Gijsbert Voet and Discretio Spirituum after Descartes

Abstract

From the start, the basis of philosophy has been a distinction between truth and appearances. The philosopher has always sought to discern the true from the false, and especially from the specious false: true generosity from specious extravagance, the true friend from the specious flatterer, and true universals from the specious coming and going of sensory particulars. 1 Modernity, the age of the individual, has given centre stage to the problems raised in antiquity about the reliability of private experience and private judgment: how can we be sure that our senses are accurate and our reasons well founded? These were the first questions addressed by René Descartes in his Meditations of 1641, in response both to prevailing scholastic theories of knowledge, and to the challenge offered by the Pyrrhonist scepticism uncorked in the previous century. 2 The first Meditation seeks a foundation for knowledgesomething which cannot be doubted. The material world is out of the question, since our senses deceive us every day. To give the case put forward in the sixth Meditation, and recycled today in undergraduate textbooks, square towers look round in the distance-a standard example from early modern scholastic philosophy. 3 Moreover, very often we think we are awake, when in fact we are * The author thanks Stuart Clark and Theo Verbeek for their helpful discussions of this paper's theoretical and historical aspects.