Descartes's response to the Fourth Objections Andre Sarrazin

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Descartes and Arnauld: The Fourth Objections

Descartes and Arnauld: The fourth objections by André Sarrazin January 6, 2015.

Translated by Google translate from the original French into English December 2023.

Table des matières

I. Les objections philosophiques. 2

I.1 Exclure le corps de l’essence de la chose qui pense. 2

Objections: 2

Réponses et analys: 4

I.2 Quelques problèmes de l’union des substances. 7

Objections : 7

Réponses et analyse: 7

II. Les objections théologiques. 8

II.1L’idée matériellement fausse. 9

Objections: 9

Réponses et analyse: 10

II.2 L’être par soi. 12

Objections : 12

Réponses et analyse: 13

Conclusion 17

Bibliographie 18

Table of contents — translated

I. Philosophical objections. 2

I.1 Exclude the body from the essence of the thing that thinks. 2

Objections: 2

Answers and analysis: 4

I.2 Some problems of the union of substances. 7

Objections: 7

Answers and analysis: 7

II. Theological objections. 8

II.1The materially false idea. 9

Objections: 9

Answers and analysis: 10

II.2 Being by oneself. 12

Objections: 12

Answers and analysis: 13

Conclusion 17

Bibliography 18

The Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, in quibus Dei existentia et animae humanae immortalitas demonstrantur usually known as Meditations were completed in the first half of 1640, and Descartes, concerned about the welcome that would be reserved for his work, circulated a manuscript through Father Mersenne, to be able to attach the objections made to him and the answers he would have provided. In fact, the first edition completed on August 28, 1641 contains only six sets of objections and answers. The history of successive editions shows additions and entrenchments, so when the French translation of 1647 was published, the fifth objections (those of Gassendi) are placed after the sixths, while the seventh are absent. These variations are, for the study of the fourth objections, irrelevant. However, it should be noted that their author, Father Arnauld, also knew the text of the first ones, which Descartes, via Mersenne, had communicated to him. They are due to J. de Kater, a Dutch Catholic priest, and are based on the positions defended by Suarez and Saint Thomas d'Aquin. Descartes responds in particular to the problem posed by the proposal to consider God as a cause of himself, because any cause can be considered as a limitation. The second objections are probably due to Mersenne himself and the third are from Hobbes. Both did not strongly attract Descartes' attention. It is only with those of Arnauld that he "then thinks he can present everything to the doctors of Sorbonne" (MM, 15), after having introduced in his text some changes relating to theology. The current editions, in chronological order, first present the text of the objections and then that of the answers. We have the possibility, probably more didactic, to analyze each of the objections and the corresponding answer(s) separately, even if it means in conclusion to identify a common thread of the whole and to highlight the coherence of the thinking of the two interlocutors. Arnauld himself ordered his objections according to his role as a philosopher or theologian, it is this presentation that we will keep.

I. Philosophical objections

The comment of a text is better understood for those who can consult it, there will be a wide call for quotations. Arnauld's objections begin with a reference to Saint Augustine who had already noticed in "the second book of free will in Chapter 3" that, even if there is a je ne sais quoi that always deceives you, "it is probably that I am, if he deceives me," thus anticipating the discovery of the certainty of the Cartesian cogito. Arnauld does not explain further "continue" he writes to reach the first objection: "How can we conclude from this principle that our mind is distinct and separated from the body?" Pascal, later, in a geometric spirit, will emphasize that "I think therefore I am" is not the same thing in the spirit of Saint Augustine and Descartes, this being "a word for adventure" for one, and a "firm and sustained principle for the other" carrying "an admirable sequence of consequences."

I.1 Exclude the body from the essence of the thing that thinks.

Objections:

Arnauld takes up the terms of the Second Meditation. He grants that we can doubt the existence of bodies and even his own and yet convince ourselves to be something: "this truth always remains: I am something, and therefore I am not a body" (MM, 323), indeed if I were one I would doubt myself. He concedes that this does not prove that there is no body, but arrives at a first difficulty: Descartes in seeking who he is thinks that "this notion and knowledge of myself, thus precisely taken, does not depend on things whose existence is not yet known to me" (MM, 322). This is certain, but it is only a reason to exclude "these things" according to the march of reasoning, not yet according to the "truth of the thing" (MM, 323).

