René Descartes:

Rationalism is a philosophical view that emphasizes reason as the primary source of knowledge and justi cation, rather than
sensory experience.
• Rationalists believe that certain knowledge can be gained through reason alone, without relying entirely on the
senses.

• Example: Mathematical truths (e.g., 2 + 2 = 4) are known through reason, not observation.

is widely regarded as the founder of modern philosophy, notable for constructing philosophy from the ground up, much like
Aristotle and Plato. In uenced by the scienti c revolution, he broke from the scholastic tradition and wrote in a clear,
unpedantic style, addressing intelligent laypeople rather than academic pupils.

Life and Education: Born to a family of moderate means (his father was a councillor), Descartes was educated at the Jesuit
college of La Flèche from 1604-1612, where he received excellent mathematical training. After inheriting and selling his
father's estates, he lived comfortably on investment income of 6,000-7,000 francs annually.

Later Life and Work: Avoided public attention and lived quietly in Holland for 20 years (1629–1649), a haven for free thought
in that era. He also avoided publishing Le Monde due to fear of persecution for its support of Copernican astronomy and the
in nity of the universe—both considered heretical at the time. Though a sincere Catholic, he sought to persuade the Church to
accept scienti c progress.

Personal Life and Character

• Descartes never married but had a natural daughter who died at age ve—his greatest personal sorrow.

• He was known for being well-dressed, carrying a sword, and working short hours with intense focus.

• Though he read little, he brought only a few books to Holland, notably the Bible and Thomas Aquinas.

Mathematical and Scienti c Contributions: Descartes's greatest mathematical achievement was inventing coordinate
geometry - the system of determining a point's position using distances from two xed lines. While he had predecessors in
analytic methods and applying algebra to geometry, the coordinate system was his original contribution that made future
mathematical progress much easier.

In science, he developed a mechanistic worldview presented in his "Principia Philosophiae" (1644). He viewed animal and
human bodies as machines, with animals being pure automata lacking consciousness. Humans were different only in
possessing souls located in the pineal gland, where the soul could redirect (but not create) the motion of "animal spirits" to
control the body.

The Mind-Body Problem and Occasionalism

Descartes's theory of mind-body interaction, particularly the role of the pineal gland, was eventually abandoned by his
followers, including Geulincx, Malebranche, and Spinoza. The discovery of the conservation of momentum by physicists
demonstrated that the mind-on-matter interaction Descartes envisioned was impossible. If all physical action was due to
impact, then dynamic laws alone determined the motions of matter, leaving no room for mental in uence.

This raised a critical question: If mind and matter couldn't interact, why did the body seem to respond to the mind's will?
Geulincx proposed the theory of "two clocks" to address this. He suggested that mind and body are like two perfectly
synchronized clocks, each running independently but appearing to cause the other's actions because God wound them up to

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 keep perfect time. So, when a person wills their arm to move, physical laws cause the arm's movement in parallel, without the
will directly acting on the body.

While innovative, Geulincx's theory had its challenges. It was an unusual explanation, and if the physical series was strictly
deterministic, the parallel mental series would also have to be. This implied a "dictionary" could potentially translate brain
events into corresponding mental events, or even predict words and actions based on bodily movements. Such a deterministic
view posed dif culties for Christian ethics and the concept of sin. Nevertheless, the "two clocks" theory was seen to have two
merits: it made the soul entirely independent of the body and upheld the principle that "one substance cannot act on another,"
explaining the appearance of interaction without its reality.

Mechanics and Cosmogony

In mechanics, Descartes embraced the rst law of motion (constant velocity in a straight line for an unacted-upon body). He
rejected action at a distance, the existence of a vacuum, and atoms, believing all interaction occurred through impact. He
envisioned a future where chemistry and biology could be reduced to mechanical processes, dispensing with Aristotle's concept
of multiple "souls" in favor of a single rational soul existing only in humans.

Cautiously avoiding theological censure, Descartes developed a cosmogony (theory of the universe's origin) that posited how
the world might have formed naturally. His theory of vortices suggested an immense vortex around the sun carrying planets in
circular orbits. While ingenious and widely accepted in France for a time, it failed to explain elliptical planetary orbits and was
eventually supplanted by Newtonian theory.

The Method of Cartesian Doubt: Descartes's most in uential philosophical contribution appears in his "Discourse on
Method" (1637) and "Meditations" (1642). He developed systematic doubt as a method to nd certain knowledge. He
doubted:

1. Sensory experience - since dreams and hallucinations can deceive

2. Physical reality - since dream objects seem real
3. Even mathematics - supposing an evil demon might make him err in basic calculations
The Cogito - "I Think, Therefore I Am": Through this radical doubt, Descartes arrived at one indubitable truth: even if an evil
demon deceives him about everything else, he cannot doubt that he exists as a thinking being. This "cogito ergo sum" became
the foundation of his philosophy and arguably the most important insight in modern philosophy.

Historical Impact: While Saint Augustine used a similar argument, Descartes recognized its fundamental importance. His
emphasis on the cogito made mind more certain than matter and established subjectivism as a central concern in philosophy.
This in uence shaped both Continental idealism and British empiricism, making the theory of knowledge central to
philosophical inquiry. Most subsequent philosophy has grappled with the problems Descartes formulated, even when rejecting
his solutions.

The passage portrays Descartes as establishing the foundational questions and methods that would dominate modern
philosophy, particularly the primacy of consciousness and the problem of certain knowledge.

The Nature of the Self and Thinking: From the cogito, Descartes concludes that he exists only as long as he thinks. The self is
purely a "thinking thing" - a substance whose entire essence is thought, requiring no physical location or material existence.
The soul is thus completely distinct from and more knowable than the body. Descartes de nes "thinking" very broadly to
include doubting, understanding, willing, imagining, and even feeling (as in dreams), meaning the mind must always be
thinking, even during sleep.

Knowledge of the External World - The Wax Example: To demonstrate how we know material objects, Descartes analyzes a
piece of wax. While its sensory qualities (taste, smell, color, hardness) change when heated, the wax itself persists. He
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concludes that the wax's true nature - extension, exibility, and motion - is understood by mind alone, not through the senses.
Knowledge of external things must come through mental inspection, not sensory experience, which is confused and shared
with animals.

