Theological Origins of Modernity

338 notes to pages 196–200
intentional omnipotence by contrast may be less likely to produce error, but it is
also impossible to remedy.
103. AT 6:32; CSM 1:127.
104. AT 7:25; CSM 2:17.
105. AT 7:140–41; CSM 2:100. For the best alternative argument, see Heinrich Scholtz,
“Über das Cogito, Ergo Sum,” Kant-Studien 36, no. 1/2 (1931):126–47.
106. AT 6:33; 8A:8–9; CSM 1:127, 196.
107. AT 7:25; CSM 2:16–17.
108. On this point see Jaakko Hintikka, “Cogito, ergo sum: Inference or Performance?,”
in Meta-Meditations, 50–76.
109. AT 7:145–46; CSM 2:104; cf. Principles, AT 9B:9–10, CSM 1:183–84.
110. AT 10:411; CSM 1:39.
111. AT 7:28; CSM 2:19.
112. AT 7:34; CSM 2:24.
113. AT 7:160; CSM 2:133. See also Descartes to Mersenne, May 1637; and to Reneri,
April-May 1638; AT 1:366; 2:36. Descartes gives a similar account plus memory in
Th e Description of the Human Body, AT 11:224.
114. AT B:17; CSM 1:204.
115. AT 11:342–49; CSM 1:335–39. See also Descartes to Regius, May 1646; AT 3:372.
116. Meditations, AT 7:27; CSM 2:18–19.
117. Replies, AT 7:188–89; CSM 2:132.
118. Comments on a Certain Broadsheet, AT 8B:363; CSM 1:307.
119. On this point see Peter Schouls, Descartes and the Enlightenment (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 1989), esp. 35–50, and Antony Kenny, “Descartes on
the Will,” in Cartesian Studies, ed. R. J. Butler (New York: Barnes and Noble,
1972), 4. Descartes’ identifi cation of thinking as willing recalls the nominalist notion
that for God knowing and creating are one and the same thing.
120. AT 3:394; cf. Principles, AT 8A:7; CSM 1:195.
121. On this point, see Gerhard Kruger, “Die Herrschaft des philosophischen Selbstbewusstseins,”
Logos, Internationale Zeitschrift für Philosophie der Kultur 22
(1933): 246.
122. On this point, see Simon, “Les vérités éternelles de Descartes,” 126–29.
123. See Heidegger, Nietzsche, 2 vols. (Pfullingen: Neske, 1961), 2:148–58.
124. My interpretation thus is radically at odds with Sartre’s claim that Descartes attributes
absolute freedom to God but not to man. Descartes (Paris: Trois collines,
1946), 9–52.
125. Meditations, AT 7:21–22; CSM 2:14–15.
126. Th is conclusion is even more explicit in Descartes’ unfi nished dialogue, Th e Search
for Truth, where Eudoxus calms the fears of Epistemon that the path of doubt leads
to the skepticism of Socrates and the Pyrrhonists (AT 10:512; CSM 2:408) by demonstrating
that because I doubt, that is, think, I am. AT 10:523; CSM 2:417. Th is is
also highly reminiscent of the argument Augustine develops in the Confessions.
127. “To be autarchic, one’s own commanding source, is both to be a principle oneself,
that is, the generative or productive source of all that can be invented by sci-