Descartes’s Method
The Formation ofthe SubjectofScience
TAREK R. DIKA
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Formylovingparents, AmiraandRifaatDika, Mywife,Constance,andourbeautifuldaughter,Saba
C’est à nous de procurer par nos propres efforts cette perfection de l’ingenium que nous invite la Méthode Cartésienne. Là est sa véritable signification et son véritable prix. Et c’est pourquoi Descartes proteste qu’elle consiste “plus en pratique qu’en théorie.” Lorsqu’il nous parle de “bien conduire notre raison,” il ne croit ni souhaitable ni possible de nous révéler des chemins tout tracés qu’il suffirait de suivre pour arriver infailliblement et comme automatiquement au but. Il nous recommande de “former” notre esprit au contact des choses, de le “nourrir de vérités,” de le cultiver en l’exerçant. Il a en vue, non pas “une clef de l’art d’inventer,” mais une éducation et, pour ainsi dire, un “dressage” de notre faculté inventive. Autrement dit, la méthode de Descartes, c’est un ensemble d’habitudes à prendre par chacun de nous, à l’exemple de Descartes, d’après des moyens analogues à ceux dont il a personnellement ressenti l’efficacité. […] Et c’est l’habitude, ou plutôt l’ensemble d’habitudes ainsi prises, c’est cela, et non pas une liste de formules rigides machinalement applicables, qui fait l’essence de la méthode cartésienne.
Jean Laporte
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Abbreviations
Englishtranslations
Introduction: Descartes’s Method: Universality without Uniformity
PART I THE HABITUAL UNITY OF SCIENCE: AQUINAS TO DESCARTES
1.
The Habitual Unity of Individual Sciences: Aquinas to Suárez
Hexis/Habitus
Aristotle’s Ban on Genus-Crossing (μετάβασις) in Posterior AnalyticsI.7
Aquinas’s Habitual Interpretation of the Unity of Science
The Ontology of Scientific Habitus: Simple Quality or Complex Order?
Aquinas’s Gradient Ontology of Scientific Habitus
Scotus’s Virtual Containment Ontology of Scientific Habitus
Ockham’s Aggregate Ontology of Scientific Habitus
Suárez’s Pluralist Ontology of Scientific Habitus
Genus-Crossing and Subalternation
2. 2.1
The Habitual Unity of Science: Descartes
The Cartesian Scientific Habitus: Basic Properties
The Subject, Acquisition, and Ontology of the Cartesian Scientific Habitus
Suspending Aristotle’s Ban on Genus-Crossing
Supertranscendental Extrinsic Denomination: The Simple Natures
The Unity of Science in Rules
Rule 1 in the Cambridge Manuscript
PART II THE OPERATIONS AND CULTURE OF THE METHOD
The Operations of the Method: Intuition, Deduction, and Enumeration
The Principle of Proportionality
Facieadfaciem: Intuition
Descartes’s Interlocutors in the Definition of Intuition in Rule 3
Illatio: Deduction
Enumeratio,siveinductio: Enumeration
Enumeration1: Reduction and Order
Clarity and Distinctness in Problems: Relevant and Irrelevant Conditions
Enumeration2: Irreducibly Complex Linear and Non-Linear
Inference and the Expansion of Intuition
Sufficient, Complete, and Distinct Enumeration3: Inference and Class Construction
Problems: Definition and Taxonomy
Perspicacity and Sagacity: Two Intellectual Virtues or Habitus
The Order of Operations
The Culture of the Method: The Methodological Function of MathesisUniversalis
MathesisUniversalis: The Second Degree of the Cartesian Scientific Habitus
The Science of Order and Measure
First Lesson: The Theory of Order in Rule 6
Second Lesson: Direct and Indirect Deductions
From Recreational Mathematics to MathesisUniversalis
MathesisUniversalisand the Unity of Mathematics in Rules 13–21
MathesisUniversalis, Cartesian Mathematics, and Method
Mathesis Universalis and the Cambridge Manuscript
From MathesisUniversalisto the Problem of the Limits of Knowledge
PART III THE FIRST PROBLEM OF THE METHOD: THE “NOBLEST EXAMPLE”
Defining the Problem of the Limits of Knowledge in Rules
The Noblest Example: Three Problems
The “Method of Enumeration”
Sufficient Enumeration2, Supposition, and Truth in Rule 12
Two Concepts of Epistemic Limit in Rule 8
Descartes’s Theory of the Faculties in Rules
Mechanism, Habitus, and the Limits of Knowledge in Rules
Sensation and Figure
From Figure to Representation: The Common Sense, the Phantasy, and the Passivity of VisCognoscens
The Activity of VisCognoscensand Descartes’s Habitual Theory of the Faculties in Rules
Descartes’s Theory of the Objects of Knowledge in Rules
The Simple Natures
The Enumerative Criteria: Cognitive Indivisibility, SelfEvidence, and Univocity
