Fragmentos dos Princípios da Filosofia

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Prefácio

- Filosofia está em má reputação, porque o modo que eles ensinaram se mostrou insatisfatório.
- Definição de filosofia: um perfeito conhecimento de tudo o que o homem pode saber, deduzido dos primeiros princípios. O filósofo deve começar a procura pelas primeiras causas.
- Embora só Deus seja perfeitamente sábio, o homem pode mais ou menos conhecer as coisas verdadeiras mais ou menos importantes.
- Viver sem filosofar é em verdade o mesmo que manter os olhos fechados sem tentar abri-los.
- Este estudo é mais um requisito para regular as nossas maneiras, e para nos conduzir pela vida, do que é o uso dos nossos olhos para direcionar nossos passos.
- Deus, considerado pela razão natural sem a luz da fé é o conhecimento da verdade pelas suas primeiras causas, as quais a filosofia estuda.
- Observa-se que os que se professam filósofos são menos sábios e menos razoáveis do que os que nunca se aplicaram a este estudo.
- Temos quatro graus de sabedoria: 1- noções claras e distintas; 2 - experiência sensitiva; 3 - instrução pelos outros homens; 4 - leituras de livros de quem pode nos dar boa instrução. Não classifico aqui a Revelação Divina, pq ela não nos conduz por graus, mas nos eleva de uma vez à fé infalível.
- Os filósofos se empenham em um quinto elemento: a procura das primeiras causas e princípios verdadeiros, dos quais devem ser deduzidas as razões de tudo o que pode ser conhecido pelo homem.
- Platão, seguindo Sócrates, admite só ter encontrado conhecimento provável, e nada de certo. Aristóteles, seguindo seu mestre, reverteu o modo de pôr os princípios, e propôs como verdade o provável.
- Mas estes dois foram muito sábios nos quatro meios do saber, tanto que os que os sucederam, aquiesceram em suas opiniões, ao invés de procura-las por eles próprios.
- A principal disputa de seus discípulos foi o de se pode-se colocar todas as coisas em dúvida, ou se há algumas coisas certas, uma disputa que levou ambos os lados ao erro: os que duvidaram, estenderam a dúvida às ações da vida, e negligenciaram regras ordinárias para a conduta. Os que mantiveram a doutrina da certeza, suporam que ela deve depender dos sentidos, e confiaram neles, o que levou Epicuro, contra o raciocínio dos astrônomos, a afirmar que o sol não é maior do que parece.
- O erro dos que aprenderam muito o lado da dúvida, foi o de não seguir por uma extensão de tempo, e o do partido oposto, tem sido corrigida pela doutrina que os sentidos são enganosos em muitas instâncias.
- Todavia, eu não sei quem tenha removido esse erro por mostrar que a verdade não está nos sentidos, mas só na razão, e enquanto possuímos o conhecimento nos quatro graus, não devemos duvidar das coisas que parecem certas para a conduta da vida, nem estimamos-os tão certas que não possam ser corrigidas.
-Esses que seguiram os escritos de Aristóteles, corromperam seus escritos, e os que não o seguiram, são corrompidos com as opiniões de sua juventude.
- Ao saber que duvida, eu tomo não o corpo, mas a alma como primeiro princípio.
- Quanto mais estudados em filosofia antiga, menos determinados estão eles para apreender a verdade.
- Para instruir-se deve-se: um homem que tem meramente o conhecimento vulgar e imperfeito que pode ser adquirido pelos quatro meios já explicados, deve se empenhar em formar para si mesmo um código moral, suficiente para regular as ações de sua vida. Depois, ele deve estudar lógica, não esta das Escolas, pois ela é só, propriamente falando, uma dialética que ensina o modo de expor a outros o que nós já sabemos, ou mesmo o de falar muito, sem juízo, o que nós não sabemos, pois isso significa que ela corrompe, antes do que aumenta o bom senso - mas a lógica que ensina a certa conduta da razão com a visão de descobrir as verdades dos quais nós somos ignorantes.
- Toda a filosofia é como uma árvore: as raízes são a metafísica, o tronco é a física e os galhos são todas as outras ciências, que se reduzem às três principais: a medicina, a mecânica e a moral.
- As verdades de meus princípios, afastarão as disputas, nas quais os efeitos contrários são as controvérsias das Escolas, que, como elas insensivelmente fazem com que esses que são exercitados neles mais por disputas e opiniões, são talvez a primeira causa das heresias e dissensões que atualmente perturbam o mundo.

