TERESA OF ÁVILA AND RENÉ DESCARTES ON INFUSED CONTEMPLATION, DIVINE IMMEDIACY, AND THE LOVE OF GOD

A Dissertation for Defense • Zachary Agoff

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Abstract

In recent secondary literature, it has been suggested that Teresa of Ávila’s The Interior Castle served as source material for Descartes’s Meditations on First Philosophy. I argue that this is likely not the case, given both broad and specific differences between Teresa and Descartes’s methodological and philosophical commitments. I defend this claim along three lines. First, I argue that Teresa and Descartes leverage distinct cognitive states in their respective introspective exercises. The former leverages supernatural cognitive states, termed ‘infused contemplation’, while the latter leverages natural cognitive states, termed ‘discursive meditation’. Second, I demonstrate that Teresa relies heavily on the will’s immediate access to God, while Descartes, at least in his account of theoretical knowledge, only permits the will access to God as mediated by the intellect. Given the central role that the will’s immediate access to God plays in Teresa’s method, this draws another clear line between the two figures. Lastly, I develop a reading of Descartes’s account of the love of God. I explore the degree to which the will experiences God as mediated by the intellect in such affective states, and conclude that Descartes never permits the will immediate access to God in a way that resembles Teresa’s own account. It follows that the two figures are engaged in quite distinct projects.

 

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Supervisor of Dissertation

Karen Detlefsen
Vice Provost of Education and Professor of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania

 

Graduate Group Chairperson

Errol Lord
Associate Professor of Philosophy 

 

Dissertation Committee

Dr. Gary Hatfield
Seybert Professor of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Sukaina Hirji
Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania

 

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The department representative is TBD