Class 20: Early Modern
Metaphysics
Dr. Ann T. Orlando
27 February 2013
Introduction
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Rationalists and Empiricists
France in 17th C
Descartes
Pascal
Metaphysics and Physics
Epistemology
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Real question: how do we ‘know’
What is best method for coming to certain (or
probable) knowledge
What is relation (if any) of knowledge to God
and Revelation
In my opinion,
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Enlightenment answer is one of either
presumption or despair
We still living in the Age of the Enlightenment
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17
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‘Paradigm’ shift in 17th C also led to search for
‘new’ philosophy
Driven by changes in
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C Philosophy
Politics
Physics
Religion
Voyages of discovery
Two different philosophical approaches:
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Rationalists
Empiricist
Philosophical Developments During
the 17th C
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Rationalist: Knowledge is from innate
ideas(mathematicians)
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Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716)
Empiricists: Knowledge is from senses
(physicists)
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Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
John Locke (1632-1704)
Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
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Rationalist: Knowledge is from ideas
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
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Mathematician and discoverer/inventor of analytic geometry and algebra
“I think, therefore I am”
Dualistic approach to mind and body
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
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C Philosophy: Rationalists
Mathematician and discoverer of many of laws of probability
Member of Jansenists: heretical Catholic group that was very Augustinian
Pascal’s Wager on the existence of God
Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716)
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Mathematician and co-discoverer of calculus
Because God is all good, this must be the best of all possible worlds
Complex metaphysics; many similarities to Stoicism
Coined term theodicy
France: Intellectual Center in
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France most important country in Europe
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Victor in 30 Years War
Most populous country
University of Paris
French Academy established in 1653 by Cardinal
Richelieu to promote all things French
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Remains arbiter of ‘official’ French language
French becomes the language of culture in 17th C
Developing intellectual currents
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Libertine morals
Skeptical epistemology
C
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
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Born in France, but spent most of his life in
protestant countries of Netherlands and Sweden
Philosopher, mathematician, ‘theoretical’
physicists
Discovered (invented) analytical geometry
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Marriage of algebra and geometry
Claimed that mathematics not only described but
represented (was) physical mechanisms
Cosmos guided by universal mathematical laws
The Meditations
The Meditations (1639)
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Written by Descartes to consider how we
know
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Written in French
Knowledge and even existence based on the fact
that we recognize that we know (I think, therefore
I am)
Attempts to establish the foundations for physics
The Meditations was circulated among
Parisian intellectuals for response, then
Descartes wrote a reply to these critiques
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
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Born in France, spent his life in France
Father was a minor aristocrat; family deeply
religious
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Pascal important experimental physicists
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Attracted to Jansenism
Existence of vacuums by experiments with barometers
Pascal even more important as mathematician
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Probability theory (gambling)
Jansenism
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Cornelius Jansenius (1585-1638)
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Wrote Augustinus, published after his death
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Belgian bishop
Opposed to policies of Louis XIV
The ‘Catholic Calvinism’
Supported Augustine’s view of corruption of man’s nature,
and double predestination
Very influential in France, especially against Jesuit more
optimistic view of human nature
Condemned by Pope Innocent X in 1653, and
French Assembly of Clergy in 1681
Convent at Port Royal and Pascal
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Center for spiritual and intellectual elite of France
Most famous follower was Blaise Pascal, whose sister was head
of convent
Pascal opposed Jesuit view that man could come to some
certain knowledge of God and morality through his natural
reason.
Pascal accepted the paradox that man was at the same time
made in God’s image and man had a corrupted nature after the
fall.
 So man had a simultaneous claim to glory and depravity
But Pascal was not just writing against the Jesuits; also against
rising tide of atheism that developed after the Thirty Years War
Pascal’s Wager
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Can not prove with certainty that God exists
But one must chose; cannot live in a state of
agnosticism (same as atheism)
Observing the universe would lead one to at least
50-50 chance that God does exist
What is lost if I believe in God, and He does not
exist? What is at stake if I do not believe and He
does exist?
Therefore the rational thing to do is to wager for God
Assignments
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1. Bokenkotter, Chapter 23.
2. Blaise Pascal Pensees Series III available at
http://www.classicallibrary.org/pascal/pensees/p
ensees03.htm