The Intellectual Simple Natures and the Use of the Pure Intellect
The Material Simple Natures and the Use of the Intellect and the Imagination
Epistemic Transcendentals: The Common Simple Natures
Negations, Privations, and the Compositionality of Thought
The Theory of Conjunction: Descartes’s First Theory of Distinctions
Complexity and Confusion: Permissible and Impermissible Varieties
Intuition and Judgment
Judgment, Composition, and Error
Descartes’s Conclusions
The Theory of Simple Natures: Neither Realism Nor Idealism
The Origins of Cartesian Dualism in Rule 12
New Evidence, Old Problem
Descartes’s Dualism in RulesAT Dualism in RulesCM
PART IV APPLICATIONS: PERFECTLY AND IMPERFECTLY UNDERSTOOD PROBLEMS
Perfectly Understood Problems: Method and Mathematics in Rules 13–21
The Cartesian Scientific Habitusin Mathematics
The Unity of Discrete and Continuous Magnitude in the Imagination
Abstracting Problems from Particular Subject-Matters
The Unit
Symbolic Intuition? Algebraic Notation in Rules
The Geometrical Calculus
The Problem of Root Extraction
9.8
10.
11.
The Collapse of Descartes’s Methodological Enterprise in Rules
Imperfectly Understood Problems: Descartes’s Deduction of the Law of Refraction and the Shape of the Anaclastic Lens in Rule 8 Neither “Mixed Mathematics” nor “Physico-Mathematics” Problems in Previous Reconstructions
From Imperfectly Understood Problems to Perfectly Understood Problems: Enumeration1
What is a Natural Power (PotentiaNaturalis)? Descartes’s Pre-Metaphysical Physics
The Action of Light
How Light Passes through Transparent Media
Deducing the Law of Refraction
Deducing the Anaclastic Order of Research and Order of Exposition
PART V BEYOND RULES
Descartes’s Method after Rules
Method or Methods?
From Rulesto Discourse
The Turn to Metaphysics
Method and System after Rules
Simple Natures and Simple/Primitive Notions after Rules
Simple Natures and Descartes’s Ontology of Substance, Attribute, and Mode
Conclusion: Reassessing the Meaning of Method in Descartes
Appendix: Descartes’s Rules: Manuscripts, Dates, and Title(s)
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
It took me nearly ten years to write this book. A combination of naiveté and enthusiasm blinded me to how demanding it would be. But I am happy to have written it, and even happier to thank the individuals and institutions who supported me along the winding road to completion.
The research for this book was conducted at the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Notre Dame. A three-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan Society of Fellows permitted me to delve into the history of scholastic debates about the unity of science and identify the principles behind the interpretation of Descartes’s method offered in this book.
Further support from the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts (ISLA) enabled me to travel to Paris for an international conference on the Cambridge manuscript organized by Daniel Garber at the Institut d’études avancées de Paris in 2018. I am grateful to these institutions for their support.
At Johns Hopkins, I would like to thank Hent de Vries (now at NYU), whose mentorship and support over a period now spanning more than fifteen years I will never be able to repay. I would also like to thank Eckart Förster, Michael Fried, Ruth Leys, Paola Marrati, Yitzhak Melamed, Marva Philip, Michael Williams, and Meredith Williams. The education I received at Johns Hopkins remains second to none.
At Michigan, I would like to thank Tad Schmaltz, who met with me every other week for three years, read and helped me improve my papers, and introduced me to the wider world of scholars in early
modern philosophy. I could not have hoped for a better mentor. I would also like to thank the organizers and participants of the University of Michigan’s Premodern Colloquium, especially Tom Willette and Helmut Puff, for inviting me to present my research and receive valuable feedback. Finally, I would like to thank my colleagues and friends whose support made an enormous difference to both my life and my career, including Elizabeth Anderson, Alina Clej, Ed Curley, S.E. Kile, Louis Loeb, Monu Lahiri, Don Lopez, Tomoko Masuzawa, Keith Mitnick, Yasmin Moll, Jennifer Nelson, Yopie Prins, Laura Reutsche, Mireille Roddier, Scott Selberg, Anton Shammas, Jamie Tappenden, Linda Turner, Silke Maria-Weineck, and Damon Young.