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Livro I: Dos Princípios do Conhecimento Humano

Art: I. That in order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of all things. Formamos prejuízos na infância porque não tínhamos ainda total uso da razão.

II. That we ought also to consider as false all that is doubtful.

III. That we ought not meanwhile to make use of doubt in the conduct of life. as far as concerns the conduct of life, we are very frequently obliged to follow opinions merely probable, or even sometimes, though of two courses of action we may not perceive more probability in the one than in the other, to choose one or other, seeing the opportunity of acting would not unfrequently pass away before we could free ourselves from our doubts.

IV. In the first place, because we know by experience that the senses sometimes err, and it would be imprudent to trust too much to what has even once deceived us; secondly, because in dreams we perpetually seem to perceive or imagine innumerable objects which have no existence. And to one who has thus resolved upon a general doubt, there appear no marks by which he can with certainty distinguish sleep from the waking state.

V. Because we have sometimes seen men fall into error in such matters, and admit as absolutely certain and self evident what to us appeared false, but chiefly because we have learnt that God who created us is all-powerful; for we do not yet know whether perhaps it was his will to create us so that we are always deceived, even in the things we think we know best.

VI. That we possess a free-will, by which we can withhold our assent from what is doubtful, and thus avoid error.

VII. That we cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt. the knowledge, _I_ THINK, THEREFORE _I_ AM, is the first and most certain that occurs to one who philosophizes orderly.

VIII. This is the best mode of discovering the nature of the mind, and its distinctness from the body: neither extension, nor figure, nor local motion, pertains to our nature, consequently, that the notion we have of our mind precedes that of any corporeal thing.

IX. By the word thought, I understand all that which so takes place in us that we of ourselves are immediately conscious of it; and,not only to understand, to will, to imagine, but even to perceive, are here the same as to think.

X. That the notions which are simplest and self-evident, are obscured by logical definitions; and that such are not to be reckoned among the cognitions acquired by study, [but as born with us]. And when I said that the proposition,_I_ THINK, THEREFORE _I_ AM, is of all others the first and most certain which occurs, I did not therefore deny that it was necessary to know what thought, existence, and certitude are, and the truth that, in order to think it is necessary to be, and the like; but, because these are the most simple notions, and such as of themselves afford the knowledge of nothing existing, I did not judge it proper there to enumerate them.

XI. Quando sabemos algo, temos maior certeza do conhecimento de nossa mente. For example, if I judge that there is an earth because I touch or see it, on the same ground, and with still greater reason, I must be persuaded that my mind exists; for it may be, perhaps, that I think I touch the earth while there is one in existence.

XIII. So long as we attend to the premises from which a conclusion was deduced, we feel assured of their truth; but, as the mind cannot always think of these with attention, when it has the remembrance of a conclusion without recollecting the order of its deduction, and is uncertain whether the author of its being has created it of a nature that is liable to be deceived, even in what appears most evident, it perceives that there is just ground to distrust the truth of such conclusions, and that it cannot possess any certain knowledge until it has discovered its author.

XIV. And just as because, for example, the equality of its three angles to two right angles is necessarily comprised in the idea of a triangle, so, from its perceiving necessary and eternal existence to be comprised in the idea which it has of an all-perfect Being, it ought manifestly to conclude that this all-perfect Being exists.

XV. That necessary existence is not in the same way comprised in the notions which we have of other things, but merely contingent existence.

