Descartes and ancient skepticism: Reheated cabbage?

Philosophical Review

Volumn 109, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 195-234

  Fine, Gail ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33847335104     PISSN: 00318108     EISSN: 15581470     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/00318108-109-2-195     Document Type: Article

References (166)

1. See (to take only a few of many examples) M. F. Burnyeat, "Can the Skeptic Live His Skepticism?" in The Skeptical Tradition, ed. M. F. Burnyeat (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 117-48, at 118-19 (originally published in Doubt and Dogmatism, ed. M. Schofield, M. Burnyeat, and J. Barnes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1980), 20-53);
2. J. Annas and J. Barnes, The Modes of Scepticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 7-8;
3. B. Mates, "Pyrrhonism and Modern Scepticism: Similarities and Differences," in Philosophie, Psycholoanalyse, Emigration, ed. P. Muhr, P. Feyeraband, C. Wegeler (Vienna: WUV-Universitätsverlag, 1992), 210-28, at 219-21;
4. R. Hankinson, The Sceptics (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1995), 21-23;
5. S. Gaukroger, "The Ten Modes of Aenesidemus and the Myth of Ancient Scepticism," British Journal for the History of Philosophy 3 (1995): 371-87, and his Descartes: An Intellectual Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1995), 310ff. However, the claim is often qualified. Annas and Barnes, for example, say that "[m]odern scepticism frequently represents itself as issuing a challenge to knowledge" (7; first emphasis added). Burnyeat says that "all too often in contemporary discussion the target of the skeptic is taken to be knowledge rather than belief ("Can the Skeptic?" 118; emphasis added). Nor is it clear that all these authors count Descartes (on whom I shall be focusing here) as a modern skeptic on this point; some of them may have in mind only twentieth-century philosophers.
6. In addition to Burnyeat's "Can the Skeptic?" see also his "Idealism and Greek Philosophy: What Descartes Saw and Berkeley Missed," Philosophical Review 91 (1982): 3-40, at 35-36;
7. and his "The Sceptic in His Place and Time," in Philosophy in History, ed. R. Rorty, J. B. Schneewind and Q. Skinner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 225-54.
8. See also R. Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), esp. chap. 9;
9. M. Williams, "Descartes and the Metaphysics of Doubt," in Essays on Descartes' Meditations, ed. A. Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 117-39, at, for example, 118;
10. S. Everson, "The Objective Appearance of Pyrrhonism," in Companions to Ancient Thought, vol. 2: Psychology, ed. S. Everson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 121-47.
11. Not all of these commentators think that ancient skepticism is as weak as property skepticism. But they all think that it differs from modern skepticism in not considering external world skepticism.
12. Not all modern commentators think that Descartes's skepticism is more radical than ancient skepticism. For the opposing view, see L. Robin, Pyrrhon et le skepticisme grec (Paris: Presses Universitares de France, 1944), 88-90 (though he focuses on Carneades and Cicero's Academica, whereas I shall focus on Sextus);
13. H. Gouhier, PenséMétaphysique de Descartes (Paris: Vrin, 1962), 35;
14. H. Caton, The Origin of Subjectivity: An Essay on Descartes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), 29;
15. and L. Groarke, "Descartes' First Meditation: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed," Journal of the History of Philosophy 22 (1984): 281-301, and his Greek Scepticism: Anti-Realist Trends in Ancient Thought (McGill: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990). Hegel believes that modern skepticism (that is, from Descartes to his own day) is less sweeping than ancient skepticism.
16. See his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, ed. and trans. E. S. Haldane and F. H. Simson (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968), 2:331-32;
17. cf. 347. For an interesting discussion of Hegel and ancient skepticism, see M. Forster, Hegel and Skepticism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989).
18. "Idealism," 30.
19. Ibid., 31.
20. Burnyeat says that "methodological" skepticism is the same as what Bernard Williams, in Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978), esp. chap. 2, calls "the project of pure enquiry." Burnyeat also gives a second explanation for the allegedly modest scope of ancient skepticism: that it allegedly lacks any, or a sufficiently robust, notion of subjectivity. I shall not discuss this explanation here.
21. He is sometimes thought to have been anticipated by Augustine. See (with qualifications) Burnyeat, "Idealism," 28f. For comparison of Augustine's and Descartes's discussions of skepticism, see G. Matthews, Thought's Ego (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992).
22. One justification for focusing on Sextus is that, as Annas and Barnes say, "[f]rom a philosopher's point of view, the most spectacular testimony to Sextus' influence is to be found in the writings of Descartes" (Modes, 6). Popkin, The History of Scepticism, chap. 9, argues that Descartes was especially influenced by the "neo-Pyrrhonism" of his day;
23. he focuses on it rather than on Sextus. E. Curley, Descartes Against the Skeptics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978), also focuses on Pyrrhonism, saying that in Descartes's day, "the pyrrhonian variety of skepticism was the most important and influential" (12). Curley thinks, however, that Descartes knew about it primarily through Montaigne;
24. see esp. 38-40, 68-69.
25. It is sometimes (explicitly or implicitly) thought that Descartes's skepticism is closer to Academic than to Pyrrhonian.
26. See, for example, P. Couissin, "Carnéade et Descartes," in Travaux du IXe Congrès International de Philosophie: Congrès Descartes (1937), pt. 3, 9-16;
27. M. Williams, "Descartes and the Metaphysics of Doubt," 134;
28. S. Menn, Descartes and Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 220.
29. The issue is somewhat complicated not only by Descartes's failure to say precisely what he read, but also by the fact that there are disputes about how, if at all, Academics and Pyrrhonists differ. Curley, for example (Descartes Against the Skeptics, 12), largely follows Sextus's account of the difference (in, for example, PH 1.1-3, 220-35), according to which Academics claim that nothing can be known, though some appearances are more "plausible" (pithanos) than others, whereas Pyrrhonists take these Academic claims to be expressions of dogmatism, rather than genuine skepticism. (Curley speaks of "probability" rather than of "plausibility." But as Burn-yeat has argued in "Carneades was no Probabilist" (unpublished), pithanos in this context does not mean "probable.") But Sextus's account is controversial.
