Descartes: The Probable and the Certain (review)

6~8 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 27:4 OCTOBER 198 9 pens6e de Montaigne est une pens6e tragique, eile porte en elie le n~ant et la mort," 76--tout chr6tien qu'il est, Montaigne fait le pari contraire, "l'hypothbse du pire," 78, la raison ne s'y opposant pas); au chapitre 5, "Plaisir et communication" ("I1 faut rendre justice ~ tousies plaisirs, et faire ~ chacun sa part, parce qu'il faut rendre justice toutes les activit6s," lO9); enfin au chapitre 6, "La Conscience," on volt la moralit~ concrbte et personnelle ~chapper au scepticisme et coi'ncider avec le coeur m~me du moi individuel ouvert ~ autrui. Un Appendice ~tudie la structure du Chapitre "Des Coches." L'ensemble des analyses est soutenu par des r~f~rences tir6es de non moins de sept 6tats des Essais (au lieu des trois habituels, 158o, 1588, 1595). On trouve en ce volume un bel exemple de pens6e libre, nourrie des grands classiques de la libre r6flexion, famili~rement appuy~e sur H6raclite, Pyrrhon, Epicure, Lucrbce, bref authentiquement philosophe quand elle se met ~ l'6coute de Montaigne. JEAN BERNHARDT C.N.R.S., Paris M. Glouberman. Descartes: The Probable and the Certain. Elementa. Schriften zur Philosophie und ihrer Problemgeschichte, Vol. 41. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi B.V., 1986. Pp. 374. Paper, NP. Glouberman finds in Descartes a crucial distinction between "probable" and "certain" knowledge. Intrinsically probable (uncertain) knowledge is based in passive sensible experience from selective, locally perspectival individual points of view in which fragmentary , partial, incomplete, unclear, and indistinct nonideational reference is made to nonsubstantial objects that are not parts of the real world. On the basis of this deceptive probable knowledge, we construct Aristotelian (Gassendian) universals that are particular-classifying (intensive force from the bottom up, particular to general) abstractive collectors, i.e., that consist of aspects derived from similar items on the basis of our interest in them, e.g., the way 'mammal' covers only parts of 'dog', 'cat', etc., and so are always aspectival, arbitrary, and incomplete. Probable knowledge is practical and artistic or artisanal in nature. It is truth-involving in the sense that the cognitive processes leading to it render it always untrue of the real world. Certain knowledge is based in active ideational intuition of innate ideas from the nonlocal, nonperspectival point of view of substance and thus provides perfect, pure, nonselective, complete knowledge (clear and distinct ideas) of substances in the real world. In the attainment of this nondeceptive certain knowledge, we utilize Platonic (Cartesian.) universals that are particular-determining (intensive force from the top down, general to particular) inclusive collectors, i.e., they cover all the items that together make up the parts of a whole, e.g., the way 'color' covers 'red', 'green', etc., and so are always absolute and complete. Certain knowledge is pure and scientific in nature. It is truth-neutral in the sense that the cognitive processes leading to it render it always either true or false of the real world. Glouberman presents Descartes as trying to establish the distinction between probable and certain knowledge primarily in the wax example. Descartes assumes that there BOOK REVIEWS 619 is a necessary connection between the type of cognitive faculty a substance has--and thus between that substance--and the type of knowledge that faculty makes attainable. Thus possession of certain rational knowledge is taken to indicate the existence of a spiritual mind. Possession of probable sensible knowledge indicates the presence of a material body. The relation of sensible knowledge to the body is established, but Glouberman argues that Descartes never establishes exactly what pure ideational knowledge of real substances is, nor that having such knowledge necessarily implies that the mind is an autonomous immaterial thinking substance. In the end he finds Cartesian dualism unintelligible. The key problem is that Descartes confuses the contrast of matter and mind with the contrast of the probable and certain because he fails to distinguish common-sense rationality (nonideational, sensible, nonsubstantial) from scientific rationality (ideational, nonsensible, substantial). And thus he fails to distinguish ordinary discursive linguistic understanding of the ordinary sensible world as we ordinarily know it from nondiscursive, nonlinguistic intuitional understanding of the real world of...