Neither Herbert of Cherbury nor Jean de Silhon appreciated sufficiently the extent to which the nouveau pyrrhonisme had undermined the foundations of human knowledge. But each saw that it had to be dealt with, and dealt with in a new way. The former proposed an elaborate method to discover truth; the latter tried to present some fundamental truths that could not be doubted. And, as the greatest of the opponents of scepticism, René Descartes, saw, each failed in a crucial way because he failed to comprehend the basic problem at issue.
Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1583–1648), was ambassador to France from 1618 until 1624,1 where he came in contact with both the current of sceptical ideas and the attempts being made to counteract it. It is likely that at this time, he also came to know Mersenne, who is thought to have translated Herbert’s book into French,2 and Gassendi, to whom he is known to have presented a copy of his work.3 He was also friendly with the diplomat Diodati, who was a member of the Tétrade, the society of libertins érudits. While Herbert was in Paris, he showed his manuscript to Grotius, who was familiar with the writings of Sextus Empiricus.4 Finally, in 1624, after years of work on his masterpiece (which had been started in 1617, even before his Paris embassy), filled with fear and trembling about its possible reception, Herbert received what he regarded as a sign from above, and published De Veritate.5
This book begins with a picture of the sorry state of contemporary learning, the chaos of beliefs, and the many controversies. There are people who say we can know everything, and there are those who say we can know nothing. Herbert insisted he belonged to neither of these schools, but, rather, held that something can be known. What is needed in order to recognize and evaluate the knowledge we have is a definition of truth, a criterion of truth, and a method of finding truth. When we have found all of these, we will have no patience with scepticism because we will understand that there are certain conditions under which our faculties are able to know objects.6
The first proposition of De Veritate is announced baldly, “Truth exists.” Herbert tells us, “The sole purpose of this proposition is to assert the existence of truth against imbeciles and sceptics.”7 Having taken his stand in opposition to the message of the nouveaux pyrrhoniens, Herbert proceeded to show what truth is, and how it can be attained. There are four types of truths, the truth of things as they really are in themselves (veritas rei), the truth of things as they appear to us (veritas apparentiae), the truth of the concepts we form of things (veritas conceptus), and finally, the intellectual truths, the Common Notions by which we judge our subjective truths, the appearances and concepts (veritas intellectus). The first class of truth is absolute; it is “the thing as it is,”8 and it is this that we are seeking to know by means of the three conditional classes of truth, those involved with the knower rather than the object itself. Starting with the information we have as to how the object appears to us, our task is to discover a standard or criterion by which to determine when our subjective information conforms to the truth of the thing-in-itself. What we know from appearances can be deceitful or misleading as a guide to what the real object is like. The appearance, as such, is always genuine; that is, it appears the way it appears. But it is not necessarily an indication of what the truth of the thing itself may be.9 Similarly, the concepts we form on the basis of the experiences we have are entirely our own and may or may not coincide or correspond with the things they are supposed to be concepts of. “If the sense organ is imperfect, or if it is of poor quality, if the mind is filled with deceitful prejudices, the concept is wholly vitiated.”10 So, the last class of truth, the truth of intellect, is required in order “to decide in virtue of its inborn capacity or its Common Notions whether our subjective faculties have exercised their perceptions well or ill.”11 By this standard or criterion we can judge whether there is conformity between the truth of the thing and the subjective truths of appearance and concept, and hence whether we possess objective knowledge.
