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History of Philosophy
Descartes
by Turner, William (S.T.D.)
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Life. René Descartes was born at La Haye, in Touraine, in
the year 1596. He studied at the Jesuit college of La Flèche,
and throughout his life maintained the most friendly relations with his
teachers, his greatest regret being their refusal to accept his
philosophy. On quitting the college of La Flèche (1612) he went
to Paris, where for a time he abandoned all serious study; later,
however, in obedience to the maxim Bene vixit qui bene latuit,
which he made the guiding principle of his life, he retired into
seclusion in a lonely quarter of the city, and there continued his
studies. In 1617, determined to study the great book of the world, he
took service as a volunteer in the army of Prince Maurice of Nassau,
repairing first to Holland, and afterwards to Germany, where he left
the army of Prince Maurice for that of the Elector of Bavaria. While in
winter quarters at Neuburg on the Danube, in 1619-1620, he experienced
the mental crisis of his life, and discovered, as he tells us, "the
foundations of a wonderful science" -- the principle, namely, that all
geometrical problems may be solved by algebraical symbols. It was in
this same mental crisis that the notion of universal methodic doubt
first occurred to him, as well as the thought that "the mysteries of
Nature and the laws of Mathematics could both be unlocked by the same
key." [1] After a brief visit to his native place, he took up his abode in
Holland in 1629, and there published his most important philosophical
works, the Discours de la méthode (1637), Meditationes
de Prima Philosophia (1641), and Principia Philosophiae
(1644). At the invitation of Queen Christina of Sweden, he went to
Stockholm in 1649, where he died in the early part of the following
year.
[1] "In otiis hibernis naturae mysteria componens cum legibus matheseos,
utriusque arcana eadem clave reserari posse ausus est sperare." Epitaph
composed by Chanut.
Sources. Besides the works mentioned in the preceding paragraph,
Descartes wrote a Traité des passions de l'âme
published in 1650. Among his posthumous works the most important are
the Recherche de la vérité and Règles pour la
direction de l'esprit, published in 1701. His Letters (published
1657-1667) are important for the understanding of his doctrines. The
collected works of Descartes were published in 1650 and 1701. Cousin's
edition (11 vols., Paris, 1824-1826) has long been the standard
edition. It will doubtless be superseded by the edition which is
being prepared by Messrs. Adam and Tannery, and of which three volumes
have already (1901) appeared. With regard to secondary sources, it is
impossible to give here an adequate list. Mahaffy's Descartes,
included in Blackwood's Philosophical Classics (Edinburgh and
Philadelphia, 1894), is an excellent manual for English students of
Descartes. [2]
[2] Consult Bonillier, Histoire de la philosophie cartisienne
(troisième édition, Paris, 1868); also Wallace, article
on "Descartes" in Encyclopaedia Britannica. Translations:
Method, Meditations, etc., by Veitch (tenth edition, London,
1890); Meditations, by Lowndes (London, 1878); Extracts,
by Torrey (New York, 1892).
DOCTRINES
Physical and Mathematical Doctrines. Descartes' contributions to
the mathematical and physical sciences, important as they are, cannot
be treated here except in a general way. Descartes is the founder of
analytical geometry; to the science of algebra he contributed the
treatment of negative roots and the invention of the system of index
notation; to physics he contributed the first statement of the "law of
sines" in reference to the refraction of light. This last point is,
however, a matter of dispute, the discovery being by some authorities
attributed to Snellius. [3]
[3] Cf. Revue de métaphysique et de morale,
Juillet, 1896.
Descartes' Method. Descartes, as is well known, advocates
universal methodic doubt as the beginning of philosophical
thinking. During his sojourn at Neuburg, to which allusion has already
been made, he occupied himself with the project of finding some one
certain truth and of discovering "the true method of attaining to the
knowledge of all things of which his mind was capable." With this
purpose in view he first resolved to get rid of all prejudices acquired
from books, and to call in question all the principles and conclusions
of science and philosophy. It is to be remarked that Descartes did not
propose this method of doubt as a means to be used indiscriminately by
all; the resolution which he made was merely for his personal use.
It is to be noted, in the second place, that Descartes excepted from
his universal doubt truths belonging to theology and to the political
and moral sciences. Having resolved, then, to doubt everything that his
predecessors had taught, he proceeded to draw up a set of rules
for his further guidance. The logic of the schools, he remarked, will
be of little avail in this systematic inquiry, because it is suited
rather to the communication than to the discovery of truth.
