Abstract

This dissertation explores how Descartes conceived of human free will and how he reconciled it with Divine Providence. Chapter One sets the stage by examining several conceptions of freedom prevalent in Descartes' time. Chapter Two asks whether Descartes thought that freedom consists in "two-way power" . Commentators who claim that Descartes' rejects the two-way power requirement often support their reading by pointing to parallels between Descartes' remarks and those of his friend Guillaume Gibieuf, who explicitly opposes the two-way power view. Through a comparison of Descartes to Gibieuf and a close reading of Descartes' texts about the relations between indifference, divine freedom, and human freedom, I show that throughout his career, Descartes considered two-way power essential to free will. But what is the nature of this two-way power? Is it compatible with determinism? Chapter Three addresses these questions, concluding that for Descartes, the will remains free even while its choice is determined by a clear and distinct perception in the intellect, provided the will had some role in bringing about that clear and distinct perception; the will's freedom thus consists in a kind of self-determination that is compatible with local, but not global, intellectual determinism. Chapter four relates Descartes' incompatibilist conception of freedom to his view that every event was preordained by God. In an important text, Descartes seems to adopt "Molinism," which seeks to reconcile freedom and providence by positing divine "middle knowledge" of "conditionals of freedom," which state what creatures would choose in any given circumstances. However, Descartes' view seems inconsistent because he also affirms what standard Molinism denies: that God determines which conditionals of freedom are true. Though perplexing, Descartes' Molinist strategy manifests the same attitude toward divine power as his infamous claim that God created the eternal truths. In both cases, God is able to create essences with properties that would seem to be ruled out by their created status