In a cumbersome fashion, Herbert then proceeded to detail, step by step, the method for arriving at the different classes of subjective or conditional truth, for recognizing the Common Notions or criterion for assessing if the subjective truths conform to the truth of things, and finally for applying all this machinery to the search for truth. Since at each level there are difficulties that have been raised by the sceptics, a careful statement has to be given of the conditions for ascertaining each class of truth. Herbert first offered four conditions that the object must meet to be knowable, presenting some of these as Common Notions, universally admitted or innate truths. These conditions specify that what is to be known must fall within the range and have the characteristics that our faculties and capacities can deal with. Then, in order that the appearance of the object can be brought into conformity with the object, a further series of conditions is laid down, largely following Aristotle’s analysis of the means for obtaining true perception. Rules are presented that specify when the object is in such circumstances that we can obtain a proper likeness or appearance of it. Many of the illusory or deceptive cases of perception brought up by the sceptics can be explained and accounted for as due to the absence of one or more of the conditions.12
When a proper object of knowledge is perceived under these conditions so that a true appearance can be obtained, then we are able, under specifiable conditions, to obtain a true concept of the thing. The appearance, presumably, is “in a precise external conformity with its original,”13 and what is now required is a means for ascertaining when our internal idea of the object conforms exactly to the true appearance. Other views of Aristotle are offered concerning the proper conditions of the sense organ and the proper method for concept formation. These eliminate difficulties raised by the sceptics based on the ideas we form of things when there is some defect in our organs of sensation and reason, such as jaundice influencing colors, or drunkenness influencing our concepts of things.14
It is Herbert’s contention that when the conditions of true appearance and true concepts are fulfilled, we are then in a position to obtain unquestioned intellectual truths. The appearance conforms to, or corresponds to, the object. The concept conforms to, or corresponds to, the appearance. Then the intellect can come to true knowledge about the object by judging that the concept relates to the thing itself. “It is important to notice that the intellect is never deceived when a real object is present, or when the true rules of conformity are fulfilled … when a real object is present, even though it is drawn from memory, and the true conditions are fulfilled, I maintain that the intellect asserts truth even in dreams.”15
The basis for this great assurance that something can be known about the real world is the theory of Common Notions. Our faculties of sense and reason alone, no matter how well they were operating, would be insufficient to guarantee us any truth about objects, since by these faculties alone we could never tell whether we were in the plight the sceptics describe, living in an illusory mental universe, or, at least, one whose objectivity we could never determine, or whether we were in possession of some truths about the world. The bridge between the world revealed to us by our subjective faculties and the real world is the Common Notions that enable us to judge the veracity of our picture of the world. It is these innate truths by which “our minds are enabled to come to decisions concerning the events which take place upon the theatre of the world.” It is only by their aid that the intellect “can be led to decide whether our subjective faculties have accurate knowledge of the facts.” And it is by employing them that we are able to tell truth from falsehood.16
What are these treasures, these Common Notions? “Truths of the intellect, then, are certain Common Notions which are found in all normal persons; which notions are, so to say, constituents of all and are derived from universal wisdom and imprinted on the soul by the dictates of nature itself.”17 What is not known by the aid of these innate ideas “cannot possibly be proved to be, in the strict sense, true.”18 These fundamental truths of the intellect cannot be denied except by madmen, idiots, or others who are incapable of comprehending them. If we are sane, we must accept them, unless we prefer to be forever uncertain.19 The first, and basic, test as to whether some proposition is one of these indubitable Common Notions is whether or not it commands universal consent. If it does, then nothing could ever convince us of its falsity. Unless this standard is accepted, there is no stability in the present turmoil of conflicting opinions in religion and science. “The wretched terror-stricken mass have no refuge, unless some immovable foundations of truth resting on universal consent are established, to which they can turn amid the doubts of theology or of philosophy.”20 Thus, Herbert proclaimed, “in my view, then, Universal Consent must be taken to be the beginning and end of theology and philosophy.”21 God has providentially given us all these truths; hence they are trustworthy, as well as being the only basis that we possess for gaining knowledge of the real world.
Several passages suggest that Herbert’s scheme for discovering the truths that are universally accepted is simple empirical inspection. To find the Common Notion of Law, we are told, we must investigate, and discover those laws “which are approved of by the whole world.”22 The cases that Locke was to bring up against Herbert’s theory were anticipated and dealt with in advance. Idiots and madmen do not have to be examined, since the Common Notions are found only in normal people. (This, of course, creates a problem Herbert did not recognize, namely, how do we tell who is normal? If it is by whether one consents to a Common Notion, then how does one tell these innate truths to begin with?) Similarly, infants and embryos are discounted from the survey because they are regulated unconsciously by God.23 But, by examining normal, mature people everywhere, we find that there are some ideas that are shared by everybody, such as that there is a first cause, and a purpose to the world.24 Why we have these Common Notions we cannot tell, any more than we can explain why we have the sense experiences we do. All we can observe is that we have them, and that they are universal. “Anyone who prefers persistently and stubbornly to reject these principles might as well stop his ears, shut his eyes and strip himself of all humanity.”25
With the Common Notions we are able to arrive at a conviction, at mathematical certainty, which we could not accomplish otherwise. Those who try to gain knowledge by the external senses cannot “pierce beyond the outer shell of things” and might just as well “take food through one’s ears.”26 But our innate ideas, our natural instinct, our Common Notions, provide a basis for attaining certainty. Our logical reasoning and our interpretation of experience as a source of information about the real world have as their foundation these principles, and these principles are so fundamental that they cannot be doubted without destroying all possibility of knowledge. Thus, Herbert tells us, “for these Notions exercise an authority so profound that anyone who were to doubt them would upset the whole natural order and strip himself of his humanity. These principles may not be disputed. As long as they are understood it is impossible to deny them.”27
Without going further into Herbert of Cherbury’s ponderous theory, we can see it as an attempted answer to the problem of knowledge raised by the sceptics, which contains an elaborate method for establishing accurate or true appearances and concepts, and then offers the Common Notions as the long-sought criterion for judging the truth of our most reliable information. Every normal person possesses the standard, or the rule of truth. (If he is not aware of it, he can find it all described and codified in De Veritate.) Hence all that one has to do is first, make sure that the proper conditions of perception and concept formation have been met, and then employ the proper Common Notion or Notions, thereby gaining knowledge that conforms to the thing itself. Hence, although all our ideas are subjective, we have a criterion by which we can judge when they have objective reference, and thus can discover some genuine truths. The rule of truth is guaranteed by its universality and by the conviction of certainty it implants in us, and by the fact that any questioning of the standard would have the disastrous consequences of destroying the very possibility of any objective knowledge.
