Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

he met with Johannes Clauberg (–), who was subsequently

to become a well-known exponent of Cartesian philosophy. Clauberg pro-

duced a clean copy of the interview, possibly with some additional edi-

torial contributions, and this in turn was copied by an unknown hand

atDordrecht in July.

Burman was son of a Calvinist minister and was himself a student

of theology. It was not surprising, therefore, if many of the queries he

raised with Descartes reflected the controversies that had emerged from

disputations at Leiden University. For his part, Descartes seems to have

used the occasion to redirect the young student away from misleading

interpretations of his work that Burman was likely to have learned from

his theology professors. For example, when the problem of scepticism

was raised, Descartes explained that he was introducing ‘not only the

objections that are usually raised by sceptics but also every objection that

they can possibly raise so that, by doing so, he would completely remove

all doubts’ (v.). In a word, he was trying to defeat scepticism rather

than to promote it.

Some of the other questions that featured as major sources of contention

atLeiden were also raised. Thus, Descartes denied that God could be a

deceiver, despite the impression that careless readers of theMeditations

might have got, because he now argued that ‘supreme power and malice are

not compossible’ (v.). He also explained, once again, the limited sense

in which ‘the will is greater than the intellect and more similar to God’

(v.). The point here was simply that judgments of the intellect always

suffer from some degree of ignorance, whereas the will is absolutely free.

Twoofthe most obvious implications of the Leiden controversies appear

in Descartes’ reflections on the relative insignificance of metaphysics, and

onthe necessity for theologians not to contaminate the simplicity of God’s

revelation with complex, contested scholastic views.

The comment about metaphysics seems to have been made by Descartes

atthe conclusion of a long list of queries that were all taken from the

Meditations.Having answered each one in turn patiently, Descartes offered

the following spontaneous advice without any prompt from Burman.

It should be noted that one should not devote so much effort to the meditations or to

metaphysical things, nor should one expand them in commentaries and the like. Much

less should one study them more than the author has done – which is what some people

try to do – for he has discussed them in sufficient depth. It is enough to have known

them once in a general way and simply to remember the conclusion....The author