Routledge History of Philosophy Volume IV

DESCARTES: METAPHYSICS AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 213
56 Second and Fourth Objections respectively: AT VII 125; CSM II 89 and AT VII
214; CSM II 150.
57 AT VII 62; CSM II 43.
58 Fifth Meditation: AT VII 71; CSM II 49.
59 cf. Second Replies, AT VII 140ff.; CSM II 100ff.; Fourth Replies, AT VII 246;
CSM II 171; Conversation with Burman, AT V 148; CB 6. For more on the circle
objection and Descartes’s reply to it, see especially A.Gewirth, ‘The Cartesian
Circle’ [6.45] and L.Loeb, ‘The Cartesian Circle’, in J.Cottingham (ed.) Cambridge
Companions: Descartes [6.32].
60 AT VII 526; CSM II 419.
61 Conversation with Burman (1648): AT V 160; CSMK 343.
62 Letter to Mersenne of 15 April 1630, AT I 145; CSMK 23; cf. Sixth Replies: ‘God
did not will that the three angles of a triangle should be equal to two right angles
because he recognized that it could not be otherwise;…it is because he wills that
the three angles of a triangle should necessarily equal two right angles that this is
true and cannot be otherwise’ (AT VII 432; CSM II 291).
63 See, for example, Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, 25, 3. See further A.Kenny,
Descartes [6.20], 37f.
64 Letter to Mersenne of 27 May 1630; AT I 152; CSMK 25.
65 Notre âme, étant finie, ne le puisse comprendre ni concevoir (ibid.). For further
discussion of this theme, cf. J.-M.Beyssade, ‘The Idea of God’ [6.38].
66 For an interesting development of this point, see S.Gaukroger, Cartesian Logic [6.
15], ch. 2.
67 See Principles, Book II, art. 64.
68 I use the term ‘post-Humean’ in accordance with what may be called the traditional
interpretation of Hume as a philosopher who undermined the idea of science as the
discovery of necessary connections in the world. For an alternative interpretation,
see J.Wright, The Sceptical Realism of David Hume (Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1983).
69 For the simplicity and economy claimed by Descartes for his system see the letter
to Huygens of 10 October 1642 (AT II 797; CSMK 216) and Principles, Part IV,
arts 199 and 206.
70 For the breaking down of the barriers between terrestrial and celestial, see
Principles, Part IV, passim; for the barrier between organic and inorganic, see
Description of the Human Body (AT XI 226; CSM I 315); for that between natural
and artificial, see Treatise on Man (AT XI 120f., CSM I 99f.).
71 Treatise on Man: AT XI 120; CSM I 99. Though published (after Descartes’s
death) as a separate work, the Treatise on Man was originally conceived by
Descartes as part of Le Monde. See further CSM I 79.
72 He lived for a time in Kalverstraat in Amsterdam, where he obtained carcasses for
dissection from the butcher; some of his later experiments in vivisection are
described in the Description of the Human Body (AT XI 242f.; CSM I 317f.).
73 AT VII 230; CSM II 161.
74 AT VII 426; CSM I 288.
75 Description of the Human Body: AT XI 226; CSM I 315.
76 Discourse, Part Five, AT VI 56f.; CSM I 140.