Thomas M Lennon - Descartes Supposed Libertarianism: Letter To Mesland or Memorandum Concerning Petau?

Descartess Supposed Libertarianism: Letter to Mesland or Memorandum
concerning Petau?
Thomas M. Lennon
Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 51, Number 2, April 2013,
pp. 223-248 (Article)
Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press
DOI: 10.1353/hph.2013.0026
For additional information about this article
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Descartess Supposed
Libertarianism: Letter to Mesland
or Memorandum concerning Petau?
T H O MA S M. L E N N O N *
descartess view of the will has generally been found problematic and un-
satisfactory, especially by those who have read it, or elements of it, in libertarian
terms. Attempts to repair the theory, even by sympathetic interpreters, seem only
to have aggravated the views putative shortcomingsagain, especially among
those who have read it, or part of it, in libertarian termswhich suggests that the
libertarian reading itself might be unsatisfactory. The aim of this paper is to show
that the linchpin text on which libertarian readings have been based provides no
basis for such readings.
The text is the so-called letter to the Jesuit Denis Mesland of 9 February 1645.
Among seminal authorsthose most responsible for the proliferation of libertar-
ian readingsAlqui, for example, canonize it as the capital text,
1
for it is here
that Descartes no longer hesitates over ascribing full libertarian freedom to
humans, such that the will can reject a clear and distinct perception of the truth
even while we are perceiving it as such. Writing in the heyday of existentialism,
alas, Alqui saw this as Descartess metaphysical discovery that man is freedom,
i.e. the desire for Being that he can nevertheless reject.
2
Gilson sees in this text
a conrmation of concessions made to the libertarianism urged upon him by
Mesland, whereby Descartes lands himself in a formal contradiction.
3
Kenny
held that clear and distinct perceptions as such could not be rejected, but on
the basis of the text found libertarian freedom in all other acts of the will. The
upshot for Kenny, however, was that Descartes therefore had two conceptions of
* Thomas M. Lennon is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at The University of Western
Ontario.
Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 51, no. 2 (2013) 223248
[223]
1
Alqui, Dcouverte, 342.
2
Alqui, Dcouverte, 28592.
3
Gilson, Libert, 41820. Gilson takes the opening of this text to be a wholesale capitulation
on Descartess part: Descartess Thomism beats a retreat all along the line; he concedes everything
without being embarrassed over contradictions and ends by falling into Petaus position (421). Of
Petau, much more below.
224 j ournal of the hi story of phi losophy 51: 2 apri l 2013
freedom that he nonetheless tried to measure on the same scale, thus revealing
an incoherence that was present in the theory from the beginning.
4

A feature common to all three of these readings is that Descartess view is in
some sense unstable. According to Alqui, the text is the culmination of a dramatic
evolution in Descartess thoughtan evolution for which Alquis enthusiasm
leads him to existentialist mystication. But nowhere does Descartes announce or
acknowledge any such evolution. Moreover, its only explanation would be inadver-
tence or ineptitude, for it cannot be motivated by any dialectical consideration.
On the contrary, if Descartes ends by allowing doubt of a clear and distinct percep-
tion even while we have it, then his method of doubt never yields the certainty he
claims from iteverything is always dubitable.
5
As an explanation of Descartess
evolution, Gilsons reading suggests inadvertence or ineptitude, maybe even dis-
simulation.
6
With his mixed view, Kenny avoids the methodological catastrophe
wrought by Alquis and Gilsons readings, but at the cost of attributing incoher-
ence to Descartes.
These inconveniences are avoided by the most recent defense of the libertarian
reading, by Ragland.
7
For him, however, the so-called letter is no less capital, both
for its statement of the libertarian position, and also for a distinction without which,
as Ragland acknowledges, Descartess view of the will contradicts his methodologi-
cal principle that the clear and distinct (at least by itself and as such
8
) cannot be
doubted. Alas, the distinction that Ragland invokes is not to be found in the text,
and thus on his reading Descartess philosophy harbors a contradiction; in fact,
a deeper and graver contradiction than the one perceived by Gilson (see below).
So, a great deal is at stake in this text. In section 1 below, therefore, I set out
the text itself, which is important enough, and short enough, to be included here.
My argument depends heavily on a close reading of it. For all its importance to the
libertarian position, however, its statuseven as a letteris highly problematic
from an editorial point of view. If the argument of my paper carries, in fact, it
ought better to be referred to as a memorandum concerning Petau, an author
who gures prominently in the argument below. Here, to beg no questions, one
way or other, I shall just refer to it simply as the Text. I discuss the editorial
problems in section 2.
Nonetheless, the authenticity of the Text is not in doubt, and so some account
of it must be given, especially since Descartes says at the outset of it that he en-
tirely agrees with an unidentied Reverend Father on the topic of free will. In
4
Kenny, Descartes on the Will, 31.
5
See Nelson, Descartess Ontology of Thought, 16364.
6
Gilson, Libert, e.g. 422.
7
C. P. Ragland, Is Descartes a Libertarian? (Ragland provides a nice review of the literature;
5759n49.) The same question, with the same answer to it, appears in his other articles listed in the
bibliography below.
8
It is on this point that Raglands view differs from Kennys. Kenny thinks that what is clear and
distinct can be doubted only by being made obscure and confused. Ragland thinks that the clear
and distinct can be doubted as such only if we also have in mind a countermotive (Is Descartes a
Libertarian?, 8388).
225 descartes s supposed li bertari ani sm
section 3, which begins the philosophical core of this paper, I try to show that it
was the Jesuit Denis Petau that he was agreeing with, and that the view on which
he saw agreement was not libertarianism. Next, I consider what Descartes claims,
at the end of the rst paragraph, concerning his ability to suspend judgment
about clear and distinct perceptions, and the context for his claim. For contrary
to my account, many have seen this claim as a clear statement of libertarianism
(section 4). I then turn to the second paragraph of the Text, which I take to be a
continuation of the clarication undertaken in the rst paragraph, with an even
more obvious avoidance of a libertarian view of freedom (section 5). A very brief
summary and conclusion ends the paper (section 6).
1 . t h e t e x t .
9
We begin with the Text:
As for freedom of the will, I entirely agree with what the Reverend Father here wrote.
Let me explain my opinion more fully. I would like you to notice that indifference in
this context seems to me strictly to mean that state of the will when it is not impelled
one way rather than another by any perception of truth or goodness. This is the sense
in which I took it when I said that the lowest degree of freedom is that by which we
determine ourselves to things to which we are indifferent. But perhaps others mean
by indifference a positive faculty of determining oneself to one or other of two
contraries, that is to say, to pursue or avoid, to afrm or deny. I do not deny that the
will has this positive faculty. Indeed, I think it has it not only with respect to those
actions to which it is not pushed by any evident reasons on one side rather than the
other, but also with respect to all other actions; so that when a very evident reason
moves us in one direction, although morally speaking we can hardly move in the
contrary direction, absolutely we can. For it is always open to us to hold back from
pursuing a clearly known good, or from admitting a clearly perceived truth, provided
that we consider it a good thing to demonstrate the freedom of our will by so doing.
It must be noted also that freedom can be considered in the acts of the will
either before they are elicited, or after they are elicited. Considered with respect to
the time before they are elicited, it entails indifference in the second sense but not
the rst. Although, when we contrast our own judgement with the commandments
of others, we say that we are freer to do those things which have not been prescribed
to us by others and in which we are allowed to follow our own judgement than to do
what we are prohibited from doing, yet we cannot similarly make a contrast within
the eld of our own judgements or our own cognitions and say that we are freer to
do those things which seem to us to be neither good nor evil, or in which we recog-
nize many reasons pro but as many reasons contra, than to do those things in which
we perceive much more good than evil. For a greater freedom consists either in a
greater facility in determining oneself or a greater use of the positive power which we
9
Although it raises serious questions of translation, to be discussed below, this text is taken ver-
batim from Descartes, CSMK 24446. The only change is in the paragraphing. CSMK follow AT in
introducing two paragraphs beyond the ms (to be discussed in section two below). Here, to achieve
an interpretatively more neutral text, the original paragraphing has been restored. It suggests that
conceptually there are just two parts to the Text. CSMK make some fteen changes to Kennys original
translation, almost all of them minor and of no signicance here. See Kenny, Descartes on the Will,
2628. One change is an important correction, noted below, and another, also to be noted below,
perhaps evidences a struggle about just what Descartes was trying to say. Original language references
are to Descartes, AT. In an earlier letter, almost certainly to Mesland, of 2 May 1644, Descartes indicates
that his attention had been brought to Petaus published views on free will (AT IV.115/CSMK 233).
have of following the worse although we see the better. If we follow the course which
appears to have the most reasons in its favor, we determine ourselves more easily;
but if we follow the opposite, we make more use of that positive power; and thus we
can always act more freely in those cases which are called or indifferent.
In this sense too the things which others command us to do, and which we would
not otherwise do spontaneously, we do less freely than the things which we are not
ordered to do; because the judgement that these things are difcult to do is opposed
to the judgement that it is good to do what is commanded; and the more equally these
two judgements move us the more indifference, taken in the rst sense, they confer
on us. But freedom considered in the acts of the will at the moment when they are
elicited does not entail any indifference taken in either the rst or second sense; for
what is done cannot remain undone as long as it is being done. It consists simply in
ease of operation; and at that point, freedom, spontaneity and voluntariness are the
same thing. It was in this sense that I wrote that I moved towards something all the
more freely when there were more reasons driving me towards it; for it is certain that
in that case our will moves itself with greater facility and force.
2 . e d i t o r i a l p r o b l e ms
The text rst appeared, in French, in Clerseliers Lettres de Mr Descartes (1657), oc-
curring there between two other texts, also in French, and continuously with them
as if composing a single letter, without date, addressed to Mon Reverend Pre.
10