Accordingly, he proposed to substitute for the rules of formal logic
the four following principles: (1) To admit nothing as true which is
not perceived so clearly and distinctly as to admit of no doubt; (2) to
divide, as far as possible, every question into its natural parts; (3)
to pass (synthetically) from the easier to the more difficult; (4) to
make accurate and complete enumerations, both in seeking middle terms
and in considering the elements of difficult problems. [4]
[4] Cf. Discours de la méthode,
IIme partie (OEuvres choisies, p.
14).
These simple and elementary rules are not difficult of observance. They
indicate (and this is the point with which we are chiefly concerned)
the essentially deductive nature of the method which Descartes
introduced. Indeed, during the winter of 1619-1620, when Descartes
started out to construct a system of knowledge by the aid of these
rules, he first applied them to the mathematical sciences, but finding
the method to be at once easy and fertile of results, and considering
that the principles of all sciences are derived from first philosophy,
he determined to apply to all branches of physical and philosophical
science the method which he had so successfully used in mathematical
studies. Descartes' own statements preclude all possible doubt as to
the deductive nature of his philosophical and scientific method:
Toute ma physique n'est autre chose que géométrie, les
mathematiques sont les principaux fondements sur lesquels j'appuie tous
mes raisonnements. . . . apud me omnia sunt mathematica in
natura. [5]
[5] Cf. Lettres, in Cousin's edition of Descartes' Works,
VII, 121, and Règles, etc., passim.
Starting Point. The plan conceived during the winter of
1619-1620 -- that, namely, of applying to all branches of knowledge
the mathematical method, which starts from an intuition and proceeds
by deduction -- was perfected in the Discourse on Method,
which appeared in 1637, and in the Meditations, published in
1641. In these treatises Descartes attempts to discover an
incontrovertible truth (aliquid inconcussum), known to us by a
clear and distinct intuition, and from that single truth to deduce all
science. The truth which he discovers to be beyond all possibility of
doubt, and which he accordingly selects as the beginning of all
scientific knowledge, is the fact of his own conscious thought. I may
doubt, he observes, about everything else, but I cannot doubt that I
think, for to doubt is to think. But if I think, I exist; "Cogito,
ergo sum." [6]
[6] Cf. Discours, IVme partie
(OEuvres choisies, p. 25); also IIme
Méditation, op. cit., p. 79.
To this Gassendi objected that one may infer existence from any
external action, such as walking, and argue Ambulo, ergo sum.
But Descartes protested that the ergo sum is not an inference,
as indeed it cannot be if Cogito is the first truth; it
is, however, evident that Descartes himself, by the use of the word
ergo, gave rise to the misunderstanding. The complex
proposition, therefore, "Cogito, ergo sum," merely expresses the
undeniable certainty of the self-evident intuition that I think, and of
the equally self-evident intuition that I exist. No doubt Descartes
selected thought rather than an external action, such as
walking, because, though I may be deceived as to whether I am walking
or not, I cannot be deceived as to whether I am thinking. He felt, too,
that thought in some way implies existence, and he had,
perhaps, in mind St. Augustine's Quod si fallor, sum; he does
not, however, appear to have realized the difference between an
indirect argument such as St. Augustine's was -- merely a reductio
ad absurdum of an opponent's contention -- and a direct proof or
demonstration.
Descartes might have turned, at this point, to the consideration of
matter or extension; he might have considered that we have a clear and
distinct idea of extension, which is as primitive and underived as is
our idea of thought and thinking-subject; but instead of doing this he
proceeded, like the mathematician that he was, to deduce all knowable
truth from the fewest possible premises. He passed, therefore,
deductively, from his own existence to the existence of God, and from
the existence of God to the existence of extended matter (external
world).
The Existence of God. Descartes reduces his proofs of the
existence of God to two: [7] the a posteriori argument from
effect to cause, and the a priori argument, which proceeds from
the idea of God to the existence of God. We take up first the a
posteriori argument.
[7] Cf. Réponses aux premières objections,
op. cit., p. 146. Elsewhere (OEuvres, ed. Cousin, IX,
164) Descartes enumerates three proofs.
Having established the truth that I think and that therefore I exist,
Descartes goes on, in the Third Meditation, to argue deductively as
follows: Of the ideas which I find in my mind, some arise from external
causes, and others from the mind itself. Now, among the ideas which I
possess is the idea of God, that is, the idea of a most perfect Being.
