Descartes on Mathematical Truths: Coherence and Correspondence in the Refutation of Scepticism (2006)

In this paper I argue against a traditional line of interpretation which assumes that Descartes would have committed himself to a conception of truth as correspondence in the context of mathematical knowledge. I show that what is at stake in the context of mathematics is not really correspondence, but coherence. In order to establish this thesis, I initially show why Descartes, unlike other philosophers in the tradition of philosophy of consciousness, such as Berkeley, Hume, and Kant, had to provide a proof of the existence of the external world as a response to external world scepticism. Then, I demonstrate that Descartes’ metaphysical doubt – the hypothesis according to which it may well be the case that we are constantly deceived by an evil God whenever we make a knowledge claim – aims, in fact, at two different problems. On the one hand, it calls into question the very existence of the external world, but on the other it also questions the notion of evidence as a reliable criterion of truth. 

I show that while the first problem was never formulated before Descartes, the second problem had already been formulated in the context of the Pyrrhonic sceptical tradition. As a result of the distinction between the problem of the external world and the problem of the criterion of truth, I will attempt to show how Descartes, in the Meditations, committed himself to two different conceptions of truth, namely truth as correspondence and truth as coherence. In his attempt to refute scepticism relative to the existence of the external world, Descartes understands the concept of truth as correspondence. But in his attempt to refute scepticism relative to the criterion of truth, as I intend to show, Descartes has in mind a coherentist conception of truth.

[ PDF ]

[ site da revista ]

© Como citar este artigo: 
ARAUJO, Marcelo de: "Descartes on Mathematical Truths: Coherence and Correspondence in the Refutation of Scepticism". In: History of Philosophy Quarterly, v. 23, 2006, p. 319-337. ISSN: 0740-0675.