30. For discussion, see G. Striker, "On the Difference between the Pyrrhonists and the Academics," in her Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 135-49 (originally published as "Über den Unterschied zwischen den Pyrrhoneern und den Akademikern," Phronesis26 (1981): 153-71).
31. Although I focus on Sextus, I shall for convenience generally speak of "ancient skepticism." In doing so, I do not mean to suggest that every point I make about "ancient skepticism" applies to Academics as well as to Pyrrhonists, or even to all Pyrrhonists, or even, for that matter, to Sextus at every point, since his thought may develop (or since different works of his may rely on different sources that express different views).
32. This is lucidly pointed out by Bernard Williams, in "Descartes's Use of Skepticism," in Burnyeat, The Skeptical Tradition, 337-52, at 337-38;
33. and the paragraph that follows in the text is indebted to him. Not only is Descartes not a skeptic; but it has also been argued that he was not even centrally concerned to refute skepticism.
34. See, for example, D. Garber, "Semel in Vita: The Scientific Background to Descartes' Meditations," in Rorty, Essays on Descartes' Meditations, 81-116.
35. Whether or not refuting skepticism was one of his central concerns, he does claim to have refuted it. In any case, my concern here is not with how central that project was to him, but simply with his account of ancient skepticism, and with how the skepticism he describes in, for example, Meditation 1, compares with ancient skepticism.
36. For another use of the medical metaphor, see AT 7:171-72 / CSM 2: 121, cited and discussed below. In quoting Descartes, I generally use the translations in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vols. 1 and 2, trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) (abbreviated "CSM");
37. and vol. 3, trans. CSM and A. Kenny (1991). However, I have sometimes altered their translations without comment. 'AT' refers to the standard edition of Descartes by C. Adam and P. Tannery, Oeuvres de Descartes (Paris: Vrin, 1996). Sextus also uses a medical metaphor. But for Sextus the disease is the uncertainty and consequent anxiety caused by the (as yet) futile search for certainty, and the cure is skepticism. In Descartes's view, by contrast, the disease is skepticism and the cure is his philosophy, which, he believes, provides certain foundations for all of human knowledge. This point is noticed by Williams, "Descartes's Use of Skepticism," 337-38.
38. For example, in "Scepticism and Animal Rationality," Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 79 (1997): 27-57, L. Floridi says that Descartes "probably never read the Outlines" (52). One of his reasons is Descartes's failure to mention Chrysippus's rational dog (for which, see PH 1.69), despite the fact that he discusses animal rationality in detail. I myself do not think this is good evidence for the view that Descartes had never read Sextus. (Floridi also claims that Descartes does not explicitly, or, he thinks, even implicitly, refer to any specific passage in Sextus.) Popkin, The History of Scepticism, by contrast, remarks that "[w]hen and how Descartes came into contact with sceptical views is hard to tell. But he seems to have been well aware not only of the Pyrrhonian classics, but also of the sceptical current of his time" (173; presumably the Pyrrhonian classics include Sextus).
39. By contrast, he mentions Cicero (a main source for Academic skepticism)-but only once, and in a context that has nothing to do with skepticism (AT 3:274 / CSM 3:166). When Mersenne claims to find one of Descartes's remarks obscure, Descartes replies: "It does not seem obscure to me; you could find a thousand places in Cicero which are more so." Descartes mentions Montaigne and Charron in one letter but, again, the context does not concern skepticism (AT 4:573-75 / CSM 3:302-3). He also mentions Galen, but not in connection with skepticism. He does not mention either Plutarch or Diogenes, to take just two further examples.
40. See, for example, Discourse on the Method, pt. 1 (AT 6:4ff. / CSM 1: 112ff.). Here Descartes admits to having read many works of the ancients, including philosophical ones (unfortunately, he does not say which ones); but he cautions against spending too much time reading the ancients, at least. See also the beginning of the Search for Truth (AT 10:495 / CSM 2: 400): "A good man is not required to have read every book or diligently mastered everything taught in the Schools. It would, indeed, be a kind of defect in his education if he had spent too much time on book-learning."
41. Henri Estienne published a Latin edition of the Outlines in 1562; Hervet published a Latin edition of all of Sextus in 1569. The Greek text was published by Chouet in 1621.
42. AT 7:130 / CSM 2:94, cited and discussed below. Notice that Descartes (like Sextus) distinguishes Academics from (I assume) Pyrrhonists. Unfortunately, he does not tell us how he distinguishes them; but AT 7:130 suggests that (despite the fact that he uses 'Sceptics' as a name for the Pyrrhonists) he views them both as skeptics.
43. Other works about Pyrrhonists-for example Diogenes Laertius's Life of Pyrrho-as well as more contemporary discussions, were available. But other works by Pyrrhonists were not available.
44. As we have seen (n. 10), he mentions both of them, though not in connection with skepticism. Montaigne's influence on Descartes has often been noted (though, in my view, the extent to which Descartes relies on Montaigne in particular is sometimes overstated).
45. See, for example, E. Gilson's commentary on the Discourse (Paris: Vrin, 1925; 4th ed., 1967) (Gilson also mentions the influence of Charron);
46. L. Brunschvicg, Descartes et Pascal, lecteurs de Montaigne (New York: Brentano, 1944);
47. Curley, Descartes Against the Skeptics. G. Rodis-Lewis notes that Descartes seems to have been given a copy of Charron's Traité de la Sagesse in 1619, and she notes various similarities between Charron and Descartes.
48. See her Descartes: His Life and Thought, trans. J. Todd (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998; originally published in French in 1995).
