Malebranche on Voetius's Criticism of Descartes

One of the most important contemporary criticisms of Descartes was that of Gisbert Voet, a scholar at the University of Utrecht. Voetius, a member of the Reformed Church, early became a central member of the so-called 'Further Reformation', which attempted to put down anything that encouraged the human inclination to sin. In his later life he wasn't as involved in such matters, but he remained an important figure in Reformed scholasticism.

In the early 1640s a controversy erupted at the University of Utrecht over the teachings of Henri Regis, an early Cartesian, and his followers. The controversy became violent and, as Rector of the University, Voetius had to step in and try to rectify things. This he did by putting forward a set of theses sharply critical of Descartes. Things began to escalate from there. Regis responded, with Descartes's help. Trying to calm the situation, the Utrecht magistrates banned the new philosophy from the University of Utrecht on March 24, 1642.* Voet encouraged a student, Schook, to write a book against Descartes, the Admiranda Methodus Philosophiae Renati des Cartes. Given proofs of the work by friends, and thinking that the work was directly written by Voetius, Descartes wrote a Letter to Voetius, in which he was sharply critical of the Utrecht scholar, whose arguments he regarded as being little more than 'childish dialectics'. Voetius, of course, regarded Descartes as a 'pupil of the Jesuits', in the derogatory as well as the literal sense.

This Querelle d'Utrecht sparked up by the Calvinists naturally tended to annoy the largely Catholic Cartesians. It's not surprising, therefore, that Voetius comes under sharp criticism in Malebranche's Search after Truth (IV.vi; LO 293-294). Malebrance calls Voetius "an insignificant man" and "an ardent and vehement declaimer," regarding him as an irrational demagogue stirring up religious hatred against Catholics and physics:

Descartes was a Catholic; he studied under the Jesuits, and he often spoke of them with admiration. This was enough to enable this malign spirit to persuade the enemies of our religion (who are easily excitable over matters as delicate as those of religion) that Descartes is an emissary of the Jesuits with dangerous plots, because the slightest appearance of truth in matters of faith has more force upon men's minds than in real and positive truths of physics or metaphysics, to which they have given very little effort.

The criticism for which Malebranche has the most scorn is that Descartes must secretly be an atheist because his arguments for the existence of God are so bad.

Malebranche, after insisting that truth loves gentleness and peace, and will ultimately triumph goes on to encourage Catholics to give him a fair chance:

It is not surprising that an enemy of Descartes, a man of a religion different from his, an ambitious man who dremaed only of raising himself upon the ruins of those above him, a declaimer without judgment, in other words, a Voët, speaks with contempt about what he does not understand and does not wish to understand. But we have cause for astonishment when men who are neither enemies of Descartes nor of his religion have accepted the adverse and contemptuous opinions against him because of the insults they have read in books composed by the enemy of his person and his religion.

This heretic's book, entitled Desperatea causa papatus, sufficiently shows his impudence, ignorance, enthusiasm, and his desire for appeaing zealous in order to believe on his word. For just as we should not believe all the fables he has amassed in this book against our religion, so also we should not accept on his word the atrocious accusations and insults he has invented against his enemy.

He ends by encouraging everyone to read Descartes objectively and fairly:

Let a man read his works then, so that he might have other proofs against him than simple hearsay; and I hope that after he has read them and meditated them, Descartes will no longer be accused of atheism, and that on the contrary he will have all the respect that one should have for a man who has demonstrated in a very simple and evident way not only the existence of a God and the immortality of the soul but also an infinity of other truths that were unknown until his time.

The Utrecht Crisis peeps in here and there throughout the correspondence and philosophical texts of the time. Voltaire, for instance, calls Voetius a 'theological scamp'; and Spinoza, accused of atheism, takes a sort of resigned comfort in the parallel between his case and Descartes's.

---
* And when was the ban officially lifted? On March 23, 2005, 363 years after it was imposed.

(Cross-posted at Houyhnhnm Land)

Notes and Links

* Liz Gross's Scientific Illiteracy and the Partisan Takeover of Science at PLoS Biology has received some discussion in the blogosphere, and is well worth reading.

