Theological Origins of Modernity

descartes’ path to truth 191
from what is false, and are forced to take the doubtful as certain; for in such
matters the risk of diminishing our knowledge is greater than our hope of
increasing it. So, in accordance with this Rule [#2], we reject all such merely
probable cognition and resolve to believe only what is perfectly known and
incapable of being doubted. 77
Descartes thus concludes that “the aim of our studies should be to direct
the mind with a view to forming true and sound judgments about whatever
comes before it.” 78 Such judgments are the antidote to presumption
and the foundation of science.
Judging for Descartes is affi rming or denying that something is the
case, that is, that two things belong or do not belong together. We err when
we are deceived by our senses, or our imagination, or when we become
entangled in mere words. Th e basis of true judgment and thus true knowledge
is the certainty of intuition, which is “the indubitable conception of a
clear and attentive mind which proceeds solely from the light of reason.” 79
Th is does not mean that Descartes eschews deduction. 80 Indeed, because
intuition depends on the immediacy of mental vision, the number of axioms
it can produce is relatively small. To comprehend more complicated
and extended matters requires connecting judgments together. Th erefore
deduction is a necessary supplement to intuition. 81 Even with deduction,
however, it is diffi cult to attain certainty in long chains of reasoning. In
this case it is necessary to employ enumeration to minimize errors. Th e
goal of any chain of reasoning, however, is to grasp the entirety of the
chain through constant repetition in a single vision.
Descartes thus maintains that we only truly know the naturally simple
things and their intermixture. 82 He does not mean merely visible or
tangible things that we can imagine. Imagination can easily be mistaken.
Fortunately, we can know unimaginable things like doubt and ignorance,
but only when the mind dispenses with images and examines itself. 83 It
thereby discovers the innate ideas, and especially mathematical ideas. Th e
problem for Cartesian science is how to bring these purely intellectual
things—particularly the mathematical objects—and bodies known to the
senses and imagination together. Given Descartes’ dualism, it is hard to
see how these two can ever meet and thus how science can be possible.
Th e bridge in Descartes’ early thought is the imagination. 84 Th is is the link
between the intellect and the senses that makes science possible. 85 What
we sense is given fi gural representation in the imagination and compared
there to ideas made available by the intuition and given determinate form
by the imagination. On this basis, the intellect is able to affi rm the representation
as possible or necessary or to deny it as impossible. 86 Judgment