XVI. That prejudices hinder (impedem) many from clearly knowing the necessity of the existence of God.

XVII. That the greater objective (representative) perfection there is in our idea of a thing, the greater also must be the perfection of its cause. In the case of a person who has the idea of a machine, in the construction of which great skill is displayed, in which circumstances we have a right to inquire how he came by this idea, whether, he somewhere saw such a machine constructed by another, or whether he was so accurately taught the mechanical sciences, or is endowed with such force of genius, that he was able of himself to invent it, without having elsewhere seen anything like it; for all the ingenuity which is contained in the idea objectively only, must exist at least in its first and chief cause, whatever that may be, not only objectively or representatively, but in truth formally or eminently.

XVIII. Thus, because we discover in our minds the idea of God, we have a right to inquire into the source whence
we derive it; and we will discover that the perfections it represents are so immense as to render it quite certain that we could only derive it from an all-perfect Being; that is, from a God really existing. For it is not only manifest by the natural light that nothing cannot be the cause of anything whatever, and that the more perfect cannot arise from the less perfect, so as to be thereby produced as by its efficient and total cause, but also that it is impossible we can have the idea or representation of anything whatever, unless there be somewhere, either in us or out of us, an original which comprises, in reality, all the perfections that are thus represented to us; but, as we do not in any way find in ourselves those absolute perfections of which we have the idea, we must conclude that they exist in some nature different from ours

XIX. we may not comprehend the nature of God, because it is of the nature of the infinite not tobe comprehended by what is finite, but there is nothing which we know so clearly as his perfections.

XX. That we are not the cause of ourselves, but that this is God.

XXI. That the duration alone of our life is sufficient to demonstrate the existence of God.

XXV. That we must believe all that God has revealed, although it may surpass the reach of our faculties.

XXVIII. That we must examine, not the final (de Deus), but the efficient, causes of created things.

XXX. all which we clearly perceive is true, and Thus the highest doubt is removed, which arose from our ignorance on the point as to whether perhaps our nature was such that we might be deceived even in those things that appear to us the most evident. Whence it follows, that the light of nature, or faculty of knowledge given us by God, can never compass any object which is not true, in as far as it attains to a knowledge of it, that is, in as far as the object is clearly and distinctly apprehended. And if we perceive anything by our senses, whether while awake or asleep, we will easily discover the truth provided we separate what there is of clear and distinct in the knowledge from what is obscure and confused.

XXXII. That there are only two modes of thinking in us, viz., the perception of the understanding and the action of the will.

XXXIII. When we apprehend anything we are in no danger of error unless when we judge of something which we do not sufficiently apprehend.

XXXIV. That the will as well as the understanding is required for judging.

XXXVII. It is a high perfection in man to be able to act freely. For self-acting machines are not commended because they perform all the movements for which they were adapted, but the maker of them is praised on account of the exactness with which they were framed.

XLI. We possess sufficient intelligence to know clara e distintamente that this power is in God, but not enough to comprehend how he leaves the free actions of men indeterminate.

XLIV. That we uniformly judge improperly when we assent to what we do not clearly perceive, although our judgment may chance to be true; and that it is frequently our memory which deceives us by leading us to believe that certain things were formerly sufficiently understood by us.

XLV. I call that clear which is present and manifest to the mind giving attention to it, just as we are said clearly to see objects when, being present to the eye looking on, they stimulate it with sufficient force. and it is disposed to regard them; but the distinct is that which is so precise and different from all other objects as to comprehend in itself only what is clear.

XLVI. when any one feels intense pain, the knowledge which he has of this pain is very clear, but it is not always distinct; for men usually confound it with the obscure judgment they form regarding its nature, and think that there is in the suffering part something similar to the sensation of pain of which they are alone conscious. And thus perception may be clear without being distinct, but it can never be distinct without likewise being clear.

L. With regard to these common notions, it is not to be doubted that they can be clearly and distinctly known, for otherwise they would not merit this appellation.

LI. By substance we can conceive nothing else than a thing which exists in such a way as to stand in need of nothing beyond itself in order to its existence. And, there can be conceived but one substance which is absolutely independent, and that is God. We perceive that all other things can exist only by help of the concourse of God.

