Grayling's Descartes

About a week and a half ago, Paul Robinson asked me what I thought of Grayling's suggestion that Descartes was a Jesuit spy, or, perhaps more accurately, intelligence gatherer for the Jesuits. I replied:

It's an entertaining idea; but it's pure speculation, with precious little evidence to support it. Most of what Grayling points to just suggests what would have been common at the time -- patronage by courts and the wealthy, and communication among intellectuals on interesting subjects. One of Grayling's odd arguments is that his meeting with Cardinal Berulle somehow suggests that he was an agent for the Jesuits. But this is extraordinarily unlikely; there was clear interest in the early French Oratory in Cartesian ideas as congenial to the order's Augustinianism -- Descartes was good friends with Berulle's successor, Condren, for instance. Further, our evidence is that there was not merely one 'secret' meeting, as one would expect if Grayling were right, but apparently several visits by Descartes to the Oratorian house, plus (even better attested) Descartes's attendance at a salon at which Berulle also attended, at which Berulle asked Descartes to explain to the guests how he intended to fight skepticism. Moreover, Grayling has to overstate rather drastically how intimate Descartes seems to have been with the Jesuits. There are indeed mysteries about Descartes's life; but Grayling's hypothesis, on our current evidence, is conspiracy-theory stuff.

Which is true, but I've been a bit uneasy with my response, because it sounds harsher than it really is, and it doesn't convey just how much of an improvement Grayling's biographical work is over some of his competition. Even on this point, where he makes the same mistake as Richard Watson (no relation), he does so with much more sobriety and reason than Watson does. The Bérulle incident is an excellent case in point. We know for a fact that Descartes had met Cardinal Bérulle: he attended at least one salon that Bérulle also attended; if he interacted with Bérulle outside of this (I should have put this condition in my reply), he likely visited the Oratorian House several times; and, unless I misremember, Descartes name-drops him at least once. Part of the problem in judging just how familiar Bérulle and Descartes were with each other is that most of our sources for Descartes's life are second-hand (Adrien Baillet is the most important of these) and the rest is fragmentary. So there's always a danger of historical pareidolia. We see this, I think, very clearly in the case of Watson's biography. One of the mysteries of Descartes's life is why one of France's foremost minds on a sudden picked up and moved to the Netherlands, there to spend most of the rest of his life. Baillet gives us an interesting suggestion in this regard. Attending the salon I previously mentioned, Descartes interacted with Bérulle, and they were both struck by each other, meeting several more times. Bérulle told Descartes that he should withdraw into solitude in order to write philosophy, and Descartes was so bowled over by Bérulle that he did. Now, this is, I said, an interesting suggestion, but it is not at all surprising that biographers have difficulty regarding this as any more than Baillet's attempt at a 'likely story'. So Watson suggests that really what happened was that Bérulle, deeply involved in the politics of France, tried to recruit Descartes to his cause, and Descartes, repelled by the Cardinal's fanaticism, immediately relocated to get away from him. It's actually rather funny reading it in Watson's Cogito Ergo Sum, since it's transparently obvious that the only reason Watson thinks Descartes must have done this is that that's the sort of Descartes Watson wants to believe existed. It is obviously not any more plausible than Baillet's version, and it lacks two of the merits of Baillet's version -- Baillet, for all that he garbles things, was basing his work on prior sources (the most important of which were Clerselier's lost papers), and Baillet's version fits with the fact that many of the first-generation Oratorians had an intense interest in Cartesian thought. But rather more seriously, we have no serious reason to believe that the interaction with Bérulle had anything to do with Descartes's moving except for the fact that Baillet makes the connection, in the very story Watson rejects as absurd. Without a principled reason for doing this, we are clearly turning history into a wax nose.

Grayling's version has Bérulle, opponent of the Jesuits, calmly letting Descartes know that he knows what Descartes's been up to for them, and (in effect) giving him a choice of leaving or getting in trouble. Grayling's construction of this version is far more sober and less subjective than Watson's (and, it must be said, much more interesting). He takes the trouble to bring in circumstantial narrative; and the result is a narrative much less implausible than Watson's, although one that still raises some questions. The attempt to formulate it is a genuine advance, even if one, like myself, regards it as a dead end, because givent he puzzle it was a possible narrative worth investigating. The admirable thing about Grayling's biography is that he faces squarely a great many of the mysteries of Descartes's life and handle them in a way based firmly on the evidence. I don't think he's usually successful at getting a grip on them, but this has at least as much to do with the state of the evidence as with anything else, and it is a decent attempt.