* Coturnix has a great post on science blogging. It's possible to claim too much for blogging, but I think science blogging does have the potential to provide a partial remedy for scientific illiteracy. The fundamental problem with scientific illiteracy, it seems to me, is that the overwhelming majority of us don't have any significant scientific instruction beyond high school -- and, let's face it, it doesn't stick without periodic reinforcement. Moreover, scientific literacy, far more than other kinds of literacy, dates quickly. The full solution to this, I think, would be to develop a widespread culture favorable to adult education, and the institutions and mechanisms to make ongoing education genuinely feasible for most people. But science blogging can help, I think, by giving people more exposure to actual scientific work or, even failing that, to the people who are doing the actual scientific work in a field.

* In reading Terms & Conditions for a Yahoo! service recently, I discovered that it is explicitly a violation of those terms & conditions to use Yahoo! software to run a nuclear facility. I mention it in case any of my readers might ever be in a position in which they will be tempted to run a nuclear facility with Yahoo! software.

* The MLA's Language Map is quite a neat little resource. It's a bit slow, but it's a lot of fun to play around with. It shows just how linguistically diverse the United States is (an article at Inside Higher Ed says that it shows the U.S. to be, with the exception of Papua New Guinea, the most linguistically diverse country in the world).

* I found Robert KC Johnson's discussion of constitutional interpretation at "Cliopatria" to be fascinating. Like Johnson, I'm attracted to Kyvig's proposal: it gives us a layered constitution, without turning it into a wax nose. On this view, the layers are:

Original Constitution
Bill of Rights (Amendments 1-10)
Reconstruction (Amendments 13-15)
Progressive Era (Amendments 16-19)

(The amendments that are not emphasized in this way of conceiving it are [11] restricting the federal judicial power (1795); [12] modifying the process for Presidential elections (1803); [20] modifying the election process (1933); [21] repealing the Prohibition Amendment (1933); [22] restricting Presidential terms (1951); [23] granting D.C. electors (1961); [24] preventing tax restrictions on the right to vote (1964); [25] establishing the Presidential succession (1967); [26] extending right to vote to anyone over 18 (1971); [27] on the compensation of members of Congress (1992). A more refined account would consider these as well; but it's noteworthy that most of these don't have to do with rights but with structures and processes.)

Two Levels

It gets a bit serious and stuffy around here sometimes, so I thought I'd share this joke from Blogotional, which I found funny.

Several centuries ago, the Pope decreed that all the Jews had to convert or leave Italy. There was a huge outcry from the Jewish community, so the Pope offered a deal. He would have a religious debate with the leader of the Jewish community. If the Jews won, they could stay in Italy, if the Pope won, they would have to leave.

The Jewish people met and picked an aged, but wise, Rabbi Moishe to represent them in the debate. However, as Rabbi Moishe spoke no Italian and the Pope spoke no Hebrew, they all agreed that it would be a "silent" debate.

On the chosen day, the Pope and Rabbi Moishe sat opposite each other for a full minute before the Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers.

Rabbi Moishe looked back and raised one finger.

Next, the Pope waved his finger around his head.

Rabbi Moishe pointed to the ground where he sat.

The Pope then brought out a communion wafer and a chalice of wine.

Rabbi Moishe pulled out an apple.

With that, the Pope stood up and declared that he was beaten, that Rabbi Moishe was too clever, and that the Jews could stay.

Later, the Cardinals met with the Pope, asking what had happened.

The Pope said, "First, I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity. He responded by holding up one finger to remind me that there is still only one God common to both our beliefs. Then, I waved my finger to show him that God was all around us. He responded by pointing to the ground to show that God was also right here with us. I pulled out the wine and wafer to show that God absolves us of all our sins. He pulled out an apple to remind me of the original sin. He had me beaten and I could not continue."

Meanwhile the Jewish community were gathered around Rabbi Moishe. "How did you win the debate?" they asked.

"I haven't a clue," said Rabbi Moishe. "First he said to me that we had three days to get out of Italy, so I gave him the finger. Then he tells me that the whole country would be cleared of Jews and I said to him, we're staying right here."

"And then what?" asked a woman.

"Who knows?" said Moishe, "He took out his lunch, so I took out mine."

C.D. Broad on the Problem of Other Minds

Our belief in the existence of other minds is not reached by inference; and our belief in the existence of material objects is not reached by inference. Nevertheless, each of these beliefs can be rendered probable by certain inverse or analogical arguments, provided we admit that they have a finite antecedent probability. But the two beliefs are not logically independent of each other. For some, at any rate, of the arguments which support the belief in matter depend on our accepting the statements of other people about their perceptions; and the acceptance of such statements presupposes our belief in other minds. Again, arguments by analogy to support our belief in other minds presuppose either

a. that the feelings which we feel and the sensa which we sense are appearances to us of material objects, or
b. that some sensa are capable of being sensed by more than one mind.

