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17Will and the Theory of JudgmentDAVID M. ROSENTHAL

Contemporary discussions typically give somewhat sort shrif t to thetheory of judgment Descartes advances in the Fourth Meditation. 1One reason for this relat ive neglect is presumably the prima facieimplausibility of the theory. It sounds odd to say tha t, in believingsomething, one's mental affirmation is an act of free will, on a parwith freely deciding what to do. In addition, Descartes advances thetheory as a way to expla in the possibi li ty of human error, whichdoubtless strikes many as a rather esoteric undertaking. The need toexplain error, moreover, arises because of the divine guarantee, andepistemic theodicy is a project unlikely tointerest most contemporaryreaders. And because the theory of judgment postulates two mentalfaculties, it very probably evokes the general skepticism, and evenhostility, we now have toward faculty psychologies of the sort thatflourished in the nineteenth century.Lack of interest in, and sympathy for, Descartes ' theory of judg-ment is doubtless reinforced by the impression that t he t heory isrelatively independent of Descartes' main position. In broad outline,thecentralargumentof theMeditations consists ofa vigorous challengeto allour claims to have knowledge, followed by a systematicreinstate-ment ofmuch of that knowledge, newlybased on solidepistemologicalprocedures and reformulated in clear and distinct terms. Aside fromMeditation IV, every Meditation after the First sets ou t to rehabilitatesome area of knowledge that Meditat ion I had called into question.


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406 David M. Rosenthal Will and the Theory of Judgment 407

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Meditation IV, alone, seems tostand apart from thisprogressivereconsti tuting of knowledge. The theory of judgment can therefore comeacross as being relatively inessential for understanding the remainingMeditations.My aim in this paper is to show that Descartes' theory of judgmentand, in particular, his view about the role the will plays in judging,actually give us a satisfactory and penetrating account of the natureof mental acts. And I also argue that, contrary to initial appearances,that theory is an important and integral part of Descartes' overallposition, and that we cannot correctly understand his views aboutmind and methodology without appeal to the theory of judgment.In section I, I argue that the theory is the natural and inevitableresult of conclusions Descartes has reached earlier in the Meditationsabout the nature of the mind. In section II, I address the role of thewill in judging. I argue that whatever initial impression we may havethat the will plays no such role is unfounded. I also show how Descartes' appeal to the will fits well with, and even helps explain, ourcommonsense conception of the nature ofmental acts. In section III,then, I take up and rebut the most important and penetrating object ions to the theory, objections that might keep one not only fromaccepting itbut even fromgivingit seriousconsideration. In section IV,

f inally, I briefly indicate a few of the ways in which i t c an be shownthat the two-faculty theory of judgment helps us understand, andeven defend, a number of doctrines Descartes holds about mind andmethodology.To illustrate the importance of the theory in Descartes'thought, Idiscuss some of the consequences the theory has concerningthe relation of language to thought, the doctrine of compelled assent,the role of doubt in the Meditations, and the cogito.

I. THE TWO-FACULTY THEORYThe problem that Descartes intends the theory of judgment to solvestems from the divine guarantee ofMeditationIII. The infinite perfection of his creator leads Descartes to conclude that he could have no"faculty that, rightly used, could lead [him] to err" (AT VII, 53-54;HR I, 172)2 and , indeed, no "faculty that is not perfect of its kind [insuo genere)" (AT VII, 55; HR I, 173). But errors do occur, and theiroccurrence "argue[s] that there is some imperfection in me" (AT VII,56; HR I, 174). The problemis to square the imperfection inmymentalnature t ha t my errors indicate with the perfection that the divine.guarantee confers on my faculties. '

The way Descartes structures the preceding discussion makes thisproblem especially pressing. For one and the same set of considerations leads both to the discovery ofmy imperfection and to the divineguarantee. My doubting and desiring of things indicates a lack in me,thereby establishing that I am finite and imperfect. But, Qescartesargues, I could not comprehend or recognize my own impJrfectionand finitude unless I already had, as a standard for comparison, ani dea of what it is to be perfect and infinite, that is, an i dea of aninfinitely perfect being (AT VII, 45-46; HR I, 166). And only such abeing could cause in me that idea. Descartes stresses that the conflictthat Meditation IV is meant to resolve arises, in th is way, from asingle set of factors. For, in the opening paragraph of thatMeditation,he summarizes the situation by reminding us that "when I direct myattention to .. . my being an incomplete and dependent thing, a clearand dis tinc t idea occurs to me of an independent and completebeing ... " (AT VII, 53; HR I, 171-172).Accountsof Descartes' solution usually emphasizethe obviousanalogy with traditional moral theodicy. Only if "rightly used" is it impossible for my faculty of judging to lead to e rr or s. So a satisfactorysolution must credit me with sufficient freedom of will i nmy makingjudgments to explainmy errors as due to thewanton use ofmy facultyof judging. Difficulties for the theory then seem immediately to arise.Descartes also holds that " it i s not possible for [him] not to judgesomething he apprehends as clearly [as the cogito] to be true" (ATVII, 58; HR I, 176). I t seems he mus t therefore offer a contorted andad hoc account of our freedom in making judgments, an account thatundermines whatever littleanalogy does holdbetween judging falselyand wantonwrongdoing. Andwe do not, inany case, appear actuallyto have the kind of freedom in making judgments that the analogyrequires.Descartes himself stresses the ways in which his theory of judgingrelies on analOgies with moral behavior (e.g., letter to Mersenne: ATIV, 173; K, 159-160). Indeed, in section II, I exploit such analogies inarguing thatthe theory is, despiteinitialappearances, intuitivelynatu-ral. But the particular analogy with traditional theodicy is highly misleading as a model for understanding the problem Descartes meanthis theoryto deal with.What iscrucialis notthewayin which freedomdoes or does not figure in o ur judging, bu t whether the faculty ofjudging is a s ingle, uni fied aspect of our mental nature. Descartes'formulation of the problem makes this clear.At the outset of Meditation IV, just after reviewing his earlier conclusion that deception implies imperfection, Descartes writes that "1


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408 David M. Rosenthal Will and the Theory of Judgment 409experienced in myselfa certainfacultyof judgingUudicandi facultatem]"(AT VII, 53; HR I, 172). The past tense here presumably refers to theend of Meditation II, where he had used the same phrase, judicandifacultas, to talk about whatever i t is in his mind (in mente mea) thatenables h im to judge , for example , tha t the things moving in thestreet are people, and not merely hats and coats. The issue in theearlier passage iswhetherDescartes knows the wax "by eyesight"or"solely by an inspection of the mind" (AT VII, 32; HR I, 155-156).The faculty of judgment i s mentioned there as whatever i t is in trismental nature that enables him to make judgments. It is that aspectof his mental nature which makes judging possible.There is nothing difficult or problematic about Descartes' notion ofa faculty. It is just the power or capacity to do something. Nor is thereanything questionable about his inference that a faculty of judgingexists. He makes judgments, so he must have the capacity todo so.The reasoning is from the exercise of a capacity to its existence. Ashe explains to Arnauld:. . . we always have actual consciousness of the actions and operations ofour mind; but not always of faculties or powers [facultatum, sive potentiarum), .except potentially; so that when we tum ourselves to the exercise ?f anyfaculty, if that faculty is in the mind, we become actually aware of It. (ATVII, 246-247; HR II, 115)3

Although it is unproblematic in the Second Meditation, the i d e ~ ofa faculty of judging leads to difficulties in the Fourth. Errors are Justfalse judgments. Somy faculty of judging is that aspectofmy mentalnature which is responsible for my errors. Since my e)rrors "arguethat thereis some imperfection in me," that imperfectionmust pertainto my faculty of judging, But I can have no faculty that isnot perfectof its kind. So, if my faculty of judging is a single, undifferentiatedaspect ofmy mental nature, we have a contradiction.An aspect ofmy nature that, by the divine guarantee, is perfect of its kind, givesrise to errors and is thus imperfect.Since my faculty of judging is just whatever aspectof my natureenables me to make judgments , I canhope to learn more about thatfaculty by examining the character of those judgments. In particular,I may be able thus to learnwhether the faculty respon,sible for myjudgments is a single aspec t ofmy nature, as it initially appears tobe (AT VII, 32; HR I, 156), or instead involves more than one factor.What it is to be a judgment may help us learn what it is in us thatmakes them possible. This is clearly Descartes' strategy. For it isupon