According to handwritten annotations to the third-edition copy of Clerseliers
Lettres in the library of the Institute of France, the rst text was written to Mersenne,
on 10 May 1630, and the third text was a fragment from what was written, also
to Mersenne, in July or August of 1637.
11
Adam and Tannery [AT] accepted the
annotations and, with minor changes of dating, published the texts at face value.
12

Which leaves the intervening text. Likely moved by the identications of the
two other texts, AT initially published it on the off chance that it was a frag-
ment of a lost letter to Mersenne known to have been written on 27 May 1641a
surmise supported by the evidence that on 21 April of that year he was writing to
Mersenne, at least briey, about indifference of the will, returning to the topic in
his letter to him on 23 June.
13
At the same time, AT drew attention to an annota-
tion to the text of the Institute copy. Here is the annotation, in somewhat more
complete form than ATs version of it:
Among Descartess manuscripts I found this article down to the rst paragraph of p.
509 [of the Clerselier edition], written in Latin with a lot of crossing out and scrib-
bling [there follows a largely illegible comment about something that is difcult
in relation to the fourth Meditation. The annotation then continues:] it might be
conjectured that this article was written after 1640; it is an article that will need to
10
Clerselier, vol. 1, Letter 112, 62124.
11
The source of these and other annotations to the exemplaire de lInstitut, is, by my assessment
of the calligraphy, Adrien Baillet, author of the rst major biography of Descartes (1691), itself the
only source of a signicant number of letters; another possibility, however, is Jean-Baptiste Legrand.
A photo-offset edition of this text is now available in Armogathe-Belgioiosa. This third edition was
published in Paris; the Text occurs on pages 5068.
12
To Mersenne, 6 May 1630 (AT I.14750). To Mersenne, March 1637 (AT I.34751).
13
To Mersenne, 21 April 1641 (AT III.35865, esp. 360); To Mersenne, 27 May 1641 (AT
III.37882); To Mersenne, 23 June 1641 (AT III.38390, esp. 38586).
be set aside with the undated letters which do not warrant collecting just because of
the matter of which they treat.
14
In an appendix, AT published the Latin version of the Text found not in Clerse-
lier, but in an Amsterdam edition of 1668, whose title page reads, [S]ome letters
written in Latin by the author, some translated into French.
15
They do so because
of the uncertain source of this text. It is possible, they say, that Clerselier, without
saying so, did a French translation, for his edition, of the autograph seen by the
annotator, but more likely that there were both Latin and French texts in the
autographs, and hence the decision to republish the Amsterdam text, at least as
an appendix. The bases seemed covered.
But then something unexpected occurredwhile preparing their next volume
of correspondence, AT discovered a manuscript copy of the Text in a Latin version
different from the Amsterdam edition. Without saying so, they went back to the
hypothesis that the letter they took to be to Mersenne on 27 May 1641 was in fact
a French translation, but now of a later Latin text, written probably to Mesland on
9 February 1645. This is the Mazarine Library manuscriptfrom the handwrit-
ing, obviously a copy and not an autographwhich attaches the Text to a letter
written to Mesland, again probably, on that date. The letter to which it is attached
is not on the topic of the will, which is the topic of the earlier letter to Mesland, of
2 May 1644, but transubstantiation, the topic of the rest of the letters with which
it was bundled here, as well as that of the other bundles of manuscript copies in
which it is found. Moreover, it is the only manuscript of the Mesland letter with
this attachment. The compiler of the Mazarine text accommodated the anomaly
by entitling the bundle, Descartess views sent by him to Mesland on the topic of
the Holy Sacrament and freedom. AT therefore detached the Text, a severance
which anyhow makes sense, given the switch not only of topic, but of language.
The Mazarine manuscript simply moves from the French of the letter on tran-
substantiation to Latin, which by itself would be strange; but there are additional
problems in taking the Text to be a letter to Mesland.
Because they are different, at least one of the Latin texts is a translation (though
conceivably Descartes might have produced two different drafts). Likely it is the
Amsterdam edition, which is known to contain translations from French into Latin,
and which in this case either translates or is translated by Clerseliers French text.
Is Clerseliers the original text therefore? Almost certainly not: (1) Clerselier is
known to have translated Latin texts into Frenchfor the second edition of his
14
Dans les ms de M.D. jai trouv cet article jusquau 1er alinea de la page 509 ecrit en latin fort rattur
et griphon . . . on peut conjecturer que cet un article a t depuis lan 1640. Cest un article quil faudra rejetter
dans lendroit des lettres non dates et qui ne meritent destre ramasses qua cause de la matiere dont elles traitent.
At the bottom of the page, another hand adds, Non date. AT also seem to have been stymied by the
calligraphy, and relied on ellipsis. The recent Italian bilingual edition offers the following quite plau-
sible decipherment for the ellipsis: Il est assez difcile de dterminer quand cet endroit a t crit. Nanmoins
comme M.D. cite larticle 14
e
de la Mditation, 4
e
. . . . (It is rather difcult to determine when this passage
was written. Nevertheless, since Monsieur Descartes cites article fourteen from the fourth Meditation.
. . .) Descartes, Tutte le lettere, 196869n1.
15
Epistolae Renati Descartes (AT III.7046; with capitalization, punctuation, and italics altered
or added). Lest there be further obscurity, note that AT actually call this an addition to their text.
rst volume (1663), for instance.
16
(2) There is no reason why the compiler of
the Mazarine manuscript would add a Latin translation to the otherwise French
text. The most plausible conclusion, therefore, is that the Ur-text is the Mazarine
Latin copy, that it was translated by Clerselier, and that the Amsterdam text is a
translation of Clerseliers text.
It is unlikely that this text is a copy of a letter to Mesland. For one thing, Des-
cartes nowhere else wrote to Mesland in Latin. In addition, the rest of his cor-
respondence with Mesland does not offer a natural place for it. This text aside,
there are four extant letters, in French, from Descartes, none from Mesland.
17
The
rst deals with free will, of course, but only as one of at least seven other topics:
two proofs for the existence of God, the difference between the soul and its ideas,
error and the difculty of learning the sciences, creation of the eternal truths,
transubstantiation, and the difference between abstraction and exclusion.
18
The
second thanks Mesland for his accurate and sympathetic abstract of the Medita-
tionsan occasion, one would have thought, to return to issues of the will. Instead,
the rest of the long letter is occupied by a discussion of transubstantiation.
19
The
third letter thanks Mesland for his opinion of the Principles, but expresses regret
that he has not read the work closely enough to dispel certain difculties, which
in any case relate not to the will, but to the scientic, latter parts of the work,
concerning rarefaction, for example. The continuing issue, again addressed,
is transubstantiation.
20
Finally, the last, touching letter, besides continuing the
discussion of transubstantiation, mentions replies to objections to the Principles;
if the replies are those found in the text appended by AT, they concern only the
theory of distinctions, with no mention of anything connected with the will.
21

How to explain the sudden and total disappearance of a topic on which Descartes
is, according to Gilson, supposed to have completely reversed his view? Or was
Mesland simply satised, indeed, convinced by Descartess responses on the will?
In any case, the Text was not intended for Mesland.
To whom, then, was the Text written? One possibility from AT is that, though not
written to him, Mesland was the intended recipient through someone else, perhaps
the Jesuit Vatier;
22
but again, one wants to know why Descartes wrote in Latin.
Although not written to Mesland, perhaps it was for him, as Gilson suggests, to be
conveyed to someone else. According to Gilson, the intended recipient, through
Mesland, was a professional theologian (which is why Descartes used Latin), whom
he is inclined to believe was Petau, whose doctrine Mesland seems to have been
keen to conciliate with Descartess. But in the letter itself, Descartes refers to
Petau, by initials, in the third person, thus indicating that he is not the recipient.
16
Armogathe-Belgioiosa, xiiixiv.
17
Gilson (Libert, 39798) thinks that Meslands side of the correspondence story is obvious. But
nuances are certainly lacking, and even substantial questions remain open. Mesland presents the Jesuit
Denis Petaus views to Descartes; but was he trying to convert Descartes to Petaus position, entreating
him to refute it, or only asking him for his opinion of it? Much more on Petau below.
18
2 May 1644 (AT IV.11020/CSMK 23136). It is in this letter that Descartes says that he has not
seen what Petau has written about free will. He also says that the difference between his and Meslands
(Petaus) view on indifference is only a verbal one. Of this, more below.
19
To Mesland, 9 February 1645[?] (AT IV.16172/CSMK 24144).
20
To Mesland, May 1645[?] (AT IV.215, 217/CSMK 24849).
21
To Mesland, 164546, Descartes to *** (AT IV, 34450/CSMK 27881).
22
AT IV.172.
But why even take the Text to be a letter at all? After all, there is no date, no
salutation, no closing, or anything else to indicate a letter. There is no evidence
of its having been sent to anyone. The scribbling and crossing out reported by
Baillet might be telling in this regard, for we have here evidence that Descartes
was struggling with at least the expression of his view. Its lack of clarity might
be a reason why it was never sent or otherwise published by Descartes, retained
by him only as a memorandum, to be claried or developed further in case of
a need that in the happy event never arose. (The thesis to be defended below is
that some very intelligent, and sympathetic, interpreters of the Text have gotten
it disastrously wrong.) At a minimum, all this (especially Descartess failure ever
to publish and thereby endorse it as clear statement of a view to which he was
committed) suggests that the Text is a weak platform, indeed, for supporting an
interpretation of anything so dramatic as a conversion to libertarianism, or even
a statement of it, by Descartes.
Still, some things are reliable. For one, the authenticity of the Text is not in
question, especially given the testimony of Baillet. In addition, as will be seen
presently, it is thematically related in so intimate a way with issues introduced in
the 2 May 1644 letter to Mesland that it is almost certainly posterior to that letter
and connected to it. So some account of it must be given. I shall try to show that
the Text is perfectly consistent with the compatibilist position taken in the fourth
Meditation.
3 . p e t a u
Descartes begins the Text by asserting his full agreement with a certain RP
(Rvrend Pre) on freedom of decision [arbritrii libertatem]. The identity of the
Reverend Father is important, therefore, in establishing Descartess own view.
Baillet thought it was Guillaume Gibieuf, who, as will be seen below, was of great
signicance to Descartes on the will.
23
But it is unlikely that someone who was
charged, as Gibieuf was by his Oratorian superior, Brulle, with the refutation of
Molinism, the main version of libertarianism then on offer, should be the RP in
this text, where the effort is to nd some acceptable sense of indifference. In any
case, Descartes had asserted his agreement with Gibieuf much earlier.
24
Without
much comment, Gilson takes the RP to be Denis Petau.
25
The reason he gives is
that the likely recipient of the Text was Petau (through Mesland).
26
But there are
23
Baillet, Vie, 2:51617. He refers to a number of letters in Clerselier, the sorting of which leads
to this conclusion.
24
To Mersenne, 27 May 1630 (AT I.153/CSMK 26). Kenny (Descartes on the Will, 30n68) also
takes the RP to be Gibieuf.
25
(15831652), Jesuit, poet, classical scholar, controversialist, professor of philosophy, and
theologian.
26
Gilson, 41920n2. Petau receives no mention in the English-language literature on Descartes,
and in the French, by Gilson and Olivier Boulnois, who follows Gilson in attributing to Descartes a
compromised theory; see Le refoulement, 223, 22526, and esp. 229. Jean Laporte (La libert
selon Descartes, 6169) also discusses Petau in this connection, but fails to notice a crucial feature of
Petaus treatment of freedom and indifference. Of this, more below. In the Italian literature, Scribano
(Da Descartes a Spinoza, 6061n26) refers to Petau en passant in this context, but arrives at a conclusion
similar to that of Gilson and Boulnois.
two issues run together by Gilson: who it was that Descartes refers to in the Text,
and the intended recipient of the putative letter. It might be that the Reverend
Father is indeed Petau, but that the Text was not intended for him or for anyone
else. Had it been a letter intended for him, Descartes would not have referred
to him as he does within the letter. There is another, better argument for Gilsons
conclusion that the RP is Petau, namely, that the views with which Descartes agrees
are to be found in Petau, and nowhere else. We can understand why Descartes
was able to agree with them, for, as will be seen below, they are expressed there in
such a way that Descartes had no need to change his own views in order to agree.
27

