A NEW ESSAYconcerning theORIGIN OF IDEAS
Volume 3
PART TWO
Application of the Criterion to Demonstrate
the Truth of Pure Knowledge
Contents
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A NEW ESSAYconcerning theORIGIN OF IDEAS
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Volume 3
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PART TWO Application of the Criterion to Demonstrate |
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Contents |
| CHAPTER 1 | The intuition of being, the source of all certainty, is shown to be justified per se |
| Article 1 | Sceptical objections to the intuition of being | |
| Article 2 | The source of the objections | |
| Article 3 | The first doubt: ‘Could not the thought of existence in general itself be an illusion?’ |
| §1 | Reply | ||
| §2 | The sceptic continues to press his point | ||
| §3 | Corollaries of this teaching |
| Article 4 | The second sceptical doubt: ‘How can we perceive something different from ourselves?’ |
| §1 | Reply | ||
| §2 | Continuation. Further clarification of the notion of object | ||
| §3 | Important corollaries |
| Article 5 | The third sceptical doubt: ‘Perhaps the spirit communicates its own forms to what it sees, altering and transforming things from what they are?’ |
| §1 | Reply | ||
| §2 | Corollaries |
| Article 6 | The confutation of the sceptics is re-affirmed |
| Article 7 | The argument developed so far is contained in the teaching of Christian tradition |
| CHAPTER 2 | Truth, or the idea of being, as the means of knowing all other things |
| Article 1 | The connection between what has been said and what follows |
| Article 2 | Different uses of the word ‘truth’ |
| §1 | Most general meaning of ‘truth’ | ||
| §2 | Distinction between truth and true things |
| §3 | Meanings of the expression ‘truth of things’ | ||
| §4 | Truth properly speaking means an idea |
| §5 | The meaning of the word ‘truth’ when we say that there are many truths | ||
| §6 | The meaning of ‘truth’ when used in the singular and absolutely |
| Article 3 | Extracts from the author of the Itinerary and from St. Thomas to show that the idea of being is truth |
| Article 4 | Another demonstration that the idea of being is truth |
| §1 | Different ways of speaking give rise to many kinds of scepticism | ||
| §2 | Apparent forms of scepticism |
| §3 | Suitably expressed, scepticism can have only one form | ||
| §4 | What is required for the scepticism of doubt to be coherent |
| §5 | Scepticism is the impossibility of thought | ||
| §6 | The idea of being, and the truth according to which we judge things, are the same |
| CHAPTER 3 | Possible application of the idea of being |
| Article 1 | Application of the idea of being generates the first four principles of reasoning |
| Article 2 | The general principle of the application of the idea of being considered in its objective value relative to things outside the mind |
| CHAPTER 4 | Persuasion relative to the idea of being or truth, and to the principles of reasoning |
| Article 1 | Every human being has a necessary persuasion about truth and about the first principles of reasoning |
| Article 2 | The first principles of reasoning are also called common conceptions | |
| Article 3 | The nature of common sense | |
| Article 4 | An objection against the universal persuasion of first principles | |
| Article 5 | Reply: the distinction between direct and reflective knowledge | |
| Article 6 | The danger of believing those who assert that they are not persuaded of first principles | |
| Article 7 | The first means for rectifying the reflective knowledge of those who deny first principles is to show that they are in contradiction with their own direct knowledge | |
| Article 8 | The second means for rectifying the reflective knowledge of those who deny first principles, or fail to reason correctly about the most obvious things, is the authority of others, which could therefore be called a criterion of reflective knowledge |
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