Arnauld then used the Discours de la Méthode, published four years earlier, to point out that Descartes was already reasoning this way and that "the dispute is still on the same terms." How, from what Descartes does not know anything else that belongs to his essence, "it follows that there is also nothing else that indeed belongs to him" (MM, 324). He explains that he did not find in the Second Meditation an answer to his question because "he has a heavy and rude mind," but he thinks he found it in the Sixth where the notion of a clear and distinct idea appears. He quotes, for example, "we must always come back to this, that only things that I conceive clearly and distinctly (clear and distinct percipio) that have the strength to persuade me entirely" (MM, 165). Arnauld shows that Descartes' thought is built according to the following syllogism:

I have a clear and distinct idea of what I am a thing that thinks and not extended.

I have a clear and distinct idea of what the body is an extended thing and that doesn't think.

Ergo, my soul is entirely and truly distinct from the body and it can exist without it.

However, the major of [the] syllogism can be revoked, knowledge must not only be clear and distinct but also full and complete, "i.e. which includes everything that must be known of the thing" (MM, 325). Arnauld continues by showing that when Descartes, further in his text, presents his knowledge of the body and mind as full and complete, these statements can also be revoked in doubt. He specifies by showing that it is not necessary to go so far as to think that "every body was spirit" (MM, 325), the genre that can be heard without the species. He concludes his first objection by: "it only follows (from [the] Meditations) that I can acquire some knowledge of myself without the knowledge of the body, but that this knowledge is complete and complete, so that I am assured that I am not mistaken, when I exclude the body from my essence, it is not yet clear to me" (MM, 326).

Arnauld will continue his demonstration with a geometric argument. Anyone who thinks that the triangle inscribed in a circle and whose base is a diameter of the circle necessarily has a right angle, will say that he has a clear and distinct vision of this triangle, but he could deny that the square of its base is equal to the sum of the squares on its sides by calling on the omnipotence of God to make such a rectangular triangle. This one would make the same mistake as Descartes in considering that a clear and distinct idea implies full and complete knowledge.

Arnauld continuing the analysis of the triangle inscribed in the semicircle raises the problem of knowing what makes it possible to consider as different substances two substances that can be conceived only clearly and distinctly existing one without the other. It is indeed possible to distinguish [a] rectangular triangle and [the] Pythagorean theorem by refusing the latter to be in the essence of the first, but having a clear and precise [distinct] idea of the two objects. How can we say that we know the nature of the mind better than that of the triangle? Sticking to the clear and precise [distinct] vision moreover seems to prove too much and lead to the body being presented only as the vehicle of the spirit, man becoming "a living spirit or using the body" (MM, 328).

Arnauld then warns an answer to the objection that would say that the body is not absolutely excluded from the essence of being, but only as it is a thing that thinks, because it would lead to presenting "the idea I have of myself as incomplete and imperfectly conceived."

Arnauld illustrates his thinking with a geometric example of quite complex use: The line for surveyors is a length without width, although there is no length without width. Some might think that the thing that thinks has the common properties of extended things plus the particular property of thinking, so that by abstraction we could only retain this last property, (as we have by abstraction removed the width at the line).

In addition, thought always seems attached to a body and there are variations in the way of thinking combined with the variations of the body, asleep in children, extinguished in madmen.

Answers and analysis:

The first answer to Arnauld's objection is simple, "none of the things without which a thing can be, is understood in its essence" (MM, 345), and to make a real distinction between two things it is enough that "each of them is conceived without the other fully, or as a complete thing" (MM, 346). A full and complete knowledge is not possible, because this knowledge belongs only to God alone, and even if we had it on an object, we would have no way of knowing that our knowledge is complete if God did not reveal it to us.

To make a distinction between two things, it is simply necessary to have knowledge that is such that "we did not make it imperfect and criminal" (MM, 347).

Descartes specifies that, when he said that a thing had to be fully conceived, he meant a knowledge distinct enough to conceive that thing as complete.

The complete thing is defined as a substance, "coated with the shapes or attributes that are sufficient to make me know that it is a substance" (MM, 347). If we strip the substance of the attributes that make it known to us we destroy all the knowledge we have of it. Descartes then makes a distinction between complete and incomplete substance depending on whether or not it can subsist without being supported by something else or whether it is a whole or a part of a whole. In the first sense there is only God who is [a] complete substance, for the second he gives the example of the hand which, alone is [a] complete substance, but which related to the body is [an] incomplete substance.

