The great Arnauld and some of his philosophical correspondents

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The Great Arnauld and Some of His Philosophical Correspondents

The Great Amauld and Some of His Philosophical Correspondents

Edited by

ELMAR J. KREMER

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 1994 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020---0523-3

(§

Printed on acid-free paper

Toronto Studies in Philosophy Editors: James R. Brown and Calvin Normore

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Main entry under title: Essays on the great Amauld and some of his philosophical correspondents (Toronto studies in philosophy) Based on a colloquium on Seventeenth-Century Rationalism sponsored by the Dept. of Philosophy, University of Toronto, in Nov. 1990. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020---0523-3 1. Amauld, Antoine, 1612-1694 - Congresses. 2. Philosophy, French - 17th century - Congresses. I. Kremer, Elmar J. II. Colloquium on Seventeenth-Century Rationalism (1990 : University of Toronto). III. University of Toronto. Dept. of Philosophy. IV. Series. B1824.A864E77

1994

194

C94-93 l O 15-8

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council.

Contents

Preface

vn

Part One: Arnau Id's Contribution to Logic and Scientific Method I

Judgment and Predication in the Port-Royal Logic Jill Vance Buroker

2

The Rationalist Response to Aristotle in Descartes and Amauld 28 Fred Wilson

3

Part Two: Amauld and Malebranche: The Controversy over the Nature of Ideas 69

3

Malebranche and Amauld: The Argument for Ideas Monte Cook

4

Amauld's Philosophical Notion of an Idea Elmar J Kremer

5

Malebranche' s Theory of Perception Steven Nadler

6

Amauld, Malebranche, and the Ontology of Ideas Richard A. Watson

7

Objective Reality of Ideas in Amauld, Descartes, and Suarez Norman J Wells

89

I 08 129 138

Contents

vi

Part Three: Amauld and Leibniz: Their Correspondence 8

The Phantom of Jansenism in the Amauld-Leibniz Correspondence Graeme Hunter

9

The Problem of Pain: A Misunderstanding between Amauld and Leibniz 200 Jean-Claude Pariente

Part Four: Amauld's Later Views on Efficacious Grace and Free Will 10

Grace and Free Will in Amauld Elmar J Kremer

Contributors

241

Selected Bibliography Index

247

243

219

187

Preface

Antoine Arnauld, singled out by his contemporaries among the members of his large and illustrious French family as 'le grand Arnauld,' was a theologian and philosopher of extraordinary authority during much of the seventeenth century. Born in 1612, the twentieth and last child of his parents, he was ordained a priest in 1641 and burst upon the philosophical and theological scene in that same year with the publication of his 'Fourth Objections' to Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy, and the first of his two Apologies pour Jansenius. From that time until his death in 1694, Arnauld published continuously and voluminously both as a professional theologian and as a gifted philosopher. Indeed the last eleven years of his life, beginning with the publication of On True and False Ideas, were among his most intensely active and productive. He wrote on a con­ siderable variety of the basic theological and philosophical topics of the period, and engaged in important correspondence with many of its leading intellectuals, including Descartes, Malebranche, and Leibniz. Arnauld has not received the attention in the history of philosophy that one might expect, given his importance during his own lifetime. This may be due in part to the sheer, daunting volume of his work: his collected works run to forty­ two large volumes. Nevertheless, from the seventeenth century on, works on Arnauld appear in the French literature, the latest of which include J.C. Pariente, L 'Analyse du langage a Port-Royal (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit 1985) and A.R. Ndiaye, La Philosophie d'Antoine Arnauld (Paris: Vrin 1991). There has also been a revival of interest in Arnauld among English-speaking philosophers, as evidenced by the recent appearance of two translations of On True and False Ideas, one by Stephen Gaukroger (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1980) and one

Preface

viii

by E.J. Kremer (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press 1990), and several monographs devoted entirely or in large part to Arnauld: John Kilcullen, Sincerity and Truth: Essays on Arnauld, Bayle and Toleration (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1988); Steven M. Nadler, Arnauld and the Cartesian Philoso­ phy ofIdeas (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1989); R.C. Sleigh, Jr, Leibniz and Arnauld: A Commentary on Their Correspondence (New Haven: Yale University Press 1990); and John Yolton, Perceptual Acquaintance from Descartes to Reid (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1984). The purpose of this volume is to support and contribute to this revival of interest by exhibiting something of the range of questions regarding Amauld that are of interest to the history of modem philosophy, and have not yet been exhausted as areas for research. There is first of all the temporal range of Amauld's work. The volume contains essays discussing the important Port-Royal Logic, first published in 1662; Amauld's controversy with Malebranche over the nature of ideas, which took place mainly between 1680 and 1685; the correspondence with Leibniz, which occurred between 1686 and 1690; and Amauld's late revisions of his view on efficacious grace and free will, with which he was occupied from the mid- l 680s until his death in 1694. The essays also give some indication, though far from complete, of the range of topics on which Amauld wrote. The breadth of his philosophical interests is better represented than of his theological interests. The doctrine of efficacious grace, which was perhaps his dominant theological interest, is discussed, but there is a rich variety of topics that are not represented, including the Eucharist and the translation and interpretation of the Bible. (Together with his nephew, De Saci, Amauld produced a translation of both the Old and the New Testa­ ment.) Finally, as indicated in several of the essays, Amauld's correspondence with other philosophers and theologians was not only the lifeblood of his own work, but also had significant effects on the work of some of his correspondents, especially of Malebranche and Leibniz, This volume originated in a colloquium on Seventeenth-Century Rationalism sponsored by the Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto, in Novem­ ber 1990, and organized by Andre Gombay and Calvin Normore. Graeme Hunter, Elmar Kremer, and Steven Nadler read papers at that colloquium, including the essays by Hunter on Amauld and Leibniz and by Kremer on the theory of ideas.

PART ONE Arnauld's Contribution to Logic and Scientific Method

1 Judgment and Predication in the Port-Royal Logic JI L L VANCE BUR OKER

Modern logic began with Frege' s rejection of the classical theory of the proposition. Central to that theory were the views that simple propositions are composed of a subject and a predicate, united by a copula; that the copula per­ forms the same function in all simple propositions; and that general terms such as 'man' and 'mortal' denote, or are names of, the individuals of which they are predicable. Because this theory treated both the subject and predicate as names of individuals or groups of individuals, one version of the theory took the copula to function as a sign of identity. So, for example, the 'is' in 'Socrates is a Greek philosopher' identifies Socrates with a Greek philosopher. In place of this 'two­ name' view, Frege substituted the general distinction between function and argument. In his analysis he sharply contrasted names of objects (for instance, 'Socrates'), which he called 'saturated' expressions, with names of concepts (e.g., 'is a Greek philosopher'), which he called 'unsaturated' expressions. In On Concept and Object Frege says that such a distinction is required to account for the unity of the proposition: 'For not all the parts of a thought can be com­ plete; at least one must be "unsaturated" or predicative; otherwise they would not hold together.' 1 Armed with this framework, Frege brought to light essential differences between singular and general terms, singular and general proposi­ tions, and predications and other forms of proposition. On his view predicative expressions name not individuals, but the concepts that are true of them. One consequence of his way of recasting the subject-predicate distinction was to make the copula superfluous in predication. Logic, or the Art of Thinking, better known as the Port-Royal Logic, was probably the most influential of the classical texts up to Frege's time. Written by Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, it was first published in 1662, and under-

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went four subsequent revisions in the authors' lifetimes until 1683. In their version of the classical theory, the authors combine the theory of categorical propositions with a semantics based on the Cartesian theory of ideas. The Port­ Royal theory of judgment falls squarely into the classical 'two-name' view inso­ far as it maintains the general subject-copula-predicate analysis for all simple propositions, and assimilates singular to general judgment forms. But perhaps because of its Cartesian heritage, the theory is more complex than these features would suggest. In particular, the Port-Royal semantics contains a divergent line of thought that resembles in some ways Frege's treatment of predication. To appreciate fully the place of the Port-Royal Logic in the development of logic, it is important to take into account the diverse and sometimes incompatible strains in the text. In this paper I plan to discuss some of these competing strains in the Port-Royal theory of judgment. I shall begin in part I by reviewing briefly the Port-Royal theory of ideas and its basis in Descartes's philosophy. Part 2 will then examine a recent interpretation of the theory of judgment by Jean-Claude Pariente in L 'analyse du langage a Port-Royal, which exclusively emphasizes the classical features. After noting the strengths and weaknesses of this reading, in part 3 I shall then focus on what I see as the more modern aspects of the theory, paying special attention to the treatment of subject and predicate, and the distinction between judging and conceiving. Finally, I shall close by briefly remarking on how this complex view of judgment stands with respect to the Fregean account. 1. Idea and Judgment in the Port-Royal Logic The Port-Royal Logic is organized into four general sections corresponding to the four operations of the mind required in knowing. On this view, earlier elaborated by Descartes, achieving scientif ic knowledge requires advancing through the following stages: conceiving, judging, reasoning, and ordering. It is essential to the classical theory that these operations occur in this order, since each operation depends on the previous one for its elements. By comparison to the succeeding operations, conceiving is the simplest operation, consisting in the mere apprehension of ideas. Judging takes place whenever two or more antecedently apprehended ideas are combined in such a way as to affirm or deny one of the other. The third stage, reasoning, occurs whenever one forms a judg­ ment as a consequence of one or more judgments. And finally, when judgments and inferences are ordered in the appropriate manner, one has attained scientific knowledge. 2 A central feature of this account, which has earned it the title 'the classical

Judgment and Predication in the Port-Royal Logic 5 theory of ideas,' is the priority of conceiving to judging. This implies not only that ideas are significant independently of their functions in judgment, but also that, in principle, we may operate on ideas without making judgments. Two examples of such operations would be creating complex ideas from simpler ones, and analysing complex ideas into their components. Accordingly, the basic unit of knowledge and meaning is the idea, or 'perception,' as Descartes called it. 3 This treatment of conceiving, however, gives rise to a second characteristic fea­ ture of the theory, namely the difficulty in drawing sharp lines between concept and proposition, and between proposition and judgment. Although he never explicitly addresses the issue, Descartes's examples suggest that he thought it is possible for complex ideas to have propositional content. In Meditation V, for example, understanding the idea of a right triangle seems to entail apprehend­ in'g that 'the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the square of the other two sides,' and that 'the hypotenuse subtends the largest angle. '4 And in numerous writings Descartes lists among the 'common notions,' which are conceptions innate in us, such general principles as 'Nothing comes from nothing' and 'It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at the same time.'5 Descartes believed that in mere conception, regardless of the complexity of the idea appre­ hended, the mind is always passive. As is well known, his operative metaphor for the intellectual perceiving that constitutes understanding is passive vision. For Descartes, the sharp line in the triad concept-proposition-judgment occurs between proposition and judgment since judging, unlike passive apprehending, requires an act of the will. On his theory, then, it is possible merely to consider a proposition while suspending judgment. Now there are at least two reasons why Port-Royal does not take over this view of conceiving and judging. One is that Amauld disagrees with Descartes's conception of understanding as passive. In one of his rare departures from Cartesian orthodoxy he argues (in On True and False Ideas) that the distinction between the passive understanding and the active will violates the simplicity of mental substance. 6 For him, the mind is equally active in having an idea and in judging. But the second reason, which is more important for our purposes, is that the analysis of judgment makes it impossible to distinguish merely enter­ taining a proposition from making an assertion. As we shall see below, from the standpoint of modem logic, Port-Royal makes the wrong move in discriminat­ ing between complex idea, on the one hand, and the proposition and judgment, on the other. Before proceeding to the semantics of judgment, it will be helpful to look first at some main features of the theory of ideas. 7 Amauld and Nicole classify ideas in two general ways. As set out in chapter 2 of part I, the first concerns the objects of ideas - what an idea represents or is an idea of. This divides ideas into

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ideas of substances (independently existing things) and ideas of modes or attributes (their dependent properties). Examples of things are typically bodies and minds; these ideas are expressed linguistically by common and proper nouns such as 'Earth,' 'sun,' 'mind,' and 'God.' Modes or attributes are properties, either essential or accidental, inhering in substances. These ideas are expressed two ways linguistically: most directly by abstract nouns such as 'hardness' and 'justice'; but indirectly and more commonly by adjectives such as 'round, hard, just, prudent.'8 In practice the authors frequently ignore the distinction between ideas and the words expressing them, referring to both equally as 'terms.' (In what follows I shall also adopt this practice where it does not give rise to confusion.) The second major division of ideas is between singular ideas and general or universal ideas. Singular ideas represent one distinct individual and are typi­ cally expressed by proper nouns, for instance, 'Socrates, Rome, Bucephalus.' General ideas are capable of representing more than one individual and are represented by common nouns and adjectives; the examples given in the text are 'man, city, horse.'9 Despite the authors' official adherence to Descartes's meta­ physics, their conception of a thing (an independent existent) is broader than the strict Cartesian notion of a mental or corporeal substance, as shown by the example of Rome. Undoubtedly the major contribution of the Logic to the history of semantics is its analysis of two-fold significance of general ideas (or terms) into the compre­ hension and the extension. The comprehension of a general idea consists of the set of attributes represented by the idea. The idea 'triangle,' for example, in­ cludes in its comprehension the attributes 'extension, shape, three lines, three angles, and the equality of these three angles to two right angles, etc.' The extension of the idea consists in the 'inferiors' or 'subjects to which this idea applies,' that is, of which it is truly predicable. Now, significantly, Arnauld and Nicole think of the extension as including species as well as individuals, for they remark that 'the idea of the triangle in general extends to all the different species of triangles.' 10 As is typical of logic before the end of the nineteenth century, they fail to distinguish the relation of an individual to a set (member­ ship) from that of a subset to a set (set inclusion or subordination). This is one reason they think the singular proposition 'This figure is a triangle' has the same logical structure as the general proposition 'All right triangles are trian­ gles.' (Once the logic of classes was clarified, the extension of a concept was taken to consist solely in the individuals of which the concept is true, or the elements of the set.) How to treat the extension of a general term in Port-Royal is an important and complex question, for it concerns their conception of classes. For our

Judgment and Predication in the Port-Royal Logic

7

purposes there are two ways to proceed. We could consider the reference to species either as essential to their theory or as an unnecessary complication. Although this issue deserves detailed study, there are some prima facie reasons for taking the second approach. In the first place, it seems clear that the authors primarily intend the extension of an idea to consist in individuals. Since Port-Royal maintains that everything that exists is singular, the theory requires that each idea extend, finally, to individuals. 11 Moreover, although the distinc­ tion between comprehension and extension is originally introduced for general terms, Amauld and Nicole also call the object named by a singular term its extension. In discussing singular propositions in chapter 3 of part II, for exam­ ple, they remark that a proposition such as 'Louis XIII took La Rochelle' con­ tains 'a singular subject which is necessarily taken through its entire exten­ sfon.' 12 Similar statements about singular propositions occur in the chapters on subordinate clauses, which we will examine in more detail below. 13 In the sec­ ond place, including species in the extension of an idea has the result of blur­ ring the distinction between the comprehension and the extension. From the classical point of view, a species is a subset of a genus, defined by adding one or more attributes (the differentia) to the attributes constituting the genus. In con­ sequence, including the species in the extension of an idea mixes attributes or incomplete entities with individuals or complete entities. Finally, I see no indi­ cation that the theory of judgment depends in any way on including species in the extension of a term. For these reasons, in what follows I shall simplify the discussion by adopting the second approach, taking the extension to consist in the set of individuals to which the term applies. The Port-Royal view of the relation between comprehension and extension conforms pretty closely to the modem distinction. First, the comprehension rather than the extension is essential to the idea: 'none of its attributes can be removed without destroying the idea ... whereas one can restrict its extension by applying it only to some of the subjects to which it applies without thereby destroying it.' 14 Accordingly, the comprehension governs the extension - it is the set of attributes that determines the extension of a general idea. Finally, comprehen­ sions and extensions are inversely related: adding attributes to the comprehen­ sion of an idea restricts its extension, assuming that attributes are independent and instantiated. This relation is expressed in the classical principle: If the com­ prehension of A includes that of B, the extension of B includes that of A. This principle is not stated explicitly in the Logic, but it is presumed throughout. Now let us see how this view of ideas is connected to the Port-Royal account of judgment. In chapter 3 of part II Amauld and Nicole present their general view of the proposition. We form a simple proposition whenever we combine two ideas so

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as to affirm or deny one of the other. 1 5 Thus, every simple proposition has the same general form and the same elements. It always contains a term of which something is affirmed or denied, the subject, and another term that is affirmed or denied, the attribute or predicate. 16 This operation is effected by the copula, represented by a form of the substantive verb ' to be. ' The following sentences express simple propositions: ' Men are mortal, ' 'God is just, ' and ' Peter is living. ' As I suggested earlier, it follows from this definition that every proposi­ tion constitutes an assertion. Since any thought that includes these elements counts as an affirmation or a denial, there is no room here for merely consider­ ing a proposition without making a judgment. Thus, Arnauld and Nicole use the terms 'judgment' and 'proposition' interchangeably. In keeping with the traditional theory of categorical propositions, the authors classify propositions as to both quality and quantity. A proposition may be ei­ ther affirmative or negative in quality. As is typical of the classical view, the authors think of negation as denial, or the action contrary to affirming. Al­ though this view of negation is ultimately incoherent, as Frege argued, it is largely irrelevant to my discussion here, so to simplify I shall focus exclusively on affirmative judgments. 1 7 For our purposes the more important aspect of the theory concerns their view of quantifiers, and the treatment of universal, particular, and singular propositions. With respect to the quantity of a proposition, the authors distinguish singular propositions such as ' Socrates is mortal, ' where the subject names a distinct individual, from universal and particular forms, where the subject is a general term, such as ' All men are mortal' and ' Some men are mortal. ' In the latter two forms the proposition includes, in addition to the two terms and the copula, an indicator of quantity that determines the extension of the subject. The universal quantifiers ' all' and 'no' indicate that the affirmation or denial pertains to the entire extension of the subject. The particular quantifier 'some ' signifies that the assertion is meant to apply only to part of the extension. In medieval parlance, quantifiers are syncategorematic expressions. That is, the quantifiers 'all, ' 'no, ' and 'some ' are unlike categorematic terms, which signify a thing or attribute, and which can function as subject or predicate in a proposition. The meaning of a quantifier in the proposition consists entirely in operating on the extension of the term to which it is attached. For example, the authors say that the word ' some' is ' an indeterminate word, ' 18 which expresses 'an indistinct and indeterminate idea of a part, ' 19 namely a part of the extension of the general term it modifies. As a consequence, the authors think of the quan­ tified subjects as logically meaningful units. On this view, the complete subject of a universal or particular affirmation is ' All S' or ' Some S. ' We should briefly note one further feature of their view of quantifiers, which is the idea that

Judgment and Predication in the Port-Royal Logic 9 predicates are implicitly quantified. Amauld and Nicole follow the medieval doctrine of distribution in maintaining that the predicate is always taken par­ ticularly in affirmative propositions. This is so because when we say, 'All lions are animals,' we do not mean that all lions are all the animals, but only that they are some of the animals. Hence 'All S is P' in general means 'All S is (some) P.' We shall return to the implications of this point below, in examining the theory of judgment. Finally, like their Aristotelian predecessors, Port-Royal assimi­ lates the singular proposition to the universal proposition because in a singular proposition the subject must be taken throughout its entire extension. Thus, from the official point of view, every simple proposition has one of the four categorical forms. It is the presence of the copula, expressed by the verb, that distinguishes a proposition or affirmation from a complex idea, for we can connect the ideas Peter and living to construct the complex idea of living Peter without making a judgment. But when we judge that ' Peter is living,' we affirm, according to the authors, the idea living of the idea Peter. Hence, the function of the copula is to transform conceiving into judging. This brings us back to our main question: How according to Amauld and Nicole does the copula perform this function in a judgment? Or, expressed less subjectively, what account does their theory require? We shall begin by looking at Jean- Claude Pariente's analysis of the copula as a sign of indentity between the subject and predicate. Although there is some textual support for this view, we shall see that features essential to the theory of judgment require a different account, which we shall then examine in part 3. 2. The Copul a as Sign of Identity

As previously mentioned, one version of the 'two- name ' view ofjudgment takes the copula to assert an identity between the things named by the subject and predicate in a simple affirmation. This is the way Jean- Claude Pariente reads Port-Royal in chapter 9 of L 'analyse du langage a Port-Royal. The explicit textual evidence Pariente cites from the Logic is from chapters 1 7 and 1 8 of part II, which contain axioms of affirmative judgments and rules for conversion. Here is the relevant passage from chapter 1 7 in full: It is certain that we can express a proposition to others only if we use two ideas, one for the subject and the other for the attribute, and another word which indicates the connection the mind conceives between them. This connection can best be expressed only by the same words we use for affirm­ ing, when we say that one thing is another thing.

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Jill Vance Buroker From this it is clear that the nature of affirmation is to unite and identify, so to speak, the subject with the attribute, since this is what is signified by the word is. 20

And chapter 18 of part II contains this passage: For it is impossible for one thing to be joined and united to another without this other th ing also being joined to it, and it is evident that if A is joined to B, B also is joined to A. Hence it is clearly impossible for two things to be conceived as identi­ fied, which is the most perfect of all unions, if this union is not reciprocal, that is, if we cannot make a mutual affirmation of these two united terms, in the way in which they are united. 2 1

The authors go on to remark about the proposition ' Some men are just' in the next paragraph: ' It is obvious that if some men are identified with some just things, some just things are also identified with some men,'22 again imply­ ing that the copula asserts an identity between subject and predicate in an affirmation. Now Pariente himself recognizes that these are slender threads on which to hang his interpretation, since no other passages in the Logic make the same explicit claim. To lend additional support to his case he quotes the following passage from Amauld's La perpetuite de laJoi: 'the nature of every affirmative proposition is to indicate that the subject is the same thing as the attribute. Now a thing is one only with itself, and it is distinct from every other thing. ' 23 But this does not mean that Arnauld reads all true affirmations as simple tautolo­ gies. In La perpetuite de la Joi Amauld characterizes the proposition ' All men are men' (' Tout homme est homme') as 'worthless' (vaine) and 'absurd' (ridicule), descriptions that presumably would not apply to most affirmations. To understand, then, in what sense the copula identifies the subject with the predicate, we must look more closely at the semantics of the proposition. 24 Pariente first considers the relation between the comprehensions of the sub­ ject and predicate in an affirmative proposition. He begins by noting the second axiom of judgment: 'the attribute of an affirmative proposition is affirmed ac­ cording to its entire comprehension. '25 This means that whenever an idea P is affirmed of an idea S, all the attributes in the comprehension of P are thereby affirmed of S. But since tautologies are absurd, Amauld cannot mean that the copula indicates a complete identity of comprehensions. Pariente maintains, however, that for Arnauld it always expresses a partial identity between the comprehensions of the two ideas: 'an affirmation posits (rightly or wrongly, and this is what makes it true or false) the comprehension of the predicate as an integral part of the comprehension of the subject.' Or, in modern terms, 'in

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affirmation the comprehension of the attribute forms a proper subset of that of the subject. ' 2 6 So with respect to the comprehensions of terms, according to Pariente, the theory holds that the copula of an affirmative proposition asserts that the comprehension of the subject includes the comprehension of the predicate. Now this is reasonable for propositions in which the connection between the subject and the predicate is necessary, as in 'All men are animals. ' In these cases, the affirmation gives a (partial) analysis of the subject. For any proposi­ tion, then, in which the attributes in the comprehension of the predicate are essential to the things signified by the subject (or are logically implied by at­ tributes essential to those things, as 'divisible' is implied by 'body' and ' mortal' by ' man'), it is reasonable to maintain that the copula asserts the inclusion of the comprehension of the predicate in the comprehension of the subject. But this is a rather restricted class of propositions, and it is not obvious that Port-Royal would take thi s as a general account of affirmative propositions. Two cases will show why. Although it is true that ' Some bears are white,' it is implausible to maintain that in this particular affirmative the copula asserts that the attribute 'white' is included among the attributes making up the comprehension of the idea ' bear.' For then it would follow that ' All bears are white, ' which is not true. Perhaps we ought to take the subject to be ' some bears,' rather than 'bear.' Could we say that the comprehension of 'white' is included in the comprehension of the idea ' some bears? ' As we saw earlier, the quantifiers ' all' and ' some' are syncategorematic expressions. That is, they have meaning only in conjunction with the categorematic terms that function as subjects and predicates. More important, when they are combined with categorematic terms, they operate on the extensions of those terms, not on their comprehensions. Now it is true that in discussing the significance of words, Amauld and Nicole sometimes ignore this distinction between categorematic and syncategorematic expressions. On their view, any significant word expresses an idea. But they also follow Descartes in taking ideas in the wider sense to include operations of the mind as well as representations of things. 27 In any case, the analysis of an idea in terms of com­ prehension and extension clearly applies only to categorematic or non-logical ideas. In consequence, the comprehension of ' some bears' should be identical to the comprehension of 'bear.' Without strong textual evidence to the contrary, then, it would be uncharitable to read Port-Royal as claiming that the compre­ hension of the predicate is always included in the comprehension of the subject in particular affirmatives . The same difficulty arises with propositions in which the connection between subject and predicate is only contingent. In two passages in chapter 7 of part I,

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Arnauld and Nicole explicitly distinguish essential attributes from accidental modes. They define a common accident as 'a true mode which can be sepa­ rated, at least by the mind, from the thing whose accident it is said to be, without destroying the idea of this thing in the mind. Examples are round, hard, just, prudent. '28 And further on in the same chapter a mode is described as ' that which is not at all necessarily connected with the idea of a thing, in such a way that we can easily conceive the thing without conceiving the mode, just as we can easily conceive a man without conceiving prudence. 29 They say, for exam­ ple, that in the proposition, 'The doctrine which places the highest good in bodily pleasure was taught by Epicurus,' the connection between the predicate (' taught by Epicurus') and the subject (' the doctrine which places the highest good in bodily pleasure') is only contingent. 30 Although Amauld and Nicole do not give an explicit example of an accidental generalization, the authors recog­ nize the possibility of such propositons in their discussion of subordinate clauses, which we shall examine in more detail below. But it is easy to say what would count as an example for Port-Royal. Suppose, for example, that Amauld and all his nine siblings had blue eyes. Then we could affirm that 'All Arnauld children are blue-eyed,' even though for Port-Royal having blue eyes is only an accident. And if it is only an accidental feature, then it seems quite wrong to say that they would hold that the proposition affirms that the comprehension of 'blue-eyed' is part of the comprehension of ' the Arnauld children.' There are good reasons, then, not to assume that Port-Royal takes the copula to posit the comprehension of the predicate as an integral part of the compre­ hension of the subject in particular and accidental affirmations. But in fact there is no basis for this assumption, since there is no evidence in the text that Amauld and Nicole held this view. It is significant that Pariente's own 'rule' for particu­ lar propositions describes not a relation between comprehensions of terms, but a relation between the comprehension of the predicate and the extension of the subject. Pariente himself says that in particular propositions 'the attributes making up the comprehension of the predicate are put [mis] in an indeterminate part of the extension of the subject. '3 1 Nevertheless, in this part of his analysis he con­ cludes that the copula of an affirmation asserts the inclusion of the predicate comprehension in the subject comprehension. Because he wants to take the au­ thors' references to identifying the subject with the predicate literally, however, he goes on to argue that for Port-Royal the copula must affirm an identity of sorts between the extensions of the subject and predicate. Now it is true that the authors are explicitly concerned with the relation be­ tween the extensions of the subject and predicate. The third axiom of affirma­ tive propositions states that 'The attribute of an affirmative proposition is not affirmed according to its entire extension if it is in itself greater than that of the

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subject.' And the fourth axiom specifies that 'The extension of the attribute is restricted by that of the subject, such that it signifies no more than the part of its extension which applies to the subject. '32 As we saw earlier, in universal as well as in particular affirmations, the predicate-extension is usually larger than the subject-extension. We can (truly) assert that 'All lions are animals' while recog­ nizing that the class of animals is larger than the class of lions. 33 So proposi­ tions of the form 'All A are B' must in general be read as 'All A are B that are A.' As Pariente sees it, this is a relation of 'indexed identity,' which, for univer­ sal affirmatives such as 'All lions are animals,' can be analysed as follows: 'There is an identity between the complete extension of the idea "lion" ... and the part of the extension of the idea "animal" which results from the restriction of this idea by that of lion.'34 This is consistent with the idea that in affirmative propositions the predicate is implicitly quantified by 'some,' as in 'All A are (some) B.' But Pariente admits that reading the copula as asserting an indexed identity between extensions does not work nearly as well for particular affirmatives. This is because in 'Some A are B' the quantifier 'some' restricts the subject to an indeterminate part of its extension. So the predicate-extension would have to be indexed 'by reference to an extension in itself indeterminate.' Nevertheless, Pariente concludes: ' It is no less certain that Port-Royal uses the procedure of indexing for the particular as well as for the universal, '3 5 and in general, ' It is this procedure of indexing the attribute by the subject (and not the subject by the attribute) which allows the copula to identify the extensions of the two ideas. '36 Putting the case of particular propositions aside, however, we must ask what this relation of indexed identity amounts to for universal affirmatives. On Pariente's reading, 'All A are B' means ' The class of As is identical to the class of Bs that are As,' where the relation of identity is apparently supposed to be the standard identity relation, and the 'indexing' applies to the interpretation of the predicate. Now it is important to point out, as Pariente does not, some undesir­ able implications of this reading. It seems that we would intuitively read 'All lions are animals' and 'All bears are animals' in such a way that the predicate 'animals' has the same meaning in both propositions. If this were so, and if the copula 'are' stood for the standard identity relation, then by the transitivity of identity, we should be committed to the proposition 'All lions are bears.' On Pariente's reading, transitivity fails here, not because it does not apply to the copula, but because of his analysis of the predicate. The reason is that 'animal' means different things in the two statements. In the first statement it means 'animals that are lions,' and in the second statement it means 'animals that are bears.' In other words, the predicate becomes indefinitely ambiguous, taking on different meanings as the subject differs, which is highly counter-intuitive. 3 7

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Surely what Pariente calls 'indexed identity' is just a confused way to express class inclusion. Notice that his analysis, which takes these passages literally, says no more and no less than that in universal affirmatives the extension of A is a subset of the extension of 8. Now if, as Pariente thinks, it is more chari­ table to interpret Amauld and Nicole's view of the relation of comprehensions in an affirmation as inclusion rather than identity, by the same token we should say that the authors were trying to express the idea that in universal affirmatives the copula expresses the inclusion of the subject-extension in the predicate­ extension. To summarize, we have seen that in spite of the authors' mode of expression, features central to the Port-Royal semantics are incompatible with the identity view of the copula, applied to either comprehensions or extensions of terms. On grounds of charity we should take the authors' infrequent references to the identity of the subject and predicate in a universal affirmative as their confused way of expressing class inclusion. Furthermore, outside the few passages Pariente cites, there is no textual support for the identity interpretation. Instead, as we shall now see, more fundamental strains of thought in Port-Royal suggest a view of judgment closer to the Fregean notion of predication. 3. The Copula as Predicative Operator Aside from the logical difficulties in reading the copula as an identity sign, the text contains evidence of a rather different view of judgment. Based on these passages, the authors thought of the copula as assigning the attributes in the comprehension of the predicate to the individuals in the extension of the sub­ ject. Here, in contrast to the identity view, the subject and predicate play distinct roles in judgment, serving as names respectively of complete and incomplete entities. It is this asymmetry that underlies the unity of the judgment, and that, as I shall argue, marks the boundary between judgment and conception for Port­ Royal. I call this a more modem view because it comes closer than does the identity view to capturing the notion of the atomic sentence as composed of a name of an individual and a concept-expression. The main difference, of course, is that Port-Royal also imposes this analysis on general, categorical proposi­ tions. This shows, I think, that although the authors have a ' two-name' theory of judgment, it is more complex than the identity account recognizes. The predicative view of judgment is most evident in two aspects of the theory. First is in the treatment of subject and predicate, which the authors develop in explicit definitions and examples, as well as the axioms of judgment. These passages show that Amauld and Nicole thought that every simple affirmation admits of an unambiguous subject-predicate analysis, with the two term s

Judgment and Predication in the Port-Royal Logic

15

playing different roles. We get a slightly different angle on the nature of judgment in the authors' analysis of subordinate clauses. Here Arnauld and Nicole develop a contrast between real and virtual affirmations, which they then use to discriminate between judging and merely conceiving. Let us begin by looking at the account of subject and predicate. 1 . Subject and Predicate Functions in Judgment In their initial description of simple propositions in chapter 3 of part II, Arnauld and Nicole emphasize the difference between the two terms of the proposition. The subject is the term 'of which one affirms or of which one denies,' the predi­ cate is that ' which is affirmed or denied. '3 8 Even existential judgments such as ' God exists' and ' I exist' have subject-predicate form since they contain 'the most general of attributes which is being. For I exist means I am a being, I am a thing.' 39 In spite of the subsequent analysis of the proposition in terms of categorical or general forms, most of their early examples of simple proposi­ tions are singular. In the introductory section to part I they use the examples ' the Earth is round' and ' the Earth is not round. ' 40 In part II their examples are , ' God is just' and 'God is not unjust. In these cases it is of course easy to tell the subject from the predicate, since singular judgments contain proper names or definite descriptions that purport to refer to distinct individuals. So it is no accident that the paradigm ofa simple proposition in the Logic is the singular judgment, for it displays unambiguously the logical distinction between com­ plete and incomplete entity that mirrors the ontological distinction between substance and mode. Amauld and Nicole also emphasize the difference between subject and predi­ cate in chapter 11 of part II, on how to identify the two terms in unusually expressed propositions. In contrast to singular propositions, in which subject and predicate have different forms, in categorical propositions it may be more difficult to tell the two terms apart. In universal and particular categorical propo­ , sitions, such as 'All vicious persons are slaves, and ' Some vicious persons are rich,' both the subject and the predicate are general terms. Hence, nothing pre­ vents a term from being subject in one proposition and predicate in another. This is the basis of the conversion of some forms, since from ' Some vicious , persons are rich' we may infer ' Some rich persons are vicious. With most cat­ egorical propositions there are two methods for identifying the two terms. First is word order: the subject generally precedes the copula. But this is not fool­ proof, since sometimes word order is inverted, and some propositions employ the impersonal pronoun. For judgments such as ' Blessed is he who has been able to win knowledge of the causes of things' and ' It is shameful to be a slave

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of the passions,' the authors remark only that 'it is obvious by the meaning' that the predicates are 'blessed' and 'shameful' since these are what is being affirmed. Everything else in the proposition then makes up the subject. 4 1 A more reliable method is by means of the quantifiers 'all,' 'some,' and 'no,' since they are explicitly attached to the subject. But again, quantifiers are not always ex­ pressed in ordinary speech, since we do say things like ' The French are valiant; Italians are suspicious; Germans are tall; Orientals are sensuous. '42 In spite of these troublesome cases, Amauld and Nicole clearly believe that non-complex propositions always yield an unambiguous analysis, with the subject and predi­ cate playing distinct roles. 43 Now these roles are best explained in chapter 17 of part II, in the first two axioms of affirmative judgments, which read as follows: FIRST AXIOM The attribute is put in the subject by an affirmative proposition according to the entire extension ofthe subject in the proposition. That is, if the subject is universal, the attribute is conceived throughout the entire extension of the subject, and if the subj ect is particular, the attribute is conceived only in a part of the extension of the subject. Examples of this were given above. SECOND AXIOM The attribute of an affirmative proposition is affirmed according to its entire comprehension, that is, according to all its attributes. The proof of this is above. 44

According to the first rule, what is essential to the subject is its extension. The subject functions to name or pick out the individual or collection of individuals of which something is being asserted. Here it is helpful to recall that Port-Royal also attributes extensions to singular terms, since they call the named or de­ scribed individual the extension of the singular term . Moreover, as we saw ear­ lier, in categorical forms the quantifier operates on the extension of the subject. Hence, the subject is that term in the proposition that signifies the individuals or complete entities of which something is being affirmed or denied. The predi­ cate, then, signifies what is being affirmed or denied, namely the attributes contained in its comprehension. Like Frege' s notion of a concept-expression, the predicate signifies a property or incomplete entity. Indirect support for this interpretation is available in the authors' ontological use of the terms 'subject' and 'attribute.' Consider, for example, how they describe the objects of ideas in chapter 2 of part I: 'I call a "thing" that which is conceived as subsisting by itself and as the subject of everything conceived in it. It is otherwise called substance. ' An example of a thing is a body, since

Judgment and Predication in the Port-Royal Logic

17

'I conceive it as a thing which subsists by itself, and which has no need of any subject in order to exist.' They go on to explain that we sometimes divide the essence of a substance into two ideas, 'regarding one as subject, the other as mode. For example, although everything which is in God is God Himself, we nonetheless conceive Him as an infinite being ... In that case we take the essen­ tial attribute [that is, infinity] which is the thing itself for a mode, because we conceive it as in a subject. ' 45 Similarly it is significant that the French term for 'predicate' throughout the text is 'attribut,' the same term for a mode or prop­ erty of a substance. These passages show, then, that the terms 'subject' and 'attribute' do at least double duty for Port-Royal, both logical and ontological. This is further evidence that they think of the subject of a proposition as a name of individual substances, and the predicate as a name of attributes. Somewhat circularly, the authors describe a substance as that which can serve as the sub­ ject of its attributes. 46 Now it is true, as Pariente emphasizes, that the last two axioms of affirmative judgment concern the relation between extensions of subject and predicate. Here is what they say: THIRD AXIOM The attribute of an affirmative proposition is not affirmed according to its entire extension if it is in itselfgreater than that ofthe subject. The proof of this is above. FOURTH AXIOM The extension of the attribute is restricted by that of the subject, such that it signifies no more than the part of its extension which applies to the subject. For examp le, when we say that men are animals, the word 'animal ' no longer signifies all animals, but only those animals which are men. 47

But these axioms seems to express a consequence of the role of the comprehen­ sion of the predicate. What this shows is that Port-Royal has not clearly distin­ guished the predicate-term from the predicate-function. So even though the logical function of the predicate is to signify attributes, because every general term may also be used to signify the individuals possessing those attributes, the authors want to make explicit the consequences of this relation for the extensions of the two terms. Moreover, it is worth noting that the title of the chapter containing these axioms begins 'The Conversion of Propositions ... ' 48 Thus, Amauld and Nicole are actually looking ahead to the analysis of inference rather than con­ fining their discussion to the nature of judgment. From this point of view they want to explain why only certain proposition forms convert. Hence, I believe, their third and fourth axioms are intended to provide rules for conversion

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with respect to the extensions of terms, rules taking the place of the theory of distribution. This is not, however, incompatible with the fact that the authors view the simple affirmation along the lines of a modem atomic sentence. In this strain of their thought, the subject signifies one or more individuals and the predicate an attribute. 2. Determinative and Explicative Subordinate Clauses: Conception and Judgment The predicative view of judgment is also at the basis of the Port-Royal analysis of subordinate clauses embedded in the subject and predicate. This discussion is particularly revealing, since while subordinate clauses appear to make asser­ tions owing to the presence of a verb, in some cases they only signify ideas. In explaining the difference between propositional and non-propositional clauses, Arnauld and Nicole attempt to formulate a clear criterion for distinguishing a complex idea from a judgment, and in doing so they reinforce the notion of the copula as a predicative operator. The first mention of subordinate clauses occurs in part I, chapter 8, in a discussion of complex terms. Complex terms result from the action of joining to a term various other terms that compose 'a whole idea, of which it often hap­ pens that one can affirm or deny what cannot be affirmed or denied of each of these terms taken separately. ' 49 For example, we can add the term 'prudent' to the term 'man,' and subsequently we can affirm of 'a prudent man' that he is happy, which we cannot affirm of men in general. The same is true of proper names, for we can join the term 'son of Phillip' to the proper name 'Alexander. ' By means of this complex idea we can affirm 'Alexander conquered the Persians,' which is not true of any Alexander whatever. Now Amauld and Nicole think it significant that complex terms can be formed with or without subordi­ nate clauses: 'Alexander who is the son of Phillip, ' and · Alexander the son of Phillip' express the same complex idea. In fact, the authors maintain that even if the relative pronoun is not explicitly stated, 'it is always in some sense understood, because it can be expressed if one wishes without changing the proposition. ' 50 Since 'it is the same thing to say a transparent body or a body which is trans­ parent, ' 5 1 the question arises how to tell clauses that contain judgments from those that only signify complex ideas. The answer is spelled out in chapters 5 through 7 of part II, in a discussion of propositions that are complex in terms of content. These are propositions that have subordinate clauses embedded in the subject or the predicate or both. These subordinate clauses are always joined to the subject or predicate by a relative pronoun (in English ' who, ' 'which, ' or

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'that') whose characteristic is to connect several propositions 'so that altogether they compose only a single proposition.' 52 For example, the sentence: ( I ) 'Men who are pious are charitable.' contains two verbs. The first is subordinate since it follows the relative pronoun 'who' and thus makes up only part of the subject. The second is the main verb, since it connects the complete subject of the main proposition 'Men who are pious' to the predicate, 'charitable.' The more complex sentence: (2) 'God who is invisible created the world which is visible.' contains three verbs, of which the second, 'created,' is the main verb, each of the other two following a relative pronoun and belonging to the subject or predi­ cate of the proposition. So complex propositions always appear to include more than one proposition, one main and the others subordinate, corresponding to the presence of more than one verb. Clearly there is in principle no limit to the complexity of this construction. We can always add a subordinate clause to the subject or the predicate of a sentence. Now only a few examples are needed to show that not all subordinate clauses actually contain assertions. On the one hand, from the proposition: (3) 'Men who are mortal are created by God.' we can derive the affirmation: (4) 'All men are mortal.' By contrast we cannot say that sentence ( I ) allows us to infer either: (5) 'All men are pious.' or even: (6) 'Some men are pious.' The difference between these two types of clauses is explained by the distinction between non- restrictive and restrictive functions. In the subordinate clause ' Men who are mortal,' the pronoun 'who' is non-restrictive - the authors say 'expli­ cative' - because adding the attribute 'mortal' does not change the extension of

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the antecedent of the relative pronoun, in this case 'men.' This is so because 'what is added applies to it generally and throughout its entire extension. ' 5 3 By contrast, the 'who' of 'Men who are pious' is restrictive or ' determinative' be­ cause adding the term 'pious' to the term 'men ' restricts its extension, so that the term 'men' is no longer taken ' in its entire extension. '54 Determinative clauses, then, are those that narrow the extension of the subject; explicative clauses leave them unaffected. 55 From the examples given above, it is obvious that only explicative clauses actually contain judgments. If the modified idea has the same extension as the antecedent idea - if the addition of 'mortal,' for example, does not restrict the extension of 'men' - then we may affirm that 'all men are mortal.' It is precisely because determinative clauses restrict the extension of the antecedent idea - the extension of 'pious men' is undoubtedly smaller than the extension of ' men' that they do not permit assertions. Thus, only explicative or non-restrictive clauses are truly propositional. But because any complex idea can be expressed with or without a relative pronoun, the authors treat these embedded assertions as if they were judgments that 'have been previously made, and now are only con­ ceived as if they were simple ideas.'56 On their view, when we affirm that ' Men who are mortal are created by God,' we have already asserted (4) ' (All) men are mortal.' Now with respect to determinative subordinate clauses, the following ques­ tion is raised: If in saying ' Men who are pious are charitable, ' we affirm 'nei­ ther of men in general, nor of any men in particular, that they are pious,' 5 7 what mental operation takes place? According to Amauld and Nicole, in this act the mind forms the complex idea composed of the ideas 'pious' and ' man, ' and judges 'that the idea pious is not incompatible with that of man, ' that is, that it is possible to consider them joined together.58 In other words, we affirm nothing about the individuals in the extension of 'man,' because we operate at the level of comprehensions. In this case the operation consists of determining that the attributes in the comprehension of 'man' (let us say ' animal' and ' rational' ) are not incompatible with the attributes in the comprehension of ' pious. ' Since in order to decide this it suffices to analyse their comprehensions, this act is a form of conceiving rather than judging. Amauld and Nicole develop this view in an interesting way in a second passage. In chapter 7 of part II they examine this sentence: (7) ' Judges who never do anything by prayers or favour are worthy of praise. ' On their view the subordinate clause here is determinative because ' we do not say thereby that there are any such judges on the Earth in this state of perfec­ tion. ' 59 In other words, we can assert (7) without affirming of any individuals in

