Curley_Descartes on the Creation of Eternal Truths

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Philosophical Review

Descartes on the Creation of the Eternal TruthsAuthor(s): E. M. CurleyReviewed work(s):Source: The Philosophical Review, Vol. 93, No. 4 (Oct., 1984), pp. 569-597Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2184828 .

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ThePhilosophical eview,XCIII, No. 4 (October 1984)

DESCARTES ON THE CREATION OF THEETERNAL TRUTHSE. M. CurleyI April 1630 Descartes wrote, n a stateof some excitement, othe faithfulMersenne, to announce a metaphysicaldoctrinewhich caused then, and has caused ever since,much puzzlement

among his readers:(1) The mathematical ruths,which you call eternal, have been es-tablished by God and depend on himentirely,ust as all othercrea-tures do ... he has established these laws in nature as a kingestab-lishes laws in his kingdom.'

SubsequentlyDescartes explains that the eternal truths-what wewouldcallnecessary ruths-depend on God's will, hat ince God'swillwas free,he could have created a worldin which these truthsdid nothold, ust as he could have not createdanyworld at all.2So,for xample,God was free to create a world nwhichthe ines fromthe center of a circleto its circumferencewere not all equal. Wecannot comprehend thispossibility, ut that is because our intel-lects are finite, whereas God's power is infinite andincomprehensible.Clearly this is a bizarre doctrine. But how bizarre is it? Whatexactly s Descartes committedto by this doctrine?Whydoes hehold it? Whatis the best thatcan be said in defense of it?Those arethe questions I hope to answerin thispaper. But before proceedtosay what thinkDescartes scommitted obythisdoctrine, etmesaywhat I thinkhe is not committed o.

'Letter of 15 April 1630, in Descartes, Oeuvres hilosophiques,ol. I,edited by F. Alquie, (Paris: Garnier,1963-1973), pp. 259-260. Citedhere-after s Alquie.2Letter o Mersenne, 27 May 1630, Alquie I, 268.

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E. M. CURLEYI

There is an interpretation f Descartes,oftenfound in theliter-ature, and interestinglyeveloped recentlyby Harry Frankfurt,3accordingto whichDescartes's doctrinecommitshimto the thesisthat there are no necessary truths,no truthswhose negation isimpossible, hat,froma logical pointof view, anything s possible.This thesismightbe expressed in thesymbolism f modal logic by(p)Mp, that s, forany p, p is logicallypossible.Frankfurt uts it bysaying thatthe eternal truths re "inherentlys contingent s" or"no more ultimatelyecessarythan" anyother propositions p. 42).I take it that theforce of the qualifying xpressions whichI haveemphasized is to allow that, although we,of course, perceive heeternal truths s necessary, hat s ust a fact about us, it does notshow anything bout the intrinsic atureof whatwe perceive:

(2) The propositions e find o be necessary.. need notbetruthsat all. The inconceivabilityf their alsity.. isnot nherentnthem.Itis properlyo be understoodnly s relativeothe haracterf ourminds Frankfurt,Creation," . 45).

The inability f our minds to conceive of the falsity f the eternaltruths s "merely contingent haracteristic f our minds" p. 44).God might asilyhave created us otherwise.And if he had createdus otherwise,he would not have deceived us in anyabsolutesense,because there's nothing n contradictions hemselveswhich makesthem mpossible.Descartes,of course, never saysthis nso manywords.OtherwiseFrankfurt's nterpretationwould not be an interpretation, utmerely restatement f the doctrine.So whatdidDescartessaythathas led interpreters o ascribe this doctrineto him?

3"Descartes on the Creation of the Eternal Truths," ThePhilosophicalReviewVol. 86, no. 1, (1977), pp. 36-57. Cited hereafter s Frankfurt,"Creation." Cf. Cronin,T., Objective eing nDescartes nd Suarez, Rome:GregorianUniversity ress, 1966), p. 37; Wells,NJ., "Descartes and theScholasticsBrieflyRevisited,"New Scholasticism5 (1961), p. 182. I hadoriginallybeen inclined to read J.-L. Marion's Sur la theologie lanche eDescartesParis: PUF, 1981) as operatingunder thesame assumption,butM. Marion tellsme, in conversationabout a draftof thispaper, thatheagrees withme against Frankfurt n this point.570


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DESCARTES ON THE CREATION OF THE ETERNAL TRUTHSFirst, n some passages in which Descartes expounds his creationdoctrine he does abstain from saying, n his own person, that theeternal truths are really eternal. So in the letter to Mersennequoted above (1), he speaks of "the truths f mathematics,whichyou call eternal .. "4 Someone mightwell take that to implythatDescartes himselfthinks that the truthsof mathematics re notreallyeternal or necessaryMore serious are passages like the following,whichcomes fromletter o Mesland (2 May 1644):

(3) As for hedifficultyfconceiving ow twasa matter ffree-dom and indifferenceorGod to make tnotbe true hat hethreeangles f a triangle ere qual totworight ngles, rgenerally,hatcontradictoriesannot xist ogether,ne can easily emovetby on-sideringhat hepower ftheGod cannothave ny imits.. (AlquieIII, 74).What is particularly triking bout this passage is that Descartesallows that thedenials of mathematical ruths o involvea contra-dictionand yetmaintainsthattheircontradictorinesss onlya rea-sonforregardingthemas false,not forregarding hem as impossi-ble. Take any contradictionyou like.God could have made ittrue.Hence, it could have been true.Hence, it is possible,even iffalse.Hence, anything s possible,there are no necessarytruths.

IIWhatever we may think of the intrinsicmeritsof the doctrinethat there are no necessarytruths,we should recognizethat thereare compelling ystematiceasonswhyDescartesshould nothold it.The most obvious,of course, is thatDescartes thinksGod has theproperty f existingnecessarily Alquie II, 593). Surelythisentails

that there s at least one necessarytruth,viz.,that God exists. Butsome interpretersthough not Frankfurt) xempt eternal truths4Alquie I, 259. There is a similarpassage in a letter o Mersenneof 17May 1638, Alquie II, 62.5As Gueroultdid in his Spinoza,vol. I (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne), . 80,n. 238. Marion (op. cit., pp. 161-178) also emphasizes this anguage, butapparentlydoes not draw Gueroult's conclusion.

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E. M. CURLEYabout God from he scope of the creationdoctrine.So letus pass toother examples.Consider the ontological argument. As Descartes expounds this,it requires the assumption that conceive of countlessthingswhichhave true, mmutable and eternal natures, even thoughthey maynever have existed or have been thoughtof (AT VII, 64). Theseeternal natures do not depend on my mind; my thoughtdoes notimpose any necessity n things,rather the necessity f the thingsthemselvesdetermines me to thinkof them n thewaythat do.6This hardly ounds like a man who would write, s Frankfurt oeson his behalf, "the necessitieshuman reason discovers . . are ustnecessities f its own contingentnature" ("Creation," p. 45).Moreover,notonlydo we perceivethatthetruths fmathemat-ics are necessary, ometimes, t least, we perceive clearlyand dis-tinctly hatthey re necessary e.g., at AT VII, 65). If they ren't nfactnecessary, hen t ooksas thoughDescartes willhave togive uphis criterion f truth.Not everythingwe perceive clearlyand dis-tinctlys true. At the time of writinghis articleon the creationofthe eternal truths,Frankfurt eplied to an objection of thiskindthat it presupposed a realist conception of truth which he hadindependent grounds for denying to Descartes. At thatstage heevidently till thought that the most satisfactoryolution to theproblem of the Cartesiancirclerequired us to ascribea coherencetheory f truth o Descartes "Creation," p. 52). Subsequently,how-ever, Frankfurthas apparently recanted, acknowledging that"wheneverDescartes givesan explicit ccountof truthhe explainsit unequivocally as correspondence withreality."7 o invokingacoherencetheory ftruthwill notgiveus a plausible wayout of thedifficultyhatwe clearly nd distinctly erceivecertaintruths obenecessary.

