Cartesian Question

JEA N -LU C m a r i o n is professor o f philosophy at the Sorbonne. Among his many books are
God without Being (1991) and On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism (1999), both published by the
University o f Chicago Press.

T he University o f Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

T he University o f Chicago Press, Ltd ., London
© 1999 by T he University o f Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 1999
Printed in the United States o f America
08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 1 2 3 4 5
isb n : 0-226-50542-1 (cloth)
ISBN: 0-226-50544-8 (paper)

Originally published as Qiiestions cartésiennes: Méthode et métaphysique, © Presses

Universitaires de France, 1991.

Library o f Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Marion, Jean-Luc, 19 4 6-
[Questions cartésiennes. English]
Cartesian questions : method and metaphysics / Jean-Luc Marion ; foreword by Daniel
Garber.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-226-50542-1 (cloth : alk. paper).— ISBN 0-226-50544-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Descartes, René, 159 6 -16 50 . I. Title.
B 18 7 5 .M 3 3 6 1 3 19 9 9
194— dc2i 98-38335
CIP

© T he paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American
National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence o f Paper for Printed Library
Materials, a n s i Z 3 9 .4 8 - 19 9 2 .
Contents
Publisher’s Note, vii Foreword by Daniel Garber, ix

ch ap ter one ' Does Thought Dream? T h e Three Dreams, or

T h e Awakening o f the Philosopher i

ch ap ter tw o What Is the Metaphysics within the Method?

T h e M etaphysical Situation o f the Discourse on the Method 20

ch ap ter th re e What Is the Method in the Metaphysics? T h e Role

o f the Simple Natures in the Meditations 43

ch ap ter fo u r What Is the Ego Capable of? Divinization and

Domination: Capable/Capax 67

c h a p t e r fi v e Does the Cogito Affect Itself? Generosity and

Phenomenology: Remarks on M ichel H enry’s Interpretation
o f the Cartesian Cogito 96

c h a p t e r six Does the Ego Alter the Other? T h e Solitude o f the

Cogito and the Absence o f Alter Ego 118

c h a p t e r seven Is the Argument Ontological? T h e Anselmian

Proof and the T w o Demonstrations of the Existence of G od in
the Meditations 139

Notes, 1 6 1 Index, 20s

Publisher’s Note
Jeffrey L. Kosky reviewed the entire translation and provided En­
glish versions of Latin passages that were left untranslated in the
French edition of this work.
Chapter 3 (§§2-6) was translated by John Cottingham and ap­
peared in an earlier form as “ Cartesian Metaphysics and the Role of
the Simple Natures,” in The Cambridge Companion to Descartes, ed­
ited by John Cottingham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1992), 115-39 . It is reprinted here by permission. Chapter 5 was
translated by Stephen Voss and appeared in an earlier form as “ Gen­
erosity and Phenomenology: Remarks on Michel Henry’s Interpreta­
tion of the Cartesian Cogito,” in Essays on the Philosophy and Science
of René Descartes, edited by Stephen Voss (New York: Oxford Uni­
versity Press, 1993), 52-74. It is reprinted here by permission.
The abbreviations CSM, CSM K, and PW used in the notes refer
to the standard English translation of Descartes’ works, The Philo­
sophical Writings of Descartes, 3 vols., translated by John Cottingham,
Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny (Cam­
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984-91).
Foreword
Jean-Luc Marion is one of the most important of the younger genera­
tion of philosophers working in France today, and one of the three
or four most important living historians of modern philosophy. He is
the author of numerous essays on Descartes and seventeenth-century
philosophy, and his large-scale interpretation of Descartes’ philos­
ophy is systematically set out in a trilogy of monographs, Sur l ’on­
tologie grise de Descartes (Descartes’ Hidden Ontology) (Paris: Vrin,
1975, 1981), Sur la théologie blanche de Descartes (Descartes’ Blank
Theology) (Paris: PUF, 1981), and Sur le prisme métaphysique de Des­
cartes, translated by Jeff Kosky as On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). He is also the author
of Questions cartésiennes II: Sur l’égo et sur Dieu (Paris: PUF, 1996),
a collection of recent essays; editor of a seventeenth-century French
translation of Descartes’ Regulae ad directionem ingenii (Rules for the
Direction of the Mind), with copious notes, a commentary, and
mathematical notes by Pierre Costabel (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1977);
and the coauthor of lexicons to the Regulae (with J.-R. Armogathe
[Rome: Ed. dell’Ateneo, 1976]) and the Meditations (with J.-P. Mas-
sonie, P. Monat, and L. Ucciani [Besançon: Annales littéraires de
PUniversité de Franche-Comté]). Marion has also been active in or­
ganizing and participating in gatherings of Cartesians around the
world, and in stimulating Cartesian scholarship both in France,
where he teaches at the Université de Paris IV (Sorbonne), and in
the United States, where he teaches at the University of Chicago. In
addition to his influential work on Descartes, Marion is the author
of valuable books in phenomenology and philosophical theology, in­
cluding God without Being (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1991), and Etant donné: Essai d’une phénoménologie de la donation
(Paris: PUF, 1997). Finally, he is the author of Hergé: Tintin le Terri-
XII FOREWORD

springboard for independent philosophical reflection. French philos­

ophers have often used their commentaries on Descartes as a means
of advancing their own philosophical agendas. While Marion is very
concerned with Descartes as a historical figure, he is equally con­
cerned with Descartes the philosopher, and with the contributions
that he can make to our own conception of the world. Marion writes
in the opening paragraph of chapter 5 in this volume: “ No doctrine
recovered from the history of metaphysics could grasp us as an au­
thentic thought. . . unless it intervened, always and without reserva­
tion, in the play of the thought being thought at present. Conversely,
an older thought cannot gain such relevance unless the thought being
thought today is carried out in essential dialogue with it. . . . Among
those rare bodies of thought that are reborn from one century to the
next . . . that of Descartes, powerful in its enigmatic simplicity, at
once apparent and real, makes the most intimate contact with con­
temporary philosophy.” This, then, is one of Marion’s aims: to put
Descartes in dialogue with the philosophy of the twentieth century.
When reading his essays as philosophy, though, it is important to
understand the particular philosophical tradition in which he is writ­
ing, the other half of the philosophical dialogue. Marion is a contem­
porary French philosopher, and his Descartes, not surprisingly, is a
thinker whose philosophy addresses issues of concern to him and
other contemporary French thinkers. In this book, Marion’s refer­
ences are to philosophers such as Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger,
authors central to contemporary French (and more generally Conti­
nental) thought, but less frequently read in the United States, partic­
ularly by those whose main interests are in Descartes.
Because Marion is so clearly connected to the French tradition,
his work will be difficult for the American reader. The genuine differ­
ences between the French and the American traditions in philosophy
and in history of philosophy have led to an unfortunate split between
the two communities. For many years, Anglophone historians of phi­
losophy have neglected work in French, and Francophone scholars
have neglected work in English. But this situation is changing. Over
the last ten or fifteen years we have seen increasing cooperation be­
tween specialists in Descartes in France and their counterparts in
the United States. French and American scholars in the history of
philosophy are increasingly realizing that although we may differ in
training and orientation, we share the texts Descartes wrote, and we
FOREWORD XIII

have a common interest in illuminating Descartes and the philosophy

that he left us. I hope that this new translation will bring Marion’s
important work to the attention of a wider audience, and help to
bring these two communities together.

Daniel Garber
University of Chicago
CHAPTER ONE

Does Thought Dream? The Three Dreams,

or The Awakening of the Philosopher
i. Dreams of an Affected Consciousness
Descartes teaches us, among other things, that consciousness can be
affected by something besides just reason: First and foremost, con­
sciousness is affective— or, better, it is affected. In other words, it
receives thought before producing it. There is no paradox here, for
Descartes draws a specific picture of rationality, regarded henceforth
as “ Cartesian,” only after first retrieving its self-evidence out of a
chaotic obscurity. Obscurity? Not at all, for we are dealing here with
three dreams. But whatever light is cast by dreams becomes clear
only against a backdrop of darkness, which gives it its indispensable
setting. Indeed, one of the first, if not the first, known texts by Des­
cartes is a description of a dream (actually three dreams), under
the strange title of Olympica. Note that the initiator of clear, dis­
tinct thought does not exhaust himself in it, for he begins by think­
ing on this side of it, just as he probably will end up thinking be­
yond it. Thirty years later, as if on the other frontier of evidence,
another work imposed from above, La Naissance de la Paix, in which
a “ daughter of the night” plays with evidence, echoes the dreams of
the Olympica: “All I need is a chimera / A dream or light shadow /
which I send into their brains.” 1 Between dream and poetry, as be­
tween dawn and dusk, the light of evidence shines briefly— facing a
consciousness which in this in-between area remains nevertheless an
affected consciousness, affected by reason. Consciousness remains af­
fected, even in the case of rationalism. And the affection that reason
exerts on consciousness helps to distinguish reason from two other
affections, namely, dreams and poetry. If reason wins out, it does so
as an affection that is preferable to the other two. In other words,
2 CHAPTER ONE

Descartes establishes reason as a privileged affection only in the midst

of a dream, and against it. Does this mean that rationalism enters
into philosophy only by means of a dream— as a waking dream? We
should not, as some have been tempted to do, dismiss this paradox
as a laughable incoherence.2 The charge of incoherence supposes that
the critic knows the essence of rationalism and of dreams, in order
to be able to contrast them, but did not the criterion for this distinc­
tion and the project of establishing it constitute the core of Descartes’
work? Did we not learn from Descartes himself how to distinguish
dreams from thought? By feigning surprise at their initial commonal­
ity, do we not simply fail to recognize Descartes’ historical contribu­
tion?
In order to judge any thought according to the “ standards of rea­
son” {Discourse, A T VI, 14, line 1) and thereby refute the claims of
dreams, reason must emerge as a standard— which is the task Des­
cartes set for himself. In 1619, reason has not yet reached this height;
we must therefore invert the relation between reason and dreams in
order to be able to interpret dreams. We should not disqualify dreams
in the name of a standard— that is, reason— that has not yet been
established. Instead we should follow the inauguration of thought by
a dream, which is the agent of its own submission to reason. For here
simple peaceful coexistence by virtue of chronological succession—
first a dream, then reason— will not do: The relevance of Descartes
for philosophy stems precisely from the fact that he settled the ques­
tion of the essence of rationality in this movement— which as a result
is not chronological, but quasi-phenomenological. We are dealing
here with figures of the mind, a mind that dreams and then interrupts
dreaming to begin thinking in accordance with “ the standards of rea­
son.” Thus, in the three dreams of 1619, it cannot simply be a matter
of analyzing anecdotally, and after the fact, the affects of the supposed
subject “Renatus Descartes, Picto.” 3 Freudian or Jungian psychoana­
lytic interpretations4 are undeniably legitimate, but they cannot es­
tablish the philosophical worth of these dreams, which only becomes
apparent in relation to philosophy itself. Now, neither the uncon­
scious nor “ clear consciousness” has to settle the question of the es­
sence of philosophy: Our task is not to interpret Descartes’ dreams,
but to understand their relation to his own philosophy. Similarly, let
us be aware at the outset that the most erudite studies on potential
antecedents in the literature on dreams will illuminate— and they
make no claim to do more— only the divinatory framework of the
DOES THOUGHT DREAM? 3
dreams, not their philosophical status.5 Once again, we are concerned
here not with the role of the dreams of 1619 as raw material for
psychoanalytical interpretation, nor with their place in a literary tra­
dition, but rather with their full-fledged inscription into a philosophi­
cal corpus— a corpus that they essentially inaugurate and that, more­
over, aims to abolish dreams. To put it another way, how can the
search for rules for the direction of the mind and for a method to
properly guide one’s reason— that is, the search for truth— originate
in dreams viewed as philosophically relevant by the philosopher who
dreams them?6 The relevance of this question becomes obvious
only when, “ casting a philosophical eye” {Discourse, A T VI, 3 , 1. 15)
on Descartes’ dreams, the interpreter considers them in relation to
Descartes’ own philosophy. This must have appeared most clearly
to Descartes himself, given his awareness of the two terms whose
relationship defines the problem: dreams and philosophy according
to the “ standards of reason.” Unlike a patient undergoing analysis,
Descartes seems to be in a better position than his interpreter to
interpret his own dreams, since he interprets them with only thought
in mind, in order to turn them into philosophy.
Philosophical dreams? Not quite, for the three dreams docu­
mented by Adrien Baillet do not actually reveal any content that
could properly, directly, and unmistakably be deemed theoretical.
Strangely, the dreams that affect the philosopher do not reveal any­
thing philosophical to him. Several facts suggest this.
(a) The three dreams do not occur under the influence of inspira­
tion or enthusiasm. True, Descartes attests that he felt a powerful
enthusiasm: “X. Novembris 1619, cum plenus forem Enthousiasmo”
(AT X, 179, 11. 17-18), which Baillet translates as “ having gone to
bed completely filled with his enthusiasm” (“ s’étant couché tout rempli
de son enthousiasme,n AT X, 181, 11. 11- 12 ). But far from being a
characteristic of the dreaming state, this enthusiasm precedes it; it
belongs to the waking hours before the dream. Enthusiasm does not
preside over dreams; rather, waking provokes an enthusiasm that is
even more alive insofar as it results from the liveliest type of wak­
ing— from the discovery of a science, actually of the foundations of
a wonderful science: “ cum plenus forem Enthousiasmo et mirabilis
scientiae fundamenta reperirem,” etc. (AT X, 17 9 ,11. 17-18), which
Baillet glosses very perceptively as: “ having gone to bed completely
filled with his enthusiasm and wholly preoccupied with the thought of
having found that very day the foundation of the wonderful science,
4 CHAPTER ONE
he had three consecutive dreams in the same night” (AT X, 1 8 1 ,11.
i l —14). The expected common schema— enthusiasm of superhuman
origin / inspiration of the human mind / vision of a hermetic or
novel truth— is entirely absent here. In fact, it is completely reversed:
Enthusiasm is not the cause of the dreams since it appears well before
them, when Descartes is still wide awake, and, according to Baillet,
also outlasts them (“His enthusiasm left him a few days afterward,”
AT X, 18 7 ,1. 10). But enthusiasm does not reach its culmination or
its plenitude in dreams either. On the contrary, it is nurtured by
Descartes’ astonishment over the wonderful science: The “ mirabilis
scientiae fundamenta” (AT X, 179, 1. 18; 181, 1. 12) produce a state
of exalted jubilation of the mind, which, however, remains soberly
rational.
This leads to two conclusions. First, the dissociation between en­
thusiasm and the dreams,7 and the cause of enthusiasm (that is, sci­
ence), prevent us from accepting enthusiasm as the cause of the
dreams. We must therefore abandon from the outset any thought
of encountering “ dreams . . . from divine revelation” (Thomas
Aquinas) or “ an extraordinary dream, a thing divine, sent by God”
(Goclenius).8Thus, whatever crucial value these dreams may possess
is not owing to their origin, which is in no way divine; we already
sense that their importance will stem from their interpretation. The
dreams, therefore, are valuable a posteriori rather than a priori, and
not because of their obscure divine origin, but because of their mean­
ing, which is established rationally. Hence, we draw a second conclu­
sion: Waking could not have triggered enthusiasm if reason had not
taken a decisive step. For Descartes speaks here of nothing less than
a discovered science; or better, a wonderful science; or even better,
a science that reveals itself in its entirety, down to its foundations.
Foundations: The phrase appears repeatedly during the period of the
dreams, as in an obsessive quest: “plures, opinor, et magis plausibiles
[sc. rationes] ex nostris fundamentis deduci possunt” (“many more
and much more admirable [reasons], I believe, can be deduced from
our foundations, ” Compendium musicae, AT X, 134, 11. 4-6, in 1618);
“XI. Novembris 1620, coepi intelligere fundamentum Inventi mira­
bilis” (“ 11 November 1620, I began to understand the foundation of
a wonderful discovery,” Olympica, 17 9 ,11. 7-8; 7, 25); “Anno 1620,
coepi intelligere fundamentum Inventi mirabilis” (“In the year 1620,
I began to understand the foundation of a wonderful discovery,” Cogi-
tationes privatae, A T X, 216, 11. 20-21); “Ut autem hujus scientiae
does t h o u g h t DREAM? 5
fundamenta jjaciam” (“ As I was laying the foundation of this science,”
ibid., 220, 1. 5). Descartes even extends the search for fundamental
principles to Rosicrucianism since “it would have been improper for
him to despise all those sciences, among which there might have been
one of whose principles he was ignorant” (Studium bonae mentis, 193,
1. 32-194, 1. 2). Thus in November 1619 a lasting and authentic en­
thusiasm is born, as opposed to a mere intellectual satisfaction, be­
cause the discovery concerns foundations, and thus involves more
than simply a difficulty or even a science. The foundations, more
than the result, are worthy of praise. Science is mirabilis, penitus nova
(“ thoroughly new,” 156,1. 8), only insofar as it reaches down to foun­
dations. Therefore, it is not an end but a beginning: “ an incredibly
ambitious project. But through the confusing darkness of this science
I have caught a glimpse of some sort of light, and with the aid of
this I think I shall be able to dispel even the thickest obscurities” (To
Beeckman, 26 March 1619, AT X, 15 7 ,1. 2 1- 1 5 8 ,1. 2). Enthusiasm,
therefore, may be seen as a result (and clearly not a cause), as the
effect of a rational cause, or to put it better, as an effect whose cause
is produced by reason’s quest for it. We thus reach a first conclusion:
The dreams must be interpreted without recourse to enthusiasm.
They matter because of what they suggest or say, rather than because
of their origin, which is no more than natural.
(b) But there is more: A second argument prevents us from grant­
ing a theoretical status to the dreams. It is clear that the first two
dreams teach Descartes nothing. The first dream, which is recounted
at length, involves an “ evil spirit” (AT X, 182, 1. 4; see 185, 1. 20)
that prevents Descartes from walking upright and forces him to pro­
ceed, bent to the left, toward the school church (AT X, 181, 1. 29)
in which he seeks refuge. A simple physiological explanation, in fact
borrowed from Plato (weight pressing on the liver when one lies on
one’s left side),9 explains the phenomenon, without invoking super­
natural authority or concluding that it is relevant theoretically. As
for the “prayer to God” (AT X, 182, 11. 6-7), its aim is simply a
commonplace moral catharsis.10 The second dream, without the help
of any clear imaginary representations, describes a “fright” (182, 11.
17, 27); this fright is visible only as “ sparks of fire scattered around
the room” (18 2,1. 18). Here again the hypothesis of a revelation from
on high cannot be supported. The “reasons drawn from philosophy”
(182, 11. 23-24) should not mislead us. Since the word philosophy
here means “natural philosophy” (that is, what we call physics), the
6 CHAPTER ONE

explanation for the phenomenon is purely physiological: “ after hav­

ing opened and closed his eyes in turn and observed what was repre­
sented to him” (182, 11. 25-26). Thus, this phenomenon is not ex­
traordinary and has occurred previously (182, 11. 20, 19), and it is
rendered intelligible by the application of physics to physiology. Be­
sides, in 1637, the Optics will account for this phenomenon by devel­
oping the principle of differences in perception and by comparing
light to an “ action” and the eye to a set of lenses: “ You will readily
grant this if you note that people struck in the eye seem to see count­
less sparks and flashes before them, even though they shut their eyes
or are in a very dark place; hence this sensation can be ascribed only
to the force of the blow, which sets the optic nerve-fibers in motion
as dazzling light would do.” 11
Thus two phenomena, which in another era, perhaps, would have
qualified as dreams, are now relegated to the level of common physi­
cal effects and eliminated by proper measures. Their insignificance
is such that they have no consequence: Descartes falls asleep again
(182,1. 13), or better, “ he fell asleep again quite calmly” (182,11. 27-
28). We should note that, even after the reassessment imposed by
the third dream, the first two dreams undergo a very limited reinter­
pretation. The attention paid to the fright that accompanied these
two dreams (185,11. 14 -15) leads only to a strictly moral conclusion;
in the first dream an “evil spirit” (185, 1. 20) was at work, a malus
Spiritus (186, line 1), which is abruptly replaced by the “ Spirit of
Truth” (186,1. 10) in the second dream. Nowhere do we find the least
gain in theory, the slightest revelation. Although frightening (182,
1. 30), the first two dreams remain, strictly speaking, insignificant.
But, as those in favor of a traditional analysis would argue, the
third dream still requires explanation. It alone holds Descartes’ atten­
tion— as if recalling the biblical episode in which the young Samuel,
asleep in the silent sanctuary, only answers Yahweh’s third call (Sam­
uel 1:3). Why is the third dream of 1619 privileged in this manner?
Its special status may surprise the reader, but this surprise is itself
surprising: The last dream is unique more because of its uncommon
status than because of its extraordinary content. Even before any a
posteriori interpretation, it appears from the outset as an interpretive
exercise, as a textual exegesis. In his dream, Descartes encounters
several texts that necessitate interpretation: first the title of a Diction­
ary, then that of a corpus poetarum, then the verse “ Quod sectabor
does th o u g h t DREAM? 7
iter?” (what path am I to follow?) and finally an incipit from Auso-
nius, Est et Non (18 2 ,1. 30-184, 1. 10). In light of this fourfold task,
the third dream distinguishes itself from the previous two by its dual
theoretical significance: that of the texts themselves, and that of the
interpretations they necessitate. This dream is not frightening (182,
11. 29-30), since its aim is not to train the moral sense but to disturb
the intellect. The theoretical significance therefore resides in the ex­
pected textual hermeneutic: the third dream, or four texts in need
of a hermeneut. Where, therefore, will the hermeneut, which an in­
spired dream must provide, be found? New surprise: No supernatural
apparition speaks here, not even an undeniably inspired one. The
only protagonists are Descartes himself and “ a man” (183, 11. 4, 10,
12; 18 4 ,11. 4, 10), also called “ a person” (184,1. 6). Descartes listens
and attempts in vain to understand, while the “man” remains an
anonymous, ignorant, and dubious intermediary. (An intermediary
between what and what? Even that is unclear.) The theoretical valid­
ity of the dream remains therefore purely potential— awaiting an au­
thoritative interpretation, which neither the recipient of the dream
nor the messenger can provide. This expectation remains unfulfilled,
as the dream ends without having even begun to reveal its meaning:
“It was at this point that the books and the man disappeared. They
vanished from his imagination, although they did not awaken him”
(184, 11. 10-12). The dream ends as it began: awaiting a hermeneut,
the dream of an ignoramus confronting undeciphered texts. The
dream ends without revealing anything. At this point in the Olympica
(184, 11. 10-12), we reach the aporia of the three dreams and the
paradox of the Cartesian experience of divinatory dreams: Nothing
is revealed, either directly (inspired speech) or indirectly (deciphered
text or authoritative hermeneut). Descartes is unique not because
he experienced dreams— divinatory or otherwise— but because he
perceived them, at first, as perfectly insignificant.

2. The Figures of Self-interpretation

Yet the dreams are interpreted, and as a result Descartes gains a
decisive self-assurance. Why then claim that the dreams were insig­
nificant? In fact, this is not a paradox. The dreams in themselves
do not reveal anything. They eventually become meaningful through
the intervention of Descartes himself, thinking lucidly and soberly,
8 CHAPTER ONE

rather than through their own self-evidence or the role of the authori­
tative hermeneut. The significance is found not in the dreams them­
selves (nor in the divinatory framework for their eventual interpre­
tation), but in the mastery exercised over them by a “mere man”
{Discourse, AT VI, 3 , 1. 22 and 8 ,11. 16 -17 ; see letter to Voetius, AT
VIII, 2, 91, 1. 28) who, while asleep, stops dreaming and begins to
think. Strange moment, outside of dreams although still in sleep, in
which the dream becomes the object, thought rather than dreamed,
of a thought that is neither asleep nor awake. “What is most remark­
able” (184, 1. 12) here clearly originates not in dreams, but actually
in the movement that distances them, metamorphoses them from
impenetrable states of (unconscious) consciousness into objects to
be apprehended by a thinking consciousness. With singular assur­
ance, Baillet points out that “what is remarkable” is precisely that
“ doubting whether what he had just seen was a dream or a vision,
not only did he decide while asleep that it was a dream, but he also
interpreted it before he awoke” (184,11. 12—15). This mention of the
two decisions made by Descartes points to a new direction in our
analysis. First, Descartes portrays his dreams as mere dreams rather
than visions. Moreover, the dreams remain insignificant as long as
they are not interpreted. This decision, besides confirming our previ­
ous hypothesis on the intrinsic insignificance of dreams, underlines
an essential pre-interpretation: Before interpreting his dreams, and
in order to be able to do so, Descartes posits that they require inter­
pretation. Interpreting the need for interpretation, Descartes masters
in advance all potential meaning, by submitting it to a condition of
original possibility— namely, the interpretation itself as single locus
of meaning.
But any interpretation entails an interpreter, who is hypothesized
to be superior to the passive and unintelligent recipient of the dream,
and alone privy to meaning. The usual schema conjoins, and estab­
lishes a hierarchy among, dream, interpreter, and recipient of the
dream. But here Descartes establishes himself as the interpreter of
his own dreams. He folds into one the two roles of interpreter and
recipient; or rather, since these roles are endowed with contradictory
characteristics, he disengages himself from the role of recipient (pas­
sive and unintelligent) and raises himself up, in an act that shatters
the divinatory framework, to the role of hermeneut, of an authorita­
tive producer of meaning. Moreover, the hermeneut could not pro­
vide an authoritative meaning if he were not privy to it and had not,
DOES THOUGHT DREAM? 9
therefore, already mastered it. By establishing himself as the herme-
neut of his own dreams, Descartes actually raises himself up to the
level of inspiration. He becomes his own inspiration. Eventually, this
self-inspiration will lead to a new theory of enthusiasm (184, 11. 19 -
28), but it is deployed immediately through a multistranded self-
interpretation. By reexamining all the elements of the third dream
that were insignificant until then, Descartes the hermeneut explicates
meaning to Descartes the patient. And this meaning, as I shall try to
demonstrate here, announces theses found in Descartes’ subsequent
philosophy, in short, in Descartes the philosopher. Wearing the three
masks of hermeneut, meaning, and recipient, Descartes comes for­
ward masked in his dreams: “ Actors, taught not to let any embar­
rassment show on their faces, put on a mask. I will do the same. So
far, I have been a spectator in this theater which is the world, but
I am now about to mount the stage, and I come forward masked”
{Cogitationes privatae, 213, 11. 4-7). He is hidden from the gaze of
the “ public” (AT I, 23, 1. 24), but especially from his own gaze, as
if he were blind to the light that he already carries within him. Des­
cartes therefore first reveals his own thought to himself, a thought
that comes forward hidden (to himself first of all) under the mask
of insignificant dreams. By interpreting these dreams as meaning­
ful— in a Cartesian sense— he reveals himself to himself as a thinker.
Let us retrace this interpretive path, step by step.
(a) “ He judged that the Dictionary could only mean all the Sciences
gathered together” (184,11. 15 -17 , examining the conundrum of 182,
1. 32). Rather than read this as a simple banality (the cumulative sum
of knowledge), we should refer here to the inaugural thesis of the
Regulae: “It must be acknowledged that all the sciences are so closely
interconnected that it is much easier to learn them all together than
to separate one from the other . . . ; they are all interconnected and
interdependent” (361, 11. 12-18). This fundamental thesis actually
appears before 1628, for instance in the Cogitationes privatae: “ If we
could see how the sciences are linked together, we would find them
no harder to retain in our minds than the series of numbers” (AT
X, 2 1 5 ,11. 2-4). It also occurs in a probably contemporary fragment
of the Studium bonae mentis: “ the things that I will have said hold
together so tightly and are so interconnected that each one follows
from the others” (204,11. 10 -11); and in another fragment mentioned
by Poisson: “ For all the sciences are linked, so that no one of them
can be possessed perfectly, without the others following of them­
10 CHAPTER ONE

selves, and the whole encyclopedia is apprehended at once” (255),

in which the mention of “ encyclopedia” seems to echo that of the
Dictionary. We should especially take note of the dates of the parallels
mentioned here: They all precede the Regulae, and therefore probably
date from 1619-20. The interpretation of dreams follows the same
(theoretical) path as the conceptual discovery.12
(b) “He judged that . . . the anthology of the poets entitled the
Corpus poetarum represented in particular and in a more distinct way
the union of Philosophy and Wisdom” (184, 11. 17-19 , answering
182, 11. 33-37).13 In the cultural milieu of 1619, the identification of
philosophy with wisdom was neither self-evident not common, for
at least two basic reasons. First, philosophy enjoyed only a very loose
unity, since it was divided according to its objects of study (ethics,
logic, physics, metaphysics)14 and had to choose between the rigor of
some of the abstract sciences and the inaccuracy of prudential knowl­
edge: This lack of unity prevented philosophy from claiming to be
wisdom. In a second and related point, wisdom was opposed to sci­
ence (and therefore to philosophy) by the skeptic or hermetic under­
currents of the Renaissance, as infinitely more elevated (divine, se­
cret) and infinitely less learned (morals, ascetism).15 But after having
established the principle of the philosophical unity of the sciences,
Descartes wants, and is now able, to posit the principle of the identity
of (unified) philosophy with wisdom. This continuity is explicitly
present, from the Studium bonae mentis (“ considerations on our desire
for knowledge, on the sciences, on the proper disposition of the mind
for learning, on the order we must keep to gain wisdom, that is sci­
ence plus virtue, by joining the functions of the will with those of
the understanding. His plan was to blaze a new path” [191, 11. 4-9])
to the preface to the French translation of the Principles (“ in time
acquire a perfect knowledge of all philosophy and reach the highest
level of wisdom” [AT IX, 2 , 11. 18, 20-22]). This ceaseless search is
theoretically grounded in Rule I, which also establishes the unity of
the sciences. The sciences are unified because of their origin in the
mens humana, and therefore wisdom consists in knowing, nurturing,
and developing the human mind: “the sciences as a whole are nothing
other than human wisdom, which always remains one and the same,
however different the subjects to which it is applied, it being no more
altered by them than sunlight is by the variety of the things it shines
on” (360,11. 7-12). The human mind unifies knowledge philosophi­
cally; it therefore produces wisdom which, although human, is also
does th o u g h t DREAM? II
by definition universal. Thus wisdom is only a matter of “ giv[ing] a
thought to good sense— to universal wisdom” (“de bona mente, sive
hac universalissima Sapientia, cogitare, ” 360, 11. 19-20);16 wisdom
springs from the same mens that unifies the sciences. Without de­
scribing these two doctrines in detail, let us simply point out that,
in addition to their relevance to the first two self-interpretations, they
both refer mainly to Rule I and thus provide a solid cohesiveness to
the first two elements of the last dream.
(c) “Monsieur Descartes continued to interpret his dream while
asleep, thinking that the piece of verse on the uncertainty of what
sort of life one should choose, beginning ‘What road in life shall I
follow’ (Quod vitae sectabor iter), represented the good advice of a
wise person or even of Moral Theology” (184,11. 28-32). Two com­
patible conceptual theses seem viable here. In a more circumscribed
interpretation, the search for a path in one’s life concerns only the
ethical domain, “moral theology,” in the sense that in 1637 the ulti­
mate goal of the “most earnest desire to learn to distinguish the true
from the false” is “ to see clearly into my own actions and proceed
with confidence in this life” {Discourse, AT VI, 1 0 ,11. 9—11).17 In this
hypothesis, the most acceptable conceptual argument comes from
morals by provision, whose first maxim (to choose the most moderate
opinions) allows one to “ depart less from the right path than I would
if I chose one extreme when I ought to have pursued the other”
{Discourse, 23, 11. 29-31). Yet the metaphor of the search for one’s
path in life goes beyond the strictly ethical domain and actually seems iJ
to be a particular instance of a more comprehensive attempt to orient jj
oneself: to orient oneself in life by means of thought, or rather to jj
orient oneself within thought by means of the experience of life itself, ij
We could propose the formula veritati impendere vitam to summarize
the desire to “ devote my whole life to cultivating my reason and
advancing as far as I could in the knowledge of the truth, following
the method I had prescribed for myself” {Discourse, 27, 11. 9—12).
Advancing on the path implies proceeding toward the truth, which
also implies following the method one has prescribed for oneself.
Moreover, in Rule IV, disorderly roaming is a symptom of a lack
of method, “ a senseless desire to discover treasure [such] that he
continually roams the streets to see if he can find any that a passerby
might have dropped” (3 7 1,11. 7-10). In Rule V the method, defined
as a predisposition for order and a means for obtaining it, helps put
a halt to the roaming of modern-day Theseuses, who have lost their
12 CHAPTER ONE

way in unreliable sciences. The search for a path does bear on the
“road in life” (iter vitae), but first and foremost on the proper road
of truth (rectum iter veritatis) and the road of truth itself (via veri­
tatis).n The widening of the question on the iter is a product of its
deepening perspective: The point is not to find the truth simply for
the sake of finding it, even by chance. We must identify it with cer­
tainty (that is, according to the method), choose the via veritatis ac­
cording to the method, that is, seek the odos according to the methodos
that orders the search. The path follows the path of the path: This
repetition makes the “ Quod vitae sectabor iter?” sound like the open­
ing of a question on the methodical essence of the path. We are here
truly beneath the Regulae, although we already discern the future
echoes of Rule I V and Rule V.
(d) “By the verse ‘Est et Non,’ which is the ‘Yes and No’ of Py­
thagoras, he understood Truth and Falsity in human understanding
and the profane sciences” (184, 1. 38-185, 1. 2). Rather than com­
menting on the allusion to the famous mathematician,19let us restrict
our discussion to the purely Cartesian evidence of the text, especially
insofar as it approaches (self-)evidence from a Cartesian perspective.
The disjunction between yes and no is clear-cut and excludes a third
term; on the basis of this oneiric fact, the interpretation reaches con­
clusions about the relation between truth and falsity “ in human un­
derstanding and the profane sciences,” in other words, in the very
sciences that will be ruled by the method ten years later. But, pre­
cisely, the method defines the truth on the basis of self-evidence,
which rejects a middle ground between true and false: “never to ac­
cept anything as true if I did not have evident knowledge of its truth:
that is, carefully to avoid precipitate conclusions and preconceptions,
and to include nothing more in my judgments than what presented
itself to my mind so clearly and so distinctly that I had no occasion
to doubt it” (Discourse, 18, 11. 16-23). Or as stated in the Regulae:
“we reject all such merely probable cognition and resolve to believe
only what is perfectly known and incapable of being doubted” (“nec
nisi perfecte cognitis et de quibus dubitari non potest, statuimus esse
credendum,” 362, 11. 14-16). And “ therefore, concerning all such
matters of probable opinion we can, I think, acquire no perfect
knowledge” (“De omnibus ergo quae sunt ejusmodi probabiles opin­
iones, non perfectam scientiam videmur posse acquiere,” 363,11. 14 -
16).20 Before self-evidence held as criterion of, and synonym for,
DOES THOUGHT DREAM? 13

truth, mere probability is relegated to the realm of falsity, since like

falsity it falls short in the eyes of the agent of certainty, the intuitus,
the gaze of the mind: Someone who has doubts about many things
(de multis dubitat) is no wiser and possibly less wise (indoctior) than
someone who is simply ignorant (Rule II, 362, 11. 5-7). In other
words, “I thought it necessary to . . . reject as absolutely false every­
thing in which I could imagine the least doubt” (Discourse, 3 1 , 11. 26-
28). Thus, the fourth interpretation of the last dream anticipates Rule
II, just as the third interpretation announced Rule IV, and the first
two Rule I.
Is it necessary to pursue the demonstration with the other dreams?
Clearly not, for they do not provide any raw material for theoretical
interpretation: They matter to Descartes only as a moral warning.
The other details, which are sometimes trivial (the melon) or too
subtle (the gusts of wind, etc.), call for other erudite studies.21 How­
ever, here also the principle of an anticipation of the philosophical
theses by the interpretations of these elements of the dreams would
probably be supported.22 We therefore reach the following conclu­
sion: the dreams of 1619 are not noteworthy for their revealed con­
tent; on the contrary, their relevance stems from two characteristics
of their interpretation. First, the hermeneut and the recipient of
the dreams are combined in a strange process of self-interpretation.
Second, the meaning of the dreams, which is reached through self­
interpretation, can be linked to subsequent theoretical theses in
Descartes’ philosophy, so that meaning, in the dreams, seems to be
established by Descartes (as thinker) through a strange process of
self-inspiration. Self-inspiration and self-interpretation confirm each
other in a rather peculiar hermeneutical circle: Descartes the inter­
preter deciphers Descartes the dreamer in order to suggest the outline
of some thoughts of Descartes the philosopher. Insofar as interpretive
thinking controls their origin, the dreams already belong to the cor­
pus of Descartes’ philosophy. This point, however, raises two diffi­
culties.
(a) Self-inspiration corroborates self-interpretation, but also con­
tradicts it: The dreams of 1619 lose their immediate content, as well
as their first rationalized meaning reached at the time by Descartes,
in favor of the later texts of his definitive philosophy. Can we bridge
this chronological gap without taking any precautions or contradict­
ing the available facts? Besides, since it wipes out a period of at least
14 CHAPTER ONE

ten years, or presupposes its disappearance, self-inspiration appears

retrospectively at best (to Descartes and his readers), but cannot de­
termine the Olympica as such.
(b) Self-interpretation presupposes that the individual who dreams
is also able to think conceptually. Bridging this gap actually raises
the same difficulties as bridging the chronological gap imposed by
self-inspiration. Thus, we may pose the following question: does the
dream present a continuity with thought, which is the interpreter in
1619 and the source of inspiration thereafter? For, obviously, Des­
cartes could not cross from one side of the interpretive boundary
between dream and meaning to the other if he postulated that dreams
have no relation to thought. If he dreams a thought, Descartes must
also think his dreams.

3. The Awakening of the Cogitatio

Being able to think dreams— and we mean more than simply dream­
ing a thought— implies that one is able to pass from dreams to think­
ing, and back, without contradiction or exclusion. In the present
case, what middle term is encompassed in this transition? The act of
formulating this question helps throw into relief what constitutes,
more than any dream, the fundamental discovery of the Olympica.
Let us retrace the course of the last dream. Descartes has just experi­
enced it and has seen it disappear. Still asleep, he immediately under­
takes to interpret his dream: it is “singular that doubting whether
what he had just seen was a dream or a vision, not only did he de­
cide while asleep that it was a dream, but he also interpreted it be­
fore he awoke” (184, 11. 12 -15 , emphasis added). We should note
not only the presence of self-interpretation, but especially the con­
text of its occurrence, that is, sleep. Descartes does not need to wake
up to move from dreams to (rational) meaning: Rational waking
is not affected by physiological waking, to which it is unrelated. I
can dream with my eyes open and think with my eyes closed: as
far as thinking is concerned, sleep is irrelevant. We find proof for
this in the fact that, conversely, the physiological act of waking
up has no effect upon interpretive thinking: “Thereupon, uncertain
whether he was dreaming or thinking, he awoke and calmly contin­
ued to interpret the dream in the same sense [sur la même idée]”
(184, 11 . 33-35). Thought thinks, indifferent to both sleep and
waking.
DOES THOUGHT DREAM? 15

This dual indifference, which alone makes self-interpretation pos­

sible, signals as early as 1619 the establishment of a fundamental the­
sis of Descartes’ subsequent philosophy— one that, if we succeed in
outlining it, would justify self-inspiration. This thesis is the auton­
omy of thought (cogitatio) from all affections of consciousness, except ^
self-evidence. This independence is established, first of all, during
the experience of dreams, which is inconsequential for thought inso­
far as “the very thoughts we have while awake may also occur while
we sleep” (Discourse, 32, 11. 9 -11). “It is easy to recognize that the
things we imagine in dreams should in no way make us doubt the
truth of the thoughts we have when awake. For if one happened even
in sleep to have some very distinct idea (if, say, a geometer devised
some new proof), one’s being asleep would not prevent the idea from
being true” (Discourse, 39,11. 9-17). As far as thoughts are concerned,
the criterion is self-evidence itself, and absolutely not the affections
of consciousness, for “ after all, whether we are awake or asleep, we
ought never to let ourselves be convinced except by the evidence of
our reason” (Discourse, 39 ,11. 26-29). As long as we view as determi­
nant the affections of consciousness, and the differences between
them (including, first of all, the distinction between waking and
sleeping), we radically misjudge thought, since it bears no relation
to affection and acts according to reason, in light of self-evidence
only. The indifference of thought to the pair waking/ sleeping consti­
tutes a decisive moment in the Meditations that, in a sense, simply
pursues “ along the same lines” a strict self-interpretation of cogitatio ^
through the various dreams sent by an “evil spirit” 23 to the human '
mind.
At the outset, even before the appearance of the hypothesis of an
omnipotent God, we encounter the indifference of thought to every­
thing that is not decided in terms of what is evident: “ For whether
I am awake or asleep, two and three added together are five, and a
square has no more than four sides. It seems impossible that such
transparent truths should incur any suspicions of being false” (Medi­
tation I, AT VII, 20, 11. 27-31). And at the end of the Meditations,
after the conclusion of the debate on the foundations of evidence,
the same indifference reappears: “ So what is left to say? Can one
raise the objection I put to myself a while ago, that I may be dreaming,
or that everything which I am now thinking has as little truth as what
comes to the mind of one who is asleep? Yet even this does not change
anything. For even though I might be dreaming, if there is anything
i6 CHAPTER ONE

which is evident to my intellect, then it is wholly true” (Meditation

V, 7 0 ,1. 2 8 - 7 1,1. 2).24Thinking begins when consciousness becomes
indifferent to its own affections— when it refutes itself as an affec­
tive and, primarily, as an affected consciousness— and accepts self­
evidence as the single criterion; affection matters little, as long as
evidence, the single cause of thought, figures prominently (even in
its absence).
A revelation occurs in the dreams of 1619, although not where the
divinatory framework would have assumed (that is, in the oneiric
content and the affections of consciousness). It is not found in self­
interpretation (and self-inspiration) either; instead, it appears in the
condition that renders them possible— namely, the indifference of
thought toward everything that is not decided in accordance with
the standards of self-evidence, and, paradoxically, first and foremost
toward the difference between waking and sleeping. The revelation of
the dreams of 1619 therefore results in the awakening of the cogitatio.
Dreams are apprehended simply and only as cogitationes, according
to the subsequent conceptual definition: “By the term ‘thought’ I
understand everything which we are aware of as happening within us,
insofar as we have awareness of it” (“ Cogitationis nomine, intelligo
omnia, quae nobis consciis in nobis fiunt, quatenus eorum in nobis
conscientia est,” Principles of Philosophy, I, §9). Or also: “Thought.
I use this term to include everything that is within us in such a way
that we are immediately aware of it. Thus all the operations of the
will, the intellect, the imagination and the senses are thoughts” (Sec­
ond Set of Replies, AT VII, 160, 11. 7-10). The cogitatio consists not
of a specific kind of thought, or a specific type of act or affection of
the mind; rather, it is the processing of everything that consciousness
experiences, and which it turns into an object of representation, a
modus cogitationis. In the explanatory mode, the cogitatio treats every­
thing that consciousness experiences as an object. We can almost
speak of a reduction, although not a phenomenological one (since it
is precisely the phenomenon that here has to pay for reduction), but
rather a cogitative one, which reduces all thought, regardless of its
origin and character, to the rank of object for the mind in its quest
for self-evidence. This cogitative reduction eliminates the differences
between thoughts; it does not acknowledge origins, since “when we
reflect . . . on the ideas that we have within us, we see that some of
them, in so far as they are merely modes of thinking, do not differ
much one from another” (Principles of Philosophy, I, §17; see A T VII,
does th o u g h t DREAM? ly

40, 11. 5-10). As early as 1619, dreaming and waking, dreaming and
sleeping, interpretation and deduction no longer differ much from
one another, for they are already viewed as modes of the cogitatio.
Thus, in 1619, with the indifference of interpretation to the differ­
ence between waking and sleeping, we witness nothing less than the
awakening of the cogitatio. Which may be just as valuable a discovery
as that of the foundations of a wonderful science.
If, paradoxically, the dreams of 1619 are a manifestation of the
pure cogitatio in its sober reduction of all affections, we can make
three additional remarks.
(a) With the cogitatio as a given, can we infer an outline of the
cogito, sum? In fact, in 1619, two of its elements have already ap­
peared, although in a disjointed fashion. On the one hand, we discern
an outline of the egjas which in the exercise of self-interpretation (and
self-inspiration) controls the realm of its own mind, gains an almost
complete mastery over its thoughts, and already realizes “that noth­
ing lies entirely within our power except our thoughts” (Discourse,
AT VI, 2 5 ,11. 23-24; see letter to Mersenne, 3 December 1640, AT
III, 249, 11. 4-13). On the other hand, although it is exercised
through the interpretation of thoughts, this power does not coincide
with the certainty of the ego. The ego does maintain its primacy (self­
interpretation, etc.) and does discover the cogitative reduction, but
does not yet experience its certainty in the actual exercise of the cogi­
tatio. The ego exerts control and the cogitatio reduction, but the inter­
vention of the ego has not yet become a cogitative reduction, nor has
the latter culminated yet in the existing ego. The presence of this
gap should not come as a surprise in 1619, especially since ten years
later it is still not bridged in the Regulae, and it is perhaps not bridged
either in the Discourse on the Method.1^
(b) If the cogitatio is the centerpiece of the three dreams, along
with their dual and strict conceptual interpretation, what is the role
of enthusiasm? We can say unhesitatingly that enthusiasm plays a
very limited role at best. First, because it does not inspire the dreams.
And also because it undergoes a radical critique, in the very passage
that seems to consecrate it (184,11. 19-28): The “ divinity of Enthusi­
asm” (184,11. 23-24)— supposing that the expression is actually from
Descartes, since the text glossed here by Baillet simply mentions “ en-
thusiasmum” (217, 1. 19)— intervenes simply to explain the “ graves
sententiae” that are more often formulated by poets (“even by the
most mediocre of them, ” 184, 11. 20-21) than by philosophers. In
i8 CHAPTER ONE

fact, the “ seeds of wisdom” (184, 1. 25) or “ semina scientiae” (217,

1. 20) support these incomplete and involuntary successes; they must
and (thanks to the method) will be able to identify the adequate con­
ceptual treatment, which will be the task of the philosophy of the
Regulae (AT X, 3 7 3 ,11. 3-24; 376,11. 8-20). Actually, philosophical
analysis succeeds in relegating enthusiasm to its proper place, that
of the imagination: “by enthusiasm and the force of imagination”
(“ per enthusiasmum et vim imaginationis,” 217,1. 19); “the divinity
of enthusiasm and the force of imagination” (184, 11. 23-24); “this
last imagination surely had some element of Enthusiasm” (186, 11.
12-13). In the aberrant phenomenon of enthusiasm, the imagination
affects consciousness so violently that the latter can no longer reduce
thoughts to the cogitatio, thus cannot prevent them from becoming
the victims of the illusion of a “ spirit.” When Baillet evokes “the
Spirit that aroused enthusiasm in him [i.e., Descartes]” (186, 1. 19),
we must keep in mind what Socrates’ spirit or daimon (“ the Genie
de Socrate” )26meant to Descartes— namely, a manner of “following]
his inner inclinations” (AT IV, 530, 11. 5-6, 13). Even the polemical
statement that the “ human mind had nothing to do” with the dreams
(18 6,11. 21-22) seems to be contradicted by Descartes, since for him
only an objectively revealed theology has “the need to have some
extraordinary aid from heaven and to be more than a mere man”
(Discourse, AT VI, 8 ,11. 16-17). In other words, enthusiasm does not
trigger the dreams and does not render them meaningful or authorita­
tive. On the contrary, it censors some of their elements. It would thus
be prudent to cease portraying enthusiasm as the central question of
the Olympica.
(c) One last difficulty remains. If dreams achieve, “on the level of
reason,” some conceptual results that guarantee the autonomy of rea­
son (self-interpretation, self-inspiration, cogitatio), how can we ex­
plain that they nevertheless inspire conclusions (“ Spirit of Truth” )
and attitudes (pilgrimage to Loretto) that are clearly religious? The
relation to the divinity is established at the end, and as a result, of
the process of self-interpretation: “ Seeing that the interpretation of
all of these things succeeded so well to his liking, he was bold enough
to persuade himself that it was the Spirit of Truth [God] that had
wanted to open unto him the treasures of all the sciences by this
dream” (18 5,11. 2-5). Let us be more precise. On his own, Descartes
has interpreted his dreams in a way that supports his own (later)
philosophy: Whenever he faces a difficulty, he can draw a meaning-
DOES THOUGHT DREAM? 19

ful response from within himself. This fourfold success constitutes

a first— interpretive— result. In a second interpretation, which is just
as controlled by autonomous thought as the first one, he builds on
the first result to infer that the divinity inspired him in his first inter­
pretation. Let us note that the second interpretation, like the first,
stems from self-interpretation, although now Descartes boldly impli­
cates “ the Spirit of Truth.” The divinity therefore does not inspire
dreams by means of enthusiasm, nor does it inspire their interpreta­
tion. On the contrary, it is a conclusion reached at the end of a new
self-interpretation, as a warranty. It then becomes clear that as early
as 1619, since the divinity only intervenes externally and as mediator
(as a warranty), the will (abstract and without content) becomes the
only appropriate and possible relational mode between God and
Descartes. Once the dreams have ended, Descartes has “ recourse in
prayer to God, so that He might make His will known to him, en­
lighten him, and guide him in his search for truth” (186,11. 25-27).
Or, what amounts to the same thing in terms of the will, he “makes
a vow” (186, 1. 34) to undertake the pilgrimage from Venice to Lo-
retto on foot. In fact, a warranty (without content) can only be made
from will to will— from divine good will to a human will seeking the
truth. This is especially so since unlike enthusiasm, which is stripped
here of its false divine prestige, free will is one of the genuine wonders
of God: “ The Lord has made three marvels: something out of noth­
ing; free will; and God as Man” (Cogitationes privatae, 218, 11. 19 -
20). The “ foundations of the wonderful science” (“ mirabilis scientiae
fundamenta” ) produced enthusiasm, but they required, and obtained
at the end, the warranty of a divine wonder— namely, free will. Au­
tonomy of the cogitated evidence and divine warranty through the
will: Descartes would never again question this duality— or, perhaps,
dichotomy.
The cogitatio is awakened in the dreams of 1619. Although the ego
only appears belatedly in the dreams, we can already discern in them
the great theoretical decisions of the Regulae: They already have to
be ratified by God, and the relation to God is already apprehended
in terms of the will. In short, in his dreams Descartes thinks as such,
his consciousness being freed from affections.
CHAPTER TWO

What Is the Metaphysics within the

Method? The Metaphysical Situation
of the Discourse on the Method
i. The Metaphysical Discourse on the Method: The Issue
At the outset of the Regulae ad directionem ingenii, Descartes elabo­
rates a method that he immediately begins to apply. In bringing the
Meditationes de prima philosophia to a close, he achieves a metaphysical
foundation that is supposed to be final. This dual elaboration— of a
method and of a metaphysics— opens the door to many directly or
indirectly verifiable theses; however, in terms of an architectonic re­
quirement, exigency, it raises a formidable difficulty, which can be
formulated as follows: What are the interrelationships between the
method and the metaphysics? Or, in two parallel statements: (a) Does
the establishment of the method apply or presuppose a metaphysics,
partial or complete, implicit or explicit? (b) In turn, has the comple­
tion of the metaphysics been carried out by means of a method, and
if so, does this method coincide with the one produced by the Reg­
ulae? In other words, do method and metaphysics simply follow
each other chronologically as two autonomous moments in Descartes’
thought, or, on the contrary, do they overlap partially, or even com­
pletely, in various guises? These important questions, the answers to
which will either undermine or buttress the entire Cartesian edifice,
go beyond the boundaries of a circumscribed study.1 However, this
aporia may become more accessible and therefore better able to be
answered if we formulate it in slightly different terms: Between the
Regulae, hence the method, and the Meditations, hence metaphysics,
a middle term— that is, the Discourse on the Method— can be found,
at the very least chronologically. The Discourse is not only, or mostly,
WHAT IS THE METAPHYSICS WITHIN THE METHOD? 21
a discourse about the method, but rather a discourse by the method on
what, from then onward, appears as the domain that it will regulate.
Descartes maps its regions: “because I claim that what they contain
could never have been discovered without it [i.e., the method] and
that one may know by them how much it is worth.” He is speaking
of the three essays on the method, Optics, Meteorology, and Geometry;
yet the method also extends to other areas, since Descartes has “ in­
serted a certain amount of metaphysics, physics and medicine in the
opening Discourse in order to show that [my] method extends to top­
ics of all kinds.” 2 Thus, here, even metaphysics is subjected to the
universal and primary method, which tolerates no exception or ex­
emption. For, as is confirmed in a contemporary text, it is a “ general
Method,” which enables one to “ explicate topics of all kinds” in addi­
tion to those of the Essays— in the sense that the mathesis universalis
exerts itself in “ any other object whatever” (AT X, 378, 1. 3), and
the methodus extends “ to the discovery of truths in any field what­
ever” (AT X, 374, 11. 8-9). Hence, although it is omitted by the
Regulae, metaphysics must be reintegrated into the realm shared by
the objects of the method. This is stated very clearly in the Discourse,
since “ in order to show that the method can be applied to everything,
I have included some brief remarks on metaphysics, physics and med­
icine in the opening discourse.” 3
The question of interference between metaphysics and the method
is now contained in a much more sharply delineated hermeneutical
problem: How does the method approach metaphysics— for it is now
clear that it does— in Part Four of the Discourse on the Method} In
other words, what is the discourse of the universal project of the
method with regard to metaphysics? But this formulation of the ques­
tion remains too vague: It implies that we should determine whether
Part Four follows the same methodological principles found in Parts
Five and Six, as well as in the other Essays and, further, whether these
same principles coincide with the rules of the method formulated in
Part Two— all rather difficult tasks indeed. We shall therefore choose
a shorter path, which at the same time narrows the scope of our
inquiry, and examine the variations, and perhaps the deviations, to
which the method subjects metaphysics in Part Four of the Discourse.
These variations— if any— can only be apprehended on the basis of
the norm for the statements of Descartes’ metaphysics, namely, the
Meditations of 1641.4 In short, we shall attempt to apprehend how
in 1637 the method affects the metaphysics whose definitive state-
22 CHAPTER TWO

ment will only appear in 1641. In other words, does the metaphysics
stated by the method coincide with the metaphysics stated by itself?
In this context, the Discourse on the Method, especially Part Four,
is akin to a closed arena in which method and metaphysics are en­
gaged in a struggle. This confrontation leaves us with only a limited
set of possible positions, of which the most radical amounts to deny­
ing that a confrontation is taking place at all, insofar as the method
for the first time unifies science, which is thereby finally freed from
any metaphysical foundation. This was the thesis of L. Liard: “In
Descartes’ thought, science taken in itself and limited to its own field
is independent of any considerations on the essence and the origin
of all things. . . . Conversely, Cartesian metaphysics is independent
of science,” since “what characterizes his physics and makes it into
something entirely new and without precedent is the absence of any
metaphysical idea.” From Baillet to A. Boyce Gibson, many critics
have solved the problem in this manner, by denying that it could
actually be posited.5 The debate therefore cannot take place, for lack
of a common battleground. Instances of interference are, however,
too numerous to allow such an extreme and simplistic position to
remain tenable in the long run.
Yet, if we believe that method and metaphysics do indeed clash
in the Discourse, we can still approach their confrontation in two quite
different ways. We might accept “the necessity to continually search
for a commentary on the Discourse in the Meditations,” which is what
E. Gilson set out to do, while presupposing, with H. Lefèvre, that
the metaphysics is constant and sufficiently intangible that it seems
“impossible to base a history of [Descartes’] thought on a chronology
of the works.” 6 In this hypothesis, the continuity between 1637 and
1641 is reinforced, so that any shortcoming of the Discourse or any
divergence from the final statement of the metaphysics found in the
Meditations simply reveals a temporary and insignificant imperfec­
tion, which can be corrected without a solution of continuity by a
subsequent development.7
However, this reconciliation by means of continuity suffers from
a considerable weakness, since it does not take into account an impor­
tant difference between 1637 and 1641: Whereas the Meditations
raises its “ very slight and so to speak metaphysical reason for doubt”
(AT VII, 36, 11. 24-25) to such a level that one has to invoke an
omnipotent God (i.e., “ deceiving God” ) and genius malignus— in
short, a summa dubitatio (460,1. 3)— the Discourse only acknowledges
WHAT IS THE METAPHYSICS WITHIN THE METHOD? 23

the fact that we are often in error. This gap between the different
levels of acceptance of doubt is repeated when the boundaries of
doubt are drawn: In one case, doubt even affects common evidence,
mathematical and logical truths, and all “ external” existences; in the
other case, only sensory knowledge vacillates in the usual fallibility,
but nothing else. Thus, in Part Four the Discourse lacks the theoreti­
cal moments that bring the Meditations into the hyperbolical, that is
to say metaphysical, realm. This is an undeniable textual fact, which
was conclusively established by Ferdinand Alquie. Besides, Descartes
himself declares in 1637 that he “ thus doubts everything that is mate­
rial” — thereby admitting that he leaves all intellectual evidence un­
touched.8
We must therefore present a third hypothesis to account for this.
Alquie gave it a famous, although rather extreme, formulation: If the
Discourse is entirely silent on the “ deceiving God” and the genius
malignus, as well as on doubt about the existence of the outside world
and mathematical truths as they define the metaphysical starting
point for the Meditations, one must logically conclude that, in 1637,
Descartes had not yet formulated the definitive version of his meta­
physics. The usual counter argument— namely, that the Discourse is
not unaware of the definitive metaphysics but limits itself to outlining
it— actually contradicts itself, since “from the fact that Descartes did
not present an elaborated metaphysics in the Discourse in 1637, we
cannot conclude that he had at that time elaborated any metaphysics
at all.” The undeniable absence of themes that are essential to the
metaphysics of the Meditations prevents us from granting a meta­
physical status to the Discourse. Moreover, Alquie adds, when the
Discourse enunciates a genuinely metaphysical theme, such as “I
think, therefore I am” {DM, 32, 1. 19 = 33, 1. 17), we must suspect
that, conceptually, it has not yet reached its full metaphysical role.
Hence, “the cogito of the Discourse is not the foundation of all truth,
but the most certain of all truths. The conclusions Descartes draws
from this concern science rather than ontology.” 9Thus, in 1637, the
themes we encounter either are not metaphysical or have not yet
attained a metaphysical status, and strictly metaphysical theses are
lacking. Thus, in Part Four of the Discourse the method absolutely
forbids the deployment of metaphysics— except in the unrecogniz­
able form of metaphysical remnants stifled by the blind certainty of
methodical science.
We must now examine the metaphysical status of the Discourse in
24 CHAPTER TWO

light of these three hypotheses, and especially in light of the last one,
which is the most powerful and best argued of the three.

2. The Explicitly Metaphysical Intention

Yet— and this constitutes a clue rather than simply an anomaly—
Alquie himself does not follow up on the logical consequences of his
own hypothesis. While this hypothesis seems to be leading to the
conclusion that the Discourse on the Method avoids any and all meta­
physics (almost in the sense of Liard), Alquie, curiously, introduces
another compromise in fine: The Discourse remains partially meta­
physical in its theological developments, but, being unaware of the
genuine ego cogito and doubt, is ignorant of the origin of metaphysics.
The gap is no longer between the Discourse and the Meditations but,
within Part Four of the Discourse, between the ego on the one hand
and God on the other: “ although it contains a perfectly elaborated
metaphysics concerning the proofs of the existence of God, Part Four
of the Discourse . . . does not include a purely metaphysical statement
concerning the doubt or even the cogito.” w Can we legitimately divide
up in this way the metaphysical tenor attributed to the Discourse,
especially in such a short text? Doesn’t this unexpected compromise
suggest the existence of still hidden difficulty concerning either the
interpretive hypothesis or the Discourse itself? And, in general, can
the question of the metaphysical status of the Discourse find even the
embryo of an answer in the strict framework of the three hypotheses
we have examined so far, or should we, basing ourselves on them
but going beyond them, assert a new one, which would be irreducible
to heterogeneity, homogeneity, or absence?
Besides, contrary to the claims of earlier interpretations, one thing
is evident: The Discourse explicitly claims a metaphysical project, for
it concerns itself, among other things, with “ a certain amount of
metaphysics.” 11 Descartes’ correspondence is not as explicit as the
text itself, whose introductory summary announces “in the fourth
[part], the arguments by which he [the author] proves the existence
of God and the human soul, which are the foundations of his meta­
physics” {DM, i, 11. 7-9). Moreover, in 1644, Descartes will let the
Specimina transpose into Latin the following marginal note to Part
Four: “Arguments by which the existence of God and of the human
soul is proven, which are the foundations of metaphysics” (AT VI,
557-58). He had to do so, because the first lines of Part Four use
WHAT IS THE METAPHYSICS WITHIN THE METHOD? 25

the term explicitly: “I do not know whether I should tell you of the
first meditations that I had there, for they are perhaps too metaphysi­
cal and uncommon for everyone’s taste. And yet, to make it possible
to judge whether the foundations I have chosen are firm enough, I
am in a way obliged to speak of them” (DM, 31, 11. 14-20). Thus,
as early as 1637 we encounter metaphysical meditations, which antici­
pate the (questionable) translation of the Meditationes de prima philo-
sophia of 1641 by the due de Luynes in 1647. We also encounter an
early parallel to the “metaphysical reason for doubt” of 1641 (AT
VII, 36 ,11. 24-25). The metaphysical intention of the project of 1637
is thus borne out, as an intention, in the texts.12
A second fact supports this first conclusion: Beyond the Medita­
tions, the Discourse also anticipates the Principles of Philosophy, thanks
to its discussion of the “principles of philosophy” (DM, 8, 1. 31).
The Discourse does not simply debate the “principles of the other
sciences” (DM, 29, 11. 28-29), but also “ doubt[s] the principles”
(DM, 15, 1. 22; see 21, 1. 31; 70, 1. 29; 73, 1. 14)— that is, the usual
principles— in order to replace them with “ simple and general . . .
principles,” namely, the “ principles [I] had discovered” (DM, 64,
11. 27, 29). The ambition to substitute some principles concerning
knowledge as a whole for others would in itself be sufficient to estab­
lish the metaphysical legitimacy of the Discourse, since it is specifically
echoed in the 1647 preface to the French translation of the Principia:
“ the principles of knowledge, i.e., what may be called ‘first philoso­
phy’ or ‘metaphysics’ ” (AT IX, 16, 11. 13-16 ) or, in other words,
“metaphysics, which contains the principles of knowledge” (AT IX,
1 4 ,11. 8-9). But there is more: In 1637, where does Descartes unveil
the “ principles of the philosophy [he] use[s]” (DM, 71, 1. 7), those
he attributes to himself, “my principles” (DM, 7 7 ,1. 2 = 7 5 ,1. 17)?
Precisely in Part Four, in which, “observing that this truth ‘I think,
therefore I am’ was so firm and sure that all the most extravagant
suppositions of the skeptics were incapable of shaking it, I decided
that I could accept it without scruple as the first principle of the
philosophy I was seeking” (DM, 3 2 ,11. 18-23). Reiterating what was
established in Part Four, Part Five confirms it with the “ resolution
. . . to assume no principle other than the one I have just used to
demonstrate the existence of God and of the soul” (DM, 41, 11. 1 -
4). This principle— which is indeed metaphysical, since it guarantees
their true principles to all sciences— is also metaphysical for another
reason: It clearly concerns two of the privileged objects of any spe­
26 CHAPTER TWO

cial metaphysics— especially that of Descartes in 1641— namely,

God and the soul. Thus, if the search for principles does illustrate
the metaphysical project, we have to conclude that the Discourse, en­
gaged in the discovery of a first principle, legitimately belongs to
metaphysics.
We should perhaps add a strange coincidence to these obvious
facts. While setting out his first principle, Descartes writes, “ the first
principle of the philosophy I was seeking” (DM, 32, 1. 23). This
choice of wording can be taken to mean a philosophical principle
that is being sought, which is how it has been read by the principal
interpreters of Descartes. But it can also be taken to mean a philoso­
phy that is itself being sought. In this sense, in his search for a first
principle, Descartes is in search of philosophy— itself being sought.
This is how P. de Courcelles understood this passage, which he
translated in the Specimina as “primum ejus, quam quaerebam, Phil-
osophiae, fundamentum,” that is to say, “the first foundation of
the philosophy I was seeking” (AT, 558, 11. 27-28). But then, given
this second reading, can we not identify here something akin to
an echo of what Aristotle did not yet name metaphysics but some­
times designated as a science that was being sought (f| em<Ttr||ir| f|
S,T|TOD|leVt|)?13
We can now add a third argument to the first two: Metaphysics
is identified in the Discourse by the implicit intention of a search as
much as by explicit occurrences, since, beginning with Aristotle, the
search for a metaphysics can precede the actual discovery of the
word— which, indeed, only it will make possible.
Faced with these arguments— the occurrences of “metaphysics,”
the occurrences of “principle,” the allusion to the “ science that is
being sought” — can we reasonably doubt the metaphysical status of
the Discourse} Probably not, at least not absolutely, and this is perhaps
why Alquie himself promptly abandons the more extreme formula­
tion of his thesis. But it nevertheless remains possible, in spite of this,
to defend a more flexible version of the nonmetaphysical character of
the Discourse. In order to do so, still according to Alquie, we have
only to distinguish between, on the one hand, a metaphysics that is
perfectly elaborated with regard to the proofs of the existence of God
and, on the other hand, the absence of a properly metaphysical expo­
sition of the doubt or even of the cogito. In this final form of the
question, a study of the metaphysical or nonmetaphysical character
WHAT IS THE METAPHYSICS WITHIN THE METHOD? 2y
of the Discourse amounts to examining the validity of each of these
two theses.