At Notre Dame, I would like to thank my colleagues and friends in the Program of Liberal Studies, the Program in History and Philosophy of Science, and the Department of Philosophy, including Francesca Bordogna, Katie Bugyis, Eric Bugyis, Chris Chowrimootoo, Therese Corey, Steve Fallon, Anna Geltzer, Robert Goulding, Debbie Kabzinski and Becky Badger, Katharina Kraus, Julia Marvin, Felicitas Munzel, Jenny Martin, Sam Newlands, Emma Planinc, Clark Power, Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, Gretchen Reydams-Schils, Denis Robichaud, Joseph Rosenberg, Even Ragland, Fred Rush, Phil Sloan, Tom Stapleford, Henry Weinfield, and Steve Watson. I would also like to thank Hussein Abdulsater, Corey Garibaldi, David Hooker, Leonardo Francalari, Chante Mouton Kinyan, Sara Marcus, Ebrahim Moosa, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, Viveca Pattison Robichaud, Roy Scranton, Yasmin Solomonescu, and Aldo Tagliabue. I wrote the bulk of this manuscript while at Notre Dame, and without the support of my friends and colleagues, I would not have been able to get through it.
At Toronto, I would like to thank my colleagues in the Department of Philosophy, including Donald Ainslie, Rebecca Comay, Robert Gibbs, Mark Kingwell, Willi Goetschel, William Paris, Martin Pickavé, Michael Rosenthal, Marleen Rozemond, Nick Stang, Trevor Teitel, and Owen Ware.
In Paris, I owe a special thanks to Denis Kambouchner, whom I met in Summer 2014 and who has been a mentor and very close friend ever since. This book bears the mark of Denis’s influence in more ways than I can enumerate here. I would also like to thank Frédéric de Buzon for his incredibly helpful comments on Chapter 10, David Rabouin for helping me navigate my way through the complexities of Descartes’s mathematics, and Jean-Luc Marion and Vincent Carraud for inviting me to participate in the events organized by the Centre d’études cartésiennes.
In Australia, I would like to thank John Schuster, who read and criticized previous drafts of Chapter 10, but not without invaluable suggestions on how the chapter might be improved, despite his disagreements.
In Cambridge, I would like to thank Richard Serjeanston, who met with me in October 2017, walked me over to the library, showed me a copy of the Cambridge manuscript, and even provided me with a guided philological tour of the manuscript. Very few people had seen the manuscript in the flesh at this point, and I hope that my publications since have proven that nothing can replace the painstaking labor Richard and Michael Edwards have devoted to the manuscript.
I would like to thank Peter Dear, Robert Goulding, Denis Kambouchner, Sam Newlands, and Tad Schmaltz for their participation in a book manuscript workshop held at the University of Notre Dame on February 18, 2021. The book is in much better shape due in no small part to their comments and criticisms. Many thanks to Tom Stapleford for encouraging me to organize the workshop and to the Program of Liberal Studies for funding it.
I presented parts of this book at various conferences over the years. I would like to thank Patrick Brissey, Gideon Manning, Jack Stetter, and Stephen I. Wagner for their comments at the APA (Pacific and Central Division). John Carriero provided very helpful comments on an early draft of Chapter 8. The Atelier FrancoAméricaindephilosophiemoderne(organized by Jean-Pascal Anfray, Frédéric de Buzon, Daniel Garber, Denis Kambouchner, Steve Nadler,
Sophie Roux, Tad Schmaltz, and held annually in either Ann Arbor, Madison, Paris, or Princeton) provided me with many opportunities to present work in progress, receive comments from some of the finest historians of early modern philosophy, and become a part of an international scholarly community. I hope to return the favor one day by hosting the Atelierhere in Toronto.
The two anonymous referees for Oxford University Press provided detailed and critical feedback that greatly improved the book as a whole.
Among those whom I have not yet mentioned, I would like to thank Arash Abazari, Vlad Beronja, Johannes Birke, Andrew Bush, Martijn Bujis, Marco Coco, Sara Elamin, Mohammed Elghoul, Elena Fabietti, Jane Fletcher, Jeroen Gerrits, Elham Hatef, Alexander James, Waleed Jammal, Amy Kraus, Mike Leonard, Greg Piton Saint Martin, Samuel Monsalve, Larry McGrath, Rebecca Pekron, Bican Polat, Avreimi Rot, Aviva Rot, Johannes Schade, Martin Shuster, Nils Schott, Ian Singleton, Natalya Sukhonos, and Joshua Thompson.