Petaus De libero arbitrio appeared, in three books, in 1643.
28
These three books
also appeared the following year, forming books 35 of The rst six days of the
worlds creation (De sex primorum mundi dierum ofcio), itself the second section
(220585) of the third volume (906 pp.) of a four-part work, the last part of
which is in two volumes (826 pp., 804 pp.). The overall title is Theologicorum dog-
matum (4,252 pp. in total).
29
Buried away in all this, but most important for us, is
what Petau has to say about indifference. Although the term is used repeatedly
throughout the work, it is only at the end of De libero arbitrio, when Petau turns his
attention to Jansenius, that Petau offers any denition of what is meant by indif-
ference.
30
It would seem that precision with respect to indifference is required
27
There are two long-standing clues to the importance of Petau for an understanding of Des-
cartess views in the Text, each with circumstances that did not encourage notice by commentators.
One is that Mesland drew attention to his book on the will; see AT IV.115/CSMK 233. But the book
is in Latin and is difcult to nd. The other is Gilsons discussion of him. But that discussion, as will
be seen, is partly based on a misunderstanding of Petau, and leads to an uninviting interpretation of
Descartes. In addition, with misplaced modesty, Gilson thought that his book had been superseded
by the work of his student Henri Gouhier, who in fact does not mention Petau; see La Pense religieuse.
28
It is a rare book, in Paris found only in the Bibliothque de lArsenale. Gilson, apparently un-
aware of this copy, found it necessary to seek it in the Bibliothque de Tours. Recently, Boulnois (Le
refoulement, 225n2) has also written as if the Toulouse copy were the only one extant.
29
The rst part is on God and the properties of God. The second part is on the Trinity. The rst
section of the third part is on angels; the third section is on Pelagianism and Semi-pelagianism. The
fourth section is on the Incarnation. The last section appeared in 1650, all the rest in 1644. All of this
is to be found in Dogmata theologica. The rst two books of The rst six days of the worlds creation
deal with the Preadamites and the creation of man. The three books of the De libero arbitrio are found
in 4:283508. Page references below are to this more accessible edition. There are no obvious differ-
ences of importance here between the various editions.
30
Gilsons explanation of the deferral is that Petau at that point suffers a philosophical scruple
(Libert, 398)the theologian who avoids philosophy nonetheless realizes, belatedly, that there is a
philosophical ambiguity in his theological argument. However, precisely because the work is so rigidly
focused on applied theological considerations of free will, it is hard to imagine a scruple about such
an abstract question, which in any case could have been allayed by an insertion at the beginning,
even if it came to him late. Gilson invokes this explanation, it seems to me, because his interpretation
of the work as a whole leads him to miss a more obvious one. Gilson thinks that the book is a tissue
of texts arranged to make Janseniuss doctrine appear to be other than that of St. Augustine, or any
Church Fathers, and to be that of Luther and Calvin (Libert, 398). The book can, perhaps, be taken
this way, but only if Luther and Calvin are taken as surrogates for Jansenius from the beginning, for
on the face of it the book deals explicitly with them, not with Jansenius, who appears only later in the
work. The exact nature of Janseniuss view on free will was the subject of one of the great debates of
the seventeenth century. Sufce it to say that he held the compatibilist view that grace is necessary
and sufcient for right action, but that the will remains nonetheless free.
to answer explicit criticism of the Molinist position that had recently been raised
by Jansenius.
31

The most important work on freedom and the will in the seventeenth century
came, not from Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, or anyone else, but from Jansenius,
bishop of Ypres. Certainly this is true in terms of the attention his Augustinus
drew, and the controversy it stirred, from the moment of its publication in 1640
into the eighteenth century.
32
A chapter of the Augustinus set out four absurdi-
ties that necessarily follow from the indifference of contradiction, that is, the
libertarian ability to do or not to do something under the same circumstances.
33

What matters here is Petaus response, which focused on one of them. Here is his
close paraphrase of Janseniuss criticism: If the nature of free will [liberi arbitrii]
lies in indifference, it follows . . . that all those things by which the will is dragged
[trahitur] in one or another direction negate free will, because they release [ex-
trahunt] it from the indifference of acting, and determine it [determinate faciunt]
to act or not act, to will or not will. . . . Such are impulses of concupiscence, as
well as all the habits and customs of the soul, whether good or bad, which directly
upset its equilibrium.
34
By itself, this is no objection. However, it immediately leads
to a very strong objection, namely that on the indifference account of freedom,
both the virtuous, with the habit of doing good entrenched almost to the point
of inability to do evil, and the vicious, with the opposite entrenchment, would be
least free, and therefore least responsible for what they do. This is a particularly
relevant criticism, since it is to be found in Gibieuf, whom Jansenius had read and
supported a decade earlier against the Molinist Jesuits, and with whom Descartes
too had earlier agreed.
According to Petau, indifference is an ambiguous notion, and Janseniuss
arguments against taking indifference to be essential to freedom trade on the
ambiguity. In one sense, indifference is innate, according to nature, and in it is
found the essence of freedom. In the other, it is adventitious, and is something of
a completion of the rst.
35
I shall have a great deal to say about these two senses
of indifference. As a rough guide at the outset, note that my aim will be to show
that the two senses of indifference distinguished by Petau have counterparts in
Descartes, although only one of them appears there as a form of indifference.
What Petau means by adventitious or accidental indifference captures the only
sense of indifference admitted by Descartes, but the way in which Petau expressed
31
This explanation better comports with Gilsons own suggestion that the De libero arbitrio was an
offprint, presumably at least somewhat modied, from the later work of a different purpose, rushed
into print to combat Jansenius.
32
Jansenius, Augustinus.
33
Augustinus III, bk 7, ch. 14, 33538. See Gilson, Libert, 4067. The rst two deal directly, as does
the last indirectly, with efcacious grace, which would be inconsistent with a freedom that necessarily
includes such indifference. But this connection is precisely the one repeatedly appealed to by those
who argued against Jansenism, those who argued that its conception of grace was mistaken. One mans
modus ponens is anothers modus tollens, so it is to his credit that Petau avoids so central a topic and
instead turns to the third and longest objection, on which, he thinks, the whole pile of objections rests.
34
Petau, Dogmata theologica, 495.
35
the innate or essential sense of indifference is the way Descartes expressed what
he meant by the will itself.
The natural or essential sense of indifference consists in this, that [the will] can
choose one from a pair of opposites, or, when the judgment of reason [arbitrium
rationis] presents one as to be preferred over the other, it can turn to either one,
without being drawn by any determining necessity to only one. We take the Tri-
dentine fathers in this way when they say that sic assentiri liberum hominis arbitrium,
ut posit dissentiri, si velit.
36
We do this without prejudice to either side in the con-
troversy that has exercised the schools with great and subtle genius in preserving
the Catholic truth.
37
This indifference as generic capability of choice or judgment
between alternatives is essential in that without it there can be no freedom. But it
is Petaus comment on his denition of essential indifference that is of the utmost
importance to an understanding of the Text. What he is saying is that by way of
contrast to his treatment elsewhere of outright heretics such as Luther or Calvin,
his effort here to dene the indifference that is natural or essential to freedom
is neutral (if not entirely irenic and conciliatory, for in any case the main point
of the work as a whole is to expose the errors of the freedom-denying views of
Calvin and Luther, by arguing for the Molinist view). His denition is intended
to be nonprejudicial to the intramural debate over the Catholic truth concerning
freedom, which would include at least the Thomists, in addition to the Molinists
to whose view of freedom he in fact subscribes.
38