Since the second condition is doubtful, whilst the first is sufficient even if the second be false, it follows that arguments by analogy in support of our belief in other minds are stronger if we believe that sensa are appearances of matter than if we do not.

[C. D. Broad, Mind and Its Place in Nature, Chapter 7.]

This question of the relation between our belief in the material world and our belief in other minds is an interesting one; I'm reminded of Arnauld, who thinks that it is more certain that there are other minds than that there is a material world, and so argues for the existence of the material world by arguing for it as a sort of intersubjective medium.

Anselm's Day

Today is the feast of St. Anselm, so here are some resources relevant to the day. Online resources on Anselm are very uneven, but I've provided ones that I thought were at least interesting.

The best translations of Anselm's works into English that are online (indeed, that exist) are probably those of Jasper Hopkins.

On the so-called ontological argument, Hopkins's article Anselm's Debate with Gaunilo (PDF) is an excellent guide to some of the misunderstandings of the argument that need to be avoided. Gyula Klima's papers, St. Anselm's Proof and On whether id quo nihil maius cogitari potest is in the understanding, are probably the most interesting discussions that argue that the argument is sound. For interesting discussions that come to the conclusion that the argument fails, I recommend Peter Millican's The One Fatal Flaw in Anselm's Argument (PDF) and Peter King's Anselm's Intentional Argument (PDF). One of the fascinating things about Anselm's argument is that while very few people accept the argument as sound, almost no one agrees about why it is not. The two discussions, in King and in Millican, provide the most serious arguments I've found for the existence flaws in the argument. (My own view of the argument is similar to Klima's: it is sound but probably begs the question.)

On Anselm's vies about the Incarnation (and atonement, which is a major focus of Anselm's theory of the Incarnation), I recommend Nicholas Cohen's Feudal Imagery or Christian Tradition? (PDF), which points out a number of problems with the old canard that Anselm's model of atonement is 'feudal'. See also Michael Deem's discussion of Anselm's Chalcedonianism in A Christological Renaissance (PDF).

Katherin Rogers has an interesting paper on Anselm on Grace and Free Will (PDF). Hopkins also has a paper, Freedom of Will (PDF), that makes some interesting comparisons between Anselm and Harry Frankfurt on this subject.

Thomas Williams and Sarah Visser discuss the De Veritate in Anselm on Truth (PDF).

Jeffrey Brower discusses Anselm on Ethics (PDF).

Susan Krantz Gabriel discusses Brentano's Account of Anselm's Proof of Immortality in Monologion 68-69 (PDF).

John Janaro's Saint Anselm and the Development of the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception (PDF) discusses Anselm's view on original sin. See also Kevin McMahon's Anselm and the Guilt of Adam (PDF).

A number of the above articles can be found in the excellent (and wholly online) Saint Anselm Journal.

Contrastive Questions

Consider the following questions:

Q1. Why does anything at all exist?
Q2. Why does anything at all exist (rather than nothing existing at all)?

In the previous post I gave an argument for the claim that these questions are not equivalent, despite their verbal similarity -- cases of overdetermination. Discussing the matter with Richard in the comments, it occurred to me that there's a related argument for this claim. The argument is this. Q1 is about a member of a class; Q2 is about the class.

It's clear that Q2 is about the class 'anything at all exists', because it is opposed to a contrast class, 'nothing existing at all'. We see this with other questions:

P1. Why did the window break?
P2'. Why did the window break (rather than not break)?

To answer P1, all we have to do is explain this particular positive case: the window actually broke. Our answer to P2', however, has to mark off all relevant positive cases (all cases in which the window would have broken) from the contradictory cases (all cases in which the window would not have broken). (I add the word 'relevant' because usually we don't hold ourselves to a fully rigorous standard in answering questions like P2'. If our answer to P2' fails to give us the information required to mark of the positive class from its contradictory, our answer fails to give us the information needed in order to say why the window broke rather than not (it would just give us information needed in order to say why the window broke).

If questions of form 2 (Why P rather than not P?) typically call for an answer not merely about distinguishing one class from another; and questions of form 1 (Why P? understood noncontrastively) do not typically require such an answer, the questions are not equivalent. We do know, in fact, that this is usually the case with contrastive questions. If I ask "Why P rather than Q?" I am asking for something that distinguishes P-cases, one of which obtains, from Q-cases, none of which do. If I ask "Why P?" noncontrastively, I am simply asking for the explanation of a particular P-case. So why would one deny that questions of form 2 are simply a specific form falling under the more general "Why P rather than Q?"