6AT VII, 67. In a paper read at the APA meetings nBoston,December1980, "Descarteson God's Ability o Do the Logically mpossible,"RichardLa Croix emphasized an analogous passage in the SixthReplies (AT VII,436).7"Descarteson the Consistency f Reason," in Descartes: ritical nd In-terpretivessays, dited by M. Hooker (Baltimore:JohnsHopkins Univer-sityPress, 1978), p. 37. He cites no texts,but presumablyhas in mindpassages like that n the letter o Mersenneof 16 October 1639 (Alquie II,144). See also the discussion in my DescartesAgainst the Skeptics,(Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard University ress, 1978), pp. 108-112.572


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DESCARTES ON THE CREATION OF THE ETERNAL TRUTHSPerhaps the most nteresting ystematic eason forhesitating oascribeto Descartes the thesisthat there are no necessarytruths sthat the recognitionof necessary truths eems to be central to hisphilosophy fscience. In Le monde escartes classesthefundamen-tal laws of physicstogetherwiththe principles of mathematics snecessaryor eternal truths:

(4) In addition othethree aws haveexplained, do notwish osuppose ny others, xcept hosewhich ollownfalliblyrom hoseeternal ruthsn which hemathematiciansre accustomedobasetheirmost ertain nd evident emonstrations,hosetruths, say,according o whichGod himself astaught s thathe hasdisposed llthingsnnumber,weightnd measure, nd whoseknowledges sonatural o our souls thatwe cannotbut udge them obe infalliblewhenweconceive hem istinctly,ordoubt hat fGod hadcreatedseveralworlds, heywouldbe as true nallofthem s theyre in thisone (AT XI, 47).

Here Descartes assimilatesprinciplesof physics-principles of in-ertia and of the conservationof motion-to mathematical ruths.To thatextenthe mayremind us of Quine. But inDescartes's casetheassimilation s made in order to claimnecessity orbothmathe-matical and physical aws.Even more interesting, erhaps, is the factthatDescartes hereanticipates n idea usuallycredited toLeibniz,thatnecessary ruthsare those which are true in all possible worlds. The same idea isemphasized again in the Discourse nMethod,when Descartes sum-marizes whathe had done in Le monde:

(5) I showedwhatwere he awsofnature,nd withoutasingmyargumentsnany ther rinciplehan he nfiniteerfectionsfGod,I tried o demonstratell thoseof which ne couldhaveanydoubtand toshow hat, ven fGodhad created everalworlds,here ouldnotbe any n which heywouldfail o be observedAT VI, 43).It's importantfor the methodology of Cartesian physics thatthelaws of nature should be true nall possible worlds; only f they re,can physicsbe a priori o the extent that Descartes thinks t is. NotthatDescartes thinksphysics s wholly n a priori cience. He doesrecognize a role forexperiment here, s many recent tudieshave

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E. M. CURLEYemphasized.8 The functionof experiment,however, s not to de-terminewhat the laws of nature are, but to determinehow,giventhose laws of nature, the effects re produced, to determinetheinitialconditions,typically nobservablemechanisms,fromwhichthephenomena can be deduced.9 If Descartes thought herewereno necessary ruths, t would be difficult o see whyhe should notextendhis empiricism ven to the laws of nature.10

IIIWe have, then,at least threesystematic easonswhy t would beawkwardfor Descartes to affirm,what thestandard nterpretationofhis creationdoctrinerequires,thatthere re no necessary ruths.The standard nterpretationshard toreconcilewith i) Descartes'scommitment o true and immutable natures n the ontological ar-gument, ii) hisacknowledgment hatwe clearly nd distinctly er-ceivecertain ruths o be necessary, nd (iii)his limited)use of an a8See,forexample, Daniel Garber's "Science and CertaintynDescartes,"in Hooker, op. cit.,and the literature ited there.9The whole issue is undoubtedlymore complicatedthan I suggesthere,but two passages which support thisreading would be in theDiscourse, i(AT VI, 64-65) and Principles V, 199-206. Alquie's annotationof theformerpassage is particularly elevantto our present theme. Descarteswrites:"FirstI tried to find in general the principles,or first auses ofeverything hat s,or that an be, nthe world . ." (myemphasis). Alquie (I,

636, n. 1) observesthatthisformula "indicates ufficientlyhatthe a priorideduction which willbe carried out on the basis ofprincipleswill result nthe reconstruction f a possibleworld rather than in the explanatoryde-scription f the real world. Nevertheless, t will suffice o long as it is amatter f generalities heavens, stars, tc.). It will no longer sufficewhenone wishes to descend to more articular hings, hat s, to explain whythispossible body,rather than some other, exists." would preferto say thatthe deduction shows whatanypossible world s like.That iswhy tsuffices.101 agree withKripke thatwe ought to keep the logico-metaphysicalissue of necessity r contingencyeparatefrom heepistemological ssue ofa prioricityr a posterioricity.here maybe contingent priori ruths ndnecessary posterioriruths.Cf. Naming nd Necessity,Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard UniversityPress, 1980 passim). All my argument requires, Ithink, s that it should be natural to assume thatonly the necessary isknowable a priori. o there s some plausibilityn the historical hesis thatthe empiricismof modern natural science had its origin in the Judaeo-Christian onceptionof nature as theproductof divine will.Cf. theessaysofO'Connor, Foster and Oakley in Part ofCreation: he mpact f n Idea,editedbyD. O'Connor and F. Oakley, (New York: Scribners, 1969).574


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DESCARTES ON THE CREATION OF THE ETERNAL TRUTHSpriorimethod n physics. n the next section shall argue thatthereare textual grounds for questioning the standard interpretationeven in those passages in which Descartes is expounding his cre-ation doctrine.But beforewecome tothosepassages,let me ampli-fy remark made above in passing.Descartes, I maintain, anticipated an idea usually credited toLeibniz, that necessarytruths re those which are true n all possi-ble worlds.You might bject that nthe passages cited nsupportofthatclaim Descartes does not explicitly se the notion of a possibleworld, he notionhe uses is thatof a world God mighthave created.He identifiesnecessarytruthswith those which would have beentrue n any world God created.And that's ertainly rue. Nevertheless, he grounds forcreditingDescartes withthis dea are as good as those for creditingLeibnizwith t.The same questionhas been raised about Leibniz. So far asI have been able to discover, there s no passage in whichLeibnizexplicitlydentifiesnecessarytruthswith those true in all possibleworlds.The best support for attributinghat view to him"I comesfromthe followingpassage:

(6) Essentialpropositions]rethosewhich anbedemonstratedya resolutionfthe erms, hich renecessary,rvirtuallydentical,othat heir pposites mpossiblervirtuallyontradictory.hesehaveeternal ruth. otonlywill hey btain o long s theworldasts, heywouldalso have obtained fGod had created heWorld n anotherway. 2

In one respect,Descartes is closer to most modernconceptions'3 nthathe speaks of other worlds,ratherthanotherwaysof creatingtheWorld. In another,he is more remote, n that he conceives ofhis alternativeworlds as ones which do not exclude one another" Cited by Benson Mates, in "Leibniz on Possible Worlds," in Frank-furt's eibniz, collectionf ritical ssays,Garden City,N.Y.: Anchor,1972),p. 337. The attribution o Leibniz of the idea thatnecessary ruth s truthinall possible worlds squestioned byWilliamLycan in "The Trouble withPossible Worlds," in ThePossible nd theActual, d. by M. Loux, (Ithaca,N.Y.: Cornell University ress, 1979), p. 274, n. 1.120puscules tfragmentsngdits e Leibniz, dited by L. Couturat (Paris:Alcan, 1903), p. 18.'3The qualification s necessitatedbyKripke's cautions about the termpossibleworld' inNaming nd Necessity,. 48n, pp. 15 ff.