Three Types of Ideas: Descartes categorizes ideas as: (1) innate, (2) foreign (from external sources), and (3) invented by us. He
questions why we assume sensory ideas resemble external objects, noting that mere inclination to believe something doesn't
make it true, and that involuntary ideas (like dreams) can come from within. He points out that we can have different ideas of
the same object (like the sun as perceived versus as understood astronomically), showing that not all ideas can resemble their
objects.

The Role of God: To escape complete skepticism about the external world, Descartes argues that God's existence must rst be
proved. Once God's goodness is established, it follows that He wouldn't deceive us about the existence of bodies, since He gave
us strong inclinations to believe in them. God also provides the faculty for correcting errors through the principle of clear and
distinct ideas.

Critique of Descartes's Method: The author notes that while Descartes's destructive doubt was revolutionary, his constructive
phase was less compelling. He uncritically accepted scholastic principles (like effects can't exceed their causes) without
subjecting them to the same rigorous doubt as other beliefs. More fundamentally, the cogito itself is problematic - Descartes
should have concluded "there are thoughts" rather than "I think," since the existence of a thinking substance (the "I") isn't
actually proven by the experience of thinking.

Historical Impact and Dualism: Descartes's philosophy had two major consequences:

1. Completed Mind-Body Dualism: Building on Platonic and Christian traditions, Descartes established two completely
parallel but independent realms - mind and matter - each studiable without reference to the other. This eliminated the
need for Aristotelian souls or entelechies to explain natural phenomena.
2. Deterministic Materialism: Cartesian physics made all material processes, including living organisms, subject to
mechanical laws. Although Descartes allowed human souls to redirect (not create) motion, this exception was
abandoned by followers as inconsistent. The result was complete physical determinism and, by parallelism, mental
determinism, creating problems for free will and potentially leading to pure materialism.
Philosophical Legacy: Descartes's inconsistencies - torn between new science and scholastic training - made him more
philosophically fertile than a perfectly consistent thinker might have been. Rather than founding a new scholasticism, his
internal tensions generated two divergent but important philosophical traditions, establishing the fundamental problems and
approaches that would dominate subsequent philosophy. His elevation of thoughts over external objects as the foundation of
knowledge profoundly shaped all later philosophical inquiry.

The Cartesian Method: Methodic Doubt

Descartes's method is characterized by systematic and hyperbolic doubt. It's not skepticism for skepticism's sake, but rather a
tool to arrive at certainty. Here's how it works:

1. Doubt Everything Possible: Descartes resolved to provisionally treat as false anything of which he could nd the
slightest reason to doubt. This meant questioning all his previously held beliefs, no matter how seemingly obvious.
He categorized beliefs by their source:

◦ Sensory experience: He noted that his senses had sometimes deceived him (e.g., distant objects appear
small, a stick in water looks bent), and therefore he couldn't fully trust them. He even extended this with his
Dream Argument, suggesting that there's no sure way to distinguish waking experience from a vivid dream,

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 meaning all sensory experience could be an illusion.

◦ Reason and Mathematics: Even seemingly certain truths of arithmetic and geometry could be doubted if he
posited an "evil demon" (or a deceiving God) who was all-powerful and dedicated to misleading him in
every thought. This "evil demon" hypothesis pushed his doubt to its extreme, making it "hyperbolic" – an
exaggerated form of doubt designed to test the absolute limits of certainty.
◦ Authority and Tradition: He dismissed knowledge derived from tradition or authority, as different authorities
often disagree.
2. Analyze and Simplify: Once a belief was accepted as true, it should be broken down into its simplest components.

3. Proceed from Simple to Complex: Start with the simplest, most easily understood problems and gradually build up to
more complex ones.

4. Complete Enumeration: Ensure that no step or element in the reasoning process is omitted, guaranteeing
completeness and logical coherence.

The purpose of this intense doubt was not to deny the possibility of knowledge, but to sweep away all uncertain beliefs, leaving
only those that were absolutely immune to doubt

Certain Knowledge: The Cogito and Clear & Distinct Perceptions

Through this rigorous process of doubt, Descartes arrived at his rst and most fundamental certain truth: the "Cogito, ergo sum"
(Latin for "I think, therefore I am").

• The Cogito: Even if an evil demon were deceiving him about everything, Descartes realized that for him to be
deceived, he must exist as a thinking thing. The very act of doubting or thinking implies an existing "I" that is doing
the doubting or thinking. This insight was not an inference in the traditional sense, but an immediate intuition – a
self-evident truth that could not be denied. "I think" is his ultimate premise, proving his existence as a "thinking
thing" (res cogitans).
Having established the certainty of his own existence as a thinking being, Descartes needed a criterion to identify other certain
truths. He concluded that the cogito was certain because it was clear and distinct. This led him to formulate his general rule for
truth: "All things that we conceive very clearly and very distinctly are true.

• Clear and Distinct Perceptions:

◦ Clear: A perception is clear when it is "present and accessible to the attentive mind," like a vivid and well-
focused image.
◦ Distinct: A perception is distinct when it is "sharply separated from all other perceptions so that it contains
within itself only what is clear." It's so precisely de ned that it cannot be confused with anything else.
Descartes used the wax argument to illustrate this. When a piece of wax melts, its sensible qualities (smell, color, hardness, etc.)
change completely. Yet, we understand it's still the same wax. This understanding doesn't come from the senses, which only
perceive changing qualities, nor from imagination (as wax can take in nite forms). Instead, it comes from an "inspection of the
mind," a clear and distinct intellectual perception of the wax's unchanging essence (extension, exibility, motion). This
demonstrates that knowledge of external things is attained by the mind, not the senses.

The Role of God in Guaranteeing Knowledge

Despite the power of clear and distinct perceptions, a lingering doubt remained: could an evil demon (or even God) still
deceive him about these seemingly clear and distinct truths when he was not actively attending to them? To secure the

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certainty of knowledge beyond the immediate moment of perception, Descartes introduced his proofs for the existence of a
benevolent God.

• Since God is supremely good and perfect, He would not be a deceiver.

• Therefore, God would not allow Descartes to be systematically deceived about what he clearly and distinctly perceives.
• This divine guarantee ensures that clear and distinct perceptions, once apprehended, can be trusted even when not
actively being thought about. It also validates the existence of the external world, as God would be a deceiver if He
gave us such a strong inclination to believe in bodies if they didn't exist.
In summary, Descartes's Cartesian method, starting with radical doubt, led him to the undeniable certainty of his own existence
as a thinking being (Cogito, ergo sum). From this foundational truth, he established the criterion of "clear and distinct
perceptions" as the hallmark of genuine knowledge. The existence of a non-deceiving God then served to validate the enduring
reliability of these clear and distinct perceptions, thereby allowing Descartes to rebuild the edi ce of human knowledge on a
supposedly unshakeable foundation.

