Minds and Oaths

Abstract

The Protestant Reformation is said to have had a number of ramifications within philosophy. Popkin has traced the sceptical crisis in 17th century philosophical thought back to the criterion problem, the search for a rule of religious truth, which was precipitated by the Reformation. Rex has shown how the elaboration of what might be called the epistemology of religious certitude devised by Calvinist theologians provided fertile intellectual ground for the acceptance of Cartesianism. I shall claim that one product of the Reformation was a set of closely related doctrines, doctrines which were to become associated with Cartesianism, and which were essential to the formulation ofthe Reformers' case.