3. The Imperfect Proof of the Existence of God

Does Part Four of the Discourse on the Method provide a perfect meta­
physics with regard to the proofs of the existence of God? True, the
Discourse develops two proofs of the existence of God. To begin with,
as in Meditation III, the a posteriori proof appears in two versions,
the first based on the “ idea of a being more perfect than my own”
(DM, 34,1. 13), which anticipates the proof by the idea Dei in general ^
(DM, 33, 1. 25 = A T VII, 40, 1. 5-45, 1. 18); the second based on
dependence (DM, 3 4 ,11. 28-29), which heralds the proof by the ori­
gin of the finite ego (DM, 3 4 ,1. 2 4 -3 5 ,1- 6 = A T VII, 4 6 ,1. 29-51,
1. 5). As in Meditation III, the a priori proof appears next: It examines
the idea of God in relation to ideas pertaining to the “object studied
by geometers” (DM, 36, 1. 5), and it concludes that the former, as
opposed to the latter, necessarily implies existence (DM, 36, 11. 4 -
31 = AT VII, 6 5 ,1. 16 -6 9 ,1- 9)- Yet the Discourse does not provide,
even as a sketch, anything equivalent to the third argument of 1641—
namely, the proof of the existence of God as causa sui (Replies, A T
VII, 10 8 ,1. 7 - 1 1 2 , 1. n ; 1 1 8 ,1. 12 - 1 1 9 , 1. 26; 2 3 5 ,1. 15 -2 4 5 ,1. 24).
This is undoubtedly a significant exception to the so-called “ fully
elaborated metaphysics” of the proofs of the existence of God of
1637. This is actually confirmed as soon as one lists the names attrib­
uted to God in the Discourse or, rather, the concepts from which
Descartes attempts to produce the existence of God. Their various
occurrences lead in the end to two basic concepts.
(a) First, God is defined on the basis of perfection alone, which
is simply increased to a maximum (or more often to hyperbole, with
the use of a comparative). Thus God is defined as: “ some nature that
was in fact more perfect” (DM, 34, 1. 1); “the idea of a being more
perfect than my own” (DM, 34, 1. 13); “ a nature truly more perfect
than I was and even possessing in itself all the perfections of which
I could have any idea, that is . . . God” (DM, 34, 11. 20-24); “ the
perfect being I participated in” (DM, 3 5 ,11. 1-2); “ all the perfections
which I could observe to be in God” (DM, 35, 11. 12-13); “the idea
I had of a perfect being” (DM, 36, 11. 22-23); “ God, who is this
perfect being” (DM, 36, 11. 29-30); “for the reasons that God is or
28 CHAPTER TWO
exists, that he is a perfect being” (DM, 38, 11. 19-20); “ God, who is
all-perfect and all-truthful” (DM, 40, 11. 10 -11).
(b) God is also defined, although much less frequently, by infinity:
“ infinite, eternal, immutable, omniscient, omnipotent; in short, [hav­
ing] all the perfections which I could observe to be in God” (DM,
35, 11. 4-6); “ a perfect and infinite being” (DM, 39, 11. 4-5); “the
infinite perfections of God” (DM, 43, 11. 7-8). But the concept of
the infinite is encountered only three times, as opposed to the nine
occurrences of the concept of perfection; moreover, in its few appear­
ances, it always accompanies perfection, as if to comment on it, while
the latter is first and decisive. Thus, the infinite by itself never charac­
terizes God as his essential determination— which is why the notion
of incomprehensibility, often underscoring the infinite in the Medita­
tions (AT VII, 9, 11. 15-16 ; 55, 1. 21; 112, 11. 21-22; 113, 11. 15 -17 ;
etc.), never appears in the Discourse. We therefore have to admit that
in order to define God and establish his existence, the Discourse privi­
leges perfection over the infinite and entirely omits what will later
become the causa sui. Is the concept of perfection alone enough to
produce a “ perfectly elaborated metaphysics” with regard to God?
To put it another way, is the concept of perfection alone enough to
elaborate a perfect special metaphysics?
In order to answer these questions— or at least to truly understand
them— we shall have to gauge what is established as of 1637 against
the standard of the final accomplishments of 1641. This comparison
leads to three facts.
(a) The Discourse anticipates very precisely the second definition
of God found in the Meditations: In 1641, as already in 1637, the so-
called ontological argument is based on the concept of an absolutely
perfect being. The “perfect being” (DM, 34, 11. 28-29; 35, 11. 1-2 ;
36, 11. 22-23; 36, 11. 29-30; 38, 1. 20) is achieved in the “ idea [of
God], or a supreme perfect being” (AT VII, 65, 1. 21); or “ to think
of God (that is, a supremely perfect being)” (66,11. 12 -13 , or 6 7,11.
9-10); or “the supreme being exists, or . . . God, to whose essence
alone existence belongs, exists” (69, 11. 8-9). However, this first
point— that the so-called ontological argument rests on a definition
of divine essence based on perfection— immediately brings up evi­
dence of a dual disagreement, which can be seen by contrast.
(b) The Meditations bases each of its three proofs for the existence
of God on a different definition of the divine essence. Thus, the a
posteriori proof presupposes the idea of the infinite: “my perception
WHAT IS THE METAPHYSICS WITHIN THE METHOD? 29

of the infinite, that is of God” (AT VII, 45, 11. 28-29); “idea of a
supremely perfect and infinite being” (46, 11. 11-12 ). Yet this idea
of the infinite does not coincide, in extension or in understanding,
with the idea of most perfect being, which is why Descartes carefully
distinguishes between them, at least in 1641. For, in 1637, the only
three occurrences of the infinite always associate it with perfection
(DM, 35, 11. 4-6; 39, 11. 4-5; 43, 11. 7-8): In the Discourse the same
single concept of divine essence determines and legitimizes, without
distinguishing between them, two proofs as different as the so-called
ontological argument and the demonstration by the idea of the infi­
nite. To deduce existence twice from the same concept (perfection)
is a logical monstrosity; it is therefore not surprising that in 1637,
whereas the a priori proof is given more or less definitive form (to be
sure, thanks to the weight of tradition), the a posteriori proof remains
incomplete. For if existence is perhaps not a true predicate of the
concept, then it is obviously impossible to predicate two existences
from a single concept! In 1641, on the contrary, Descartes establishes
the validity of the a posteriori proof by assigning it a specific concept,
“ supreme God, eternal, infinite” (AT VII, 40,11. 16-17), “ substance
that is infinite” (45,11. n - 12 ) . And it is precisely because the concept
of the infinite appears as absolutely unconditional that it precedes,
according to the reasoning of the order of reasons, the concept of
supreme perfection; and thus also that, in spite of the natural order,
the a posteriori proof governs the a priori proof. The Discourse does
not justify the anteriority of the a posteriori proof or base it in reason
on a specific concept of the divine essence: Arguably, we may doubt
whether or not the Discourse, even though it formulates literally an
a posteriori proof, is able to truly think it, since it appears to base it
on a concept that actually authorizes another proof. Moreover, by
obscuring the idea of the infinite, the concept of supreme perfection
also prevents access to Descartes’ most original theoretical advance
in rational theology. Hence, we must conclude that the Discourse, far
from offering a perfectly elaborated metaphysics of divine existence,
provides only a metaphysics of the most perfect being, which limits
the essence of God, and thus his existence, to one of the possibilities.
But there is more, or actually less, (c) For, in 1641, the Replies
(which cannot be separated from the Meditations) introduces a third
and last path to God, which uses the principle of causality and leads
to the causa sui.14 It is unnecessary to emphasize here the incommen­
surable historic and historical significance for metaphysics as a whole
30 CHAPTER TWO

of a doctrine that accomplishes its essence in this way and thus leads
it to perfection: Descartes introduces here the principle of reason,
which, although it will remain latent until Leibniz, already possesses
its full strength. Yet in 1637 the Discourse is entirely silent on any­
thing remotely akin to the causa sui, and, more important, on the
principle of causality, which in 1641 will lead to the causa sui as early
as Meditation I I I (AT VII, 40,11. 21-23) and will be repeated in the
Replies (108, 11. 18-22; 164, 1. 28-165, 1. 3; 238, 11. 11- 17 ) . This
complete desertion of causality is proven by a rather strange lexico­
logical fact: Unlike the other parts of the Discourse, Part Four never
;15
uses the word cause this absence of cause is a textual clue to the
absence of causality in the conceptual realm— i.e., causality under­
stood as the metaphysical principle, without exceptions, of existence.
Further, the previously noted absence of the infinite is explained and
confirmed by the absence of causality: Meditation I I I introduces the
definition of God as infinite (“a supreme God, eternal, infinite,” AT
VII, 40,11. 16-17), while, on the same page, presenting the principle
of the evidence of causality (“Now it is manifest by the natural light
that there must be as much [reality] in the efficient and total cause
as in the effect of that cause,” 40, 11. 21-23). The Discourse lets out
the infinite nature of God precisely at the same time when it keeps
causality under wraps. Therefore, the Discourse cannot present a per­
fectly elaborated metaphysics of the proofs of the existence of God,
not only because of the unilateral privilege granted to perfection
against the infinite in divine essence, but also, and in equal part,
because it neglects causality as a metaphysical principle for existence,
as it can be applied “in the case of ideas” (41, 3), and therefore even
to the idea of infinite, thus “ even God himself” (PW II, 166), and
therefore to the idea and the existence of God. In short, the Discourse
remains silent on two of the three determinations of the divine es­
sence listed and combined in the Meditations— namely, the infinite
and the causa sui— and those are the most original and powerful of
the three.
It is surprising to see that some eminent interpreters, who are at
odds on many important points, agree in attributing the use of cau­
sality to the Discourse, against obvious textual evidence. I shall men­
tion only two authors. In his commentary, E. Gilson maintains that
“Descartes innovated by using the principle of causality in a manner
unknown to scholastics” and that Descartes’ metaphysics “ consists
entirely in accounting for the real content of thought by means of
WHAT IS THE METAPHYSICS WITHIN THE METHOD? 31

the principle of causality.” 16These comments hold true for the Medi­
tations, but absolutely not for the Discourse. Alquie completes the
formula we have followed until now by confusing, for once against
all chronology, what is true for 1641 with what is missing in 1637:
“ a perfectly elaborated metaphysics concerning the proofs of the exis­
tence of God (as in the Meditations, God is here proved successively
as a cause for His own idea, as a cause for myself insofar as I cannot
survive for one moment without Him, and finally by the ontological
proof).” 17 In fact, no cause concerning God is found in the Discourse.
We should therefore say: If in 1637, as Alquie argues, Descartes has
not yet established a genuine metaphysics, it is first because he is
unaware of the metaphysical dignity of the principle of causality and
therefore is prevented from proving the existence of God as cause
for the idea of the infinite, as cause for the ego, and as cause for
Himself. If we acknowledge the metaphysical shortcomings of the
Discourse— which, following Alquie, we do— it is for an entirely dif­
ferent, or even opposite, reason than the one Alquie gives: for falling
short first with regard to the proofs of the existence of God and next
with regard to the infinite and causality. But to follow one’s teacher
does not mean repeating what he has said; rather it means conveying
his intentions through other means, so as to confirm them by shifting
them. Descartes, more than anyone, was aware of this shortcoming
in his metaphysical essay in the Discourse; he even admitted it by
attributing it to the failure of the proof of the existence of God more
than to any other doctrine. His diagnosis appears on two occasions,
almost in the same terms: The lack of precision concerning doubt
and thought, however damaging it may be, is especially so because
it “ is the only thing that makes obscure the proof of the existence
of God,” that is to say, it “makes my proof of the existence of God
difficult to understand.” Or again: “I agree, as you observe, that there
is a great defect in the work you have seen, and that I have not ex­
pounded, in a manner that everyone can easily grasp, the arguments
by which I claim that there is nothing at all more evident and certain
than the existence of God and of the human soul.” Thus he admits
frankly to Father Vatier: “It is true that I have been too obscure in
what I wrote about the existence of God in this treatise on Method,
and I admit that although the most important, it is the least worked
out section in the whole book.” 18 We do indeed witness a metaphysi­
cal failure in 1637, and Descartes is the first to admit it, but it affects
primarily and principally the demonstration of the existence of God
32 CHAPTER TWO

in Part Four of the Discourse. We may conjecture that it is precisely

this failure that leads Descartes, as early as 1638, to refrain from
correcting his text, which is already public, and thus already past and
outdated, and instead to rekindle the old “project” (AT I, 339 ,1. 25)
on new bases— in short, to undertake the writing of the Meditations:
“ This does not prevent me from trying to explain the arguments
which I gave for the existence of God, but I shall give these in Latin”
(AT II, 267, 10-12). Thus the Discourse on the Method, although it
belongs to a metaphysical “ project,” balks at the metaphysical obsta­
cle when it comes to the proofs of the existence of God. Yet can we
say that metaphysics is entirely absent from its conclusions?

4. The Perfect Proof of the Existence o f the Ego

To answer this new question, we shall once more follow Alquié, who
maintains that in 1637 Descartes does not provide a properly meta­
physical explication of the doubt or even of the cogito. What should
we make of this clearly stated and precise thesis? First, we must dis­
tinguish.
(a) An indisputable point (as we saw above in §1): In 1637 doubt
affects only the realm of the senses and its representations, in other
words, “ everything material” (AT I, 353, 1. 14). It follows that the
ego that is freed by this doubt is freed only from its material presup­
positions; it “ does not require any place, or depend on any material
thing” (DM, 33, 5-7). But since mathematical truths, simple natures,
and eternal truths are not exposed to doubt, shall we conclude that
any metaphysical breakthrough is excluded? Of course not; we can
only reasonably conclude the following: If a metaphysics is present,
doubt as it is formulated here cannot provide access to it. This does
not preclude the possibility that another breakthrough in 1637 could
reach the metaphysical domain proper.
(b) One could object, however, that the ego is not yet explicit in
the “I think” of 1637, as Descartes himself admits to Mersenne: “ I
have not explained at sufficient length how I know that the soul is
a substance distinct from the body.” He admits that the objection
“is very true.” 19 However, two arguments limit the extent of this
admission. First, Descartes makes a pedagogical argument: Arguably,
he could have demonstrated the actual distinction between the soul
and the body, but he worried that this might have made his treatise
too technical, which would have interfered with his desire to reach a
WHAT IS THE METAPHYSICS WITHIN THE METHOD? 33

large audience. We can therefore surmise that it was not a theoretical

difficulty that held Descartes back on this point; nothing prevents
us from giving him the benefit of the doubt here. Next, we note that
this actual distinction is not established in the Meditations, or rather
that only after an objection from Arnauld does Descartes finally ex­
press the doctrine it presupposes, i.e., the theory of the complete
(although not adequate) notion; besides, this theory uses a rational
theology that was not available to the Discoursed Thus, if the diffi­
culty of establishing the actual distinction between the soul and the
body calls into question any metaphysical project, it would affect that
of the Meditations (in the strict sense) as much as that of the Discourse.
The two principal objections to the metaphysical dignity of the “I
think, therefore I am” {DM, 32, 1. 19 = 33, 1. 17) do not really hit
their mark: One falls short while the other goes too far.
Therefore, we must return to the text. Our question is this: In
what way is the statement of 1637 different from the statement of
1641? The Discourse proposes two sequences: “And observing that
this truth ‘I am thinking therefore I exist’ was so firm and sure that
all the most extravagant suppositions of the skeptics were incapable
of shaking it, I decided that I could accept it without scruple as the
first principle of the philosophy I was seeking” (32,11. 18-23); then:
“I observed that there is nothing at all in the proposition ‘I think,
therefore I am’ to assure me that I am speaking the truth, except
that I see very clearly that in order to think it is necessary to exist.
So I decided that I could take it as a general rule that the things we
conceive very clearly and very distinctly are all true” (33,11. 16-22).
These two sequences differ from the two formulations of 1641 on
several points.
(a) The Meditations uses another formula— “I am, I exist” (AT
VII, 2 5,1. 12 = 2 7 ,1. 9)— which, by eliminating all logical connection
between the terms and excluding thought itself, is valid only if, and
as long as, an actually thinking thought thinks the formulation of
existence; thought, included in the formulation of 1637, excludes it­
self from that of 1641. In the latter case, it follows that the ego no
longer achieves its existence by conceiving a proposition that links
existence and thought by an objectifiable formulation, but rather
by actually thinking its existence as thought— in short, as a think­
ing thought making a performative formulation.21 This performance
must be repeated from present time to present time, because its theo­
retical result is guaranteed only for as long as {quamdiu, AT VII, 25,
34 CHAPTER TWO

1. 9; 27, 11. 9, 10; 36, 1. 16; quoties, 25, 1. 12) it is actually performed.
In 1641 the ego lacks even the slightest hint of permanence and culmi­
nates in the atomic iteration of its performance; it exists with less
certainty than the / of 1637, which does not acknowledge any tem­
poral condition.
(b) Furthermore, in 1641 it is only a question of presenting what
Descartes modestly calls “ just one thing, however slight [mini­
mum quid], that is certain and unshakable” (24,11. 12 -13 )— in other
words, a minimum of unshakable certainty, but a minimum quid (11.
26, 27), such that its temporalization certifies it only while it is hap­
pening. On the contrary, in 1637 the Discourse has other objectives:
Since it ignores the temporal conditions of the first certainty, it im­
mediately erects the minimum quid to the level of “first principle”
(DM, 3 2 ,1. 23). In 1641 the existence of the ego remains an intermit­
tent minimum and never pretends even to the interim of the principle;
it possesses therefore less certainty than that claimed by the / of 1637,
which is immediately assured of the principle.22
(c) A third point confirms the first two. We know that in 1641 the
term substantia does not occur in the first two Meditations (nor in the
first half of the third) and that it qualifies the ego— “and I am a
substance” (AT VII, 4 5,1. 7)— only after it has been introduced into
the conceptual assembly of the a posteriori proof of the existence of
God (40,11. 12-20). How can we explain the lag of the ego with regard
to substantiality? Precisely because in 1641 the ego cogito does not
last permanently nor does it have the rank of principle, and thus it
does not exhibit any of the properties of substance or even explicitly
contradicts them. It certifies its existence only through the act of
thinking, without being able to certify it permanently, independently,
that is, as a substance. In order to attain substantiality, the ego of
1641 has to do more than think; it has to first suppose substantiality
in God, then by a return from the infinite to the finite, it has to infer
it in the mens humana. In 1637, on the contrary, the “ I think” claims
from the outset a full and permanent existence, since, from the first
thought, it accomplishes the last existence: “ From this I knew I was
a substance whose whole essence or nature is simply to think” (DM,
3 3 ,11. 3-5). Thus, the Discourse gives the I the metaphysical title par
excellence of substance, so that for Descartes “I think” anchors the
determination of the substance in general, in the sense in which for
Aristotle ousia formulated the response to the question xi TO ov
(“ what is being?” ). The Meditations, by comparison, appears signifi­
WHAT IS THE METAPHYSICS WITHIN THE METHOD? 35

cantly less metaphysical, insofar as it relinquishes the substantial

privilege of the ego, transfers it to God, and replaces it by the inde­
terminacy of the minimum quid or of a simple res (AT VII, 27, 11.
13, 16).23
Thus three convergent factual clues force us to admit that the “I
think” has a stronger metaphysical claim in 1637 in the Discourse than
in 1641 in the Meditations: the permanence of existence, the title of
first principle, and the status of first substance. Not only does the
Discourse give a genuinely metaphysical explication of “ I think” (con­
trary to what Alquie proposed), but also the Discourse confers its
function and its metaphysical definition much more vigorously than
indeterminacy does in the Meditations. Paradoxically, as far as the
ego is concerned, the Meditations appears less metaphysical than the
Discourse.
The “I think” confirms its metaphysical status by exercising it,
and it does so according to the figure of a metaphysics of representa­
tion. In short, the factual clues that we have identified simply trans­
late into the texts a metaphysical situation that is paradigmatic for
many post-Cartesians (including Malebranche and Berkeley)— a par­
adigm that is probably expressed more clearly in 1637 than in the
much more complex metaphysical prism of 1641. The Discourse
clearly formulates two theses, which are sufficient by themselves to
put forth a metaphysics, since they determine all beings, real or possi­
ble. With the thought that the “I think” sets up as first principle and
first substance, the Being of beings is at issue— and in two senses.
(a) The first metaphysical thesis of the Discourse on the Method
could be formulated as follows: to exist is to think— about thinking
thought. For, “I think, therefore I am” enables me to conclude that
I exist on the basis of my thought {DM, 3 2 ,1. 19), and thus to validate
in the case of this first being the fact that thought is ranked as a
substance (and not as a simple accident). Moreover, this sequence
makes it possible to universalize the equivalence: “there is nothing
at all in the proposition ‘I think, therefore I am’ to assure me that I
am speaking the truth, except that I see very clearly that in order to
think it is necessary to exist” (DM, 3 3 ,11. 16-19). The validation of
my thought as a substance rests on the general and unconditional
equivalence between the act of thinking and the fact that I exist. A
thought that thinks (itself) must, in this very act and in order to
accomplish it, already exist; in other words, the act of thinking al­
ready performs the being in evepyeia (actuality). What thinks in
 36 CHAPTER TWO

evepyeia also is in Evepyeia— in the sense perhaps that, according

to Aristotle, uVOt)^ [thought] is in its essential nature activity XT]
oixria ® v evepyeia .”24 What is thinking in evepyeia attains evep-
yeia in the full sense of first and unconditioned ousia; it therefore
deserves the name of “ first principle.” I cannot pretend that “I did
not exist” (32, 1. 28), for in order to pretend one has to think, and
to think is to exist. This line of reasoning would be invalid if it
did not rest on the evidence of the equivalence between thinking and
existing. But this equivalence only becomes visible when a middle
term, the I, introduces in one stroke the two verbs, to be and to exist.
No one can think without assuming the posture of an I, and thus,
/ to exist is conjugated first on the basis of an I. The I exists first, for
thought thinks itself on the basis of the representative pole, thus of
an I. Existing, like thinking, emerges only through the intermediary
of an I, and thus, the first thesis of the metaphysics is established
through a protology of the ego.25
(b) The second metaphysical thesis of the Discourse on the Method
could be formulated as: thought (being) thought is equivalent to ex­
isting. It is the converse of the preceding thesis, for the exemplary
equivalence between “I think” and “I am” allows Descartes to imme­
diately proceed, in the same sequence and “ in general” (33, 1. 12),
with “ a general rule that the things we conceive very clearly and
very distinctly are all true” {DM, 3 3 ,11. 20-22). What we conceive—
thought being thought by a thinking thought— is true and thus sim­
ply is, for in order to be true, a thought must in some way already
exist, in the sense that, for Aristotle, truth expresses a meaning of
being. Here Descartes is still following the principle that in order
to think one must exist, by declining it from thinking thought to
thought (being) thought— to be, one must be thought: “even if I were
to suppose that I was dreaming and that whatever I saw or imagined
was false, yet I could not deny that the ideas were truly in my mind
{DM, 3 5 ,11. 19-24); and also: “ [reason] does insist that all our ideas
or notions must have some foundations of truth” {DM, 40,11. 8-10).26
In order to be fulfilled as a thought thought by thinking thought,
an idea must let itself be constituted, that is, objectified; yet objectiv­
ity already defines one— if not the only— way of being of the intra-
worldly being in general. Thus by objectifying itself, thought thought
fully exists, even if no “ external” existence confirms it, for in any
case this existence would have to present and locate itself within such
an objectivity, which thus determines the a priori conditions for all
WHAT IS THE METAPHYSICS WITHIN THE METHOD? 37

“ external” existence. Thus the second thesis of 1637 formulates

much more than an epistemology, even a fundamental one: It already
presents the shadow of an ontology.
Let us now sum up our findings: With the thesis that “to exist is
to think,” the Discourse on the Method establishes a protology; it also
establishes a quasi-ontology with the thesis that “ (to be) thought is
to exist.” A protology and an ontology are enough to define a meta­
physics, in the scholarly sense as well as in the ontotheological sense
of the word. Therefore, as early as 1637, Descartes, far from simply
establishing a doctrine of science, indeed elaborates and constructs
a genuine metaphysics. Hence, we must contest the interpretation
that has guided us until now and, against Alquie, present the follow­
ing conclusions: (a) There is indeed a metaphysical project in the
Discourse, which is comparable, as a project, to that of the Meditations,
(b) Far from suffering from the absence of a properly metaphysical
expose of the doubt and even of the cogito (Alquie), the project of
1637 on the contrary organizes it around the “I think,” by conferring
on the “I think” more metaphysical privileges than the Meditations
will ever concede to the ego: namely, permanence, the rank of “ first
principle,” and the exclusivity of the title of “ substance.” Far from
underestimating the “ I think,” the Discourse overvalues it metaphysi­
cally compared with the ego of the Meditations, and this presents a
major obstacle when seeking to understand the relationship between
these two texts, (c) Conversely, far from presenting “ a perfectly elab­
orated metaphysics concerning the existence of God” (Alquie), the
Discourse lags behind the Meditations insofar as it omits divine causal­
ity and enervates the infinity of God, to the point of never actually
using the term substance to refer to God. Thus, the Discourse uses
only two of the three proofs of the existence of God and achieves
them on the basis of a single divine name, i.e., “perfect being.” In
short, the Discourse achieves a genuine metaphysics precisely where
it was criticized for a metaphysical imperfection, and it is most obvi­
ously found lacking where it was heralded as a success.

5. The Discourse on the Method as Transition

Yet, in spite of the arguments that support it, this result suffers from
its very radicalness. For, when an exceptional interpreter and careful
editor like Alquie supports, or appears to support, such a weak inter­
pretation, it seems proper or simply prudent to credit him with a
38 CHAPTER TWO

more fruitful and powerful aim or intention (undeveloped perhaps).

We must therefore pose a new question: What truth was Alquie seek­
ing when he spoke— erroneously at first glance— of the metaphysical
shortcomings of the Discourse? The answer is explicit in the texts;
according to Alquie, the “ I think” of 1637 is characterized by the
fact that it “ does not go beyond itself,” and therefore does not realize
“the genuine cogito that . . . transcends” objective science.27 In other
words, the “I think” does not yet ensure the transcendence of the
ego. Or, to avoid any confusion and to follow Alquie’s intention more
faithfully, we should say that in 1637 the immanence of the I toward
itself, the method, and objectivity prevents the metaphysical discov­
ery of the transcendence of the ego, toward itself, but also toward
God— as it is accomplished in 1641. Alquie attempted and probably
succeeded in establishing the presence of this transcendence of the
ego in the Meditations, but he thought to strengthen his demonstra­
tion by denying any metaphysical status for the Discourse. Now, hav­
ing reestablished the metaphysical accomplishment of the Discourse,
we would like to show that, paradoxically, it also allows us to confirm
Alquie’s thesis about the nontranscendence of the I and the transcen­
dence of the ego. For it is possible that the metaphysical gap between
the Discourse and the Meditations could remain or perhaps widen,
even if a genuine metaphysics is found in the Discourse; moreover,
Alquie could still have been right even if he failed to find the proper
arguments to support his hypothesis. We shall therefore attempt to
reach Alquie’s conclusion, although by other means, means adapted
to the results we have just obtained. The hypothesis is as follows:
The I does not transcend itself, or the method, or objectivity, which
is why the Discourse does not discover metaphysics (in its entirety).
What are the arguments that confirm this? (a) First, an obvious
fact, already noted: Doubt, in 1637, is not applied explicitly toward
mathematical and logical truths, or toward simple natures and present
evidences; hence, it does not have the rank of “metaphysica dubitandi
ratio” (AT VII, 36, 11. 24-25). But this fact alone does not explain
anything and actually itself requires explanation: Why does the status
of doubt change from one text to the next? (b) More radically, the
I does not transcend itself in 1637 because it cannot, and must not,
do so. It cannot imagine a horizon of transcendence in which “ I think,
therefore I am” immediately develops into a complete and completed
metaphysics: indeed, on the one hand, the thesis “ to think is to
exist” creates a protology in which the being I plays the role of su-
WHAT IS THE METAPHYSICS WITHIN THE METHOD? 39
preme being; on the other hand, the thesis “ (being) thought is to
exist” leads to an ontology— a “ gray” ontology perhaps, but one that
is universally applicable to any thinkable being. These two theses are
sufficient to establish an ontotheology; the I that exhausts itself in it
and sets it in motion cannot as such imagine or suspect the slightest
transcendental horizon on this basis. But there is more: the I, by
remaining immanent in this ontotheology, benefits from uncommon
privileges, which usually characterize a supreme being, such as per­
manence, “ first principle,” and unique “ substance.” Transcending
this ontotheology would imply (supposing it possible) abandoning it,
against everything conatus in sese perseverandi (striving to persevere
in itself). Consequently, the I cannot and must not transcend itself—
not because the Discourse does not reach the metaphysical horizon,
as asserted by Alquié, but rather because it occupies and accomplishes
a perfect metaphysics, as defined by the ontotheology of thought as
being. The metaphysical saturation of the method and of its onto-
theological discourse prevents the I from transgressing the method
and transcending itself.
The second part of Alquié’s thesis remains to be confirmed: that
in 1641 the transcendence of the ego transgresses the immanence of
the / of 1637. Can this be proven? Alquié presents one fact to support
the possibility of this transcendence of the ego: namely, that it has
already occurred before 1637, in the letters on the creation of eternal
truths. Doesn’t this argument contradict our hypothesis that the
Meditations alone exhibits the completed Cartesian metaphysics, after
the Discourse? It does, but only in appearance. For, indeed, what is
missing in the Discourse? The mention of God, not only as “perfect
being” but also as “infinite” and “ cause,” as found in the Meditations. ¡
But what is missing in the Discourse with regard to God is found in
the letters to Mersenne of 1630, well before the Meditations. Indeed,
God was already recognized as “infinite and all powerful” (AT I,
152, 1. 11), “infinite and incomprehensible” (150,1. 7), and “ [an] in­
comprehensible power” (146, 11. 4-5 and 150, 1. 22). The infinite is
found here in conjunction with incomprehensibility, that is to say,
the horizon of a knowledge that does not comprehend the infinite
the way it does its finite objects, i.e. , those of the method; the infinite
also occurs in conjunction with power, that is to say, with what
thought as such is deprived of—namely, effectivity of production.:
Logically, the letters of 1630 identified God on the basis of causality:
“ God is a cause whose power surpasses the bounds of human under-
40 CHAPTER TWO

standing” (150, 11. 18-19). Transcendence is formulated here as a

surpassing of thought by the power of the cause; to acknowledge God
as an “ efficient and total cause” (152,1. 2), it is necessary to surpass,
to transcend the “bounds of human knowledge” and think beyond
purely scientific understanding, beyond the completed and closed
metaphysics of thought already understood as being.
Another textual fact confirms this. Whereas in 1637 the Discourse
does not contain the definition of God as an incomprehensible infinite
(the adjective is never used), the letters of 1630 that defined Him as
“ infinite and incomprehensible” (AT I, 146, 11. 4-5) are echoed in
1641 in the formula of the letter to the Sorbonne: “ God as infinite
and incomprehensible” (AT VII, 9 ,11. 16-17). This illustrates a clear
evolution, especially since the same preface opens with the acknowl­
edgment that the Discourse on the Method of 1637 had only discussed
the existence of God (and the question of the soul) “ [without] pro­
viding] a full treatment” (PW II, 6). The metaphysics of the proofs
of the existence of God is completed only in 1641, and not in 1637,
since only then are the infinite and incomprehensibility fully ac­
knowledged. We now have a better grasp of the situation of the
Discourse: It establishes a metaphysics of methodical thought by de­
ploying the ontotheological implications of a single “first princi­
ple” — namely, “I think, therefore I am” — but the “bounds” of this
sketch force it to relinquish, like a fortress bypassed rather than van­
quished, what the creation of eternal truths had made manifest as
early as 1630: that God transcends scientific thought according to
the method, much as the infinite and the cause surpass comprehen­
sive and objectifying thought. We finally unearth here the speculative
role of one last lexicological fact noted above in §3: The Discourse
omits— purposefully, we may now surmise— the term cause with re­
gard to God. We now see that this term would have reintroduced
the entire problematic of the infinite (relativized in 1637), of incom­
prehensibility (unknown in 1637), and of power (in the letters of
1630). It would thus have required, to save it from incoherence, a
complete reworking of the ontotheology of thought as the Being of
beings; this Descartes could probably not have dared to do in 1637.
Yet this is what he undertook in 1641, when he reintroduced, in
the midst of the ontotheology of thought inherited from the Discourse,
the doctrine of God as infinite, and especially as cause, which had
been in limbo since 1630. We have at our disposal a clue, if not a
proof, for this continuity between the letters and the Meditations,
WHAT IS THE METAPHYSICS WITHIN THE METHOD? 41

which bypasses the Discourse. When, in order to reach God as ulti­

mate cause (AT VII, 50,1. 6), Meditation I I I abandons the ontotheol-
ogy of the cogitatio by introducing a new beginning in (and against)
the first order of reasons— i.e., cause as principle— it repeats almost
word for word the definition of the cause reserved to God in the
third letter. Descartes writes in 1630: “You ask me by what kind of
causality God established the eternal truths. I reply: by the same kind
of causality as he created all things, that is to say, as their efficient
and total cause” (AT I, 151, line 1-15 2 , 1. 2). In 1641 Descartes
writes: “Now it is manifest by the natural light that there must be
as least as much [reality] in the efficient and total cause as in the
effect of that cause” (AT VII, 40, 11. 21-23). These two adjectives,
which define the cause as efficient and total in 1630, do not reappear
by chance in 1641; Descartes indicates that he “ added them on pur­
pose,” and in fact he will retain the same expression in the Principles
of Philosophy,28
The irruption of causality in the Meditations is heir to the causal­
ity of 1630. This confirms our previous findings: The irruption of
causality in Meditation I I I (in conjunction with the application of
substantia to God) signals the break with the ontotheology of the
cogitatio (Meditations I and II), in other words, of thought (Discourse).
Arguably, the Discourse does present a metaphysics that in part over­
laps that of the Meditations but this metaphysics contradicts the
, 29

creation of eternal truths and ignores the ontotheology of the cause,

which in Meditation I I I overdetermines the first ontotheology of
thought. The Discourse professes to avoid the use of any cause in
metaphysics,30 by not integrating the doctrine of 1630 on divine cau­
sality; unlike the admirable, and successful, effort of 1641, it cannot
simultaneously repeat, critique, and correct the ontotheology of the
cogitatio by an ontotheology of the causa. The Discourse is not entirely
devoid of metaphysics, nor does it entirely accomplish the Cartesian
metaphysics. It remains on the border that separates two ontotheolo-
gies, and completes the first one while rejecting the second. Here the
ego thinks, therefore exists, and knows that its thoughts exist. Yet it
does not yet think with a full knowledge of the cause, or rather, let
us say that it is not fully ignorant of the cause when it thinks. The
Discourse marks a transition between two ontotheologies— within
metaphysics— although, sentinel of an unknown cause, it does not
cross the boundary between them.
We asked at the outset whether the method bears any relationship
42 CHAPTER TWO

to the metaphysics, in the Discourse on the Method and in general. By

now the answer is probably obvious: The method itself is equivalent
to a metaphysics, as, for instance, the general epistemology already
outlined a “ gray” ontology. But this metaphysics delineates only an
ontotheology of thought, as thinking or as (being) thought; it omits
(or even avoids) the possibility that another ontotheology might com­
plement it, according to the being as cause. The Cartesian method
thus remains on the border of its own progress, between thought and
cause, connected to the “ bounds of understanding.”
CHAPTER THREE

What Is the Method in the Metaphysics?

The Role of the Simple Natures in
the Meditations
i. Idea and Simple Nature
Descartes is often considered to be the modern founder of “idealism.”
It is a questionable habit to hastily evaluate this so-called “idealism”
positively or (most of the time) negatively, without first attempting
to define it. Admittedly, this task presents so many difficulties that
one might be tempted to avoid it: One of the most vexing might be
to attempt to discern the Cartesian definition of the idea. This ques­
tion itself can be further divided into at least three more: (a) Is there
a unified, coherent, and operational meaning of the term idea in Des­
cartes’ texts? (b) Is this meaning unquestionably new with regard to
previous meanings (i.e., in Aristotle, in medieval thinkers, in the later
scholastics)? (¿-) Did this eventual innovation have any influence on
later philosophers, or did it simply remain a hapax without a pos­
terity? We cannot undertake to answer all these questions here;1 we
shall therefore only approach the first question, for it helps settle the
other two in advance, for only if Descartes presents a unified, coher­
ent, and operational concept of the idea will it eventually be possible
to evaluate its originality and influence, and even— if one really in­
sists— to speak of “idealism.”
But the unity and coherence of the Cartesian meanings of the
words idee/idea seem from the outset to be quite problematic, since
they encompass two definitions: one found mostly in the Regulae ad
.1
directionem ingenii and the other mostly in the Meditations Let us
first examine this antinomy more in detail. The Regulae seeks to theo­
rize a science that would eliminate Aristotelian-Thomistic ontology,"
 44 CHAPTER THREE

substituting itself as a quasi-ontology. Consequently, the Regulae re-

jects idea in the sense of eidos (that is, the essence of a thing) while
retaining in the new meaning of the term two traits borrowed from
Aristotle.
(a) The idea is the equivalent of a figure: “figures or ideas” (AT
X, 414, 1. 17); “As for figures, we have already shown how ideas of
all things can be formed by means of these alone” (AT X, 450,11. 10 -
12).3 Ideas no longer represent things directly as they are perceived
by our senses or as they appear to us; rather, they represent things
by means of an encoding process performed by figures: Things
simply consist of figures of extension in movement, which are per­
ceived by the senses only because they hide their original character
as figures (primary qualities) under guises that are consistent with
the realm of the senses (secondary qualities). Against the sensory ap­
pearances that are unaware of them, figures play the fundamental
role in the idea function: For each sensation received in the mind,
science must therefore recreate the intelligible and nonsensory figures
>/ that originally cause this sensation as their sensory and unintelligible
effect. Figures in actuality constitute the middle term between the
thing itself and the way it appears to consciousness: Primary physical
figures are transmitted to the brain, which only then decodes them
as sensations. Thus the figure, although mathematical and abstract,
and thus bearing absolutely no resemblance to the sensation, in actu­
ality constitutes the thing as such. Figures schematize the truth about
/ a given thing by underlying the disfiguring sensation. They thus re­
place the thing itself, which they present in its original invisibility.
Hence, as figure, the idea remains real— determined by the thing
itself as well as characterizing it.4
(b) The idea belongs both to the realm of the imagination and to
that of the intellect: “ the idea . . . must be formed as distinctly as
possible in the imagination,” “two distinct ideas in our imagination”
(AT X, 4 16 ,11. 3off. and 444, 1. 3). Similarly, the idea is “received”
in the sensus communis} Obviously, it is impossible for any and all
ideas to be thus “received” and stored in common sense and in the
imagination; only “ corporeal ideas” (“ idea corporea,” AT X, 419, 1.
12; 443,1. 2) may do so. Here at least, Descartes is willing to maintain
the hylomorphic determination of the eidos of “physical” beings. Be­
sides, it is clear here that Descartes adopts the terminology and the­
matic of the faculties of the soul established by Aristotle, even if he
does so only to critique them and modify them.
WHAT IS THE METHOD IN THE METAPHYSICS? 45
In the Meditations, these two characteristics of the idea are re­
versed.
(a) Now the idea, as a figure, instead of remaining a form of the
thing, shapes thought itself: “ the form of any given thought” {PW
II, 113). Here the idea still informs, but without any other raw mate­
rial besides the representations that reach the imagination: “ [ideas]
only in so far as they give form to [informant] the mind itself” (AT
VII, 16 0 ,11. 14 -15 ; 161, 11. 2-3). The idea shapes not a thing, as its
essence or its code, but rather our mental perception of that thing,
as a form of the immediate representation and no longer of what is
represented: “by an idea I mean whatever is the form of a given per­
ception [forma perceptionis]” (AT VII, 188,11. 14-15). The idea de­
termines thought through the action of thinking, rather than de­
termining the thing on the basis of its essence. It should not surprise
us that ideas not only are reduced to the role of a simple mode
of thought {modi cogitationis, modi cogitandif but are radically iden­
tified with it: “ ideas, that is thoughts [ideae sive cogitationes], of
such things” (AT VII, 35, 1. 21; PW II, 24 [modified]); “ the idea
or the thought” (AT V, 354, 11. 10 -11). An idea can be summed up
as thought, as a “ notion,” 7 a “ concept,” 8 or even a “sensation.” 9 We
witness here an irreversible shift of the center of gravity: The idea
informs the raw material— i.e., thought— rather than the matter of
the thing itself.
{b) This shift is accompanied by a broadening of the perspective:
Far from being bounded by the imagination and by common sense,
in which case the idea could not exist outside of the sensation,
the idea becomes universally possible because it is identified with
thought— and is therefore now thinkable without sensory presuppo­
sition or any other presupposition besides itself. An idea is therefore
anything that is informed by thought: “ the word ‘idea5 is generally
taken to mean everything thought insofar as it is considered to be
only some object in the understanding” ; “I use the word ‘idea5 to
mean everything which can be in our thought55; “ For by ‘idea5 I do
not just mean the images depicted in the imagination . . . ; instead
by the term ‘idea51 mean in general everything which is in our mind
when we conceive something, no matter how we conceive it.” And
here Descartes does indeed seem to deduce the universality of the
idea (“ I am taking the word ‘idea5to refer to everything that is imme­
diately perceived by the mind55) from the universality of the cogitatio
itself (“ Thought. I use this term to include everything that is within
46 CHAPTER THREE

us in such a way that we are immediately aware of it” ).10 Further,

Descartes often mentions this divergence to his correspondents: For
him, and against Aristotle, the idea is defined by thought only, inde­
pendently of the imagination. Whether the idea informs representa­
tions of sensory or of purely intellectual origin is irrelevant here, since
the information provided by thought is enough in itself to define the
idea— so much so that in Descartes’ last texts innateness actually
encompasses the entire field of consciousness.
Thus Descartes’ doctrine has evolved to the point that it has now
inverted itself: Either an idea processes things by means of figures,
or thought is informed by the idea. Ideas depend upon the imagina­
tion or are freed from it on the basis of the cogitatio. Yet, even while
acknowledging the gap that separates the epistemic pole established
by the Regulae from the metaphysical pole anchoring the Meditations,
it seems problematic to assert that Descartes simply and crudely con­
tradicted himself. When an interpreter calls attention to a shortcom­
ing in the author studied, the rules of fairness (and prudence) demand
that he or she also consider the possibility of his or her own shortcom­
ings. We will therefore suppose, as a matter of principle, that Des­
cartes did not crudely contradict himself, even in the face of such
variation in his theory of the idea. How can we support this supposi­
tion? By considering a very straightforward hypothesis: namely, that
the variations noted above, although indisputable, do not concern
Descartes’ own contribution to the definition of the idea, but rather
echo some of its consequences for the pre-Cartesian definitions that
were prevalent at the time. But then, one may object, why did we
not refer, right from the start, to this genuinely Cartesian determina­
tion of the idea? Answer: because Descartes’ doctrine of the idea does
not at first use the term idea. Instead, it uses a new and original
substitute: namely, the simple nature.

2. The Regulae and the Forgetting of the Intellectual

Simple Nature
In the Regulae, in the first part of Rule X II, Descartes characterizes
“ideas” in terms of “figures” or “ shapes” formed in the imagination
(AT X, 414: CMS I, 41), thus reworking in a fairly precise, if critical,
fashion the doctrines of Aristotle’s De anima. But in the second part
of Rule X II, he abandons this seemingly cautious use of the tradi­
tional framework and introduces an utterly new concept, that of the
WHAT IS THE METHOD IN THE METAPHYSICS? 47
“ simple nature” (natura simplicissima, res simplex) This is not only,
or primarily, a terminological innovation; what is involved is an epis-
temological revolution.11
A simple nature has two characteristic features: it is neither sim­
ple, nor a nature. It is, first of all, opposed to “ nature,” since in place
of the thing considered in itself, according to its ousia (essence) or
physis (nature), it denotes the thing considered in respect of our
knowledge: “ when we consider things in the order that corresponds
to our knowledge of them [in ordine ad cognitionem nostram] our
view of them must be different from what it would be if it were
speaking of them in accordance with how they exist in reality” (AT
X, 418: CSM 1, 44). Our knowledge, then, does not apprehend things
as they “really” (re vera) are, or “in their own categories,” and “in
some class of being” (AT X, 381: CSM I, 21); instead, leaving aside
the truth of a thing’s ousia, we apprehend the first knowable object,
whatever it may be, provided it can be known “ easily” and hence
with certainty. Thus, so far from antecedently determining or regu­
lating our knowledge, the “natures” are simply the end products of
our knowledge. The “ nature” is a “knowable object” in the sense of
“ object simply insofar as it can be known by us” ; it thus deposes
traditional ousia, or essence, and banishes it once and for all from
modern metaphysics (despite Leibniz’ attempts to bring it back).
In the second place, a simple nature is not “ simple” in the standard
sense of the term. We are not dealing with the intrinsic simplicity
of an atom or element or primary form; instead, the “ simplicity” is
purely relative, referring to whatever appears most simple to the
mind. For example, each body is reducible to three simple natures—
extension, shape, and movement. Yet it is no objection to say that
shape could be reduced to the still simpler concepts of extension and
limit; for even if the concept of limit is in itself more abstract than
that of shape, this very abstractness allows it to be applied to a larger
number of terms (not just extension, for example, but also duration
and movement), thus making it complex from the point of view of
our knowledge. The simple nature remains the simplest term, but
the simplicity is an epistemological, not an ontological one: It does
not relate to essence or ousia. “Hence we are concerned with things
only in so far as they are perceived by the intellect, and so we term
‘simple’ only those things which we know so clearly and distinctly
that they cannot be divided by the mind into others which are more
distinctly known” (AT X, 418: CSM I, 44). The result is a concept
48 CHAPTER THREE

of idea that is distinctly and originally Cartesian: idea defined as an

object that is primary in respect of our knowledge and not in respect
of its ousia or essence— primary in so far as it is “easy” to know, and
not in respect of some indivisible form or eidos.
Given this definition of an idea as a simple nature, our next
task is to look at Descartes’ use of the expression. Rule X I I pro­
vides a detailed list of simple natures, grouped under three head­
ings: (a) those that are “purely intellectual” and whose knowledge re­
quires only “ some degree of rationality [nos rationis esse participes]” ;
(b) those that are “ purely material” and require some contribution
from the imagination; and (c) common simple natures or “ common
notions [communes notiones].” This last group is subdivided into
two types. First, there are those that belong to simple natures irre­
spective of whether they are intellectual or material, such as exis­
tence, unity, etc.; such natures are accordingly designated as “real.”
Second, there are those that allow other simple natures to be linked
together— that are “ as it were links [veluti vincula quaedam]” — in
virtue of being “common notions” in the Aristotelian sense; these
include the fact that two terms that are themselves equal must be
equal to a third term (hence the label for these natures is “logical” ).
Identified in this way, these simple natures, in the Regulae, allow us
to specify the conditions of operation for mathesis universalis (Rule
IV ), given the addition of a theory of order (Rules V - VII) and, to
complete the account, a theory of measurement (Rule X I V ) } 2
But this uniform list conceals an outcome that is in fact very far
from being homogeneous. In the development of the Regulae (as in­
deed will also be the case in the later Essays published with the Dis­
course), the simple natures are used only in tackling strictly scientific
or epistemological issues: the theory of equations, the theory of
curves (in optics), the theories of “ analytic geometry,” of reflection
and refraction, of magnetism, and so on. Descartes’ actual program
of work would thus appear to make use only of those simple natures
that are purely material, linked by the “ common” simple natures.
The intellectual simple natures, by contrast, though they are identi­
fied and listed, are not put to use at all at this stage; their employment
would, in effect, require reasoning of a purely intellectual kind, con­
ducted in abstraction from the world of the senses— reasoning de­
voted to theoretical objects that cannot be perceived by the senses
and are, in the strict sense of the term, metaphysical. The program
of the sciences, and its method of procedure, is quite different: Sci­
WHAT IS THE METHOD IN THE METAPHYSICS? 49

ence deals with simple natures of the material kind— objects that can
be apprehended only through the senses and the imagination. And
even though the common notions or principles of logic apply to both
the intellectual and the material domains, the mind nonetheless has
to proceed quite differently according to whether its knowledge de­
pends on the “ pure intellect” (“ ab intellectu puro” ) or on the intellect
“ as it intuits the images of corporeal things” (“ab eodem imagines
rerum materialium intuente,” A T X, 419: CSM I, 45). The distinc­
tion between simple natures that are intellectual and those that are
material corresponds to the distinction between metaphysics and
physics, and hence also to that between understanding and imagina­
tion. This contrast, which Descartes articulated explicitly only after
1630,13 is central to his work throughout the subsequent years and
is a recurring theme in the Meditations and Principles: “ the part of
the mind which is of most help in mathematics, namely the imagina­
tion, does more harm than good in metaphysical speculations” ; or
again, “it generally happens with almost everyone . . . that if they
are accomplished in metaphysics they hate geometry, while if they
have mastered geometry they do not grasp what I have written on
first philosophy.” 14 In short, the appearance of homogeneity that the
simple natures present is specious: In reality, they belong to faculties
and sciences that are radically distinct— the material simple natures,
grasped by the imagination, belonging to physics and mathematics;
the intellectual simple natures, apprehended by the understanding,
belonging to metaphysics. What is more, the mind must make a
choice between these two areas of inquiry, since metaphysics tran­
scends and is external to physics and mathematics, providing the
foundations for these sciences; that indeed is its essential and defining
function.
This last point could lead us to accept the following straightfor­
ward claim: “ The Regulae does not therefore . . . contain any trace
of metaphysics. On the contrary, the uncertainty that remains in that
work about the nature of the mind, and its tendency to assume all
truths under the same program, shows plainly that when he wrote the
Regulae, Descartes’ thought was still operating at a purely scientific
level.” 15 In this view, the function of the Regulae would be limited
to constructing a theory of science, realized in mathematical and
physical terms, without crossing the border into metaphysics at any
point. But this thesis is immediately open to a decisive counter­
example: The Regulae does refer to the purely intellectual simple na­
5o CHAPTER THREE

tures, though not making any use of them, and thus already acknowl­
edges the domain of thought that will later be revealed as the province
of metaphysics: “ the idea which represents for us what knowledge
or doubt or ignorance is, or the action of the will which may be called
‘volition,’ and the like” (AT X, 419: CSM I, 44). At the very least we
have to admit that, if the Regulae does not actually unfold a Cartesian
metaphysics, it nonetheless articulates its fundamental concepts and
assigns them a primary importance. This in turn raises the following
question: Why does Descartes not undertake to provide at least a
sketch of his metaphysics in the Regulae, given that he already has
the requisite conceptual materials at his disposal?
This question is doubly pressing when we observe that the Regulae
takes us right up to the brink of metaphysics. It does not merely
identify the intellectual simple natures (Rule X II), but also, even as
early as Rule III, attempts to link one of them with a (real) common
simple nature, thus hinting, even at this early stage, at propositions
that are strictly metaphysical. Among the examples he gives of knowl­
edge by intuition (intuitus), Descartes mentions— even before geo­
metrical knowledge (the definitions of the triangle and the sphere)—
the elements of the future cogito of 1637 and 1641: “ everyone can
mentally intuit that he exists, that he is thinking” (“ uniusquisque
animo potest intueri, se existere, se cogitare,” AT X, 368: CSM I,
14). This clause juxtaposes an intellectual simple nature (cogitare)
and a common simple nature (existere). So what more do we need
here to enable us to reach the first principle of metaphysics? Nothing,
except for the necessary link between these two simple natures—
nothing, in other words, but the act of putting them in the right
order. The failure to take this final step is all the more astonishing,
given that Rule X I I proceeds to link intellectual simple natures (“ if
Socrates says that he doubts everything, it necessarily follows that
he understands at least that he is doubting,” AT X, 421: CSM II,
46), and also links two instances of the common simple nature, exis­
tence (“I am, therefore God exists [sum, ergo Deus est],” ibid.)16
What is more, each of these two necessary linkings of simple natures
relates to the components of the cogito (doubt-thought; finite exis-
tence-infinite existence); all that is lacking is the final linking of the
elements in a single chain (doubt—thought, finite existence—infinite
existence). So if the Regulae does not succeed, there and then, in
articulating the metaphysical pronouncement that is the cogito, it is
not due to any incompatibility between metaphysical pronounce­
WHAT IS THE METHOD IN THE METAPHYSICS? 51
ments and the simple natures, or to any ignorance of the intellectual
and common simple natures, or to any general inability to link them;
what is missing is simply the capacity to establish a necessary order
between the simple natures that make up the cogito. With the doctrine
of the simple natures, the Regulae is already equipped with all the
elements required for articulating the first proposition of metaphys­
ics; the transition to metaphysics depends not on any new elements
or concepts, but merely on the necessity that links them— and this
necessity depends in turn on order.
The hypothesis that I am putting forward— that the Regulae con­
tains the elements of metaphysics (the intellectual simple natures) but
not their ordering (their necessary linking with the common simple
natures)— allows us to take a fresh look at the verdict of Alquié and
the much discussed problem he attempted to resolve. Instead of
marking out an uncrossable frontier between the Regulae (and Dis­
course) and the Meditations— a frontier designed to preserve the gap
between method and metaphysics— we should recognize that meta­
physics is itself embedded in the theory of method, in the Regulae;
but it is present as a possibility that the Regulae does not grasp or
unfold.17 This hypothesis can only be confirmed after a further inves­
tigation, which will aim to establish that the simple natures do indeed
have a metaphysical status and function in Descartes’ later works.

3. The Metaphysical Role o f the Simple Natures in the

Letters of 1630 and the Principia
The simple natures play a metaphysical role in at least two texts apart
from the Meditations. The letter that introduces the term metaphysical
(AT I, 144: CSM K, 120) also claims, as if throwing down a challenge
to the prevailing view, that “the mathematical truths which you call
‘eternal’ were established by God and depend entirely on him, no
less than all other created things” (AT I, 145). Mathematical truths
are thus created; they are, in other words, subordinate to the transcen­
dent demands of metaphysics. What is meant by mathematical truths
in this context? Descartes makes this clear by providing an example:
God was “ as free to bring it about that it was not true that all the
radii of a circle were equal as he was free not to create the world”
(AT I, 152). Now this example echoes the one given in Rule III,
among other instances of simple natures: “that a triangle is formed
by just three lines, and a sphere by a single surface, and the like”
52 CHAPTER THREE
(AT X, 368: CSM I, 14). One could also cite the common simple
nature of equality: “ things that are the same as a third thing are the
same as each other” (AT X, 419: CSM I, 45). The upshot is that
the created mathematical truths consist of combinations of material
simple natures (extension, shape) linked by common, logical simple
natures; and conversely that the material and common simple natures
are created, and hence transcended by metaphysical authority. This
in turn entails two conclusions. First, we must, yet again, distinguish
those simple natures that are material (mathematical) and common
from those that are intellectual; it is the first two types alone that are
referred to when subordination to the creative power of God is being
discussed. Second, this creative power corresponds to the involve­
ment of “metaphysical questions” in physics (AT I, 145, 1. 6), and
the gap that marks out the intellectual simple natures from all the
others is equivalent to the divide that separates metaphysics from
mathematics, and hence from physics. Should our conclusion not
therefore be that the frontier between the theory of science and meta­
physics is much more subtle than is suggested by a crude chronologi­
cal contrast between the earlier Regulae and the later Meditations, and
that it cuts across the domain of the simple natures themselves?18
A second test confirms as much. Part I of the Principles o f Philoso­
phy is expressly concerned with metaphysics. Nonetheless, after un­
folding the theory of truth and error developed in the Fourth Medita­
tion, it proceeds to deal with the simple natures, or at least their
equivalents. Having examined clear and distinct perceptions (articles
45-46), Descartes goes on in article 47 to look at “ all the simple
notions [simplices notiones] which are the basic components of our
thoughts” (AT VIIIA, 22: CSM I, 208). He then distinguishes (in
article 48) three types of “ simple notions.” (a) The first comprises
the maxima generalia or “most general items . . . which extend to
all classes of things,” namely substance (which is here equivalent
to existence in Rule X I I ) , duration, order, and number; it is easy to
recognize here what were earlier called the “common” simple na­
tures. (b) The second type comprises extended substance, which is
explained in terms of the “notions” (simple natures) of size, exten­
sion, shape, and position (situs); this corresponds, when expanded,
to the list of material simple natures, (c) Third, we have thinking
substance, explained in terms of the “notions” (simple natures) of
perception and will; this corresponds to the list of intellectual simple
natures. Over and above these lists of simple natures, the Principles
WHAT IS THE METHOD IN THE METAPHYSICS? 53
adds a fourth type— the “ eternal truths” (“ aeternae veritates,” article
49, title). Each eternal truth is a purely mental notion, not a concept
of a thing, and consists of a “ common notion” in the sense of
“axiom.” The examples given (the principle of noncontradiction,
etc.) clearly enable us to recognize one of the two types of common
simple natures presented in Rule X I I — namely, logical and mathe­
matical axioms— but we may also discern here some of the “created”
truths (logical as well as mathematical). In short, the Principles pre­
serves the doctrine of the simple natures found in the Regulae, but
develops the doctrine— as indeed it develops the entire system of
science— from a metaphysical standpoint, and working from a meta­
physical starting point.
But now the difficulty arises as to whether there may not be an
inconsistency in the evidence just provided to establish a metaphysi­
cal function for the simple natures. Are the simple natures metaphys­
ical by default, as is implied by the Regulae, or are they metaphysical
by subordination, as the letters of 1630 suggest, or finally, and in
contrast to either of those, are they metaphysical in virtue of being
integrated into the foundations of the system, as the evidence of the
Principles would have us suppose?

4. The Material Simple Natures in Meditations I, V, and V I

Whether the simple natures really do fulfill a metaphysical function,
and whether the above evidence can be welded into a coherent argu­
ment to support this view, must ultimately depend on an analysis of
the Meditations. Can we find the simple natures (in the sense in which
the term is used in the Regulae) playing a role in the Meditations}
And in this case, should we downgrade the Meditations to the level
of a treatise on method? Or, conversely, should we regard method
as having a positive and integral function to perform in the develop­
ment of metaphysics?
I propose to argue for a paradoxical but essentially simple thesis:
We both can and should read all the Meditations as a figure composed
of different types of simple natures that overlap, interrupt, and suc­
ceed each other. Understood in this way, the metaphysics of 1641
does not so much reject the elements forged by the 1627 theory of
science as employ them in a radically new fashion and bring them
to a perfection hitherto undreamed of. I shall try to establish this
thesis by successively uncovering the interplay of the simple natures
54 CHAPTER THREE

in the First Meditation, then in the Fifth Meditation, and finally, the
most tricky case of all, in the Third Meditation.
The First Meditation does not precisely, or primarily, call into
doubt the truths of mathematics, which appear almost as an after­
thought in the eighth paragraph; rather the attention is directed in
the first instance to what are called the “ simpler and more univer­
sal things [magis simplicia et universalia],” or again the “ simplest
and most general things” (“ simplicissimae et maxime generales res,”
A T VII, 20, 1. n , 24: CSM II, 14). What are referred to here are,
of course, the simple natures, as is shown by at least three consider­
ations.19 First, the items introduced here owe their logical primacy
to their simplicity; this simplicity rests not on an ontic but merely on
an epistemic foundation, and arises solely in virtue of their containing
“ something certain and indubitable” (“ aliquid certi et indubitati,”
AT VII, 20,1. 27). These items thus possess the essential characteris­
tic of the simple natures— simplicity as far as our knowledge is con­
cerned, and simplicity defined by that knowledge. Second, the terms
in question allow us to know the truth of what is perceived by the
senses, while in no way admitting the slightest similarity between the
idea perceived and the corresponding thing. Those ordinary “ familiar
events” (“ usitata ista,” AT VII, 19, 1. 11: CSM II, 13), like wearing
clothes and sitting in front of the fire, are cast into doubt, but they
nonetheless presuppose more elementary notions (“ particularia ista,”
ibid., 29) such as stretching out one’s hands, moving one’s head, and
so on; and these particulars in their turn, whether true or false, can
only be conceived of by presupposing concepts that are absolutely
“ simple and universal” (“ simplicia et universalia vera,” A T VII, 20,
1. 11). This relationship, which arbitrarily links the pure object of
sensation to the realm of perfect intelligibility, in effect reinforces
the “ coding” established in Rule X I I whereby simple natures are
encoded as sensations.20 The terms that figure in the conclusion of
the First Meditation thus perform the function of the simple natures
of Rule X II. Third, and most important, the First Meditation pro­
vides a list of “ simple and universal things [simplicia et universalia]”
that reproduces what Rule X I I had termed “ material simple natures.”
This is true despite a certain difference in the way the terms are
grouped: In 1627 the list reads “ shape, extension, movement, etc.”
(AT X, 419: CSM I, 45), while in 1641 “corporeal nature in general”
is explicated as “ extension, the shape of extended things, the quantity
or size and number of these extended things, the place in which they
WHAT IS THE METHOD IN THE METAPHYSICS? 55

may exist, the time through which they may endure, and so on” (AT
VII, 20: CSM II, 14). The first three concepts enumerated here ex­
actly match the first three simple natures that are listed, while the
later items also correlate closely enough, since they correspond with
some of the common simple natures (unity, duration: A T X, 4 19 ,1.
22: CSM I, 45).
Once we have grasped this parallelism between the Regulae and
the Meditations, we can go on to explore its consequences. It seems,
first of all, that the starting point of the Meditations— the project of
establishing science by means of hyperbolical doubt— is nothing else
than the point reached by the end of the Regulae— namely, science
operating on the simple natures, both material and common. The
second phase of the Cartesian enterprise does not begin out of noth­
ing, but builds on secure achievements gained in the first phase; ac­
cordingly, the interpretation of the idea as a simple nature remains
operative in the Meditations, at least in part. A further piece of evi­
dence comes to mind here: It is only the material simple natures that
make their appearance at this point in the Meditations; there is no
mention of the intellectual simple natures. Moreover, these material
natures enter the game only to be disqualified by means of the hyper­
bolical doubt: “ he may have brought it about that there is no extended
thing, no shape, no size, no place” (AT VII, 21, 11. 4-6: CSM II,
14). It is thus that the simple natures enter the realm of metaphysics;
but since they are merely material (and common) simple natures,
they make their entrance only to find themselves disqualified from
participating. In one way there is nothing remarkable about this situa­
tion; yet in another way it is surprising enough. What we encounter
is the outcome of the doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths
(found in the letters to Mersenne of April and May 1630): When the
authority of metaphysics in the strict sense is invoked, the laws of
mathematics that regulate physics (via an encoding process) find
themselves transcended and hence disqualified. All that the system
of doubt developed in 1641 does is to give a negative interpretation
to the incommensurability of the sciences,21 based on the idea of the
incomprehensible, which had been interpreted in a positive way in
the 1630 discussion of the foundations of science. The sciences that
are based on the material (and common) simple natures are thus al­
ways subordinate to metaphysics. To confirm this hypothesis, we
shall first attempt to uncover further textual evidence in its favor in
the Meditations.
56 CHAPTER THREE

The Fifth Meditation supports the essential point in the analysis

just offered: Hyperbolical doubt initially disqualifies only the material
simple natures; once this doubt is removed (Third Meditation) and
the rules of truth and falsity are reestablished (Fourth Meditation), it
is the material simple natures that are rehabilitated first. In fact, what
is in question here (as earlier) is not the mathematical truths, but
what makes them possible and thinkable at a logically prior level—
namely, the “ true and immutable natures” (“verae et immutabiles
naturae,” A T VII, 64: CSM II, 45); it is these that are reinstated
first, constituting as they do the only true object of “ideas as far as
they exist in my thought” (“ quatenus sunt in mea cogitatione,” AT
VII, 63: CSM II, 45). I suggest that we are dealing here with the self­
same material simple natures that have already occupied our attention
throughout the First Meditation. There are three reasons for this con­
clusion. First, the natures, while remaining immutable, eternal, and
general (AT VII, 64,11. 11 and 16; 6 3 ,1. 22: CSM II, 44), still allow
knowledge of countless particulars (“innumerae ideae, innumerae
figurae,” 6 3 ,1. 23; 64,11. 7 and 28). These “ particular things” plainly
hark back to the things, whether “particular” or “ general, ” of which
those “ simple universals” are said to be composed in the First Medita­
tion (AT VII, 19-20: CSM II, 13-14). In short, what is going on here
is the reinstatement of the code that was invalidated by the process of
hyperbolical doubt. Second, the list of general terms matches the list
of material simple natures (including one common simple nature):
“I distinctly imagine quantity . . . or the extension of the quantity
. . . in length, breadth and depth . . . sizes, shapes, positions and
local motions . . . durations . . . countless particular features regarding
shape number and motion” (AT VII, 63: CSM II, 44). As in the
First Meditation and in the Regulae, the mathematical notions (in the
Fifth Meditation, the essence of a triangle and its properties) enter
the scene only subsequently, merely as examples rather than as pri­
mary elements in their own right. Third, and following from the last
point, the Fifth Meditation enables us to rediscover the validity of
universal science, in which the material simple natures will be de­
ployed as they were in the Regulae: The latter’s mathesis universalis
corresponds exactly to the pura atque abstracta mathesis of the Fifth
Meditation, which has as its object “ corporeal nature.”22
The upshot of these arguments is not just that the simple natures
are still playing a role in 1641; more than that, their destruction and
subsequent reinstatement are the principal targets at which hyperbol­
WHAT IS THE METHOD IN THE METAPHYSICS? 57

ical doubt and metaphysical certainty are aimed. It is their status, in

effect, which determines the status of mathesis, and consequently of
mathematics, and then in turn the functioning of physics (through
the encoding process). It is this central thread and this alone— the
role of the material simple natures— that enables us to understand
why the Meditations puts to the test only and precisely that science
whose certainty, in principle, has already been established in the
Regulae. But this conclusion in turn gives rise to a new question.
What is the role played by the other simple natures during this testing
process? What, in particular, is the role of the intellectual simple
natures?23 That these do play a role in the Fifth Meditation is apparent
from the fact that at the very moment when pura mathesis and its
object are reinstated, we find a reference to “achieving knowledge of
countless other matters both concerning God himself and other
things whose nature is intellectual” (AT VII, 71: CSM II, 49). The
function of these intellectual simple natures remains to be explained.