On the 'spy' hypothesis, it is worth pointing out two things, as well: namely, that to the extent that Grayling endorses the 'spy' label he takes it in a fairly weak sense -- that is, he takes it that Descartes was gathering information, and perhaps trying to infiltrate the Rosicrucians; and that it actually wouldn't be at all implausible for an intellectual of the time to gather information for other intellectuals. It's the systematic and somewhat cloak-and-dagger character of what Descartes would have done that makes it prima facie unlikely of an intellectual in the period; and it sits uneasily with other things we know of Descartes (as I note above, it's very unlikely on the evidence we have that Descartes was so completely involved with the Jesuits as Grayling has to postulate). My suggestion to readers of Grayling's Descartes is primarily that they just enjoy the book; and perhaps take the 'spy' aspect of it as chiefly a literary device that Grayling uses, sometimes to great effect, to lay out the historical background of Descartes's life, Grayling's attempt at a better version of Baillet's 'likely story', and thus to be regarded in exactly the same light we regard Baillet's story.

Two Poem Drafts

Music

The musician lets the music pass;
he lets it fade, he lets it fall;
it lingers not in fact but thought;
he kills it to remember it.
Each note is laid into the grave
and only then is music felt;
its body buried, its spirit haunts;
its murder creates memory;
its death has set it free.

Memories

They spring up, some wildflowers, some garden-grown
(but not less lovely for being tended);
some are time-outlasting clay,
some are cracked and must be mended.
Some remain enduring friends,
some foes forever to be reviled;
some are friends transformed to foes,
some are enemies reconciled.
Some are spirits born of love,
like mothers revered as shining saints;
some ghosts, long dead, that haunt the soul;
some shades of life a sleepless fancy paints.

All are sifted like the dust
that covers cities over
and transforms mighty temples proud
into hills of earth and clover.

Dormition

The memory of the just takes place with rejoicing, said Solomon, the wisest of men; for precious in God's sight is the death of His saints, according to the royal David. If, then, the memory of all the just is a subject of rejoicing, who will not offer praise to justice in its source, and holiness in its treasure-house? It is not mere praise; it is praising with the intention of gaining eternal glory. God's dwelling-place does not need our praise, that city of God, concerning which great things were spoken, as holy. David addresses it in these words: "Glorious things are said of thee, thou city of God." What sort of city shall we choose for the invisible and uncircumscribed God, who holds all things in His hand, if not that city which alone is above nature, giving shelter without circumscription to the supersubstantial Word of God? Glorious things have been spoken of that city by God himself. For what is more exalted than being made the recipient of God's counsel, which is from all eternity?

John Damascene

A Guide to the Argument of Hume's Dialogues, Parts X&XI

Previous Post

In Part IX Demea had proposed an a priori argument as more suitable to religion and talk about God than Cleanthes's a posteriori argument. Problems were raised in response to that, and Part X closes with Philo's pointing out that the a priori argument requries metaphysical and abstract reasoning, and that religion, however much it may be supported by the argument, will always derive from another source than it.

Demea opens Part X by conceding that much, and suggests that other source: "[E]ach man feels, in a manner, the truth of religion within his own breast, and, from a consciousness of his imbecility and misery, rather than from any reasoning, is led to seek protection from that Being, on whom he and all nature is dependent." Driven by fear and misery, we look for hope in the future, by way of prayer and sacrifice, and thereby find consolation in religion.

It is a sign of Demea's cluelessness as to the game being played that he would suggest this at this point, but it is entirely consistent with what he has said elsewhere.

Philo seizes on Demea's suggestion, saying that "the best, and indeed the only method of bringing every one to a due sense of religion, is by just representations of the misery and wickedness of men." Note how Philo in taking up Demea's claim has readjusted it to form the seed of a response to Cleanthes. Cleanthes had said that his a posteriori argument was a sufficient foundation of religion; if Philo's claim made here is true, Cleanthes's claim about his argument must be false. Further, Cleanthes committed himself in Part VIII to the design of the universe being benevolent. At the same time, Philo's readjustment has made Demea's position toothless, for he goes on to point out that "just representations of the misery and wickedness of men" owe more to eloquence and imagery than to serious reasoning. Thus Demea's suggestion gives him no ground on which to argue for his own view, and gives Philo ground for attacking Cleanthes. It is an ingenious move, but subtle enough that it might be missed.