This new system for meeting la crise pyrrhonienne is obviously open to sceptical objections at almost every level. It can, and has been, challenged whether there are any Common Notions, any principles on which there is such universal agreement. The ancient Pyrrhonists tried to show that every fundamental belief, whether it be in logic, metaphysics, science, ethics, and so on, has been contested by someone. Herbert might ignore this with the comment that the controversialists must have been madmen. But this raises the further sceptical problem: How does one tell who is mad and who is not, without begging the whole question at issue? Even if one could accept the claim that there are Common Notions that everybody accepts, one could still remain sceptical of Herbert’s general scheme about objective knowledge. Why should what we all accept be decisive in discovering what the real world is like? Even if we could establish reliable standards for judging the accuracy of data (though one could question why Herbert’s conditions are the right ones) and we had accurate concepts (though one could question again whether Herbert’s claims are right) and we all agreed on how to apply them, what would this tell us about the truth of things-in-themselves? Herbert’s appeal to our feeling of certainty, and our need for accepting his scheme if we are to have any real knowledge, begs the question. Even if we agree to his theory about truths of appearance, truths of concepts, and truths of intellect, we still cannot tell whether there can be any truths of things. And, until we can determine the latter, how can we ascertain if the procedures advanced by Herbert culminate in the discovery of genuine knowledge about the real world?
Although Herbert of Cherbury’s antidote to scepticism was apparently well received in its day,28 it was subjected to devastating criticisms long before Locke by Gassendi and Descartes. The former attacked it as an indefensible dogmatism that had actually failed to conquer the sceptics, while the latter attacked it for being an inadequate dogmatism that failed to refute Pyrrhonism because it had failed to come to grips with the fundamental problem at issue.
Two versions of Gassendi’s objections have come down to us, one a rather polite letter to Herbert, which was never sent, raising some basic questions, and the other, written to their common friend Diodati, containing a nasty denunciation. The second appears to represent Gassendi’s true opinion of Herbert’s new philosophical system for meeting the sceptical challenge, namely that the scheme is a maze of confusions accomplishing nothing. First, Gassendi expressed his shock that so many people, including the pope, had praised De Veritate. (But as I shall mention shortly, Gassendi, in his letter to Herbert, heaped extravagant compliments upon the author and his book.) The truth that Herbert claimed to have discovered, Gassendi declared, was unknown and unknowable. Without knowing what truth may actually be, one can discern that Herbert has not found it, and has not answered the sceptics. Just as one can tell that the king is neither in Aix nor Marseilles, without knowing definitely where he is, one can see that there is something wrong with Herbert’s schemes without having a counterdogmatism to substitute for it.29 All that one can say of the new system is that it “is only a kind of dialectic which can well have its advantages, but which does not prevent us from being able to make up a hundred other schemes of similar value and perchance of greater one.”30
Having made these comments, Gassendi then briefly formulated a sceptical difficulty that he believed brought to nothing all the efforts of Herbert of Cherbury. According to his scheme, the criterion or standard of truth is natural instinct and our interior faculties (the Common Notions), by which each of us can judge the true nature of things. But, if this is the case, how can we account for “the great contrariety of opinions that are found on almost every subject?” Every person is convinced by his own natural instinct and interior faculties. If he uses Herbert’s means to account for disagreement, each will declare that the other “is not sound and whole,” and each will believe this on the basis of his own truths of intellect. So they will arrive at an impasse, since each will naturally think he is right and will appeal to the same internal standards. They will have no criterion for determining whose views are true, for “who will be the judge of it and will be able to prove that he has the right not to be taken as one of the parties?”31
As long as there are disagreements on practically every matter, the same sceptical problem that had arisen in the Reformation will plague Herbert’s philosophy as well. Each individual can find the truth of things subjectively, according to standards within himself, but who is to judge the truth when different people disagree and are each subjectively convinced? Herbert insisted that there was universal agreement on certain basic matters, except for the views of idiots, infants, and so on. But, then, who or what can be the judge of sanity, mental health, mental maturity, if the conflicting parties each claim to possess these qualities? Therefore, Gassendi concluded, Herbert’s scheme was incapable of determining the truths of nature, since it was based on so feeble and inconstant a standard as natural instinct or inner conviction.32