This idea, however, cannot have been produced by me; for the fact that
I doubt proves that I am an imperfect being, and an imperfect being
cannot cause that which is most perfect. He alone Who is Himself
endowed with all perfection can produce in my mind the idea of a most
perfect Being. Therefore, from the idea of God which I possess, I am
warranted in concluding that God exists. [8]
[8] OEuvres choisies, p. 103.
The existence of God is, then, not an intuitive truth, but rather a
truth inferred from an intuition of the contents of the mind. The most
serious flaw in Descartes' a posteriori argument is the
assumption of the principle of causality. Descartes,
it must be remembered, has resolved to doubt about everything, and up
to this point he has established merely the truth that he thinks and
that he exists. He has no right, therefore, to assume the principle of
causality, in virtue of which it is affirmed that whatever perfection
is in the effect must be also in the cause. If he assumes it in virtue
of clear and distinct perception, he must abandon the attempt to deduce
all truth from one intuition. Apart from this flaw, which may be called
accidental, the argument is intrinsically invalid. It is not true that
an idea cannot contain representatively a perfection which is neither
formally nor eminently in the mind that conceives the idea. I may form
in my mind an idea of the Infinite without possessing the perfections
which the idea of the Infinite represents. The principle that the
effect is not greater than the sum of its causes, is true in the order
of being; but in the argument which we are studying, the effect is in
the order of representation, while the cause is in the order of
existence, and the transition from the ideal order to the real order
is always fallacious.
We next come to the a priori, or, as Descartes calls it, the
geometrical proof of the existence of God. We find in our minds
certain ideas possessing properties so fixed and immutable that we
cannot acquire such ideas without holding to the truth of the
properties which are necessarily connected with them. We cannot, for
example, possess the idea of a triangle, and understand what the idea
means, without admitting that the sum of the angles of a triangle is
equal to two right angles. Now, when we examine the idea of God we find
that it is the idea of the most perfect Being, an idea, namely, which
comprises all perfections, including that of existence. If existence
were not comprised among the perfections of God, He would not be the
most perfect Being. Therefore, from the fact that we possess the idea
of a supremely perfect Being we are warranted in concluding that such a
Being exists. The argument may be stated in Scholastic form and
phraseology thus:
Ens, de cujus essentia est existentia, necessario existit: Atqui Deus
est ens de cujus essentia est existentia; ergo Deus necessario
existit. [9]
[9] Cf. Revue de métaphysique et de morale,
Juillet, 1896, p. 436. The argument is found in the
Vme Méd., Oeuvres Choisies, p.
120.
Descartes' geometrical or ontological argument raised a perfect tempest
of controversy. It was attacked on all sides as being a mere
restatement of St. Anselm's argument, as containing an illogical
transition from the ideal to the real order, and as falsely assuming
that existence is a perfection. Despite these objections, the
argument gained many supporters, and remained in honor among the
Cartesians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Having thus demonstrated the existence of God, Descartes next proceeds
to infer from the goodness and wisdom of God the veracity of the
faculties of the human mind, and to build on this basis the whole
superstructure of philosophy. The circulus vitiosus is flagrant:
Descartes proves the existence of God and then from the veracity
of God infers the reliableness of the cognitive powers by which the
existence of God has been established.
If, Descartes proceeds to argue, our faculties of knowledge are
reliable, our senses are to be believed when they testify to the
existence of the external world. The existence of material extended
being is not known therefore by intuition, but rather by way of
inference from the primitive intuition of my own existence and from the
truths deduced therefrom.
Doctrine of Two Substances. By direct intuition, then, we know
that there is a thinking substance, self, and by inference we
know that there is an extended substance, matter. Now, substance
being that which so exists as to need nothing else for its existence
(res quae ita existit ut nulla alia re indigeat ad existendum),
it is clear that God alone is, properly and strictly speaking, a
substance. Mind, however, and matter, since they need nothing for their
existence except the cooperation of God,
may be called created substances. The essence of mind is thought; the
essence of matter is extension. Everything that may be predicated of
mind is a mode of thought, while everything that may be predicated of
matter is a mode of extension. Mind and matter, therefore, are
antithetical. [10] It remains to see how Descartes applied this doctrine of
dualism to his concept of nature and to anthropology. But before taking
up Descartes' philosophy of nature, it will be convenient to gather
from the foregoing doctrines the principles of Descartes' epistemology.
[10] Cf. VIme Méd.,
op. cit., p. 126.