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E. M. CURLEY("If God had created severalworlds . . "-my emphasis). But bothin Descartes and in Leibniz theconnectionbetween necessary ruthand truth n all possible worlds is expressed in termsof divinecreation,of a world God mighthave created,or a way God mighthave created the world.

IVApart from the systematic ifficulties he standard interpreta-tion of the creation doctrine involves, there are suggestionsof adifferent nterpretation, ne which acknowledgestheexistence ofnecessarytruths, ven in those passages in whichDescartes is ex-pounding or defendingthe doctrine. Consider thatfirstpuzzlingletter o Mersenne. In it Descartes endeavors toprepare Mersennefordealing withobjectionsby constructing hefollowing maginarydialogue:

(7) Theywill ellyou that,fGod had established hese ruths, ecouldchange hem, s a kingdoeshis aws;to which nemust eplyyes, fhis willcan change.-But I understand hem s eternal ndimmutable.-And judge the ameconcerning od.-But his will sfree.-Yes, but his power s incomprehensibleAlquie , 260-261).The point here is to reassure the imaginaryopponent that thetruthsn question are genuinelynecessary, n spiteofhaving beencreatedbya freeact of God's will. As Beyssade explains,

(8) The incomprehensibilityf thedivine ower, arfrom xtend-ing ontingencyothedomain fmathematicalruths, hereweper-ceive nlynecessity,s nvoked,n thecontrary,osafeguard ecessi-ty,where we can only imaginecontingency.t is true that ourimaginationan only represent he workof a free will as con-tingent.... But theCartesianremindsus thatour inabilityo imaginea willwhich sfree,ndneverthelessmmutable,ndcreativeftruthstruly ecessary,oes notprove that here anbe no suchthing].'4

14La philosophic remiere e Descartes, y J.-M. Beyssade (Paris: Flam-marion, 1979), p. 112. Cited without any appearance of disapproval byMarion, op. cit., p. 278n.

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DESCARTES ON THE CREATION OF THE ETERNAL TRUTHSAnd Descartes's imaginarydialogue in the first etter o Mersenneis not the only such passage.

Consider the not-so-imaginary pponent Gassendi, who ob-jected, against the ontological argument, that it seemed hard tomaintain hat there s an eternal and immutablenatureother thanGod. Descartes's replydoes notdenythat the true and immutablenatures are reallyeternal. "You would be right,"he says, that s, itwouldbe a hard thing o maintainthatthereare true and immuta-ble natures.(9) If it were a questionof an existing hing, r even if I hadestablishedomethingo immutable hat tsvery mmutabilityoesnotdependon God. But ust as thepoetsfeign hat hedestinies aveindeed been established y Jupiter, ut that fter heyhave beenestablished,e ishimselfoundto observe hem,o I don't hinkhatin truth heessences f things nd thosemathematicalruths hichcan be known oncerning hem, re independentfGod; ratherthinkhat, ecauseGod so willed t, ecausehe disposed hem o,they

are immutablend eternal.Whetherhat eemshardor soft oyoumattersittle.t is enoughforme thatt s true AT VII, 380; AlquieII, 827).15The eternal truths re truly ternal,even though theyhave beencreated.Ifwe suppose thatthis s Descartes'sposition,we trade one para-dox for nother.The standard nterpretation equiresus to ascribeto Descartes the paradox that there are no necessary truths.Thealternative am pursuing s that hereare necessary ruths, utthatsomeor all ofthemare created.Out ofthefrying an into thefire,you may say.And in theend, perhaps, I agree. But apartfrom hehistorical nterestwe may have in determining ust what mistakeDescartes made, I think there is some philosophical interest nseeing ust what there s about thisdoctrine hatmakes it a mistake.

'5One disquieting note about thispassage. Here Descartes accepts thecomparison between God's relation to the eternal truthsand Jupiter'srelation o the destinies,whereas n the etter oMersenne of 15 April 1630(Alquie I, 259-260) he rejected thatcomparison as demeaning to God.The solutionto thatpuzzle seems to be that n the letter o Mersenne hedid not thinkof the destiniesas being in anyway dependent on Jupiter,whereas in the 5thReplies he does.

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E. M. CURLEYA natural objection is this. Creation, ifit is anything, s an act,hence an event, hence something essentiallyrelated to time. For

any event, tmustmake sense to ask "At what time did thateventoccur?" It may be difficult o answer that question, but it mustalwaysmake sense to ask it. The eternaltruths, n the other hand,are essentiallynot related to time. For any eternal truth, t doesnot make sense to ask "At what time did that eternal truthcomeintoexistenceor come to be true?" f it'sreally ternal, he questionis improper; therecan be no time at which t came to be true.It's clear, think,what Descartes will ayto this.He willrejecttheassumptionthat ftheeternal truthswerecreated,there must be atime t whichtheywere created. He does use temporal anguage invariousplaces in connectionwithhis creation doctrine. n thepas-sage quoted above (9), he iswilling ocompareGod toJupiter,whowas bound to observehis decrees after e had made them. And intheConversation ith urman,when Burman asks:

(10) Does itfollow rom his thedoctrine f thecreation f theeternal ruths]hatGod could have commanded creature ohatehim, nd therebymade this good thing odo?'6Descartes replies:

(11) Godcould notnow o this: utwesimplyo notknowwhathecould have done. In any case, why houldhe not havebeenabletogive his ommand o one ofhiscreatures?my mphasis).

These are only the most striking nstancesof Descartes's use oftemporal anguage in expounding his doctrineof the creation ofthe eternal truths. t's quite characteristic or him to talk aboutwhat God couldhavedone, ratherthan whatGod cando, as iftherewas a time at which God hadn't yetestablishedthe eternal truths.Still,Descartescan't mean this temporal anguage tobe taken atfacevalue. For whereashe apparentlydoes think f thecreationofthe worldas a datable event, occurringapproximately5000 years16Descartes'sonversation ithBurman,translatedby John Cottingham(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), p. 22.

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DESCARTES ON THE CREATION OF THE ETERNAL TRUTHSago,'7 he evidently oes not so conceive thecreation oftheeternaltruths.WhatGod did, to create the eternal truths,was towillandunderstand them from all eternity.'8There is no time at whichthey ame tobe, no time priorto whichtheywerenot true.This isatleast one difference etweenGod's actions nd men's.Another sthatthe act by whichGod understands,wills and bringsabout allthings occurs at all times as one "perfectly imple" act.'9 So theconcept of an action,whenapplied toGod, does not have thesameimplications t does when applied to man.

Whetherthisdoctrine s consistent r not, make no attempt odecide. There would seem to be a problemin reconciling he fol-lowing threepropositions:(i) God created theworld in time.(ii) God created the eternal truths rometernity.(iii) God created all thingsby one perfectly imple act.