I would also like to thank my editor at Oxford, Peter Momtchiloff, with whom I intend to continue working in future, and the entire team at Oxford, who transformed this manuscript from a digitally stored file on my computer into a book available throughout the world.
Parts of Chapters 1 and 2 derive from three articles, “Method, Practice, and the Unity of Scientiain Descartes’s Regulae,” “Extrinsic Denomination and the Origins of Early Modern Metaphysics: The Scholastic Context of Descartes’s Regulae,” and (with Denis Kambouchner) “Descartes’s Method” (forthcoming in The Cartesian Mind, ed. Jorge Secada and Cecilia Wee). I would like to thank the Journal of Early Modern Studies, Springer, and Routledge for permission to draw on material from these three articles. Parts of Chapter 3 derive from my entry, “Descartes’ Method,” and appear here with the generous permission of the StanfordEncyclopedia of Philosophy. Chapter 8 is drawn from my article, “The Origins of Cartesian Dualism” (Journal of the American Philosophical Association) and is here reprinted with the generous permission of
Cambridge University Press. Chapter 10 is drawn from “Descartes’ Deduction of the Law of Refraction and the Shape of the Anaclastic Lens in Rule 8” (HOPOS:TheJournaloftheInternationalSocietyfor the History of Philosophy of Science), and is reprinted with the generous permission of Chicago University Press.
Finally, I would like to thank my family: my wife, Constance de Font-Réaulx, who endured my worst anxieties about this book and whose unwavering support continues to get me through my days; our baby daughter, Saba, who is a miracle; my parents, Amira and Rifaat Dika, who sacrificed everything for us; and my sisters, Sahar and Hala Dika, whom I love dearly.
Toronto
September 2022
Preface
In this book, I provide a systematic interpretation of Descartes’s method in his first, posthumously published treatise, Rules for the Direction of the Mind (Regulae ad directionem ingenii) (henceforth Rules), most likely composed during the 1620s, but not published until 1684 (in Dutch translation) and 1701 (in Latin), many years after Descartes’s death in 1650.1 By “systematic” I simply mean that the interpretation is informed by a principle: Descartes’s method is a problem-solving cognitive disposition or habitus that can be actualized in a variety of well-defined ways, depending always on the parameters of the problem at hand. I have aimed to provide an interpretation that, in addition to being systematic, is also as comprehensive as possible: I cover Rulesin its entirety as well as a number of important developments in Descartes’s method after Rules (whether I have succeeded is another matter, and is in any case up to the reader to decide).
I have deliberately chosen not to organize the book according to the order of the text, but rather according to the order of problems that must be solved in order to learn the method. Unlike Descartes’s Meditations, where the order of the text reflects the order of problems that must be solved in order to discover the primary notions or principles of metaphysics, in Rules the order of the text does not consistently reflect the order of problems that must be solved in order to learn the method. Descartes’s conception of the treatise matured as he wrote it. The first problem that must be solved by the method—the problem of the limits of knowledge—does not appear until Rule 8, and Descartes discusses it after having discussed a problem that can only be solved once the problem of the
limits of knowledge has been solved: the problem of the law of refraction and the shape of the anaclastic lens. The problem of the law of refraction and the shape of the anaclastic lens, moreover, is what Descartes terms an “imperfectly understood problem,” or a problem in which the conditions relevant to the solution are not known in advance, but must be found. These problems typically arise in natural philosophy, and according to Descartes’s division of the treatise, they belong to the third part (Rules 25–36), which Descartes never completed (Rulesends prematurely at Rule 21). To solve imperfectly understood problems, one must first become proficient in solving what Descartes terms “perfectly understood problems,” or problems in which the conditions relevant to the solution are known in advance. These problems typically arise in mathematics, and according to Descartes’s division of the treatise they belong to the second part (Rules 13–24).
Were I to have organized the book according to the order of the text, I would have had to violate the order of problems that must be solved in order to learn the method, which struck me as inappropriate. Thus, I have organized the book according to Descartes’s division of the treatise into three parts (a division he himself does not consistently respect): operations and simple propositions (Chapters 2–3); the problem of the limits of knowledge (the first problem that must be solved by the method) (Chapters 5–8); perfectly understood problems (Chapter 9); and imperfectly understood problems (Chapter 10). This order, I believe, best exhibits how practice in the method develops in degrees from the simplest problems to more complex problems, up to the point where problems in mathematics and natural philosophy can be solved.
