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Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.2 (2002) 189-200



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Robert Desgabets's Representation Principle

Monte Cook


THE CARTESIAN PHILOSOPHER ROBERT DESGABETS'S only philosophical publication is his Critique de la Critique de la Recherche de la vérité (1675), in which he criticizes Simon Foucher's criticism of Malebranche's Search After Truth. 1 This work has never been republished and is now available only in rare book collections.

Desgabets also wrote several unpublished works that were widely circulated during his lifetime and in which he developed a unique philosophical system of his own. 2 Fortunately, these were published in 1983 as Robert Desgabets, Oeuvres philosophiques inédites. 3 Drawing particularly on this volume and especially on the longest work in this volume, Supplément à la philosophie de Monsieur Descartes (1675), I give a glimpse of Desgabets's system. I do so by discussing the surprising view of intentionality central to Desgabets's proof of the external world and to Desgabets's system in general. I note some interesting similarities and differences between Desgabets's position and the positions of Descartes and seventeenth-century Cartesians Malebranche and Arnauld. But mainly I clarify and give some needed structure to Desgabets's argument for his view of intentionality. This argument is interesting in itself as a sustained argument for a position whose initial plausibility is almost nil. Moreover, the argument needs interpretation because its structure is not obvious. [End Page 189]

1.

In Desgabets's philosophy, the most fundamental principle and the indubitable foundation of all truth is what I call the RepresentationPrinciple. According to this principle, we cannot think of what does not exist. If we can think of, have an idea of, or talk or write about, an object, then that object must exist. Without this principle, Desgabets says, we can doubt everything, even Descartes's famous cogito. (After all, Desgabets reasons, if we can think of things that do not exist, then our soul's being the object of our thought does not guarantee our existence [RD178-9, 224-5].) With this principle, however, we can readily prove the existence of things external to us. 4 In fact, Desgabets says, we can prove the existence of the external world in a way that parallels Descartes's Third Meditation argument for the existence of God. Though Desgabets believes that Descartes's argument is basically correct and worthy of tremendous respect, he thinks that Descartes obscures the core insight of this argument by covering it up with subtleties. The core insight is simply that since we have an idea of God--that is, we can think of God--God must therefore exist. But then similarly, since we have an idea of matter, matter must therefore exist (RD215-9).

Unfortunately, the Representation Principle seems not only not indubitable but just plain false. How can Desgabets take it to be true, much less indubitable? What proof does he have for it and how can he answer the numerous counterexamples that spring immediately to mind?

2.

Though only one argument for the Representation Principle gets developed in any detail, Desgabets gives various arguments for this principle. One argument, which gets mentioned in only a couple of places, rests on God not being the cause of error. All our thoughts originate in God, Desgabets says, and God would be at fault if our thoughts had no objects (RD 7; CdC126-7; cf. RD 259). Another, more important argument, which gets only slightly more attention as an argument for the Representation Principle, rests on God creating the eternal truths. Desgabets takes Descartes's doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths, properly understood, to include God creating not only eternal truths but also possibilities and things that give content to our thoughts. Though Desgabets stresses this doctrine and discusses it in detail, he does not generally use it to argue for the Representation Principle. He does at one point, however, say that this doctrine "admirably confirms" the Representation Principle (CdC76; see also RD80, 145, 240). And though Desgabets says that...

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