HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY JOSE CONRADO A.

ESTAFIA

History of Modern Philosophy (Western)

1st Semester, AY 2020-2021
Lecturer: Fr. Jose Conrado A. Estafia
Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary
Tagbilaran City, Bohol, Philippines

After the Medieval comes a new age called Modernity. We recall Martin Luther
(born on November 10, 1483) who lived in a world unfamiliar to us today: the conclusion
and the “autumn of the Middle Ages.” It was when the Church in Europe was tainted with
many abuses: foremost is the externalization of piety. Reforming the Church was the
demand of the time. Indeed, it was a “transitional period of decline.” The Western Schism
(1378-1417) caused a terrible suffering to the reputation of the papacy. There was for a
while a rivalry of three popes who were mutually excommunicating each other. Theology
was dominated with considerable ambiguity, see for instance, William of Ockham’s
doctrine of grace, which was a result of a new movement (via nova) called “nominalism”.
But to many, the fifteenth century (15th century) was an experience of a new epoch:
the discovery of the new world in America by Vasco da Gama and Columbos;
Constantinople was conquered (1453), thus ending the millennial reign of the Byzantine
Empire; Granada was recaptured (1492) and Islam was expelled definitely from Spain;
Johannes Guterberg developed the art of printing; Copernicus (1473-1543) discovered
that the Earth revolves around the sun. There was then a general feeling that a new age
has begun. The old encountered the new; they overlapped and come into conflict.1 All
these events have contributed to the beginning of the modern period.
The focus of the present lecture, however, is on the history of modern philosophy.
At the outset, I will bring your attention to the book of Hans Schelkshorn, who is a
professor of the Institute for Christian Philosophy of the University of Vienna. The title of
his book is Entgrenzungen: Ein europäischer Beitrag zum philosophischen Diskurs über
die Moderne (Dissolution of Boundaries: A European Contribution to the philosophical

1 Cf. Walter Kasper, Martin Luther: An Ecumenical Perspective, trans. William Madges (New
Jersey: Paulist Press, 2016), 5-6. All the details here come from this small book.

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discourse on Modernity).2 Without being exhaustive, we will discuss the dissolution of

the boundaries (Entgrenzungen) of classical medieval thinking and the return to the
thinking of the Renaissance. Schelkshorn clarifies that, in intellectual history, it is
extremely unusual to speak of “radical new ideas,” because philosophy is always based
on certain traditions. In viewing modernity anew, Schelkshorn has excavated three
elements: curiosity, self-creation and cosmopolitanism. Once uncovered, a new look
at modernity is opened for us. We will see below these three elements and the person
representing each element.

1) Curiosity: Dissolution of the boundary of the cosmos and revaluation of the

inexhaustible curiosity of the world [Weltneugier] (Nicholas of Cusa [1401-
1464])

This element is represented by Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), who is arguably the

most important German thinker of the 15 th century. Cusa is an ecclesiastical reformer,
administrator and cardinal. The revaluation (Die Aufwertung) of a boundless universe is
actually not his achievement, because this tendency is already observable in all of the
late medieval thinking. Cusa, according to Karl Bormann, is not a scholastic. For what
do we mean by being a scholastic? Let us review what we mean by scholasticism.
Scholasticism is generally a form of knowledge/science (Wissenschaft) in the Middle
Ages. This knowledge was developed in cathedral school and community-run school, in
which the universities of the 13th and 14th centuries originated. In scholasticism one is
working with texts, and to be sure with the manifold and newly developed materials
originating from Greek, Hebrew and Arabic languages. The so-called faculties of arts
(Artistenfakultäten), emerging from the philosophical faculties, were working generally
with the texts of Aristotle and under his name there existed a circulation of excerpts from
the texts of late classical Platonists. Scholasticism developed a completely determined
technique of documentation and literary form of presentation. These characteristics were

2 In our lecture we are following part B of the book of Hans Schelkshorn, Entgrenzungen: Ein
europäischer Beitrag zum philosophischen Diskurs über die Moderne, Zweite Auflage (Weilerswist:
Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2016), 95-407. Prof. Schelkshorn was one of my panelists during the defense of
my masteral thesis (2018) in the Faculty of Catholic Theology of the University of Vienna.

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not applicable to Nicholas of Cusa.3 Bormann records that Cusa was never a master of
philosophy or theology, not even of legal sciences, although for a short time, as a doctor
iuris canonici, he probably gave lectures in Köln (Cologne). Cusa never worked and wrote
commentaries on existing texts; his technique in documentation and literary form were
not similar to those of the scholastic. In a word, Cusa is not a scholastic.
If he is not a scholastic, can we consider Cusa as part already of the modern times?
Bormann claims that such classification is hasty. We can notice a strong reception of
Augustine and Proclus4 in several of Cusas’ writings, which are shown in numerous
marginal notes. Nicholas of Cusa was influenced by Pseudo-Dionysius5, who depended
on Proclus and instrumental in putting a distinctive Christian flavor of Neoplatonism. Cusa
was further influenced by John Eriugena6, through the School of Chartres, which played

3 See the introduction of the Latin-German collection, Nikolaus von Krues, Philosophisch-
Theologische Werke, Band I (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2002). In this volume one can read Cusa’s
writing, De docta ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance).

4 “Proclus of Athens (*412–485 C.E.) was the most authoritative philosopher of late antiquity and
played a crucial role in the transmission of Platonic philosophy from antiquity to the Middle Ages. For almost
fifty years, he was head or ‘successor’ (diadochos, sc. of Plato) of the Platonic ‘Academy’ in Athens. Being
an exceptionally productive writer, he composed commentaries on Aristotle, Euclid and Plato, systematic
treatises in all disciplines of philosophy as it was at that time (metaphysics and theology, physics,
astronomy, mathematics, ethics) and exegetical works on traditions of religious wisdom (Orphism and
Chaldaean Oracles). Proclus had a lasting influence on the development of the late Neoplatonic schools
not only in Athens, but also in Alexandria, where his student Ammonius became the head of the school. In
a culture dominated by Christianity, the Neoplatonic philosophers had to defend the superiority of the
Hellenic traditions of wisdom. Continuing a movement that was inaugurated by Iamblichus (4 th c.) and the
charismatic figure of emperor Julian, and following the teaching of Syrianus, Proclus was eager to
demonstrate the harmony of the ancient religious revelations (the mythologies of Homer and Hesiod, the
Orphic theogonies and the Chaldaean Oracles) and to integrate them in the philosophical tradition of
Pythagoras and Plato. Towards this end, his PlatonicTheology offers a magisterial summa of pagan
Hellenic theology. Probably the best starting point for the study of Proclus’ philosophy is the Elements of
Theology (with the masterly commentary by E.R. Dodds) which provide a systematic introduction into the
Neoplatonic metaphysical system” (Accessed April 29, 2020: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/proclus/).

5 “Dionysius, or Pseudo-Dionysius, as he has come to be known in the contemporary world, was a

Christian Neoplatonist who wrote in the late fifth or early sixth century CE and who transposed in a
thoroughly original way the whole of Pagan Neoplatonism from Plotinus to Proclus, but especially that of
Proclus and the Platonic Academy in Athens, into a distinctively new Christian context” (Accessed April 29,
2020: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-dionysius-areopagite/).