All Catholic views, in fact, should be included if Bayle is right that there are
the only two views anyway, that of the Molinists and that of the Thomists and Jan-
senists.
39
Taking it in this binary way so as to include even Jansenius is supported
both by Petaus language (alterutra parte), and by his need to include Jansenius
if he intends to show that Janseniuss arguments against indifference as essential
to freedom rest on an equivocation. Otherwise, Petaus denition would just beg
the question. In any case, that Petau deliberately disambiguates indifference in
a way that by itself does not commit him to one side or the other in the Molin-
istJansenist debate is essential to an understanding of both his own position
and Descartess insofar as he expresses agreement with Petau in the Text. When
Descartes says he entirely agrees with what the Reverend Father here wrote, and
then paraphrases Petaus denition of freedom of essential indifference, he is not
relinquishing his view in favor of the Molinist view. For Petaus denition was not
intended to capture only the Molinist view, but to include all the Catholic views,
including the Thomist and Jansenist views. (This is also to say that according to
36
Petau seems here to paraphrase canon 4, session 6, of the Council of Trent, which requires
belief that the soul moved by grace can resist, if it so wills (Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, 378).
37
38
Laporte (La libert selon Descartes, 66) sees Petau as dening only a Molinist notion of
freedom, hence misses this neutral sense that is crucial to Descartess agreement with it. Instead, to
show how Descartes can agree with Petau, he sees two moments in free will: that of attention and
that of judgment, which is overseen by attention. Judgment can be termed indifferent when faced by
determinants in equilibrium; but attention is not determined at all and thus can be termed indifferent.
Alqui (Dcouverte, 28592) had no trouble in showing this tack to fail as a defense of compatibilism.
39
Pierre Bayle, Dictionaire, art. Jansenius, rem. H.
Petau, the Council of Trentthe Tridentine Fathersdid not intend to condemn
the Thomist view or any view like Janseniuss, however much Janseniuss view, like
Baiuss just before him, might later have been condemned.) In fact, Petaus de-
nition of essential indifference reads like a paraphrase of the fourth Meditation,
which raises the intriguing possibility that Petau consciously intended to include
it in his neutral denition.
40