Descartes' Epistemology. When Descartes makes the veracity of
God the all-sufficient guarantee for the reliability of our sense
processes and of our thought processes, he lays down a principle which
he wishes to be regarded as the ultimate metaphysical basis of
certitude. But in every system of epistemology principles of psychology
are implied, and we may ask, for example, by what quality is the
knowledge which comes from the outside world to be distinguished from
the knowledge which comes from the world within us? How can I
distinguish the idea of a thing from the idea of a mere mental
fancy? How, for instance, does my idea of Julius Caesar differ from
my idea of Aladdin? Descartes would answer that the mind, being a
res cogitans, a substance whose very essence is thought, must be
conscious of all its acts. When, therefore, I am conscious of an idea
which I myself formed (idea a meipsofacta) I am conscious of
having formed it; but when an idea comes to me from outside (idea
adventitia), I am conscious of the non-interference of my will, and
I know that, whether I will it or not, the idea represents so much and
no more. Ideas of this latter class must, therefore, be caused by
something outside the mind, and I conclude that the
something-outside-the-mind exists. Descartes is, then, a reasoned
realist.
Descartes maintains the existence of real substance as well as of real
qualities; for, if qualities exist, substances exist, since
nothing can have no qualities (Nihili nulla sunt attributa).
Thus in the Principia Philosophiae [11] he writes: "Ex hoc quod
aliquod attributum adesse percipiamus concludimus aliquam adesse rem
existentem sive substantiam cui illud tribui possit." Still, he teaches
that the secondary qualities, taste, color, etc., of material things,
are modes of consciousness rather than qualities of real substances.
There are, indeed, movements of real substances, which movements, on
being communicated to the nerves or filaments, are conducted to the
pineal gland, where they come in contact with the mind and are
perceived by it. It is not, however, the movement of the substance in
the world outside us that is perceived by the mind, but merely the
movement of the filaments, which is caused by the movement of the
external substance. There is, then, a real cause of color, taste, etc.;
nevertheless, color, taste, etc., being only modes of the subjective
organism, are, strictly speaking, states of self rather than states of
not-self. By this doctrine of subjectivism Descartes paved the way for
the idealism of subsequent philosophers. It was easy for Berkeley, for
example, to reason away the primary qualities of matter by reducing
them, as Descartes had reduced the secondary qualities, to states of
self, and to conclude that the very substance of matter has no
existence except in thought. Descartes, it must be remembered, is not
an idealist; he maintains the existence of an external world of matter
with its qualities, extension and motion; nevertheless, he is justly
regarded as the founder of modern idealism.
[11] II, 52.
Philosophy of Nature. What is the essence of material substance?
Descartes, as we have seen, answered that it is extension. The
secondary qualities are merely states of the perceiving mind, and among
the primary qualities extension alone is so essential to matter that
without it matter is unthinkable. Now, from extension proceed the
divisibility, figurability, and mobility of matter. Of course, the
principle that matter is nothing but extension would, if pushed to its logical conclusions,
lead to subjectivism. Descartes taught, as is well known, that the
essences of things depend on the will of God. Now, the Divine
Will is immutable; matter, having at its creation been endowed with a
certain measure of motion and rest, retains this measure unchanged. 12]
Hence the laws of motion: Everything tends to continue in the
state of rest or of motion in which it is, and changes that state only
as a result of the interference of some extraneous cause. Thus
Descartes' notion of matter harmonized with subsequent discoveries. He
himself inferred from his notion of matter the homogeneousness of
space, the existence of substance in the interstellar spaces, the
formation of the universe from a primitively homogeneous mass, the
explanation of the distinction between solid and fluid bodies, and so
forth. The only thing that extension confers on matter is mobility;
matter is essentially inert, and receives its motion from the
first efficient cause.
[12] Op. cit., III, 47.
Descartes devotes special attention to the application of his
mechanical concept of nature to dioptrics. He discards the
entire Scholastic system of forms, accidental and substantial,
entitative (accounting for the qualities of things) and representative
(accounting for our knowledge of things), and explains the phenomena of
light, color, vision, and so forth in terms of motion. All sensations,
he teaches, including that of light, are accounted for by the motion of
particles; light itself is a motion -- not, indeed, a vibration
(Descartes did not advance so far as this) but a horizontal pushing of
one particle by another. It is needless to remark that, long before the
days of Descartes, Aristotle denied the emission theory of light and
held that light is a mode of motion. Descartes, however, advanced
beyond all his predecessors when he taught [13] that the difference of
one color from another is due to the varying velocities with which the
motions of light reach the eye. Not less interesting is the portion of
the Dioptric (Sixth Discourse) in which he anticipates many of
Berkeley's contributions to the theory of vision.