Mechanics and Cosmogony:

• His acceptance of the rst law of motion.

• His rejection of action at a distance, vacuum, and atoms.
• His belief that chemistry and biology could be reduced to mechanics.
• His vortex theory of the universe and why it was eventually replaced by Newton's theory (inability to explain elliptical
orbits, theological arguments).

Cartesian Dualism, also known as substance dualism, is a philosophical doctrine proposed by René Descartes that posits that
there are two fundamentally different kinds of substances in the universe: mind (or soul/spirit) and matter (or body). These two
substances are distinct and independent of each other in their essential nature.

The Doctrine of Cartesian Dualism

Descartes's dualism is built upon his method of doubt and his foundational discovery, the Cogito, ergo sum ("I think, therefore I
am").

• Mind (Res Cogitans - Thinking Thing):

◦ Essential Attribute: Thought (consciousness, doubting, understanding, willing, imagining, feeling).

◦ Nature: Immaterial, indivisible, unextended (takes up no space), non-spatial.
◦ Certainty: The mind's existence is immediately and indubitably known through introspection (the Cogito). "I
can doubt everything except that I, the doubter, exist." This "I" is a thinking thing.
• Matter (Res Extensa - Extended Thing):

◦ Essential Attribute: Extension (occupying space, having dimension).

◦ Nature: Material, divisible, extended, spatial.
◦ Certainty: The existence of matter is not immediately certain. It is inferred and guaranteed by the existence
of a benevolent, non-deceiving God, who would not allow us to be systematically deceived about our clear
and distinct perception of extended things.
Main Arguments & Criticisms

1. Argument from Doubt (Conceivability Argument)

• Claim: Descartes can doubt his body’s existence but not his mind’s. Therefore, they are distinct.

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 • Criticism:

◦ Leibniz’s Law: Epistemic doubt ≠ actual distinction.

◦ Conceivability ≠ Possibility: Imagining separateness doesn’t prove actual separateness.

2. Argument from Divisibility

• Claim: Body is divisible; mind is not. Hence, they are different substances.

• Criticism:

◦ Mind isn't strictly indivisible: Brain damage or disorders can fragment consciousness.

◦ Category mistake: Comparing physical divisibility with psychological unity is awed.

3. Argument from Consciousness / Qualia

• Claim: Conscious experiences (qualia) can't be explained physically, implying a non-material mind.

• Criticism:

◦ Emergence: Consciousness might arise from brain processes, like wetness from water molecules.

◦ Still unexplained: Dualism offers space for qualia but doesn’t explain how it works.

⚠ Major Objection: The Problem of Interaction

• Issue: How can immaterial mind and material body interact if they share no common properties?

• Descartes’ Solution: Pineal gland—but this doesn’t explain the actual mechanism.

• Later Responses:

◦ Occasionalism (Geulincx, Malebranche): God causes interactions.

◦ Pre-established Harmony (Leibniz): Mind and body are synchronized by God without direct interaction.

📚 Overall Impact & Legacy

• Cartesian Dualism preserved ideas of free will, morality, and consciousness.

• But it faces serious challenges—especially explaining mind-body interaction.

• Despite criticisms, it shaped the modern mind-body debate and remains in uential.

Discuss the main characteristics of Rationalism with special reference to Descartes.

Introduction:

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Rationalism is a major epistemological theory in philosophy that emphasizes reason as the primary source of knowledge. It
holds that certain truths can be discovered independently of sensory experience. René Descartes (1596–1650) is often
considered the father of modern rationalism, as his philosophy laid the foundational framework for this approach.

🔑 Main Characteristics of Rationalism

1. Primacy of Reason

• Rationalists assert that reason alone can lead to certain and universal knowledge, particularly in elds like
mathematics and logic.

• Descartes believed that human reason is capable of discovering truths that are not derived from the senses.

2. Innate Ideas

• Rationalists hold that some ideas are inborn and do not come from experience.

• Descartes argued that ideas such as God, perfection, and certain mathematical principles are innate and placed in the
mind by God.

3. A Priori Knowledge

• Rationalism emphasizes a priori knowledge—truths that can be known independently of experience (e.g., "2 + 3 =
5").

• Descartes believed that through the use of reason, one can deduce truths without reference to the empirical world.

4. Certainty and Clarity

• Descartes introduced the criterion of "clear and distinct ideas" as the standard of truth.

• He believed that anything we perceive clearly and distinctly must be true, as deception by a benevolent God is
impossible.

5. Methodical Doubt (Cartesian Method)

• Descartes proposed systematic doubt as a method to discard all uncertain beliefs.

• By doubting everything, including the senses, he arrived at a single indubitable truth:

“Cogito, ergo sum” – “I think, therefore I am”

6. Deductive Method

• Rationalists prefer deductive reasoning: deriving conclusions logically from self-evident principles.

• Descartes modeled his method on mathematics, aiming to derive a system of knowledge from indubitable
foundations.

🧠 Descartes’ Contributions to Rationalism

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 • Cogito Argument: Established the thinking self as the foundation of knowledge.

• Dualism: Distinguished between mind (thinking substance) and body (extended substance), both of which can be
known through reason.

• Proof of God: Argued for God’s existence based on the idea of perfection, which he claimed could not come from an
imperfect being like himself.

📌 Conclusion

Rationalism, especially as developed by Descartes, emphasizes that knowledge begins with doubt but is grounded in reason.
Descartes’ method of critical doubt, belief in innate ideas, and reliance on deductive logic laid the groundwork for modern
philosophy. His rationalist approach deeply in uenced subsequent thinkers and continues to shape debates in epistemology
and metaphysics.

Are there two or three substances in Descartes’s philosophy? Discuss.

Introduction:

René Descartes (1596–1650), the founder of modern rationalism, is known for his theory of substance dualism, which
distinguishes between mind and matter. However, his philosophy also includes God, raising the question: Does Descartes
propose two substances or three?

To answer this, we must examine Descartes’s de nitions and treatment of God, mind (res cogitans), and matter (res extensa).

What Is a Substance in Descartes’s Philosophy?

