Descartes: A Biography

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The Quarrel and Final Rift with Regius 

saddened....Please forgive me if I say what I think as freely as if I were talking to a

friend....Imust say publicly that, in metaphysical questions, I disagree with you as

muchas possible, and that I shall even testify to this publicly when one of my books

is edited, if your book is ever published. I am indeed grateful to you for showing it

to me before publication. However, I am not grateful that you have been teaching in

private what is contained in this book without my knowledge. I now fully endorse the

opinion of those who wanted you to confine yourself to medicine. Why do you have

to confound metaphysical and theological matters in your writings, since you cannot

mention them without falling into some error or other? (iv.–)

The real source of Descartes’ worry was that, when writing about the

human soul, Regius strayed a long way from what was acceptable to the

Catholic Church. He had previously described the human soul as an ‘acci-

dental reality’ in.Hewas now making matters much worse in

bytalking about the human soul as merely a ‘mode of the body’, that is,

as a quality or feature of a physical body rather than as a distinct spiritual

reality in its own right, as it was understood by Christian theology. Regius

was obviously free to publish that opinion in his own name, if he wished,

butheshould not include Descartes’ name under any circumstances, as

if the French philosopher were the source of such ideas or as if he agreed

with them.

One of the underlying differences between Regius and Descartes that

emerged at this juncture was about whether the Christian belief in the

soul’s immortality was based exclusively on the Scriptures, or whether

human reason could provide arguments to support the same opinion.

Descartes had accepted the challenge of the Lateran Council, in the dedi-

catory letter to the Sorbonne that prefaced theMeditations,tosupport the

church’s teaching about the soul with philosophical arguments. Regius

now claimed that this was a mistake. He argued that religious faith teaches

that the soul is immortal, but, as far as we know when we use reason alone,

the human mind may be merely a ‘mode of a body’.This consideration

suggested another line of argument, which was even more troubling for

the defensive Descartes.

According to Regius, Descartes had presented the arguments in the

Meditationsas if they contained nothing that was not ‘clear, certain, and

evident’ (iv.). The fact that many competent readers thought otherwise

was enough to show that these arguments were ‘obscure and uncertain’,

and the disputes triggered by theMeditationshad served only to ‘multiply

the doubts and clouds of uncertainty’. Adopting the rhetorical strategy