ABSTRACT
Spinoza’s responses to the Cartesian method of doubt have not impressed commentators. Popkin put the main points neatly, if starkly:
Popkin’s verdict was a severe one:
The reasons for this are not hard to see. In brief, Spinoza, who was extremely well-acquainted with the work of Descartes, dismissed the doubts of the First Meditation in little more than a few words. His opinion that truth is a standard of itself and of falsity looks like an intuitionism that, to a critical reader, appears as ‘epistemological dogmatism’. Even a sympathetic commentator like Hubbeling thought that Spinoza had not ‘really struggled with doubt as for example Descartes did’. Attempts have been made to argue Spinoza’s case but not, this chapter will seek to show, along the most effective lines.
