Pierre-Daniel Huet (1630–1721) and the Skeptics of His Time by José R. Maia Neto

Author:José R. Maia Neto [Neto, José R. Maia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Philosophy, History & Surveys, General, Religious, Religion, Science, History
ISBN: 9783030947163
Google: _-l3EAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2022-06-28T21:49:21+00:00

Two points in both descriptions of his first favorable reception anticipate the reasons of the later disappointment. First, the little attention to Cartesian metaphysics. Apparently Huet at this occasion uncritically accepted it as it provided apparently certain grounds for a convincing coherent explanation of the whole nature. In the next section, I show that young Huet was a Cartesian in physics, not in metaphysics, to which he turns his attention only much later. In Censura, when he rates Descartes’s works, the mathematical and scientific treatises are rated the best (Geometry and Optics) and the Meditations, “which is a purely metaphysical commentary, must be placed at the bottom of the list” (Against, 210/Censura, 188). The second point to be noted is his claim in his Memoirs that he had at this point only superficial knowledge of ancient philosophical sects (besides Aristotle’s).

Huet tells Du Hamel that after the disappointment with Descartes, he turned to Plato, “whom the most ancient Fathers of the Church have followed, making use of his method and doctrines to explain and defend the Christian religion” (Weakness, 6/Traité, 7). But, like Descartes in the Discourse,24 Huet was searching for “the solid foundation of truth,” and when he studied Plato’s works more carefully, he found the opposite of what he had found—but later with disappointment—in Descartes’s Principles. In Plato’s dialogues, he “found nothing in it that could fix my mind, no certain and determinate principles, no system or connection of doctrine, nothing coherent, nothing well proved.” Rather than a solid dogmatic system (like Descartes’s had appeared to him early on), what he found in Plato is exactly what Descartes saw in Socrates’ teacher, namely, Academic skepticism. Huet’s view at the time was, like Descartes’s, that Arcesilaus and Carneades are the Academics who truly understood the philosophy of the founder of their school: “Everything in [Plato’s dialogues] is treated with delicacy and eloquence, but they maintain the pro and con, the affirmative and the negative, by arguments of equal weight and force, without determining the mind to either side of the question” (Weakness, 6/Traité, 7).25

Disappointed with Plato’s philosophy, Huet turned to other ancient philosophical schools. He refers in particular to his reading of Diogenes Laertius’ Lives which he rated as crucial in his formation.26 As noticed in Chap. 2, this happened when he collaborated on Ménage’s edition of Laertius’s Lives between March and May 1662.27 His learning of the doctrines held by ancient philosophers certainly diminished his estimation of Descartes’s novelty.28 But most important was his learning of ancient skepticism, first in the “Life of Pyrrho” of Diogenes Laertius’, then in Sextus Empiricus’ works which he learned from Louis de Cormis at the same time.29 Reading Laertius’ “Life of Pyrrho,” Sextus’ and Cicero’s skeptical works, he found that the ancient skeptics, not Descartes, “understood the nature of human understanding much better than any other philosopher” (Weakness, 7/Traité, 8).30 As I point out below, ancient skepticism helped Huet distinguish what he esteemed good in Descartes, once properly considered, namely doubt, from what he considered bad: the metaphysical doctrines which supposedly excluded this doubt.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.