But perhaps I do not adequately understand thedivinesimplicity.Perhaps no finitemind is supposed to understand it. In any case,rather than focus on the disanalogies between God's actions andmen's, I prefer to exploit an analogybetween them.I take mycue fromBeyssade (8), who observesthatDescartes'sdoctrine is invoked "to safeguard necessitywhere we can only

17 To Burman's objection thateternity s all at once and once for all,Descartes replies: "That is impossible to conceive of. It is all at once andonce forall, insofar as nothing s ever added to or takenaway fromthenature of God. But it is not all at once or once for all in the sense that texists ll at once. For since we can divide tup now,after hecreationof theworld,why hould itnot have been possibleto do the same beforecreation,since duration remains constant? Thus eternityhas now co-existed withcreatedthings or, ay,5000 years, nd has occupied time long with hem;so it could have done just the same before creation if we had had somestandard to measure by" (op. cit.,pp. 6-7; cf. the SixthReplies,AT VII,432).'8Letter of 27 May 1630 (Alquie I, 268) and cf. the Conversation ithBurman, p. 15-16.19Cf.Principles , 23, and the comment on it in the Conversation ithBurman, p. 31-32.

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E. M. CURLEYimaginecontingency," hat s, n the domain ofthe will.One wayofexpressing the connectionbetween volitionand contingency s tosaythat tis, in general, true of any agent, a, that f a wills thatp,then it is at least logicallypossible that a notwill thatp.20 Using asymbolismwhich I hope will be perspicuous,2' we mightexpressthis as follows:

(i) (a)(p)(Wap ->MWap)(i) seems to express a general logical truth bout acts of will. f weexpressGod's omnipotence by saying that a proposition s true ifand onlyifGod wills t to be true,

(ii) (p) (p Wgp)then it seems possible to derive from these assumptions a thesisinvolving terated modalities which mightplausibly be taken toexpress Descartes's creation thesis n atemporal language. Let Pl,be any necessary truth, o that(iii) LpI

In virtueof (ii), we have(iv) Lp1 -- WgLpj

In virtueof (i), we have(v) WgLp1 -- MWgLp1

Detaching the consequents of (iv) and (v), we get201 am much indebted in this paragraph to Wayne Wasserman, whosecomments n an earlier versionof thispaper prompted me to simplify heargument t thispoint. The crucial principle i) is invokedbyJames Ross inPhilosophical heologyecond edition, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1980), p. xx.211 use 'a' as an individual variable, 'p' as a propositional variable,'W... 'as a two-placepredicateto be read'... wills hat ', 'M' and 'L' tosymbolize ogical possibility nd necessity, espectively,nd '->' to repre-sent entailment.

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DESCARTES ON THE CREATION OF THE ETERNAL TRUTHS(vi) MWgLpI

that s, it's possible that God doesn't will PI to be necessary.ButsincePi is necessaryonly f God wills t tobe necessary by iv)), (vi)entails(vii) MLp1

Since Pi was a randomlyselected necessarytruth, he deductionfrom iii) to (vii) allows us to generalize to(viii) (p) (Lp -> MLp)(The principle nvoked here is thatp -- q, thenMq -- Mp.)or equivalently,

(ix) (p) (MMp)So thesuggestion s thatwe should understandDescartes'sdoctrineof the creationof the eternal truths s involving,not a denial thatthereare necessary ruths, uta denial thatthose whichare neces-sary re necessarilynecessary.To think fthese truths s created sneither o think hatthey re not necessary,norto think hattherewas a timewhentheywere notnecessary,but to think hat t s notnecessary hattheybe necessary. teratedmodalities n the timelesspresentexpress Descartes's thoughtbetterthanhis own temporallanguage does.22

22As we shall see later, I thinkthat (p)MMp is notthebest ormulaforexpressingDescartes'screationdoctrine. adopt it here onlyprovisionally,to avoid for the time being the explanations a more exact formulawillrequire.Lee Horwitzhas pointed out a difficulty ith he argumentof thisparagraph.Descartes holds that reation s continuousand that he distinc-tion betweencreationand conservation s onlya distinction f reason (ATVII, 49). If I continue to exist fromone time to another, do so becauseGod, by one and the same action,willsmycontinuedexistence. n the caseof theeternal truths,God's continuousvolitionof theirtruth s supposedto be an immutable ct. God's immutabilityswhatexplains thenecessity fthesetruths.But ifGod's continuousvolition f these truths s immutable,then,once he has willed them,he cannotnot willthem, n violationof (i). I

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E. M. CURLEYThis suggestion bout how to interpret escartes's creationdoc-trinewas firstmade, I think,by Geach.23 Geach does not supportthe suggestion textually, ut it's worth noting that there is a quiteexplicit extualbasis forsupposing Descartes to have been makinga claim about iteratedmodalities.A passage that we consideredearlier (3), from Descartes's letter to Mesland of 2 May 1644,continues:

(12)Then alsoby onsideringhat ur mind s finitendcreated fsuch nature hat t canconceive s possible hethingshatGodhaswilled o be truly ossible, ut notofsuch a nature hat t can alsoconceive s possible hosewhichGod could have madepossible, utnevertheless illed o make mpossible.That God's powerhas nolimits]ells s thatGod cannot avebeendeterminedobringt boutthat t was true hat ontrariesannot xist ogetherndthat, ence,he could have done thecontrary.. thoughGod has willed hat er-tain ruths erenecessary,hat s not tosaythathe haswilled hemnecessarily.or to willthattheywerenecessarynd to willthemnecessarily,r to be necessitatedowill hem,recompletelyifferent(Alquie III, 74).

Here we have Descartes invoking scope distinction etween(1) WgLp

and(2) LWgp

in a way that has a clear bearing on a scholastic rgument we shallshortly onsider see pp. 585-588). It should be evidentthat n thispassage Descarteswantsto allow that thereare some propositionswhich are in fact mpossible,but which mighthave been possible,take this to be a difficultyn Descartes's philosophy,rather than in myinterpretation f it, difficulty erhaps first een by Spinoza (cf.the EthicsI P33S2).231n an article entitled"Omnipotence," first ublished in Philosophy8(1973), pp. 7-20, and subsequently reprinted in Providence nd Evil(Cambridge, Eng.: CambridgeUniversity ress, 1977). Geach's suggestionis discussed by Alvin Plantinga in Does God Have a Nature? Milwaukee:Marquette University ress, 1980), pp. 103-114, but rejected as "contraryto the fundamentalthrust" f Descartes's system.

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DESCARTES ON THE CREATION OF THE ETERNAL TRUTHSand that others are in fact necessary,but might,nevertheless,nothave been necessary. There is nothing epistemic about these"mights."We are not saying: "These things eemnecessary, ut, forall we know, they mightnot be necessary." We are saying: "Thesethings re necessary,but thereis nothing necessaryabout that."