Judgment and Predication in the Port-Royal Logic 21 the extension of 'judge' Uudges on the Earth) that they have the attribute of never doing anything by prayers or favours. Because the determinative subordinate clause contains a verb, however, the authors are constrained to find an implicit judgment embedded in it. The text continues: 'Nevertheless, I believe that in these propositions there is always a tacit and virtual affirmation, not of the actual application of the predicate to the subject to which the who relates, but of its possible application. ' 60 This suggests that, for Port-Royal, recognizing the consistency of a complex idea is equivalent to recognizing a possible predication. Again, if this amounts to deciding that comprehensions are compatible, then an actual predication must relate the comprehension of the predicate to the extension of the subject. The Port-Royal semantics of general terms, then, attempts to offer an alterna­ tive to Descartes's way of distinguishing conception from judgment. Since on Amauld's view the mind is active in both operations, the difference between them must be located in the content of the thought. Whereas actual or full­ fledged judgments make assertions about individuals in the world, complex conceptions or 'virtual' judgments concern only relations between comprehen­ sions, what Hume later came to call 'relations of ideas.' Now certainly there are 'virtual affirmations' that give rise to actual affirmations. In these cases the mind understands that the comprehension of idea A ('mortal') is contained in or implied by the comprehension of idea B ('man'). Given this apprehension, the natural light of reason leads us to judge irresistably that the individuals in the extension of B have the attributes in the comprehension of A. The problem with this way of distinguishing judging from conceiving concerns existential import. It seems that for the Port-Royal analysis to hold, in true real predications the extension of the subject cannot be empty. But if in (7) we do not assume that there are any judges who never do anything by prayers or favour, then the entire proposition (7) cannot be a real affirmation either, but only a virtual affirmation. The option of reading universal affirmatives without existential import - that is, ' For all x, if x is a judge who never does anything by prayers or favours, then x is worthy of praise' - is not open to Port-Royal . This is because in chapters 3 and 4 of part III, on reasoning, they declare that particu­ lar propositions are 'contained in' their universals. From 'All S are P' we are entitled to infer 'Some S are P,' which is equiva]ent to 'There are S which are P.' So even this more sophisticated 'two-name' view cannot escape some classical difficulties of syl logistic logic. 4. Conclusion While Pariente is right that the authors of the Logic sometimes characterize affirmations as identity statements, I have argued that the theory itse]f demands

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an asymmetry between subject and predicate . The authors then use this asymmetry, based on the distinction between substance and attribute, to distin­ guish acts of conceiving from those of judging. In conceiving the mind operates on the comprehensions of ideas; in judging it relates the comprehension of one idea to the extension of another. Although this view of predication escapes some obvious difficulties attending the identity theory, it ultimately comes into con­ flict with other aspects of the theory of judgment, notably the treatment of exis­ tential import. As one consequence, for example, what would at first glance appear to be real judgments might tum out to be only virtual affirmations or complex ideas. The theory of judgment, then, cannot be as tidy as the authors would like. All along I have been claiming that this view of judgment is closer in some ways to the Fregean notion of the atomic sentence. As I remarked at the beginning, for Frege a (first- level) predicative proposition is composed of a concept- expression and an object- expression. For Frege, only proper nouns or definite descriptions function to name objects. Thus 'Socrates is mortal' would count as a predication, but 'All men are mortal' would not. Although quantified sentences contain predicative expressions, their form differs radically from that of singular sentences. Whereas the latter contain expressions for first- level functions (concepts) that take objects as arguments, categorical forms contain quantifiers, which are second- level functions taking first- level functions as ar­ guments. Now Port-Royal is not even close to making such a distinction. As we have seen, Amauld and Nicole are wedded to the general subject-predicate analy­ sis for all simple judgments. So while they begin to take steps away from the 'two-name' view with their treatment of extension and comprehension, in the final analysis, their account remains firmly situated in the classical tradition. Notes See On Concept and Object in Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, ed. Peter Geach and Max Black (Oxford : Basil Blackwell 1 966), 54. 2 This overview is presented in an introductory section preceding part I. See Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, La logique ou I 'art de penser, critical edition by Pierre Clair and Fran'rois Girbal (Paris: J. Vrin 1 98 1 ), 37-8. All page references to the Logic are to this volume. All translations are my own. 3 It may be helpful here to distinguish the idea (idee) from the thought (pensee ). Descartes usual ly uses 'pensee' for any mental state, and ' idee ' in a number of typically more restricted ways. Port-Royal sometimes uses the two terms

Judgment and Predication in the Port-Royal Logic 23

4

5 6 7 8

9 IO

11 12 13

14 15

interchangeably, but typically takes the idea to be the obj ective content of a thought. See Meditations on First Philosophy, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1 985), 2:47. In future references this edition will be cited as CSM. These examples are given respectively in the Second Replies to Objections (CSM 2 :97) and at Principles I, art. 49 (CSM 1 :209). A long list of common notions, designated as 'Postulates, ' appears in the Second Replies (CSM 2 : 1 1 5- 1 6). See chapter 27 of Des vraies et des fausses idees, trans. Stephen Gaukroger, in On True and False Ideas (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1 990), 1 99-209. For a more extended discussion of the analysis of ideas and the relation between ideas and language in Port-Royal, see my 'The Port-Royal Semantics of Terms, ' Synthese 96 ( 1 993 ), 455-75 . Logic, 47. Note that, although in principle ideas are prior to their linguistic ex­ pressions, the Port-Royal semantics is often more driven by linguistic considera­ tions that its authors would care to admit. This is especially true of their treatment of concrete nouns and adjectives. See 'The Port-Royal Semantics of Terms ' for the details of this analysis. See chap. 6 of part I, 57-8. Logic, 59. Port-Royal was not the first to express this idea. Bochenski notes that it was prefigured in Porphyry 's /sagoge as well as in the scholastic doctrine of supposition. Leibniz also drew the distinction, but without the clear terminology. See I.M. Bochenski, A History of Formal Logic, trans. and ed. Ivo Thomas (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press 1 96 1 ), 258-9. Logic, 57. Ibid., 1 1 5. In chapter 8 of part I they say the fol lowing about additions to names that distinctly indicate an individual (such as 'Paris which is the largest city in Europe' and 'Julius Caesar who was the greatest captain of the world '): ' individual terms distinctly . expressed are always taken throughout their entire extension. being as determinate as possible' (65). Part I, chap. 6, 59. See Logic, 1 1 3- 1 6, as wel l as earlier, in the brief introductory section before part I : 'Judging is the action in which the mind, bringing together different ideas, affirms of one that it is the other, or denies of one that it is the other. This occurs when, for example, having the idea of the Earth and the idea of round, I affirm or I deny of the Earth that it is round' (3 7). It is interesting here how affirmation and denial are said to be sometimes of ideas and sometimes of things. This is one way

24

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29

Jill Vance Buroker in which the classical theory of ideas complicates the semantics, for whereas we would say that the proposition 'the Earth is round' makes an affirmation about the obj ect the Earth, they say in the first sentence that it affirms the idea roundness of the idea of the Earth. This confusion runs throughout the text. In what follows I shall use the terms ' subj ect' and 'predicate' for parts of proposi­ tions, taken either as mental or linguistic entities. For Frege' s criticism, see his essay Negation in Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, 1 1 7-35, esp. 1 22-9. Logic, part II, chap. 3, 1 1 5 . Part I, chap. 6 , 59. Logic, 1 68. Ibid., 1 7 1 ; emphasis added. Ibid. Cited in J.-C. Pariente, L 'analyse du langage a Port-Royal (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit 1 985), 263 . The passage is given as occuring in vol. 3, 1 67. Here I shall follow Pariente in discussing only affirmative propositions, since the analysis can be extended for negative propositions. Logic, part II, chap. 1 7, 1 70. See L 'analyse, 265-6. Descartes draws this distinction in Meditation III, where he classifies his thoughts as follows: ' Some of my thoughts are as it were the images of things, and it is only in these cases that the term "idea" is strictly appropriate - for example, when I think of a man, or a chimera, or the sky, or an angel, or God. Other thoughts have various additional forms: thus when I will, or am afraid, or affirm, or deny, there is always a particular thing which I take as the object of my thought, but my thought includes something more than the likeness of that thing. Some thoughts in this category are called volitions or emotions, whi le others are called judgements' (CSM 2 :25-6). His main point here is to distinguish mere representations of things from judgments, emotions, desires, and propositional attitudes. Logic, 6 1 . Ibid., 64. In effect the authors distinguish essential attributes from modes or accidents in two ways: one absolutely, by reference to the Cartesian metaphysics of substances, the other in terms of the content of ideas. According to the theory of substances, for example, determinate shapes and motions are (absolute) accidents of corporeal substances. Thus, the examples given in the previous quotation count as absolute accidents. But this would apparently not prevent us from affirming these accidents of a subject whose (complex) idea includes this accident as a part, as in the proposition, 'All polar bears are white. ' Despite the Cartesian distinction between essential attribute and accident, it seems the logical analysis of ideas should depend strictly on their content. And as Quine has pointed out, since things

Judgment and Predication in the Port-Royal Logic 25

30 3l

32 33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40 41 42

can be described in different ways, whether an attribute is part of the idea of a thing is relative to the manner in which the object is described. Thus, the whiteness of a polar bear could be essential or accidental depending on whether the animal is described as a polar bear or a corporeal substance. Logic, part II, chap. 6, 1 22-3 . L 'analyse, 266; emphasis added. Pariente' s analysis of universal propositions also contains a confusion: "the predicate is conceived through the entire extension of the subj ect . . . , that is, the comprehension of the predicate is put as a part of the comprehension of all the ideas which figure in the extension of the subj ect' (266; my emphasis). Here Pariente is embedding comprehensions of ideas within extensions. Now although, as we saw earlier, the authors sometimes speak of ideas v.:-hen they mean the things or attributes represented by the ideas, commentators trying to make sense of their views ought to avoid this confusion. Logic, part II, chap. 1 7, 1 70. Ibid., 1 69-70. L 'analyse, 268 . Ibid., 27 1 . Ibid., 269. I am indebted to Jeff King for this way of expressing the impl ications of Pariente' s interpretation. I think a further problem arises i n analysing the predicate ' B s that are As, ' for one has to ask how to interpret the • are' here, whether as identity, indexed identity, or some other relation. Pariente does not consider the question in this form. He does argue, however, that it would be a mistake to read restrictive clauses such as 'Bs that are As' as expressing set intersection (which again seems the most intuitive reading). His reasoning here is curious: 'Consider the ideas of man and mortal : we could restrict mortal by man by forming the expression mortals which are men; but in commuting the ideas we would obtain men which are mortals, and this expression forms an explication, but not a restriction of the idea of man ' (L 'analyse, 272). But whether the clause is restrictive or non­ restrictive is a matter of syntax; in terms of their semantics, the clauses are equivalent since they have the same extension. Logic, 1 1 3 . Ibid., 1 1 4. Ibid., 37. Ibid., 1 45 . Ibid., part II, chap. 1 3, 1 55 . These are indefin ite propositions. Arnauld and Nicole maintain that although some philosophers take indefinite propositions to be uni­ versal in necessary matters and particular in contingent matters, these propositions should be read as having 'moral universality. ' This means they should be inter­ preted as uni versals that are usually false. Sec 1 54-5.

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43 There are propositions that are 'complex in form, ' that is, that clearly make more than one assertion, where it is not obvious which is the main assertion and which is only subordinate. What counts as the overall subject of the proposition would depend on how it is read. The choice in these cases depends on discerning the author' s intention, usually by the context. For example, in the proposition 'All philosophers assure us that heavy things fal l to Earth of their own accord,' the main proposition could be either 'All philosophers assure us . . . ' or 'heavy things fall to Earth . . . ' In the first case, the proposition 'heavy things fall to Earth of their own accord ' would be only subordinate, and hence the subject of the over-all proposition would be 'all philosophers. ' Conversely, were we to take 'All phi losophers assure us that . . . ' as subordinate, the subject of the main proposition would be 'heavy things. ' So how to decide? If the speaker's intent is merely to report an opinion of philosophers, then the first part is the main proposition. But if the context contained an argument such as the following: 'Now rocks are heavy, therefore they fal l to Earth of their own accord, ' then the fact that philosophers assure us that heavy things fall is only incidental. The authors remark that ·the two different ways of taking the same proposition change it in such a way that these are two different propositions which have entirely different meanings. ' (See chapter 8 of part II, 129.) For each distinct meaning, however, there is again an unambigious subject-predicate analysis, whether it is clear from the context which meaning is intended. Even in these complex propositions, then, the subject and predicate must function differently in the proposition. 44 Ibid., 1 70. Parallel statements occur in the axioms of negative judgment in chapter 19 of part II: 'FIFTH AXIOM. A negative proposition does not separate all the parts contained in the comprehension of the attribute from the subject, but only the total and complete idea made up of all these attributes together. ' ' SEVENTH AXIOM. Every attribute which is denied of a subject is denied of everything contained in the extension of the subject in the proposition ' ( 1 73-4 ).

45 Ibid., 47; emphases added. 46 Other examples of the double use of 'subject' occur in their statements that the extension of a term is constituted by the subjects of the idea. See chapter 7 of part I (59), and chapter 17 of part II ( 169). 4 7 Logic, 1 70. 48 Ibid., 1 68. 49 Ibid., 65. It is interesting to note that a complex term is defined by reference to the notion of possible predication. 50 Ibid. 5 1 Ibid. 52 Ibid., 1 1 9. 53 Ibid., 1 2 1 .

Judgment and Predication in the Port-Royal Logic

27

54 Ibid., part I, chap. 8, 66. 55 The authors actually recognize two types of explicative subordinate clauses. The first are those that only develop what is already included in the comprehension of the idea. This happens with necessary attributes, as in the subordinate clause 'men who are mortal,' since mortality is implied by the attributes constituting humanity. If the comprehension of the predicate of the subordinate clause is contained in ( or implied by) the comprehension of the antecedent of the relative pronoun, al l the individuals in the extension of the latter idea will also be in the extension of the added idea. So the resulting complex term will have the same extension as the antecedent of the relative pronoun. But an explicative clause may add only an accidental attribute to an idea. As long as it 'applies generally and throughout its entire extension, ' the added idea will not change the extension of the term, and the clause is still explicative. See Logic, part I, chap. 8, 65 . 56 Ibid., 1 1 9. 57 Ibid., 1 22. 5 8 Ibid. 59 Ibid., 1 27. 60 Ibid.

2 The Rationalist Response to Aristotle in Descartes and Arnauld F R E D W I L S ON

Those who developed the new science in the seventeenth century and reflected on its methodology often proceeded in conscious opposition to the traditional portrait of science as scientia, the Aristotelian ideal of science. This was as true of the rationalists Descartes and Arnauld as it was of the empiricists. In this essay I examine in detail the rationalists' response to Aristotle, both the ways in which they disagreed with Aristotle and the ways, perhaps even more impor­ tant, in which they agreed. The first section examines the central characteristics of the new science. Section 2 examines in detail the Aristotelian ideal of scientia, and argues that the central objections of the rationalists were more than reason­ able. Section 3 goes on to argue, however, that the methodology proposed by the rationalists disagreed in an important way with the empiricist thrust of the new science; a comparison with Newton's scientific practice makes this point clear. Finally, in section 4 it is argued that this feature of the methodology proposed by the rationalists is based on certain features of their ontology and epistemology that they share with the Aristotelians; specifically, it is argued that the account of ideas developed by Descartes and Arnauld is at once in its essentials Aristo­ telian and, at the same time, the basis of the non-empiricist methodology of science that they proposed.

1 . New Science : New Methods What is characteristic of the new science is the method of experiment. This is clearly exemplified in the work of Harvey on the circulation of the blood. Harvey's book on this subject is crammed full of experiments. The logic of the situation is clear: we can see the mechanisms of eliminative induction at work. We are

The Rationalist Response to Aristotle in Descartes and Arnauld 29 presented with a range of jointly exhaustive and mutually exclusive hypotheses; data are presented that eliminate all but one of the range; it is concluded that the remaining hypothesis is to be affirmed as true. It is this method that is characteristic of the new science. It was this method that the philosophers of the new science were concerned to defend. Bacon's defence and elaboration of this method is well known. Indeed, some argue that it can be traced soley to him. Weinberg, for one, has argued that Bacon was the first to understand clearly the inductive logic of experiment, and that his predecessors had clearly done little more than follow the 'puerile' method of induction by simple enumeration. 1 But in fact, so I shall argue, recognizing this logic, and defending it, was not limited to empiricists: one finds it also defended by the rationalists. Thus, Descartes also accepted the method as the correct method for science: he explicitly notices Harvey and the experiments that the English physician performed in order to establish the circulation of the blood. 2 This defence must be put in context, however. Those who defended this method recognized that it was useful only relative to a certain cognitive goal, one that differs considerably from what the tradition of Aristotle had taken to be our correct cognitive goal. The natural world that we observe changes over time; observable characteris­ tics come and go. Some of these changes are useful, some contrary to our inter­ ests. Sometimes we know how to intervene in these natural processes to bring about effects that we want, or avoid effects to which we are averse. Descartes proposed that the cognitive goal of the new science should be knowledge of nature such that people could intervene effectively in natural processes. . . . as soon as I had acquired some general notions concerning physics, and when I began to test them in various particular problems and noticed where they could lead and how much they differed from the principles used up to the present, I believed that I could not keep them secret, without sinning gravely against the law which obliges us to procure, to the best of our ability, the general good of al l men. For they made me see that it is possible to arrive at knowledge which is very useful in this life, and that instead of that speculative philosophy taught in the schools, we can discover a practical one, through which, knowing the force and action of fire, water, air, the stars, the heavens, and all the other bodies which surround us, as distinctly as we know the different skills of our artisans, we can use them in the same way for all the purposes to which they are suited, and so make ourselves the masters and possessors, as it were, of nature. 3

It was taken by both empiricists and rationalists that the cognitive goal of the new science is a knowledge of natural processes that serves our pragmatic

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interests, that is, is capable of being applied. Given this cognitive goal, it is possible to infer that such knowledge has certain central features. Thus, if we are to intervene effectively in the new science, then we need to know the regular patterns to which natural objects conform. We need to know those characteris­ tics or properties that are sufficient conditions for what we want to achieve, and those characteristics that are necessary conditions for what we want to achieve. These laws should be known to as a great a degree of certainty as possible, and moreover these laws cannot have exceptions; for, if they are uncertain or if there are exceptions we will not be certain that acting in the appropriate way will actually bring about what we want to achieve. Since Descartes aims at knowledge of the sort that permits us to intervene effectively in natural processes, we can infer that he clearly holds that the knowl­ edge at which we ought to aim must be of exceptionless general laws. Descartes is, moreover, clear that the cognitive ideal in this case consists of laws that yield knowledge of ( I ) all relevant factors that occur within the process, that is, knowl­ edge of all relevant variables; (2) all relevant factors that occur outside the proc­ ess, that is, knowledge of boundary conditions; and (3) all details of the process over time, that is, knowledge of what has been called a 'process law' 4 - a law, or rather a set of laws, that gives the necessary and sufficient conditions for any state of the system at any time, where a state of the system is the values of all the relevant variables at a time. Knowledge of this sort has been called ' process knowledge, ' 5 and is quite reasonably taken to be the ideal of scientific explana­ tion of particular facts and processes. 6 After all, with process knowledge one can predict what will happen in a system, given the state of the system at any one time (the initial conditions); one can postdict what has happened in the system previously; one can infer what would happen if one of the variables were to change its value or if one of the boundary conditions were to change; one can infer what one would have to change in order to bring about some state that one desired; one can infer what would have had to have happened if things were to have been different from what they are. What more could one want to know about the system7 (in respect of the relevant variables8 )? The question is rhetori­ cal; the conclusion is that process knowledge is, as Bacon implies, the cognitive ideal for the understanding and explanation of particular things and processes. Descartes adopts this model of the ideal explanation, and is hopeful that it can be attained: ' given that these laws cause matter to assume successively all the forms it is capable of assuming, if we· consider these causes in order, we shall finally be able to reach the form which is { at present} that of this world.' 9 ln fact Descartes' s own work fell far short of this ideal. Neither he nor Bacon could suspect that before their century was finished, Newton would provide an exam­ ple of such knowledge in his explanation of the motions of bodies in the solar system. 1 0 But of course we have much knowledge of laws that falls short of this ideal,

The Rationalist Response to Aristotle in Descartes and Amauld

31

leaving out relevant variables, perhaps , or perhaps not specifying all the boundary conditions, or perhaps not being able to supply all the details of how one state develops from or into another, or even perhaps a bit of all of these. Certainly, this was the state of scientific knowledge - that is, knowledge of the sort sought by the new science - in all areas in the early modem period, includ­ ing areas such as geology and medicine but also those that already involved the use of mathematics, for example, mechanics, astronomy, optics, and music. Such knowledge is 'gappy' 1 1 and, relative to the standard of process knowledge, is reasonably called ' imperfect' 1 2 - though we must recognize that to call it such is only to compare it to the ideal and not to deny that it can be used as the new science proposed for purposes of explanation and prediction. 1 3 What we need next is a method for achieving these cognitive aims of the new science. This method will be a set of rules conformity to which will constitute a means that is, so far as we can tell, relatively efficient in bringing about the desired ends. The method will provide rules - though not necessarily algorithms - conformity to which will generate knowledge, so far as it can be attained, of matter-of-fact regularities, and, more specifically, rules conformity to which will yield knowledge of regularities that will eliminate the gaps from the imper­ fect knowledge that we already have, to move us closer to the ideal of process. Knowledge of these regularities can not be based on induction by simple enumeration, which is, as Bacon put it, 'puerile' 14 and 'childish' (I, cv). Such inferences are liable to be upset by contrary instances. 1 5 This method is highly inefficient as a means for achieving the cognitive goals of the new science. One needs instead a method that will as it were take advantage of the negative in­ stances. The correct method should rather 'analyze experience and take it to pieces, and by a due process of exclusion and rejection lead to an inevitable conclusion' 16 (cf. I, cv). Knowledge satisfying the cognitive goals of the new science can more efficiently be arrived at by the method of elimination. Bacon was the first to articulate this method clearly. These methods of ' exclusion' aim to discover necessary conditions, sufficient conditions, and neces sary and sufficient conditions. Bacon him self was concerned only with the more limited, yet more cognitively desirable, case of necessary and sufficient conditions. (One finds the two more limited cases stated clearly for the first time in Hume. 1 7 ) The method for discovering necessary con­ ditions has been called, following Mill, the ' Method of Agreement.' If one has a pair of hypotheses about necessary conditions for A ( 1)

whenever A then B, whenever A then B2

then an observation of an individual that is A but not B 2 will eliminate the second alternative as false, enabling one to conclude that the uneliminated

32 Fred Wilson hypothesis must be true. As Bacon puts it, we 'proceed at first by negatives, and at last to end in affirmatives after exclusion has been exhausted' (II, xv). It is clear that if we are to conclude that one of ( 1 ) is true on the basis of the given data, then we need an additional premiss to the effect that (*)

there is exactly one necessary condition for A and it is among the set consisting of B 1 and B2 •

The existence claim that there is a unique cause (necessary condition) that is made here is known as a principle of determinism, and the existence of a delim­ ited range of alternatives is known as a principle of limited variety. The range will in general be delimited by a generic description rather than by enumeration as in (*). Thus, rather than (*) we will have something like: (* *)

there is exactly one species / of the genus such that whenever A then /

The assumption is, of course, that (@)

B 1 is and B2 is .

We see immediately that the principle (* *) is generic where the principles ( 1 ) are specific. (* *) asserts the existence of a law of a certain form. The specific laws ( 1 ) have this form in common� (@) makes this explicit. It is worth noting that (* *) involves both existential and universal claims; its structure is, as the logicians now say, mixed-quantificational. This means, on the one hand, that it cannot be conclusively verified - that is a consequence of the universal quanti­ fier - and, on the other hand, that it cannot be conclusively falsified - that is a consequence of the existential quantifier. Similar principles are needed for the other methods that aim to discover sufficient, and necessary and sufficient, con­ ditions. Moreover, it is evident that the condition of 'exactly one' can be relaxed to 'at least one' ; the logic is only slightly more complicated. 1 8 Thus, if the method of experiment is to yield knowledge of laws, there must be antecedently avail­ able a generic theory of mixed-quantificational structure that can play the logi­ cal role of the principles of determinism and limited variety. Descartes is perhaps less articulate on the details of the method of the new science than is Bacon. Yet, as we have seen, he clearly recognizes that the ex­ perimental method of Harvey is a method of exclusion, and that at the end of the exclusion one arrives at an affirmation. He also recognizes that in this process of inference there is an essential role for the principles of determinism and limited variety. Part of the Cartesian method is, of course, deductive. As he puts it, 'I have ... noticed certain laws which God has established in nature, and of

The Rationalist Response to Aristotle in Descartes and Amauld

33

which he has imprinted notions in our souls, such that after having reflected sufficiently upon them, we could not doubt that they are exactly observed in everything which occurs in the world. Then in considering the effects of these laws, I seem to have discovered several truths more useful and more important than everything I had learned previously.' 1 9 However, there are limits to the success of this method: when the subject-matter becomes too complex the human mind is unable to trace out the causal connections from the first princi­ ples. 'From describing inanimate bodies and plants, I went on to describe ani­ mals, and particularly men. But ... I did not yet have sufficient knowledge of them to speak of them in the same style as of the rest - that is, by demonstrating the effects through the causes, and showing from what sources and in what way nature must produce them. ' 20 It is in this context that Descartes resorts to the experimental method. Unable to deduce the laws for these complex bodies from first principles, he uses the techniques of Harvey to separate the true from the false and to draw positive conclusions about the regularities to which the actions of the bodies conform. But to do this he must delimit a range of hypoth­ eses. This he does by invoking certain generic principles that he (believes that he) has already established. ' I contented myself with assuming that God formed a man's body, entirely similar to one of ours, in the exterior shape of its mem­ bers as well as in the interior conformation of its organs, without composing it of any matter other than that I had described, and without placing in it, at the beginning, any rational sou l, nor any other thing to serve as a vegetative or sensitive soul, except that He excited in its heart one of these fires without light which I has already explained. ' 2 1 These generic principles of the mechanical philosophy then provide a range of hypotheses for explaining the operation of the human body. It is the job of the experimenter to separate out from this range that hypothesis which is true: where the subject-matter is complex, ' I know no other expedient than ... to search for certain experiments which are such that their result is not the same when we explain the effect by one hypothesis, as when we explain it by another. ' 22 The method, in other words, is that of the Baconian logic of science, in which, by using observed results to exclude certain hypotheses from a delimited range of possible alternatives, one concludes by affirming the uneliminated hypothesis. We may conclude that the Cartesians recognized that the most efficient method to knowledge of the laws that was the cognitive aim of the new science was the method of experiment, or, what is the same, the method of eliminative induction. 2. Aristotelian Science: Aristotelian Methods Aristotle was perhaps the greatest philosophic mind that the world has seen though if both the empiricists and the rationalists are correct in their criticisms,

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he was also profoundly wrong. It is important, I think, to be clear that the defenders of the new science were after a real target, not a straw man. On the one hand, there was the Aristotle of the textbook tradition that Bacon, Descartes, Locke, and so on, had studied in the schools. Thus, Descartes had studied from Eustace of St Paul's Summa Philosophiae Quadripartia, while Locke commented negatively on the physics of Franco Burgersdijck. The new scientists were react­ ing to this tradition. On the other hand, there was the real Aristotle. It is the latter upon which I shall concentrate, to establish that the target was indeed legitimate, and not merely the artefact of a bastard tradition in late scholastic textbooks. But I shall also suggest that the textbook tradition represented this Aristotle, that the picture one could get from the textbooks was not inaccurate. 23 1. The Logic of Explanation in Aristotle 14 In the final analysis, Aristotle' s explanation scheme is of a piece with that of Plato in the Phaedo, as Vlastos25 and Turnbull26 have argued. What is given in sense are appearances of things. These appearances are, so far as sense is con­ cerned, separable. There is nothing about the sensible appearances as such to explain why one is followed by such and such rather than so and so - why, for example, Socrates being in prison is followed by his taking the hemlock rather than his going to Thebes. To explain the sequence is to show why one appear­ ance must be followed by another; it requires the discovery of a necessary con­ nection. This necessary connection is provided by the nature of the substance: Socrates' act is to be understood in terms of his human nature leading him to act in conformity to the standards of human virtue. Not surprisingly, the doctrine of explanation in terms of natures connects up with Aristotle' s logic. 27 According to Aristotle, one has scientific knowledge when one has a syllogism that is also a demonstration (Post An, 71 b17-18). A demonstration must yield certainty, for that is what scientific knowledge is,2s as opposed to opinion, which is concerned with 'that which may be true or false, and can be otherwise' (89a3), and to false claims to such knowledge like those made by the Sophists: ' We suppose ourselves to possess unqualified scientific knowledge of a thing, as opposed to knowing it in the accidental way in which a Sophist knows, when we think that we know the cause on which the fact depends, as the cause of the fact and no other, and, further, that the fact could not be other than it is ... the proper object of unqualified scientific knowledge is something which cannot be other than it is' (Post An, 71 b8-16). So the premisses of a demonstrative syllogism are necessary and this necessity, Aristotle goes on to explain, is a matter of the form or essence19 of a thing (74b5- 12). This form or essence appears as the middle term of the demonstrative syllogism: 'Our knowledge of any attribute's connexion with a subject is accidental unless we

The Rationalist Response to Aristotle in Descartes and Amauld

35

know that connexion through the middle term in virtue of which it inheres' (76a3-5). The most perfect syl logistic form is the first of the first figure (79a l 6). Thus, a scientific explanation of why C is A looks like this: (S)

B is A C is B :. C is A

Now, 'to know its essential nature is, as we said, the same as to know the cause of a thing's existence' (93 a4-5). Hence, the middle term of the syllogism (S), if it is a demonstrative and scientific syllogism, will be the cause of C's being A. An example which Aristotle gives (94a 36-94b7) is the question ' Why did the Athenians become involved in the Persian War?', which is taken to mean, ' What cause originated the waging of war against the Athenians.' To this the answer is, ' Because they raided Sardis with the Eretrians.' Aristotle lets A = war, B = unprovoked raiding, C = the Athenians. 'Then B, unprovoked raiding, is true of C, the Athenians, and A is true of B, since men make war on the unjust aggressor. So A, having war waged upon them is true of B, the initial aggres­ sors, and B is true of C, the Athenians, who were the aggressors. Hence here too the cause - in this case the efficient cause - is the middle term.' Conversely, where the middle term is not a nature or form or essence, a syllo­ gism will not explain. For example, if all non-twinkling lights are near, and all planets are non-twinkling lights, we can deduce that the planets are near; but we will not have explained the fact of their being near. The reason is that the middle term, non-twinkling lights, is not an essence. (No negative term could be an essence; Plato's argument in the Phaedo forces this conclusion.) If, how­ ever, we reverse it to say that all planets are near, and all near things are non­ twinkl ing, we not only deduce that all planets are non-twinkl ing, but also ex­ plain it since nearness is the essence that accounts for non-twinkling (Post An, 78a29-b 1 1, 98b4-24). When it comes to explanations in which the conclusion that C is A involves the attribution of sensible characteristics A to C, then that fact must be caused by the nature or essence that appears as the middle term; otherwise that fact won't have the necessity that must attach to the conclusion of a demonstrative syllogism (Post An, 75b24). In fact, since the causes that explain are dynamic powers or faculties - for instance, the nutritive faculty - the facts to be ex­ plained are patterns or regularities in observable behaviour; for example, if a thing x has a nutritive faculty or soul then it is true that whenever x eats food then x digests it (De Anima, 4 16a20-b6). Now, a generalization such as this is 'true in every instance' (Post An, 73a27) and this _means that there is ' no limitation in respect of time' (Pr An, 34b7). Bertrand Russell once wrote that

3 6 Fred Wilson 'one may call a propositional function necessary, when it is always true; possible when it is sometimes true; impossible when it is never true.'30 Aristotle has this same idea. For him, if some pattern is in fact a real regularity, that is, is always true, then it is necessary. Thus, he tells us that 'if, as we have said, that is possible which does not involve an impossibility, it cannot be true to say that a thing is possible but will never be' (Met, I 047b3---6), and that 'that which is capable of not existing is not eternal' (Met, I 08b23 ). That for which it is possi­ ble that it not exist is not eternal; hence the eternal, that which is always true, is that for which it is not possible that it not exist. But it is a common principle of modal logic that if it is not possible that not p, then it is necessary that p; and Aristotle accepts this principle when he tells us that 'we say that that which cannot be otherwise is necessarily as it is' (Met, 1 0 l 5a3 3). Hence, that which is always true is necessary. 3 1 Aristotle himself says just this: 'a thing is eternal if its "being" is necessary; and if it is eternal, its "being" is necessary. And if, therefore, the "coming-to-be" of a thing is necessary its "coming-to-be" is eter­ nal; and if eternal, necessary' (Gen Cor, 3 3 8a l --4; cf. De Caelo, 28 1 b26). Thus, that a pattern of sensible appearances is in fact truly a regularity implies that it is necessary. Now, this would seem to imply the equivalence of regularity and causal necessity 32 - a thesis that is, in one way at least, precisely the thesis about causa­ tion endorsed by Hume.33 Aristotle is, however, no Humean. For, according to the regularity account of causation, causal necessity just is regularity, whereas according to Aristotle while a general fact holding or being a regularity is due to a necessity which lies behind it, 'necessity is that because of which a thing cannot be otherwise' (Met, I O l 5b2; italics added). 34 This necessity is the neces­ sity of the essences that cause things to behave in regular ways. 3 5 For Aristotle the covering-law pattern of explanation of the new science is not enough.3 6 Rather, as others have also pointed out, it is the underlying nature or essence that both explains the observable events and accounts for why the de facto regularity of sense is a law, that is, why it is a regularity that holds of necessity.37 Consider a (somewhat simplified) example. Let C be some object or, rather, substance; call it Corsicus. Now suppose that Corsicus is such that whenever it is put in water it dissolves. Let A be this pattern of sensible events. Then C is A. The middle term that explains C being A is the capacity (power, nature, essence, form, soul) of solubility. Let B be this capacity. Then the explanatory syllogism (S) is:

(S')

Whatever is soluble is such that whenever it is put in water it dissolves (B is A) Corsicus is soluble (C is B) :. Corsicus is such that whenever it is put in water it dissolves (C is A)

The Rationalist Response to Aristotle in Descartes and Arnauld

37

Solubility is an active power, like the nutritive power, the activity of which accounts for the pattern of behaviour described in the conclusion. As the nutri­ tive power is one of a set of powers, including the appetitive and the ratiocinative, that make up the soul or form or nature of human beings, so also solubility will be one of the set of powers that constitute the set that makes up the full nature or essence of Corsicus; for instance, the nature of Corsicus may be sugar. Thus, the second premiss of (S') is necessary because the nature or essence is inseparable from the substance Corsicus. Provided that the major premiss of (S') is also necessary, then the conclusion will be necessary, and the syllogism will estab­ lish a necessary connection among the events in the pattern mentioned in the conclusion. The necessity of the law derives from the form or essence; thus, explanation of a pattern of behaviour is not obtained by fitting that pattern into a more complex pattern, as in the new science, but by re-describing the object whose behaviour is being explained.3 8 Now, as Moliere made clear, for the defenders of the new sciences, the major premiss of (S') is indeed necessary, but only trivially so, since it is true by nomi­ nal definition. For that reason, for the critics of Aristotle, (S') is no more ex­ planatory than (S")

Whatever is a bachelor is an unmarried male Callias is a bachelor . ·. Callias is an unmarried male

(S") doesn't explain, since the minor premiss merely re-states what the conclu­ sion says. As for the major premiss in (S"), that is in fact redundant; for the rule of language 'Bachelor' is short for 'unmarried male' that licenses its assertion as a necessary truth equally licenses the re-writing of the minor as the conclusion and therefore also licenses the inference of the conclusion · from the minor premiss alone. It is for this reason that Arnauld excluded attempts to explain by appeal to substantial forms: 39 he gives it as a rule of method 'not to multiply beings without necessity, as is so often done in ordinary philosophy, as when, for example, people do not agree that the diverse arrangements and configurations of the parts of matter suffice to make a stone, some gold, some lead, some fire or some water, unless there is in addition a substantial form of stone, gold, lead, fire, or water, really distinct from all con­ ceivable arrangements and configurations of the parts of matter. ' 40 We may conclude, then, that in order to understand the observable behaviour of a thing - in order to explain it - one must give the essence (nature, form) of the thing. That is, this is so in so far as the observable behaviour can come to be

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understood; for some of the characteristics may simply be quite accidental, and therefore incapable of being explained.4 1 However, while this gives an under­ standing of the full behaviour of a thing, in so far as it can be understood, a fuller understanding of that behaviour can yet be achieved. The essence or nature of a thing is not a single power (save in the case of the most elementary things); it is, rather, a set of powers, as we have seen. One should add, perhaps, that it is not a mere set, in the sense of a heap or a conjunc­ tion (Post An, 92a30), but a set with a structure that provides a real unity (Met, 1037b25, 1045a8). It is through this unity and structure that the essence has that it confers unity and structure on the individual substance of which it is the essence (Met, 1052a3 3). For Aristotle the logical structure of an essence or form is made explicit when it is defined as a species in terms of genus and difference. The question of 'how essential nature is revealed' is answered by 'definition' (Post An, 90a36-7, 91al ), and definition of an essence consists in treating it as a species and giving its definition in terms of genus and specific difference (96b15ff.). Thus, to use the standard example, the essence man is revealed in its definition as rational animal, where animal is the genus and rational is the specific difference. The search for definitions in this sense is also in a sense the search for middle terms of syllogisms. 42 Thus, the definition of man as a rational animal is 'exhib­ ited' in the demonstrative syllogism: All rational is animal (B is A) All man is rational ( C is B) :. All man is animal (C is A) This demonstration shows how an attribute 'attaches' to a given subject (Post An, 91 a2), but the conclusion cannot itself be man's essential nature, in the sense of fully revealing it, since it omits the middle term of the premisses that mediates or connects the two, thereby functioning as an inseparable item in the logical structure of the essence of man (91 a27-32). Essential definitions thus cannot be demonstrated (91b10). The point is, in fact, that to know the essential definition and to know the syllogism that supposedly demonstrates it are of a piece; to know the one is to know the other (93a17-19). The essential definition packs into a single sentence the contents of the syllogism that is to demonstrate it; or, equally, the syllogism unpacks that sentence. So one should say that the syllogism does not demonstrate but rather 'exhibits' the essential definition (93b18). 43 The point is that the logical structure of both is in effect equivalent, with a middle mediating between extremes according to the rules of class inclusion.

The Rationalist Response to Aristotle in Descartes and Amauld 39 An essential definition is a real unity (Met, I 03 7b2 5); it is therefore a necessary truth, but, again, it cannot be merely definitional since, quite clearly, it provides a standard for the correctness of our nominal definitions of the definitional natures of things. Essential definitions are thus statements of syn­ thetic necessity. And, equally, the premisses and conclusion of the syllogisms that exhibit such definitions must be synthetic necessities. Thus, sensible char­ acteristics present in things are explained by appeal to the dynamic nature that necessitates them, and they receive a fuller explanation when the internal struc­ ture of that necessitating essence is revealed in the premisses of the syllogism (or series of syllogisms) that exhibits that structure. And in this fuller under­ standing one arrives at last at basic premisses that are not only necessary but in,d emonstrable: 'the peculiar basic truths of each inhering attribute are indemonstrable' (Post An, 76a l 7). That explanation, and now fuller explanation, is in terms of substantive nec­ essary truths we have already stressed. Another point is worth emphasizing. Full understanding consists in exhibiting a structure of genera and specific dif­ ferences. Thus, to fully understand a thing is to grasp the ways in which, in its essence, it is the same as, and differentfrom, other things. It is to recognize the analogies and disanalogies between its behaviour, in its essentials, and the be­ haviour of other things. Now, this being so, it is evident that it immediately implies that simile, and even metaphor, is fully a part of explanation. It is not at all surprising, then, that, as one author says, 'in order to carry out the study of "necessary" causes successfully, Aristotle is going to appeal to the ancient method of explanation by image and analogy' : 44 that, if one may so speak, is the very essence of Aristo­ tle's idea of explanation. This is in sharp contrast to the new science of both the empiricists and the rationalists. For the new science, it is laws that explain, not relations of sameness and difference. In the end Aristotle does not distinguish science from poetry. 2. Our Knowledge of the Forms of Things It is sense that provides us with our first contact with the individual substances external to us, but what knowledge apprehends is the form, the universal, which is the cause of the individual having, in so far as it exists naturally, the sensible characteristics it in fact presents to one (De Anima, 4 l 7b22). Sense alone can only give rise to opinion, which apprehends the characteristics of things as separable, that is, as capable of being otherwise. But in knowledge they are apprehended as incapable of being otherwise (Post An, 39a3 3-5; cf. Nie Eth, l 1 3 b20). For, knowledge apprehends the form or nature that causes their

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coming to be present in the substance, unifying them into a whole and thereby constituting a necessary connection among them. Sense may, in a way, by recog­ nizing the definitional nature of a thing recognize what a thing is. But that remains at the level of opinion, and in that sense one' s knowledge of what the thing is is only accidental. One' s grasp of what a thing is is not accidental when one grasps its dynamic nature, the form that causes the definitional nature, and, indeed, is what transforms the latter into a genuine and not a quasi-unity or mere conjunction. It is the province of knowledge to grasp that form. This knowl­ edge of forms is incorrigible: 'of the thinking states by which we grasp truth, some are unfailingly true, others admit of error - opinion, for instance, and calculation, whereas scientific knowledge and intuition are always true' (Post An, 100b5-8). Or, again: 'it is not possible to be in error regarding the question of what a thing is, save in an accidental sense ... About the things ... which are essences and actualities, it is not possible to be in error, but only to know them or not to know them. But we do inquire what they are, viz., whether they are of such and such a nature or not' (Met, 1051 b25-3 3 ; cf. De Anima, 430a26-88). Like knowledge of the forms in Plato, as described in the Meno, so also for Aristotle, knowledge of forms, only now inseparable forms� is tied down and absolutely certain; it is, as he says, not possible that it be in error. This does not, as Aristotle also says, preclude inquiry, but it does mean that inquiry, if success­ ful, has as its product a state that necessarily excludes the possibility of a need for any further inquiry. The mind grasps some necessary truths as the conclusions of demonstrative syl logisms; but, of course, first principles cannot be arrived at, nor justified, by such inferences. Rather, 'it is intuitive reason that grasps first principles' (Nie Eth, l 14 l a7-8), or, equivalently, the indemonstrable knowledge that is the grasp of immediate premisses is rational intuition (Post An, 88b3 5-89a 1). What in­ quiry aims at, then, is the rational intuition of the natures of things. In what does such rational intuition consist? What is the ontology of the knowing situation? Already in Aristotle' s time it was an old dictum to say that like knows like (De Anima, 427a27), but in Aristotle this dictum takes on a fairly specific content. For Aristotle, the likeness amounts to an identity: in knowledge the mind is identical with its object (429a16, 429b20, 431a1 ). Since the object of knowledge is the form or nature, it fol lows that in knowledge the form that is in the thing known is also in the mind that knows it (431 b30). But the form is not in the mind as a characteristic of it; for if it were, then the mind would be Socrates or Corsicus, that is, a man or a lump of earth, let us say, or in any case whatever substance it is that is known; but the mind is clearly not any of those. Thus, it is not the material object, only its form, that is in the mind. As the medievals were later to say, the form of the substance known is in

The Rationalist Response to Aristotle in Descartes and Arnauld 41 that substance substantially but in the mind only intentionally. Thus, rational intuition of a form consists in the form itself being literally in the mind. If the form is literally itself in the mind, as Aristotle says, then so is its logical structure. If a specific nature is in the mind, then so is its genus and difference, since the specific form simply is the unity of genus and difference (Met, 103 7b25-7). Let us call the form of a thing known qua in the mind a 'concept. ' Then, when the mind analyses a specific concept into genus and difference, this logical structure of the concept is eo ipso the ontological struc­ ture of the thing known. 45 But the definition in terms of species and difference is exhibited in the syllogism. Thus, the movement of thought that occurs when the mind understands a proposition as the conclusion of a demonstration that ex­ hibits a definition is not only a movement of thought as it knows, but also the logical structure of a concept and the ontological structure of the thing known. Syllogism is thus not only a logic but also an onto-logic and an epistmo-logic. The core to this view is the notion of substance; for its nature is at once the cause of the being of its substance and is also that which is, in its logical structure, exhibited in syllogism: 'as in syllogisms, substance [= essence] is the starting­ point of everything. It is from "what a thing is" that syllogisms start; and from it also ... processes of production start' (Met, 1034a30-2). Equally, 'scientific knowledge ... is a state of capacity to demonstrate' (Nie Eth, l 139b3 l ), and science is the mental disposition or capacity to demonstrate. The new science, too, insists upon deductive logic as playing a central role in explanation. According to the defenders of the new science, both empiricist and rationalist, the explanation of an event consists in the deduction of that event from another event (the initial conditions) and an exceptionless matter-of­ empirical-fact regularity (the covering law). 46 But the deduction is purely tauto­ logical, only unpacking what is already implicit in the premisses. On Aristotle's account of explanation, however, demonstrative syllogisms of science reveal the underlying necessities of the world and the internal structure of those neces­ sities. Thus, for Aristotle, in contrast to the new science of both the empiricist and the rationalist, syllogism has a substantive role to play in explanation. 47 This substantive role is, of course, dependent upon the basic Aristotelian idea that explanation is always in terms of the unanalysable active powers or dispo­ sitions of the natures of things. But in any case, the rationalists were to the point when they criticized not merely the topical logics of Agricola and Ramus but also the syllogistic logic of explanation that they attributed to Aristotle. Syllogism is not, however, according to Aristotle, a tool of discovery. To con­ struct a scientific syllogism is to discover its middle term. Syllogism exhibits this knowledge, but it does not discover it. Since sense perception is only of sensible appearances, it does not yield scientific knowledge (Post An, 87b28).