Demea, still clueless, falls for the trap, and agrees, adding that human misery has become proverbial. Thereafter follows a curious back-and-forth. Philo follows this up by noting that there is considerable agreement between the learned and the vulgar on this point. Demea, carried away, says there is probably no book in Cleanthes's library in which the author has denied it. Philo replies that Leibniz did, and Demea responds that he cannot "bear down the united testimony of mankind, founded on sense and consciousness." Even better for Philo, he begins to give examples of misery in the animal world, which Philo then develops. Demea suggests that this is so common that only the human race is exempted; Philo responds that, on the contrary, it is with the human race that they are most apparent, and gives reasons for it. Demea enthusiastically begins expanding on them.

The perceptive reader will catch on quickly to the fact that Philo is herding Demea in the direction he wants the argument to go.

Cleanthes finally manages to break into the discussion by remarking that, while he has seen a few people who have this severe sense of misery, he doesn't feel it himself, and hopes it's not so common as the other two represent it. Demea assures Cleanthes that if he doesn't feel it, he is quite exceptional, and begins to list eminent examples of people who felt it: Charles V, Cicero, Cato....

Philo here abruptly brings the argument back to Cleanthes:

And is it possible, Cleanthes, said Philo, that after all these reflections, and infinitely more, which might be suggested, you can still persevere in your Anthropomorphism, and assert the moral attributes of the Deity, his justice, benevolence, mercy, and rectitude, to be of the same nature with these virtues in human creatures? His power we allow is infinite: whatever he wills is executed: but neither man nor any other animal is happy: therefore he does not will their happiness. His wisdom is infinite: he is never mistaken in choosing the means to any end: but the course of Nature tends not to human or animal felicity: therefore it is not established for that purpose. Through the whole compass of human knowledge, there are no inferences more certain and infallible than these. In what respect, then, do his benevolence and mercy resemble the benevolence and mercy of men?

And here we have it: Philo has set up the board as he wants it, and sets out to checkmate Cleanthes. Philo concedes (note it) that Cleanthes reasons justly in concluding that there is a purpose and intention of sorts in nature. But this purpose and intention appears to have no end in view except the preservation of individuals and the propagation of species -- well short of the benevolent design Cleanthes had suggested.

I have said before that Hume did not write Cleanthes to be a stupid character but, on the contrary, a very intelligent one. And Cleanthes shows his intelligence now, because he sees exactly what his old friend is doing:

And have you at last, said Cleanthes, smiling, betrayed your intentions, Philo? Your long agreement with Demea did indeed a little surprize me; but I find you were all the while erecting a concealed battery against me. And I must confess, that you have now fallen upon a subject worthy of your noble spirit of opposition and controversy. If you can make out the present point, and prove mankind to be unhappy or corrupted, there is an end at once of all religion. For to what purpose establish the natural attributes of the Deity, while the moral are still doubtful and uncertain?

Philo's long agreement with Demea, if I am right, was indeed the erecting of a "concealed battery" against Cleanthes. There is reason also to think that Cleanthes is right about the rest: if Philo can make his point out, he can sever any connection between Cleanthes's argument and religion. We get the natural attributes of God but no moral attributes; without moral attributes, no religion. This is very probably Philo's intention; he wishes to cut off Cleanthes's argument from religious practice. I think people often fail to recognize this because of a particular question that immediately arises: Why would Philo do this? We will see why in Part XII. In the meantime just keep it in your mind as a possibility.

Demea breaks in and says that he thinks Cleanthes is overreacting. Our experience is just a small part of the whole creation; the misery we have now is rectified in the future.

Cleanthes reacts violently to this suggestion:

No! replied Cleanthes, No! These arbitrary suppositions can never be admitted, contrary to matter of fact, visible and uncontroverted. Whence can any cause be known but from its known effects? Whence can any hypothesis be proved but from the apparent phenomena? To establish one hypothesis upon another, is building entirely in the air; and the utmost we ever attain, by these conjectures and fictions, is to ascertain the bare possibility of our opinion; but never can we, upon such terms, establish its reality.

