From logical empiricism to radical probabilism

Richard C. Jeffrey

pp. 121-130

in: Friedrich Stadler (ed), Scientific philosophy, Berlin, Springer, 1993

Abstract

Adopting a central feature of Stoic epistemology, Descartes treated belief as action that might be undertaken wisely or rashly, and enunciated a method for avoiding false belief, a discipline of the will "to include nothing more in my judgments than what presented itself to my mind with such clarity and distinctness that I would have no occasion to put it in doubt".¹ He called such acts of the will "affirmations", i.e., acts of accepting sentences or propositions as true.

Cited authors

Descartes René