5. The Simple Natures in Meditation I I

To throw a full light on the metaphysical function of all the simple
natures, we need to go back to the Second Meditation. This Meditation
can in effect be read as a systematic and exhaustive examination of
the four types of simple nature uncovered in Rule X I I : intellectual,
material, common in the real sense, and common in the logical sense.
An analysis of the use of these four terms will enable us to compare
the metaphysical role each of them plays.
The intellectual simple natures comprise cognition, doubt, igno­
rance, the action of the will, and so on (cognitio, dubium, ignorantia,
voluntatis actio; AT X, 419: CSM I, 44). But the items presented in
Rule X I I as a list of concepts, without any internal organization or
ontological implications, will reappear in the Second Meditation as an
unfolding of the properties of cogitatio (thought) precisely because
from this point onward thought has the status of a thing or res: “What
then am I? A thing that thinks [res cogitans]. What is that? A thing
that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling and
also imagines and has sensory perceptions [res dubitans, intelligens,
affirmans, negans, volens, nolens, imaginans quoque et sentiens]”
(AT VII, 28: CSM II, 19).24 The parallelism here is quite obvious.
Cognitio in the Regulae becomes cogitatio (thought) in the Second
Meditation, with a further echo later in the list in the term intelligens
58 CHAPTER THREE

(thing . . . that understands). Dubium (doubt) becomes dubitans (that

doubts), ignorantia (ignorance) probably corresponds to affirmans/
negans (that affirms and denies), voluntatis actio (the action of the will)
appears as the two modes of such action, volens / nolens (is willing, is
unwilling). Here for the first time in the Second Meditation, we follow
the “order of reasons,” 25 and the res cogitans takes certain concepts,
the intellectual simple natures, which had hitherto been left without
any job to do, and gives them a metaphysical function. What is in­
volved is no mere recitation of the concepts as if they were abstract
objects; rather, the res cogitans lays them out as modes of its own
activity. The res cogitans can do its thinking only insofar as it deploys
the intellectual simple natures as its own modes of functioning. Now
the Regulae, while exploiting the material simple natures extensively,
had not put the intellectual simple natures to work (though it did
explicitly refer to them). We can now see why: Only once the material
simple natures are called into doubt (First Meditation), and hence
removed from the scene, can the intellectual simple natures open the
door to the operation of pure reason. And pure reason, operating
metaphysically, and as it were beyond itself, must now acknowledge
them. Our first conclusion, then, is this: The essence of the res cogi­
tans is defined in terms identical to the list of intellectual simple na­
tures.
Among the “ common” simple natures (“ common” in the sense
that they apply equally to intellectual and to material realities), Rule
X I I lists “ existence, unity, duration, and the like” (“ existentia, uni-
tas, duratio,” AT X, 419: CSM I, 45). Now the performance of what
we call the cogito consists merely in picking up this list. The elements
of it appear in both the formulations of the dictum in the Second
Meditation: “ so I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am,
I exist is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or con­
ceived in my mind” ; “ I am, I exist, that is certain. But for how long?
For as long as I am thinking.” 26 The cogito consists in a single fact:
The ego puts to work, by a performance of thinking, the common
simple nature of existence. And because this performance takes place
in time (“whenever,” “for as long as” ), it also puts to work the com­
mon simple nature of duration. It is thus that the ego manages to
identify itself as a thinking thing: “ Thinking . . . this alone is insepa­
rable from me. . . . Were I totally to cease from thinking I should
totally cease to exist” (AT VII, 27: CSM II, 18). The passage from
essence to existence is strictly equivalent, as far as the ego is con-
WHAT IS THE METHOD IN THE METAPHYSICS? 59
cerned, to following up the employment of the intellectual simple
natures with the employment of the common simple natures. Our
second conclusion is this: The existence of the res cogitans is mani­
fested with the help of these common simple natures.
But by the “ common” simple natures is also meant the common
notions or principles of logic. The Regulae provides some exam­
ples— the fact that two equal terms are equal to a third term, the link
between geometrical figures and their properties, and so on. These
principles, in conformity with the basic thrust of the Regulae, depend
on the limited self-evidence that applies to the purely material simple
natures. But the list can be extended. The Principles o f Philosophy
recapitulates— this time from a metaphysical standpoint— the com­
mon simple natures (described as “ common notions or axioms” ), and
adds to the Regulae list a new axiom, whose special task is to link
intellectual simple natures to a real simple nature: “ he who is thinking
cannot but exist so long as he is thinking.”27 It was precisely the
absence of this common simple nature, in Rule III, that blocked the
move from a listing of evident simple natures (“ that he is existing,
that he is thinking,” AT X, 368: CSM I, 14) to the articulation of
the first principle of metaphysics. Equally, the necessary link estab­
lished in Rule X I I between Socrates’ doubt and the assertion of
truth and falsity (AT X, 421: CSM I, 46) fails to include the essen­
tial further step— that existence follows immediately from the very
doubt; what is missing is the principle of a necessary link between
intellectual simple natures and real common simple natures (in par­
ticular, existence). In the Second Meditation, by contrast, use is made
of the common notion that can forge a necessary link between exis­
tence and thought, though the link is expressed the other way around:
“ It could be that were I totally to cease from thinking I should totally
cease to exist” (AT VII, 27: CSM II, 18). Our third conclusion, then,
is this: The link between the essence of the ego and its existence
consists simply in the fact that a common simple nature or common
notion is used to make the necessary link between an intellectual sim­
ple nature and a real common simple nature.
The material simple natures do, of course, also appear in the Sec­
ond Meditation. But to establish the priority of the res cogitans over
every other existing thing, the analysis of the piece of wax takes not r
just the sensible qualities of the wax but also its determinable aspect
(“ something extended, flexible, and changeable” ) and subordinates
them to the primacy of “ purely mental scrutiny” (“pura mentis in-
6o CHAPTER THREE

spectio,” AT VII, 31: CSM II, 21). The three characteristics, “ex­
tended,” “flexible,” and “ changeable,” reintroduce the three chief
material simple natures (extension, shape, and movement); hence,
the analysis of the piece of wax ends up by subordinating the material
to the intellectual simple natures. We thus have a reversal of the trend
in the Regulae, which passed over the intellectual natures in silence
and made use only of the material natures. A further conclusion fol­
lows from this: The goal and the result of the Second Meditation is
to reverse the hierarchy of the simple natures and place the intellec­
tual simple natures on top.
The Second Meditation is thus revealed as a marvelously coherent
exercise in utilizing and ordering the simple natures. They are uti­
lized since for the first time all the simple natures, including the
intellectual ones, are systematically deployed and organized, whereas
the Regulae totally neglected the latter type. And they are ordered,
first, because the intellectual natures take precedence over the mate­
rial ones in certainty and self-evidence, and second and most impor­
tant, because they survive the hyperbolical doubt that disqualifies the
material natures. It must be stressed that the First Meditation never
deals with the simple natures in general, irrespective of their type;
its target is exclusively the material simple natures. There is, to my
knowledge, no text that brings doubt to bear on the intellectual sim­
ple natures;28as a result, the fact that I am thinking (and hence exist),
am ignorant, doubting, willing, and so on is never threatened by
doubt. This distinction certainly provides a radical answer to the sup­
posed difficulty of the “ Cartesian circle” : This bogus problem simply
does not arise unless one jumbles up simple natures, which are in
fact of distinct types, as well as being ordered in a definite hierarchy.

6. The Simple Natures in Meditation I I I

This rereading of the Meditations has so far left out any reference to
one crucial text— the Third Meditation— and has not yet tackled the
question of whether the reinstatement of the simple natures is addi­
tionally guaranteed by God. The difficulties here are more complex
than those we have so far encountered, and so we shall have to pro­
ceed more cautiously; the solutions to be offered will be correspond­
ingly less cut and dried.
An initial observation will at least point us in the right direction:
The Third Meditation confirms the results of the Second, insofar as
WHAT IS THE METHOD IN THE METAPHYSICS? 6l

it subordinates the material simple natures to the ego (and hence to

the intellectual simple natures). To begin with, it reproduces, under
the heading of “ corporeal things,” the list of material simple natures:
“ size or extension . . . shape . . . position . . . and motion or change
[magnitudinem sive extensionem . . . figuram . . . situm . . . et motum
sive mutationem].” But in addition, without any reference to the dif­
ference of type involved, we have two real common simple natures.
that have already been encountered, “ duration and number [duratio
et numerus].” Most crucial of all, there is in addition a notion that
has hitherto gone unrecognized, or even been rejected— that of sub­
stance (AT VII, 43: CSM II, 30).29 The next step is establishing
whether the ego can construct these notions simply from its own re­
sources. The reply comes in two parts. First, the real common simple
natures, “ substance, duration, number and anything else of this
kind,” can be subsumed under the ego, principally because the latter
is a substance and hence is acquainted with the classification “ sub­
stance” (with the ratio substantiae), even in its extended form (AT
VII, 44, 1. 28-45, 1- 2). As for duration and number, the ego can
construct these notions thanks to the variations in its own thinking,
and hence can subsequently transfer them to corporeal things (ibid.).
Second, the material simple natures are, as a result, themselves re­
ducible to the ego— though via an argument that is admittedly more
forced than convincing: Extension, shape, position, and movement,
although they are material simple natures, are nonetheless modes of
a material substance and hence various modes of substance in general
(modi quidam substantiae); now since I, the ego, am also a substance
(ego autem substantia), the modes of a substance different from mine
may therefore be contained in me eminently. Such at any rate is the
supposition that Descartes blandly asks us to accept (AT VII, 4 5 ,11.
5-8: CSM II, 31). And hence the ego, and all the simple natures it
comprises, contain “ eminently” (eminenter) all the other simple na­
tures, whether material or common.
This confirmation of a hierarchy in the simple natures is thus sup­
posed to entail a more radical result: the fact that the simple natures
can be reduced to, or deduced from, the ego. Whatever “ objective”
or representative reality is contained in any of the simple natures, as
objects of thought, is generated by the formal reality of the ego. Yet
this result gives rise to a serious problem. The a posteriori proof of
God’s existence requires the uncovering of an idea that the ego must
be incapable of generating— an idea not derived from the simple na-
62 CHAPTER THREE

tures. But if nothing can be an object of thought except through the

medium of the simple natures, and if the idea of God transcends all
the simple natures, what the proof of God requires is an idea that
both represents God and is at the same time an object of rational
thought; yet no idea that meets both these conditions could possi­
bly be available. To overcome this formidable problem, Descartes
is obliged to introduce— somewhat artificially— several new ingre­
dients.
To begin with, as we have seen, the Third Meditation introduces
substance as one of the real common simple natures. This innovation,
besides appearing very late in the day, contradicts the radical critique
of the notion of substance mounted in the Regulae; but the dubious
move is unavoidable if Descartes is to apply to God a term that is
both common (a stone or a mind are substances, just as God is a
substance) and yet proper to Him alone: God is substantia infinita,
“infinite substance” (AT VII, 45, 1. 11: CSM II, 31). This bringing
together of the common and the special notions of substance is an
attempt to do justice to two opposing requirements: (1) that of keep­
ing the notion of God within the bounds of ordinary rationality
(hence, the inclusion of God among the simple notions via the
[doubtful] supposition that substance is such a nature) and (2) that
of maintaining the transcendency of God with respect to the ego,
which is the sole source from which all the simple natures are de­
duced. It is this last point that underpins the adjective infinite, for if
substance can provide rigorous support for the simple natures, the
infinite is debarred from doing the same, for one very powerful rea­
son: Every simple nature must by definition be comprehensible,
whereas the infinite remains by definition incomprehensible (though
it is intelligible). “ The idea of the infinite, if it is to be a true idea,
cannot be grasped [comprehendi] at all, since the impossibility of
being grasped is contained in the formal definition of the infinite”
(“ incomprehensibilitas in ratione formali infiniti continetur,” Fifth
Replies, AT VII, 368: CSM II, 253). An identical qualification also
appears when the power of God is referred to: The impossibility of
grasping the notion is immediately stressed as a corrective to the view
that our access to the divine essence is too easy (“ his immense and
incomprehensible power [immensa et incomprehensibilis potentia],”
First Replies, AT VII, 100, 11. 26—27: CSM, 79). If He is thought of
from the point of view of the infinite, God remains “ unthinkable and
inconceivable” (“ incogitabilis et inconceptibilis,” Second Replies, AT
WHAT IS THE METHOD IN THE METAPHYSICS? 63

VII, 140, 1. 2: CSM II, 100; and AT VII, 189, 1. 10: CSM II, 133).
From this perspective, God thus lies at the extreme limit of the sim­
ple natures; indeed, if one reflects on the extremely fragile and ambig­
uous status of the term substance, He is outside their domain alto­
gether.
We thus arrive at the following relatively straightforward schema:
The material simple natures, which alone are subjected to hyperboli­
cal doubt (First Meditation), are reinstated immediately after that
doubt has been removed (Fifth Meditation). The intellectual simple
natures are equivalent to the res cogitans and its modes, and hence,
as the ego, take precedence over the material simple natures (Second
Meditation). And as for God, He transcends both types of simple
natures (Third Meditation). According to this schema, the First and
Fifth Meditations (and hence the Sixth) precisely mark out the hori­
zons of mathesis universalis (the “ universal science” of the Regulae).
The ego, by contrast, makes use for the first time of the potentiality
of the intellectual simple natures, which the Regulae had referred to
without developing, and achieves a new dimension of mathesis univer­
salis. Lastly, God transcends absolutely all the simple natures, com­
pletely escaping the bounds of mathesis universalis and revealing a
horizon that is absolutely metaphysical in nature.
Nevertheless, the above schema should not be adhered to over-
rigidly. The very fact that it is so neat and schematic prevents its
doing justice to several pieces of textual evidence that point in the
opposite direction— toward a close link between God and the simple
natures, and hence toward a more subtle relationship between
mathesis universalis and metaphysics. To begin with, God exists; in­
deed, the sole ambition of the Meditations (“in which the existence
of God . . . is demonstrated,” AT VII, ry: CSM II, 12) is to prove
as much: “we must conclude that God necessarily exists” (AT VII,
45: CSM II, 31). Now existence belongs to the (real) common simple
natures; moreover, in the Fifth Meditation, we find existence linked
to essence by what the Regulae called a “necessary conjunction [con-
junctio necessaria]” between simple natures. The comparison be­
tween the relation between a triangle and its properties, on the one
hand, and the essence of God and his existence, on the other, only
serves to reinforce our interpretation of existence as a simple nature.
Other properties of God could undoubtedly also be expressed in
terms of common real simple natures— in particular eternity (by
comparison with duration) and unity. What is more, the debate on
64 CHAPTER THREE

the boundary between the possible and the impossible for divine om­
nipotence would have had no sense if Descartes and his critics had
not been prepared to accept implicitly that logical principles and
common notions could relate, at least in principle, to God; what is
at issue here is common logical simple natures. Accordingly, all the
common simple natures remain relevant to inquiries about God.
In the second place, God thinks, that is, He assumes the most
important simple nature, that of thought (cogitatio). This assertion,
though absent from the Meditations, appears several times in subsid­
iary texts: “ the most perfect power of thought which we understand
to be in God” ; “ the clear and distinct idea of uncreated and indepen­
dent thinking substance” ; “ divine thought.” 30We must not underes­
timate the importance of this, especially since it attributes to God
the most crucial of the intellectual simple natures, despite the fact
that the Third Meditation had reduced all such natures to the ego
alone and made them incommensurable with the idea of God. Conse­
quently, along with the cogito that subsumes them all, the intellectual
simple natures relate to God as well. And hence all the simple natures
(except the material ones)31 can be attributed to God, subject to the
standard caveat that operates when we are dealing with the infinite.
The upshot is that the frontier between method (mathesis univer­
salis) and metaphysics cannot merely be analyzed in terms of a dis­
tinction between two types of simple natures. The primary object of
metaphysics, the human mind (mens humana) is defined entirely in
terms of the intellectual simple natures. It thus relates to universal
mathesis, by focusing on at least one of its remaining possible objects
of inquiry, and by dealing with the common simple natures and the
most important of the intellectual simple natures. Should we not,
therefore, conclude that metaphysics too belongs to mathesis univer­
salis and is simply one among the many objects of the method of
inquiry described in the Regulae? I believe that there is one final
criterion that absolutely rules out such a conclusion, and in so doing
allows us to mark out in a quite emphatic way the true frontier be­
tween method and metaphysics. The criterion in question is hinted
at in the definition of mathesis universalis employed during the discus­
sion of “ some order or measurement [aliquis ordo vel mensura].” 32
The essential point to grasp is the meaning of the contrast between
order and measurement, and the best way to do this is to consider
first of all the simplest and most frequent examples provided in the
Regulae and the Essays (excluding the Meteorology). In these exam-
WHAT IS THE METHOD IN THE METAPHYSICS? 65

pies, the ordering process is accompanied by a measurement, e.g., in

the theory of equations and the theory of curves. But it can also
perfectly well happen that ordering (defined earlier in Rules V -V II)
may provide us with a result that is rationally self-evident without
our having recourse to measurement, or before we engage in mea­
surement (which is not defined until Rule X IV ). This is what hap­
pens in the case of many theories in physics (vortices, elementary
particles, etc.) and physiology (theories of perception via geometri­
cal figuring, animal spirits, and so on). These scientific attempts, to
be sure, met with unequal success: In ordering without measuring,
Cartesian science sometimes fell into a chaotic disorder. But in meta­
physics, things are quite different; here the renouncing of measure­
ment is in no sense a defect, since all purely intellectual objects lack
extension and so cannot, and hence must not, be subjected to mea­
surement. What is more, the most exalted object of metaphysics,
God, is defined precisely in terms of his infinity, in terms of his
absolute incapability of being measured, his nonmeasurable immen­
sity. (Note that the adjective immensus derives from the negative pre­
fix in, plus metiri, to measure; cf. essentia immensa, AT VII, 241, 11.
2-3: CSM II, 168.)33 God thus resists all measurement, not by de­
fault, like extended objects that we cannot manage to measure, but
by excess, by being absolutely beyond the realm of extension. This
“immensity” by excess does not, however, mean that metaphysics is
totally divorced from mathesis universalis. It only resists the second
characteristic feature of universal method— namely, measurement—
while perfectly conforming to the first— namely, order.
In fact the Meditations can be understood as a paradigmatic array
of ordered groups of simple natures necessarily linked together. And
this, indeed, is how they are presented: “ the proper order of my argu­
ments and the connection between them” (“rationum mearum series
et nexus,” AT VII, 9, 1. 29: CSM II, 8); “considerations of order
appear to dictate” (“ ordo videtur exigere,” AT VII, 36, 1. 30: CSM
II, 25); “ pay sufficient attention to the way in which what I wrote
fits altogether” (“ ad cohaerentiam eorum quae scripsi attendere,” AT
VI, 379: CSM II, 261). As an exercise in making conclusions evident
by the process of ordering, without recourse at any point to any
measuring of extension, the Meditations with its supremely meta­
physical character can even claim to fulfill the essential definition
of mathesis universalis: Metaphysics and method alike are revealed
as uniquely grafted onto a single root— the order of rational self­
66 CHAPTER THREE

evidence. And since this order operates by deploying the simple na­
tures, the Meditations is able, with perfect legitimacy, to fulfill its
metaphysical aim with the help of the simple natures. One may go
further: The project of the Meditations is accomplished entirely in
terms of the simple natures, since all that happens is that the material
simple natures are left behind, so that the value of the intellectual
simple natures can be realized. And this in turn is done by uncovering
the necessary link between the intellectual simple natures and the
real common simple natures (existence, etc.), by utilizing the com­
mon logical simple natures (principles and common notions).
Far from constituting an exception to the Cartesian method (or
its principle component, order), and far from ignoring the objects of
that method (the simple natures), the metaphysics of the Meditations
brings it to fruition. But this special achievement of the Meditations
in turn overturns the method, by revealing that metaphysics alone can
reach its foundations— foundations that, from the beginning, have
belonged to the domain of metaphysics, and metaphysics alone.34
CHAPTER FOUR

What Is the Ego Capable of? Divinization

and Domination: Capable / Capax
To Henri de Lubac

i. Construction of the Question

A paradox is presented by contemporary projects aiming to index a
philosophical corpus with the help of ever more powerful computer
technology: The more rapidly such an index can be produced, the
more difficult it becomes to make use of the information it provides.
Parameters such as relative or absolute frequencies, co-occurrences,
research into instances of hapax, sentence length, lexical redundancy,
and so forth cannot in themselves constitute a properly philosophical
questioning, to which they are only adjuncts. The researcher has the
last word, being the only one who can use philosophically the com­
plex of information to which any philosophical, or supposedly philo­
sophical, text can be reduced.1 The indexing work of the Cartesian
corpus carried out by the “Descartes team” in Paris is not free from
these difficulties and ambiguities.2 There are several ways to move
beyond this insignificance, even if rigorously quantified, and toward
a genuinely conceptual questioning. Two of these are used fairly fre­
quently. First, one may construct, by means of exhaustive indexing,
a network of signifiers (signifiants), which enables the researcher, in
addition to creating an annotated lexicon, to establish rigorously the
synchronic state of the corresponding significations (signifiés)— that
is, a semantic analysis; in this case, the text of the experiment refers
to a single discourse, whose semantic architecture one thereby inven­
tories (D = t). Second, one may choose to emphasize the diachronic
evolution of a corpus of significations, by identifying the appearance,
disappearance, and substitutions of certain signifiers in a given text.
68 CHAPTER FOUR

This text, then, harbors several discourses, whose differences become

visible in relation to this common background (Di + D2 + D3 +
. . . D n = f).3 There is yet another way to identify these significant
differences, which I will attempt to apply here: by studying to what
extent there is an overlap, or not, between two supposedly correspond­
ing signifiers, in two supposedly equivalent texts. Thus, in the French
text and the Latin text (that is, the translation) of a discourse, the
same conceptual network (the significations used by the philosopher)
is expected to be at play in two different texts, syntaxes, and lexicons
of signifiers (D = t\ + t2). Translation is unavoidably, short of a
word-for-word rendering, a process of reinterpretation by means of a
system of equivalencies. These equivalencies allow a sort of operative
definition of the concepts, independently of the signifiers of a given
text: first, because signifiers can be substituted, as when passing from
text t\ to text t2; second, because equivalence does not unite these
signifiers without modifying one or the other to fit the concept, in
which case the situation of semantic equivalency between two signi­
fiers necessarily presupposes that one or both of the signifiers has
drifted from the “natural” semantics of its common signification.
This semantic gap is detected because of the syntactic gap that is
imposed upon the signifier by the signified concept and which the
equivalency (that is, the translation) has designated for it. Here the
Latin syntax of some signifiers must be modified to ensure that
the meaning corresponds precisely to the signification imposed by
French; for the French signifier thus translated holds a signification
that is itself modified— since it is thought conceptually by the philos­
opher. In short, the syntactic gap between the Latin signifier and
“ correct” Latin usage reveals the semantic gap imposed by the
French signification that needs to be translated—but the equivalency
thus obtained in turn transposes the semantic gap inscribed in the
concept itself, which had already modified the French signification.
The concept to be thought arises from this dual operation, and is
also defined by it.4
A specific question corresponds to this still empty framework: In
the sixteenth century the semantics of capable / capacité still indicates
an entirely receptive capacity (contenance), and thus a passive one;
i.e., the capacity of “a very capacious deep dish [écuelle bien capable
et profonde]” (Rabelais)5holding a large amount of wine; the capacity
of the cosmos to encompass everything that occurs within it, “ l’espace
du monde et de l’air n’est assez capable pour le vol de sa perfection
WHAT IS THE EGO CAPABLE OF? 69

et renommée” (the space of the world and the sky is not capacious
enough [n’est assez capable] for the flight of her perfection and re­
nown; Brantôme);6 the soul harboring a revelation, “l’homme n’est
point capable d’une si grande clarté,” “ des commandements dont
notre coeur n’est point capable” (man is not capacious enough [n’est
point capable] for so great a light; commandments for which our
heart is not capacious enough).7 The modern usage, in which capable
(of) denotes a sufficient power, a capacity ready to act, is the opposite
of this earlier signification. When did the passage from one semantics
to the other occur? O. Bloch and W. von Wartburg, rejecting the
idea of the persistence of the ancient meaning until the seventeenth
century, date the appearance of the modern meaning in the sixteenth
century; however, M. Rat has maintained that both meanings
persisted throughout the seventeenth century.8 The Dictionnaire de
VAcadémie, in 1678 and again in 1695, attributes the active significa­
tion to man: “ capable, qui a des qualités requises pour quelque chose,
entreprenant et hardi” (having the qualities required for something,
enterprising and bold). Here the passive meaning plays a secondary
role: the word then “ se dit des choses, et dans cette acception il n’a
guère d’usage qu’avec tenir ou contenir” (is said of things, and in
this sense, it is used, with few exceptions, only with to hold or to
contain). If we admit that roughly between the sixteenth and seven­
teenth centuries9the main meaning of capable/ capacité shifted, evolv­
ing from a receptive passivity to an active capacity, we will seek more
than a precise, but impossible, dating for this semantic reversal—
rather, we will seek to examine its mechanism. How, and by what
stages, did one meaning of the term shift to the other?
Before going any further, let us refer to the Latin semantics and
to capax / capacitas. Contrary to the ambivalence of the French, the
meaning here is purely passive, indicating a receptive capacity
(contenance). In Cicero, for instance (Orator XIV, 104), “Demosthe­
nes . . . non semper implet aures meas: ita sunt avides et capaces, et
semper aliquid immensum desiderant” (Demosthenes . . . does not
always fill up [implet] my ears, which are so hungry and capacious
[capaces] and always desire something huge); or in Lucan, “Urbem
. . . generis capacem humani” (a city . . . large enough . . . for all of
humankind; Pharsalia, I, 5 11-13 ). Capacity, then, which capax itself
translates from the Greek, khoreticos / dektikos, as indicated, for exam­
ple, by the Latin version of the fragments of Saint Ireneus.10 This
signification requires a specific construction, which indicates the link
7o CHAPTER FOUR

with a “ complement of appurtenance and specification” ( Juret),11 on

which capax semantically and syntactically depends. Thus a relation
of engendering emerges between the two, a genikhé ptosis, indicated
by the use of the genitive case.12 Without notable exceptions,13 Latin
maintains capax as depending on the substantive, which, in the geni­
tive, invests it and gives rise to its meaning, and thus determines it
in its entirety.
Our initial question can now be stated more precisely. The single,
or at least predominant, semantics of capax, which is assigned and
manifested by the privileged syntax of a fully genitive (and generic)
substantive, becomes the fixed reference. It is in relation to this fixed
reference that the semantic drift of capable/capacité, from receptive
passivity to active capacity, is played out: the more accentuated the
drift, the more the correspondence ( = translation) with capax be­
comes difficult to maintain, until it is finally no longer possible with
capax itself; eventually a linguistic sign other than capax is mobilized
in order to correspond precisely to capable. And Descartes offers pre­
cisely the dual material needed for such an inquiry.

2. The Gap between Descartes’ Texts

Let us concentrate on three discourses (Di, D2, D3), each of which
is available in two different textual versions (th t2). In each case, the
first text (?i) is in French, and the second text (t2) has been translated
into Latin as literally as possible.
D] is composed of th Discours de la méthode (text in AT VI, i -
78) and t2, Dissertatio de methodo (ibid., 540-83), translated into Latin
by Etienne de Courcelles and published in the Specimina philosophiae
(Amsterdam, 1644). Can this translation be considered to be another
text of the same discourse? First, in his Latin preface to the reader
(AT VI, 539), Descartes does mention that he has sometimes modi­
fied the meaning of his discourse: “Ego vero sententias ipsas saepe
mutarim, et non ejus verba, sed meum sensus, emendare ubique stud-
erim” (I have often changed the meanings themselves, and through­
out I have studiously altered not its words, but my sense); but these
modifications of the meaning are absent in the sequences in which
capable appears, except for one occurrence (AT V, 15, 1. 27). Des­
cartes then admits that the translator “ubique fere fidus interpres
verbum verbo reddere conatus sit” (has clearly tried throughout to be
a faithful interpreter, rendering it word for word), and he vouches for
WHAT IS THE EGO CAPABLE OF? 71
the translation since he has reread the text with the goal of “ut quic-
quid in ea minus placeret, pro meo jure mutarem” (changing ac­
cording to my own opinion whatever in it is less satisfactory). The
parallelism between the two texts of the same discourse is thus guar­
anteed by the word-for-word translation. Far from deploring with
Adam this “much too literal correspondence, achieved most often by
means of strange gallicisms” (AT VI, 6), I see it as the confirmation
of the oneness of the discourse— and of the desire to have the Latin
text conform to the French text, even at the risk of awkwardness. In
other words, if Etienne de Courcelles sometimes cannot use capax
to translate capable, it is simply because he could not do so, even by
using a gallicism. The computerized indexing of the Discours de la
méthode has made it possible to establish the correspondence with
the occurrences of capax, based on the reference of the occurrences
of capable. The two other discourses chosen, however, have only been
indexed manually.
D2 is composed of th Les passions de l ’âme (text in AT XI, 326-
488), and t2, Passiones animae, per Renatus Des-Cartes gallica ab ipso
conscriptae, nunc autem in exterorum latina civitate donatae ab
H.D.M.i.v.l. (Amsterdam, 1650); the subtitle itself indicates clearly
that the text parallels t\ as strictly as possible. Moreover, the transla­
tor (H. D. M., perhaps Henri Desmarets)14 states that he simply
aimed to “ conceptus quam potui[t] fidelissime exprimere; quod dum
feci[t] elegentiae oblivisc[etur]” (express the concept as faithfully as
possible; since as long as he does it elegantly, it will be overlooked;
AT XI, 490). Scrupulously, he prefers to use— against Latin usage—
the Latin word passio (instead of affectus) to transcribe passion. This
audacious scruple seems to offer a good guarantee that every effort
2
has been made to maintain the correspondence between t and t\. this
will only render the differences more significant.
Finally, D3 consists of th Recherche de la vérité (text in A T X,
495-514, except for the fragment known only in Latin, pp. 514-27),
and ?2, Inquisitio veritatis per lumen naturale (published in Opuscula
posthuma physica et mathematica [Amsterdam, 1701], pp. 67-90).
Upon comparing the common section of these two texts, Adam ac­
knowledged the “precision and exactitude” (AT X, 494) of the Latin
text, which we shall use as a guarantee.
In this corpus 34 occurrences of capable were identified (16 + 13
+ 5) in th 33 of which are translated into Latin. We must therefore
study these 33 attempts at a correspondence between t\ and t2, and
72 CHAPTER FOUR

evaluate the differences they reveal between D h D2, and D3. These
correspondences can be classified in the following translation/equiv­
alency formulas (see tables i and 2).
Remarks concerning D0 (table 1):
(a) All the equivalencies correspond to one of the formulas indi­
cated here.
(b) A' and E' are the artificial doubles of A and E simply because in
a sequence such as “ capable d ’en / dont + infinitive and substantive,”
French syntax is unclear as to which, infinitive or substantive, is a
complement of capable. The same syntagm can be interpreted with
reference to 1.1 as well as to 2. The same is true for formula C with
reference to formula B.
(c) By periphrase, we simply mean the negative definition of any
Latin signifier that translates capable, and replaces capax, but without
being posse.
(d) It becomes immediately obvious that in some cases the occur­
rences of capable cannot be rendered by capax (formulas E, E', and
F). These are the formulas we will need to examine first.
By applying the formulas of table 1 to our test material, we obtain
the results shown in table 2. Hence the following remarks:

A
(a) Capable, which occurs 15 times, is translated 7 times as capax;
thus, more than half the occurrences of capable are not rendered as
capax.
(b) Capax includes a verbal complement (gerundive or verbal ad­
jective) 4 out of 7 times.
(c) The occurrences of capable include an infinitive object 8 out
of 15 times.
(d) D (two uses) is the only formula in which capax and capable
correspond to each other syntactically. Both, moreover, are followed
by a verbal object.

A
(a) Capable is translated as capax 5 times only— that is, in less
than half of the 13 occurrences.
(b) Capax is followed by a verbal object (gerundive or sometimes
verbal adjective) 3 out of 5 times.
(c) Capable is followed by an infinitive object 11 out of 13 times
(formula F).
 Table 1
D„

French Syntagms Latin Syntagms

Translated
Formulae
i. Capable + determinative complement I. Capax + genitive
1.1 . Capable + substantive-------------------- 11 Capax + genitive substantive = A
1.1 . I d . ------------------------------ genitive gerundive = B
III Capax +
verbal adjective
1.2. Capable + indefinite complement III Id. C
< 1 .2 . I d . ------------------------- 11 Capax + genitive substantive = A' >

2. Capable + infinitive genitive gerundive D

h i. Capax +
verbal adjective

II. Capax suppressed in favor

Id. III. of periphrase E
Id. nil posse F
< 1 .2 . Capable + indefinite complement 111 periphrase E' >
 Table 2

t\ (Discours de la méthode) ti (Dissertatio de methodo)

Formulas
(l) 2, 14. Les plus grandes âmes sont capables des plus grands (1) Excelsiores animae, ut majorum virtutum, ita viti-
vices. orum capaces sunt. 541, 13 - 14 . A
(2) 17, 10. Parvenir à la connaissance de toutes les choses dont (2) Methodus quae me deduceret ad cognitionem eorum
mon esprit serait capable. omnium quorum ingenium meum esset capax. 549,
26-29. A
(3) 28 ,4 . L ’acquisition de toutes les sciences dont je serais capa­ (3) me ad omnium rerum cognitionem perventurum, cu­
ble. jus essem capax. 555, 40—41. A
(4) 7 6 ,30 . D ’autant plus sujets de faillir et moins capables de vé­ (4) Minusque veritatis percipiendae capacia. 582, 32. B
rité qu’ils sont plus pénétrants et plus vifs.
(5) 6 9 ,18 . S ’il y a quelqu’un qui en soit capable (sc. y ajouter (5) Siquis earum perficiendarum sit capax. 578, 37. C
beaucoup de choses, et les appliquer à l’usage).

(6) 7 1, 27. Capables de passer plus outre que je n’ai fait. (6) Si ulterius progredendi, quam fecerim, sint capaces.
580, 1- 2 . D
(7) 73, 18. Capable de trouver. (7) capaceum esse maxima quaeque . . . inveniendi. 581,
1-2 D

(8) io, 23—26. Ainsi je me délivrerai de beaucoup d’erreurs qui peu­
vent offusquer notre lumière naturelle et nous rendre
moins capables d ’entendre raison.
15 —27. Pour juger qu’ils sont moins capables de distinguer le
vrai d’avec le faux.
(9) 25, 14. Ceci fut capable dès lors de me délivrer.
(8) ita sensim multis me erroribus liberabam, men-
temque veris rationibus agnoscendis aptiorem redde-
bam. 545, 26-27.
Omitted
(9) hoc sufficiens fuit ad me liberandum. 554, 17 - 18 .
(10) 32, 20—2 1. Les plus extravagantes suppositions que les scep­
tiques n’étaient pas capables de l’ebranler . . .
(11) 35, 8 —9. Connaître la nature de Dieu autant que j''en serais ca­
pable.
(12) 66, 9. Si ÿen (sc. profiter au public) suis capable.
(13) 48, 30. Cette chaleur est capable de faire qu’elle se dilate.
(14) 57, 19 - 2 1. Il n’y a point d’hommes si hébétés et si stupides . . .
qu’ils ne soient capables d ’arranger ensemble diverses
paroles.
(15) 78, 17. Que je fusse capable d’y réussir.

I
t\ (Passions de l’ame)

(1) aucun dérèglement d’esprit dont ils ne soient capa­

bles. §164-456, 12.
(2) ne rien entreprendre dont ils ne se sentent capables.
§156-447, 23.
(3) capables de faire du bien et du mal, §55-374, 7.
(4) capables de nous faire du bien et du mal. §163-455,
12.
(5) capables de commettre aucun mal. §182-467, 4.
(6) capables de nous faire du bien et du mal. §162-454,
13.
(7) capables de commettre. §155-447, r3-
 (10) ut nulla tam enormis dubitandi causa a scepticis frngi
possit, a qua ilia non eximatur. 558, 26. E
(II) ut naturam Dei , . . quantum a me naturaliter agnosci
potest, agnoscerem. 560, 6—8. E'
(12) quantum, est in me, 557, 4. E'
(13) istum calorem posse efficere ut . . . 567, 28. E'
(14) nulli reperiri homines adeo hebetes et stupidos . . .
ut non possint diversas voces apte construere. 572,
17 - 19 . F
(15) me posse eximium quid in eo praestare. 583, 19. F

^2

ti (Passiones animae)

Formulas
(1) nulla sit inordinatio animi cujus capaces non sint. 78. A

(2) Sic tamen nihil suscipiant, cujus non se capaces sen-

tiant. 73. A'
(3) capaces bene vel male agendi. 29. D
(4) etsi sua natura capax sit bene vel male faciendi. 78. D

(5) antequam ullius mali perpetrendi capax esset. 85. D

(6) quas posse nobis vel bene vel male facere judicamus.
77- F

(7) errores quas olim potuimus commississe, an deinceps

possumus committere. 73. F
 Table 2 {Continued)
D2

t\ (Passions de l ’ame) ti (Passiones animae)

Formulas
(8) capables de mouvoir. §15-340, 9. (8) posse movere. 9. F
(9) capables d ’être mus. §34-354, 23. (9) illis modis quibus moveri possunt. 18. F
(io) capables de les arrêter. §78-386, 26. (10) nullius momenti non minus possint res eos detinere.
37 - F
(II) capables de leur nuire. §94-399, 13. (11) posse ipsis nocere. 45. F
(12) point de sagesse humaine qui ne soit capable de leur (12) quae possit illis resistere. 96. F
résister.
(I 3) capables de goûter le plus de douceur en cette vie. (13) magis gustare possint. 98. F
§212-488, 14.

d 3

t\ (Recherche de la vérité) t2 (Inquisitio veritatis per lumen naturale)

Formulas
(1) que la raison des hommes est capable de posséder : (1) ad omnes cognitiones curiosissimas, qus humana ra-
496, 20. tio possidere valet, acquirendas. 68, 3. E
(2) ceux qui en (sc. travailler à cet ouvrage) sont moins (2) qui minime ad id perficiendum apti sunt. 74, 7. E
capables. 507, 9 -10 .
(3) pourvu qu’ils se sentent incapables d ’en entreprendre (3) quia scilicet ad nova percipienda inepti sunt. 75, 16. E
de nouveaux. 509, 22.
(4) encore que je ne me sente pas capable d’en retirer au­ (4) licet non experiar me ullum hine fructum percipere
cun profit. 502, 16. posse. 7 1, 10. F
(5) je vous rends capable de trouver. 503, 22. (5) aptos vos reddidere, ut possitis proprio motu omnes
reliquas invenire. 72, 1. F
WHAT IS THE EGO CAPABLE OF? 77
(d) D (three uses) is the only formula in which there is correspon­
dence between capax and capable.
The results of Dx are therefore confirmed, and the formulas used
are simplified.

A
(a) Capax is never a translation of capable.
(b) Capable is always followed by an infinitive.
(c) The number of formulas used is reduced to E and F — the
only two that do not use capax.

Based on these remarks, we can now present a few preliminary re­

sults. First, in only 4 out of 34 correspondences is there a perfect
equivalency between the syntagms: capable + substantive determina­
tive object capax + genitive substantive (A): Here only, the trans­
lation is perfected in the transcription. Second, when the infinitive
replaces the determinative object substantive in the French syntagm,
capax disappears and is replaced by a periphrase, principally posse (E,
F). The formulas B, C, D, which use syntagm I.II, capax + genitive
gerundive or verbal adjective, are an exception to this; in D, for in­
stance, syntagm 1.2 is rendered by capax, which formulas E and F
cannot achieve. Thus a dual question arises: (a) Why does capax
disappear when the infinitive object of capable appears? (b) How then
can formula D reconcile, even temporarily, these two opposite re­
quirements?

3. The Exercise of Power

We have already seen that Latin semantics dictated the use of the
syntagm capax + genitive substantive. We have also noted that, in
Descartes, the occurrences of capable correspond only very partially
to this syntagm. Can this preliminary result be elaborated further?
The syntax of Descartes’ capable corresponds to that of capax only
in syntagm 1.1, and only allows formula A (which uses that syntagm).
However, this formula represents only 4 occurrences out of a total
of 33. Latin syntax is thus transcribed as is less than 1 time out of
8.
Conversely, formulas D, E, E', and F, which use syntagm 2 (capa­
ble + infinitive) are in complete opposition to the syntax of capax;
two formulas (E and F) radically eliminate capax and replace it with
78 CHAPTER FOUR

other Latin syntagms (II.I and II.II); however, these formulations,

which maintain 2 (capable + infinitive) only by relinquishing I (ca-
pax), are found in 8 occurrences out of 15 (Dj), 8 occurrences out
of 13 (D2), and 5 occurrences out of 5 (D3), for a total of 21 out
of 33 occurrences. The presence of the infinitive after capable thus
eliminates capax in two-thirds of the translations: The contradiction
between the two syntaxes seems obvious, but what does it mean? It
refers back to a semantic variation, which is exposed by the syntactic
variation; capable (syntagm 2) no longer means “ containing, receiving
something” but successively “ (in-)aptus ad, sufficiens ad, valere”
([not] fit for, sufficient to, strong enough for; formula E, 5 occur­
rences) and especially posse. The quantitative predominance of posse
in the lexicon perhaps corresponds to its preeminence in the semantic
variation; capable admits an infinitive object only by signifying first
that capacity constitutes not just a “ passive receptivity” but a posse,
a fundamentally active power, in the sense that “voluntas latius patet
quam intellectus” (the scope of the will is wider than that of the
intellect),15 such that the method “ sets out in quest of knowledge [of
things].” 16 It is not because capable is followed by an infinitive that
capax must disappear; capable would not be followed by an infinitive
if it were not understood as a power in the first place. This semantic
variation, which is underlined by the syntactic variation of Latin in
spite of the silence of French syntax, substitutes an aggressively ac­
tive power for receptive passivity. This shift in meaning in turn helps
explain why all the formulas, except A, can be deduced from the
most manifestly “ capacity” formula, namely, F.
Formula E: the periphrases all aim at introducing an infinitive
complement to render exactly syntagm (2); all manage to do so by
approximating the conciseness of posse (F); valere possidere (D3, 496,
1. 20 = 68, 1. 3) is the only almost perfect equivalent, although it is
obtained only after bending the rules of Latin syntax. Quantitatively
and stylistically, formula E appears to be a residue of F.
Formulas E' and A' use syntagm 1.2, which links capable and an
indefinite determining complement. As a result, thought seems to
hesitate between two equally possible antecedents; thus, in Di (11):
“ connaître la nature de Dieu autant que j’en suis capable” (to know
the nature of God as far as I am capable [autant que j’en suis capa­
ble]). Alternatively, capable is the equivalent of posse and is followed
by connaître: Formula E' expresses the new semantics of capable by
means of a periphrase (which is how Courcelles understood it: “ quan-
WHAT IS THE EGO CAPABLE OF? 79

turn a me agnosci potest” [as far as it can be known by me]); or else, by

philosophical and philological subtlety, we could suppose that capable
refers to God, thus understanding it as a poorly articulated capax
Dei. It then becomes possible to recover the Latin syntax in a formula
A'. Thus in D2 (2), that is in “ ne rien entreprendre dont ils ne se
sentent capables,” H. D. M. does not make entreprendre depend on
capables, but capables on rien: “ nihil suscipiant cujus non se capaces
sentiant” (to undertake nothing o f which they do not feel themselves
capable). Formulas E' and A' thus represent simply two possibilities
stemming from a single ambiguity, that of an antecedent which the
indefinite en leaves undefined. Either the translation respects the se­
mantics of capable and abandons capax, using an active periphrase
instead, as in Di (9 and 10); or it pretends to ignore it and maintains,
as it were, the correspondence between the syntagms, as in D2 (2).
Consequently, E' and A' constitute two poles of the necessarily deci­
sive instance of the semantic variation.
Formulas B, C, and D all use the syntagm I.II, capax + -endi. This
attempted reconciliation of the two contradictory syntaxes cannot rest
upon the ambiguity of the indefinite to claim to find a substantive
antecedent for capable. It thus attempts to join the Latin genitive and
the French verb, leaving the substantive and the infinitive aside, and
ends up with a genitive gerundive (or a verbal adjective), complement
of capax. This bastardized solution maintains the genitive (“passiv­
ity,” in which the substantive rules capax) in order to introduce an
active infinitive (in which the nuance of “ power” of capax is brought
out). The apparent respect of the Latin syntax hardly masks the se­
mantic variation of capable, which, under the guise of capax, is actu­
ally exercising its power. Formula D illustrates this variation when
it joins the properly Cartesian capable (2) and the apparently still
Latin capax (II). The fragility of this reconciliation reveals its arbi­
trariness in the case of D2; for instance, in D2 (3, 4, and 6) the same
single sequence capables de (nous) faire du bien et du mal becomes
interchangeably either capax faciendi, as in D2 (3, 4), or posse facere,
as in D2 (6). Similarly, in D2 (5 and 7) capable de commettre is trans­
lated as both capax perpetrandi (D2 5) and possumus committere (D2 7).
As an exceptional formulation, D thus exhibits some of the syntactic
maneuvering of A' and supplements A; it thus occurs only five times
(Dj and D2), barely one-seventh of the total. This same syntagm
seems to be used in an opposite manner in the two other formulas,
B and C. Far from hiding the “ power” of capable, syntagm II.II adds
8o CHAPTER FOUR

a gerundive to capax only because it already uderstands it on the

model of capable; proof of this comes from the addition of a gerundive
to capax to transcribe the French occurrences that lack an infinitive:
substantive in Di (4), and hence in B; indefinite in Di (5), hence in
C. In both these cases Courcelles, far from hiding the semantic varia­
tion, as in D, actually stresses it and, apparently respecting Latin
syntax, uses capax + -endi as an equivalent for capable. Capable al­
ready contains “power,” thus already imposes this verbal noun,
which capax does not in itself imply and which therefore must explic­
itly be added to it. In D the syntagm II.II either continues the verbal
reconciliation between the two syntaxes, so that the texts Descartes
originally wrote in Latin use it primarily to mask the semantic varia­
tion of capable11 in the occurrences of capax, or else, as in B and
C, stresses that the translation capax borrows its semantics from an
“ active” capable by means of the explicit addition of a verb.
Formula A itself can now be interpreted. Formula B differs from
A by its use of the syntagm II.II (capax + -endi). The two formulas
still have the syntax capable I.I in common, although in B capable is
understood in its semantic variation and is used as a “ power,” joined
with an apparently superfluous gerundive, which is actually indis­
pensable. Can this shift, which Courcelles detected only once (in Ü!
[4]), be found elsewhere in the occurrences governed by formula A?
Inded, since D11 (2), “ parvenir à la connaissance de toutes les choses
dont mon esprit serait capable” (to attain the knowledge of all the
things of which my mind was capable) could be read as “parvenir à
toutes les choses que mon esprit serait capable de connaître” (to attain
all the things my mind was capable of knowing). Similarly, Dj (3),
“ l’acquisition de toutes les sciences dont je serais capable” (the acqui­
sition of all the sciences of which I was capable) could be read as
“ toutes les sciences que je serais capable d’acquérir” (all the sciences
I was capable of acquiring), exactly in the sense in which “majus
adhuc incrementi non sit capax [cognitio mea]” (it [my knowledge]
is not capable of a further increase; Meditation III, AT VII, 47, 1.
18; PW II, 32) was translated as “ capable d’acquérir” (AT IX-I, 24,
1. 30). Two occurrences remain: namely, Di (I), “Les plus grandes
âmes sont capables des plus grands vices” (the greatest souls are capa­
ble of the greatest vices; PW I, 111), and D2 (I), “ aucun dérèglement
d’esprit, dont ils ne soient capables” (no vice or disorder of the mind
of which they are not capable; PW I, 389). They cannot be reduced
to formula B, since vices and disorders of the mind are here explicitly
WHAT IS THE EGO CAPABLE OF? 81

understood as passions— and thus we can only be (passively) sub­

jected to them. This devalued manner of understanding reception
and receptivity once again follows the syntax of capax. Thus, in an
important way, the occurrences in A can be reduced to the formulas
that use syntagm 2, capable of.
We then conclude that:
(a) 12 occurrences of capax (A, A', B, C, D), 13 occurrences of
posse (F), and 8 periphrases (E, E') correspond to the 33 occurrences
of capable.
(b) Posse develops the semantics of capable as an active “power,”
whose syntax cannot be reduced to that of capax.
(c) The syntactic requirement of capable allows the reduction of
E to a variant of F.
(d) The contradiction between the syntaxes allows us to under­
stand how E' and A', as well as D, attempt to reconcile the Latin
syntax with the semantic variation of capable.
(e) The semantic variation of capable enables one to interpret B
and C as a rebuttal of that variation, by virtue of the addition of an
active gerundive.
(f) This interpretation could reduce some of the occurrences of
A to B, such that:
(g) In the end, among the 33 occurrences, only 2 remain un­
touched by the semantic variation that substitutes the active “power”
of capable for the passive receptivity of capax.18
If the examination of the privileged translation formulas indicates
the primacy of those which pass from capable to posse (or an equiva­
lent) over those which maintain the use of capax, two questions arise:
First, is this interpretation of capacity as power confirmed in Des­
cartes’ overall thought (see below, §4)? Second, is this interpretation
meaningful for the history of ideas, and if so, in what way (see below,
§5)?

4. Cartesian Capacity and Potentia

The shift from capable to posse, from receptivity to power, which we
have noticed and measured above, has now to be confirmed through a
survey of other texts of Descartes. Actually, until a precise conceptual
analysis of this “ active power” is completed, the evolution or the
semantics that we thought we detected will remain uncertain. Or, to
put it another way, the semantic evolution will remain unintelligible
82 CHAPTER FOUR

until the semantics of the concept it delineates has been brought to

light. Is it possible to detect, in a homogeneous discourse (a single
text: D = t), a concept that would render the philological equivalence
between capable and posse philosophically meaningful?
In fact, within Descartes’ Latin discourse itself, capax becomes,
tangentially although in an actual way, synonymous with human
power, principally the power to know a thing as an object. Thus Rule
V III in the Rules for the Direction o f the Mind proposes to determine
the captum, the grasp and reach of the human mind;19 only by doing
so will the limits of our understanding be known, “ scientae capax”
(398, 27). In fact, the issue here is to determine “ quarumnam cogni-
tionum humana ratio sit capax” (of what sort of knowledge human
reason is capable; A T X, 396, 29-397, line 1 = Rule IV, 372, 1. 4;
PW I, 30). Thus, as indicated by the “passive” syntax (type I.I), at
issue here is precisely the question of capacitas. But the aim of the
answer is to understand capax starting from posse; successively:
(a) “ neque quicquam prorsus ab alio homine sciri posse, cujus
etiam non sit capax” (whatever anyone else can know, he too is capable
of; 396, U. 16-18 ; PW I, 30).
(b) “ne semper incerti simus, quid possit animus,. . . oportet semel
in vita diligenter quaesivisse, quarumnam cognitionum humana ratio
sit capax” (to prevent our being in a state of permanent uncertainty
about what the soul can do we ought once in our life carefully
investigate of what sort of knowledge human reason is capable; 396,
1. 26-397, line 1).
(c) “ ad nos qui cognitionis sumus capaces, vel ad res ipsas, quae
cognosci possunt” (either to us, who have the capacity for knowledge,
or to the actual things which can be known; 398, 11. 23-24; PW I,
32).
(d) “ saepe intellectus nostri capacitas non est tanta, ut ilia omnia
possit unico intuitu complecti” (often the capacity of our intellect [in­
tellectus nostri capacitas] is not enough for it to be able to encompass
all of them in a single intuition; Rule VII, 389, 11. 17-19).
This equivalence enables us in turn to reinterpret the occurrences
that seem like exceptions to it. In particular, thanks to example (d),
the phrases “intellectus percipiendae veritatis capax” (the intellect that
is capable o f perceiving the truth; Rule X II, 4 11, 11. 7-8; PW 1, 39);
“ aliquis hujus [sc. proportionis] indagandae non est capax” (he will
not be capable o f finding out what this ratio is; Rule VIII, 394, 6);
“ usu capacitatem acquirunt res . . . distinguendi” (acquire through
WHAT IS THE EGO CAPABLE OF? 83

practice the capacity for distinguishing between things; Rule IX , 401,

11. 5-7) can be understood as a way to cover up the semantic variation
(capax = posse + verb) by means of a syntactic artifice (capax +
-endi, I—II, as in formula D; see §§ 2 and 3). In fact, in certain cases
we note an internal dimension that enables the intellect to receive a
greater or lesser amount of information in order to integrate it uno
intuitu. But Descartes considers even this capacity of memory and
integration as a power: Receiving information becomes a process of
information storing and processing, and as such it establishes (or lim­
its) the power of the intellect. The enterprise of Rules IX , X , X I
(and, to a lesser extent, Rules V II and X II), when they attempt to
reduce series to intuitus, cannot be summed up as an extension of
receptivity; rather, receptivity itself becomes the condition for the
further deployment of the power to know— for the mind is called
vis cognoscens (Rule X II, 415, 1. 23). The capacity of the mind must
be expanded (407, 1. 7; 408,1. 23; 409, 1. 9; 388, 11. 9-10; 455, 1. 23,
etc.) because by doing so the power of the intellect will also be in­
creased. Every time the words capax / capacitas are applied to the “ ca­
pacity” of the mind or the intellect to know, they indicate the power
to know. It then seems that, except for a few occurrences that will
be examined below, the Regulae accomplishes a semantic variation
(from capax to posse) within the Latin text itself similar to the one—
exposed by translators— that was said to occur between the Latin and
French texts.20This is perhaps, then, a singular character of Cartesian
semantics— if not an absolutely original one, at least a perfectly con­
stant one.
This variation, however, can only be fully confirmed and ap­
proached conceptually by analyzing the occurrences of capax in the
Meditations and in the French translations. The issue here is to
verify, by examining the differences with the French text, whether
or not the occurrences of capax in Descartes’ Latin text in themselves
imply an active signification (power). Two occurrences follow the
Latin usage (syntagm I.I), but strangely enough the due de Luynes
was compelled to translate them by an “active” form (syntagm 2).
Thus:
(a) . . nam innumerabilem ejusmodi capacem earn [sc. ceram]
esse comprehendo” (For I can grasp that the wax is capable of count­
less changes of this kind, AT VII, 3 1 , 11. 6-8; PW II, 20-21) becomes
“capable de recevoir plus de variété selon Pextension que je n’en ai
jamais imaginé” (able to receive [capable de recevoir] more varieties
84 CHAPTER FOUR

of extension than I had ever imagined, AT IX, 1, 24, 30), an equiva­

lence borrowed from a text by Descartes, “un corps . . . capable de
recevoir tout ensemble les impressions de divers mouvements” (a
body . . . able to receive all together the impressions of different move­
ments).21
(b) “ etiamsi cognitio mea semper magis et magis augeatur, nihilo-
minus intelligo nunquam illam fore actu infinitam, quia numquam
eo devenietur, ut majoris adhuc incrementi non sit capax” (even if my
knowledge always increases more and more, I recognize that it will
never actually be infinite, since it will never reach the point where
it is not capable o f a further increase; AT VII, 47, 11. 15-18 ; PW II,
32) is given the following equivalent “ qu’elle ne soit capable d’acquérir
quelque plus grand accroissement” (where it is not able to acquire a
greater increase; AT IX, 1, 3 7 ,1. 37). The fact that Descartes’ capax
should be understood here as signifying the exercise of a power (indi­
cated simply by the use of an infinitive in the translation)22 is con­
firmed, conversely, by the rendering a few lines later of “my power
[potentia mea]” (AT VII, 48, 11. 23-24) by “ma puissance s’y termi­
nerait, et ne serait pas capable d’y arriver” (my power would end
there and would not be able to arrive; AT IX, 1, 38, 1. 38).
Similarly, “potentia ad perfectiones . . . non sufficiat ad pro-
ducendam” (the potential for these perfections . . . should not be
enough for producing; AT VII, 47, 11. 6-8) becomes: “la puissance
que j’ai en moi peut être capable . . . de produire leurs idées” (the
potential that I have in myself can be able . . . to produce their ideas;
AT IX, 1, 37, 1. 24). In other words, capax presupposes the activity
of a capacity, and capable is added to potentia to reduce it to an activ­
ity. The issue is not simply to reduce capax to a capacity, but also
to understand potentia itself as a power; in other words, esse potentiate
(mentioned in 47, 1. 13), insofar as it is opposed to action (46, 1.
31-47, line 1), finds itself joined in a homonymy with its opposite,
“potentia . . . ad ideam producendam” (power . . . to produce an
idea). The same dominating activity that invests capax/capable elimi­
nates in capacity all vestiges of the interplay of eidos between its du-
namis and its entelekheia.
The common evolution of these two concepts, which are both
thought sub specie activitatis, becomes obvious in the following occur­
rence:
(c) “Non enim dubium est quin Deus sit capax ea omnia efficiendi,
quae ego sic percipiendi sum capax” (There is no doubt that God is
WHAT IS THE EGO CAPABLE OF? 85

capable o f creating everything that I am capable o f perceiving in this

manner; A T VII, 7 1 , 11. 16 -18 ; PW II, 50), which the translator ren­
dered as: “II n’y a point de doute que Dieu n’ait la puissance de pro-
duire toutes les choses que je suis capable de concevoir” (There is no
doubt that God has the power to create all the things that I am capable
of conceiving; AT IX, 1, 58,11. 8-10). Puissance and capable expressly
become synonyms to translate the same word capax and illustrate
its “ active” semantics (although syntagm I.II already hinted at this).
Besides, God himself is interpreted as “ summe potens” (most power­
ful), “ exuperentia potentia” (surpassing power), “immensa et incom-
prehensibilis potentia” (immense and incomprehensible power).23
Capacitas Dei now refers to the capacity that God exercises by de­
ploying his most intimate essence, as opposed to the receptivity of
man to God. Just as man’s capacitas becomes a power (in principle
finite), God’s capacitas becomes a capacity (in principle infinite): man
thus aims to become “lord and master of nature” (Discourse VI, AT
VI, 62, 11. 7-8), while capacitas is the means for God to have his
existence proven, causally and according to the principle of reason.
Power facing power, before becoming power against power, the ego
and the God of the philosopher evaluate each other from a distance.
But can this comparative relation between powers be linked with the
semantic variation of capax/capable, which it already confirms? In
fact, the last occurrence of capax in the Meditations (52,1. 20) enables
us to sketch an answer, by means of a theological detour.

5. The Paradox of Man Capax Dei

The common semantics of a receptive capax, whose inversion we
have just identified, saw constant use in theology from Saint Au­
gustine to Suarez, which helped refine, as well as enrich, its meaning.
The Cartesian avatar extracts it from this conceptual field but also
retains it.24
The phrase capax Dei in Augustinian theology must be analyzed
according to a threefold thematic.25 First, capacitas ought to be under­
stood as a clearly passive receptivity— not because of impotence, but
because only by abandoning oneself in God can one receive him,
which enables humans to discover themselves as those “ quibus intel-
ligentiam dedit [sc. Deus] et suae contemplationis hábiles capacesque
sui praestitit” (to whom He [God] gave intelligence and made them
capacious enough and fit for the contemplation of him; De Trinitate).
86 CHAPTER FOUR

The notion of capacity of a receptacle, when applied to the human

soul, does maintain the idea of receptivity, although this receptivity
itself, having become constitutive of the soul, realizes and ratifies a
divine gift, by which God allows the human soul to receive him as
God— that is, as a gift: “ Nemo autem male vult immortalitem, si
ejus humana capax est Deo donante natura: cujus si non capax est,
nec beatitudinis capax est” (no one wrongly wills immortality, if hu­
man nature is by God’s gift capacious enough for it [si ejus humana
capax est Deo donante natura]; and if it is not capacious enough for
it, it does not have the capacity for receiving blessedness).26 Capax
not only implies the possibility of a gift generally, but also indicates
to humans that their own nature originates with a gift, evidenced by
their very constitution. Hence, second, the fundamental instability
introduced in man: Originating as a gift, he discovers himself to be
tied to the giving that provides him with the only subsistence he
will ever be able to claim— “inquietum est cor nostrum.” If nature
constitutes the first grace humans receive from God, this very nature
in turn finds itself organized for all grace. Nature, defined by the
receptivity of grace, thus opens itself, by means of the gift that creates
it, to the perpetual creation of future gifts: capax becomes complete
in participatio. Receptivity as understanding (capax as capere) be­
comes the condition for the possibility of a partaking (participatio as
partem capere). Thus a fundamental relation of possibility is set up
between the inner space opened to the gift and the abundance of the
gift received; the greatness of the one limits the greatness of the other:
“ quia summae naturae capax est, et esse particeps potest, magna natura
est [sc. homo]” (because he is capacious enough to receive the highest
nature, and can be a partaker of it, man is a great nature); “ Diximus
enim mentem, etsi amissa Dei participatione absoletam atque defor-
mem, Dei tamen imaginem permanere. Eo quippe ipso imago ejus
est, quo capax est ejusque particeps esse potest” (as we have said, al­
though worn out and defaced by losing the participation of God, yet
the image of God still remains. For it is his image in this very point,
that it is capacious enough to receive Him, and can be partaken of
Him); “Deum, cujus ab eo capax est facta, et cujus particeps esse
potest” (let it worship God, who is not made, by whom because itself
was made, it is capacious enough to receive and can be partaker of
Him).27 As a space to be occupied, capacity enables the receiving of
the part, the partaking. Possibility, but not power: It is a matter here
of identifying an inner locus, to “ annihilate,” as some would later say,
WHAT IS THE EGO CAPABLE OF? 87
any occupation and occupant that would prevent God from offering
himself “to be taken” as a part, in part, and apart. In this investment
of himself, man’s only task is to let God occur, by offering him the
largest possible capacity. Hence, third, the constant opening up of
capacity toward God; this stretching of the inner space has to be
accomplished by desire— that is to say, by the infinite, the infinity
of desire, which only God can create. Here, Augustine follows Greg­
ory of Nazianzus: “ Caritas accendit desiderium cujus magnitudine
fiant corda nostra capacia beatitudinis, quae ventura promittitur”
(Our charity . . . grows hot with a desire so huge that it gives our
hearts the capacity to receive the bliss which is promised for the fu­
ture); “Deus differendo extendit desiderium, extendendo facit capa-
cem. Desideremus ergo, fratres, quia implendi sumus” (so God, by
deferring our hope, stretches our desire . . . ; by stretching, makes
it more capacious. Let us desire, therefore, my brethren, for we shall
be filled); “Deus autem dare vult; sed non dat nisi petenti, ne det
non capienti” (God wants to give; but He does not give except to the
repentant, lest he give to those lacking capacity).1* Spiritual progress
thus depends upon capacity, although capacity does not deploy a de­
sire that could reach divinity by means of power. Conversely, capacity
uses desire only to open itself to the dimensions of a gift that is all
the more freely given and transcendent as it always surpasses our
expectations. The only kind of progress consists in extending capacity
according to participation— in other words, in learning to receive as
much as God gives— not in increasing a power, with a view toward
gaining domination.
Receiving a gift can thus in a way always underlie the superabun­
dance that overwhelms it and thus strive for an ever-increasing am­
plitude. It is in this sense that Thomas Aquinas continues the medita­
tion of man capax Dei. Given that “ creatura rationalis est capax illius
beatae cognitionis, in quantum est ad imaginem Dei” (a thinking
creature is capable of receiving this beatific knowledge, made as he is
in the image of God), human nature is naturally ordered by supreme
participation, since grace already entirely permeates nature; thus,
“naturaliter anima est capax gratiae: eo ipso quod facta est ad imag­
inem Dei, capax est Dei per gratiam, ut Augustinus dicit” (the soul
is by nature capable o f receiving grace; for as Augustine says, by the
very fact that it is made in the image of God, it is capable o f receiving
God by grace).29This continuity between nature and grace by means
of capacitas helps avoid both falling into Pelagianism and introducing
88 CHAPTER FOUR

Jansenism; here nature attempts to conform to the overabundant gift,

in the epectasis of desire, instead of attempting to take its measure.30
Desire thus strives for a happiness that surpasses the present capaci-
tas, thereby increasing it and also finally making it receptive. Thus,
the constant gap, ceaselessly bridged and reopened, between the ca-
pacitas of the soul at a given spiritual moment and the overabundant
gift that exceeds it: “Veritas fidei christianae humanae rationis capaci-
tatem excedat” (the truth of the Christian faith exceeds the capacity
of human reason).31 Capacity must therefore go beyond itself, in com­
pletions that will in turn become new beginnings, in order to receive
the gift that exceeds it.
The question of blessedness seems settled. The ultimate end of
man capax Dei can only be God himself—supernatural blessedness.
But the capacity that constitutively links man to the transcendent is
in no way sufficient in itself for man to receive the transcendent—
not only because this capacity still needs to be extended to the infi­
nite, but especially because it does not exercise any power of posses­
sion: rather, it awaits a gift. Here capacity is all the more oriented
toward supernatural blessedness as it renounces the notion of con­
quering it, as a good that it would have the power to acquire. Capacity
is located in a gap, which it constantly crosses and recrosses, between
what nature can initially contain and Him who remains to be re­
ceived. Capacity therefore endlessly migrates out of its first domain,
that of its faculties and “natural” powers, to open itself up to the
dimensions of a supernatural, which then appears more internal to
capacity than capacity proper. Hence the paradox that human nature
finds itself, because of capacity, ordered by an end from which it
can only receive completion— without ever being able to produce
it. Capacity surpasses the achievements of human powers, since it
inscribes the path of the divine in humans, and since the divine can
only occur from itself in order to be received. The paradox arises
because all the other “natures” in the world desire only, as an end,
what remains proportionate to their own means; power then measures
capacity, for nature desires only what it has the means to atain. But
man capax Dei naturally aims at the supernatural, which he can re­
ceive only as a gift, a gift beyond any and all power: “Ideo creatura
rationalis, quae potest consequi perfectum beatitudinis bonum, indi­
gens ad hoc divino auxilio, est perfectior, quam creatura irrationalis,
quae hujus boni non est capax, sed quoddam bonum imperfectum
consequitur virtute suae naturae” (Likewise it is better to be a rational
WHAT IS THE EGO CAPABLE OF? 89

creature who can reach complete happiness, though needing divine

help, than a non-rational creature which is not capable of this happi­
ness, but arrives at some partial good under its own power); “ Crea-
tura ergo rationalis in hoc praeeminet omni creaturae quod capax
est summi boni, per divinam visionem et fruitionem, licet ad hoc
consequendum naturae propriae principia non sufficiant, sed ad hoc
indigeat auxilio divinae gratiae” (The rational creature then excels
every other creature in this that he is capable of the highest good in
virtue of having as his ultimate end the vision and enjoyment of God,
although the principles of his own nature are not sufficient to attain
this but he needs the help of divine grace).32 The unique and objec­
tively demonstrable greatness of human nature stems from the gap
between its potentia (finite) and its capacitas (infinite), whereby it can­
not possess blessedness in itself, but is constrained to receive it from
another. The very failure of his powers places man at the limit, where
the objective lack of satisfaction of subjective desire summons him
to a silent meeting with the absolutely other. This weakness of domi­
nation in fact opens up the field of participation. This paradox thus
supposes that capacitas surpasses potentia, insofar as it can be distin­
guished from it; thus Thomas Aquinas separates clearly a capacity
“ secundum ordinem potentiae naturalis, quae a Deo semper im-
pletur, qui dat unicuique rei secundum suam capacitatem naturalem”
(according to the range of a power within nature, which is always
fulfilled by God, who gives to each thing according to its natural
capacity), from another, which extends “ secundum ordinum divinae
potentiae” (according to the range of God’s power): God is the only
one who can cause capacity, by means of desire, in order to fulfill it
by means of grace and thus beyond human power. In this case, this
second (supernatural) capacity exceeds the limits of the first (the hu­
man power to satisfy it) insofar as “ charitas, cum superexcedat pro-
portionem naturae humanae, . . . non dependet ex aliqua naturali
virtuti, sed ex sola gratia Spiritus Sancti earn infundentis: et ideo
quantitas charitatis non ex conditione humanae, vel ex capacitate nat­
uralis virtutis, sed solum ex voluntate Spiritus Sancti” (charity . . .
since it altogether transcends human nature, does not depend on any
natural virtue, but solely on the grace of the Holy Spirit who infuses
it. Accordingly its quantity does not depend on the quality of the
nature or on the capacity of its natural virtue, but exclusively on the
will of God).33 What is properly human is to lack the means to satisfy
one’s desire, since this desire naturally stretches its natural capacity
90 CHAPTER FOUR

toward a supernatural goal. Hence the perfect coincidence between

neediness and greatness— the awaiting of the supreme gift.
The paradox of capacity, because it stems from the effective expe­
rience of faith, cannot avoid encountering the inevitably triumphant
objections of sane reason. Thus the deconstruction of capacitas by
Suarez empties it of its tension, while claiming to finally render it
intelligible. Positing the principle that no nature can nourish within
itself a desire that it could not also satisfy by itself—a principle drawn
from Aristotle (De cáelo, II, 8, 290 a 29-35) that does not even admit
the necessary exception of the Christian mystery of the filial adoption
of man by the Father— Suarez simply compares the extension of ca­
pacity to that of the power of satisfying it. A power must therefore
correspond, almost as its guarantee, to any expressed capacity: “res
est sine controversia . . . qua in homine est capacitas naturalis ad hanc
beatitudinem tam passiva quarn etiarn facultas activa: omnis autem
potentia naturaliter ordinatur ad actum sibi connaturalem” (The mat­
ter is incontrovertible . . . since in man the natural capacity for this
blessedness is as much a passive as an active faculty: all potential is
naturally ordered to an act of the same nature as it); “ commune esse
beatitudini naturali, ut in operatione consistant, et consequenter illam
debere esse operationem mentis, seu partis intellectivae, secundum
quam est homo capax Dei” (what is commonly the case for natural
blessedness is that it take place in operation and consequently that it
ought to be an operation of the mind or of the intellectual part, ac­
cording to which man is capable of God); “ appetitus non distinguitur
a capacitate naturali, quam unaquaeque potentia habet ad actum
suam” (appetite is not distinguished from natural capacity which is
what ^potentialhas for its act).34Since blessedness must be conquered
by means of a power, and no longer simply received, to the extent
that this power remains irremediably finite, a finite, sufficient, and
equivalent blessedness must replace infinite blessedness (as opposed
to the natural, and always defective, blessedness of Thomas Aquinas).
For this finite blessedness, capacity itself will become finite again and
will limit itself to the boundaries of potentia, in a ceaselessly repeated
equation.35 True, the reduction of capacity to power opens up a resid­
ual, but nevertheless visible, sizable space in supernatural capacity.
But the latter, lacking any power to effect it, becomes the ineffective
double of potentia naturalis/ capacitas activa; potentiality or obedient
capacity is defined negatively as a complete absence of power, potentia
neutra or capacitas remota— that is to say, it remains removed from
WHAT IS THE EGO CAPABLE OF? 91
the potestas próxima belonging to nature proper.36 It hovers, like the
ghost of a desire that man does not take tragically— or seriously—
because he knows that he cannot satisfy it, and does not appeal to
God to satisfy it. Capacitas obedientalis may here be breaking ground
for the Hinterwelt, whose nullity will later be stigmatized by
Nietzsche.
But our purpose here is not theological. What matters here is the
following: From the theologians of pure nature onward, the concept
of capacitas/capax has tended to undergo semantic shifts; it now no
longer involves receiving God (capax Dei), but rather the exercise of
a power (capax dominii). This is perhaps simply the establishment of
an equivalence between two terms (capacitas joined with posse, po-
tentia, dominium, facultas, etc.); Descartes’ contribution, as we have
seen, was to push the semantic variation until capacitas was de facto
understood as a strict synonym of potentia (formulas F and equiva­
lent). Having noted this crucial difference and the broadening by
Descartes of the use of capacitas /posse outside of the theological do­
main, we can now ask: Does Descartes enjoy a closer relationship,
from the specific viewpoint of the duality ofblessedness, with Suarez?
Or, to put it in a more polemical way, could Descartes be an unac­
knowledged theologian of pure nature?