This argument is related to the overdetermination argument in that overdetermination is the easist place to see that one question requires a class-relevant answer and the other requires a case-relevant answer. But the argument is slightly different in that it shows more clearly the mistake of those who want to conflate Q1 and Q2. They assume that Q2 means:

X: What is the explanation of this: P and not not-P?

When in reality Q2 means:

Y: What is the explanation of this: (any) case of P obtaining rather than (any) case of not-P?

X and Y are not at all the same question; and this is true even if we are dealing with classes involving only one case each. In X, P is not a class; in Y it is.

Contrastive Explanation for Something Rather than Nothing

There has been some interesting discussion of contrastive explanation at Maverick Philosopher and Philosophy, etc.

Are these two questions equivalent?

Q1. Why does anything at all exist?
Q2. Why does anything at all exist (rather than nothing existing at all)?

Now, there are cases where a contrastive question clearly is not equivalent to an apparently similar noncontrastive question. For instance:

P1. Why did the window break?
P2. Why did the window break (rather than crack without breaking)?

The two questions are clearly not equivalent because an adequate answer to P1 will give us information about two things: the conditions required for windows in general to break; the events that fulfilled those conditions in this particular case. An adequate answer to P2, on the other hand also must give us information about the conditions required for windows in general to crack without breaking, and the events that fulfilled those conditions in this particular case. In other words, P2 is a more specific question than P1: to answer it you need not only to know about how windows break; one must also know about how windows crack without breaking. Strictly speaking I think this is true even if we modify P2 in the following way:

P2'. Why did the window break (rather than not break)?

P2' isn't equivalent to P1 (although they are very similar) because P2' is a more specific question: an adequate answer to it requires saying something about what would be involved in the window's not breaking. Of course, it is very tempting to think we can simply assume that the factor that explains the window's breaking is the contradictory of the factor that would have explained the window's not breaking. But we cannot assume that even this is always the case. Consider:

R1. Why did the scanner identify this as blue?
R2. Why did the scanner identify this as blue (rather than not identify it as blue)?

Let's suppose that the reason the scanner identified the object as blue is that it was jammed, so that it would identify anything as blue. But the scanner's not being jammed is not necessarily what would have explained the scanner's not identifying the object as blue. For if the scanner were not jammed it might have identified it as blue anyway. 'The scanner is jammed so that it identifies everything as blue' is an adequate answer to R1. But if the object is blue, and the jammed scanner identifies it as such, the adequate answer to R2 is that 'the scanner would only not identify it as blue if it were off or jammed in some other position'.

Therefore I am inclined to deny the claim that "Why X rather than not-X?" is just the same as "Why X?" The two cannot be equivalent because the conditions for an adequate answer to each are not the same. We can put the point in a crude but clear form. You can answer the latter just by talking about the conditions that actually led to X in this case. To answer the former, you have to talk about the conditions required for not-X as well. But there may be other conditions that would lead to X that have to be taken into account when discussing the latter, that don't have to be taken into account when discussing the former. Q2, P2, and R2 all require some sort of consideration of counterfactuals in the answer. Q1, P1, and R1 do not, because they allow as adequate answers claims that would not be adequate answers to Q2, P2, and R2.

This is not to say that there are no adequate answers to Q2 that would not also be adequate answers to Q1,, or even that all adequate answers to Q2 are adequate answers to Q1 and vice versa; rather, this is to say that the conditions for an adequate answer to Q1 are not the same as the conditions for an adequate answer to Q2. If the same answers are adequate for both questions, they are not adequate for exactly the same reasons. Thus Q1 and Q2 are not equivalent, and we cannot assume on the basis of the question alone that an adequate answer for one will be an adequate answer for the other.

One way to think of it is to think of it in this way. Suppose that things are set up so one factor makes it true in the actual world that something exists; but that there is a 'back-up factor', so that even if the actually explaining factor were to have failed, there would be another fact that would have made it so that something exists. To answer Q1, all we have to do is point to the actually explaining factor. To answer Q2, however, we have to take into account the back-up factor, because leaving it out doesn't explain why anything exists rather than nothing (something would exist even if the actually explaining factor weren't there). But we cannot rule out the possibility of an answer like this simply in virtue of the questions themselves. Therefore Q1 and Q2 are not equivalent, however closely related they might be.