According to Descartes, a substance is:

“That which exists in such a way as to depend on no other being for its existence.”

By this de nition:

• Only God is truly independent.

• Mind and matter, though called substances, depend on God for their continued existence and are therefore
subordinate substances.

🔹 Three Substances View:

1. God (In nite Substance):

◦ Truly independent, in nite, perfect.

◦ The source and sustainer of all other substances.

◦ Without God, neither mind nor matter could exist.

◦ Plays a foundational metaphysical role in Descartes’s system.

◦ Ensures the truth of clear and distinct ideas and the reliability of reason.

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 2. Mind (Res Cogitans – Thinking Substance):

◦ Immaterial, indivisible, conscious.

◦ De ned by thought (including doubting, willing, imagining, etc.).

◦ Known through introspection and the cogito ("I think, therefore I am").

3. Matter (Res Extensa – Extended Substance):

◦ Material, divisible, measurable.

◦ De ned by extension in space.

◦ Governed by mechanical laws of motion and physics.

In this view, Descartes acknowledges three substances: one in nite (God) and two nite (mind and matter).

🔹 Two Substances View:

However, many scholars emphasize that in practical philosophical terms, Descartes often refers primarily to two created
substances:

• Mind and matter, each with its own essential attribute.

• God, although a substance in the metaphysical sense, is not part of the dualistic framework of the created world in the
same way.

• In epistemology and psychology, Descartes is mainly concerned with the interaction between mind and body, not
God.

Hence, some interpret Cartesian philosophy as a dualistic system in terms of created reality, and reserve God's status as a
special, uncreated being—ontologically above the mind-matter distinction.

• In conclusion, the answer depends on context:

◦ Metaphysically, Descartes posits three substances: God (in nite), mind, and matter (both nite).

◦ Epistemologically and in dualist psychology, he works with two created substances: mind and body.

Descartes' De nition of Substance

René Descartes de nes substance in his philosophical writings—particularly in the Principia Philosophiae (Principles of
Philosophy)—as follows:

"By substance, we can understand nothing else than a thing which exists in such a way as to stand in need of nothing beyond
itself in order to exist."

🔹 Key Elements of the De nition:

1. Independence:

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 ◦ A true substance must be independent of anything else for its existence.

◦ By this strict de nition, only God quali es as a true or absolute substance.

2. Created Substances (Finite Substances):

◦ Although mind (res cogitans) and body (res extensa) are called substances, they are not fully independent—
they depend on God for their existence.

◦ Therefore, they are nite or dependent substances.

Critically examine Descartes's proofs for the existence of God." (Requires presenting the proofs and then offering criticisms,
possibly from Kant or others).
Introduction:

René Descartes, in his Meditations on First Philosophy, provides multiple proofs for the existence of God, primarily in
Meditation III and Meditation V. These arguments are rooted in rationalist principles, relying on clear and distinct ideas rather
than empirical observation.

Descartes believes that establishing God’s existence is essential to secure the reliability of reason and the truth of knowledge,
since a benevolent God would not deceive us.

Descartes’s Main Proofs for the Existence of God

🔹 1. The Trademark Argument (Meditation III)

Structure of the Argument:

1. I have an idea of a perfect, in nite being (i.e., God).

2. Every idea must have a cause.

3. There must be at least as much reality in the cause as in the idea.

4. Since I am a nite, imperfect being, I cannot be the cause of the idea of an in nite being.

5. Therefore, only God could be the cause of that idea.

6. Therefore, God exists.

"The idea of God must have been placed in me by a being that truly possesses all the perfections I attribute to it."

🔸 Criticism of the Trademark Argument:

• Circular Reasoning (The Cartesian Circle):

Descartes relies on clear and distinct ideas to prove God exists, but then claims we can trust clear and distinct ideas
only because God exists. This is logically circular.

• Kant’s Critique:
Kant argues that ideas do not require external causes. The mind can construct ideas (like a perfect triangle) without
needing them to exist outside the mind.

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 • Empiricist Critique (Hume):
David Hume denies that we can infer causality between ideas. The notion that every idea must have a cause
(especially a cause with at least as much “reality”) is not empirically justi ed.

• Conceptual Objection:
Just because we can conceive of a perfect being doesn’t prove it exists. We can imagine a perfect island, but that
doesn’t bring it into existence.

🔹 2. The Ontological Argument (Meditation V)

Structure of the Argument:

1. I have an idea of God as a perfect being.

2. Existence is a perfection.

3. Therefore, God must exist; otherwise, He would lack a perfection (existence), and thus wouldn’t be perfect.

Similar to Anselm’s argument, Descartes believes that existence is inseparable from the concept of God, just as the idea of a
triangle includes three angles summing to 180°.

🔸 Criticism of the Ontological Argument:

• Kant’s Critique (Critique of Pure Reason):

◦ Kant argues that existence is not a real predicate—it adds nothing to the concept of a thing.

◦ Saying “God exists” does not add a perfection to the concept of God, any more than saying “a hundred real
dollars” adds value to the idea of “a hundred possible dollars.”

• Logical Fallacy (Existence from Concept):

◦ Just because existence is part of the de nition of a being doesn't mean the being actually exists in reality.

◦ E.g., de ning a unicorn as a magical horse with a horn doesn't prove unicorns exist.

• Empirical Objection:

◦ Modern philosophy (e.g., Hume, Russell) tends to reject purely a priori proofs for existence. Existence is a
matter of empirical veri cation, not conceptual analysis.

René Descartes, a pivotal gure in modern philosophy, wrestled with the concepts of determinism and freedom,
particularly in the context of human free will and divine omnipotence. His views are complex and have been subject to
various interpretations, with some scholars arguing for a libertarian reading and others for a compatibilist one.

1. The Primacy of the Will and its In nity:

• Descartes famously argues that the human will is "so ample and extended as to be superior to all limits" and that
it "is by its nature so free that it can never be constrained."
• He sees the will as a re ection of God's in nite will, and it is through the freedom of the will that humans bear the
"image and likeness" of God. This points to a strong belief in genuine human freedom.