LIII. although any attribute is sufficient to lead us to the knowledge of substance, there is, however, one principal property of every substance, which constitutes its nature or essence, and upon which all the others depend. Thus, extension in length, breadth, and depth, constitutes the nature of corporeal substance; and thought the nature of thinking substance. For every other thing that can be attributed to body, presupposes extension, and is only some mode of an extended thing; as all the properties we discover in the mind are only diverse modes of thinking. Thus, for example, we cannot conceive figure unless in something extended, nor motion unless in extended space, nor imagination, sensation, or will, unless in a thinking thing. But, on the other hand, we can conceive extension without figure or motion, and thought without imagination or
sensation.

LIV. we may have clear and distinct notions of the substance which thinks, of that which is corporeal, and of God.

LVI. What are modes, qualities, attributes.

LVII. That some attributes exist in the things to which they are attributed, and others only in our thought; and what duration and time are.

LVIII. That number and all universals are only modes of thought.

LXVI. We have all, without exception, from our youth judged that all the things we perceived by our senses had an existence beyond our thought, and that they were entirely similar to the sensations, that is, perceptions. Thus when, for example, we saw a certain colour, we thought we saw something occupying a place out of us.

LXVII. The same prejudice has place in all our other sensations, even in those of titillation and pain

LXIX. That magnitude, figure, etc., are known far differently from colour, pain, smell, taste, or any other of
those properties which I have said above must be referred to the senses.

LXX. there are in objects several properties, as size, figure, number, etc., which, as we clearly know, exist, or may exist in them as they are perceived by our senses or conceived by our understanding.

LXXI. In early life the mind was so closely bound to the body that it attended to nothing beyond the thoughts by which it perceived the objects that made impression on the body. The mind experienced the sensations we call tastes, smells, sounds, heat, cold, light, colours, and the like, which in truth are representative of nothing existing out of our mind, and which vary according to the diversities of the parts and modes in which the body is affected. The mind at the same time also perceived magnitudes, figures, motions, and the like, which were not presented to it as sensations but as things or the modes of things existing, or at least capable of existing out of thought, although it did not yet observe this difference between these two kinds of perceptions. And afterwards when the machine of the body, which has been so fabricated by nature that it can of its own inherent power move itself in various ways, by turning itself at random on every side, followed after what was useful and avoided what was detrimental; the mind, which was closely connected with it, reflecting on the objects it pursued or avoided, remarked, for the first time, that they existed out of itself, and not only attributed to them magnitudes, figures, motions, and the like, which it apprehended either as things or as the modes of things, but, in addition, attributed to them tastes, odours, and the other ideas of that sort, the sensations of which were caused by itself. Hence arose the belief that there was more substance or body in rocks and metals than in air or water, because the mind perceived in them more hardness and weight. Moreover, the air was thought to be merely nothing so long as we experienced no agitation of it by the wind, or did not feel it hot or cold. And because the stars gave hardly more light than the slender flames of candles, we supposed that each star was but of this size. Again, since the mind did not observe that the earth moved on its axis, or that its superficies was curved like that of a globe, it was on that account more ready to judge the earth immovable and its surface flat. And our mind has been imbued from our infancy with a thousand
other prejudices of the same sort which afterwards in our youth we forgot we had accepted without sufficient examination, and admitted as possessed of the highest truth and clearness, as if they had been known by means of our senses, or implanted in us by nature.

LXXII. That the second cause of our errors is that we cannot forget these prejudices.

LXXIII. The third cause is, that we become fatigued by attending to those objects which are not present to the senses; and that we are thus accustomed to judge of these not from present perception but from pre-conceived opinion. And since in truth we perceive no object such as it is by sense alone [but only by our reason exercised upon sensible objects], as will hereafter be clearly shown, it thus happens that the majority during life perceive nothing unless in a confused way.

LXXIV. The fourth source of our errors is, that we attach our thoughts to words which do not express them with accuracy. We find it more easy to recall the words than the things signified by them

LXXVI. we ought to submit our belief to the Divine authority rather than to our own judgment, even although perhaps the light of reason should, with the greatest clearness and evidence, appear to suggest to us something contrary to what is revealed. But in things regarding which there is no revelation, it is by no means consistent with the character of a philosopher to accept as true what he has not ascertained to be such.

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