49. See also M. Adam, "René Descartes et Pierre Charron," Revue philosophique (1992): 467-83.
50. See especially his La Verité des Sciences contre les Septiques ou Pyrrhoniens (Paris, 1625).
51. See also Gassendi's Exercitationes Paradoxicae adversus Aristoteleos (Grenoble, 1624), Disquisitio Metaphysica (Amsterdam, 1644), and Syntagma Phihsophicum (Lyons, 1658). To be sure, the latter two works were published even after the Meditations, as indeed was book 2 of the Exercitationes, which is the most relevant part of that work. However, there is some evidence that book 2 circulated in manuscript; Gassendi and Mersenne were good friends, and Mersenne kept Descartes informed of the latest relevant work, as several letters attest. So Descartes may have had access to book 2, either directly or through Mersenne's account of it. Descartes may also have been familiar with La Mo the le Vayer's Dialogues d'Orasius Tubero (1630). It is true that in two letters to Mersenne written in 1630 (AT 1: 144-45 / CSM 3:22; AT 1:148-49 / CSM 3:24), he claims not to have read a "meschant livre" (sometimes thought to be La Mothe le Vayer's); but he also says that Mersenne had described its contents to him.
52. AT 10:512 / CSM 2:408, AT 10:520-21 / CSM 2:413, AT 2:38-39 / CSM 3:99.
53. Cited by Descartes in his Comments on a Certain Broadsheet, AT 8B:365 / CSM 1:308. Descartes admits that he discussed the controversial views in Meditation 1. But, he says, he did not believe them but, on the contrary, went on to refute them. This passage, along with some related material, is interestingly discussed by Margaret Wilson, in her Descartes (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978), 42-49.
54. In mentioning Plato, Hobbes presumably has in mind the version of the dreaming argument presented in the Theaetetus (157e-158e). Plato argues (on Protagoras's behalf, not in his own right) that "all the features of the two states correspond exactly, like counterparts" (158c; trans. McDowell);
55. he infers that we have no grounds for rejecting dream experiences as nonveridical. The precise interpretation of Descartes's dreaming argument is disputed. Burnyeat thinks it differs from Plato's in being more "radical" and "general" ("Idealism," 35-36). Annas and Barnes, by contrast, assimilate Descartes's and Plato's versions (and distinguish both from Sextus's, for which see PH 1.104) (Modes, 85-86). For a comparison of Descartes's dreaming argument with Sextus's and Cicero's (in Academica 2.88), see M. Williams, "Descartes and the Metaphysics of Doubt," 127-29;
56. he argues that Descartes poses "a question that never occurs to the classic skeptics" (128; but see his n. 16).
57. The exchange between Hobbes and Descartes mentions only the senses and the dreaming argument. Even if Descartes denies that his skeptical arguments here are novel, he might think that other skeptical arguments he describes are novel; for one possibility, see n. 23. However, the passages I go on to discuss suggest that he does not take his disclaimer of novelty to be restricted to the senses and the dreaming argument. It has been argued that, whatever Descartes thinks of the matter, even his use of the dreaming argument is novel: see previous note.
58. Descartes's claim that his skeptical arguments are merely plausible provides another interesting comparison with Sextus. At the end of the Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Sextus explains why skeptics "deliberately propound arguments of feeble plausibility" (3:280-81): just as different patients require different remedies, so skeptics use whatever arguments will persuade the interlocutor to hand. Similarly, Descartes uses arguments that appear plausible to his readers-people filled with preconceived opinions. Though both Sextus and Descartes distance themselves from their skeptical arguments, they do so for different reasons. As a skeptic, Sextus is not committed to any arguments he gives. Descartes, on the other hand, is not a skeptic; and he goes on to refute, in propria persona, many of the skeptical arguments retailed in Meditation 1.
59. When Descartes claims that his skeptical arguments are not new, I take him to mean two things: first, that it is not new to invoke (for example) some sort of dreaming argument, or some sort of deceiving god hypothesis; and, second, that the doubts he raises are no more radical than those previously considered by earlier philosophers. This, however, is compatible with his believing that his particular version of the dreaming argument, or of the deceiving god hypothesis, and so on, contain their own distinctive twists. So, for example, Cicero (Academica 2.47) considers a deceiving god hypothesis; Descartes's version does not simply repeat Cicero's. Perhaps Descartes, instead of saying that his skeptical arguments are not new, should have said that, even if he follows a new route to skepticism, the destination (that is, the sort of skepticism his arguments issue in) is not new. Thanks to Lesley Brown for discussion of this point.
60. Descartes alludes to a passage in Juvenal (Satire 7, 1. 154): "occidit miseros crambe repetita magistros" ("repeated cabbage kills wretched teachers")-that is, the same old lessons are the death of the poor teachers. The allusion is missed both in CSM's blander translation ("reheat and serve this precooked material") and in the authorized French translation ("une viande si commune"). Where I have 'distaste', CSM use 'reluctance', which is perhaps a bit mild for Descartes's 'sine fastidio'. The allusion to Juvenal is (independently) noted by Burnyeat, in his introduction to The Skeptical Tradition, 8 n. 3.
61. Burnyeat ("Idealism," 36-37) thinks that in the Conversation with Bur- man (AT 5:147 / CSM 3:333), Descartes claims that countenancing "the possibility of an all-powerful, deceiving deity" involves a more radical skepticism than any that had been previously countenanced: in which case Descartes does not always take "his" skepticism to be merely reheated cabbage. Here is the passage in question:
62. The author [Descartes] is here making us as doubtful as he can and casting us into as many doubts as possible. This is why he raises not only the customary difficulties of the sceptics but every difficulty that can possibly be raised; the aim is in this way to demolish completely every single doubt. And this is the purpose behind the introduction of the demon, which some might criticize as a superfluous addition.
63. I think the point is as follows. In Meditation 1, prior to introducing the demon, Descartes considered a dilemmatic argument according to which, whether or not God exists, we might always be deceived. So, prior to introducing the demon, he has already countenanced a perfectly general doubt (or so it seems). From this point of view, the introduction of the demon seems superfluous. Burman records Descartes as saying that he was trying to raise every reason for doubt that he could think of. The suggestion seems to be, not that the demon introduces a more radical doubt than that already countenanced earlier in Meditation 1, but that it is a new way of raising the same level of doubt. One might then wish to say that the earlier dilemmatic argument raises a more radical doubt than any previously countenanced; but the passage does not address that question. In Comments on a Certain Broadsheet (AT 8B:366-67 / CSM 1:309), however, Descartes says that it is not new to countenance the views that God can deceive us and that everything can be doubted; these are among the views "the sceptics have long been harping on." (There is dispute about whether the evil demon just is God considered as a deceiver. If it is, then, since Descartes says that countenancing the view that God can deceive us is not new, he presumably thinks that countenancing an evil demon is not new either.) That suggests that, rightly or wrongly, Descartes does not think that the hypothesis that God could always deceive us raises a newly radical doubt.
