Abstract
In this study, I reconsider the question of the continuities and discontinuities between the Renaissance and the Early Modern period, putting the accent on the idea of “the perfection of man,” as René Descartes conceived it in his Meditations and his Principles of Philosophy. I show in what sense it is possible to speak in this connection of a humanist thought, and I proceed to distinguish between the two complementary meanings recognized by Descartes as being a part of the hominis perfectio. There is, on the one hand, a remarkable confidence in the natural capacities of the human mind and the conviction that since our faculties are all good by their nature, what is important is to make the best use of them; and on the other hand there is a general project to “elevate our nature to its highest degree of perfection.” Still, Descartes rejects, in the wake of Montaigne, the ontological conception of the hominis perfectio, which, after the manner of a Raymond Sebond, would make the human being the highest creature in the scale of beings. The main perfection of the human being declares itself for Descartes with respect to the less considerable perfections that are within us: a comparison that is internal to the study of the human being, and that is not carried out with respect to other creatures. Hence it is not between Montaigne and Descartes, between the time of the Renaissance and the Early Modern period, but, within the Renaissance itself, between Sebond and Montaigne, that the break with the image of the human being qua center of the world and goal of creation took place.
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Notes
- 1.
Cousin (1843), 728.
- 2.
Marion (1986).
- 3.
That is the study I undertook in Philosophie et perfection de l’homme. De la Renaissance à Descartes (Philosophy and Perfection of Man: From the Renaissance to Descartes), devoted to the evolution of the Latin idea of hominis perfectio in French thought from Raymond Sebond to René Descartes. Faye (1998). See also Faye (1999).
- 4.
Bianchi and Paganini (2010).
- 5.
See also the review of the volume published by Frédéric Lelong in the Bulletin Cartésien: “This work, dedicated to the flexibility of the concept of humanism, and diametrically opposed to the interpretative perspectives that tended to see a radical break between the classical age and the culture of the Renaissance (M. Foucault is explicitly targeted in the Bianchi/Paganini preface, but one might also think H. Gouhier co-intended) could not but take up a position in relation to the thesis defended by E. Faye […]. The preface, moreover, explicitly positions itself within that reflection on the hominis perfectio of the Renaissance up to and including Descartes.” (Lelong (2012), 157).
- 6.
Bianchi and Paganini (2010), 1–2: “. Nel preparare il suo Discours de la méthode […] Descartes meditava nel marzo 1636 di intitolarlo “progetto di una Scienza universale che possa elevare la nostra natura al suo più alto grado di perfezione.” E ancora alla fine della Quarta Meditazione evocava un progetto analogo parlando della ‘maxima et praecipua hominis perfectio’ Riviveva dunque in piena epoca secentesca uno dei grandi ideali dell’età rinascimentale, quello che Montaigne (riferendosi a Socrate) aveva riassunto nella formula assai prossima: ‘extrême degré de la perfection de l’homme’, oppure, con una variante meno sviluppata ma altrettando enfatica, “de sommet de la sagesse humaine.”
- 7.
Bianchi and Paganini (2010), 1–2: “Ma quello che per Montaigne era ancora il privilegio di un’individualità eccezionale o al più il frutto di un’educazione strettamente personale, diventava invece nel discorso cartesiano una prospettiva accessibile all’intera umanità grazie all’uso di un metodo e di tecniche scientifiche appropriate, in modo da render la praticabile da chiunque fosse dotato di semplice ‘buon senso’ o di ‘lume naturale.’”
- 8.
Kambouchner (2009).
- 9.
I had developed this point in a colloquium organized in 1996 on Descartes and the Renaissance (See Faye (2000), 16–17), and the interpretation of De usu librorum had subsequently been at the center of an initial and brief discussion between Kambouchner and me on the relationship between Descartes and scholasticism, during a session of the Société française de philosophie held in 1998 (See Kambouchner (1998), 45–47).
- 10.
Kambouchner (2009), 345.
- 11.
Ibid. This second theme is closely connected with my own analyses.
- 12.
Ibid., 352.
- 13.
Ibid., 354. I disagree with this last assertion; I will give my reasons below.
- 14.
Ibid.
- 15.
See Faye (1998), 28–32: “Humanisme,” “dignité”, and “perfection,” in the chapter titled “Le choix des mots” [The choice of words].
- 16.
Gontier (2001), 29 ff. In reality, I do not speak of abuse, but identify and note the extreme diversity of meanings ascribed to the word “humanism,” even when applied to Renaissance philosophers. And I do not advocate simply dropping the notion of humanism. On the contrary, I write that “the term humanism is indeed a word that belongs to our time – a word whose meaning philosophy must defend today” (ibid., 30). This “today,” written in 1998, is the twentieth century that henceforth belongs to history. A historian of ideas will thus have a lot to say about the word humanism as used in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We have only to think of the exemplary work by Toussaint (2008), but this term can be the source of many misunderstandings and much confusion when applied in an inaccurate or insufficiently nuanced manner to Renaissance and Early Modern authors.
- 17.
Faye (1998), 269.
- 18.
Ibid., 385 ff. See Montaigne (1978), 323.
- 19.
Dupleix (1994), 43 (my translation).
- 20.
Kambouchner (2009), 355.
- 21.
Descartes (1996), 43.
- 22.
Ibid.: “So today I have learned not only what precautions to take to avoid ever going wrong, but also what to do to arrive at the truth”. It is clear that Descartes’ words are not merely negative. Though not imperative in the Kantian sense of the term, it is positive and prescriptive.
- 23.
Indeed, Descartes writes: “It is part of the very nature of the will to have a very broad scope; and it’s a supreme perfection in man that he acts voluntarily, i.e. freely.” Descartes (2010), 9 [article 37].
- 24.
Descartes (1976), AT VII, 62.
- 25.
- 26.
See also on this topic the discussion on humanism proposed by Gress (2012).
- 27.
“Artiens” so called as they were connected (as teachers, students, or more specifically by their doctrine of happiness) with the Faculty of Arts.
- 28.
The summa hominis perfectio is particularly important in Principles of Philosophy, of which it takes up articles 37 and 38 of the Part I, containing 76 articles.
- 29.
- 30.
See Kambouchner (2009), 85–86.
- 31.
See Faye (1998), 310–311, 331. On this precise point, D. Kambouchner’s analyses and my own are not far from agreeing. What separates us is that I do not believe that Descartes’ critique of anthropomorphism is an argument from which it is possible to draw a metaphysical reason for doubting that the perfection of man is a “properly Cartesian” theme.
- 32.
We should note that F. Lelong concludes his interesting review of Bianchi and Paganini’s volume in the following terms. “That is why this work is characterized by the will to transcend, in the name of a metaphysically “sobered up” anthropology, the contemporary polemic between the enthusiastic use of the term hominis perfectio and Heidegger’s questioning of humanism as a metaphysics of the subject.” (see Lelong (2012)).
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Faye, E. (2016). Descartes, the Humanists, and the Perfection of the Human Being. In: Muratori, C., Paganini, G. (eds) Early Modern Philosophers and the Renaissance Legacy. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 220. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32604-7_9
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