"investigating the nature ofmy errors [qualesnam sint errores mei)" thathe announces his view that they "depend on two concurrent causes":the faculty of understanding, and the faculty of choosing (eligendi) orfree will (AT VII, 56; HR I, 174).What is it about the nature of his errors that convinces Descartesthat they "depend" on the interaction of two distinct faculties? Descartes says nothing about the nature of his e rrors in or around thepassage just quoted. So it is reasonable to concludetha t he regardshimself as having investigated their nature earlier.And, since errorsare just false judgments,he has in fact done so when, in MeditationIII, he inquires what it is that t ruth and falsity, properly speaking,consist in.In that passage, Descartes "divide[s] all [his] thoughts [cogitationes]intocertain kinds." The division is twofold: ideas, properly so called,and "others," such as volitions and judgments. Ideas are somewhatlike (tanquam) images, presumably in that they purport to representthings. The "others" share this representative character; theyalso arealways about things. But theyhave an additional aspect (alias .. . for-mas), whichis exemplified "when I desire, when I fear, when I affirm,when I deny." Ideas cannot properlybe said tobe false-nor, presumably, true; the same holds of volit ions. Only judgments can be trueor false (AT VII, 36-37; HR I, 159-160).Descartes' division here is clearly basedon the structure of propositional attitudes. Judgments, being true and false, must be propositional. But they also involve an aspectin addition toth e representativecharacter they share with ideas, an aspect exemplified by desiring,fearing, affirming, and denying. The additional aspectmust thereforebe the mental attitude that, together with propositional content, constitutesallmental acts. And, since these mentalacts resultfromaddinga mentalattitude toan idea, ideasmust be just propositionalcontents.4Descartes impatiently explains the passage to Hobbesby an analogy.An idea is like seeing a lion, or seeing a person run, presumably because bothinvolve onlya representingof something. Fearinga lion '!atthe same time,"and affirming tooneselfthat one sees thatperson running, are different, since they involve also some mental attitude (ATVII, 182-183; HR II, 69). That the structure of propositional attitudesunderlies Descartes' division of "all [his] thoughts" is also attested byhis giving catalogues of propositional mental actswhen he explains,in Meditations II and III, what it is to be a thinking thing (AT VII, 28and 34; HR I, 153 and 157).There is indirect textual evidence for thinking that Descartes hasthe division of Meditation III in mind when, in the next Meditation,


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he talks of investigating the natureof his errors. In the ThirdMeditatiOI) passage, he beginsby considering "all [his] thoughts," and asking"in which of them tru th and falsity consist." But having made hisdivision, he then speaks, in the next paragraph, only of judgmentsbeing false, and not also of their being true. So that paragraph turnsout to be about just those of our judgments which are errors.In any case, Descartes' division does explain how t he nature oferrors and, more generally, of judgments, prompts his two-facultytheory. The propositional content of any particular judgment can o c c ~ rwithout the mental attitude that goes into that judgment, for it canoccurwith manyothermental attitudes. Similarly, affirmingand denying, which are the mental atti tudes distinctive of judging, can occurwithout the propositional content that is involved in any particularjudgment. These two aspects of judgments-their attitude and content-are therefore distinct components. In Descartes' technical terminology, they are modally distinct (Principles I, 61: AT VIII-I, 29;HR I , 244). When in Meditation II Descartes takes judgments to beundifferentiated unities, the making of judgments was sufficient tomake him aware of a faculty, or power, that makes judging possible.His new awareness in Meditation III of the two distinct componentsofjudgments accordingly leads,in the FourthMeditation, tohis awareness of two corresponding faculties: a faculty whose exercise suppliespropositional content, and another whose exercise resultsin the holding of mental attitudes.The two-faculty theory of judging, therefore, doesnot result fromany analogy with the role played by free will in traditional theodicy.Rather, the theory is a direct response to the difficulty of conceivingof judgments as being due to a single, undifferentiated aspect ofourmental nature.By itself, the idea thatmore than one cognitive capacityplays a role in our making-judgments, and that the interaction ofsuchcapacities helps explainhow somejudgmentsend up beingerroneous,is neither novel nor in conflict with common sense . But one of thefactors common sense tends to regard as playing a role in judging issense perception. This Descartes' dualism does not allow. For heholds that sensory qualities are products of the interaction betweenbody and mind (AT VII, 81; HR I, 192). And, a s the wax passagemakes clear, he thinks of judging as a purely mental activity. So, ifjudging is to involve more than one cognitive capacity, tr e facultiesDescartes invokesmust all be purely mental.That judging should involve understanding things is straightforward enough. The problem is about Descartes' deploying the facultyofwill as the other factor. If he does not do so because ofan analogy

410 David M. Rosenthal Will and the Theory of Judgment 411with the role free will plays in traditional theodicy, we must askwhether he has any satisfactory reason for claiming that i t figures atall in our making judgments, and for giving the account he does o fthe will and of what i t i s for the will to be free. It has seemed tomostcommentatorsthat the role he assigns free will in histheoryofjudgingis both unmotivated and misguided. ThusZenoVendler, for example,suggests that Descartes assigned the task of generating mental att itudes to the will only because "nothingbut the will is available in thescholastic arsenal besides the understanding to handle the higherfunctions of man.,,5 I want now to argue that far more compellingconsiderations are available to explain Descartes' appeal to thewill.

II. MOTIVATION AND EXPLANATORY VALUEWhen Descartes divides all his thoughts in Meditation III,he mentions four mental attitudes: desiring, fearing, affirming, and denying.Affirming and denying a re the two kinds of judging that involveopposingmental attitudes one cantake toward a proposition. Desiringand fearing also have the structure of propositional attitudes, andagain involve opposing attitudes. If we attributed the attitude of desiring t o the ope ra ti on of any faculty, it would be the will. So_ t isreasonable to regard fearing, insofar as it is a propositional atti tudeand not a bodily feeling, as due to an aversive act of the will . ThatDescartes has these considerationsin mind seems clearfrom the parallel passage in the Principles (I, 32); there, the mental attitudeshe listsas due to the ope ra ti on of the will a re de si ri ng (cupere), aversion(aversari), affirming, denying, and doubting (ATVIII-l, 17;HR I, 232).Descartes' aim is to find some facultywhose operation explains themental-attitude component of these and other mental acts. For it isr ea sonable to hold tha t t he faculty of understanding explains thepropositional content of mental acts;we cannot perform any mentalact without understanding its propositional content (letter to Regius:AT VIII, 372; K, 102). The will is the obvious candidate to explain thementa l a tt itudes of two of the most sal ient menta l ac ts: desireandaversion. It is thus natural to try out the hypothesis that its operationis responsible for all other mental attitudes as well.This hypothesis is, of course, far from initially compelling. Thewill's involvement with one pair of mental att i tudes doesnot implyany connection with the other. And the traditional view of the willisthat, whatever itsrolein conativemental acts, itplaysnonewhateverin cognitive acts. Moreover, there seems to beno obvious reason to


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412 David M. Rosenthal Will and the Theory of Judgment 413take conative acts as paradigms of mental acts generally, especiallysince they figure far from prominently in t he lists of mental actsDescartes gives.

It will help here to see exac tly what role the will does appear toplay in the cona tive cases. For only then will i t b e clear whetherparallel considerations apply to cognitive mental acts. Themost compelling reason to associate the will with conative attitudes is the connection those attitudes have with action. Though this considerationis of course unavailable in Meditation IV, it is nonetheless central tothe way we think about the will an d the way i t opera tes. The moreintense'a desire or aversion is, th e stronger we expect its impact onact ion to be. Moreover , the strength of desires an d aversions is atleast i n p ar t a funct ion of th e object of desire or aversion. Highlyattractive or repellent objects prompt powerful conative attitudes-powerful both in their felt intensity an d in their probable effect onaction. When two incompatible options have us undecided, we mayfeel tom, or pulledin opposite directions;an d the opposingtendenciesto affect actionma y then cancel each other,or come close to doing so.The re is a popular paradigm, according to which we can abstractfrom th e great variety of kinds of mental att itudes we have, an dexplain behavior as du e simply to the combined operationof systemsofinterrelated beliefsand desires. On this model, beliefscontribute thecognitive content required for behavior, an d the impetus for action isdue solely to ou r desires. However useful this model maybe asa theory or an experimental paradigm, it is quite misleadingwhen appliedto the actual dynamics ofou r mental lives. Ou r desires always havecognitive content; they could no t be formulated save in propositionalor conceptual terms. And beliefs are no less necessary for causingactions than desires. It is common to note that somebody with manybeliefs bu t no desires will presumablydo nothing. But a person withdesires b ut n o beliefs would be no less inactive, a nd n o less mentallyparalyzed.Once we correct for the distortion the belief-desire model tends toinduce, it is clear that the considerations that lead us to associate thewillwith conative mental atti tudes apply as well to mental acts suchas judging, doubting, an d the like. We experience beliefs, doubts,an d affirmativean d negative judgments as havingdifferent intensities,just as we do with desires an d aversions. And the more firmly webelieve, doubt, an d judge, the stronger the tendency is for us to dowhatever,'in the contextof our other mental states, that belief, doubt,or judgment inclines us to do. A strong desi re coupled with a weakbeliefmay well be no more likely to lead to action than a weak desireaccompanied by a strong belief. .

