Descartes: A Biography

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

Thoughts of Retirement 

Rome (in September), asking how Descartes explained intellectual

and voluntary actions. ‘Knowing well that the actions of the senses, both

internal and external, consist only in local motions, as Mr. Descartes and

Mr. Hogelande explain, does the same explanation apply (to intellectual

and voluntary actions), as some people believe here?’

Descartes was not prepared to follow that line of inquiry, at least not

publicly. Had he done so, he would also have provided support for the

worstfears of his critics – that he was really an ‘atheist’ in disguise.