42 Fred Wilson None the less, according to Aristotle, perception is of central importance; it is from our sense perceptions that knowledge of the universal is elicited: ' if we were on the moon, and saw the earth shutting out the sun's light, we should not know the cause of the eclipse, but not the reasoned fact at all, since the act of perception is not of the commensurate universal [which is that which "makes clear the cause" (88a5)]. I do not, of course, deny that by watching the frequent recurrence of this event we might, after tracking the commensurate universal, possess a demonstration, for the commensurate universal is elicited from the several groups of singulars' (87b39-88a4). Where sense is lacking, a science will also be lacking, since the universals from which science proceeds are got from sense. Although we do not know the reasons of things by sense, we learn them from sense. It is these reasons for things, their forms or natures, that we then put into syllogisms to exhibit their internal logical structure. 48 After a cer­ tain number of experiences of a fact, the universal dawns upon us in an act of intuitive reason. The man who has the ' faculty of hitting upon the middle term instantaneously' is the man of 'quick wit' (Post An, 89b--l 0). There is a two-stage process here. The first stage consists in scanning the particulars. The second consists in abstracting the form from the particulars so scanned. This whole process is called induction. The product of this process is a rational intuition of the form of the substance that is the cause of the sensible appearances from which the process has begun. For the power of abstraction is simply the power to lift the forms from the sensible appearances they cause and put them (the forms) in the mind. It is by induction that one arrives at the starting-points of scientific knowledge : 'induction is the starting point which knowledge even of the universal presupposes, while syllogism proceeds from universals. There are therefore starting points from which syllogism proceeds, which are not reached by syllogism: it is therefore by induction that they are acquired' (Nie Eth, 1039b27-30). In fact, since demonstration is about forms, it follows that ' intuitive reason is both the beginning and the end [ of inquiry] : for demonstrations are from these and about these' (Nie Eth, l 143b l 0- l l ). The faculty for grasping first principles is what Aristotle calls nous; through this capacity the mind 'cognitively grasps the first principles in an immediate and non-discursive way.'49 Complete induction has the force of demonstration, Aristotle points out (Pr An, bk. I I, chap. 22), but the induction that arrives at first principles is seldom complete. Aristotle describes the process in this way: ' states of knowledge are ... developed from sense perception. It is like a rout in battle stopped by first one man making a stand and then another, until the original formation has been restored. The soul is so constituted to be capable of this process. ' The rout is, of course, the flux of sensory experience. We determine that the rout has been stopped when we recognize that a certain structured formation has been achieved.

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The recognition of this structure is the intuition of the form: ' When one of a number of logically indiscriminable particulars has made a stand, the earliest universal is present in the soul: for though the act of sense perception is of the particular, its content is universal - is man, for example, not the man Callias. A fresh stand is made among these rudimentary universals, and the process does not cease until the indivisible concepts, the true universals, are established: e.g. such and such a species of animal is a step towards the genus animal, which by the same process is a step towards a further generalization' (Post An, I 00a9-b4). This makes it clear that induction is normally imperfect, and also clear that it is not the 'puerile' and ' childish' induction of the nai've empiricist that consists in registering and enumerating sensory observations, but has instead as its product the rational intuition of form. Plato had argued in the Meno that our knowledge of forms was innate. But, while that argument established that the knowledge said to be innate could not have been taught in the way Greek youth were taught Homer, it none the less hardly followed, as Plato suggested, that it was innate. The argument of the Phaedo strengthened the case of the Meno by arguing that we have concepts of things, for instance, perfect equality or perfect justice, that we could not get by means of sense observation. Aristotle suggests that intuitive knowledge, in all its certainty and infallibility is not 'innate in a determinate form, ' without our consciously knowing it from the beginning; and it certainly could not be 'devel­ oped from other higher states of knowledge' since that would introduce circu­ larity or a regress (Post An, I 00a9- l l ). But it is equally hard to believe that it comes from nothing at all (99b30). Rather than it coming from a higher form of knowledge, then, Aristotle proposes that it develops from a humbler source, a lower faculty. This faculty is perception, the discriminative capacity already present in animals. The first stage in the development from sense to know ledge is memory, in which one ' continue[s] to retain the sense impression in the soul ' when perception as such is over. Out of frequently repeated memories develops experience, 'for a number of memories constitute a single experience.' In expe­ rience ' the universal [is] now stabilized in its entirety within the soul, the one beside the many which is a single identity within them al l.' It is out of experi­ ence that originate both art or the skill of the craftsman, insofar as our concern is with becoming, and the knowledge of the scientist, insofar as our concern is with being. At this point the mind is in a position to abstract the universal (99b3 5- l 00a 13 ). The ' rout' of sensory experience is stopped, then, when the mind grasps the form. Thus, the rout is stopped when experience comes to be structured in the mind by the form, now a concept existing intentionally in the mind. This structure on the side of the mind is identical to the structure on the side of the substance known. For the form that, in the substance, causes the sensible

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appearances is identical to the form that comes to organize the experiences in the mind. As we saw Aristotle put it, the ' rout' is stopped when ' the original position has been restored' ( 100a l2). This coming to be of the form in the mind is the result of the mind's own activity. In one sense the mind is passive, a mere potentiality, capable of having all forms impressed upon it (De Anima, 429a l5). But the power or capacity of discovering the form in sense is one that distinguishes man from animals (4 1 4a l 9-20). This capacity of the mind to discover the form in sense experi­ ence, and to put it not just impl icitly but actually in the mind, is the power of abstraction. Through it the mind rises above mere experience, mere repetition, which is the best that sense can achieve, and grasps real connections, that is, the reasons or forms that account causally for those patterns in sense experience. In abstraction the mind comes to have in it the form of the substance whose sensi­ ble appearances are experienced, and in thus becoming identical with the cause of those experiences the mind thinks that cause. In the exercise of this capacity to abstract forms, mind is active (430a 1 5-16); it moves itself. Indeed, since man is in his essence a rational animal, that is, one capable of grasping the reasons of things, that is, the forms, it follows that the thinking faculty which is that ratiocinative part, as opposed to the nutritive and appetitive parts, of the soul, must be ' in its essential nature activity' (430a 1 8). The form of man, his essen­ tial activity that differentiates him from all other things, is to inform himself of the being or reasons of things. As Aristotle puts it elsewhere, in the opening sentence of the Metaphysics, ' All men by nature desire to know' (Met, 980a22). Thus, for Aristotle, as Ross has put it, ' induction is ... a process not of reason­ ing but of direct insight, mediated psychological ly by a review of particular instances. ' 50 Its aim is to discover the middle terms of syllogisms. It begins in experience, but unlike induction for the empiricist, does not end there in the discovery of a pattern in experience. Rather, it goes beyond the world of experi­ ence. How much experience it takes to trigger the insight depends upon the particular person; some only have ' quick wit, ' the ' faculty of hitting upon the middle term instantaneously' (Post An, 89b 10). It is misleading in the extreme, then, to suggest that Aristotle did not overlook the need for empirical investiga­ tion simply because he held that 'to discover the full essence of a natural kind takes empirical investigation. ' 5 1 While experience does play a role for Aristotle, it is far indeed from the sort of empirical investigation into exceptionless matter-of-fact regularities that the new science demands. The latter Aristotle did overlook; indeed, he did not even conceive such a program of research was worthwhile. The defenders of the new science, in contrast, argued that the Aristotelian program was not worthwhile. For Aristotle there is a two-stage process: sur­ veying the particulars, and then abstracting the form. The defenders of the new science argued that explanations in terms of forms were vacuous. That

The Rationalist Response to Aristotle in Descartes and Amauld 45 eliminates the second stage of the Aristotelian process. There remains the first stage. What does this look like? Without the second stage it is a simple-minded survey of particulars, at once the 'childish' induction by simple enumeration and at the same time a use of data simplistically acquired without the use of instruments and other techniques for supplementing unaided sense. Descartes rejects Aristotelian claims in his famous discussion of the wax example in Medi­ tation II: the constantly changing nature of the wax, the infinity of forms that it takes on, prevents the mind from being able to abstract the essence from one's sense experience of the wax. 52 Descartes emphasizes that in effect the Aristote­ lian tradition takes hasty generalization to be the basis of knowledge: upon Descartes' s view, philosophers often examine difficult questions out of order, 'which seems to me [Descartes] to be the same as though they strove to jump from the bottom to the top of some edifice in one leap, either neglecting the staircase which is provided for this purpose or not noticing it .... This is the way ... philosophers act who neglect experience and believe that truth will arise from their own heads as Minerva did from that of Jove.'53 The result is that, far from attaining certainty, the Aristotelians are left with only 'these very convenient weapons of debate, the probable syllogisms of the Scholastics.'54 Amauld, like Bacon, sees the Aristotelian method as proceeding by a sort of induction by simple enumeration, which is in general an unsafe method for discovering regu­ larities in things, since it does not exclude negative instances. 55 The only excep­ tion occurs where the induction is complete, but in general this condition remains unfulfilled. 56 From this perspective, that Aristotelian induction is inefficacious and incapable of providing the claimed content for demonstrative syllogism, the criticisms of Aristotle that were advanced by the rationalists were entirely reasonable. Moreover, since formal logic, that is, syllogism. can lead to truth only if its premisses are antecedently known to be true, the syllogism is unlikely to be useful to anyone interested in the search after truth. 57 In so far as the real definitions of the Aristotelians are revealed in the discovery of middle terms of demonstrative syllogisms, this amounts to the rejection of the Aristote­ lian doctrine of real definitions. Amauld is explicit in rejecting such defini­ tions, 58 citing Bacon as his authority. 59 3. Rationalist vs. Empiricis t Accounts of the New Science

The empiricists and the rationalists were agreed on the cognitive ends of the new science. They were agreed that the proper method was that of experiment, and they were agreed that the logic of experiment was the logic of eliminative induction. Finally, they were agreed that the cognitive goals and methods of Aristotle were not only different from those of the new science but were in fact a positive hindrance to progress in the latter. But there is also a crucial differ­ ence between the rationalists and the empiricists. As it turns out, it is the latter

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whose views are in conformity with the practice of the new science, while the rationalists adopt a position that is in its most important aspects indistinguish­ able from the viewpoint of Aristotle. The experimental method of the new science is an eliminative method. If the logical mechanisms of falsification are not only to succeed in eliminating hy­ potheses but also to result in the acceptance of an uneliminated hypothesis, then one must have reason to believe antecedently that there is only a limited range of possible hypotheses and that one of the hypotheses in this range is true. These principles that must be antecedently accepted are the principles of limited vari­ ety and of determinism. Both Bacon and Descartes saw clearly the need for such principles. The difference between the two responses to Aristotle consists in the different status each assigns to the principles of determinism and limited variety. The most spectacular instance of the new science was the work of Newton. 60 Newton's achievement was to 'demonstrate the frame of the System of the World,' as he described it (p. 397) at the start of book III of the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. What Newton demonstrated was a process law for the solar system: 6 1 it was this that captured the imagination of the world, and made the triumph of the new science secure. At the same time, he had eliminated, in book II, section ix, the Cartesian rival explanation. As the rejection of Descartes' s position indicates, Newton's science proceeds by a process of elimination. This shows its connection to the method defended by Bacon and Descartes. In fact, the method used by Newton is logically of a piece with the methods of eliminative induction described by Bacon and Descartes. But the mathematical formulations used by Newton, since they were permitted by his subject-matter, enabled him to employ the eliminative methods in a highly sophisticated way. What those mathematical techniques permitted was the representation of the process law for the system in a highly compact way. What Newton discovered here was that motions depended upon forces and that the forces cou Id be represented as the product of mass and acceleration, where acceleration is the rate of change of velocity and distance the rate of change of distance.62 That is, acceleration is the second derivative of distance with respect to time. We have the ordinary differential equation of the second order, which we would represent as

When this is integrated, we obtain a family of curves for the path or orbit of the object through tim e. Initial conditions supply values for the constants of integration, and pick out which among this family is the actual orbit of the

The Rationalist Response to Aristotle in Descartes and Amauld 47 object. Different possible values for the constants of integration give the necessary and sufficient conditions for any particular state at any particular time. There will be one such equation for each object in the system . Solving them jointly yields the development of the whole system over time. The family of differential equations provides, in other words, the process law for the sys­ tem . The fact that the family of equations can be solved analytically only for the simple case of the two-body system is a minor point . It simply means that for more complex systems the solution must be represented as the limit of a conver­ gent infinite series. Thus, we can never actually reach the real solution though we can always approximate it as closely as we want. But this is a technicality that need not detain us. The problem in practice is to find the force function F to insert in (@). That is, what specifically is the force that governs the motions of objects in any given system? Newton succeeded in solving this problem for the solar system . Newton makes two assumptions. For one, he assumes that there are forces satisfying condition (@). For two, he assumes that these forces satisfy certain conditions, including the action-reaction law and the law for the vector addition of forces. Next, he takes for granted the observations that confirm Kepler's three laws. (In the third edition of the Principia these data are listed at the beginning of book II as 'Phenomena. ' ) Assume the simplest case of a two-body system . The assumption is that there is a force that satisfies (@). But there are an infinite number of possibilities for this; for instance, it varies inversely with the distance, inversely with the dis­ tance squared, inversely with the distance cubed, and so on, independently of the masses, directly with the product of the masses, directly as the product of the squares of the masses, and so on. What Newton is able to deduce is that if Kepler's first two laws are satisfied, then the force varies inversely as the square of the distance (book I, sections ii, iii). The assumptions determine that a cer­ tain range of hypotheses as to the force function is acceptable. How is this range to be narrowed? How are we to eliminate all hypotheses but one? What Newton was able to show was that if we accept Kepler's laws then that leads demonstra­ tively to the exclusion of all possibilities but one, namely, the force function that we have come to know as the gravitational (book I, proposition XI). Since we assume that there is such a force, and since we now know that this is the only possibility compatible with Kepler' s laws, accepting the latter requires us to accept that the force that is, as one says, acting is the gravitational. In so far, then, as we accept Kepler's laws on the basis of observation, we are to that extent required to accept that the force function is gravitational. And once we have the force function we have the required differential equations (@) that we can solve to obtain the process law for the system.

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The logic is essentially that of eliminative induction. Observational data lead us to accept as correct the one uneliminated hypothesis from a previously given range within which we previously accept that there is one that is true. What Newton uses in addition, however, is a sophisticated mathematical apparatus that enables him to eliminate all alternatives but one by deducing that if we accept certain well-supported inferences from the observational data, namely Kepler's laws, then we must accept one specific hypothesis from the infinite range and reject all others as false. Newton does not proceed to collect data that exclude seriatim one hypothesis after another from the range; rather, he uses data to draw inferences that then enable him to deduce the one hypothesis that must be accepted and whose acceptance entails the rejection of all others in the range. Given the deduction, the one set of data serve simultaneously to deter­ mine the acceptable hypothesis and to reject the remainder. The logic is that of eliminative induction; the mathematics makes the processes of elimination pro­ ceed in a highly efficient manner. But the point remains: the logic is the Baconian and Cartesian logic of eliminative induction. Newton 's great inference conforms to the rules of the experimental method of the new science, that is, the rules of eliminative induction,· and it has as its product a process law, that is, a law that provides the best explanation ofthe sort that forms the cognitive aim of the new science. 63 In these inferences one has to assume what in effect are principles of deter­ minism and limited variety. These are the assumptions, first, that there are forces, and, second, that these forces satisfy certain conditions. These as­ sumptions are given by the basic laws or axioms of mechanics. In effect, they are given by what we have come to know as Newton's three laws, together with the law for the vector addition of forces. The first law states: 'Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.' Newton has defined the notion of 'motion' in his 'Defini­ tion II': 'The quantity of .motion is the measure of the same, arising from the velocity and quantity of matter conjointly. ' Motion is thus defined as what we now call 'momentum' : m X V

The 'change of motion' mentioned in the first law, then, is the product of the mass and the change of velocity: m x dv = m x d 2 s It is clear that the 'forces' mentioned are the momentary forces that are

The Rationalist Response to Aristotle in Descartes and Arnauld

49

required to introduce the instantaneous change of state, that is, change of motion (= momentum). This is clear also from 'Definition IV' where we learn that ' An impressed force is an action exerted upon a body, in order to change its state, either of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line.' The reference is, therefore, to what we would represent by F X dt Thus, what the first law, the so-called 'Law of Inertia,' asserts is that Whenever there is a change of state m x dv then there is an external force F x dt which provides a necessary and sufficient for that change. It does not, however, say specifically exactly how the external force determines that change, that is, exactly what is the functional relation between the force and the change of motion. The first law thus asserts that there are certain laws, without asserting specifically what those laws are. But it does lay down certain restrictions on these laws: these laws satisfy the condition of relating accelerations to circumstances. The first law states that for any object there is in the external circumstances in which it is situated a necessary and sufficient condition for any change of motion. Contrary to what Aristotle had held, it is accelerations and not velocities that are correlated to circumstances. The second and third laws lay down conditions that further limit the logical form of the laws that the first law asserts to exist. Finally, as a further limitation, there is the law of the vector addition of forces, the 'composition law' for mechanics: 'A body, acted on by two forces simulta­ neously, will describe the diagonal of a parallelogram in the same time as it would describe the sides by those forces separately. ' Newton refers to this as 'Corollary I,' which he then generalizes to any number of forces in 'Corollary II.' In fact, this law is not a 'corollary' but is an independent law. For our purposes, however, we need not speculate about what leads Newton into this logical error. We should note that if we obtain specific laws of the form (@) for each of the two bodies in a two-body system, then we have a system of differential equations that can be solved, up to constants of integration, to describe how the system changes over time. In other words, what we have in the specific laws that the first law asserts to obtain is a process law for the system. The composition law shows how we can extend this to the n-body case. Newton uses these laws, or axioms, to assure himself that there are forces that explain the motions of the planets, and he uses them to pick out a range of possible hypotheses. Then, using data obtained by observation, he eliminates all

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but one of these hypotheses, which he then accepts as the law that correctly describes the motions of the solar system. What he deduces is that the relevant force is gravitational. Then, knowing this specific law for interactions in the solar system, he can obtain the process law that was so to impress the world that subsequently no one was ever able to challenge the notion that, so far at least as the inanimate world is concerned, it is the new science alone that yields knowl­ edge. We have seen that Newton's method is that of eliminative induction, aided by some sophisticated mathematics. We now see that what we now call Newton 's Laws of Motion constitute the principles of determinism and limited variety that are essential if the eliminative mechanisms are to work. In eliminating alternatives, Newton eliminates the conjectures of Descartes, though he also devotes a special argument in book II to show that the Cartesian suppositions must be false if we accept, on the one hand, the Newtonian laws of motion, and, on the other hand, the data that require the orbits of planets to be elliptical. This method conforms to that proposed by Descartes himself. He, too, aims to give a description of the motion of the heavens. He takes for granted the 'prin­ cipal natural phenomena [of the heavens] to be investigated' (Principles, III, ,I 5). He appeals to these, and more specifically to then recently discovered phe­ nomena such as the phases of Venus to reject the Ptolemaic description of the solar system (Prin., Ill, ,I 16). He accepts the mathematics of Copernicus and Tycho as correctly describing the system; these two systems are equivalent as mathematical devices, differing in effect only as to the system of coordinates that are used: earth-centred (Tycho) or sun-centred (Copernicus) (,I 1 7). These motions suffice, Descartes believes, to explain the phenomena that he has listed: 'all this is easy for those who have some knowledge of Astronomy' (,I 3 7). But he must as it were fill in the details of the process, what Bacon called the latent process. The framework is established by certain basic laws. In particular, like New­ ton Descartes introduces the law of inertia. This he has introduced in book II of the Principles. Here he states, 'The first law of nature: that each thing, as far as is in its power, always remains in the same state; and that consequently, when it is once moved, it always continues to move' (Prin., II, ,I 3 7); and ' The second law of nature: that all movement is, of itself, along straight lines; and conse­ quently, bodies which are moving in a circle always tend to move away from the center of the circle which they are describing' (,I 39). These laws, and others that Descartes proposes, provide the mechanical framework. He appealed to this framework in his discussion of Harvey and the circulation of the blood. He appeals to it also in the case of the heavens.

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Descartes in fact does not know the details of the process: 'we have not been able to determine ... the size of the parts into which this matter is divided, nor at what speed they move, nor what circles they describe' (Prin., III, 1 46). What he proposes instead is to tell a ' likely story' to show how it is that the facts of astronomy, including the mathematical descriptions of Tycho and Copernicus, are compatible with the mechanical framework established by the law of inertia and the other basic principles. 'Let us suppose,' he says, ' if you please, that God, in the beginning, divided all the matter of which He formed the visible world into parts as equal as possible and of medium size' (ibid.). A series of further hypotheses follows. These enable Descartes to explain, so he claims, the accepted phenomena: ' These few { suppositions} seem to me sufficient for all the effects of this world to result from them in accordance with the laws of nature explained previously, as if they were [the] causes [of these effects]' (1 47). The story that results is, because the eliminative mechanisms have not done their work of eliminating all alternatives, not known to be true: 'although per­ haps in this way it may be understood how all natural things could have been created, it should not therefore be concluded that they were in fact so created. For just as the same artisan can make two clocks which indicate the hours equally well and are exactly similar externally, but are internally composed of an en­ tirely dissimi lar combination of small wheels: so there is no doubt that the greatest Artificer of things could have made all those things which we see in many diverse ways' (Prin., IV, 1 204). This will do, however: ' it suffices if I have explained what imperceptible things may be like, even if perhaps they are not so' (ibid.). This is because, so long as the likely story does actually describe the regularities among observed facts, then it matters not for practical purposes whether the supposed mechanisms actually obtain or not: ' because Medicine and Mechanics, and all the other arts which can be perfected with the help of Physics, have as their goal only those effects which are perceptible and which accordingly ought to be numbered among the phenomena of nature. { And if these [desired] phenomena are produced by considering the consequences of some causes thus imagined, although false; we shall do as well as if these were the true causes, since the result is assumed similar as far as the perceptible effects are concerned} ' (ibid.). Others, like Newton and the other practitioners of the new science who came after Descartes, were not to be so easily satisfied: they wanted to go beyond hypotheses so far as the details of the process was concerned; they wanted the eliminative mechanisms to be employed to find which among the various ' likely stories' was the one that was actually true. But for all the cognitive desirability of actually knowing the details of

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the process, it is none the less true that science must often settle for less. At earlier stages, such as those represented by Descartes, the development of 'likely stories' or 'how possibly' explanations as they have been called, 64 is an important feature of science. 65 Such a story, like the story that Descartes at­ tempted to tell about the solar system, is 'likely' because it will be compatible with certain basic axioms. But it remains a 'story, ' a 'mere' hypothesis, because the mechanisms of elimination have not shown that it is the only possible hy­ pothesis. Descartes saw this clearly: 'I wish what I shall write ... to be taken only as an hypothesis { which is perhaps very far from the truth} . But, even though these things may be thought to be false, I shall consider that I have achieved a great deal if all the things which are deduced from them are entirely in conformity with the phenomena: or, if this comes about, my hypothesis will be as useful to life as if it were true, {because we will be able to use it in the same way to dispose natural causes to produce the effects which we desire} ' (Prin., III, , 45). What was to happen, however, as we know, was that the later research of Newton was to establish that, though the Cartesian story was 'likely' in the way in which Aristotle's was not, because it was compatible, as Aristotle' s was not, with the law of inertia, it was in fact false: one could not assume the basic laws of motion and the data that established elliptical orbits, and consistently sup­ pose the Cartesian story to be true. The point I want to emphasize here, however, is the basic compatibility that we have seen thus far between the Newtonian and Cartesian programs as parts of the new science. In particular, both understand the role of the eliminative mechanisms and the role of the basic laws of mechanics as constituting the relevant principles of determinism and limited variety that must be taken for granted if those mechanisms are to work. The difference lies in the grounds that each uses to establish these basic principles. Here is Newton on the law of inertia, his 'Law I' : 'Projectiles con­ tinue in their motions, so far as they are not retarded by the resistance of the air, or impelled downwards by the force of gravity. A top, whose parts by their cohesion are continually drawn aside from their rectilinear motions, does not cease its rotation, otherwise than as it is retarded by the air. ' Galileo assumed the law of inertia; under this assumption he was led to form a hypothesis concerning projectile motion ; this hypothesis was confirmed by data that also eliminated alternatives, for instance, circularity. Thus, discovering a law while guided in the research by the assumption of the law of inertia tends to conform the law of .inertia, and renders its use elsewhere reasonable. For Newton the axioms of mechanics are acceptable because they have led to the discovery of specific laws. The laws of course have the mixed quantificational structure

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53

characteristic of principles of determinism and limited variety. That means they are not falsifiable. Thus, failure to find a law that the theory asserts to be there does not falsify the theory; it may equally be true that one has simply not searched hard enough. This is the lesson about method in science and about the logical structure of theories that Kuhn has made abundantly clear to us.66 But from this it does not follow, as Popper would foolishly have it, that these laws are there­ fore somehow non- empirical. To the contrary, there is no reason in logic to reckon that a statement is non-empirical simply because it involves an existen­ tial quantifier. A statement is to be reckoned empirical just in case matter-of­ fact evidence is used to argue for and against it. Newton so uses matter-of- fact evidence. Thus, for Newton and therefore for the new science that he repre­ sents, the basic axioms that constitute the principles of determinism and limited variety essential for the working of the experimental method, are factual claims, a posteriori, to be defended on the basis of empirical and, ultimately, observa­ tional evidence. A careful examination of Newton's argument will show that the same point can be made with respect to both the second and third laws. How, then, does Newton justify accepting the generic theory that he uses as a guide in experiment, that is, in the role of the principles of determinism and limited variety? By observational data. The generic laws that he cites are ac­ cepted initially because they generalize from known to unknown cases, from known laws that exemplify a certain logical form to the law about laws that any specific system of a generic sort will exemplify a specific law having that same generic form. The acceptance of these axioms is justified subsequently by their capacity to successfully guide research to the discovery in new areas of specific laws exemplifying the generic form asserted by the axioms to govern laws in these new areas. To this empirical method of Newton we may now contrast the procedure of Descartes. This will bring out the differences between the empiricist response to Aristotle and the rationalist. Descartes first argues that 'We . .. understand that it is one of God's perfections to be not only immutable in His nature, but also immutable and completely constant in the way He acts ... From this it follows that it is completely consistent with reason for us to think that, solely because God moved the parts of matter in diverse ways when He first created them, and still maintains all this matter exactly as it was at its creation, and subject to the same law as at that time; He also always maintains in it an equal quantity of motion' (Prin., II, ,-r 36). He uses this to derive the law of inertia: 'Furthermore, from this same immutability of God, we can obtain knowledge of the rules or laws of nature, which are the secondary and particular causes of the diverse movements which we notice in individual bodies. The first of these laws is that each thing, provided that it is simple and undivided, always remains in the

54 Fred Wilson same state as far as is in its power, and never changes except by external causes' (,r 3 7). These laws do apply to particular things; we can observe that the actions of the latter conform to these laws. But, unlike the case of Newton, it is not to this observational evidence from the phenomena that Descartes appeals when he offers reasons for accepting the law of inertia. Rather, he deduces it from the immutability of God, something which is in tum established by reason alone. In short, Descartes holds that the basic axioms are a priori truths, clear and dis­ tinct, or self-evident, truths. This marks the basic difference between the empiricist and rationalist re­ sponses to Aristotle. Both accept that the method of eliminative induction is the method of the new science that they are both concerned to defend. This means in particular that they both accept the necessity of assuming certain principles of determinism and of limited variety as guiding the use of empirical data with respect to the elimination of false hypotheses. But for the empiricists these prin­ ciples are themselves empirical, acceptance of which is justified by the discov­ ery of laws that they assert are there to be discovered. For the rationalists, in contrast, accepting the basic axioms is justified only if they are either them­ selves self-evident or can be deduced by self-evident steps from other proposi­ tions that are self-evident. Thus, Amauld tells us: 'All that is contained in the clear and distinct idea of a thing can be truly affirmed of the idea of that thing. ' 67 He then establishes as his 'First Rule' for axioms that, 'If moderate attention to the subject- idea and to the attribute suffices to show that the attribute is truly contained in the subject- idea, then we have a right to take as an axiom the proposition joining the attribute with the subject-idea.' 68 Conversely, where there is no self-evidence, then we cannot have an axiom. This is the 'Second Rule' : 'When simple consideration of the subject- idea and the attribute is insufficient for our seeing clearly that the attribute belongs to the subject- idea, the proposi­ tion joining the two ideas must not be taken as an axiom.' 69 The rule, in short, is none other than the first of Descartes's rules of method: 'never to accept any­ thing as true that I did not .know evidently to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid haste and bias, and to include nothing more in my judgments than that which presented itself to my mind so clearly and distinctly that I have no occa­ sion to place it in doubt. ' 7o To this we contrast Newton' s Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy, the first of which asserts: 'We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.' What counts is the capacity to explain and predict. There is no requirement that the alternatives to the axioms be inconceivable; it is factual evidence that counts, not self-evidence. Moreover, prediction is to be based on exceptionless laws; causes, in other

The Rationalist Response to Aristotle in Descartes and Arnauld 55 words, are to be understood as implying generalizations. Newton makes this point when he states his second 'Rule,' which, it should be noted, he takes to be a straightforward inference from the first: 'Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.' He gives several examples. One is 'the descent of stones in Europe and in America.' The first rule tells us that the assigned cause must be 'true,' that is, true as a matter of fact, and a sufficient condition for the effect. The first rule tells us, in other words, that when we assign a cause we need inductive evidence that supports the claim that the cause is in fact sufficient for the effect. But Galileo did provide such evi­ dence. The second rule tells one to assume that these have the same cause unless one has reason, empirical reason, to suppose something to the contrary. That is, one will take it to be not possible to assign the same cause to the same effect only when there is observational or inductive evidence establishing that it is not possible. The second rule thus instructs us to base our inferences to causes or, what is the same, to laws on empirical or inductive evidence. Thus, the second rule tells one to assign the same cause to all motions directed towards a massive central body: descending stones towards the earth, the moon towards the earth, the circumjovial planets towards Jupiter, and the solar planets, including the earth, towards the sun: the force of gravity that moves the stone towards the earth should be assumed to be the relevant cause in each case, as Newton argues in the scholium to proposition IV, theorem IV of book I I I . For Newton, then, non-inductive support of the sort claimed by the Cartesian for advancing certain hypotheses as a priori acceptable does not exist; it is a figment of the imagina­ tion. The only hypotheses that are acceptable are those that have acquired in­ ductive support and have, therefore, ceased to be hypotheses. 4. The A ristotelianism of the Cartesians

What is the ontological basis of this fundamental difference between the Cartesian and empiricist approaches to the new science? Briefly, it lies in a central feature of Aristotelianism that Descartes and Arnauld never abandoned. This was the account of ideas. To be sure, they rejected the abstractionist account of the ori­ gins of our ideas that Aristotle had defended. This was a major object of attack by the Cartesians, as we have seen. Moreover, where the Aristotelians insisted that the structure of this logic/onto- logic/epistemo-logic was revealed in the syllogism, for the Cartesians the basic structure was given by geometry and arithmetic. Syllogistic tells us whether an argument is valid or invalid; 7 1 it does not reveal the ontological structure of the world. For the latter, we need the method of analysis of the geometers. 72 It is in mathematics that we discover the ontological structure of the world: after running through the various sciences

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to inquire whether 'perfect knowledge ' can be acquired in them, Descartes concludes that ' only arithemtic and geometry remain. ' 73 Indeed, substantial forms exhibited in syllogisms are illusions that arise from trying to explain what needs no explanation, namely the self-evident axioms of geometry. 74 For the Cartesians, then, the basic ontological structure of things is given by mathematics rather than syllogistic. None the less, for the Cartesians as for Aristotle, this structure appears revealed to us in the ideas that we have. As Amauld puts it, the crite­ rion of clarity and distinctness 'accords with the wise observation of Aristotle that demonstration properly relates to inner, not outer discourse.'75 Thus, for the rationalists Descartes and Amauld, the basic onto-logic and epistemo-logic of forms remains identical with that of Aristotle. It is just that the Cartesians, one, substitute an innatist account of the origins of our ideas for the abstractionist and, two, substitute the deductive structures of mathematics for the deductive structures of syllogistic as those that reflect the onto- logical structure of the world. Otherwise, the basic account of ideas, or forms, or essences, remains of a piece with the Aristotelian. It therefore turns out that the same ideal of certainty and of necessary truths, rejected in practice by the Newtonian science and by the empiricists, can be the cognitive ideal of both the Aristotelians and the Cartesians. And it is this that is the basis for the insistence by the Cartesians that the prin­ ciples of determinism and limited variety that are central, and that they recog­ nized to be central, to the logic of experiment are to be construed as necessary truths known a priori with certainty. To see this point, we must look carefully at the Cartesian theory of ideas. It has of late been recognized that Descartes's views on ideas do not fit the stand­ ard picture, with us since Thomas Reid, of representationalism. 76 This was, of course, the position of Amauld, who argued against Malebranche' s representa­ tional ism and against his representationalist reading of Descartes. 77 There is much to be said for this non-standard reading. Descartes takes perception to fall under the category of thought. 78 Thoughts in general and perceptions in particular are modifications of the mind; they are acts of the mind. But thoughts and perceptions are also about, or as Brentano taught us to say, they ' intend,' certain objects. They do this by virtue of ideas that inform them. An idea, then, is the form of an act of thought or perception; as Descartes puts it in his replies to the Third Set of Objections, ' by an idea I mean whatever is the form of a given perception. ' 79 But an idea in this sense is not itself a content of thought that is apprehended by the mental act of which that idea is the form; we are aware ofthe idea but that idea is not the object of perception. Ideas, in other words, are not representative entities that intervene as it were between the act of the mind which is the perceiving and the object perceived. 8° For Descartes distinguishes two senses of the term ' idea.' In one

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sense it is a modification of the mind, and as such is something of which the mind is immediately aware; this is what Arnauld had in mind when he pointed out that ' our thought or perception is essentially reflexive upon itself ... for I never think without knowing that I think. '8 1 However, an act of thought or per­ ception is also intrinsically connected to the object or body that it intends, by virtue of which connection the mind is aware of that object or body. As Arnauld puts it, 'the idea of an object and the perception of an object [are] the same thing. '82 He continues: 'an object is present to our mind when our mind per­ ceives and knows it'; when I so conceive of a thing that 'thing is objectively in my mind. '83 Descartes draws the relevant distinction between two senses of the term ' idea' in the "Synopsis" to the Meditations: 'in this word "idea" there is here an equivocation. First it can be taken materially, as an operation of my intellect . .. ; or it can be taken objectively for the body which is represented by this operation. ' 84 This he elaborates in his reply to the Second Set of Objections, a passage that Arnauld also quotes: 85 II. Idea. I understand th is term to mean the form of any given thought, immediate perception of which makes me aware of the thought. III. Objective reality of an idea. By this I mean the being of the thing which is represented by an idea, in so far as this exists in the idea ... whatever we perceive as being in the objects of our ideas exists objectively in the ideas themselves. 86

Crucial here to the position of Descartes and Arnauld is the notion of 'objec­ tive being.' Descartes refers to actual being as 'formal' being or reality (esse formale): the formal being of a thing is constituted by its properties or modifica­ tions. This he distinguishes from the objective being of a thing, that 'mode of being' by which a thing exists objectively or is represented by a concept of it in the understanding. 87 This is 'the way in which its [the intellect's] objects are normally there. '88 When a thing has objective being in the mind that thing is not a mode or property of the mind, that is, it is not 'formally' in the mind; other­ wise the mind would actually be the thing. None the less, though the thing that is objectively in the mind lacks as such formal reality it is still not nothing,89 and is to be contrasted to ideas that are merely chimerical. 90 Thus, as Descartes put it to Carterus in the replies to the First Set of Objections, 'the idea of the sun is the sun itself existing in the intellect - not of course formally existing, as it does in the heavens, but objectively existing, i.e. in the way in which objects are normally in the intellect. Now this mode of being is of course much less perfect than that possessed by things which exist outside the intellect; but, as I did explain [in Meditation III], it is not therefore simply nothing.'9 1 Arnauld also makes the object perceived to be itself in the mind that knows it, there in the

58 Fred Wilson mind only objectively: 'the perception of a square indicates more directly my soul as perceiving a square and the idea of a square indicates more directly the square insofar as it is objectively in my mind. ' 92 One must of course distinguish the thing from the thing qua formally exist­ ing. It is the thing qua formally existing that is there in the world, existing as the entity with which other real objects, including o�rselves, interact. When we distinguish the thing from the thing qua formally existing, what we are distin­ guishing is the essence of the thing from the thing as a true real being. Thus, when Descartes and Amauld distinguish the thing, for instance, the sun, from the sun qua formally existing, the thing that is said to be in the mind, that is, the sun insofar as it does not formally exist, must be the essence of the thing. In other words, what is present to the mind when the thing is objectively in it is not this real object but its essence.93 We therefore see that, for Descartes and Amauld, the objective existence of things in the mind is constituted by the presence in the mind of the essence of the thing. But once we recognize this we also recog­ nize that the Cartesian account of perception is structurally that ofAristotle, in which the mind knows the object by virtue ofhaving the.form or essence of that object literally in it. To be sure, Descartes and Amauld reject the mechanisms by which Aristotle explained the presence of the form or essence in the mind. For Aristotle there was the process by which the form was transported from the object known to the knowing mind. Descartes rejected this story, as is well known, to replace it by an atomistic account that fit with the new science.94 This, though, is relatively trivial. Aristotelians were soon to adapt Aristotle's account of cognition to an atomistic picture of reality.95 But Aristotle also required the form to be abstracted from the objects given in sense. Descartes and Amauld rejected this mecha­ nism, too; that, after all, was the point of the wax example in Meditation II. This mechanism is replaced by the doctrine of innate ideas: all the forms or essences of things are native to the mind, and all we must do is retrieve them. But for Aristotle what is crucial to having a rational intuition of the thing known is for the form or essence of the thing to be present in the mind . This central claim of the Aristotelian position is retained by Descartes and Arnauld. The rationalists reject not the central thesis of the Aristotelian account of knowledge in terms of rational intuition but only inessential claims about the mechanisms by which rational intuition is attained. We further recognize the source of the disagreement between the empiricists and the rationalists concerning the method appropriate to the new science, the rationalists insisting upon an a priori justification for the relevant principles of determinism and limited variety, while the empiricists argued that for these general axioms, as for more specific laws, nothing more nor less than inductive

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support was needed. The rationalists Descartes and Amauld held that a priori knowledge of infallible certainty was possible for the same reason that Aristotle held that it was possible: there are in things forms that we know apodictically and that provide necessary connections among events in the world. And such knowledge was needed in the science they defended because only through a knowledge of essences and therefore of the necessary connections among things could one know which regularities were genuinely laws and which were not. The rationalists held that a priori first principles are needed and attainable because they retained certain central features of the Aristotelian framework. The rationalists did indeed reject the idea that syllogism revealed the onto­ logical structure of reality. They replaced syllogisms by geometry: the onto­ logic of the world was to be found in Euclid, the textbook of geometry, and in the textbooks of algebra rather than in the textbooks of the logicians. But from the perspective of the basic metaphysics, this was a detail, a disagreement within the ring: the rationalists in fact retained the basic structure of the traditional Aristotelian metaphysics. In particular, they retained the Aristotelian notion that science was, ideally, scientia in the Aristotelian sense, that is, in the sense that at its best science consists of demonstrations proceeding from self-evident propositions concerning the natures or essences of things. The rationalists gave up little more than some of the pretensions of the Aristotelians that demonstrative knowledge was available outside areas that could be treated mathematically, that is, the so-called 'high sciences' of astronomy, mechanics, optics, and music. 96 Thus, while the rationalists did agree with the empiricists on many criticisms of the Aristotelians, they did so on very different grounds: the empiricists held that demonstrative knowledge and scientia were impossible, and on this basis objected to Aristotelianism ; the rationalists held that such knowledge was possible, and objected only to claims by the Aristotelians to have obtained it in areas where they (the rationalists) held (reasonably, agree­ ing with the empiricists) that it was absent. We thus see that in the last analys is the rat ionalists did not rej ect Aristotelianism. If they objected to parts of the traditional method to science, they did not object to the basic claims concerning the ontological structure of the world - objective necessary connections do exist - and the consequent meth­ odological claim - the ideal of explanation is that of demonstration based on self-evident principles. The empiricists, in contrast, held that explanation did not require self-evident principles. This was the theory of Bacon and the prac­ tice of Newton. But this theory could not be sustained as long as there was no criticism of the traditional metaphysics with its ontology of necessary connections. So long as that went unchallenged, the traditional ideal shared by the Aristotelians and

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rationalists such as Descartes and Arnauld would remain as an alternative to the empiricist account of science. Bacon had stated the empiricist alternative to the tradition, but he had not articulated a metaphysics in opposition to the ra­ tionalist-Aristotelian metaphysics of necessary connections. It was Locke who would state the basic outlines of the empiricist metaphysics that would succeed in eliminating the rationalist account of the methodology of the new science. 97

Notes

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9

10 11 12 13 14

15

J. Weinberg, ' Induction, ' in his Abstraction, Relation and Induction (Madison : University of Wisconsin Press 1 965). Descartes, Discourse on Method, Optics, Geometry, and Meteorology, trans. P.J. Olscamp (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill 1 965), 4 1 . Descartes, Discourse, 50. Cf. G. Bergmann, Philosophy of Science (Madison : University of Wisconsin Press 1 958), chap. 2. Ibid. Cf. ibid., and Fred Wilson, Explanation, Causation and Deduction (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: D. Reidel 1 985). Since there are factual limitations on measurement, it is unreasonable to aim to overcome these. There may be other variables that do not affect the variables in which one is interested. E.g., in computing the positions and velocities of the planets, one can ignore the colours of those objects. Principles of Philosophy, trans. V.R. Miller and R.P. Miller (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: D. Reidel 1 983), bk III, -,i 47, p. 108. The curly brackets are used by Miller and Miller to indicate words that are in the French translation but not in the Latin, and for which they (Miller and Miller) believe that there is independent evidence that they reflect Descartes' s own view. Or rather, what we know since Einstein to be a good approximation to such knowledge. Cf. J.L. Mackie, 'Causes and Conditions, ' in E. Sosa, ed., Causation and Conditionals (London: Oxford University Press 1 975). Cf. Bergmann, Philosophy of Science, chap. 2. See also F. Wilson, Explanation, Causation and Deduction and Laws and Other Worlds (Dordrecht: Kluwer 1 986). See Wi lson, Explanation, Causation and Deduction, for a detailed defence of this point and discussion of many philosophers who fail to recognize it. Francis Bacon, New Organon, ed. with intro. F.H. Anderson (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril l 1 960), p. 20. Unless otherwise noted, references are to book and paragraph of the New Organon. Ibid.