[13] Météores, VIIIme
Discours.
Psychology. It is in Descartes' psychology that the disastrous
consequences of his doctrine of the two substances appear. If mind and
matter are so opposed as to have nothing in common, the union of soul
and body in man must be merely a mechanical one. The body, Descartes
teaches, is a machine, so constructed that it carries on its own
operations by virtue of the impulse received from the soul, which
Descartes locates in the pineal gland. This portion of the brain is
selected as the seat of the soul because it is the only part of the
cerebral substance which is not double, and it is evident, Descartes
observes, that if the organ of the soul were double, we should perceive
two objects instead of one.
It is important to note that Descartes attaches to the word mind
a meaning which is at once narrower than that of the word soul
and wider than that of the expression thinking faculty. He
defines mind as res cogitans; but he includes under the term
thought sensation, imagination, and volition as well as the
processes of ideation; thought, in fact, he makes synonymous with
states of consciousness. Thought, however, does not include all the
vital functions. [14]
[14] Principia Philosophiae, I, 9.
In his account of the physiological processes of the body, as well as
in his doctrine regarding sensation, Descartes has recourse to the
theory of animal spirits. The only physiological principles which he
admits are motion and warmth. God, he observes, has placed in the
hearts of men and animals a vital warmth which promotes the circulation
of the blood [15] and separates from the blood its finest and most mobile
particles, which constitute the animal spirits (spiritus
animales). This fluid ("very subtle wind," as he sometimes calls
it) conveys the stimulation of
the senses to the pineal gland, and, returning through the nerves to
the muscles, conveys the impulse of motion from the pineal gland to the
limbs. In animals there is no conscious sensation but only this
automatic response of the animal mechanism to stimuli; so that when an
animal on the dissecting table utters what is apparently a cry of pain,
the noise is, as the Cartesian vivisectionists contended, merely the
crash of broken machinery. In man, however, the motion of the animal
spirits, on reaching the pineal gland, enters into the region of
thought, and thus there arises a passio. In the same way, the
motion imparted by the mind from the pineal gland leaves the region of
thought and is an actio. Hence, the contents of the human mind
(cogitationes) are divided into actiones and
passiones. Descartes, however, does not maintain this
distinction in the details of his account of the contents of the human
mind.
[15] Descartes mentions in terms of praise Harvey's De Motu Cordis
et Sanguinis in Animalibus (1628).
With regard to the origin of ideas, Descartes at one time held a
threefold classification of ideas, namely innatae, adventitiae, and
a meipsofactae. He saw fit, however, at a later period, to explain
that by innate ideas he meant merely natural dispositions of the mind
which enable it to develop certain ideas. "In the same sense," he
observes in his answer to Regius, [16] "we say that certain illnesses are
innate in certain families, by which we mean merely that children are
born with a disposition for developing those illnesses." None of our
ideas, therefore, are actually innate. All our ideas are either
occasioned by our sensations, that is, they come, apparently at least,
from the world outside and are therefore called adventitiae, or
result from voluntary combinations of elements of thought, and hence
are called ideae a meipso factae. Besides these two classes, we
must distinguish the innate dispositions to develop certain ideas, and
these dispositions we may describe as innate potencies of ideas.
[16] Cousin's edition, X, 70.
Descartes contrasts will with mind. The mind is essentially
limited, while the will is unlimited. We are directly and
immediately conscious of our power to perform or to omit certain
actions, and in this power freedom consists. [17] From the freedom
of will comes the power of choosing to assert that which we do not
understand. The will is, therefore, the source of error.
[17] IVme Méd.
The passions of the soul form, as we have seen, the subject of a
special treatise by Descartes. Passion, like every other state
of consciousness, is a thought: it is not a state of the body,
for every state of the body is either a figure or a movement. Still it
is occasioned by the body, for it arises in the following manner. When
an impression is conveyed to the brain, the animal spirits are
disturbed and the commotion thus produced results in approach or flight
or attitude of defense. Now, in the lower animals, this is all that
takes place. But in the case of man, the mind perceives this commotion
of the animal spirits, and the thought of the commotion is emotion, or
passion. Passion, therefore, is a specifically human phenomenon. [18]
According to Descartes; the primitive emotions are six in number:
admiratio, amor, odium, cupiditas (désir),
gaudium, and tristitia.