In his denitions both of natural and of accidental indifference, Petau takes
no stand as a Molinist. This neutrality becomes even clearer as he uses a textbook
statement of the Molinist indifference that is essential to freedom for a denition
of his own notion of accidental freedom. The other indifference occurs when the
will has the power of opting between two things, without turning to either side,
but pushed by an equal impulse to both, which the Greeks call , and the
Latins aequilibrium. It is like a fork in the road, with equally commodious ways to
the destination; we are not impelled in one way rather than the otherinstead,
there is an absolute option of the will in choosing [sed absoluta est ad eligendum
voluntatis optio].
41
The absolute option of choosing that Petau has just described
is for him not the Molinist power of the will, but the circumstance in which the
will operates, however the will is understood. This circumstance is what Petau
calls the second sort of indifference. This indifference can vary in degree, or
be taken away entirely, with the rst indifference remaining whole, it being the
essence of freedom. For the natural affections had from birth, habits entrenched
by repetition, illnesses and disturbances, often impel the will and deect it into
the opposite direction.
42
This is the only sense of indifference that Descartes had
recognized, the rst sort that appears in the Text.
While essential indifference is had entirely and permanently or not at all,
indifference in the accidental sense can vary in degree and can be gained or lost
entirely. In general, accidents are said to complete and perfect a nature, whose
operation they facilitate, as the shape of an acorn helps it generate the seedling it
is supposed to produce. To illustrate the ambiguity of indifference, he offers the
case of rationality, which is ambiguous in the same way. In one sense it is essential
to man, constituting his specic difference from other animals, but in another it
is accidental in that it is reduced in the insane and absent in children (but none-
theless completes the nature of those rational in the rst sense).
Presumably, accidental indifference is a perfection of the will and facilitates
its operation in the sense that it overcomes the necessity exercised by overwhelm-
ing passion, illness, etc., by opposing to it some other, countervailing passions,
like medicine to restore health, both of which can be understood as a kind of
restoration of equilibrium. In any case, distraction, disruption, and turbulence
are minimized or eliminated more or less in the fashion of the PyrrhonianStoic
40
Cf. the Fourth Meditation: [T]he will simply consists in our ability to do or not to do something
(that is, to afrm or deny, to pursue or avoid); or rather . . . we do not feel we are determined by any
external force (AT VIII.57/CSM II.40).
41
Petau, Dogmata theologica, 494. The main point is not that the will be equally impelled, but that
it not be impelled in one way rather than the other.
42
adiaphora,
43
i.e. in the fashion of Descartess method of doubt, which brings about
suspension of belief by confecting a case for the opposite belief. In such a state,
the essential freedom of the rst sort of indifference is best in a position to be
exercised. And this is true however that ability to choose one from a pair of op-
posites is understood, whether in Molinist or Thomist/Jansenist terms, for both
sides would agree on the desirability of neutralizing the passions, illness, etc. in
order to act most freely. This seems obvious for the Molinist side, where the will is
free in acting without constraint, but also for the Jansenist side, where such factors
as passion and illness are enslaving consequences of sin that interfere with the
liberating effect of grace. The same is true for Descartes, of course, who seeks the
same neutralized state in order to be affected only by belief-inducing evidence.
With the distinction in hand, Petau is in a position to reply to the criticism of
Cornelius Jansenius, or Jansen (15851638, from 1636 Bishop of Ypres), who
objected to taking indifference to be essential to freedom. Recall that on such a
view, according to Jansenius, the virtuous and the vicious would be least free and
therefore least responsible because their entrenched habits of doing good or evil
would make them least indifferent. Petau thinks that even a child would see that
the objection is empty and less than serious.
For the indifference of the will either belongs to its essence [the rst kind of in-
difference], or it is reduced and upset by these things [such as passions, which is
the second, accidental kind of indifference]. But only accidental indifference is a
perfection [i.e. an accidental completion] of the will. For the former kind does not
become greater by increase or less by decrease, but once placed in an individual, it
is a single thing such that without any determining necessity it consents in one way
so as to be able to dissent if it so chooses [si velit], i.e. so as to move and betake itself
[ferri ac movere] in one way or the other.
44
This reply does not quite address all the objections raised by Jansenius.
45
In ad-
dition, Petaus reply raises further objections.
46
In any case, Petaus response to
Janseniuss fundamental objection is far from being so obvious that even a child
could give it. It certainly did not satisfy Gilson. Petau has so worked on Janse-
43
The term was likely conveyed by Cicero; Petau uses it frequently, and is likely the source for
Descartess deployment of it in the Text.
44
Petau, Dogmata theologica, 495. That indifference in the second sense, of equilibrium, can be
upset by good no less than bad factors indicates that the role of grace for the Molinist Petau would
be to restore the equilibrium and thereby facilitate the wills indifference in the rst sense, viz. the
exercise of utterly unconstrained choice. Note also Petaus use of the language both of Trent (si velit,
Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, 378) and the Fourth Meditation (ferri, AT VII.57).
45
Augustinus III, bk. 6, ch. 35, 302; see Gilson, Libert, 362. For example, the defenders of indif-
ference as the essence of freedom nd themselves in the paradoxical situation, according to Jansenius,
that the stronger our reasons for choosing one way rather than the other, the less freedom we have,
such that, if we had a reason for a permanent decision, as does God, our freedom would be altogether
destroyed. Instead, indifference (in the Molinist sense) comes from ignorance of which is the best way
to choose, or from our lack of resolution in adhering to the best way, both of which are indications
not of freedom, but of our corruption and lack of freedom.
46
Petau, Dogmata theologica, bk. 5, ch. 4, sec. 1, 457. One is the chestnut of (im)peccability. The
problem raised by making freedom rely on indifference in the way Petau does is the trilemma that
either God and the blessed in heaven are capable of sin, or they are not free, or freedom is not a
univocal notion.
nius in order to refute him that he became somewhat Jansenist himself without
knowing it. One cannot read this chapter of [his] De libero arbitrio without being
struck by the fact that he accepts the results of Janseniuss critique of freedom of
indifference.
47
In particular, Gilson continues, he seems to agree that indiffer-
ence is a sign of weakness and uncertainty that diminish freedom. He therefore
incorporated the criticism into Molinism itself. In Gilsons view, either Petau made
signicant concessions to Jansenius, or, more likely, he just altered the language
[se payer de mots], leading to a certain incoherence that disoriented Descartes in
his effort to give a logical and precise sense to Petaus doctrine.
48
A great deal
more than the proper understanding of Petau is at stake. For the failure to note
Petaus deliberately neutral use of indifference is the same failure that has led to the
libertarian reading of Descartess expressed agreement with Petau.
As Gilson sees it, the problem lies with the freedom of indifference in the rst
sense, when indifference in the second sense is overcome, or even taken away
entirely.
49
According to Gilson, Petau never species what that freedom is, and
he instead equivocates on indifference in order both to subscribe to indifference
as the essence of freedom, and to accommodate Janseniuss arguments against it.
He achieves the latter by acknowledging the arguments, but only against accidental
indifference. But he then fails to specify the sense in which the remaining freedom
allows the will to choose between alternatives. If it is free only in the sense that
it is not externally constrained, then he has answered Jansenius, but he has also
relinquished his own Molinism; if indifference remains, he retains his Molinism,
but he has not answered Jansenius.
What Gilson seems to miss is that Petau deliberately leaves open the rst sense
of indifference so as to include both (Catholic) sides in the dispute. Only some-
one like Luther, who is alleged to deny free will outright, would be excluded. For
Petaus purposes, it does not matter which explanation is given of indifference
of the rst, essential sort. It must include Jansenius, however, lest Petaus reply to
him just beg the question. Obviously, this strategic consideration is important for
an appreciation of Petau; it is no less so for an appreciation of Descartes.
Notice that Descartes does not begin the Text by saying that he now agrees with
the Reverend Father, and then offer to explain the new opinion to show that he
has changed it. That would have been the procedure of someone who was making
a dramatic change in his view, a change whose occurrence he would have been
quick to make clear and exploit as a basis for cultivating support from the Jesuits.
Instead, he says simply that he entirely (plane) agrees, and then offers to explain
his opinion, which is the procedure of someone attempting to get the Reverend
Father, or someone urging his view as did Mesland, to see that he ought to be
agreeing with him.
What Descartes is saying in the rst part of the Text is that what Petau means by
indifference in the rst, essential sense is something that he himself has recognized
all long. Note that what Petau means by indifference is what he expresses with
47
Gilson, Libert, 404.
48
49
the neutral denition of the term in the penultimate, philosophical chapter
of De libero arbitrio. It is not his Molinist explanation of the term that he deploys
elsewhere in the work against the heretics. That is, contrary to the argument of
Alqui and others, when Descartes accedes to the nominal denition, he is not
admitting to any change in his view, which he emphasizes with his paraphrase
of Petaus denition, itself a paraphrase of the fourth Meditation. He then goes
on to say that the will always has this power, not just when it is indifferent in the
only sense that he recognizes, namely what the fourth Meditation calls the lowest
grade of freedom, when perception is obscure and confused, but also in clear and
distinct perception because for him the will is at its most free in such perception.
That is, Descartes is not accepting some new version of indifference, the allegedly
Molinist version, urged upon him by the Jesuits, Mesland, and Petau.
To put it another way, the libertarian interpretation of this text gets the direc-
tion of the logical ow wrong. The point is not to draw a conclusion about clear
and distinct perceptions on the basis of indifference. Specically, Descartes is not
accepting a Molinist sense of indifference, a new sense for him, and extending
it from what was already taken to be indifferent in his sense to clear and distinct
perceptions, which is the focus of the Text according to libertarian interpreta-
tions of it. Instead, the focus is on the formulation of what for Petau is a sense
of indifferencehis rst, essential sensethe formulation which Descartes in
the fourth Meditation used to express his conception of the will itself, which he
then illustrates, in dramatic fashion in the Text, by his claim that it applies even to
clear and distinct perceptions. That the formulation does apply means for him
that such perceptions are both free and voluntary, which was the position of the
fourth Meditation. Descartess point is that he never denied, and that therefore he
is in agreement with Petau, that whenever we are free, we have a positive power of
deciding between contraries, including the case of clear and distinct perceptions.
Now, it might be argued that even in the fourth Meditation Descartes held a
libertarian view (such is the interpretation of Kenny and Ragland), and thus that,
whatever Petau might have intended by his denition of essential indifference,
Descartes was agreeing with the Molinist version of it. To remove the plausibility
of this interpretation, we now turn to the crucial end of the Texts rst paragraph.
4 . r e v o c a t i o n
The linchpin of libertarian readings of Descartes is the end of the rst paragraph,
particularly the last sentence. Says Descartes, It is always open to us to hold back
from a clear and distinct perception. What does Descartes have in mind with this
holding back? His Latin term is revocare, which topologically can indeed mean
to withhold, the sense given it not only by CSMK and all those who, without com-
ment, cite their translation, but also by Alqui (nous retenir), Gilson (nous arrter),
and Clerselier (nous empescher).
50
All invite us to think of the situation in the causal
terms preferred by libertarian readings. But literally, of course, revocare means
to call back, to recall, with a natural extension to the cognate term, to revoke. This
50
Alqui, ed., Oeuvres de Descartes III.552; Gilson, Libert, 422; Clerselier, AT III.379.
notion, as when we revoke a license, for example, or a law, is a very different no-
tion from impeding, stopping, or preventing.
The most striking example of Descartess notion in the period is the Revocation
of the Edict of Nantes. Henry IV, the good king, in 1598 issued, in perpetuity, an
edict granting Protestants relatively wide rights of toleration. In 1685, Louis XVI,
the sun king, on the ground that there were no more Protestants in France and
that the Edict was therefore irrelevant, summarily revoked it. The analogy to what
we can do to a clear and distinct perception is rich. Both involve truths, which
though eternal depend on the will of their promulgator. (Descartes thinks, how-
ever, that God, because of His immutability, will never revoke what we take to be
the eternal truths.)
51
There is also an analogy to our revocation of assent to clear
and distinct perceptions. The French monarchy increasingly neglected the Edict
throughout the century, but this ignoring of it was not the revocation itself. The
alleged irrelevance of the Edict was at best a reason for revoking it. For the Edict
to be revoked, something must be done to it: it must be torn up, or stamped (re-
fus, as with the famous Salon paintings in the nineteenth century). Likewise, our
clear and distinct perceptions must be altered. Although it is not the revocation
itself, but only a condition for the possibility of revoking, there is but one change
that can be made to a clear and distinct perceptionit can become obscure and
confused, and that change, through deected attention, does release us from our
constrained pursuit of the clearly and distinctly perceived good and the afrma-
tion of the clearly and distinctly perceived truth.
52
It is not simply by an act of the
will that we revoke a clear and distinct perceptions claim on us. It is our altered
perception that now allows us to refuse pursuit and afrmation.
Notice too that Descartes alters his language from the fourth Meditation.
While he repeats his language with respect to the rst revocation (of pursuit),
he alters the second, no longer referring to an act of afrming (afrmare), but of
admitting (admittenda). Admitting is as good a translation as any alternative, but
needs a commentary. Descartess Latin term and Clerseliers French translation of
it (admettre) both have the sense of allowing to enter (like our admission to a theater,
for example), of recognizing, or granting the right to do so. That is, a clear and
distinct perception is not the assertion by us of a claim, but our acceptance of its
credential. If there is a claim, it comes from the other direction, with a different
sense: the claim of a perceived truth upon our credence. The context is one of
rights and duties, of grants and privileges, where it makes sense to talk of recogni-
tion in the sense of recognizing a claim, and thus too of its revocation, which is
far richer than holding back.
Revocation, after the fact, as opposed to prevention or avoidance, before the
fact, is important because the success of Descartess method of doubt depends on it.
His methodological rule is to doubt until indubitability is found. But indubitability
is not enough; in addition, unshakeability is required for the kind of certainty that
Descartes wantsthe difference between him and the ancient geometers, whose
51
Descartes himself deploys the regal metaphor in his earliest avowal of his doctrine of created
eternal truth (To Mersenne, 15 April 1630; AT 1.145/CSMK 23).
52
See the Fifth Meditation (AT VII.69/CSM II.48).
clear and distinct perceptions were indubitable, but not unshakeable (because
liable to the hyperbolical doubt). To take this unprecedented step beyond them,
Descartes needs to be able to revoke his assent from his merely indubitable clear
and distinct perceptions in order to nd the one such perception (that a non-
deceiving God exists) which guarantees all the rest, and without which he would
never have true and certain knowledge of anything [de nulla unquam re veram &
certam scientiam], but only shifting and changeable opinions.
53
Otherwise, to exag-
gerate the point, he is stuck in a circle of indubitabilty that is not yet unshakeable
certainty. More strictly, in Descartess view, clear and distinct perceptions are so
eeting that it is in maintaining them that the problem lies. Consider an earlier
letter, to Mesland (in which, not incidentally, he refers to a primary text for com-
patibilist interpretations):
It seems to me certain that a great light in the intellect is followed by a great in-
clination in the will; so that if we see very clearly that a thing is good for us, it is
very difcultand, on my view, impossible, as long as one continues in the same
thoughtto stop the course of our desire. But the nature of the soul is such that
it hardly attends for more than a moment to a single thing; hence, as soon as our
attention turns from the reasons which show us that the thing is good for us, and
we merely keep in our memory the thought that it appeared desirable to us, we can
call up before our mind some other reason to make us doubt it, and so suspend our
judgment, and perhaps even form a contrary judgment.
54
The main point of the hyperbolical doubt is to provide a basis for the unshakeability
of clear and distinct perceptions that is available thereafter, however infrequently
and eetingly those perceptions occur.
55