6. The Cartesian Meditation and the Theology

o f Pure Nature
This connection can be established on several bases. Historically,
first, we note that Suarez died in 1617, after having deeply influenced
the communal theology, and therefore the teaching, of the Society
of Jesus. In La Fleche Descartes thus lived under the influence of
Suarez. In Louvain Baius published his short works on grace in
1564-65 and engaged in polemic with Lessius, who had come there
to attack his views, beginning in 1586. Also in Louvain Lessius, who
taught there, published De summo bono et aeterna beatitudine hominis
libri quattuor (1601), to maintain that “ cuilibet rei intra limites naturae
respondet sua completa beatitudo, cujus, naturaliter est capax ad
quem viribus naturae potest pervenire; alioquin nunquam posset intra
limites naturae perfici” (within the limits of the nature of a thing,
there is enough for its complete blessedness, of which it is naturally
capable and can succeed in reaching by the strength of its own nature.
For otherwise it could never be perfected within the limits of na-
92 CHAPTER FOUR

ture).37 Furthermore, the second edition of the commentary, by John

Wigger, In lam Hae Thomae, was published in Louvain during Des­
cartes’ lifetime (in 1634) and, in fact, criticized Aquinas’ theory of
capacitas (in q. 5, a. 5) in very unambiguous terms: “Naturalis appe-
titus non potest alius esse, quam potentia naturaliter capax alicujus
perfectionis aut boni, quod naturae seu naturalis agentis viribus potest
obtingere” (Natural appetite cannot be other than zpotential naturally
capable of some perfection or good, which can be reached by virtue
of nature or natural activity).38Moreover, L. Froimond, a correspon­
dent of Descartes, taught in Louvain, where he succeeded Jansen in
1634 and published the latter’s Augustinus (in 1640, when the Medita­
tions was being printed). It hardly seems conceivable that Descartes
could have remained unaware of hese decisive quarrels, or that he
would not have been influenced by the Jesuits, and by Suarez in
particular— especially since, as we will see, his texts seem to indicate
the opposite. Besides, the issue here is less the influence than the
profound, although still poorly understood, kinship between the
theological questions and the philosophical debates.
The texts themselves fit into the thematic of pure nature, distin­
guished from the supernatural aim of grace by virtue of its perfect
and sufficient autonomy. First, Revelation finds itself “ set on one
side together with the truths of faith” (Discourse, IV, AT VI, 28, 1.
16); this exclusion from the realm of thought should not be under­
stood as stemming only from doubt: Rule I I I confirms the marginal
status of Revelation, whose certainty in no way rests upon evidence,
but only upon the will (of man? of God?).39In parallel, facing revealed
theology in which “ [one] would need to have some extraordinary aid
from heaven and to be more than a mere man” (Discourse, 8, 1. 17),
knowledge based upon reason concerns the realm of the “purely hu­
man” (3, 1. 22) and the faculties (or powers to know) that are “in us
qua humans,” “men, I say, not the brutes” or divine beings.40 By
a rigorous consequence, supernatural blessedness finds itself, if not
refuted, at least placed at a distance, for natural capacity (posse) does
not possess the power to attain it: “ I say that it is possible to know
by natural reason that God exists, but I do not say that this natural
knowledge by itself, without grace, merits the supernatural glory
which we hope for in heaven. On the contrary, it is evident that since
this glory is supernatural, more than natural powers are needed to merit
it.” 41 Reason may make knowledge possible and is therefore natural,
but it cannot on its own merit blessedness, which then becomes su-
WHAT IS THE EGO CAPABLE OF? §3
pernatural. Revelation, nature, and blessedness thus seem to mobilize
the theology of pure nature. The reading of the last occurrence of
capax in the Meditations now becomes possible. It is enunciated as
follows:
(d) “ For just as we believe through faith that the supreme happi­
ness of the next life consists solely in the contemplation of the divine
majesty, so experience tells us that this same contemplation, albeit
much less perfect, enables us to know the greatest joy of which we
are capable in this life” (Ut enim in hac sola divine majestatis contem-
platione summam alterius vitae foelicitatem consistere fide credimus,
ita etiam jam ex eadem, licet multa minus perfecta, maximam, cujus
in hac vita capaces simus, voluptatem percipi posse experimur; AT
VII, 52, 11. 16-20). Capax, coupled with posse, must obviously be
understood as a power exercised by humans in order to attain happi­
ness; this is how the translator understood it, when he wrote “ capa­
bles de ressentir en cette vie” (able to experience in this life; AT IX-
1 ,4 2 ,1. 5); this is also how Descartes understands it, in the conclusion
of the Passions of the Soul: “les hommes qu’elles [i.e., passions]
peuvent le plus émouvoir sont capables de goûter le plus de douceur”
(persons whom the passions can move most deeply are able to enjoy
the sweetest pleasures of life; §212, AT XI, 488,11. 12-14). Moreover,
the examination of a parallel text in the Principia— “ quantum naturae
nostrae fert infirmitas” (in so far as the feebleness of our nature
allows; I, §22, A T VIII-1, 13, 11. 16 -17 ; PW I, 200)— indicates as
much. Capacitas thus exercises a power. To what end? Clearly, “pour
connaître la nature de Dieu autant que la mienne en était capable”
(in order to know the nature of God, as far as my own nature was
capable of knowing it; Discourse, AT VI, 3 5 ,11. 8-9; emphasis added).
But we should make a distinction: Supreme blessedness is located in
the altera vita (AT VII, 52, 1. 17), which Froimond congratulated
Descartes for emphasizing42 and which surpasses our “ powers” ;
hence the necessity to give up these illusions and think first about
that blessedness, proportioned to the power of our capacity, which
is available “ in this life” (52,1. 19 = Rule I, AT, 3 6 1,1. 6), “ en cette
vie” (trans., AT IX -1, 42, 1. 6). This distinction between two kinds
of blessedness obviously corresponds to the opposition between lumen
naturale (natural light) and fides, [qua\ credimus (belief through faith)
(AT VII, 52, 11. 9, 18).43 At first glance, this distinction appears to
fit perfectly in the duality introduced in blessedness and even in ca­
pacitas by Thomas Aquinas (see above, 5). In fact, the situation is
94 CHAPTER FOUR

radically inverted: capacitas (desire inspired by divine will) no longer

overdetermines and surpasses the limited power of nature; on the
contrary, capacitas (posse) now defines a naturally self-satisfied power
whose self-sufficiency enables it to demarcate itself from unattainable
supreme felicity. Capacitas shifts from participation by means of
grace to domination by means of power, from the first term to the
second term of a dual blessedness. Contrary to all appearances, but
in conformity with Descartes’ intentions, the contemplation of God,
which is natural and limited by our capacity— and lasts only aliquan-
diu— is the furthest removed from mystical communion (AT VII,
52, 12). For contemplation indicates— according, for instance, to
Suarez— less a knowledge of God than a science acquired by the
human power to know, and to know, among other things, God. The
question is, of course, avoided whether in the end one may ever come
to know God or whether such knowledge can only be granted by
God, naturally as well as supernaturally, as a gift of Himself from
the divine or the Father. With Hegel, and since Hölderlin, Western
thought has learned, both painfully and impatiently, that one may
lose sight of the divine, since one strives, precisely, “posse acquirere/
être capable de le ressentir.”
By virtue of its ambiguous semantics, the basic ambivalence of
capable / capacity thus permeates the entire philosophical production
of the seventeenth century. Some thinkers held to the Augustinian
and Thomistic meaning of the term. Thus Benedict of Canfeld wrote:
“Donc c’est la pureté d’intention qui découvre Dieu, et manifeste sa
volonté, et la fait goûter à l’âme, tellement que par cette manifestation
l’âme voit et expérimente ce que devant elle possédait seulement, elle
entend, dis-je, voit et goûte cette volonté divine en sa propre capa­
cité” (Therefore, it is the purity of one’s intention which discloses
God and manifests his will, and brings the soul to have a taste of it,
so much so that by this manifestation the soul sees and experiences
what before it merely possessed. It understands, I say, sees and tastes
this divine will in its own capacity [en sa propre capacité]). Or Fran­
çois de Sales: “ [nos esprits] jouissant sans réserve ni exception quel­
conque de tout cet abîme infini de la divinité, ils ne peuvent néan­
moins jamais égaler leur jouissance de cette infinité, laquelle demeure
toujours infiniment infinie au-dessus de leur capacité” (Even while
they enjoy without reserve or restriction all this infinite abyss of the
divinity, they shall rejoice that they can never make their enjoyment
equal this infinity, for it remains forever infinitely infinite beyond
WHAT IS THE EGO CAPABLE OF? 95
their capacity [au-dessus de leur capacité]). Or Bérulle: “ en cette hu­
manité que Dieu même a voulu rendre digne et capable d’une infinie
communication de lui-même” (in this humanity which God Himself
wanted to render worthy and capable [digne et capable] of an infinite
communication of Himself). Or again: “ et vous n’êtes qu’une pure
capacité de lui [i.e., Jesus] remplie de lui, et remplie de sa grâce, de
son amour et de sa gloire” (and you are only a pure capacity for him
[Jesus], filled with him [une pure capacité de lui, remplie de lui],
and filled with his grace, his love and his glory).44 Others wavered
between this passivity and the activity introduced by Descartes. Pas­
cal, for instance, most often echoes Augustine: “les hommes sont tout
ensemble indignes de Dieu et capables de Dieu” (men are at once
unworthy and capable of God; Pensées, §444; translated by A. J. Krail-
sheimer [New York, 1966], p. 167); “il y a, un Dieu dont les hommes
sont capables” (there is a God, of whom men are capable; Pensées, 449;
trans., p. 168); but he sometimes switches from the passive semantics
(“ capables de quelque vérité” [capacious enough to receive some
truth; Pensées, §418]) to the active semantics “ capables de saisir la
vérité” (able to seize the truth; Pensées, §76), at times in the same
sequence (“ capables d’amour et de connaissance . . . capable de le
connaître et de l’aimer” [capable of love and knowledge . . . able to
know and love; Pensées, §149; trans., p. 79]). Malebranche juxtaposes
the two meanings on the same page: on the one hand, “ l’âme de
Jésus-Christ n’a point une capacité d’esprit infinie” (the soul of Jesus
Christ is not capacious enough for an infinite mind), and, on the
other hand, “ la capacité de penser qu’a Jésus-Christ, comme homme,
est finie” (the ability to think only of Jesus Christ, as man, is finite).45
This opens the way, then, for the inversion that will be perfectly
accomplished in Leibniz: “ la substance est un être capable d’action”
(substance is a being capable of action).46 From then on the equiva­
lence between the ego and substance is achieved, as an equivalence
between capacity and activity. The Cartesian turn becomes indiscern­
ible from then on, overshadowed by the evidence of the result it has
produced.
But this omission matters little, as long as it remains clear that if,
starting with Descartes, the relation between man and God is appre­
hended by modern metaphysics in terms of power (pouvoir) and ca­
pacity (puissance), it is in large part thanks to the theology of pure
nature. The drift of the semantics of capax / capable is one indication
among others— a significant one— of this relationship.
CHAPTER FIVE

Does the Cogito Affect Itself? Generosity

and Phenomenology: Remarks on
Michel Henry’s Interpretation of
the Cartesian Cogito
No doctrine recovered from the history of metaphysics could grasp
us as an authentic thought, as opposed to a monument to a completed
disaster, unless it intervened, always and without reservation, in the
play of the thought being thought at present. Conversely, an older
thought cannot gain such relevance unless the thought being thought
today is carried out in essential dialogue with it. Such encounters do
not always consecrate metaphysical doctrines; the richness and rigor
of many of them possess no contemporary interest or significance:
Mortality must be acknowledged for thoughts as well as for people.
Among those rare bodies of thought that are reborn from one century
to the next, and never cease to call for exegesis because they first
impose their own hermeneutic upon us, that of Descartes, powerful
in its enigmatic simplicity, at once apparent and real, makes the most
intimate contact with contemporary philosophy, which in turn
mounts an attack upon its living works.
And so even today the interpretation of the cogito, ergo sum calls
into play the most essential resources of phenomenology. This in­
volves two dialogues. In the first, we may pose the question as follows:
“What does sum mean; in particular, what does esse, being, contribute
to the formula cogito, ergo sum?” Saying “being” is really not enough,
if we wish to think what being gives to thought; hence the interroga­
tion that Heidegger addresses to Descartes, in the form of a cri­
tique— that Descartes, at the very moment when he enunciated co­
gito, ergo sum, “left undetermined . . . the meaning of the Being of the
does th e c o g it o a f f e c t its e lf? 97

’”1
‘sum Since this first dialogue has been examined elsewhere, we
need not resume the discussion of it here. In the second dialogue,
we may pose the question as follows: “What does cogito mean; in
particular, what does cogitare, thinking, contribute to the formula co­
gito, ergo sum?” Saying “ thinking” is really not enough, if we wish
to think what thinking might be. Thus Michel Henry’s interrogation,
concerning the indeterminacy of cogitare in the Cartesian cogito, at
least as the latter is usually interpreted. We shall resume this discus­
sion here, for it matters as much to Cartesian studies as it does to
the most determinate advances of contemporary phenomenology.

i. The Ego Cogito, Ergo Sum as the

“ Transcendental Spectator”
How can we think the cogitare, thinking? In all phenomenological
rigor, this question is prior to the double interrogation concerning
the link between the cogitatio and the esse; to be more precise, the
link itself depends on the link between the cogitatio and, in general,
everything it cogitates. In fact, as Husserl emphasizes, the cogitatum
reveals itself from the start as already included in the cogitatio; de­
prived of the cogitatum, it would have neither meaning nor possibility
of its own, having no object. Therefore, “ the expression ego cogito
must be expanded [erweitert] by one term. Every cogito contains a
meaning: its cogitatum, as that which it grasps [in intentionality] [als
Vermeintes], . . . The fundamental property of modes of consciousness,
in which I live as my own self is what is known as intentionality. Con­
sciousness is always consciousness of something.” Again, “ The tran­
scendental heading, ego cogito, must therefore be broadened [erweit­
ert] by adding one new member. Each cogito, each conscious process,
we may also say, “ means” [meint] something or other and bears in itself,
in this manner peculiar to the meant [by intention; Gemeinten], its
particular cogitatum. Each does this, moreover, in its own fashion.” 2
I think always signifies that thought is ecstatic, standing out from
the / by a displacement originating with it, in the direction of that
which it posits as its object. It is only within this relation that inten­
tionality makes possible representation. The cogito, intrinsically
structured by intentionality, includes within itself its necessary other,
the cogitatum. To be sure, there is a unity within the “ dual expression
cogito—cogitatum (qua cogitatum) . . . ,” 3 wherein the two elements
become indissociable, precisely in virtue of intentionality; but these
g8 CHAPTER FIVE

two terms define the primitive ecstasy of representation, which makes

possible objectivity. The displacement that intentionality opens up—
the fact that I never think without an other in my thought, therefore
an other from my thought, within the depths of thought— accrues
to representation by running from the cogitatum to its cogito; taking
what intentionality ecstatically makes of my thought, representation
runs through the displacement, as though against the grain, from the
object to the thought that objectifies it. I represent (vorstellen) the
cogitatum, and therefore the intentional object; to be sure, I render
it present to myself as given in flesh and blood (leibhaftig), but I do
so in such a way that I represent it only by its ambassador, if not by
proxy (vertreten). The represented— truly so called because with it
there comes to me an other than me— remains decidedly other than
the I that represents it.
But why should anyone be surprised at the intentional structure
of the representative displacement? Is it not simply the condition of
objectivity, as the theory of constitution will one day definitively cer­
tify it? No doubt this is the case, but something more has to be said:
Husserl also imposes the intentional structure on a very specific case
of thought— namely, thought thinking itself. Even if he recognizes
that we have in this case a “ paradoxical fundamental property,” Hus­
serl admits and even emphasizes that consciousness—which is al­
ready intentional, and already has its objects— apprehends its own
self only by a redoubled intentionality or, if you will, an intentionality
folded back on itself: “The ‘object’ of consciousness, the object as
having identity ‘with itself’ during the flowing subjective process,
does not come into the process from outside; on the contrary, it is
included as a sense in the subjective process itself—and thus as an
"1
‘intentional achievement [intentionale Leistung] produced by the syn­
thesis of consciousness.” In fact, “ these modes of appearance of the
internal consciousness of time are themselves intentional components of
conscious life [intentionale Erlebnisse]” ; the consciousness of intentional
lived experiences is therefore itself grasped intentionally— inten­
tional self-consciousness as consciousness that is already intentional.
Thus arises a redoubling of intentionality, at which Husserl, in spite
of everything, marvels in the very act of naming it: “the ego’s aston­
ishing being-for-itself: here, in the first place, the being of its con­
scious life in the form of reflexive intentional relatedness to itself
[Auf-sich-selbst-intentional-zuriick-bezogen-seins].” 4 One cannot
help asking here: Is consciousness related to itself by the same inten­
does th e c o g it o a f f e c t its e lf? 99
tional relation that it bears to its other cogitata? Is intentionality capa­
ble of applying its ecstasy to thought itself, on the same grounds
whereby it does so to every other object? Conversely, does conscious­
ness bear no more intimate relationship with itself than intentional
ecstasy according to the displacement of objectivity that representa­
tion traverses? Can the ego be defined only as the “ impartial spectator
of itself [unbeteiligter Zuschauer]” ?
For his part, Husserl does not hesitate to justify this assumption,
even at the cost of stupefying schizophrenia within the I: “Phenome­
nological reduction thus tends to split the I [Ichspaltung], The tran­
scendental spectator [transzendentale Zuschauer] . . . sees himself
both in control and also as the previously world-immersed I.” In this
schizophrenia, phenomenological intentionality ecstatically exiles the
ego from itself— “the ego phenomenologically mediating as transcen­
dental spectator over its own being, and its own life.” 5 Husserl per­
sisted in thinking the thought of the cogito, ergo sum on the model
of intentionality, and therefore as a representation of the power of
representation. He thus exposed himself to formidable aporias, both
of temporal consciousness and of the transcendental reversal of phe­
nomenology— no doubt in strict fidelity to the intentional interpreta­
tion of all thought in general, which was itself regarded as integral
to phenomenology. Whatever the specifically Husserlian aporias in­
duced by this radical Ichspaltung, it must be observed that this analy­
sis would ascribe to Descartes primary responsibility for the redou­
bling of intentionality upon itself, and in this sense would render
him, as having anticipated one of its most fragile paradoxes, the pre­
cursor of phenomenology.
It is this point that Heidegger contests. In fact, for Sein und Zeit
intentionality remains from the start a provisional moment in the
return to the very things that lead back most radically from con­
sciousness to Dasein and thereby to the Seinsfrage. So intentionality
restrains phenomenology within metaphysics even more than it lets
it take the initiative. Nevertheless, this fundamental dispute with
Husserl does not keep Heidegger from agreeing with him on the only
point that matters to us here: He consistently agrees to interpret
Descartes’ cogito, ergo sum in terms of intentionality, in terms of the
displacement its ecstasy brings about, in terms of the representation
that runs through intentionality. Only one difference remains. At the
point where Husserl acknowledged an anticipation of phenomenol­
ogy, Heidegger denounces a form of metaphysics. But whether they
100 CHAPTER FIVE
approve or disapprove of intentionality, they give the cogito, ergo sum
the same interpretation in terms of it. And therefore, “ the represent­
ing I [vorstellende Ich] is if anything more essentially and necessarily
¿■»-represented, in every CI represent,’ namely as something toward
which, back to which, and before which every re-presented thing is
placed.” 6 Thus Heidegger attributed to each Cartesian cogitatio the
same ecstasy that Husserl attributes to it; thinking, cogitare, is equiva­
lent— whether by an already phenomenological intentionality or by
a decidedly metaphysical representation— to putting thought at a dis­
tance as an object. The fact of its being called up by and before the
ego could impose no return on the cogitatum, no renewal or reduction,
if no ecstatic displacement had already been opened; re-presenting
presupposes that representing has taken place.
On this understanding how can Heidegger comprehend the cogito,
ergo sum? Obviously, necessarily once again as a redoubling of repre­
sentative ecstasy, centered on itself. Representing always implies rep­
resenting to oneself, and therefore representing precisely myself to
myself, as the condition of the possibility of every other representa­
tion. For what is represented itself, the representation of that which
represents must precede the representation of that which is repre­
sented; what is represented thus discovers, in all rigor, within that
which represents (namely, the ego), that which represents it— the
“ lieutenant” that represents it by first presenting itself. Conse­
quently, it must be said that “we encounter [one feature of the essence
of cogitatio] when we consider that Descartes says that every ego cogito
is a cogito me cogitare; every “I represent something” simultaneously
represents a “myself,” me, the one representing (for myself, in my
representing).” 7
All the dignity of the Cartesian formula would thus derive from
the fact that it deploys— under the guise of a reasoning that attempts
to establish the existence of a particular being— the ultimate require­
ments for representation, for in running through intentional ecstasy
(as Husserl had seen), it presupposes the priority of that which repre­
sents to that which is represented. But how can we ignore the fact
that in reasoning in this way Heidegger repeats the Ichspaltung in
which Husserl’s interpretation was implicated? No doubt he conceals
this aporia better than his master does: Heidegger has no need to
recast the Cartesian ego cogito, ergo sum, since he undertakes only to
“ destroy” it on the basis of the analytic of the Dasein; he therefore
no longer has any need to preserve its logical and ontic pretensions.
does th e c o g it o a f f e c t its e lf? io i

But the fact remains that, given the presupposition that cogitare is
equivalent to vor-stellen, the redoubling of the thought of the self into
one ecstasy from another can lead only to the dissolution of the cogito
(me cogitare), in an exodus from the self without end or assurance—
at least of the ontic variety.
Even though they lead to precisely opposite conclusions, the inter­
pretations of the cogito, ergo sum proposed by Husserl and Heidegger
agree on one postulate: Like all other cogitationes, the cogitatio sui
submits to intentionality, to its ecstasy, and therefore to representa­
tion. In fact, it doubtless submits to them with greater rigor than
other cogitationes do, since it alone redoubles within itself what is
represented on top of what represents, as it disengages what repre­
sents, which is presupposed elsewhere but always concealed. The
cogito, ergo sum redoubles an ecstasy, whether that of intentionality
or that of representation. In this perspective, even without taking into
consideration the opposing judgments that Husserl and Heidegger
contrive to make about it, we must immediately emphasize just which
aporia it is that renders the cogito, ergo sum absolutely impracticable:
Intentional and representative ecstasy rends with an impassable cae­
sura the transcendent from the immanent, and the represented from
what represents; the being that carries out the cogito remains sepa­
rated from the being it knows as its cogitatum, whatever it may be.
Therefore the ego, far from becoming reconciled to itself by reconcil­
ing itself to a certain existence— which Descartes certainly meant to
establish— must admit that it gains thereby only an empirical exis­
tence, and not the pure I, which remains alienated by itself from
itself. Transposed into Cartesian terms, the aporia of a cogito, ergo sum
interpreted intentionally would be formulated as follows: If doubt
disqualifies the relation between every idea (every representation) and
its ideatum (what is represented), and if the existence of the ego or
even its performance of thinking constitutes an ideatum, then how
are we to certify that the representation of that ideatum and it alone
constitutes an exception to the disqualification of even the most pres­
ent of things that are evident? In short, if the cogito, ergo sum height­
ens representation, then it too, like all representations, must be van­
quished by the blow of doubt. For why should it be certain that I
think, that I am, if I also represent these things to myself?
Since the ecstasy that intentionality institutes is exercised hence­
forth between the ego and itself as its own cogitatum, it must be ac­
knowledged that what the representing ego represents no longer coin­
102 CHAPTER FIVE

cides with this ego, since what we have here first is that which is
represented: No cogitatum, not even that of the ego, may be identified
with a cogitans. Kant saw this consequence and made it one of his
themes, marking in advance the final contradiction in an interpreta­
tion of the cogito, ergo sum in terms of representation. The I, always
comprised within the horizon of representation, must “accompany”
every representation, but in order to remain itself, it must remove
itself from that arena and never be counted as an object: “The I
think must be capable of accompanying all my representations, for
otherwise something would be represented within me which abso­
lutely could not be thought, which amounts to saying that the repre­
sentation would either be impossible or at least be nothing for me.”
As “ correlate of all our representations,” the I, to be sure, “ is capable
of accompanying” all representations of objects. But in virtue of the
fact that it remains a simple traveling companion of objectivity, it
can never itself claim to be an object.8 As representation’s traveling
companion, the pure I makes representation possible, without for
all that benefiting from it or obtaining existence from it. If the appela-
tion of representation may sometimes be conceded to the I, this is
always subject to a restrictive condition: “ the simple representation
I, for itself empty of all content, which can never be said to be a
concept, but only a pure consciousness which accompanies all con­
cepts.” 9
Kant concludes by disjoining precisely what Descartes intended
in all rigor to conjoin. On the one hand, the ego cogito, understood
as the transcendental I, exercises to be sure a primitive unity; but as
this spontaneity is not sensible, and as only sensible intuition is given,
the primitive unity of the I can never be given to us in a representa­
tion; and therefore the transition from the ego cogito to an actual sum
can never be legitimate: That which thinks can never be represented
as existent.
On the other hand, what could be represented in the case of the
I would have to be registered within sensible intuition, and therefore
satisfy the conditions of objectivity within experience, in order to
appear within it as phenomenon and as object. If the I is to think
itself as existent, it must become other than itself—an objectivized
i; if the I is to be (according to existence), it must be (in its essence)
only an i: “/, as intelligence and thinking subject, know myself as
object thought, insofar as I am also given to myself in intuition—
but only as I know other phenomena, that is, not as I am for the
DOES THE COGITO AFFECT ITSELF? 10 3

understanding, but as I appear to myself.” 10 And like other phenom­

ena, the i reduced to objectivity must attain an existence that is condi­
tioned and therefore in Cartesian terms uncertain. The constraints
of objectivity, which determine all of existence as empirically given,
therefore constrain the ego either to objectify itself in order that it
may exist, and thus to alienate itself from its primary status as origin,
or not to exist according to objectivity in order that it may exercise
its primary status as origin representing objectivity. This celebrated
dilemma marks not so much an innovative thesis of Kant’s as the
inescapable aporia for every attempt to interpret the cogito, ergo sum
on the model of representation. Representation, which by intention-
ality ecstatically separates what is thinking from what is thought, noe-
sis from noema, can never conjoin them, even if it uses the same term
in both cases to refer to them.

2 . Cogito, from Intentionality to Auto-affection

The aporias of interpretations of the cogito, ergo sum in terms of inten­
tionality and representation are now patent. They all lead to the same
contradiction: What the ego cogito reaches by way of existent being
immediately becomes other than that ego, since it amounts to the
object represented by itself, but as objectivized by representation.
This is therefore already no longer the ego— cogito, ergo est (aliquod
objectum = me). Moreover, the object that is in this way can be only
conditionally, like every other object transcendent of the representing
consciousness. It is not only that the ego never recognizes itself in
what appears to it under its intentional gaze; what it does recognize,
it recognizes only hypothetically, not absolutely. All the critiques di­
rected against the alleged “ substantialism” of the ego cogito, from
Kant to Husserl, may therefore be inverted: They prove only the
fundamental impotence of the common (representative or inten­
tional) interpretation when it comes to thinking and repeating the
Cartesian foundation of the first principle. They are beyond all doubt
far from invalidating it.
Furthermore, the very enterprise of interpreting the cogito, ergo
sum in terms of representation and intentionality may be contested
as mistaken in principle. It would seem incoherent on the one hand to
admit (with Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger) that all modern thought
concerning subjectivity ultimately depends on the ego cogito that
Descartes originated, and on the other hand to claim to interpret this
104 CHAPTER FIVE

very subjectivity with the aid of concepts that, far from being prior
to it, ultimately derive from it— just such concepts as intentionality
and representation.
If the ego cogito alone makes possible the depiction of representa­
tion, and thereby that of intentionality, we must then exclude in prin­
ciple the idea that the model of representation or of intentionality
could suffice to make the ego cogito intelligible. If the ego cogito engen­
ders intentionality, then intentionality can neither comprehend nor
confirm it; above all, it cannot count against it.
A third reason above all enjoins us from maintaining the represen­
tative or intentional interpretation of the cogito, ergo sum: the fact
that Descartes condemns it expressis verbis. If we retain Heidegger’s
formula— that cogito means cogito me cogitare (rem)— we observe that
Descartes uses it to the letter at least once, but precisely to condemn
it, leaving no opportunity for appeal.

My critic says that to enable a substance to be superior to matter

and wholly spiritual (and he insists on using the term ‘mind’
only in this restricted sense), it is not sufficient for it to think:
it is further required that it should think that it is thinking, by
means of a reflexive act, or that it should have awareness of its
own thought. This is as deluded as our bricklayer’s saying that
a person who is skilled in architecture must employ a reflexive
act to ponder on the fact that he has this skill before he can be
an architect.11

This statement is quite unambiguous: For thinking substance to be

established as such— immaterial, spiritual, in short, irreducible to
extension, to the sphere of the world— it need not redouble its cogi-
tatio by a reflected, second-order cogitatio, as in a cogito me cogitare,
any more than an architect must redouble his expertise by conscious­
ness of it in order to build competently. Thought is prior to reflection
on thought: “that internal awareness which always precedes reflective
knowledge” (AT VII, 422, 11. 13 -14 ; CSM II, 285); therefore, the
cogito in act is prior to the cogito me cogitare. Without lengthy explana­
tion, but with the greatest clarity, Descartes leads the cogito me cogi­
tare back to the simple cogito, rejecting in advance Heidegger’s in­
verse procedure. In its essence, cogitatio excludes all reflection, for
it is accomplished by and for the sake of immediacy (AT VII, 160,
11. 8 and 15; CSM II, 113). But this unambiguous statement of his
DOES THE COGITO AFFECT ITSELF? 105
position does not entirely settle the question, first of all because even
if Descartes takes exception here to a reflexive interpretation, it re­
mains no less true that the cogito, ergo sum may, and for many inter­
preters must, be understood (if only implicitly) in terms of the ecstasy
of representation or of intentionality: Once attention is drawn to the
ambiguity, it persists all the more. Furthermore, we still need to see
what other conceptual model could provide terms wherein the imme­
diacy of cogitatio might be exhibited phenomenologically.
These motives converge in a single demand: If we are to think
the cogito, ergo sum in such a way that it allows intentionality, we
must deploy a more radical phenomenology than one that intentional­
ity allows. We are indebted to the powerful thought of Michel Henry
for the possibility of such a phenomenology, presented under the
label “material phenomenology.” 12 In this perspective, consciousness
does not at first think of itself by representation, because in general
it does not think by representation, intentionality, or ecstasy, but
by receptivity, in absolute immanence; therefore, it thinks at first
in immanence to itself. Consciousness thinks, and thinks of itself,
fundamentally by auto-affection. Before any other operation con­
sciousness experiences itself, with an absolute immediacy, without
which it could never experience anything else. This auto-affecting
of consciousness is therefore accomplished before any reflexivity of
representation, precisely because it precedes even nonreflexive repre­
sentation. With the aid of a dazzling analysis of an enigmatic
Cartesian formula— “Yet I certainly seem to see, to hear, and to be
warmed [At certe videre videor, audire, calescere]” (AT VII, 29, 11.
14 -15 ; C SM II, 19)— Michel Henry seeks to carry out a hermeneutic
of Descartes’ cogito, ergo sum that is nonreflexive because noninten-
tional, relying on the principle that “ Cartesianism is a phenomenol­
ogy . . . a material phenomenology. ” 13
We cannot undertake here either to sketch an examination of “ ma­
terial phenomenology” or even to test its pertinence for the herme­
neutic of Cartesian thought in general. We can, however, set for our­
selves a limited objective: to determine whether it is possible to
understand the cogito, ergo sum after the manner of Michel Henry,
without having recourse to intentional ecstasy or incurring its aporias,
taking as a clue the notion of the auto-affection of consciousness.
Within the Cartesian text, which conceptual arguments might au­
thorize us to take cogitatio as auto-affection, and therefore as immedi­
ate sensing? First of all, the reasoning already cited from the Second
io 6 CHAPTER FIVE

Meditation: It is also the same “I” who has sensory perceptions

(“Idem denique ego sum qui sentio” [AT VII, 29, 1. 11; CSM II,
19]); I am now seeing light (“ jam lucem video” [AT VII, 2 9 ,1. 13]);
but this mediated perception (“ tanquam per sensus” [AT VII, 2 9 ,1.
12]) may be exposed as false if I am sleeping. Nevertheless, Descartes
adds immediately, even if I am sleeping, and this mediated (that is,
intentional ) representation is disqualified, “ certe videre videor, au-
dire, calescere” (AT VII, 2 9 ,11. 14 -15 )— it remains indubitably cer­
tain that it seems to me that I am seeing, hearing, and feeling heat;
the immediacy of videor, “ it seems to me,” remains valid and incon­
testable, even when doubt disqualifies videre (and all other forms of
representation). Even if no intentional object completes my intention,
it remains no less true that I am immediately affected by the appear­
ance of a representation, which may be void of anything represented.
The ego, even when deceived, does not deceive itself, since it affects
itself fist in that immanent appearing— and then deception, the in-
tentional’s lack of intuitiveness, fails to occur. What precedes the
disqualified representation, and resists it, is not a first representation,
but an affection with no transcendent cause— the absolute imma­
nence, therefore, of auto-affection. This redoubling of mediate per­
ception by auto-affection may be expressed by the redundancy videre
videor (as also at AT VII, 5 3 ,11. 18-22; CSM II, 37) or more strongly
by explicit reference to pure phenomenological sensation: “ sentimus
nos videre.” And Descartes clarifies: By contrast with animals who
see like automata without actually thinking what they mechanically
perceive, we, who are thinking egos, sense what we perceive— that
is, we think only by sensing, since “ to sense” means here to allow
oneself to be immediately affected: “to see as we do, i.e. sensing or
thinking.” 14 So Descartes does not hesitate elsewhere to empha­
size this equivalence: “ the mind, which alone has the sensation or
thought that it is seeing or walking” (Principia philosophiae I, a. 9);
when it thinks what it sees, the mens does not represent it to itself,
but senses it, that is, presents it immediately to itself—or, better,
presents itself (offers itself, exposes itself) to what affects it, in con­
formity with its capacity for sensing. It cannot be emphasized too
strongly that what is at issue here is not only the inclusion of sensation
among the other modes of cogitatio on which the Meditations so often
insists;15 it is above all Descartes’ radical interpretation of all cogitatio,
as such, as “the primitive sensing of thought.” 16 It is only on the
foundation of this immediacy to itself that cogitatio may, at the precise
does th e c o g it o a f f e c t its e lf? 10 7

moment when in doubt it challenges reflection and its intentional

objects, first assure itself with certainty of itself, and then experience
that, as long as it experiences itself and hence auto-affects itself, it is,
it exists (AT VII, 25, 1. 12; 27, 1. 9; CSM II, 17, 18).
This interpretation of the cogito, ergo sum, no doubt provocative
if only because it is illuminating, gives rise to several further issues:
(1) whether a nonintentional phenomenology is even possible; (2)
whether the dispute among various types of phenomenology, which
may, no doubt, be approached by reference to the interpretation of
the Cartesian cogitatio, provides any positive indication that the auto-
affecting of thought constitutes a properly and authentically
Cartesian concern; and (3) whether an absolutely nonintentional co­
gito, ergo sum can be identified in the Cartesian texts. Michel Henry
seems to have doubts about the first of these; he sagaciously exhibits
Descartes’ own failure to understand his most profound discovery,
favoring a notion of the primacy of representation to which he finally
succumbed.17 The first of these questions does not bear on our pres­
ent purpose; the second, a question of right, presupposes the third,
a question of fact. It is therefore fitting to inquire whether a nonec-
static, nonrepresentative, and nonintentional determination of cogi­
tatio is to be found among Descartes’ texts. This inquiry may be
regarded both as homage, in the form of an examination of “material
phenomenology,” and as a contribution to the history of the cogito,
ergo sum over the course of Descartes’ thought.

3. Passion of Oneself
Among the functions of the soul Descartes distinguishes “ two genera:
the first, namely, are the actions of the soul; the others are its pas­
sions” (Passions de V âme, a. 17). How should these passions be char­
acterized? “All the sorts of cases of perception or knowledge to be
found in us can generally be called its passions, because it is often
not our soul that makes them such as they are, and because it always
receives them from things that are represented by them” (ibid.). Ac­
cording to this definition, the passions appear first of all to consist
of “ perceptions,” “ cases of knowledge,” “representations” ; they are
imposed on the soul by “ things” that act on it; it is consequently
passive. Thus, the passions, far from constituting an exception to the
general ecstatic displacement of representation, actually repeat it.
Nevertheless, a more attentive reading of this definition discloses
io 8 CHAPTER FIVE

the indication of an exception within it: Given that the passions are
“ generally” “perceptions,” Descartes specifies that the soul “ often”
submits to them because of external things. Why does he add “often”
here? The answer, of course, is that this is not always the case. Cir­
cumstances could be found in which cases of perception and knowl­
edge are found “in us,” and therefore received passively, but in which
it is still the soul that makes them “ such as they are.” It is “ often,”
not always, that the soul suffers passions that it does not cause. We
must conclude that “ sometimes” it causes passions (or representa­
tional perceptions) by itself, which it nevertheless suffers— in short,
that “ sometimes” the soul affects itself. ■
Is there textual confirmation for such a conclusion? Certainly. For,
when he examines “ what the first causes of the passions are” (a. 51),
Descartes attempts to specify what it is that most closely determines
“ the last and most proximate cause of the passions of the soul . . .
the agitation with which the spirits move the little gland in the middle
of the brain.” Among these “ first causes” he distinguishes first “the
temperament of the body alone” (with no external object) and,
chiefly, those “ external objects” themselves which are the most com­
mon and principal cause of the passions. But then he admits another
cause, which is indeed exceptional but undeniable: “ though they [the
passions] may sometimes be caused by the action of the soul.” Some­
times the soul causes its own passions. That is why it was correct to
say that it is only often and not always that the soul does not make
them what they are.
Other texts confirm this rare but undeniable production by the
soul of its own passions. Thus, while the soul’s absolute power over
its volitions may be opposed to the independence of the passions,
which “depend absolutely on the actions [of objects] that produce
them,” an exception must be maintained: the soul suffers its passions
“ except when it is itself their cause” (a. 41). Hence the soul can in­
deed cause its own passions, in certain exceptional cases, without
external objects. So, strictly speaking, it indeed affects itself, by itself;
it suffers the passion of self. In short, it is auto-affected.
But since this possibility is only realized “sometimes” (a. 51),
and as an exception, can it have any significant uses and examples?
Descartes appears to have pointed out at least two. First, the auto-
affecting of the soul is undeniably confirmed in the case of volitions,
since they can be called “ excitations of the soul which have reference
to it, but which are caused by it itself” (a. 29). Nevertheless, when
does th e c o g it o a f f e c t its e lf? 109

volitions are in question, as they are here, it is impossible for us to

discern a paradigm of the passions as such, at least at the present
stage of the analysis. We therefore pass on to the second example:
Parallel to the passions proper, “which always depend on some mo­
tion of the spirits” and hence on a cause external to the soul, Des­
cartes admits, as “ different” and yet “ similar,” “inner excitations,
which are excited in the soul only by the soul itself” (a. 147). In this
case the soul suffers only what it does to itself—in brief, it is auto­
affected. The example par excellence of such an internal excitation is
that of “intellectual joy” (a. 147)— “the purely intellectual joy which
comes into the soul by the action of the soul alone, and which can
be said to be a delightful excitation, excited in it by itself” (a. 91).
What we have here is, with no ambiguity, a passion, one that owes
nothing to the will, but nothing either to a (first) cause external to the
soul, such as the “impressions of the brain [which] represent to it”
some other good as its own. Thus the soul indeed causes on its own
a passion within itself, an “ excitation excited in it by itself” (a. 91).
We are therefore perfectly justified in speaking of an auto-affection
of the soul, without ecstasy or displacement between cause and effect,
represented and representing, intention and intuition. This is our
first result: Descartes admits that there is “ sometimes” an auto­
affection of the ego. Two ambiguities remain. First, does auto-
affection concern certain passions or volitions or both? Second, does
not the auto-affecting that the soul accomplishes still remain within
the horizon of representation, so that its ecstasy is simply transposed
into the heart of the ego itself?

4. A Representation without Something Represented

This last query is all the more significant because the definition of
the passions with which we began specified without exception that
“ it [the soul] always receives them from things which are represented
by them” (a. 17). In other words, no passions— not even the passions
aroused by auto-affection— can occur without the representation of
an object. The conclusion seems inevitable that even the soul’s auto­
affection in certain passions maintains an ecstasy (an intentionality,
a representation), and is therefore vulnerable to the resulting aporias.
Nevertheless, this conclusion would be a fragile one, for the very
concept of “ things . . . represented” remains to be determined and
no CHAPTER FIVE

expressed precisely. In fact, will and perception (or passion) must

each be divided in two.
(1) Volitions may have their terminus in the body, and will then
be related to an object of representation; but they may also “have
their terminus [se terminer] in the soul itself.” In this case— for ex­
ample, in the volition to love God— thought is applied “to some ob­
ject that is not material” (a. 18). Such a volition neither admits of
nor requires any object external to the soul: Love of God is neither
another body nor the representation of an abstract concept, but a
demeanor, a volition, a modality. It is more than a representable ob­
ject; it is an objective that the soul acknowledges for itself, within
its very heart. Can we then still speak of ecstatic (or intentional)
representation of another object? Does will, when its terminus lies
inside the soul itself with a nonmaterial object, represent that object,
whatever that object may be, according to the ecstatic definition of
representation— that is to say, as res, even the least of which is in
reality foreign and objectifiable? Doubt on this score seems permissi­
ble— especially in the light of the second division.
(2) Perceptions can also be understood in two ways. Either they
have bodies as cause and then assume their ordinary status, or they
have only “ the soul as cause” and are immediately classed as pure
“perceptions of our volitions” (a. 19), since in fact volitions are de­
fined as being caused by the soul alone. The question, consequently,
is modified, and becomes this: Can a perception of such-and-such a
volition be assimilated to the ecstatic representation of an object?
Here again doubt is permissible, for at least two reasons.
(a) Perception adds no object to a volition that might destroy that
volition’s immediacy to itself. On the contrary, “ this perception and
this volition are really only a single thing” (a. 19); again, “ we cannot
will anything without knowing that we will it, nor could we know
this except by means of an idea; but I do not claim that this idea is
different from the act itself.” Finally, “because we cannot will any­
thing without understanding what we will, and we scarcely ever un­
derstand something without at the same time willing something, we
do not easily distinguish in this matter passivity from activity.” 18The
distinction between a volition and the perception of that volition is
not real (in the Kantian sense of the term); instead, it amounts only
to a difference of modalities, not one of content, essence, or object.
A volition, viewed in juxtaposition with the soul’s perception of it,
is bare. The convertibility between certain perceptions and certain
does th e c o g it o a f f e c t its e lf? Ill

volitions each having the soul as cause immediately rules out the pos­
sibility of opposing them on the schema of representational ecstasy,
which would distinguish the object from the thought of that object.
(b) When bare will wills, does it always will an object? In one sense,
it certainly always wills a quasi-object, which serves as its objective—
“ something which is solely intelligible.” Now what specific example
of this does Descartes give? “For example to attend to its own nature”
(a. 20). The example is surprising, for we already know that when
perception and volition are “really only a single thing” (a. 19), percep­
tion has “ the soul as cause.” Here will has its own nature— hence,
itself again— as object, so that in the end what we have is a volition
causing itself, willing itself—hence, as such, indiscernibly from a
perception of the will’s own circularity, which is to say the soul’s.
In the closed circle of a thought perfectly perceiving and willing
itself, where are we to introduce an object on the schema of the ec­
static displacement of representation? If we still wished to apply the
concept of representation, we would at the very least have to amend
it radically, the result being a representation without any object other
than the objective of a volition caused by itself and made to will its
own nature. But would not such a representation of a nonobject be
equivalent to a nonrepresentation? It matters little where the negation
crops up (as representation without object or as ««»representation),
provided that it appear clearly that the perception of a volition fo­
cused on itself emphatically exceeds the exercising of ecstatic repre­
sentation, and of intentional displacement. And so the second result
is achieved: Descartes admits, in certain cases of volition, a perception
without a real object other than the soul itself—a perception without
ecstatic representation.

5. Generosity, the Last Formulation of the

Cogito, Ergo Sum?
Can the two features that we have just isolated in certain passions—
auto-affection and nonecstatic perception— be reunited in any single
passion? And could we, in the case of this passion, sketch a formula­
tion of the cogito, ergo sum without representational ecstasy, by auto-
affection? We will attempt to furnish the elements of a positive an­
swer by examining the particular passion of generosity. Let us recall
that generosity depends on the passion of esteem, which is itself one
of two “ species of wonder” (aa. 150 and 54). Since wonder constitutes
112 CHAPTER FIVE

“ the first of all the passions” (a. 53), its primacy infects generosity,
which issues directly from it.19 Generosity, deriving from or rather
deploying wonder as such, is the beneficiary of its primacy in the
order of passions and therefore in morals. Is this ethical primacy re­
lated to the metaphysical primacy that the Discours de la méthode rec­
ognized twenty years earlier in its premier principe— “I think, there­
fore I am” (AT VI, 32, 1. 19; CSM I, 127)? The internal coherence
of Cartesian thought requires that a relation be acknowledged be­
tween these two primacies. But is it one of rivalry or rather of identi­
fication? We shall now try to show that the ethical primacy, far from
being opposed to the metaphysical primacy, in fact repeats and so
fulfills it.
But generosity also preserves, within its own definition, the global
architecture of the cogito, ergo sum, wherein thought, in the very re­
markable case in which it is a thought related to itself, becomes a
principle, and hence an existence. Generosity is defined similarly, by
a like reference of the self to itself: “ it is our own merit that we esteem
or scorn” (a. 151); “ true generosity . . . makes a man esteem himself
as highly as he can legitimately esteem himself” (a. 153). Generosity
therefore repeats the act of the cogito, but it does so by rescuing it
from any risk of ecstatic or intentional interpretation, since it dis­
penses with any trace of representation, in virtue of four aspects of
the concept. It is therefore appropriate for us to examine these char­
acteristics.
(1) Generosity is marked first by a perfect auto-affection of the
soul: “we can thus esteem or scorn our own selves” (a. 54); “ one can
esteem or scorn oneself” (a. 151). This is not a passion provoked by
an external object, since it is born of self-satisfaction— in Descartes’
words, a “ satisfaction de soi-même” (aa. 63 and 190). If we still wish
to speak of an effect, we shall have to specify that this is an effect
on the soul of which the “ cause depends only on ourselves” (a. 190),
for this cause is “ [nothing] other than the volition we feel within
ourselves” (a. 158). And these “ causes are . . . marvelous” (a. 160)
indeed, since in this exceptional case they and that which suffers their
effects form but a single thing. The circle of cogitatio of self by self
is repeated and maintained, but now in the form of an affecting (an
action or causation) of self by self. This, it must be admitted, might
be described as auto-affecting.
(2) But would not generosity, if it remains a passion,20 still need
to be assigned an object— and a real one? In answering this question,
DOES THE COGITO AFFECT ITSELF? 113

it will help to refer again to wonder, from which generosity issues.

If wonder is born of “ the first encounter with some object,” it must
be provoked more by the object’s novelty and unexpectedness than
by the object itself. In fact, “ if the object presented has nothing in
it that surprises us, we . . . regard it without passion” (a. 53). The
object of wonder therefore is not the object qua real (and really given),
but rather the (unreal) modality of its presence: “ to be new, or very
different from what we knew in the past or what we supposed it was
going to be” (a. 53).
The object disappears behind the modality of its presence; in other
words, the object of wonder is already no longer an object but a (nec­
essarily unreal) modality of objectivity. The first passions derived
from wonder— namely, esteem and scorn— again contribute to this
distancing of the object: Here too, what is in question is not the
object, but “the greatness of an object or its smallness” (a. 54); great­
ness and smallness do not constitute objects, but only qualities of
objects, and therefore the objectivity of the object tends to vanish.
The tendency is accentuated when esteem is directed to “other ob­
jects which we regard as free causes, capable of doing good or evil”
(a. 55), for such a capacity for choice constitutes, in itself, neither a
being (un étant) nor an object: a fortiori, “when we refer [esteem and
scorn] to ourselves— that is, when it is our own merit that we esteem
or scorn” (a. 151). In fact, if the object to which we direct our esteem
coincides with our own merit, it is no longer distinguished in any
way from that which the ego apprehends. Furthermore, this merit
itself is constituted by “ a single thing . . . , namely the use of our free
will and the dominion we have over our volitions” (a. 152); hence, a
person’s understanding of his merit consists in “his understanding
that there is nothing which truly belongs to him but this free control
of his volitions, and no reason why he ought to be praised or blamed
except that he uses it well or badly” (a. 153).
The object disappears behind a double unreality: first, that of the
estimation of the quality or modality of that object (more than of the
object itself); and then that of a will (which is unobjectifiable by
definition)— or rather of a use or a disposition (hence a modality) of
this will. Generosity has no other object in the soul except the soul
itself, but the soul in turn understood as the pure use of a will. In
the passion of generosity, what Descartes calls “ good will [bonne vo­
lonté]” 21— which might be defined as a volition to make good use of
the will, in short a doubly unreal volition to will— is substituted for
114 CHAPTER FIVE

every real object. Thus auto-affection no longer confronts any imped­

iment in the veil of an intermediate object. It is always the soul, alone
and unique, that causes and suffers— and is assured of itself in expe­
riencing itself under the mode of esteem.

6. I Esteem, Therefore I Am?

Two difficulties still remain that weigh upon the credibility of our
hypothesis. One has to do with the exercise, or lack thereof, of cogi-
tatio by the ego affected by generosity; the other has to do with the
ontic relevance of generosity— whether it still allows the ego to say
sum. These must be examined separately.
(3) The cogito, ergo sum is accomplished according to cogitatio, in
all of its originality. But does generosity provide for the ego it affects
a way in which it might itself be affected according to something that
somehow or other arises from cogitatio, and that possesses as clearly
as cogitatio does its nonreflexive, nonintentional character?
The following consideration suggests a positive answer. Generos­
ity is understood in terms of wonder (as wonder referred to the self);
but wonder in turn admits, as two fellow variations, esteem and scorn
(aa. 149-50), and esteem is defined as “ an inclination the soul has
to represent to itself the value of the thing esteemed” (a. 149).22 To
esteem is therefore equivalent, in a way still to be defined, with to
represent, and hence with cogitare. But only in a certain way, for
whereas I usually represent some thing (a being, a proposition, etc.),
in esteem I represent “ a thing’s value” (a. 149) more often than a
thing. Esteem still represents a thing, but precisely through the mode
of its value, and hence it inevitably incorporates appreciation; this is
what makes esteem a cogitatio. When one thinks the value of a thing
and not that thing directly, one must think it by esteem (as one some­
times must navigate by estimation), and this entails a lack of precision
and rigor, for “ often this belief is only a very confused representation
in [the soul].”23 Moreover, esteem also allows that which positively
surpasses comprehension to be represented: “The greatness of God
. . . is something which we cannot grasp even though we know it.
But the very fact that we judge it beyond our grasp makes us esteem
it the more greatly.” 24
In fact, the modulation that esteem imposes on ordinary cogitatio
is a double one: Not only does esteem concern the “ value” of a thing
DOES THE COGITO AFFECT ITSELF? 115

more than the thing itself, but it concerns not so much simple value
as a thing’s “ true value [juste valeur]” 25— a value of a value. “ One
esteems oneself only at one’s true value” (a. 161). “True value” is
distinguished from simple “ value” by a clear and distinct criterion;
true value relates a thing’s value to the ego that is representing it: “if
it [the soul] knew distinctly their [things’] true value, its contentment
would always be in proportion to the greatness of the good from
which it proceeded. I observe also that the greatness of a good, in
relation to us, should not be measured only by the value of the thing
which constitutes it but principally also by the manner in which it
is related to us.” 26 Thus, “to examine the true value of all the things
that we can desire or fear” or “ to examine the true value of all the
goods whose acquisition seems to depend in some way on our con­
duct” 27 still remains a work of cogitatio— one, moreover, that is not
a derived or secondary use, but a work of the “true office of reason.”28
Reason always officiates by the exercise of cogitatio, but cogitatio does
not always represent objects objectified ecstatically, with intentional-
ity; it can also take as quasi-objects “ value,” or better “ true value,”
which is doubly unreal, and hence doubly immediate to the ego.
This is, in fact, why only such a nonecstatic representation can
provide access to generosity, inasmuch as generosity is constituted
by an esteem of self according to a representation of res cogitans as
will by cogitatio as esteem. For only a cogitatio comprehending itself
in the mode of auto-affection could attain the auto-affecting of the
res cogitans esteeming itself. Only the presentation of cogitatio in es­
teem is suited to the auto-affecting of the will, which is immediate
to self in the generosity in which a man feels “ within himself a firm
and constant resolution to use it [that will] well” (a. 153). Will knows
and represents itself only as “ the volition we feel within ourselves”
(a. 1 58); hence it thinks itself only in the mode of esteem. When the
“ soul” knows itself as will, and auto-affects itself by its “ good use,”
it thinks according to esteem, as an absolutely nonintentional modal­
ity of cogitatio; therefore, in esteeming itself, it thinks itself noninten-
tionally, it “ feels” itself, in short it auto-affects itself. Thus esteem
appears as the modality of cogitatio that is most expressly appro­
priated to generosity, understood as a primitive formulation of the
cogito.
(4) A final difficulty remains. The cogito leads to a sum, sometimes
redoubled by an existo. Can we find an equivalent ontic result in
ii 6 CHAPTER FIVE

generosity— which seems strictly limited to the field of ethics? In

spite of appearances, generosity has direct implications in several re­
spects for the ontic status of the ego.
(a) First, like every other passion, generosity modifies the manner
of being (d’etre) of the being (l’étant) “man” : It “ even alters the coun­
tenance, the gestures, the walk, and in general all the actions of those
who contrive a better or a worse opinion of themselves than the
usual” (a. 151). The manner of being of the ego, at least insofar as
incarnated, thus depends on its self-estimation, and hence on its auto­
affection. It becomes in a way its own quasi-object, “ according as it
is the greatness of an object or its smallness we are wondering at.
And we can thus esteem or scorn our own selves” (a. 54). The ego
esteems itself as, so to speak, its own object.
(b) But the passions also concern the very fact of being (l’être
même), qua pure actuality. For example, since unvirtuous humility
consists “in believing we cannot survive by ourselves” (a. 159), and
since generosity has precisely “ opposite effects” (a. 158), we may
infer that it allows us to survive by ourselves.29 In fact, it assures the
ego’s actuality by the power of the will “never to lack the volition to
undertake and execute a ll. . . things” (a. 153); moreover, will redou­
bled by generosity assures an independence of actual being for the
ego, due to its lofty mastery of itself.30 The will indeed governs the
ego’s survival and possible independence only insofar as that will is,
as an essential characteristic of the ego: “ the good will . . . which
they [men] suppose to be— or at least to be capable of being— in every
other man” (a. 154). Hence, generosity also determines the (surviv­
ing) being of its subject— in short, its actuality.
(c) Finally, since it concerns “the greatest and most solid content­
ment in life” and the “means of making oneself happy,” 31 generosity
determines the well-being, and hence also the being of the ego, as,
indeed, all the other passions do as well. In bestowing on the ego “ a
species of joy . . . which is the sweetest of all [the passions]” (a. 190),
“an inner satisfaction which is the sweetest of all the passions” (a.
63), generosity not only effects the happiness of the ego, it confers
upon it the highest possible perfection of existence, that of depending
only on itself; hence, it indeed effects its being, ontically, under the
ethical modality of happiness. Therefore, generosity concerns the
manner of the being, the survival of the being, and the perfection of
the being of the ego, for which it thus explicitly sanctions the sum.
Thus interpreted, generosity might for the first time make it possi­
does th e c o g it o a f f e c t its e lf? II?
ble to overcome the separation, so often lamented, between the theo­
retical work and the morale par provision which in 1637 unbalanced
the Cartesian enterprise. For, on our hypothesis, it would be the
cogito itself, in its final formulation— at once the best concealed and
the most radical— that would reunite with the ethical demand. The
metaphysical premier principe would assure the final completion of
morals. Existence immediately apparent to itself by thought (in auto-
affection) would culminate in esteem of self, with res cogitans re­
peating and reaffirming itself through the modality of its will. In this
way it would gain the existence of the ego, by carrying out auto-
affection in the mode of a volition— that is, by carrying out a perfect
auto-affecting of the soul taken in the mode of a volition esteeming
itself; by consequently interpreting representation (of self) as an es­
teem (of self); and by undoing all objective mediation of any object
whatever by the redoubled unreality of the will. The aporias of an
ecstatic interpretation of the ego cogito, ergo sum deriving from repre­
sentation and intentionality would thus be dissolved in the immedi­
acy of the auto-affection accomplished by generosity.
No doubt “material phenomenology” should be examined further
for its own sake, according to its own difficulties and requirements.
No doubt the possibilities of Descartes’ hermeneutic, interpreted ac­
cording to the “material phenomenology” proposed by Michel
Henry, can be developed and defended along other lines. Let it suf­
fice, in this first attempt, to emphasize not only that this particular
line gives access to an original and powerful understanding of the
cogito, ergo sum, and not only that its phenomenological repetition
pulls the Cartesian ego out of the aporias for which the greatest inter­
preters— Kant, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger— had opposed it, but
above all that this line opens absolutely new perspectives on the whole
of Descartes’ work. In particular, it would in this way seem possible
to reestablish, in the “ I think, therefore I am” that generosity finally
effects, the unity long missing between the love of wisdom and the
search for truth.32
CHAPTER SIX

Does the Ego Alter the Other? The Solitude

of the Cogito and the Absence of Alter Ego
“Since my supposition there \in my Meditations] was that no other human beings were
yet known to me” (PW II, 102)

i. From the Egoism of the Self to the Primacy of the Ego

“The self is hateful . . . if I hate it because it is unjust that it should
make itself the center of everything, I shall go on hating it.” 1 Pascal’s
abrupt pronouncement is rarely given the conceptual consideration
it deserves. One may undoubtedly detect in it the thought of a moral­
ist or even perhaps a theologian, but that would be limiting its rele­
vance; for even when one does not go so far as to denounce it as
some sort of “pessimism” supposedly deriving from a conventional
“Augustinianism, ” his thesis is not granted any validity outside the
realm of practical reason. Pascal would seem to condemn, judiciously
though perhaps excessively, the egoism of a self that claims itself as
the center of love. Now the strength of Pascal’s pronouncement
stems, on the contrary, from the fact that this is not a moral attitude
assumed by the self in a free decision that it could reverse by means
of a little altruism; such an inversion, Pascal states in advance, would
suppress, by means of courtesy, the “ inconvenience” but not the “in­
justice.” The self makes its unjust claim— to be the focus of every­
one’s love— less inconvenient but on the contrary more real. The
more the self manages to be loved by all without constraint and by
using seduction, the more it commits an injustice— for it obviously
does not deserve to be loved by all, insofar as it remains finite, imper­
fect, hateful, etc. The self cannot cease to be unjust, even if it may
cease to be inconvenient; a free decision can alter the inconvenience,
but not the injustice of the egoism of the self. In other words, the
DOES THE EGO ALTER THE OTHER? 119

self is not free to entirely free itself from its own egoism: Morally,
it may overcome the inconvenience of egoism— that is to say, the
external appearance it offers to the gaze of others (which, in this
regard, is real)— but not its injustice, that is to say, the intimate
constitution of the self by itself (and according to which it appears
to itself). Relative and moral egoism conceals an absolute egoism, to
be taken in the extra-moral sense of the term. The self suffers from
and enjoys, indivisibly, an original, extra-moral, and pre-moral ego­
ism that is both involuntary and constitutive, one that we can “ al­
ways” stigmatize for it “ always” precedes the purely moral denuncia­
tion. I am not free, nor is the self within me, to be unjustly egoistical,
for if I were not egoistical, I would simply not be, since I exist only
through the ego. Pascal stresses that the egoism of the self does not
simply, or primarily, result from a secondary and “moral” decision
of the “ subject,” but that it radically amounts to the definition of man
as “ subject” or more precisely (for the “ subject,” far from directing it,
undergoes this revolution) as ego. If man defines himself to himself
as an ego that relates to itself constantly through its cogitatio, he must
establish himself as the single and necessary center of any possible
world. “ Of any world” signifies, first and foremost, of the world of
the objects of a now unified science, but also of the world of the
supposed “ subjects,” more often termed the world of the “loved ob­
jects.” In short, the self-referential establishment of the ego cogito (me
cogitare rem) is not only a concern of the theoretical realm of knowl­
edge (as explicitly developed by Descartes), it also is the arbiter of
the so-called practical realm (which may in fact be just as theoretical)
of acknowledgment of and by others. Pascal, in the curt and misun­
derstood pronouncement quoted above, refers the usual worldly and
moral egoism to its contemporary and Cartesian foundation: The de­
termination of man as an ego determines all his behaviors from the
start. Moreover, while this ensures the unity of the mathesis universalis
in the theoretical realm, it imposes on man an egoism of principle
in the practical domain. In short, moral egoism necessarily results
from an extra-moral determination; Pascal’s condemnation is aimed
not at a perverted liberty but rather at a metaphysical necessity. For
metaphysics does not remain a neutrality that cannot be apprehended
by Pascal’s gaze: Egoism, if it results from the theoretical establish­
ment of the ego as definition of man, nevertheless affects negatively
the very possibility of an access to the other as such. The metaphysics
of the ego, as elaborated by Descartes, radicalizes egoism and deepens
120 CHAPTER SIX

the inaccessibility of the other, by transposing egoism and inaccessi­

bility from moral liberty to the extra-moral necessity of the first prin­
ciple. The fact that egoism has now deepened toward the extra-moral
status of a metaphysical foundation does not void the legitimacy of
an axiological questioning; on the contrary, the metaphysical founda­
tion as such seems subject to the examination of a new authority. In
Pascal’s own terms, we should say that metaphysics, understood as
the second order— of minds organized starting from the figure of the
ego of the cogito— finds itself exposed to charity, understood as the
third order.2
I will not outline here the complex connections between Pascal
and Descartes. But by using Pascal’s statement concerning any ego
in general, it is possible to reach the theoretical locus where a question
concerning the communication between consciousnesses in a subjec­
tive realm would become intelligible and correct. This question could
be formulated as follows: As soon as the ego (cogito) guarantees, in­
dependently and definitively, the “ one thing . . . that is certain and
unshakeable [minimum quid . . . quod certum sit et inconcus-
sum]” (AT VII, 24,11. 12 -13 )3— as soon, therefore, as any other cer­
tain knowledge depends upon the cogitating ego, as one of its cogitati-
ones in the realm of the already transcendental subjectivity— do other
minds remain conceivable in general and accessible to the ego in par­
ticular? Put differently, does the ego, which enjoys an uncontested
metaphysical and epistemological primacy, acknowledge other “sub­
jects” that are not directly dependent on it as so many “objects” ? In
short, is not the reproach addressed by Pascal to the self—namely,
that it exercises a radical injustice by establishing itself at the center
of everything— fully confirmed in the case of the ego, which defines
itself in principle as the center of what it now reduces and constructs
as its objects? For, in order to permit communication between minds
(mentes), each mind must appear as such— that is to say, as prior to
and radically distinct from any object that it knows and constructs.
Mens can appear as a mind only if it does not immediately disappear
in the common self-evidence reserved to directly visible objects; mens
remains invisible in the light of representation, precisely because it
exercises and produces this light to bring objects into focus. For the
ego, gaining access to other minds (mentes) implies moving beyond the
usual light of the intuitus (mentis) so that, aiming beyond the visible, it
may reach, in a light that is opaque to any objectifying representation,
other mentes seen as such, that is to say, as they themselves also see.4
d o e s th e eg o a l t e r th e o th e r? 12 1

In more directly Cartesian terms, we may ask whether and how the
ego (cogito) sees other minds, if not other egos. In order to pose this
question and attempt to answer it, we will proceed in a very straight­
forward manner— by examining whether the ego (cogito) admits and
encounters other mentes throughout the ordo rationum of the Medita­
tions. It is therefore a question of reading the Meditations again— not
according to the goal it sets for itself, but according to the goal that
by definition surpasses objectivity, namely, the otherness of the mind,
the mind of the other.