6 “Johannes (c.800–c.877), who signed himself as “Eriugena” in one manuscript, and who was
referred to by his contemporaries as “the Irishman” (scottus—in the ninth century Ireland was referred to
as “Scotia Maior” and its inhabitants as “scotti”) is the most significant Irish intellectual of the early monastic
period. He is generally recognized to be both the most outstanding philosopher (in terms of originality) of
the Carolingian era and of the whole period of Latin philosophy stretching from Boethius to Anselm.
Eriugena is, also, though this parallel remains to be explored, more or less a contemporary of the Arab
Neoplatonist Al-Kindi. Since the seventeenth century, it has become usual to refer to this Irish philosopher

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as John Scottus (or “Scotus”) Eriugena to distinguish him from the thirteenth-century John Duns Scotus
(see entry). Eriugena’s uniqueness lies in the fact that, quite remarkably for a scholar in Western Europe in
the Carolingian era, he had considerable familiarity with the Greek language, affording him access to the
Greek Christian theological tradition, from the Cappadocians to Gregory of Nyssa, hitherto almost entirely
unknown in the Latin West. He also produced a complete, if somewhat imperfect, Latin translation of
the Corpus Dionysii, the works of the obscure, possibly Syrian, Christian Neoplatonist, Pseudo-Dionysius
the Areopagite, a follower of Proclus. In addition, Eriugena translated Gregory of Nyssa’s De hominis
opificio and Maximus Confessor’s Ambigua ad Iohannem, and possibly other works, such as
Epiphanius’ Anchoratus. Eriugena’s thought is best understood as a sustained attempt to create a
consistent, systematic, Christian Neoplatonism from diverse but primarily Christian sources. Eriugena had
a unique gift for identifying the underlying intellectual framework, broadly Neoplatonic but also deeply
Christian, assumed by the writers of the Christian East. Drawing especially on Basil, Gregory of Nyssa,
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus Confessor, as well as on the more familiar authorities
(auctores) of the Latin West (e.g., Cicero, Augustine, Macrobius, Martianus Capella, Boethius), he
developed a highly original cosmology, where the highest principle, “the immovable self-identical one”
(unum et idipsum immobile,Periphyseon, Patrologia Latina 122: 476b), engenders all things and retrieves
them back into itself. Contrary to what some earlier commentators supposed, it is most unlikely that
Eriugena had direct knowledge of the original texts of Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, or other pagan
Neoplatonists, but he did have some direct knowledge of Plato (a portion of Timaeusin the translation of
Calcidius) as well as familiarity with the pseudo-Augustinian Categoriae decem. Overall, Eriugena develops
a Neoplatonic cosmology according to which the infinite, transcendent, and “unknown” God, who is beyond
being and non-being, through a process of self-articulation, procession, or “self-creation”, proceeds from
his divine “darkness” or “non-being” into the light of being, speaking the Word who is understood as Christ,
and at the same timeless moment bringing forth the Primary Causes of all creation. These causes in turn
proceed into their Created Effects and as such are creatures entirely dependent on, and will ultimately
return to, their sources, which are the Causes or Ideas in God. These Causes, considered as diverse and
infinite in themselves, are actually one single principle in the divine One. The whole of reality or nature, is
involved in a dynamic process of outgoing (exitus) from and return (reditus) to the One. God is the One or
the Good or the highest principle, which transcends all, and which therefore may be said to be “the non-
being that transcends being”. In an original departure from traditional Neoplatonism, in his
dialoguePeriphyseon, this first and highest cosmic principle is called “nature” (natura) and is said to include
both God and creation. Nature is defined as universitas rerum, the “totality of all things”, and includes both
the things which are (ea quae sunt) as well as those which are not (ea quae non sunt). This divine nature
may be divided into a set of four “species” or “divisions” (divisiones) which nevertheless retain their unity
with their source. These four divisions of nature taken together are to be understood as God, presented as
the “Beginning, Middle, and End of all things”. Apart from having a minor influence in France in the ninth
century, Eriugena’s cosmological speculations appear too conceptually advanced for the philosophers and
theologians of his time, and his philosophical system was generally neglected in the tenth and eleventh
centuries. His main work, Periphyseon, was revived by twelfth-century Neoplatonists, and also circulated
in a compendium, Clavis Physicae (The Key of Nature) of Honorius Augustodunensis.
The Periphyseon was popular among the philosophers of Chartres and St. Victor (e.g., Hugh of St. Victor
refers to it) but was condemned in the thirteenth century, alongside the writings of David of Dinant and
Amaury of Bène, for promoting the identity of God and creation. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
Eriugena continued to have a relatively clandestine but still important influence on Christian Neoplatonists
such as Meister Eckhart and especially Nicholas of Cusa. The first printed editions of his works appeared
in the seventeenth century, but it was not until the nineteenth century that interest in him was revived,
especially among followers of Hegel who saw Eriugena as a forerunner to speculative idealism, as a
“Proclus of the West” (Hauréau, 1872) and the “Father of Speculative Philosophy” (Huber, 1861). The first
truly scholarly attempt to establish the facts of his life, his works and influence was by the Belgian scholar
Maiul Cappuyns, whose 1933 work Jean Scot Erigène: sa vie, son oeuvre, sa pensée is still reliable. Many
valuable twentieth-century studies (e.g., Contreni, 1992; Marenbon, 1981, 2006; Schrimpf, 1982; O’Meara,
1969, 1988) have explored Eriugena’s Carolingian background and continuity with Latin authors. However,
systematic studies of his thought (Beierwaltes, 1980, 1987, 1990; Gersh, 1978, 2006; Moran, 1989, 1999)
have also recognized him as a highly original metaphysician and speculative thinker of the first rank whose

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a big role in the philosophical Renaissance of the 12th century. This school followed the
teachings of Boethius as well as of Meister Eckhart and some writings of Albertus
Magnus. Bormann continues suggesting that it is premature to localize Nicholas of Cusa
between medieval and modern times, because through him medieval thinking was
transposed into the modern times. I learned before that Cusa can also be considered as
the Father of Modern Philosophy, but Bormann mentions a better description of Nicholas
of Cusa: “For a number of years it has become almost fashionable to present Cusa as
the forerunner of modernity or as a gatekeeper of the new era, etc.”7 I need not go further
in discussing this issue. Our interest here is this element of curiosity, which Nicholas of
Cusa represents.
Schelkshorn writes: “In the second book of the early major work De docta
ignorantia (1440) Nicholas of Cusa examines a radical dissolution of the boundary of the
cosmological world picture of classical medieval thought. Through the spectacular thesis
on the boundless universe and the movement of the earth, the cosmology of Nicholas of
Cusa is sometimes interpreted as anticipation of the copernican revolution.” 8 The title of
the first chapter of the second book of De docta ignorantia goes: Correlaria praeambularia
ad inferendum unum infinitum universum (Supplementary remarks as preamble to the
demonstration of one infinite universe).9
However, Schelkshorn clarifies that this theory of Cusa did not arise from nothing.
Few decades earlier, there were already commentaries on the cosmological work of
Aristotle, De caelo. Notable here were the Christian commentaries of St. Thomas
Aquinas and his mentor Albert the Great. In the medieval universities there developed a

work transcends the limitations of his age and mode of expression” (Accessed April 29, 2020:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scottus-eriugena/).
7 „Seit einer Reihe von Jahren ist es fast Mode geworden, Cusanus als den Vorläufer der Moderne
oder als >>Pförtner der neuen Zeit<< usw. auszugeben“ (Nicholas von Krues, Philosophisch-Theologische
Werke, Band I), IX.