The organization of this book reflects not only an understanding of how Descartes intended his method to be acquired and applied but also an understanding of Rules as a treatise that, despite its imperfections, exhibits underlying unity. My emphasis on the unity of the treatise contrasts sharply with other interpretations, above all that of J.-P. Weber in Laconstitutiondutexte desRegulae. Weber’s insistence on dating, not only the treatise as a whole or even
individual rules but even parts of rules (by both year and month) over a period of nine years has contributed to the perception that Descartes’s Rules is a patchwork, which Descartes failed to “rigorously compose,” and which contains a “mass of contradictions […] within a rule […] no less than between rules.” Indeed, Weber continues, “Rules does not reveal one method, but rather many, which succeed one another, perfect one another, or mutually annul one another.” In short, Rulesis “allusive, excessively composite and, consequently, by and large contrived.”2 Even when Descartes’s readers disagree with the details of Weber’s chronology, they nevertheless retain his thesis that Rules should be divided, not internally into three parts, according to its own criteria of unity, but rather externally, according to discrete “stages of composition” that are nevertheless incredibly difficult to individuate based on the available evidence.3 When one delves into the details of such interpretations, one invariably finds that the division of Rules into stages of composition is based, as it must be, on the author’s own interpretation of the text. As is well known, Descartes never dated Rules, and none of the manuscript copies indicate when the original manuscript was written. Any dating, proposed by anyone (including myself), is based entirely on interpretations of textual and circumstantial evidence.
There is no doubt that Descartes wrote Rules over a period of many years (how many years is less clear),4 and that, like many other texts in the history of philosophy, real or apparent gaps and discontinuities pose serious challenges for the interpreter. Everything is further complicated by the fact that Descartes never completed Rules. Throughout this book, I take into consideration, whenever appropriate, gaps, discontinues, and developments in Descartes’s position, as exhibited in any one manuscript, in differences between the relevant manuscripts, or between Rules and Descartes’s subsequent texts. However, I do not basemy interpretation of Rules on a chronological division of the treatise into stages of composition.5 Instead, I provide an interpretation of Rulesbased on Descartes’s own principal of unity, which divides the treatise into
three parts of twelve rules each, and which is itself based on the order of problems that need to be solved in order to learn the method. This does not mean that I simply ignore chronological considerations. Far from it. It only means my interpretation does not fundamentally depend on any division of the treatise into chronological stages.
1 See Descartes 1684 and 1701. The consensus (see, e.g., Weber 1964, 109–45, 184–94; Gaukroger 1995, 181, and Schuster 2013, 307–49) is that Descartes abandoned Rules by 1628, but new evidence from the Cambridge manuscript suggests that Descartes may have continued composing Rules after 1628. See Serjeanston and Edwards in Descartes forthcoming. On the manuscripts, title(s), and composition of Rules, see Appendix.
2 See Weber 1964, 1–2.
3 Weber’s enduring influence on the scholarship on Descartes’s Rules is evident in Garber 1992, Gaukroger 1995; Schuster 1977 and 2013. Gaukroger, for instance, describes himself as “[f]ollowing the general thrust of Weber’s account (but not the details, which are often too fine-grained to bear the evidence) [ ]” (Gaukroger 1995, 111). Schuster endorses Weber’s thesis that “the Regulae, in fact, were composed in stages between 1619–1628 and that different strata in the text correspond to different stages in the development and reformulation of Descartes’s methodological ideas,” but he also points out that he makes “drastic revisions” whenever necessary (Schuster 2013, 227). Garber 1992, 317, n. 1 acknowledges that Weber 1964 is the “standard account of the composition of Rules,” but while he finds “the basic chronology correct,” he is “a bit skeptical that one can make such fine distinctions.” He relies principally on Weber’s chronology and Schuster’s revisions in Schuster 1980 and 1986.
4 For my own view, see the Appendix.
5 Indeed, recent evidence suggests, pace Gaukroger and Schuster, that mathesis universalis forms no part of the earliest stage of composition (as they claim; see references in n. 3 above), since it is nowhere to be found in the Cambridge manuscript, which seems to be copied from an earlier draft of Rules. For more discussion, see Chapter 4 and the Appendix. This is only one example of the risks involved in basing one’s interpretation of Rules on a conjectural chronology.