Do the objects of belief affect the intensityor firmness with whichwe believe things, in the way that attractive or repellent objects affectthe ~ t e n s i t y of ou r desires or aversions?6 The answer to this questionreqUIres care. Forwe ma y slip into thinking t h at t h e objects of beliefan d desire are different sorts of things. What we believe is, ofcourse,propositional; bu t i t is tempting to think that w h at w e desire are theobjects, typically extramental objects, whose acquisitionwould satisfyour desires. The present context, however, plainly requires that wetake the objects of desire an d aversion to be propositional, just likethose of belief. It is no t because a particular painting, say, is so attractive tha t one de sir es i t so s trongly; i t is because th e idea of one'shavingitis so attractive. Themoreattractive theidea, the more intenseou r desire.

It is clear that parallelremarks apply to belief. The objects ofbeliefsdo affect the intensity with which we believe things in the wa y theobjects of desire do with our desiring. Indeed, this observation ispivota l to Descartes ' v iew about the role in cogni tion of c lear an ddistinct perception. When a proposition we believe is cognitivelyhighly attractive-thatis, plausible-we believe it withgreater conviction t han w e believe only moderately plausible propositions. Ofcourse, how attractive a proposition is, cognitively, ma y well be affected by lots of extrinsicfactors: ou r other beliefs, an d conativefactorssuch as laziness, habit, or a desire to deceive ourselves. But the sameis t rue of the objects ofou r desires an d aversions. The overall attractivenessof theidea ofgettingor avoidingsomethingis oftena productof factors in addition to ho w intrinsically attractive that idea is.Some propositional objects ofboth belief an d desire are, of course,highly attractive in theirow n right, independent of an y such extrinsicfactors. Elementary mathematical propositions are cognitively veryattractive, regardless ofwhat else we believe or desire. In the conativerealm, the propositions that I survive an d that I no t suffer are intrinsically highly attractive. These propositions, when they enter intosuitable mental acts, inducei n u s very intenselyfelt beliefsand desires,which have a proportionately powerful effect in determining whatwe do.

Perhaps there are propositional objects of beliefor desire that owetheir high degree of attractiveness solely to their intrinsic character.,Then, perhaps, when they entered in a dearly recognizable wa y intoour beliefs an d desires, their effect o n our mental lives would beoverwhelming and irresistible, no matter what else we believed an ddesired. Such is Descartes' view about the effect some propositionalcontents have, cognitively, w h en w e distinctly an d attentively apprehend them (AT VII, 58-59, 69-70, 144-145; HR I, 176, 183-184, II, 41).


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414 David M. Rosenthal Will and the Theory of Judgment 415But whatever our verdict about that view, it is reasonable to concludethat the propositional objects of judgments, like thoseof desires andaversions, do affect the intensityand conviction with whichwe makeour judgments. If so, the principal considerations that lead us toassociate the will with our conative mental acts apply equally toourcognitive mental attitudes.Despite those considerations, however,we feel that what we desireis up to us in a way that what we believe is no t (see W, 145 and C,176-178). And it is likely to strike us that this disanalogy underminesthe idea that the will plays any role in our believing things. It is onlywhen the mental attitude we adopt is up to us, one may argue , tha tthe willis operative. Butwhen highly attractiveobjectsare in question,we speak of being gripped or even overcome by desire; the morepowerfully an object of desire moves us, the less itisup to us whetheror n ot we sha ll desire it. The more indifferen t we are about suchobjects, the morecontrol we canreadily exert over the relevantdesires.Beliefbehaves similarly. We have littlecontrol overwhether to believethings when they strike us as obvious or clear. But when there isnothing we understand to be obvious about a matter, one wayor theother, we can choose to remain uncommitted, or to hazard a guessabout whichway things are. The result is not a strongly held belief.But, as noted, strongly held desires are also not readily within ourcontrol.

So far, the considerations that le ad us to a ss ign some role to thewill in desiring have applied equally to believing. We have encountered no disanalogy between believingand desiring thatwould argueagainsta parallel role for the willin belief. Moreover, there are positivereasons to conclude that the will does play such a role. The firmnesswith which we hold some of our convictions and the pass\on withwhich we announce and argue for them suggest that the force ofwillis at work. And people sometimes seem willful in the way they holdonto certain cherished beliefs. We speak of changingour minds bothwhen we change what we believe and when we change what wewant. Changing one's mind in either case suggests some control overour mental lives and, accordingly, the operation of some degree ofwill power.In these kinds of cases , i t is natural to think of the will as havingsomething to do with the forming of our beliefs. Moreover, our;notnoticing the will at work in o ther cases of belieying is no reasoh toconclude that i t i s not operative there as well. Forwe typically noticethe opera tion of the will only when we need to exert some effort.And, as noted in section I, Descartes doesnot hold thatwe are invari-

ably aware of our "faculties, or powers"; i t is only "when we turnourselves to the exercise ofany faculty ... that we become actuallyaware of it" (AT VII, 246-247; HR II, 115). The will, whatever else isclear about it, has to do with effecting things in our mental lives. Sowe would only "tum ourselves to [its] exercise"when some notableeffort is called for. Indeed, evenwith conative mental acts,we do notgenerally notice the operation of the will unlesswe must make someunusual effort in connection with those acts. Nonetheless,we regardthe will as contributing to all our conative acts, whether or not theyrequire particular effort. The cases just considered in which the willseems to make some contribution to cognitive mental acts--changesof mind, passionately held belieJs, and willful believing-all involvea kind of cognitive exertion usually absent in our believing. If wenotice the will only when some special effort is involved, then ournoticing i t i n these cases of believing is good reason to concludethatit is operative, albeit unnoticed, in all other cases, as well.Partofwhat leadsDescartes to thinkthat the willmakes an essentialcontribution to our judgingis the role played in judging by our understanding things. Understanding is no t believing. But presumablywecannot believe anything thatwe donota t all understand (asDescartesnotes: letterto Hyperaspistes: AT III, 432; K, 118). One may claim tobelievean abstruse mathematicaltheorem,withoutunderstanding it atall. But in such a case oneis commonlyclaimingonlyimperfectunderstanding, and not none at all. In the absence ofany understanding,one could not actually believe the theorem; one could at best believeonly that whatever mathematiciansmean by those words is true.Sometimes, moreover, our understanding something seems to suf-.,fice for our believing it. Having been puzzled by something, I mayfinally say, with an air of achievement, "Now I understand!" Wewould typically take this tomean that I now also believe it, and doso as the direct result ofhaving come tounderstand it. This phenomenonmayseemmost at home in the context ofmathematical learning,but it occurs elsewhere as well.When we have strong convictions itis natural to think that others who do not share them simply do notunderstand. How else, we may ask, could they help bu t believe aswe do? And in any contextwe can say"I don't understand" as awayofindicatingthat Idon't believe, eitherbecause the matterseemsnot tomakesenseor simplybecauseIdonot seewhatwould leadanybody tobelieve it. These idiomaticwaysof speaking suggest thatwe take itforgrantedthat, althoughunderstanding is not, by itself, believing, it canhave a powerful effecton what we believe, perhaps sometimes sufficiently powerful to determine singlehandedlywhat our beliefs are.