64. It is worth remarking that it is not clear how reliable the Conversation with Burman is as a guide to what Descartes actually said: it was written up by Burman, after a conversation with Descartes.
65. Pascal attributes the evil demon hypothesis to Montaigne; see his "Entretien de Pascal avec Saci sur Epictète et Montaigne" Oeuvres de Blaise Pascal, ed. Brunschvicg, Boutroux and Gazier (Grands Ecrivains de la France) (Paris, 1914), 4:43. However, this essay is not reliable on the question of Descartes's novelty or lack of it: throughout, Pascal attributes to Montaigne views to be found in Descartes but not in Montaigne. C. Adam, in his Vie de Descartes (AT 12:132), suggests that the malin génie is "simplement le Malin, c'est-à-dire Satan en personne." On this view, countenancing a malin génie is certainly not new (although Descartes could of course use the malin génie in a new way)! In any case, the crucial question here is what Descartes himself claims about his novelty or lack of it.
66. As we shall see, however, Descartes thinks his skepticism differs from ancient skepticism in other ways.
67. See Jacques de Rives's accusations, cited above: Descartes's skepticism was sometimes thought to lead to atheism. For discussion of what was viewed as dangerous in Descartes's philosophy, see N. Jolley, "The Reception of Descartes' Philosophy," in The Cambridge Companion to Descartes ed. J. Cottingham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 393-423.
68. As the ensuing history of Cartesianism makes clear, Descartes had good reason to be worried. Some official condemnations of Cartesianism from 1662 to 1705 are usefully collected in Descartes' Meditations: Background Source Materials, ed. R. Anew, J. Cottingham, and T. Sorrell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 252-60.
69. AT 7:130. AT 8B:336-37 speaks of doubting everything, but it does not explicitly attribute this view to ancient skeptics in particular; it does, however, say that the skeptics "have long been harping on this theme."
70. I return to this passage below. Descartes is replying to a remark of Bourdin's (at AT 7:530 / CSM 2:361), which mentions not only doubt about whether one has a head, but also about whether there are bodies. I take it that although Descartes, in his reply, says only that the skeptics of his day do not doubt in practice whether they have heads, he also means that they do not doubt in practice whether they have bodies.
71. What I call the No Belief View is sometimes called rustic or drunken skepticism; what I call the Some Belief View is sometimes called urbane or sober skepticism. It is important to distinguish two questions: (a) do ancient skeptics claim to have no beliefs? and (b) do ancient skeptics actually have any beliefs? My main focus here is (a).
72. For the view that ancient skeptics claim to have no beliefs, see Burnyeat, "Can the Skeptic?" "Idealism," and "The Sceptic in His Place and Time." Burnyeat also argues, however, that skeptics did not succeed in living without belief.
73. For the view that ancient skeptics do not disclaim all beliefs, see M. Frede, "The Sceptic's Beliefs," in his Essays in Ancient Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 179-200 (originally published as "Des Skeptikers Meinungen," Neue Hefte für Philosophie 15/16 (1979): 102-29), and his "The Sceptic's Two Kinds of Assent," Essays, 201-22, at 206-8 (originally published in Philosophy in History). (In "The Sceptic's Beliefs," Frede claims that "the sceptic cannot avoid knowing many things," and so "he will also often be aware of knowing, and not merely supposing, certain things" (178-79; emphasis added).)
74. See also G. Striker, "Sceptical Strategies," in her Essays, 92-115, at 113-14 (originally published in Doubt and Dogmatism, 54-83).
75. Surprisingly, however, some commentators seem to think that (a) Sextus is (at least typically) no more than a property skeptic, yet (b) he disavows all beliefs. This combination of views is not obviously consistent. I return to this point in section 8; see also n. 38.
76. Here and elsewhere, I base my translations of the Outlines on J. Annas and J. Barnes, Sextus Empiricus: Outlines of Scepticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); however, I sometimes alter their translations without comment.
77. I discuss PH 1.13 further in "Sceptical Dogmata: PHI 13," forthcoming in Methexis 13 (2000). For two quite different interpretations from the one I suggest, see the articles by Frede and Burnyeat cited in n. 28.
78. Sextus first says that skeptics lack beliefs about anything unclear in the sciences. But his reason for this is that they lack beliefs about anything unclear tout court. He does not say here what if anything outside the sciences is unclear. I take it that in PH 1.13 Sextus tells us that he is from now on going to use dogmata to mean: dogmata about what is unclear. Hence, when he says elsewhere that skeptics lack dogmata, he intends us to understand that he means, not that they lack all dogmata, but only that they lack dogmata about anything unclear.
79. Or, as they are sometimes called, "non-epistemic" (Frede, "The Sceptic's Beliefs," 187; Burnyeat, "Can the Skeptic?" 136) or "phenomenological" (Annas and Barnes, Modes, 23-24). I prefer 'non-doxastic' to 'non-epistemic', since appearances of this sort are not supposed to be beliefs (doxai) any more than they are supposed to be knowledge (epistēmē). I prefer 'non-doxastic' to 'phenomenological', since the latter might suggest that the relevant appearances can only be sensory. As I use the phrase, to say that an appearance is non-doxastic is not to say that its content is non- conceptual.
80. Cf. Plato, Rep. 10.602cl0-d4.
81. See for example PH 2.10, M 7.25, M 8.141. These passages are cited by Burnyeat ("Can the Skeptic?" 127); and he too argues that the appearances relevant in this context are non-doxastic and (in Sextus's view) not restricted to the sensory realm. Unlike me, however, Burnyeat is skeptical as to whether there are in fact any non-sensory non-doxastic appearances; see "Can the Skeptic?" 140.
82. "Can the Skeptic?" 118-19.
83. At least, they intend and resolve to have no beliefs. But Descartes says that if one clearly perceives something, one cannot help but have some beliefs. I am not sure whether he thinks skeptics clearly perceive anything. If he thinks that skeptics claim and aim to have no beliefs, but cannot (or, at least, did not) succeed in having no beliefs, then he anticipates a central argument of Burnyeat's in "Can the Skeptic?"
