Seventeenth Century Skepticism
How Cartesian methodic doubt passed into actual skepticism.
The idealistic spirit of the philosophy current in continental Europe during the seventeenth century very naturally led to skepticism. Descartes' Methodic Doubt was quickly changed into actual doubt, and many philosophers who began by doubting provisionally found themselves unable to recover the certitude they had suspended. Glenn treats the chief representatives of this tendency and shows how the skepticism of the period differs from the ancient variety: it arises not from a survey of conflicting opinions but from a theory of knowledge which cuts the mind off from things and leaves it with its own ideas. The article is brief, and serves chiefly to mark the consequence which the Intellectualist starting-point carries within it.
Article 3. Seventeenth Century Skepticism
The idealistic spirit of the philosophy current in continental Europe during the 17 century very naturally led to skepticism. Descartes’ Methodic Doubt was quickly changed to actual doubt, and many philosophers denied the possibility of achieving certitude by the unaided powers of nature. Even the dogmatic philosophers showed something of the skeptical spirit, inasmuch as they quite generally admitted the possibility of error in the use of natural faculties upon their proper objects.
The more important skeptics of the time did not, however, despair of attaining certitude; they merely declared that this was not to be had by natural powers. They turned to the supernatural, to Faith and Revelation, as the ultimate and only reliable criterion of certainty. This spirit of looking to God and to His Word for intellectual illumination was “in the air.” It found expression in the Ontologism and Occasionalism of Malebranche and his followers. It even appears in the Pantheism of Spinoza.
Notable among the skeptics of this time were:
i. Joseph Glanville (1636-1680), an Englishman, chaplain of Charles II. He wrote a book called Scientific Skepticism, in which he shows the influence of the English Sensists. He allows some validity to sense knowledge, but denies that the intellect can achieve truth and certainty by its own powers. The truths of Christian Revelation, however, are most certain;
ii. Francois de la Mothe Le Vayer (1586-1672), of Paris;
iii. Samuel Sorbiere (1615-1670);
iv. Simon Foucher (1644-1696);
v. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), a Jansenist, who figured prominently in the religious controversies of his day. His book Pensees offers much beautiful argument for the truth of Christianity, but denies the possibility of attaining truth by reason alone; vi. Daniel Huet (1633-1721), Bishop of Avranches in France, wrote a work on The Feebleness of the Human Understanding, in which he draws upon Sextus Empiricus for proofs of the inability of reason to achieve truth by its unaided powers; vii. Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) defends the thesis proposed by Pascal and Huet.