The Rationalist Response to Aristotle in Descartes and Amauld 6 1 1 6 Ibid. 1 7 D. Hume, Treatise concerning Human Nature, ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford : Oxford University Press 1 888), bk I, pt iii, sec. 1 5 . 1 8 Cf. F . Wilson, Empiricism and Darwin 's Science (Dordrecht: Kluwer 1 99 1 ), 29ff. 1 9 Discourse, 34. 20 Ibid., 37. 2 1 Ibid., 3 7-8. 22 Ibid., 52. 23 For this tradition, see P. Reif, 'The Textbook Tradition in Natural Philosophy, 1 600- 1 650, ' Journal of the History of Ideas 30 ( 1 969), 1 7-32. Also L. Thorndyke, 'The Cursus Philosophicus before Descartes, ' Archive internationales d 'histoire des sciences 4 ( 1 95 1 ), 1 6--24. 24 I have benefited from reading Richard Sorabji, Necessity, Cause, and Blame (London: Duckworth 1 980). 25 G. Vlastos, 'Reasons and Causes in the Phaedo, ' Philosophical Review 78 ( 1 969), 29 1-325. 26 R.G. Turnbull, 'Aristotle's Debt to the "Natural Philosophy" of the Phaedo, ' Philosophical Quarterly 8 ( 1 963). 27 All quotations from Aristotle are from The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. R. McKeon (New York: Random House 1 94 1 ). 28 The textbook tradition held that 'science consists in certain, universal, and unchanging knowledge achieved through causal demonstration' (Reif, 'The Textbook Tradition, ' 21 ). 29 Again, for our purposes, the distinction between 'fonn' and · essence' is not important. 30 See Russell ' s lectures on 'The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, ' repr. in R.C. Marsh, ed., Logic and Knowledge (London : Al len & Unwin 1 956), 23 1 . 3 1 Cf. J. Hintikka, 'Necessity, Universality, and Time in Aristotle, ' in J. Barnes et al ., eds, Articles on Aristotle, vol . 3 (London : Duckworth 1 979), I 08-24; see p. 1 1 1 . 32 Hintikka, 'Necessity, ' 1 1 7-1 8. 33 Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, pt III. Cf. F. Wilson, 'Hume' s Defence of Causal Inference, ' Dialogue 22 ( 1 983 ), 66 1-94, and 'Hume's Defence of Science, ' Dialogue 25 ( 1 986), 6 1 1-28; also Laws and Other Worlds. 34 Cf. L.A. Kosman, 'Understanding, Explanation, and Insight in Aristotle' s Posterior Analytics, ' in H.N. Lee et al ., eds, Exegesis and Argument (Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum 1 973), 374-92 : 'If al l Ks being L could explain this K being L, then surely, on the same grounds, if it is puzzling that this K is L, the fact that all Ks are L would be equally puzzling' (375). This states the Aristotelian argument against explanation as understood by the covering-law model succinctly but correctly. It is, however, an inconclusive argument: for detail on this point, see Wilson, Laws and Other Worlds. 3 5 The textbook tradition insisted that the aim in natural philosophy is 'to attain

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36

37 38

39

40 41

42

43 44 45

Fred Wilson essential knowledge of natural bodies and their properties' (Reif, 'The Textbook Tradition, ' 2 1 ). Contrary to M. Hocutt, 'Aristotle's Four Becauses, ' Philosophy 49 ( 1 974), 385-99; see p. 3 89. Compare: 'The primary object of scientific understanding is a phenomenon which, as Aristotle claims, is necessary, for explanation is from the necessary and concerns that which could not be other than it is' (Kosman, ' Understanding, ' 3 77). Cf. B. Brody, 'Toward an Aristotelian Theory of Scientific Explanation, ' Philo­ sophy of Science 39 ( 1 972), 20-3 1 ; and Sorabji, Necessity, chap. 3 . 'Prima facie . . . understanding the why of something i s not understanding that thing, but some other thing, namely its cause, that which is responsible for it being the case. 'Any account of what leads Aristotle to identify understanding something and knowing its causes must begin with the defeat of that prima facie expectation. For it must understand "cause" to refer not to something other than the entity in question, but to the entity itself under that description which reveals certain of its kath auto predicates . . . The why in terms of which scientific understanding is defined is simply the nature of the phenomenon in question . . . The asking a why question is thus an attempt to understand more fully the nature of the phenomenon being explained' (Kosman, 'Understanding, ' 376). The textbook tradition often ended up trying 'to resolve their difficulties by resorting to such pseudo-explanations as "occult" qualities or simply "nature" ' (Reif, 'The Textbook Tradition, ' 2 1 ). A. Arnauld, On True and False Ideas, trans. E.J. Kremer (Queenston, Ont. : The Edwin Mellen Press 1 990), 4. There is a qualification that must be made here; this has to do with the case of unnatural or violent motion . But this is a qualification that we cannot go into here. For its importance, see F. Wilson, 'Explanation in Aristotle, Newton and Toulmin, ' Philosophy of Science 36 ( 1 969), 29 1-3 10 and 400-428. Cf. J.H. Lesher: 'This schema for the expansion of scientific knowledge, producing scientific syllogisms by interpolating the middle or causal factor until we have reached premises which no longer admit of further "packing", is well attested in Aristotle's writings and it brings out a feature of syllogistic reasoning which is sometimes neglected : that we employ and construct syllogisms on the way to first principles, as well as from them ' ('The Meaning of NOUS in the Posterior Analyt­ ics, ' Phronesis 1 8 [ 1 973], 56---7). Cf. Kosman, 'Understanding, ' 378. L . Bourgey, ' Observation and Experiment in Analogical Explanation,' in J . Barnes et al ., eds, Articles on Aristotle (London : Duckworth 1 975), 1 : 1 75-82; see p. 1 80. ' We said that to look for a causal explanation is to look for a description

The Rationalist Response to Aristotle in Descartes and Amauld 63

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

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appropriate to a subj ect such that the subject under that description is per se the predicate in question. Such a description Aristotle terms . . . the middle; it is a description which links subject and predicate both conceptually, as providing the intelligible source of explanation, and ontologically, as the real ground of the subject exhibiting the predicate' (Kosman, 'Understanding, ' 379). Cf. Wi lson, Explanation, Causation and Deduction and Laws and Other Worlds. Cf. F. Wilson, 'The Lockean Revolution in the Theory of Science, ' in S. Tweyman and G. Moyal, eds, Early Modern Philosophy (Delmar, NY: Caravan Books 1 986). Cf. Lesher: ' experience provides us with principles which we then endeavor to structure within syllogistic form ' ('The Meaning of NOUS, ' 58). Kosman, ' Understanding, ' 383 . See also J. Lesher: 'nous is not restricted to the grasp of first principles but exhibited whenever from a series of observations of particular cases we grasp the universal principle at work in each case' (52). W.D. Ross, Aristotle (New York: Meridian 1 900), 44. Sorabj i, Necessity, 200. Meditations, in Descartes: Philosophical Essays, trans. L.J. Lafleur (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill 1 964), 87-9 1 . Descartes, Rules for the Direction of the Mind, in Descartes: Philosophical Essays, 1 63 . Ibid. , Rule II, 1 50. Ibid., 3 1 9. Ibid. Ibid., 1 84. A. Arnauld, The Art of Thinking, trans. J. Dickoff and P. James (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill 1 974), 24, 1 67-8; unless otherwise noted, references to the Port-Royal Logic will be to this translation. Ibid. , 1 67. Unless otherwise noted, references are to Isaac Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, trans. Andrew Motte, 1 729, rev. Florian Cajori (Berkeley : University of California Press I 947). I shall ignore the necessary qual ification that must be made since Einstein. Cf. J. Herival, 'Newton ' s Achievement in Dynamics, ' Texas Quarterly 1 0 ( 1 967), I 03-1 8; I.B. Cohen, 'Newton ' s Second Law and the Concept of Force in the Principia, ' Texas Quarterly 10 ( 1 967), 1 27-57; and R.S. Westfall, Force in Newton 's Physics (New York : Ameri can Elsevier 1971 ). Newton 's actual inference is in fact more complicated than this, and still more impressive. He recognizes that Kepler' s laws are not exactly true, and that deviations from them are caused by the fact that the objects in the solar system do not form a two-body system but rather (as he thought) a seven-body system (see book III, proposition III, and the scholium to proposition XIV). Thus, we must

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take into account not only the gravitational forces between a planet and the sun, but also the forces of other planets that act on the one in which we are interested. Thus, in calculating the orbit of Mars one needs to take into account not only the gravitational force of the sun but also that of Jupiter. When we move from two­ body systems to these more complicated ones, then the mathematics becomes more complex. But Newton is able to show not that there is exactly one hypothesis about forces that is true, namely the gravitational, but only the somewhat weaker conclusion that the true hypothesis is in a very narrow interval around the gravitational hypothesis. The eliminative methods are at work again, but this time the mathematics does not allow Newton to conclude on the basis of the data that exactly one hypothesis is true. He can conclude only that the true hypothesis is in a certain very narrow range; sufficiently narrow that one can for all practical purposes assume that the force function is the one that is at the centre of the range, namely the gravitational. In any case, for our purposes the major point is that the method that Newton is using, for all its mathematical sophistication, is in its logic that of eliminative induction. Cf. W . Dray, Laws and Explanation in History (London: Oxford University Press 1 957). Cf. the discussion of 'narrative explanations' in T.A. Goudge, The Ascent of Life (Toronto : University of Toronto Press 1 96 1 ), and in Wilson, Empiricism and Darwin 's Science. Cf. Wilson, Laws and Other Worlds. Port-Royal Logic, 320. Ibid., 321 . Ibid., 322. Discourse, trans. Olscamp, 1 6. Arnauld, The Art of Thinking, 1 75; Descartes, Rules, 1 50f. Port-Royal Logic, 302ff. ; Descartes, Discourse, 1 2, and Rules, 1 60. Descartes, Rules, 1 50. Port-Royal Logic, 324. Ibid., 3 1 8. Cf. J. Yolton, Perceptual Acquaintance from Descartes to Reid (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1 984); T. Lennon, 'The Inherence Pattern and Descartes' Ideas, ' Journal of the History of Philosophy 1 2 ( 1 974), 43-52; and Monte Cook, ' Descartes' Alleged Representationalism, ' History of Philosophy Quarterly 4 ( 1 987), 1 79-85. See Arnauld, On True and False Ideas. For discussion of Arnauld, see S. Nadler, Arnauld and the Cartesian Philosophy of Ideas (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1 989). Descartes, Meditations, 9 1 .

The Rationalist Response to Aristotle in Descartes and Amauld 65 79 The Philosophical Works of Descartes, trans. J . Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1 985), 2 : 1 32. 80 Cf. Amauld, On True and False Ideas : 'When I attack representative beings as superfluous, I am referring to those which are assumed to be really distinct from ideas taken in the sense of perceptions. I am careful not to attack every kind of representative being or modality, since I hold that it is clear to whoever reflects on what takes place in his own mind, that all our perceptions are modal ities which are essentially representative' (20). 8 1 Ibid., 25. 82 Ibid., 1 9. 83 Ibid. 84 Meditations, 68. 85 On True and False Ideas, 26. 86 Cottingham et al., 2 : 1 1 3 . 8 7 See Meditations, III, 97ff. 88 Cottingham et al., 2:74. 89 Meditations, 98. 90 Ibid., 1 00. 9 1 Cottingham et al., 2:75. 92 Amauld, On True and False Ideas, 20. 93 Whether this constitutes 'direct realism, ' as Nadler (Arnauld and the Cartesian Way of Ideas) suggests, is a further issue, probably not worth pursuing in depth. 94 See S. Gaukroger, 'Introduction ' to his translation of A. Arnauld, On True and False Ideas (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1 990). 95 Cf. John Sergeant, Solid Philosophy Asserted against the Fancies of the /deists (London, 1 696) . Cf. F. Wilson, 'The Lockean Revolution. ' 96 For the distinction between 'high ' and ' low' sciences, see Ian Hacking, The Emergence of Probability (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1 975), 3 5 . 9 7 Cf. Wilson, 'The Lockean Revolution. '

PART TWO Arnauld and Malebranche: The Controversy over the Nature of Ideas

3 Malebranche and Arnauld: The Argument for Ideas M O N T E C OO K

In 1 674 Nicolas Malebranche published his Search After Truth, and in 1 683 Antoine Amauld responded with On True and False Ideas. The long contro­ versy that followed was primarily over the nature of ideas. As the disagreement is typically described nowadays, Malebranche believed that ideas were the im­ mediate objects of perception and were located in God; while Arnauld, chal­ lenging the need for representative beings distinct from perceptions, believed that ideas were the acts of perception themselves and as such were modifica­ tions of the perceiver's mind. We have Malebranche's and Arnauld's characterizations of their disagree­ ment and the arguments that each gives for his theory, but keeping clear on a distinction that they tend to blur gives us a better grasp of their disagreement and uncovers a deeper source for it. By their broad use of 'perception,' and to some extent in their positions, Malebranche and Arnauld tend to blur the dis­ tinction between thinking and sense perception. But if we keep these separate, we can see that although Malebranche and Amauld themselves characterize the disagreement as concerning the role of ideas in perception, and often talk as though sense perception were at issue, their disagreement is better character­ ized as concerning the role of ideas in thought. Moreover, when we examine how each introduces ideas, we discover that when Malebranche introduces ideas he tends to have seeing in mind, and when Amauld introduces them he tends to have thinking in mind. This difference gives some insight into how they are led to their different theories of ideas. 1. Thinking and Perceiving

The focal point of Arnauld's criticism was Malebranche's theory of ideas - that

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is, Malebranche' s theory that we see all things in God. But just what is this a theory of? Malebranche offers the theory as - and Arnau!d understands it as - a theory of 'perception, ' but one must be careful about what this means. Malebranche does not necessarily or even primarily mean by 'perception' sense perception. Like Descartes before him, he uses 'perception ' to cover a broad range of mental states. For Descartes, the broadest term for mental states is 'thought' (see CSM, 1 : 1 95 ; AT, 8A :7 - cf. CSM, 2 : 1 1 3 ; AT, 7: 1 60). 1 Under this broad heading, Descartes distinguishes perceptions of the intellect from operations of the will, where 'perceptions of the intellect' covers sense perception, imagination, and pure understanding: ' All the modes of thinking that we experience within our­ selves can be brought under two general headings: perception, or the operation of the intellect, and volition, or the operation of the will. Sensory perception, imagination and pure understanding are simply various modes of perception; desire, aversion, assertion, denial and doubt are various modes of willing' (CSM, 1 :204; AT, 8A: 1 7). 2 Malebranche makes the same distinctions, the main differ­ ence being that from the beginning he explicitly l inks perceiving with receiving ideas. Malebranche distinguishes two faculties of the m ind, the understanding and the will; and he explains that the understanding is the faculty 'of receiving various ideas, that is, of perceiving various things' (LO, 2; M, 1 :4 1 ). ' [I]t is the understanding that perceives or that knows, since only it receives ideas of ob­ jects; for it is the same thing for the soul to perceive an object as to receive the idea that represents the object' (LO, 3; M, 1 :43). Like Descartes, Malebranche thinks that the mind or understanding has three ways of perceiving things: sense, imagination, and pure mind or pure understanding (cf. LO, 1 6--1 7, 79, 26 1 ; M, 1 :66-7, 1 77, 488). It is m isleading, then, to characterize Malebranche's theory of ideas as a theory of perception, since such a characterization suggests that the theory deals just with sense perception, when in fact it deals with sense perception, imagina­ tion, and pure understanding. And such a characterization is all the more dan­ gerous since Malebranche often talks as though he were presenting a theory of sense perception: thus he talks about seeing all things in God, and he appeals to features (or alleged features) of seeing to argue for ideas. More important, it is misleading to characterize Malebranche' s theory of ideas as a theory of perception since Malebranche is not really very much concerned with sense perception . Though the theory treats all three of sense perception, imagination, and pure understanding, Malebranche is mainly interested in of­ fering a theory of a preferred sort of perception, namely perception of pure understanding. In this respect, Malebranche is pursuing the project of Descartes. Descartes, of course, wants to single out a preferred sort of perception, clear

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and distinct perception, as the source of knowledge. This preferred sort of perception is not sense perception - Descartes wants to teach readers of the Meditations to liberate themselves from their senses - but perception of the pure understanding. 3 Malebranche similarly fastens on perception of pure understanding, with the difference that while Descartes's interest is primarily epistemological, Malebranche' s is primarily ontological.4 Descartes wants to teach his readers how to gain knowledge by having clear and distinct perceptions. Malebranche, in contrast, wants to offer an ontological analysis of such perceptions - to tell his readers what happens when one clearly and distinctly perceives something. Since Malebranche does not examine pure understanding until Book Three of the Search, he does not officially discuss his theory of ideas until then. Though, as we saw, he tells us early on in the Search that the understanding is the faculty 'of receiving various ideas, that is, of perceiving various things, ' in his charac­ terization of the three ways that the soul has of perceiving things in Book One of the Search, with one trivial exception, he says nothing about ideas. Instead, he distinguishes the three ways of perceiving things by the differences in their objects and by what role, if any, the brain plays in each. (See LO, 16-17; M, 1 :66-7.) Only when he turns to the examination of pure understanding will he tell us the nature of ideas and how in understanding we 'receive' them. Only then can he distinguish the different ways of perceiving things by whether the ideas they involve are 'mixed with sensations, ' 'mixed with images, ' or 'entirely pure ... with no admixture of sensations or images' (LO, 26 1; M, 1 :488). To appreciate the controversy over vision in God, then, we need to under­ stand what Descartes and Malebranche mean by pure understanding. I have suggested that what Descartes and Malebranche mean by perceptions of the pure understanding is basically what Descartes means by clear and distinct perceptions. As we shall see, however, this is not entirely accurate. The most explicit statements that Descartes and Malebranche make about pure understanding, unfortunately, are not very helpful. Descartes says that pure understanding is 'understanding which is not concerned with any corporeal images' (CSM, I :307; AT, 8B: 363 ; cf. CSM, 2 :265 ; AT, 7 : 387), and that "the brain cannot in any way be employed in pure understanding, but only in imagining or perceiving by the senses' (CSM, 2:248; AT, 7:3 58). Similarly, Malebranche says that certain sorts of perceptions 'are called pure inte/lections, or pure perceptions, because the mind need not form corporeal images in the brain' (LO, 16-1 7; M, I :66; cf. LO, 203 ; M, l :39 1 ).5 These characterizations tel l us that operations of the pure understanding, unlike those of sense percep­ tion and imagination, are not accompanied by brain images; but they leave it unclear exactly what sorts of mental activities count as perceptions of the pure

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understanding. Besides these characterizations of pure understanding, both Descartes and Malebranche provide more phenomenological characterizations. In the Sixth Meditation, in addition to characterizing pure understanding in terms of the absence of brain images, Descartes says that imagination ' requires a peculiar effort of mind which is not required for understanding' and says that 'this additional effort of mind clearly shows the difference between imagination and pure understanding' (CSM, 2: 5 1; AT, 7:72-3). And after presenting his theory of vision in God, Malebranche explains: ' I call it [the mind] pure mind, or pure understanding, when it receives from God entirely pure ideas of the truth, with no admixture of sensations or images' (LO, 26 1; M, I :488). Unfor­ tunately, though these more phenomenological characterizations again stress that the pure understanding is to be distinguished from sense perception and imagination, they still leave it unclear exactly what sorts of mental activities count as perceptions of the pure understanding. In light of the division of the faculties of the mind into will and understand­ ing and the subsequent division of perceptions of the understanding into sense perception, imagination, and pure understanding, it is natural to take perceiv­ ing something by the pure understanding to be something like simply thinking about it without seeing or imagining it. And indeed, there is a great deal of textual support for identifying perceiving something by the pure understanding with thinking about it. Thus, when at the beginning of the Sixth Meditation Descartes examines the difference between imagination and pure understand­ ing, he illustrates the difference by contrasting imagining a triangle with think­ ing about a chiliagon. Similarly, Malebranche' s category of perceptions of pure understanding seems initially designed to cover thinking about things that can­ not be perceived by sense or imagined (see LO, 16; M, I :66). Later Malebranche is willing to allow some of the things perceived by the pure understanding to be perceivable by sense and imaginable as well, but he still seems to equate per­ ceiving by pure understanding with thinking. Thus, in Book Four of the Search he contrasts his seeing a sensible extension with the perception by pure intellec­ tion that he has when he thinks of the extension with his eyes closed (LO, 322; M, 2: I 02). Finally, at the beginning of Book Five of the Search Malebranche indicates that vision in God - his analysis of pure understanding - is an expla­ nation of how thought is possible: ' The mind of man has two necessary or es­ sential relations, which are quite different from one another: the one to God, the other to its body. As a pure spirit fpur esprit], it is essentially joined to the Word of God, to eternal truth and wisdom, i.e., to sovereign reason, for only through this union is it capable of thought, as we have seen in the third book' (LO, 337; M, 2: 126; cf. LO, 6 16; M, 3 : 13 3--4). 6 Admittedly, most of the time when Descartes and Malebranche talk about perceptions of the pure understanding they have in mind not simply thinking,

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but ' correct' thinking - our perceiving truths by thought. 7 As Malebranche says, ' I call it [the mind] pure mind, or pure understanding, when it receives from God entirely pure ideas of the truth' (LO, 261; M, 1:488; cf. D, 37-9; M, 12 :44-6). Malebranche begins the crucial chapter of the Search in which he concludes that we see all things in God by noting that vision in God alone shows 'the dependence that minds have on God in all their thoughts' (LO, 230; M, 1 :437). Shortly thereafter, however, we discover that vision in God does not just enable us to think, it gives us knowledge. Vision in God explains how we gain knowledge of things by seeing the ideas that God has used in creation (LO, 230-2; M, 1:437--41 ). And when, in Elucidation Ten, Malebranche seeks to clarify what he has said about vision in God, he makes it clear that this theory is supposed to explain how truths are seen in God - how it is that God enlightens us (LO, 612; M, 3 :127 ; cf. LO, 617-18, 621; M, 3 :136, 141-2). When Malebranche discusses various ways of seeing things and hits upon vision in God, however, though he is particularly interested in thoughts that give us knowledge, he is basically presenting an analysis of thought. 8 This needs to be emphasized because Malebranche and Amauld generally cast the dispute as being about the role of ideas in perception. Malebranche argues that we see all things in God, and Amauld disputes the need for representative entities distinct from perceptions. As a result, commentators generally describe the con­ troversy as being about the role of ideas in our perception of the physical world. More generally, they describe it as being about representationalism, where 'rep­ resentationalism' means the representative theory of perception, according to which one mediately perceives external objects by immediately perceiving ideas. The controversy is better understood, however, as being about the proper analy­ sis of thought. According to Malebranche, when one thinks of a square, one 'sees' an idea of a square in God. The idea is the immediate object of the thought. According to Arnau Id, in contrast, when one thinks of a square, one's thought of a square is an idea of a square. To talk about the thought of the square and to talk about the idea of the square are to talk about the same thing with different emphasis. ' The thought of the square' emphasizes that this thing is a modifica­ tion of the mind; 'the idea of the square' emphasizes that it is directed towards some object. The idea is not the object of the thought; it is the act of thought itself. Whereas Malebranche explains how thoughts are ofby giving them ideas as (immediate) objects, Amauld denies that we can explain how thoughts are of in terms of anything else. Thoughts are of in a way that is sui generis; and we can characterize this feature - though not explain it - by calling thoughts ideas. Fortunately, says Amauld, while we cannot explain this feature in terms of anything more basic, its nature is obvious to anyone who consults his own experience. 9 Whatever one thinks of Amauld's view, Malebranche's view is on the face of

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it implausible: thinking seems not to be seeing of any sort; when one thinks of something, one does not thereby see some object. In fact, thinking differs from seeing precisely in the felt need to postulate a special object for seeing but not for thought. We can see the difference in terms of a technical distinction be­ tween contents and objects. Both seeing and thinking seem to require a content: it is commonly claimed both that one cannot see without seeing something and that one cannot think without thinking of something. But to say that they re­ quire a content is just to say that they are intentional - that they are directed towards something. It is not to say that they require an (existent) object. One can think of the fountain of youth, and one's thought has a content (the fountain of youth) but no object (because there is no fountain of youth). For reasons not entirely clear, however, there is a strong temptation to say that, unlike thinking, seeing always requires not just a content but an object as well. Obviously one can see things that do not exist just as much as one can think of them, but in cases of hallucination and dreaming there is a temptation, missing for thought (or at least much less strong), to say that there must be some object present, a sense datum or something. It is unclear why this temptation is so strong for sense perception: it may be because of the use of ' see' as a so-called achieve­ ment verb (according to which one cannot see an oasis if there is no oasis there to be seen); it may be because what we see is not under our control in the way in which what we think of is; it may somehow result from the influence of a scien­ tific picture of sense perception; or it may result from something else. Whatever the reason, the temptation is clearly there, and philosophers have often felt it. 2. Malebranche's Introduction of Ideas In what follows, I want to argue that when Malebranche introduces ideas he tends to do so with arguments that draw on features peculiar to sense percep­ tion. As we shall see, from the very beginning in the Search he uses sense perception to introduce ideas, with arguments that would be implausible were they stated in terms of thought; whereas in the Dialogues he starts out with thought but in the end must shift to sense perception to complete his argument for ideas. Though he presents arguments that purport to show that sense percep­ tion requires the existence of ideas, then, he tends not to present independent arguments that would show that thought requires ideas as well. Instead, he tends simply to assume that thought is like sense perception. One of the better-known passages in the Search is the stroll-about-the­ heavens passage: I think everyone agrees that we do not perceive objects external to us by them­ selves. We see the sun, the stars, and an infinity of objects external to us; and it is

Malebranche and Arnauld: The Argument for Ideas 7 5 not likely that the soul should leave the body to stroll about the heavens, as it were, in order to behold all these objects. Thus, it does not see them by themselves, and our mind's immediate object when it sees the sun, for example, is not the sun, but something that is intimately joined to our soul, and this is what I call an idea. Thus, by the word idea, I mean here nothing other than the immediate object, or the object closest to the mind, when it perceives something, i.e., that which affects and modifies the mind with the perception it has of an object. (LO, 2 1 7; M, 1 :4 1 3-1 4; cf. LO, 67-8; M, 1 : 1 56)

When Malebranche introduces ideas in this passage, he clearly has sense per­ ception in mind. He reasons that since external objects are at a distance from us, we cannot see them without some intermediary to which our souls are 'inti­ mately joined.' In saying that such intermediaries must be 'intimately joined' to the soul, Malebranche is stressing two requirements for perception: some ob­ ject must be locally present,10 and this object must causally affect the mind (see the last clause of the above passage). 1 1 He does not argue that these are require­ ments for thought; and though both have some plausibility for sense perception, neither has much plausibility for thought. 1 2 For us to think of 'the sun, the stars, and an infinity of objects external to us' there seems no need for us to be in the vicinity of either these objects or intermediaries for them, nor is there any obvi­ ous need for these objects or their intermediaries to causally affect the mind. 1 3 Immediately following this passage, Malebranche uses cases in which there is no external object to be seen to argue for ideas. He wants to insist that al­ though there may be no external thing corresponding to the idea, there must the idea: 1 4 it often happens that we perceive things that do not exist, and that even have never ex isted - thus our mind often has real ideas of things that have never existed. When, for example, a man imagines a golden mountain, it is absolutely necessary that the idea of this mountain really be present to his mind. When a madman or someone asleep or in a high fever sees some animal before his eyes, it is certain that what he sees is not nothing, and that therefore the idea of this animal really does exist, though the golden mountain and animal have never existed. (LO, 2 1 7; M, 1 :4 1 4)

Here again, Malebranche has sense perception in mind. He takes three kinds of cases, imagining, hallucinating (by the madman or the person with a high fe­ ver), and dreaming, and argues that in these cases what one sees is not nothing, and that therefore there must be ideas present to one's mind. Hallucinating and dreaming, of course, are classic cases of existential perceptual illusion and have often been used to argue for special objects of experience. 1 5 Imagining is not

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usual ly used for this purpose, but in this passage Malebranche seems to assimilate imagining to dreaming and hallucinating. 1 6 As with the earlier strol l­ about-the-heavens passage, Malebranche's reasoning loses its plausibility if we restate it in terms of thought. Philosophers have found it much less tempting to suppose that when a person thinks of something what he thinks of must exist. It is experience, even when hallucinatory, that has seemed to demand an object. 1 7 Malebranche's initial arguments for ideas in the Search, then, are cast in terms of sense perception. The one argument not in terms of sense perception comes after his discussion of imagination, hallucination, and dreaming. Malebranche clearly has sense perception in mind when he comments on how people ordinarily judge that only corporeal objects exist and that ideas are noth­ ing, but his response to this makes no mention of sense perception: 'as if ideas did not have a great number of properties, as if the idea of a square, for example, were not different from that of a circle or a number, and did not represent com­ pletely different things, which can never be the case for nonbeing, since nonbeing has no properties' (LO, 218; M, 1:4 14- 15). Though I shall later discuss how reasoning very much like this plays a central role in twentieth-century argu­ ments for sense data, this passage itself does not, explicitly at least, draw on features of sense perception. Unfortunately, the argument is stated in a very abbreviated form. Fortunately, a longer discussion of it occurs in the Dialogues, and I shall discuss the version that occurs there. Unlike his initial arguments for ideas in the Search, Malebranche's argu­ ments for them in the Dialogues at least begin by talking about thought. Never­ theless, as we shall see, these arguments also depend upon his drawing on sense perception. Malebranche's overall argument for ideas in the Dialogues can be divided into two stages� and although in the first stage Malebranche does not draw on sense perception, in the second one he does. The first stage, in which Malebranche argues for the implausible conclusion that whatever one thinks of exists, is introduced in the following passage: I think of many things: of a number, of a circle, of a house, of certain particular beings, of being. Now al l this exists, at least at the time I think of it. Certainly, when I think of a circle, of a number, or being or the infinite, of a certain finite being, I perceive real ities. For, if the circle I perceive were nothing, thinking of it I would be thinking of nothin g . Thus, at the same time I would be thinking and I would not be thinking. Now, the circle I perceive has properties which no other shape has. Hence, the circle exists at the time I think of it, since nothing has no properties and one nothing cannot differ from some other nothing. (D, 29: M, 12 : 3 5 )

Though Malebranche does not mention ideas in this passage, he has made a

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decisive step in his argument for them, since they will provide the objects that must exist for thought to be possible. Malebranche presents two arguments in this passage, and though he talks about perceiving throughout the passage, he clearly cannot have sense percep­ tion in mind. Denuded of any such talk about perceiving, Malebranche's first argument can be restated: to think of something that does not exist is to think of nothing; to think of nothing is not to think at all; so what one thinks of must exist at the time one thinks of it. 1 8 Malebranche's second argument (in the last two sentences of the passage) can be similarly restated : what one thinks of has distinguishing properties; what lacks existence has no properties, much less distinguishing ones; so what one thinks of must exist at the time one thinks of it. (Or, simplified a little: what one thinks of has properties; what lacks exist­ ence cannot have properties; so what one thinks of must exist.) The conclusion of this first stage of the argument is strikingly implausible. Nor does either argument make the conclusion any more plausible. The first argument seems simply to mistake the necessity of a thought's having a content for the necessity of its having an existent object. The second argument, which proceeds from the presence of properties to the existence of something that has them, would be plausible if it was evident that the properties really were present in the appropriate way; but Malebranche does not make this evident. Malebranche does not back down from either the conclusion that what one thinks of must exist or the arguments for it. He does, however, recognize the apparent implausibility of this conclusion and tries to explain it away by appeal­ ing to a distinction between what we see (ideas) and what we think we see (corporeal objects). The desk that we see must indeed exist, at least during the time that we see it; but this desk is not to be confused with the corporeal desk, which we do not see. We think that we can see what does not exist only because we think that we see corporeal objects and we know that in some cases the corporeal objects do not exist. (See D, 29 ; M, 12:36.) When he offers this explanation of our reluctance to adm it that what we think of must exist, Malebranche has yet to argue for the distinction between the ideas that we see and the corporeal objects that we do not see. Before turning to his arguments for this distinction, we should note Malebranche's shift from talking about thought to talking about seeing, a shift that seems indispensable to his reasoning. Supposedly he is explaining away the apparent implausibility of the view that what one thinks of must exist. But he talks instead about seeing and explains away the apparent implausibility of the view that what one sees must exist. He maintains that we believe that we can see things that do not exist only because we confuse what we see with corporeal objects that we do not see. If his explanation is to carry over to thinking, he needs to maintain that we believe that we can think of things that do not exist only because we confuse what we

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think of with corporeal objects that we do not think of. But not only does he fail to develop a distinction between what we think of and what we believe that we think of, it is unclear how he could. Moreover, there is no reason to believe that he wants to develop such a distinction. He is quite explicit that we do not see corporeal objects, but nothing in his explanation suggests that we cannot think of them. 1 9 The first stage of Malebranche's overall argument fo r ideas was t o argue that whatever one thinks of must exist. The second stage is supposed to argue that what one thinks of are not corporeal objects but ideas. One might expect, then, that Malebranche would argue in terms of thoughts that have no corresponding corporeal objects. In fact, however, Malebranche presents two arguments that seek to convince us that we see ideas rather than corporeal objects by consider­ ing a case in which God annihilates the physical world yet causes us to see all the same things. 20 In the first argument, Malebranche simply argues that in such a case, since we see all the same things yet no relevant physical objects exist to be seen, what we see must be ideas. (To argue his point, Malebranche also uses a possible case of a person in China having his brain stimulated to see all that we see, as well as actual cases of hallucinations and dreams. See D, 3 1-3 ; M, 12:38-9.) The second argument, somewhat more complicated, differs in that it employs the premiss that what lacks existence cannot have properties: Nothing has no properties. Hence, if the world were destroyed, it would have no beauty. Now, on the supposition that the world was annihilated and that God none­ theless produced the same traces in our brains or, rather, presented the same ideas to our minds which are produced in the presence of objects, we should see the same beauties. Hence, the beauties we see are not material beauties but intelligible beau­ ties rendered sensible as a consequence of laws of the union of soul and body ; for the supposed annihilation of matter does not carry with it the annihilation of the beauties we see when we look at the objects surrounding us. (D, 3 1 ; M, 1 2 :38)

In the annihilation case we see the same beauty, but the beauty cannot be a property of the physical world (since nothing has no properties), so it must be a property of the intelligible world - that is, the world of ideas. Hence what we see must be ideas. 2 1 Those familiar with the sense-data literature several decades ago will recognize the similarity of Malebranche's arguments to arguments from cases of perceptual illusion for sense data. Both of Malebranche' s arguments involve existential perceptual illusion (one sees something but there is no physical object there to be seen), and existential perceptual illusion was often used to

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argue for sense data. 22 Moreover, Malebranche' s second argument - with its premiss that nothing has no properties - resembles arguments for sense data from qualitative perceptual illusion. In cases of qualitative perceptual illusion, it was argued, though no appropriate physical object has the illusory property that we see, we still see the property, and something must have this property. Thus, suppose we see a penny from an angle that makes it look elliptical. In this case, so the argument for sense data goes, one is acquainted with an elliptical shape; but there cannot, in experience, be a property like ellipticality without something that has this property; so there must be something that is elliptical. This something, which cannot be the penny since that is not elliptical, is sup­ posed to be a sense datum. 23 Now, of course, part of what gave arguments for qualitative perceptual illu­ sion their persuasiveness was the conviction that there actually was a property present to the mind in sense experience; it was the presence of this property in experience that required a sense datum to have the property. The argument was for sense data, not for thought data. Comparing Malebranche's argument with the sense-data argument, we can see that dropping the talk of seeing deprives Malebranche's argument of its strength. If one does indeed see properties, then it is tempting to conclude that since the properties are present there must be something that has them. If, however, one simply thinks of something as having properties, it is much less tempting to believe that the properties are present and thus much less tempting to conclude that there must be something to have them. 24 3. Arnauld's Introduction of Ideas I have argued that when Malebranche introduces ideas he is thinking primarily of sense perception. I want now to argue that when Amauld introduces them he is thinking primarily of thought. 25 Malebranche and Amauld differ crucially in the need they feel to argue for the existence of ideas. Though Malebranche sometimes sounds as though he believes no argument is necessary (' everyone agrees that we do not perceive objects external to us by themselves'), he does believe that he needs to argue for the existence of ideas. He comments on how our preoccupation with corporeal objects leads us to overlook the reality of ideas (see LO, 2 17- 18; M, 1 :414; D, 29; M, 12 :36), and he offers several arguments for their existence. Amauld, in contrast, does not believe that he needs to argue for the existence of ideas. In the crucial chapter 5 of On True and False Ideas (in which Amauld proves the falsity of Malebranche's theory of ideas geometrically) Amauld defines 'idea,' but provides nothing that would count as an argument for the existence of ideas: '3 . I also take the idea of an object and the perception of an object to be the same

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thing. I set aside the question of whether there are other things which can be called ideas. But it is certain that there are ideas in my sense and that these ideas are attributes or modifications of our soul' (K, 1 9; A, 1 98). To Malebranche's complaint that he has simply supposed what needs to be proved, Arnauld re­ sponds that asking for a proof that our perceptions are essential ly representative - which is what he is stressing by calling them ideas - is like asking for a proof that the whole is greater than its part. These are the sorts of things that any reasonable man recognizes if he pays a little attention. They do not need proof; all one can do is try to clarify them (A, Defense, 3 8 : 38 1 -3; cf . A, Quatre lettres, 4 1 : 83-4). We need to look, then, at how Arnauld clarifies the notion of idea. In the definition cited above, and throughout his controversy with Malebranche, Arnauld expresses his view by saying that ideas are identical with perceptions. An obvi­ ous question, then, is what Arnauld means by 'perception.' I shall argue that for Arnauld this means the same thing as 'thought' and that he is not drawing on features of sense perception to introduce ideas. But let us first look at two places where Arnauld introduces ideas without this talk about perception and where he is clearly taking ideas to be identical with thoughts. In Logic, or the Art of Thinking, first published in 1 662, Arnauld expresses views that will be present in the 1 683 On True and False Ideas. Early on in Logic, he introduces the notion of conceiving and then tells us that the form by which we represent to ourselves the things that we conceive is called an idea (A, 4 1 : 1 25). Shortly thereafter, he indicates that the nature of ideas is abundantly clear - so clear that it cannot be explained by other notions. He sees no need to argue for the existence of ideas, but only to warn us against mistakenly restrict­ ing the notion of idea to a single way of conceiving things - that of imagining them by applying our mind to images received from the senses that are painted in our brain (A, 4 1 : 1 27-9).26 He ends his discussion of this mistake by saying: ' When therefore we speak of Ideas, we are not at all using this name for images that are painted in the fantasy, but for everything that is in our mind when we can say with truth that we conceive a thing, in whatever manner we conceive it' {A, 4 1 : 1 29). A careful look at the beginning chapters of On True and False Ideas reveals that there as well the notion of perception plays no special role and that Arnauld is taking ideas to be thoughts. After a brief introduction indicating that Arnauld will be concerned with Malebranche's theory of ideas, the first two chapters are general and say nothing about Malebranche. In the second chapter of the work, Arnauld declares: 'Therefore, since it is clear that I think, it is also clear that I think of something, that is, that I know and that I perceive something, because thought is essentially thus. So, since there can be no thought or knowledge

Malebranche and Amauld: The Argument for Ideas 8 1 without an object known, I can no more ask what is the reason why I think of something, than why I think, since it is impossible to think without thinking of something' (K, 6 - modified; A, 184). 27 Amauld is making a general point about thought: thought must be directed towards some object - to think is to think of something. 28 The passage talks just about thoughts and says nothing about ideas, but in chapter 3 we discover that Amauld has introduced ideas with this pas­ sage. There Amauld complains that Malebranche is inconsistent: after saying the sort of thing that Amauld has just said in chapter 2 and speaking of ideas in the true sense in which they are simply thoughts, Malebranche contradicts him­ self and speaks of ideas in a false sense that distinguishes them from both thoughts and their objects. Though in the discussion in chapter 3 Amauld generally (though not �lways) uses Malebranche' s language and talks of ideas and perceptions in characterizing the two views of ideas, his reference to chapter 2 shows that the notion of perceiving is playing no important role in his introduction of ideas. When in chapter 5 of On True and False Ideas Amauld gives his official definition of 'idea, ' he gives it as part of a cluster of definitions of the related notions of idea, perception, presence to the mind, and being objectively in the mind. These notions, it turns out, give different ways of saying the same thing, differing only in emphasis. To have an idea ofthe sun is to have a perception of the sun which is to have the sun present to the mind which is for the sun to be objectively in the mind. When we look closely at Amauld' s definitions, we see that he has thought rather than sense perception in mind. This is first suggested in the one example of presence that he provides: a person that we love is often present to our minds because we think of him often (K, 19; A, 1 98). Amauld's explanation of the important notion of being objectively in the mind makes it completely clear that when he introduces ideas he means thought. Ideas are perceptions, but we have two words, 'idea' and 'perception,' to stress different features: the word 'perception' stresses that the idea-perception is a modifica­ tion of the mind; the word 'idea' stresses that it is the object so far as that object is objectively in the mind. To explain what it is for something to be objectively in the mind, Amauld appeals to thought: 'I say that a thing is objectively in my mind when I conceive of it. When I conceive of the sun, of a square or of a sound, then the sun, the square or that sound is objectively in my mind whether or not it exists outside of my mind' (K, 1 9-20; A, 1 98). A few paragraphs later, Amauld tells us not to confuse the idea of an object with the object conceived, unless we add to this last 'so far as it is objectively in the mind. ' The following discussion (which obviously draws quite heavily from Descartes's explanation of 'objective existence' at the beginning of the First Set of Replies) is cast entirely in terms of thought and conception (cf. K, 20-1 ; A, 1 99-200, and CSM, 2: 74-5; AT, 7: 102-3).

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A look at how Arnauld defi nes 'perception' and what he says about knowledge reveals how broadly he· understands these notions. He tells us that he understands by perception everything that his mind conceives, whether by the first apprehension that he has of things, by the judgments that he makes of them, or by what he discovers in reasoning (K, 20-1 ; A, 1 99). His notion of knowledge is similarly broad: 'I am sure that I know bodies even though I could doubt whether there are any which exist, for it suffices that I know them as possible. Should I know a body as existing, though it did not exist, I would be mistaken, but it would be no less true that this body was objectively in my mind even though it did not exist outside my mind, and so I would know it, according to the fourth definition'29 (K, 23 ; A, 202). Thus, when Amauld tells us that thought, knowledge, and perception are the same thing (K, 1 7; A, 1 98), 3 0 he is not assimilating thought to perception and knowledge, he is assimilating per­ ception and knowledge to thought. Finally, in the Defense Amauld introduces ideas as thoughts. After saying that there is no need to prove that our perceptions are essentially representative (that is, that they are ideas), Amauld indicates that he need only clarify two things for Malebranche: how our perceptions are modifications of our souls and how they are representatives of their objects. His approach is to explain how thoughts (for example, the thought of a number or a square) are modifications of our souls and to explain how to think of nothing is not to think at all - that is, how every thought has an object. His last step is to explain that since to think of a square and to perceive a square are the same thing, he has clarified how he can identify ideas and perceptions (A, 38: 383-4). To sum up: when Malebranche introduces ideas, though he introduces them primarily for thought, he tends to have sense perception in mind, and this leads him to claim that ideas are distinct from thoughts and are their immediate ob­ jects. When Amauld introduces ideas, in contrast, he has thought rather than sense perception in mind, and this leads· him to deny that ideas are distinct from thoughts. 3 1 Notes I use the following abbreviations : A = Oeuvres de Messire Antoine Arnauld, 43 vols (Paris: Sigismond D' Arnay 1 775) (unless otherwise indicated. references are to Des vraies et des fausses idees, in vol . 3 8). AT = Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. C. Adam and P. Tannery, 12 vols (Paris: J . Vrin 1 964-76). CSM = The Philosophi­ cal Writings of Descartes, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1 985).