Gassendi’s other letter, addressed to the author himself, develops in much more elaborate and comprehensive form a similar kind of criticism. It says, in effect, that Herbert has not refuted scepticism, and that basic sceptical difficulties could be raised that undermine the value of Herbert’s complex scheme. After flattering the author inordinately, calling him “England’s treasure,” who has arisen to succeed Francis Bacon, Gassendi showed that once the traditional sceptical distinction had been made between the truth of things-in-themselves and the truth of appearances, then Herbert’s scheme would not help in the slightest to extend our knowledge from appearances to reality. All that we are aware of is how things appear, that honey seems sweet and fire hot. To try to go beyond the knowledge of these appearances exhibits an unfortunate quality of mind, because, as yet, only God knows the real nature of things. All the machinery of De Veritate does not reveal truth to us in its purity, but rather only shows more about the conditions under which it appears to us, the conditions under which we gain adequate and useful knowledge about experience, but not the conditions under which we discover the unconditioned veritas rei. As he pointed out to Diodati, the theory of Common Notions did not really solve anything, since, first of all, there is no universal agreement on matters, and, second, we have no standards or criteria for determining whose Common Notions are the measure or rule of truth. Therefore, the sceptical crisis remains, and all that we are able to do is seek truths of appearance, while ignoring Herbert’s grandiose scheme of types of truth, conditions of truth, Common Notions, and so on, which would not aid us at all in ascertaining when our experience and concepts relate to, or conform to, the real world.33
Another, and possibly more incisive, criticism of De Veritate was given by René Descartes, who, unlike Gassendi, was most sympathetic with its aim of refuting scepticism and hence more conscious of its fundamental failure. Mersenne had sent Descartes a copy of Herbert’s book in 1639 and received a detailed discussion of the work. The work, Descartes observed, deals with “a subject on which I have worked all my life,” but “he takes a very different route than the one that I have followed.” The basic point of difference between Descartes’ work and Herbert’s is that the latter was attempting to find out what truth is, while the former insisted that he never had any doubts or difficulties on this score, because truth “is a notion so transcendentally clear that it is impossible not to know it.”34
The fundamental problem in Herbert’s approach, as Descartes saw it, was that if one did not antecedently know what truth is, one would have no way of learning it. Why should we accept Herbert’s results unless we were sure that they were true? If we could tell that they were true, we would already have to know what truth was in order to recognize that the scheme of De Veritate was a method for measuring or discovering truth. The problem being raised is similar to that of Plato’s Meno and to one of the criticisms against the Calvinist “way of examination”—how can one find the truth by means of some set of operations unless one knows what one is looking for?35 The only knowledge one can gain in this area is that of word usage; how the term verité is employed in French. But no definition aids in knowing the nature of truth. This notion, like several other fundamental ideas such as figure, size, motion, place and time, can only be known intuitively. When one attempts to define them, “one obscures them, and one becomes mixed up.” The man who walks around a room understands what motion is better than the person who learns the definition from a textbook. And so with truth, supposedly. The man who has experienced or has known a truth can better understand the problem of knowledge than the person who sets down a lot of definitions and procedures for discovering a truth. Herbert had many measuring devices but could not tell what they measured. Descartes started with the awareness of a truth and constructed his measure of truth from it. Herbert might have had a criterion but could not tell if it were the criterion of truth. Descartes possessed a truth, the cogito, to test his criterion with.36
As to Herbert’s criterion itself, Descartes found it open to serious objection. Herbert “takes universal consent as the rule of his truths.” But many people (“for example all those that we know”) can agree on the same errors, so that universal consent is not a reliable standard. Descartes’ rule of truth, natural light, is the same in all men, and if they use it, they will all agree on the same truths. But, since practically no one uses his natural light, it is quite likely that much of what people agree on now is doubtful or erroneous, and that some truths that can be known have never yet been recognized or thought of.37 Further, natural instinct, which Herbert used as a fundamental source of the Common Notions, is not necessarily a reliable guide that ought to be followed. That part of our natural inclination that derives from our bodily or animal nature can be misleading, whereas only the natural instinct that is the natural light is trustworthy.38 Thus, the standard introduced by Herbert, based on common consent and natural instinct, can yield unfortunate results. Universal errors are prevalent, and our animal natures can lead us to believing all sorts of things that are not, or may not be, true.
From two different sides, that of the mitigated sceptic and the complete dogmatist, Herbert of Cherbury’s answer to scepticism was found wanting. Gassendi saw that the new scheme did not discover the truth of things and led actually to a kind of scepticism since there was, in fact, no universal agreement on anything. Descartes saw that Herbert had started in the wrong place and offered an inadequate criterion. To defeat scepticism one must know what truth is, and not seek it by a lot of procedures whose relation to the quest cannot be determined. And one must possess a criterion of truth that cannot confuse the true and the false or the doubtful.