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416 David M. Rosenthal Will and the Theory of Judgment 417These considerationshelp explainwhy people sometimes seemwill

~ in believing as they do, and how passions become aroused overbeliefs. People appear to us to be willful in believing when we thinkthat an unclouded understandingof thingswould clearlyincline themto believe differently; they seem to be refusing to let theirunderstand-ing of things so incline them. People become passionate in their beliefswhen others disagreewith them, and they think an unclouded under-standing ofthingswould clearly incline everybody to believe similarly.In these kinds of cases, people sometimes seem almost to be fightingjust to fuel and sustain their beliefs. This kind of phenomenon obviously occurs with ideological matters, bu t it can occur whatever theissue. It occurs whenever we think that somebody's understandingof things has less influence than it should not only on wha t t ha tperson believes bu t on how strongly the person believes it. Suchoccurrences lend additional support to t he i dea that the will p lays acrucial role in forming our beliefs. In these cases, i t is the particularway that our believing is affected by how well we understand thingsthat intuitively indicates some operation of wil l power. Descartes 'theory that the will and understanding collaborate in giving rise tojudgments no less than desires is thus far better motivated than mostcommentators have thought. Forit fits strikingly well with, and evenenables us to explain, many commonsense observations about theways we come by and hold onto our beliefs. I therefore turn now tospecific objections that have been raised to the theory.

III. MEETING OBJECTIONSIt is t empt ing to think that the idea that willing plays a role i n ourbelieving as we do is tantamount to saying that our beliefs result fromdecisions we make about what to believe (see W, 145; C, 175-178).But we typically decide things onlywhen they are up to us, or in anycase seem to be. And it is not generally up to us wha t to believe, atleast not i n any obvious or straightforward way (see W, 149). This isnot Descartes' picture. Decisions are themselves mental acts in theirown right, consisting of propositional content and a suitable mentalattitude. Descartes' theory is not that to judge or believe we mus tf irst perform some conative mental act . It is that the f.aculty of willcontributes the mental attitudes that enter into judging and believing,just as it 'contributes the mental attitudes that go into desires, decisions, and the like. On this theory, the wil l cannot produce desiresor decisions on its own, bu t only in tandem with the understanding.

The will is s imply that menta l capacity by vir tue of which I inc line(propendeo), in one direction or another, with respect to various prop-ositional contents (AT VII, 57-58; HR I, 175).But, if the will is the faculty by vir tue of which we incline withrespect to propositional contents, does it also supply the special impetus and motive force that accompanies conative mental acts? If not,what faculty does so? And if so, does Descartes' theory conflate twovery different tasks: that ofproviding mental attitudes for mental actsgenerally, and that of supplying the distinctive impulse to action thatcharacterizes conative mentalacts in particular? Descartes' answersto these questions are clear once we note that, on his view, the motiveforce that distinguishes conative mental acts is not strictly a functionof the mind. It is one aspect of the causal connection between mindand body: the t endency some menta l act s h ave t o issue in bodilybehavior. Descartes would thus regard no mental faculty as responsible for that motive force. The will functions solely to providementalatt itudes for mental acts of whatever sort.The two objections justconsideredboth rely on theidea thatjudging

and believing are kinds of actions. In the case of ordinary, nonmentalactions, such as walking, the wil l makes i ts contribution by way ofour decisions to perform those actions, and by seeming somehow toprovide the impetus that issues in our actually performing them.Describing judging and believing as mental acts may encourage us toregard t hem as kinds of act ions, though i t is probable that callingsomething a mental act originally meant no more than tha t i t was amental actuality. Inany event, Descartes says things thatseem explicit ly to invite the assimilat ion of mental acts to ordinary actions. It isno t unusual for him to describe volitions as actions (e.g. , let ters toMesland: AT IV, 113; K, 148, and to Elizabeth: AT IV, 310 ; K, 178).And he goes alongwith Gassendi (ATVII, 259; HR II, 137) in countingthoughts (cogitationes) as kinds of act ions (actiones) (AT VII, 352; HRII, 207).But Descartes also distinguishes two sorts of action: "actions of thesoul, which terminate in the soul i tself, ... [and] actions that terminate in ourbody," such as walking (Passions I, xviii: AT XI, 343; HR I,340). We cannot, accordingly, simply assume that whatever holds ofnonmental actions holds also of thoughts. One difference is plain. Inthe case of bodily actions, we may will some action without thataction's actually taking place. This cannot happen with thoughts; inthat context, Descartes is explicit that "weneverwill anythingwithoutat the same time understandingit" (letter to Regius: AT III, 372; K, 102;d. letter to Hyperaspistes: AT III, 432; K, 118). No more is needed to


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have a complete thought than the joint contributions of the will an dunderstanding. Willing, in the case of "actions of the soul," cannotoccur apart from the complete action. This disanalogy suffices to undermine t he t wo objections just raised.In many cases, what w e u n de r s ta n d is n ot t he sor t of thing thatleads ineluctably t o a ny affirmation or denial; in others, o ur u nd e rstanding is too confused to have that effect. Margaret DaulerWilsonraises the question o f h ow , i n s uc h cases, Descartes can explain ourmaking a n y j u dg m en t a t all. Why , in these cases, would the willincline u s i n any direction at all (W, 144)? Of course Descartes holdsthat we should, i n s uc h circumstances, "abstain from offering an yjudgment." As an example, he professes cognitive indifference aboutwhether a thinking nature is the same as or distinct from a corporealnature, since a t t ha t p oi nt i n Meditation IV h e h as n ot yet arrived ata clear understanding of th e issue (AT VII, 59; HR I, 176). Wilson'spoint is that it is unclear, on Descartes' theory, wh y such abstentionwould n ot b e automatic, since the will is indifferent t o w ha t w e donot understand. In this light it seems surprising that Descartes holdsinstead that this indifference actually contributes to ou r making falsejudgments (AT VII, 58; HR I, 175-176). False judgments, like an yothers, require somementalattitude. Butifthe will is really indifferent,w h y w o ul d it-indeed, ho w could i t ~ o n t r i b u t e any such attitude?Wilson suggests that Descartes may have thought that "a kind oflustfor knowledgeleads us to affirm o rd en y things we are no t justifiedin believing or disbelieving" (ibid.). An d Descartes' insistence that thescope of the will's operation greatly exceeds that of the understandingdoes evoke a picture ofthe wil l's bounding impetuously ahead, heedless ofwhatever directives do or d o n o t issue from the understanding.The tendency sometimes to regard Descartes' thought as,containinga Platonic strain may reinforcethis idea, by calling tomin d th e Phaedrusmyth of the charioteer an d horses (246 ff., esp. 253D-254E).But Descartes actually advances a different explanation of wh y thewill supplies a mental at ti tude when w e u n de r st a nd things imperfectly. Earlier, he h ad n ot ed t ha t his "principal an d most frequenterror .. . consists in the circumstance that I judge ideas , which arein me, to be similar or conform to things situated outside me " (ATVII, 37; HR I, 160). In Meditation VI, he explains ho w such errorsarise. Ou r bodily sensations an d the sensory qualities ?f our perceptions are ordered so as to b e m os t conducive t o t he conservation ofthehealthy person (ATVII, 87; HRI, 197). Thewill thus actsinnocentlyenough when i t provides mental att itudes for ideas based on suchsensations.

Errors arise, however, when we misinterpret these perceptions.Perceptions are "given by nature for the purpose of signifying to mym i nd w h at is favorable or unfavorable to th e [mind-body] compositeofwhich m y m i nd is a part." Errors resultwhen I take my perceptionsto indicate, instead, the character of external objects, that is, when "1use [my perceptions] somewhat like rules for immediately discerningwhat the essence is of bodies situated outside us." Such misinterpretation constitutes "a ne w difficulty," beyond those notedin MeditationW, which induces a mult i tude of errors (AT VII, 83; HR I, 194).Understanding somethinginvolvesinterpretingit, that is, f o ing some conception of what i t is. Some l l l i s i n t e r p r e t i ~ . ~Cimplies t ha t o ne h as a faulty understanding of it. A c c o r ~ , when

we misinterpret ou r perceptions, by viewing t h em a s resem.bling nonmental objects rather th an as indicatingwhat favors the preservationof the whole person, we fail t o u n de r s ta n d t h os e perceptions adequately. Such misinterpreting issues in false judgments. Because misinterpretingis a speciesof faultyunderstanding, it isintuitivelynaturalto assign responsibility for those false judgments to the faculty ofunderstanding, rather than to that faculty which providesmental affirmation an d denial. 7 .The process of thus misinterpreting ou r perceptions leads, on Descartes' view, to layers of unconsidered judgments-"prejudices [prae-judicii]" (e.g. , AT VII, 12, 69, 422 ; HR I, 140, 183; II, 241; AT IX-I,203-205; HR II, 126-127). Prejudices, Descartes explains to Clerselier,are"all an d only [seulement . . . toutes] thoseopinionswhichhave b eengiven credence b y ju d gmen ts we have previously made" (AT IX-I,204; HR II, 126). An d t he p o we r of prejudice is sufficient, Descartesholds, even to p rev en t some from clearly perceiving the eternal truthsthemselves (Principles I, 1: AT VIII-I, 24; HR I, 239). To counteractand overcome such layered prejudice would doubtless call for veryconsiderable mental effort. That we must so exert ourselves in orderto revise our beliefs helps bolster the intuitive appeal of the claim thatth e will is implicated in making judgments. It will emerge, moreover,in section IV that t he n ee d for such mental exert ion is important alsofor u n derstand in g th e role of doubting in th e Meditations.Descartes' theory postulates a division of labor i n t h e p r od uc i ng ofjudgments. The faculty o f u n d erstan din g supplies th e propositionalcontent t ha t t h e faculty of will affirms or denies. But one might question whether there is a n y n e e d for the willto act, once the understanding has made its contribution. Propositions, by themselves, are affir.mative or negative. So, when t he m i nd h a s formulated a proposition,one mightargue, i thas p ro du ced an affirmation or denial and, hence,