8 “Im zweiten Buch des frühen Hauptwerkes De docta ignorantia (1440) nimmt Nikolas von Kues
eine radikale Entgrenzung des kosmologischen Weltbildes des antik-mittelalterlichen Denkens vor. Durch
die spektakulären Thesen über die Grenzenlosigkeit des Universums und die Erdbewegung ist die
Kosmologie von Nikolaus von Kues zuweilen als Antizipation der korpernikanischen Revolution gedeutet
worden“ (Schelkshorn, Entgrenzungen, 96). Translations mine.

9 I am basing my English translation from the German translation, Ergänzende Bemerkungen als
Einleitung zum Erweis des einen unendlichen Universums.

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complex criticism of the metaphysical and empirical premises of the geocentric world
picture. The Parisian bishop Etienne Tempier in 1277 condemned Aristotle’s thesis on
the impossibility of more than one world, because this would questioned God’s
omnipotence. In the 14th century, Nicole Oresme already presented an argument against
the thesis of Aristotle that the earth rotates daily on its axis. The theory of Cusa was not
the only thesis concerning the movement of the earth. It did not exhibit also the new
astronomical observations and accounts like that of Galilei.
Nicholas of Cusa is one of the proponents of German Renaissance humanism. He
anticipated many later ideas in mathematics, cosmology, astronomy and experimental
science while constructing his own original version of systematic Neoplatonism. His
famous work De docta ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance) is divided into three books:
Book I, on God as the absolute Maximum transcending all our understanding; Book II, on
natural universe as a created image of God and the “contracted” (finite status of creatures)
or restricted maximum; Book III on Jesus Christ who unites the first two books, that is, as
the Maximum and at once absolute and contracted.
This is the significance of Cusa’s speculation: Revision of metaphysical premises
of geocentrism world model. In Book II, 1, n. 81, 3f, he speaks of unum infinitum
universum (one infinite universe), but in 1, n. 97, 4f, not infinite but without boudary
(boundless universe).
With Nicholas of Cusa an entirely new horizon for astronomy has been opened.
His significance indeed lies in his carrying out of an epochal revaluation of limitless
curiosity of the world. This is evident from his De docta ignorantia (1440) to his 1450
dialogue, Idiota de mente (The Layman: About Mind) and to his late philosophy.10 As a
fascination shining through in ancient thinking, like that in Ceciro and Seneca, this
insatiable curiosity of the world is metaphysically founded. The Neoplatonic unity of
thinking has been transformed and ancient cosmology delimited. Already in De docta

10 From here onwards we are following Schelkshorn’s summary of his discussion of Nicholas of
Cusa’s revaluation of the boundless universe, see Entgrenzungen, 159-162. What I have here is a liberal
translation of the German text. For our purposes, I am no longer documenting the German text for one can
refer directly to these pages of Schelkshorn’s book. However, from time to time I am also consulting the
original texts of Cusa. See Nikolaus von Kues, Philosophische-Theologische Werke, Band 2 (Hamburg:
Felix Meiner Verlag, 2002), 11ff. Cusa’s works in this volume are De coniecturis, Idiota de sapientia and
Idiota de mente.

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ignorantia comes a glimpse of the idea of an interminable approximate cognitive process

(eines unabschließbaren approximativen Erkenntnisprozesses) through the imprecision
thesis; but the decisive step towards a clear affirmation of boundless curiosity of the world
takes place only on the basis of the new philosophy of spirit and the idea of God's self-
revelation in the world. In this way, the infinite variety of things suddenly gains a dignity
that frees the insatiable curiosity of the world from the suspicion of godlessness and loss
of self. The direction of man’s openness to the infinite riches of the world (unendlichen
Reichtum der Welt) is the divine fullness of being, where one’s measure of being lies; the
insatiabilis curiositas no longer has to be exiled in the afterlife as with Cicero or as with
Seneca in the politically free niches of the mundane world.11 Likewise, however, Cusa
remains steadfast to the thomistic principle of pushing the knowledge of things to the very
bottom. The cognitive process finds its fulfillment in the absolute, which every reason
cannot recognize, every measure cannot measure, because it is endless, limitless, and
incomparable. In exploring the mundane world, the danger of one’s quest for knowledge
lies in its premature reassurance, in its devotion to eventual tranquility. Cusa insists that
the mind can truly find rest only in the thinking of the absolute. Unbounded curiosity can
only be justified if the primacy of the knowledge of the eternal is unquestioned. This
curiosity can only be affirmed if it rests on a philosophical theology. The Platonic maxim
that man should not stop at earthly things, but must rise to the divine, is true for Cusa.
The ultimate goal of human knowledge is cognitio Dei.
Contrary to Hans Blumenberg’s thesis that the rehabilitation of the curiosity of the
world is a reaction to the medieval theology of Deus absconditus (hidden God), Cusa
believes that it is not about the hidden God or the dead God but the God who

11 Cicero believes that the insatiable curiosity is allowable only in certain life situations. The
happiness of being curious becomes perfect only after death and when all earthly duties have ended (read
further the text of Schelkshorn: “Der unersättlichen Neugier darf sich der Mensch daher nur in bestimmten
Lebenssituationen... In vollkommener Weise kann der Mensch das Glück der Weltneugier jedoch erst nach
dem Tod, wenn er allen Pflichten um das irdische Wohl entlastet ist“ (Schelkshorn, Entgrenzungen, 130).
About Seneca, he writes, thus, „Die fehlgeleitete Neugier stürzt den Menschen in Unruhe und
Orientierungslosigkeit. Die wahrhafte Wissbegier, die sich in rechter Weise der harmonischen Ordnung des
Kosmos zuwendet, führt hingegen zur Seelenruhe, dem untrüglichen Maßstab eines glücklichen Lebens“
(The misdirected curiosity plunges people into restlessness and disorientation. The true curiosity, which
turns in the right way to the harmonious order of the cosmos, however, leads to peace of mind, the
unmistakable standard of a happy life) [ibid., 134].

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communicates himself and prepares the way for limitless curiosity of the world. Already
in De docta ignorantia, this insight into the limits of human knowledge does not lead to
resigned skepticism, but rather opens up new horizons, both in the field of theology and
cosmology, as evidenced by the teaching of the coincidentia oppositorum12 and the
unbounded universe. Secular science would view such religious-metaphysical
justifications as defective. However, given the fact that epistemological questions have
been negotiated for thousands of years in the context of theological metaphysics, the
question arises from the perspective of intellectual history that the rehabilitation of
curiosity could historically be done in a different way than through a transformation of
philosophical theology .
Furthermore, Cusa’s bold speculations about a limitless universe and the creative
potency of the human mind continue to be fascinating until today; this unleashed curiosity
continues to emerge in a “strange innocence” (in einer merkwürdigen Unschuld), slipping
past the arguments of the powerful theoretical critique of modern science. The progress
of knowing the world has an ultimate reason: a re-enchantment which is philosophically
mediated. With this the process of unbounded curiosity begins. What determines the
motive of the rational exploration of the world is not fear (as in the assumption of the
Enlightened reason) but astonishment sparked by the power of the human mind and not
only by the beauty of the world.
This is the reason why Cusa’s typical modern idea of an expansive knowledge of
the world still seems to escape the compulsion of nature’s repressive dominance. In De
coniecturis (Part 1, Chapter 2), Cusa mentions about the number as symbol and example
of things (Symbolicum exemplar rerum numerum esse).13 Number in Cusa is already
moving into the center of the theory of knowledge. He claims that it is the nature of
number to originally sprout from the very structure of reason. Animals do not count,
because they don’t have minds. Number is generally an unfolded reason. Number

12 We shall see this later when we again discuss Cusa.

13 Nikolaus von Kues, Philosophische-Theologische Werke, Band 2 (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag,
2002), 11ff. Cusa’s works in this volume are De coniecturis, Idiota de sapientia and Idiota de mente.