VWhydid Descartes hold this doctrine? Clearlyhe thoughtthat

God's omnipotence required it. But this simple, obvious answerdoes not take us veryfar.Whyshould he have thoughtthat God'somnipotence required God to be the creator of eternal truths?Descartes writes s if his doctrinewere the only alternative o pos-tulating omethingeternal that s independent of God:(13) As for the eternal truths, say again thattheyre true rpossiblebecauseGod knows hem o be true rpossible, utnotthat heyre known y

God to be true s if they ere rue ndependentlyfHim.... One mustnotsay,then, hat fGoddidnot xist, everthelesshose ruths ould till etrue,for heexistencefGod is thefirstnd most ternal f allthetruthswhich anbe,and the nly nefromwhich ll the thers roceed.Butwhatmakes teasyto be mistakenn this s thatmostmen do notconsiderGod as an infinitend incomprehensibleeing,who s theonly uthor n whom ll things epend.24But why should Descartes suppose that f God does not createtheeternaltruths, hey re true ndependently fHim?The Thomisticview,afterall, conceived the eternaltruths s neithercreated norindependent of God:

(14) If no intellect ere eternal, o truthwould be eternal.Butbecause the divine ntellects eternal, ruth as eternityn it alone.Nor does it follow rom his hat nythingther hanGod iseternal;because ruthnthedivine ntellects God himselfSumma heologiaeIa 16, 7).

Whydoes Descartes rejectthis Thomisticsolution?Frankfurt ddresses this problem and suggests that Descartes24To Mersenne,6 May 1630, Alquie I, 264-265. Italicizedphrasesare inLatin in theoriginal,whereas the rest of the letter s in French.

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E. M. CURLEYthoughtthe Thomistic doctrine compromised God's simplicity.tmade the eternal truthsdepend on God, all right,but on God'sintellect, ot on his will.To say this s to imply distinction etweenGod's intellect nd his will. And certainlyDescartes does think tessential to identifyGod's intellect nd will,and does connect thisidentificationwith his creation doctrine. In the passage quotedabove (13), I omittedthe following entence:

(15) If menunderstood roperlyhemeaning f theirwords, heycouldnever aywithoutlasphemyhat hetruth f a thing recedestheknowledge odhas of t,for nGodwillingndknowingreone,insucha way thatfromhe eryactthat ewills omething,etherebynowsit, nd on that ccount nly uch things true.25

But it should be noted that here the identity f God's will andintellect s invoked against an opponent who maintainsthat thetruth f a thingprecedes God's knowledgeof it. This can hardlybeThomas.One difficulty ith Frankfurt's ccount is that it speaks not ofThomism, but of Scholasticism, nd treats Scholasticphilosopherssuch as Suarez and Aquinas" ("Creation," p. 39) as iftherewere noimportant ifferences etween them. But there are. Ifwe examineSuarez's criticism f the Thomists,we willfind that t s Suarez whobest fitsthe profile of Descartes's opponent.26Descartes neglects

25Alquie , 264. Again, the talicizedphrasesare in Latin in theoriginal.Frankfurt ites a passage fromthe SixthReplies (AT VII, 431-432), butthat passage is less satisfactoryor his purposes than (15), since it appearsto make God's intellect ubordinate to his will. Cf. Alquie's annotation,Alquie II, 872, n. 2, and Marion, 282-289.261nwhat follows am muchindebted to Cronin, op. cit. The interpreta-tion of Suarez is a delicate business and Cronin's reading may not becorrect. In "Suarez on the Eternal Truths," The Modern Schoolman 8(1981), pp. 73-104, 159-174, Norman Wells emphasizes the differencebetweenSuarez's various Thomisticopponents and the danger of takingsome ofSuarez's statements s representative f his ownfinalposition.Forthe purpose of identifying likely opponent for Descartes, however, Ibelieve it will be sufficientfCronin's interpretation epresents naturalmisreadingof Suarez. No doubt the historical ituation s far more com-plex than eitherCronin or I represent it as being. The best availableaccountis now, no doubt, themassive and erudite,but verydifficultworkof Marion cited in fn. 3.

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DESCARTES ON THE CREATION OF THE ETERNAL TRUTHSThomas's alternative heory, suggest, because he tacitly cceptsthe validity f Suarez's criticism f Thomas.In theMetaphysical Disputations,27one of the problems uareztakesup is what we might all the problem of the existential mportof necessary truths.Suarez takes it for granted that there can beeternal necessary) truths-for example, "All men are animals"-about beingswhose existence s contingent.But the orthodox doc-trine n medieval quantification heorywas that universal gener-alizationsentail the existenceofmembersof their ubject class.Onthe other hand, it is orthodox doctrine in anybody's modal logicthat a truthentailed by a necessary truth s itselfnecessary. Howcan "All men are animals" be necessarywhile "There are men" iscontingent?This is not Suarez's way of settingup the problem. His way ofputting t is as follows: fthe essence of a thingperishes when thething ceases to exist, then those propositions in which essentialpredicates are predicated of a thing are neither necessary nor ofperpetual truth. This conclusion is unacceptable, since it wouldentail that all truths about creatures would be contingent, ndhence, since all science s of necessary ruths, hattherecould be noscience concerning reatures.Suarez notes that "some modern the-ologians" have been willing o grantthat propositionsputatively fperpetual truthmightcome, and cease, to be true as thingscome,and cease, to exist,but findstheopinion contrary o the wisdom ofthe philosophersand of the Church fathers.Suarez thenconsidersand rejects Thomistic olution: that ter-nal truths bout creatures mightbe true, regardless of the exis-tence of the creatures,"not in themselves,but in the divine intel-lect." This, he says, won't do. For contingent truths have aperpetualtruthnthedivine ntellect s much as necessary nes do.And-what is more important for our purposes-the eternaltruths...(16) . . . are not truebecausethey re known y God,rather heyare known ecausethey retrue, therwiseo reason ouldbegiven

27Disputationesetaphysicae,vols. Hildesheim: GeorgOlms, 1965). Thepassages I shall be concerned with are in DisputationXXXI, Section xii,38-47, pp. 294-298.

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E. M. CURLEYwhyGodnecessarily nows hat hey re true, or ftheir ruth ro-ceededfromGod himself,hatwouldhappenbymeans fGod's will,so it wouldnotproceednecessarilyut voluntarily.. (p. 295)

Part of the interest f this for theCartesian scholar is that t pro-vides us with an identifiable ndividual who (apparently) assertswhat Descartesdenied in the letter o Mersennequoted above (13).But so far there is nothing n Suarez whichsays thatthe eternaltruths re true independentlyof God. As the passage continues,however, tcertainly mplies this.For example, in relationto thesetruths, he divine intellect s(17) . . . speculative,otoperative; utthe peculativentellectup-poses, nd doesnotmake, hetruth f tsobject; o propositionsfthiskind . . have perpetual ruth otonly s they re in the divineintellect,ut also according othemselvesnd prescinding rom hedivine ntellectIbid.).