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D = Nicholas Malebranche, Dialogues on Metaphysics, trans. Willis Doney (New York: Abaris Books 1 980). K = Antoine Arnauld, On True and False Ideas, trans. Elmar J. Kremer (Lewiston, NY : The Edwin Mellen Press 1 990). LO = Nicolas Malebranche, The Search after Truth, trans. Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J. Olscamp (Columbus: Ohio State University Press 1 980). M = Oeuvres completes de Malebranche, ed. Andre Robinet, 20 vols (2nd ed., Paris: J. Vrin 1 972-84). Where a translator is not indicated, the translation is my own. This threefold division of perceptions of the intellect, sometimes with memory added as a fourth, runs throughout Descartes' s work. The passage cited is from the Principles of Philosophy. See also Rules for the Direction of the Mind, CSM, I :30, 42; AT, 1 0:395-6, 4 1 5-1 6; Meditations on First Philosophy, CSM, 2: 50--1 ; AT, 7:7 1-4; Fifth Set of Replies, CSM, 2:248; AT, 7:358; and Comments on a Certain Broadsheet, CSM, 1 :307; AT, 8B:363. We can see Descartes operating with the distinction between the different kinds of perception and stressing the importance of perception by the pure understanding in the wax example. Thus, at the end of the wax example Descartes says, 'I now know that even bodies are not strictly perceived by the senses or the faculty of imagination but by the intellect alone, and that this perception derives not from their being touched or seen but from their being understood' (CSM, 2 :22; AT, 7:34). Cf. the beginning of the Sixth Meditation (CSM, 2:50--1 ; AT, 7:71-4), where Descartes again employs the distinction between the different kinds of perception. This is overstated. Malebranche explains in the preface of the Search that 'the subject of this work is the mind of man in its entirety. I consider it in itself, in relation to the body, and in relation to God. I examine the nature of all its faculties and set out the uses we ought to make of them in order to avoid error. Finally, I explain most of the things I have believed useful for advancing the knowledge of man' (LO, xxv; M, 1 :20). And the particular purpose of Book Three, in which Malebranche discusses pure understanding, is to discuss the errors of the pure understanding (see LO, 1 7; M, 1 :68). Nevertheless, the particular discussion of how we see al l things in God is more ontological than epistemological. Amauld also gi ves this characterization of pure understanding. See 'New Objections against the Meditations on First Philosophy, ' K, 1 85-6; A, 38 :69-70. See also LO, 222, 224, and 227; M, 1 :422, 425, and 432, where Malebranche is attacking a competing view about thinking, and LO, 232; M, I :440-- 1 , where Malebranche's 'strongest argument' for his theory that we see all things in God concerns what happens when we want to think about some particular thing; and, in the Dialogues on Metaphysics, D, 29, 33; M, 1 2 :35, 40. Malebranche also speaks of conceiving things through pure intellection : see LO, 224; M, 1 :425-6; and cf. D, 39; M, 1 2 :46. For Arnauld, see 'New Objections, ' K, 1 86; A, 38:69-70.

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7 For Descartes, note especially the third and seventh postulates at the end of the Second Set ofReplies (CSM, 2 : 1 1 5- 1 6; AT, 7: 1 62-4). 8 If we consider how thinking by the pure understanding is supposed to give us knowledge, we can see how throughout his discussions of the pure understanding and the nature of ideas Malebranche can take thinking to be a kind of perceiving. In thinking, say, about the nature of a triangle, we preceive that the sum of its angles is 1 80 degrees: our thoughts about things become perceptions of truths. 9 Until recently, Arnauld has often been interpreted as distinguishing ideas and acts of thought and of taking ideas to be essentially objects of thought. Now, however, there seems to be some unanimity that ideas are for Arnauld acts of thought. Except for incidentally, I shall not argue for this interpretation over the older one. For a defence of this interpretation - and the relevant literature - see Steven M . Nadler, Arnauld and the Cartesian Philosophy of Ideas (Princeton : Princeton University Press 1 989). IO In Malebranche and Ideas (Oxford : Oxford University Press, forthcoming), Steven Nadler makes much of Malebranche's response to Arnauld that the stroll-about­ the-heavens passage is 'une espece de raillerie. ' Nadler, who takes Malebranche to be denying that he literally meant to require local presence for immediate perception, sees no reason not to take Malebranche at his word. In the passage in question, however, Malebranche is not denying that local presence is required for immediate perception, but that it is required for perception. In chapter 8 of On True and False Ideas Arnauld attributes to Malebranche the 'principle' that the soul cannot perceive objects that are remote from it (see K, 3 5-6; A, 2 1 4-1 5). In response, Malebranche first stresses that he does not deny that we can see remote objects (how can Arnauld think that he takes their remoteness to be a problem, Malebranche declares, when he explicitly says that we can see them when they do not even exist?! ). He then says about the principle that Arnauld attributes to him: 'N'est-il pas visible, que ce que je dis est plutot une espece de raillerie, qu'un principe sur lequel j ' etablis des sentimens qui renversent ce meme principe?' (M, 6:95). What is more a sort of raillery than a principle on which he bases his position is the view that the soul must leave the body to see remote objects. He introduces this view. which of course he rejects, to force acknowledgment that we need ideas to see remote objects (an acknowl­ edgment that presumably depends upon the requirement that something be locally present for us to see objects) (see M, 6:94-6). (Malebranche should have placed more stress on the distinction between seeing objects, which does not require the local presence of the objects, and seeing them by themselves [par eux-memes], which he is here assuming does require their local presence. See Monte Cook, ' Malebranche versus Arnauld, ' Journal of the History of Philosophy 29 [ 1 99 1 ], 1 94-6 .)

Malebranche and Amauld: The Argument for Ideas 85 1 1 This casual requirement is found often in Malebranche's writings. Cf., for example, Malebranche in Conversations Chretiennes (M, 4:6 1 -2): 'Pensez-vous que les corps puissent agir dans I' esprit, se rendre visibles a I' esprit, eel airer l 'esprit? Pensez-vous en un mot que l'esprit voye les corps immediatement & en eux-memes?' See also LO, 320; M, 2:99- 1 00. For a discussion of this require­ ment, a requirement that is absent from early editions of the Search, see Andre Robinet, Systeme et existence dans I 'oeuvre de Malebranche (Paris: J.Vrin 1 965), 259-72. 12 Amauld criticizes Malebranche for using the requirement of local presence to introduce ideas, but not for assuming that thought is like sense perception. Basically, Arnau Id criticizes Malebranche for failing to distinguish between what p ertains to minds and what pertains to bodies: thus Malebranche confuses local presence, which he falsely supposes necessary for corporeal vision, with objective presence, which is necessary for mental vision. Amauld does not, however, criticize Malebranche for assuming that thought is like sense perception. In fact, Amauld assumes this as well. Only while Malebranche takes sense perception as a model for thought, Amauld takes thought as a model for sense perception. Thus, Amauld uses 'mental vision ' to cover both sense perception and thought, and he uses instances of thought to argue that mental vision does not require the local presence of any object - from which he concludes that sense perception does not require this either. (As we shall see, Amauld also uses thought rather than sense perception to explain the notion of objective presence.) See chapters 1 (the sixth rule), 4, and 8 of On True and False Ideas; and cf. Nadler, Arnauld, 90-5 . 1 3 I am aware that there are contemporary arguments that the causation of a thought can play a role in what a thought is about - so that what makes my thought about the earth rather than about twin earth is that my thought is causally connected to earth in the right sort of way. The need for such causal connections, however, is far from obvious. (Twin-earth considerations would of course be quite foreign to Malebranche.) 1 4 The sentence preceding this passage makes it sound as though Malebranche is taking the existence of ideas to be established and is here arguing that there need not be any external thing like the idea. (Malebranche would then be assuming that the first argument showed that ideas were required for hallucinations.) Later in the passage, however, it is clear that Malebranche is arguing for ideas. 1 5 The sense-data philosophers would have seconded Malebranche' s statement that when a person hallucinates or dreams 'it is certain that what he sees is not nothing' and that therefore there must be some special object really present. See the essays in part 2 of Robert J. Swartz, Perceiving, Sensing, and Knowing (Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1 965). (In the next paragraph of Search Male­ branche's description of how ordinary persons overlook the reality of ideas sounds

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very much like C.D. Broad's description of how we overlook sensa. Cf. LO, 2 1 7-1 8; M, 1 :4 1 4- 1 5 (and also D, 29; M, 1 2 :36) with C.D. Broad, 'The Theory of Sensa, ' in Swartz, Perceiving, 967.) For Malebranche, sense perception and imagination are very similar. Both are perceptions that result from agitation of the fibres of the brain. The main difference is that in sensing this agitation is due to the effect of external obj ects on our sense organs, and in imagining it is due to the flow of animal spirits (thus Malebranche is inclined to classify hallucinating as imagining rather than as sensing). See LO, 87-8; M, 1 : 1 9 1-2. Interestingly, this second argument draws on sense perception in a significantly different way from the first one. The first argument draws on what seem to be requirements for veridical perception; and it makes little sense if we try to apply it to hallucinations. (In short, the first argument, if it worked, would prove ideas for veridical perception; the second argument would prove them for hallucinations.) Besides dropping the talk about perceiving, I have restated the argument so that it is not a reductio. Though I believe that in the end Malebranche holds that we can see corporeal objects, just not 'by themselves, ' the passages we have been considering present very strong evidence that he holds that we do not see them at all. (Cf. Cook, ' Malebranche versus Arnauld. ') At M, 9:9 1 0, Malebranche says about the reasoning of the first of the two arguments that it contains an equivocation : if one is talking about the immediate and direct object of thought - that is, the idea then the argument is correct; if, however, one is talking about the external object that the idea represents, then 'ii y a mille & mille pensees qui n'ont point d' objet. ' In the Dialogues passages that we have been considering, such a distinction between mediate and immediate objects seems to play no role. (If it were playing a role, Malebranche would simply be assuming that ideas exist rather than arguing for their existence, and the second stage of the argument would be otiose.) Since Malebranche is supposing that we see all the same things when God annihilates the physical world, unlike the arguments discussed above from the Search these arguments, if they work, get us ideas for both veridical and non­ veridical perception . See n. 1 7, above. Scattered throughout Malebranche's writings, and sometimes coupled with the example of God's annihilating the world, is an argument based on the premiss that nothingness is invisible. Malebranche argues: in hallucinations and dreams we see something even though the external object is lacking; nothingness is invisible; so, in these cases there must be some other object that we see ( or more strictly, see immediately), which object Malebranche tells us is an idea. For some places where Malebranche uses the premiss that nothingness is invisible, see Daisie Radner, Malebranche: A Study of a Cartesian System

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(Amsterdam : Van Gorcum 1 978), 1 3 7, n. 77. For the argument in question, see in M esp. 4: 72-3 ; 6:202 (cf. 207); 9: 1 009 (cf. 9 1 0); and 1 5 :9 (cf. 5). At 4:72-3 and 9: 1 009 Malebranche also raises the case of God 's annihilating the physical world. (Malebranche often writes as though to think of nothing is not to think at all, to see nothing is not to see at all, and nothingness is invisible were equivalent. See LO 320; M, 2:99; and M, 4:72; 9: 949, 1 009 ; and 1 5 :5, 9.) At LO 323, M, 2: I 03, Malebranche uses a variation of the premiss that nothingness is invisible to argue that he himself exists and that God exists: ' I conclude that I am because I experience myself, and because nothing cannot be experienced. I conclude in the same way that God exists, that the infinitely perfect being exists, because I perceive it, and because nothing cannot be perceived, nor consequently can the infinite be perceived in the finite. ' See also LO 48 1 ; M, 2 :37 1 -2 and 1 5 :5 . Cf. n. 1 5 . Roderick Chisholm calls this inference from something that appears to have a property but doesn 't to something else that does have the property 'the sense­ datum inference' ; see 'The Theory of Appearing, ' in Swartz, Perceiving, Sensing, and Knowing, 1 73 . The inference is made and discussed in several of the essays in part 2 of this book. It was generally thought that, unlike physical objects, sense data themselves always were as they appeared (otherwise one would be forced into introducing sense data to explain illusions involving sense data). Compare Malebranche's statement that 'everything that the mind perceives directly or immediately exists, and is even such as the mind perceives it' (M, 9:953 - my emphasis; cf. LO, 2 1 7; M, 1 :4 1 4). It seems clear that Malebranche is struck by a similarity that some of our thoughts have to sense perception: it is no more up to us to think of a triangle as having three sides than it is up to us to see a round object as round. See, for example, D, 3 5 ; M, 1 2:4 1-2. It would be surprising if focusing on sense perception led Arnau Id to his theory of ideas. Not only is there nothing special about sense perception that would lead to his theory, he devotes chapter 4 of On True and False Ideas to diagnosing how a series of mistakes involving sense perception leads Malebranche to a false theory of ideas. He thinks that Malebranche starts with a mistaken view of sense percep­ tion and carries this mistaken view over to al l kinds of 'perception' - includ ing knowledge of things that we cannot see by our senses because they are too small, or invisible, or too far away (cf. n. 12). Arnauld clearly takes part of his discussion from the beginning of Descartes� s Sixth Meditation. Cf. A, 4 1 : 128 and CSM, 2: 50; AT, 7:72. The 'that is' clause is missing in Kremer's translation.

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28 Malebranche and Amauld agree that to think of nothing is not to think at all. As we saw, Malebranche concludes that every thought must have an idea as its obj ect. Amauld, in contrast, concludes that every thought is inherently of something - that every thought is an idea. For Amauld, besides chapter 5 of On True and False Ideas, see A, 3 8 :383-4 (in Defense de M Arnauld). 29 The reference at the end to the fourth definition is puzzling but enlightening. It is puzzling, because the fourth definition seems irrelevant to the point that Amauld is making. It is not a definition of knowing ( or even of being obj ecti vely in the mind), but of presence to the mind: it says that an object is present to our mind when our mind perceives and knows it. The reference is enlightening, however, because it shows that we should not understand presence to the mind as the sense­ data philosophers would understand it - as involving experience. Given Amauld 's broad use of 'know' and 'perceive, ' to be present to the mind (as his example of presence indicates) is simply to be thought of. 30 'Penser, connoitre, appercevoir, sont la meme chose. ' In Defense, Amauld seems to be making the same point when he identifies penser, appercevoir, and avoir [une] perception (A, 38:383-4). 3 1 I wish to thank Steven Nadler for letting me see a draft of his forthcoming Malebranche and Ideas.

4 Arnauld' s Philosophical Notion of an Idea E L M A R J. KR E M E R

Antoine Arnauld' s account of ideas has been puzzling to philosophers at least since Thomas Reid's Essay on the Intellectual Powers of Man. Reid claims that Arnauld does not have a consistent position on the nature of ideas, but rather wavers between the position that ideas are, quite simply, perceptions, and the 'common' or Cartesian theory. Reid says, 'From the account I have given, one would be apt to conclude that Arnauld totally denied the existence of ideas, in the philosophical sense of that word, and that he adopted the notion of the vulgar, who acknowledge no object of perception but the external object. But he seems very unwilling to deviate so far from the common track, and what he had given up with one hand he takes back with the other.' 1 By 'the philosophical sense' of the word ' idea,' Reid means its use to stand for an inner object of a mental act, intermediate between the act and its real, external object. By 'the notion of the vulgar,' he means the notion of ideas as nothing other than acts of thinking or perceiving. Several recent studies have questioned Reid's interpretation, and shown that Arnauld rejected the 'philosophical' notion just as firmly as Reid did. Indeed they have suggested that Arnauld anticipated Reid' s own position on the nature of ideas and mental acts. 2 However, I will try to show that although Arnauld consistently rejected ideas in what Reid calls 'the philosophical sense of the word,' he did not limit himself to the vulgar notion, but rather had a philosophi­ cal notion of his own. Arnauld' s philosophical notion of an idea is derived from that of objective being, and hence is of Cartesian and scholastic origin. 3 Like his predecessors in the scholastic tradition, Arnauld emphasized the doctrine that cognition is an immanent operation, and his notion of an idea, in contrast to Reid's, is built on that doctrine.

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1. A Minimalist Interpretation I will begin by considering the interpretation that Arnauld, in Reid's words, 'totally denied the existence of ideas, in the philosophical sense of that word, and adopted the notion of the vulgar.' On this interpretation Arnauld did not think that the notion of an idea adds anything of philosophical importance to the notion of a perception, where perception is understood as a mental act through which an object is present to the perceiver. I shall call this 'the minimalist interpretation.' Two sorts of evidence can be cited in its defence. First, Arnauld repeatedly says that an idea is the same thing as a perception. An example is his definition of 'idea' in On True and False Ideas, cited by Reid: '3. I take the idea of an object and the perception of an object to be the same thing. I set aside the ques­ tion of whether there are other things which can be called ideas. But it is certain that there are ideas in my sense and that these ideas are attributes or modifica­ tions of our soul' (Ideas, 19). 4 Arnauld repeats this definition of 'idea' many times in the controversy with Malebranche, and contrasts it with Malebranche's 'false' notion of ideas as 'etres representatives distingues des perceptions' (Ideas, 32 and passim). In addition, Arnauld denies that when the mind has knowledge of an object external to itself, there is always an inner object between the mind and the external object. On the contrary, he insists that we perceive external objects, including material objects, immediately: 'I hold that ... we can know material things, as well as God and the soul ... immediately, i.e., that we can know them without there being any intermediary between our perceptions and the object' (Ideas, 31 ). Reid was aware of the evidence for the minimalist interpretation. However, he claims that Arnauld did not limit himself consistently to the vulgar notion, and did not adhere unequivocally to the position that we know external things immediately. Reid's misgivings rest mainly on two points. 5 First, Arnauld fol­ lows Descartes in attempting to prove the existence of material things, and Reid takes this to be an attempt to remove a difficulty arising from the philosophical notion of ideas. 6 Second, in chapter 6 of Ideas, Arnauld tries to show that the dictum 'We do not see things immediately; their ideas are the immediate object of our thought' does not imply 'the philosophy of false ideas, ' that is, Malebranche's doctrine of representative beings distinct from acts of perception (25). Reid summarizes Arnauld's account and then says, 'This looks like a weak attempt to reconcile two inconsistent doctrines by one who wishes to hold both' (297). However, neither of these reasons is compelling. Arnauld did hold that it is

Amauld's Philosophical Notion of an Idea 9 1 'necessary' to prove the existence of a material world, in the sense that only a rational proof, going beyond the evidence of sensation, could make it 'entirely certain,' and put it entirely beyond doubt, that material things exist (Ideas, 22-3). But he did not think that we could doubt the existence of material things because the immediate objects of sense perception were items (called 'ideas') other than material things. Rather he held that in the absence of a rational proof we can doubt whether the very objects of which we are directly aware through sense perception actually exist (see esp. Ideas, 23, Postulate 5). Reid's second argument is even less impressive. Reid does not try to show, nor could he show, that the philosophical dictum discussed by Amauld in chapter 6, as interpreted by Arnauld, involves the philosophical notion of ideas. But neither does he have any independent evidence that Amauld retained the philosophical notion. His allegation that in chapter 6 Amauld is trying to reconcile the philosophical with the vulgar notion is no more than an unsupported suspicion. In sum, Reid's misgivings do not shake the minimalist interpretation. Before leaving the minimalist interpretation, I should add that when Amauld says an idea is the same thing as a perception, the word 'perception' is being used in a very wide sense, as unusual today as it was typical in seventeenth­ century philosophy. As Reid says, 'both these authors [Malebranche and Amauld] use the word perception, as Des Cartes had done before them, to signify every operation of the understanding' (295). He quotes Amauld: 'To think, to know, to perceive, are the same thing' (Ideas, 1 9). Amauld says that a perception is any mental act through which something is present to the mind: '4. I say that an object is present to our mind when our mind perceives and knows it ... This sort of presence makes us say that a person we love is often present to our mind because we often think of him' (ibid.). Amauld's use of 'to know' and 'knowledge' is just as likely to mislead as his use of 'to perceive' and 'perception.' Both sets of terms are used to stand for any mental act through which an object is present to a mind. Because this notion of knowledge is so different from that which figures nowadays in epistemology, I will regularly use 'cognition' and 'to cognize' as translations of Amauld's French words 'connoissance' and 'connoitre.' 2. The Doctrine of Objective Being: The Core of Arnauld's Philosophical Notion of an Idea Now I think that the minimalist interpretation, despite its attractions, must in the end be rejected. It is inadequate because it does not take into account one part of Amauld' s position on the nature of ideas, namely, the doctrine that the object of any idea or perception exists objectively in the perceiving mind. In the

92 Elmar J. Kremer sixth of the series of definitions early in Ideas, Amauld uses this doctrine to distinguish between the meanings of the words 'perception' and 'idea': '6. I have said that I take the perception and the idea to be the same thing. Neverthe­ less it must be noted that this thing, although only one, has two relations: one to the soul which it modifies, the other to the thing perceived insofar as it is objec­ tively in the soul; and that the word perception indicates [marque] more directly the first relation and the word idea the second. So the perception of a square indicates more directly my soul as perceiving a square and the idea of a square indicates more directly the square insofar as it is objectively in my mind' (Ideas, 20). This passage does not by itself count against the minimalist interpretation, for it leaves open the possibility that by 'the thing perceived insofar as it exists objectively in my mind' Amauld just means 'the thing perceived, insofar as it is present to my mind.' In that case, the idea of x would simply be the perception of x, insofar as it has x for its object.7 However, the tenth definition, in which Amauld adds a gloss on his distinction, is very hard to reconcile with the minimalist interpretation: 1 0. There is another ambiguity to clear up. The idea of an object must not be confused with the object conceived, unless one adds, insofar as it is objectively in the mind. For to be conceived, with regard to the sun which is in the sky, is only an extrinsic denomination, which is only a relation to the perception that I have of it. But this is not what should be understood when one says that the idea ofthe sun is the sun itself, insofar as it is objectively in my mind. What is cal led being objec­ tively in the mind, is not only [n'est pas seulement] being the object at which my thought terminates, but it is being in my mind intelligibly, in the specific way in which objects are in the mind. The idea of the sun is the sun, insofar as it is in my mind, not formally as it is in the sky, but objectively, i.e., in the way that objects are in our thought, which is a way of being much more imperfect. than that by which the sun is really existent, but which nevertheless we cannot say is nothing and does not need a cause. (Ideas, 2 1 )

Here Amauld distinguishes two relations of a cognition to its object: first, its relation to the object as that in which the cognition terminates, and, second, its relation to the object as that which exists objecti.vely in the cognition. It is the second of these relations that Amauld says, in Definition 8, is 'indicated' by the word 'idea.' The doctrine of objective being and the explicit identification of ideas with acts of perception occur in tandem in Amauld' s discussion of ideas, and they occur for the first time in Ideas. 8 From then on, they are regular features of his

Amauld' s Philosophical Notion of an Idea 93 explanation of what is meant by an idea. 9 But what Reid calls the vulgar notion of an idea does not include the notion of objective being. So it seems that Amauld does not limit himself to that notion. According to Amauld, we can say that the idea of the sun is the perception or cognition of the sun, but not if ' perception of the sun' means merely ' perception which has the sun as its object. ' Rather, the idea of the sun is the perception of the sun considered as that in which the sun exists objectively. 3. Obj ective Being as Being in Cognition But what does Amauld mean by objective being in a person's mind and thought? Unfortunately, he does not spell out an answer. It seems to be his view that each person can find the answer for himself by consulting his own cognitions with a little attention - that if he reflects on his present visual perception of the pencil in his hand, or again on his present thought of an absent friend, he will see the pencil as related to his perception and his absent friend as related to his thought in the peculiar way called ' being objectively in. ' 1 0 However, we can get some further light on what Amauld means by 'x exists objectively in y' by comparing that locution with others he also uses to describe the relation of objects to the mind, including 'x is known (cognized) by y, ' 'x is present to y, ' and 'x is represented by a thought or perception to y. ' This com­ parison will suggest that Amauld' s doctrine of objective being is his attempt to say exactly how cognition is immanent, that is, exactly how it is that cogni­ tion takes place entirely within the knower. I will then attempt to confirm this interpretation in two ways: by reconsidering Definition I O and by consider­ ing A mauld' s use of the doctrine of objective being in his account of self­ consciousness. Amauld indicates in various places that the above-mentioned locutions are very closely connected. Thus, in the first reference to objective being in Ideas, Amauld contrasts local presence with 'an objective presence, according to which a thing is objectively in our mind merely because our mind knows it, so that to say that a thing is objectively in our mind (and consequently is present to it) and to say that it is known by the mind, is only to say the same thing in different ways ' (Ideas, 1 4 ). And in his second contribution to the controversy with Malebranche, he says, ' These are different expressions, which signify the same thing under different terms: To say of the perception of a square, that it is that by which I perceive a square, that it is that by which a square is objectively present to my mind, that it is what represents a square, or that it is a modification of my soul which is representative of a square. ' 1 1 However, we should be cautious in interpreting Amauld' s statements to the

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effect that two (or more) expressions say the same thing. Thus, at one point he says that ' idea' and 'perception' are synonyms, 1 2 despite the fact that i n Defini­ tion 6 he tries to distinguish the ways in which the two expressions signify the relations included in the mental act of perceiving. I take it that when Amauld says that two expressions have the same meaning, he means that they are equiva­ lent, but does not mean to foreclose the possibility that there are philosophically interesting differences in the way they signify. Among the various expressions for the relation of objects to the mind, the most enlightening comparison is between 'exists objectively in' and ' is repre­ sented to.' 13 Although Amauld attacks Malebranche's doctrine of representa­ tive entities distinct from perception, he is careful to point out that he does not completely reject the notion that ideas are representations. 14 He recognizes that things other than mental acts can be said to represent objects. However, he holds that such things can be said to represent only in an analogical sense derived from their relation to acts of cognition. 1 5 Of the sense in which cognitions repre­ sent, he provides a further explanation in terms of objective being: 8. When it is said that our ideas and our perceptions (for I take them to be the same thing) represent to us the things that we conceive, and are the images of them, it is in an entirely different sense than when we say that pictures represent their origi­ nals and are images of them, or that words, spoken or written, are images of our thoughts. With regard to ideas, it means that the things that we conceive are objec­ tively in our mind and in our thought. But this way of being objectively in the mind, is so peculiar to mind and to thought, being what in particular constitutes their nature, that we would look in vain for anything similar in the realm of what is not mind and thought. (Ideas, 20)

We can begin to understand Amauld's line of thought here if we think of 'to represent' as meaning 'to exhibit,' in the sense in which we speak of a person as exhibiting evidence in court, or a gallery as exhibiting works of art. 16 If acts of cognition exhibit their objects to the mind, then they must contain them: Nemo exhibet quid non habet ! This may be what Amauld has in mind when he says, in the first reference to objective being in Ideas, that an object's being present to the mind is a ' consequence' of its being objectively present in the mind (quoted on p. 93 above). But why does Arnauld think of acts of mind as exhibiting objects to the mind in the first place? The answer, I suggest, is that he accepts the scholastic and Aristotelian view that cognition takes place entirely in the knower, and not in the thing known. If the object, considered as having (actual or possible) for­ mal existence, represented or exhibited itself to the mind, it would follow that

Arnauld's Philosophical Notion of an Idea 95 cognition takes place equally in the mind and the object. But if it is the act of cognition that makes the object present to the mind, then this implication is avoided. On this interpretation, the notion that cognitions represent their objects to the mind, and the notion that the objects of cognition exist objectively in cognition and hence in the mind, make explicit certain philosophically interesting fea­ tures of the relation between cognition and its objects that are not made explicit by the notion that the objects of cognition are present to the mind. To speak of cognition as representing its objects, is to describe cognition as exhibiting ob­ jects to the knower. To speak of cognition as that in which the object exists objectively is to specify how it contains what it exhibits. This interpretation is confirmed by Arnauld's Definition I O (quoted on p. 8 above). Here Arnauld returns to the distinction drawn in Definition 6 between 'idea' and 'perception.' Definition 6 already says that 'the idea of a square indicates ... the square insofar as it is objectively in my mind.' Definition I 0 adds a reason for the qualification 'insofar as it is objectively in my mind, 'namely, that 'to be conceived, with regard to the sun which is in the sky, is only an extrinsic denomination. ' But this implies that the object does not exhibit itself to the mind. 1 7 Further confirmation is provided by Arnauld's account of self-consciousness. He distinguishes two forms, which he calls 'virtual' and 'explicit, ' and in both cases emphasizes the point that by self-consciousness we are aware not only of our mental acts but also of their objects. By virtual self-consciousness, he says, every mental act is present to the mind without the need of a second act. Such self-consciousness is supposed to make us aware not only of our cognitions, but also of their objects: ' I do not know a square without knowing that I know it ... I do not fancy that I see the sun, unless I am certain that I fancy I see it' (Ideas, 25). By explicit self-consciousness, on the other hand, 'we examine our percep­ tion by another perception ... This occurs especially in the sciences which are formed only by the reflections that men make upon their own perceptions, as when a geometer, having conceived a triangle as a figure bounded by three straight lines, has found, by examining his perception of that figure, that it had to have three angles and that the three angles had to be equal to two right angles' (Ideas, 26). In both cases, it is clear that self-consciousness extends to the objects of cognition. But Arnauld seems to think that the objects of cognition can be known through self-consciousness only because they exist in cognition . Thus, he says that if Malebranche 'had consulted himself and considered attentively what happens in his own mind, he would have seen clearly there that he knows bodies, that he knows a cube, a cone and a pyramid, and that if he turns toward the sun he sees

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the sun .... To continue, if he had paused at this thought, I know a cube, I see the sun, in order to meditate upon it and to consider what is clearly included in it ... I am sure he could not have seen there anything other than the perception of the cube, or the cube objectively present to the mind, than the perception of the sun, or the sun objectively present to the mind' (Ideas, 3 3). Amauld's position on self-consiousness, as I have interpreted it, implies that whenever there is a cognition of a distinct object, the object is present to the mind in two different ways, first as represented by a cognition distinct from the object, and second as part of a cognition that is in turn present through implicit self-consciousness. Further, the same object might be present to the mind in a third way as part of a cognition known through explicit self-consciousness. That objects are present to the mind in these several ways is explicitly recognized by Arnauld. The second form of presence, as part of a cognition known through implicit self-consciousness, is the basis of his explanation of the sense in which an idea can be called 'the immediate object' of cognition: 'since every percep­ tion is essentially representative of something, and since it is in this respect called an idea, it can be essentially reflexive upon itself only if its immediate object is that idea, i.e., the objective reality of the thing which my mind is said to perceive' (Ideas, 26). The third way in which an object may be present is recognized when he says, 'Nor can I doubt that I know things in two ways, by a direct vision and by an explicitly reflexive vision, as when I reflect upon the idea or the knowledge that I have of a thing, and examine it with more attention in order to recognize what is included in the idea' (Ideas, 23). Thus, Arnauld treats cognition as immanent both when he says that it repre­ sents its objects to the mind, and in his account of self-consciouness. In both discussions, the doctrine of objective existence specifies how cognition is sup­ posed to be immanent. This view of how cognition is immanent is the core of his philosophical notion of an idea. As I will show, it is not retained by Thomas Reid. But first I want to develop my interpretation by considering exactly what is supposed to have objective existence in cognition, and to sharpen it by com­ paring it with another recent interpretation. 4. What Is It That Exists Obj ectively in Cognition? So far I have assumed that objective existence, for Arnauld, is a relation be­ tween a cognition and its object. But Arnauld is also prepared to say that any feature of an object that we cognize it as having exists objectively in the cogni­ tion, and this suggests that perhaps objective existence is primarily a relation between a cognition and the features it represents its object as having, rather than between the cognition and the object itself. In this section, I will argue

Arnauld's Philosophical Notion of an Idea 97 against this new suggestion and defend the interpretation so far assumed. That the features which an object is cognized as having are contained objec­ tively in the cognition is assumed in a formula that Amauld attributes to Descartes, at the same time claiming that it agrees with his own notion of an idea: 'what he [Descartes] calls the idea . . . is our thought itself, insofar as it contains objectively what is formally in the object' (Ideas, 27). This formula may admit the object of a thought among the items contained objectively in the thought, if we can say that the object is formally in itself. But it clearly assumes that items other than the object are contained objectively in the thought, and these seem to be the features that the object is represented as having. Apparently Amauld would be prepared to say that when I look at the sun, both the sun itself and .its perceived shape, size, and so on exist objectively in my perception. This suggests that, for Arnauld, what exists objectively in a cognition is pri­ marily the features in terms of which the object is cognized, and that the object itself is said to exist in the cognition only in a secondary and derivative sense. On this interpretation, when Arnauld says that the · idea of the sun is the sun insofar as it exists objectively in the mind, 1 8 he must mean something like: the idea of the sun is a set of features exemplified only by the sun, insofar as they exist in the mind, not formally as they exist in the sun, but objectively. By contrast, if it is primarily the object that exists objectively in the cognition, then to say that certain features of the sun exist objectively in the mind would mean that the sun exists in the mind and, as existing in the mind, has those features. 1 9 Now I think that the second interpretation fits what Arnauld has written about ideas much better than the first. To begin with, in the great majority of texts in which he discusses objective being, it is the object that is said to exist objectively in the cognition, not the features that the object is represented as having. This is so even when Arnauld is discussing general ideas, or, as he refers to them, ideas of objects in general, like the idea of a triangle in general or the idea of a think­ ing thing in general. In Definition 5, his official introduction of the notion of objective being in Ideas, he gives examples of both general and singular cognitions, and treats both as objectively containing the object of cognition: 'I say that a thing is objectively in my mind when I conceive of it. When I con­ ceive of the sun, of a square or a sound, then the sun, the square or that sound is objectively in my mind' (Ideas, 1 9). The second interpretation is also supported by Amauld' s treatment of universals. In his Defense against Malebranche's reply to Ideas, Arnauld takes up the objection that ideas cannot be modes of the human mind because ideas are universal, while such modes are singular entities. On the contrary, he says, universals can only exist objectively in the mind, citing the dictum, 'Universalia

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sunt tantum in mente. ' 20 Now if Amauld held the first of the two positions we are discussing, we would expect him to put this point by saying that the intelli­ gible features of things exist apart from their singular instances only in the mind. But when discussing universals he makes no reference at all to the fea­ tures, attributes, or properties of things. Instead, he says that the thought of an object in general, for instance, of a triangle in general, is a thought in which there exists an object in general, and that all objects in nature are singular: ' For a triangle in general can be nowhere else than in our mind . . . And it is in our mind only by the perception of a triangle in general . . . But . . . given that the triangle in general cannot be in nature, it can only be objectively in the mind, i.e., in the perception that the mind has of a triangle in general. '2 1 No doubt Amauld would agree that triangularity, and not any determinate form of trian­ gularity, exists objectively in the thought of a triangle in general. However, if I am right, that would just be another way of saying that in such a thought an object exists objectively and has the property of being a triangle, but not the property of being this or that specific kind of triangle. 5. Another Recent Interpretation of Arnauld Let me now try to sharpen my interpretation by comparing it with one recently proposed by Steven Nadler. 22 Nadler maintains that Amauld is trying to accom­ plish two separate goals at once in his discussion of the nature of ideas: (1) to refute Malebranche's doctrine that ideas enter into human knowledge as items distinct from , and in between, acts of perception and their 'external' objects, and (2) to solve 'the problem of intentionality' (143 ). 23 Amauld himself does not use the terms 'intentional' or 'intentionality'; Nadler borrows them from Husserl for the property Amauld attributes to cognition when he says that every cognition necessarily is a cognition of an object. ' The prob­ lem of intentionality,' Nadler says, ' . . . is, how to characterize and account for this feature of thought.' Nadler interprets Amauld in the light of a distinction between two solutions to this problem , called 'the object approach' and ' the content approach.' The object approach, which Nadler says is followed by Malebranche, 'is to argue that every mental act is in fact directed at some object which is actually present t_o it' (145 ). The content approach, which Nadler says is followed by Amauld, denies ' the claim that the object-directedness of the act is explained by means of some really present object toward which the act is directed.' Rather, according to this second theory, 'the intentionality of a mental act is accounted for by the structure or content of the act itself, by some feature(s) intrinsic to the operation of the mind' (146). This feature Nadler calls the ' representative content' or

Amauld's Philosophical Notion of an Idea 99 'objective reality' of the operation ( 169-72). 'The content of an act is alone what confers intentional ity on the act,' he says, and he claims it is a non­ relational feature: 'unlike the object approach, the content approach holds that intentionality is based on a non-relational property of the act' ( 146). 24 Nadler's argument for this last point depends crucially on a distinction be­ tween 'objective existence' and 'objective reality,' which he mentions in an aside: ' (Note that objects have objective existence in the mind, ideas do not [except in so far as they are the object of a further act of thought]; ideas have objective reality. The distinction is a fine one, but important.)' ( 159). 25 He holds that the objective reality of an idea is the non-relational property of the act of perception that accounts for its intentionality. ay contrast, Nadler recognizes that for Amauld objective existence in the mind is a relation. But he takes it to be nothing more than the relation of being known by the mind: Objective being [for Amauld] is thus a being known. To be present objectively to our mind is not to be present there as some kind of immanent mental object, but simply to be known (etre connu) by the mind; or, more particularly to be the obj ect of some cognitive act . . . To be the object of a cognitive act is, for Amauld, to be represented in that act. Thus, an object is objectively present to the mind when it is represented by some cognitive act (e.g. a perception) and, hence, is the (inten­ tional) obj ect of that act. Amauld therefore identifies etre objectivement dans notre esprit with etre represente par une idee ou perception (VFI, 1 99). The perception of a square, insofar as its [sic] represents the square, is the square as it is objec­ tively present to the mind. ( 1 72) 26

Now I agree with Nadler that Amauld's interest in the nature of ideas was not limited to the project of refuting Malebranche's doctrine of representative enti­ ties distinct from acts of perception. But I think that the rest of his account is largely mistaken. To begin with, Amauld does not observe the distinction be­ tween the proper use of 'objective existence' and 'objective reality' on which Nadler relies. On the contrary, Amauld more than once speaks of the objective reality of the object known in the knower. 27 Nor is there, as far as I know, a single text in which Amauld uses 'objective reality' to stand for a feature of ideas rather than of their objects. The one text in which he may seem to do so occurs in chapter 6 of Ideas (pp. 26-7), where he is discussing Descartes's defi­ nitions of 'idea' and 'the objective reality of an idea' in the 'Arguments ... arranged in geometrical fashion' at the end of 'The Second Set of Replies.' But Amauld's main point in this discussion is that Descartes speaks of the idea as an immediate object in the same sense as Amauld himself had done just a few

I 00 Elmar J. Kremer paragraphs earlier, and there he had said that the 'immediate object' of any perception '... is that idea, i.e., the objective reality of the thing which my mind is said to perceive.' The most natural reading of this text is that Amauld takes Descartes's phrase 'the objective reality of an idea' to mean 'the objective real­ ity (existence) of an object in an idea, ' and thus runs roughshod over the distinc­ tion on which Nadler's interpretation depends. My own view is that Amauld does not recognize any distinction between the objective existence of the thing known in the cognition and a further factor like Nadler's 'content, ' which is supposed to 'confer' relation to an object upon the cognition. Nadler's assumption that Amauld is looking for an explanation of intention­ ality is based on a questionable reading of chapter 2 of Ideas (Nadler, 1 66-7). In this chapter, Amauld makes use of a distinction drawn in the preceding chapter between 'questions which ought to be answered by giving the formal cause' and 'those which ought to be answered by giving the efficient cause ' (Ideas, 4), and tries to show that it is senseless to ask 'why I think of something' in the sense of asking for a formal cause (6-7).28 To explain something by giving the formal cause, he had said, is to give a definition, as when one explains why a piece of lead is round by giving 'the definition of roundness (which is to reply with the formal cause), saying, because, if one conceives of straight lines drawn from arbitrarily chosen points on the surface of the lead to a certain point inside, they are all equal.' Chapter 2 begins with a general argument for the conclusion that it is unrea­ sonable to seek an explanation, in terms of formal causes, of 'why I think of something.' The argument has two premisses: that it is unreasonable to ask why I think, and that 'it is impossible to think without thinking of something.' The second prem iss is what Nadler calls 'the thesis of intentionality.' Amauld then adds, 'But I can very well ask why I think of one thing rather than another.' It is this sentence that Nadler takes to pose 'the problem of intentionality.' But Nadler's interpretation is undercut by the way in which Arnauld responds to his own question. Arnauld first says that, in addition to those thoughts that are 'different modifications of the thought which is my nature, ' there may be some thought 'which does not change at all and which can be taken to be the essence of my soul. ' 29 'In each sort of thought, ' he continues, 'we see nothing except the perception and knowledge of an object. Therefore we would only confuse and bedazzle ourselves if we tried to discover how the perception of an object can be in us.' The upshot is that, 'with regard to the formal cause of the perception of objects, there is nothing to seek, because nothing can be clearer, provided that we stick to what we see clearly in ourselves ... But the only reason­ able question we can raise about the matter has to do with the efficient cause of

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our contingent perceptions, i.e., that which causes us to think sometimes of one thing and sometimes of another.'30 Thus, on Amauld's view, we can grasp the formal cause of the perception ofan object (the explanation of what Nadler calls the ' intentionality' of a perception) simply by sticking to what we see clearly in ourselves. On my interpretation, this fonnal cause is the objective existence of the object in the perception. So, according to Amauld, to seek a further explana­ tion, in the sense of fonnal cause, of the objective existence of the object in the perception (such as Nadler's non-relational 'objective reality') would be to fall into confusion. The only explanation of the objective existence of an object in perception that can reasonably be sought, says Arnauld, is an explanation in terms of efficient causes. Finally, Nadler's account of what Amauld says about objective being (in the passage quoted on p. 99 above) seems to me mistaken in three ways. First, he overlooks the evidence of Arnauld's definitions 6 and I O that there is a differ­ ence in sense between ' x is known by y' and 'x exists objectively in y.' There Arnau Id distinguishes two relations of a cognition to its object: first, its relation to its object as that in which the cognition 'tenn inates' (which could be ex­ pressed by saying, ' x is known by y') and, second, its relation to the object as that which exists objectively in the cognition. Second, he misdescribes Arnauld's position on the relation of representation to objective existence: He speaks as if Amauld explains the locution 'x exists objectively in y' by identifying to be objectively in our mind with to be represented by an idea or perception. In fact it is the other way around. Amauld explains what it means to say of ideas that they represent things to us by saying, ' With regard to ideas, it means that the things that we conceive are objectively in the mind ' (quoted on p. 94 above) . Third, he overlooks the subtle but important difference between Amauld's use of ' is objectively present in perception and hence in the mind' and ' is objec­ tively present to the m ind,'3 1 as well as Amauld's use of the notion that objects are present in, not just to, the m ind, in his discussion of self-consciousness. 6. Conclusion: Some Differences between Arnauld and Reid on Ideas I have argued that what Amauld means by an idea is a cognition considered as an act in which an object exists objectively. He held that the nature of objective existence is to be grasped by reflection upon one's own mental acts. He puts this notion of objective ex istence to significant philosophical use in his account of representation and of self-consciousness. So the minimalist interpretation is m istaken, and Arnauld did have a philosophical notion of an idea, albeit not the one that Reid attributed to him . Now the philosophical doctrine that objects exist in the mind and its acts,