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demonstrates that it is originally attained by reason and that without it one must admit
that nothing at all can remain.14
Number is essentially the first “archetype of the spirit.” It is where we find the trinity
or unity as firstly impressed but also contracted in the majority. With our conjecture15, we
symbolically come from the rational numbers of our mind to the real, inexpressible
numbers of the divine mind. The reason is that we call the number the first archetype of
things in the spirit of the Creator, just as the number that emerges from our reason is the
archetype of his world in which it is represented.16
The first archetype of things in the spirit of the Creator is number, because the
delight and beauty inherent in all things is based on proportion which is about number.
Hence, number is the most important trace that leads us to wisdom.17 Through number
there is an opening up of the qualitative diversity of beings, not a reduction of beings to
quantifiable relations. There is in Cusa’s philosophy of the spirit, which begins in De
coniecturis, an unrestricted imagination that is radical: as the divine spirit “unfolds a world
without boundaries,” the human spirit too creates “an infinite wealth of ideas and linguistic
worlds.” And yet the awareness of the self-power of the human spirit does not lead, as
Heidegger assumes to modern thinking, to the hubris of restricting imagination to self-

14 “Rationalis fabricae naturale quoddam pullulans principium numerus est; mente enim carentes,
uti bruta, no numerant. Nec est aliud numerus quam ratio explicata. Adeo enim numerus principium eorum,
quae ratione attinguntur, esse probator, quod eo sublato nihil omnium remansisse ratione convincitur” (De
coniecturis, Pars prima. Capitulum II). The papraphrased translations above are through the help of the
German translation of this text (ibid, 11).

15 “A conjecture is a mathematical statement that has not yet been rigorously proved. Conjectures
arise when one notices a pattern that holds true for many cases. However, just because a pattern holds
true for many cases does not mean that the pattern will hold true for all cases. Conjectures must be proved
for the mathematical observation to be fully accepted. When a conjecture is rigorously proved, it becomes
a theorem. A conjecture is an important step in problem solving; it is not just a tool for professional
mathematicians. In everyday problem solving, it is very rare that a problem's solution is immediately
apparent. Instead, the problem solving process involves analyzing the problem structure, examining cases,
developing a conjecture about the solution, and then confirming that conjecture through proof”
(https://brilliant.org/wiki/conjectures/).

16 “Numeri igitur essentia primum mentis exemplar est. In ipso etenim triunitas seu unitrinitas,
contracta in pluralitate, prioriter reperitur impressa. Symbolice etenim de rationalibus numeris nostrae
mentis ad reales ineffabiles divinae mentis coniecturantes, dicimus ‘in animo conditoris primum rerum
exemplar’ ipsum numerum, uti similitudinarii mundi numerus a nostra ratione exsurgens” (Ibid., 12).

17 “Hoc ostendit delectatio et pulchritudo, quae omnibus rebus inest, quae in proportione consistit,
proportio vero in numero. Hinc numerus praecipuum vestigium ducens in sapientiam” (Idiota de mente, VI,
n. 94).

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ensuring certainty. Rather, Cusa’s philosophy of knowledge eludes Martin Heidegger's

alternative of disposing imagination against the remembering of being. There is already
in Cusa a consciousness of the world-shaping power of the human spirit. The order of
the universe, since it is immersed in the mystery of the Absolute, cannot simply be read
from things. Therefore, the human spirit is expected to establish order through the
creation of linguistic worlds. Since man and the world are teleologically correlated
(teleologisch zugeordnet sind) with one another through the divine order of creation, the
sense of theoretical curiosity is not exhausted in self-assurance and world empowerment,
in which nature is transformed into a projection surface (Projektionsfläche) of human
imaginative worlds. In the midst of the appreciation of the creative power of the spirit, the
ancient astonishment at the beauty and harmony of the universe remains to a greater
degree the fundamental motive of thought.18

2) Self-Creation: Dissolution of Human Nature (Pico della Mirandola [1463-

1494])19;

Pico della Mirandola is a nobleman and philosopher of the Italian Rennaissance.

He is influenced by Plato, Aristotle, Pseudo-Dionysius, Cusa, etc.
In the anthropology of the Renaissance there is an epoch-making appreciation of
the creative power of man. The human spirit, as we have seen earlier in Cusa, is already
analogous to divine creative power. In itself the manifestation of vis creativa in Cusa, on
the one hand, is in the formation of conceptual and linguistic worlds, but on the other
hand, it manifests in a new quality of self-relationship. In his work Oratio de hominis
dignitate (1486/87), Pico della Mirandola has famously described the “creative dimension
of human freedom.” Man for him is a “creator and sculptor of himself.” However, human
beings can either degenerate into animals or can recover their divinity.

18 I am here freely translating the German texts of Prof. Schelkshorn. For verifications one can see
pages 159-162 of his book, Entgrenzungen.

19 Again I am here translating and paraphrasing in English the text of Schelkshorn. For verification
and further reading see, Schelkshorn, Entgrenzungen, 163-205.

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The Oratio is one of the noblest legacies of Renaissance philosophy, describes

Jacob Burckhardt; according to Ernst Cassirer, the image of “free self-creation” contains
a “rhetorical pathos” which simultaneously includes a specifically “modern thought
pathos.” In fact, Pico's idea of human self-creation involuntarily arouses associations with
German idealism’s and, above all, Sartre’s understanding of freedom.20 There is even a
more recent connection between Pico and modern human genetics (the scientific study
of inherited human variation). Because it seemingly shines like a flash in Pico’s Oratio,
this Promethean21 character of modern freedom has unsurprisingly been an object of
criticism; for instance, Karl Jasper saw in Pico’s idea of freedom as “a break into the
modern hubris of self-deification.”
In the last few decades of the history of philosophy, Pico’s image has extensively
been questioned as an ancestor of “modern subjectivity.” However, the idea of the self-
creation of human nature, in relation to neo-Kantian interpretations, is not to be
understood literally but metaphorically in Pico’s Oratio. Craven suggests that man's self-
transformation into moral or divine nature is not an issue of ontology but of morality. It is
within man’s power to be angelic and even godly, hence not to vegetate, not to act like
animals is a moral exhortation. Theologically, however, Pico's position has multiple
relationships with Christian tradition. According to Lubac, Pico's idea of self-creation
primarily includes motifs from the theology of the church fathers; for Dulles, Pico's concept
of freedom is closely related to scholasticism: essentially, it’s anthropology is from the
Christian Middle Ages. But because Pico’s research belongs to the Renaissance, we can
emphasize a clear difference from scholasticism: the Oratio has been embedded in the
broad stream of appreciation of human creative power since the end of the 14th century.
From this perspective, Pico's Oratio appears as a rhetorically daring variant of an
anthropological tradition that reaches back via Ficino and Cusanus to Sabundus.22

20 The high period of German Idealism is from 1781 (the date of the publication of Kant’s Critique
of Pure Reason) to 1831 (the death of Hegel). It is one of the most revolutionary periods in the history of
philosophy, in which the focus is centered on the ideas of history, freedom and the self. Man for Jean-Paul
Sartre in a lecture titled, “Existentialism is a Humanism” (1946), is “condemned to be free.” Hopefully later
in our discussion on the Western History of Modern Philosophy, we will discuss in depth Kant and Hegel.
We shall reserve Sartre in Contemporary Philosophy.