418 David M. Rosenthal Will and the Theory of Judgment 419


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420 David M. Rosenthal Will and the Theory of Judgment 421has affirmed or denied something (see C, 173-174). Descartes deniest h ~ t t h e product of the understanding can, on i ts own, be either trueor false. But E. M. Curleyurges thatwe discount that contention. Forwe can only make sense of ideasif they are propositions, and propositions do have truth values.8Severaldistinct questions are at issue here. For one thing, there isreason to doubt that Descartes did thinkof ideas quite as propositions,in the modern sense. Ideas , properly speaking, a re one of the twokinds (genera) intowhich Descartes divides his thoughts(cogitationes).Wehave becomeaccustomed touse "thought" and its cognates equivocally, to refer both to propositional mental statesand to propositionsthemselves, conceived of as abstract objects. And,on some accounts,.such abstract objects enter into our mental lives by somehow beingdirectly apprehended by the mind. But there is lit tle reason to thinkthat Descartes held that view ofhow the understanding operates, orthat he meant to divide his cogitationes into mental acts and abstractpropositional objects. Indeed, his definitionin the GeometricalAppendix to the Second Replies suggests the opposite: "By theword ' idea ' Iunderstand thatform ofthought [cogitationis formam] bythe immediateapprehension of which I am conscious of that very thought" (AT VII,160; HR II, 52). And his speaking of dividing his thoughts suggeststhe distinguishing of two aspects of mentalacts-the attitudinal andthe propositional. Ideas are aspects ofactualmental acts, not independently existing abstract objects.9

If ideas were abstract propositions, and the understanding somehow apprehended them, it mightbe tempting to argue thatany otherfaculty wouldbe superfluous. But, ifideas are aspects ofactual mentalacts, then the roleof the understandingis to dono more than comprehend the contentof those acts-to comprehend "that form ofthoughtby the immediate apprehension of which Iam conscious of that verythought." It is then less inviting to think that another faculty wouldautomatically be superfluous. For there is more to thinking thanunderstanding.A particular propositional content can figure in thinking not onlyas the content of a completementalact,but alsoas part of thecontentofa compound or complexthought, for example, as the antecedentofa hypothesis oneputs forth. This Fregean point suggests the involvement of more than the faculty of understanding, since tl1e same conten t occurs a ff irmed or denied in one context , bu t in another not.DoubtlessDescartes was aware of this considerationand doubtless itplayed some role in motivating his theory. But the point is hardlydecisive. For Curley can respond that, in the compound or complex

case, the understanding grasps acompound or complex propositionalcontent, of which the simple content is a component. One can drawthe distinctions required for the Fregean point by invokingonly theunderstanding, without relying on help from another faculty.There is, however, another way to meet the charge tha t anotherfaculty is redundant, a way thatconnects more immediatelywithDescartes' concerns. The understanding is responsible for propositionalcontent. Curley, Anthony Kenny, and Wilson all maintain that Descartes is mistakenwhen he claims that propositional contents ca,J,'\not,on their own, be true orfalse. (Seen. 8.) Butif Descartes' claim canbesustained, the understanding alone couldnot provide bearers of truthvalues. Forthat,we wouldpresumablyneed toinvokeanother faculty.The issue ofwhat the bearers of truth and falsity are is, of course,controversial. But well-:-known problems arise if we take them to bepropositions or sentences. Sentences frequently corttain token-reflexive components, including the tenses of verbs. Truth values of suchsentences are notoriously unstable, altering along with changes inwhat their token-reflexive components refer to. If propositions cancontain token-reflexive components, the same considerations apply.Twostandard techniques existfor dealingwith thisdifficulty.One canpurge all token-reflexive elements from sentences or propositions, replacing themwith words or concepts whose reference isindependentof particular circumstances of use.Or one can retain such elements,but index each occurrence to a particular situation, thereby determining their reference.No such adjustment is needed if particular mental acts or speechacts a re the beare rs of truth and falsity. Tokens of mental acts andspeech acts occur in particular situations, and in connection withparticular objectsand events. So there is generallyno problem aboutthe referents of contained token-reflexive elements. ~ one regardssuch elements as ineliminable without loss of meaningor expressivepower, one will have good reason to insist that only mental actsandspeech acts are nonderivatively trueand false. Propositions and sentences could be seen as der ivat ively t rue or false once they weresuitably indexed or relativized; bu t such indexing or relatiVizationwould serve simply to mimic the characteristics of tokens of mentalacts and speech acts.Descartes' persistent first-person formulations of the cogito leavelit tle doubt that he regards token-reflexive words and concepts asineliminable without loss of expressive power. It is unlikely (paceHarry G. Frankfurt: F, 105-106) that Descarteswould have acceptedany non-token-reflexive way ofputting the point he is making in the


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422 David M. Rosent1ull Will and the Theory of Judgment 423cogito. Accordingly, we should expect him to refer to the cogito not asa propositional content-that is, not as an idea-but as a menta l actor speech act. This expectation is borne out; tomy knowledge Descartes never speaksof the cogito as an idea, and in most pivotal passages it is described in terms that c l e ~ r l y suggest or imply a mentalact or speech act. In Meditation II it is a pronouncementor statement(pronuntiatum) (ATVII, 25; HR I, 150); in Principles 1,7, itis a cognition(cognitio) (AT VIII-I, 7; HR I, 221); in The Search after Truth i t is a pieceof reasoning (ratiocinium) (AT X, 523; HR I, 324).10

By itself, understanding some propositional cont-ent does not typically pin down the reference of whatever token-reflexive componentsareinvolved. Understanding 'Theaetetusis sitting' doesnot determinethe time that the p r e ~ e n t tense refers to; understanding 'He gives itto her ' does not suffice to pick ou t any particular people or gift. Topin down reference in such cases, one typically needs more than anact of understanding; one needs a particular mental act of affirmingor denying. A faculty other than the understanding is needed.Appeal to mental faculties of whatever sort, however, may strikesome as suspect. Descartes' mental faculties may be ontologicallyinnocuous, since they are particular kinds of capacities,but perhapsthey are also ineffectual when i t comes to explaining anything. Iffacultiesare no more than capacities for certain sorts of mental phenomena to occur, how can they have any explanatory value?Whywould it be more fruitful or revealing to say that a mental act .is dueto some mental faculty than to say, for example, that the effects ofopium are due to its dormative power?Descartes' purpose in invokingmental faculties, however, isnot toexplain the occurrence of mental acts, bu t simply to have a handyway to talk about the abili ties that a thinking thing must have. Priorto Meditation IV, he speaks of this ability in a wholly undifferentiatedway, as the faculty of judging . Onlywhen he needs to distinguishtwo components of the capacity to think things does he divide thecapacity to think in a way that matches his Third Meditation divisionof thoughts. Descartes' appeal to faculties, therefore, is reductive inspirit. 11 Agreatvarietyof distinctmentalphenomena-allthe differentkinds of propositional mental acts-results from the smallestnumberof menta l faculties one can make do with. The appeal to facultiesinvolves none of the theoretical prodigality that has given facultypsychologies a bad name.Moreover, the reductive character ofDescartes' theory does greaterjustice to the menta l data than does the reductive account now i ngreatestfavor, which seeks to reduce all mental acts to just beliefand