84. Hence Descartes does not combine the dubiously consistent (a) and (b) mentioned above in n. 29: though he takes ancient skeptics to disavow all beliefs, he does not think their skepticism is restricted to property skepticism.
85. Here I am not asking about the scope of Descartes's skepticism, but only whether, however broad or narrow it is, it challenges only knowledge or also belief. Moreover, at the moment I am only asking about his views in the context of the search for truth. I discuss what he says about matters of action later.
86. Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970), 17;
87. emphasis added. (Wilson, Descartes, 42-49, also cites Frankfurt in this connection.) Consider also the following passage from Frankfurt: "Descartes does not propose to make himself into a tabula rasa, and the skepticism to which he commits himself is innocuously thin and undisruptive. Indeed it is inappropriate to describe it as skepticism at all" (16). But these are not exhaustive alternatives, and I do not think either is correct. Ridding oneself of all beliefs does not make one into a tabula rasa: non-doxastic appearances might be written on one's tabula. Nor, as I go on to say, is Descartes's skepticism undisruptive.
88. And in fact, Bourdin seems well aware that, in doubting p, Descartes is not really committed to believing not-p;
89. see, for example, AT 7:458-59 / CSM 2:307-8.
90. This assumption is, however, questioned by Striker "Sceptical Strategies," 113-14 and by Frede "The Sceptic's Two Kinds of Assent," 206-8). I explore Frede's arguments in "Sceptical Dogmata."
91. This point is appreciated by Bernard Williams, who writes that Descartes's "[m]ethod is deployed in the course of an intellectual project, which has the feature that if doubt can possibly be applied to a class of beliefs, then that class of beliefs must, at least temporarily, be laid aside" ("Descartes's Use of Skepticism," 339).
92. See also A. Kenny, Descartes: A Study of His Philosophy (New York: Random House, 1968), 22-23.
93. However, Kenny goes on to say that "because the doubt finds no expression whatever in action, it is something less than a genuine suspension of belief' (23). I discuss this point below.
94. See AT 7:476 / CSM 2:320, cited above. The CSM translation makes my interpretation sound more secure than it is. Throughout CSM 2:318-22, a renunciation of belief is spoken of; but, unfortunately, 'belief is an intrusion. The French is also unhelpful in places. In section P, for example, it has 'nos connaissances passées' (cf. X), which might suggest knowledge rather than belief; but nothing in the Latin explicitly corresponds to 'connaissances'. At S, however, it has 'anciennes maximes', which is better; T has 'proposition'.
95. In support of the claim that at this point in the Meditations Descartes does not just question whether he knows, but (at least in the context of the search for truth) aims to suspend judgment, see also AT 7:59-60 / CSM 41.
96. Wilson, Descartes, 46.
97. There are different versions of the apraxia argument. Striker, for example, claims that there are two versions: that if nothing can be known, one could never decide what to do; and that if one suspends judgment completely, one cannot act at all. The first version challenges skeptics who disavow knowledge; the second challenges skeptics who disavow belief. (See "Sceptical Strategies," 100.) For my part, I think belief is sufficient for having "some idea of what it will be best to do" (100), so I am not sure about Striker's distinction. Nonetheless, she is surely right to claim that there are different versions of the apraxia argument. In addition to alleging that one or another cognitive attitude (knowledge, belief, or something else again) is necessary for action, there are also disputes about what action amounts to in these contexts: rational intentional action, for example, or something less than that.
98. So although he thinks ancient skeptics are vulnerable to the apraxia argument, he allows that they did do something: they put effort into learning to doubt. Perhaps he would say that such a person is only an aspiring skeptic who has not yet reached his goal. In saying that they wandered about aimlessly, however, he seems to suggest that they do not act, in the sense of pursuing goals. Earlier in the Search for Truth (AT 10:512 / CSM 2:408), Epistemon worries that entertaining "general doubts" will lead to "the ignorance of Socrates or the uncertainty of the Pyrrhonists." Eudoxus replies that "it would be dangerous for someone who does not know a ford to venture across it without a guide, and many have lost their lives in doing so. But you have nothing to fear if you follow me." Part of Descartes's point is that, unlike the Pyrrhonists, he has a way out of skepticism. (For this point, see also the letter to Reneri for Pollot, AT 2:38-39 / CSM 3:99.) But perhaps he is also adverting to the apraxia argument: since ancient skeptics do not look where they are going, their lives are in danger.
99. The passage cited in the text is ascribed to Epistemon, who does not generally represent Descartes's own views; however, I take it that he believes the view being expressed, which is more or less reiterated in the next passage I cite. That view is of course entirely compatible with his thinking that reflection on skeptical arguments can, in other hands than those of the Pyrrhonists, yield fruit: he thinks his own use of skeptical arguments does so. Thanks to Jean-Marie Beyssade on this point.
100. Descartes says that some skeptics are vulnerable to the apraxia argument; he does not say which ones he has in mind. However, the passage just cited from The Search for Truth shows that he thinks the Pyrrhonists are vulnerable to it.
101. The argument goes back at least as far as Aristotle: see Met. 1008b11-12; l0l0blff.
102. It is worth noting that although Diogenes records Antigonus's view that Pyrrho did not look where he was going, he also says that Aenesidemus rejected this view. He goes on to say that Pyrrho lived to be nearly ninety-perhaps because his friends looked after him, but perhaps the point is that he was not as careless as Antigonus suggests.
103. See DL, Lives 9.62.
104. Sextus also records a version of the argument, saying that the skeptic is allegedly reduced to inactivity "because since the whole of life is bound up with choices and avoidances, the person who neither chooses nor avoids anything [as the skeptic is alleged not to do] in effect renounces life and stays fixed like some vegetable" (M 11.163 = Against the Ethicists). Sextus's M 11 version and Diogenes' version of the argument are interestingly different. For example, in Sextus's M 11 version, the skeptic "stays fixed like some vegetable." (Vegetables do, however, change in some ways: for example, they grow.) In Diogenes' version, by contrast, the skeptic can move: for example, he walks around. But he does not look where he is going, since he does not trust his senses. The skeptic is more inactive on Sextus's M11 version than on Diogenes'; hence a satisfactory reply to Sextus's M 11 version might not be a satisfactory reply to Diogenes'.