21 The demigod Prometheus is known to be rebelliously creative and innovative.

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Beyond doubt, Pico’s motif of self-creation has an epochal significance despite the
extremely different assessments of this position within European intellectual history. In
many ways it was received and modified in the Renaissance and early modern thought.
But it is necessary to precisely understand the transformations of the idea of man as a
creator of his nature in the various stages of modern thought. Their original meaning
must be ascertained, to which our next consideration may now turn.
This is the anthropological thesis of Pico’s Oratio: Homo miraculum est. The
position of man in the cosmos lies in the middle between the ephemeral and the eternal,
the earthly and the divine. The medieval debate about the relationship between man and
pure spiritual beings is the background of Pico’s Oratio. The main thesis of the Oratio,
namely the superiority of man over angels, is explained by Pico through a creation
narrative that is structured in three sequences: First, the cosmological framework in which
man is envisioned to become; in the second step, Pico explains the position of man in the
cosmos through two anthropological theses, namely the indeterminacy or middle position
of human nature and man's ability to transform himself.
For Pico, freedom is understood as the power to shape oneself in relation to human
nature. This means that with regard to man, he is not just in the middle of the hierarchy
of being, but is also united to all the different elements. However, this union is in the
mode of freedom, for the essence of man consists in reason and freedom.
The doctrine of the middle position of man and the idea of man as a creator of his
own nature are connected. The rational part is peculiar to the human being and he is
connected to the angel through the spiritual part. In the intelligible part, man is rescued
to a perfect life. With the interpretation of the middle as a free union of different natures,
Pico breaks the microcosm anthropology from within. Just as God as Creator unites and

22 Marsilio Ficino, (born October 19, 1433, Figline, republic of Florence [Italy]—died October 1,
1499, Careggi, near Florence), Italian philosopher, theologian, and linguist whose translations and
commentaries on the writings of Plato and other classical Greek authors generated the Florentine
Platonist Renaissance that influenced European thought for two centuries (see
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marsilio-Ficino). Along with Ficino, Raimundus Sabundus (1385-
1436) is another Rennaissance author, whose actual name is Ramon Sibiuda, a Catalan philosopher [he
was born in Barcelona] (see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raimundus_Sabundus).

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 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY JOSE CONRADO A. ESTAFIA

gathers the essence of all things in their absolute perfection, so man calls all natures of
the universe together and unites them with God. This means: God contains all things as
their principle of being, man as the mediating center.
With the exuberant praise of the chameleon-like nature of mankind, Pico cautiously
distances himself from the millennia-old anthropological prerogative of Western thought,
namely to determine human nature exclusively from its perfection. However, the dynamic
interpretation of human freedom in the sense of self-transformation also contains a
dangerous ambivalence. The reason is that Pico always determines the dignitas hominis
in a double sense: the dignity of man is based, on the one hand, in being in the image of
God, on the other hand, in the self-elevation to angelic existence. While man's likeness
to God cannot be lost, there are clear differences in rank in the pursuit of self-perfection,
from which Pico draws a fatal consequence: whoever destroys his person through moral
transgressions no longer deserves to be called human. This is a dangerous consequence
of Pico’s thinking.
Pico stands on the basis of the ethical universalism of Stoic-Christian thought;
however, the dynamic anthropology of self-creation unlocks an extremely dangerous
relativization of the idea of universal human dignity. People who indulge themselves in
sensual pleasures are no longer seen as people but just bushes or animals. Therefore,
Pico's understanding of the dignitas hominis is ambivalent which leads to the fatal
perversions of the Stoic-Christian idea of the unity of the human race in modern thinking.
This danger has become evident in the debates about the American conquest. And this
brings us to our next element: cosmopolitanism.

3) Cosmopolitanism: Dissolution of Geographical-Political World Picture

(Francisco de Vitoria [1483-1546])

The dissolution of geographical-political world picture has led to the establishment

of a new cosmopolitanism. Francisco de Vitoria is a Basque Catholic philosopher,
theologian, and jurist of Renaissance Spain. He is the founder of the University of
Salamanca. It is very interesting to note that the first Bishop of Manila, Domingo de
Salazar, O.P. (1512-1594) studied in this University which at that time was the most

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important cultural and intellectual center of Spain and one of the most famous in Europe.
Salazar attended the lectures of Vitoria whose relentless battles for just treatment of the
natives of the “New World” were popular during this time. The discovery of America
became a challenge to philosophy: a fertile ground for the development of new ideas.
Earlier, our exposition of the first two elements, curiosity and self-creation, was
quite extensive. For the third element, cosmopolitanism, let us just be content with those
few words above. We do not have enough time to go deeper into this discussion. It is
already good for us to have a little background of these three elements that, as we have
seen, have paved the way for the development of the history of modern philosophy. The
rationalization and dissolution of boundaries have become the fundamental principles of
modern science (Francis Bacon’s (1561-1626) Instauratio Magna [The Great
Instauration] – experiments in the natural sciences), politics (Thomas Hobbes’ (1558-
1679) Leviathan – until today as the foundational book of modern politics), and economics
(John Locke’s (1632-1704) first substantial political work, Two Treatises of Government
– within the scope of a liberal social theory providing us the contours of philosophical
rationale of modern market economy). Science, state and market economy have become
autonomous social realities with an immanent logic. What we have here is already a
breakthrough in the rationale and main ideas of modern science, modern/contemporary
territorial state and of market economy.
This is now a new dimension of dissolution of boundaries from which the deep
ambivalence (double effect) of modern science, politics and economy originated. In
Bacon, the experimental natural science has this vision of a complete unleashing of the
productive powers of the human being and nature. In Hobbes, there is the construction
of modern state as an exit from the extreme scenario of universal unleashing of power
(bellum omnium contra omnes [“the war of all against all”]. In Locke, we have come to
the revaluation/enhancement of work and the justification of money economy in the idea
of unlimited economic growth.23

23 We do not mean to be exhaustive here. One can go to Schelkshorn’s Entgrenzungen for a further
reading: for Bacon’s unleashing of the productivity of the human person and nature and the establishment
of modern science, see pages 411-470; on the discussion of Hobbes’ problem of modern states: the
unleashing and establishment of human power, see pages 471- 528; and finally for Locke’s dissolution of
economy, see pages 529-593.

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The philosophy of the 17th Century, with all its breakthrough in science, politics and
economics, can be traced back to the philosophy of the Renaissance. We now turn to a
very significant figure in the history of modern philosophy: René Descartes (1596-1650).
A further discussion on Cusa, Bacon and Locke will also be seen as we go along.

René Descartes: The Father of Modern Philosophy

During the scientific revolution, the sceptical method, among others, has replaced
the traditional authorities of Aristotle, Ptolemy, and the Church.24 René Descartes, as
one of the thinkers during this time, uses scepticism as a method. But whether Descartes
is a sceptic or a reformer, this section wishes to find. Thus we begin with some
preliminary considerations.

1. Preliminary Considerations

1.1 The Culture of Doubt

At the onset of modernity, there was a climate of doubt. What was held to be true
and unquestionable during the whole span of the medieval times was now subjected to
doubt. The “theocentric” character of the medieval man no longer applied to the modern
one, so to speak. In many ways, the mental outlook of what we commonly called
“modern” is different from that of the medieval. Bertrand Russell enumerates two most
important characteristics of modernity: 1) “the diminishing authority of the Church; 2) “the
increasing authority of science.” In a word, it was already a lay culture rather than clerical.
The church’s governmental power over culture diminished in favor of the states increasing
power. The rejection of ecclesiastical authority was prior to the acceptance of scientific
authority. The former was modernity’s negative characteristic and the latter is its positive,
continues Russell.25

24 This is one of the key elements of the scientific revolution (Dennis Sherman, Western Civilization:
Sources, Images, and Interpretations (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000), p. 102.