The attributes by which the substance called body is known make it possible to consider it as a complete substance.

Arnauld's proposal, "the body is to the mind what the genus is to the species," is fought because the mind can be thought without the body and the species cannot be thought without the genus.

The example of the triangle inscribed in a semicircle is not relevant for three reasons:

Pythagoras' theorem is not a substance or even a thing

We are obviously going about the relationship between the square of the sides and the fact that the triangle is rectangular, more difficult of the existence of a right angle to the relationship, so it is enough to clearly distinguish the mind without the body for the reciprocal to be true.

We may have no idea of the Pythagorean theorem but we cannot a priori deny that this relationship exists, because we conceive that there must be a certain proportion, however "in the concept of the mind nothing is understood of what belongs to the body" (MM, 350).

Descartes refutes the idea that his argument would prove too much. He recalls the Sixth Meditation where he had taken care to mention that "I am not only housed in my body, as well as a pilot in his ship, but in addition to that, that I am very closely associated with him [it] . . . that I compose as one whole with him [it]" (MM, 191). Arnauld's concern here was probably also theological because he did not want to see Descartes's arguments used to support dualist heresies.

The geometric image of the line seems to him to differ too much from the problem. As for fools and children, the ability to think is prevented by the organs of the body, and it does not follow that it is produced by them, but the close connection of mind and body, "which we experience every day" (MM, 353) can cause confusion.

Descartes's response may seem insufficient in the face of Arnauld's requirement for full knowledge. But the latter is impossible by definition. If we had by chance a full and complete knowledge of a thing, we would not know that we have this knowledge, which is only possible to God. We must be content, as Saint Thomas says, with 'evening' knowledge, that of 'morning' being reserved for the creator. Descartes does not specify in his answer that his definition of the body as a substance appeared only in the Sixth Meditation, he uses an ambiguous formulation: "As I think I have sufficiently demonstrated in the Second Meditation" (MM, 349) which can be applied in the context to the mind conceived as a distinct and complete thing and to the body conceived as a substance, but also apply only to the mind. Yet he had to go through the demonstration of God's existence to "be certain that one (of the two things) is distinct or different from the other, because they can be posed separately at least by the omnipotence of God" (MM, 185).

Descartes also defends his physique [physics] based on clear and distinct ideas. When he says that by stripping the substance of his attributes we would move away from knowledge, he seems to go against his analysis of the piece of wax in the Second Meditation and the stone in Article XI of the Principles of Philosophy. In these two moments he strips a substance of its accidental attributes to discover the substantial attributes, those that make the thing what it is, in the case of the body, figure and extended. The resulting certainty "is obtained only by abstraction, which leaves of the thing only what the intuitive can assume for its object." The clear and distinct vision combined with methodical reasoning is enough to build a physics. Arnauld's requirement would make it impossible.

Can we then be satisfied with the Cartesian response? Judging it against the objections that Husserl and Ryle will bring to cite two modern critics would be inappropriate here. We will dwell on Leibniz's thought, which refutes the Cartesian assimilation of the body to extent [extension] simply by the obligation of Cartesians to give movement to matter, which shows "that they tacitly admit that extent [extension] is not enough." In this case, the incompleteness of the clear and distinct notion becomes obvious and reopens the field of properties that can be attributed to the body.

I.2 Some problems with the union of substance

Objections:

Arnauld indicates that he found in a summary of Descartes's six meditations the reasoning he thought he had to produce to demonstrate the immortality of the soul in the case of the real distinction of mind and body. However, he adds that the Cartesian theory of the absence of soul in animals will come up against, for example, the observation of the flight of ewes who see a wolf, difficult to explain by animal spirits alone. He concludes this part by recalling the agreement of Saint Augustine and Descartes on the proposal that the things we see by the mind are more certain than those we see by the eyes.

Answers and analysis:

The bodies have in them everything that is necessary for movements. Our soul provokes them by "determining the course of this very subtle liquor called animal spirits" (MM, 354). For animals, a shaking such that the light reflected from the wolf's body in the eyes of the sheep can have the same strength.