Descartes
CSM/CSMK
Abbreviations
The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (1985–1991). Cited by volume number and page number. “CSM 1:7” = “The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, volume 1, page 7.” “CSMK” is employed for volume 3.
Oeuvres de Descartes (1996). Cited by volume number and page number. “AT 10:3” = “Oeuvres de Descartes, volume 10, page 3.”
Aquinas
Summa theologiae in Opera omnia (1882– and English translation in Aquinas 1945). Cited by year, volume number, and page, followed by part number, question number, and article number. “Aquinas 1891, 6:344 (ST I–II, q. 64, art. 4)” = “Opera omnia, volume 6, page 344 in Summa theologiae, question 64, article 4.”
Scotus
Ord.
Rep.
Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis in Opera omnia (1891–1895 and English translation in 1998). Cited by year, volume number, and page number, followed by book number and question number. “Scotus 1891, 7:303–8 (QM, lib. 6, q. 1)” = “Opera omnia, volume 7, pages 303–8 in Quaestiones…super libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis, book 6, question 1.”
Ordinatio in Opera omnia (1950–2013). Cited by year, volume number, and page number, followed by book number, distinction number, and question number or, in the case of the prologue, prologue and question number. “Scotus 1950–2013, 1:96 (Ord., Prol., q. 3)” = “Opera omnia, volume 1, page 96 in Ordinatio, Prologue, question 3.”
Reportatio in Opera omnia (1891–1895). Cited by year, volume number, and page number, followed by question number and article number. “Scotus 1894, 22:9 (Rep., q. 1, art. 2)” = “Opera omnia, volume 22, page 9 in Reportatio, question 1, article 2.”
Ockham
Expos. Phys. SL
Ordinatio in Opera theologica (1967–1988 and in partial English translation in Ockham 2021). Cited by year, volume number, and page number, followed by book number, distinction number, question number, and article number or, in the case of the prologue, book number, prologue, question number, and article number. “Ockham 1967–1988, 1:111 (Ord. 1, Prol., q. 2, art. 3)” = “Opera theologica, volume 1, page 111 in Ordinatio, book 1, prologue, question 2, article 3.”
Expositio in libros Physicorum Aristotelis in Opera philosophica (1974–1988 and partial English translation in 1990). Cited by year, volume number, and page number, followed by book number or, in the case of the prologue, prologue and section number. “Ockham 1974–1988, 4:7 (Expos. Phys., Prol., §3)” = “Opera philosophica, volume 4, page 7 in Expositio in libros Physicorum Aristotelis, Prologue, section 3.”
Summa logicae in Opera philosophica (1974–1988 and English translation in Ockham 1974 and 1980 (Parts I–II, respectively) and 2007 (Part III-II)). Cited by year, volume number, and page number, followed by part number and chapter number. “Ockham 1974–1988, 1:540 (SL III-II, cap. 21)” = “Opera philosophica, volume 1, page 540 in Summa logicae, Part III-2, chapter 21.”
Suárez
DM
Disputationes metaphysicae in Opera omnia (1856–1878 and in various English translations). Cited by year, volume number, and page number, followed by disputation number, section number, and paragraph number separated from the section number by a period. “Suárez 1856, 26:695 (DM, disp. 44, sec 11.3)” = “Opera omnia, volume 26, page 695 in Disputationes metaphyiscae, disputation 44, section 11, paragraph 3.”
Conimbricenses
In De anima
In tres libros De anima Aristotelis Stagiritae in [1598] 1604. Cited by year and page, followed by book number, chapter number, question number, and article number. “Conimbricenses [1598] 1604, 505 (In De Anima, lib. 3, cap. 8, q.7, art. 2)” = “In tres libros De Anima Aristotelis Stagiritae, page 505, in book 3, chapter 8, question 7, article 2.”
When comparing the edition of Descartes’s Rules for the Direction of the Mind in AT to other manuscripts of Rules, I cite as follows: Rules in AT.
RulesAT RulesCM CM
The contents of the Cambridge manuscript of Rules.
The document of the Cambridge manuscript of Rules in Descartes 1626/1627?.
When appropriate, individual rules are cited as follows: “Rule 12CM ” = “Rule 12 in the Cambridge manuscript,” and “Rule 12AT ” = “Rule 12 in AT.” Reference to other manuscripts of Rules, such as the Hanover manuscript, are not abbreviated. When citing directly from CM, I cite by folio number and indicate recto or verso by “r” or “v” in superscript. “CM fo. 16r” = “Cambridge manuscript, folio 16, recto.”