105. The reference is to the Synopsis to the Meditations AT 7:16 / CSM 2: 11;
106. cf. AT 3:422;
107. Prin. 1.1-3. Just before the passage cited in the text, however, Descartes says that " [w]hen I said that the entire testimony of the senses should be regarded as uncertain and even as false, I was quite serious; indeed this point is so necessary for an understanding of my Meditations that if anyone is unwilling or unable to accept it, he will be incapable of producing any objection that deserves a reply" (AT 7:350 / CSM 2:243). So although one should trust the senses in matters of action, one should not do so in the context of the search for truth. I discuss this further below.
108. Descartes's version of the apraxia argument is more like Diogenes' than like the version Sextus records in M 11: skeptics walk around; they are not rooted in place. See previous note.
109. See, for example, Discourse, pt. 3;
110. AT7:149 / CSM 2:106, AT 7:248 / CSM 2:172, AT 7:350-51 / CSM 2:243, AT 7:460 / CSM 2:308f., AT 7:475 / CSM 2:320. Cf. also Prin. 1.3 (AT 7A:5).
111. The term 'insulation' is due to Burnyeat; see especially "The Sceptic in His Place and Time," where, however, he argues that neither Descartes nor the ancients insulate. I think (but am not sure) that Burnyeat and I use 'insulation' differently. I am using it to mean that the search for truth is kept sharply separate from matters of action, so that one can act even when, in the context of the search for truth, one suspends judgment as to whether one's pre-reflective beliefs are true. Annas and Barnes also seem to use 'insulation' in this way (Modes, 8), and they too claim that Descartes insulates in this sense. (Later, however, I shall note some differences between my view, on the one hand, and Annas and Barnes's, on the other.) In another sense, however, Descartes does not insulate: for it is precisely because he calls various beliefs into question that he thinks he needs to construct a provisional code of conduct. (I discuss this code below.) He would not need to do so if he did not think that doubt in some sense affects ordinary life. This is one reason Burnyeat claims that Descartes does not insulate. I discuss this further below.
112. R. Stalnaker, Inquiry (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984), esp. 79-81.
113. The same, or a similar, distinction is also drawn by others, though the terminology sometimes differs. The quotation later in this paragraph is from p. 81.
114. I owe this point to Carl Ginet, "Deciding to Believe," forthcoming in Knowledge, Truth, and Duty, ed. M. Steup (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
115. "Practical Reasoning and Acceptance in a Context," Mind 101 (1992): 1-15, at 3. I owe this reference to Carl Ginet.
116. It is fairly non-controversial, I think, to say that some actions can be explained by appealing to acceptance and desire. For example, I might act as though I think p is true, though I do not think that p is true, because I am adopting it for the sake of argument. But in this sort of case, my acceptance takes place against a background of beliefs. It is more difficult to see how one could act if one had only acceptance attitudes (other than belief) and desire; indeed, I am not sure whether one can accept a proposition if one has no beliefs whatsoever. But I am not here assessing the cogency of the view: I am merely trying to say what it is. I return to this sort of explanation of action below, in considering Sextus's reply to the apraxia argument.
117. That is, they cannot act in a rational manner: Descartes allows that they "do" various things, insofar as they do not stay rooted in place. But he thinks their "doings" are inconsistent and impractical. An anonymous referee has asked: if the appearance of rain (plus a desire to stay dry) caused seventeenth-century skeptics to take umbrellas, why did it not similarly cause ancient skeptics to take evasive action? How could Descartes think that appearance and desire have a particular causal effect in the one case, but not in the other? The answer is that Descartes thinks that the skeptics of his day accept their appearances, whereas ancient skeptics reject theirs. We therefore do not have the same complete cause in the two cases.
118. See A Treatise of Human Nature, the conclusion of book 1. Burnyeat, in "The Sceptic in His Place and Time," 249, argues that Descartes is not aware of this Humean strategy, saying that if he were, he would not have needed to construct his code of conduct. But I think Descartes is well aware of it, and takes steps to avoid being in Hume's position. At the end of Meditation 1, for example, he notes that his "habitual opinions keep coming back, and, despite my wishes, they capture my belief (credulitatem)" (AT 7:22 / CSM 2:15). It is in order to guard against this that he introduces the evil demon hypothesis, so that "the weight of preconceived opinion is counter-balanced" (ibid). Like ancient skeptics, he hopes to achieve equi-pollence, so that he can completely suspend judgment. To be sure, he says this in the context of the search for truth. Nonetheless, it shows that Descartes is well aware of the temptation to fall back into one's preconceived opinions; it is a temptation he strives to resist.
119. PH 1.21 does not use the phrase 'criterion of truth'; it says that one sort of criterion is "adopted to provide conviction about the existence or nonexistence of something." However, 2.14, among other places, makes it clear that this refers to criteria of truth.
120. Cf. 1.226, 237-38; 2.246.
121. For a more detailed account of Sextus's reply than I have space to provide here, see J. Barnes, "Pyrrhonism, Belief and Causation: Observations on the Scepticism of Sextus Empiricus," ANRW 36.4 (1990): 2608-95, at 2641-49. (The same material is presented in his "The Beliefs of a Pyrrhonist," Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society n.s. 28 (1982): 1-29.) Barnes explains how Sextus might be interpreted as explaining how skeptics can act even if they have no beliefs, though he does not think this is the most natural interpretation of what Sextus says.
122. Sextus also replies to the apraxia argument in M 11.165. It is sometimes thought that his reply there differs from the one given in PH 1, and/or that he is replying to a different version of the argument. I do not myself favor that view, but I shall not pursue the issue here.
123. This is not to say that Sextus claims that skeptics have no beliefs whatsoever. Rather, his point is that their fourfold way of life does not involve any first-order beliefs. They do not believe, for example, that piety is good and impiety bad (though they accept that it is). But they might, for all that, believe that it appears to them that piety is good and impiety bad. As I explained briefly above, I think this is what Sextus says in PH 1.13. One advantage of this account is that it makes it easier to see how skeptics can accept their appearances. (But see the next note.)