The unprecedented step beyond the ancient geometers is achieved, of course,
by means of the hyperbolic doubt whose resolution yields the unshakeability
Descartes seeks. But just how do we even hyperbolically doubt the indubitable?
On a compatibilist reading, the hypothesis of a deceiving God has the effect of
obscuring and confusing otherwise clear and distinct perceptions, thereby block-
ing their cogency. On a radical version of the libertarian view, by contrast, we
would just do it.
56
Doubt is a function of the will, and we would doubt as we do
all else. But this account seems ruled out by the proviso that Descartes states at
the end of the Texts last paragraph: we can revoke, provided that we consider
it good thing to demonstrate the freedom of our will [libertatem arbitrii] by so do-
ing. If this libertarian conception of freedom were Descartess, he would issue
no such proviso.
57
Moreover, in his search for the indubitable, Descartes would
not need to have undertaken the difcult, stage-by-stage method of doubt in the
rst Meditation: he could simply have engaged an omnibus doubt of everything
53
AT VII.69/CSM II.48; emphasis mine.
54
AT IV.11516/CSMK 23334. The text to which Descartes refers is found in the Third Medita-
tion (AT VII.252/CSM II.175).
55
This point is made explicit in the Fifth Meditation (AT VII.6970/CSM II.48).
56
This would be the pure (or radical in Raglands terms) libertarianism of Alqui.
57
This is Raglands criticism of the radical libertarianism of Alanen; see Alternative Possibili-
ties, 39293.
dubitable. (The arguments that Descartes provides for doubt would be at most
psychological motives for doubt, not cogent justications for the doubt. More on
this below.) Finally, on this conception of freedom, no such method would reveal
the indubitable anyway, since everything, including clear and distinct perceptions,
would always be immediately and directly dubitable.
The libertarian view is not yet fully dead in the water, however. A better, if less
parsimonious, libertarian view would be the following. First, clear and distinct
perceptions are, at least by themselves, indubitable; if all that I have in mind is
a clear and distinct perception, I cannot doubt it. So certainty can be achieved,
even of the unshakeable sort; andthough this is less obviousthe method to
nd it is not otiose. Second, the libertarian will has a pair of roles to play. One,
before having the clear and distinct perception, is to place itself in a position to
be constrained by the clear and distinct perception (rather like Ulysses before
the mast). The other role, while the clear and distinct perception is had, is to
suppress motives counter to accepting the truth of the clear and distinct percep-
tion that might otherwise annul its constraint on the will (which operates only
in the absence of such countermotives).
58
Although there are problems with
this view, it clearly recognizes Descartess claim that it is always open to us to
revoke. Even while we have a clear and distinct perception, we can revoke just
by failing to suppress the countermotives that are always available to the mind.
The failure of this libertarian view, as we shall now see, lies in the sense in which
it is open to us to do so.
How do we stand to the act of revocation? Gilson tends toward a causal relation
(il est . . . toujours en notre pouvoir des nous arrter), as do CSMK and Clerselier (il
nous est toujours libre de), though much less clearly, more weakly.
59
Alqui and
Armogathe-Belgioiosa are somewhere in between.
60
The libertarian view, however,
explicitly requires the causal sense. For the will is the causal origin of its own
acts;
61
it is open to us to revoke a clear and distinct perception in so far as we can
circumvent its causal constraint. Such circumvention is the point of the proviso:
the intellect represents revocation as somehow good, thus generating a compet-
ing causal constraint (a countermotive).
62
(This possibility of revoking a clearly
and distinctly perceived good or truth might be imagined as the sin of Satan,
a prideful demonstration of ones freedom in deance of goodness and truth.)
Descartes, however, is clear and precise: Semper . . . nobis licet nos revocareit
is always permissible for us to revoke our pursuit of a clearly known good or from
our admission of an evident truth, provided, of course, that we consider it a good
thing to demonstrate the freedom of our will by so doing. Descartes does not
58
This is the libertarian view of Ragland.
59
Gilson, Libert, 422; Clerselier, AT III.379. CSMK (maybe Clerselier, too) seem not to know what
to make of licet after what they might take to be causal possibility talk (K, after all, is Kenny). Hence,
perhaps, the nearly non-commital open to us.
60
Alqui, Descartes: uvres philosophiques, 552; Armogathe-Belgioiosa, 1969. The translation in
Armogathe-Belgioiosas edition has at least the virtue of preserving Descartess notion of revocation:
Sempre ce possible . . . ritrarci. . . .
61
Ragland, Is Descartes a Libertarian?, 7475.
62
Ragland, Alternative Possibilities, 392.
here discuss what is causally possible for the will to do. The issue, rather, is what is
permissible. There is no other way of understanding licet.
63

An interest on Descartess part in the (im)permissibility of the sin of Satan
would be something unexpected, like a rabbit from the hat. There is one place,
however, where he is very interested in the (im)permissibility of revocation. The
relevant sin is not pride, but irresponsibility. Near the end of the rst Meditation,
Descartes insists that his crescendo of doubt there is based on powerful and well
thought-out reasons [validas & meditatas rationes].
64
This reasonable doubt is by
contrast to that of the skeptics, which is irresponsible. For the skeptics doubt only
for the sake of doubting and pretend to be always undecided. They doubt without
any basis, motivated by a search not for truth, but for ataraxia.
65
His comment about
his previous beliefs that he has called into doubt is that there is not one of them
about which it is not permissible [liceat] to doubt.
66
Still, he says, some of those
beliefs keep coming backno surprise here, for he has not only habitual beliefs,
but clear and distinct perceptions which he cannot resistso he turns his will in
completely the opposite direction and deceives himself by pretending that these be-
liefs are not just dubitable, but utterly false and imaginary. And so he supposes
an evil demon. Surely this scenario is what Descartes has in mind with the proviso
of the Text. For a perceived good reason, namely to acquire certainty about the
truth, it is permissible to revoke the credential of clear and distinct perceptions
through an exercise of the will. We thereby test (testari) our will not in a prideful
demonstration of our freedom, but in an effort to achieve an undeniable good. It
is an exercise not of willfulness, but of willingness to seek the true and the good.
67