2. The Reduction of Others

The Meditations explicitly sets out to demonstrate with certainty the
existence of God and the immortality of the mens humana (or at least
its actual distinction from the body); this acknowledged aim is charac­
terized from the outset by an omission, that of separate intelligences,
which typically found their place in contemporary treatises on special
metaphysics. Now, these separate intelligences included other human
minds as well as angels: Why does Descartes eliminate, from the very
title of the Meditations onward, such a privileged access to intersub­
jectivity? A factual answer can be proposed immediately: Descartes
correctly rejected the title of Metaphysica (which implies separate
intelligences) for that of prima Philosophia, since in his mind the latter
does not “ confine [the] discussion to God and the soul but deals in
general with all the first things to be discovered by philosophizing”
and, he adds, “by philosophizing in an orderly way.” 5 This answer,
however, simply raises the question anew: How can it be that the
existence of other, separate intelligences (separate from the body, like
the mens humana) is actually not one of the “first things to be discov­
ered by philosophizing in an orderly way” ? The existence of the other
would therefore not find its place among the priorities of first philoso­
phy. Before we can even begin to attempt to solve it, this radical
paradox needs to be confirmed by texts, for it seems utterly improba­
ble that the Meditations would remain silent on the existence of the
other— of a subject other than the one who says ego (and says that
it is an ego). Actually, minds other than the ego do appear in the
Meditations, in Meditation I in particular, but they do so only to dis­
appear immediately when radical doubt is brought to bear. Others
emerge, first as madmen (AT VII, 18, 1. 26) who are immediately
rejected as mindless (amentes, 19 ,1. 5). Unlike the demented (demens,
122 CHAPTER SIX

19, 1. 6) who put their damaged mind (mens) to poor use, they have
no mind, they have lost it, and with it, almost their humanity: As
amentes, they do not exhibit other minds that could be compared to
mine, which thereby remains unique. Do others emerge in the paint­
ers (19 ,1. 31) mentioned next? No, for this is only an epistemological
model, designed to allude to the Cartesian doctrine of perception,
and not an existential observation establishing the existence of other
egos.6 Do others surface in those (nonnulli, 21, 1. 17) who prefer to
escape hyperbolic doubt by admitting any lower principle other than
an omnipotent God? Obviously not, for this is the doxographic origin
of other theses and not an existential assumption. There remain those
who are mistaken, and truly mistaken: “ others [who] go astray in
cases where they think they have the most perfect knowledge” (21,
11. 8-9). The fact remains that they go astray, especially insofar as
they are not aware of their own errors, and therefore they forfeit all
certainty about what they believe they see as well as about what they
are; they thus disappear completely from the theoretical horizon now
opened by doubt and its constraints. Meditation I thus mentions four
potential figures of the other, only to reject them one after another;
others are acknowledged only to be eliminated. Outside of myself,
there are “ no minds [nullas mentes]” (25, 11. 3-4).
Yet one might object that the elimination of others in Meditation
I could be a temporary negation that prepares for a subsequent resto­
ration, similar to the restorations enjoyed successively by the ego (in
Meditation II) , God (in Meditation I II ) , mathematical truths (in
Meditation V), and the physical world (in Meditation VI). This
would be the most elegant and satisfactory hypothesis; yet it is flawed,
because it is not supported by the texts. Meditation IV, although it
sets forth a doctrine of error by invoking the finiteness of my under­
standing, does not attempt even a sketch of an intersubjective defini­
tion of truth: The mention of the “whole universe [omnis universitas
rerum]” (55,1. 28 = 61,1. 21) in no way announces an intersubjective
constitution of the world. Meditation VI, which could reestablish oth­
ers, as it reestablishes the world of the senses and sensation dismissed
by Meditation I, remains astonishingly silent on the occurrences of
other mentes that were called into doubt: Madmen, mistaken folk,
even painters are not mentioned; the case of the man afflicted with
dropsy is discussed, but only insofar as it represents a human body
in general— “ the body of a man [hominis corpus]” (84, 11. 19-20),
“ a body suffering from dropsy [corpus hydrope laborans]” (85, 11.
DOES THE EGO ALTER THE OTHER? 12 3

18-19). The human body proper is admitted as self-evident, but

never another person; the other mens is conspicuous by its complete
absence. If the order of reasons restores to reason what it had earlier
called into doubt, it does not restore everything; one thing at least
has definitively disappeared, the only thing that precisely cannot be
called a thing: the other as such, as mens other than ego. The other has
lost mens, and insofar as it was, based on the hypothesis, exhausted in
mens, it is entirely lost. The exclusion of amentes from Meditation I
not only represents the potential exclusion of “madmen” from the
newly delimited realm of reason, it also amounts to the disappearance
of the very mention made by the order of reasons of minds other
than that of the ego. More than simply “madmen,” it is “others”
who lose their mind. Is amens the only name under which ego cogito
acknowledges others, thereby monopolizing for itself the title of mens
humana by reducing it to the nominative singular? In other words,
does not the warning of the Second Set o f Replies— “in my Medita­
tions, since my supposition there was that no other human beings
were yet known to me” (142, 11. 26-28; see 361, 11. i6ff = IX, 1,
112,11. 15 -17 )— describe a final situation, the irreversible suspension
of any otherness, rather than simply a temporary episode?
Confirmation of the refusal to acknowledge the other as another
mens can come only from the examination of the few texts in which
Descartes confronts the gaze of the other, obliquely, and as a result
of other questionings. These texts are few, but they converge toward
the same thesis. Let us follow them.
(a) Meditation I I establishes the anteriority of inspectio mentis over
sentient sensation in any perception; it adds a second experiment
after the famous analysis of the piece of wax: “And this might lead
me to conclude without more ado that knowledge of the wax comes
from what the eyes see, and not from the scrutiny of the mind alone.
But then if I look out of the window and see men crossing the
square, as I just happen to have done, I normally say that I see the
men themselves, just as I say that I see the wax. Yet do I see any
more than hats and coats which could conceal automatons? I judge
that they are men. And so something which I thought I was seeing
with my eyes is in fact grasped solely by the faculty of judgment
which is in my mind” (32, 11. 4 -12 ; original emphasis). The ego
sees men, “ real men.” Should we then conclude that it acknowledges
their presence in all otherness? The opposite is true, and for several
reasons.
12 4 CHAPTER SIX

First, since seeing men (homines respicere) is here a strict parallel

to seeing the wax (ceram visione oculi), the difference between the
extended and the animate in no way affects the single action of seeing,
which is accomplished by the ego in the same way for the human and
for the nonhuman. Second, and especially, seeing men and identi­
fying them as men does not result from the appearance in the visible
realm of the otherness of other consciousnesses— truly other, for they
are themselves egos and, as such, irreducible to the consciousness of
the ego who sees them. On the contrary, those who are here supposed
to be others appear only through a decision that the ego pronounces
on its own, and by which it identifies them unilaterally; men are men
not because they make themselves known to the ego, but because the
ego decides that they are men, and decides for them and in their
absence, according to the same procedures by which it establishes
that the wax is what it is. Men are like wax for the ego’s gaze—wax
without extension. Or, rather, men and wax are summed up in what
the ego decides about them.
Third, more loosely, we could thus comment on the Cartesian
reduction of “men” : Wax, which is absolutely malleable, has just been
subdued by the ego; the ego uses wax a second time to think “ men” —
exactly as if it modeled in wax the face to be added to automatons
to create the illusion of living beings. Wax and clothing: These are
in fact what museums use to exhibit false persons. Gazing at these
models with almost human faces, these dummies of wax, we indeed
have to use our judgment to reestablish the truth— that they are not
real persons. That which allows us to unmask wax dummies also lets
the ego judge that the automatons are actually real persons. Humanity
is established in the court of reason, by an arbitrary and irreversible
sentence: “I judge that they are men [judico homines esse]” (32, 1.
10). Humanity is indeed conceded to these men, but at the price of
their otherness, since the ego grants it to them proprio motu, in a
sentence that turns them into objects like wax and therefore denies
their intrinsic and irreducible otherness. Others may indeed enter
into the field of vision of the intuitus and find their humanity con­
firmed there, but they will have to undergo the treatment common
to all the potential objects of the ego: to let themselves be judged by
“ this mind itself, that is . . . me myself” (33, 11. 1-2), in order to
let themselves be put on display with “ [their] clothes off [vestibus
detractis]” and “naked” (32,11. 25-26). Men receive the title of “real
men” (AT IX = 1, 25, 20) because the ego strips them of their coats
DOES THE EGO ALTER THE OTHER? 12 5

and hats, and above all of their otherness; upon entering the field of
the intuitus, they become objects, they inherit their identity from it
and lose their originating phenomenal initiative— that by which they
discover themselves to be what they think they are. Their humanity
remains borrowed, a concession, a restoration— like a face made out
of wax that lends itself to our gaze but that cannot see. People have
no more of a face than wax does. This is a reduction of otherness to
objectivity, whereby the other becomes even more invisible insofar
as it is masked by the visible evidence of its judged objectivity. Can
we know others without accepting also to be acknowledged by them?
Can we be acknowledged without losing control of knowledge? Des­
cartes does not envisage this for a single moment, which is why Pas­
cal’s attack touches him so directly.7

3. The Composition o f the Other: Nulla Difficultas

But how can the ego grant itself in this way the right to reduce the
otherness of others to common objectivity? And if Descartes seems
never to pose this question of right, is it because he ignores it, or
rather because he confuses it with, and encompasses it in, a question
of fact: Is the ego aware of its theoretical power to produce the idea
of others, yet without admitting any otherness, therefore without al­
tering its self-sufficiency as unique ego} In short, the reduction of
otherness to objectivity implies, at the very least, the power if not
the right to reproduce the other without acknowledging its otherness.
(b) A second text clearly asserts this power. After having reiter­
ated its earlier doubt, Meditation I I I undertakes, according to the
demands of the ordering of exposition (“ considerations of order ap­
pear to dictate . . . ,” 36, 1. 30), to classify the cogitationes of the ego
in definite categories (“ certa genera,” 37, line 1 = AT X, 450, 11. 16
and 18). Among those which properly (proprie) deserve the name of
idea appears the idea of man, of another man: “ when I think of a
man, or a chimera, or the sky, or an angel, or God” (37, 11. 5-6). A
famous argument then tries to determine whether the ego suffices,
in each case, to produce as efficient cause both formal and objective
reality for each of the ideas thus listed— in other words, whether the
ego can produce from within itself, without recourse to any other,
thus without altering itself with any otherness, each of its cogitationes.
We shall not dwell on the conclusion— that only the idea of God
goes beyond the causal power of the ego— or on the detail of the
126 CHAPTER SIX

other productions of ideas. Instead, we will concentrate on only one

point: How can the idea of man, of another man, arise without the
ego acknowledging the existence of any otherness? Descartes first
notes that, in addition to the idea by which the ego represents itself
to itself (“ which gives me a representation of myself,” 42, 11. 29-
30)— which he claims, with a remarkable phenomenological intrepid­
ity, presents no difficulty (“which cannot present any difficulty in
this context,” 42, 1. 30-43, line 1)— other ideas represent inanimate
things, angels, animate things, “ and finally other men like myself,”
43, 11. 3-4).8 Let us mention, in passing, that Descartes places all
manifestations of otherness exactly on the same plane, whether oth­
erness is endowed with a soul or not, incarnate or not, finite or infi­
nite. Otherness is envisaged at the lowest degree only: other is that
which cannot be reduced to ego and its cogitationes; otherness is re­
duced to diversity in light of the universal mens, for which all that
is not itself belongs to the reality of res, res a me diversae. Descartes
gives an answer, as brief as it is enigmatic, to the now clear question
of the cause of these ideas: “ As far as concerns the ideas which repre­
sent other men, or animals, or angels, I have no difficulty in under­
standing that they could be put together from the ideas I have of
myself, of corporeal things and of God, even if the world contained
no men besides me, no animals and no angels” (43, 11. 5-9). The
argument can be formulated as follows: The idea I have of myself is
enough to make me an efficient cause of the formal and objective
reality of the ideas— which apparently belong to others but are actu­
ally mine— of animate beings, be they lesser (animals), equal (others),
or greater (angels) than me. As pure ego, I produce ideas of them by
composition of that which derives from my own idea, the idea of
(inanimate) corporeal things, and the idea of God. Yet this argument
is valid only if the ego actually has at its disposal these three required
components (this of course without discussing the legitimacy of such
a composition). Let us examine them. Can the idea of myself be com­
bined with others so as to generate a new idea? Nothing is less cer­
tain— first, because this idea is performative and offers nothing to
be considered outside its performance, according to Malebranche’s
thesis that we do not have a clear idea of our own soul;9 second, and
consequently, because the idea of ego cogitans does not belong to the
same type as the other ideas of cogitata and therefore cannot join
them but can only render them thinkable. Yet does not Descartes in
fact carry out this combination, in spite of any exegetic scruples? He
d o e s th e ego a l t e r th e o th e r? 127

does indeed, but by interpreting the ego as a substance (“ I am a sub­

stance [ego autem substantia],” 45, 1. 7); regarded in this way, the
idea of myself has something in common with the second of the three
components— namely, the ideas of corporeal things— for extension
and thought agree, insofar as both are substantial: “ they seem to agree
with respect to the classification ‘substance’,” (44, 11. 27-28). The
idea of another man nevertheless remains mei similis (43, 1. 4), since
it is composed of the substantiality that was already common to two
other ideas that were available for the ego, the idea of itself (thinking)
and the idea of corporeal things (thoughts), assembled under the title
of substances. The third component— God— remains: How can the
idea of God join the preceding two ideas to compose the idea of the
other? This idea is infinite, while the other two remain finite, and
incommensurably irreducible to any verifiable composition. And how
can Descartes invoke it here, while he does not know it yet in its
exceptional singularity? Or should we suppose that the properties of
the idea of God that remain to be discovered are already acting im­
plicitly here in the composition of the idea of the other? Let us exam­
ine this hypothesis: The idea of the other includes the idea of sub­
stance (common to the idea of ego and of res corporates), on the one
hand, and the idea of God as it is examined shortly afterward (45,
11. 9-14), on the other hand. What does the idea of God introduce
to the idea of another person who is like myself (43,1. 3)? Attributes,
which are suitable for the ego and for humanity, such as the intelli­
gence and the power of a substance, but also infinity and indepen­
dence (“ a substance that is infinite, independent,” 4 5,11. 11-12 ). The
idea of the other would imply, in light of its composition on the basis
of God, two determinations that actually prevent its dependence, as
finite object, with regard to the ego; by following the route of the
argument that Descartes uses to establish that the ego can compose
the idea of another person without knowing or acknowledging any
such— “ even if the world contained no men besides me” (43,11. 8 -
9)— we should reach, on the contrary, the following paradox, which
is equally damaging for Descartes: Either such composition remains
impossible because the idea of God remains in vain; or it can occur,
insofar as the idea of God is already accepted, although in this case
it requires the acknowledgment of an actual other, independent from
me, in the idea of (another) person, and the acknowledgment of an­
other infinite similar to me in the idea of a person who is similar to
me. In brief, if the argument proposed by Descartes— i.e., to reduce
12 8 CHAPTER SIX

the other to the composition that the ego has of it— is satisfactory,
it leads not to the submission of the other to the ego, but instead to the
insubordination of the other, which remains infinite and independent
from the ego. Why has Descartes not seen the ultimate consequence
of his argument— namely, that it prevents the reduction of the oth­
erness of another to the constitution by the ego of another of its cogi-
tationes, that on the contrary it forces the acknowledgment that every
other is honored with the independence and the infiniteness with
which the idea of God infuses it?
While admitting that this is a true inconsistency on the part of
Descartes, we must also recognize that our objection itself presup­
poses a thesis— namely, that the otherness of the other may be
grounded in the otherness of God, and that far from contradicting
God’s otherness, it can be strengthened by it. In other words, the
infinite that characterizes God encompasses any otherness, even fi­
nite; the otherness of the “wholly Other” ensures and qualifies any
other. Does Descartes share this presupposition?
(c) One last text from Meditation I I I proves otherwise. It is one
of the rare mentions of humans other than the ego— its parents. Does
the ego acknowledge the existence of a father and a mother, or, like
a new Melchizedek, does it reject all genealogy? The question is in
fact explicitly posed: “From whom would I derive my existence?
From myself presumably, or from my parents, or from some other
beings less perfect than God” (48,11. 3-4). The hypothesis of a posi­
tive derivation of the self from the self is quickly excluded, following
the understanding of my own imperfection. The last two remain,
which amount to a unique acknowledgment of other people who are
real and irreducible to the ego: “ perhaps I was produced either by
my parents or by other causes less perfect than God” (49,11. 21-23).
They are eliminated by means of a well-known argument: In order
absolutely to produce myself, I am required to produce as efficient
and total cause not only my own empirical existence (which at this
stage still remains in doubt), but especially the res cogitans that consti­
tutes me. Now, this res cogitans thinks, among other ideas, the idea
of God, which my cause will therefore also have to be able to produce,
but it will be able to do so only if it is in actuality as real as the reality
that my idea of God presents objectively to me. Therefore, only God
will be able to give rise to the idea of God in me. The hypothesis of
a parental mediation has only delayed the direct conclusion without
weakening it. The contingent parents are not a cause: “ As regards
DOES THE EGO ALTER THE OTHER? 12 9

my parents, even if everything I have ever believed about them is

true, it is certainly not they who preserve me; and in so far as I am
a thinking thing, they did not even make me . . . So there can be no
difficulty regarding my parents in this context” (50, 1. 25-51, 1. 2).
To eliminate the otherness that would cause the ego by generating
it presents here no difficulty (“ hie nulla difficultas” ) exactly as, above,
the idea of the ego presented no difficulty (“hie nulla difficultas,” 42,
L 30).

4. The Solitude of the Ego

We thus come to a radical conclusion: The Meditations renders con­
ceptually impossible the acknowledgment of another person— at least
in the sense of another mens— who would function as an ego. It un­
doubtedly admits, implicitly at least, that other people, or possibly
other souls, may be represented objects for the cogitatio; but in this
case, far from sharing in it, these people ratify the privilege of the
ego who alone exercises cogitatio. Could we not, however, object that
the order of reasons, at least once, acknowledges otherness as such?
For the demonstration of the existence of God does in the end reach
an other, and even the other par excellence, who stresses his irreduc­
ible independence from the ego by positing himself as its creator—
i.e., as other, but above all, as prior: “I depend on some being distinct
from myself” (49, 11. 19-20). Even if Descartes, like Husserl, fails
to define the conditions for the emergence and the acknowledgment
of the other as such, he does not miss otherness altogether, for—
unlike Husserl— he admits its possibility for the single case of God.
Besides, he manages to do so by adding to the first ontotheology of
the cogitatio a second ontotheology granted to the causa, for which
Husserl offers no equivalent.10 Yet, if we have to grant that the exis­
tence of God undoubtedly introduces a kind of otherness in the order
of reasons, we have to resolutely challenge the assumption that it is
sufficient to even begin to outline the acknowledgment of the other
as such by the ego. Indeed, two arguments prevent it from doing so.
(a) Divine otherness renders the outline of an acknowledgment of
otherness possible on one condition only: that Descartes conceive of
the situation of the finite mentes on the model of the divine. Now,
not only do the two problematics never overlap, but Descartes op­
poses one to the other, at least once: Either the ego acknowledges the
otherness of the parents (begettal), or it admits the otherness of God
130 CHAPTER SIX

(creation); otherness has to decide between an empirically accessible

and finite other, and a transcendentally disengaged, infinite (wholly)
other, but otherness cannot indiscriminately encompass both cases.
No texts of Descartes suggest that divine otherness even allows, not
to mention requires, the acknowledgment of finite otherness; the fi­
nite other does not correspond, univocally or even analogically, to
God in the relation of otherness, of personhood, or of consciousness
(moral or not).
(b) At any rate, it would then remain to be established that the
acknowledgment of God as the other par excellence for the ego
already amounts to a meeting with the other. For, although God is
absolutely distinct from the ego, must we conclude, based on Medi­
tation III, that He constitutes the other for the ego? As idea infi-
niti, God is not an idea of the finite nor the idea mei ipsius, as a last
term in a continuous and homogeneous series; rather, He appears
as the transcendental presupposition of every finite being, and thus
of the ego. Consequently, the infinite radically determines the ego, to
the point of stamping it with a mark that becomes indistinguishable
from it (“not . . . distinct from the work itself,” 51, 11. 17 -18 ; PW
II, 35 [emphasis added]) and even of conceding it a formally infinite
will (56,1. 2 6 -5 7 ,1. 21). Rather than opening onto a true other— “ a
man like myself” (43,1. 3; PW II, 29)— the otherness of God opens
a transcendental horizon; the otherness of a person other than me
who would also be another person for me, finite and cogitating as
another ego, is still missing.
The other is therefore still missing, not because of a temporary
lapse but because, from the beginning, the ego defined itself in terms
of itself alone. Its solitude is not anecdotal, temporary, or superficial.
The ego becomes itself by refusing all exteriority: “ I am here quite
alone” (18, 11. 1-2), “conversing with myself alone” (34, 1. 16; PW
II, 24 [modified]). This return onto itself leads to a circle that defines
the ego as such: “ the human mind, when directed toward itself, does
not perceive itself to be anything other than a thinking thing” (7, 1.
20-8, line 1); “ when the mind understands, it in some way turns
towards itself” (73,11. 15-16). Thus emerges an essential and quasi-
transcendental solitude of the ego, which defines the place of the ego
as the ego faces the world (rather than being in it) and God: “I am
not alone in the world, some other thing . . . also exists” (42,11. 22-
24); “I can easily understand that, considered as a totality” (61, 11.
17-18), which the French translation intelligently glosses as “inas­
DOES THE EGO ALTER THE OTHER? 13 1

much as I consider myself alone, as if there were no one but me in

the world” (AT IX, i, 49,11. 5-6). The enterprise of first philosophy
according to Descartes is defined by and from the ego, in order to
bring all back to it. It therefore requires, at every turn, that the oth­
erness of an other, finite and human, be reduced, or— what amounts
to the same thing— be entirely composed from the ego. If an ego
emerges, only one will emerge; the ego is unique, or it does not exist;
it therefore shall be alone or shall not be. Fundamentally, the ego
excludes any alter ego. 11

5. Love or Representation
This rather extreme conclusion may seem too abrupt to remain bal­
anced and equitable. Besides, it opens itself to a massive counter ar­
gument: If the ego did in fact exclude any acknowledgment of an alter
ego, and hence if transcendental subjectivity on principle denied any
intersubjectivity, then Descartes should have refrained from elabo­
rating a doctrine of love. Yet not only did he provide a thorough and
subtle doctrine, but he also elaborated it starting from the passions of
the soul; thus from the mens and the ego. Intersubjectivity is therefore
deployed against the background of subjectivity, and the ego does
indeed acknowledge an alter ego. We shall have to accept this refuta­
tion if Descartes’ doctrine of love actually reaches an alter ego and
contradicts the autarkic solitude of the ego. This is what we now have
to examine.
Love is one of the passions. And passions are defined as “ confused
sensations,” “ sensations or very confused thoughts,” “ a confused
thought, aroused in the soul by some motion of the nerves” — in other
words, animi pathemata and confusae quaedam cogitationes.12 Interpret­
ing the passions in general as thoughts and cogitationes, even confused
ones, signifies that the ego still determines that which it nonetheless
undergoes. In fact, the passions, although confused, depend on the
ego just as much as the other cogitationes do, and actually doubly so.
On the one hand, passions depend on the ego simply because of what
they represent— and the eventual confusion of the represented (cogi-
tatum) does not alter this dependence in the least. On the contrary,
the absence of an object distinct from the ego increases the depen­
dence of the passions on the ego. Not only do the passions share
the passivity of intellection— “understanding is the passivity of the
mind” 13— but also, since they are caused by “ some movement of the
132 CHAPTER SIX

spirits” in the soul, they do not belong to worldly things (perception)

or to the body itself (sensation), but rather only to the soul: Passions,
since they occur in the soul, never leave it and are entirely absorbed
in it; hence passions dwell in the mens, and, more than any other
cogitatio, they are confined to it insofar as they admit no other object
or subject. Passions thus multiply the overall dependency of the cogi­
tatio on the ego: Thoughts not only stem from the ego, they also
“refer” to it.14 Yet the specific passion called love raises to the next
power this dependency that had already been squared. For love is
defined as the conjunction of (loved) objects with the ego, on the
basis of the criterion of agreement: “Love is an emotion of the soul
caused by a movement of the spirits which impels the soul to join
itself willingly to objects that appear to be agreeable to it.” Why re­
introduce the will in this way in order to define its exact opposite,
a passion? Because it is a question here of introducing the last depen­
dence with regard to the ego: After originating as thought, after the
delay as a passion, love finally depends on the ego, insofar as the ego
enables it to “join” other objects or even to “join” itself to them,
according to the “ assent by which we consider ourselves henceforth
as joined with what we love in such a manner that we imagine a
whole, of which we take ourselves to be only one part, and the thing
loved to be the other.” 15 Love reintegrates in the same whole, by
means of the will, the ego and the objects that would have remained
outside of the ego under the aegis of representation alone; the will
joins with the ego what representation already brought back to it. In
actuality, the definition of love follows word for word the definition
of the res cogitans. “A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that
doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also
imagines and has sensory perceptions” (28, 11. 20-23; PW II, 19):
The cogitatio even reappears, with its opening up onto the other par
excellence. “Love is a movement of the soul caused by the movement
of the spirits” ; the couple “ is willing/is unwilling” (volens / nolens) is
at work in the sequence “ which impels it to join itself willingly” ;
“ and also imagines” specifies the mode under which appears that
which is aimed at by the will of the ego (“ to objects that appear” );
“has sensory perceptions” (sentiens) finally justifies the choice of some
objects among others (“ agreeable to it” ).16 The determinacy of love
does not open up the ego onto an otherness that would be radically
outside of the cogitatio as such, since, on the contrary, it limits itself
to putting into play simultaneously all the possible figures of the lone
DOES THE EGO ALTER THE OTHER? 133
res cogitans, which is self-referential by virtue of its very intentional-
ity. Love does not contradict the res cogitans, but powerfully orches­
trates all its possibilities, and hence clearly manifests the submission
of the res cogitans to the ego. By loving, the ego does not transgress
the cogito and its realm, but instead fulfills them. This is why the
French version legitimately renders the sequence that describes the
ego (“ I am a thing that thinks: that is, a thing that doubts, affirms,
denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of many things, is will­
ing, is unwilling, and also which imagines and has sensory percep­
tions [Ego sum res cogitans, id est dubitans, affirmans, negans, pauca
intelligens, multa ignorans, volens, nolens, imaginans, etiam et sen-.
tiens],” 34, 11. 18-21) by a translation that adds and includes love,
although it is absent from the Latin original: “I am a thing that
thinks— that is to say, that doubts, affirms, denies, knows a few
things, is ignorant of a great many, loves, hates, is willing, is unwilling,
and also imagines and has sensory perceptions” (AT IX, i, 2 7 ,11. 9-
12 [emphasis added]). Love does not break from the primacy of the
cogitatio, but rather completes its emergence to finally assume its
place alongside the other modes of thinking.
Consequently, any experience of otherness by love should deploy
itself without altering the ¿go-ness (egoite) that transcendentally de­
termines it entirely. Further, this is also why Descartes is able to
think love first as a love of oneself, and then as a foundation: “Anger
can indeed make people bold, but it borrows its strength from the
love of self which is always its foundation, and not from the hatred
which is merely an accompaniment” (AT IV, 6 16 ,11. 1-5). But the
foundation is the very characteristic of the ego, which is, metaphysi­
cally speaking, originating (originaire) (AT VII, 107, 1. 2; 144, 1. 24;
A T VI, 558). By loving someone else, the ego reestablishes itself.17
And Descartes explicitly confirms this in his doctrine of love, by
means of two essential traits.
(a) To love means to join willingly with an object, so as to form
a whole with it; who is it that thus joins with (an object), and for
whom there is an object? For the ego, naturally, who considers other
objects only insofar as it first “ considers itself,” either as alone, or
as joined into a whole and imagining “that he and they [other objects]
together form a whole.” 18 The cogitatio, which is transcendentally
ordered by the ego, precedes any type of love and immediately regu­
lates it, by interpreting it as a behavior of the will toward an object
that is thought and represented; thus any declaration of love begins
134 CHAPTER SIX

with the restatement of the cogito, ergo sum, now transposed in terms
of desire: “imagining that it . . Hence, it becomes impossible to
distinguish between a concupiscent love and a benevolent love, for
given that the essence of love implies the representation of its “ob­
ject” by an anterior, prior ego, it seems illusory or contradictory to
demand the disappearance of the self, as is the case, for instance, in
the Augustinian opposition of uti to frui. Moreover, the antinomy
that opposes “love of self to the point of scorn for God” to “love of
God to the point of scorn for the self’ would also become untenable,
insofar as it questions the anteriority of the ego in any and all love,
as a result of the primacy of representation. For Descartes, benevo­
lence and concupiscence concern only “the effects of love and not
its essence,” 19 which is invariably determined by the ego cogito.
(b) Thus follows what can be called the formal univocity of love.
From the standpoint of the cogitatio: “[Consider, for example] the
passions which an ambitious man has for glory, a miser for money,
a drunkard for wine, a brutish man for a woman he wants to violate,
an honorable man for his friend or mistress, and a good father for
his children. Although very different from one another, these pas­
sions are similar in so far as they partake of love.” 20 In what way are
they similar, in spite of what opposes them to one another? They are
similar insofar as they all partake of the single definition of love. But
how can a single definition— a supposed definition of love— encom­
pass such heterogeneous passions, and according to what common
characteristic? For in all cases it is a question of forming a whole
with an object, at times desiring only to possess it (thus considering
oneself superior to it) and at other times desiring the well-being of
these objects (thus considering oneself to be inferior to them). In
both cases, esteem, thus the cogitatio, determines, starting from the
ego, whether the union of the whole must benefit the ego or instead
its “object.” Thus the unity of the figures of love, even extreme ones,
still rests upon the representational primacy of the ego; thus the ab­
straction of “ objects” becomes possible from the single standpoint of
the ego, “no matter whether the object is equal to or greater or less
than us.”21 Besides, the fragility of the distinctions introduced in the
end by Descartes to hierarchize the very dissimilar passions to which
he grants the name of love is clear. On the one hand, the four lower
forms are supposedly easily distinguishable insofar as they aim only
at “the possession of the objects . . . , not the objects themselves.”
On the other hand, when it is a question of maintaining the possibility
DOES THE EGO ALTER THE OTHER? 13 5

of loving God, whom we indeed do not comprehend, Descartes had

previously maintained this position, not as the mark of a failure but
as the way to success: “ For although we cannot imagine anything in
God, who is the object of our love, we can imagine our love itself.”22
This is an astonishing thesis, for two reasons. First, because it defines
the possibility of loving God by means of the same attitude it stigma­
tizes in the ambitious man, the miser, the drunkard, and the rapist:
to love not the object, but the possession of the object, which shows
how far the univocity of Descartes’ doctrine of love goes— in spite
of the restrictions he visibly attempts to introduce in it. Second, and
especially, because the foundation of this univocity is clearly brought
to light: Any and all love, regardless of its “object,” depends on its
representation and thus presupposes the primacy of the ego; however
considerable that “object” may be, however disinterested the devo­
tional love for it may be, they must both always submit to the consider­
ation of the original ego. If the ego cannot adequately represent them
(by means of the imagination), it will at least be able to substitute the
representation of its relationship (union, possession, etc.) with the ob­
ject; representation is so univocally dominant over any lovable “object”
that it can even substitute a representation of representation (of union,
of possession, etc.) for the object itself. To love is the equivalent of
wanting what one represents to oneself—i.e., an object; but wanting
and representing lead back to the cogitatio, which stems from the ego.
But did not Descartes specifically acknowledge that to love implies
surpassing the solitary ego in the direction of an alter ego} For in­
stance, he writes: “the love of a good father for his children is so
pure . . . [that] he regards them as other parts of himself, and seeks
their good as he does his own, or even more assiduously. For he
imagines he and they together form a whole of which he is not the
better part, and so he often puts their interests before his own and
is not afraid of sacrificing himself in order to save them.” 23 The diffi­
culty here resides in one point: Can we truly call alter ego, “ other
self,” what we continuously regard and imagine in the manner of an
object, whereas, in actuality, the very characteristic of the (alter) ego
is the exercise of consideration, of representation, in short of the cogi­
tatio? If the ego is defined as a cogito, can the alter ego, which is always
a cogitatum, free itself from the status of an “ altered ego,” and thus
an objectified ego} The Cartesian doctrine of love seems to fully con­
firm the negative answer to this question, which had already arisen
from the examination of the situation of otherness in the Meditations.
136 CHAPTER SIX

We encounter here an immense difficulty, which we can provisionally

state as follows: When metaphysics in its modern period posits the
ego— that is, the ego as it exercises cogitatio, as foundation and first
principle— does it not then essentially and on principle cut itself off
from any and all access to the other as such, and substitute for that
access the other as it agrees to let itself be represented, thus the other
constituted as an object? Historical confirmation for such an impossi­
bility is easily found in Spinoza, who reduces the idea of the other
to a simple modification of my own idea of myself; in Malebranche,
who defines love simply as the “relation to the self” (rapport a soi);
in Leibniz, who interprets love as an expressive variation of monadic
solitude. But the most surprising confirmation perhaps comes from
Husserl, at the very moment when he establishes what we must call,
along with him, intersubj ectivity; the alter ego has never been reduced
and submitted to the ego more than at this moment: “The second
ego, however, is not simply there and strictly presented; rather is he
constituted as ‘alter ego5— the ego indicated as one moment by this
expression being I myself in my ownness.” And again: “/« myself I
experience and know the Other; in me he becomes constituted—
appresentatively mirrored, not constituted as the original.” 24 Starting
from the ego, the alter ego will never be reached as original, in its
original state. Should we then question the primacy of the cogitating
and constituting ego, so as to open an access to an originating, and
therefore authentic, alter ego? Must we choose between the ego and
the other? Must we go back to Pascal and view the self as, literally,
“hateful” ? Hateful means here that when it is a question of loving
or simply of reaching the other, the ego loses the privilege of being
the first to be loved and much more than that, it actually becomes
the last to be loved, since it is the first to prevent love. Did not
Merleau-Ponty go back to Pascal’s objection when he cited and cri­
tiqued phenomenologically (although against Husserl) the Cartesian
aporia of the “men crossing the square” (AT VII, 32, 1. 7)? “ For a
philosophy that is installed in pure vision, in the aerial view of the
panorama, there can be no encounter with another: for the look domi­
nates; it can dominate only things, and if it falls upon men it trans­
forms them into puppets which move only by springs.” The allusions
to Descartes are obvious: One gazes “ out of the window” (AT VII,
32,11. 6-7), men can perhaps be reduced to “ automatons” (32,1. 10).
Thus it is a question here of nothing less than overcoming the ego.
Merleau-Ponty goes on:
DOES THE EGO ALTER THE OTHER? 137
Vision ceases to be solipsist only up close, when the other turns
back upon me the luminous rays in which I had caught him,
. . . attracts me into the prison I had prepared for him and, as
long as he is there, makes me incapable of solitude. In every
case, in the solipsism as in the alienation, how would we ever
find a mind, an invisible, at the end of our look? . . . The other
can enter into the universe of the seer only by assault, as a pain
and a catastrophe; he will rise up not before the seer, in the
spectacle, but laterally, as a radical casting into question of the
seer. Since he is only pure vision, the seer cannot encounter an
other, who thereby would be a thing seen; if he leaves himself, it
will only be by a turning back of the vision upon himself; if he
finds an other, it will only be as his own being seen.25

This remarkable attempt by Merleau-Ponty to open an access to the

other that would not submit the other, in advance, to the conditions
of representation, thus of the hold of the ego over the other, indicates,
by inverting it, the radical aporia of Descartes and, through him,
possibly of any transcendental philosophy— the better the ego knows
the other, the more it alters it. The alter ego itself is altered as an
ego: The ego remains unique, and any other alters itself.
Yet this conclusion opens itself to two contradictions. They should
be mentioned here more as possibilities for arguments still unex­
ploited than as genuine objections, more as directions for future re­
search than as a presentation of results.
(a) Did not Descartes at times also attempt to reach the other not
as a represented object (an other altered from its own otherness), but
actually as an original subject? Perhaps, since he did sometimes define
the other by means of the figure of the irreducible origin of causality:
“when our esteem or contempt is directed upon some other object
that we regard as a free cause capable of doing good and evil, esteem
becomes veneration and simple contempt becomes scorn” (The Pas­
sions o f the Soul, §55, AT X, 374,11. 5-8). To grant the status of free
cause to “ anyone” (§152, 445, 1. 13), rather than to the ego only, im­
plies that we subtract the other from the function of represented ob­
ject, and thus that we assimilate it, at least analogically, to a true alter
ego— which cannot be represented since it represents, and thereby
can be assigned as a pure cause. Facing the cogitatio of the ego, the
other would then no longer play the role of a simple, objectified (pas­
sive) cogitatum, but in an unavoidable parallel with the causality exer­
13 8 CHAPTER SIX

cised by the ego, it would hold the rank of (active) cause and no
longer simply of an effect (passive and representable). This new rank
granted to the other would thus imply that we need to reinterpret
the moral philosophy and the doctrine of the passions of the later
Descartes from the standpoint of the ontotheology of causality and
no longer— although this is what we have done all along here— from
the single standpoint of the ontotheology of the cogitatio.2(> An in-
depth study alone will be able to test the accuracy of this hypothesis.
(b) During his polemic with G. Voet, Descartes at the very least
sketched a motif—namely, charity— that would justify the inversion
mentioned above from the other viewed as a represented object to
the other acknowledged as a “ free cause.” He defines charity as fol­
lows: “haec Charitas, hoc est, sancta amicitia, que Deum prose-
quimur, et Dei causa etiam omnes homines, quatenus scimus ipsos
a Deo amari.” 27 That is, the charity by means of which we seek God
causes us, because of God himself, to also seek all [other] men; and
we do so only as a consequence and imitation of the love that we
know God has for them. Thus, loving others does not result from a
direct relation between the ego and others since, as we have seen, this
relationship is regulated by the logic of representation, which reduces
the other to a simple represented object, thus an alienated one, and
prevents the strict love of an other. Loving others results from an
indirect relation, mediated by God, between others and the ego: The
ego loves God and knows that God loves other men; thus, imitating
God, the ego loves these other men. We should therefore be less sur­
prised now with Descartes’ recourse to charity as an essential concept
of any social and political relationship.28Rather, we should stress the
theoretical function of charity: The other can be loved only if the
ego gives up trying to represent it directly and accepts aiming for it
indirectly through the unobjectifiable par excellence— that is, God.
The ego loves the other precisely insofar as it successively gives up
trying to represent it, loves the incomprehensible, and then comes
back to the other as it is loved by the incomprehensible. Thus the
function of charity is to enable the ego to pass beyond the ontotheol­
ogy of the cogitatio, in order to finally reach the other as such.
These two possible arguments indicate at the very least that an
essential part of Descartes’ moral doctrine has yet to be examined
and understood. They indicate also that his strictly metaphysical situ­
ation still remains to be determined. To represent or to love— one
must choose. Did Descartes in the end detect this?
CHAPTER SEVEN

Is the Argument Ontological? The

Anselmian Proof and the Two
Demonstrations of the Existence of God
in the Meditations
i. The Argument and Ontology
For a long while, the argument was not called “ ontological.” Saint
Anselm and Descartes both present it as “my argument.” 1 Leibniz
speaks only of an “ argument frequently discussed by the scholastics
not long since and renewed by Descartes.” 2 Kant, who from time to
time actually continues to call it a “ Cartesian argument,” 3 was proba­
bly the first to characterize it as an “ontological argument” (ontolo-
).4
gischer Beweis Why did it take so long for the argument to be called
ontological? At the very least, this delay shows (though without ex­
plaining why) that the argument could very well have done without
becoming “ontological,” since it was able to emerge and develop
without the qualifier. But could the argument of Anselm and Des­
cartes have been made without the concept of ontology itself? From
a purely historical standpoint, this question becomes even more
important, since it took six centuries after Anselm for the term on­
tology to appear— even though Goclenius, Fontialis, Timpler, and
Clauberg were making use of the word at the time of Descartes.5
Hence, the argument could for a time be used in demonstrations
without the support of ontologia: This is a fact attested by the history
of ideas.
However, although this point illustrates a chronological gap be­
tween the appearance of the argument and its explicit qualification
as “ ontological,” it does not resolve the purely theoretical question
as to whether the argument could be functional and eventually con-
140 CHAPTER SEVEN

elusive outside of any implicit or explicit ontology, whatever it might

be. In other words: Does the argument absolutely, without exception
or qualification, depend on the question of the Being of being, and
thus the history of metaphysics, in the manner in which Heidegger
used these two phrases? Or should we, on the contrary, envisage that
the argument can be, or could have been, used successfully entirely
outside the metaphysical domain, or without appearing in the horizon
of the question of Being? This alternative hypothesis would lead to
the question of whether or not the “ Cartesian” argument must always
be the equivalent of an “ ontological argument” — in short, if it should
always be understood as a (privileged) element of what could be
called the ontotheological constitution of metaphysics. But since in
philosophy only the question of right matters, it follows that a result
stemming purely from historical scholarship cannot provide a satis­
factory answer to our question. In order to sketch a possible answer,
one would have to analyze conceptually what Kant calls the “ ontolog­
ical argument.” This analysis should proceed in three stages: (a) de­
termining the characteristics that Kant attributes to this concept of
“ ontological argument” ; (b) verifying whether, and how, some of the
thinkers from the metaphysical tradition announce or sanction the
characteristics of the “ ontological argument” ; (c) deciding whether
or not some of its figures— in particular, those conferred on it by
Anselm and Descartes, who do not use the qualifier “ ontological” —
are exceptions to these characteristics.

2. The Ontological Interpretation

When Kant invents and uses the term “ ontological argument” —
thus, when he interprets ontologically the argument that until then
had been called “ Cartesian” — he provides a precise definition for it:
This argument amounts to “ arguing completely a priori, from mere
concepts, to the existence of a supreme cause” ; in other words, it
establishes the “ existence of a highest essence from concepts.” 6 The
argument thus becomes ontological when it reaches the existence of
a being that from then on is privileged by pure concepts. However,
a difficulty appears immediately: If the argument is worthy of the
qualifier “ ontological” simply because it concludes existence by
means of concepts, then all the other proofs of the existence of God
in rational theology are also worthy of this title, for do they not also
reach the conclusion of existence? In fact, Kant here means some- *
is THE ARGUMENT ONTOLOGICAL? 14 1

thing else entirely: The argument becomes “ ontological” because it

concludes the existence of a privileged being simply on the basis of
the concept of its essence— by virtue of the “ concept of a highest
essence,” the “ concept of the all-realest essence.” 7 The term ontologi­
cal here does not underline the basic fact of reaching Being as exis­
tence, but rather the extraordinary fact of reaching it a priori from
Being taken as a pure essence— in short, of covering the entire range
of the multiple meanings of Being, yet without leaving its unique
meaning as essence. More precisely, the term ontological qualifies rea­
soning that passes from a mode of Being (essence) to another (exis­
tence), although simply by means of the concept of an essence—
albeit the truest of them all. The argument thus becomes ontological
only insofar as it aims at existence (and the other proofs) on the basis
of two truly exceptional conditions: (i) starting from a pure concept,
without recourse to experience; (2) starting from the pure concept
of an essence. By identifying the two ultimate characteristics of the
“ ontological argument,” Kant in fact simply and judiciously ratifies
decisions that were already made by his predecessors and that many
of his successors will eventually maintain.
A proof of the existence of God becomes an “ ontological argu­
ment” only when it rests first upon a concept of God. This require­
ment was clearly assumed by Descartes. The a priori demonstration
of the existence of God in Meditation V starts explicitly from a cogi-
tatio de Deo; this thought claims to be a genuine idea (“bring forth
the idea of God from the treasure house of my mind,” AT VII, 67,
11. 2 1 - 23 ) — that is to say, an idea that is no more and no less available
and accessible to the mind than any mathematical idea (“ which I find
within me just as surely as the idea of any shape or number,” AT
VII, 65, 11. 22-23). The idea of God thus belongs to the class of
innate ideas, of which it represents a very peculiar, though not
unique, example: We are still dealing here with “true ideas which
are innate in me, of which the first and most important is the idea
of God” (AT VII, 68, 11. 8-10). Common epistemic requirements
bear so strongly on this idea of God that Descartes, in spite of his
insistence on preserving divine incomprehensibility, eventually
admits a Dei conceptus, “ concept of God” (Meditations, A T VII, 167,
line 1); a divinae naturae conceptus, “a concept of the divine nature”
(AT VII, 151, 1. 6); or a conceptus entis summe perfecti, “ concept of a
supremely perfect being” (AT VII, 166, 1. 18). A decisive step has
been taken: From now on the argument will rest on the presupposi­
142 CHAPTER SEVEN

tion that a concept of the divine essence is accessible to the mind.

The definition that it claims to represent the logical rank that we give
it is now almost irrelevant; what matters is the very assumption that
a concept, whatever it may be, could reach the essence of God. All
the subsequent debates, whether concerning the determination of this
essence (Leibniz, Malebranche, Spinoza) or the transition of the con­
cept from essence to existence (Kant, Hegel, Schelling), will presup­
pose a certain concept of God— in short, that this concept can in
general account for God and assign Him an essence.
With the presupposition of this concept, the first characteristic of
the ontological argument has been defined. We may now proceed
toward the second characteristic, and ask what is the essence of God
presented by this concept. But, even though the characteristic of the
concept had sprung up all at once with Descartes, several additional
stages would be needed to characterize the divine essence.
(a) Descartes contents himself with a definition of God as supreme
being or supremely perfect being: “ think of God (that is a supremely
perfect being \_ens summe perfectum\)” “the first and supreme being
[ens primum et summum],” “ supreme being, or God \summe ens sive
Deus].” s This (conceptual) determination of the essence of God
maintains a gap between essence and existence, which is designated
and filled by the notion of perfection: God thus does not yet exist
immediately as a result of his concept, but through the mediation of
a supreme perfection, which encompasses, among other particular
perfections, that of existing. The argument thus is not yet absolutely
ontological, and Descartes very logically does not consider it to be
so. In order to actually think the direct inclusion of existence in (the
concept of) its essence— in order to actually think God as “that
whose essence involves existence,” and thus formally to deduce from
each other the two terms that Spinoza simply confuses,9 one has to
take another step.
(b) Malebranche manages to take that step by following and re­
peating the argument of Meditation V, although no longer simply
from the concept of “ God or an infinitely perfect being,” but through
the absolute identification of the essence with Being (in all its mean­
ings) in the divine concept: “ the idea of God, or of Being in general,
of Being without restrictions, of infinite Being” 10is in radical opposi­
tion to the idea (or concept) of a given Being, insofar as the essence
can be identified with the whole Being in God only, such that essence
still reaches itself when it reaches its existence starting from itself.
IS THE ARGUMENT ONTOLOGICAL? 1 43

It will be helpful here to examine in more detail the fundamental

ambiguity of what Malebranche means by the term Being (être), for
the opposition of “Being in general” to “ this being” or even to “ these
beings” may be understood to mean two very different things, or
rather, may lead to two very dissimilar differences. On the one hand,
an ontic difference between an absolutely being being (ÔVTCDÇ o v )
facing finite, time-bound, and derivative beings; on the other hand,
a quasi-ontological difference between all beings and Being itself,
which is universally abstract. Malebranche never tackles this ambigu­
ity, however patent it may be. But what is left unthought here calls
for further thinking, for if one admits that any metaphysical construct
must characteristically leave the ontological difference unthought
within itself, Malebranche could thus possibly reveal himself to be,
by virtue of his shortcoming, a genuine metaphysician. For our pur­
poses, what is unthought here does not modify the decisive first result
that has now been reached: By positing that “Being without restric­
tions, in a word BEING, there is the idea of God,” 11 Malebranche
abolishes any and all mediation between God’s essence and his exis­
tence by reestablishing— although in a manner that remains vague—
the Thomistic identity between divine essence and Being (in action).
God is (exists) as an immediate consequence of his essence, which
consists only of Being; thus, the Cartesian argument becomes for the
first time, by right if not by title, genuinely ontological.
(c) However, Leibniz was the first to sanction the perfectly onto­
logical character of the argument by identifying divine essence not
only with the concept of Being in general, but quite clearly with the
concept of the necessary Being: “the existence of the Necessary Be­
ing, in whom essence includes existence, or in whom being possible
suffices for being actual.” 12 Malebranche’s formulation (and the
Cartesian argument even less) did not make clear the shift from es­
sence to existence within the concept of Being itself. Leibniz estab­
lishes this shift by positing the equivalence of possibility and neces­
sity, which is possible only in the concept of God. Far from being
added on to possibility as from the outside, necessity springs from
it intrinsically, as its intimate requirement: “If the necessary Being
is possible, it exists. For necessary Being and Being through one’s
own essence are simply one and the same thing.” 13 In order for the
argument to become entirely ontological, the concept of divine es­
sence must coincide with the necessary Being, since only the neces­
sary Being exists, if we assume the minimal condition of its possibil­
144 CHAPTER SEVEN

ity. If the concept already encompasses the necessary Being, then and
only then its very possibility as a noncontradictory concept produces,
without a sufficient external reason, necessarily effective existence.
This last formulation thus finally confers full ontological rank on the
argument. Kant and Schelling, for instance, will understand the argu­
ment on the basis of its Leibnizian formulation, though in order to
critique it: God exists by virtue of his concept of necessary existence,
provided that this concept is possible. Let us note, however, that
Descartes himself had anticipated this development: In a very peda­
gogical commentary on his a priori proof he reformulates in the hori­
zon of possibility and necessity the argument that was initially made
on the basis of perfection: “Possible or contingent existence is con­
tained in the concept of a limited thing, whereas necessary and perfect
existence is contained in the concept of a supremely perfect being.” 14
At any rate, the Cartesian argument eventually reaches an ontological
status only to the extent that the concept of the essence of God im­
plies that the necessary existence necessarily exists, or as Schelling
wrote: “ God is not only the necessary being, but he is necessarily
the necessary being; this is a meaningful difference.” 15
These three stages on the road to an ontological interpretation of
the argument still call for a fourth one. To review them, we have only
to follow Hegel, who was the first to see that the two characteristics of
the argument— to proceed from a concept of the divine essence and
to identify the divine essence with (necessary) Being itself— do not
constitute two independent and parallel demands, but rather eventu­
ally merge with one another. According to Hegel, Anselm, just like
Descartes after him, does not present in his argument a demonstra­
tion that can be said to belong to rational theology. On the other
hand, Anselm reaches on this occasion the essential speculative truth,
“ the unity of thinking and Being [die Einheit des Denkens und
Seins].” 16The— now ontological— argument discovers, in the partic­
ular case of God, what the cogito had already foreseen— namely, that
thinking, as thought and independently of its factual representational
content, passes from itself to Being, provided that it may reach specu-
latively the truth of the concept. The argument was actually antici­
pating the truth of science as a whole— that is to say, the metaphysi­
cal truth par excellence— although in an unsatisfying and almost'
sophistic way, since it was held back in simple representations. In
the particular case of God, Anselm— and Descartes after him— had
foreseen no less than the move from the concept in general, according
IS THE ARGUMENT ONTOLOGICAL? 145
to its intrinsic requirement, to effectivity, as it is thought in itself
and for itself by the accomplished science of logic.17 God does not
come into existence so much through his concept— of a necessary
and absolute Being— but rather through the concept itself, free from
any and all determinacy. The ontological argument concerns and de­
fines first of all the concept as such, rather than God. To be sure, it
can and must characterize God in particular, but even this results
from the fact that God is not a concept, but the concept par excel­
lence, the concept personified. In his own way, Schelling will develop
the same thesis: We should not proceed from the concept of God to
his existence, but according to the order of positive philosophy; “ set
out from the concept of pure undubitable existing and, inversely,
prove the divinity of undubitable existing.” 18 The concept of the ex­
isting (I’existant) takes the rank of an absolute "prius, without speci­
fying the existence of God. It is only in a second movement that
God’s divinity will follow from the concept of the existing. The onto­
logical argument, now brought back to its full speculative dignity,
becomes not only the prime metaphysical proof of the existence of
God, but also the dissolution of the essence of God in the concept,
where metaphysics is accomplished. The argument becomes fully on­
tological only with the replacement (Aufhebung) of God by the con­
cept— what came to be called, shortly after Hegel and Schelling, the
“ death of God.”

3. Beyond the Concept

We may now pose our second question. In order for what Anselm
called “my argument” to merit the title of “ontological argument,”
it must conform to the requirements that have just been established
by metaphysics: (1) it must reach existence starting from a concept |
of the divine essence; (2) it must interpret this essence as the un-:
restricted and universal Being in general. Did Anselm admit these I
two presuppositions?
Let us proceed with the first one: Does the Anselmian argument
rest on a concept of the divine essence? The answer is an absolute
no, for several related reasons:
(a) The starting point for the argument explicitly depends on faith:
“ faith seeking understanding” and “ an example of the reason belong­
ing to faith” inaugurate the approach common to the Proslogion and
the Monologion, respectively, which consists in rendering rational
146 CHAPTER SEVEN

(rather than simply explaining) what faith submits in advance to

thought. Moreover, more than simply ensuring for rationality a given
that it may eventually repossess and appropriate for itself, faith guides
rationality in its speculative itinerary: “For I do not seek to under­
stand in order to believe but I believe in order to understand. For I
believe even this: that I shall not understand unless I believe” (Proslo-
gion, 1, 100,18-19). Intelligence proceeds from faith, since rationality
consists precisely in recognizing the permanent precondition of intel­
ligence: Faith then rises to the second power and believes even that
“one shall not understand unless one believes.” Insofar as it predates
the subsequent opposition between philosophy and theology, this re­
lation between faith and reason inverts in advance the dialectic by
means of which Hegel establishes their respective metaphysical fig­
ures: For Anselm, the concept does not replace faith as the simple
content of a representation free from speculative elaboration (so that
religion would have to disappear in order to become thinkable); the
role of faith, on the contrary, is to provide the concept with its rule,
in addition to its content.19
(b) The concluding point of the argument also explicitly escapes
the concept, since it is a question of reaching he who remains in an
“inaccessible light” (1 Timothy 6:16). The fact that God dwells in
an inaccessible light defines not only the initial goal of the argument
(Proslogion, I, 98ff.) but its conclusion as well (Proslogion, XVI, 112,
i8ff.): Knowledge does not abolish inaccessibility; on the contrary,
its aim is to establish the fact that inaccessibility is definitively unsur­
passable. Thus, wedged between the presupposition of faith and di­
vine inaccessibility, the argument is unable to presuppose a concept
of divine essence, or to hope for one. In actuality, the argument never
supposes any concept at all,20 since it rests precisely on the acknowl­
edged impossibility of any concept of God. What is here a nonconcept
is stated in a first formula: id quo majus cogitari nequit or aliquid quo
nihil majus cogitari possit, “that than which a greater cannot be
thought.” The only thing that God admits as a quasi-concept is his
own transcendence with regard to any thinkable concept. Thus as
long as something can be thought within limits, thought cannot reach
God. Conversely, thought can approach the question of God only
when attaining the limit, the maximum, the upper limit of the think­
able. The only indication that thought might genuinely bear any rela­
tion to the supposed essence of God is the following: It would need
to transcend any thinkable concept but also, especially, to experience
IS THE ARGUMENT ONTOLOGICAL? 1 47

the limit (and possibly a limit that must continuously be pushed far­
ther) of its own power to conceptualize. God may— eventually—
appear in and for thought only when the limit of what thought can
think, the maximum limit of the thinkable (id quod majus cogitari
potest) has been reached, when thought encounters something it can­
not surpass and thus conquer, namely “that than which a greater
cannot be thought” (id quo majus cogitari nequit). As long as thought
can still think by means of concepts, it cannot grasp God; it does so
only when it can no longer proceed, at least by using concepts. God
begins when the concept ends. The fascination this argument imme­
diately exerts on us, regardless of, and previous to, any discussion
of its eventual logical validity obviously derives from the authentically
critical character Anselm assigns it. For “that than which a greater
cannot be thought” (id quo majus cogitari nequit) does not define God,
even negatively. It does not pretend to grant access to a transcendent
term (or being); it simply designates the limit that will be encountered
by any possible cogitatio when it attempts to think God— in other
words, when it attempts to think beyond the maximum limit of the
thinkable for a finite thought. Before exposing itself to God, and in
order to do so, thought that reaches “ that than which a greater cannot
be thought” reaches the limit of its own capacity to know. Hence,
if, following Kant, “transcendental” “never means a reference of our
cognition to things, but only to our faculty of cognition,” 21 then one
must paradoxically conclude that the argument seeks a term that tran­
scends cogitatio only in the transcendental test of the limits of the
power of this cogitatio itself. Any critique of the argument that would
begin by neglecting its resolutely critical dimension, in order to dis­
qualify it as simply dogmatic, would immediately annul itself, and
Kant, paradoxically, was the first to ignore the fact that his opponent
could withstand his critique by using its own weapons.22 In other
words, Anselm seeks what transcends all thought (God) only through
the critical test of the transcendental and never conquers it as an
object. Could this not be confirmed by making reference, by means
of a second and similar paradox, to the other opponent par excellence
of Anselm, namely, Thomas Aquinas? Does not Aquinas’ refuta­
tion of the argument rest on the fact that God is not known to himself
for us (per se notum quoad nos), and hence, does it not acknowledge
that Anselm did not use any concept or definition of the divine es­
sence? As opposed to the focus of the traditional debate, what opposes
Aquinas and Anselm may thus hinge not so much on the recourse
14 8 CHAPTER SEVEN

to an a priori concept of God (which Anselm clearly does not use),

as on the decision of whether this absence prevents (as Aquinas sup­
poses), or makes possible an a priori argument. Here again, Anselm
anticipates the argument of his critic: He freely admits the impossi­
bility of an a priori concept of the divine essence; his genius consists
in simply considering this very impossibility as the higher court of
appeals for an argument. Unlike Aquinas, Anselm therefore does not
need to resort to a posteriori concepts borrowed from Aristotelian
metaphysics. He thus liberates himself, in advance, from any subse­
quent claims of the concept (a priori or a posteriori, it matters little)
concerning the knowledge of God, and, in this sense at least, he be­
comes more familiar to us than Aquinas.
The solidity of this nonconcept of God is attested by the three
moments it engenders:
(a) It is not possible to reject the critical nonconcept of “ that than
which a greater cannot be thought” as a starting point for the argu­
ment: Whoever would do so because it cannot be understood (in intel-
lectu) already contradicts himself; first of all because in order to con­
tradict it, one has to first understand it (“audit hoc ipsum quod
dico” ); but whoever understands it can no longer refute it under the
pretense that this statement is meaningless, since according to its
strictest definition, the maximum limit of the thinkable does not and
cannot have a defined and conceptually delimited meaning. To object
that it cannot be understood or that there is nothing to understand
does not disqualify it but rather acknowledges its unique character—
i.e., that it surpasses the thinkable. If it admitted a conceptual and
categorically explicable signification, “ that than which a greater can­
not be thought” (id quo majus cogitari nequit) would immediately lose
its transcendental dignity as “ that than which a greater cannot be
thought” (Proslogion, II, 101, 5-15). The first misunderstanding con­
sists in applying the common rules of signification to a statement
whose very function is to be excepted from them.
(b) The statement, from now on irrefutable, immediately gives rise
to a second moment, as paradoxically necessary as the first one: “But
surely that than which a greater cannot be thought cannot be only
in the understanding” (Proslogion, II, 101, igff.). For the maximum
limit of the thinkable not only requires that, transcendentally, the
cogitatio reach the limits of its power to know, but also that it should
acknowledge that the “ greater” (majus) always transcends these lim­
IS THE ARGUMENT ONTOLOGICAL? 149
its. The cogitatio acknowledges this by admitting first that it cannot
(nequit) think something that transcends transcendental limits. But
to truly admit the term that the intellectus can no longer think, one
must also concede that this term reaches beyond all understanding.
How then can one designate what lies beyond understanding, if not
by placing it under the heading of res, if not by admitting that it
exists in reality (“ . . . esse et in re,” Proslogion, 101, 17)? True, an
objection may immediately be raised: Why should what no longer
belongs to understanding (i.e., the transcendental) exist in actuality
(transcendence)? Why should the unthinkable, at the second degree,
be thought as a real being? Should we not conclude, on the contrary,
that what no longer exists according to the lowest degree of Being—
Being in the understanding— has even less reason to exist according
to the highest degree of Being— Being in reality? In spite of its appar­
ently self-evident character, however, this objection collapses as soon
as it is raised. For, with “ that than which a greater cannot be thought”
(id quo majus cogitari nequit), it is not a question of thinking a mini­
mum, but rather of thinking a maximum (majus). Now, the require­
ment of the maximum reverses the hierarchy of the degrees of Being
against the objection, first by positing that Being exists in under­
standing alone (the first stage, the painter who has in his understand­
ing what is not yet beyond understanding, Proslogion, 101, 10-13);
next by positing a Being greater than what exists in understanding
(in intellectu) and also in reality (in re) (101, 15-10 2, 3); and finally
by positing the ultimate stage of what exists in reality, yet without
being confined within the strict boundaries of understanding. To be
sure, this last moment in the hierarchy of the degrees of Being often
eludes the readers of the Proslogion, since the vast majority of them
do not continue the analysis past chapter IV. Anselm reaches it ex­
plicitly in chapter XV, in which is found the last determination of
the logic of the maximum (majus): “Lord, not only are you that than
which a greater cannot be thought, but you are also something greater
than can be thought” (112, 14-15). If it is a question of God only
from the moment when thought reaches its maximum (the transcen­
dental limit of its power to know), God is thus actually experienced
only when thought acknowledges, without conquering it, the tran­
scendent that surpasses this limit— when thought thinks that it can­
not think what it cannot think and that what it cannot think surpasses
it by being not only outside its understanding but beyond what it
15 0 CHAPTER SEVEN

will ever understand. God therefore is in re not because He is first,

like the majority of finite beings, in intellectu, but rather, exception­
ally, because He could in no way be in intellectu.
(c) A third moment confirms this paradox, if we read correctly the
thesis that “ this being [God] exists so truly that it cannot even be
thought not to exist” (Proslogion, III, 102, 6). This text does not say
that God so truly is that he could not not be, thereby supposing that
understanding could think God as a being, and thus that finite
thought would be able to think the infinite maximum. This interpre­
tation would contradict the crux of the argument, which hinges en­
tirely upon the acknowledgment of a transcendental limit to the fac­
ulty of understanding. This text therefore requires an altogether
different reading. The issue is not to think that God is (even necessar­
ily is), as if thought transgressed its limits; the issue is to be unable
to think that God is not, by respecting the limit of what is unthink­
able, and, by bouncing back off this limit, to think at the second
degree that thought cannot deny that the transcendent exists in re
even though it cannot be grasped by the concept in intellectu. Far
from conquering the concept of an existing God by means of a tran­
scendental break-in, what must be thought (cogitari) according to the
transcendental limit of the power to think is that esse in re can tran­
scend all concepts in the case of “ something greater than can be
thought” (Proslogion, XV, 112 , 14 -15).23
Besides, the Anselmian project never claimed to achieve a knowl­
edge of the divine essence by means of concepts. Textual evidence
confirms this, and it is made clearer when examined within a textual
framework:
(a) Given that at the outset Anselm simply aimed to “understand
some measure of your [God’s] truth [aliquatenus intelligere veritatem
tuam]” (Proslogion, I, 100, 17), then at the end he can only see “you
[God] partially but not see you as you are [te aliquatenus, sed non
. . . sicuti es]” (Proslogion, XIV, 1 1 1 , 21).24
(b) Far from asserting the notion or the word concept, Anselm asks
only for a conjecture in order to support his argument: “Is not this
the same as passing from those goods than which a greater can be
thought to the conception of that Good than which a greater cannot
be thought?” 25
(c) The Proslogion, far from closing with the initial argument in
favor of the existence of God, notes that its very success raises a new
objection: “If you have found him, why is it that you do not perceive
IS THE ARGUMENT ONTOLOGICAL? 151

what you have found?” (Proslogion, XIV, 1 1 1 , 13-14). Knowing

God’s existence with certainty is in no way the equivalent of “ per­
ceiving” God in person, but actually makes his inaccessibility more
strongly felt. Thus, the substitution of “ something greater than can
be thought” for “that than which nothing greater can be thought”
(Proslogion, XV, 112, 14 -15) forces us to acknowledge the definitive
inaccessibility of the light in which God dwells (1 Timothy 6:16),
which blinds our gaze: “it shines too much and [my understanding]
does not grasp it” (Proslogion, XVI, 112 , 24-25). From then on, the
certainty of the Being (esse) of God only makes the secret of his es­
sence more manifest.26
(d) The Monologion (chapter LXIV) had already encountered this
limit; it had shown that, when it is a question of thinking a res incom-
prehensibilis, one must simply reach the point where the power of
the intellect ends— namely, to “ recognize [that this doctrine] is most
certainly true even if he is unable to comprehend how it could be
true” (75, 2-3). All arguments, and especially the most powerful
among them, can only, at the risk of contradicting themselves, claim
in the end to “ rationally comprehend that it is incomprehensible”
how divine wisdom alone can know itself (75, line n ).27
Hence, Anselm’s argument concludes that God exists starting
from the very impossibility of producing any concept of God: God
is known (as existing) as an unknown (through the concept of es­
sence). Not only does the argument fail to satisfy the first characteris­
tic of the ontological interpretation to which the later metaphysicians
submitted it, but it also rejects it in advance. Thus appears the first
discontinuity.