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which is assumed by Amauld's notion of an idea, was rejected by Reid, and this is connected to other differences between his account of mental acts and Amauld's. Reid allows that one can say that when one conceives of a circle, the circle conceived of is 'in the mind,' but he claims .that this is a mere figure of speech: 'The conception of it [a circle] is in the mind, being an act of the mind; and in common language, a thing being in the mind is a figurative expression, signifying that the thing is conceived or remembered' (3 74). There is a similar difference in their handling of the notion of representation. On the one hand, Amauld goes to great lengths to defend the view that cognitions are essentially representative and that they represent their objects in a sense independent of and more basic than that in which pictures and linguistic ex­ pressions represent. 32 Reid, on the other hand, takes the notion that thoughts are images to be a mere metaphor. 33 Reid did not entirely reject the immanence of mental acts. He accepted the logical doctrine that to be perceived is an extrinsic denomination of the thing perceived (30 I ), and the Aristotelian doctrine that mental acts are immanent actions, actions that do not produce an effect outside of themselves (363). How­ ever, whereas Amauld gives a positive account of how mental acts are imma­ nent, in terms of the doctrine of objective being, Reid confesses that he is unable to say how perception occurs within the perceive.r, or how mental acts are re­ lated to their objects without producing any effects in them. This difference is most striking in their treatment of universals.34 Reid agrees that universals are ideas 'if the word idea be taken in the meaning which it had at first among the Phythagoreans and Platonists,' which he explains by saying, 'By ideas I here mean things conceived abstractly, without regard to their exist­ ence' (428). However, he goes on to say, 'Ideas, in the sense explained, are creatures of the mind; they are fabricated by its rational powers.' If he means that they are items distinct from the operations of the mind and caused by them, then he contradicts his own view, mentioned just above, that conceiving does not produce any effect outside of itself. But neither can he say that universals are fabricated by the mind in that they just are mental acts. For he says that, since ' every act of the mind is an individual act,' the universality ' is not in the act of the mind, but in the object or thing conceived' (394). In the end, Reid confesses that he does not know what is the relation of universals to mental acts: ' As to the manner how we conceive universals, I confess my ignorance. I know not how I hear, or see, or remember, and as little do I know how I conceive things that have no existence. In all our original faculties, the fabric and manner of operation is, I apprehend, beyond our comprehension' (407). Not surprisingly, Reid's account of self-consiousness also differs from that offered by Amauld. Consciousness, Reid says, is ' an immediate conception of

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the operations of our own minds, joined with a belief of their existence' (327). He distinguishes consciousness from reflection: consciousness is 'common to all men at all times; but it is insufficient of itself to give us clear and distinct notions of the operations of which we are conscious.' 'Attentive reflection upon those operations, making them the objects of thought, surveying them atten­ tively, and examining them on all sides,' by contrast, 'is so far from being com­ mon to all men, that it is the lot of very few' (443). Both consciousness and reflection are supposed to be mental operations dis­ tinct from those operations that are their objects. It is this point that especially distinguishes Reid's account of self-consciousness from Amauld's. For exam­ ple, he says, criticizing Amauld, Consciousness is not perception, nor is the object of consciousness the object of perception' (297). Indeed, he holds that the object of a mental operation, by attracting our attention, distracts us from the operation itself, and that this distraction helps to explain 'the difficulty of at­ tending to the operations of our own minds' (240). 3 5 Amauld, by contrast, holds that the object of a mental operation is part of what is present to the mind through self-consciousness. (See above, pp. 1 4-16.) For Amauld, the objects of our mental operations do not make it difficult to attend to those operations. On the contrary, he holds that 'I know myself in knowing other things' (Ideas, 6). The differences between the accounts of mental acts offered by Amauld and Reid are deep and extensive. If Amauld had encountered Reid's views, he would have thought that many of their differences stem from Reid's failure to develop an adequate theory of ideas. 4

Notes Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, in Philosophical Works, with notes and supplementary dissertations by Sir William Hamilton, 2 vols, (Hildesheim : Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung 1 967), 1 :297. All further references to Reid are to this work (first published in 1 785) and will be given in parentheses in the main text. 2 See John W. Yolton, Perceptual Acquaintance from Descartes to Reid (Minnea­ polis: University of Minnesota Press 1 984), 1 4-1 5 and passim; Steven M. Nadler, 'Reid, Amauld and the Objects of Perception, ' History of Philosophy Quarterly 3 :2 (April 1 986), 1 65-72; and Daniel Schulthess, 'Antoine Arnauld et Thomas Reid, defenseurs des certitudes perceptives communes et critiques des entites representatives, ' Revue internationale de philosophie 40 ( 1 986), 276--91 . Nadler neatly expresses the general trend of these studies when he says, 'The account of perception offered by Amauld, without going into great detail here, is strikingly

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similar [to Reid's] . In fact, the general analysis of mental acts given by Amauld clearly foreshadows that of Reid ... Ideas, as for Reid, are identified with acts of perception ( 1 7 1 ). Amauld, as is his wont, views Descartes 's position as continuous with what he saw as the great tradition, two points on which are marked by Augustine and Aquinas. Thus, at one point, he equates the Cartesian ' idea' with the Thomistic ' intelligible species. ' (See Antoine Arnauld, On True and False Ideas, New Objections to Descartes ' Meditations and Descartes ' Replies, trans. with intro. by Elmar J. Kremer (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press 1 990), 66. This work is the chief source of Amauld's account of ideas. Henceforth it will be referred to as Ideas, and page numbers will be cited in parentheses in the body of the paper. The passage quoted is the third of a set of definitions preparatory to five 'demon­ strations' of the falsity of Malebranche's theory. Both points are discussed in Nadler, 'Reid, ' 1 67-9. ' We see that Mr. Locke was aware, no less than Descartes, that the doctrine of ideas made it necessary, and at the same time difficult, to prove the existence of a material world without us; because the mind, according to that doctrine, perceives nothing but a world of ideas in itself. Not only Descartes, but Malebranche, Amauld, and Norris, had perceived this difficulty, and attempted to remove it with l ittle success' (275). Yolton interprets Amauld in this way. He says that Amauld was moving towards 'the de-ontologizing of ideas, ' a position he describes as follows: 'The de-ontolo­ gizing of ideas, which our examination of the literature from Descartes to Reid has revealed to be a prominent feature throughout, was due to two moves. One move was to indicate that having ideas was the same as perceiving. The second de-ontologizing move was the translating of the metaphor 'exist in the mind' as 'perceived, conceived, understood or known ' (Perceptual Acquaintance, 22 1 ). As we will see, Arnauld vigorously rej ected the notion that talk about existence in the mind is metaphorical . In the 'Fourth Obj ections, ' Amauld refers to objective being twice while discuss­ ing Descartes' s statement that the idea of cold is materially false. As far as I know, there are no further references in any of his other writings during the forty-two years between the ' Objections' and Ideas. The first chapter of L 'A rt de Penser, first published in 1 662, begins with the remark, ' The word idea is among those which are so clear that they cannot be explained by others, because there are none more clear and simple' (Antoine Amauld et Pierre Nicole, La Logique ou I 'A rt de penser, edition critique par Pierre Claire et Fran�ois Girbal [Paris: J. Vrin 1 98 1 ], 39; referred to hereafter as L 'A rt de penser). Steven Nadler takes this to express Arnauld's fixed position, in Arnauld and the Cartesian Philosophy of Ideas (Princeton : Princeton University

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Press 1 989), 274. This seems to me a mistake; from Ideas on, Arnauld explains what ' idea' means in terms of perception and objective being. See, e.g., Defense de M. Arnauld . . . contre la Reponse au Livre des vraies et des fausses idees, Oeuvres, 3 8 : 3 8 1-4 ; Lettres de Monsieur Arnauld au Reverend Pere Malebranche sur Les idees genera/es, la grace & l 'etendue intelligible, Oeuvres, 3 9 : 1 29-32, 1 36; Dissertation sur le pretendu bonheur des plaisirs des sens . . . , Oeuvres, 40 :6 1 ; Quatre lettres de Monsieur Arnauld au Pere Malebranche, Oeuvres, 40 :83, 86. Hereafter the first of these items is referred to as Defense, the third as Dissertation, and the fourth as Quatre lettres. Amauld 's references, in Definition 1 0, to ' being in my mind . . . in the specific way that obj ects are in the mind ' and 'in the way that objects are in our thought' suggest that in his view the way in which obj ects exist in the mind is obvious upon reflection. The entire passage is a paraphrase of an early part of Descartes's 'First Replies. ' Whether Descartes would agree with the interpretation Amauld places on his language is another question . Norman J. Wells has recently argued that by being ' in the way in which objects are normally in the intellect' Descartes means a sort of presence in the intellect 'which is characteristic of objects even when they are not being known, ' and which makes objects intelligible (' Obj ective Reality in Descartes, Caterus, and Suarez, ' Journal of the History of Philosophy 28: 1 [Janu­ ary 1 990], 33--6 1 ; quotation from p. 56). In general, Wells thinks that Amauld did not fully understand what Descartes meant by 'objective being. ' My interpretation on this point is also borne out by chapter 2 of Ideas, discussed on pp. 1 00-1 below. Defense, 384 . ' . . . h e [Malebranche] did not take account o f the fact that I had explicitly stated that I took perceptions and ideas to be synonymous terms [pour des termes synonimes] . ' Reg/es du bon sens, Oeuvres, 40:204. Arnauld holds that it is self-evident that 'the perceptions that our soul has of objects . . . are essentially representative of those objects. ' However, he allows that this and other self-evident truths can be 'better called to attention by the explication of terms' (Defense, 3 82-3). '7. When I attack representative beings as superfluous, I am referring to those which are assumed to be real ly distinct from ideas taken in the sense of perceptions. I am careful not to attack every kind of representative being or modality, since I hold that it is clear to whoever reflects on what takes place in his own mind, that all our perceptions are modalities which are essentially repre­ sentative ' (Ideas, 20). 'A little attention suffices to recognize that the words "to represent", "repre­ sentative" and "representation" are like the words "healthy" and "health", which apply to various things by analogy . . . these words apply properly and primarily

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only to the perceptions of the mind, which are formal representations of their objects, and it is only by relation to our perceptions that other things, like pictures, images, words and written characters are said to represent or are called representations' (Defense, 584). In the French translations of Descartes's Meditations and of the Objections and Replies, the Latin terms 'representare' and 'exhibere' are indiscriminately rendered by the French 'representer. ' 'Representer' still carries this meaning in modem French. L 'Art de penser says that an extrinsic denomination is 'taken from something which is not in the substance [ of which it is true], like having been loved, having been seen and having been desired, which are words taken from the actions of something else' ( 49). In Definition 1 0, quoted on p. 92 above. At one point, Amauld describes ' the sun, insofar as it exists intelligibly or objectively in a given mind' in something like this second way. He is contesting Malebranche' s claim that there must be a single 'intelligible' sun, or idea of the sun, for all men. He says: ' every material thing can be called intelligible with regard to any mind whatsoever in which it exists intelligibly or objectively . . . And since the mind of man is subject to error while the mind of God is no� the intelligible sun in relation to the mind of God is perfectly conformed to the real sun in the sky, but it is not the same with regard to the intelligible sun in relation to the human mind. When, for example, Cassini sticks to his sight and his imagination, his intelligible sun is a flat and circular body about two feet in diameter. But when he forms an idea of it on the basis of the conclusions he has drawn from his discoveries, his intelligible sun is a sphere many times larger than the earth ' (Lettres de Monsieur Arnau Id, Docteur de Sorbonne, au Reverend Pere Malebranche, Pretre de l 'oratoire, sur /es idees genera/es, la grace & l 'etendue intelligible, in Oeuvres, 39: 1 32). Defense, 394, 529, 562. Cf. Quatre lettres, 90. Defense, 394. The same formula is repeated in the other texts cited in n. 24 above. In Arnauld and the Cartesian Philosophy of Ideas (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1 989). I shall give page references to this book in parentheses in the main text. Here Nadler follows very closely an interpretation sketched by Thomas Lennon in his 'Philosophical Commentary ' accompanying Nicolas Malebranche, The Search after Truth, trans. Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J. Olscamp (Columbus: Ohio State University Press 1 980), 794. See p. 1 70, where Nadler represents Arnauld ' s position by means of a diagram that is intended to represent how 'the act and its content are . . . intimately related, with the content structuring the act and giving it its identity.' Here Nadler describes

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Arnauld ' s view in terms like those Lennon uses to describe Descartes's view: 'For Descartes, a thought, which is a quality of the mind, is structured to its object since it contains objectively what the object contains (and in fact, is) formally ' (Lennon, 'Philosophical Commentary, ' in Search, 799; Lennon applies the same terminology to Amauld in n. 35, p. 842). 25 Nadler draws this distinction while discussing Descartes rather than Amauld, but it is assumed in his discussion of Amauld as well. 26 There follows the citation of the text quoted in n. 13 above. In this passage Nadler seems to agree with Yolton ' s interpretation of Amauld on objective being. (See n. 9 above.) 27 One such passage, which I will take up shortly, was quoted on p. 96 above. Another occurs in Dissertation, p. 6 1 , where Amauld speaks of 'that which repre­ , sents it [ a circle] to me (which is otherwise called the objective reality of the circle). ' 2 8 One of his main criticisms of Malebranche' s theory of ideas i s that it rests on a confusion of the formal with the efficient cause of the cognition of an obj ect. 29 He mentions two candidates: the thought of 'universal being' and 'the soul ' s thought of itself. ' 3 0 He devotes the second last chapter of the work to this question about efficient causes. 3 1 Arnauld speaks of objects as present to the mind but never as present to mental acts; he does speak of obj ects as present in mental acts and in the mind. Recall, e.g., his statement, ' it [a triangle in general] can only be objectively in the mind, i .e., in the perception that the mind has of a triangle in general, ' quoted on p. 98 above. 32 See above, p. 94. 33 'Nothing more readily gives the conception of a thing than the seeing an image of it. Hence, by a figure common in language, conception is called an image of the thing conceived. But to show that it is not a real but a metaphorical image, it is called an image in the mind' (363). 34 For Amauld's treatment of universals, see pp. 97-8 above. 3 5 Reid holds that ' Most of the operations of the mind, from their very nature, must have objects to which they are directed ' (223 ). The exception is sensation, which Reid thinks has no object properly speaking. However, he holds that sensations are 'natural signs, and turn our attention to the things signified by them, ' thus in their own way distracting attention from themselves (240).

5

Malebranche ' s Theory of Perception STEVEN NADLER

My aim in this paper is to correct a longstanding and apparently universal misinterpretation of the role ideas play in Malebranche's theory of perceptual acquaintance. According to that reading, Malebranche holds a representative theory of perception, with divine ideas acting as directly perceived, immaterial objects standing between the mind and material bodies in the external world; bodies themselves are perceived only indirectly. This interpretation of Male­ branche's theory of perception is 'longstanding' in that it is how his first (and perhaps harshest) critic, Antoine Amauld, reads him. 1 Moreover, it is 'univer­ sal' in that, to my knowledge, there is not a single commentator, either in the seventeenth century or recently, who does not understand Malebranche in this way. And yet, as I argue below, such a reading fails to capture the true nature of ideas for Malebranche, and, consequently, seriously misconstrues the role he accords them in perception. Far from being the rather visionary version of a representative theory of perception that is traditionally attributed to him, Malebranche' s account is actually a variety of direct realism, with (God's) ideas playing a necessary role in perceptual acquaintance without themselves being the direct objects of perception. 1 . Ideas and the Vision in God

Malebranche accepts the Platonic- Augustinian conception of knowledge as necessarily something permanent, as a cognitive state that is not fleeting and subject to change as mere opinion and sensation are. And, like Plato and Augustine, Malebranche believes that if human knowledge is to be objec­ tive and immutable, then it must have as its proper objects things that are

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themselves objective and immutable. For Plato, the objects of knowledge are Forms or Ideas, eternal and universal essences that do not change (unlike par­ ticular created beings). In a sense, the Augustinian model that Malebranche adopts simply takes these Ideas and places them in the divine understanding. 2 The vision in God, then, is first and foremost a theory of know ledge and understanding, an account of our non-sensory cognition of universals and es­ sences and of the necessary and eternal truths based on them (for instance, mathematical principles). Only divine ideas have the immutability, universal­ ity, and etemality to be the objects of knowledge; particular created objects do not, and thus, strictly speaking, are not 'known' at all. Knowing truths about triangles, squares, numbers, space, being, time, and so on involves grasping certain essences and the relations between them. And the mind grasps these essences and relations by means of what Malebranche calls 'pure intellections'or 'pure peceptions,' operations of the pure understanding (l 'entendement pur). 3 Take the case, for example, of geometric knowledge of triangles. The idea of the right triangle just is the logical concept of right triangle. It both spells out in perfect detail the properties essential to a right triangle, and allows us to deter­ mine what is incompatible with being a right triangle (for instance, having all angles equal). On this basis, we can formulate certain propositions or know particular truths about right triangles (for example, the Pythagorean theorem). If we compare this concept with the idea of the circle, we can also determine what propositions can truthfully be asserted about the relationship between these two figures - for example, a theorem about the ratio between the area of a right triangle and the area of the circle in which it is inscribed. All of this takes place at a purely rational or intellectual level. The senses have no role whatsoever to play here. Divine ideas are concepts, abstract essences, and as such are simply not the kind of things of which one can have sensory awareness. What this means is that our 'perception' of ideas in God is not a sense percep­ tion at all. In the seventeenth century, the term 'perception' is used quite broadly to cover any kind of mental apprehension - rational, sensory, imaginative, mnemonic, and so forth. 4 Thus, Malebranche says that 'the soul can perceive [ appen;evoir] things in three ways, by the pure understanding, by the imagina­ tion, and by the senses' (Search 1.4: OC I :66; LO 16, emphasis added). Descartes, likewise, uses 'perception' to refer both to the clear and distinct conception of essences and to the sensory apprehension of bodies. Malebranche's use of the word 'perceive,' then, as well as of other perceptual terms ('see,' 'regard,' and so on) to describe the mind's relationship to ideas in God, should not mislead us. The vision in God is not by itself an account of perception in the narrow meaning of the term. We do not perceive ideas in the ordinary sense in which we perceive the sun, trees, and meadows. The mind's relationship to

1 1 0 Steven Nadler ideas in God is a cognitive and purely rational or intellectual one; it is not a perceptual one. The vision in God provides only abstract knowledge, not sen­ sory objects: Malebranchean ideas are not visual but logical or conceptual entities. Put differently, the faculty by means of which we apprehend divine ideas is the pure understanding, not vision or any of the other senses. The men­ tal activity is a conceiving, not a perceiving. Malebranche's critics are not always clear on this point. Amauld, for example, in his critique of Malebranche's theory of ideas slips easily back and forth between the broad and narrow senses of 'perception.' The distinction is elucidated in Malebranche's discussion of the two ways in which we can apprehend extension. On the one hand, we can perceive the ap­ parent extension of a body with our senses. Vision can convey into the mind images of figure and size, although the information obtained thereby is neces­ sarily imperfect and limited. Our sensory apprehension of figure and size is always relative to our body and perspective, and we should not use it as a basis for judgments about the truth of extended bodies: 'Our sight, then, does not represent extension to us as it is in itself, but only as it is in relation to our body ... it is clear that we must not rely on the testimony of our eyes to make judgements about size' (Search 1.6 : OC 1 :84-5; LO 28). On the other hand, and in stark contrast with this explicitly visual or sensory apprehension of the (rela­ tive) extension of a body, there is the clear and distinct 'perception' of the idea of extension in general and of the particular idea of an extended figure. These inform us truthfully and in a non-relative way of the actual properties of bodies and of the extension of this particular body. 5 This 'perception' is not visual at all, but conceptual.6 2. A Representative Theory There is, to be sure, much support for reading Malebranche as holding a representative theory of perception, with divine ideas serving as directly and immediately apprehended objects mediating our indirect perceptual acquaint­ ance with material bodies. For example, Malebranche often refers to ideas as the direct objects of perception and external bodies as the indirect objects of perception. Thus, when Amauld insists that on Malebranche's account we only look at (regarder) bodies and therefore do not perceive or see (voir) them at all, Malebranche sternly replies that we do see them, just not in themselves (Reponse, OC 6 : 1 0 1 ) . 7 He then distingu ishes, for Arnauld's better comprehension, between / 'objet immediat et direct of the mind in perception, and the indirectly perceived objet exterieur que / 'idee represent (RLA, OC 9 :9 1 0-1 1 ). In the Search, he says that perception involves two kinds of beings: those our soul sees

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immediately, and those it knows only by means of [par le moyen de] the former (1. 1 4 .ii : OC I : 1 5 9; LO 69). Thus, although one always perceives directly (voir) ideas, and only looks at (regarder) external bodies, the latter are still, in perception, the mind's indirect and ultimate objects. This is accomplished by means of the representative character of ideas, which allows them to mediate between the mind of the perceiver and the external world. As Malebranche tells Regis, ' With respect to my ideas, I believe that they only directly represent themselves, and that I only directly and immediately see what they contain ... But if God has created some being which corresponds to my idea as to its arche­ type, I can say that my idea represents this being, and that in seeing [ voyant] the idea directly I see [voi] it indirectly' (Reponse a Regis, OC 1 7-1 :303). 8 Note th�t here we see or perceive (voir) both ideas and bodies, although we perceive the former directly and the latter only indirectly, by perceiving representative ideas. Malebranche's use of the terms 'direct' and 'indirect' objects of perception appears, prima facie, to commit him a representative theory of perception. On this interpretation, his account would look something like this: upon the pres­ ence of an external body to (or its contact with) the perceiver's body, God reveals to the perceiver's mind the idea (or a part of the infinite intelligible extension) representing that body, 'coloured' (or made particular) by the sensa­ tions that God produces in the mind on the same occasion. This idea/sensation complex is what is directly perceived by the mind when the body's senses are turned towards a material body (or, alternatively, the idea is itself 'sensed' by the mind, since Malebranche sometimes speaks of colour sensations as perceptions by which we apprehend intelligible extension).9 Yet the material body is still 'indirectly' perceived. The direct perceptual relationship (rapport direct) between the mind and a representative idea grounds and mediates an indirect perceptual relationship to I 'objet exterieur. 10 And although Malebranche is rather vague on just how this indirect perceptual acquaintance is achieved, on the inferential ( or other cognitive) processes that take place in the presence of a representative idea, he clearly believes that an object indirectly perceived is still an object perceived. 1 1 In other words, while ideas, in non- reflective veridical perception, are claimed to be the direct and immediate objects of the mind, they are not claimed to be the ultimate objects of perception. 'Bodies are seen [ on voit /es corps], but not in themselves immediately and directly ... It is not wrong to believe that they are seen; it is only wrong to believe that they are seen directly and in themselves : for they are often seen, but only indirectly' (RLA, OC 9 :959). If the perception of a material body involves inference from ideal representative entities immediately perceived and ' intimately united to our mind,' it remains, none the less, the perception of a material body. On Malebranche's

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view, the (ultimate) object of perception is that which the idea represents, not the idea itself (L 'esprit apperr;oit ce qui lui est represente [RLA, OC 9:920]). Thus, the representative or indirect realist reading of Malebranche has the virtue of making good sense of much of what Malebranche says about ideas and perception. Many of his remarks do indeed sound like what one would expect someone who holds a representative theory of perception to say: we directly perceive ideal entities and, by this means, indirectly perceive bodies. In fact, this is the interpretation favoured by almost all recent commentators on Malebranche. 1 2 And yet, for reasons that shall become clear, it is not the proper interpretation of Malebranche's doctrine. It is, in fact, less satisfactory overall than the interpretation I offer in the next section. Its shortcomings become par­ ticularly evident when we try to fill in the details of the representative theory as it would be held by Malebranche. All representative theories of perception claim that whenever we perceive a material body (and, in the illusory case, when we only seem to perceive a material body) we directly and immediately apprehend a non-material object (an idea, sense datum, percept, and so on) that corresponds to (represents, resembles) the material body; and that because of this direct and immediate apprehension of the representative object, we perceive the body itself, but only mediately and indirectly. Or, as it is sometimes expressed, in all cases we per­ ceive bodies by means of perceiving ideas or sense data. Is this the theory Malebranche holds? Partisans of the representative theory usually refer, in their less precise moments, simply to 'direct' and 'indirect' perception and 'direct' and 'indirect' objects of perception. This suggests that when they claim that we perceive ideas 'directly' and bodies 'indirectly,' the term 'perceive' (and the corresponding noun 'perception') is to be understood univocally and qualified as either 'direct' or 'indirect.' And Malebranche certainly appears on occasion to treat the term this way: 'I can say that my idea represents this being, and that in seeing [voyant] the idea directly I see [voi] it [the body] indirectly' (Reponse a Regis, OC 1 7-1 :303). But, first, I do not see that much sense could be made of the repre­ sentative theory construed in this way. Direct perception cannot be only nomi­ nally different from indirect perception, since it necessarily involves a 'face to face' confrontation with its object that indirect perception necessarily does not. Second, it is not clear that any representationalist in fact ever intends 'percep­ tion' to be understood uni voca lly in the direct and indirect cases. And Malebranche certainly does not think that one 'perceives' ideas in the same sense that one perceives bodies. Whatever the 'perception' of ideas is, it is not sense perception, which is our mode of apprehending existing material bodies. 1 3 Representationalists, then, believe that there is an equivocation in the term

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' perceive,' depending upon whether it is being used to refer to the apprehension of the representative object or to the apprehension of the material body. G.E. Moore, for example, distinguishes between 'directly see' and the 'common sense view of see.' 14 C.D. Broad similarly discriminates between, on the one hand, 'direct awareness' or 'sensing,' and, on the other hand, 'sense perception' or 'perceiving.' 1 5 ' Directly see,' ' direct awareness,' and 'sensing' are properly used of sense- data, 'sense perception' and 'perceiving' of material objects. As Broad notes, ' words like "seeing" ... are ambiguous. They stand sometimes for acts of sensing, whose objects are sensa, and sometimes for acts of perceiving, whose objects are supposed to be bits of matter and their sensible qualities.' 16 Thus, on the representationalist account, the perception of a material object involves as a constituent the direct awareness or sensing of an idea / sense- datum I and so forth, along with some element of interpretation or judgment or inference that carries one beyond the intermediary. Now it would appear that this is precisely what Malebranche has in mind. He tells us that ideas are directly perceived and material bodies are indirectly per­ ceived. Moreover, the kind of direct awareness we have of ideas in perception is apparently a sensing. The difference between conception and perception, at least as Malebranche describes it in some contexts, is that in conception a finite sub­ set of intelligible extension (the idea of an extended body) is apprehended by a perception pure, while in perception we apprehend the intelligible extension by a sensation or perception sensible, such as colour. In the Conversations Chretiennes, he describes this by saying that in sense perception 'the mind sees or senses [ voit ou sent]' the idea of extension (Ill: QC 4:75--6). I admit that it is very tempting to read Malebranche's account of perceptual acquaintance as a representative theory. On the whole, it is a plausible interpre­ tation of the way in which ideas function in the perception of material bodies. Many passages and elements in Malebranche readily lend themselves to such a reading; in fact, some appear to be incomprehensible on any other reading. Yet ultimately this interpretation fails in at least one very crucial respect: it miscon­ strues the nature of representative ideas for Malebranche. In order for ideas to do the kind of work they would have to do in a representative theory, they can­ not be anything but visual-like data, and our apprehension of them cannot be anything but visual-like or perceptual. Ideas would, in other words, have to be like the entities all other representative theories employ to mediate our percep­ tual consciousness of bodies; and our awareness of them would have to be like the sensory 'direct awareness' those representative theories employ to explain our apprehension of their intermediary entities. Now Malebranche's ideas necessarily cannot be like sense-data in respect to presenting secondary qualities like colour, heat, and so forth. Malebranchean

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ideas present only a clear and distinct content, limited, with respect to bodies, to their quantitative properties (that is, bodies qua extended). But this representationalist interpretation would still have ideas be picture-like images that we sense or of which we are sensibly 'directly aware.' Ideas of extension would pictorially present colourless, visual figures (triangles, squares, circles) that, when 'fil led in' by colours, become the ideas of particular material bodies. In the perception of the sun, we would be directly aware of an immaterial pic­ ture image of a_ circular figure (the idea) rendered yellow (by sensation). I do not see any other way of understanding Malebranche's account if it is read as a representative theory. But we then lose the distinguishing and essential feature of Malebranche's ideas, for they are not visual-like at all : they are logical or conceptual in nature. A Malebranchean idea does not present its content as a pictorial image presents its content (nor, therefore, as a sense-datum presents its content). Thus, any interpretation of Malebranche's account of perception that involves treating ideas as visual-like data, and our apprehension of them as perceptual, 1 7 simply does not do justice to his theory of ideas. If we want to preserve ideas as abstract logical or conceptual entities, as essences or defini­ tions - and doing so is of the utmost importance in understanding Malebranche's system, particularly in comprehending the vision in God as a theory of knowl­ edge - then we must reject the claim that Malebranche holds a representative theory of perception. 3. Ideas and Perception On what I take to be the correct reading of Malebranche's theory, ideas certainly play an essential role in perception; and the mind stil l 'perceives' ideas in the broad, seventeenth-century sense of the term, by means of a purely intellectual grasp. But I argue that in the ordinary sense of the term, what we 'perceive' for Malebranche are external material bodies - trees, rocks, the sun, and so on and that we can now dispense with the readings of Malebranche according to which he surrounds the mind with an impenetrable (divine) veil of ideas. Let us look first at some passages which are important not just for what they say, but also for what they do not say. Malebranche, in the middle of his central argument for the vision in God, remarks in the Search (111.2. vi) that 'it might be said that we do not so much see [voit] the ideas of things as the things them­ selves [/es choses memes] that are represented by ideas, for when we see a square, for example, we do not say that we see the idea of the square, which is joined to the mind, but only [seulement] the square that is external to it' (OC 1 :439; LO 23 1, emphasis added). 1 8 It is crucial to note carefully Malebranche's language

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here. Can one read him as saying, as he often does, that although one perceives or sees (the verb he uses is voir) only ideas, one still looks at or turns one's attention towards (regarder) the material body; or, as before, that ultimately it is the material body one perceives, but only indirectly by means of directly per­ ceiving an idea? No. The verb he uses in the passage with regard to /es choses, the things themselves, is ' see [voir],' not 'look at [regarder].' And, as my em­ phasis indicates, the word 'see' or voir is properly used only with respect to external bodies. We see material things, bodies, not ideas. In his discussion of the understanding in Search 1. 1 .i, Malebranche asserts that 'it is the same thing for the soul to perceive [ apperr;evoir] an object as to receive the idea that represents the object' (OC I :43; LO 3). In response to Amauld, he notes that 'it is evident that it is by means of perceptions that ob­ jects are perceived [apperr;us] ; but they are perceived only because they are rendered present to the mind by the ideas which represent them and which are the necessary conditions for the perception we have of them' (RLA, OC 9:923). Taking issue with Amauld's accusation that on his view we see only God and not at all the creatures he has surrounded us with, Malebranche insists that 'we certainly do see [voit] the created beings, when their ideas are present to our minds' (Reponse, OC 6: 1 3 5). There is evident here and in other contexts an important difference from the passages cited earlier in Malebranche's language in his description of the role ideas play in perception. Consider the following well-known passage from Search 111.2.i: I think everyone agrees that we do not perceive objects external to us by them­ selves. We see the sun, the stars, and an infinity of objects external to us; and it is not likely that the soul should leave the body to stroll about the heavens, as it were, in order to behold all these objects. Thus, it does not see them by themselves, and our mind ' s immediate object when it sees the sun, for example, is not the sun, but something that is intimately united to our soul, and this is what I cal l an idea. Thus, by the word idea, I mean here nothing other than the immediate object, or the object closest to the mind, when it perceives something { i.e., that which affects and modifies the mind with the perception it has of an object} . It should be carefully noted that/or the mind to perceive an object, it is absolutely necessary for the idea of that object to be actually present to it. (QC 1 :4 1 3 ; LO 2 1 7, emphases added. The bracketed phrase was added in the fifth edition, 1 700. )

There are two things to be noted about all of these passages. First, nowhere are the words 'see' or 'perceive' used with respect to anything other than

1 1 6 Steven Nadler external material things. We see or perceive bodies (or 'objects'), not the ideas of bodies. I do not believe that Malebranche is simply speaking loosely here; he is not just drawing broad strokes that will be filied in later by the voirlregarder distinction. On the contrary, as the passage from Search 111.2.vi suggests, this is how the terms are to be used strictly and properly. Moreover, the words 'see [voir],' 'perceive [apper9evoir] ' and 'perception,' used to describe only the mind's relationship to material things, are never qualified as ' indirect.' Second, the visual or perceptual model that Malebranche employs elsewhere to describe the mind's relationship to ideas is not present here. Thus, while ideas are still spoken of as 'the immediate object[s] of the mind,' this phrase is given a somewhat different, almost spatial meaning in the last passage. To be the immediate object of the mind is to be 'the object closest [le plus proche] to the mind.' We thus see Malebranche referring to entities immediately in the mind, entities the presence of which to the mind allows the mind to perceive material things external to itself: 'We see beings [/es etres] because God wills that what in Him represent[s] them should be revealed to us' (Search 111.2.vi: OC 1 :439; LO 23 1 ). What Malebranche is claiming in these passages is that the 'presence' of an intelligible representative entity - an idea - to the mind is a necessary condition for the perception of a material body. But such an entity is not itself the object of perception (although it is the object of an act of intellection). In other words, every perception of a material body must include some intelligible or cognitive component. Otherwise, all that would be taking place is mere sensory aware­ ness. Before laying out in detail what I take to be Malebranche's theory, how­ ever, I must make some brief general remarks on the nature of perception. There are certain facts about perception - or, more particularly, our percep­ tual acquaintance with the material world - that any theory of perception must take into account. For the sake of labelling, I refer to them as 'discrimination,' 'recognition,' and 'expectation' or 'anticipation.' (a) Discrimination. When I perceive an object (or a collection of objects), I identify it as a unity and as discrete from other objects in the environment or in my visual field. I perceive a chair, and immediately discriminate between that chair and the desk in front of it and the floor below it. This is done by means of shape - the object begins and ends with its figural or geometrical outline. Bounda­ ries between objects, and thus my discrimination of them, are a function of my grasp of their different shapes. 1 9 (b) Recognition. The perception of an object includes an element of recogni­ tion of that object. This need not, of course, involve a fully articulated knowl­ edge of what the object is. I can perceive a tree and not know what species of tree

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it is, just as I can see a person and not recognize who that person is. But even in these cases there are certain things about the object I do recognize and grasp. I perceive that it is a tree, and I perceive that it is a human being walking towards me. Or, at an even lower level, I perceive that something is tree- or human- shaped. For the sake of argument, we can even dispense with all generic labels. What we then perceive is that something x is shaped in such and such a manner, without recognizing what kind of thing it is or what kind of shape it has. Even in this extreme case, I grasp in perception the geometrical nature of the object, even if I cannot label it. Likewise, when I perceive x, I notice that it has the colour it has, even if I cannot identify that colour as 'chartreuse.' And this holds for other properties of objects. This very minimal recognition, that sorpething is shaped (or coloured, etc.) in such and such a manner (or, alter­ nately, that it has the shape it does), nevertheless constitutes quite a significant cognitive step, and represents perhaps the most important difference between perceptual awareness and mere sensing. (c) Anticipation. The actual perceptual awareness of an object, while it is an event limited to the present (I can perceive only objects that are actually present to me and to which I am now attending), none the less involves implicit refer­ ence to the future in the form of anticipated appearances. When I perceive a square object, for example, I am at any given moment really apprehending only one partial aspect of it, perhaps a side face-on. But if I perceive that it is a square ( and this would be the kind of recognition just discussed), then I also expect certain perceptual appearances to be forthcoming as I change my vantage point. When I perceive a human being from the front, I do so with the implicit belief that were I to walk around the person I would have such and such appearances. Of course, such anticipations may remain unfulfilled. The point of this discussion is that perception is essentially a cognitive activity. This is what distinguishes it from mere sensation. Perception is more than a bare sensory reaction to one's environment, more than the passive recep­ tion of stimuli and raw sensuous data. At the very least, perception includes some kind of judgment or belief. To perceive an object involves grasping that it is discrete from other objects surrounding it, and that it has the shape, colour, size, and so forth, that it has (or at least appears to have); and, at the same time, anticipating further perceptions of the same object. Another way of putting all this is to say that perception is fundamentally epistemic. One means of accounting for this cognitive aspect of perception, for the beliefs necessarily accompanying any perceptual experience, is by way of con­ cepts. On this view, perception involves bringing incoming sensory data under concepts. The application of concepts is what explains, for example, the re-

1 1 8 Steven Nadler cognitional component ('that x is cube- shaped') and whatever expectations of forthcoming perceptions are present (presumably, the concept of cube would inform one as to what lies beyond the single side one is currently apprehend­ ing). Without this conceptual element, all that would be taking place is sensa­ tion. Such concepts might themselves be the product of earlier perceptual expe­ riences, empirically acquired notions subject to modification over time, or some might be innate in the mind, part of its original constitution (Malebranche re­ jects both of these options). Now it may make perfect sense to say that, on this view, concepts 'mediate' perception; and perhaps even that, with concepts, our perception of material bodies is thus mediate and indirect. This is, in fact, what Malebranche claims. But to say that perception is informed by concepts in the manner just discussed is not per se to commit oneself to a representative theory of perception or to indirect realism. In the meaning of the phrase as it is ordinarily understood by philosophers, objects are, on the account under consideration, still 'directly perceived.' If concepts are required in perception, it does not follow that these concepts are directly apprehended, non- material objects standing between perceivers and external bodies. I now return to Malebranche. I argue that something like the above account, where perception is essentially cognitive and involves the use of concepts, is precisely what Malebranche has in mind, with the novel modification that the concepts that inform perception are not abstracted from particulars; in fact, these concepts are not empirically acquired at all. Nor are they innate in the mind. Rather, they are the ideas in the divine understanding that God reveals to finite minds. When Arnauld accuses Malebranche of cutting us off perceptually from the material world, Malebranche responds by insisting that he never denied that we perceive material bodies and that, in fact, it is his project to show how it is that we do so.20 We do perceive bodies, he insists, only not by themselves (en eux­ memes). And what he means by this is that we cannot perceive bodies without ideas, that an immaterial representative entity - a concept - distinct from the material body (and from the perceiver's mind) is required to render that body intelligible to the soul: 'In order for the mind to perceive an object, it is abso­ lutely necessary for the idea of that object to be actually present to it' (Reponse, OC 6:94). In the Search, he says that '[w]hen we perceive something sensible, two things are found in our perception: sensation and pure idea' (111.2.vi : OC 1 :445; LO 234). One cannot perceive an external material body without an idea. But this is not to say that the idea is perceived instead ofthe body itself. Rather, it is only to claim that in order for the activity in question to be the perception of a material body, as opposed to being just a sensing of it, an idea representing the

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essence of the object qua extended body must be present to the mind. That is, there must be some conceptual element involved. Thus, for Malebranche ideas are 'present' in perception without themselves being the direct objects of perception. When he claims that we 'perceive' ideas, he does not have in mind 'perception' in the ordinary sense of the term. Ideas are apprehended by a purely intellectual intuition. They are logical concepts, essences - not visual data. Our 'perception' of them must be of a purely intellec­ tual nature, and cannot be the kind of sensory 'direct awareness' that sense-data theorists claim for their mental intermediaries. It follows, then, that included within and partly constitutive of the perceptual awareness of a material body is the intellectual apprehension of an idea. But note that it is the body that is perceived.2 1 Another way of considering this matter is to compare conception, sensation, and perception. In conception, Malebranche claims, the mind apprehends an idea by means of an act of the understanding, a 'pure intuition,' free of any sensory component. In sensation, a mental event of a purely sensuous nature, devoid of any understanding, is occasioned in the mind by the external, material world affecting the body. What happens in perception is that both of these elements - a conceiving and a sensing, each of which can otherwise occur by themselves - are present. The conceiving introduces into sense perception those clear and distinct elements that distinguish it from mere sensing. In particular, the conceiving informs the perceptual experience with a knowledge of the prop­ erties of the body qua extended. The sensation, by contrast, signals the body's existence and introduces the senuous components of colour, pain, and so forth. 'There is always a clear idea and a confused sensation in the view we have of sensible objects, the idea representing their essence, the sensation informing us of their existence. The idea makes known to us their nature, their properties, the relations they have, or can have, to one another, in short, the truth; the sensa­ tion, on the other hand, makes us sense the difference among them and the relation they have to the convenience and preservation of life' (Dialogues V.2 : OC 1 2 : 1 1 3 ; D 1 07). 22 One can perform an act of conceiving with one's eyes closed, and thereby intellectually apprehend a pure idea of extension undistracted by any (visual) sensations. When one opens one's eyes, the act of conceiving, which formerly took place by itself, now becomes, along with the onrushing flood of sensations, an element in our perceptual consciousness of the objects in the world around us.23 On the other hand, one can have sensations without any ideas present, without attending to any intelligible representations, and thus without any conceptual elements involved. In this case, the understanding plays no role in the process. As Malebranche puts it, one is then looking without seeing or perceiving (Reponse, OC 6: 1 37).

