Descartes: A Biography

P: PHU/IrP
c CUNYB/Clarke     December, :

The Principles of Philosophy() 

The Principles of Philosophy

The printing of the first edition of thePrincipleswas completed by Elze-

vier in Amsterdam,July. The book was designed as a compact

and comprehensive survey of Cartesian philosophy, with the exception of

his thoughts about plants, animals, and human beings. The most obvious

way in which the first edition differs from many subsequent translations

is that it is divided only into four parts; the text of each part is not fur-

ther subdivided, as is usually done today, by the titles of paragraphs or

articles. Instead, the content of each paragraph is summarized in num-

bered marginal notes that correspond to the Index at the beginning of the

book. Besides, Descartes also adopted the advice given by Huygens for the

Essays,toinclude diagrams at appropriate places in the text rather than

collect them all at the end of the book.

The first part of thePrinciplesis entitled ‘The Principles of Human

Knowedge’. This represents a second attempt to provide a metaphysi-

cal foundation for Descartes’ system of philosophy or, as he described it

five years later, a ‘summary of what I wrote in myMeditations’.The

reluctance of Catholic supporters in France and the extreme hostility of

Calvinist critics in the United Provinces to the proofs of God’s existence,

in theMeditations,mayhave persuaded him to change his presentation of

this issue in thePrinciples. Whereas theMeditationsoffered an a posteriori

proof in the Third Meditation and a version of the ontological argument in

the Fifth Meditation, thePrinciplesreversed the order in which they were

presented and condensed each argument to a mere outline. There is no

suggestion in thePrinciplesthat God may be a deceiver–apossibility that

was briefly mentioned and almost immediately retracted in theMedita-

tions, and which attracted vehement objections from Dutch theologians –

and the apparent dominance of sceptical concerns in thebook is

avoided. Instead, the necessity of God’s existence is included in the very

concept of God (I,), whereas the argument based on the intentional

reality of the idea of God is presented, succinctly, by integrating some of

his earlier replies to Caterus in theMeditations(I,,).

Part I ofthePrinciplesis also more explicit and extensive in its discussion

of human freedom, and this may have provided counter-Remonstrant

critics with an independent basis for their objections to Cartesianism.

Descartes claimed that the scope of the human will was in some sense

infinite ‘because we never notice anything that can be the object of someone