desire. Descartes' two facultiesmark a crucial distinctionbetween twoaspects of all mental acts; any adequate theorymust somehow reflectthat distinction. It is hardly likely, however, that one can,by compoundingbeliefs and desires that have varying intensityand content,successfully reproduce the vast array ofmental attitudesthat actuallyoccur.Descartes constructs his theory of judgment expressly to explainhow errorcan occur. And on his view the occurrenceof error is hardlythe esoteric epistemic issue itmay now strike us as being. As Wilsonhas usefully emphasized (W, chap. 1), Descartessees error as occurring in epidemic proportions, principally becausewe habitually takeperceptions to resemble extramental reality. Asnoted earlier, perceptions thus misinterpreted are cases of faulty understanding.The connection between errorand the understanding is illustratedespecially vividly by Descartes' answer,when Gassendi asks him toexplain what it is that the will extends to "which escapes the understanding." Descartes replies: "everythingin which it happens that weerr" (AT VII, 376;HR 11,224). Everyfalse judgment involves the faultyunderstanding of something thatwe think we understand satisfactor- .ily.But this rep ly appears to cause a problem for Descartes, at leastifwe think ofabstract propositionsas the objects ofthe understanding.For, as Wilson notes, i t seems natural to suppose that we can clearlyand distinctly understand false propositions (W, 141).What we understand is, of course , proposi tional , as is wha t weaffirm, doubt, deny, and desire. But it does no t follow that what weunderstand are propositions, whether true or false. Whatwe understand is how things are, and we do so propositionally because howthmgs are is always expressible by a propositional clause. Similarly,what we affirm, deny, doubt, and desire is that things are a certainway, and that too can always be capturedby a propositional clause.Once we recast the issue in terms of understanding how things are,rather than understanding abstract propositions, Descartes' reply tpGassendi accords well with common sense . We would not regardourselvesas actuallyunderstandinghow things are if our understanding of those things could be material for false judgments.12The tendency to think of the objects of understanding as abstractpropositions, which can be true or false on their own, obscures theway in which understanding resembles knowing. I cannot truly claimto know something if the propositional clause follOWing "know" isfalse. But it is undeniable that we can understand false propositions.It is therefore tempting to conclude that, whereas 'know' is factive,'understand' is not.


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424 DavidM. Rosenthal Will and the Theory of Judgment 425But whileit isplainth atwe d o u n d erstan dfalse propositions, itis farless obvious exactly how such cases should be described. If I understand the proposition that 2 + 2 = 5, it hardly follows that I under

stand that 2 + 2 = 5. Presumably I understand something like whatthe false proposition amounts to, or means. Like knowing, it seemswe cannot t ru ly c la im to understand something t ha t w e express bymeans of a false propositional clause. Descartes' insistencethat thepropositional contents of mental acts are concrete aspects of thosemental acts an d no t abstract objects, an d that those contents cannotbe true or false independently of an y mental act or speech act, helpguard against thinking t ha t w e can.Descartes formulates his two-faculty theory in terms of a view offreedom that may, on its ow n account, seem problematic. Accordingto Descartes, the more strongly I incline (propendeo) towardone oftwoopposing objects of belief or desire, the greater my freedom. In thecase ofclearan d distinct perception, such as thecogito, it is impossiblefor me "not to judge to be true that which I so clearly under[stand]."Although there is a great inclination (propensio) of the will in thesecases, one is no t subject to "the compulsion of an external force [viextenza]." An d freedom, on Descartes' conception, occurs in connectionwith believingan d desiringwhen "w e senseourselves tobe determined by no external force"- the phrase is the same: nulla vi externa(AT VII, 57-59; HR I, 175--176). But it may seem that this conceptionof freedom no t only is unduly paradoxical but, in the context of thedoctrine of compelled assent, is ad hoc as well. .But the appearance of paradox can be dispe lled, an d Descartes'conception seen not tobe ad hoc, by turning again to some relativelycommonsense observations. Asnoted in section II, the more stronglywe believe or desire something, the less controlwe have overwhetherto do so. If we accept that the will acts w he n w e desire things, it isnatural to suppose that the more strongly we want something, themore powerful ly the will acts. A puzzle there fore emerges aboutwhere, in this complex set of factors, to locate freedom. Shouldwesay the will is most free when i t acts most powerfully? Then it willtu m out that the will is most freewhen we have the leastcontrol overour desires. Or should we say instead t ha t w e are most free whenwe have the greatest control overw ha t w e want, that is, when thewillacts most weakly? Neither option is withoutits unappealing consequences, bu t whatever a ir of paradox there is here resul ts solelyfrom our cbmmonsense views about these things. On Descartes' account, the puzzle applies to believing no less than desiring. But, ifthe argument of section II is correct, believing contributes no specialproblems of its own. .

We tend today not to regard th e concept ofa faculty ofwill as beingespecially intuitive. So it may seem to us as though Descartesmadethe wrong choice: Better to talk about ourselves being most freewhenwe have the most control than about the will's being most freewhenit acts mostpowerfully. But, asnoted earlier, Descartes' talkof facultiesis innocuous; to talk of t he will is only to talk about a particularcapacity. And, i n a ny event, a good commonsense case canbe madeforDescartes' decision.Ou r voluntaryactions areno t necessarilythoseover which we can exert the most control over whether to performthem or not. They are those whose performance isn o t d u e to externalfactors-those which are s e l f . d e t e r m i n e d ~ If we take thevoluntary asparadigmatic of freedom, one will concludewith Descartes that th eabsence of external determination is more imp ortan t th an ho w muchcontrol we have over our mental acts. Indeed, it is doubtful t ha t w edo have very much control over ou r menta l a cts. .

It is evident that Descartes ha d these considerations in mind:" ... the voluntary an d the free," he explains to Hobbes, flare onean d the same" (AT VII, 191; HR II, 75). An d i t is equally clear thathe regards thispoint as essentiallya matterof common sense. Havingwritten to Mesland that "1 call free everything that is voluntary," hedefends his terminological decision by saying that, "concerningnames, I desire nothing more than to follow usage an d precedent"(AT IV, 116; K, 150).13

It may, however, seem that such commonsense usage fits poorlywith the rather ambitious claims Descartes makes on behalf of h isfreedom of will. He "experience[s] it as circumscribedby no limits";he experiences, moreover, somuch free will in himself that he "apprehend[s] an idea of none greater" than his own. Indeed, even God'sfreedom of will does n ot s ee m greater t h an o ur s when ours is "re garded formally an d precisely in itself" (AT VII, 56-57;HR 1,174-175).The comparison with God is particularly notable given Descartes'view that the eternal truths are themselves products ofGod's u n r e ~stricted free will.But these claims are rather less extravagantthan they ma y at firstsight seem. "[R]egarded formally an d precisely in itself," ou r will isunlimited simply because it canact with respect to whatever propositional content it may encounter. Descartes' doctrine aboutGod's having created the eternal truths isb o un d u p with his view that, in God,the willan d understanding areno t distinct (AT I, 149, an d IV, 118--119;K, 13-14 and 151). But, whereasGo d 's u n d erstand in g is infinite, the

human understanding is "verysmallan d very finite" (ATVII, 57; HR I,174). Moreover, "w e never will anything without a t t he same timeunderstanding it" (letter to Regius: AT III, 372; K, 102). Accordingly,


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428 David M. Rosenthal Will and the Theory of Judgment 429truth. Such theories would be anathema to Descartes; if coherencecould enable us to reach the tru th , wh y would the demon matter?Moreover, such theories are, on independent grounds, unavailableto him. Conceptual truths cannot, on Descartes' view, be self-certifying; they m u st a t best play an oblique epistemic role. For the eternaltruths are due to God's agency, a nd b ut for the relevant divine act ofwill they could be different. God could even have made it "not truetha t ; .. . contradictoriescannot exist [be true] together" (letter toMesland: AT IV, 118; K, 151). Coherence is presumably the conceptualpossibility ofa conjunction. Descartes cannot, therefore, relyon coherence in the search for truth, at least no t without some independentratification.The two-faculty theory of mind, however, enables Descartes toformulate a mind-based procedurefor reaching the truth that does notcollapse into a coherence theory. Some ideas have no special effect onthe will; if we affirm or deny them, itis becauseof extrinsicfactors. Butothers have a powerful effect, some so much so that simply understanding them makes us affirm them. Descartes' general rule is thehypothesis that, w h en t he understanding irresistibly impels the will,the result is a true judgment. The rule is a mind-based way to reachthe truth that avoids coherence theories. 16