4. Beyond Essence
We now must examine whether Anselm’s argument also departs from
the second characteristic of its metaphysical interpretation. The
question can be stated as follows: Can the presupposed existence of
God be identified with the essence par excellence? In other words,
does the Anselmian argument, like the ontological argument, rest
upon a determination of God’s nature on the basis of essence, itself
understood as an unrestricted Being par excellence? In short, can
“ that than which a greater cannot be thought” be thought (even nega­
tively) starting from the question of essence, of ousia, of Being— or
not?
152 CHAPTER SEVEN

We have already noted a first discontinuity: The formula “that

than which a greater cannot be thought” (id quo majus cogitari nequit)
contradicts the necessity of a concept of God. We must now note
the presence of a new discontinuity, found in a second formula,
“ [than] which nothing better can be thought” (Proslogion, XIV, h i ,
9). This formulation differs from the first one by substituting melius
for majus— i.e., it replaces a quantitative principle by a qualitative
one. What we had defined as a logic of an undetermined maximum
is now clarified into a logic of the greatest good, thus of a sovereign
good. But before interpreting this new discontinuity, we must estab­
lish whether or not it is supported by the texts. In the Proslogion,
the substitution appears as early as chapter III, which, in order to
justify the majus, warns that “ if any mind could conceive of some­
thing better [melius] than you [i.e., God], the creature would rise
above the creator and would sit in judgment over the creator— an
utterly preposterous consequence” (103,4—6). Hence, melius does not
contradict majus, but instead justifies it by specifying it. This is actu­
ally confirmed in chapter V, which posits the principle that God is
“ whatever it is better [melius] to be than not to be.” 28 The principle
of melius does not constitute a particular case of the principle of majus,
but instead its explication, which is for the first time rigorously opera­
tional: the greatest in qualitative rather than quantitative terms. In
order to decide whether or not a determination may be applied to
God, one simply has to examine whether it would add an additional
good to, or subtract from, the sovereign good: The maximum is a
summum, but summum is defined in turn as a summum bonum— i.e.,
“You were seeking God, and you have found that he is something
highest of all— than which nothing better can be thought.” 29 The
passage to the maximum limit of the cogitatio would lack an opera­
tional criterion; hence the argument would remain abstract, without
the interpretation of majus on the basis of melius?® Thus what lies
beyond the essence, the eTteKeivoc Tfj^ oi>aia^ is revealed as the
criterion of “ that than which a greater cannot be thought” (id quo
majus cogitari nequit), and the good manifests itself as sovereign in
any essential definition of God. Or rather, God excepts Himself from
essence, just as He already was transcending the concept. God sur­
passes essence through the same gesture that frees Him from the
concept—because He can only be thought as He offers Himself, as
sovereign good, as sovereign insofar as He is the good, rather than
as Being.
IS THE ARGUMENT ONTOLOGICAL? 153
These two discontinuities can be related to each other on the basis
of the relation between the two syntagms that define their respective
operations. The first discontinuity (with the concept) acknowledges
a transcendental limit, comes up against it, and thus identifies it with
a simple comparative: nihil majus cogitaripotest. Obviously, a compar­
ative is sufficient here, since thought confronts only one term—
namely, its limit, its other par excellence. The second discontinuity
(the majus) reaches, given that it cannot comprehend it, a transcen­
dent term. This transcendence goes beyond the transcendental limit
of the power to know; it thus frees itself from any comparison and
becomes absolute, so that it must be approached as an absolute com­
parative— i.e., summum bonum— and no longer as a simple compara­
tive. Transcendence requires a superlative, whereas the transcenden­
tal limited itself to, and was limited by, the comparative. But the
summum bonum also influences what it has left behind, leaving its
mark on it, by overdetermining the majus by a melius, which, so to
speak, colors the “ greatest” for us by the light (or the shadow) of the
absolutely best. “ O immense goodness, which so exceeds all under­
standing” (Proslogion, IX, 107, 26-27): Absolute transcendence is the
equivalent of goodness, just as the superlative is the equivalent of
summum bonum; the transcendental limit harks back to thought, just
as the simple comparative harks back to ousia.
This second discontinuity, even more fundamental than the first
one, which it justifies in retrospect, structures Anselm’s entire proj­
ect. The Proslogion, from its preface onward, assigns only one objec­
tive to its argumentum— to establish that God is “ the supreme good,
needing no one else yet needed by all else in order to exist and to
fare well” (93, 6-9). If “ that than which a greater cannot be thought”
(id quo majus cogitari nequit) intervenes first (chapters II—III), its tem­
porary formulation is immediately relayed by the second formula, for
ultimately “thinking something better than you” (III, 103, 5) appears
impossible, so that one concludes the existence of God on the basis
of the maximum, “highest of all things, alone existing” (104, 12).
This conclusion rests on the principle that “ God is whatever it is
better [melius] to be than not to be” (104, 9, reiterated in 104, 16).
Besides, the deduction of the divine attributes (chapter XII) and the
theorization of the final incomprehensibility of God that immediately
follows (chapters X III-X X III) are ruled by the principle of melius^
with an eye toward the supreme good (summum bonum) } 1 Hence, the
conclusion very logically sends the injunction to think the maximum
154 CHAPTER SEVEN

back to the injunction to think the best: “ponder as best you can what
kind of good this is and how great it is.” But, since thinking the best
and the supreme good necessitates that thought not limit itself to its
representative and conceptual functions, but rather bring to bear the
function of love— since the blessed ones “ will love in the degree that
they will know” — thought must dare deploy its desire: “Desire the
simple good which itself is every good [bonum].” 33 If it is a question
of knowing God as melius and supreme good, thought must not lean
on the impossible concept of an inaccessible essence, but rather on
its own desire, and thus, deprived of any other recourse, on its love.
The same recourse to melius outlines the basic architecture of the
Monologion. Let us simply mention two indisputable points:
(a) The first demonstration, which here again aims to establish
the existence of God, opens with the thesis that “there is something
that is the best [optimum], the greatest, the highest of all existing
things” (chapter I, 13, 3-4). It is deployed only on the basis of the
question of the good and in the direction of the supreme good. The
first chapter opposes various goods, for they are only through another
(per aliud), to the one good, since it is through itself (per se), and
thus reaches the supreme good; but the transcendence of this magnum
is itself absorbed in the greatest good: “Now, what is supremely good
is also supremely great” (15, 10 -11). The second chapter goes from
relative quantities to “ something . . . supremely great” in order again
to reduce the quantitative sovereignty to that of the greatest good:
“it is necessary that something be both supremely great and su­
premely good” (15, 11. 17 and 21). The third chapter eliminates the
kinds of good that are not in themselves like the sole thing that is
through itself (ipsum unum per seipsum), and finally thinks the latter
as an optimum: “Therefore, there is some one thing which . . . exists
most greatly and most highly of all” (16, 26-28). The fourth chapter
is based on the principle of eminence, concluding that: “Therefore,
necessarily, there is a nature which is so superior to any other or
others that there is no nature to which it is ranked as inferior” (17,
24-25). These four chapters are summarized in the definition of the
existence of a “nature, or substance, or Being” that is indeterminate
except insofar as it reveals itself, in decreasing order as “the supreme
good, the supreme greatness, the supreme Being or subsistence— in
short the highest of all things” (17, 32-33; 18, 2-3). The access to
God as something that exists, or even as a substance, is therefore not
set out according to the regulatory idea of the essence or even of a
IS THE ARGUMENT ONTOLOGICAL? 1 55
maximum, but, beyond essence and the majus cogitari nequit (which
is properly speaking absent here), according to the regulatory idea
of the good. Through the eminence of the good God transcends ev­
erything that exists.
(b) This theoretical decision appears even more clearly, if possible,
during the discussion of substance. Following Augustine, Anselm is
reluctant to call God a substance, even a supreme and primary sub­
stance, since substance always implies a relation, at least a possible
one, to the notion of accident. However, here he tolerates the name
of substance, at the express condition that it be based on the principle
of melius, thus seen in the perspective of the sovereign good. In this
sense, “ just as it is blasphemous to suppose that the substance of the
Supreme Nature is something which in some respect it would be
better not to be, so this substance must be whatever in every respect
it is better to be than not to be.” Substance can now be understood
no longer as a relative category but as a particular (and probably privi­
leged) function of melius: to be such that nothing better, at least ac­
cording to the hierarchy of the categories, could exist that it itself is
not— i.e., “it alone is that than which nothing is better.” 34Therefore,
God can be granted the name of substance— that is to say, the meta­
physical title par excellence of ousia— only on the condition that He
receives it as a particular case of melius— i.e., under the aegis of the
good.
By substituting melius for majus, the good for ousia, Anselm pre­
cludes, for the second time now, the possibility of a metaphysical
interpretation of his argument. It is thus rather surprising to see that
the best interpreters— at least as far as we know— have not stressed
this radical decision. Actually, the sources that scholars have at times
attempted to assign to the formula “ that than which a greater cannot
be thought” (id quo majus cogitari nequit)iS confirm, on the contrary,
that when Anselm passes to melius, he does so under the aegis of
Augustine. Here are some examples:

i . Confessions, VII, 4, 6: “ I had already established that the incorrupt­

ible is better than the corruptible, and so I confessed that whatever
you are, you are incorruptible. Nor could there have been or be
any soul capable of conceiving that which is better than you, who
are the supreme and highest good. Since it is most true and certain
that the incorruptible is superior to the corruptible, as I had al­
ready concluded, had it been the case that you are not incorrupt-
15 6 CHAPTER SEVEN

ible, I could in thought have attained something better than my

God.”
2. De doctrina Christiana, I, 7 (translated by D. W. Robertson [New
York, 1958], p. 71): “ For when the one God of gods is thought
of, even by those who recognize, invoke, and worship other gods
either in Heaven or on earth, he is thought of in such a way that
the thought seeks to attain something than which there is nothing
better or more sublime.”
3. De moribus Manichaeorum, 11, 24 (trans., vol. 4, p. 76): “ That God
is the supreme good, and that than which nothing can be or be
conceived better, we must either understand or believe, if we wish
to keep clear of blasphemy.” 36
4. Moreover, Boethius’ Philosophiae consolatio, III, 10, may be said
to bridge the gap between Augustine and Anselm: “The common
concert of men’s minds proves that God, the principle of all
things, is good. For since nothing can be imagined better than
God, who doubts that that than which nothing is better is good?
And reason demonstrates God to be good in such a way that it
convinces us that He is perfectly good. For unless He were so,
He could not be the principle of all things. For there would be
something better than Him, having perfect goodness, which could
seem to be of greater antiquity and eminence than Him” (trans.
[Cambridge, 1946], pp. 267, 269 [modified]). This actually consti­
tutes more than simply an outline of the argument deployed by
the Monologion ?1
Thus the second thesis we have favored in Anselm finds a specula­
tive articulation in the two treatises that concern the argument, and
is also supported by the patristic tradition. Far from being simply
a detail of formulation or an inconsequential originality, it actually
constitutes its strictly theological identification, removed from any
metaphysical interpretation. God is not defined by means of any con­
cept of the essence, and his presumed essence is not regulated by the
ousia, but on the contrary can only be thought as it offers itself—
beyond Being, in the horizon of the good.

5. The Cartesian Double Argument

We have now reached enough conclusions to be in a position to an­
swer the last question we posed earlier.
IS THE ARGUMENT ONTOLOGICAL? 157
(c) At least one of the figures of the argument— i.e., the one origi­
nally provided by Anselm— does not satisfy the two distinctive char­
acteristics of the “ontological argument,” since it is not based on a
concept of God and does not identify divine essence with, or through,
Being. Anselm’s argument is therefore not ontological— that is to say,
it does not belong to the metaphysical interpretation of the argument.
This conclusion should not come as a surprise, given the abundant
and constraining internal evidence that supports it. However, it can
still be reinforced by the following three external confirmations:
(a) The independence of Anselm’s argument with regard to ontol­
ogy in general (i.e., vis-a-vis the Seinsfrage) does not relegate it to a
conceptual exile. Rather, it indicates that God’s transcendence must
be understood starting from the overeminence of the good and no
longer from the maximum of being. God is transcendent only
through the overeminence of the sovereign good: “For that is su­
preme which so excels others that it has neither an equal nor a supe­
rior. Now, what is supremely good is also supremely great” (Mono-
logion, I, 15, 9 - 1 1 ). Here Anselm echoes a fundamental Pauline
paradigm: What overeminently goes beyond knowledge is called
Christ’s charity (rather than divine essence or divine Being), “know
the love of God which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with
all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). The only overeminence to
reach God does not belong to Being or to essence, but to what desig­
nates Him beyond being and essence, namely, the good or charity.
(b) This transfer of the argument from the horizon of Being to
that of love is accompanied by a refusal in principle to construct a
concept of the divine essence, whatever it may consist of: If we know
that God is, we attain this knowledge by means of the concept that
we have no concept of Him, rather than through the concept that
we do. This decision inscribes Anselm in the lineage of Dionysius
and of speculative theology; here the moment of theological negation
plays a purely critical role and establishes that, in the case of God,
knowing exactly implies not only not knowing by means of a concept
(of the essence), but also knowing that this very absence of knowledge
represents the only appropriate knowledge. For it is a question of
“ see[ing] and know[ing] in non-vision and non-knowledge non-vision
and non-knowledge itself, which surpasses vision and knowledge; for
this is what it means to truly see and know, and praise overessentially
the overessential by making abstraction of all beings.” 38 Hence, An­
selm belongs to speculative theology rather than to a metaphysics
 I $8 CHAPTER SEVEN

constituted on the basis of ontotheology. The ambiguity of the usual

debate on the status and the validity of the “ontological argument”
arises because this essential distinction is generally ignored. Once it
is termed “ ontological,” the argument uses presuppositions and has
ambitions that are not only missing in Anselm’s argument but are
actually contradicted by it. Conversely, the Anselmian argument
takes its place in a theological tradition in which the transcendence
of the good subjects all dogmatic pretensions of the concept to a criti­
cal test that metaphysics would always attempt to spare the “ ontologi­
cal argument” from, and thus spare itself from as well. Anselm’s ar­
gument differs from the “ ontological argument” as much as critical
speculative theology differs from ontotheology, or as much as the
acknowledgment of “that than which a greater cannot be thought”
is opposed to the identification of being with thought, or that contem­
plation refutes absolute knowledge by means of concepts.
(c) Yet this theoretical dilemma surfaced only as the result of a
slow historical evolution. During this time of latency, can we identify
thinkers who occupy intermediate and still indefinite positions? Actu­
ally we find at least one: Descartes. Meditation I I I and Meditation V
both present a proof of the existence of God, although these two
proofs actually outline two possible interpretations of the same Ansel­
mian argument.
First, it is clear that Meditation V recapitulates Anselm’s argu­
ment, though perhaps without understanding it well. But it interprets
it metaphysically, by introducing on the one hand a concept of divine
essence that is given the same epistemological status assigned to
mathematical ideas and, on the other hand, by assimilating divine
essence to the necessary being. Descartes thereby opens the way that
will lead to Kant and Hegel, and brings Anselm’s argument closer to
the causa sui, therefore inscribing it in advance in an ontotheological
constitution.
Second, when developing the a posteriori proof on the basis of the
i idea of the infinite within me— i.e., within a finite mind— Meditation
\I I I recapitulates and maintains what Meditation V had missed and
eliminated from Anselm’s argument— namely, the critical impossi­
bility of establishing any comprehensible concept of God. Defined
as infinite, God escapes the hold of the concept; “ the idea of the
infinite, if it is to be a true idea, cannot be grasped at all, since the
impossibility of being grasped is contained in the formal definition
of the infinite.” Here Descartes almost literally echoes Anselm, who
IS THE ARGUMENT ONTOLOGICAL? 1 59

writes: “ our previous reflection rationally comprehends that it is in­

comprehensible how the supreme wisdom knows the things it cre­
ated.” 39Descartes was thus correct to not yet call the argument “ onto­
logical” : He knew how to respect the claims of the infinite to
incomprehensibility. For one must make a choice when offering any
proof of the existence of God: either reducing God to an essence that
may be understood by means of concepts, thus reducing Him to an
idol, or critiquing the power to know from the standpoint of the
requirement of incomprehensibility of what is to be thought.
We asked at the outset whether Anselm’s argument was ontologi­
cal or not. We can now provide at least the outline of an answer.
Clearly, the argument uses a meaning of the Being of being, since it
concludes that God is. This simple fact, however, is not enough to
make the argument ontological. For historical reasons first of all: An­
selm’s reasoning develops in an intellectual context that lacks the
very notion of ontology (which does not appear until the seventeenth
century) and the interpretation of Being on the basis of existence
(which by virtue of its excellence is here the opposite of essence).
This historical point also throws into relief a deeper historical evi­
dence: Anselm does not apprehend the idea of God starting from the
question of God’s being. It is clear that, like all his creatures, God
must exist; but what is at stake in the argument ultimately goes be­
yond this meager result. If God exists— as He does—He does so as
summurn bonum; thus, He appears as sovereign only as the primary
and ultimate good, from which all creatures originate and to which
they all return. The demonstration that God exists simply confirms
intelligibly a dialogic interplay, a dialogic situation, in which, from
the outset, even before God’s existence is confirmed, invocation,
prayer, the request, and the giving of thanks had already designated
Him as the absolute, anterior, preexistent interlocutor. The Proslo-
gion, for instance, opens by a self-invitation to pray, as if God already
existed, even before the argument begins: “ Speak now to God: ‘I seek
your countenance, O Lord, your countenance I seek’ ” (Proslogion, I,
97, 9-10). It closes with an eschatological prayer: “until I enter into
the joy of my Lord, who is God, three in one, blessed forever. Amen”
(XXVI, 122, 1-2). Indeed, God must be: Yet this is not an objective
or a glory, only a means, which enables one to pray to Him with the
full realization that He is the transcendental good and, in this sense,
the sovereign good. To be sure, one must know that God is, but only
in order to use intelligibly the horizon that, in advance, He has always
i6 o CHAPTER SEVEN

already opened to the listening mind. The question, even when set­
ting out to demonstrate that the sovereign good exists, does not pri­
marily consist in thinking it in terms of the two alternatives of being
or not being; for being does not define or exhaust God’s essence, nor
can it reach the eminence of the good. Being offers a path, a humbly
indispensable path, to the overeminent good of a God who must be
loved. Although the question of being also concerns God, God is
never circumscribed within the “ question of being,” as a horizon that
would precede or predetermine Him. God is, in order simply to give
Himself and to receive praise.
Then, if the argument is not properly speaking ontological, can
what Anselm reaches by means of it, and what he calls God, belong
to an ontotheology? Any ontotheology defines a locus and a function
for the divine by maximizing the determinations of the being of be­
ing; hence, being par excellence concentrates and accomplishes in
itself the common characteristics of any being. Evidently, an onto­
theology can only establish this predetermined figure of the divine
as being par excellence on the basis of the conditions that are estab­
lished in general for common being, thus justifying and exemplifying
it. But if Anselm’s argument does not define God by means of the
norms of an ontology, it cannot inscribe Him in the architecture of
any ontotheology either. Besides, the Proslogion could not include
God in an ontotheology since in general it does not establish a mean­
ing of the being of being: How could it determine a being par excel­
lence on the basis of being, when it leaves the being of common being
entirely indeterminate? The complete indifference of the Proslogion
toward the “ question of being,” and particularly toward the determi­
nation of the being of being in general, prevents it and forbids it from
pretending to determine God onto(-theo-)logically.
The argument is therefore not ontological because, first of all, it
does not belong to ontotheology. These two findings only confirm
that Anselm’s enterprise is not concerned with the “ question of be­
ing” but instead with that of the sovereignty of the good. Thus, far
from unconsciously inaugurating the metaphysical enterprise of the
demonstration of the proofs of the existence of God— and hence the
'death of God” — Anselm’s argument marks, on the threshold or in
the margins of the emerging metaphysics, a thought of God that is
absolutely free.
Notes
Chapter One
1. L a Naissance de la paix, A T V , 619, 11. 6 -9 . T h is ballet (which we
attribute to Descartes, according to G . Rodis-Lew is, Descartes: Biographie
[Paris, 1995], p. 349, in spite o f R. A. Watson, “ René Descartes D id N ot
Write L a Naissance de la Paix, ” A P A Proceedings 62 [1989], and “ Descartes
n’est pas l’auteur de L a Naissance de la paix, ” Archives de Philosophie 53,
no. 4 [1990]) was performed on 9 December 1649, that is, about thirty years
after the dreams. These two dates bracket the entirety o f Descartes’ strictly
philosophical work.
2. Thus, J . Maritain: “ It is undeniably very annoying to find at the origin
o f modern philosophy a ‘cerebral episode,’ to quote Auguste Comte, which
would call forth from our savants, should they meet it in the life of some
devout personage, the most disturbing neuropathological diagnosis” (The
Dream o f Descartes, Together with Some Other Essays, translated by M . L .
Andison [New York, 1944], pp. 1 5 - 16 ) .
3. AT X, 54, 1. 3ff.
4. M ore than in Freud himself, who remained very circumspect in his
Briefe an Maxime Leroy über den Traurn des Descartes, in Gesammelte Schrif-
ten, vol. 12 (Vienna, 1934) (French translation first published in M . L e R oy,
Descartes, le philosophe au masque [Paris 1929], vol. 1, p. 89ff., and later in
F . Pasche, “ Métaphysique et Inconscient,” Revue française de psychanalyse
[19 8 1]), we find a significant example of this in D. Lew in Bertram, Dreams
and the Uses o f Regression (New York, 1958), or (for a Jungian approach) in
M . L . von Franz, Der Traum des Descartes, Zeitlose Dokumente der Seele (Zu­
rich, 1952).
5. See G . Poulet, “ L e Songe de Descartes,” in Etudes sur le temps humain
(Paris, 19 51), vol. 1, p. 63ff.; J.-M . Wagner, “ Esquisse du cadre divinatoire
des songes de Descartes,” in “ Descartes et le Baroque,” Baroque 6 (1973);
J . Barchilon, “ L es songes de Descartes du 10 novembre 16 19 et leur inter­
prétation,” Papers o f French Seventeenth Century Literature 20 (1984).
IÓ2 NOTES TO PAGES 3 - 6

6. J.-M . Wagner’s question: “ D id Descartes actually dream or did he

pretend that he did?” (“ Esquisse,” p. 89) does not seem pertinent here, for
at least three reasons: (a) the verdict o f authenticity that has been repeatedly
upheld by various critics, cf. A T X , 1. 175 , H. Gouhier and F. Alquié, Des­
cartes: Oeuvres philosophiques, (Paris, 1973), vol. 1, p. 6 1, etc.; (b) the charac­
teristics o f these dreams, whose importance resides less in themselves than in
the conceptual interpretation they undergo (see below); (c) tradition, whose
consistency has decided that, for us, the Olympica should be interpreted
within the framework o f the Cartesian corpus; additionally, their rejection
too entails a relation to Cartesian studies. T h e possibly apocryphal nature
o f the dreams thus does not resolve the problem o f their Cartesian interpre­
tation. See G . Simon, “ Descartes, le rêve et la philosophie au X V IIe siècle,”
Revue des sciences humaines 2 1 1 , no. 3 (1988), who clearly stresses the gradual
disqualification of dreams and their status during the course o f Descartes’
evolution.
7. F . Alquié, in Descartes, vol. 1, p. 52, n. 3, supports M . de Corte, “ L a
dialectique poétique de Descartes,” Archives de philosophie 13 (1937): 12 5
(against G . Milhaud, Descartes savant [Paris, 19 2 1], p. 5 gff.), and H. G ou­
hier, Les premières pensées de Descartes (Paris, 1958): “ not a religious experi­
ence, but a religious explanation o f an experience” (p. 53).
8. See, respectively, Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Ha Ilae, q. 95,
a. 6; and Goclenius, Lexicon philosophicum (Frankfurt, 16 13 ), p. 1063. Sim i­
larly, the forms o f mania according to Plato, Phaedo, 244b-45c, and enthusi­
asm according to Democritus (“ met enthousiasmou khai ierou pneumatos,”
Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, edited by H. Diels and W. Krantz [1966], vol.
2, p. 146, 68 [18 ]); or Cicero: “ For I have often heard that no good poet
can exist without excitement (which they say is left behind in the writings
o f Democritus and Plato) and without something like an inspired frenzy,”
(De oratore II, 46).
9. Timaeus, 7 1a —72c.
10. We cannot help but compare this “ prayer to G od” to the well-known
hymn of Compline: “ T e lucis ante terminum / Rerum creator poscimus /
U t pro tua dementia / Sis praesul et custodia. / Procul recendant somnia /
E t noctium phantasmata; / Hostemque nostrum comprime, / N e pollu-
antur corpora. / Praesta, Pater omnipotens, / Per Jesum Christum
Dominum / Qui tecum in perpetuum / Regnat cum Sancto Spiritu.” T h is
hymn, which was so well known that it was cited by Dante, is an anonymous
work from the sixth century a .d . according to F . J. E. Raby (The Oxford
Book of Medieval Latin Verse [1974], p. 455ff.). A. Schwerd, on the other
hand, attributes it to Gregory the Great (Hymnen und Sequenzen [Munich,
1954], pp. 4 4 -4 5, 94—95). See similar musings in J. Fontialis, De Idea mira-
bili Mathesêos de Ente (Paris, n.d.), passim.
1 1 . Optics V I, A T V I, 1 3 1 , 11. 1 0 - 1 7 , and perhaps also the use of the
NOTES TO PAGE 10
word espèces in the Studium bonae mentis, A T X , 2 0 1 , 1. gff. T h is connection
was outlined (although without reference to the Optics) by G . Sebba in The
Dream o f Descartes, assembled from manuscripts and edited by Richard A.
Watson (Carbondale, 111., 1987), p. 23.
12. Connection suggested by F . Alquié in Descartes, vol. 1, p. 560. For
other Cartesian and non-Cartesian texts on the unity o f the sciences, see
the notes in Jean -Luc M arion, René Descartes: Règles utiles et claires pour la
direction de l ’esprit en la recherche de la vérité (The Hague, 1977), pp. 9 8 -
10 1 (especially A T X , 193, 1. 12 and 2 17 , 11. 2 3-24).
13. Corpus poetarum corresponds here to the abbreviation o f the title of
an anthology by P. Brossaeus (Pierre de L a Brosse), Corpus omnium veterum
poetarum latinorum, 2 vols. (Lyon, 1603; Geneva, 16 11) . Descartes used it
as a source o f quotations from the L a Flèche period onward, as demonstrated
by J.-R . Armogathe and V. Carraud, “ Bulletin cartésien X V ,” Archives
de philosophie 50, no. 1 (1987). Vagueness poses a problem here, since a
second interpretation appears several lines later: “ B y the poets collected in
the anthology, he understood Revelation and Enthusiasm, for the favors of
which he did not despair at all” (184, 11. 3 5 -3 7 ). Does the difference
stem from the fact that the first interpretation occurs during sleep (184, 11.
35—37), while the second occurs when Descartes is awake (184, 1. 34)? No,
for this gap, as we shall see, is not significant. N or does the divergence come
from a distinction between the “ Recueil de Poésie” and “ les Poètes” : noth­
ing supports this, while on the contrary everything occurs “ along the same
lines” (184, 1. 34). We should therefore read this sequence from the per­
spective o f “ Revelation” with reference to the Discourse: “ I revered our the­
ology, and aspired as much as anyone else to reach heaven” (A T V I, 8, 11.
8-9 ), echoing “ for the favors o f which he did not despair at all” and “ to
undertake an examination o f them and succeed, I would need to have some
extraordinary aid from heaven and be more than a mere man” (8, 11. 1 5 -
17). These are similar expressions for two different positions on speculative
theology.
14. L et us recall the quadripartite nature of philosophy in Scipio D u -
pleix, Logique, Physique, Ethique et Métaphysique (Paris, 1600—16 10), or Eus-
tache de Saint Paul, Summa philosophica quadripartita, de rebus dialecticis,
moralibus, physicis et metaphysicis (Paris, 1609). Ever since the Nicomachean
Ethics, wisdom (morals) belongs to the “ material” and sublunary indetermi­
nacy, and as such is opposed to the abstract rigor o f the sciences.
15. E. Gilson, Commentaire du Discours de la Méthode (Paris, 1967),
p. 93ff. See, for instance, Charron: “ Their first precept is kinder toward
wisdom than toward science and art . . . T h e world, however, does just the
opposite, pursuing art, science, learning . . . What greater folly o f the world
than to admire science, learning, or memory more than native wisdom?
However, not everyone commits this folly in the same spirit: Some are sim­
 NOTES TO PAGES 1 1 - 1 2

ply led by custom, thinking that wisdom and science are not very different
. . . those people should be ta u g h t. . . N ot only are the two quite different,
but . . . they are almost never found together, . . . each usually prevents
the other: someone who is very learned is scarcely wise, and one who is wise
is not learned. There are indeed some exceptions, but they are quite rare.”
And, later: “ Science is a great piling up of others’ goods; it is the careful
collection o f what one has seen, heard said, and read in books” (De la sagesse,
III, 14 [Bordeaux, 16 0 1; Paris, 1604; Paris, 1986], pp. 685-87). Or also:
“ Science is in truth a fine ornament . . . but not everyone agrees on how
to rank it . . . I place it well below . . . wisdom” (I, 61; ibid., p. 365). F o r
Montaigne, similarly: “ Learned we may be with another man’s learning: we
can only be wise with wisdom o f our own” (Essays, I, 25), and “ T ru ly,
learning is a most useful accomplishment and a great one. Those who despise
it give ample evidence o f their animal-stupidity. Y et I do not prize its worth
at that extreme value given to it by some, such as the philosopher Erillus
who lodged Supreme Good in it, holding that it was within the power o f
learning to make us wise and contented. That, I do not believe— nor what
others have said: that learning is the M other o f virtue and that all vice is
born o f Ignorance” (Essays, II, 12 , “ A n Apology for Raymond Sebond,”
p. 489). Pascal will maintain this opposition: “Jesus without wealth or any
outward show o f knowledge has his own order o f holiness. . . . With what
pomp and marvelously magnificent array he came in the eyes o f the heart
which perceive wisdom” (Pensées, Br. §793, L . §308; translated by A. J. K rail-
sheimer [New York, 1966], p. 124), with Descartes clearly in mind: “ write
against those who probe science too deeply. Descartes” (Br. §553, L . 360/
1; trans., p. 220).
16. We are following Leibniz here (see M arion, René Descartes: Règles
utiles et claires, p. 96). Sapientia, although rarely encountered, is found in
A T X , 375, 1. 24, “ studium sapientiae,” and 442, 1. 7, “ altior sapientia.”
17. T h is is F . Alquié’s interpretation in Descartes, vol. 1, p. 577. Compare
with the theme o f the lost traveler, Discourse, 16, 1. 3 0 - 1 7 , 11. 4 and 24, 11.
I8 -2 5 . T h is lends a very different conceptual dignity to the project o f a
pilgrimage to Loretto (A T X , 186, 1. 3 4 -18 7 , 1. 2; 2 17 , 1. 25ff.), since it is
a path determined by theology with an eye toward morals. See the comments
by S. Breton in “ ‘Egarés en quelque fo rê t. . . ’ : L e problème du commence­
ment, ” in Libres commentaires (Paris, 1990) chap. 1.
18. Fo r “ rectum veritatis iter,” see A T X , 366, 1. 6; for “ veritatis via”
see 36 0 ,1. 24; 399, 11. 2 2 -2 3 ; 4°i> H- 2 3 -2 5 ; 4 0 5,11. 1 5 - 1 6 ; 425, 11. 1 0 - 1 2 .
Fo r this theme in the Discourse, see M arion, “ A propos d’une sémantique
de la méthode,” Revue internationale de philosophie 103, no. 1 (1973). (See
also G . Crapulli’s comments and my replies in “ Bulletin cartésien IV ,” A r­
chives de philosophie, 38, no. 2 (1975): 280-85.)
19. T h is recollection o f Pythagoras may perhaps be confused with others
NOTES TO PAGES 12- 18
o f famous texts o f the N ew Testament: M atthew 5:37, 2 Corinthians 1 : 1 7 —
19, Jam es 5:12.
20. See F . Alquié, Descartes, vol. 1, p. 586.
2 1. On the “ melon,” see the successive hypotheses proposed by G.
Rodis-Lew is: the encyclopedia o f knowledge (in L ’oeuvre de Descartes [Paris,
19 7 1], pp. 5 iff., 452) and omnipotence (“ ‘L ’alto e il basso’ e i sogni di
Descartes,” Rivista difilosofia 80 (1989): 2oyff.). G . Sebba suggests the possi­
bility o f an error in the text (“ melon” instead o f “ Melzm,” op. cit., pp. 14,
52). B ut the likely explanation for the “ wind” may be found in the actual
yards o f the College o f L a Flèche (now used as a military academy): it really
does blow through two arched doors, facing each other at two opposite sides
o f a square yard, creating a strong stream o f air, which is really felt by those.
who cross the yard to go to the college chapel.
22. In 16 19 the “ little portraits in copperplate” ( 1 8 4 , 11. 7 -8 ) resist self-
interpretation, since they enter into it only as a last-minute anecdote: “ he
sought no further explanation for them after an Italian painter paid him a
visit on the next day” ( 1 8 5 , 11. 6—8). A strictly theoretical interpretation will
appear only in the Optics o f 1637, which uses this example to explicate what
I have elsewhere termed “ defiguration” : “ Y ou can see this in the case of
engravings: consisting simply o f a little ink placed here and there on a piece
o f paper, they represent to us forests, towns, people, and even battles and
storms; and although they make us think o f countless different qualities in
these objects, it is only in respect o f shape that there is any real resemblance”
(A T V I, 1 1 3 , 11. 8 - 1 5 ; see Marion, Su r la théologie blanche de Descartes [Paris,
19 8 1], section 12 , pp. 2 3 1 —63). Here the dream does seem to be premonitory,
in spite of (rather than because o f) its original interpretation.
23. A T X , 1 8 2 , 1. 4; 1 8 5 , 1. 20; 186, line 1. See F . Alquié, Descartes, vol.
1, p. 59. We do not see why a connection between the “ malus Spiritus” of
16 19 and the “ malignus genius” o f 16 4 1 should a priori be incongruous. On
this point J. Maritain, The Dream, p. 15: “ Could it be by any chance cousin
to the Mischievous Genius o f the Méditations?” although an isolated occur­
rence, was quite pertinent.
24. Emphasis added. See the same indifference toward consciousness in
A T V II, 461, 11. 2 1- 2 8 .
25. T h e history o f the cogito in the Cartesian textual corpus has yet to
be written (see below, chapter 5, §2). Only then will it be possible to evaluate
F . Alquié’s analyses o f the metaphysical distance between the cogito o f 1637
and that o f 16 4 1 (see below, chapter 2, §1).
26. See J. Deprun, “ Descartes et le ‘génie’ de Socrate (Note sur un traité
perdu et sur une lettre énigmatique),” in L a passion de la raison: Hommage
à Ferdinand Alquié, edited by N . Grimaldi and J .- L . M arion (Paris, 1983),
p. I 3 5 f f , appearing also in De Descartes au romantisme: Etudes historiques et
dogmatiques (Paris, 1987).
 NOTES TO PAGES 2 0 - 2 2

Chapter T w o
1 . I have tried to answer these questions in Sur l ’ontologie grise de Des­
cartes (Paris, 1975), §30, pp. 18 1- 8 3 . See W. Rôd, “ L ’explication rationelle
entre méthode et métaphysique,” in Le Discours et sa méthode, pp. 8çff.
2. Letter to Mersenne, M arch 1637, A T I, 349, 11. 2 3—28.
3. T o X , M ay 1637, respectively A T I, 3 7 0 , 11. 10, 2 2 - 2 3 , 2 5 -2 8 . Simi­
larly: “ In this Plan [i.e., Discourse] I explain a part of my method, I try to
prove the existence o f God and o f the soul apart from the body” (T o M er­
senne, Leiden, M arch 1636, A T I, 3 3 9 , 11. 25—27). For a more general diag­
nostic, see the essays in Problématique et réception du Discours de la Méthode
et des Essais, edited by H. Méchoulan (Paris, 1988), including my introduc­
tion, pp. 9 - 2 1 .
4. T h is hypothesis does not assume that the Meditations are deployed
without a method, or even without the method. M any clues indicate the
opposite, including the following statement: “ And finally, I was strongly
pressed to undertake this task by several people who knew that I had devel­
oped a method for resolving certain difficulties in the sciences— not a new
method (for nothing is older than the truth), but one which they had seen
me use with some success in other areas; and I therefore thought it m y duty
to make some attempt to apply it to the matter in hand” (Letter to the Sor-
bonne, A T V II, 3 , 11. 22—28). Similarly, see the formula “ rationum mearum
series et nexus” (“ the proper order of m y arguments and the connection
between them,” Preface to the Reader, A T V II, 9, 1. 29; see also 36, 1. 30,
A T X , 383, 11. 2 4 -2 5 , 382, 11. 1 3 —14). See below, chapter 3, §6.
5. L . Liard, Descartes (Paris 1882), pp. 223 and 69, respectively. How­
ever, in all fairness, we should stress that Liard admits that “ a profound
unity, which should be stressed, is hidden beneath this dualism” (p. 274);
in fact, the unity— namely, the metaphysical sanction o f science— is very
superficial. Which is exactly A. Boyce Gibson’s position: “ The appeal be­
yond science, however, leaves the details of science unquestioned. Meta­
physical sanction is one thing; metaphysical intrusion, another” (The Philoso­
phy o f Descartes [London, 1932], p. 8). A. Baillet was probably the first to
propose this line o f interpretation: “ It is claimed nevertheless that what little
he [Descartes] offered is more worthy o f the title logic or entry into Philoso­
phy and all the other sciences than Aristotle’s Organon, because it is more
simple and less Metaphysical and it appears more proper to minds which
are not yet prepared with any knowledge” (La vie de M. Descartes, IV , 2;
[Paris, 16 9 1], vol. 1, p. 283). See, on the other hand, H. Caton, “ T h e Status
o f Metaphysics in the Discourse on M ethod,” M an and World, 5, no. 4
(1972).
6. Respectively, E. Gilson, René Descartes: Discours de la Méthode, texte
et commentaire (Paris, 1925), p. 284; and H. Lefèvre, Le criticisme de Descartes
NOTES TO PAGES 2 2 -2 5 167
(Paris, 1958), pp. 3 0 2 -3 . F . Bouillier clearly illustrates this thesis by stating
that “ Descartes’ entire philosophy is present, in abridged form, in the Dis­
course on the Method” (Histoire de la philosophie cartésienne, 3rd ed. [Paris,
1868], vol. 1, p. 61).
7. Thus Bouillier: “ L et us now examine how in Meditation III, he devel­
ops and strengthens by new demonstrations what he had only alluded to
and sketched in the Discourse on the Method” (op. cit., vol. i, p. 87; see
also p. 67). In the same perspective, G . Rodis-Lew is stresses the continuity
between the Discourse and the Meditations so much that a potential “ weakness
in the argument” in 16 37 is simply explained by “ circumspection” ( L ’oeuvre
de Descartes [Paris, 19 7 1], pp. 220, 228). See also, in spite of its great subtlety,
the recent contribution by J.-M . Beyssade: “ Finally, against all the propo­
nents o f a chronological explanation, we maintain that as early as 16 2 8 -
1629 (the date assigned in the Discourse to these first meditations which are
examined in Part Four), Descartes knew exactly what one could expect, and
what one could not, from metaphysical doubt” (“ Certitude et fondement:
L ’évidence de la raison et la véracité divine dans la métaphysique du Discours
de la Méthode,” in L e Discours et sa méthode, op. cit., p. 363). T h e origin of
this interpretation can probably be traced back to Father Nicolas J. Poisson:
“ There are therefore many things in the Method that I will momentarily
ignore when I know that I will encounter them somewhere else; at which
point, M r. Descartes having spoken about them at greater length, I will also
add the explanations that I deem necessary” (Commentaires ou Remarques sur
la Méthode de René Descartes [Vendôme, 1670], p. 12 1).
8. T o Mersenne, M arch 1637, A T I, 3 5 3 , 1. 14. Although H . Lefèvre (Le
criticisme de Descartes, p. 3o6n.i) criticized F . Alquié’s thesis (La découverte
métaphysique de l ’homme [Paris, 1950, 1987], pp. 14 7-4 8 ), I follow Alquié
who, besides, reaches conclusions similar to those o f O. Hamelin (Le système
de Descartes [Paris, 19 1 1 ] , p. 116 ), E. Gilson (op. cit. pp. 286ff., 290, etc.),
and H. Gouhier (Essais sur Descartes [Paris, 1937], pp. 294ff.)— in spite of
his acknowledgment in L a pensée métaphysique de Descartes (Paris, 1962),
p. 25.
9. Alquié, L a découverte, pp. 145, 146, 150 (see also p. 154 ; or Descartes:
Oeuvres philosophiques [Paris 1963], vol. 1, p. 6o4n.i). In this sense, showing
that the Discourse does not contradict the Meditations and even at times an­
nounces it (which J.-M . Beyssade saw so well) is not enough to prove
the chronological invariance o f Descartes’ metaphysics between 1637 and
16 4 1.
10. Alquié, L a découverte, p. 147.
1 1 . A X , 27 April 1637(F), A T I, 3 7 0 , 11. 2 6 -2 7 ; or Letter to Mersenne,
M arch 1637, A T I, 349, 1. 26.
12. Basing him self on the Dictionnaire de l ’Académie (1694 edition), vol.
2, p. 2 3 1, Gilson suggests that metaphysical here would simply mean abstract.
 NOTES TO PAGES 2 6 - 3 1

Even Alquié contests this reductionist interpretation, arguing that “ the med­
itations mentioned by Descartes [concern] precisely metaphysics as such”
(Descartes: Oeuvres, vol. 1, p. 6oin.3). Actually there is no contradiction
between these two positions, since Descartes, in line with his contemporar­
ies, and following Aristotle, defines metaphysics as abstraction par excel­
lence; “ abducere mentem a sensibus” (“ withdrawing the mind from sensa­
tion” ) is the equivalent o f making the metaphysical meditation possible (see
additional remarks in Su r le prisme métaphysique de Descartes [Paris, 1986],
chap. 1, §2, especially pp. 2 3 -3 3 ). I f Descartes seems “ hesitant” here (Des­
cartes: Oeuvres, vol. 1, p. 602), it is not about the metaphysical character of
this project, but rather about how to present it.
13. Aristotle, Metaphysics, A 3, 982 a 3; see also 982 b 8; B 2, 996 b 3—
4, b 3 1 - 3 3 . T h e occurrences o f K , 1059 a 35, b 13 , 1060 a 4, 6, etc. are
probably apocryphal. P. Aubenque, who uses this formula as the central
theme in his classic thesis, stresses that “ Aristotle him self presents the sci­
ence o f being as being a science that is only ‘ sought’ and probably ‘continu­
ally sought’ ” (Le problème de l ’être chez Aristote [Paris, 1962], p. 267). Let
us note, however, that the text mentioned here (see Z 1, 1028 b 2) does
not precisely concern the science that is being sought but the QV sought
Çïjiovjievov. Another Cartesian formula is “ philosophy which I and other
devotees are engaged in pursuing” (Letter to Voetius, A T V III, 2, 26, 11.
2-3).
14. On the emergence o f the causa sui, see the comments in Jean -Lu c
M arion, Sur la théologie blanche de Descartes (Paris, 1981), §18. On its onto-
theological function, see S u r le prisme métaphysique de Descartes, §§19—20.
15. T h e occurrences o f à cause que (DM, 32, line 1; 38, 11. 19, 27, 29;
39, 1. 2 1) cannot constitute an objection here, since they indicate only a
relatively undetermined relation, rather than efficiency or a foundation. Effet
appears only once in Part Four, meaning en effet (34, line 1). These data
come from the indispensable computerized work o f P. A. Cahné, Index du
Discours de la Méthode de René Descartes (Rome, 1977). Th e absence o f cause
in Part Four must hold our attention, especially since the word appears
twenty one times in the other parts o f the text (cause, 14 times; à cause, 7);
the verb causer appears on three occasions (4 4 , 1. 8; 5 5 , 1. 13 ; 5 6 , 1. 27). Thus
the scientific use of causality is deployed at the same time that metaphysics
refuses causality. T h is paradox in itself would be worthy o f study.
16. Gilson, op. cit., pp. 3 2 2 -2 3 ; see also p. 324.
17. Alquié, L a découverte, p. 147. Same judgment, several years later,
upon editing the Discourse: “ the idea o f God, being superior to me, can only
have been caused by God. See Meditation / / / ” (Descartes: Oeuvres, vol. 1,
p. 605). And again: “ T h e principle o f causality used here [DM IV] consti­
tutes for Descartes a rational evidence” (vol. 1, p. 606). Alquié here does
exactly what he criticized Gilson for— namely, commenting on the Discourse
NOTES TO PAGES 3 1 - 3 5

on the basis o f the Meditations, against all chronological evidence. M y criti­

cism here simply repeats Alquié’s own precepts. J.-M . Beyssade does not
hesitate to interpret dependency (DM, 34, 11. 16 —17) as if it were a causal
relation (La philosophie première de Descartes [Paris, 1979], p. 284).
18. T o Mersenne, M arch 1637, A T I, 3 5 0 , 11. 1 - 5 ; also T o ***, M arch
1637, A T I, 353, 11. 2—8. In Descartes: Oeuvres, vol. 1, p. 58 7^ 2, Alquié
comments: “ Descartes thus unequivocally admits the metaphysical short­
coming o f Part Four o f the Discourse on the Method” ; indeed— yet here this
indisputable shortcoming concerns above all the existence o f God, which is
mentioned first, rather than the whole of Part Four. Finally, see Letter to
Vatier, 22 February 1638, A T I, 560, 11. 7 - 1 1 .
19. T o Mersenne, M arch 1637, A T I, 349, 11. 2 9 - 3 1 and 350, 1. 3; see
Letter to ** *, M arch 1637, A T I, 353, line I- 3 5 4 , 1. 15. L et us note once
again that Descartes him self admits the shortcomings o f the metaphysics of
1637 in the correspondence that immediately follows its writing; this ac­
knowledgment held the attention o f those commentators who were tempted
to attribute Descartes’ speculative greatness to a repetitive immobility.
There is no ground for assuming that Descartes had less critical sense or
inventive subtlety than his modern readers. T h e issue is not whether or not
to accept the existence o f a gap between the metaphysics o f 16 37 and 16 4 1,
since Descartes him self acknowledges it, but rather to understand it, as he
him self did.
20. Replies IV, A T V II, 219 , 1. 1 0 - 2 1 3 , 1. 7. T h e following difficulty
persists between 1637 and 16 4 1: “ Without wrecking the order I could not
prove that the soul is distinct from the body before proving the existence
o f G od” (To Mersenne, 3 1 December 1640, A T III, 272, 11. 3—6).
2 1. See the analysis in Marion, Su r la théologie blanche de Descartes, §16,
pp. 378 -8 3. See the clarification by J.-C . Pariente, “ Problèmes logiques du
cogito” (in Le discours et sa méthode, pp. 229—69).
22. In 1637, doesn’t the “ think” contradict also, as first principle, the
fact that “ the existence o f God is the first and the most eternal o f all possible
truths and the one from which alone all others proceed” (To Mersenne, 6 -
M ay 1630, A T I, 1 5 0 , 11. 2—4)? There is not yet any reconciliation between
the (epistemological and ontic) primacy o f the ego and that o f God (creator
o f essences and existences). Th e radical nature o f “ this great principle, /
think, therefore I am” was pointed out clearly by N . Poisson: “ his great prin­
ciple, which is the first truth he discovered and which is also the foundation
for all the subsequent truths” (Commentaires, pp. 12 7, 12 1).
23. Substance occurs only once in Part Four o f the Discourse (elsewhere
in 43, 1. 26, for celestial bodies); thus substance not only qualifies the “ I
think,” but also ceases to qualify God; the situation is here the exact opposite
o f that o f the Meditations (Marion, Su r la théologie blanche, §7, pp. n o —19,
§16, p. 395). Descartes will hesitate for a long time between these two possi-
17 0 NOTES TO PAGES 3 6 - 4 1

ble variants o f substantiality (see M arion, Su r le prisme métaphysique de Des­

cartes, chap. 3, §13, pp. i6iff.). Contemporary texts confirm the hapax o f
the Discourse, 3 3 , 1, 4: “ I know that the soul is a substance distinct from the
body” (A T I, 349, 11. 3 0 - 3 1) ; “ the soul is a being or a substance which is
not at all corporeal.” (A T I, 3 5 3 , 11. 16 —18). Gilson notes very perceptively:
“ Descartes gives him self the benefit o f substantialist realism while expurgat­
ing the notion o f substance from what it could have held of obscurity and
impermeability to clear thinking” (op. cit., p. 304). On the other hand, one
finds it difficult to understand Alquié’s comment on DM , 33, 1. 4: “ Here
there is no ontological foundation” (La découverte, p. 150); for what other,
better ontological foundation than ousia itself?
24. Aristotle, De anima, III, 5, 430 a 18; Complete Works, edited by Jon a­
than Barnes, (Princeton, 1984), p. 684.
25. T h e parallel in Meditation I I I , A T V II, 35, 11. 3 - 1 5 ( = D M , 3 3 , 11.
12 -2 4 ), does not infer from the existence o f the ego that in order to think
one has to exist, but simply states, with a circumspection lacking in 1637,
the validity o f clear and distinct perception. T h e famous debate that sur­
rounded the formulation “ in order to think one has to exist” almost entirely
privileged theoretical considerations about knowledge and neglected the for­
mulation’s ontological realm and metaphysical status.
26. See also these instances: “ the thoughts I had o f many other things
outside me” (DM, 34, 11. 2 -3 ) ; “ consider . . . each thing of which I found
in m yself some idea” (DM, 3 5 , 11. 9 -10 ). Descartes— in 1637, and in 16 37
only— supports the type o f interpretation offered by P. Natorp (“Die
Entwicklung Descartes’ von den Regeln bis zu den Meditationen,” Archiv
fiir Geschichte der Philosophie 10 [1897]; and Descartes’ Erkenntnistheorie: Eine
Studie zur Vorgeschichte des Kriticismus [1892]) and by E . Cassirer (Descartes’
Kritik der mathematischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis [1899]. See
Jean -Lu c M arion, “ L ’interprétation criticiste de Descartes et Leibniz (Cri­
tique d’une critique),” in Ernst Cassirer de Marbourg à New York, edited by
J. Seidengart (Paris, 1990).
27. Alquié, L a découverte, pp. 152, 155.
28. Th e letter to Mersenne o f 3 1 December 1640 confirms and claims
the appearance o f “ causa efficiens et totalis” (efficient and total cause) in
A T V II, 4 0 , 11. 22—23: “ It is certain that there is nothing in an effect which
is not contained formally or eminently in its e f f i c i e n t and t o t a l cause. I
added these two words on purpose” (A T III, 274, 11. 2 0 -2 4 ; emphasis in
orginal); Descartes refers precisely to the passage in Meditation I I I in ques­
tion. Moreover, this formula appears in a similar statement of the principle
o f causality in order to establish the a posteriori proof, in the Principles, I,
§18: “ Fo r it is very evident by the natural light not only that nothing comes
from nothing but also that what is more perfect cannot be produced by—
that is, cannot have as its efficient and total cause— what is less perfect.”
NOTES TO PAGES 4 1 - 4 4

This principle and this extreme form of causality make it possible to attain
God from his idea, because God Himself, since 1630, is defined as an effi­
cient and total cause; the conceptual weakness of the Discourse is evident in
its inability to incorporate this existing given. On the significance o f this
formula, see M arion, Su r la théologie blanche de Descartes, §1, pp. 286—89. On
the essential, yet obscure, link between substance and causality, see Norman
Kem p Smith, New Studies in the Philosophy o f Descartes (London, 1952),
chap. 12: “ ‘ Substance’ and ‘ Causality’ : T h e Roles Assigned to Them in
Descartes’ Philosophy.”
29. Except that dépendance (DM, 34, 11. 8 -9 , 1 6 - 1 7 ; 35, 11- 25, 26) re­
places effet, and that dépendre (34 ,1. 29; 3 3 ,1. 6; 36, line 1) encompasses être
causé (see note 17 above). On the conflictual relationship between the various
Cartesian concepts o f God, see M arion, Su r le prisme métaphysique de Des­
cartes, §18, pp. 253-57 (perfection), and §19 (contradiction). That work,
which concentrated on the completed metaphysics, did not attempt an analy­
sis o f the Discourse; this study aims to remedy the shortcoming.
30. H. Lefèvre notes that “ the demonstration o f the Discourse is thus
simply stopped at the level o f Meditation I I ” (Le criticisme de Descartes,
p. 312). But, in addition to the essential differences that remain even in this
common section, one must above all determine why the Meditations could
thus be “ split.” It is, and can be, only because o f the irruption o f the principle
o f causality.

Chapter Three
1. Fo r an overall treatment o f this question, see Marion, Su r l ’ontologie
grise de Descartes.
2. T h is was clearly shown by J.-R . Armogathe, “ Sémanthèse d ’ lD EE/
id e a chez Descartes,” in ID E A — I V Colloquio Internazionale del Lessico
Intellectuale Europeo (Rome, 1991). T h is also answers E. M . Curley’s lucid
pronouncement that “ the Regulae is an early work and is inconsistent with
the teaching o f Descartes’ mature works” (Descartes against the Skeptics
[Cambridge, M ass., 1978], p. 103).
3. See also A T X , 4 1 5 , 11. 16 -2 0 , and 4 4 1 , 11. 9 - 1 2 . T h e interpretation
o f the idea as figure goes back to the beginning o f Descartes’ career: “ the
imagination employs figures in order to conceive o f bodies” (Cogitationes
privatae, A T X , 2 17 , 1. 12); The World, A T X I, 176, 11. 9 -2 5 , and A T X I,
178 and 714 ; Conversation with Burman, §31: “ ideam seu potius figuram”
(A T V, 162; ed. J.-M . Beyssade [Paris, 19 8 1], p. 83). See also the commen­
tary in Règles utiles et claires pour la direction de l ’esprit, translated and edited
by M arion, p. 2 3 1.
4. Obviously, this characteristic o f Descartes’ figura / idea as real differs
17 2 NOTES TO PAGES 4 4 - 4 9

from Aristotle’s eidos or skhema, for the figure is imposed on the thing by
the knowing mind as a means o f knowing, rather than emanating from the
thing as its own phenomenon. (See M arion, Su r Vontologie grise de Descartes,
§21.)
5. See A T X , 4 1 4 , 11. 1 6 - 1 7 ; 4 1 5 , 11. 2 0 - 2 1 , 27ff. See also “ the ‘ common
sense’ where these ideas are received,” Discourse, A T V I, 55, 11. 20—21.
6. For instance, A T V II, 34, 1. 23; 35, line 1; 40, 1. 7; 4 1, 1. 20; 78, 1.
27, etc. See also Principles o f Philosophy, I, §17, A T V III, 1, 1 1 , 7, etc.
7. Examples: “ ideas sive notiones,” A T V II, 440, 1. 14; “ our ideas or
notions,” Discourse, A T VI, 38, 1. 2 1, and 40, 11. 8 -9 ; “ there were certain
thoughts within me which . . . came solely from the power o f thinking within
me; so I applied the term ‘innate’ to the ideas or notions which are the forms
o f these thoughts” (Comments on a Certain Broadsheet, A T V III, 2, 3 5 8 , 11. 1 —
5). See also A. Hart, “ Descartes’ Notions,” Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research 3 1, no. 1 (1970).
8. “ Omnis rei idea sive conceptus,” A T V II, 166, 1. 14.
9. “ [I]deas or sensations,” A T V I, 85, 1. 18; 2 10 , 1. 16, etc.
10. Respectively, the marginal addition to the Latin translation of the
Discourse (1644), A T V I, 559; T o Mersenne, 16 June 16 4 1, A T III, 383, 11.
2 - 3 ; T o Mersenne, Ju ly 16 4 1, A T III, 392, 1. 2; Replies, A T V II, 18 1, 11.
7 - 8 , and 160, 11. 7 - 8 .
1 1 . Cf. Marion, Su r Vontologie grise de Descartes, §22, pp. i32 ff.; and Des­
cartes, Regies utiles et claires pour la direction de Vesprit, translated and edited
by Marion, pp. 239^ See also Hamelin, Le systeme de Descartes, pp. 8 5 !;
and B. O’Neil, “ Cartesian Simple Natures,” Jou rn al o f the History ofPhiloso­
phy 10, no. 2 (1972).
12. Should we add to these lists the recapitulation, or rather the brutal
transformation, o f the Aristotelian categories outlined in Rule VI, (A T X ,
38 1, 11. 2 2 ff.: C S M I, 2 1 - 2 2 ) ? T h e answer is yes, insofar as the procedure
here conforms only to epistemological requirements; but a negative answer
is suggested insofar as the categories in question are for Descartes contami­
nated by the source from which they are derived, and will shortly disappear
completely from the Cartesian system, taking on a wholly new significance.
13. Th e letter to Mersenne o f 15 April 1630 introduces both the term
metaphysics (and its associated philosophical issues) and the doctrine of the
creation o f the (mathematical) truths regarded as “ eternal” (A T I, 144, 11.
4 and 15 ; and 145, 11. 7 ff).
14. See, respectively, letter to Mersenne o f 13 November 1639 (A T II,
622, 11. 13 - 1 6 ) , and Principles o f Philosophy (dedicatory letter: A T V IIIA ,
4 , 11. 3—6: C S M I, 192). See also the same distinction, in an extremely trun­
cated form, in the letter to Elizabeth o f 28 Ju ne 1643: “ Metaphysical
thoughts, which exercise the pure intellect, help to familiarize us with the
notion o f the soul; and the study o f mathematics, which exercises mainly
NOTES TO PAGES 4 9 —5 5 173

the imagination in the consideration o f shapes and movements, accustoms

us to form very distinct notions o f body” (A T III, 6 9 2 , 11. 10 —16). For this
distinction, and other references, see Marion, Su r le prisme métaphysique de
Descartes, pp. 14 —33.
15. Alquié, L a découverte métaphysique de l ’homme chez Descartes, p. 78.
F o r an analysis o f the strengths and weaknesses o f Alquié’s interpretation
o f the Discourse, see M arion, “Le statut métaphysique de Discours de la
méthode,” in Le Discours et sa méthode, edited by Grimaldi and Marion. '
16. See also Rule X I I and Rule X I I I (A T X , 422, 11. 2 -6 ; 432, 11. 2 4 -
27: C S M I, 46 , 53).
17. Cf. letter o f end M ay 1637: “ to show that this method can be applied
to everything, I have included some brief remarks on metaphysics, physics
and medicine in the opening discourse” (A T I, 3 7 0 , 11. 2 5 -2 7 : C S M K , 58).
18. Cf. letter to Mersenne o f 27 M ay 1638 (A T II, 138, 11. 1 - 1 5 ) .
19. O f course, the role of the simple natures in the First Meditation re­
mains invisible unless we read it in the light o f Descartes’ earlier theory of
sense perception (Rule X I I ; Optics, §1 and §4; and The World, chap. 1. In
his Demons, Dreamers and Madmen, chap. 6, Frankfurt denies that the simple
natures are involved here, and his French translator S. Luquet (Démons,
reveurs et fous [Paris, 1989]) goes further astray by construing this position
in an even more radical way (p. 78n.) (Frankfurt is, however, correct in
pointing out a misunderstanding in Gueroult’s interpretation o f A T V II,
19, 11. 3 iff. in Descartes selon l ’ordre des raisons, vol. 1, pp. 34—35, and vol.
2, p. 10 1). See further M arion, Su r la théologie blanche de Descartes, §14,
pp. 32of.) T h e only textual evidence for Frankfurt’s claim is that the First
Meditation employs the neuter adjective Simplicia (A T V II, 20, 1. 1 1 ; C S M
II, 14); or the noun res (1. 25). But this proves nothing, since in the Regulae
too we find the term res as well as natura (see references in Marion, Sur
Vontologie grise, p. 132). M oreover, the Fifth Meditation reintroduces the
same concepts as the First, under the label “ true and immutable natures”
(“ verae et immutabiles natura,” A T V II, 6 4 , 1. 1 1 : C S M II, 45). A full discus­
sion o f the issue would require a detailed account o f the concept o f “ la
figuration codée,” cf. Marion, Su r le prisme. Fo r a contrasting view, cf. L a -
porte, Le rationalisme de Descartes (Paris, 19 45,198 8 ), pp. 13 - 4 4 ; and Curley,
Descartes against the Sceptics.
20. T h e term encoded is used to underline the correspondence without
resemblance that obtains between particular sensibilia and geometrical fig­
ures— a correspondence that unites, yet at the same time separates, the two
sets o f related items. For this notion, see further M arion, S u r la théologie
blanche, chap. 12 , pp. 2 3 iff.
2 1. T h e term incommensurable signifies irreducibility to a common stan­
dard o f measurement (immensus Lat., negative o f mensus, from mensus, from
metior, to measure); the goal o f mathesis universalis in the Regulae had been
174 NOTES TO PAGES 5 6 - 5 8

just such a reduction to a common order and measure (A T X , 378). See

further M arion, Sur le prisme, chap. 17 , pp. i42ff.
22. “ [NJatura corporea quae est purae Matheseos objectum” (Fifth Medi­
tation, A T V II, 7 1 , 1. 8: C S M II, 49). C S M translates pur a mathesis as “ pure
mathematics,” a rendering that is debatable and, in my view, too restrictive:
see the Sixth Meditation (A T V II, 7 1 , 1. 15; 74, 1. 2; and 80, 1. 10: C S M II,
50, 5 1, 55). There is an unavoidable connection here with the mathesis univer­
salis o f Rule IV , but it does not follow that the two notions are identical. T h e
mathesis o f the 16 41 meditations (which is not characterized as “ universal” ) is
explicitly restricted to the material (and common) simple natures, and in­
volves the use o f imagination, whereas the mathesis o f the 1627 Regulae,
explicitly described as universalis, extended in principle (if not de facto) to
all the simple natures, including the intellectual ones. T h e restricted scope
of this science or mathesis in the Meditations nevertheless goes hand in hand
with an enlarging o f the effective use made o f the simple natures. For
mathesis universalis in the Regulae, see M cRae, “ Descartes: T h e Project o f
a Universal Science” ; Crapulli, Mathesis universalis, genesi di una idea nel
X V I secolo; M arion, Sur l ’ontologie grise, § 11; and M arion (éd.), Règles utiles,
pp. 144—64, 30 2 -9 ; Perini, IIproblem a della fondazione nelle Regulae di Des­
cartes; Lachterman, “ Objectum Purae Matheseos: Mathematical Construc­
tion and Passage from Essence to Existence,” in Essays on Descartes’ M edita­
tions, edited by A. O. Rorty (Berkeley, Calif., 1986), pp. 4 35-58 .
23. As for the material simple natures, they are necessarily limited to
existence, and hence to the real common simple natures, when the Sixth
Meditation attempts the move from possible existence (posse existere) to ac­
tual existence (res corporeae existunt) (A T V II, 7 1, 1. 15 ; 80, A 4: C S M II,
50, 55). Even the Fourth Meditation can be reduced to a variation on the
simple natures in the discussion o f cognitio, dubitatio, and ignorantia. Fo r
cognitio (knowledge) and ignorantia (ignorance), see A T V II, 56, 1. 22; 57,
1. 17 ; 5 8 , 1. 9; 5 9 , 11. i7 ff. For dubitatio (doubt), see A T V II, 59, 1. 26. T h e
intellectual simple nature voluntatis actio (act o f will) or volitio (volition),
which appeared in the Regulae (A T X , 4 1 9 , 11. 14 —15), returns in that Fourth
Meditation at A T V II, 56, 11. 28ff.; 57, 1. 12; 58, 1. 2 1; 59, 1. 2; 60, 1. 5.
24. Fo r other formulations, see A T V II, 27, 11. 2 0 -2 3 (a list o f things I
am not); 34, 11. 1 8 - 2 1 (where the French translation adds “ that loves, that
hates [qui aime et qui hait]” ); Principles o f Philosophy, Part I, arts. 9, 65,
(C S M II, 18, 24; C S M I, 195, 216). These latter formulations allow us to
get a clearer idea o f what the passion of love consists of; cf. Marion “ L ’unique
Ego et l’altération de l’autre” in Archivio di filosofia 54, nos. 1 —3 (1988):
607-24.
25. T h e allusion is o f course to the title o f Gueroult’s Descartes selon
l ’ordre des raisons. Gueroult stresses a contrast that is fundamental (though
seldom formulated explicitly in Descartes’ writings) between the order o f
NOTES TO PAGES 5 8 - 6 4 175
the subject matter (“ l’ordre des matières” ) and the “ order of reasons” (“ celui
des raisions” ) (letter to Mersenne, 24 December 1640: A T III, 266). Without
contesting Gueroult’s basic thesis, I would claim that even the “ order of
reasons” is worked out in terms o f certain fixed structures.
26. A T V II, 25, 11. n - 1 3 , and 27, 11. 9 - 1 0 (C S M II, 17 - 18 ) . F o r an
interpretation o f these phrases, which are unique in Descartes’ work, see my
analysis, M arion, Sur la théologie blanche, §16, and Su r le prisme, §§11—12.
27. Principles, Part I, art. 49. Cf. Book I, art. 10, where the ego cogito
ergo sum is explicitly classified among the very simple natures (notions simpli-
cissimae), following the order of knowledge (“ to anyone who philosophises
in an orderly way [cuilibet ordine philosophandi]” ); the passage goes on to
invoke intellectual simple natures (thought, certainty) and common simple
natures both real (existence) and logical (the impossibility o f something’s
thinking without existing). T h e famous, but sterile, debate over the status
o f the presupposition pour penser il fau t être is surely due to a misunder­
standing: What is at stake here is not the formal or syllogistic premises for
the cogito, but the simple natures that the cogito utilizes and, in this sense,
presupposes. Cf. the evidence cited in Su r la théologie blanche, §16, pp. 372ff.
28. Note in particular that the famous highest level o f doubt in the First
Meditation (the deceiving God, A T V II, 2 1 , 11. 1 —16: C S M II, 14) refers only
to material simple natures (extension, shape, size, place, and arithmetical and
geometrical notions); there is never any mention o f intellectual simple na­
tures (knowledge, thought, etc.).
29. Th e term substance (substantia) appears only in the second part of
the Third Meditation (A T V II, 43, 1. 20: C S M II, 30); throughout the first
two Meditations it has remained unknown. Leaving aside the Discourse (A T
V I, 33, 1. 4; 4 3 , 1. 26: C S M I, 127, 133), it is really only in the Principles o f
Philosophy that substantia is finally reintegrated among the simplicies notiones,
duration, number, order, etc. (Part I, arts. 48, 49: C S M I, 208-9). On this
crucial point see Becco, “ Première apparition du terme de substance dans
la Meditation III de Descartes,” Annales de VInstitut de Philosophie, Bruxelles
(1976); and “ Remarques sur le ‘Traité de la substance’ de Descartes,” in
Recherches sur le X V IIèm e siècle, vol. 2 (Paris, 1978). See also Marion, Sur
la théologie blanche, §16, pp. 395ff. and Su r le prisme, §10, pp. 1 3 1 ff. and
§13, pp. i 6 i f f
30. See, respectively A T V II, 3 7 3 , 11. 5 -6 : C S M II, 257; Principles, Part
I art. 54: C S M I, 211; and letter to Arnauld o f 4 Jun e 1648, A T V , 193,
I.17 C S M K , 355. There are similar expressions elsewhere: “ souveraine intel­
ligence” (letter to Chanut, 1 February 1647, A T IV , 608: C S M K , 309),
“ idea intellectionis divinae” (A T V II, 188, 1. 19: C S M II, 132), “ nature
intelligente . . . qui est D ieu” (letter to Mersenne, 15 November 1638, A T
II, 435: CSM K, 129).
3 1. Hence, the importance o f refusing to attribute any kind o f extension
iy 6 NOTES TO PAGES 6 4 - 6 8

to God; contrast H enry M ore in his letter to Descartes of n December

1648: “Deus suo modo extenditur” (A T V , 238-39). Such an attribution,
by confusing material and intellectual simple natures, would, for Descartes,
abolish the distinction between metaphysics and physics.
32. A T X , 378, lines 1, 6: C S M I, 19. C S M omits the “ some” (aliquis)
that Crapulli restored to the text in his critical edition o f the Regulae, p. 15.
See also my commentary in Su r l ’ontologie grise, §12, pp. 72ff., and the refer­
ences to other formulations in my own edition, Marion, Règles utiles, pp.
159-60.
33. F o r other instances, see A T V II, 55 , 11. 2 o ff; 5 6 , 1. 4; 5 7 , 1. 1 1 ; n o ,
11. 2 6 -2 7 ;1 19 1- 13 ; 1 8 8 , 1. 23; 2 3 1 , 11. 26ff.; 1 4 3 , 1. 20 (C S M I, 38 -4 0 , 79,
85, 152 , 162, 299). Fo r further discussion o f these passages see Marion,
“ T h e Essential Incoherence o f Descartes’ Definition of D ivinity,” in Essays
on Descartes’ Meditations, edited by Rorty, pp. 30 9 ^
34. I should like to record m y thanks to John Cottingham for his helpful
comments and suggestions for improvement, and for his limpid translation
o f the original French version o f §§2-6 o f this chapter.