Not incidentally, this reading claries the otherwise troubling previous sentence
in the Text. We have, he says, the positive faculty of determining ourselves to one
or other of two contraries even with respect to clear and distinct perceptions:
[W]hen a very evident reason moves us in one direction, although morally speak-
ing we can hardly be borne [ferri] in the contrary direction, absolutely speaking we
can. The absolute possibility is the permissibility generated by the hyperbolical or
metaphysical doubt in the service of unshakeable certainty. The moral possibility
concerns the practical generation of that doubt, of which he says that it is very
difcult, hardly possible (vix). So difcult is it that he thinks that he is the rst
to bring it off, and it needs the doubly deceiving demon hypothesis in order to
63
This is not to say, however, that the whole discussion prior to Descartess last sentence is about
permissibility. Permissibility is invoked only to explain the absolute sense in which revocation is al-
ways available (by contrast to the practical difculty of actually achieving it). Nor is this to say, on the
other hand, that the previous modal terms should be read in the causal terms required by libertarian
readings. Though the thesis here does not require it be mounted, even that part of the libertarian
reading is open to challenge.
64
AT VII.21/CSM II.15.
65
Discourse on Method, 3 (AT VI.29/CSM I.125).
66
AT VII.21/CSM II.1415.
67
Consider, by contrast, the view of Alqui: With this provision, Descartes seems to revert to the
Thomist thesis according to which one can will only under reason of the good. In fact, [however,]
his thesis is entirely new, and makes freedom absolute: man can, in full conscience/consciousness
[conscience], reject the True and the Good (Descartes: uvres philosophiques, 3:552n1).
be sustained. (Deception by the demon is hypothesized and the hypothesis itself
requires [self-]deception.)
Notice, too, that the revocation of assent to a clear and distinct perception is
possible in both sensesboth morally (or practically) and absolutely (or meta-
physically). Descartes does not use a distinction between the possibility of their
occurrence to resolve a contradiction between libertarian freedom that allows
us to resist clear and distinct perceptions on the one hand, and on the other his
methodological requirement that clear and distinct perceptions be irresistible.
Apparently taking Descartess term vix to be a negation, Ragland takes it to be
morally impossible to avoid the constraint of clear and distinct perception, thus
satisfying the methodological requirement for achieving certainty, and absolutely
possible to do so, thus leaving room for the exercise of libertarian freedom. But
that is not what the Text says.
68
5 . t h e s e c o n d p a r a g r a p h
In the second part of the Text, Descartes deploys a distinction that gured im-
portantly in previous literature on freedom. It must be noted also that freedom
can be considered in the acts of the will either before they are elicited, or while
[sic!] they are elicited.
69
This distinction had been repeatedly invoked by critics
of the libertarian view held by Petau and his predecessors. The view that freedom
essentially requires indifference entails that we are free only before we act, while
competing alternatives are still open to us, and that we are least free while we act
because, with all alternatives but the chosen one closed, we are no longer indiffer-
ent. We return to this preempted freedom criticism at length below. Meanwhile,
to motivate the discussion, it might be noted that Gilson thinks that Descartes
appeals to this distinction in order to be able to hold simultaneously his two
contradictory conceptions of freedom.
70
Here and in the next section I shall try
to show that the distinction is in fact invoked by Descartes to continue the clarica-
tion undertaken in the rst part of the Text. That is, he uses it to show that in the
only sense in which he deploys the term, indifference is not essential to freedom
and is only its lowest grade, and that what others (read: Petau) might call indif-
ference is indeed essential to freedom but must be read in compatibilist terms.
68
For more on this issue, see Lennon, No, Descartes Is Not A Libertarian, Oxford Studies in Early
Modern Philosophy, forthcoming.
69
[V]el antequam elicantur, vel dum eliciantur (AT IV.173). CSMK read dum as after. But afterward
the issue cannot arise except concerning what was true of the wills actions in the past, while they were
being elicited. Cf. Clerseliers French translation: au moment mme quon les exerce (AT III.379). It is hard
to see how this mistake could have been made by Kenny who, worrying that Descartess argument here
might in the end be confused, felt that it involves subtle points about tense and action which it would
take us too far around to investigate (Descartes on the Will, 27, 30, 31). Later in the Text, however,
when Descartes changes his language, CSMK get it right (as did Kenny in his article, Descartes on the
Will, 28): But freedom considered in the acts of the will at the moment when they are elicited. . .
(Libertas autem spectata in actionibus voluntatis, eo ipso tempore eliciantur . . . , AT IV.174).
70
Gilson, Libert, 424. A charitable reading of what Gilson says would be that Descartes appeals
to the distinction in order to relieve what would otherwise be a contradiction; but this reading would
be a stretch.
The point that Descartes makes in the rst case, before the wills actions are
elicited, is perfectly clear: freedom entails (involvitliterally, envelopes) indif-
ference in the second sense (in which he agrees with Petau), but not in the rst
(his own, previous sense). He illustrates and forties the point by addressing two
situations which, when properly understood, are in fact alike with respect to the
proper analysis of freedom (according to which indifference in the rst sense is not
required), but which, when misunderstood, might suggest the wrong analysis of
freedom (according to which indifference in the rst sense is required).
The rst situation occurs when someone orders us to do something contrary
to our own judgment such that we would not do it spontaneously. This might be
called the external situation because the determinant comes from the outside. We
say that we are less free in this situation than when we are allowed (licet!) to follow
our own judgment. What we say is in fact true, but freedom must be understood
in the proper way lest a false account be given of the internal situation, when on
the basis of perceived reasons it is our judgment that tells us what to do. We are
not thereby made less free than when a balance of reasons leaves the matter un-
decidedthe adiaphora of the Pyrrhonians. We are more free when there is an
imbalance of reasons leading our judgment in one direction or the other, whether
or not we actually follow our judgment. If we follow our judgment, we are free
because it is easy for us to act spontaneously. We go with the ow, as it were, easily
doing what we are already inclined to do. If we act contrary to our judgment, we
are free because we deploy the positive, more active power of the will, swimming
against the ow, by following the worse although we see the better.
71
As we say,
we talk ourselves into doing something against our better judgment by deliberately
representing an alternative as somehow better. Failing in this way to follow judg-
ment is, presumably, an exercise of indifference in the second sense, which occurs
under the same conditions as revoking assent to a clearly perceived truth or good
as discussed above; of this instance of revocation, more below. For now the point
is, once again, that we act with greater freedom, whether in accordance with judg-
ment or contrary to it, than when we are indifferent with a balance of reasons.
With this understanding of freedom in the internal situation, the external situ-
ation can be properly understood. When someone orders us to do something, our
freedom is diminished not because our indifference has been encroached upon,
but precisely because indifference in the sense of balance has been established.
What is it that establishes the balance in the prohibition case? One constraint is
the prohibition which generates the judgment that it is good to do this thing that
we are commanded to do (recall Descartess political conservatism, evidenced in
the rst rule of the Discourses provisional morality
72
). The balancing constraint
is the judgment that it is difcult to do the thing we are commanded to do (i.e.
we are not inclined to do it, otherwise there would be no balance, and thus no
71
This line from Ovid, which Descartes here repeats from his use of it in the Discourse, has been
read by Ragland, and especially Kenny, as an indication of Descartess libertarianism. When read in
the context of the Discourse, however, it indicates the opposite; see Thomas M. Lennon, Descartes
and the Seven Senses of Indifference in Early Modern Philosophy.
72
AT VI.23/CSM I.122.
encroachment on our freedom), and the nearer the balance, the greater the en-
croachment. To put it another way, Descartess view is not just that freedom does
not require indifference in the rst sense, but that this indifference of balance is
the only threat to that freedom.
73
We turn now to the second case, of freedom while the wills acts are elicited.
Though the history of the libertarian view and the preemptive freedom criticism
of the view predate him, Molina is a good place to begin. At the outset of his Con-
cordia, Molina distinguishes three senses of freedom. One is simply opposed to
servitude.
74
The second sense is opposed to coercion (coactioni): What happens
spontaneously [sponte] is free, whether it happens by natural necessity or not. Thus,
the Fathers generation of the Son is free. This Trinitarian sense is insufcient for
human freedom, however, whatever the Lutherans might say, because children,
the insane, and even beasts, operate spontaneously, but are not free. Thirdly, then,
an agent is said to be free when, with all necessary conditions for acting satised
[positis omnibus requisitis ad agendum], it can act and not act, or do one thing such that
it can also do the contrary. And from this freedom by which the agent is thus able
to act, the faculty is said to be free. Because it cannot operate in this way unless pos-
sessed of decision and judgment [arbitrio judicioque rationis], to that extent the faculty
is called free decision or free will [liberum abitrium], which is nothing but the will in
which its freedom is formally explicated, and which distinguishes a free agent from
a merely natural agent, which, with all the necessary conditions for acting satised,
necessarily acts and does one thing and cannot do the contrary.
75
Molina must realize that, as it stands, this view of freedom is open to the preemp-
tive freedom criticism, for if I do one thing, it might be argued, it is necessarily
true that I cannot do the contrary. In any case, he himself later raises the criticism
against Ockham
76
and others, and modies his original view to accommodate it.
Here is what he says:
Following Gabriel [Biel], Ockham (d. 38, q. 1) and other nominalists asserted that
the will, at the instant that it elicits a volition, it is not free not to elicit it or to elicit
a contrary act, and conversely, at the instant that it does not will, or that it elicits a
non-will [nolitionem], it is not free to will the same object; but only before that instant
was there freedom in it, such that at the same instant it was in a position to will, reject,
or not will concerning the object at all.
77
73
Clerselier understood this point. Consider his long interpolation at the end of the second sen-
tence of the second paragraph: [T]hat is, before our will chooses [se soit determine], we have the power
to choose [choisir] one or the other of two contraries, but it is not always indifferent; on the contrary,
we only ever deliberate in order to remove ourselves from that state, in which we do not know what
course to take, or to prevent ourselves from falling into it (cited in Descartes, Correspondence, 197n2).
74
He cites 2 Corinthians 3:17: [W]here the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. (He also cites
Romans 6 and 8.) He just sets this sense asideunfortunately, since it would have been useful to have
his comment on what in fact best represents the view of his later opponents, the Jansenists.
75
Molina, Liberi arbitrii . . . Concordia, 8.
76
I call freedom the power [potestatem] by which I can indifferently and contingently bring about
[ponere] different things, such that I am both able both to cause and able not to cause the same effect,
without there being any difference anywhere beyond that power [potentiam] (Ockham, Quodlibetal
Questions, 1:75 [slightly modied]).
77
Liberi arbitrii . . . Concordia, Quodlibetal Questions, 14, art. 13, disp. 24, 1046.
The argument ascribed to Ockham by Molina, citing Aristotles De interpretatione,
last chapter (24b79), is that what is, when it is, cannot not be. According to
Molina, the view is not only false, but also dangerous and temerarious, that is,
theologically very problematic. One problem that he sees concerns divine free-
dom: since there is no previous moment before God creates, the act of creating
would itself be not free.
78
Similarly, theologians generally believe that the angels
earn merit in the rst instant of their creation; but there can be no merit with-
out freedom; hence they must have been free before they were created, which is
ridiculous.
79
Thirdly, sin would occur before the sinful act. (Descartes rejects
prior-to-act libertarian freedom in his analysis of the internal and external
situations discussed above.)
It is not clear whether any of these arguments apply to Ockhams view, or if
they do whether they might not be answered. All of them, in any case, rely on the
temporal consideration that Molina tries to avoid by appealing to Scotuss notion
of priority by nature. The ability indifferently to will or not is not temporally prior