Such theories would presumably be unavoidable, however, if onlythe understanding played a role in judging. The role of the understanding is to apprehend things; all i t could do to arrive at the truthwould be, at best, to determinewhat is an d isnot conceivable-that is,what is an d is not capable of being understood. If judging were justamatter of understanding, some ideas or judgments could be favoredover others only by reason of coherence-that is, by reason of beingjointly conceivable. The power that understanding something has inmaking us believe things, a n d o u r seemingly automatic passage fromunderstanding to affirming, may mislead one into thinking that onlythe understanding is at work. It should t hu s b e n o surprise that Spinoza, wh o rejects Descartes' view that the will plays a role in judging(Ethics, pt. 2, prop. 49), also espousesa coherencetheoryof knowledge.Our inability to conceive th e contradictories of eternal truths is anexample of the finitude of the human understanding. For the will tobe inf in ite means tha t i t can act with respect to any proposi tionalcontent it encounters. For the understanding to be finite means thatthere are things we cannot comprehend, though they are in themselves comprehensible and, thus, comprehensible by a less limitedintellect. The eternal truths d e pe n d o n the divine will, and the divinewill and understanding are indistinguishable. So on Descartes' view

God clearly can comprehend the contradictories of all eternal truths.These contradictories are thus intrinsically comprehensible.17Given either that the human understanding is limited, or that theeternal truths could havebeen different, our ability to gain knowledgem us t d ep en d o n o ur mental nature somehow incorporating a biastoward the tru th . Without such a bias, we could no t count o n o urunaided understanding to reveal accurately what is necessary an dpossible. And being wrong about that would skew our knowledgeabout other things as well. The converse also holds. If w e m us t relyon some such built-in bias, ou r reliance will presumably affect ho wwe understand things, thereby in effect imposing limits o n h ow orw ha t w e can comprehend. '

But there is reason for skept icism about the idea tha t the humanunderstandingis restricted in respect ofwhat it cangrasp propositionally. For it is reasonable to suppose that, given tiIrie to define termsan d explain theories, a certain threshold intelligence is all one needsto comprehend any proposition whatever. It is thus arguable that thehuman understanding is in this way unlimited---as Descartes wouldpu t it, infinite; no mental act or speech act is possible whose contentcould, in principle, elude us. If so, no nativist doctrine that implieslimits on the human understanding can be sustained.18

The two-faculty theory is also important for understanding Descartes' procedure in the Meditations. The doubts Descartes invites usto share in Meditat ion I are so extraordinary tha t one cannot helpwondering whether his invitation can have been serious and, indeed,evenwhether such doubting ispsychologically possible. In the synopsis of the Meditations, moreover, Descartes notes that "nobody ofsoundmindhas everdoubtedseriously that there really is aworld, an dthat people have bodies" (AT VII, 16; HR t 143). An d in MeditationI .itself he resolves not to doubt in the way insane people do. Perhapsconsiderations pertaining to dreaming an d the demon do provide thereasons Descartes insists on having for his doubts (AT VII, 21; HR I,148). But itis far from obvious that such reasons suffice to makeactualdoubting about such matters any less insane.Doubting is a mental act, a nd t hu s on Descartes' view involves anexercise of will. And the exercise of one's will can sometimes costusvery strenuous effort. These considerations point toward a reason fortaking Descartes seriously when he enjoins us actually to try to doubtin the way he describes. Meditation I is quite brief. And, unlike theother five, it involves no special difficulty in understanding theargument. Yet at its close Descartes describes this first day's activity aslaborious (laboriosum) (AT VII, 23; HRI, 149). Nothingabout th e length


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430 David M. Rosenthal Will and the Theory of Judgment 431of, or difficulty in understanding, the Meditation makes clear whathas required such laborious exertion. But ifwe imagine Descartes ashaving really doubted the things he says he has, the mental exhaustionhe avows is readily understandable. Doubting those things wouldinvolve the most extreme efforts of willpower. Genuine doubting ofthat kind could not be merely "routine," as Frankfurt holds i t is (F,17); it would have to be, to use his term, impress ively "heroic ." Toexplain Descartes' remarks at the close of Meditation I, we must sup-pose that he seriouslymeant for us to try actually to doubt the thingshe asks us to.Since the attempts to doubt in Meditat ion I are made in order tofind outwhether doubting in particular casesis reallypossible, successmaywellbe easier than one mighthaveimagined. To showthat doubting something is possible, one need not sustain a doubt that activelyenters into one's mental economy. Doubting for just a moment willdo. In the cases Descartes describes, presumably the most strenuousefforts would still be needed to achieve even a merely momentarydoubt. But itis reasonable to think that such effortscan succeed in producing a momentary, bu t psychologicallyreal doubt. This observationenables us also to resolve the difficulty about sanity. Anybody whodoubted the things Descartes asksus to in more than a merelymomen-tary way would certainly be insane, reasons or no. But momentarydoubting need not be a s ign of madness .The need to show the real possibility of the various doubts is notthe only reason that actual doubting is important. Descartes holds,as noted above, that one is aware of a faculty only when one turnsoneselfto its exercise. Moreover, to be aware of one's mental facultiesis to be aware of oneself. For "the faculties of willing, sensing, under-standing, and so forth canpot be said to be partsof [themind], becausei t i sone and the same mind that wills, that senses, that understands"(AT VII, 86; HR I, 196). To be aware of those faculties is thus to beaware of that mind. The role the will plays in Descartes' theory ofmental acts helps us unders tand both his desire that we engage inpsychologically real doubting and his belief that it is possible to. Andthat doubting, ifgenuine, makes usin tum aware of the faculty ofwill.Descartes' claims about mind and his views about methodologyintersect most dramatically in connection with the cogito, and there,again, the two-faculty theory is important for understanding and defending his views. 19 Descartes asserts not only that "1 am, I exist " istrue whenever I s ay or think it, bu t that it is necessary as well. And,if truth attaches to mental acts and speech acts rather than to theirpropositional contents, presumably necessity must a well. But this

conclusion mayseem problematic. How, exactly, are tokens ofmentalacts and speech acts supposed to be necessary?Several passages make clear that Descartes does hold that tokensof menta l acts can be necessary and, indeed, that nothing else canbe. Eternal truths are not strictly speaking necessary, for they couldhave been otherwise than they are. Rather, it is j us t t ha t we havebeen "given such a mind that" we cannot conceive otherwise (letterto Arnauld: AT V, 224; K, 236). In addition, "All contradiction orimpossibility consists in our conception [conceptu; French Version:concept ou pensee] alone." For anything "situated outside the under-standing .. . [is] possible" (AT VII, 152, IX-I, 119; HR II, 46). And,ifanything outside the mind is possible, nothing extramental can benecessary. Moreover, "my thinking imposes no necessity on t h ~ n g s "(AT VII, 66; HR I, 181).Whenever I attentively and distinctly understand something, i t isimpossible forme not to affirm it.20 Every such affirmationis a mentalact that it is necessaryfor meto perform; the necessity is hypotheticalon my understanding the right way, but it is necessity nonetheless.Speech act s are then derivatively necessary if they express mentalacts that are necessary in this way. There is no otherway mentalacts,or anything else, can be necessary, since nothing "outside the under-standing" is impossible.21 The necessity of the cogito is of exactly thiskind; itis Descartes'most vivid and revealingcaseof compelledassent.For it is the cogito that leads to the speculation that whenever understanding something irresistibly leads us to affirm it, that affirmationis true.Descartes' presentation of the cogito in Meditation II is unusual inthat he does not use his celebrated rubric, cogito, ergo sum, which heso often relies on elsewhere. The demon hypothesis has led us at theoutset of Meditat ion II to "set aside as though ... altogether false"(AT VII, 24; HR I, 149) all logical and conceptual truths. So ergo, incogito, ergo sum, could not express such a connection; nor can anyreasoning that leads to Descartes' conclusion. Moreover, the necessityofmy thinking or saying that I exist must, on the foregoing argument,be necessity that derives from compelled assent. Descartes' formulat ion of the cogito in the Meditations seems designed to reflect thesevery considerations.Before Descartes gets to his existence, he rehearses the mental actsof Meditat ion I, not ing t ha t h e cannot doubt their occurrence. Hethen connects his remarks about his mental acts to the certainty thathe exists by writing: "having considered all these things satisfactorily,i t is thereupon necessary to hold for certain that ... " (AT VII, 25;


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432 David M. Rosenthal Will and the Theory of Judgment 433HR I, 150). And he t hen goes on to tell us that th e statement "I exist"~ necessarily true every time I say or think it; that is, my mental actor speech act i s both true an d necessitated. It is necessitated no t onlyb ymy mental act of understanding the idea that I exist. It is necessitated by any mental act I performthat calls attention,as themental actsof Meditation I do, t o the question of my existence. The bearing mythinking has onmy existing is tha tmy being attentively and distinctlyaware of my thinking necessitates my affirming that I exist.