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For Malebranche, then, what we perceive are material bodies - although when we do so we at the same time (as a component of the same complex activity) intellectually apprehend an idea. This is because Malebranche sees perception as essentially including an intelligible content, as containing a knowledge of the essence of the object perceived in so far as it is an extended body. Perception is thus a relationship between the perceiving mind and the external body, and is 'informed' by divine ideas. I have hesit�ted so far to give a label to Malebranche's theory of perception. In many essential respects, it might be proper to call it a direct realism. But what about his many references to 'direct' perception (of ideas) and 'indirect' perception (of bodies)? Or his claims that ideas are perceived immediately and bodies only mediately? Can such representationalist-like talk be reconciled with the non-representationalist reading of Malebranche that I am advocating? If one keeps in mind that the 'perception' of an idea is really a case of a non­ sensory, purely intellectual intuition of a logical concept, one can accommodate these far;ons de par/er. On the one hand, to claim that our perception of ideas is 'direct' and 'immediate' is just to claim that our intuitive grasp ofthem is straight­ forward and non-mediated, a simple rational apprehension by the mind of a clear and distinct content that is intelligible on its own. On the other hand, to claim that bodies are perceived 'indirectly' or 'mediately' is simply one way of saying that our perceptual acquaintance with them is (and must be) mediated by concepts. The perception of bodies cannot be 'direct' because without the idea to contribute the cognitive element, a body is unintelligible. 24 The activity in question, without the idea, would not have the epistemic qualifications of per­ ception proper. But, as I show, the perception of a body can be mediated by concepts, and thus 'indirect' in this sense, without implying that it is 'indirect' in the representationalist' s sense. It is clear from this explanation that when Malebranche claims that we perceive ideas 'directly' and bodies 'indirectly,' there is an ambiguity in his use of the word 'perceive': we 'perceive' (that is, intellectually intuit) ideas directly; and we perceive (in the ordinary sense of the term) bodies indirectly. Similarly, when Malebranche claims (as he frequently does) that ' we do not perceive bod­ ies by themselves [ en eux-memes],' he does not mean that we do not perceive bodies but some other things (ideas) instead. Rather, he means that in percep­ tion our sensory apprehension of a body must necessarily be combined with conception, with the coincident intellectual apprehension of an idea. 25 Now the proponent of the representationalist reading of Malebranche can conceivably raise a number of objections to my interpretation, and I cannot examine all of them here. 26 Perhaps the most important objection would focus on Malebranche' s well-known scepticism regarding knowledge of the

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existence of the external material world. Malebranche insists that 'an exact demonstration,' with perfect geometric rigour, of the existence of the material world is not possible. And the evidence of sense perception, independent of faith in God as a non-deceiver and revelation of what he has willed, is not by itself sufficient to establish with absolute certainty its existence (although sen­ sation does lead us non-epistemically to believe that there are bodies really out there27) . As Malebranche puts it, 'it is very difficult to prove that there are bod­ ies,' and we are wrong to think that we have but to open our eyes to be assured that the bodies we see actually exist. 28 Now surely, it might be argued, this kind of scepticism can result only from holding a representative theory of perception. Only one who believes that we per�eive ideas instead of bodies would be led to demand (and also doubt the efficacy of) arguments to the effect that bodies exist. In fact, it has been sug­ gested that scepticism of this variety can only be the result of having surrounded the mind with a 'veil of ideas,' and then wondering whether, beyond those ideas, there is a real, material world. Thus, Thomas Reid claims not only that Male­ branche's scepticism here is a result of his maintaining 'the common theory of ideas' (that is, a representative theory of perception),29 but also that Malebranche at least deserves some credit for his honesty in acknowledging the insoluble doubts to which that theory must inevitably lead. 30 This is, in essence, the stand­ ard objection usually raised against any representative theory: if we perceive only ideas, how can we ever know that there are material objects? But raising the sceptical question about the possibility of certain knowledge of the existence of the external material world is not, by itself, evidence that one holds a representative theory of perception. A direct realist must, as much as a representationalist, acknowledge the force of the sceptic 's challenge here. Whether one claims that we are able directly and immediately to perceive bodies or only ideas, one must admit that sometimes our perceptions are non­ veridical, and that what perceptually appears to be the case may not in fact exist. Doubts about the existence of the material world should be able to occur as easily on one philosophical account of perception as on the other. 3 1 Thus, Arnauld, who holds a direct- realist theory of perception, does not take issue with Malebranche's belief that the existence of the material world is something that requires proof; he contends only that, contrary to Malebranche, such a proof is possible. 32 But if raising the sceptical question cannot be evidence that one holds a representative theory, then neither can a negative answer such as Male­ branche gives. To be sure, a direct realist does believe that there is an external world; otherwise, his/her direct realism about the perception of bodies would reduce to a merely hypothetical claim. But, then, Malebranche also believes that there is a material world - not because there are epistemically compelling or

1 22 Steven Nadler ' invincible' reasons to do so, but rather because ' I do not see that there can be any good reason here for doubting the existence of bodies in general' (Dia­ logues Vl.7: OC 1 2 : 1 4 1 ; D 1 39). And it is perfectly consistent to claim both that we perceive bodies and that demonstrably certain, geometrically rigorous knowledge of the existence of bodies is not attainable. To sum up: the perception of an external material object involves conceptual thought. It is distinguished from mere sensation by the presence of a conception of the object perceived qua extended body. Objects, en eux-memes, are unintel­ ligible and thus unperceivable. The idea is what renders them intelligible to the mind. Ideas, on this reading of Malebranche, are not the direct objects of per­ ception in any literal sense. But they do ' inform ' the perceptual consciousness of a body. They are objects of consciousness in the sense that in perception one is aware of its cognitive content (at least, this is Malebranche's point). But the way in which a concept is present in the perceptual consciousness of a body differs from the way in which a sense-datum or representative idea has tradi­ tionally been understood by indirect realists to be present to the mind. 4. Conclusion

My interpretation of Malebranche' s account of perceptual acquaintance, and particularly of the role of ideas in that account, provides a new perspective on what is at issue in the philosophical (as opposed to the theological) side of the Amauld-Malebranche debate over ideas. At one time, the debate was regarded as being between two representationalists, each of whom believes that ideas are proxy objects perceived in place of bodies. Lovejoy, for example, insists that both Amauld and Malebranche accept what he calls 'epistemological dualism,' according to which representative ideas stand between the perceiving mind and the material world, and are the primary ob­ jects of perceptual apprehension. The only difference between their respective accounts, he claims, is that for Amauld ideas are mental entities, while for Malebranche they are ontologically distinct from the human mind. ' The theory of mediate perception which [Amauld] is criticizing is, then, still that which would introduce, not a tertium but a quartum quid . . . An immediatism [by which Lovejoy apparently means a direct realism] which should dispense with ideas and percepts altogether was not within Amauld's intellectual horizon.' 3 3 Recently, however, the debate has, with greater plausibility, been character­ ized as being between a direct realist (Arnauld) and a representational ist (Malebranche) . Amauld' s ideas are, on this interpretation, mental acts directed towards external bodies, and they acquire their intentionality by virtue of their representational content. Malebranche' s ideas, by contrast, are still regarded as

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somehow interposed between us and the world, as immaterial objects directly perceived instead of bodies (although we still perceive the latter 'indirectly' and ' mediately'). 34 There is no question that this is how Amauld sees what is at issue between himself and Malebranche. This is particularly clear from the kinds of criticisms he levels against Malebranche' s theory. But Malebranche him self gives a different, somewhat narrower explanation of the debate. The sole issue, he insists, is whether representative ideas are modifications of the soul or not. What is the issue at hand? M. Amauld insists that the modalities of the soul are essentially representative of objects distinct from the soul ; and I maintain that these modalities are nothing but sensations, which do not represent to the soul anything different from itself. (Reponse, OC 6 :50) It is true, I have denied this proposition ['It is clear to anyone who reflects upon his own mind that our perceptions are essential ly representative'] perhaps five hundred times. I have always declared to M. Arnauld that if this proposition were true, then he would be right and I would be wrong on the question of ideas . . . The entire debate between u s with respect to ideas depends upon this matter. (RLA, oc 9 : 902)

Cook argues that Malebranche' s statement of the disagreement is ' misleading and inaccurate, ' mainly because Malebranche ignores the direct realism/ representationalism issue . 3 5 But, in fact, if my reading of Malebranche ' s account of perceptual acquaintance is correct, then Malebranche' s characteriza­ tion is accurate and the debate (whether or not Amauld realizes it) really is solely over the ontological status of ideas, over whether the ideas that enter into perception are themselves mental (acts) or are representations distinct from the mind, and not over whether we perceive bodies or ideas. ' I have contended that an idea is necessary to see [the stars] . . . I have only contended that some­ thing distinct from the sun is required to represent it to the soul. Whether this is a modality of the soul, according to the sentiment of Mr. Amauld . . . or intelligible extension rendered sensible by color or light, according to my opinion, this I leave to be exam ined later' (Reponse, OC 6:95-6). Both Malebranche and Amauld believe that we perceive bodies. And Malebranche' s own description of the debate should alert us to the fact that he, at least, does not see it as a direct realism/representationalism conflict. This, of course, makes understanding the debate even more complicated, for now Arnauld and Malebranche differ not only over the nature of ideas, but also over what their disagreement is about in the first place. 36

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References (Works of Malebranche) Oeuvres completes de Malebranche, 20 vols, A. Robinet, dir. (Paris: J. Vrin 1 959--66). De la recherche de la verite ( 1 st ed., 1 674; 6th ed. [in OC], 1 7 1 2). Search The Search after Truth, English trans. of Recherche by T.M. Lennon and LO P. Olscamp (Columbus: Ohio State University Press 1 980). Reponse de I 'auteur De la Recherche de la Verite au livre de M A rnauld Reponse des vrayes et des fausses idees ( 1 684). Entretiens sur la metaphysique ( 1 688). Dialogues Dialogues on Metaphysics, English trans. of Entretiens by Willis Doney D (New York: Abaris Books 1 980). Reponse du Pere Malebranche . . . a la Troisieme lettre de M. Arnauld ... RLA touchant les ldees & /es Plaisirs ( 1 699).

OC

Notes 1 See On True and False Ideas (Des vraies et des fausses idees [Paris, 1 683 ]). See also John Locke, 'An Examination of P. Malebranche' s Opinion of Seeing All Things in God, ' in The Works ofJohn Locke, l O vols (London : Tegg 1 823), vol. 9. In fact, this is a generous interpretation of Amauld' s and Locke's reading of Malebranche, for they sometimes appear to suggest that, on Malebranche's view, all we ever perceive are ideas. 2 For Malebranche's arguments that the ideas required for knowledge and percep­ tion are in God, see Search III.2.i-vi and Elucidation X. 3 See Search 1.4. 4 'Perception ' is used broadly to describe the cognitive activity of one faculty of the mind - intellect or understanding in general - in order to d istinguish it from the volitional activity of the other faculty, the will; see Search I. I . See also Descartes, Meditations, V, Oeuvres de Descartes, 1 2 vols, ed. C. Adam and P. Tannery (Paris: J. Vrin 1 974-83), 7:56---7. 5 See, for example, Dialogues III.6: OC 1 2 :66--7; D 59--6 0. 6 Malebranche does, at one point, insist that there is no distinction between the idea of extension I think of and the idea of extension I see; that 'there are not two kinds of extension, nor two kinds of ideas representing them : one sensible, the other intellectual ' (Dialogues 11. 1 1 -1 2 : OC 1 2 :60; D 55). But what he means here is that, strictly speaking, the only idea of extension is the purely ' intelligible' (i.e., intellectual) one. To be sure, he does, in the Search (1.6), say that by vision we obtain a 'sensible idea' of the extension of a body. But he is clearly using ' idea' here in a loose sense, particularly since he has not yet introduced the technical, Malebranchian sense of the term.

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7 Arnauld, in fact, is using Malebranche' s own language against him here; see Search, Elucidation VI: QC 3 :6 1 ; LO 572-3 ; and Dialogues 1 . 5 : QC 1 2 :38; D 3 1 . 8 Instances of the phrase perception directe are more numerous in Malebranche' s works than instances of perception indirecte, but see RLA, QC 9:962. 9 See Reponse XII I : OC 6 :97-8; and RLA, QC 9:96 1-2. 10 See RLA, OC 9 :9 1 5. 1 1 In one context, Malebranche suggests that what mediates between the immediately perceived idea and the mediately perceived object (or, alternately, what is added to immediate perception to generate mediate perception) is a judgment of some kind: ' There are two kinds of beings, those our soul sees immediately, and those it knows only by means of the former. For example, when I see the sun rise, I first perceive what I see immediately, and because I perceive this only because there is something outside me that produces certain motions in my eyes and brain, I judge that this first sun, which is in my soul, is external to me and that it exists' (Search 1. 1 4: OC 1 : 1 59; LO 69). 1 2 See R.W. Church, A Study in the Philosophy of Malebranche (London : Allen and Unwin 1 93 1 ), 22�30; D. Connell, The Vision in God (Paris and Louvain: Nauwelaerts 1 967), 1 64; J.-M. Gaonach, La theorie des idees dans la philosophie de Malebranche (Brest, 1 908); M. Gueroult, Malebranche, 3 vols (Paris: Aubier 1 95 5), 1 :88-9; N. Jolley, The Light of the Soul (Oxford: Clarendon 1 990), chap. 5; T.M. Lennon, 'Philosophical Commentary, ' LO 795--6; A. 0. Lovejoy, 'Repre­ sentative Ideas in Malebranche and Amauld, ' Mind 32 ( 1 923), 449--6 1 ; H.E. Matthews, 'Locke, Malebranche, and the Representative Theory, ' in J.C. Tipton, ed., Locke on Human Understanding (Oxford : Oxford University Press 1 977), 5 56 1 ; R. McRae, "'Idea" as a Philosophical Term in the Seventeenth Century, ' Journal of the History of Ideas 26 ( 1 965), 1 75-84; D. Radner, Malebranche (Assen: Van Gorcum 1 978), 1 3- 1 4; and G. Rodis-Lewis, Nicolas Malebranche (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1 963). F. Alquie (Le Cartesianisme de Malebranche [Paris : J. Vrin 1 974], 208-12) and A. Robinet (Systeme et existence dans I 'oeuvre de Malebranche [Paris: J. Vrin 1 965], 259-72) see Malebranche as moving away from the notion of the mind visually attending to inert ideas towards a theory of 'efficacious ideas, ' whereby God 's ideas are transformed from objects of perception into agents ( via God) bringing about perception by modifying the mind. Alquie thus suggests that Malebranche 's doctrine ultimately substitutes une vision par Dieu for une vision dans Dieu; and that 'la consideration de la causalite et de l'efficace de l' idee remplace alors celle de son caractere visible' (209). And yet, both continue to read Malebranche's account as a representative theory. For Robinet, it remains an account according to which ' ) 'esprit ne pen;oit que [l' objet] ideal ' (274). As far as I can tell, the only commentators who depart from a straightforward representationalist reading are B. Rome, The Philosophy of Malebranche

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(Chicago: Henry Regnery 1 963), and J. Yolton, Perceptual Acquaintance (Min­ neapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1 984 ). Thi s i s clear from the fact the Malebranche constantly says that the sense percep­ tion of bodies includes (but is not of) ideas; see Search IIl.2.vi: OC 1 :445 ; LO 234. A contrary reading is offered by some commentators, who say that to (sense) perceive the idea directly is to (sense) perceive the body indirectly; see, for example, Radner, who insists that for Malebranche we see or perceive ideas instead of bodies (Malebranche, 1 3- 1 4, 1 06-7). G.E. Moore, 'Visual Sense-Data, ' in R.J. Swartz, ed., Perceiving, Sensing, and Knowing (Berkeley : University of Cal ifornia Press 1 965), 1 30--7. C.D. Broad, 'The Theory of Sensa, ' in Swartz, Perceiving, Sensing, and Knowing, 85- 1 29. Ibid., 97. For example, Lennon claims that for Malebranche 'to directly perceive an idea is already to indirectly perceive a physical obj ect' ( ' Philosophical Commentary,' LO 795). Jolley, similarly, insists that Malebranche holds that 'directly we perceive ideas, and indirectly we perceive the physical world ' (The Light of the Soul, 85). Connell, referring to this passage, admits that 'Malebranche, at least in the Recherche, is not above using the language of direct realism'; see The Vision in God, 1 64-5 . It i s plausible to suggest that discrimination of different shapes is itself a function of colour, that, for example, I could not discriminate the shape of the chair from the shape of the table if each did not have a colour to make its shape visible, discrete, and identifiable. This, at least, is a point Malebranche makes; see Reponse, OC 6:6 1 . Still, even if colour makes such discrimination possible, it is still ultimately done on the basis of shape. 'J'ai dit qu'on voyait les corps: j ' ai voulu expliquer cette verite' (Reponse, OC 6 : 1 0 1 ). Yolton is on the right track when he claims that for Malebranche, the sense perception ('what [Malebranche] calls bodi ly seeing') of an object ' has to be assisted and guided by the intellectual understanding of the mind ' ; see Perceptual Acquaintance, 44. He concludes that Malebranche's theory of perception i s essentially n o different 'from many other accounts that combined cognition with sensation in our awareness of objects' (55). See also Rome, The Philosophy of Malebranche : ' Sense perception i s a complex activity : it involves the act of conception, or pure intuition, and also sensation. Conception presents a universal meaning clearly and distinctly. The same meaning is present in perception' (29 1 ). Rome' s interpretation is important because of her stress on the central role of conception, or the pure intuition of ideas, in Malebranche 's epistemology, and i n h i s account o f perception i n particular. M y reading of Malebranche' s theory is, I

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believe, similar in some respects to Rome's. But, if I understand Rome correctly, on her reading ideas for Malebranche are still what are 'directly apprehended ' in sense perception, although they are apprehended as 'immanent' in objects or ' as being in the external world' ( 60). Jolley sees the importance of distinguishing between the ways the two 'heteroge­ neous elements' in Malebranche's theory of perception operate; and his account of the relationship between conceiving and perceiving is helpful and accurate; see The Light of the Soul, I 08- 1 0. He also recognizes that ideas, for Male­ branche, are logical or conceptual entities. Nevertheless he accepts, apparently without any argumentation, the traditional view that Malebranche holds a repre­ sentative theory of perception (although he does note that Malebranche transforms this theory ' almost beyond recognition '); see pp. 85-7. See Dialogues, Preface, OC 1 2 : 1 9. See RLA, OC 9 :9 1 5 . As Yolton suggests, the phrase 'by themselves' simply means 'without ideas ' ; see Perceptual Acquaintance, 49. Two such obj ections might focus on Malebranche's use of an argument from illusion/hallucination for ideas (see RLA, OC 9:9 1 0) and on his occasional claim that colour sensations are ways of (sensibly) perceiving intelligible extension. The argument from illusion can be accommodated by my non-representationalist reading, at least if we understand cases of hallucination as instances of passively undergoing certain sensory experiences ( of both primary and secondary qualities) while, at the same time, having certain beliefs, with the idea required simply to explain why we have such and such beliefs on that occasion. I am not so sure, however, that I can accommodate Malebranche's talk of colour sensations. But I am not convinced that such talk represents an important and essential feature of Malebranche's account, or that it is to be taken literally. I address these issues in Malebranche and Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). Malebranche puts it in causal terms: the sensations excited in us by God on the occasion of the presence of an object to our body 'make us judge that it exists' (Search, Elucidation X : OC 3 : 1 43 ; LO 62 1 ). See Search, Elucidation VI. If a philosopher should think 'that the existence of external obj ects of sense requires proof,' Reid takes this as evidence that he holds ' ideas to be the imme­ diate obj ects of perception, ' and 'that we do not really perceive the external obj ect'; see Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, 11.7. Radner also believes that Malebranche's alleged representational ism is, at least in part, the source of his scepticism; see Malebranche, 6 1-3 . 'It is obvious that the system of Malebranche leaves no evidence of the existence of a material world, from what we perceive by our senses; for the Divine Ideas,

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which are the obj ects immediately perceived, were the same before the world was created. Malebranche was too acute not to discern this consequence of his system, and too candid not to acknowledge it' (Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, 11.7). As Lennon puts it, 'the question as to whether we ever perceive physical objects is logically prior to any theory of perception '; see 'Philosophical Commentary, ' LO 795. See On True and False Ideas, chap. 28. ' Representative Ideas in Malebranche and Arnauld, ' 459. See also Church, A Study in the Philosophy of Malebranche, 1 54-5 . See Monte Cook, 'Arnauld' s Alleged Representational ism, ' Journal of the History of Philosophy 1 2 ( 1 974), 53-64. This is precisely how I characterize the debate in Arnauld and the Cartesian Philosophy of Ideas (Princeton : Princeton University Press 1 989). My main purpose there is to present Arnauld' s theory, particularly in contrast with Malebranche's. Jolley's claim that Malebranche 'receives rather less than his due' in that book is, thus, correct; see his review of Arnauld in Oxford Studies in the History of Philosophy 2 ( 1 990). I intend this paper and my Male­ branche and Ideas (New York: Oxford University Press 1 992) to fill that gap. 'Arnauld's Alleged Representationalism, ' 54. I develop this reading of Malebranche in greater detail, and with expanded argumentation, in my Malebranche and Ideas. The interpretation is somewhat at odds with the reading of Malebranche that I offered in Arnauld and the Cartesian Philosophy of Ideas (Princeton : Princeton University Press 1 989). But in the earlier work I relied on the traditional account of Malebranche' s theory in order to draw a sharper contrast with Arnauld's account of ideas and to highlight Arnauld 's criticism of Malebranche.

6

Arnauld, Malebranche, and the Ontology of Ideas R ICHARD A. WAT SON

In this paper I argue for the following thesis concerning methodology in the seventeenth-century of ideas. 1 In their controversy over the nature of ideas, Antoine Arnauld and Nicolas Malebranche come to an ontological dead end. Amauld exhibits the inadequacies of an Aristotelian explanatory model of how we know objects by way of ideas, and Malebranche exhibits the failure of a Platonic model. The immediate result of this is the restriction of ideas to sensory perceptions by Berkeley and Hume. A way around the impasse is provided by Leibniz, who presents a model of knowing by corresponding relations between structures exhibited in diverse matrixes, a move later developed by the early Wittgenstein. But even Leibniz's model is ultimately incapable of providing an explanation of how we know by way of ideas. In Western philosophy the traditional questions about what ideas are and how they represent their objects, and consequently about how we know objects by way of ideas, have always been assumed to have ontological answers. That is, ontological models provide answers to the following questions: What is an idea? What makes ideas representative of objects? What in a given idea makes it be of one rather than of any other object? In other words, what in an idea makes it representative of its object? The answer to this question should explain how we know objects by way of ideas. One way to approach these questions is to ask how ideas are caused. If ideas were caused by their objects, then they might bear the imprints of those objects, and by these imprints they would represent, and we would know, their objects.

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But even before raising problems about how this mechanistic imprint model could explain knowing, we realize that although there can be a causal relation between an existing object and the idea of that object, there can be no causal relation between a non-existent object and the idea of that non-existent object. Where do ideas of non-existent objects come from? They could come from the imagination, which builds by abstracting from ideas that have been caused by objects that do exist. As Descartes says, in such cases at least the parts of an idea that have to do with colours and shapes and other elementary principles would derive from objects that exist, although the object of the idea in question itself does not exist. In these cases, an idea could represent its object by being caused to resemble it on the mechanistic model of imprinting. Descartes, however, casts doubt on this empirical causal theory by suggesting that ideas could be caused directly by a deceiving demon or by God. Malebranche goes further to contend that ideas are external, in God, implying that they are uncaused. These causes or sources of ideas do not rule out resemblance as the way ideas represent their objects. And, in fact, resemblance does play a role in the two systems of ideas from which Malebranche and Arnauld's models derive, the Platonic and the Aristotelian. I now examine models of these two systems, first to see how they provide answers to the questions of what ideas are and how they represent their objects, and second to determine whether these answers help us comprehend the ways of ideas developed by Malebranche and Amauld. In brief, I argue that these models do not provide comprehensive explanations of how we know by way of ideas, and that to the extent that Malebranche and Arnauld depend on them, their ways of ideas are also opaque. Platonic Ideas are unchanging, universal, eternal archetypes. They have been variously characterized as patterns, models, or ideals on the basis of which con­ tingent things in the world are produced. Things, events, or objects in the world are then known in the sense of being understood by our way of comprehending, viewing, or having access to or direct acquaintance with the Ideas. Presumably we compare what we experience in the changing world of Becoming with the Ideas we observe in the unchanging realm of Being, both to understand and to evaluate things by way of Ideas. In Plato' s theory of reminiscence, immortal souls forget Ideas in the trauma of birth. Plato delineates how to recover this lost knowledge, but nowhere does he explain how we obtained it in the first place. Instead, he gives an analogy to seeing: placing our souls in the presence of Ideas is like opening our eyes in the light of the sun. As we see objects, so we know Ideas. Knowing is like seeing. Both are passive acts of the mind. The encounter is direct; there is no mediation between the mind and its objects. What is known and seen are known and seen as they are.

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What I want to stress is that this model does not explain either seeing or knowing. It is at best a description of the circumstances of the processes of seeing and knowing that need explanation. We are presented with a think or an Idea that we see or know. How? Platonic Ideas not only are known, but also they give us knowledge of things. They do this by resembling objects in the world, that is, changing things are more or less like their archetypal Ideas as things strive to reach varying degrees of perfection. In effect, resemblance is the relation between Platonic Ideas and the things of this world that supports our knowing the things by way of Ideas. But it still is not clear how we know Ideas in the first place. Now let us consider an Aristotelian model of how we know by way of ideas. Aristotelians say that we know objects external to the mind by way of mental acts of knowing. A thing is composed of matter and a form that makes it be what it is. The form is thereby actually exhibited in the thing that exists in the world. A mental act of knowing this thing is informed by the very same form that makes the thing, but in the act the form is present only with intentional, not with actual, being. The form does not make the act be a certain way, nor does the form exhibit itself in the act, but the form merely makes the act be of, or repre­ sent, an object, which object is the one in which this identical form is in fact exhibited. Thus, the form itself is the ideational or representative content in the mental act. The form's being in the act in an intentional mode establishes the ideational or representative nature of the mental act. And what supports repre­ sentation here is the relation of identity of form in the act and in the object. Even if we find no problem in the form's being in these two different ways, the ques­ tion still arises as to just in what this identity consists. How can what is not present in the same way in act and object be identical in the two? And how can this identity in idea and object make the object known when we do not even know what identity means here? In sum, if we cannot know the object by direct observation of the form actually exhibited in it, how can we know it by having an act informed by the form, but in which the form is not exhibited? How can a form's unexhibited presence give us knowledge of an object that exhibits the form? In this Aristotelian model, there is no resemblance, nor even any possible resemblance, between the ideational act of knowing and the object known, nor between the form in its intentional mode of being in the idea and the form in its actual mode of being in the object. Thus, the form is actually perceived only where it is exhibited, in the external object, not in the mental act. Is there anything explanatory in this model? I would say no. The Platonic model describes a situation: in the presence of Ideas we know them and their objects. The Aristotelian model complicates this situation with postulated forms that have two modes of being, one actual in things that makes them be what they

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are, and the other intentional in mental acts that makes them intend and give us knowledge of objects. But introducing such forms is not to explain, but merely to postulate ad hoc entities, a ploy best exposed by that great critic of scholastic forms, Moliere. What this leads to is a primary point I want to make. Scholastic philosophers refine this Aristotelian model by introducing concepts, images, and words be­ tween the intentionally informed act of knowing and the actually informed ob­ ject known. The need to do this shows that resemblance plays a role in represen­ tation by way of identical ideational forms after all. This is because forms do not make acts be one way or another in themselves. That is, even though different acts differ ideationally by having different forms, there is no way we can distin­ guish different ideas from one another in themselves alone because these forms are not exhibited in them. Ideas are distinguishable only by reference to their terminating objects. If concepts and images are introduced as intermediary ob­ jects, then ideational resemblance to the terminating objects is introduced. That is, concepts are descriptions of objects or sets of rules for constructing objects, and while descriptions or rules may not themselves resemble objects, they bring to mind images that do resemble objects. If this were not the result of compre­ hending them, then these descriptions and rules would not be, or be identifiable as, concepts of those objects, nor could one know or determine that these descriptions and rules are of those objects. But of course this is no advancement over - it is a regression from - the original situation. How can an intentional act directed on a concept of an image that describes or resembles an object make intelligible how we know objects? That is, if knowing an object by way of an act directly focused on that object needs explanation, how does it help to suggest that it is done by an act focused on a description or an image of the object? A description is definitive only if it gives rise to an image. That the image resembles the object is no explanation, for if seeing the object itself is not an explanation of how we know it, seeing a resemblance of it will not provide an explanation either, and so on. I conclude that neither the Aristotelian nor the Platonic model provides an explanation of how we know objects by way of ideas. For Malebranche, the knowing situation includes mental acts of knowing in the mind of the knower, ideas external to the mind that reside in God, and external objects known by way of ideas. Malebranche says explicitly that acts are not ideas, nor do acts have any ideational content such as Aristotelian forms. Acts do have an intentional nature, that is they are directed on objects. This nature is the same in every knowing act, so they cannot be distinguished from one another in themselves, but only by reference to their terminal objects. These objects are Malebranchian ideas by way of which we have knowledge of objects

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in the world. In other words, we direct our attention onto object-ideas that give us knowledge of non-ideational objects in themselves. How do we know by way of object-ideas, and how do they make objects themselves known? Malebranche gives no explanation beyond saying that God presents object-ideas to us, or that we see ideas in God, and presumably this seeing is an act of knowing. The act of knowing intends an object specified by the object-idea that God presents to us and that we see. This is just the way it is. But just na'ively knowing things is the way it is, too - just seeing them as they are. If all Malebranche has to offer is a Platonic model in which knowing is a kind of seeing of an object, why introduce any intermediary object-ideas at all? Why not just look at things? You notice that I am ignoring arguments from error and illusion that tradi­ tionally are given for postulating the presence of ideas mediate between minds and the external objects we know. This is because those arguments suggest the need of intermediaries for anything taken as a direct object of seeing or know­ ing, whether that object is a material body, a mental image, or either an internal or an external idea. If direct presence or direct acquaintance is not adequate in the naive characterization of seeing or knowing an object, such direct relation­ ship will not be adequate for seeing or knowing any object, because the naivete of the characterization just is in the assumption that directness is adequate for seeing or knowing. To say that we see all things in God is no more explanatory than to say that we see things in the world. Seeing all things in God may not even be greatly different from seeing them in the world, which would make Malebranche's position heretical as well as opaque. Finally, if Malebranche's object-ideas do not resemble objects in themselves, how do they make objects known? If they describe them or give rules for pro­ ducing them, then resembling images rise again. Malebranche certainly allows for this by retaining sensory images as coordinate with acts of knowing by way of ideas. But he adamantly denies that object-ideas make things known by re­ sembling them . It should be noted that Malebranchean object-ideas are neither substances, properties, .nor forms. To say that they are eternal Platonic Ideas conflicts with the primacy of the Christian God, but to say that God creates them conflicts with their eternality, and to say that they - particularly ideas of extension express God is heretical. So Malebranche does not say much at all about what ideas are or how they represent their objects. Arnauld says clearly that ideas are properties of minds. They are mental acts, each of which has an internal ideational element of content that indicates its object and permits each act-idea to be distinguished from every other. This ele­ ment does not resemble its object, nor is it an Aristotelian form, nor is there

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need for a further internal element called a concept, nor for a further external entity such as a Malebranchean object-idea. The question, then, is: What is this internal ideational element and how does it refer to its object or make it known? What Malebranche says about his object-ideas, Arnauld says also about his act­ ideas, which is simply that it is their nature to make their objects known: end of explanation. Thus, neither Malebranche nor Arnauld provides ontological models of explanation of how we know by way of ideas. Amauld appears to be trying to move from treating an idea as an entity that one knows on the analogy of seeing an object to taking an idea to be a mental act of understanding something, which process is not thought of on the analogy of seeing an object. This move is blocked when ideas are taken to be objects them­ selves - sensory images, pictures, similitudes, models - that resemble objects and make them known by resembling them. This block is best seen in Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, who focus on sensible ideas (that at least resemble other sensible ideas) at the expense of concepts, and at the expense of examining the act of understanding. For example, Locke presents the comparison of ideas ac­ cording to likenesses and differences as totally unproblematic. Perhaps it is, but even so, is there no way of explaining how it takes place? Whatever understanding is, Amauld maintains, it has to be in the observer, in the act-idea, not in an object-idea or in the object itself, either of which might not exist. Even Malebranche admits the need of acts of understanding to grasp object-ideas that give knowledge of objects themselves. Thus, Amauld stresses the fact that understanding - the act-idea - is in and must be completed in the observer. So Amauld denies the existence ofMalebranche's extraneous, useless, and opaque object-ideas, taking instead acts of understanding to be act-ideas. Understanding just is not like seeing, and ideas are not like images. Seeing on the naive model is passive. If there is error in seeing - if we have a warped image - it is caused by external circumstances including the state of one's body; for example, one could be myopic. Such seeing is passive. This passive charac­ ter is maintained in Malebranche' s seeing of ideas in God. But for Arnauld, understanding is an active process of the mind and the ideational element in act-ideas is active comprehension, ratiocination, intellection. So if there is error in understanding - if we have a warped idea - it is caused by our act of under­ standing. Understanding is something we do. Seeing is something that is im­ posed upon us. So Arnauld has a better comprehension of what having an idea is than does Malebranche. Seeing an idea for Malebranche is just to be receptively in its presence when it is presented to one. Having an idea for Amauld is to under­ stand it - to strive for it, frame it, and grasp it. Arnauld' s model is better than Malebranche' s because it captures the effort and activity involved in under-

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standing. We do not just stand in front of something and know it by looking at it - we know things by actively understanding them. Such understanding depends on analysis, synthesis, and reasoning - on working out, discovering the how and why and what of something. Now what is an understanding? For both Malebranche and Amauld, an un­ derstanding is an act of m ind. It is thus a property of a substance. And if an idea had to resemble its object to represent it, then act-ideas could not, because prop­ erties of mind cannot resemble material bodies. This could be a reason why Malebranche says ideas are not properties of minds . But because Malebranche overtly denies that an idea must resemble an object to represent it, there is no reason why he should find any problem with the view that ideas are properties of the mind. Thus, there would be no point in Malebranche ' s introducing independent ideas to escape the problem that men­ tal ideas cannot resemble material objects. In any event, Malebranche believes that all acts of knowing are intrinsically the same and so do not differ in them­ selves, as they would have to if numerically different acts in themselves were to indicate different objects. Amauld also denies that ideas have to resemble their objects to represent them, so there is no reason why he should not have mental act-ideas that do not resemble their objects. But different act-ideas do have to differ among them­ selves to represent different objects. So for Amauld, although nothing in act­ ideas resembles their objects, there must be something in them that differenti­ ates act-ideas that are of different obj ects. Amauld cannot specify just what in an act-idea of a pencil is different from what is in an act-idea of a piece of paper other than it is something modal. And neither can Malebranche specify what in an object-idea of one thing is different from what is in an object-idea of another thing. But this unknown what is what makes the difference between different ideas of different objects. So what is it? To recapitulate, the questions about knowing by way of ideas considered here are assumed by Malebranche and Amauld to have ontological answers in a metaphysical system . The given ontological model is that of substance-property, to which Amauld remains true. Malebranche, however, introduces object-ideas that are neither substances nor properties, so he breaches the received ontology, perhaps by reintroducing a Platonic realm of eternal ideas. And like Platonic Ideas, Malebranche 's object-ideas are understood merely in being seen, by unanalysable, inexplicable direct intuition or acquaintance. Amauld's act-ideas whose nature is to represent their objects are also unanalysable, and in particu­ lar Amauld cannot or does not specify the Aristotelian form-like ideational ele­ ment that differentiates one act-idea from another. Thus, work on the problem of what in an idea makes it representative of its object is advanced neither by

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Malebranche's introduction of object-ideas in God nor by Amauld's act-ideas in the mind. Leibniz offers an answer to this question that would work for either act-ideas or object-ideas. He says that an idea 'must be something in me which not only leads to the thing but also expresses it ... The means of expression must include conditions corresponding to the conditions of the thing to be expressed. '2 Leibniz continues that 'the means of expression [the idea] need not be similar to the thing expressed, so long as a certain analogy holds among the conditions in both. ' 3 In this Leibniz still relies on resemblance of some sort. For although in his example an algebraic formula is not similar to a circle, there still remains something in or derivable from the one that corresponds in a point-by-point way with something in the other. And point-by-point correspondence is surely a kind of resemblance. Thus, Leibniz enters this discussion by saying that an idea must have a logical relation to what it represents. Another of his examples is an ellipse that he says is not sim ilar to a circle but has a point-by-point relation to a circle. But resemblance does not, as he implies, have to be exact. As he compares them point-by-point, a circle is very like an ellipse. Leibniz also says that an effect can represent its cause, apparently on the ground that one can go from an effect point-by-point to its cause . All Leibniz 's examples involve point-by-point relational resemblance. Leibniz's explanation of representation in general depends on what he calls analogy, which for him is, again, structural or pat­ terned point-by-point resemblance between an idea and its object. So Leibniz shows how very different things can be related to one another by a relation of correspondence. Would Malebranche and Amauld accept the Leibnizian notion of correspond­ ence by analogy as a kind of resemblance that could pertain between an idea and its object? They deny the need of resemblance between an idea and its object to explain knowledge by way of ideas. And they know analytic geometry, so pre­ sumably they could have spelled out a model of point-by-point correspondence as does Leibniz. But Malebranche and Amauld do not take that tum. I conclude as I began. In Western philosophy the traditional questions about ideas have always been assumed to have ontological answers. Platonists offer eternal Ideas by which we understand things. Aristotelians say that forms make ideas to be of their objects. But Platonic Ideas and Aristotelian forms do not explain how we know - they are merely invented as entities whose ad hoc na­ ture is to make us know. They do not constitute explanatory ontological models of how we know by way of ideas so much as exhibit the lack of one. The Cartesian substance-property model may appear to be not much better. One might say that we have direct knowledge of ideas because they are

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immediate modifications of the mind, but chairs do not know their shapes. So Amauld also is reduced to claiming that the mind- idea relation just is of the sort in which a substance knows its own modifications, which again does not so much constitute an explanatory ontological model as exhibit the need of one. The debate between Amauld and Malebranche over the nature of ideas thus seems to me to represent a kind of dead end. Amauld sticks to a substance­ property ontology, while Malebranche breaks out of it, but neither of them gives a satisfactory or even intelligible explanation of how an idea can be of its object. They do not have good ontological models that provide answers to the tradi­ tional questions about ideas. After Amauld and Malebranche, things only get worse. The empiricist con­ centration on sensible ideas leads to Hume's saying that ideas are either sub­ stances or neither substances nor properties. This has been characterized as the end of the road for the notion that ideas are ontological entities. But it is not, as Wittgenstein's use of the Leibnizian notion of isomorphism or point-by-point relations between sentences and facts shows. The logical-correspondence model of representation is still the best we have. Malebranche and Amauld say that resemblance between ideas and their ob­ jects is unnecessary, but that we do know things by way of ideas. How does that work? The resemblance model has its problems, but it is at least an attempt to explain how we know things by way of ideas. If, as both Amauld and Malebranche say, understanding by way of ideas is just something we do naturally, then why can't we just see and understand the things themselves? It would certainly save us a lot of trouble. Notes This paper is a continuation of work begun in my book The Breakdown of Cartesian Metaphysics (Atlantic Highlands, NJ : Humanities Press International 1 987). 2 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, 'Quid sit Idea, ' in C.I. Gerhardt, ed., Die Philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, vol. 7 (Berlin: Wiedmanneche 1 890), 263--4; quoted from 'What Is an Idea?' in Philip P. Wiener, ed., Leibniz Selections, (New York: Charles Scribner' s Sons 1 95 1 ), 28 1 . 3 Ibid., 282.

7

Obj ective Reality of Ideas in Arnauld, Descartes, and Suarez NORMAN J. W E L L S

From the vantage point of the late scho lastic tradition, and o n behalf of contributing to the legacy of ' unfinished business' left to us by the initial efforts of Etienne Gilson to come to grips with the doctrines of early modem thinkers, their terminology, its meaning, and its background; it is painfully disconcert­ ing to witness the ongoing controversy between Amauld and Malebranche in the matter of Cartesian ideas. For, in its essential features and resources it is but a playing out of a late scholastic dispute, but now transposed to the Cartesian intramental terrain of ideas that constitutes the contextual legacy for the philo­ sophical efforts of the combatants, Amauld and Malebranche. A playing out, I might add, that is strikingly lacking in the mastery and sophistication mani­ fested by the late scholastic masters involved in the initial dispute. What, then, is painful to discern is how the early modem participants are, to a certain extent, held hostage, first by the initial Cartesian problematic and, second, by the very resources involved in that late scholastic dispute, especially when the significance and dimensions of meaning of those resources are so inadequately appreciated. Even though Descartes, before, (and Amauld and Malebranche afterwards) repudiated the late scholastic perspective of his days at La Fleche, he (and they) still retained something of that rejected tradition - terminology, doctrines, and strategies that certainly Descartes, at least, felt he could make use of to establish the metaphysical foundations of the new quantitative physics. However, the use to which they were now put by Descartes concerned problems for which such terminology, doctrines, and strategies were never designed. Rooted in the Aris­ totelian heritage rendered in the traditional and familiar fashion - 'nothing in the intellect not first in the senses' - the late scholastic masters acknowledged

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from the outset their awareness of mind-independent things in rerum natura and were thereupon concerned with how these things came to be present in intel/ectu while still retaining their mind-independent status inasmuch as such things, though in intellectu, do not depend upon the knower for their being (esse), either actual or possible. 2 Descartes, by contrast, suspended judgment as to the existence of things in rerum natura and took accordingly his point of departure in intellectu. How­ ever, he still retained from his Jesuit training their teaching on the primacy of being aware of mind-independent objects on the pre-judgmental level of simple apprehension, confronting a res and/or an aliquid in a fashion that could not in any way play us false in any formal sense but that now, however, had to be intr:amental, rather than extramental, absorbed as the objects were into the Cartesian innatism . 3 Now to what extent Descartes, Malebranche, and Amauld were at all aware of their playing out a traditional and ongoing dispute among the late scholas­ tics, with its roots in the high Middle Ages, remains to be seen. Indeed, what difference it would have made had they been aware also remains to be seen. But it surely must be granted that, just because they might have been insensitive to the late scholastic origins of the Cartesian heritage, this can in no way absolve us from what can only be characterized as a long overdue reckoning with that late scholastic heritage and its resources. 4 The ongoing late scholastic controversy I have alluded to above has to do with the issue of whether or not, on the intellectual level, the concept, species express a, or verb um mentis is distinct from the activity of knowing. 5 The Thomistae, with some exceptions, in addressing this query, proceed to maintain that the concept is distinct from the actus cognoscendi and that the role of a natural, formal sign belongs to the concept, species expressa, or verbum mentis and not to the actus cognoscendi. 6 The Scotistae, in opposition, insist that the actus cognoscendi plays the role of a natural, formal sign and that the concept, species expressa, or verbum mentis is not distinct from the actus cognoscendi. 7 Suarez embraces this latter perspective, equivalently reducing conceptus to conceptio therein, 8 and at times even attempts to interpret Aquinas's texts in the light of Scotus' s teaching. 9 Moreover, given the enormous influence of Suarez' s Disputationes Metaphysicae as the philosophia recepta of the seventeenth cen­ tury, 1 0 such a work constitutes the dominant carrier and transmitter of this Scotistic teaching 1 1 as it is embodied in Suarez' s espousal of the commonplace distinc­ tion between the formal and objective concepts. 1 2 It is this perspective on the concept and/or idea as identical with the activity of conceiving or knowing that both Amauld and Descartes have insisted upon. 1 3 In a more than curious fashion, as I read him, it is Malebranche who espouses

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some vestiges of the position of the Thomistae at least on this score, wherein the concept and/or idea is distinct from the activity of knowing. 1 4 In order to fix and focus, in a preliminary .fashion, wherein it is that the two traditions on the concept and/or idea at the same time coincide and diverge, it remains to highlight the shared terminology already alluded to, its doctrinal significance, and the striking consequences flowing from each of the opposed options. In the Thomist tradition, the concept, species expressa,or verbum mentis, as distinct from the activity of knowing, functions as a similitudo, imago, me­ dium quo, and/or as a natural, formal sign such that it is the extramental, mind­ independent things in rerum natura that are confronted with conscious imme­ diacy. 1 5 In the Suarezian rendering, it is the activity of knowing or conceptio (now identified with conceptus) that takes on the role of similitudo, imago, medium quo, and a natural, formal sign such that it is the intramental mind­ independent things in intellectu that are confronted with conscious immediacy. 1 6 And it is this latter tradition that comes to the fore in both Descartes and Amauld, 1 7 while Malebranche, as noted, has embraced the former. 1 8 Yet, while vigorously disagreeing on the location of these various epistemological strate­ gies in explanation of the knowing of mind-independent things, Descartes, Amauld, and Malebranche would all apparently agree that knowing involves a known as well as a knowable. The question, at this point, has to do with whether that known and/or knowable is mind-independent or not and whether it is intramental or extramental. 1 9 As an extrinsic and parallel corroboration of the evidence for the above con­ tentions, there is no more graphic example of the presence and impact of the two contending traditions alleged above than in the work of the famous English disciple of Malebranche, John Norris (1657-1711), 20 who stands astride the perspectives of Descartes, Malebranche, and Amauld and that of the late scho­ lasticism abroad in Suarez, as well as that of Protestant scholasticism in the likes of C. Scheibler (1589-1653) and B. Keckerman (1571-1609). 2 1 But to what extent Norris is familiar with the aforementioned late scholastic contro­ versy in any thematic way is not altogether clear. Nevertheless, it is enough to witness him in confrontation with Suarez's position in its classical rendering on the distinction between the formal and objective concepts and to assess Norris' s disagreements with Suarez' s stand in order to discern his efforts, not only to understand, but to reinterpret, that late scholastic tradition on behalf of Malebranche's position, which appears to be similar to the Thomist one. 22 In­ deed, Norris will even attempt to exercise this same sort of reinterpretation of the critical text of Descartes from the Third Meditation on the twofold meaning of idea. 23 In order to savour better the complex interweaving going on between the

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late scholastic tradition, Descartes, and Arnauld as critic of Malebranche, terminologically as well as doctrinally, we must first address the Scotism of Francisco Suarez embodied in his position that the act of knowing is not distinct from the concept (or vice versa) and in his position on the meaning of esse cognitum and/or esse objectivum. We will then be in a position to do what I trust is justice to Descartes's assimilation of these teachings. Finally, Arnauld's in­ terpretation of Descartes's stand on ideas and the basis for his critique of Malebranche's rendition of that self-same Cartesian heritage can be addressed.