[18] Cf. Mahaffy, Descartes, p. 184.
The consideration of the emotions leads us to the next and last
division of Descartes' philosophy, namely, his ethical doctrines.
Ethical Doctrines. Descartes did not attempt to elaborate a
system of ethics from the principles of his speculative philosophy. In
his Letters, and especially in those addressed to Princess
Elizabeth, daughter of Frederick V of the Palatinate, and in those
written to Queen Christina, he lays down certain ethical principles
which betray the influence of the Stoics. The highest happiness, he
teaches, is to be attained by striving for a knowledge of what is right
and by cultivating the will in order to strengthen it in its resolve to
do what is right. Knowledge of God as the author of all things,
knowledge of the universe as infinite in magnitude, knowledge of the
soul as distinct from the body, and knowledge of self as part of the
domestic and civil society, -- these are the greatest aids to the
attainment of virtue and happiness. We should realize the unlimited power of the will; for from
this feeling of power springs the virtue of magnanimity, which is the
foundation of all other virtues. [19]
[19] Cf. Höffding, Hist. of Mod. Phil., I,
240, 241.
Historical Position. Descartes exercised a profound influence on
his own and subsequent generations. He stirred the thinking world of
his time to its very depths. His doctrines left their impress on the
theology, science, and literature, as well as on the philosophy of the
seventeenth century. His philosophy was adopted and defended by
religious orders. He had for patron the Prince of Condé, the
ablest general of the age, and such was the greatness of his fame that
more than one royal personage sought admission to the ranks of his
pupils. All this enthusiasm produced, however, a natural reaction
against his teachings. His works were placed on the Index donec
corrigantur (November 20, 1663), the Calvinist universities in
Holland proscribed his writings, and the University of Oxford forbade
the teaching of his philosophy. [20] But in spite of all opposition,
Descartes' influence continued, and it is hardly an exaggeration to say
that his thought determined the whole course of the development of
modern philosophy.
[20] Cf. González, op. cit., III, 239.
Descartes' philosophy is original in form rather than in content. His
most noteworthy contribution to philosophy is his method. This method
is, as we have seen, essentially mathematical, the very opposite of
what is known as the scientific method. Yet, by a strange irony of
fate, physical science owes more to Descartes than to Bacon, who sought
to reform the sciences by the introduction of the inductive in lieu of
the syllogistic process.
Descartes has been compared to Socrates, and indeed he is, in a sense,
the Socrates of modern thought. He called attention, as Socrates had
done, to the necessity of studying the nature of thought and the
conditions of knowledge. But, unfortunately for the subsequent
development of philosophy,
he did not base his system of psychology on experience. All his
psychological inquiry was vitiated by his preconceived doctrine of the
absolute antithesis of mind and matter, a doctrine which, by creating
an imaginary chasm between subject and object, undid all that Socrates,
Aristotle, and the schoolmen had accomplished. This doctrine is the
luckless legacy of Cartesianism to modern thought, for "how to bridge
the (imaginary) chasm between mind and matter" came to be the problem
which almost every great philosopher since Descartes' time has striven
in vain to solve.
From this fundamental misconception of the relation between mind and
matter followed a complete misunderstanding of the purpose of
philosophical inquiry. After Descartes, philosophy once more becomes
anthropocentric, -- it reduces itself to the study of individual
consciousness, to a geometry of deductions from internal experience;
and the objective world, its origin, plan, and destiny, the place of
man in nature, and even the existence of an intelligent first cause,
are all made secondary subjects of inquiry, to be decided according to
the result of the study of our own consciousness. This inversion of the
natural perspective is what a modern writer has characterized as the
"topsy-turveydom of Cartesianism."
To Descartes, too, may be traced the misunderstanding which prevails
between those who believe in the spirituality of the human soul and
those who rightly insist on the value of experimental methods in the
study of psychic phenomena. For the concrete dualistic spiritualism of
Aristotle and the schoolmen Descartes substituted the absolute
dualistic spiritualism of Plato, thereby establishing at the outset of
the modern period an altogether unnecessary antagonism between
spiritualism and empiricism -- an antagonism which eventually drove the
empirical psychologist to adopt the materialistic concept of the soul
as the only concept which justified the study of the correlation
between psychic phenomena and physiological processes.
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