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 • For Descartes, the essence of the "thing that thinks" (the rational being) is fundamentally the thing that is free.
2. Freedom and Indifference (and its degrees):

• Descartes identi es freedom with the "ability to do or not do something," or to af rm or deny, pursue or avoid.
• He suggests that freedom can exist in degrees. The lowest degree of freedom is characterized by "indifference,"
where the will is not compelled by clear and distinct perceptions and can choose between alternatives without a
strong inclination. This is often associated with the possibility of error.
• However, the highest degree of freedom, for Descartes, is when the will is spontaneously and willingly inclined
towards what is clearly perceived as true and good by the intellect. In this state, one is more free because they are
acting in accordance with reason, even if the intellect strongly directs the will. This doesn't mean compulsion, but
rather a willing assent.
3. The Role of the Intellect:

• While the will is the seat of freedom, it operates in conjunction with the intellect. The intellect presents ideas and
perceptions, and the will then af rms, denies, pursues, or avoids them.
• When the intellect presents something clearly and distinctly as true or good, the will is strongly inclined to assent
to it. Descartes argues that even in such cases, the will is still free, not compelled, because it is willingly embracing
the truth.
4. The Challenge of Divine Omnipotence (Theological Determinism):

• One of the most challenging aspects of Descartes' philosophy is reconciling human free will with the omnipotence
and preordination of God. If God has preordained everything from eternity, including human volitions, how can
humans truly be free?
• Descartes acknowledges this mystery and advises against making de nitive pronouncements on how these two
truths (divine omnipotence and human freedom) can coexist, suggesting that it's beyond our full comprehension.
He maintains that our experience of freedom is undeniable, even if its compatibility with divine preordination is
mysterious.
• Some interpretations suggest a form of "theological compatibilism," where human freedom (in the sense of
acting on one's own inclinations and reasons) is compatible with God's ultimate plan.
5. Determinism of the Physical World vs. Freedom of the Mind:

• Descartes' dualism separates mind (thinking substance) from body (extended substance). He generally viewed the
physical world as governed by deterministic laws.
• However, he strongly maintained that the mind, as a distinct substance, possesses genuine freedom,
distinguishing it from the mechanistic workings of the body and the physical universe.
In summary, Descartes rmly believed in human free will, seeing it as a fundamental and in nite faculty that sets humans
apart and aligns them with the divine. While he acknowledged the complex interplay with divine omnipotence and the role
of clear and distinct perceptions, he consistently upheld the inherent freedom of the human will. His nuanced position has
continued to be a subject of philosophical debate and inquiry.

Baruch Spinoza

The provided text introduces Baruch Spinoza, often considered a highly ethical and intellectually profound philosopher,
though widely condemned during his time for his unorthodox views on God and religion. The passage covers a broad range
of his philosophy, including his unique metaphysics, his take on the mind-body problem, his determinism, and his ethical
system leading to the "intellectual love of God."

Spinoza: An Introduction

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 Spinoza (1634-1677) is presented as a philosopher of exceptional ethical character, despite being reviled by both Jews
(who excommunicated him) and Christians (who accused him of atheism). Born a Jew whose family ed the Inquisition, he
found orthodoxy impossible and refused to conceal his doubts, even surviving an assassination attempt. He lived a simple
life polishing lenses in Holland, tolerant for its liberalism, and died young at 43. His chief work, the Ethics, was published
posthumously, written in a rigorous, Euclidean style.

Cartesian Method and Certain Knowledge (as applied to Spinoza)

While the phrase "Cartesian Method and Certain Knowledge" directly refers to Descartes, the text introduces Spinoza in
relation to Descartes, stating that Spinoza's metaphysics is a "modi cation of Descartes." Spinoza also adopts a rigorous,
deductive, geometrical method in his Ethics, starting with de nitions, axioms, and theorems, attempting to demonstrate
everything with logical necessity. This implies a pursuit of certain knowledge through rational deduction, mirroring
Descartes's emphasis on clear and distinct ideas and logical progression, though applied to a fundamentally different
metaphysical system. Spinoza believed that everything could be "demonstrated" logically, which was essential to his
system.

Substance (Spinoza's Monism)

This is a central concept in Spinoza's metaphysics and a key point of divergence from Descartes:

• Only One Substance: "God or Nature": Spinoza radically asserts that there is only one substance, which he calls
"God or Nature" (Deus sive Natura). This substance is in nite, eternal, and self-subsistent.
• Rejection of Cartesian Pluralism: Descartes admitted three substances (God, mind, and matter). While Descartes's
God was superior, mind and matter were still considered independent substances de ned by thought and
extension. Spinoza rejects this.
• Attributes of God: For Spinoza, thought and extension are not separate substances but are merely two of the
in nite attributes of this single divine substance (God). We, as humans, only perceive these two attributes, but
God possesses in nitely many others unknown to us.
• Finite Things as Modes: Individual souls and separate pieces of matter are not substances themselves but are
"modes" or modi cations of God's attributes. They are "adjectival," not independent "things," but merely aspects
or expressions of the one divine Being. Their existence is de ned by their boundaries, by what they are not ("all
determination is negation”).

God (Spinoza's Pantheism)

Spinoza's concept of God is central to his entire philosophy and is profoundly different from traditional theological views:

• Pantheism: Because there is only one substance, God is identical with the entire universe, "God or Nature." He is
not a transcendent being separate from the world, but immanent within it.
• Wholly Positive and In nite: God is the only Being who is wholly positive and absolutely in nite, containing all
reality and perfection.
• No Personal God: This implies there can be no personal God who interacts with humans, performs miracles, or has
emotions like anger or joy. God is not affected by pleasure or pain.
• Impersonal Immortality: Consequently, there is no personal immortality in the Christian sense, but rather an
"impersonal sort that consists in becoming more and more one with God" through understanding.
• ttributes and Modes: The Expressions of God/Nature
• In nite Attributes: This one substance (God/Nature) possesses an in nity of attributes, each expressing an eternal
and in nite essence of the substance. These attributes are what the intellect perceives as constituting the essence

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 of the substance.

• Thought and Extension: While there are in nitely many attributes, human beings can only comprehend two of
them:
◦ Thought: This attribute encompasses all mental phenomena, ideas, consciousness, and the entire realm
of mind.
◦ Extension: This attribute encompasses all physical phenomena, matter, space, and the entire realm of the
body.
• Modes: All individual things we experience – particular thoughts, individual human minds, speci c bodies, rocks,
trees, planets – are not separate substances but modes or modi cations of God/Nature, expressed through its
attributes. A mode is what is in something else and is conceived through something else. They exist in God and
through God.
• Implications of Spinoza's God:
• Absolute Determinism: Since God's nature is necessary and everything is a mode of God, everything that exists
and everything that happens is necessarily determined by the laws of God's nature. There is no contingency or
chance in Spinoza's universe. This radically rede nes human freedom, which, for Spinoza, is not about choosing
otherwise, but about understanding and assenting to the necessary order of things (intellectual love of God).