124. Not only is it controversial to claim that the fourfold way of life leaves beliefs about how one is appeared to intact; it is also controversial to claim that it does not involve first-order beliefs. On an alternative, Sextus means only that skeptics lack firm or dogmatic beliefs about, for example, piety; but they believe that piety is good "in an everyday sense," in the way in which ordinary people believe it rather than in the way in which, say, professional theologians believe it. On this latter interpretation, Sextus's reply to the apraxia argument would be that skeptics act on the basis of their first-order non-dogmatic beliefs. If this were what Sextus meant, it would hardly vindicate Descartes. But, as I have explained, I do not think Sextus should be interpreted in this way.
125. Like me, Striker ("Sceptical Strategies," 112 n. 58) also argues that Sextus's "point is that he acts in accordance with what appears to him to be the case without committing himself to the truth of the impression." There are, however, various differences between our accounts that I cannot pursue here.
126. One might argue that acceptance (in Stalnaker's technical sense) is not part of Sextus's account. Rather, he appeals only to appearance and desire, saying that they, all by themselves, cause skeptics to act. This suggestion perhaps derives some support from Adv. Col. 1122c-d, where Plutarch says that Arcesilaus (an Academic skeptic) argued (against the Stoics) that appearance (phantasia) and impulse (hormē) are sufficient for action. Some of what Sextus says can perhaps be explained this way: for example, hunger causes one to seek food; one need not, in addition, believe or accept that one is hungry. But I think that my interpretation, in terms of acceptance, fits better with Sextus's claim that skeptics accept that piety is good and impiety bad, and that they teach kinds of expertise. If, however, acceptance drops out of the picture, then Sextus's explanation of skeptical action is less similar to Descartes's explanation of how he and the skeptics of his day can act than it is on my account. But there would still be an important similarity: both act on the basis of something other than their first-order beliefs.
127. Sextus's remark suggests that Descartes is not alone in his misinterpretation of ancient skepticism: even in Sextus's own day, skeptics were-wrongly, in Sextus's view-accused of not accepting appearances.
128. See 286a-b. (The pagination is from the Lyons edition of Gassendi's Opera Omnia (1658), as cited in B. Rochot's edition (Paris: Vrin, 1962).) Gassendi notes, in Descartes's defense, that Sextus says he will occasionally argue against appearances (PH 1.20). However, as he also notes, this is not very strong support for Descartes, since Sextus says he will do so only to "display the rashness of the dogmatists; for if reasoning is such a deceiver that it all but snatches even what is apparent from under our eyes, surely we should keep watch on it in unclear matters." Though Gassendi is right to criticize Descartes's claim that ancient skeptics reject appearances, I think Gassendi misunderstands their notion of appearance: he seems to think that appearances are, or are of, surface features of things (as opposed to inner essences), rather than non-doxastic. See also Gassendi's discussion in his Exertitationes Paradoxicae adversus Aristoteleos, especially in bk. 2, diss. 6, 7-8 (= 206b-210b of the Lyons edition, as cited by Rochot (Paris: Vrin, 1959)). For discussion, see R. Walker, "Gassendi and Skepticism," in The Skeptical Tradition, 319-36.
129. Life of Pyrrho," remark B. Bayle's version of the apraxia argument is closer to Diogenes' than to the version Sextus records in M 1l: Pyrrho walks around, but he does not look where he is going. Of course, Bayle is somewhat later than Descartes: the first edition of his Dictionnaire historique et critique was published in 1697. Aenesidemus also rejects Antigonus's account of Pyrrho: see DL 9.62.
130. Actually, Descartes begins by saving that his code consists of "three or four maxims" (AT 6:22 / CSM 1:122);
131. but he then lists four maxims. Perhaps he thinks that the "fourth" maxim has a somewhat different status from the others.
132. Presumably Sextus was a doctor. This raises a problem, however. His name suggests that he was an Empirical doctor. Yet he says that skepticism is in certain respects at odds with Empirical medicine, and that skepticism is closer to Methodical medicine (PH 2.236). Perhaps this suggests that Sextus insulated his skepticism from his daily life even more than I have suggested.
133. See, for example, Pierre Charron, Traité de la Sagesse, vol. 2, chap. 8. (I have consulted Charron in an edition published in Paris by Rapilly, Passage des Panoramas, in 1827.) Gilson, in his commentary on the Discourse, also notes the similarity between Descartes and Charron; he also cites Montaigne. Montaigne and Charron, of course, are themselves indebted to Sextus. Gaukroger (Descartes, 307) thinks that Descartes's first maxim is simply a paraphrase of Guez de Balzac (an essayist and friend of Descartes's), in his Dissertationes Chrestieenes et Morale.
134. Just as we should not infer from the similarity in their replies that Descartes knew of Sextus's reply, so we should not infer from the fact that Descartes misdescribes Sextus's reply that he did not know of it. Many who knew the Pyrrhonist reply misunderstood it in just the same way-as Sextus's exasperated remark in PH 1.19 attests.
135. Christopher Taylor, among others, has urged this objection. Notice that if this objection is correct, then there is a sense in which Descartes's skepticism is less sweeping than Sextus's.
136. See, for example, his correspondence with Elizabeth at AT 4:265 / CSM 3:257.
137. Cf. AT 7:15 / CSM 2:11, where Descartes adds a parenthesis in response to a comment by Arnauld (for which, see AT 7:216-17 / CSM 2: 151-52).
138. For an interesting discussion of these and related passages, see Menn, Descartes and Augustine, 322-36.
139. Thanks to Julia Annas for this suggestion. For a related suggestion, see M. Williams, "Descartes and the Metaphysics of Doubt," 120.
