Abstract

The works of Joseph Glanvill, who was a fellow of the Royal Society, are complex : indeed, the most radical scepticism can be found to go hand in hand with the deepest trust in the advancement of knowledge. This apparent paradox bespeaks a new conception of science : a science that is definitely free from any claim to an intuitive comprehension of the nature of things. Scepticism thus becomes the condition of scientific progress as well as the very method of science itself. In so far forth, Glanvill has an important place, however unconspicuous, in the modern history of critical philosophy. In his answer to Descartes’s argument of theDeus deceptor(a deceptive god), Glanvill makes a distinction between “infallible certainty” and “indubitable certainty”, which indeed marks the moment when science, aware of its own rules, acknowledges its relativity.