to the wills act, but only prior by nature, as any other cause is prior by nature to
its effect (quaevis alia causa suum effectum praecedit).
80
Although it is exercised at
the same time as the act emanating from the will, the wills freedom is prior in
nature to that act. Using a distinction from Aquinas that was later used by Molinas
opponents (notably Gibieuf and the Jansenists), he concedes Ockhams argument
that it is a contradiction that the will should both act and be capable of not acting,
if the argument is taken in the composite sense (in sensu composito). But taken in
the divided sense (in sensu diviso), there is no contradiction.
Whence did Descartes get the distinction between freedom before and during
elicitation? And to what use did he put it? The distinction is not invoked by Petau,
so he had to look elsewhere. There are at least a half-dozen sources on which he
might have drawn. It is not inconceivable that he was aware of Ockham, or one
of the other nominalists, either directly or through the text cited above from Mo-
lina, whose book no doubt was discussed at La Fleche during Descartess tenure
there. Another possible source is Janseniuss Augustinus, which in effect draws the
distinction by appealing to the sensu diviso/composito distinction (although he does
so to show that, contrary to Molina, a will moved by grace to act is necessitated
to do so, and can do otherwise only in the sense that without the grace it would
have been necessitated to do otherwise).
81
Descartes might also have picked up
the distinction from Arnauld, who in the few years between the publication of the
Augustinus and the period of the Text was busy defending the Augustinus from
attacks on it by Isaac Habert.
82
The surest and most important source, however,
would be Guillaume Gibieuf.
78
79
80
81
Gilson thought that Descartes might well have looked into the Augustinus, at least the parts on
the will; see Libert, 376.
82
Habert, La dfense; Antoine Arnauld, Seconde Apologie, 24344; Jansenius, Augustinus, vol. 3,
bk. 8, ch. 20.
Gibieuf was the head of the rst Oratory in Paris, appointed by the founder
of the French Oratory, Cardinal Brulle, one of whose instructions to him was
to refute Molinism. The result was De libertate, which Descartes read, and took to
be authoritative to the extent that he judged his own view in light of the book.
Descartes knew Gibieuf in Paris, sought his judgment, and, as late as 11 November
1640 entertained the hope that Gibieuf, a doctor of the Sorbonne, would secure
an approbation from that body for his Meditations.
83
The rst chapter of Gibieufs book attempts to demonstrate that freedom
consists in what he calls amplitude (a term that Descartes picks up for the fourth
Meditation). The fourth proof that he offers is the obvious contradiction in the
view of those for whom the nature of freedom includes an absolute indifference
of acting and not acting.
84
For if indifference were a condition for freedom, man
would never be less free than when he acts freely; for he who acts is not indifferent
with respect to acting, but rather is determined by his act. If, therefore, he were
free who is indifferent with respect to acting, anyone who acts freely does not act
freely at all. That we are free when we act is contradicted, according to Gibieuf,
by the necessity, i.e. the lack of freedom, imposed by that very act.
Later, in chapter 23 of book 1, Gibieuf treats of Molinisms famous doctrine
of middle knowledge, arguing that it is useless in reconciling divine knowledge
of future contingents with human freedom. The next two chapters deal with nine
corollaries of the doctrine. One corollary of interest en passant is the fourth, that
there is a difference between the free and the voluntary, i.e. the inclination that
proceeds from knowledge of the ultimate end and highest good.
85
For Gibieuf,
this statement of the voluntary is, roughly, all that is meant by the free, whereas
for the Molinist the free must be something else, because acts that are voluntary
cannot be free since they are not indifferent.
86
Of principal interest here is the second corollary, the distinction between sensum
divisum and sensum compositum. The text is obscure at certain points, but what is
clear is that no such distinction is required here, because the contradiction it is
invoked by Molinists to overcome, namely that between freedom and necessity,
is only illusory, based on a false conception of freedom as indifference. Here is
Gibieufs text:
87
The common doctrine is that he who acts, when he acts (at least in the composite
sense) acts necessarily, yet that this necessity does not negate freedom, because when
the agent was about to act he was able not to act; which is to say that our freedom is
with respect to future acts insofar as they are future. Those who locate freedom in
an absolute indifference of acting are forced to say this; for there is no indifference
in him who actually acts, but only in him who, with the power of not acting, is about
to act. We, however, argue for stronger notions of freedom and truth on the basis
83
AT III.23738/CSMK 15758.
84
Gibieuf, De libertate, 1314.
85
86
In the Fourth Meditation, Descartes begins his denition of the will, and repeats thereafter, that
the will (voluntas) and free will (liberum arbitrium) are one and the same; see AT VII.57/CSM II.40,
which here translates the latter as freedom of choice.
87
of accepted principles, namely that the necessity of the composite sense is perfectly
consistent with freedom, because he who acts, even when he acts, acts freelya
freedom connected not with an absolute indifference of acting, but an indifference
with respect to the objects, and in this sense he who acts freely, being tied only to
the highest good, acts freely without being violently affected by any tie to them. The
absolute indifference for acting is taken away by the act; for he who acts is no longer
indifferent, but determined to acting. Therefore, if freedom is in the indifference,
it is overcome by the act when we act.
88
So, to recapitulate this very important text:
(1) we are free even as we act;
(2) t here is no absolute indifference of the Molinist sort while we act, since we
are determined by the act;
(3) freedom, therefore, does not consist in any such indifference.
In light of the above background, Descartess comment on freedom while we act,
which is breathtakingly brief and otherwise rather obscure, becomes tolerably
clear. There is no indifference either in his own rst sense, of relative balance of
reasons, or in Petaus omnibus sense, of self-determination to either of two contrar-
ies, because what is undone (the unchosen alternative) cannot remain undone so
long as it is being done. While we act, there are no possible alternatives, only the
actual thing being done. Freedom is a matter of ease of operation; the struggle
to get ourselves determined by truth or goodness is over. Thus did he write, he
says (in his specication of the omnibus sense in the fourth Meditation), that
I moved towards something all the more freely when there were more reasons
driving me towards it; for it is certain that in that case our will moves itself with
greater facility and force. For Descartes too the opposition between freedom and
necessity per se is only illusory, based on a false conception of freedom as indiffer-
ence. Hence, as for Gibieuf, there is no need to appeal to libertarian distinctions
between temporal priority and priority by nature, or between necessity in the
divided sense and the composite sense.
6 . s u mma r y a n d c o n c l u s i o n
Though occasioned by correspondence with Mesland, the Text is almost as cer-
tainly not a letter to him. Despite Kennys distant early warnings in this regard
(1972), the canonic status of the Text has, if anything, been solidied. AT had
acknowledged its problematic status at least to the extent of bracketing Mesland as
its addressee, and the date they assigned to it, with a question mark (18971913).
CSMK followed suit (1991). Alqui (1974) and Armogathe-Belgioiosa (2005)
drop the brackets and question mark. And practically all scholars but Kenny have
88
An unfortunate distraction is that Gibieuf introduces still another sense of indifference, one
that persists even during the act. This indifference is one of nonchalance, which obtains with respect
to all objects other than the true good that determines a right action. This use of the term, found
throughout the period, recalls Diogenes Laertiuss reports that according to Eratosthenes, Pyrrho did
such menial tasks as taking poultry to market, and dusting things in the house, quite indifferent as
to what he did. They say he showed his indifference by washing a porker (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of
Eminent Philosophers, 47879). Malebranche, among others, uses the term in this sense, of nonchalance.
blithely referred to it as a letter to Mesland. As I have tried to show, however, we
would do better to refer to it as the Memorandum concerning Petau.
Awareness of its problematic status should give historians pause. The evidence
is that Descartes struggled over the Text, never sent it into the world, never com-
mented on it elsewhere, and made no further use of it. For all we know, it is the
record of views that he rejected. Awareness of its problematic status might also
have led historians, especially those who are led by it to a libertarian reading of
Descartes, to investigate its context, particularly the role played by Petau. In his ef-
fort to include both libertarians and non-libertarians in his idiosyncratic denition
of essential indifference, Petau made it difcult for Descartes to express his own
view. More precisely, he led Descartes to produce a text that has made it difcult
for many of his readers to do so. But when Petaus own text and his intentions for
it are taken into account, it becomes clear that Descartes was in no way laying the
cornerstone of a libertarian reading of his work.
89
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Alqui, Ferdinand. La dcouverte mtaphysique de lhomme chez Descartes. Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1950. [Dcouverte]
Arnauld, Antoine. Seconde Apologie pour Monsieur Jansenius . . . contre la rponse que Monsieur Habert . . .
a fait la premire Apologie. N.p., 1645. [Seconde Apologie]
Baillet, Adrien. La Vie de Monsieur Descartes. Paris, 1691. Facsimile, New York: Garland, 1987. [Vie]
Bayle, Pierre. Dictionnaire Historique et Critique. Rotterdam, 1697. [Dictionnaire]
Boulnois, Olivier. Le refoulement de la libert dindiffrence et les polmiques anti-scotistes de la
mtaphysique moderne. Les tudes philosophiques 61 (2002): 99237. [Le refoulement]
Denzinger, Henricus. Enchiridion Symbolorum, 32nd ed. Barcelona: Herder, 1963.
Descartes, Ren. Correspondence. Edited by Charles Adam & Gaston Milhaud. Paris: Presses Universitaires
de France, 1956. Reprint, Kraus: Nendeln, 1970.
. Lettres de Mr Descartes o sont traittes plusieurs belles Questions touchant la morale, la physique, la
mdecine, & les mathmatiques. Edited by Claude Clerselier. Leiden, 1657. [Clerselier]
. Lettres, Esemplare annotato dell Institut de France (edizione di Claude Clerselier, 166667) a cura di
Jean-Robert Armogathe & Giuia Belgioiosa. Lecce: Conte, 2005. [Armogathe-Belgioiosa]
. Oeuvres. Edited by Charles Adam & Paul Tannery. Paris: Vrin, 1996. [AT]
. uvres philosophiques. Edited by Ferdinand Alqui. Paris: Garnier, 196373.
. The Philosophical Writings. Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch
(and A. Kenny, vol.3). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 198591. [CSM for vols. 1 and 2;
CSMK for vol.3.]
. Tutte le lettere 16191650. Edited by Guilia Belgioioso. Milan: Bompiano, 2005. [Tutte le lettere]
Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by R. D. Hicks, Loeb edition. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1979.
Gibieuf, Guillaume. De libertate Dei et creaturae. Paris, 1630. [De libertate]
Gilson, Etienne. La libert chez Descartes et la thologie. Paris: J. Vrin, 1913. Reprint, Paris: J. Vrin, 1982.
[Libert]
Gouhier, Henri. La Pense religieuse de Descartes. Paris: J. Vrin, 1924. [La Pense religieuse]
Habert, Isaac. La dfense de la Foy de lEglise. Paris, 1644. [La dfense]
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Medicina adversus Pelagianos & Malsilienses. Originally published 1640; Rouen, 1643. [Augustinus]
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Basil Blackwell, 1972.
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For helpful comments and suggestions, I am grateful to Michael Hickson, Alan Nelson, Lex
Newman, Larry Nolan, C. P. Ragland, Jean-Pierre Schachter, and Kurt Smith.
Lennon, Thomas M. Descartes and the Seven Senses of Indifference in Early Modern Philosophy.
Dialogue, forthcoming.
Molina, Luis de. Liberi arbitrii . . . Concordia, 2nd ed. Antwerp, 1595.
Nelson, Alan. Descartess Ontology of Thought. Topoi 16 (1997): 16378.
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Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991.
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[Dogmata theologica]
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of Philosophy 14 (2006): 379400. [Alternative Possibilities]
. Descartes on Divine Providence and Human Freedom. Archiv fr Geschichte der Philosophie
87 (2005): 15988.
. Descartes on the Principle of Alternative Possibilities. Journal of the History of Philosophy 44
(2006): 37794.
. Is Descartes a Libertarian? In Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Daniel Garber
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Angeli, 1988. [Da Descartes a Spinoza]

Thomas M Lennon - Descartes Supposed Libertarianism: Letter To Mesland or Memorandum Concerning Petau?

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Thomas M Lennon - Descartes Supposed Libertarianism: Letter To Mesland or Memorandum Concerning Petau?

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Descartess Supposed Libertarianism: Letter to Mesland or Memorandum

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