History of Philosophy Research Group Talk (Bridger Ehli, IU-Bloomington)

The History of Modern Philosophy Group is pleased to welcome as its guest speaker Bridger Ehli, an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Indiana – Bloomington. His research concerns themes in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of mind in early modern European philosophy. He is especially interested in early modern discussions of skepticism, especially as they relate to questions about mental representation, concepts, and the psychology of belief. Most of his work has focused on Hume’s contributions to these issues. In a forthcoming book, he argues that much of Hume’s skepticism arises from his thinking about the limits of intelligibility rather than those of justified belief.

Title

Spinoza, the Cartesian Circle, and the Intelligibility of Doubt

Abstract

Notoriously, Descartes’s epistemological procedure in the Meditations appears circular, presupposing the veracity of clear and distinct perception in order to establish that veracity. Although Spinoza does not himself face the Cartesian Circle, he discusses it in his Principles of Cartesian Philosophy and proposes an alternative to Descartes’s own response. I argue that Spinoza’s solution rests on an emendation of the mind’s conceptual capacities. He accepts that the hypothesis of a deceiving God undermines certainty concerning clear and distinct perception, but he denies that removing this reason for doubt requires coming to know that God exists and is not a deceiver. Instead, forming a clear and distinct idea of God renders the skeptical hypothesis unintelligible, so that it ceases to qualify as a genuine reason for doubt. This solution, modeled on the cogito’s immunity to doubt, retains the Cartesian commitment to the inconceivability of divine deception and does not require antecedent restriction on the scope of metaphysical doubt.