• No Miracles or Divine Intervention: As God is the laws of nature, there can be no supernatural interventions or
miracles that violate these laws. Everything occurs according to the inherent necessity of God's being.
• Ethics and Blessedness: For Spinoza, understanding this necessary unity of God/Nature is the path to human
blessedness and freedom. By gaining adequate knowledge of oneself and the universe as modes of God, one
moves from being a passive slave to external passions to an active, rational being. This leads to the "intellectual
love of God" (amor intellectualis Dei), which is the highest good and virtue, where one loves God by
understanding God's necessary perfection.

• Rejection of Teleology (Purpose): Spinoza strongly rejected the idea that God created the world with a speci c
purpose or for human bene t. Such a view, he argued, is a projection of human desires and ignorance onto the
divine. The universe simply is, necessarily and perfectly, in its own terms.

Mind-Body Dualism (Spinoza's Parallelism)

Baruch Spinoza, a 17th-century Dutch philosopher, offered a radical departure from the prevailing mind-body dualism of
René Descartes. While Descartes posited mind and body as two distinct and interacting substances, Spinoza's philosophy,
rooted in monism, presents a concept known as parallelism to explain the relationship between mental and physical
phenomena.

1. Substance Monism: The Foundation

• One Substance: The cornerstone of Spinoza's philosophy is his assertion that there is only one in nite substance,
which he identi es with "God or Nature" (Deus sive Natura). This substance is self-caused (causa sui), eternal, and
in nite in every respect.
• Attributes: This single substance possesses an in nite number of attributes, each of which expresses an eternal
and in nite essence of the substance. However, human beings can only perceive two of these attributes: Thought
(or Mind) and Extension (or Body/Matter).

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 • Modes: Individual things we experience in the world, whether they are particular thoughts or particular bodies,
are not substances themselves but rather modes or modi cations of this single, in nite substance, expressed
through its attributes.

2. Parallelism: The "Order and Connection"

• No Interaction: Unlike Descartes' problematic interactionism (where the immaterial mind supposedly interacts
with the material body via the pineal gland), Spinoza rmly rejects any causal interaction between the mental and
physical realms.
• "Order and Connection is the Same": Spinoza famously states that "the order and connection of ideas is the same
as the order and connection of things" (Ethics, Part II, Proposition 7). This is the core of his parallelism. It means
that for every mental event, there is a corresponding physical event, and vice-versa.
• Two Ways of Conceiving One Reality: The mental and the physical are not two separate things in uencing each
other, but rather two different ways of apprehending or conceiving the very same underlying reality (the one
substance). Imagine a circle: you can describe it geometrically (as an extended gure with certain properties) or
conceptually (as the idea of a circle). These are two distinct descriptions, but they refer to the same object.
Similarly, a human being is a single individual, but it can be conceived under the attribute of Thought (as a mind)
or under the attribute of Extension (as a body).

• Causal Closure within Attributes: Within the attribute of Thought, ideas are caused by other ideas. Within the
attribute of Extension, physical events are caused by other physical events. There is a complete causal chain within
each attribute, but no cross-attribute causation.

3. Implications of Spinoza's Parallelism:

• Eliminates the Mind-Body Problem (as Interaction): By denying interaction, Spinoza effectively dissolves
Descartes' problem of how an immaterial mind could affect a material body, and vice-versa.
• Determinism: Spinoza's system is thoroughly deterministic. Since everything is a mode of the single substance
and follows from its necessary nature, all mental and physical events are determined by prior causes within their
respective attributes. This has profound implications for his view of free will, which he largely reinterprets as
understanding and assenting to the necessary order of Nature, rather than a libertarian choice.

• Unity and Immanence: Parallelism underscores the fundamental unity of all reality. Mind and body are not
alienated from each other but are intimately connected as two expressions of the same divine substance. This also
emphasizes the immanence of God/Nature, meaning God is not a transcendent creator separate from the universe,
but is the universe itself.

• Knowledge and Perfection: For Spinoza, true knowledge involves understanding the necessary connections
between things under both attributes. Achieving adequate ideas, particularly of oneself and one's place in the
larger scheme of God/Nature, leads to a kind of intellectual love of God and a state of blessedness, which is the
highest human perfection.
In essence, Spinoza's parallelism provides a unique and in uential solution to the mind-body problem by asserting that
mind and body are not two distinct interacting entities, but rather two parallel and non-interacting expressions of a single,
uni ed, and in nitely complex substance.

Determinism and Freedom

This is another de ning feature of Spinoza's philosophy:

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 • Absolute Logical Necessity: Spinoza asserts that everything in the universe is ruled by absolute logical necessity.
There is no such thing as free will in the mental sphere or chance in the physical world. Every event is a necessary
manifestation of God's inscrutable nature, and it is logically impossible for events to be other than they are.
• Problem of Sin and Evil: This complete determinism creates dif culties for the concept of sin and evil. Spinoza
reconciles this by arguing that evil and negation exist only from the perspective of nite creatures. In God, who is
completely real and positive, there is no negation, and therefore no evil. What we perceive as "sins" are simply
parts of the whole that are necessary for the perfection of the whole when viewed sub specie aeternitatis (under
the aspect of eternity).
• Freedom as Self-Determination (Understanding Necessity): Despite radical determinism, Spinoza proposes a
concept of human freedom. We are in bondage when our actions are determined by external causes (our
"passions" or inadequate ideas). We become free in proportion as we are "self-determined," which means
understanding the necessary causes of our actions and the universe as a whole.
◦ Knowledge as Liberation: Freedom is attained through adequate knowledge of ourselves, our emotions,
and the necessity of all things. When we understand that everything ows from God's nature and is
logically necessary, we transcend our "passions" (emotions arising from inadequate ideas) and achieve a
state of rational calm and inner peace.
◦ No Unsel shness: Spinoza believes all human behavior is governed by self-preservation, but a wise
person's self-seeking leads to the "knowledge of God," which is the mind's highest good and virtue.
◦ Rejection of Hope, Fear, Humility, Repentance: These emotions are "passions" because they depend on
an inadequate understanding of time and the future as uncertain. The wise person, viewing things under
the aspect of eternity, understands that past, present, and future are equally xed and necessary.
• Intellectual Love of God: The highest form of freedom and wisdom is the "intellectual love of God." This is not an
emotion in the conventional sense, but a union of true intellectual understanding and a joyful apprehension of
truth. It involves recognizing that all things are part of God and that our understanding of this truth is itself a part
of God's in nite love for Himself. It is a state of profound intellectual joy and acquiescence in the order of the
universe.
Spinoza's rigorous logical method, combined with his radical monism and determinism, makes him a unique and
challenging gure in philosophy. His ethical system, aimed at achieving human freedom and tranquility through
understanding the necessity of the universe and cultivating the "intellectual love of God," remains his most enduring and
admired contribution.