We will not analyze the objection or the answer at length. The real objections will come later, from Princess Elisabeth's requests for clarification. From her first letter of May 16, 1643, she questioned him by asking him to say "how the soul of man can determine the minds of the body to do voluntary actions, being only a thinking substance." He will have to answer that it is indeed "the question . . . that I can then be asked with more reason from the writings I have published" and after trying an analogy with gravity he will conclude that "it is by using only life and ordinary conversations . . . and by refraining from meditating . . . that we learn to conceive the union of soul and body."

II. Theological objections

As they will focus on the Third Meditation whose title is "God, that it [he] exists," let us briefly recall the Cartesian approach. It begins with the consideration of ideas. Properly these are like the "images of things" (MM, 99), if we consider them in themselves they cannot be false. It is only "in judgments that true and formal falsehood can be encountered" (MM, 113). But appears immediately after the notion of material falsehood for certain ideas, "namely that they represent what is nothing as if it were something." The ideas we have of cold are so unclear and so un[in]distinct that we do not know if cold is a deprivation of heat or a real quality. If cold is a deprivation of heat and if I have an idea of cold as a real quality, then it is a misconception, that is to say, insists Descartes, that it represents things that are not. If they are still in me, it is because something is missing from my nature that is imperfect. As for the clear and distinct ideas of bodily things, it seems that they can be contained in me, formally or eminently despite this imperfection.

Descartes then discusses a first proof of God's existence: The more we consider his idea, he argues, the more we are convinced that the idea we have of it cannot come from us. We can have in us the idea of substance, not that of an infinite substance, so it has been put in us by an infinite being.

Descartes dismisses three objections at this stage:

- Infinity could be perceived as a negation of the finite, but it is impossible because I "obviously see that there is more reality in the infinite substance than in the finite substance" (MM, 117).

- The idea of God could be materially false, also impossible because it is very clear and very distinct and contains more objective reality than any other. The idea of a sovereignly perfect being cannot represent something unreal like the idea of cold that was neither clear nor distinct, so it is true. However, my finite and narrow-minded nature forbids me to understand the infinite, so its knowledge may not be clear and distinct. To this we can answer that it is enough to conceive this impossibility well and to judge that the things in which there is some perfection "are in God, formally or eminently" (MM, 119).

- But perhaps all the perfections I lend to God are in me, at least in power and they will develop in such a way that I "cannot acquire . . . all the other perfections of divine nature" (MM, 119). However, I can see that my knowledge increases by degree, while there is nothing to add to divine perfection where everything is in action.

Descartes admits that all this reasoning can be easily forgotten, he then builds a second proof that will allow him to validate the previous one.

If there were no God, who would I have my existence from? If I am the author of my being, I will have given myself all the perfections, which is easier than coming out of nothingness, I do not possess them, so I am not God. In addition, my being is in time and all the time can be divided into infinity of independent parts, so some cause must keep me. By going up the causal chain we must arrive at a first cause that owes its existence to itself. Progression to infinity is impossible because this first cause must also serve to maintain us in existence. There is a "last cause that will be God" (MM, 127).

But there must be as much reality in the cause as in its effect, in the effect that I am there is the idea of God so it was in my cause. This consideration allows us to return to the previous reasoning, and since I have the idea of "a sovereignly perfect being, in me" (MM, 127) the existence of God is obviously demonstrated, the second proof confirming the first.

II.1 The materially false idea

Objections:

Arnauld recalls the parts of the proof of God's existence contained in the third meditation. The first is "That God exists, because his idea is in me; and the second, that I, who have such an idea, can only come from God" (MM, 330). In the first part the only thing he cannot approve is that there are ideas that can, "not to the truth formally, but materially be false" (MM, 330). He still quotes Descartes by taking his example of the cold. "If he says the cold is only a deprivation [traditionally translated into English as "privation"] of heat, the idea that represents it to me as a positive thing will be materially false" (MM, 331).

Arnauld thinks that such an expression confuses the idea and judgment, the idea of cold is cold even in "as long as it is objectively in [the] understanding" If cold is a deprivation [privation] there will never be a positive idea of cold.

The same is true of an infinite being, we can "feign that he does not exist," however we cannot pretend that his idea does not represent something real.

But we can object that the idea that we have [of] cold is false in that it is not the idea of cold. It is the judgment we make on this idea that is false, the idea "it is certain that it is very true" (MM, 331). This is very important because the same applies to the idea of God, it must not be able to be materially called false, even if that of idolaters can relate to something that is not God. There is another vice in Descartes' demonstration, the positive objective being of some idea can come from nothing, which is contrary to the foundations highlighted by Descartes.