1 While it was not original with Francisco Suarez, the traditional late scholastic distinction between the formal and the objective concepts, given the enormous popularity of his Disputationes Metaphysicae, 24 went on to become a stock-in­ trade strategy far beyond the confines of its original setting.25 Indeed, the role it played on the level of what the late scholastics called simple conception or sim­ ple apprehension (simplex conceptio/simplex apprehensio) in relation to what they referred to as judgment ( judicium) and thereafter to reasoning (ratio) must also be heeded, not only for itself, but also for the historical influence it, in turn, exercised.26 For Suarez, and sundry others, the formal concept is the act and/or activity by which the intellect conceives a thing (res) or feature (ratio) common to many things.27 That is, a conceptus, taken formally, is reduced to, and identified with, a conceptio. 28 It is designated as a conceptus and/or conceptio because it is, as it were, an offspring of the mind (est veluti pro/es mentis). 29 It is, in turn, charac­ terized as formalis for a number of reasons; because a conceiving activity struc­ tures or gives a formal qualitative determination or specification to the mind (est ultima forma mentis) that is considered initially to be formally indetermi­ nate yet determinable or able to be specified by the knowing process; 30 because it formally represents (formaliter repraesentat menti rem cognitam), or functions as a formal (because it informs a knowing power), natural sign of, the res in question, thereby and therein made known to the m ind; 3 1 because this mental activity of conceiving is its own intrinsic formal termination (est intrinsecus et formalis terminus conceptionis mentalis), that is, Suarez herein acknowledges that the activity of conceiving is an immanent activity that essentially has its term in itself. 32 As well, Suarez here will also use verbum to designate this process of conceiving. 33 Elsewhere, the representative function of this conceiv­ ing process will be further appreciated as a process of imaging. Suarez will designate it accordingly as an imago. 3 4 More technically still, addressing the dimension noted above wherein the mind is required to be structured,

1 42 Norman J. Wells determined, or specified by what is known, the knowing process will be classified as a species expressa. 3 5 The objective concept, on the other hand, has to do with the res or ratio, noted above, which properly and immediately ( proprie et immediate) is repre­ sented, signified, and known by the conceiving process previously described.36 Herein, we are dealing with a res repraesentata or a res significata or with what Suarez has insisted is different from, and is not to be confused with, the formal concept, since this objective concept, is not an intrinsic, formal terminus of the knowing process ( formalis autem appellatur . . . quia revera est intrinsecus et formalis terminus conceptionis, in quo differ! a conceptu objectivo, ut ita dicam), 3 7 and consequently not necessarily mind-dependent. Moreover, as to the designation of this res repraesentata as a conceptus that had already been identified with a conceptio (which in tum had been acknowledged to be a prod­ uct of the mind), and all too mind-dependent, Suarez is quick to state that we are here dealing with an instance of extrinsic denomination as far as any prod­ uct of the mind is concerned, wherein the res cognita, when we have reflected on what we know and proceed to talk about it, is named or designated in rela­ tion to the formal conceiving or the very knowing activity by which the res in question is known or conceived. 3 8 It is simply a case of something being charac­ terized as 'known ,' and/or even as 'knowable,' which is a mind- independent (in the case of possible and actual essences) term of a mind-dependent knowing process. 39 However, as Suarez's classical text briefly but clearly indicates, there is a good deal of flexibility or range accorded to the conceptus objectivus or the res cognita in question. It may be, but not always, what Suarez calls a mind- inde­ pendent vera ac positiva res that, in tum, may be either an extramental actual essence or an intramental real possible essence, neither of which derives its actual or real esse from the mind or its process of knowing, even though they depend upon the mind and its knowing processes for being known. 40 A vera ac positiva res is not actual or real because we are knowing it; it is the other way around, regardless of whether the mind- independent vera ac positiva res is intramental or extramental. For such a vera ac positiva res transcends the knower in its being because its being, real and/or actual, is not that of the knower. When and if the mind is not in the presence of what is a vera ac positiva res, actual or real, and yet is aware of a res, or a res cognita, the latter is an ens rationis of some sort. 4 1 In this latter instance, what- is- known lacks both the mind­ independent status of the real possible intramental essence as well as the actual extramental essence. It is accordingly a thoroughly mind-dependent res, but now in a completely supertranscendental sense,42 whose only genuine esse, in this instance, depends upon our knowing such that the ens rationis is and is

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what it is because we are knowing it and only for as long as we are knowing it. 43 When this position is situated, as it must be, within the context of what Suarez and the late scholastics call simplex conceptio or simplex apprehensio, if for no other reason than that Descartes and Amauld have invested heavily in the ini­ tial distinction between the formal and objective concepts as explained by Suarez, as well as in Suarez ' s position on simplex conceptio/simplex apprehensio,44 additional and very critical considerations come to the fore with regard to the conceptus objectivus and/or res cognita, be it a vera ac positiva res or what is still a res in the supertranscendental sense, even though it may not be a vera ac positiva res. Let it be stated, at once, that the use of vera in the preceding phrase has to do with truth in its transcendental sense, which is a property of real being apart from and independent of any knowing intellect, even divine, as far as Suarez is concerned. 45 Truth herein, then, is not reducible to a mere extrinsic denomina­ tion. On the contrary, it is a positive and intrinsic denomination and has to do with the primordial intelligibilitas of being and beings real and/or actual, in and of themselves. That is to say, that there are res positivae that have an inherent aptitude to specify, determine, terminate, and measure any human in­ tellect.4 6 When that intellect is measured by such a vera ac positiva res, we move accordingly to the level of veritas cognitionis, which has to do with truth now as the conformity between the intellect and what it knows.47 And this, in tum, has to do with simplex conceptio seu apprehensio, wherein there can be no proper falsity or deception (non est propriafalsitas seu deceptio). 48 If and when a res is represented by this simple conceiving or simple representing process, there has to be a conformity between the intellect conceiving and the res cognita. No difformity is or can be at issue. So it is that, on this prejudgmental level of intellectual knowledge, we are truly knowing and knowing truly what amounts to a vera ac pos itiva res. 49 In the instance of an ens rationis as the objective concept and/or res that is known, there is no question of transcendental truth since no proper real or ac­ tual essence, indeed, no essence or intelligibility at all, is at issue. 50 However, Suarez will insist upon truth as conformity in the case of entia rationis, wherein the simple and/or formal process of conceiving is conformed to the construct in question, be it a centaur, hippogryph, or what have you. 5 1 In due course, it will be seen that both Descartes and Amauld have tapped this Suarezian legacy on any number of counts. Perhaps the most substantive drafts have to do with the identification of idea and the conceiving process, the consideration of which focuses on the twofold relation embedded therein, after the fashion of a natural formal sign, to the mind that is informed and to the

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object that is known. In doing so, they will acknowledge both the ontological character of the former as a mode or quality of the mind and the epistemological character of the latter as an imago whose imaging reveals immediately the mind­ independent object that is known. Moreover, both Descartes and Amauld are committed to the genuinely veridical character of simplex conceptio seu apprehensio. This process truly reveals and reveals truly genuinely mind­ independent and transcendentally true intelligibles, that is, intramental, real possible essences as well as extramental, actual essences. In addition, both Descartes and Arnauld have given passing heed to mind-dependent objects as well, wherein true knowledge is again in order but without any concern for anything transcendentally true that may transcend the knower and the knowing thereof. 5 2 Finally, both Descartes and Arnauld have given more than passing mention, without using the very term, to what Suarez has called esse diminutum and which he considers to be a synonym of esse cognitum and/or esse objectivum. 53 Striking expression is given to this notion when both Descartes and Arnauld indicate that, however imperfect ( or diminished?) may be the mode of being by which the idea of the sun is objectively in intellectu per ideam, it is non nihi/ and demands an extramental efficient cause in Descartes. It remains to be seen whether such similar terminology indicates the same doctrinal stance in Amauld. 5 4 2 Early on, Descartes made a critical decision to pursue an investigation of objects, that is, of things in relation to our intellect, rather than to examine beings in themselves. 55 Early on, as well, and quite in keeping with this 'objec­ tive approach,' Descartes also embraced the Suarezian distinction between the formal and objective concepts. 56 For Suarez's metaphysics of the possible was already a metaphysics of objects and on its way to the full-fledged supertranscendentalism recently unearthed by John P. Doyle. 5 7 This distinction between the formal and objective concepts had done yeoman's service on behalf of the Suarezian version of a metaphysics of objects. It would do likewise for the Cartesian version thereof, now on behalf of the new quantitative physics. Further, Descartes tried to make it clear to Hobbes, at one point, with what success one may ponder, that the inspiration for his use of the term idea (instead of conceptus, purportedly, which, ironically, is not altogether replaced)58 came from the use made by the philosophers (not the theologians, be it noted) of that term when discussing God's knowledge. 5 9 While this text is often cited and alluded to, its full significance has rarely been exposed. What has not been

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adequately addressed herein is the historical fact, not lost on Descartes, I suspect, that the philosophical discussion of God's knowledge has been carried on in terms of the above-mentioned distinction between the formal and objec­ tive concepts. Witness the efforts of Fonseca and Suarez. Witness, as well, the citation of M. Meurisse, OFM, a Scotist contemporary of Descartes.60 So while Descartes is influenced by these two strains dealing with formal versus objective concepts and with their distinction, divine and human, the one reinforcing the other, his application quite obviously takes place on the human level. As heir, then, to Suarez's distinction between the formal and objective concepts, Descartes gives every indication of being sensitive to the twofold rela­ tionship embedded therein, though it is not explicitly addressed in Suarez's classical text on this distinction. 6 1 As in Suarez, so too in Descartes, the formal process of conceiving is related to the mind that equivalently gives birth to that process. In his Praefatio ad Lectorem at the outset of the Meditations, Descartes characterizes this mental operation as 'what cannot be more perfect than my­ self (quo sensu me perfectior dici nequit). 62 Herein, Descartes is describing something that is manifestly mind-dependent and that he will characterize fur­ ther as a mental modification or mode, enjoying a mind-dependent modus essendi formalis63 eminently contained in, and able to be efficiently caused by, the actual substantial formal being of the mind itself. The mind, then, modifies itself by giving itself its own formal determination in the order of immanent activity. In addition, just as Suarez acknowledges, 64 since this immanent activity that structures the mind in a formally determinative fashion is a cognitive activity, so too Descartes understands this activity to have a further formal dimension.65 But this is not to be confused with the above- mentioned modus essendi formalis on the ontological level that looks to the mind being modified thereby. This further formal dimension involves another and a distinct relationship on the part of the knowing process that is formal now in a properly epistemological fashion. For every knowing activity, of its nature, is referential, directional or intentional in a specifically cognitive fashion. That is, it reveals immediately, and places the mind in the immediate presence of, what is mind- independent, just as a cognitive activity on the level of simple apprehension is meant to do. 66 This is surely the case with Descartes's idea of God and the idea of the trian­ gle, both of which he has described explicitly as mind-independent, however initially intramental they may be, in keeping with his late scholastic training. 67 In stating as much, Descartes is no longer addressing idea in its formally repre­ sentative role (though that is involved), which is mind- dependent and distinct, yet not always separate, from what is being represented. Rather, Descartes is concerned with the res repraesentata that he also describes in his Praefatio ad Lectorem, but now in explicit contrast to the activity of representing, as 'what

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can still be more perfect than myself by reason of its essence' ( potest tamen me esse perfectior ratione suae essentiae ). 68 We are here in the presence of what Descartes calls, again in contrast to the above-mentioned modus essendi forma/is, a modus essendi objectivus, and which he describes as 'what belongs to ideas of their very nature' (modus essendi objectivus competit ideis ex ipsarum natura). 69 And even though Descartes will insist that such ideas of God and of the trian­ gle, with regard to that modus essendi objectivus contained in (but, in these instances, not caused by) ideas formally taken, have an imperfect (diminished) modus essendi, they are surely not nothing (non nihil) and cannot accordingly be forthcoming from nothing (atqui quantumvis imperfectus sit isle essendi modus, quo res est objective in intellectu per ideam, non tamen profecto plane nihil est, nee proinde a nihilo esse potest). 70 Again in contrast to the mind­ dependent process of knowing, what is called for here is an extramental effi­ cient cause, transcendent to the human mind because the effect in question, the modus essendi objectivus, is acknowledged to be mind-independent and to tran­ scend the formal and/or eminent causal range of the human mind. 7 1 In his use of the double negative non nihil, Descartes pays his linguistic re­ spects to his Jesuit preceptors and embraces Suarez's position on the conceptus objectivus wherein a vera ac positiva res is at issue. 72 In the instance of the idea of God, on the level of metaphysical intelligibility, initially found as an effect within the mind from which one reasons to its extramental efficient cause, the mind-independent vera ac positiva res is acknowledged to be an actual essence; in the case of the triangle, on the level of mathematical intelligibility, the vera ac positiva res is an intramental real possible. 73 Herein, but in a considerably compressed fashion, Descartes has assimilated Suarez's position on transcen­ dental truth possessed by any vera ac positiva res. This is clearly evident when he switches from the double-negative formulation, non nihil, to positive desig­ nations which are Cartesian commonplaces, reale aliquid, res, aliquid, and verum. 14 But now, still on the level of what amounts to the conceptus objectivus or res repraesentata, the cognitive content manifested by the conceiving process, in­ herited from Suarez, one must heed Descartes's position on the intramental factitious ideas, taken objectively, of course. It must be clearly noted that the mind-dependency at issue here is not to be confused with the above-mentioned mind-dependency of the knowing process as a genuine mental mode. We are here dealing again with a modus essendi objectivus, but which, unlike that in­ volved in the instances of the idea of God and of the triangle, is, at least in some way, not altogether mind-independent. 75 It is in the critical confrontation with Caterus that Descartes's position on realitas objectiva reveals most graphically, and yet most cryptically, his mastery

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of what his masters initially taught him. For Descartes is quick to disclaim that his position on esse objectivum is to be understood after the fashion of Caterus' s position, wherein esse objectivum is an instance of a mere extrinsic denomina­ tion of such an obscure (and materially false) cognitive content as the adventi­ tious idea of the extramental sun. 76 Indeed, Descartes is equally quick to insist that his position has to do with the intramental idea of the sun, taken objec­ tively, of course, arrived at by the reasonings of the astronomers, to which he had referred previously in the course of the Third Meditation.77 However, Descartes never states, in his reply to Caterus, that, in citing the astronomical idea of the sun, he is referring to a factitious idea. 78 In any case, with considerable caution exercised about Descartes's reticence in regard to the factitious character of the idea in question, one must acknowl­ edge that, on this score, at least in some unexpressed and never spelled-out fashion, we are also dealing with what is a mind-independent reality, a modus essendi objectivus, which calls for a transcendent, extramental efficient cause.79 If it were otherwise, if there were no evidence on behalf of a mind-independent cognitive content, Descartes could not make the claim that he proceeds to make against Caterus on the twofold meaning of non nihil. 80 That is, he could not make the case he does make on behalf of the 'dependent intelligibility' (but not mind-dependent), in the instance of the intramental real astronomical idea of the sun. 8 1 3

In an initial confrontation with Descartes, as the author of the fourth set of Objections to the Meditations, Amauld made it very evident that he was a pro­ ponent of the traditional late scholastic position on simplex conceptio/simplex apprehensio as a prejudgmental intellectual process that represents its object unerringly. 82 It would appear that, implicit within this position should be Amauld' s further commitment to the distinction between the formal and objec­ tive concepts, in its Suarezian/Cartesian renderings and that this commitment should come to the fore explicitly in his Des vraies et des fausses idees if Arnauld is to remain faithful to the position of Descartes. 83 For within the confines of the Fourth Objections, Amauld, pointing up the ambiguity of the term positive, indicates that an idea is not to be characterized as positiva, in the formal sense, according to the mind-dependent esse that an idea has as a modus cogitandi or mental mode. If this were so, then all our ideas would have to be positive in view of what Suarez and Descartes have indicated to be a modus essendi formalis. 84 An idea is designated as positive when the mental mode in question contains and represents what is positive, in

1 48 Norman J. Wells the objective sense, or, as noted above in regard to Suarez, when the process of knowing represents a vera ac positiva res. 85 Since Amauld had implied that not all of our ideas are positive in an objective sense, what may be represented could very well be what is not a vera ac positiva res, but rather an ens rationis. 8 6 In however an abbreviated fashion, Amauld's position would appear to embody a distinction between the knowing process, which is always positive, and the intramental object known, which is not always so. It will remain to be seen whether this distinction will be acknowledged as well as sustained in Amauld' s classic confrontation with Malebranche. There can be no question that Amauld is linguistically and doctrinally in­ debted to the late scholastic tradition and to Descartes for his position on per­ ceiving and/or any knowing process that is exercised by the mind and deter­ mines it as a mental mode. 87 He is equally indebted to Descartes and to the tradition represented by Suarez on the formal concept or idea for his position on this perceiving process as an image that is essentially representative. 88 Amauld, following Descartes and Suarez, labels this representative function idee. Con­ vinced of the unique and distinctive character of cognitive imaging, Amauld labours, at the risk of equivocation, to do justice to it by disclaiming that it is similar to the imaging of pictures or the way in which words, spoken or written, are images of our thoughts. 89 But while obviously indebted to the late scholastic tradition, as is the case with Descartes, there is an ongoing reluctance on Amauld's part to avail himself of the considerable resources, in these matters, of that repudiated tradition. For Amauld is clearly dealing with subject-matter that occasioned a traditional late scholastic distinction between natural formal signs and instrumental signs, either natural or conventional. 9° For whatever reasons, perhaps Descartes' s reticence to do so and/or the increasing ignorance of that late scholastic expertise, Amauld fails to acknowledge explicitly that his idees and/or images are natural formal signs 'which are such precisely because they are not what we perceive, ' 9 1 and that his pictures and words, written or spoken, are ' signs which must be perceived as objects in order to function as signs. ' 92 So while Amauld is faithful to Descartes' s position on the modus essendi formalis as far as the activity of perceiving is concerned, Amauld would appear not only to have embraced Descartes's teaching on the modus essendi objectivus, but to have adopted its terminology as well. For in spelling out the representa­ tive role of ideas, Amauld remarks that 'les choses que nous concevons sont objectivement dans notre esprit et dans notre pensee.' To describe this, Amauld will even use the phrase maniere d'etre objectivement dans / 'esprit, 93 which I take to be the linguistic equivalent of Descartes's modus essendi objectivus. 94 It would seem to be the case, then, that, like Suarez and Descartes, Amauld is an

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advocate of the late scholastic position on the two distinct, but not separate, ways of being in the mind. Indeed, in chapter 5, Amauld will insist that when I conceive of the sun, the sun is objectively in my mind, and in commenting on a statement of Malebranche' s position in chapter 6, will equally insist that that formulation indicates that 'outre les objets que nous connoissons ii ... y a quelque chose dans nostre esprit qui les represente. ' 95 Straightway, Amauld will ac­ knowledge that he does not reject such a modus loquendi, as the late scholastics would say.96 That is, as Amauld explains, both the object known and the imaging activity of perceiving are in the mind, purportedly in a formal, subjective fashion in the instance of the activity of perceiving and in the objective fashion in the case of the object known.97 However, as one reads on in Amauld's classic polemic against Malebranche, it becomes clear that, while his language in many places, the very language of Descartes and the late scholastic tradition embodied in Suarez, appears to ex­ press the same doctrines, that traditional teaching, wittingly or unwittingly, has been transformed. For as Amauld develops his position, assuredly with the best of intentions to be faithful to Descartes and, at the same time vigorously opposed to Malebranche, he, in fact, fails to understand, and to do justice to, the very position of Descartes, as I read him, wherein to be in an intellect as an imaging process, naturally representative of a res, is to be in that intellect formally and/or subjectively, after the fashion of a quality inherent in its subject.98 In tum, Amauld misun­ derstands the other distinct way of being in the mind, that is, objectively, where to be in the m ind is not to be there formally or subjectively, by being known, in an image, as it were. It is not to be in an intellect after the fashion of what inheres in a subject.99 More positively put, it is to be in an intellect after the fashion of an object, as what is opposed (objicitur) to the activity of perceiving, as that which is known, represented, or imaged - an actual or possible essence 1 00 (which is strikingly characterized by Descartes as mind-independent) and/or an ens rationis. It remains to be seen if Amauld ever grants or acknowledges such a mind-independent 1 0 1 feature as Descartes does in the case of the ideas of God and the triangle. In view of his constant efforts to avoid any dimension of his adversary's position, this option would appear to be completely closed off for all of Amauld's best-intentioned efforts to be faithful to Descartes. If there were ever an opportunity for Amauld to do justice to the traditional perspective on the two distinct ways of being in the mind, it was afforded to him as he proposed his interpretation of what has to be Descartes's position on the astronomers idea of the sun, which they had arrived at by way of reasoning, though Amauld does not identify its astronomical origins. 1 02 Just as Caterus had emphasized, and Descartes had remarked upon, for the extramental sun to be

1 50 Norman J. Wells conceived, purportedly on the level of adventitious ideas, is an instance of an extrinsic denomination that Amauld characterizes as merely a relation to the perception I have of it. That is, something is known and/or knowable when it is temporally coincident with a knowing activity as the object thereof. 1 03 But when what is at issue is what Descartes replied to Caterus, in his rejec­ tion of the pertinence of an extrinsic denomination, saying that '/ 'idee du soleil est le soleil en tant qu 'ii est objectivement dans mon esprit, 104 Amauld, to all appearances following Descartes, implies clearly that an extrinsic denomina­ tion is not involved. What is pertinent here is not an etre l 'objet, wherein some­ thing is known and/or knowable by being known, but rather an etre intelligible or what is purportedly an intramental being that is intrinsically knowable. 1 0 5 This latter mode of being is described by Amauld again in a fashion reminis­ cent of Descartes, as more imperfect than the formal being of the extramental sun, but nevertheless, he insists, we cannot say of it that it is nothing (nihil). In addition, Amauld will here emphatically state that we cannot say, of that which amounts to an esse diminutum, that it does not need a cause. Indeed, just as in Descartes, it would appear that an extramental efficient cause is called for be­ cause we recognize that the mind is in the presence of an intramental cognitive content whose intelligible being (etre intelligible) is mind-independent, but is none the less still a 'dependent intelligibility.' 1 06 It appears, then, at this point, that Amauld moves singularly beyond his professed emphasis on the issue of 'the nature of knowledge, ' and the formal causality involved therein, to what he has referred to (but infrequently addresses) as the issue of the originof ideas involving an attendant concern for what pur­ portedly has to do with extramental efficient causality. 1 07 However, for all of his careful acknowledgment here of Descartes' s reply to Caterus, Amauld never does full justice to this etre intelligible, which is non nihil, in the very text where Descartes uses idea to indicate the res repraesentata and not the imago that represents . 1 08 Nor could he, given his adversarial relationship with Malebranche. Indeed, if Arnauld were to do so, if he were to feature idea, as Descartes had done, in its objective meaning, to designate the res repraesentata or object known by, and contained in, but distinct from, idea taken formally, he would have come all too close to Malebranche' s position, especially if he ac­ knowledged the ideas of God and the triangle, taken objectively, to be mind­ independent as Descartes had done. 1 09 For how could Amauld claim that idea, identified with the perceiving process, upon whose naturally representative func­ tion he has staked so much, is also to be used to designate an object known and/ or knowable, and distinct from that activity of perceiving? For a known and/or knowable object, distinct from the activity of perceiving, to represent something

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is no less than the folly embodied in Malebranche' s doctrine of what Amauld likes to call ' la Philosophie des fausses Idees. ' 1 1 0 So it is that, in his ongoing dispute with Malebranche, Amauld will take every opportunity to deny that there are any intramental representative beings distinct from perceptions. In doing so, Amauld will remain faithful to Descartes, and, beyond him, to Suarez, wherein conceptus is reduced to conceptio and/or to the formal knowing process whose natural cognitive function is to repre­ sent. 1 1 1. However, while it must be granted that Amauld is adamant in rejecting any intramental representative beings distinct from perceptions, it is not alto­ gether clear whether Amauld clearly recognizes that such a rejection is not at all the same thing as a denial of any and every intramental being distinct from perception. 1 1 2 Again, while it may appear that Amauld, in his interpretation of the astronomical idea of the sun, is doctrinally faithful to Descartes' s position on the modus essendi objectivus contained in every idea, taken formally as representing - though he is not terminologically faithful there because he refuses to signify it by the term idea, taken objectively in Descartes's sense - his posi­ tion with regard to that intramental etre intelligible contained in the astronomi­ cal idea of the sun is far from being a clear endorsement of an intramental being distinct from perception. 1 1 3 It is, of course, not a distinct representative being, no more that it was for Descartes himself. 1 14 But the question must be asked whether Amauld is at all sensitive to this issue and whether he can be a consist­ ently faithful interpreter of his master if he fails to insist on a distinction be­ tween the knowing process and a distinct intramental non-representative being that, in the case of actual and possible essences, is mind-independent. 1 1 5 For, as Amauld proceeds to develop his position, there is a pervasive silence on this issue accompanied by an ongoing tendency to express and spell out his position in a fashion that flies in the face of what tended to sound like an espousal of Descartes ' s position on the mind-independent being contained in the astronomical idea of the sun . Indeed, in explicit confrontation with two classical texts of Descartes which he glosses in relation to Meditations III and V, Amauld claims that what Descartes 'appelle idee et sur quoi ii fonde ensuite ses demonstrations de Dieu et de I' ame, n' est point reellement distingue de nostre pensee ou perception. ' 1 1 6 That is, Arnau Id claims, idea herein 'c' est notre pensee meme, en tant qu' elle contient objectivement ce qui est fonnellement dans l ' obj et. ' It is clear that Arnau Id is convinced that, in so interpreting Descartes's position, there is no evidence or need for any representative being distinct from one' s thinking. And in so interpreting that position, he is histori­ cally correct to the extent that he is linguistically faithful to Descartes's position on the m ind-dependent thinking activity as representing and contain ing an

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object or content that in fact, however, is the res repraesentata for Descartes, and has no representing function at all. But Amauld here fails clearly to realize that to deny a distinct representative being is not to deny a mind-independent non-representative being contained by the thinking process and distinct from that process. It is this latter mind-independent, objective mode of being, cer­ tainly on the part of the idea of God and the triangle, taken objectively in Descartes's sense, of course, that is and has been the focus of Descartes's proofs of the existence of God. 1 1 7 Moreover, in a further comment on the proofs, in a description that sounds more akin to what Malebranche might have said than anything Descartes had claimed, Amauld insists that idea therein must not be taken to stand ' pour l'etre parfait meme, en tant qu'il est intimement uni a notre ame.' As if this were the only other alternative to Amauld's interpretation of Descartes on this score. Amauld continues to be oblivious to the genuine significance of what is at issue in Descartes's first proof, namely, that it begins with a creature and/or a created effect, in fact, with an intramental created effect. It does not begin with a cause 'intimement uni a notre ame,' but with an effect, present to the mind in a dimin­ ished imperfect fashion and yet, non nihil, calling for an extramental efficient cause. 1 1 8 We should not, then, underestimate Amauld's denial of a real distinction between perception and idee, and his identification of idee as an imaging activity with that which is imaged, such that the idea is identified with the thing known existing objectively in the mind, identified, that is, with its content. Already implicit, I suspect, in his claim that perceiving and idea are identified, this denial has surely conditioned Arnauld' s ongoing interpretation of Descartes's texts and foreordained the attenuated outcome of his sincere efforts to be faithful to his Cartesian heritage. For, in chapter 6, in the course of accommodating his position to the prevail­ ing/a9ons de par/er abroad in the position of his adversary, Amauld cites two critical texts of Descartes from his replies to the Second Objections to confirm his status as a faithful disciple. 1 1 9 More exactly, Amauld is convinced that they corroborate his persistent denial of Malebranche's position on intramental rep­ resentative beings distinct from perceiving and/or idea, oblivious to the fact that, given his rendering, they also deny intramental non-representative beings distinct from perceiving and/or idea, which I take to be the late scholastic tradi­ tion, but more important, which I take to be the position of Descartes himself. 1 20 The first text of Descartes addresses his position on idea as a term that desig­ nates 'that form of any thinking (cogitationis) by the immediate perception of which I am aware of that very same thinking, such that I can express nothing in words while understanding what I say unless I am certain in that instance that

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there is an idea of what is signified by those words.' 1 2 1 Arnauld is quite correct to read this as an expression of Descartes's position on idea taken formally as a mental mode which is basically reflexive or reflective on itself Uust as was the case with Suarez' s conceptio formalis). That is, we know our knowing, which Suarez will explicitly characterize as virtual reflection, as does Arnauld him­ self. 1 22 However, contrary to Arnauld's rendering, it is not without interest to note that Descartes does not say here that idea is the immediate object of that perception. To be sure, Descartes claims that we are 'immediately aware' of our ideas because we perceive our perceiving. But, to the best of my knowledge, Descartes never describes this perceiving of perceiving as a perceiving of an object, except in the very special context of the material falsity of adventitious ide�s in replying to Arnauld in the Fourth Objections, and wherein Descartes was speaking on the level of explicit (not virtual) reflection. 1 23 Arnauld is certain that this interpretation of Descartes on the reflexive character of thinking legitimizes his position that 'toute perception etant essentiellement representative de quelque chose, et selon cela s'appellant idee, elle ne peut etre essentiellement reflechissant sur elle meme, que son objet immediat ne soit cette idee; c'est a dire la realite objective de la chose que mon esprit est dit appercevoir.' 1 24 In keeping with his identification of cognitive content, or the objective mode of being in Descartes, with idea, or the formal mode of being thereof, also in Descartes, Arnauld herein insists that to know reflexively that idea is to know the content with which the idea is identified. So what was meant by l 'etre intel­ ligible in the mind, in the key text above on the astronomer's idea of the sun, is the intramental formal being of the activity of perceiving. What is at issue is a way of being in the mind by way of an intelligible image that transcends any sort of sensible imagery because it obtains on the plane of genuinely spiritual being_ 1 2s In addition, the second classical text of Descartes offers his definition of the Realitas Objectiva of an idea as 'the entity of the thing (res) represented by the idea insofar as that res repraesentata is in the idea ... For whatever we perceive as being in the objects of ideas, are in the ideas themselves objectively. ' To this latter Latin rendering, Clerselier had added, by way of clarifying the Latin objective, the French phrase ou par representation. 1 26 Yet, as I have insisted else­ where, far from clarifying the issue, it has led a horde of modem commentators astray. 127 And I fear, as well, that Arnauld has been led astray, as have his com­ mentators. 1 2 8 For in conflating the thing imaged and represented, that is, the objective reality of the sun, for example, with the idea as an imaging, represent­ ing activity, the meaning of objective reality, inspired by Clerselier's ou par representation, no longer is the res repraesentata it was for Descartes, and for

154 Norman J. Wells Suarez too. 1 29 Now, for Amauld, it is the extramental reality existing in the mind in a representative fashion, in and by an image and/or idea. Objective reality takes on the representative function of the idea, formally taken, with which it is identified. So, while Descartes has said that the idea of the sun, taken objectively, is the sun itself in the mind, 1 3 0 at the hands of Amauld, the position of Descartes has been reversed to the extent that the sun itself in the mind is 'cette idee, c'est a dire la realite objective de la chose que mon esprit est dit appercevoir: de sorte que, si je pense au soleil, la realite objective du soleil, qui est presente a mon esprit, est l'objet immediat de cette perception.' 1 3 1 That is, when I think of the sun, that idea and/or imaging, perceiving activity, identified with what it images, with its content, is reflective upon itself, so that we know our own knowing and we know the thing known with which it is identified. This is, again, what Amauld means when he insists on an intramental etre intelligible that is professedly not an extrinsic denomination. ! J z This etre intel­ ligible is the intramental formal being of the imaging process and/or the intramental formal being expressed by Descartes's modus essendi formalis. m This, for Amauld, is what is non nihil and more imperfect than extramental formal being and this is what calls for a causal explanation. 1 3 4 However, in Arnauld, no extramental efficient cause is at issue as it was for Descartes. Arnauld's etre intelligible calls only for an intramental cause, no less than the perceiving activity itself, which is the formal cause of l 'etre intelligible (not unlike the way in which the triangle is the formal cause of its essential proper­ ties), and certainly no more than the mind itself. 1 3 5 4 Arnauld finds himself caught between Descartes and Malebranche, and the dilemma that confronts him is to be faithful to the former at the same time that he avoids the alleged shortcomings of the latter. But when the interpretation of Descartes's position is rendered, as it is, subject to the burdens of avoiding the pitfalls of Malebranche, it is never given its adequate due. There can be no question as to Amauld's Cartesian fidelity when he says that the activity of perceiving simultaneously enjoys the intramental mind-depend­ ent formal being of a genuine mental mode as a subjective quality inherent in the mind, and functions as a natural image in keeping with its status as an immanent cognitive activity. It is this doctrine that Amauld uses, constantly and consistently, against the position of his adversary in order to banish any intramental representative being distinct from the imaging character of the per­ ceiving process itself. This ongoing application of Ockham's Razor, however, is not without its negative consequences. For its very achievements against Malebranche frus-

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trate any fidelity o n Amauld' s part to the very fundamental position of Descartes on the modus essendi objectivus on the part of things in mente. There can be no question that Amauld labours mightily to bring Descartes' s language on realitas objectiva in line with their mutual commitment to the modus essendi formalis as a natural imaging process and that, in doing so, he succeeds in fending off the spectre of Malebranche. But the upshot of such a reduction of Descartes's modus essendi objectivus to a modus essendi formalis results in a distortion of Descartes' s teaching and leads to what Professor Yolton has labelled the ' deontologizing' of ideas. The alleged ' intelligible being' one is left with when Amauld finishes with his rendering of Descartes' s position on the idea of the sun, taken objectively, is the intramental being of the m ind-dependent act of perceiving and not the intramental real possible being of Descartes, which enjoys a mind-independent modus essendi objectivus. Not only does Amauld fail to do justice to Descartes, but it remains to be seen if his efforts to speak with the vulgar as to the knowl­ edge of extramental beings can be supported by what he thought (and spoke of, as well) with the learned. Indeed, the role of the knowing subject as the point of departure for any future metaphysics is given even more prominence than it had for Descartes. Notes 1 See his still useful Index scolastico-cartesien, 2nd ed., rev. and enlarged (Paris: J. Vrin 1 979), and his remarks dated 1 966 in the 'Postface. ' But what is there can be useful only if it is used. 2 See John Deely, ' Semiotic and the Controversy over Mental Events, ' Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophy Association 52 ( 1 978), 23 : 'The basis for positing the existence of idea is our awareness of objects, not the other way around! ' See the linkage between 'nothing in the intellect not first in the senses' and the distinction between the formal and obj ective concept in relation to language in Thomas Compton Carleton, SJ ( d. 1 666), Philosophia Universa (Antwerp, 1 649), Logica, d. 42, sec. 4, n. I ; 1 59: ' Ut nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerat in sensu, ita ad linguam nihil derivatur quod antea non fuerat in mente, seu cuius loquens idaeam prius ac similitudinem apud se in animo non formaverat. Hine oritur quaestio, utrum dum vocem quis aliquam exterius profert, Homo ex. g. vox haec hominem ipsum significet, an idaeam illam seu imaginem, quae aliud nihil est quam actus ipse intellectus quo hominem concipit: Uno verbo; num voces conceptus formales significent, an objectivos?' We shall have occasion to return to this very problem in Suarez (see n. 3 1 below), Descartes (see n. 1 2 1 ) and Arnauld (n. 1 2 1 ) . Compton Carleton's identification of similitudo and imago

156 Norman J. Wells with the activity of knowing (actus ipse intellectus quo . . . concipit) will also be found in Suarez (see n. 1 6), Mastrius and Meurisse (see n. 7), Descartes (n. 6 1 ) and Arnauld (n. 88). For an interesting discussion of Compton Carleton and Descartes, see J.F. McCormick, SJ, 'A Jesuit Contemporary of Descartes, ' The Modern Schoolman 1 4 ( 1 937), 79-82. For a fascinating discussion of Compton Carleton and language, see J.P. Doyle, 'Thomas Compton Carleton, S.J. : On Words Signifying More Than Their Speakers or Makers Know or Intend, ' The Modern Schoolman 66 ( 1 988), 1-28, where ( I 0-1 1 ) he comments upon the above text of Compton Carleton : ' In Section Four Carleton flatly states that as conventional signs words immediately signify things (n. 2, p. 1 59). Confirmation of this is in the fact that teachers and speakers generally do not intend simply to convey their own codcepts to their hearers, but primarily to tell about public obj ects (res). Equally, hearers do not l i sten primarily to learn the thoughts of speakers, but rather to learn about things (n. 3). At the same time, in some deference to Aristotle's Perihermeneias, he allows that mediately, or inferentially (arguitive), words are natural signs of concepts (n. 4 ). To reconcile both parts, he fal ls back on the scholastic distinction between obj ective and formal concepts. The obj ective concept, which is the thing as known, is the immediate significate of words, whereas the formal concept, which is the very idea itself as a subj ective quality of the knower, is mediately signified by words. This latter is true inasmuch as someone can, from externally spoken words, infer the existence of the mental words, or the formal concepts, of their speaker (n. 5). ' For a discussion of the question raised in Compton Carleton' s text, as well as his response thereto, as it concerns Locke, see E.J. Ashworth, ' "Do Words Signify Ideas or Things" The Scholastic Sources of Locke' s Theory of Language,' Journal of the History of Philosophy 1 9 ( 1 98 1 ), 299-326. 3 For the pertinent texts of Suarez on this issue from Disputationes Metaphysicae, see Opera Omnia, ed. C. Berton, 28 vols in 30 (Paris: Vives 1 858-78), 8; 25, 274-3 1 2. See my article ' Material Falsity in Descartes, Amauld and Suarez, ' Journal of the History of Philosophy 22 ( 1 984), 25-50, esp. 30-5 . 4 The traditional and ongoing dispute to which I refer can be seen in G. Picard, SJ, 'Essai sur la connaissance sensible d ' apres les scolastiques, ' Archives de Philosophie 4 ( 1 926), 1 -93, esp. 4- 1 2; and F. Riva, 'La dottrina suareziana del concetto e le sue fonte storiche, ' Rivista di Filosofia neo-scolastica 71 ( 1 979), 686-99, wherein Suarez' s debt to a tradition going back to Biel, Durandus, and Scotus is neatly spelled out. See De Anima, 3, 3-5 ; 3 :625-37. 5 In regard to all such late ·scholastic terminology, I refer the reader to Gilson ' s Index; Picard 1 926; S . Chauvin, Lexicon Philosophicum ( 1 7 1 3 ; repr. Dusseldorf: Stem-Verlag Janssen 1 967); and to the magnificent edition of John Poinsot's (a.k.a. John of St Thomas, OP) Tractatus de Signis: The Semiotic ofJohn Poinsot, interpretative arrangement by J.N. Deely in consultation with Ralph Austin Powell

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(Berkeley : University of California Press 1 985); and to the equal ly magnificent Index rerum, Terms and Propositions. From the vantage point of this late scholastic controversy as to whether the concept etc. is distinct from the activity of conceiving, the efforts of S.M. Nadler, Arnauld and the Cartesian Philosophy of Ideas (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1 989), 145-7, to distinguish between the perspectives of Malebranche and Amauld from the standpoint of modern phenomenology in terms of an 'object approach to intentionality' versus the ' content approach ' thereto ( wherein Malebranche is alleged to embrace the former and Amauld and Descartes are cited on behalf of the latter), do not strike me as fruitful, as will become clear below. I would make the same case about Nadler's use (5-6) of an 'act theory ' versus an 'object theory' distinction. 6 � ee John Poinsot, Tractatus de Signis, bk II, q. 4; 263 : ' Sit Ergo Unica Conclusio : Actus intelligendi sic distinctus a specie impressa et expressa non est signum formate, in quacumque operatione intellectus sumatur. Haec conclusio est contra aliquos recentiores, etiam ex thomistis, sed tamen pro ilia videri potest Capreolus in 4. dist. 49. q. 1 ., Ferrariensis 2 Cont. Gent. cap. 49. F.x hoc enim in fine. ' In the course of his discussion, Poinsot makes a prophetic remark in light of the forthcoming disagreement between Malebranche and Amauld. He notes (264) that ' if the act of understanding is distinct (from the expressed specifier), either it represents the same obj ect as the word (the expressed specifier), and so one of these two - act or word - is superfluous. ' This is exactly the strategy, in his application of Ockham' s Razor, that Arnauld will use so successfully against Malebranche. See Arnauld's citation of the Razor in Des vraies et des fausses idees in Oeuvres de Messire Antoine Arnauld, reprint of 1 683 ed. (Lausanne: Sigismond D ' Arnay & Cie 1 780), vol. 38, chap. I, 1 82: 'La septieme (regle); de ne pas multiplier les etres sans necessite' (hereafter this work will be referred to as VF/). However, even before John Poinsot, the identification of the concept with the activity of conceiving, which we shall confront in Suarez, Descartes, and Amauld, had been concluded to and defended by a vigorous application of the Razor by Petrus Fonseca, Commentariorum in Libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis (Hildesheim: G. Olms 1 964), bk. 7, cap. 8, q. 3 (vols. III-IV, 296-306), where he discusses the question, Num verbum mentale in nobis per actum intelligendi producatur? For the Razor, see Fonseca's rejection of the Thomist position (297C): ' Impugnatione quidem primae, tum quia extra scholam Divi Thomae vix ullus earn sequitur, et ex Thomistis pauci sunt admodum, qui illam in eo, ut ita dicam, rigore amplectantur: tum etiam, quia nulla est necessitas multiplicandi res: ubi di versa ratio eiusdem est satis. ' For a general treatment of the Thomist school, see P. Garin, La theorie de l 'idee suivant l 'ecole thomiste, 2 vols (Paris : Desclee de Brouwer 1 932). However, to the best of my knowledge, Garin does not address the above-mentioned controversy. 7 See the Scotist B. Mastrius, Disputationes in 12 Arist. Stag. libros

1 58 Norman J. Wells Metaphysicorum (Veneti is, 1 646), Disp. 2, q. I, n. 2; I, 66: 'Quid sit conceptus formalis, et objectivus iam diximus disp. 1 0. log. q. 2. art. I . et disp. 7 Phys. q. 7. conceptus enim formalis est ipsa rei cognitio, vel actus ipse intelligendi . . . conceptus autem objectivus est ipsa res mente concepta, vel saltim menti repraesentata per speciem, diciturque conceptus denominatione extrinseca a conceptu formali, quo dicitur concipi, et dicitur objectivus, quia cum res concipitur, non se habet ut forma inhaerens concipienti potentiae' Moreover, Mastrius will use a key distinction in the same context that will be employed later by Amauld (cited by S. Nadler, 1 989, 1 42): ' Item conceptus formalis semper est res singularis in essendo, licet possit esse universalis in repraesentando, cum sit ipsemet intelligendi actus; sed objectivus esse potest universal is, et singularis, nam et singularia, et universalia intellectui objiciuntur, ut intelligantur. ' See Suarez using a similar distinction between in essendo vs. in repraesentando in the context of conformitas, Disp. Metaphys., 8, 3, 1 6; 25, 288. For the natural, formal sign, again see Mastrius, Disputationes In Organum Aristot. (Venetiis, I 646), Disp. 1 0, q. 2, a. 1 , n. 7; 766: 'nam conceptus formalis est species, et imago expressa objecti, sicut species impressa dicitur imago v irtualis objecti, dependet ab objecto in ratione mensurae ipsum repraesentat. ' As the text continues, Mastrius characterizes the conceptus formalis as a natural sign : 'Tum, quia sicut se habet oratio vocalis ad res per illam significatas, ita conceptus formalis ad objectum, nam sicut oratio est signum ad placitum significans ex dictis disp. 2. q. 1. ita conceptus est signum naturaliter repraesentans. ' For Mastrius on the formal sign, see his lnstitutiones Dialecticae, Tract. I, cap. 2; 4: 'Dividitur porro signum in formale, et est illud, quod absque sui praevia cognitione aliud nobis repraesentat, et in eius cognitionem ducit, quales sunt species impressa, et expressa respectu proprii objecti ... illud vero primum vocat praecise rationem cognoscendi, quatenus praecise est quo aliud cognoscitur, et non quod cognoscitur. ' See also M. Meurisse, OFM, Rerum Metaphysicarum Libri tres ad mentem Doctoris Subtilis (Paris, 1 623), bk I , q. 6; 80, discussing the conceptus entis. He notes: 'Praenotandum itaque 1 ex Doctore Subtili Theoremate 8, Licheto in i dist. 3, qu. 1 , Aureolo in 1 distinct. 2, p. I , art. 1 , Joanne Bassolis in i, dist. 8, q. 1 , et aliis nostris tum veteribus, tum modemis, conceptum Entis, sicut et cuiuscumque alterius naturae, esse dupliciter, scilicet formalem, et objectivum. Formalis est actus ille quo intellectus actu et formaliter intelligit: objectivus est res intellecta. Prior proprie dicitur conceptus, quia illo proprie et formaliter dicitur intellectus actu concipere seu intelligere. Posterior aequivoce tantum ut