Journal of the History of Philosophy

Cartesian Views is a fitting tribute to a man of many parts, to use Alison Wylie’s apt description (165). Richard A. (Red) Watson has provoked, evoked, and invoked new directions in Cartesian scholarship—both methodologically and substantively. Watson’s Downfall of Cartesianism (Martinus Nijhoff, 1966) and its sequel, The Breakdown of Metaphysics (Humanities Press, 1987), have become required reading for students of early modern philosophy and are largely responsible for the revival of many “minor” Cartesians, while serving as sourcebook for methodological attention to history and rational reconstruction. Cartesian Views is an important collection that hearkens a forty-year retrospective of Cartesian studies while simultaneously turning our sights to what lies in the future.

Although an eclectic collection, each paper in the volume reflects some counterpoint to, advancement of, or commentary upon some aspect, claim, argument, or theme found in Watson’s philosophical works. The opening paper by Nadler questions Watson’s view that dualism and the problem of mind-body interaction was the central issue that stimulated the downfall or breakdown of Cartesianism, at least in the case of Spinoza. Articles by Han van Ruler, José R. Maia Neto, Leslie Armour, Thomas M. Lennon, and Jean-Robert Armogathe engage Watson’s Downfall dialectic and in various ways fill out and nuance its narrative. Maia Neto’s article, and to some extent Armour’s, attempt to resituate Foucher. Maia Neto convincingly casts Foucher as a Cartesian, implying that the downfall (an attack from outside) was more of a breakdown (an internal collapse). Armour carefully paints Foucher as less a skeptic than an idealist. While Watson would be unlikely to concede any of these specific characterizations of Foucher, none dislocates Foucher as a pivotal figure in the demise of Cartesianism. By contrast, Lennon’s article questions the centrality of Foucher’s role in the downfall, substituting Pierre-Daniel Huet as the perpetrator. Lennon’s article draws attention to a methodological question of some import: Watson’s use of “doctrinal analysis” and “historical analysis.” Lennon defends Watson’s primary reliance on doctrinal analysis despite Watson’s failure to identify Huet as the prime agent of the demise of Cartesianism. Armogathe revisits the work of Antoine Le Grand, a main figure in Watson’s Downfall. Based on documents drawn from the archives of the Holy See in Rome, Armogathe recounts the events that led to the Roman censure of Le Grand’s Institutio Philosophiae and the eventual placement of the Cartesian work on the Index in 1709.

Theo Verbeek takes minor issue with Watson’s biography of Descartes, arguing that Descartes’s reasons for moving to the Netherlands were not the same as the ones that kept him there. Reading Verbeek, one all the more appreciates the task Watson undertook in constructing an intellectual biography of Descartes. Alan Gabbey plays off of the title of Watson’s biography, Cogito ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes (David Godine, 2002), to raise issues of translation and interpretation. Gabbey exhorts us “to move translation to the front page of the agendas of historians of science and philosophy” (191).

The Hausmans take up the theme of radical Cartesian doubt and argue that while Descartes’s strategy answers Kripke’s Wittgenstein it “cannot save us from Wittgenstein’s skeptical attack” (131). Fred Wilson examines a related theme of intentionality only this time as viewed by Bergmann, Watson, and Wittgenstein, one that treats isomorphism as an essential feature of the intentional.

Wylie reminds us that Watson boldly undertook historically marginalized topics, themes, and thinkers at a time when few dared to do so. Not one to be shy about entering the fray, [End Page 320] Watson entered debates in the social sciences, notably archeology, defending the scientific nature of such enquiry. Closing the collection is Daniel Garber’s examination of Marin Mersenne’s arguments against the freedom to philosophize alongside Bacon’s and Descartes’s rather feeble defenses. Garber argues that, although Spinoza fares better, his separation of belief from action proves an inadequate...