Chapter Four

1. Concerning these questions, one may consult the issue of Revue inter­
nationale de philosophie 103 (1973), “ Etudes philosophiques et informa­
tiques,” including m y contribution, “ A propos de la sémantique de la méth­
ode” (pp. 27—48), on the Discourse.
2. Fo r an overview o f the indexing work on the Cartesian corpus, see
“ Bulletin cartésien III,” in Archives de philosophie (1974), in particular the
contribution b y J.-R . Armogathe, pp. 453ff. See also Computers and Humani­
ties 5 (19 7 1): 3 15 . Unfortunately, as o f 1990 there are still very few sources
available for this kind o f work: A. Robinet, “ Cogito 75, in Méditations méta­
physiques: Texte définitif avec indexation automatisée. . . (Paris, 1975); J.-R .
Armogathe and J .- L . M arion, Index des Regulae ad directionem ingenii de René
Descartes (Rome, 1976); and P.-A . Cahné, Index du Discours de la Méthode
de René Descartes. Compared to the situation for the works of Montaigne,
Pascal, Spinoza, Malebranche, Bacon, Bruno, or Kant, the fate o f the in­
dexing efforts for the works o f Descartes is disappointing. T h e hopes of the
1970s have in this case not materialized. Nevertheless, add now Concordance
to Descartes’ Meditationes de prima Philosophia, prepared by K . M urafumi,
M . Sasaki, T . Nishimura (Hildesheim, 1996); and J.- L . M arion, J.-P . M as-
sonié, P. Monat, L . Ucciani, Index des Meditationes de prima Philosophia de
R. Descartes (Besançon, 1996).
3. See the attempt by A. Robinet, and the philogrammes extracted from
the variants o f the text o f Malebranche, from edition to edition, particularly
NOTES TO PAGES 6 8 - 6 9 177
in “ Malebranche et Leibniz à l’ordinateur: D e P IM yi à M O N A D O 72,”
Revue internationale de philosophie 103 (1973): 49—56; “ Hypothèse et con­
firmation en histoire de la philosophie,” Revue internationale de philosophie
(19 7 1): 119 -4 6 ; “ Premiers pas dans l’application de l’informatique à l’étude
des textes philosophiques,” in 1° Colloquio Internazionale del Lessico Intellet-
uale Europeo, edited by M arta Fattori and M. Bianchi (Rome, 1976); and
“ Ordo / ordre dans l’oeuvre de Malebranche,” in 11° Colloquio Internazionale
del Lessico Intelletuale Europeo (Rome, 1979); and finally “ Res et nihil dans
‘Ethica 77’,” in I I P Colloquio Internazionale del Lessico Intelletuale Europeo
(Rome, 1982).
4. I am following the Saussurian terminology. T h e issue here is to deter­
mine the “ linguistic value” o f capable and then o f capax; i f the linguistic
values do not overlap, one may conclude that the meanings are not equiva­
lent. B ut “ linguistic value” itself can only be detected after the completion
o f a syntactic study: “ In all these cases what we find, instead o f ideas given
in advance, are values emanating from a linguistic system. I f we say that
these values correspond to certain concepts, it must be understood that the
concepts in question are purely differential. T h at is to say they are concepts
defined not positively, in terms o f their content, but negatively by contrast
with other items in the same system” (Course in General Linguistics, trans­
lated by Wade Baskin [London, 1974], part 2, chap. 4, p. 115 ) . This study
utilizes the same methodology as the “ translation according to the Cartesian
lexicon” o f the Regulae, published as Règles utiles et claires pour la direction
de l ’esprit ou la recherche de la vérité. T h is methodological option was dis­
cussed and for the most part approved by G . Sebba in “ Retroversion and
the History o f Ideas: Jean -L u c M arion’s Translation o f the Regulae o f D es­
cartes,” Studia Cartesiana 1 (1979). See the approval, in spite o f a few reser­
vations, given the present study by P. Costabel, “ Bulletin cartésien V I,”
Archives de philosophie 40, no. 3 (1977): 29—3 1.
5. Gargantua, I, 20, in Oeuvres complètes, edited by G . Demerson (Paris,
1973), p. 94; translated by Donald M . Fram e (Berkeley, 19 91), p. 47— which
transcribes Horace exactly: “ Bring us bigger [capaciores] cups, m y boy” (Ep-
odes, IX , 33; translated by David M ulroy, Horace’s Odes and Epodes [Ann
Arbor, 1994]). L iv y also contributes to this oenological semantics by speak­
ing o f an individual “ vini capacissimus” (IX , 16, 13), who in other words
“ holds his wine well.”
6. Brantôme, Des dames, I, Discours V, Marguerite, reine de France et
de Navarre, in Oeuvres complètes, edited by M érim ée (Paris, 1890), vol. 10,
p. 188.
7. Calvin, Institution chrétienne, III, p. 130 (15 4 1; reprint, Paris, 19 11 ) ,
and III, 7, 14 (1560 edition, in Corpus reformatorum, vol. 22, col. 188). See
also the texts cited by E. Huguet, Dictionnaire de la langue française du X V Ie
siècle (Paris, 1932).
 NOTES TO PAGES 6 9 - 7 1

8. O. Bloch and W. von Wartburg, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue

française, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1950); and M . Rat, in Défense de la langue française
37 (1969): 14. See also J . Dubois and R . Lagarre, Dictionnaire de la langue
française classique, 2nd ed. (Paris, i960).
9. A more detailed study o f the chronological evolution of the semantics
o f capable will be possible only when the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
volumes of the Trésor de la langue française are examined.
10. Lucan, Pharsalia, translated by S. H. Braund (Oxford, 1992). Saint
Ireneus, Adversus haereses, I, 7, 5; IV , 20, 5; 32, 2; etc. Other examples o f
a receptive capax are found in A. Blaise, Le vocabulaire latin des principaux
thèmes liturgiques (Turnhout, 1966), §462, pp. 252, 256, 257.
1 1 . Juret, Syntaxe de la langue latine (Paris, 1926), §2, chap. 1.
12. Ernout and Thom as, Syntaxe latine (Paris, 1939), pp. 57-5 8 .
13. T h e Thesaurus linguae latinae (Leipzig, 1907), vol. 3, col. 304, how­
ever, cites four exceptions to the passive syntax o f capax: (a) Statius, Silvae,
HT, 1, 85, “ capax operire.” (b) Rufinus, translation o f Origen, In Genesim,
IV , 1, in Patrologia latina (hereafter cited as P L ), 12, 184a): “ N on enim
capiebat Loth meridianae lucis magnitudinem. Abraham vero capax fuit ple­
num fulgorem lucis exciperé’’’ (For L o t was not capable o f receiving the mag­
nitude o f the noonday light [Non enim capiebat . . . magnitudinem]. Abra­
ham, however, was able to take up the full splendor o f the light [capax fuit
plenum fulgorem lucis excipere]). In these two cases, the infinitives exhibit
an unusual construction in order to confirm semantically the receptivity o f
capax (to open up, to receive), (c) Commodus, “ Numine de tanto [Deus] se
fecit videri capacem” (By his divine will alone, God made him self capable
o f being seen; Carmen apologeticum, 118 ). (d) Tertullian, “ Caro capax restitui,
divinitas idonea restituendi” (the flesh may be quite capable o f being restored
[capax restitui], and the Deity may be perfectly able to effect the restoration)
(De resurrectione, X IV ; Ante-Nicene Christian Library, vol. 15, edited by
Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson [Edinburgh, 1880], p. 237). The
last two authors both use a passive infinitive, which, far from stressing a
human power to see God, or to resuscitate, underlines the fact that only
God gives him self to be seen and grants salvation: these verbs admit agents
only outside the realm of capax. In all these cases, therefore, the syntax
preserves in the end the originally “ passive” semantics o f capax. T h e legal
meaning o f capax does not appear to constitute an exception either; capacity
here designates the responsibility by which the dole (capax doli, culpae) or
inheritance (capax dotis), etc., can affect or be granted to a given individual
who is a subject from the perspective o f the law. Before allowing the writing
of deeds, capacity first constitutes the person as the recipient for future
actions. See Vocabularium ju rispru dence romanae (1903), vol. 1 1 , p. 615.
14. “ Henrico Des-M ares, Ju ris Vtriusque Licenciato,” according to G .
NOTES TO PAGES 7 8 - 8 4 179

Crapulli, in G . Crapulli and E. Giancotti Boscherini, Ricerche lessicali su

opere di Descartes e Spinoza (Rome, 1969), p. nn.4, against the Habert de
Montmort hypothesis proposed in A T X , 489.
15. Meditation IV , A T V II, 58, 1. 20; PW II, 40.
16. Regulae ad directionem ingenii, V, A T X , 380, line 1: “ Haec régula
non minus servanda est rerum cognitionem aggressuro quam Thesei filum
labyrinthum ingressuro” (Anyone who sets out in quest o f knowledge of
things must follow this Rule as closely as he would the thread of Theseus
if he were to enter the Labyrinth), granted that we read the text literally
(which may be justified; see Règles utiles et claires, p. 166).
17. See below, §4, for a reference to the uses o f capax + -endi by Des­
cartes himself.
18. M oreover, we should also note the following: (a) T h e three transla­
tions use a decreasing number o f formulas: Ü ! (A, B , C, E , E ', F), D 2 (A,
A ', D , F), D 3 (E, F); hence, the translator o f the third formula cannot be
confused with any o f the other translators, (b) T h e term capax gradually
disappears between D i and D 2 and then between D 2 and D 3 (7/15, 5/13,
0/5), while the occurrences o f posse (or occurrences that may be reduced
to posse) follow an opposite progression (4/15, 8 /13, 2/3); the intermediary
formulations (A', B , C, D , E ') disappear. These may be indications that The
Search fo r Truth may be a later text, contemporary at least with the Passions
o f the Soul, (c) Given that D constitutes the most balanced compromise
between the semantics o f capable and the syntax of capax, Descartes’ original
Latin texts should present the Latin capax only under the form of D , where
the semantics o f capable quietly subverts it.
19. See A T X , 396, 1. 12 ; 400, 1. 8, etc. See Règles utiles et claires, pp.
13 2 and 18 3—84.
20. T h is is a clear case o f metaphorization (“ transferre ad meum sensum,”
A T X , 369, 1. 9), announced by Rule I I I about the intuitus, but also valid
for other concepts. See Règles utiles et claires, pp. 12 6 -2 7 .
2 1. Letter to F. de Beaune, 20 February 1639, A T II, 4 1 8 , 11. 24-26 . Other
occurrences in the Regulae echo this one, as in A T X , 4 5 3 , 1. 15: “ subjectum
. . . infinitarum dimensionum capax” (a su b ject. . . capable o f infinite dimen­
sions [infinitarum dimensionum capax]). However, capacitas areae (422, 1.
22) does refer to capacity (i.e., content); see Meteorology, V: “ de toutes les
figures, c’est la ronde qui est la plus capable, c’est-à-dire celle qui a le moins
de superficie à raison de la grandeur du corps qu’elle contient” (of all these
figures, it is the round one that is the most capable, that is to say, the one
that has the least surface on account o f the size o f the body that it contains;
A T V I, 2 8 2 , 11. 6—8, translated in the Specimina as capacissimam and contenti,
respectively, A T V I, 677). Was the ancient meaning maintained to express
the passivity o f extension, as opposed to the activity of thought?
18o NOTES TO PAGES 8 4 - 8 6

22. Which confirms, by simply inverting the development, the addition

by de Courcelles in D ! (4) and D i (5) o f a gerundive to cap ax to translate
the simple capable o f Descartes.
23. See summe potens, A T V II, 2 1 , 1. 2, and Principia, I, 14, etc.; see also
A T V II, 36, 1. 9; 45, 1. 13 ; 109, 1. 4; n o , 1. 27; h i , 11. 4, 19, 13 ; 2 3 6 , 11. 9
and 1 1 ; 237, i, 11. 8 -9 ; 2 4 1, 1. 3, etc.
24. T h e following analysis— this entire study, in fact— is meant as a
marginal note to the magisterial and fundamental work o f H. de Lubac in
Le mystère du surnaturel (Paris, 1965) and in Augustinisme et théologie moderne
(Paris, 1965).
25. See, in addition to the usual abundant literature on this topic, my
outline, “ Distance et béatitude: Sur le mot de capacitas chez Saint A u­
gustin,” Résurrection 29 (1969): 58-80 (in spite o f the partly justified criti­
cism o f G . M adec, “ Bulletin augustinien pour 1969,” Etudes augustiniennes
16 [1970]: 317 ).
26. Respectively, De civitate dei, X X II, 1, 1, Bibliothèque augustinienne
(hereafter cited as B A ), 37, p. 526; translated by Henry Bettenson (London,
1984), p. 1022 (modified). De trinitate, X III, 8, n , B A , 16, p. 294; trans.
(Grand Rapids, 1980), p. 173 (modified). See also Confessiones, X , 9, 16:
“ immensa ista capacitas memoriae meae” (this immense capacity of m y
memory); X III, 22, 32: “ doces eum jam capacem videre Trinitatem unitatis
vel unitatem Trinitatis” (now that he has the capacity for it, you teach him
to see the Trinity o f the U nity and the U nity o f the Trinity; B A , 14, pp.
168, 484; quoted from Confessions, translated by Rex Warner [N ew York,
1963], pp. 220, 336); De trinitate, X III, 6, 9: “ qui de bonis quorum capax
est humana natura . . . , desiderat” (who longs to rejoice in those good things
o f which human nature is capable); X II, 15 , 24: “ [m ens]. .. videat in quadam
luce sui generis incorporea . . . , cujus lucis capax eique congruens est crea-
tus” ([the mind] sees by a sort o f incorporeal light of a unique sort . . . ,
o f which light it is created so as to be capable o f receiving it and adapted
to it) (BA, 16, pp. 288 and 256ff. [trans., pp. 17 1 , 164 (modified)]). De
civitate dei, X I, 2: “ donee de die in diem renovata atque sanata fiat tantae
felicitatis capax” (it must first be renewed and healed day after day so as
to become capable o f such felicity); X II, 3: “ natura, cui mens inest capax
intelligibilis lucis” (that nature in which there is a mind capable o f the intel­
lectual light); X X II, 1: “ oculus . . . capax luminis” (the eye . . . capable o f
receiving light; BA , 35, pp. 36, 158; 37, p. 528; quoted here from The City
o f God, translated by Bettenson, pp. 430, 474, 1023 [modified]).
27. Respectively, De trinitate, X IV , 4, 6; 8, n ; 12, 15 (BA, 16, pp. 358,
374, 386); trans., pp. 186, 189, 19 1 (modified). See also Tractatus in Johannis
Evangelicum, X X X I X , 8: “ Quando capit anima ex Deo unde sit bona, partici­
pando fit bona, quomodo tuus oculus participando videt. Nam lumine sub-
stracto non videt, cujus particeps factus videt” (When the soul receives from
NOTES TO PAGE 8 7 l8 l

God the elements o f its goodness it becomes good by participation, just as

by participation thine eye seeth. F o r it sees not when the light is withdrawn,
while so long as it shares in the light it sees; Corpus christianorum, series
latina, 36, p. 349; quoted here from Select Library . . . , vol. 7 [Grand
Rapids, M ich., 1983], p. 224). We notice here the possible equivalence be­
tween capax and imago on the one hand and between participatio and simili-
tudo on the other. (See the note by Father Agaesse, ad loc., BA , 16, pp.
630—32): capacity constitutes man as marked with a gift, by means o f which
he reaches toward the giver of the gift, and whose image is manifest on his
own— human— face. Capacity and image, because they constitute the hu­
man given, remain inadmissible.
28. Respectively, Sermo 3 6 1 (P L , 39, 1599); translated by Edmund Hill,
O.P. (Hyde Park, N .Y ., 1995), vol. 10, p. 225; Tractatus in Epistulam Jfo-
hannis ad Parthos, IV , 6; trans. (Grand Rapids, M ich., 1983), vol. 7, p. 485:
“ Quod autem desideras, nondum vides: sed desiderando capax efficeris, ut
cum venerit quod videas, implearis” (That which you seek, you do not yet
see: but by seeking you shall be made capable, so that when the time comes
that you may see, you shall be satisfied; SC , 75, p. 230; trans., vol. 7, p.
484 [modified]); Enarratio in Psalmum C II, 10. See also Tractatus injohannis
Evangelicum, X X X IV , 7: “ Extendat anima cupiditatem suam et sinu capaci-
ore quaerat comprehendere quod oculus non vidit, nec auris audivit, nec in
cor hominis adscendit” (Let the soul extend her desire, and with more capa­
cious bosom seek to comprehend that which ‘eye hath not seen, nor ear
heard, nor hath entered into the heart of m an’; CS, p. 3 14 ; op. cit., p. 202);
Confessiones, X III, 1 , 1 : “ animam meam, quam praeparas [Deus] ad capien-
dum T e ex desiderio” (my soul which you are making ready to receive you
by the longing which you yourself inspire; BA , 14, p. 424; op. cit., p. 316);
etc. Thomas Aquinas develops this theme brilliantly in Summa theologiae,
1 a, q. 12, 1, resp. T h is semantic o f capax {Dei), although thematized by
Augustine, nonetheless belongs to the common stock o f theology. Thus
Saint Bonaventure, Breviloquium, Prologue 3; Commentaire des Sentences, 1,
d. 3, 1, 1, ad im ; d. 1, 2, 3, concl.; II, d. 18, 1, 1; IV , d. 49, 1, 2: “ Quia
enim facta est [sc. anima humana] ad participandam beatitudinem . . . ,
facta est capax D ei” (Since [the human soul] is made for participating in
blessedness . . . , it is made capable o f receiving God [capax Dei]; Opera
omnia, ed. Quaracchi, vol. 4, p. 1003); d. 49, 1, 3; etc. Also Saint Bernard,
Sermo de conversione ad clericos, V III, 15: “ egregia natura, capax aeternae
beatitudinis et gloria magni D ei” (an excellent nature, capable of receiving
eternal blessedness and the glory o f the great God [capax aeternae beatitu­
dinis et gloria magni Dei]); De consideratione, V, 24: “ summa beatitudo, creans
mentem ad se participandum, dilatans ad capiendum” (supreme blessedness,
creating minds to share in himself, enlarging their capacity; P L , 182, 843a,
802b); and especially the remarkable Sermo 80 in Cantica, II, 3: “ E o anima
 NOTES TO PAGES 8 7 - 8 9

magna est, quo capax aeternorum. Neque enim illius aliquando non capax
erit, etiamsi numquam capiens fuerit” (The soul is great in proportion to
its capacity for the eternal [quo capax aeternorum]. F o r even i f it never
attains to it, it never ceases to be capable o f it; translated by Irene Edmonds
[Kalamazoo, M ich., 1980], p. 148). All these confirm the equivalence be­
tween capacitas and imago.
29. Respectively, Summa theologiae, Ilia , q. 9, a. 2, resp. (see ad 3m)
trans. (New York, 1966), vol. 49, p. 89 (modified); la Ilae, q. 1 1 3 , a. 10, c.
(trans., vol. 30, pp. 198—99 [modified]), which again confirms the equiva­
lence between capax Dei and ad imaginem (Dei).
30. T h e relation between capacitas and participatio is accomplished in
desire, understood in the sense o f the epektasis o f Gregory o f Nazianzus and
Saint Paul (see J. Daniélou, Platonisme et théologie mystique [Paris, 1944],
pp. 309 ff.).
3 1. Contra gentes, I, 7; trans. (London, 1924), vol. 1, p. 14 (modified).
See the exposition o f the same thesis, without the explicit mobilization of
the concept o f capax Dei / capacitas, successively in: Summa theologiae, la
Ilae, q. 9 1, a. 4, resp.: “ homo ordinatur ad finem beatitudinis aeternae, quae
excedit proportionem naturalis facultatis humanae, ut supra habitum est”
(man is designed for the goal o f eternal bliss, which exceeds the proportions
o f natural human faculties, as was held above; q. 5, a. 5 [this text, which
we examine below, uses capax]); Contra gentes, III, 148: “ Sed ulterius ultimus
finis hominis in quadam veritatis cognitione constitutus est, quae naturalem
facultatem ipsius excedit . . . Si igitur homo ordinatur in finem qui ejus
facultatem naturalem excedit, necesse est ei aliquod auxilium divinitus ad-
hiberi supernaturale per quod tendat ad finem” (man’s ultimate end is fixed
in a certain knowledge of truth which surpasses his natural faculty . . . I f
man is ordered to an end which exceeds his natural faculty, some help must
be divinely provided for him, in a supernatural way, by which he m ay tend
toward his end; The Summa Contra Gentiles [London, 1924], p. 147).
32. Respectively, Summa theologiae, la Ilae, q. 5, a. 5, ad 2m; trans., vol.
16, p. 13 3 ; and De malo, q. 5, a. 1; translated by John Oesterle (Notre Dame,
Ind., 1995), p. 2 1 1 . See also De veritate, q. 8, a. 3, ad 12m , which hierarchizes
the various degrees o f blessedness without taking into account one’s power
to attain it.
33. Respectively, Summa theologiae, Ilia , q. 1, a. 3, ad 3m; trans., vol.
48, p. 19; then H a Ilae, q. 24, a. 3, resp.; trans., vol. 34, p. 43. We should
note the parallel with the clear opposition between capacitas and power in
Duns Scotus, Ordinatio, prol., pars 1, q. unica, n. 75: “ Igitur in hoc magis
dignificantur natura, quam si suprema sibi possibilis ponetur ilia natural is
[sc. perfectio]; nec mirum est, quod ad majorem perfectionem sit capacitas
passiva in aliqua natura, quam ejus causalitas activa se extendat” (In this,
nature is much more dignified than if it is supposed to be the highest possible
n o t e s to pa g es 9 0 -9 1 183

natural perfection. N or is it to be wondered at that in a certain nature there

is a passive capacity for a greater perfection than its active capacity could
extend itself; Opera omnia [Rome, 1950], vol. 1, p. 46, and the entire discus­
sion).
34. Respectively, Suarez, De ultimo fine hominis, d. X V I, s. 1, n. 1 (Opera
omnia, ed. Vives [Paris, 1856], vol. 4, p. 149); d. X V , p. 144, d. X V I, s. 1,
n. 2, p. 150.
35. De ultima fine hominis, d. IV , s. 3, n. 4: “ homo sic creatus haberet
aliquem finem ultimum, et ilium posset suis actionibus aliquo modo attingere
cognoscendo et amando ilium: ergo esset capax alicujus beatitudinis propor-
tionatae et connaturalis sibi: ergo in humana natura datur aliqua beatitudo
naturalis praeter supernaturalem” (Man was thus created with some ultimate
end, and he could attain it in some way through his actions by knowing and
loving it [posset suis actionibus]. Therefore, he was capable [capax] o f some
blessedness proportionate to and connatural with it. Therefore in human
nature there is found some natural blessedness in addition to the supernatu­
ral one; p. 44); d. V II, s. 2, n. n : “ fieri autem potest, ut eadem potentia,
quae capax nobilissimi actus, sit etiam capax ignobilioris si in modo actuandi
conveniant” (It can happen that the same power [potentia] which is capable
o f the most noble act [capax nobilissimi actus] is also capable o f a more ignoble
act i f they agree in their mode o f acting [in modo actuandi]; p. 92; see Des­
cartes D i, no. 1); d. X V , s. 2, n. 5: “ Tandem in hoc differt naturalis beati­
tudo a supernaturali, quod ilia consistit in actibus, ad quos natura dedit facul-
tatem, et capacitatem in suo ordine proportionatam” (Finally, natural
blessedness differs from supernatural in this way: it consists in acts [consistit
in actibus] for which nature gave the faculty [facultatem] and a capacity [ca­
pacitatem] proportionate in its own order; p. 147); etc. Interestingly, given
the meaning o f the term in Roman law, we should note that Suarez also
inverted the semantics o f legal capacitas: Dejustitia etjure, d. 2, q. 12: “ Actus
autem elicitus vere est subhominis dominio, quia simpliciter est liber, et potest
homo illo uti ut voluerit, juxta capacitatem naturae” (The act is elicited under
the mastery [dominio] o f man, since he is simply free, and man can use it
[potest homo illo uti] as he likes, in consequence o f the capacity [capacitatem]
o f his nature); d. 2, q. 16: “ Etiam pueros esse capaces dominii . . . quia licet non
possunt pro tempore ea exercere per se, possunt tamen per alios; et expectatur
tempus, quo per se possunt” (Even boys are capable o f mastery [capaces domi­
nii] . . . since even if for a while they cannot [non possunt] exercise it by
themselves, nonetheless they can [possunt] through others; and a time will
come when they can [possunt] do so by themselves; edited by J . Giers, in
Die Richtigkeitslehre des jungen Suarez [Freiburg im Breisgau], pp. 34, 17;
see also p. 85).
36. See De gratia, prol. IV , c. 1, n. 17 (Opera omnia, vol. 7, p. 184); n.
2 1: “ appetitus obedientalis non sufficit, est enim quasi potentia neutra” (an
18 4 NOTES TO PAGE Q 2
obedient appetite is not enough; for there is something like a neutral power;
p. 185); c. 1, n. 5 (p. 180). See also the explicit discussion o f the two mean­
ings o f capacitas in De ultimo fine hominis, d. X V I, s. 1, n. 8 and n. 9: “ Deinde
si intelligantur termini, est aperta repugnantia, nam appetitus innatus non
dicit rem aliquam, aut realem modum a capacitate naturali; sed explicat per
metaphoricam vim et naturam ipsus potentiae naturalis; si ergo sub nomine
capacitatis non dicitur naturalis, sed obedientalis, cur potest dici in ilia fund-
ari appetitum naturalem?” (If they are understood fully, it is clearly a contra­
diction, for the innate appetite is not said to be some thing or a real mode
in terms o f the natural capacity. Rather, it is explained by means o f metaphor
and the very nature o f the natural power. Therefore, if by the term capacity
one does not mean the natural but the obedient, why can it be said that the
natural appetite is founded on it?; vol. 4, p. 153). This could not be stated
more directly: any capacitas that is not the equivalent o f a potentia remains
purely metaphorical. T h e liquidation o f the Thom istic and Augustinian doc­
trine is now complete.
37. Cited by H. de Lubac in Augustinisme et théologie moderne, p. 197;
and by J. Rondet in “ L e problème de la nature pure et la théologie du X V Ie
siècle,” Revue des sciences religieuses 25 (1946): 517 .
38. Cited by de Lubac, Augustinisme et théologie moderne, p. 19 7 ^ 7 .
39. A T X , 370, 11. 16 -2 5 . See Gilson, R. Descartes: Discours de la M é­
thode, texte et commentaire, pp. 2 6 1—64; and note in Règles utiles et claires,
pp. 12 9 -3 0 . See also another text: T o ***, 27 April iÔ37(?), A T I, 3 6 6 , 11.
17 -2 0 . F o r another relationship, polemical this time, between Descartes and
Suarez, see Su r la théologie blanche de Descartes, 1, pp. 3—7.
40. Respectively, T o Mersenne, 16 October 1639, A T II, 59 9 , 11. 6 -7 , and
the parallel text of Rule II, A T X , 3 6 5 , 1. 10. We should note that the famous
development on the prolongation of life, related in the Conversation with Burman
(A T V, 178, 11. 14 -22 ) is entirely framed within the question of pure nature:
The clear distinction between the state o f man before the Fall (theological ques­
tion) and the study that “ considérât naturam ut et hominem solum prout jam
est, nec ulterius ejus causa investigat” (studies nature, simply as it is now; he
does not investigate its causes at any more levels; PW III, 353) echoes precisely
Suarez, De gratia, prol. IV, c. 3, n. 7: “ dicendum enim est primo, statum justitiae
originalis multum différé a statu purae naturae. Patet, turn quia includit integri-
tatem naturae; turn etiam quia omnes effectus seu privilégia numerata nullo
modo dici connaturalia homini; quia nec ex principiis naturae oriantur, neque
sunt débita purae naturae ac nude spectatae” (It is to be said first that the state
of original justice differs greatly from the state of pure nature. This is obvious,
since the one includes the wholeness o f nature while the other includes all
effects or private laws that can in no way be said to be connatural to man; for
they would not arise from the principles o f nature nor would they be due to
pure nature; vol. 7, p. 193). Similarly, the Cartesian sequence— “ for, since we
NOTES TO PAGES 9 2 - 9 7 18 5

were born men before we became Christians we cannot believe that anyone would
seriously embrace opinions which he thinks contrary to that right reason which
constitutes being a man, simply in order to cling to the faith which makes him
a Christian” (Comments on a Certain Broadsheet, A T VIII, 2, 353, 1. 26—354,
line 1)— opposes faith and reason, favoring the latter, because it has admitted
the primacy of nature over grace— forgetting, with the theologians of pure na­
ture, that nature itself, as the first gift given to the believer, stems from the
single grace that is the filial adoption, comprised in the original recapitulation.
Similarly, in the Conversation with Burman, again: “ We must leave the latter
point for the theologians to explain. For the philosopher, it is enough to study
man as he is now in his natural condition” (A T V, 159, 11. i6 ff).
4 1. T o Mersenne, M arch 1642, A T III, 54, 11. 1 1 —17; emphasis added.
Descartes, in order to avoid any possibility o f confusion, clarifies: “ I have
said nothing about the knowledge o f God except what all the theologians
have said” (544 , 11. 17 - 19 ) . We find the same gap between natural knowledge
and supernatural blessedness in the Letter to [Silhon], M arch -A p ril 1648,
A T V, 136, 1. 1 4 - 1 3 7 . See Règles utiles et claires, pp. 296-98.
42. T o Descartes, 13 September 1637, A T I, 408, 11. 2 6 -28 .
43. Other mentions: “ the natural happiness” reserved to the “ pagan phi­
losopher” (To Princess Elizabeth, 4 August 1645, A T IV, 267, 11. 24—26);
“ with regard to the present life” (T o Chanut, 1 February 1647, 608, 1. 4).
44. Respectively, Benedict of Canfeld, L a Règle de perfection, II, 2, edited
by J . Orcibal (Paris, 1982), p. 290; François de Sales, Traité de l ’amour de
Dieu, III, 15 (edited by A. Ravier [Paris, 1969], p. 522; translated by John
K . Ryan [Rockford, 111., 1975], vol. 1, p. 199); Bérulle, Discours de l ’état et
des grandeurs de Jésus, V III, in Oeuvres complètes (edited by J.-P . Migne [Paris,
1856], col. 297), and Elévation sur sainte Madelaine, X III (ibid., col. 579).
45. Traité de la nature et de la grâce, II, 18, in Oeuvres complètes, vol. 5,
pp. 79, 80. Note the hesitation between “Je me communique à tous les esprits
autant qu’ils en sont capables; et par la Raison dont je les fais participants,
je les unis entre eux et même avec mon Père” and “ notre force, notre capacité
vient de vous” (Méditations chrétiennes et métaphysiques, II, 13 and V , 19,
vol. 10, pp. 22, 56).
46. Principles on Nature and Grace, §1 (see 14); trans. (London, 1973),
p. 195.

Chapter Five
i. M artin Heidegger, Being and Time, translated by John Macquarie and
Edward Robinson (New York, 1962), §6, p. 46. German text at Sein und
Zeit, 24, 11. 2 2 -2 4 . See m y study “ L ’ego et le Dasein: Heidegger et la ‘ de­
struction’ de Descartes dans Sein und Zeit,” Revue de métaphysique et de
morale 92, no. 1 (1987).
i8 6 NOTES TO PAGES 9 7 - 1 02

2. Respectively, Edmund Husserl, The Paris Lectures, translated by Peter

Koestenbaum (The Hague, 1964) pp. 1 2 - 1 3 ; and Cartesian Meditations,
translated by Dorion Cairns (The Hague, i960), §14 p. 33. German texts
in Husserliana: Edmund Husserl, Gesammelte Werke, edited by S. Strasser
(The Hague, 1950), I, 13 and 7 1 (henceforth abbreviated Hua).
3. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, §15, p. 36 (translation modified); Hua
I, 74.
4. Ibid., §18, respectively, pp. 42 and 43 (translation o f the latter modi­
fied; H usserl’s emphasis); Hua I, 80, 8 1.
5. Respectively, Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, §15, p. 37; Paris Lectures,
15; Inhaltsübersicht im Urtext, 190— in English, “ T h e ego, plunged into phe­
nomenological meditation, is the transcendental spectator o f its own life and
its own being, which are themselves turned toward the world” (Hua I, 197).
Commenting on the sequence “ Obviously one may say I, as naturally insti­
tuted I, [I] am also and always transcendental I, but I know this only by
first carrying out the phenomenological reduction” (Hua I, 75), R . Ingarden
has emphasized the difficulty more than anyone else: “ the great problem o f
identity is found here, the problem o f the very identification o f these two
Is. What is this ‘also’ worth in relation to this ‘I = subject o f transcendental
consideration’ ? . . . B ut then the great difficulty exists, which to m y knowl­
edge no one has yet pointed out, [namely] how a pure constituting I and a
natural constituted I can be at the same moment one and the same thing [ein
und dasselbe], when the properties that are attributed to them are mutually
exclusive, and cannot coexist together in the unity of a single object?” (Be­
merkungen, in Hua, I, 2 13)
6. Nietzsche, translated by Frank A. Capuzzi, 4 vols. (New York, 1982),
IV , 107. German text at Nietzsche (Pfullingen, 19 6 1) II, 154. For information
about the Heideggerian interpretation o f Descartes, see “ Heidegger et la
situation métaphysique de Descartes,” Bulletin cartésien IV , Archives de phi­
losophie 38, no. 2 (1975).
7. Nietzsche, 106 (German text, 153). T his expression appears in an al­
most identical form. “ Descartes’ cogito me cogitare rem,’’ ’ in Sein und Zeit,
§82, p. 4 3 3 , 1. 14. Can we locate the Cartesian texts that directly or indirectly
confirm this? In addition to A T V II, 5 9 9 , 11. 3 - 7 (to be discussed later), two
passages in the Meditations: “ cum cogitem me videre,” “ quamvia concipiam
me esse rem cogitantem” (A T V II, 33, 11. 12-14; 44 > k 24); and finally,
from the Conversation with Burman, “ Conscium esse est quidem cogitare et
reflectare supra suam cogitationem . . . ad cogitationes suas reflectare, et sic
cogitationis suae conscia [anima] esse” (A T V, 149, 1. 17). For a summary
o f this topic see Marion, Su r la théologie blanche de Descartes, 391.
8. Critique o f Pure Reason, B 1 3 1 —2 (and see A 12 3 and A382).
9. Ibid., A346 = B404.
10. Ibid., B 15 5 . [In this translation, the pair I, i is used to render the
NOTES TO PAGES I O 4 -I O 5 187
original J e , je .\ — T h e Opus postumum may be regarded as developing the
aporia o f a representative ego cogito with the formula, contradictory in its
terms, which ceaselessly recurs there: “ Consciousness of self [apperceptio]
is the subject’s act o f making itself an object, and is purely logical \sum\
without the determination o f an object [apprehensio simplex], . . . Conscious­
ness o f myself, that is, to represent m yself who thinks. Subject, at the same
time as object, as object o f thought” (Ak. A. X X II, 89 = Kant, Opus postu­
mum, Fr. translation by F . M arty [Paris, 1986], p. 157). Again, “ I think
[cogito]. I am conscious o f m yself [sum]. I, the subject, make m yself object
(X X II, 95; Fr. trans., 162); “ I am the object o f my own representation, that
is, I am conscious o f m yself” (X X II, 98; Fr. trans., p. 165). Would it not
be better to choose between two hypotheses: either I am conscious of m yself
[moi] as a represented object, and this moi in no way coincides with the Je ,
or I am conscious o f a me [moi] equivalent to the Je , and this is not a repre­
sented object?— It may be that the alternative between consciousness and
ego constructed by Sartre can only repeat the Husserlian, but also Kantian,
aporia (“ L a transcendence de l’ego: Esquisse d ’une description phénoméno­
logique,” in Recherches philosophiques [1936; revised, Paris, 19 8 1]).— T h is
interpretation has found partisans among the most qualified o f commenta­
tors on Descartes; thus, M. Gueroult consistently thinks o f the cogito in
terms o f representation: “ knowledge o f my nature, such as understanding
legitimately represents it to me” (Descartes selon l ’ordre des raisons [Paris,
1953], vol. 1, p. 82; and see pp. 75, 86-87, 87m 105, 95, etc.). M oreover,
against P. Thevenaz’s phenomenological interpretation, in “ L a question du
point de départ radical chez Descartes et chez H usserl” (in Problèmes actuels
de la phénoménologie, Acts o f the Colloque International de Phénoménologie,
19 5 1 [Brussels, 1952]). Gueroult recovers, under the pretext o f distinguish­
ing Descartes from Gassendi, the position Descartes condemns in his re­
sponse to F r. Bourdin (Gueroult, p. 62). T h e primary and nearly the only
textual argument here advanced consists in a short sequence from the Prae-
fatio ad lectorem: “ the human mind, when directed towards itself, does not
perceive itself to be anything other than a thinking thing, [mens humana in
se conversa non percipiat aliud se esse quam rem cogitantem]” (A T VII, 7,
1. 20—8, line 1); but this evidence implies (1) neither that percipere is equiva­
lent to reflectare; (2) nor that the res cogitans is reduced to intellectus; (3)
nor, above all, that this is a formulation o f the cogito, ergo sum as such. He
is thus led to conclude by repeating literally the Heideggerian interpretation:
“ cogito as reflected knowledge: mens in se conversa” (Gueroult, p. 64); “ re­
flection on my first reflection” (94).
1 1 . Seventh Responses: A T V II, 5 5 9 , 11, 3 - 1 0 ; C S M I I , 382 (my empha­
sis). Clerselier’s translation is “ elle pense qu elle pense,” in Descartes, oeuvres
philosophiques, edited by F . Alquié (Paris, 1967), II, 1070.
12. M ichel Henry, “ Phénoménologie hylétique et phénoménologie maté-
i8 8 NOTES TO PAGES 1 0 5 - 1 0 6

rielle,” Philosophie 15 (1987); also in Phénoménologie matérielle (Paris, 1990),

chap. 1. T h is magisterial presentation picks up in a precise manner much
earlier themes: “ Immanence is the primitive mode by which the revelation
o f transcendence itself is accomplished and, as such, the primitive essence
o f receptivity” ( L ’essence de la manifestation [Paris, 1963], I, §30, 278, 288).
13. Généalogie de la psychanalyse (Paris, 1985), p. 35 (see p. 2 1); the phe­
nomenological commentary on videre videor begins on p. 24 and governs the
whole o f chaps. 1 —3. These chapters develop a position that was already
essentially gained in 1963: “ Thus the actuality o f form made manifest in
the cogito, that is, on the plane o f pure thought itself and precisely as the
affectivity o f that thought, is in a significant way recognized by Descartes,
and at the same time denied by him” ( L ’essence de la manifestation, IV, §57,
II, pp. 642ff.). M ore recently, see “ Descartes et la question de la technique,”
in Le Discours et sa méthode, edited by Grimaldi and Marion, 2 8 5 -3 0 1.
14. T o Plempius for Fromondus, 3 October 1637: “ He supposes that I
think that animals see just as we do, i.e. sensing or thinking they see, which
is said to have been Epicurus’ view. . . . But . . . I explain quite explicitly
that my view is that animals do not see as we do when we are aware that
we see” (A T I, 4 13 , 11. 14 - 2 0 ; C S M K , 6 1-6 2 ).
15. Fo r example, A T V II, 2 8 , 1. 22; V II, 3 4 , 1. 21; “ that mode o f thinking
which I call ‘sensory perception’ ” (A T V II, 74, 1. 8); “ faculties for certain
special modes of thinking, namely imagination and sensory perception” (A T
V II, 78, 11. 2 1- 2 3 ) ; etc-
16. Généalogie de la psychanalyse, p. 3 1. T h is formula should appear less
surprising when, in addition to its intrinsic phenomenological relevance, it
accords with certain statements by authoritative commentators who are in
agreement here even though elsewhere their viewpoints diverge. One is A l-
quié, who, in the course o f denying all “ reflexive redoubling,” emphasizes
that “ the cogito’s evidentness therefore rests upon such an intimate presence
o f consciousness to itself that no reflection, no doubt, no separation, no
logical subtlety can prevail against it” (La découverte métaphysique de l ’homme
chez Descartes [Paris, 1950], p. 189). Another is J.-M . Beyssade, who com­
ments as follows on the videre videor (A T V II, 2 9 , 1. 14), which H enry singles
out: “ What is indubitable in thought is pure appearance insofar as it wards
o ff all . . . distance between two terms,” to the extent that it “ identifies
thought with perception” (La philosophie première de Descartes [Paris, 19 7 1],
pp. 234, 235; see 252, and 253). Another is J .- L . Nancy, who firm ly empha­
sizes that “ Descartes denies nothing so obstinately as the introduction of
thought about thought, or reflexivity, into the cogito,” thus stigmatizing the
standard misunderstanding that has governed the subsequent fate o f his met-
aphyics: “ And the entire history o f the cogito, including Spinoza, Kant,
Fichte, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, and Lacan [omitting Heidegger!], has
NOTES TO PAGES IO 7-II3 189

been nothing but a history o f various, indeed antithetical, ways o f denounc­

ing, avoiding, reflecting, suspending, or mediating the immediacy o f the cog-
ito” {Ego sum [Paris, 1979], p. 34 and n. 8). In the purely phenomenological
field, Henry may be said to accomplish what M erleau-Ponty was only able
to sketch: to think the cogito sum as “ the absolute contact o f the I with the
I ” (Phénoménologie de la perception [Paris, 1945], p. 342).
17. Généalogie de la psychanalyse, p. 58: “ the clouding o f the videor by
the videre and its progressive neglect” ; pp. 6 1, 70, 82, 106, etc.
18. Respectively, to Mersenne, 28 January 16 4 1: A T III, 2 9 5 , 11. 24—27;
C S M K , 172 ; and to Regius, M ay 16 4 1: A T III, 3 7 2 , 11, 1 3 - 1 6 , CSM K, 182.
See also “ as I agreed before, we never will anything o f which we have no
understanding at all” (to Hyperaspistes, August 16 4 1: A T III, 4 3 2 , 11. 5 - 7 ;
C S M K , 19 5— a text all the more remarkable because its concern is to distin­
guish will and understanding, not to confuse them!); or “ I have never said
that all our thoughts are in our power, but only that if there is anything
absolutely in our power, it is our thoughts [Discourse, A T V I, 2 5 , 11. 2 3 -2 4 ;
C S M -I, 123], that is to say, those which come from our will and free choice”
(to Mersenne, 3 December 1640: A T III, 2 4 9 , 11. 4 -8 ; C S M K , 160). T h ere­
fore, it is legitimate to speak, in both cases, o f a reversibility of will and
perception, both in the case o f perception o f volitions and in that o f the
volition to master thoughts.
19. Th e rapprochement between generosity and Aristotle’s |l€YaA,0\jA)-
% ia is obvious, which makes the divergences all the more significant. We
may begin with this one: the A,eya?i0\j/'6%0^ is not amazed and does not
admire: oi)G 0 oa)fiacra.xoÇ ODcrèv jœq (leya à w ® eaxtv (Nicomachean
Ethics IV , 8, 112 5 a 2-3). In M artin Ostwald’s translation (Indianapolis,
1962), “ H e is not given to admiration, for nothing is great to him” (p. 98).
20. In fact Descartes hesitates on this point: T h e emotions interior to the
soul “ differ from these passions, which always depend on some movement of
the spirits” (a. 147), but this does not keep them from being “ often joined
with the passions which are like them” (ibid.). It remains true that esteem
and scorn can occur either “ without passion” (a. 150) or with a “ movement
o f the spirits” (a. 149; the same ambiguity recurs in aa. 160 and 16 1).
2 1. See to Elisabeth, 1 September 1645; “ there is no [passion] which
does not represent to us the good to which it tends” (A T IV , 285, 11. 24—
25; C S M K , 264 ). It is here especially that generosity is distinguished from
'üeyaÀ,o\|/'D%ia: generosity recognizes as (non-) object only its good use and
its own will, whereas |i€Ya^o\|/'ü%ia admits toce%ToÇ ayocGoc (Nicomachean
Ethics IV , 1 1 2 3 b i7 and 20), or, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, res exteri-
ores (Summa theologica Ha, Ilae, q. 129, a. 1, c), res exterius existentes (ibid.,
a. 2, c.), res humanus exteriores (ibid., a. 3, c). Paradoxically, here it is D es­
cartes who seems exempt from the essence o f representation, by freeing
igo NOTES TO PAGES II4-II7
himself from objectivity, and Aristotle who submits to it; is this mere appear­
ance?— Bonne volonté: a. 154: A T X I, 446, 1 . 22 and 4 4 7 , 1. 3; a. 187: A T X I,
4 7 0 , 1. 5; a. 192: A T X I, 4 7 3 , 11. 1 0 - 1 1 ; C SM I, 384, 395, 397, respectively.
22. See Passions de l ’âme, a. 83: “ to distinguish among loves by the esteem
one has for what one loves in comparison with oneself” ; a. 204: “ For seeing
that one is esteemed by others is a reason for esteeming oneself.” We observe
that the |ieyaA,o\|/\)%oÇ is also said to know— eTCiaxfuxom eoi%ev (Nicoma-
chean Ethics IV, 4, 112 2 a34). “ A magnificent man is like a skilled artist: he
has the capacity to observe what is suitable and to spend large sums with
good taste” (Ostwald trans., p. 90).
23. To Christine, 20 November 1647: A T V, 8 5 , 11. 1 - 3 ; C SM K , 3 2 5 -
26. Moreover, the Discours de la méthode already understood esteem as an
imprecise mode of cogitatio: A T VI, 2 4 , 11. 12 - 17 , and 7 4 , 11. 18 —19; C SM
I, 123 and 149.
24. To Mersenne, 15 April 1630: A T I, 145, 11. 2 1-2 4 ; C SM K , 23.
25. To Elisabeth, 6 October 1645: A T IV, 305, 11. 4 -5 ; C SM K , 268.
26. To Christine, 20 November 1647: A T V, 8 5 , 11. 6—12; C SM K , 326.
27. Respectively, to Chanut, 1 November 1646: A T IV, 536, 11. 27-28;
C SM K , 299; to Elisabeth, 1 September 1645: A T IV, 284, 11. 25—27; C SM K ,
264.
28. To Elisabeth, 1 September 1645: A T IV, 284, 11. 24—25; C SM K ,
264; see vrai usage: A T IV, 286, 1. 25; C SM K , 265.
29. To Elisabeth, 15 September 1645: A T IV, 2 9 3 , 11. 6-7; C SM K , 266.
No doubt this text advises the moderation, for reaspns at once moral and
social, of solitary survival (subsister seul), but then the point is precisely that
Descartes would not have had to issue this warning if the ego could not
already claim such an autarchy on its own. Therefore the latter is acquired.
30. Passions de l ’âme, a. 152, and to Christine, 20 November 1647: A T
V, 8 5 , 11. 14 - 16 ; C SM K , 326. On this thesis, its other formulations, and its
ambiguity, see Marion, Sur la théologie blanche de Descartes, §17, pp. 4 1 1 —
26.
31. Respectively, to Christine, 20 November 1647: A T V, 8 4 , 11. 2 1- 2 2 ;
C SM K , 325 (and cf. en cette vie, Passions de l ’âme, a. 212); to Elisabeth, 1
September 1645: A T IV, 287, 11. 5-6 ; C SM K , 265.
32. This study owes much to discussions with M. Henry, to remarks by
J.-M . Beyssade and S. Voss, and to the impetus provided by my master F.
Alquié (discussion with him echoed in Alquié, Le Cartésianisme de Malebran-
che [Paris, 1974], p. 365) and, later, G. Rodis-Lewis in her article “ L e dernier
fruit de la métaphysique cartésienne: L a générosité,” Les etudes philosophiques
(January-M arch 1987): 43-54. A further discussion of my thesis by D.
Kambouchner appears in “ Bulletin Cartésien X IX ,” Archives de philosophie
54, no. 1 (1991): 61-70.
NOTES TO PAGES I l 8- I 26 19 1

Chapter Six
1. Pascal, Pensées, 597.
2. On the inclusion of metaphysics in its Cartesian embodiment in the
hierarchy of orders, see Marion, Sur le prisme métaphysique de Descartes,
chap. 5, §§22-24.
3. The question arises of exactly where, for instance, M. Gueroult thinks
he can juxtapose two characters of the ego that are, in my view, incompatible.
On the one hand, its absolute solipsism: “ I alone am known; I alone exist.
Do there exist other substances outside of me . . . I know not, I cannot
speak of this.” On the other hand, a so-called universalism: “ One sees how
little this self is individual; for the ‘I ’ of the individual implies the ‘you’ of
the other, that I exclude from myself certainly, insofar as I posit myself as
substance, but that I am positing, at the same time (outside of myself). One
sees by this to what extent Descartes is at the ends of a transcendental inter­
subjectivity” (Descartes’ Philosophy Interpreted according to the Order o f Rea­
sons, vol. 1, p. 71). What we actually see is to what extent Gueroult is here
closer to Fichte than to Descartes, as is often the case elsewhere.
4. On the fundamental invisibility of what is not in the mode of objectiv­
ity, see J.-L . Marion, “ L ’ intentionalité de l’amour,” in Prolégomènes à la
charité (Paris, 1986, 1991).
5. Respectively, Letter to Mersenne, 1 1 November 1640, A T III, 235,
11. 1 5 - 1 8 and 239, 1. 7.
6. See the clarification on this point in Marion, Sur la théologie blanche
de Descartes, pp. 319 —23.
7. It is utterly remarkable that Pascal, without doubt purposely, used
and reversed the Cartesian example in Pensées, 688: No longer does the ego
inspect men from above in search of identification, but on the contrary the
ego, from below and reduced to the rank of a seen self, withstands the gaze
of another ego, which it definitely is not. See Marion, Sur le prisme métaphy­
sique de Descartes, chap. 5, §24, pp. 344ff. G. B. Matthews has clearly estab­
lished that in the episode of the hats and the coats that were (eventually)
animated, Descartes was not approaching the question of the otherness of
other people, but simply that of the animation or the pure mechanism of
bodies (“ Descartes and the Problem of Other Minds,” in Essays on Descartes’
Meditations, edited by A. O. Rorty [Berkeley, 1986], pp. 14 1—52).
8. Besides, otherness or diversity does not directly concern souls or peo­
ple (in the sense of the otherness of another person) but “ things,” res a me
diversae (39, 1. 15; 40, 1. 2; 73, 11. 9 -10 ; 75, 11. 8-9), or substances (79, 1.
15); similarly, for separation (29, 1. 4) and exteriority (25, 1. 26; 38, 1. 12),
it is a question of simple nonidentity rather than a relationship between two
egos. As for an animated being, its otherness from the ego is mentioned only
ig2 NOTES TO PAGES 126-134
to be immediately refuted: “ do not require me to posit a source distinct
from myself” (44, 11. 9—10).
9. For example, Recherche de la vérité, Eclaircissement X I, in Oeuvres com­
plètes (Paris 1964), vol. 3, pp. i63ff. See the analysis in which Alquié brings
Descartes and Malebranche together on a point that seems to divide them,
in Le cartésianisme de Malebranche (Paris, 1974), pp. 9 1—101. Conversely,
on the phenomenological “ difficulty” of such a representation of the self,
see above, chapter 5 , §1.
10. See Marion, Sur le prisme métaphysique de Descartes, chap. 2.
1 1. Besides, if the we reappears at the very conclusion of the Meditations,
it is precisely to point out its weakness: “ we must acknowledge the weakness
of our nature” (90,11. 15 -16 ). The weakness of the we reciprocally underlines
the strength of the ego. The same analysis of the solitude of the ego and the
reduction of others could be conducted from the Discourse on the Method
and the Principia, probably with the same results.
12. Respectively, letter to Chanut, 1 February 1647, A T IV, 606, 1. 12;
605, 11. 2 0 -2 1; 6 0 2, 1. 27-603, line 1; and Principles o f Philosophy, IV, §190,
AT VIII, 1, 317, 11. 24-25.
13. Letter to Regius, May 1641, A T III, 372, 1. 12.
14. The Passions o f the Soul, §§27 and 29, A T X I, 350, 11. 16, 18, 24.
15. Ibid., §79, A T X I, 3 8 7 , 11. 4 and 12; and §80, 3 8 7 , 11. 20-24. See also
letter to Chanut, 1 February 1647, A T IV, 603, 11. 9—12.
16. The Passions o f the Soul, §79, A T X I, 387, 11. 3—6. See §80, 387,
11. 18-24. On the relationship between the theoretical ego and the ego of
affection, see two different approaches: K . Hammacher, “ La raison dans la
vie affective et sociale selon Descartes et Spinoza,” Les études philosophiques
(1984, no. 1); and, especially, Henry, Généalogie de la psychanalyse, chaps.
1 and 2.
17. As stigmatized by D. Dubarle, this is, to say the least, a “ lacuna, a
serious lacuna in the Cartesian philosophy of the human other” (“ Ontologie
de la subjectivité,” Revue de VInstitut Catholique de Paris [April-June 1988]:
126).
18. The Passions o f the Soul, §80, A T X I, 387, 11. 23-26, and §82, 389,
1. 17. See §79, “ join itself willingly to objects that appear to be agreeable to
it,” “ things it deems bad,” A T X I, 3 8 7 , 11. 4 -6 and 8. It is noteworthy that
love mobilizes first a representation and then a will, thereby mimicking the
two moments of the true theoretical judgment, as found in Meditation IV.
19. The Passions o f the Soul, §81, A T X I, 388, 11. 1 0 - 1 1 .
20. Ibid., §82, A T X I, 388, 1. 24—389, 1. 6.
21. Letter to Chanut, 1 February 1647, A T IV, 6 11, 11. 3—4. See The
Passions o f the Soul, §81: “ to some object, whatever its nature may be,” A T
X I, 388, 11. h —12; §82: “ Nor do we need to distinguish as many kinds of
NOTES TO PAGES I 3 5 - I 3 9 193

love as there are different possible objects of love,” A T X I, 3 8 8 , 11. 22-24.

It is noteworthy that the diversity of its objects unifies love rather than
divides it, for the same reason that science— according to Rule I — remains
one, in spite of the infinite diversity of its objects: for it is always a question
of a single and same spirit (“ mens humana . . . universalissima” ), regardless
of the objects to which it is applied. Thus the doctrine of univocal love
transposes the doctrine of the unity of science from the theoretical to the
ethical domain. The fundamental option— the preeminence of the mens hu­
mana as an ego— is still at work in both cases.
22. Respectively, The Passions o f the Soul, §82, A T X I, 3 8 9 , 11. 7—8; and
letter to Chanut, 1 February 1647, A T IV, 610, 11. 5—8.
23. The Passions o f the Soul, §82, A T X I, 389, 11. 10-20.
24. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, respectively, §44, p. 125, and §62,
p. 175.
25. Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible (Evanston, 111., 1968),
pp. 77—78. See also other formulations: “ The reflection suppresses the inter­
subjectivity” (p. 48), or “ philosophically speaking, there is no experience of
the other” (p. 71). See Phénoménologie de la perception (Paris, 1945), pp. 4 iff.
26. It is assumed here that the division in two of Descartes’ ontotheology,
which I tried to establish in Sur le prisme métaphysique de Descartes, chap.
2, is still valid.
27. Letter to Voetius, A T VIII-2, 112 , 11. 21-29 .
28. “ The laws of charity [leges charitatis],” ibid., 99, 1. 23; 1 1 4 , 11. 6—7;
1 1 6 , 1. 29; 13 0 , 1. 27. On this strange return by Descartes to a strictly theolog­
ical theme and its use in political philosophy, see my remarks in the preface
to the excellent edition (based on the translation by V. Cousin) by T . Ver-
beek of La querelle d ’ Utrecht (Paris, 1988), pp. 7—13; and the remarks by P.
Guenancia, “ Descartes accusé se défend,” Critique 510 (November 1989).