Understanding Emotions and "Intellectual Love of God"

Spinoza asserts a radical proposition: "he who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return." This isn't a
moral command but a logical consequence of his metaphysics. Since God, as the one in nite substance, has no passions,
pleasures, or pains (V, 17), and consequently loves and hates no one (V, 17, Corol.), to desire God to love you would be to
desire God not to be God. This would imply desiring to feel pain (III, 19), which Spinoza deems "absurd" (III, 28) because
seeking pain is contrary to human nature. The statement that "God can love no one" does not contradict God's in nite
intellectual love for Himself, as this speci c love is a "very special kind of love" that does not involve false belief or human-
like emotions.

Spinoza offers "all the remedies against the emotions," primarily through clear and distinct ideas about the nature of
emotions and their external causes. A signi cant advantage of love of God over love of human beings is its immutable and
eternal nature. Unlike transient human relationships, which are subject to variations and can lead to "spiritual
unhealthiness and misfortunes," clear and distinct knowledge "begets a love towards a thing immutable and eternal,"
providing a more stable and disquieting joy.

Eternity and Blessedness

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 While personal survival after death is deemed an illusion, Spinoza believes there's an eternal part of the human mind. The
mind's ability to imagine or remember is tied to the body, but there's an "idea in God" that expresses the essence of each
human body "under the form of eternity." This divine idea is the eternal component of the human mind, and the
intellectual love of God is experienced within this eternal part.

Blessedness, for Spinoza, is not a reward for virtue but virtue itself, consisting of love towards God. He reverses the common
understanding: we don't control our lusts to achieve joy; rather, we control our lusts because we already experience this joy
(blessedness).

The Ethics concludes by emphasizing that the wise man is rarely disturbed in spirit, possessing "true acquiescence of his
spirit" by understanding himself, God, and things through "a certain eternal necessity." Spinoza acknowledges that the
path to this blessedness is "exceedingly hard" and "seldom found," suggesting that truly excellent things require great
effort.

Critical Estimate of Spinoza's Philosophy

The text then offers a critical assessment, distinguishing between Spinoza's metaphysics and his ethics.

Metaphysics: Logical Monism (Rejected)

Spinoza's metaphysic is seen as the pinnacle of "logical monism": the doctrine that the entire world is a single substance,
and none of its parts can logically exist independently. This view is based on the idea that every proposition has a single
subject and predicate, leading to the conclusion that relations and plurality are illusory. Spinoza believed the world and
human life could be logically deduced from self-evident axioms, making events as necessary as mathematical truths.

However, the text rejects this metaphysic entirely, arguing it's incompatible with:

• Modern Logic: Which does not restrict propositions to a single subject-predicate form.
• Scienti c Method: Which relies on observation to discover facts, not purely on reasoning. Scienti c laws are
suggested by empirical data, not logical necessity.
• Concept of Substance: The text states that the concept of substance, crucial to Spinoza, is no longer acceptable in
modern science or philosophy.

Ethics: Noble Living Amidst Necessity (Partially Accepted)

Despite rejecting his metaphysics, the author feels that much of Spinoza's ethics remains valuable. Spinoza aims to show
how one can live nobly even when recognizing human limitations. While his determinism imposes stricter limits than
reality, his maxims are useful when limitations are indeed present.

• Facing Death: Spinoza is praised for his view on death: "the free man thinks of nothing less than of death." Fear of
death is a form of slavery. While medical care should be sought for speci c diseases, the anxiety and terror
associated with unavoidable death should be calmly avoided.
• Response to Personal Misfortunes: The same applies to other personal misfortunes: approach them calmly and
redirect thoughts to broader matters.
• Response to Profound Suffering (Critique): The text then critically examines Spinoza's ethics when faced with
extreme misfortunes in icted on loved ones (e.g., massacre of family, torture, rape/murder).

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 ◦ Stoic vs. Christian: It rejects the Stoic indifference to friends ("Be indifferent to your friends," which is
"bad") and contrasts it with the Christian principle of "Love your enemies," which, though dif cult, is
admired when sincere.
◦ Revenge: The primitive impulse for revenge is acknowledged as strong and sometimes necessary for
mental health and as a driver for punishment. However, revenge is dangerous due to its self-judging,
excessive, and ultimately narrowing nature, making a life dominated by it "incompatible with every kind
of wisdom."
◦ Spinoza's View on Sin/Suffering: Spinoza would agree with "forgive them, for they know not what they
do" (as all sin is due to ignorance). He would urge understanding misfortunes by seeing them in relation
to their causes and as part of the whole order of nature, avoiding being "shut up in the world of your
sorrow."
◦ Overcoming Hatred by Love: Spinoza's belief that "Hatred which is completely vanquished by love,
passes into love" is dif cult for the author to accept, except in rare cases where the hater is powerless. It's
not effective against powerful wrongdoers, nor does non-resistance deprive them of power.

◦ Acceptance of the Universe's Goodness (Critique): The author cannot accept Spinoza's ultimate
consolation: that misfortunes, when viewed as part of the whole and its necessary concatenation of
causes, are only misfortunes to the individual, not to the universe, and are merely "passing discords
heightening an ultimate harmony." The author contends that "particular events are what they are" and
don't change by being absorbed into a whole; acts of cruelty remain bad eternally.

Despite these strong reservations about the metaphysical basis and the practical applicability to extreme grief, the author
acknowledges Spinoza's principle of thinking about the whole or larger matters than one's own grief as a useful tool for
sanity and an antidote to despair in a painful world. Such re ections might not form a complete religion, but they offer
psychological aid.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) was a German polymath, a towering gure of the 17th and early 18th centuries,
renowned for his contributions to philosophy, mathematics (co-inventor of calculus with Newton), science, law, and
diplomacy. His intellectual pursuits were incredibly broad, aiming to unify knowledge and reconcile seemingly opposing
views, particularly between faith and reason, and mechanism and teleology.

