goodness but not necessitated by it.

The argument of the eternal truths maintains that all statements that have only to do with essence are either always true or never true. Those that are always true are eternal truths, content of an eternal mind which only exists in God.

The argument of the pre-established harmony is only valid to those who accept the windowless monads which mirror the universe. Leibniz states that there must be a single outside cause regulating them – the two clock theory. The difficulty is that if the monads never interact how do any know there are others and what seems like mirroring the universe may be a dream. Leibniz has ascertained that all the monads have similar dreams at the same time and that the universe contains things not plausibly explained by natural forces but it is reasonably regarded as evidences of a beneficent purpose. If this argument is valid, the God it demonstrates needs not to have all the usual metaphysical attributes.

Doctrine of many possible worlds

A world is possible if it does not contradict the laws of logic, God created an infinite number of worlds that he contemplated before creating the actual world. He considered the best world to be that which had the greatest excess of good over evil. A world without evil would not be as good as this world because some great goods are logically bound up with certain evils.

Esoteric doctrine

• Adopt a policy of secrecy as to his real thoughts
• Subject and predicate

HCJ: Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz lecture notes

Descartes is regarded as the beginning of modern philosophy, moving away from the traditional scholasticism of Aristotle and the Bible. “I think, therefore I am” is the cogito and also a headline for philosophy in the 17^th and 18^th century.

Western philosophy in the 17^th and 18^th century was divided between British empiricism and continental rationalism. These theories are concerned with epistemology, a theory of knowledge questioning how we know what we know. Locke and Bacon are key empiricists at this time believing there to be no innate ideas; knowledge is simply gained through experience and sensory data. The mind is a blank slate; Locke battles against Plato’s Forms because there is no such thing as a predetermined knowledge. Bacon is recognisable for his scientific method of truth and observation being the same thing, avoiding idols of the mind. Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz rely on pure reason; the mind alone or at least the pre-eminence is responsible for knowledge so sensory data is not needed.

Metaphysics is the method of trying to work out what reality is; materialists believe that only material exists whereas idealists deny the existence of matter and so everything is ideas.

 Berkeley was an idealist – the mind is certain of thinking but is this existing?

Rene Descartes was a controversial philosopher in the first half of the 17^th century, contemporary of Galileo and Shakespeare and branded as the father of modern philosophy. He was critical of the traditional Aristotelian scholastics: “I gained nothing but an increased recognition of my ignorance.”

Descartes thought that everything could be wrong and it was necessary to start from scratch – going back to a point at which no doubt was possible and then rebuilding his knowledge with the unquestionable. He used the rotten apple analogy to explain his theory to empty all beliefs with the final aim of establishing what is possible to know.

Cartesian doubt was his theory of knowledge to stand the test of time, to dismiss any knowledge with a ground for doubt. Senses can sometimes deceive you so it is possible that they may deceive you at any time or all the time. They are of no higher status than a dream or an illusion; an evil demon may have created the world as part of a game.

Descartes cogito is the turning point – “I think therefore I am”. This is where doubt is defeated, because doubting you are thinking is still thinking, in thinking I must exist. Even if all thoughts are wrong it still means I exist and this is the certain knowledge he was looking for. The body is separate to the thinking self, being two different substances this is Cartesian dualism. His epistemology sets off the European philosophy of idealism, such as: Kant and Hegel.

If Descartes was to become stuck in the cogito, how could he establish that the outside world exists? He must avoid collapsing into solipsism, where nothing exists apart from the self and everything else is merely figments of imagination. Descartes needed to establish that God exists and that he doesn’t deceive us. He has the idea of God; God gave idea upon creation, leaving a trademark behind.

The ontological argument for God’s existence is a priori and states that if God is a perfect Being he must exist, he would not be perfect if he did not exist.

The cosmological argument is the belief that everything has a cause but in this series there must be a first cause – the uncaused cause. It is logically impossible for this to be anything other than God.

Spinoza argues that if God is external from the universe, he must have boundaries so he could not be infinite unless part of the world. There is only one substance for Spinoza: God. This is monism where all thinking is embodied having a physical manifestation of the same substance in different application.

Spinoza rejects the idea of free will as man is not a separate reality just attributes of God. This is a type of Pantheism; a non-personified eternal God or nature spirit. Nature is not a creation; God is nature so everything that happens is a manifestation of God, eliminating sin and evil. Wise men look at the universe as constant; events cannot be changed in the past or future.

 

Leibniz’s key idea is the monad; a monad is a notion of substance. They are simple, non-divisible, soul-like entities which lack extension or any physical characteristics. Monads are immaterial and must not occupy space; they are the 100% genuine simply not analyzable elements of matter.

 

The best of all possible worlds’ theory is an extension of the ontological argument; God chose this best world from an infinite number of possible worlds.

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