A different part of Herbert’s contribution was to play a role in the development of religious scepticism. Herbert was one of the first to try to account for the many different forms of ancient and modern religions, seeking human reasons for the development of complicated religious belief systems. In his two writings on this, De religione laici and De religione Gentilium, errorumque apud eos causis, he gave naturalistic explanations of the development of pagan religions. His explanatory scheme was soon applied by the English deists to the three monotheistic religions as well. Herbert has been called the father of English deism, a movement that did much to undermine confidence in traditional religious belief.39
If Herbert had not offered a satisfactory solution to la crise pyrrhonienne, others were willing to attempt it. Two years after the first publication of De Veritate, Jean de Silhon (1596–1667), a curious eclectic figure, entered the field. He was one of the bright young men who aided Richelieu and Mazarin in building the new France, and he was a friend of René Descartes and Guez de Balzac, and of many of those who were trying to destroy the monsters menacing religion. Silhon’s answer to scepticism appeared as part of a large apologetic program, striking out against the enemy already within the gates, against the atheism that was rampant around him. The answer Silhon offered is interesting not only in terms of its place in the history of the counterattack against the nouveaux pyrrhoniens but also for some striking similarities to Descartes’ thought that occur within it, as well as for some ideas that Pascal may have drawn from it.
The general plan of Silhon’s work can best be understood in terms of the apologetic movement of the time. There are doubters of the true religion everywhere. In order to defend the faith, it is not enough to point out what God requires that we believe. One must first establish that there is a God and that we possess an immortal soul. But before one can arrive at these basic truths, one must first eliminate one of the causes of irreligion—scepticism. The Pyrrhonists deny the very possibility of knowledge; hence, before the two basic truths of religion can be known, one must first show that knowledge in general is possible, and next that this particular knowledge can be attained. Thus, the apologetic goal can only be achieved after the Pyrrhonism of Montaigne40 has been refuted.41
Before examining Silhon’s answer to Pyrrhonism, I would like to add a few words, parenthetically, on the strange interpretation offered by the famous French scholar Fortunat Strowski, who accused Silhon of being a freethinker like Naudé. The only apologetic element Strowski could perceive was that Silhon was apologizing for the politics of his master, Richelieu. Strowski classed Silhon with the worst villains of the period because, he said, first, Silhon was a “mediocre writer” (which, while true, hardly shows that he was insincere) and, second, he was a plagiarist, pilfering ideas from Descartes’ unpublished works (“Silhon pilfers from him without shame”). But, even if this were true, it would hardly provide evidence of libertinage. Further, as I will show, there is grave difficulty in determining whether Silhon or Descartes was responsible for their common ideas. At any rate, nothing in Silhon’s text, or our knowledge about him suggests that he was really against or indifferent to the apologetic cause, but rather that in his own, perhaps feeble, way he was trying to stem the tide of scepticism and irreligion.42
Silhon’s campaign began in 1626 with the publication of his Les Deux Veritez, a title reminiscent of Charron’s. At the outset, in his Discours Prémier, Silhon attacked the opinion, accepted even by some Christians, that there is no science of anything, and that all can be doubted. Christians have the Scriptures that inform them that visible things can lead to invisible truths and hence they ought not to be sceptics. And philosophers are aware “of propositions and maxims invested with so much clarity, and carrying in themselves so much evidence, that at the same time they are conceived, one is convinced of them, and that it is impossible that there be an understanding which could reject them.”43 As examples of such truths, Silhon offered “everything is, or is not. That everything that has being either gets it from itself or has received it from another. That the whole is greater than its parts, etc.”44 From these we are able to draw inferences.
The Pyrrhonist, if he is not yet convinced, either knows there can be no science and hence has a science consisting of this truth, or he does not know there can be no science and hence has no reason to make the claim. “As for this chain and string of doubts of Mr. Montaigne in favor of Pyrrhonism, it accomplishes the contrary of his design, and wishing to prove that there is no knowledge, in order to humble the vanity it often inspires us with, he makes our understandings capable of an infinite progress of acts.”45 The last point offered by Silhon was similar to one of Herbert’s, namely the appeal to the naturalness of our reasoning abilities, our natural inclination to accept rationality. Assuming that these tendencies have been implanted in us by Nature, would they have been implanted in us if they did not lead to truth?46
In his first effort to defeat the Pyrrhonists, Silhon fell far short of the mark— either begging the question or missing the point. The Pyrrhonist was questioning not that certain propositions seem true but whether we have adequate evidence that they are. He was trying to avoid the positive contention that nothing can be known but would suspend judgment on the question instead. And finally, the Pyrrhonist could easily question Silhon’s assumption that our faculties are the result of a benevolent Nature and hence can be trusted.