Here's an overview of key aspects of his philosophical thought:

Background and Philosophical Journey

Born in Leipzig, Leibniz was a prodigious child who taught himself Latin and began studying Greek at an early age. He
received a university education in philosophy, mathematics, and law. His philosophical journey was in uenced by various
traditions, including Scholasticism, ancient Greek philosophy, and the emerging scienti c and philosophical ideas of his
time, particularly those of Descartes and Spinoza.

Leibniz's mature philosophy began to take shape with his "Discourse on Metaphysics" (1686), followed by "New System of
the Nature and Communication of Substances" (1695), and the posthumously published "Monadology" (1714) and "New
Essays on Human Understanding" (a critique of Locke). He engaged in extensive correspondence with leading thinkers of
his day, which greatly shaped his ideas.

Cartesian Method and Certain Knowledge

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While often considered a Cartesian philosopher in terms of epistemology, Leibniz was also a severe critic of Descartes. He
shared Descartes' rationalist conviction that certain knowledge can be derived through reason and innate ideas, opposing
the empiricist view that all knowledge comes from sense experience.

Leibniz accepted the Cartesian emphasis on clear and distinct ideas as the foundation of certainty. However, he challenged
Descartes' speci c conclusions and methodology in several areas. He believed that Descartes did not fully systematize the
theory of knowledge, and Leibniz sought to do so. For Leibniz, innate ideas are not fully formed at birth but are rather
"dispositional," meaning the mind has an innate propensity to form certain ideas when presented with the right
experiences. God's non-deceptive nature, for Descartes, guaranteed the reliability of clear and distinct perceptions; Leibniz
also held that divine wisdom underpins the structure of the universe, providing a rational basis for knowledge.

Substance

Leibniz's most distinctive metaphysical contribution is his theory of monads. He rejected Descartes' dualism of two distinct
substances (mind and matter) and Spinoza's monism (one in nite substance). Instead, Leibniz proposed that the universe is
composed of an in nite number of simple, indivisible, immaterial substances called monads.

Key characteristics of monads:

• Simple and Indivisible: Monads have no parts and are therefore unextended. They cannot be created or destroyed
except by God.
• Windowless: Monads do not interact causally with each other. Each monad is a self-contained universe, re ecting
the entire universe from its own unique perspective. This is a crucial departure from Cartesian interactionism.
• Internal Activity: Each monad is a center of force and perception. Its states (perceptions and appetitions) unfold
according to its own internal program, determined by God from its creation.
• Pre-established Harmony: Since monads don't interact, their apparent coordination is due to a "pre-established
harmony" orchestrated by God. It's like two clocks perfectly synchronized, not because one in uences the other,
but because they were designed to keep perfect time together.
• Unique and Expressive: Every monad is unique, and each expresses the entire universe, albeit with varying
degrees of clarity. Higher-level monads (like human souls) have clearer perceptions than lower-level ones.
For Leibniz, matter, space, and motion are not substances in themselves but rather "well-founded phenomena" or
aggregates of monads.

God

God plays a central and essential role in Leibniz's philosophy.

• Creator of the Best Possible World: Leibniz famously argued that this world is "the best of all possible worlds."
God, being omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly benevolent, surveyed all possible worlds and, by his supreme
wisdom, chose to actualize the one that maximizes perfection (a balance of variety and order, with the simplest
laws yielding the richest phenomena).
• Ground of Contingency: God's choice is what makes our world contingent rather than necessary. While everything
in our world is determined by God's plan, it is not logically necessary that this particular world exists; God
couldhave chosen another.
• Source of Pre-established Harmony: As mentioned, God is the ultimate cause and orchestrator of the pre-
established harmony among monads, ensuring their perfect synchronization without direct interaction.
• Rational Basis for Belief: Leibniz believed that belief in God must have a rational basis, and he sought to provide
arguments for God's existence and attributes, including his famous ontological argument and cosmological
argument (based on the principle of suf cient reason).

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Mind-Body Dualism

Leibniz rejected the Cartesian mind-body dualism, particularly the problem of interaction that plagued Descartes' system.
Descartes believed that the immaterial mind and the material body interact in the pineal gland. Leibniz, with his
"windowless" monads, found this causal interaction between radically different substances inexplicable.

Instead, Leibniz's system offers a form of pre-established harmony for the mind-body relationship. The mind (a dominant
monad) and the body (an aggregate of subservient monads) do not causally in uence each other. Rather, they are like two
perfectly synchronized clocks, each unfolding its own internal states in perfect accordance with the other, because God
designed them that way from the beginning. Mental events correspond to physical events, not because one causes the
other, but because they are perfectly coordinated by God's initial plan.

Determinism and Freedom

Leibniz's philosophy grapples with the intricate relationship between determinism and freedom.

• Determinism: Within Leibniz's system, everything that happens is determined. Each monad's entire future is
contained within its "complete individual concept" from the moment of its creation. This means all its perceptions
and actions are predetermined. This is also tied to his Principle of Suf cient Reason, which states that for every fact
or event, there must be a suf cient reason or explanation for why it is so and not otherwise.
• Freedom (Compatibilism): Despite this determinism, Leibniz maintains a notion of freedom, particularly human
freedom. He is a compatibilist, meaning he believes freedom and determinism are compatible. For Leibniz,
freedom is characterized by three conditions:
1. Intelligence: The agent acts with distinct knowledge and deliberation, understanding the object of their
choice.
2. Spontaneity: The action originates from the agent's internal nature and not from external compulsion.
This is where the "windowless" nature of monads is crucial; a monad's states unfold from within, making
its actions "spontaneous" in this sense.
3. Contingency: While the action is determined, it is not logically or metaphysically necessary. God could
have chosen a different possible world in which the agent acted differently. The determination is
"hypothetical necessity" (necessary given God's choice of this world), not "absolute necessity" (logically
impossible for it to be otherwise).
In essence, for Leibniz, human actions are determined by our own internal predispositions and the unfolding of our
complete individual concepts, which are part of God's perfect plan for the best possible world. However, because these
actions spring from our own nature and are not externally coerced, and because God could have created a different world,
they are considered free in a meaningful sense. This sophisticated account attempts to reconcile divine providence and
human responsibility.

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