Answers and analysis:

Descartes' answer is quite long and presents difficulties. Ideas are not composed of matter, and [the] "times they are considered as representing something, they are not taken materially, but formally" (MM 357). To say that an idea is materially wrong [false] is an idea that "gives material or opportunity for error" (MM, p 357). This can happen for ideas that are not clear and distinct, [but] it cannot be the case with the idea of God. Idolaters have confused ideas that can be called materially false "as they serve as the material for their false judgments" (MM, 358).

But there are ideas that give great opportunities for error to judgment, for example the idea of thirst in a hydropique [person with dropsy/edema.

Descartes agrees with the correctness of Arnauld's reasoning on the idea of cold which is not an idea of cold if it represents him as a positive being while he [it] is a deprivation. However, Descartes persists in calling it false because it is confused and obscure. It does not come from nothingness but from the imperfection of our nature. Descartes finally appeals to the authority of Suarez for whom the same word, "materially," has the same meaning (MM, 359).

In his answer Descartes does not expressly take up his theory of the Third Meditation, he reverses the vocabulary as Ms. Scribano noted, she recalls the notion of simplex apprehensio in Suarez, the falsity of a representation is a notion devoid of meaning and the opportunity for error given by an idea is the only case where the idea could be said to be false. This is in accordance with the answer but this is not what there is in [this Third] meditation where the falsity of the idea is in the representation of a false object. In meditations "darkness prevented establishing whether an idea was true or false" while in the answers darkness is born from the falsity of the idea. However, there is in Suarez, about the entia rationis a material falsehood of the idea, it is limited to ideas that represent pure nothingness, negations or privations, "as the object of understanding is the ens, what is nothing is necessarily represented as something." The idea of cold is well considered by Suarez as a misconception. But this theory has two disadvantages, that of risking placing the idea of God among misconceptions, a pitfall pointed out by Descartes who has already affirmed its veracity because it is clear and distinct, and that of placing error "in the nature of ideas," which would have directly contradicted the Fourth Meditation, because the "power to conceive" given by God is such that "everything I conceive, I conceive it properly, and it is not possible that in this I am wrong" (MM, 145). However, the conclusions of this meditation are necessary to base the truth of all things on the evidence, therefore to be able to base one's physique [physics]. Descartes's subsequent abandonment of the theory of the materially false idea of the Third Meditation therefore has theological and physical reasons. Arnauld did not weigh down on the tension that resulted from the two affirmations of the Third Meditation, "the idea (of God), that I have is the most true, the clearest and most distinct of all those that are in my mind" and "there are found in God an infinity of things that I cannot understand." The clear and distinct idea is therefore that of the existence of an incomprehensible God whose only we know contains all the perfections. But how can we then judge the ideas of idolaters as false? Especially since the Fourth Meditation will show that the cause of the error comes from the fact that "the will being much wider and more extensive than understanding, I do not confine within the same limits, but that I also extend it to things I do not hear. (MM, 145), As soon as the will will turn [turns] to the knowledge of God, is it not likely that [the] understanding will make the same mistakes as idolaters? The theologian objected only to a notion that does not call into question the demonstration of the existence of God.

II.2 Being by oneself

Objections:

Arnauld notes that Descartes says that you cannot be by yourself. He quotes the author of the first objections [Caterus] who considered that being by oneself must be taken not positively but negatively in the sense of not being by others. If you are by yourself, it is not possible, before being, to predict and choose what you will be, to give yourself all things, so being by yourself is negative. Arnauld takes up Descartes's answer: "the way of speaking, being by oneself must not be taken negatively, but positively with regard to the existence of God" (MM, 332). God does the same thing about himself as the efficient cause with regard to its effect. Arnauld shares his reservations, being by himself is positive, but it is not possible to be as a cause. After analyzing Descartes's response to the first objections, he builds his own objection: "we cannot conceive a thing under the notion of cause as giving it if we do not conceive that it has it, because no one can give what he does not have" (MM, 334), but if it already has it why would it give it to itself? It becomes even more obvious if we go from the thing to God, he takes up Descartes's argument saying that if the thing is by itself it can only be positively because being in time it must ensure not only its creation but also its conservation. But in the idea of God is contained the idea of infinity, of its duration, indivisible. If an infinite being exists a moment it always exists. He quotes the continuous present in God of Saint Augustine, God cannot be a cause of himself because he would have been before but to be.