140. Cf. AT 7:149 / CSM 2:106 for a related point.
141. For discussion (and a different interpretation), see Menn, Descartes and Augustine, 330.
142. Modes, 8-9. The quotations in this and the next paragraph are from these two pages. On insulation (which I mention in the next paragraph), see n. 53. Annas and Barnes return to this issue later in their book (163ff.). There, however, they focus on ancient and modern moral skepticism, and use Mackie as their representative moral skeptic. As I have mentioned (n. 43), Kenny (Descartes, 23) also claims that Descartes's doubts don't find any "expression in action," and so they are not genuine.
143. Which is not to take a stand, one way or the other, on the more difficult question of whether action requires one to have some beliefs.
144. On the other hand, Descartes also says that, by following his second maxim, " [he] could free [himself] from all the regrets and remorse which usually trouble the consciences of those weak and faltering spirits who allow themselves to set out on some supposedly good course of action which later, in their inconstancy, they judge to be bad" (AT 6:25 / CSM 1: 123). Descartes also says that he sets up the code "in order to live as happily as [he] could during this time" (AT 6:22 / CSM 1:122). So to some extent Descartes agrees with Sextus that suspending judgment causes contentment.
145. I am not sure what the relation is between the phase that, in Meditation
146. "Idealism," 30.
147. In "Can the Skeptic?" (125-29), Burnyeat argues at length that the appearances at issue here are non-doxastic.
148. Indeed, sometimes he suggests that Sextus, at least typically, is no more than a property skeptic ("Idealism," 29). It is odd that Burnyeat says this, given his view that Sextus claims to have no beliefs.
149. "Idealism," 30-31.
150. See also Everson, "The Objective Appearance of Pyrrhonism," 147.
151. "Ideatism," 40.
152. See n. 79.
153. The latter passage is from "Idealism," 19 (emphasis added). The remark is not about Sextus in particular, but what follows makes it clear that Sextus is included within its scope: "Greek philosophy does not know the problem of proving in a general way the existence of an external world. That problem is a modern invention."
154. Or suppose I am only a property skeptic, as Burnyeat says Sextus (at least typically) is (see n. 80). Suppose further that someone gives me some honey. I do not suspend judgment as to whether it is honey, but I do suspend judgment as to whether it is poisonous. Will I taste it or not? (For an interesting discussion of this sort of case, see Bernard Williams, Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry, 54-55. Descartes discusses a similar case at AT 3:422 / CSM 3:188.) Burnyeat seems to think I can make a decision on the basis of a non-doxastic appearance about the honey's poisonousness; if, for example, it non-doxastically seems to me to be poisonous, I will not taste it. But he seems to think that in order to make this decision, I must assume that I have a body and that there is an external world. Again, I do not see why we should draw a line just here. If, in order to avoid tasting the honey, I must assume that it is honey or, at least, that there is an external world, then, it seems to me, I equally need to assume that the honey is poisonous. If, on the other hand, it only needs to non-doxastically seem to me that the honey is poisonous, then why won't non-doxastic appearances do more widely? My point here is not that one can act even if one has no beliefs: I have not taken a stand on that issue (see n. 74). My point is only that I cannot see what justifies drawing a line where Burnyeat draws it.
155. Descartes, 46. Wilson criticizes this assumption on 46-49, and all quotations from her in this connection are from these pages. The discussion that follows is heavily indebted to hers.
156. At least, this is so on the assumption, which I accept, that Pyrrhonian skepticism includes external world skepticism.
157. Wilson also argues that the assumption implies "an unskeptical commitment to common sense." Yet the Pyrrhonists are skeptical about common sense-or about bios, as they sometimes put it-no less than about philosophical theories. On the other hand, Pyrrhonists sometimes claim to side with common sense.
158. See, for example, PH 2.246;
159. cf. 2.254, 3.235. But contrast PH 1.165, where Sextus says that the first Agrippan Mode applies not only to philosophical views but also to ordinary life. It is, of course, a nice question what "ordinary life" consists in. For a good discussion of the Pyrrhonist's attitude to common sense, see Barnes, "Pyrrhonism, Belief and Causation."
160. 48. She is commenting on a passage in the Fifth Set of Replies (AT 7: 351 / CSM 2:243), cited in part above, in section 5.
161. I said before that both explain action by appealing to acceptance of appearances (and desire). But I also said (n. 60) that this explanation is more plausible if one has beliefs about how one is appeared to.
162. 248. Just before this passage, Burnyeat says that Descartes does not insulate. Burnyeat distinguishes two sorts of insulation: (i) insulation by subject matter or content, which involves being skeptical in one area (for example, about underlying structures) but not in another (for example, about surface properties), in which case the latter is insulated from skepticism about the former; and what we might call (ii) transcendental insulation (Burnyeat does not supply a name for this second type of insulation), which involves thinking that the ordinary beliefs of everyday life are not put into doubt by skeptical arguments (see the beginning of section 11 of "The Sceptic in His Place and Time"). Burnyeat thinks that this latter sort of skepticism was invented by Kant.
163. I agree that Descartes does not insulate in senses (i) or (ii). But I am not sure whether Burnyeat can consistently claim both that Sextus does not insulate by subject matter (which seems to imply that no subject matter is exempt from his skepticism) and that he relies on the notion that there is an external world.
164. Burnyeat also says that Descartes's "distinction between the theoretical [that is, methodological] and practical is not insulation but a deliberate abstraction of himself from practical concerns, a resolution to remain noncommittal towards everything in the practical sphere until theory has given him the truth about the world and a morality he can believe in" (248; here Burnyeat seems to agree with my suggestion that in matters of action, Descartes accepts without belief). But insofar as Descartes takes his skeptical views to affect his attitude to the practical sphere, his skepticism affects his life and so is not purely theoretical; insofar as his skepticism does not affect his life, it is insulated from action.
165. Recall that Burnyeat cites this alleged difference between Sextus and Descartes as a reason for the allegedly more limited scope of Sextus's skepticism. If I am right that this difference does not obtain, then if Sextus's skepticism is indeed more limited than Descartes's, we would need a different explanation for that fact. For my part, I agree with Descartes, as against Burnyeat and others, about the radical scope of Sextus's skepticism-but that is a story for another occasion. If, however, that story is true, then we have yet another similarity between Descartes's and Sextus's skepticism-this time, one Descartes is anxious to insist on.
166. Menn, Descartes and Augustine, 224 n. 18.