1. Class 21: Early Modern Metaphysics
Dr. Ann T. Orlando
15 March 2019

2. Introduction Rationalists and Empiricists France in 17th C Descartes
Pascal
Metaphysics and Physics

3. Epistemology: How do we know?
What is best method for coming to certain (or probable) knowledge?
Can knowledge improve the human condition?
What is relation (if any) of human knowledge to God and Revelation?
In my opinion,
Enlightenment answer is one of either presumption or despair
We still living in the Age of the Enlightenment

4. 17th C Philosophy
‘Paradigm’ shift in 17th C also led to search for ‘new’ philosophy
Driven by changes in
Politics
Physics
Religion
Voyages of discovery
Two different philosophical approaches:
Rationalists
Empiricist

5. Philosophical Developments During the 17th C
Rationalist: Knowledge is from innate ideas (mathematicians)
Rene Descartes ( )
Blaise Pascal ( )
Gottfried Leibniz ( )
Empiricists: Knowledge is (only) from senses (physicists)
Francis Bacon ( )
John Locke ( )
Isaac Newton ( )

6. 17th C Philosophy: Rationalists
Rationalist: Knowledge is from ideas
Rene Descartes ( )
Mathematician and discoverer/inventor of analytic geometry and algebra
“I think, therefore I am”
Dualistic approach to mind and body
Blaise Pascal ( )
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 ( )
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

7. France: Intellectual Center in 17th C
France most important country in Europe
Victor in 30 Years War
Most populous country
University of Paris
French Academy established in 1653 by Cardinal Richelieu to promote all things French
Remains arbiter of ‘official’ French language
French becomes the language of culture in 17th C
Developing intellectual currents
Libertine morals
Skeptical epistemology

8. Rene Descartes ( )
Born in France, but spent most of his life in protestant countries of Netherlands and Sweden
Philosopher, mathematician, ‘theoretical’ physicists
Discovered (invented) analytical geometry
Marriage of algebra and geometry
Claimed that mathematics not only described but represented (was) physical mechanisms
Cosmos guided by universal mathematical laws
The Meditations

9. The Meditations (1639) Written by Descartes to consider how we know
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
Antoine Arnaud, priest and Jansenist
Thomas Hobbes, English exile, atheist
Pierre Gassendi, priest, physicist and philosopher (epicurean)

10. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) Born in France, spent his life in France
Father was a minor aristocrat; family deeply religious
Attracted to Jansenism
Opposed to strong French monarchy; opposed to Jesuits
Pascal was an important experimental physicists
Existence of vacuums by experiments with barometers
Pascal’s Law in fluid mechanics
Pascal even more important as mathematician
Probability theory (basis of statistics, gambling)
Pascal’s Triangle (binomial expansions, combinatorics)

11. Jansenism Cornelius Jansenius (1585-1638)
Belgian bishop
Opposed to policies of Louis XIV
Wrote Augustinus, published after his death
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

12. Convent at Port Royal and Pascal
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 tendency 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

13. Pascal’s Wager 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 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

14. Assignments 1. Hitchcock, Chapter 10.
2. Blaise Pascal Pensees Series III available at