Philosophical Works · Chapter
XXXIX explained
Descartes argues that the freedom of the will is self-evident and among the innate notions.
What happens
Descartes argues that the freedom of the will is self-evident and among the innate notions. He points out that even when he supposed a deceiving God, he was still conscious of his freedom to withhold assent from uncertain things, making this freedom as clear and self-evident as anything can be known.
Themes in this chapter
Free Will and Assent
Descartes presents the freedom of the will as a self-evident, innate notion, demonstrated even under the hypothesis of a deceiving God.
Skepticism and Certainty
The chapter uses radical doubt to reveal the indubitable certainty of free will, showing that some truths survive even the most extreme skeptical scenarios.
Characters to notice
- René Descartes
Author and philosopher asserting the self-evidence of free will.
- God
Hypothetical deceiver used in the argument to test the certainty of free will.
- Narrator
The 'we' and 'us' representing the thinking subject experiencing the consciousness of free will.
Key passages
“Finally, it is so manifest that we possess a free will, capable of giving or withholding its assent, that this truth must be reckoned among the first and most common notions which are born with us.”
It is obvious that we have free will, able to choose to believe or not, and this is one of the most basic and universal ideas we are born with.
Descartes asserts free will as an innate, self-evident truth.
“for when essaying to doubt of all things, we went so far as to suppose even that he who created us employed his limitless power in deceiving us in every way, we were conscious nevertheless of being free to abstain from believing what was not in every respect certain and undoubted.”
When we tried to doubt everything, even imagining that our creator used infinite power to deceive us completely, we still felt free to refuse belief in anything that wasn't absolutely certain.
Even under the extreme hypothesis of a deceiving God, the consciousness of free will remains intact.