NOTES1. Conspicuous exceptions are E. M. Curley's "Descartes, Spinoza and theEthics of Belief," in Spinoza: Essays in Interpretation, ed. Eugene Freeman andMaurice Mandelbaum (laSalle, ill.: Open Court, 1975), 159-189 (henceforthcited as C); Anthony Kenny's "Descartes on the Will," in Cartesian Studies,ed. R. J. Butler (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1972), 1-31 (henceforth cited as B);

and chapter 4 of Margaret Dauler Wilson's Descartes (London: Routledge &Kegah Paul, 1978) (henceforth cited as W). lowe much to these discussions.2. I use AT, HR, and K as explained in the General Bibliography at thebeginning of this volume. Additional abbreviations are D for Descartes, ed.WillisDoney (New York: Anchor Books, 1967), and F for HarryG. Frankfurt,Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970). Translations are myown, though Iprovide referenceswherepossible toHR and K.3. These considerations may help resolve puz2Jles about Descartes' claimsconcerning our knowledge of our faculties raised by David Fate Norton in"Descartes on Unknown Faculties: An Essential Inconsistency," Journal of theHistory of Philosphy 6, 3 Ouly 1968):244-256.4. See the Fifth Replies: "The term ' idea ' .. . I extend to wha teve r isthought" (AT VII, 367; HR II, 217), and the Second Replies: "1 take the term'idea' to stand for whatevfi!r the mind directly perceives" (AT VII, 181; HR II,67-68). Descar tes does say that ideas can be expressed by either terms of.propositions (letter to Mersenne, AT III, 395; K, 106). Presumably terms express ideas by expressing some propositional content; thus Descartes writesearlier in the same letterthat theideaof Godis just"what all people habituallyunderstand when they speak about Him" (AT III, 393; K, 106).In Descartes (Brighton: Harvester and Minneapolis: University ofMinnesotaPress, 1985), chapter 1, and "Ideas and Judgment in the Third Meditation:An Object Lesson in Philosophical Historiography," Independent Journal ofPhilosophy (1985), Marjorie Grene forcibly advances an alternative interpreta-tion of these matters. .5. Vendler, Res Cogitans (Ithaca, N.Y.: CornellUniversity Press, 1972), 169.6. I use "belief" here and in wha t follows as a convenient term to coverboth nonconative mentalacts in general and dispositions for suchmental actsto occur.

7. On the importance of how we interpret ideas to Descartes' conceptionsof clarity and distinctness, see AlanGewirth, "Clearness and Distinctness inDescartes," in D, 250-277.8. Curley creditsSpinoza (Ethics II, prop. 49)with this line of criticism. Wil-son (W, 144) and Kenny ("Descartes on the Will," 96, and Descartes [NewYork:RandomHouse, 1968], 117) also insistthat, pace Descartes, ideasmust be ableto be true and false, since they are the propositional contents of mental acts.9. Descartes' talk of true and immutable natures that "do not depend on[his] mind" (AT VII , 64; HR I, 180) mayseem to suggest that he did holdtha t the mind grasps abst ract objects. But, even if the i ssue of t rue and

immutable natures does have a bearing on the ontological status of p r o p o s i ~tions, our perception of those natures, Descartes explains, is due to " thenature of [one's] mind" (AT VII, 65;'HR I, 180). So it is reasonable to regardthem as forms of thought over which we have no control. On Descartes'allegedPlatonismwithrespectto abstractobjects, seeGewirth, "TheCartesianCircle Reconsidered," The Journal ofPhilosophy 67, 19(October 8,1970):668-685;Kenny, "The Cartesian Circle and the Eternal Truths," ibid., 685-700; andGewirth, "Descartes: TwoDisputed Questions,"The Journal ofPhilosophy, 68, 9(May 6, 1971):288-296.10. The Frenchversion ofthe Meditations has proposition (AT IX-I, 19), presumably explaining the HR 'proposition.' And the Latin term proposition occurs, e.g., in Principles I, 10 (AT VIII-I, 8; HR I, 222) and in the letterto Renerifor Pollot (AT 11,38; K, 52). Butlike their English counterpart, the Frenchand

Latin terms colloquially refer to a proposal or similar speech act.11. I am grateful to SidneyMorgenbesser for this observation.12. Thus, although ideas cannot strictlyspeaking be trueor false, theycan,Descartes tells us, be materiallyfalsewhen they"furnish thejudgmentUudicio]with material for error" (AT VII, 231; HR 11,105), by representing "somethingtha t i s not a thing as if it were" (AT VII, 43; HR I, 164).13. See his let ter to Mesland of about a year later , in which he.explainsthat " liberty regarded as in the act ions of the will" coincides with what isvoluntary (AT IV, 174-175; K, 160-161), and the Appendix to the SecondReplies, in which "the essence ofwill" is identified with acting "voluntarily

and freely" (AT VII, 166; HR II, 56).14. This section summarizes some of the results I develop and argue for

in my "Will, Mind, and Method in Descartes" (henceforth cited as WMMD),forthcoming.15. These considerations help explain Descartes' insistence t h a t ~ because

nonhuman animals lack language, they have no mental lives (Discourse: ATVI, 56-59; HR I, 116-117; letter to Newcastle: AT IV, 573-576; K, 206-208; toMore: AT V, 275-279; K, 243-245, and in various Replies: AT VII, 204-205,263, 269-271, 413-414, 490; HR II, 85, 140, 145-146, 235, 290).16. For evidence that Descartes regarded his doctrine of impelled assentas a doctrine about our mental nature, see AT VII, 65, lines 6-9 and 69, lines16-18; HR I, 180 and 183, and Principles I, 43 (AT VIII-I, 21; HR I, 236). Forevidence that he also explicitly saw the divine guarantee as bearing on our


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mental nature, see AT VII, 36, 70, 77, an d 80; HR I, 158, 184, 189, 192, an dcognate passages in Principles I, 13 and 30 (ATVIII-I, 9-10 an d 16; HR 1,224an d 231) an d letter to Regius (AT III, 64-66; K, 73).17. On the importanceof the connectionbe tween Descartes' doctrineaboutthe eternal truths and the finitude ofthe humanunderstanding, see Frankfurt,"Descartes on the Creationof th e Eternal Truths," The Philosophical Review 86, 1

Oanuary 1977):36,..57, esp. 45-46. I am indebted to Frankfurt's lucid and convincing account of these matters.In WMMD (sec. 2) I argue that Descartes' doctrines about the eternal truths

an d the f in itude of the human understanding are intimately connected inways that have not generally been recognized.18. In Rules and Representations (New York: Columbia University Press,1980) Noam Chomsky explicitly recognizes the connectionbetween nativismand t he vi ew tha t t he human understanding is limited, and accepts thatlimitation as a consequence of nativism (e.g., pp. 33, 46, and 180). BecauseChomsky's nativism is biologically based, an d operates without benefit ofany guarantee of its veracity, it faces the additional difficulty that differentcognitive beings could have incommensurable cognitive capacities.19. In WMMD (sec. 4) I develop a positive account of the cogito based on. pragmatic incoherence of th e sort encountered in Moore's paradox: 'I t israining, bu t I don't believe it' (G.E. Moore, "Russell's 'Theory of Descriptions, '" in The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp [laSalle,Ill.: Open Court, 1944], 177-225, p. 204). The account I develop lends itself

to being formulated in terms of the two-faculty theory.20. As Descartes explains in Principles 1,45, perceptions cannotbe distinctwithoutbeing clear (AT VIII-I, 22; HR I, 237).

21. Thus in Meditation V Descartes describesas necessary, somehalf-dozentimes, particular mental acts that we are necessarily led to perform (AT VII,67; HR I, 182).

434 David M. Rosenthal


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ESSAYS ONDESCARTES'Meditations

Edited by Amelie Oksenberg Rorty

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

University of California PressBerkeley and Los Angeles, CaliforniaUniversity of California Press, Ltd.London, EnglandCopyright 1986 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataMain entry under title:Essays on Descartes' Meditations.

(Major thinkers series; 4)Bibliography: p.1. Descartes, Rene, 1596-1650. Meditationes de prima.

philosophia-Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Firstphilosophy-Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Rorty,Amelie. II. Series.B1854.E88 1986 194 85--8643ISBN 0-520-05496-2 (alk. paper)ISBN 0-520-05509--8 (pbk. : alk. paper)

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