After this initial sally against Pyrrhonism, Silhon began to see that his case might not be adequate to the task of defeating scepticism, if the opponent were really determined. So, in his second book of 1634, De l’immortalité de l’Ame, a much more searching and interesting argument is offered, reflecting perhaps his acquaintance with the young René Descartes47 or possibly his acquaintance with such Pyrrhonists as La Mothe Le Vayer.48 After one hundred pages devoted to the Machiavellians’ theory that the doctrine of immortality is an invention for reasons of policy, Silhon, in his Discours Second, presented a “Refutation of Pyrrhonism and of the reasons that Montaigne sets forth to establish it.”49 The purpose in discussing scepticism was the same as before; in order to show that God exists, and that the soul is immortal, it is first necessary to show that knowledge is possible. If one doubts our knowledge, then one might doubt that the Revelation comes from God, and, then, all certitude would vanish. The doubts that the sceptics cast on our sense knowledge have grave consequences for a Christian, since his religious knowledge depends on such signs from God as the miracles of Jesus, which are known through the senses.50 Hence “if the Christians who have protected Pyrrhonism had foreseen the consequences of this error, I do not doubt that they would have abandoned it.”51 Even Montaigne, Silhon suggested, did not actually fully believe in Pyrrhonism but was only attacking the presumption of people who tried to reason out too much.52
The attack on Pyrrhonism, which will show that it is an extravagant view, and an insupportable error in ordinary reason, and contrary to experience,53 begins with an extended version of the point that to assert that there is no science of anything is self-defeating. If this is known to be true, then we have knowledge, and if it is not, then why should we assume ignorance to be the measure or rule of all things? If the proposition “There is no science of anything” is either self-evident or demonstrable, then there is at least one science, namely that one that contains this true principle.54 At this point, after going over old ground, Silhon observed that Montaigne had not fallen into this trap, since Montaigne’s Pyrrhonist was too dubious and irresolute to affirm even that nothing can be known. But this defense, Silhon contended, leads to a ridiculous infinitude of doubts as to whether one is certain that one ought to doubt that one doubts, and so on. Anyone possessing common sense and reason can see that one either has to have a final experienced certain and infallible knowledge55 by which one understands both evidently and necessarily either that one knows something, or one does not, or else one has doubts. And, at this point, Montaigne’s defense will have ended.
But, supposing that Pyrrhonism is a reasonable view, let us consider whether our senses and our understanding are as weak and fallacious as the sceptics claim. We have, as Silhon had previously claimed in his Deux Veritez, basic principles that our understanding, as soon as they are presented to it, “comprehends them and takes hold of them without any difficulty,”56 for example, everything is necessary or contingent; the whole is greater than its parts, and so on. Only people determined to deny everything can deny these truths. The rest of us can use these as the fundamentals for developing sciences.57
Silhon then proceeded to develop the last part of his answer from his previous volume. Nature would have made a great mistake if we possess this violent inclination to know, and knowledge is impossible. Our arts and sciences for finding truth would be superfluous were there no truth. There cannot be sciences or arts of impossible things, and, thus, if we have sciences and arts they must then have possible aims. The fact that we have rules of logic for finding truths, and distinguishing them from falsehoods, would seem to require some knowledge from which to construct the rules, just as the drawing of maps of the New World requires its having already been discovered.58 Thus, in this question-begging fashion, Silhon insisted that since we have a criterion that we accept as true, we must possess truth; however, he did not see that the criterion could still be challenged unless we already knew some truth and could show that the standards in use really were the proper measures of it.