25 Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy [New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1972],
491-492.

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Reason finally asserted itself, emancipated from the clutches of tradition and
authority. Sapere Aude! Dare to know! There goes the motto of the Enlightenment. As
Immanuel Kant puts it sharply, “I have emphasized the main point of enlightenment, that
is of man’s release from his self-incurred minority, primarily in matters of religion.”26
People during this time did not just liberate themselves from the power of religion but
made their lives free to all other human affairs. Peter Gast says, “The men of the
Enlightenment united on a vastly ambitious program, a program of secularism, humanity,
cosmopolitanism, and freedom, above all, freedom in its many forms – freedom from
arbitrary aesthetic response, freedom, in a word, of moral man to make his own way in
the world.”27
The existence of God during the medieval was an unquestionable truth. But at the
outset of modernity the existence of God was no longer presupposed. Nicholas of Cusa,28
whom we have seen in the beginning of our lecture as the gatekeeper of modernity,
proposed that the first step to the knowledge of God did not consist in asking about God,
but in asking the possibility of knowing about God. This issue was taken for granted
during the medieval times. “God exists” was then the presupposition. Philosophy in this
period had become a handmaid to theology (ancilla theologiae). Faith-seeking
understanding was then the theological dictum.
With Nicholas of Cusa, this was not the case. One had to inquire first about the
knowledge of God. How could we know God? St. Thomas Aquinas used logic borrowed
from Aristotle in order to prove that God exists. Yet logic for Nicholas of Cusa could only
survive in the middle terms, that without which nothing or no conclusion could be drawn.
The logic of St. Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, also of St. Anselm was only applied to
finite things. The middle term could bridge only one finite to another. But how about

26 Immanuel Kant, “Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” trans. Thomas K. Abbot, in
Basic Writings of Kant, ed. with intro. Allen W. Wood (New York: The Modern Library, 2001), p. 141.

27 Peter Gast, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, The Rise of Modern Paganism (New York:
Vintage Books, 1968), p. 3.

28 Let us not forget that Nicholas of Cusa was ordained priest and eventually became a Bishop and
a Cardinal. He was one among many ecclesiastic philosophers during the Renaissance (See D. W.
Hamlyn, Being a Philosopher: The History of a Practice [London: Routledge, 1992], pp. 50-51). For a
thorough account of this philosopher, see Frederick Copleston, SJ, A History of Philosophy: Late Medieval
and Renaissance Philosophy, Vol. III (New York: Doubleday, 1993), pp. 231-347.

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between the infinite and the finite? Middle terms in logic could not connect the finite to
the infinite. Thus, Nicholas of Cusa spoke of nulla proportia – disproportion between the
finite and the infinite. For Nicholas of Cusa, syllogism is not enough. His resolution in
order for us to have the knowledge of God is what he calls the “intellectual love of God.”
This is beyond logic, reasoning. This is already intuition. We have the knowledge of God
due to our love of Him. Cusa expresses this idea in his famous work De docta ignorantia
(learned or instructed ignorance). His philosophy is somewhat similar to mysticism. This
is not found in the tradition of Aristotle, St. Thomas, St. Anselm, and the like. This is no
longer intellective but affective. This intellectual love of God brings us to an experience
of God. This only shows that previous positions concerning the existence of God are now
put into question.
The climate or the culture of doubt really manifested in the sciences. The
deductive method of Aristotle was now replaced with the inductive method of Francis
Bacon – the Novum Organum. Francis Bacon was evidently a clear example of this
culture of doubt. His motto: Rid the mind of its idols! What are these idols? He mentions
four: the idols of the tribe, cave, marketplace, and the theater. The idols of the tribe are
those prejudices arising from human nature. He says that we no longer question the
credibility of the senses. These are the idols of the race of men. The idols of the cave
are the individual prejudices. Bacon says that there is a cave in man that “refracts and
discolors the light of nature.” These idols arise from one’s upbringing, association, or
conversations with, or from the books one reads. The idols of the marketplace are the
social prejudices of men. People together, they gather and discuss. They think the same
way. Finally, the idols of the theater are the philosophical or ideological prejudices of
men. We can get these from the dogmas of philosophy that have entered into our minds.
Also, we can get these from wrong demonstrations of reasoning. So rid the mind of all
these!29 This is really a doubt but not yet universal.
As we are trying to prove here, modernity was really a culture of doubt. People
everywhere were breathing an air of doubt. There was the rise of the sciences, of

29 See Francis Bacon, “Aphorisms concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of
Man,” in Richard H. Popkin, ed., The Philosophy of the 16th and 17th Centuries (New York: The Free Press,
1966), pp. 92-93.

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discoveries, of the invention of the printing press and the compass. The Renaissance, a
rebirth of the classical culture, made this climate of doubt so vast as one could imagine.
The people of this time had now access to the literature of the classical, ancient Greece.
So much so that the credibility of the medieval was now terribly shaken.
Modernity is a departure of pre-modernity. Pre-modernity is what we call the
medieval times. But one more thing needs to be said here: Modernity thrives on the
assumption of the Cogito. And René Descartes (1596-1650), the father of Modern
Philosophy, has started this. But before a discussion on Descartes we first turn our
attention to what we call the via negativa of Modern Philosophy.

1.2 The Via Negativa of Modernity

The via negativa is the trademark of Modern Philosophy. In Descartes, the via
negativa is the methodical doubt, the via positiva is the cogito. The negative and the
positive components of modernity, as initiated by Descartes, are articulated also in the
philosophy of John Locke and George Berkeley. I will write these negative and positive
components in a chart below.

Philosopher Via Negativa Via Positiva

Descartes Methodical Doubt Cogito

John Locke Innatism Mind = tabula rasa (clean

slate)
George Berkeley Material substance or Mind that perceives – Esse
unthinking substance est percipi

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John Locke30 (1632-1704) questions the existence of innate ideas. In the second
book of his writing, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,31 Locke says: “Every
man being conscious to himself that he thinks; and that which his mind is applied about
whilst thinking being the ideas that are there, it is past doubt that men have in their minds
several ideas,…” (Chapter I, 1). Examples of ideas he mentions are whiteness, hardness,
sweetness, thinking, motion, man, elephant, army, drunkenness, etc. But how do we
acquire these ideas? Locke opposes the popular view “that men have native ideas, and
original characters, stamped upon their minds in their very first being.” Locke then
supposes that the mind is a “white paper, void of all characters, without any idea”
(Chapter I, 2). But how are these ideas being furnished? “Whence comes it by that vast
store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless
variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge?” Locke’s answer is
that they come from experience.
All the materials of our thinking come from observations when the senses perceive
external objects; the mind then operates internally when we look in at ourselves. Locke
calls the former sensation (some sensible qualities, for instance: white, heat, cold, soft,
hard, bitter, sweet) while the latter is reflection. The objects of sensations are sources of
ideas (cf. Book II, Chapter 1, 3). However, there are ideas, accoring to Locke, that could
have not come from external objects, like for example, idea of perception, thinking,
doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, and all the various things the mind does
(cf. Book II, Chapter 1, 4). The source of these ideas is within every man himself; still it
is similar to sense (as in external objects) but it is properly called “internal sense.” Locke
calls it reflection, that is, when the mind reflects its own operation within itself.
This is Locke’s thesis: “All our ideas take their beginnings from those tow sources
– external material things as objects of sensation, and the operations of our minds as
objects of reflection.” Earlier, Locke claims that “these two are the fountains of
knowledge, from which arise all the ideas we have or can naturally have” (Chapter I, 2).