The only method of supporting Divine benevolence, and it is what I willingly embrace, is to deny absolutely the misery and wickedness of man. Your representations are exaggerated; your melancholy views mostly fictitious; your inferences contrary to fact and experience. Health is more common than sickness; pleasure than pain; happiness than misery. And for one vexation which we meet with, we attain, upon computation, a hundred enjoyments.

Demea's suggestion is contrary to Cleanthes's Newtonian rules of reasoning, in which we should avoid reasoning on hypotheses but only conclude by induction from the phenomena, rising from effect to cause. Cleanthes believes that God is benevolent not because of some supposition about the afterlife but because Demea is simply wrong about the misery of life.

Philo slily points out how tenuous this position is. Originally Cleanthes had suggested that his design inference was a sufficient foundation for religion; later it came out that it could only be so to the extent that it concluded to benevolent design; now we find that it can only conclude to benevolent design if it's established as fact that human existence is predominantly happy rather than miserable. Since this is uncertain, Cleanthes's whole system of religion is uncertain.
Moreover, Philo can press his attack to an even greater extent. Even if life is predominantly happy, God is usually supposed to be infinitely good, infinitely powerful, infinitely intelligent. Cleanthes cannot prove this.

Here, Cleanthes, I find myself at ease in my argument. Here I triumph. Formerly, when we argued concerning the natural attributes of intelligence and design, I needed all my sceptical and metaphysical subtilty to elude your grasp. In many views of the universe and of its parts, particularly the latter, the beauty and fitness of final causes strike us with such irresistible force, that all objections appear (what I believe they really are) mere cavils and sophisms; nor can we then imagine how it was ever possible for us to repose any weight on them. But there is no view of human life, or of the condition of mankind, from which, without the greatest violence, we can infer the moral attributes, or learn that infinite benevolence, conjoined with infinite power and infinite wisdom, which we must discover by the eyes of faith alone. It is your turn now to tug the laboring oar, and to support your philosophical subtilties against the dictates of plain reason and experience.

In Part III we found Cleanthes cleverly backing Philo into a corner by forcing him into a position where he would have to accept Cleanthes's argument or reject natural sentiment, which Philo's particular form of skepticism wouldn't allow. Now we find Philo explicitly pointing out to Cleanthes that the tables are turned. Philo has put Cleanthes in check.

But check is not exactly checkmate, and Part XI opens with Cleanthes making the unexpected move of conceding the point. He is not trapped, however, because he suggests that the Author of nature is finitely perfect -- albeit much more perfect than any human being could be. He does not commit himself to this; he instead asks Philo's opinions on it, saying that if it deserves attention it could be developed later. Philo's opinion is basically that it does not change anything; an impartial spectator, one not antecedently convinced that the deity was benevolent, would not find enough in actual experience to conclude that the Author of nature was very good. The same question still arises. Philo, to be sure, doesn't deny that, if we add some suppositions and hypotheses, the world we experience still might be consistent with a benevolent deity. (It is interesting that Philo states this very carefully and clearly: by adding 'conjectures' you can defeat the problem of evil. But conjectures can only show the consistency of the conclusion with the evidence; they do not show that the inference from evidence to conclusion is a good one.) Of course, Cleanthes cannot argue on suppositions and hypotheses.

Philo's (long) development of his reasoning on this point is interesting, but I won't summarize it here, because the game is winding down. Philo and Cleanthes, in fact, have already begun to shift out of one of the games being played. I suggested that there are two levels being played, one involving Cleanthes, Philo, and Demea. This game, however, is simply one (major) part of a game being played between Cleanthes and Philo alone. What we find in Part XI is an abrupt shift from the three-person game to the two-person game -- Cleanthes and Philo, still playing their two-person game, pause in playing the three-person game long enough to discuss whether one possible move in that game -- finite theism -- has much promise. Cleanthes, you will remember, did not put forward the move as the one he wanted to make; he simply suggested it and asked Philo to give his full opinion of it without interruption. Philo goes on to comply by giving his opinion at some length.

Demea feels the sharp change in the game, which has suddenly gone far beyond where he was expecting it to go:

Hold! hold! cried Demea: whither does your imagination hurry you? I joined in alliance with you, in order to prove the incomprehensible nature of the Divine Being, and refute the principles of Cleanthes, who would measure every thing by human rule and standard. But I now find you running into all the topics of the greatest libertines and infidels, and betraying that holy cause which you seemingly espoused. Are you secretly, then, a more dangerous enemy than Cleanthes himself?