Suarez's own theory ?? 44, 47) is thatpropositions ike "Man is ananimal" can be construed in two differentways: (i) the copulalinking he termsmay signify n actual and real conjunctionofthetermsexisting n the thing itself, n which case the truth of thepropositiondepends on "the efficient ause on whichthe existenceofthe termsdepends"; ifthe termsdon't exist' i.e., aren't nstanti-ated),thepropositionwillbe false; ii) alternatively,hecopula maysignify nly that the predicate is 'of the nature of the subject',whether the terms exist or not; in this sense, the propositionisequivalentto a strict onditional,"if something s a man, it is ananimal" (= "it cannot be the case that man comes into existenceunless an animal does"); but the truthof thisconditional does notdepend on the instantiation f itsterms,or as Suarez says,on theexistence fan efficientause whichcould produce instances ftheterms:

(18) If, per mpossibile,herewereno suchcause,thatproposition["everynimalhas a capacity or ensation"] ould neverthelessetrue Ibid., . 297).In adopting this solution, Suarez is, in effect,restricting heorthodox medieval doctrine of existential mport.But he is also,

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DESCARTES ON THE CREATION OF THE ETERNAL TRUTHSapparently, ommitting imself o the propositionDescartes is soanxious to deny: that he ternal ruths ouldbe true ven fGod didnotexist cf. (13) above).Of course, the factthatSuarez sayswhatDescartes denies doesnot show that Descartes had Suarez in mind as an opponent. ButSuarez's work was in common use inJesuit schools like the one atwhichDescarteswas educated (Cronin,op. cit.,pp. 32-33). In spiteofhis ritualprotestations f ignoranceof theworkof hispredeces-sors, Descartes can cite Suarez when it serves his purpose (AlquieII, 677). I think t's reasonable to suppose thatDescartesmightwellhave cited Suarez (but not Thomas) in this context,had he beenpressed to identify philosopher who held the kind of doctrineagainstwhich his own creationtheorywas aimed.But whydoes Descartes neglect the Thomistic alternative? ar-lier suggestedthatDescartesmay have taken forgrantedSuarez'scritique of St. Thomas. Let me tryto make that more explicit.Suarez thinkswe mustexplain whythere s a necessary onnectionbetweennonexistent erms, xplain what s the foundationof thosenecessary onditionalswhose terms re not instantiated.He thinksitwill not be sufficient o say that the connectionexists n God'sidea of thespecies and thatthe necessity rises from hat xemplar,because one of the thingswe wantto know swhythe divineexem-plar represents heconnection as a necessaryone. His own answerseems tobe thatthe necessity roceeds "from he object tself,"ndnot fromthe exemplar,though he admitsthat there s some diffi-culty n seeing how thiscan be, sincein itself hatobject snothing.I suppose that Descartesmayhave felt as I believe Suarez didfeel)that,since truth nvolvesa correspondencebetweenthoughtandreality, uarez was raisinga genuine difficulty orSt. Thomas. Iftruth s correspondence,and if therereally are necessarytruths,there must somehow be necessities n re.

Since Suarez's alternativeposition did seem, t least, to positsomething ternal other than God, it is understandablethatDes-carteswould resist hat.But he mayhave felt hatthedialectic efthim a third alternative. uarez had reasoned as follows: a) iftheeternal truths were true because theywere known by God, wewould not be able to give any reason whyGod would necessarilyknowthem to be true; (b) iftheirtruthproceeded fromGod him-self,that would be byhis will,and so theywould proceed volun-587


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E. M. CURLEYtarily, otnecessarily;hence, (c) the eternaltruthsmustbe knownbyGod because theyare true independentlyof his knowledge tothem. I suggest that Descartes had this argument in mind andrejectedstep (b). To say thatthe eternal truthsproceed from thewillof God does notentail thatthey re notnecessary.God can willthatthesetruthshold necessarilywithoutbeingnecessitated o willthat cf. 12) above). So his creationof them s a genuine act ofwill(not necessitated),and yet it does provide a foundationof theirnecessity, ecause his will s immutable cf. (7) above).

If we see Descartes's theoryas arising out of reflection n thecontroversy etweenSuarez and Thomas, thenwe can understandwhyDescartessometimes dentifies ternal truthswith hosewhichgive us no knowledge of anything hatexists28 nd whyhe is soattracted o thecomparison he makesbetween God's relation otheeternaltruths nd a king'srelationto thelaws ofhiskingdom e.g.,in (1) above). It is not merelythat the eternaltruths nd the lawsare both the productsof will,but also that,because theirvaliditydepends onlyon theirbeingwilled by a personof sufficientuthor-ity, heirvalidity s independent of their nstantiation. ust as theking's prohibition on poaching does not, to be law, require theexistenceofpoachers,so God's decree that llmenmustbe animalsdoes not, to be a truth, equire the existenceof men.29VI

Whatis thebest thatcan be said in favorof Descartes's doctrine?Much depends on interpretation. f you accept the standard in-terpretation,ccording to which Descartes holds thatthereare nonecessary truths, then perhaps the best line to follow is thatadopted byMargaretWilson,who sees Descartes as anticipating heinsight hat ll truths, ven thoseoflogic,are inprinciplerevisable,28Cf. The Principles fPhilosophy, 10 and 48, and thecomment on thelatterpassage in the Conversation ith urman,p. 34. See also Curley,De-scartesAgainst heSkepticsCambridge, Mass.: Harvard University ress,1978), p. 34.29Cf. the Sixth Replies, where Descarteswrites hatGod can be called anefficient ause of the eternal truths, in the same waythat the King is theefficient ause of the law, even if the law is not a physically xisting hing,but only, as theysay, a moral being."

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DESCARTES ON THE CREATION OF THE ETERNAL TRUTHSand hence thatnone are ineluctablynecessary.30Wilson acknow-ledges, of course,thatthereare anti-Cartesian, s well as Cartesian,elements nthepositionofphilosophers ike Quine and Putnam p.235, n. 31), butI don't believethat he givessufficient eight otheanti-Cartesian lements.Not only does Descartesnot "linkhisposi-tionto anyobservationof 'conceptual revolutions',"he also seemstothink hathis onceptualrevolutionwillbe the ast one. That, I'dsay, is one more reason for hesitatingto interpretDescartes asdenying that any truths re reallynecessary.

There is textual supportfor the standardinterpretation. ther-wise, twouldn'thave come to be thestandard nterpretation. ut Ihope enough has been said to persuade the dispassionatereaderthatDescarteshad good reasons fornot sayingwhathe sometimesseemsto be saying. suspect he was somewhatconfusedabout themodal statushe wanted to accord to the truthshe called eternal.The distinction etween p)Mp and (p)MMp is subtle enough thatwe can raise thissuspicion without mpugningDescartes's philo-sophical ability. n any case, the questionwhich nterestsme is this:what'sthe bestthatcan be said in favorofDescartes's doctrine fheis, in fact, committed to a modal thesis involving iteratedmodalities, and not to (p)Mp. For now I shall continue to use,provisionally,p)MMp to formulate the thesis involving teratedmodalities. In the next section I shall consider a more accurateformula.At one stage, I thoughtthe following.There are, afterall, sys-tems of logicwhichexpress themodal intuitionsDescartes seems,at times, ohave, that s, systems fmodal logic inwhich p)MMp islogicallytrue. These systems, he Lewis systemsS6-S8, are con-sistent, heyhave semantic nterpretations,heyhave decisionpro-cedures.They maybe incorrect ystems fmodal logic in thattheydon't statetrueprinciplesof logicalnecessity nd possibility,utat

least they'recoherent,and that's something.Many people havefound Descartes's creation doctrine ncoherent.But this s the kind ofdefense Geach anticipatedwhen he intro-duced the iteratedmodality nterpretationnto the literature.Thepassage is too delightfulnot to be quoted fully:301n her recent book, Descartes London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,1978), pp. 125-126.