30 For a detailed treatment on Locke’s attack on innate ideas just see Copleston, SJ, A History of
Philosophy: Modern Philosophy, the British Philosophers from Hobbes to Hume, Vol. V (New York:
Doubleday, 1994), pp. 67-78.

31 For a further online reading of this book of Locke, see this site:
ftp://ftp.dca.fee.unicamp.br/pub/docs/ia005/humanund.pdf.

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In thinking, the mind is engaged with ideas that it contains. But for Locke, there
are no innate ideas, after examining ourselves regarding our human understanding. One
must prove that there are innate ideas – maybe theoretical or practical. If we say
theoretical, these are the first principles like contradiction, identity, and the like. But can
we say that they are in children? Children sometimes contradict themselves. So we are
not born with these ideas. They are not innate. Not that they are wrong but only not
innate. For practical ideas, we say “Do good, avoid evil.” But to test if this is innate, there
must be a general, universal agreement. But for Locke there is none. So again it is not
innate. Hence, for him the mind is empty, a tabula rasa. The ideas we have only come
from experience. But experience comes later. So there are no innate ideas. Yet after all
this inquiry Locke creates a theoretical assumption – Mind as tabula rasa. This is now
the positive component.
With George Berkeley32 (1685-1753), what was put into question was material
substance. Substance never underlies the accidents, according to this philosopher. For
if one removes all the accidents one is left with nothing. What then causes the existence
of a thing is a mind that perceives it to be – Esse est percipi. And yet this has become
Berkeley’s positive component, a coming back to the thinking substance of Descartes.
The cogito has been the underlying assumption of modernity. The whole of
modernity from Descartes to Hegel and Husserl rests on the assumption of the cogito.
This cogito took several shapes in this period. It is Kant’s pure reason, transcendental
apperception, or pure apperception; Husserl’s pure consciousness; Hegel’s Geist;
Locke’s mind as tabula rasa; and Berkeley’s perceiving mind, etc.
We have seen above how modern philosophers make a tour from the negative to
the positive components of their philosophizing.

32 Read George Berkeley, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (New York: Prometheus
Books, 1988).

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2. The Revolutionary Descartes

2.1 Descartes Universal Doubt

Descartes’s aim was to establish the foundation of knowledge/science. That what

he started at the outset of his Meditations on First Philosophy was very radical – universal
doubt. He says, “I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish
everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish
anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last.” 33
As laid down in his book the Principles of Philosophy, Descartes outlines the
principles of this methodical doubt.34 There are many but we only mention the essential
principles which bring us to the first certitude – the Cogito. This is only the scope of our
discussion.
The first principle goes this way: For one who seeks after truth, he must doubt
once in his lifetime everything as far as possible – a universal doubt. And this is
methodical for it aims at the indubitable or the clear and distinct idea after all have been
doubted. This first principle has two subsidiary principles, to wit: (1) One must doubt the
knowledge coming from the senses. There are two reasons for this. First, sometimes
the senses deceive us. Second, when we are asleep and we are dreaming, we perceive
objects as real. So that when we are awake we are no longer sure of what is real for who
knows we are only dreaming. (2) One must doubt the demonstrations of mathematics.
Mathematics is the most exact of all sciences, so if we doubt this we doubt all other
sciences. Why? For two reasons: First, even the greatest mathematician can err.
Second, even if I am sure of these demonstrations how sure am I? Who knows if there
is only a body manipulating my mind – a malevolent genius deceiving me, the devil at the
back of my mind?

33 Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Vol. II, trans. John Cottingham, Robert
Stoothoff and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 12. Henceforth this
book will be noted as CSM (Volume I or II) with the particular writing of Descartes.

34 See Principles of Philosophy, CSM I, 1985: pp. 193-194.

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These above subsidiary principles are the fourth and the fifth principles of
Descartes. These two are crucial for we have now doubted the knowledge coming from
the senses and the intellect. So nothing is left. But for Descartes, he proceeds to the
eighteenth principle. He says in that principle that there is one thing that cannot be
doubted, that is, the “I” that thinks. You doubt everything but never the “I” that thinks –
the thinking being. Hence, his famous words: Cogito ergo sum. This is the Cogito – the
first certitude, the indubitable, and the clear and distinct idea. If the cogito is the
assumption of modernity, justifiably, Descartes is the father of Modern Philosophy.

2.2 The Pulling Down of an Old House

One cannot deny that Descartes extensively relies on the language of

scholasticism. However, his approach to his philosophy – what we call “Cartesianism” –
is new, since it uses mathematics and science.35 Indeed, his method is revolutionary.
The Discourse on the Method where Descartes presents his own thinking about
his method to be pursued in search for knowledge is like an autobiographical account of
his own “ruminations.” In a word, the book does not look like a research programme. 36 It
is for Descartes a “history” or a “fable” for one to imitate or for one not to follow.37 It is
indeed a frank account of a man who is earnestly seeking for truth. Descartes’s method
is a product of an honest seeker. Descartes remarks, “And it was always my most earnest
desire to learn to distinguish the true from the false in order to see clearly into my own
actions and proceed with confidence in this life.”38
Very often people doubt just for the sake of doubting. Unlike Descartes, they do
not make their doubt a way to be certain. In pursuing his project, Descartes never copied
from the sceptics, “who doubt only for the sake of doubting and pretend to be always

35 D. W. Hamlyn, Being a Philosopher: The History of a Practice [London: Routledge, 1992], 55.

36 Ibid., p. 57.

37 Descartes, Discourse on the Method, CSM I: p. 112.

38 Ibid., p. 115.

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undecided; on the contrary”, his “whole aim was to reach certainty – to cast aside the
loose earth and sand so as to come upon rock or clay.”39
At the outset of the Discourse, he makes it clear that his aim is not to teach the
method for everyone to follow in order to have a correct direction of his reason, but merely
to reveal how he tried to make his own. Thus, the Discourse is only a record of
Descartes’s journey to certainty. It is even a “solitary” journey:40 a history or a fable about
a single man. Having found out that the opinions of others are insufficient, Descartes was
forced to become his own guide.41 With more drama he writes,
But, like a man who walks alone in the dark, I resolved to proceed
so slowly, and to use such circumspection in all things, that even if I made
but little progress I should at least be sure not to fall. Nor would I begin
rejecting completely any of the opinions which may have slipped into my
mind without having been introduced there by reason, until I had first spent
enough time in planning the work I was undertaking and in seeking the true
method of attaining the knowledge of everything within my mental
capabilities.42

At times we rely much on the opinions of several men. Descartes, however,

discovers that the work of a single man is better than those of many “different craftsmen.”
That is why it is quite confusing for dancers to have many choreographers – they always
teach them with contrasting styles. A building can be more attractive and better planned
if it is undertaken and completed by one architect, Descartes believes. In the Discourse,
he withdrew from the world and “shut up alone in a stove-heated room” where he was
entirely free to converse with himself about his own thoughts.43
However, prior to solitary thinking, Descartes was a scholar. He studied at one of
Europe’s famous schools.44 He even valued the exercises done in the Schools. He read

39 Ibid., p. 125.

40 Discourse, CSM I: p. 126.

41 Ibid., p. 119.

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid., p. 116.

