Descartes’s doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths and his views on modality

Thesis

Descartes introduced his doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths in 1630 in a set of letters to Mersenne. The doctrine states that God freely created the eternal truths – logical, mathematical truths and principles of physics. The point of this thesis is to provide a sympathetic examination of this doctrine. In this thesis, I shall show that this doctrine relies on Descartes’s specific assumptions about freedom, omnipotence, causality and modality. In the first part, I start by introducing the tenets of Descartes’s doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths. I then identify Descartes’s medieval background and argue that Descartes developed his doctrine in opposition to Suarez’s. Then, I examine what Descartes means by total and efficient cause, namely God’s act of creation. Following that, I examine what Descartes means by saying that God freely creates the world or the eternal truths. The second part is dedicated to understanding Descartes’s views of modality. I show that interpretations of Descartes’s view in the light of universal possibilism, weak possibilism and conceptualism are problematic. I introduce my own account of Descartes’s position. I first show that, according to Descartes, God cannot make something that conflicts with our conception. I then show that there are grounds for conjecturing that there are two kinds of eternal truths, the uncreated and the created one, and that possible beings have an objective reality.

Authors: Dufêtre, R

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-zo21qveo9
• Type of award: MLitt
• Level of award: Masters
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: modal metaphysics; creation of the eternal truths; freedom; Descartes; eternal truths
• Subjects: Early Modern Philosophy; Philosophy; Philosophy of Mathematics; Philosophy of Logic; Metaphysics