After this, Silhon took up what he regarded as “the chief argument of Montaigne,” the deceptiveness of our senses. If there is nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses, and the senses are faulty or deceptive, then all our reasoning is unsure. Silhon listed the sort of evidence used by Montaigne—illusions, illness, madness, and dreams—then asked if Montaigne were right.59 If he were, this would amount to blasphemy, since it would deny the goodness and competence of our Maker. We must believe in the reliability of our senses, for “the confusion is too great to think that God did not know how to prevent it, and it would be too injurious to His Goodness, and counter to the infinite testimonies that we have to His Love, to think that He has not willed it.”60 The wisdom and goodness of God require that our senses be accurate. But, then, how are Montaigne’s cases to be accounted for? Silhon explained illusions as due to misuses of our senses, in terms of Aristotle’s analysis. If the senses are functioning properly and employed under proper conditions, they do not err. Illusions are all “fortuitous and rare cases, these are things accidental to sight and contrary to the order that nature has set up for its operation.”61 Reason and reliable sense operation can eliminate any possibility of deception when one perceives a bent oar, and so on. The problem of dreams can also easily be solved. Rational people can tell the difference between sleeping and waking and hence there is no real difficulty. When they wake up, they can tell that their previous experience was part of a dream. The same is true for the odd experiences had when drunk or sick.62
At this point, Silhon smugly announced that he had refuted the claim that all our knowledge is deceptive and uncertain. But, possibly from his conversations with Descartes, Silhon realized that a really “tough-minded” sceptic would not have been convinced by this alleged refutation of Montaigne. In order to satisfy the most determined of Pyrrhonists, Silhon had one final argument—“here is certain knowledge, no matter in what sense it is considered or whenever it is examined, and of which it is impossible that a man who is capable of reflection and reason can doubt and not be certain.”63 This certain knowledge is that each person can tell that he is, that he has being. Even if his senses are deceptive and even if he cannot distinguish hallucinations, imaginings, and dreams from actual experiences, a man cannot be deceived in judging “that he is” and if it be the case “that he is not.”64 Having presented what appears to be either an anticipation of, or a borrowing from, Descartes’ refutation of scepticism, Silhon then explained why a man cannot deny his own existence. The explanation indicates that he had missed the crucial nature of the cogito almost entirely. Silhon declared that God can make something out of nothing, “but to make that which does not exist, act as if it does, involves a contradiction. This is what the nature of things will not allow. This is what is completely impossible.”65
Thus, according to Silhon, the undeniability of our own existence is not due to the truth of the cogito, which is indubitable. Its undeniability depends on its derivation from a metaphysical claim that whatever acts exists. If I thought I existed, and yet did not, this would be a contradiction of the metaphysical law, and, apparently, not even God is allowed to contradict it. Even in Silhon’s final presentation of his case, in his De la Certitude des Connoissances humaines of 1661, after he had ample opportunity to study Descartes’ writings, he still derived his cogito from the principle that operation or action supposes being, and not even God can make act what does not exist.66
In his answer to scepticism, Silhon appears to have seen that the truth or certitude of one’s own existence was significant, and also that this truth could be used to establish God’s existence.67 But he did not understand why, or how, this crucial certitude refuted scepticism and hence he failed to begin the revolution in thought that Descartes’ publication three years later was to accomplish. By deriving the cogito from a metaphysical maxim that he had never shown must be true, he allowed the sceptic the same rejoinder he could raise against all of Silhon’s types of refutations of Pyrrhonism; namely, how do we know that the premises being employed are true, how do we know that the rules of logic do measure truth and falsity, that our sense faculties are the product of a benevolent Creator, that our senses are accurate under certain conditions, and that whatever acts exists? Unless Silhon could offer proof of his premises, the sceptic could continue to raise his doubts. At best, all that Silhon had accomplished by adding the cogito was to single out one curious fact (though it is almost lost in the morass of Silhon’s text): that it seems impossible to deny one’s existence. And if this had to be admitted, then there would be at least one thing the sceptic could not challenge.68 But it was left to his brooding friend René Descartes to see the immense implications of the cogito and to construct a new dogmatism from it.
Silhon’s own positive theory of knowledge is quite eclectic and unexciting, except for a couple of elements that were to play a role in the struggles against Pyrrhonism, especially in the views of Blaise Pascal. In order to maintain that we can know genuine truths, Silhon modified the Aristotelian dictum nihil in intellectu… by maintaining that truth involves universals, not sensed particulars, and that infallible and certain truths can be attained without any sense information, since “our Understandings are neither as poor nor as sterile as some believe.”69 There are some principles that have no need of “other illumination in order to be known”70 and that no one can refuse to consent to. These can be used to gain further knowledge by means of demonstrations physiques, in which the conclusions are connected with the certain principles “by an indissoluble link,” and in which the conclusions emanate from the principles and receive “the influence and light from all the principles on which they depend.”71
Unfortunately, the sort of complete certitude resulting from demonstrations physiques is quite rare, and so Silhon introduced a lesser degree of certainty, that of demonstrations morales, to account for most of what we know. Unlike the most certain kind of knowledge, which cannot be doubted, this other kind is conclusive, “but not evidently so.”72 The weight of all the materials, authorities, and opinions produces a conviction in a demonstration moral, but never produces l’évidence that would be needed to attain complete certitude. Since this weaker type of demonstration is only formed when all the available information has been examined, no demonstration morale could conflict with other knowledge we already possessed. If there were conflicting information, one would not be able to come to any conclusion. Therefore, a demonstration morale, though not absolutely certain, yields a type of certainty that is reliable enough to give us true knowledge; unless per impossible, all the information available to us could somehow be part of a conspiracy to lead us astray, “it is impossible that Demonstration Physique ever deceive … it will also never happen that Morale fail.”73
Anyone capable of rational discourse, who is free from prejudices inculcated by education and custom, and who weighs the information available carefully, will come to the same conclusion by means of the demonstrations morales. If, in spite of this, one is still worried that these demonstrations may be convincing but deceptive, he should realize that this type of knowledge has been given to us by God, in his wisdom and goodness, in order to resolve most of the problems that confront us. To challenge the reliability of this sort of knowledge is to blaspheme against God, and to accuse him of allowing our most rational form of behavior to lead us astray on grave and important matters.74 And it is by means of demonstrations morales that we are led to the Christian [Catholic] religion. If one examines the historical, ethical, and scriptural information available, “after having considered all these matters, there is no understanding which has a little common sense, and is not carried away by passion, which can infer anything but that it is only the Christian religion that has come immediately from God.”75 The Jews are too prejudiced by custom and education; the Protestants are too argumentative and do not look at the evidence. But those who are reasonable can see that only Christianity is supported by demonstrations morales, and that these types of demonstrations are sufficient to justify our actions until God reveals the truth in all its firmness to us.