44 Descartes studied at the famous Jesuit college of La Fléche between 1606 and 1614. This
college strongly upheld the “old-style scholastic learning” that Descartes adamantly rejected later (Chappell,
p. 21).

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good books with the belief that by doing this he could converse with the learned men of
the past. He gave enough time for the study of languages. He read ancient histories and
their fables. He admired oratory and loved poetry. He had delights in mathematics for
its reasonings were certain and self-evident. He revered theology for he, too, like most
of his contemporaries, wanted to go to heaven.45
The study of philosophy gave him the impression that nothing is indisputable in it,
since learned men had diverse opinions on a single question. Hence, it was doubtful for
him. Other sciences, since their principles were borrowed from philosophy, Descartes
considered them with hollow foundations.46
The time Descartes was old enough to leave his teachers; he completely
abandoned his study of letters. Resolved to seek knowledge in himself and in the great
book of the world, he decided to spend the rest of his youth traveling. He visited courts
and armies. He mixed with various types of people and gathered many experiences. He
immersed himself in such experiences and tried to figure out – through reflections –
anything profitable in them. He was then convinced that one could get more truth from
things that concerned the self than from speculations coming from scholars. And yet the
“customs of other men” are as diverse as the opinions of philosophers. And shortly, after
spending some years experiencing the book of the world, he resolved to undertake his
studies within himself and used all his mental powers to choose that paths he should
follow.47 He says at the end of the first part of the Discourse on the Method, “In this I
have had much more success, I think, than I would have had if I had never left my country
or my books.”48
Thus in pursuing what path to take, Descartes presents an image that compares
“our beliefs to a building that is so rickety, ramshackle, ill-designed and unsafe that the
best thing to do is knock it down and start again.”49 He says, thus,

45 Discourse, CSM I: pp. 113-114.

46 Ibid., pp. 114-115.

47 Ibid., pp. 115-116.

48 Ibid., p. 116.

49 Chappell, p. 21.

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We do see many individuals having their houses pulled down in

order to rebuild them, some even being forced to do so when the houses
are in danger of falling down and their foundations are insecure. This
example convinced me that… regarding the opinions to which I had hitherto
given credence… I could not do better than undertake to get rid of them,
all at one go, in order to replace then afterwards with better ones, or with
the same ones once I had squared then with the standards of reason.50

One can recall also that in another book Descartes uses a different image: a basket
full of apples. It is an explanation of the rationale of his procedure. He proceeds,
Suppose he had a basket full of apples and, being worried that some of the
apples were rotten, wanted to take out the rotten ones to prevent the rot
spreading. How would he proceed? Would he not begin by tipping the
whole lot out of the basket? And would not the next step be to cast his eye
over each apple in turn, and pick up and put back in the basket only those
he saw to be sound, leaving the others?51

The one we call knowledge may not be structurally sound. There may be rotten
apples in it. Since childhood we inherit opinions we carelessly left unquestioned. We
better pull down our old houses of beliefs and start building them anew. Nonetheless,
Descartes reminds us that in rebuilding one’s house, it is not enough to pull it down, to
provide materials and to have an architect. One must need a temporary place to
comfortably stay while the work is in progress. 52 Hence Descartes proposes to himself a
“provisional moral code” consisting of four maxims.53
First, he has to obey “the laws and customs” of his country and to hold constantly
to the religion he has received since childhood; to follow the opinions – moderate or least
extreme – of the most sensible men. So that if he is mistaken he only departs less from
what is right.
Second, he has to follow with constancy even the most doubtful opinions with
firmness and decisiveness. A traveler who is lost in a forest must keep on walking, never
change his direction, until he reaches the place better than being in the middle of the
forest. When there are no true opinions in sight, he must follow the most probable ones.

50 Discourse, CSM I: p. 117.

51 Descartes, Objections and Replies, CMS II: p. 324.

52 Discourse, CMS I: p. 122.

53 Ibid., pp. 122-124.

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Doing this won’t make him a captive of his own regrets from failing to choose the
supposedly good course of action due to inconstancy and poor judgment.
Third, he has to master himself rather than fortune and change his desires rather
than the order of the world. Never desire what we cannot get, but be contented with what
we can. Descartes calls this the “virtue of necessity.” Never desire to be what we are
not. This is the philosophers’ secret of earlier times: to have escaped “from the dominion
of fortune and, despite suffering and poverty, rival their gods in happiness.”54 The
mastery over one’s thoughts is more important than riches, power, freedom, and
happiness.
Finally, Descartes has to devote his whole life to cultivate his reason. Using this
method he can advance as far as he can in the knowledge of truth. He no longer wishes
any occupations other than his own. His method brings him “extreme contentment” –
sweeter or purer one can enjoy in this life. He has to examine the opinions of others using
his own judgment: judge well in order to act well. One’s best judgments can bring one all
the virtues and other goods one can acquire. Doing this makes one happy.
Together with these maxims above and with the truths of faith, Descartes can now
freely get rid himself of all the rest of his opinions. He again travels and for nine years he
roams about in the world; he tries to be a “spectator rather than an actor in all the
comedies that are played out there.”55 From here Descartes starts to uproot the previous
errors that have slipped into his mind. And without following the sceptics, his goal is
certainty. With clear and certain arguments, he exposes the falsity or uncertainty of the
propositions he is examining. He realizes that even in a doubtful proposition one can
draw from it “quite certain conclusion.” He concludes that in “pulling down an old house
we usually keep the remnants for use in building a new one, so in destroying all those
opinions of mine that I judged ill-founded I made various observations and acquired many
experiences which I have since used in establishing more certain opinions.”56

54 Socrates reminded the men of Athens to care about wisdom and truth and the greatest
improvement of the soul and not to amass money, fortune and reputation (Apology, trans. Benjamin Jowett
in the Dialogues of Plato [Toronto: Bantam Books, 1986], p. 15).

55 Discourse, CMS I: p. 125.

56 Ibid.

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Descartes never stops in pursuing his project. He even applies his method to
solving mathematical problems. This method brings him more progress than by merely
reading books and mixing with “men of letters.”
Descartes, aside from being earnest in his search, is a humble seeker. “I
confessed,” he says, “my ignorance more ingenuously that is customary for those with a
little learning, and perhaps also because I displayed the reasons I had for doubting many
things which others regard as certain, rather than because I boasted of some learning.”57
In sum, Descartes achieves what he believes to be the indubitable. This is already
certainty for him. He does not follow the sceptics, but instead uses it only as a method to
attain certainty. One only pulls down an old house in order to build anew. With this one
can consider Descartes a reformer.
Descartes is the Martin Luther of philosophy. The former is no sceptic but a
reformer like the latter. One can say, “Knowledge in Descartes is like heaven in Luther.
To get there, you have to start off in the opposite direction.”58
In using scepticism, Descartes shows that only his method is adequate. All others
are “positively misleading.” His “route to knowledge” channels us into what is true. His
deconstruction of what is deceptive in knowledge earns him the mark of a reformer.59
Luther has been a rebel. For him one cannot go to heaven using the way proposed
by the Catholic tradition. In the same manner, one cannot attain true knowledge using
the way proposed by Aristotle.60 It is not our intention here to write a detailed comparison
between the two reformers. It is sufficient to say that both of them have destroyed and
rejected what has previously been held. Whether Descartes has successfully reformed
knowledge or not, is already beyond the scope of this paper. The Cartesian doubt is
definitely not for any sceptic but only for a reformer like Descartes.

57 Ibid., p. 126.

58 Chappell, p. 25.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid.

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