Patterson, Sarah (2022) Descartes on modality and the eternal truths. Public Reason 14 (1), pp. 11-25. ISSN 2065-7285.
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Abstract
Descartes maintained that God freely created all eternal truths. Yet, while it is impossible for necessary truths to have been otherwise, if they are a matter of God’s free choice, then it seems that they could have been otherwise. Adrian W. Moore (2020) offers a solution to this conflict that, he claims, Descartes “could and should” have adopted. This article argues that Descartes’s position is in a sense closer to Moore’s solution than Moore permits, yet proposes an arguably more accurate account via the Cartesian relationship between omnipotence, indifference, and the dependence of the eternal truths on God. Omnipotence and indifference do not express that God might have created the necessary truths in another way, but rather that God’s decrees are in no way determined by anything other than God. Thus, alternative possibilities are not relevant to this account, since there were none before God’s creative act.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Historical Studies |
| Depositing User: | Sarah Patterson |
| Date Deposited: | 15 May 2024 15:39 |
| Last Modified: | 16 May 2024 13:44 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/50056 |
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