Chapter Seven
1. Respectively, Proslogion, I, edited and translated by J. Hopkins and H.
Richardson (Toronto, 1974). See the following: “ uncomplicated arguments
[vulgaribus argumentis]” (Monologion, preface; ed., 7, 9); and “ the logic of
my argument [connexionem hujus meae argumentis]” (Reply to Gaunilo, III,
133, 9); and Descartes, A T VII, 1 1 5 , 1. 22; see also A T VII, 6 5 , 1. 20. Here
I follow A. Koyré, for whom Anselm’s argument “ does not seem to be an
ontological proof in the exact sense of the term” (L ’idée de Dieu dans la
philosophie de saint Anselme [Paris, 1923 and 1984], p. 193).
2. “ Meditatione de cognitione, Veritate et Ideis,” in Die philosophischen
Schriften, edited by C. J. Gerhardt (Hildesheim, i960), vol. 4, p. 425.
194 NOTES TO PAGES 1 3 9 - 1 4 3

3. For instance, “ argumento Cartesiano,” Principiorum primorum cogni-

tionis metaphysicae nova dilucidatio, II, 7, Ak. A. I, p. 395; or “ cartesianischer
[Beweisgrund],” Der einzig mögliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des
Daseins Gottes, III, 5, Ak. A. II, p. 162; and even “ the famous ontological
argument of Descartes,” Kritik der reinem Vernunft, A 602/B 630; translated
by Norman Kemp (New York, 1965), p. 507.
4. Der einzig mögliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseins Got­
tes, III, 4, Ak. A. II, p. 16 1; and Kritik der reinem Vernunft, A 592/B 620.
The use of the formula “ ontological argument” becomes standard from then
on. Hegel retrospectively applies it to Descartes (“ thus we there have the
unity of thought and Being, and the ontological proof of the existence of
God,” Vorselungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, edited by E. Molden-
hauer and K . Markus Michel, vol. 20 [Frankfurt, 1971], p. 138; translated
by E. S. Haldane and Frances Simson [New York, 1974], p. 235) and even
to Anselm (“ the so-called ontological proof of the existence of God,” Lectures
on the History o f Philosophy, vol. 3: Medieval and Modern Philosophy, edited
by R. Brown [Berkeley, 1990], p. 54). Moreover, Schelling sometimes juxta­
poses in the same page the old formulation (“ Cartesian proof” ) and the new
one “ (Descartes has become decisive for the whole of subsequent modern
philosophy . . . through the setting up of the ontological proof,” Zur Gesch­
ichte der neueren Philosophie, Sämmtliche Werke, vol. 10 [Stuttgart, 1861],
p. 14; translated by Andrew Bowie [Cambridge, 1994], p. 49).
5. On these questions, see the classic works of P. Petersen, Geschichte
der aristotelischen Philosophie im protestantischen Deutschland (Leipzig, 19 21,
and Stuttgart, 1962); M. Wundt, Die deutsche Schulmetaphysik des 17. Ja h r­
hunderts (Tübingen, 1939); E. Vollrath, “ Die Gliederung der Metaphysik
in eine Metaphysica generalis und eine Metaphysica specialisZeitschrift fü r
philosophische Forschung 16, no. 2 (1962); Marion, Sur le prisme métaphysique
de Descartes, chap. 1; and J.-F . Courtine, Suarez et le système de la métaphy­
sique (Paris, 1990), in particular pp. 436—57.
6. Kritik der reinem Vernunft, A 590/B 619, A 602/B 630; trans., pp. 500,
507 (modified).
7. Kritik der reinem Vernunft, A 601/B 629 and A 596/B 624; trans.,
pp. 506 and 503 (modified).
8. Meditations, A T VII, respectively, 6 6 , 11. 1 2 - 1 3 (= 6 7 , 11. 9 - 1 0 or 54,
11. 13 -14 ); 67, 1. 21 (= 1. 27); and 69, 1. 8.
9. Ethica, I, def. I (= section 1 1 , dem. 1); translated by Samuel Shirley
(Indianapolis, 1992), p. 31.
10. Recherche de la vérité, respectively, IV, 1 1 , §1 and §2, in Oeuvres com­
plètes, vol. 2, edited by G. Rodis-Lewis (Paris, 1962), pp. 93, 95.
1 1. Entretiens sur la métaphysique et la religion, II, §4; ibid., vol. 12, edited
by A. Robinet (Paris, 1965), p. 53.
NOTES TO PAGES 143-146 195
12. Monadology, §44; G. W Leibniz’s Monadology, edited by N. Rescher
(Pittsburgh, 1991), p. 22.
13. D iephilosophischen Schriften, edited by C. J. Gerhardt, vol. 4, p. 406.
14. Replies, A T VII, 166, 11. 16 -18 . It is remarkable in this regard that
Schelling sanctions the Leibnizian dimension of Descartes’ argument by
criticizing the Cartesian formulation that best anticipates Leibniz: “ But nec­
essary existence is contained in the concept of God. . . . Therefore it may
be truly affirmed of God that necessary existence belongs to him or that he
exists” (AT VII, 166, 1. 25—167, 1. 3; cited in Zur Geschichte der neueren
Philosophie, Sammtliche Werke (SJV), vol. 10, p. 16.
15. Philosophie der Offenbarung, I, 8; SW, vol. 13, p. 159. “ God is not just
the necessary being, but he is necessarily the necessary being” ; see French
translation under direction of J.-F . Marquet and J.-F . Courtine (Paris,
1989), vol. 1, p. 185. See the comments by X . Tilliette, “ Argument ontolo­
gique et onto-théologie, Notes conjointes: Schelling et l’argument ontolo­
gique,” Archives de philosophie 26, no. 1 (1963), which also appeared in
L ’absolu et la philosophie: Essais sur Schelling (Paris, 1987), chap. 9.
16. Lectures on the History o f Philosophy, vol. 3: Medieval and Modern
Philosophy, p. 54 (p. 34 in Hegel’s text). See also the comment about Des­
cartes: “ Here in the form of God no other unity is expressed than the one
found in cogito ergo sum— being and thinking inseparably linked” (ibid.,
p. 143 [p. 96 in Hegel’s text]).
17. Wissenschaft den Logik, III, 2: It is self-evident that this latter transi­
tion [from concept to objectivity] is identical in character with what formerly
appeared in Metaphysics as the inference from the notion [Begriffe concept]
namely the notion o f God to his existence, or as the so-called ontological proof
of the existence o f God” (Hegel’s Science o f Logic, translated by A. V. Miller
[London, 1969], p. 705.
18. See note 15 above.
19. The theme of the fides quaerens intellectum comes from Isaiah 7:9,
“ Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis” (“ I f you will not believe, surely you shall
not understand” ), through the intermediary of Augustine, among others:
“ Do you wish to understand? Believe. For God has said by the prophet:
‘Unless you believe, you shall not understand’ . . . I f you have not under­
stood, I said, believe. For understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore
do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe so that you may
understand” (Injohannis Evangelicum, X IX , 6, p. 287; trans. [Grand Rapids,
Mich., 1983], vol. 7, p. 185; see X L V , 7; X V , 24; X X V II, 7; L X IX , 2; ibid.,
pp. 273, 391, 500—501). Saint Augustine chose the version of the Septuagint
on purpose, reconciling it with the Hebrew version: “ Nisi credideritis, non
permanebis” (“ Unless you believe, you shall not be established” ; De doctrina
Christiana, II, 12, 17; PL, vol. 34, col. 43). See F. Thonnard, “ Caractères
 NOTES TO PAGES 146-147
augustiniens de la méthode philosophique de saint Anselme,” in Spicilegium
Beccense I (Le Bec-Hellouin and Paris, 1959). This can be understood as an
anticipation of the inversion of the Hegelian problematic of the relationships
between faith and concept.
20. Nor does it suppose a divine name, as was unequivocally stated by
E. Gilson, against the thesis of K . Barth (Fides quaerens intellectum: Anselm
Beweis der Existenz Gottes [Munich, 1931]; French translation by J. Corrèze,
Saint Anselme: Fides quaerens intellectum: La preuve de l ’existence de Dieu
[Neuchâtel and Paris, 1958]; with preface by M. Corbin [Geneva, 1985],
especially pp. according to which id quo majus cogitari nequit would
be a name for God: “ There is no need to be a great exegete to know that
Scripture never gives God such a name; the theologians o f the Middle Ages
collected and commented on them, in the wake of Dionysius, in their De
divinis nominibus, and it is never found in any of them” (“ Sens et nature de
l’argument de saint Anselme,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du
Moyen Age 9 [1934]: 2Ôff.; reprinted in Etudes médiévales [Paris, 1983],
pp. 74ff.). This objection should be maintained against the recent radicalized
version of Barth’s thesis put forth by M. Corbin (“ Cela dont plus grand ne
puisse être pensé,” Anselm Studies 1 [1983]; “ Nul n’a de plus grand amour
que de donner sa vie pour aimer: Essai sur la signification de 1’ unum argu-
mentum du Proslogion,’’’ Revue de l ’institut Catholique de Paris 16 [1985]; and
introduction to the Proslogion in L ’oeuvre de Anselme de Cantorbéry, vol. 1
[Paris, 1986], pp. 210, 214, 216, 22off). Even though I agree completely
that Anselm should be read as he himself understood himself— that is to
say, in large part starting from Dionysius’ corpus and the theology of divine
names— it seems to me problematic to compare the three “ ways” (affirma­
tive, negative, and of eminence) to three “ divine names,” which would be
hidden or interspersed in the Monologion and the Proslogion.
21. Prolegomena, §13; trans. (Indianapolis, 1977), p. 37. When one ig­
nores this critical dimension, the argument becomes dogmatic again, but
it still remains empirical by using “ the greatest.” Thus Gaunilo: “ you say
repeatedly that I argue that which is greater than all others is in the under­
standing. And if it is in the understanding, it exists also in reality; for other­
wise that which is greater than all others would not be that which is greater
than all others” {Reply, V, 134, 24ff). Thus in the same terms, Bergson: “ I
conceive, said Saint Anselm, the greatest Being, therefore it exists. For if
it did not exist, I could conceive one that did” (Leçons de psychologie et de
métaphysique, lecture 17, in Cours I, edited by H. Hude and J.- L . Dumas
[Paris, 1990], p. 368). Conversely, the critical interpretation and the parallel
with Kant are suggested by P. Naulin: “ The paradox of the Proslogion is
that it develops a properly dogmatic line of argument within a perspective
which, by reference to self-consciousness, is already critical” (“ Réflexions
sur la portée de la preuve ontologique chez Anselme de Cantorbéry,” Revue
NOTES TO PAGES 1 4 7 - 1 5 0 197

de métaphysique et de morale [1969]: 19). See also C.-E. Viola: “ It is wrong

to identify Anselm’s argument with the Cartesian or Leibnizian proof that
sets out from the idea of God conceived as ens perfectissimum, the idea of
the most perfect . . . In effect, for Anselm, it is not a question of analyzing
a concept as with most of the defenders of the ontological argument” but
rather “ of analyzing our way of comprehending God” (“Journées internatio-
nales anselmiennes,” Archives de philosophic 35 [1972]: 153).
22. Strangely, it is when Kant thinks he is refuting Anselm’s so-called
ontological argument that he almost literally repeats its terms, one negation
excepted. What Kant sees as the weakness of the argument coincides with
its greatest strength for Anselm: “ When I think something, whatever and
however numerous the predicates by means of which I think it (even in its -
complete determination), by the sole fact that I additionally [binzusetze]
posit that this thing exists, the end result is absolutely the same for the thing
[so kommt . . . binzu]. For otherwise it would no longer exist as the same but
as something more than what I originally thought in the concept, and I could
no longer say that it is exactly the object of my concept which exists [sonst
würde nicht eben dasselbe, sondern mehr existieren, ais ich im Begriffe
gedacht hatte, und ich konnte nicht sagen, dass gerade der Gegenstand
meines Begriffs existiere]” (Kritik der reinem Vernunft, A 600/B 628). For
Anselm, in the case of “ that than which a greater cannot be thought” (and
especially of “ something greater than can be thought,” Proslogion, X V , 112 ,
14—15), there precisely exists more than what I can conceive in the con­
cept— in short, there is much more than simply existence in the concept.
This paradox— a unique case of ontic negantropy— neither weakens nor
disqualifies the argument, but rather defines it.
23. The same transcendental treatment— to the second degree— of the
cogitatio is set forth in the reply to Gaunilo: “ Yet, even if it were true that
[in one sense] that than which a greater cannot be thought could not be
conceived or understood, nonetheless it would not be false that [in another
sense] ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ can be conceived and
understood. Nothing prevents our saying [the word] ‘unsayable,’ even
though what is called unsayable cannot be said. Moreover, we can think
[the concept] inconceivable, even though what is rightly called inconceivable
cannot be conceived. By the same token, when that than which nothing
greater can be thought is spoken of, without doubt, what is heard can be
thought and understood, even if the thing than which a greater cannot be
thought could not be thought or understood” {Reply to Gaunilo, IX , 138,
4 -11 ). Concerning the move from “ that than which a greater cannot be
thought” to “ something greater than can be thought” (Proslogion X V , C. E.
Viola writes of a transition from the “ overcoming by the understanding of
all finite objects” to the “ overcoming of the understanding by itself” (“ La
dialectique de la grandeur: Une interprétation du Proslogion,” Revue de théo-
198 n o t e s to p a g e 150

logie ancienne et médiévale 27 [1970]: 4off.). In his first scholarly work, Alquié
stressed and perfectly understood the critical and transcendental status of
the thought as applied to God: “ Saint Anselm does not intend to define
God in thought but outside thought. . . . God is defined not in thought but
by relation to it. He is defined as exterior to thought, or at least as constitut­
ing for it a limit that cannot be crossed,” as “ an obstacle to thought, some
thing that thought will be aware of as a limit, which it will run up against,
which will block it from proceeding further” (“L ’argument ontologique chez
saint Anselme: Les critiques de Gaunilon et Saint Thomas d’Aquin” [diss.,
1929 ], pp. 17 -18 ).
24. See Reply to Gaunilo: (a) It is not rational to deny what one only
understands to some extent (aliquatenus): “ For is it reasonable for someone
to deny what he understands [and to do so] because it is said to be identical
with that which he denies because he does not understand? Or if he ever
denies something which to some extent he understands, and if that thing is
identical with something which he does not at all understand, is not what
is in question more easily proved about that which to some extent he under­
stands than about that which he does not at all understand? Therefore, [on
the one hand] it cannot even be plausible for someone to deny any knowledge
of that than which a greater cannot be thought (which when he hears of,
he understands to some extent) because he denies any knowledge of God
(in no respect thinking the meaning of the word ‘God’). On the other hand,
if he denies any knowledge of God because he does not at all understand
[the meaning of the word ‘God’], then is it not easier to prove what in some
sense is understood than what is not at all understood?” (VII, 136, 1. 25—
137, 1. 3). (b) It is no more rational to accept only what one fully (penitus)
understands: “ But if you say that what is not fully understood is not under­
stood and is not in the understanding, then say as well that someone who
cannot stand to gaze upon the most brilliant light of the sun does not see
daylight, which is nothing other than the sun’s light. Surely that than which
a greater cannot be thought is understood and is in the understanding to
the extent that the above statements are understood about it” (Reply to Gau­
nilo, I, 132, 5-9).
25. Reply to Gaunilo, VIII, 137 (27; see 14 ,18 ). Gilson stressed this point:
“ Saint Anselm simply said that taking a look at things was enough to permit
making the ‘conjecture’ of quo maius cogitari nequit, and that starting from
this notion, even if it is only conjectural, the proof could be developed com­
pletely” (op. cit., p. 8; see also p. 56). A. Koyré also admits that the proof
“ starts from an indirect concept and is not expressing the essence of God”
and remains an “ indirect demonstration” (op. cit., pp. 2 0 1 - 2 ) . Similarly, J.
Paliard writes: “ God resembles nothing else, belongs to no other conceptual
classification. The idea of God must be understood in an entirely different
way: not the essence being offered to the gaze of man, but the designation
NO TES TO P AG E 1 5 1 1 99

of the essence. . . . This unsurpassable . . . is the unique and privileged

idea” (“ Prière et dialectique: Méditation sur le Proslogion de saint Anselme,”
Dieu vivant 6 [1946]: 55); H. Bouillard: “ this notion does not any longer
say what God is, states nothing concerning his essence, . . . consequently
nothing can be drawn from it analytically” (“ La preuve de Dieu dans le
Proslogion et son interprétation par K. Barth,” in Spicilegium Beccense I,
p. 196); H. U. Von Balthasar: “ No more than Being is a concept . . . no
more, indeed far less, is God a concept. . . . I f the negative formula (id quo
majus . . . ) could be taken at most as designating a limiting concept, then
the comparative (majus) clearly expresses the fact that it is in no sense a
static concept, but rather points to a dynamic movement of thought”
(Herrlichkeit, II, Fächer der Style [Einsiedeln, 1962], p. 2 1 1 ; trans. [New
York, 1984], vol. 2, pp. 2 3 1-3 2 ); M. Kohlenberger also writes of a “ concept
limite” (Similitudo und ratio: Überlegungen ur Methode bei Anselm von Canter­
bury [Bonn, 1972], p. 84); and I. U. Dalferth: “ Neither a concept of God
nor a name of God, but rather a rule, some instructions, how one must
think, whenever one wants to think God” (“ Fides quarens intellectum: The­
ologie als Kunst der Argumentation in Anselms Proslogion,” Zeitschrift für
Theologie und Kirche 81 [1984]: 78 ff; see also 86n.i36). On the other hand,
it is a flaw of the otherwise remarkable study by J. Vuillemin to have presup­
posed that Anselm based his argument on a concept of God: “ It will be
observed that from here on out, we are not speaking of the proof for the
existence of God, but of its condition: namely of the rational construction
of the concept or of the description of God .. . Anselm’s argument supposes,
given by faith, a certain concept or at least a certain description of God that
must be examined as to whether or not it responds to the requirements of
reason, especially in regard to non-contradiction” (Le Dieu dAnselme et les
apparences de la raison [Paris, 1971], p. 54); but, precisely, Anselm’s entire
argument rests on the impossibility and the uselessness of such a concept.
See the pertinent critique by R. Payot, “ L ’argument ontologique et le fonde­
ment de la métaphysique,” Archives de philosophie 39, nos. 2—4 (1976): 78,
83, 167, 434 ff.
26. Our background here is the definitive demonstration by H. de Lubac,
who asks: “ Why is it so heavy with absence, even in the most intimate pres­
ence? Why . . . this unbridgeable distance?” (“ Sur le chapitre X IV du Proslo­
gion, ” in Spicilegium Beccense I, p. 300) and concludes the existence of “ two
moments or two characteristics: on the one hand, an extreme rationality; on
the other, in the very success of the rational endeavor, an extreme dissatisfac­
tion” (“ Seigneur, je cherche ton visage: Sur le chapitre X IV du Proslogion
de saint Anselme,” Archives de philosophie 39, no. 2 [1976]: 203).
27. With this thesis Anselm joins a long tradition, illustrated among oth­
ers by Gregory of Nyssa: “ This is the true knowledge of what is sought;
this is the seeing that consists in not seeing” (Life o f Moses, §163, Patrologia
200 NOTES TO PAGE 1 5 2

graeca, vol. 44, p. 377, A, edited by Daniélou, S C I bis [Paris, 1987], p. 210;
translated by Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson [New York, 1978],
p. 95); Dionysius: “ I f only we lacked sight and knowledge so as to see, so
as to know, unseeing and unknowing, that which lies beyond all vision and
knowledge. For this would be really to see and to know; to praise the Tran­
scendent One in a transcending way, namely through the denial of all beings”
(Mystical Theology, II, PG, vol. 3, p. 1025 A; translated by Colm Luibheid
[New York, 1987], p. 138); Augustine: “ We are talking about God, so why
be surprised if you cannot grasp it? I mean: if you can grasp, it isn’t God”
(Sermo 117 , 5, P L , vol. 38, col. 663; trans., vol. 3 part 4, p. 2 11); “ Is He
perhaps to be sought even when found? For things incomprehensible must
be investigated, lest one think he has found nothing, when he has been able
to find how incomprehensible that is which he was seeking. Why then does
he so seek, if he comprehends that which he seeks to be incomprehensible
. . . ?” (De trinitate, X V , 2, 2; trans., p. 199). This tradition is continued
by Nicholas of Cusa (“ that which satisfies the intellect, or that which is its
end, is not that which the intellect understands. Nor can that which the
intellect utterly does not understand satisfy it, but only that which it under­
stands by not understanding; . . . only the intelligible which the intellect
knows to be so intelligible that this intelligible can never be fully known can
satisfy the intellect,” De visione dei, X V I; Philosophisch-theologische Schriften,
edited by L . Gabriel; German translation by D. and W. Dupré [Vienna,
1967], vol. 3, p. 166; translated by H. Lawrence Bond [New York, 1977],
pp. 266—67) and Descartes (“ the idea of the infinite, if it is to be a true idea,
cannot be grasped at all, since the impossibility of being grasped is contained
in the formal definition of the infinite,” A T VII, 368, 11. 2—4).
28. Proslogion, V, 10 4 , 1. 9. See the following instances: “ Therefore You
are truly . . . whatever it is better to be than not to be” (XI, 110 , 11. 1-3 );
and “ Is there anyone, for example— even if he does not believe in the real
existence of what he conceives— who is unable to think that if there is some­
thing good which has a beginning and an end, then that good is much better
which has no end though having a beginning. And just as the latter is
better than the former, so something having neither beginning nor end is
better still” (Reply to Gaunilo, VIII, 137, 18-22); or “ For we believe about
the Divine Substance whatever, absolutely speaking, can be thought to be
better than its contradictory. For example, it is better to be eternal than not
to be eternal, better to be good than not to be good— or rather, to be good­
ness itself than not to be goodness” (Reply, X , 139, 11. 3-6). We should
therefore proceed carefully when speaking of a “ movement of thought to­
ward an optimum and a maximum posited as the Absolute” (P. Vignaux,
“ Structure et sens du Monologion, ” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théo-
logiques 31 [1947]: 2 1 1 ; reprinted in De saint Anselme a Luther [Paris, 1976],
p. 95); here we must not distinguish between the two terms, but we note
NOTES TO PAGES I 5 2 - 1 5 4 201
that neither of them appears in Anselm’s text. Koyré introduces, somewhat
carelessly, an Ens perfectissimum that one would be hard pressed to locate in
the text (op. cit., pp. 41, 43-44, 46-47), since neither summe perfectum nor
perfectissimum seems to appear even once in Anselm’s text (according to G.
R. Evans, A Concordance to the Works o f St. Anselm [New York, 1984], vol.
3, p. 1032; and Opera omnia, edited by F. S. Schmitt, vol. 6: Index generalis
personarum et rerum, p. 275). This confirms my hypothesis in Sur le prisme
métaphysique de Descartes, pp. 2Ô6ff.
29. Proslogion, X IV , n i , 11. 8—9. The same reduction is encountered
elsewhere: “ No one denies that God is the highest good, since something
that is less than something else is by no means God, and anything that is
not the highest good is less than something else since it is less than the
highest good” (Epistula de incarnatione Verbi, VIII, 22, 11. 24—26); or “Just
as from the highest good nothing comes except goodness and all goodness
is from the highest good, so too from the highest essence nothing comes
except essence, and all essence is from the highest essence. Hence, since the
highest good is the highest essence, it follows that all goodness is essence
and all essence is good” (De casu diaboli, I, 2 3 4 , 1. 29—2 3 5 , 1. 3). Here minus/
majus (less/more) are to be understood explicitly starting from summum,
(highest) and summum starting from bonum (good).
30. The indeterminacy of “ that than which a greater cannot be thought”
left to itself is made clear when it is confused, which is actually inevitable,
with a simple “ greater than all things [majus omnibus]” ; thus Anselm firmly
rejects this error of Gaunilo (Reply, V, 134, pp. 24ff.; see above, note 21).
On the contrary, the principle that “ nothing is greater or better than God”
(Cur Deus homo, I, 13; translated by Eugene Fairweather [Philadelphia,
1956], p. 181): “ It [God’s mercy] cannot be conceived to be greater or more
just” ; see II, 20) should be specified with precise attributes, such as justice
(“ You are so just that you cannot be thought to be more just,” Proslogion,
X I, 109, line n ) and clemency (“ You are more clement than I could ever
imagine,” Oratio, XIV, 56, 29-30) or kindness (“ God is so kind . . . that
nothing kinder can be conceived,” Cur Deus homo, 1, 12, 70, 7; trans., p. 121).
31. See chap. VI, 104, 1. 20; chap. IX , 107, 1. 10, and 108, 1. 12; chap.
X IV , i n , 1. 9 (“ highest of all things, than which nothing better can be
thought” ; translated by Thomas Williams [Indianapolis, 1995], p. 108 [mod­
ified]), chap. X V III, 1 1 4 , 1. 21. This same principle is repeated in chap. XI,
n o , 1. 2. The occurrences of melius are inventoried in G. R. Evans, op. cit.,
vol. 2, pp. 852ff. (p. 8i9 ff for majus).
32. Summe bonus: chap. IX , 107, 1. 20, and chap. X , 109, 1. 5. Summum
bonum: chap. X X II, 117 , line 1, and X X III, 117 , 1. 5 (appearing as “ the
complete, one, total, and unique good” ; trans., p. 114).
33. Respectively chap. X X IV , 11. 25—26; chap. X X V I, 1 2 1 , 11. 9 -10 ; and
chap. X X V , 118 , 1. 17.
202 NOTES TO PAGE 15 5
34. Monologion, X V , 29, 18-20. See also chaps. X X V I-X X V II. Here
Anselm follows Augustine (De trinitate, V, 2, 3; VI, 5, 7; and VII, 5, 10)
and Boethius: “ Relation for instance cannot be predicated at all of God; for
substance in Him is not really substantial, but supersubstantial” (De trinitate,
IV, edited by H. F. Stewart, E. K. Rand, and S. J. Tester [Cambridge,
1978], p. 16; trans. [Cambridge, 1946], p. 17). He also anticipates Thomas
Aquinas, Summa theologiae, la, q. 29, a. 3, obj. 3 and ad. 4. On this question,
see a few indications in Koyré, op. cit., p. 172; and Marion, Sur le prisme
métaphysique de Descartes, p. 23off.
35. Curiously, F. S. Schmitt (op. cit., p. 102, n.) quotes Monologion,
L X X X , 86, 19 - 2 1, for majus, where it is not mentioned, as well as Mono-
logion, X V, 29, 17 - 2 1, which precisely uses only melius and melior, just as
the texts by Augustine and Boethius that I have cited. Seneca, a non-
Christian author, is the only one among the texts cited to confirm the majus:
“ What is God? The mind of the universe, all that you see and all that you
do not see. Let his greatness be held to account, that than which nothing
greater can be thought [nihil majus excogitari potest], he alone is above all,
he maintains his work both within and without” (Naturales quaestiones, I,
Praefatio, in Oeuvres complètes, edited by M. Nisard [Paris, 1877], p. 391).
This is the best indication that Anselm’s theoretical decision simply went
unnoticed. Other authors cite the texts that privilege the use of melius, al­
though they never seem to detect the importance of this decision: A. Daniels,
“ Quellenbeiträge und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Gottesbeweise
im dreizehnten Jahrhundert, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Argu­
ments im Proslogion des heiligen Anselm,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philo­
sophie des Mittelalters 8, nos. 1 - 2 (1909). See also J. Chatillon, “ De Guil­
laume d’Auxerre à saint Thomas d’Aquin: L ’argument de saint Anselme
chez les premiers scolastiques du XHIe siècle,” in Spicilegium Beccense I ;
Alquié: ‘“ Quo nihil majus,’ Saint Augustine said, ‘Quo nihil melius.’ Saint
Anselm’s majus is more vague, more undetermined,” op. cit., p. 17; K . Barth,
op. cit., pp. 65 and 75; N. Malcom, in The Ontological Argument: From
Anselm o f Canterbury to Contemporary Philosophers, edited by A. Plantiga
(New York, 1965), p. 142; J. Vuillemin, op. cit., p. 157; W. L. Gombocz,
whose argument follows that of Vuillemin (Zu Semantik des Existenzprädi­
kates und der ontologischen Arguments fü r Gottes Existenz von Anselm von Can­
terbury [Vienna, 1974]); and even K . Kienzier (Glauben und Denken bei An­
selm von Canterbury [Freiburg, 1981]). It is true that H. U. Von Balthasar
and P. Gilbert clearly pointed out the primacy of summum bonum in the
Monologion, as well as its Augustinian origin, but they unfortunately do not
pursue the same reasoning for melius in the Proslogion (respectively, Herrlich­
keit, II, op. cit., p. 255; and Dire l ’ineffable: Lecture du Monologion de saint
Anselme [Paris, 1984], p. 63fr.). As for R. Brecher, although he clearly made
the distinction between majus and melius (“ Anselm was generally careful to
NOTES TO PAGE 156 203

distinguish between them” ) and identifies the latter with the sovereign good
even in the Proslogion (“ This distinction between God’s ontological suprem­
acy and his goodness is retained throughout the Proslogion” ), in the end he
only considers melius to be a gloss for majus (“ Greatness in Anselm’s Onto­
logical Argument,” Philosophical Quarterly 24/95: 97, 98).
36. Respectively P L, vol. 32, col. 735 (C SE L, vol. 32, p. 145; and BA,
vol. 13 [Paris, 1962], p. 588, noted by F. S. Schmitt, op. cit.); then P L, vol.
34, col. 22 (mentioned by F. S. Schmitt, op. cit.; and J. Vuillemin, op. cit.,
p. 93); and P L, vol. 32, col. 1355 (cited by Koyre, op. cit., p. 17 2 ^ 3; and
by J. Vuillemin, op. cit., p. 17, without commentary); finally, cited edition,
p. 276. See also the parallel with: “ nothing is better than God himself” and
“ It is therefore to be wished that men would bring to these inquiries such
a clear intellectual perfection as might enable them to see the highest good,
that than which nothing is better or higher, next in order to which comes
a rational soul in a state of purity and perfection” (De moribus Manichaeorum,
I, 1 1 , 19, then II, 1, 1; P L , vol. 32, cols. 1319 and 1345; trans. [Grand
Rapids, Mich., 1983], vol. 4, p. 69). Or even: “ the highest good is that than
which there is nothing higher. But God is good and than Him nothing can
be higher. God is therefore the highest good” (De duabus animabus contra
Manichaeos, V III, 10; P L, vol. 42, col. 10 1; trans. [Grand Rapids, Mich.,
1983], vol. 4, p. 101). Or still: “ the highest good, than which there is nothing
higher, is God” (De natura boni contra Manichaeos, I; P L, vol. 42, col. 551;
trans. [Grand Rapids, Mich., 1983], vol. 4, p. 351). For reference, let us
mention Cicero as a possible non-Christian source: “ there is nothing supe­
rior to the universe, there is nothing more excellent or more beautiful. Not
only is there nothing better, but nothing better can even be thought” (De
natura deorum, II, 7 , 1. 18; translated by Horace C. P. McGregor [Harmonds-
worth, England, 1972], p. 131). But if melius corrects Seneca’s majus, it nev­
ertheless remains in the same cosmological dimension.
37. Boethius, op. cit., p. 276. Obviously, the use of the formula “ than
which nothing better can be thought” continues after Anselm. Let us cite,
for instance, Saint Bernard: “ What is God? That than which nothing better
can be thought” (De consideratione, V, 7; P L , vol. 182, col. 797 A); William
of Saint-Thierry: “ We call that highest of all than which nothing is greater,
nothing better” or “ For nothing is better than charity, nothing more perfect
than charity,” “ just as nothing is better than charity, so too is nothing more
pleasing than charity” (De trinitate, respectively I, 1 1 and III, 2, then 3; PL,
vol. 196, cols. 896 and 9 17 -18 ); Livre des X X I V Philosophes: “ God is that
than which nothing better can be thought” (chap. V, edited by F. Hudrey
[Paris, 1989], p. 104, which shows the parallels with the texts of Augustine);
or even Mersenne, “ whoever apprehends the best necessarily conceives an
actual being; for in understanding the best, the soul conceives that than
which nothing better is or can be” (Quaestiones in Genesim, chap. 1, q. 1, v.
 NOTES TO PAGES 1 5 7 - 1 5 9

i, ratio, V [Paris, 1623], fol. 35, who cites Proslogion, II, III, IV, V, and
X V ); and explicitly Anselm’s definition: “ God is that than which nothing
greater can be thought” (ibid., fol. 37).
38. Dionysius, Mystical Theology, II; PG, vol. 3, 1025a (see above, note
27). This thesis was developed at length by P. Evdokimov, “ L ’aspect apo-
phatique de l’argument de saint Anselme,” in Spicilegium Beccense I, particu­
larly p. 239 and pp. 249ff.
39. Respectively, A T VII, 368, 11. 2 -4 ; and Monologion, L X IV , 75, 11.
n -12 .
Index
Adam, Charles, 71
Alquié, Ferdinand: on Anselm’s onto­
logical argument, 1980. 23; on causal­
ity in the Discourse, 3 1, i68n. 17; on
the cogito in the Discourse, 23, 32, 37;
on the Discourse and metaphysics, 23,
24, 26, 3 1, 37-38 , 39, i67n. 8, i68n.
12, lôçn. 18; on the dreams of the
Olympica, 162ml. 6, 7; on immediacy
of the cogito, i88n. 16; on metaphys­
ics as absent from the Regulae, 49,
i73n. 15; on substantiality of the
soul, i7on. 23
animal sensation, 106, i88n. 14
Anselm, Saint: concept of divine es­
sence in ontological argument of,
14 5 - 5 1; Descartes’ ontological argu­
ments compared with, 158—59; Hegel
on ontological argument of, 144-45;
love as foundation of ontological argu­
ment of, 157; ontological argument as
characterized by, 139; “ ontological ar­
gument” as not ontological, 158—60;
relation of God’s existence and es­
sence in ontological argument of,
15 1- 5 6
a posteriori proof for existence of God,
27, 28-29, 6 1-6 2
appetite, 90, i83n. 36
a priori proof for existence of God, 27,
29
Aquinas, Thomas: on Anselm’s ontolog­
ical argument, 147-48; on blessed­
ness, 90, 93; on dreams from divine
revelation, 4; on man capax Dei, 87,
89; Wigger’s criticism of, 92
Aristotle: Baillet comparing Descartes
with, i66n. 5; Descartes adopting psy­
chological terminology of, 44; Des­
cartes’ generosity compared with
“ magnificence” of, 189ml. 19, 2 1,
i9on. 22; on ideas, 43, 46, i72n. 4;
on metaphysics, 26, i68n. 13; simple
natures and categories of, 1720. 12;
on thought as activity, 36; on truth
expressing a meaning o f being, 36
Armogathe, J.-R ., i63n. 13, 17m . 2,
i76n. 2
Arnauld, Antoine, 33
Aubenque, P., i68n. 13
Augustine, Saint: capax Dei in Augus-
tinian theology, 8 5 -9 1; on faith and
reason, I95n. 19; on God as sub­
stance, 202n. 34; on incomprehensibil­
ity of God, 200n. 27
auto-affection: Descartes on the soul
affecting itself, 108-9; generosity as,
112 ; thought as auto-effective for
Henry, 105—7
axioms, 53
Baillet, Adrien, 3-4 , 8, 18, 22, i66n. 5
Baius, 91
Balthasar, H. U. Von, i9çn. 25, 202n.
35
Barth, Karl, i96n. 20
Being: Anselm’s hierarchy of, 149; in
Anselm’s ontological argument, 1 5 1 -
2 q6
Being (continued)
56, 159; in the cogito, 96-97; Leibniz
on necessary Being in ontological ar­
gument, 14 3—44; in Malebranche’s
ontological argument, 142-43. See
also ontology
Benedict of Canfield, 94
Bergson, Henri, igôn. 21
Berkeley, George, 35
Bernard, Saint, 203n. 37
Bérulle, Pierre de, 95
Beyssade, J.-M ., 167ml. 7, 9, 169m 17,
i8 8 n .16
blessedness: Baius on, 91; finite versus
infinite, 90, 92-93; human capacity
for, 88-89, 9°
Bloch, O., 69
bodies: corporeal ideas, 44; as reducible
to simple natures, 47. See also exten­
sion; shape; movement
Boethius, 156, 202n. 34
Bouillier, F ., 167ml. 6, 7
Brecher, R., 202n. 35
Brossaeus, P., 163m 13
capable/capacité: change in meaning
of, 68-69; correspondence with
capax/capacitas, 70, 77, 81; in the
Discourse, 7 0 -7 1, 72, 74; in the Medi­
tations, 83-85; in Passions o f the Soul,
72, 75, 77; posse as Latin translation
of, 7 7 -8 1; in The Search for Truth,
7 1 —72, 76, 77; in seventeenth-century
philosophy, 94-95; shift of meaning
in works of Descartes, 8 1-8 5
capax/capacitas: capax Dei in Augustin-
ian theology, 8 5 -9 1; correspondence
with capable / capacité, 70, 77, 8 1; in
the Discourse, 72, 74, 80, I79n. 18; as
implying a gift, 86; Latin semantics
of, 69-70, 178m 13; in the Medita­
tions, 83-85; in Passions o f the Soul,
72, 75, 77, 80; posse used in place of,
77—81; as reduced to power, 89—91,
93-95; in The Search for Truth, 72,
76, 77, i79n. 18
Carraud, V ., iÔ3n. 13
INDEX
Cartesian circle, 60
Cassirer, Ernst, I70n. 26
causality: as absent from the Discourse,
2 9 -3 1, 4 1, i68nn. 15, 17; causa sui,
27, 28, 29-30, 158, i68n. 14; God
as efficient and total cause, 39 -4 1,
I70n. 28; other minds as free causes,
137-38
causa sui, 27, 28, 29—30, 158, i68n. 14
certainty: of the cogito, 34; in Des­
cartes’ search for a path in life, 12;
of perception, 106
charity, 138, 157, i93n. 28
Charron, Pierre, i63n. 15
Chatillon, J., 202n. 35
Cicero, i62n. 8, 203n. 36
Clauberg, Johannes, 139
clear and distinct ideas, 36
cogitatio. See thought
cogito, ergo sum: common simple na­
tures in, 50, 58, 175m 27; in the Dis­
course, 23, 24, 32—37, 38; elements o f
in dreams of the Olympica, 17; ele­
ments of in the Regulae, 50; ethical
implications of, 1 17 ; as first princi­
ple, 34, 40, i69n. 22; generosity in
nonrepresentational interpretation of,
m - 1 7 ; Hegel on ontological argu­
ment and the, 144—45, i95nn. 16, 17;
Heidegger on Being in, 96—97; Hei­
degger’s intentional interpretation of,
9 9 -10 1; Henry’s nonintentional inter­
pretation of, 10 5 -7 , i88n. 13; Hus­
serl’s intentional interpretation of,
97-99; intellectual simple natures in,
50, I75n. 27; intentional and repre­
sentational interpretations of, 9 7-10 5;
Kant’s representational interpreta­
tion of, 10 2 -3 , 187m 10; and other
minds, 12 0 -2 1; as performative in
the Meditations, 33, 58
common sense, 44, 45
common simple natures (notions): in
the cogito, 50, 58, i75n. 27; defined,
48; in eternal truths, 53; in mathemat­
ics, 52; and metaphysics, 55; Princi­
ples o f Philosophy on, 59; in Second
INDEX
Meditation, 58-59; types of, 48. See
also logical common simple natures;
real common simple natures
Compline, hymn of, i 6zn. 10
Concordance to Descartes’ Meditationes
de prima Philosophia (Murafumi, Sa­
saki, and Nishimura), iy6n. 2
consciousness: as affected, 1; as auto­
effective for Henry, 105; as inten­
tional for Husserl, 97; reason affect­
ing, 1 - 2 ; redoubled intentionality of
self-consciousness, 98-99. See also
thought
Conversation with Burman (Descartes),
i84n. 40, i86n. 7
corporeal ideas, 44
Corpus omnium veterum poetarum
latinorum (Brossaeus), 10, i63n. 13
Costabel, P., i77n. 4
(Nottingham, John, i76n. 34
Courcelles, Etienne de, 26, 70, 7 1, 78, 80
Crapulli, G ., i76n. 32
Curley, E. M ., 17 m . 2
Dalferth, I. U ., 199m 25
Daniels, A., 202n. 35
“ death of God,” 145, 160
demented, the, 1 2 1 —22
Democritus, i62n. 8
Descartes, René: Cartesianism as mate­
rial phenomenology for Henry, 105,
117 ; computerized indexing of works
of, 67, i70n. 2; as founder of modern
idealism, 43; Suarez as influence on,
91, 92; as theologian of pure nature,
9 1—95. See also works by name
desire, 87, 88
Desmarets, Henri, 7 1, i78n. 14
Dionysius, 157, 200n. 27
Discourse on Method (Descartes):
capable / capacité in, 7 0 -7 1, 72, 74;
capax/capacitas in, 72, 74, 80, I79n.
18; causality as absent from, 3 0 -3 1,
41, i68nn. 15, 17; the cogito of, 23,
24, 32—37, 38; continuity with the
Meditations, 2 2-2 3, i67n. 7; Desc­
artes on shortcomings of metaphysics
207
of, 3 1- 3 2 , 16911. 19; doubt in, 2 2 -2 3,
24, 25, 38; explicitly metaphysical in­
tention of, 24—27; God’s attributes
in, 27-28, 39-40; metaphysical situa­
tion of, 20-42; method and metaphys­
ics in, 20-24, 42; as middle term
between Regulae and Meditations, 2 0 -
2 1; Principles o f Philosophy antici­
pated by, 25; proofs for the existence
of God in, 2 7-32; and solitude of the
ego, i92n. 1 1 ; on theology, i63n. 13;
as transition, 37-42; universality of
method of, 2 1, i66n. 3
doubt: in the Discourse, 23, 24, 25, 38;
in the Discourse and the Meditations,
2 2 -2 3; indubitability as criterion of
belief for Descartes, 12 —13; ° f intel­
lectual simple natures, 60, i75n. 28;
and the material simple natures, 56 -
57; in the Meditations, 55; and repre­
sentational interpretation of the cog­
ito, 10 1
dreams: dreaming as mode of thought
(cogitatio), 17; thought as occurring
in, 15; and truth in the Meditations,
15 -16
dreams of the Olympica, 1 —19; authen­
ticity of, i62n. 6; in Descartes’ philos­
ophy, 2 -3 ; as dreams not visions, 8;
elements of the cogito in, 17; enthu­
siasm as not the cause of, 3 -5 , 18;
God as not the source of, 4; rele­
vance of, 13; religious aspects of, 1 8 -
19; as requiring interpretation, 8; the
revelation of, 16; self-interpretation
of, 7—14; theoretical significance of,
5 -7 ; thought {cogitatio) awakened by,
14 - 19
Dubarle, D., i92n. 17
Duns Scotus, i82n. 33
duration, 61
ecstasy: in auto-affections of the soul,
1 0 9 - 1 1; in Heidegger’s intentional in­
terpretation of the cogito, 100, xoi; in
Husserl’s intentional interpretation of-
the cogito, 98, 99; in representa-
2 o8
ecstasy (continued)
tional interpretations of the cogito,
103, 105
ego: as center of any possible world,
119 ; in dreams of the Olympica, 17,
19; Ichspaltung of Husserl and Hei­
degger, 99, 100, i86n. 5; in inten­
tional and representational interpreta­
tions of the cogito, 99—105; and love,
13 1- 3 8 ; material simple natures as
subordinated to, 61; as objectifying
the other, 12 5-2 9 ; real common sim­
ple natures as subordinated to, 61;
solitude as conceptually necessary
state of, 12 9 -3 1; as thinking sub­
stance, 32, 34 -35, 57, 58-59, i69n.
23. See also cogito, ergo sum
egoism, 1 1 8 - 2 1
enthusiasm: as not the cause of dreams
of the Olympica, 3 - 5 , 18; radical cri­
tique of, 17 - 1 8 ; as relegated to imagi­
nation, 18
equality, 52, 59
Essays (Descartes), 2 1, 48
essence: and existence in ontological
argument, 140-60; as linked to exis­
tence by simple natures, 63
esteem: as a cogitatio, 114 ; as defined
in terms of value, 1 1 4 - 1 5 ; generosity
as depending on, 1 1 1 , 112 ; and love,
134; object of, 11 3
eternal truths, 53, 55
evil spirit. See genius malignus
existence: as common simple nature,
48, 58, 59, 63; and essence in ontolog­
ical argument, 140-60; as linked to
essence by simple natures, 63; neces­
sary link with thought, 59
extension: as not attributable to God,
i75n. 3 1; passivity of, 179m 2 1; as
simple nature, 47, 52, 54, 56, 60; as
subsumed under the ego, 61
faith: in Anselm’s ontological argu­
ment, 145-46; Descartes as favoring
reason over, i85n. 40; lumen naturale
INDEX
contrasted with, 93; and reason for
Anselm, 146, 195a. 19
falsity: Descartes rejecting middle
ground between truth and, 12; proba­
bility equated with by Descartes, 13
Fontialis, 139
François de Sales, 94-95
Frankfurt, H. G ., i73n. 19
free will, 19
Freud, Sigmund, 2, i6 in . 4
Froimond, L ., 92, 93
Gaunilo, i96n. 2 1, 197m 23, 20m. 30
Généalogie de la psychanalyse (Henry),
i88n. 13
generosity: and Aristotle’s “ magnifi­
cence,” 189ml. 19, 2 1, i9on. 22; as
auto-affection, 112 ; the cogito inter­
preted in terms of, i n —17; as de­
pending on esteem, h i , 112 ; ethical
primacy of, 112 ; as modifying the
manner of being, 116 ; object of, 1 1 2 —
13; ontic implications of, 1 1 5 - 1 7 ;
and thought, 1 1 4 - 1 5 ; well-being as
determined by, 116
genius malignus: in the Meditations, 22,
23; in Olympica and Meditations, 15,
165m 23
Geometry (Descartes), 21
Gibson, A. Boyce, 22, i66n. 5
Gilbert, P., 202n. 35
Gilson, Etienne, 22, 3 0 - 3 1, I07n.
12, i7on. 23, i90n. 20, i98n. 25
Goclenius, Rudolf, 4, 139
God: a posteriori proof for existence of,
27, 28—29, 6 1—62; a priori proof for
existence of, 27, 29; as within the
bounds of rationality, 62; capacitas
Dei, 85; capax Dei in Augustinian the­
ology, 8 5 -9 1; contemplation of, 94;
“ death of God,” 145, 160; deceiving
God o f the Meditations, 22, 23; Des­
cartes’ definition of, 142; Descartes
on three marvels of, 19; the Discourse
on the attributes of, 27—28, 39-40;
as efficient and total cause, 39 -4 1,
INDEX
1 7011. 28; existence proofs in the Dis­
course, 27—32; extension as not attrib­
utable to, i75n. 3 1; as infinite sub­
stance, 30, 62, 130; intellectual simple
natures as relevant to, 64; logical com­
mon simple natures as relevant to,
64; love of, 135; love o f leading to
love of others, 138; natural reason
attaining knowledge of, 92—93; as
nonmeasurable, 65; and other minds,
12 7-2 8 , 129—30; power of, 85; prop­
erties as expressible by real common
simple natures, 63; as thinking, 64; as \J
transcending material and intellectual
simple natures, 63; as transcending
scientific thought, 40; the will as rela­
tional mode between Descartes and,
19. See also ontological argument
Gombocz, W. L ., 202n. 35
good will, 1 1 3 - 1 4
Gouhier, Henri, 1621m. 6, 7
grace: and knowledge of God through
natural reason, 92; and nature, 86,
87, i85n. 40
Gregory o f Nazianzus, 87, i82n. 30
Gregory o f Nyssa, i99n. 27
Gueroult, Martial, i74n. 25, i87n. 10,
19m . 3
Hamelin, O., iÖ7n. 8
happiness, 116
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: and
Anselm on faith and reason, 146; on
ontological argument and the cogito,
144-45, i95nn. 16, 17; “ ontological
argument” attributed to Descartes
by, i94n. 4
Heidegger, Martin: on Being in the
cogito, 96-97; Descartes’ rejection of
formulation of cogito of, 104; inten­
tional interpretation of the cogito of,
9 9 -10 1
Henry, Michel: on Cartesianism as ma­
terial phenomenology, 105, 117 ; non-
intentional interpretation of the cogito
209
of, 10 5 -7 , i88n. 13; on thought’s in­
determinacy in the cogito, 97
human nature, capax Dei and the para­
dox of, 85-91
Husserl, Edmund: intentional interpre­
tation of the cogito of, 97-99; and other
minds, 129, 136; on redoubled inten-
tionality of self-consciousness, 98—99
Ichspaltung, 99, 100, i86n. 5
idealism, Descartes as modern founder
of, 43
ideas: as belonging to imagination, 44,
46; clear and distinct ideas, 36; corpo­
real ideas, 44; for Descartes, 43—46;
as figures, 44, 46, 17 m . 3; as form,
45; of God in ontological argument,
14 1; innate ideas, I72n. 7; in the
Meditations, 45-46; the mind as hav­
ing the potential to produce, 84; in the
Regulae, 43-44, 46; as thought, 45-46,
I72n. 7. See also representation
imagination: enthusiasm as relegated
to, 18; ideas as belonging to, 44, 46;
and material simple natures, 48, 49
Index des Meditationes de prima Philo-
sophia de R. Descartes (Marion, Masso-
nié, Monat, and Ucciani), i76n. 2
Index des Regulae ad directionem ingenii
de René Descartes (Armogathe and
Marion), i76n. 2
Index du Discours de la Méthode de
René Descartes (Cahné), i7Ôn. 2
infinite, the: God as infinite substance,
30, 62, 130; as incomprehensible, 62
Ingarden, R., i86n. 5
innate ideas, 172m 7
intellectual joy, 109
intellectual simple natures: as absent in
the Meditations, 55; in the cogito, 50,
i75n. 27; defined, 48; and doubt, 60,
i75n. 28; God as transcending, 63;
linking with real common simple na­
tures, 59, 66; metaphysical function
of, 58; metaphysics and understand­
ing associated with, 49, 52; objects of
 2 10
intellectual simple natures (continued)
metaphysics as, 64; the Regulae as
passing over, 60; as relevant to God,
64; in Second Meditation, 57—58
intentionality: difficulties with inten­
tional interpretations of the cogito,
I03~5; as fundamental property of
consciousness for Husserl, 97; Hei­
degger’s intentional interpretation of
the cogito, 9 9 -10 1; Husserl’s inten­
tional interpretation of the cogito, 9 7-
99; redoubled intentionality o f self-
consciousness, 98-99
intersubjectivity, 12 1, 13 1 , 136
intuitus. See knowledge by intuition
joy, intellectual, 109
Kant, Immanuel: Anselm and transcen­
dental method of, 147, i96n. 2 1,
I97n. 22; on Leibnizian ontological
argument, 144; ontological argument
as defined by, 140; “ontological argu­
ment” as used by, 139; representa­
tional interpretation of the cogito of,
10 2 -3 , i87n. 10
Kienzler, K ., 202n. 35
Viknowledge by intuition (intuitus)'. the
i cogito as, 50; and other minds, 120,
12 4 -2 5
Kohlenberger, M ., i99n. 25
Koyre, Alexandre, I93n. 1, 20m . 28
La Brosse, Pierre de, i63n. 13
Lefevre, Henri, 22, i67n. 8, 17 m . 30
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 47, 95,
136, 139, 14 3-4 4
Lessius, 91
letters of 1630 (Descartes): God recog­
nized as infinite in, 39; on mathemati­
cal truths, 5 1- 5 2 , I72n. 13; on mathe­
matics as subordinate to metaphysics,
55; on simple natures as metaphysi­
cal, 53; term “ metaphysics” intro­
duced in, 51, i72n. 13
Liard, L ., 22, i66n. 5
„¡^linguistic value, 177m 4
INDEX
logical common simple natures: and
the cogito, 175m 27; defined, 48; as
relevant to God, 64
Loretto, pilgrimage to, 18, 19, 164».
17
love: in Anselm’s ontological argument,
157; and charity, 138; concupiscent
and benevolent, 134; defined, 132;
the ego’s claim to be the focus of,
118 ; formal univocity of, 134 -35 ,
i92n. 2 1; forms of, 134 -3 5 ; ° f God,
135; and other minds, 13 1 - 3 8 ; as a
passion, 1 3 1; representation of object
of, 135; and res cogitans, 132, 133,
i74n. 24; the will in, 132, i92n. 18
Lubac, H. de, i8on. 24, ig8n. 26
lumen naturale, 93
Luynes, duc de, 83
madmen, 1 2 1-2 2 , 123
Malebranche, Nicolas: “ capacité” as
used by, 95; Cartesian metaphysical
situation as paradigmatic for, 35; love
as defined by, 136; on ontological ar­
gument, 14 2-4 3; on our idea of our
own soul, 126, i92n. 9; Robinet’s
analysis of texts of, I76n. 3
Maritain, Jacques, i6 in . 2, i6sn. 23
material simple natures: in classifica­
tion of simple natures, 48; in First,
Fifth, and Sixth Meditations, 53-57,
i74n. 23; God as transcending, 63; in
mathematics, 49, 52; the sciences as
dealing with, 49; in Second Medita­
tion, 59-60; as subordinated to the
ego, 61
mathematics: in First Meditation, 54;
and material simple natures, 49, 52,
57; metaphysics distinguished from,
I72n. 14; as subordinate to metaphys­
ics, 55; truths of as created, 5 1-5 2 ,
i72n. 13
mathesis universalis: egoism as practical
consequence of, 119 ; God as beyond
the bounds of, 63; and metaphysics,
63-65; order and measurement in,
64—65; and pura atque abstracta
INDEX
mathesis of Fifth Meditation, 56; sim­
ple natures specifying conditions of,
48
Matthews, G. B., 19m . 7
measurement, 64—65
Meditations (Descartes): capable / ca­
pacité in, 83-85; the cogito o f the Dis­
course compared with that of, 33 -3 5 ,
37, i7on. 25; continuity with the Dis­
course, 22—23, 167m 7; Discourse as
middle term between Regulae and,
2 0 -2 1; doubt in, 2 2-2 3, 55; on
dreams and truth, 1 5 - 16 ; as figure
composed of different types of simple
natures, 53, 65-66; ideas in, 45-46;
material simple natures in First,
Fifth, and Sixth, 53-57 , I74n. 23; as
metaphysical, 65-66; method in,
i66n. 4; method of the Regulae and
the metaphysics of, 20; the mind as
active power in, 83-85; as norm for
Descartes’ metaphysics, 2 1; ontologi­
cal argument in Fifth, 14 1, 158; onto­
logical argument in Third, 158 -59 ;
other minds as conceptually impossi­
ble in, 12 9 -3 1; other minds as omit­
ted in, 12 1- 2 5 ; proofs o f existence of
God compared with those of the Dis­
course, 2 7 -3 2 ; simple natures in, 4 3 -
66; simple natures in First, i73n. 19;
simple natures in Third, 60—66;
thought as indifferent to waking/
sleeping in, 15
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 136 -3 7 ,
i8gn. 16, i93n. 25
Mersenne, Marin: God described as ef­
ficient and total cause to, i70n. 28;
on the highest good as existing, 203n.
37. See also letters o f 1630
metaphysics: as confronting method in
the Discourse, 22; as defined by Des­
cartes, i68n. 12; in the Discourse on
Method, 20-42; egoism as practical
consequence of Cartesian, 119 -2 0 ; ex­
plicitly metaphysical intention o f the
Discourse, 24-27; as foundation of the
sciences, 49; intellectual simple na­
211
tures as objects of, 49, 64; mathemat­
ics distinguished from, i72n. 14; and
mathesis universalis, 63—65; the Medi­
tations as metaphysical, 65-66; Medi­
tations as norm for Descartes’, 2 1;
and method in the Discourse, 20—24,
42; order without measurement in,
65; in the Regulae, 4 9 -5 1; simple na­
tures’ function in, 53; term as intro­
duced in letter of 1630, 51, i72n. 13.
See also ontology
Meteorology (Descartes), 2 1, i79n. 21
method: as confronting metaphysics
in the Discourse on Method, 22; Des­
cartes’ search for a path in life and,
1 1 ; in the Meditations, i66n. 4; and
metaphysics in the Discourse, 20—24,
42; Rule V of the Regulae on, 1 1 - 1 2 .
See also mathesis universalis
Montaigne, i64n. 15
moral theology, 1 1
More, Henry, I76n. 31
movement: as simple nature, 47, 54,
56, 60; as subsumed under the ego,
61
Naissance de la Paix, La (Descartes), 1,
i6 in .1
Nancy, J.-L ., i88n. 16
Natorp, Paul, i70n. 26
nature: Descartes as theologian o f pure
nature, 9 1-9 5 ; and grace, 86, 87,
i85n. 40
Naulin, P., i96n. 21
necessary Being, 143—44
Nicholas of Cusa, 200n. 27
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 91
number, 61
Olympica (Descartes), 1. See also
dreams of the Olympica
ontological argument, 139 —60; An­
selm’s argument as not ontological,
158—60; characterized as ontological,
139-40; concept of divine essence in
Anselm’s, 14 5 - 5 1; a concept of God
as required in, 14 1-4 2 ; in Discourse
212
ontological argument {continued)
and Meditations compared, 28; the
essence of God in, 14 2-4 3; in
Fifth Meditation, 14 1, 158; God as
summum bonum in Anselm’s, 15 2 -
54, 159-60, 20m . 29; God as “ that /
than which nothing greater can be
thought” in, 14 6 -5 1; Kant’s defini­
tion of, 140; love in Anselm’s, 157;
as ontological, 139 -4 5; relation of
God’s existence and essence in An­
selm’s, 15 1- 5 6 , 159; in Third Medita­
tion, 158 -59
ontology: Anselm’s argument as not on­
tological, 157, 159; in the Discourse,
37, 38, 42; ontological argument as
ontological, 139 -4 5
ontotheology, 39, 4 0 -4 1, 138, 160
Optics (Descartes), 6, 2 1, i65n. 22
Opus postumum (Kant), i87n. 10
ordering, 64-65
other minds: charity in relationship to,
138; the cogito as raising the problem
of, 12 0 - 2 1; as conceptually impossi­
ble in the Meditations, 12 9 - 3 1; in
First Meditation, 12 1- 2 2 ; in Fourth
Meditation, 122; as free causes, 1 3 7 -
38; love as approach to, 13 1- 3 8 ; the
Meditations as omitting discussion of,
12 1- 2 5 ; objectifying of, 12 5-2 9 ; in
Second Meditation, 12 2 -2 5 ; in Sixth
Meditation, 122—23
Paliard, J., i98n. 25
parents, 128-29
Pascal, Blaise: on egoism, 118 -2 0 , 136;
on holiness versus wisdom, i64n. 15;
on human capacity to know God, 95;
on self and other, 19m . 7
passions, 10 7-9 ; as concerning the
very fact of being, 116 ; as confused
thoughts, 13 1 ; defined, 107; as en­
tirely absorbed in the soul, 132; gen­
erosity as, 1 1 2 - 1 3 , i89n. 20; love as,
13 1 ; representation required in, 109.
See also generosity; love; perceptions
Passions o f the Soul (Descartes):
INDEX
ble/capacité in, 72, 75, 77; capax/
capacitas in, 72, 75, 77, 80; on
depth of passion and enjoyment of
pleasures, 93 ;passio in, 71
^¿¿perceptions: animal sensation, 106,
i88n. 14; certainty of, 106; external
and internal causes of, 108, 110 ; as
passions, 108; of volitions, 1 1 0 - 1 1
perfection: in Descartes’ definition of
God, 27-29; in ontological argument,
142
phenomenology: Henry on Cartesian-
ism as material phenomenology, 105,
117 ; Henry’s nonintentional inter­
pretation of the cogito, 10 5 -7 ; inten­
tional and representational interpreta­
tions of the cogito, 9 7-10 5
philosophy: Descartes as modern
founder of idealism, 43; quadripartite
division of, 10, i63n. 13; and wis­
dom, 10. See also metaphysics
physics: and material simple natures,
49, 57; order without measurement
in, 65
physiology, 65
Plato, 5, i62n. 8
Poisson, Nicholas j ., 9, i67n. 7, i69n.
22
power: capacity as reduced to, 89-91,
93-95; Descartes’ shift from receptiv­
ity to, 8 1-8 5 ; Posse used for capable
in Latin translations of Descartes,
7 7 -8 1
Principles o f Philosophy (Descartes): on
common simple natures, 59; the Dis­
course as anticipating, 25; on feeble­
ness of our nature, 93; God as effi­
cient and total cause in, 41; on
simple natures, 52 -53 ; and solitude
o f the ego, I92n. 1 1 ; substance in,
i75n. 29; thought as defined in, 16
probability, 12, 13
protology, 36, 37, 38
Pythagoras, 12, I04n. 19
Rat, M ., 69
rationality. See reason
INDEX
real common simple natures: and the
cogito, i75n. 27; defined, 48; God’s
properties as expressible by, 63; link
to intellectual^simple natures, 59, 66;
as subordinated to the ego, 61; sub­
stance as, 61, 62
reason: Christian faith as exceeding ca­
pacity of, 88; Descartes as favoring
over faith, i85n. 40; distinguishing
from dreams and poetry, 1 - 2 ; and
faith for Anselm, 146, I95n. 19; God
as within the bounds of, 62; knowl­
edge o f God through natural, 92-93;
rational creatures as capable of bless­
edness, 88-89; as a standard, 2
Recherche de la vérité (Descartes). See
Search for Truth, The
Regulae (Descartes): Discourse as mid­
dle term between Meditations and,
2 0 -2 1; on ideas, 43-44, 46; intellec­
tual simple natures passed over in,
60; and metaphysics, 4 9 -5 1; meta­
physics of the Meditations and the
method of, 20; the mind as active
power in, 82—83; on simple natures,
4 6 -5 1. See also rules by number
representation: difficulties with repre­
sentational interpretations o f the
cogito, 10 3 -5 ; in Heidegger’s inten­
tional interpretation of the cogito, 99-
10 1; in Husserl’s intentional interpre­
tation of the cogito, 97-99; Kant’s
representational interpretation of the
cogito, 10 2 -3 , i87n. 10; love as de­
pending on, 135; passions requiring,
109; and volitions with their termi­
nus in the soul, n o ; without an ob­
ject when the will attends to its own
nature, i n
res cogitans: cause of, 128; the ego as,
32, 34 -35 , 57, 58-59, 16911. 23; and
intellectual simple natures, 57—58,
59; and love, 132, 133, i74n. 24
revelation, 92
Robinet, A., 176ml. 2, 3
Rodis-Lewis, Geneviève, i6 in . 1,
iÔ7n. 7, igon. 32
213
Rosicrucianism, 5
Rule I (Regulae), 9, 10, I93n. 21
Rule III (Regulae)'. intellectual and com­
mon simple natures linked in, 50;
on revelation, 92; on simple natures,
5i
Rule IV (Regulae)'. on lack of method,
n ; on mathesis universalis, 48, 49,
i74n. 22; the mind as active power
in, 82
Rule V (Regulae), n —12
Rule V II (Regulae)'. on capacity o f the
human mind, 83; the mind as active
power in, 82
Rule V III (Regulae): on capacity of the
human mind, 82; the mind as active
power in, 82-83
Rule IX (Regulae), 83
Rule X II (Regulae): on ideas, 46; intel­
lectual and common simple natures
linked in, 50; list of simple natures,
48, 57; the mind as active power in,
82, 83; simple natures encoded as sen­
sations in, 54, i73n. 20
Rules for the Direction o f the Mind
(Descartes). See Regulae
Sartre, Jean-Paul, i87n. 10
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph
von: on Leibnizian ontological argu­
ment, 144, i95n. 14; “ ontological ar­
gument” attributed to Descartes,
i94n. 4; on order of movement in
ontological argument, 145
sciences: Descartes’ discovery of foun­
dations of a new science, 3 - 5 ; in­
commensurability of, 55, 173m 2 1;
material simple natures as objects of,
48-49, 56; in the Meditations, 55;
metaphysics as foundation of, 49;
physiology, 65; unity of, 9 -10 , 22,
193m 2 1; wisdom as opposed to, 10.
See also mathematics; physics
Search for Truth, The (Descartes):
capable / capacité in, 7 1 —72, 76, 77;
capax/capacitas in, 72, 76, 77, i79n.
18
214
Sebba, Gregor, 16311. x i, 17711. 4
self-evidence: as criterion of truth, 13;
o f principles of logic, 59; as sole de­ summum bonum, 15 2 -5 4 , 159-60, 20m.
terminant of thought, 15, 16
self-inspiration: as confirming self­
interpretation, 1 3 - 1 4 ; and thesis of
autonomy of thought, 15
self-interpretation: conceptual thought
presupposed by, 14; of the dreams of
the Olympica, 7 - 14 ; self-inspiration
as confirming, 13 - 1 4 ; sleep as con­
text of, 14
Seneca, 202n. 35
sensory perceptions. See perceptions
sensus communis, 44, 45
shape: as simple nature, 47, 52, 54, 56,
60; as subsumed under the ego, 61
Simon, G ., i62n. 6
simple natures: and Aristotelian catego­
ries, i72n. 12; characteristic features
of, 47-48; in First Meditation, i73n. , \J tures in Second Meditation, 57; inten-
19; as hierarchically ordered, 61; list
of in the Regulae, 48; in the Medita­
tions, 43-66; metaphysical function
of, 53; in the Principles o f Philosophy,
52 -53; in the Regulae (Descartes),
4 6 -5 1; in Second Meditation, 57-60;
in Third Meditation, 60-66. See also
common simple natures; intellectual
simple natures; material simple na­
tures
Smith, Norman Kemp, 17 m . 28
solipsism, 137, 19m . 3
Specimina philosophiae (Descartes), 24,
26, 70
Spinoza, Benedict, 136, 142
Studium bonae mentis (Descartes), 5, 9,
10, 163m 1 1
Suarez, Francisco, 90, 91, 92, 94,
i83n. 35, i84n. 40
substance: Anselm on God as, 155,
202n. 34; as common simple nature,
52; the ego as thinking substance, 32,
34 -35, 1690. 23; God as infinite, 62;
in Principles o f Philosophy, i75n. 29;
as real common simple nature, 61,
62; as subsumed under the ego, 61;
INDEX
in Third Meditation, 34, 61, I75n. 29.
See also res cogitans
29
supernatural, the: and capacity, 88. See
also God
Thevenaz, P., i87n. 10
thought (cogitatio): as auto-affection for
Henry, 10 5 -7 ; autonomy of, 15 - 1 6 ;
as awakened by the dreams of the
Olympica, 14 -19 ; as beginning when
consciousness becomes indifferent to
its own affections, 16; a concept of
God as required in ontological argu­
ment, 1 4 1—42; as defined by Des­
cartes, 16; esteem as, 114 ; and gener­
osity, 1 1 4 - 1 5 ; God as thinking, 64;
ideas identified with, 45-46, i72n. 7;
as indifferent to sleeping and waking,
1 4 - 1 5 ; and intellectual simple na-
\ tional and representational interpreta­
tions of the cogito, 9 7-10 3 ; necessary
link with existence, 59; passions as
confused, 13 1; as a reduction, 16;
self-evidence as sole determinant of,
15, 16. See also cogito, ergo sum;
ideas
Timpler, 139
translation, 68, I77n. 4
truth: of clear and distinct ideas, 36;
Descartes devoting his life to pursuit
of, 1 1 ; Descartes rejecting middle
ground between falsity and, 12; and
dreams in the Meditations, 1 5 - 16 ;
eternal truths, 53, 55; self-evidence
as criterion of, 13
understanding: and intellectual simple
natures, 49; and will, n o , i8gn. 18
value, 1 1 4 - 1 5
Vatier, Father, 31
Viola, C .-E., 197ml. 2 1, 23
Voet, G ., 138
volition. See will
Vuillemin, J., i99n. 25
INDEX
Wagner, J.-M ., 16211. 6
Wartburg, W. von, 69
Watson, R. A., iö in . 1
well-being, 116
Wigger, John, 92
will: attending to its own nature, 1 1 1 ;
esteem in auto-affecting of, 115 ; as
formally infinite, 130; free will, 19;
good will, 1 1 3 —14; internal and ex­
ternal volitions, n o ; and love, 132,
i92n. 18; perceptions of volitions,
n o —n ; as relational mode between
God and Descartes, 19; and under­
standing, n o , i89n. 18; volitions as
auto-affections, 108-9
William of Saint-Thierry, 203n. 37
wisdom, 10—1 1
wonder, 1 1 1 - 1 2 , 1 1 3, 1 1 4