At the request of Descartes who authorized for everything the search for the efficient cause, he answers that for God, the answer is that he does not need it because he is an infinite being whose existence is his essence. Only things for which existence is distinguishable from gasoline [?] require an efficient cause.

He notes the logical circle of the proposal "we are assured that the things we conceive clearly and distinctly are true, only because God exists (MM, p 337) because we need the clear and distinct conception to prove the existence of God.

He also criticizes in passing the impossibility indicated by Descartes to have things in itself that we do not know to make a catalog of "things that could stop theologians."

Under this heading there are three wishes:

Mention in the Preface the temporary nature of systematic revocation in doubt, a dangerous path for weak minds.

Warn that the error dealt with in the Fourth Meditation is the error in the discernment of true and false, not that of good and evil.

Ensure that the claim given to the things we conceive clearly and distinctly refers only to the sciences and not to the faith or actions of our lives.

After summoning Saint Augustine on the distinction between hearing, believing and opining, he ends with an ontological criticism since, according to Descartes, the only accidents cannot remain without substance, his thesis is in contradiction with the church's teaching on the Eucharist.

Answers and analysis:

In his answer Descartes immediately denies having argued that God can be the efficient cause of himself. What God does to himself is only in some way what he does to his creation, the image being due only to the imperfection of the human mind and its inability to fully conceive something that does not need an efficient cause. "The power of God is the cause or reason why he does not need a cause" (MM, 360). It is God's formal cause that makes him not need an efficient cause. Descartes notes that theologians prefer to speak of principle rather than use the word "cause," but that this word is very useful for proving the existence of God by the argument of the first cause, and that we cannot exclude God from this research before proving that he exists. One thing for others is for the efficient cause. This point being a "manifest thing," it was not addressed in [the] Meditations.

Yet Descartes obliges himself to come to the definition of by himself that had already been the subject of a remark in the first objections (MM, p 219), By himself, positively means by himself as by a cause, There is only God who corresponds to the definition. By oneself negatively, means not by others, by oneself. Thus the hot can be "hot by its internal and constituent principles" (MM, p 219), Such an meaning by itself would destroy the possibility of demonstrating the existence of God because his infinity would not be certain. Descartes then proposes to show that between the efficient cause in the strict sense and the absence of a cause, there is "the positive essence of a thing", an extension of the notion of efficient cause, which adds positivity to the latter. The efficient cause does not have to be prior to its effect since it is defined by it, and if we extend the concept of efficient cause as he proposes, to ask ourselves whether "a thing can give being to oneself" is equivalent to asking oneself, "whe the nature or essence of this thing is such that it does not need an efficient cause to be or exist." (MM, 364).

These ways of speaking, "which have relationship and analogy" (MM, 365) with the efficient cause are legitimate, so Archimedes treats the sphere as a polyhedron inscribed with an infinity of face[s], it is a reasoning by passing to the limit that makes it possible to establish the things that belong "to the very essence of God" (MM, 365). Descartes adds that his reasoning does not allow us to infer that God is an effect. He defends his idea of cause by recalling Aristotle for whom the first cause named in the analytical is the essence of the formal thing or cause.

If we abandon the notion of cause, as Arnauld proposes, we cannot prove the existence of God. Arnauld's objection that asking for the efficient cause of God's existence is illogical because it is the essence of God to exist, is itself illogical, because the confusion essence of existence in God, amounts to asking the question for essence. This results in a long criticism of Arnauld's refusal to adhere to the "analogy of the efficient cause" (MM, 367) which according to Descartes is likely to confuse the reader by the obligation where it puts him to seek in each thing a different cause from the thing itself. This would be to refuse Aristotle to extend to the sphere what he demonstrated by passing to the limit of polygons with an infinite number of sides, by refusing to take it as a limit of a rectilinear figure because it is indeed curvilinear.

Descartes then refutes the logical circle objection that had been made to him by distinguishing clearly conceived things from things that we remember having clearly conceived.

Descartes only sees thoughts in the mind, and therefore there can be nothing that we are not aware of. However, he notes that the memory is fading.

For things that can stop theologians, Descartes recognizes that his meditations are not specific to all kinds of minds, and that is why he chose not to print in vulgar language.