The last feature of Silhon’s positive theory deals with the problem of decision when we do not have sufficient information to construct either type of demonstration. Our choice here is based on something similar to Pascal’s wager. If both “God exists” and “God does not exist” are equally dubious, and “The soul is immortal” and “The soul is mortal” are equally dubious, one would choose to believe the religious alternatives, because, although they are not capable of either type of demonstration, there is no risk involved if they are false. But if they are true, there would be a risk in the nonreligious alternative.76
Silhon concluded by pointing out that although we may not like it, we are such that we will have little knowledge based on demonstrations physiques, and we cannot change this state of affairs. We have to live our lives by means of demonstrations morales, which make our lives a trial, since it is only by our will, which makes us assent, that we are led to important truths like the Divinity of Jesus, the truth of the Christian religion, and the immortality of the soul.77
Silhon’s answer to scepticism is probably even less satisfactory than that of Herbert of Cherbury. He appealed repeatedly either to the fact that certain things were taken for granted or to the claim that to raise doubts at certain points would amount to blaspheming against the wisdom and goodness of God. But the sceptic could easily question the metaphysical premises or the question-begging arguments offered by Silhon, unless Silhon could show that propositions he took for granted had to be true. Even the demonstrations physiques could be challenged, either by denying the self-evidence of the principles used as premises or by denying that they were really demonstrative. The demonstrations morales, by their author’s own admission, fall short of the certitude required in order to vanquish the Pyrrhonist, unless one accepts Silhon’s views about the source of our faculties and divine benevolence. And, here, the sceptics from ancient to modern times had raised sufficient doubts to require some basis for asserting the divine origin and guarantee of our sensual and rational capacities. Silhon’s friend René Descartes evidently realized how far such an attempt to refute scepticism had missed the mark, for he undertook to answer the sceptical crisis by assuming not the best but the worst state of affairs—that our faculties are corrupt, deceptive, and possibly demonically organized.78 And Pascal, who apparently admired Silhon enough to borrow some of his ideas, saw that the possibility of refuting Pyrrhonism depended on the origin of our nature, whether it is created by a good God, an evil demon, or chance. Only if we could establish the first could we trust our faculties, and, unfortunately, we cannot do so except by faith.79
Even in presenting his important new answer to scepticism, the cogito, Silhon had failed to realize either the force of what he was opposing or the crucial character of the undeniable truth that he had discovered. Descartes, in two letters that may be about Silhon’s cogito, indicated what was lacking here. In considering the suggestion that our existence can be established from the fact that we breathe, Descartes insisted that nothing else but the fact that we think is absolutely certain. Any other proposition is open to some doubt as to whether it is true.80 But the cogito, Descartes pointed out (in a letter to either the Marquis of Newcastle or Silhon), is not “an achievement of your reasoning, nor a lesson that your teachers have given you” but, rather, “your mind sees it, feels it, and touches it.”81 One does not arrive at the cogito on the basis of other propositions, which are all less certain and open to doubt, but one encounters the truth and force of the cogito in itself alone. Silhon, at best, had seen that the sceptic could not deny the cogito and hence he could not deny that something was true. But he did not see what it was that was true, or what this might show.
Both Herbert of Cherbury and Jean de Silhon labored mightily in constructing new answers to the nouveaux pyrrhoniens. But in failing to grasp the full force of the sceptical crisis, they also failed to offer any satisfactory solution to it. The heroic effort to save human knowledge was to be made by their great contemporary, René Descartes, who saw that only by admitting the full and total impact of complete Pyrrhonism could one be prepared to meet the serious problem at issue.