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E. M. CURLEY(19) In recent ears, nsoundphilosophies avebeendefended ywhat may all shysterogicians: omeofthe moredubiousrecent

developmentsfmodal ogiccould certainly e used to defendDe-scartes. systemn whichpossibly ' were theorem,n which very-things possible, as indeed neverbeen taken eriously; ut modallogicians avetaken eriouslyystemsn whichpossiblyossibly ', oragain it snot necessaryhatnecessarily',wouldbe a theorem orarbitrarynterpretationf 'p'. What s more, omemodernmodallogicians otoriouslyakepossibleworlds ery eriouslyndeed; omeofthem ven goto the ength fsaying hatwhatyouand I vulgarlycall the ctualworld s simplyheworldwehappento ive n.Peoplewho akebothhingseriously,oth he xiom possiblyossibly ' andtheontologyfpossibleworlds,would ay:You mentionny mpos-sibility,nd there's possibleworld n which hat sn'tmpossibleutpossible. nd this sevenfurtherway utthanDescarteswouldwishtogo; forhe wouldcertainlyot wish osaythat It is possible hatGod should not exist' s even possibly rue.So a fortiori shysterlogician ould fadgeup a case forDescartes. uttomymind ll thatthis hows s thatmodal ogic s currentlyrather isreputable isci-pline;not that thinkmodal notions re inadmissible-on hecon-trary, think hey re indispensable-but hat urrent rofessionalstandardsn thedisciplinere ow nd technicalngenuitys mistakenforrigour.3'

Now I am nota logician.Afortiori, am not a shysterogician.Butthe defense of DescarteswhichI proposed just now does seem tome a fairtargetfor Geach's sarcasm. One mightnot want to accepteverything each says e.g., the apparentlyblanketcondemnationof possible world semantics).Still, tdoes seem thatthedefenseofDescartes at this point attaches too much significance o purelyformal esults. now think hatsystemsike S6 are, at some levelofinterpretation, ncoherent. There is something distinctlyfishyabout the devices used in the decisionprocedure for S6 to securethe resultthat p)MMp is logically rue.32The decision procedures for the standard systems T, S4, and31Op. it.,p. 11.321n what follows, assume familiarity iththeadmirably lear exposi-tion of decision procedures formodal logic in G. E. Hughes and M. J.Cresswell,An Introductiono Modal Logic (London: Methuen, 1972), seeparticularly hapters 5 and 15. For the remainderof this Section I omitexplicituniversalquantification ver propositions, ut it shouldbe under-stood to apply.

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DESCARTES ON THE CREATION OF THE ETERNAL TRUTHSS5) give formal expression to somethingwhich is at least liketheCartesian-Leibniziannotionthat necessity s truth neverypossibleworld, possibility ruth n some possible world. As far as T and S4are concerned, t s only omething ike t, ince we must qualify heCartesian-Leibniziannotionby sayingthatnecessity possibility)struth n every some) accessible ossible world. In S5 this qualifica-tion becomes vacuous, since the accessibility elation is reflexive,transitive nd symmetrical,nd everypossible world saccessibletoevery other. Hence Hughes and Cresswell conclude that S5 ex-presses the Leibnizianconception of necessitymore "directly" hando T and S4 (p. 76).In S6 the contact with thesebasic intuitions s consideralymoreremote. The diagram testing formula must include at least one'non-normal'world, a world inwhich the valuation rules for non-modal formulae re the same as innormalworlds,butMot is alwaysassignedthevalue 1 (and Lo, the value 0). Everynon-normalworldmust be accessibleto at least one normalworld,and everynormalworld saccessible to itself.But no world including tself) s accessi-ble to a non-normalworld.To see how thisworks,contrast hewayMM(p&-p) is evaluatedin T withthe way it is evaluated in S6. In T, thereis a consistentassignment fvalues whichfalsifies he formulawithout ven con-sideringalternativepossibleworlds:

wI MM(p&-p)0 0 1001The formula s not a logical truth n T (or S4, or S5). But in S6there must be a non-normalworld, w2,accessible to wI, in whichM(p&-p) is assigned the value 1, though there can be no worldaccessible to w2 in which p&-p) is assigned the value 1:

wI MM(p&-p)0 0 1001w2 M(p&-p)1 0

ButM(p&-p) mustalso be assignedthe value 0 inw2, inceMM(p&-p) isassignedthevalue 0 inw1 So a consistent alsifyingssignment591


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E. M. CURLEYof values is not possible. The formula s logicallytrue in S6 (andrelated systems ike S7 or S8).

Above I said that there was somethingfishy bout the way thisresult s obtained. Actually, think hereare at least two things hatare fishy bout it. First, he admission of non-normalworlds,withtheir own special rules for the evaluation of modal formulae,means that the 'modal operators' are not being interpreteduni-vocally nformulaewhich nvolve teratedmodalities.Second, sincethe valuations of modal formulae n non-normalworlds are quiteindependent of the values of their rguments, nthose or any otherpossible world,there s no reason at all toregard these rules forthevaluationof modal perators.n a system ikeS6, not much is leftofthe Cartesian-Leibnizian ntuition hat possibilitys truth n somepossible world.So if p)MMp were thebestformulaforexpressingDescartes's creationdoctrine,he would be not muchbetter ff hanifhe held the appalling (p)Mp.

VIIThe timehas now come todiscuss an issue I have alluded to, but,forthesake of simplicity, ave avoided discussing.Does Descartesintendto state ny hesis bout the modal statusofall propositions?I thinknot,but as noted earlier p. 571)) opinionamong Cartesianscholarshas been divided. Some, likeFrankfurt, ave argued that

Descartes does intend a universal thesis about themodal statusofall propositions,viz., p)Mp. And Frankfurt oes not shrinkfromembracing the most hair-raisingconsequences of this doctrine.Speaking of Descartes's proofsthatGod exists nd is not a deceiver,Frankfurtwrites,... These proofsnecessarilyeaveopen thequestion fwhethertheironclusionsre true speaking bsolutely"r nGod'seyes.Thatis, they eave opentheunintelligibleossibilityhatGod knows hatHe does not exist.This is perhaps he ultimate aradoxthatmy n-terpretationntailsFrankfurt,Creation," . 53).

Otherinterpreters,ikeGueroult,have thought hatthere mustbeat least someabsolute mpossibilities. nystateofaffairs hatwouldlimitGod's omnipotence or his being is absolutely mpossible.So592


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DESCARTES ON THE CREATION OF THE ETERNAL TRUTHSpropositions ike "God exists," God is able to do what we conceiveto be possible," "God is not a deceiver,"and others, belong to a'higherorder' of eternaltruths hando those eternaltruths reatedby God's will.33Gueroult is influencedpartlyby a principlethatAnglo-Saxon philosophers sometimescall the principle of non-vacuous contrast. feverything erepossible,thepossiblecould nolonger be opposed to theimpossible, nd therewould no longerbeanysense incharacterizing nything s possible.But it s importantto Descartes thatthere should be some pointin saying,for exam-ple, that materialthings re possible.In thisdispute it seems to me thatGueroult s more nearlyrightthan Frankfurt, hough the dispute is muddied by the fact thatneitherpartyconsiders seriouslythe possibility f expressing De-scartes's creation thesis in terms of a formula involving teratedmodalities.And itmightbe thought hat once we do consider thatpossibility, e no longer have any reason to limit he scope of thethesis. If what Descartes is committedto is (p)MMp, rather than(p)Mp, then the need to make exceptionsmay not seem so pressing.We can allow that "God exists" is necessary, so long as we re-member that it is only contingentlynecessary. The iteratedmodality nterpretation voids the horrendous systematic onse-quences of the simple modality nterpretation.But that would be too hasty conclusion.34Even ifwe interpretDescartes's doctrine as best expressed by a formula nvolving ter-ated modalities, here s reason to make at least some exceptions, ohold thatat least some eternal truths re necessarilynecessary,notmerely contingently ecessary.After all, what's supposed to ex-plain the necessityof those eternal truths God did create is hisimmutabilitycf. above, text (7)). If God's immutability oes notbelongto a 'higherorder'ofeternaltruth, hen t's hard to see howitcan serve to explain the necessity f created eternal truths. ter-

33Gueroult,M., Descartes elon 'ordre esraisons, ol. II (Paris: Aubier,1953),pp. 26-29.341 note that Geach resisted this conclusion when he first ut forwardthe iteratedmodality nterpretationsee 19, above). Geach offersno rea-sons for his resistance unless saying that something s certain counts asgiving reason for t). In what follows endeavor to supporthis intuitionwith rgument.