He agrees to have dealt with error only in terms of discerning true and false and not in terms of good or evil.

It will be infinitely more prolific with regard to the possibility for accidents to be separated from the substance. If according to Arnauld, the accidents seen by Descartes are only modes of substance, he never denied that "the accidents were real" (MM, 371). The problem posed is that of transubstantiation. Descartes notes that it requires two miracles, that of changing the substance of bread into the substance of the body of Christ, and that of keeping the accidents of bread in the sight of the faithful. He will respond by using the concept of area that he will develop in the philosophical principles in paragraph 15. The surface of the bodies is their outer envelope, the one that is in contact with our senses, it is a permanent modality so may be the same as the substance of the body changes. It is a contradiction with Aristotle for whom it is the quality of the body that is perceived by touching its periphery, but for Descartes the qualities have disappeared in favor of simple extension. It is therefore possible that this area is maintained so as to preserve the appearance of the bread while its substance has disappeared. Transubstantiation requires only a miracle.

It is impossible to reread this part of the fourth objections without having in the background the comments of J.L. Marion and E. Gilson on Cartesian thought whose analysis would go far beyond the purpose of this memoir. However, the points that can be highlighted remain dependent on the problem they have identified.

The concept of causa sui applied to God is new in theology, it will only be discussed twice in Descartes' work in his answers to the first and fourth objections.

We have already noted the tension that existed between the clear and distinct notion of God and his incomprehensibility. Here the concept formed by "natural light" as the median between the efficient cause and the formal cause, may be, by Descartes presented as "a manifest thing of self" (MM 362), it may not be as much as that. Calling it the positive essence of a thing is only understandable by using analogy. And in fact, the analogy is very present in Descartes' response. However, Descartes does not define the nature of his analogy except by a similarity with the passage to the limit drawn from geometry; we can attribute to the circle the properties of the polygon with an infinite number of sides. But the example sins in that the circle retains the properties of the polygon (ratio of the perimeter to the unchanged radius, for example) while God is not an efficient cause of himself and things need an efficient cause. This analogy also has a limit in its non-reversibility, what is said about the circle can be said of the polygon, but God causes it, cannot be called its own effect. By considering God as an infinite Descartes invalidates any analogy of proportion, it would therefore be an analogy of attribution, but the meaning of the word causality is not preserved.

Descartes was more precise in his response to the first objections, "Because, although there is no need to say that he is the efficient cause of oneself... nevertheless, because we see that what he does that he is by himself, or that he has no different cause from himself, does not proceed from nothingness, but from the real and true immensity of his power, it is quite permissible for us to think, that he does in some way, the same thing with regard to himself, that the efficient cause with regard to his effect, and therefore that he is by himself positively" (MM, 236)

The theory of the creation of eternal truths poses the problem of the creation of logical truths. If for mathematical truths, their character of absolute dependence on the divine will is affirmed by Descartes before the writing of meditations, the debate remains open for "logical" truths. If causality and non-contradiction come from a free creative act, then posit God as a cause of self makes little sense, and moreover we can only go back to a first cause, that of an author of nature and it is not possible to certainly identify him with God. There is worse, if this act is free it might not be, and then nothingness could create being. The principle of causality therefore seems to impose itself on creation, it is logical not to see it as a limitation of God, to incorporate it into its very nature. The God causa sui then allows a relative continuity between physics and metaphysics. But then it draws the analogy towards univocity and places God at the level of the existing, as a supreme existing.

We then understand Arnauld's remark that he replace the expression "do not know the author of my origin" with "preying not to know" to exclude God from doubt. It came from her fear of seeing the objects of faith put under the criterion of clarity and distinction. Perhaps he considers the idea of God as being obscure despite Descartes' remarks. For the latter, according to Etienne Gilson, God falls into the category of substance, its main attribute, infinity makes it possible to establish the identity of existence and essence, being passes into existence while for a medieval thinker, infinity is not the essential attribute of God, it is a consequence of his being.

A final defense of Descartes about causality is found in his first answers, ""any limitation is by a cause,... but,... strictly speaking,... limitation is only a negation of greater perfection, which negation is not by a cause, but the limited thing. " (MM, 236). This argument is not included in the fourth answers, because the rest of the argument returns to the impossibility of conceiving the self without external or "internal" causality. It should be noted that on occasion Descartes does not ask for the cause of the existence of things, but their reason.

