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Zusatztext There is much of interest in The Will to Reason. A central issue is whether or not to assemble Descartes' view of human freedom before or after a consideration of his philosophical views on divine providence. Ragland is correct that if Descartes allows for libertarian freedom, he also makes room in his system for trouble that it could do without. Informationen zum Autor C. P. Ragland is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University. There he especially enjoys introducing students to philosophy as well as teaching and doing research in the history of modern philosophy and philosophy of religion. With Sarah Heidt, he is co-editor of What is Philosophy (Yale UP, 2001). Klappentext Offering an original perspective on the central project of Descartes' Meditations, this book argues that Descartes' free will theodicy is crucial to his refutation of skepticism. A common thread runs through Descartes' radical First Meditation doubts, his Fourth Meditation discussion of error, and his pious reconciliation of providence and freedom: each involves a clash of perspectives-thinking of God seems to force conclusions diametrically opposed to those we reach when thinking only of ourselves. Descartes fears that a skeptic could exploit this clash of perspectives to argue that Reason is not trustworthy because self-contradictory. To refute the skeptic and vindicate the consistency of Reason, it is not enough for Descartes to demonstrate (in the Third Meditation) that our Creator is perfect; he must also show (in the Fourth) that our errors cannot prove God's imperfection. To do this, Descartes invokes the idea that we err freely. However, prospects initially seem dim for this free will theodicy, because Descartes appears to lack any consistent or coherent understanding of human freedom. In an extremely in-depth analysis spanning four chapters, Ragland argues that despite initial appearances, Descartes consistently offered a coherent understanding of human freedom: for Descartes, freedom is most fundamentally the ability to do the right thing. Since we often do wrong, actual humans must therefore be able to do otherwise-our actions cannot be causally determined by God or our psychology. But freedom is in principle compatible with determinism: while leaving us free, God could have determined us to always do the good (or believe the true). Though this conception of freedom is both consistent and suitable to Descartes' purposes, when he attempts to reconcile it with divine providence, Descartes's strategy fails, running afoul of his infamous doctrine that God created the eternal truths. Zusammenfassung Descartes' free will theodicy is crucial to his project of refuting skepticism and vindicating the consistency of Reason. The theodicy relies on a coherent understanding of human freedom as the ability to do the right thing, but such freedom appears to conflict with Descartes' account of Divine Providence. Inhaltsverzeichnis Abbreviations Introduction Notes to Introduction Chapter One: Descartes' Deepest Worry I. The "Deceiving Nature " Doubt II. The Circle and the Two-Level Solution III. Descartes' Engagement with Skepticism IV. Conclusion Notes to Chapter One Chapter Two: The Fourth Meditation Theodicy I. The Problem of Error II. Descartes' Theodicy A. Unreality of Error B. Descartes' General Strategy (and the Eternal Truths) C. Skeptical Theism? D. The Big Picture E. Free Will F. Possible Error: The Big Picture Returns G. The Theodicy Summarized III. Does It Prove Too Much? IV. Is It Circular? A. Ought Implies Can B. Assuming the Truth-Rule for Defensive Purposes V. Does It Rest on a Flawed View of Freedom? Notes to Chapter Two Chapter Three: Freedom and Alternative Possibilities in the Meditations I. The Definition Of Freedom A. Retraction, Expansion, or Clar...