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E. M. CURLEYated modalities offerus a way of interpretingGueroult's talkof a'higher order' of necessity,possibility nd impossibility, nd De-scartes'scontention hat

(20) the xistencef God is thefirstndmostternalfall the ruthswhich can be, and the only one from which all the othersproceed... .35That necessarytruths bout God should occupy a special positionmay also be suggested by reflectionon the fact that,insofar asDescartes has the concept of a possibleworld,he thinksof itas aworld God mighthave created.I contend thatDescartes's doctrine s best expressed bythe fol-lowing pair of theses:

(T1) (x) ((Ex & -LEx) -* (p) (Lpx -> -LLpx))(T2) (x) (LEx -> ((p) L ypx LL px))

Here 'E . . . ' representsthe one-place predicate . . . exists." So(T1) says that necessarytruths bout contingently xistingbeingsare only contingently ecessary. T2) claims thatnecessarytruthsabout necessarily xistingbeings are necessarilynecessary.Note thatI say that Descartes's doctrine s best xpressedn theseterms. do not maintainthathe was clear enough about the subtledistinctions nvolvednot to give frequentencouragementto alter-native readings. The texts ust are not all thatunambiguous. Totake one example, Gueroult had cited, in favor of limitingthedoctrine, passage in the letter o Mesland of2 May 1644 inwhichDescartes admits that(21) There are contradictionshich re so evident hatwecannot

putthem efore urmindswithoutudging hem ntirelympossible,likethe oneyousuggest: hatGodmight avemadecreaturesnde-pendent fhimselfAlquie II, 74-75).Gueroult inferred that our judgment of impossibilitywould becorrect.Frankfurt, n the other hand, points out that Descartes

35To Mersenne, 6 May 1630, my emphasis.594


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DESCARTES ON THE CREATION OF THE ETERNAL TRUTHSdoes not actuallysaythe udgment would be correct,but that hedoes go on immediately o say that

(22) If we wouldknow he mmensityf Hispower,weshouldnotput these houghtsefore ur minds.We are advised not to consider such propositions, Frankfurtthinks, o as to avoid being compelled to udge falsely hat t wasimpossible for God to make creatures independent of him. OnFrankfurt's eading of the texts,Descartes is committed to theexceptionlessthesis, p)Mp.I find Frankfurt'snterpretation f (21)-(22) inconsistentwiththe doctrine of udgment in the FourthMeditation,according towhich on my nterpretation) ny propositionswe are literally om-pelled to assent to must be true in an absolute sense. OtherwiseGod would be a deceiver.But the interpretationf (21)-(22) can-not be settledwithout pursuing larger issues of how Descartes'sdefense ofreason is to be construed,forexample,withoutdiscuss-ing whetherDescartes is as skepticalabout the possibility f ourattainingknowledgeof absolute truth s Frankfurtmakeshimoutto be. Since I have discussed those issues elsewhere,36 will notpursue them here, contenting myselfwithnoting that an alter-native reading of (21)-(22) is possible. I take it that Descarteswould regard thisproposition "It is not possible that God shouldmake a creatureindependent of himself' as true,but dangerous,since it is liable to mislead us into udging (falsely)that "God'spower is finite."There are a number ofrelevant extswhichpoint na number ofdifferent irections. abstain fromsurveying hem and concen-trateon what I think s the fundamentalquestion,raised byMar-garetWilson:37"Would ithave been arbitrarynd ad hoc of De-scartesto exclude essential truths bout God fromthescope of his

36Descartesgainst he keptics, p. 108-118.37See Wilson'sDescartes, . 124. Wilsonprovidesa briefand fairsurveyof the relevanttexts,marred only by an apparent acceptance of Frank-furt's eadingof the letter o Mesland. For a thoroughand subtleanalysisof the letter to Mesland, culminating essentially in a vindication ofGueroult'sposition, ee J.-M. Beyssade, "Creation des verites ternelles tdoute metaphysique," tudia cartesiana (1981), pp. 86-105.595


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E. M. CURLEYcreation doctrine?" suggest that t would not have been, and thatthe rationale for the creation doctrineoffered n Section V of thispaper explains why. According to my interpretation, he wholeproblem arises fromworrying bout the truth-conditionsf neces-sary truthsdealing with things which may or may not exist, withessences which,according to Genesis, at one time were not actual.In the case of God, the question does not arise. God's essence iseternally ctual. So there is no need to provide a foundation foressential truthsabout God in his immutablewill. Eternal truthsaboutGod, inDescartes's view,would constitute legitimate xcep-tionto the creation thesis.Ifthis s the correct nterpretationfDescartes's doctrine,what sthe best that can be said in favor of it? We cannot, at this stage,appeal to the existenceofwell-understood ogical systems ncorpo-ratingthe modal intuitionsDescartes appears to have. So far as Ican discover, no extant system contains theses (T1) and (T2). Igatherthatthese theses could be added without nconsistencyo aminimal ystemike T. After ll,thepointofdevelopinga minimalsystem s preciselyto allow for the possibility f variantsystemscontainingtheses like T1) and (T2). But so far as I am aware, noone has triedto workout thedetails of such a systemnthewaythatthey have worked out the details of systems ontaining p)MMp.The measures that turnedout to be necessary o providea seman-ticsfor systems ike S6 do not seem a very uspicious omen for thefuture f such systems s those we have been contemplatingn thissection.But as a nonlogician, can only eave itto the logicianstofind out.If we assume, for the sake of argument, hatthetaskof provid-ing a sensible semanticsforsystems ncorporating T1) and (T2) isnot nsuperable, herewill tillbe otherproblems.Forexample,thekey difference between necessarily necessary truths and con-tingently ecessarytruths s supposed to be that the former aretruths boutGod and the atter re truths bouthiscreatures.Howare we to classifypropositions nvolvingboth God and his crea-tures? For example, I assume that Descartes will hold it to be anecessary ruth hat a) God is more powerful han Adam.38 Ifwe

38This example is suggestedby Mesland's (see text 21)). But Mesland'sexample will not make the point,sinceGod's creation of anything s sup-596


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DESCARTES ON THE CREATION OF THE ETERNAL TRUTHSregard (a) as a truth bout God, then (T2) willproclaim itto be anecessarilynecessarytruth. But if we regard it as a truthaboutAdam, (T1) willproclaim it to be a contingently ecessarytruth.This does not seem to be a very atisfactoryesult.I conclude that,while Descartes'sdoctrinemaynot be as bizarreas itsounds whenexpounded bycertainofhis interpreters,tfacesseveredifficulties ven on the most charitableof interpretations.39Universityf llinois t Chicago

posed to be a contingent vent. I am indebted to David Stump for forcingon me a clarification f the argument of this section.39The first ersionof thispaper was read at the Chapel Hill Colloquiumin October 1979. Subsequent versionswere read at the University f Iowa,the Great Expectations Colloquium, The University fNebraska,and theUniversity f Pennsylvania. I am indebted to various members of theaudiences on those occasions,butparticularlyoMargaretWilsonandJimRoss.

Curley_Descartes on the Creation of Eternal Truths

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