Finally, it must be noted that it is the appendix of God's existence, the one that has been brought when we do not remember the reasoning that the idea of a more perfect being than oneself must have been "committedly put in oneself by a being who is indeed more perfect" (MM, 121), which caused a maximum of objections, while the first, in which Arnauld criticized only the notion of a false idea, implies that the effect is superior to the cause, a complex scholastic notion accepted by the two interlocutors but easily criticized.

Arnauld's knowledge of the first answers also allows him not to emphasize the difficulty of not considering the infinite as a negation of the finite, a difficulty to which Descartes responded by distinguishing indefinite and infinite, the first being negation, the second applying only to God.

Conclusion

As a result of these objections, the theory of material misconceptions and the notion of God as causa sui, will no longer be taken up by Descartes. There were no answers from Arnauld to the answers.

What are the major concerns of the two interlocutors in the reading of the exchange? Arnauld answered as a philosopher and a theologian but his concern is mainly of a theological nature, his main concern of a philosophical nature, The distinction of soul and body into two distinct substances is not in harmony with the hyalemorphism of Saint Thomas. Even if it makes it possible to better ensure the immortality of the soul, it may also not make the resurrection of bodies necessary.

Descartes in his letter to Mersenne of April 15, 1630, indicated that he had found how to "demonstrate metaphysical truths in a way that is more obvious than the demonstrations of geometry", but that he did not know "wh if he could persuade others." Shortly before the edition of the meditations in his letter to the same of September 30, 1640 he speaks of the printing of twenty to thirty copies of the meditations to send them to a learned audience in order to collect their objections, but also and longer, of a problem of pulleys, how to obtain a cubic root, from mascaret to Blaye, and notes at the turn of a sentence that "the main purpose of my metaphysics is to explain the things that can be conceived distinctly". This is why it seems difficult in his work to apply the distinction between physics and metaphysics. Its physics, based on the identity of matter and space reaching the foundations of reality so much that it is metaphysical. His classification of sciences puts metaphysics at the root, physics as a trunk and notes that fruits can only be collected at the ends of the branches of medicine, morality and mechanics. Even if in his fourth answers Descartes' concern is to guarantee the bases of the future principles of philosophy, and in particular the use of deductive rationalism, he speaks as a metaphysicist. Moreover, his doubt is not that of a physicist who questions the adequacy of his scientific theories to reality, but that of a philosopher who questions the existence of a real outside his mind.

Bibliographie - original untranslated

Descartes, Méditations métaphysiques, Paris, GF-Flammarion, 1979.

Descartes, Traité des passions, suivi de la Correspondance avec la Princesse Elizabeth, Présentation F Mizrachi, Paris, 10/18,1965.

Pascal, Œuvres complètes, édition Michel Le Guern, Paris, Gallimard, La pléiade, 2000.

J.L. Marion, Sur l’ontologie grise de Descartes, paris, Vrin, age classique, 1996

Kim sang Ong-Van-Cung, Descartes et l’ambivalence de la création, Paris, Vrin, Philologie et Mercure, 2000.

Sources internet:

Scribano Emanuela, Descartes et les fausses idées, Archives de Philosophie 2/ 2001 (Tome 64), 259–78. URL: www.cairn.info/revue-archives-de-philosophie-2001-2-page- 259.htm

F. Crismareanu, anale.fssp.uaic.ro/.../causasuietsaposteritereflexionscritiques

Bibliography - translated

Descartes, Metaphysical Meditations, Paris, GF-Flammarion, 1979.

Descartes, Treatise on Passions, followed by Correspondence with Princess Elizabeth, Presentation F Mizrachi, Paris, 10/18,1965.

Pascal, Complete works, Michel Le Guern edition, Paris, Gallimard, La pléiade, 2000.

J.L. Marion, On the gray ontology of Descartes, Paris, Vrin, classical age, 1996

Kim sang Ong-Van-Cung, Descartes and the ambivalence of creation, Paris, Vrin, Philology and Mercury, 2000

Internet sources:

Scribano, Emanuela, Descartes and false ideas, Archives de Philosophie 2/ 2001 (Tome 64), p. 259-278 URL: www.cairn.info/revue-archives-de-philosophie-2001-2-page- 259.htm

F. Crismareanu, anale.fssp.uaic.ro/.../causasuietsaposteritereflexionscritiques