Cleanthes finds the protest amusing. "And are you so late in perceiving it?" he says.

Shortly after Demea gives an excuse and leaves; it is suggested that he does so because he "did not at all relish the latter part of the discourse."

The three-person game has ended. But the two-person game, a much friendlier game, and the one that holds the key to the Dialogues, continues. We'll pick it up with Part XII.

Links and Notes

* Eriksen, Franklin, Duncan, and Powell: And Am I Born to Die?. The words are by Charles Wesley; the tune is Idumea, by Ananias Davisson. One of the things I always like about this tune, particularly with these words, is that it beautifully expresses dissonance in the face of death.

* The Evolution of What We Think About Who We Are at "laelaps". Some of the historical sources are about a jillion years out of date (it will be nice when scientists no longer treat White's work as if it were an up-to-date or even particularly accurate resource, rather than an early and somewhat tendentious attempt to get a grasp on a subject about which we now have a great deal more information), but it is well worth reading nonetheless. (ht: ABAtC)

* Eisley's Invasion, both the video and the song, are quite good.

* Jonah Lehrer gives a good response to Nick Bostrom's simulation argument. A further point to be made is that Bostrom's argument depends on the assumption that "we don’t have any information that indicate that our own particular experiences are any more or less likely than other human-type experiences to have been implemented in vivo rather than in machina"; but, of course, we do all have information to indicate that they have been implemented in vivo, namely, the experience of actually living. To be sure, on the hypothesis of a flawless simulation, it's defeasible, but that doesn't change the tendency of the evidence. Bostrom's argument is basically a slightly modified brain-in-a-vat skepticism argument; like such arguments it makes the crucial mistake of assuming that defeasible reasoning is reasoning that can be ignored. That this is a mistake has long been known; as Newton noted, for instance, recognizing it as a mistake is essential if we are to have room for scientific thought. That's the explicit basis for Newton's Rule IV in the Rules for Reasoning in Philosophy, "that the argument of induction may not be evaded by hypotheses." But that's precisely what the simulation argument is, at least prima facie: an evasion of the argument of induction by hypotheses. The supposition of simulation need only be considered to the extent that it is supported by positive proof.

* Allen Wood has a good paper on the history of philosophy, called What Dead Philosophers Mean (Word). Wood's paper gives an excellent account of some issues in what I have previously identified as a key focus in HoP, namely, the problem of the philosophical problem itself.

* Zippy Catholic notes an important feature of the double-effect principle, as it was understood by Anscombe: it preserves exceptionless norms. Perhaps more accurately, it protects morality from ethical versions of realpolitik (the point Anscombe makes about double effect is very similar to a point she makes about just war principles vis-a-vis pacifism and realism).

* Johnny-Dee recently had a post on burden of proof disputes over theism and atheism. Some argue that theism has the burden of proof, others that atheism has the burden of proof. John argues that they both have it. That would be the best response, I think, if I held a view of burden of proof like John's, where there are objective standards. I have a very different view though; burdens of proof are obligations of discourse and therefore always determined by agreement, either tacit or explicit. This is not quite to say that they are arbitrary, since reasons for proposing the obligation may be good or bad, reasonable or unreasonable, appropriate to the type of discussion or inappropriate to it.

ADDED LATER:

* The Al-Ghazali entry is up at the SEP.

* Miriam Burstein gives one the best summaries of Bram Stoker's Dracula that I have seen in a while: "It's as though somebody dropped the characters from CSI into a Freddy Krueger movie."

Scripture Meme

Hugo Schwyzer had a Scripture meme a while back. The idea is to list six scriptural passages central to one's faith. It's a hard pick, but here are six I chose:

1 Corinthians 1:20-31

John 1:1-5

Psalm 130

Matthew 25:14-30

Revelation 7:9-17

Ephesians 1:3-14

The Materials of Architecture II

In passing in another work, Linguistics and Philosophy, Gilson gives another way of saying that the materials of architecture are design solutions:

Everything is mechanical in a house except the idea of building it and the plan of construction. A house is an infinity of hypothetical necessities caused by the freedom of the architect who imposes on them his idea of the house as their common final cause.

Etienne Gilson, Linguistics and Philsoophy. James Lyon, tr. University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, Ind.: 1988) p. 51.