## 1. Life and Work



Francisco Sanches/Sanchez (1551-1623) was a physician and
a philosopher. As professor of both medicine and philosophy at the
University of Toulouse, he was the author of a number of treatises on
both medicine and philosophy, but gained notoriety as the sceptical
philosopher who penned *Quod Nihil Scitur* (1581), or *That
Nothing is Known* (1988, TNK). As a philosopher who took a
sceptical view of knowledge, and who famously ended his writings with
the Latin interrogative "*quid*?" even the question
of whether he was Portuguese or Spanish by birth, has been the subject
of much debate. This has led to the confusing dual spelling of his
last name: with an "s" by Luso-Brazilian scholars
(Sanches); with a "z" by Spanish scholars
(Sanchez); and commonly with an "s" (with some
exceptions) by English-language scholars. Here the latter spelling
will be used solely in keeping with English language scholarship and
translations, while referring to Sanches, as an Iberian philosopher.
This confusion over his rightful birth place, is curiously reflected
in Elaine Limbrick's Introduction to *That Nothing is
Known*, where she refers to him as "the Portuguese
philosopher and doctor" on page 1 and then a few pages later
writes that "Francisco Sanches (Franciscus Sanchez) was probably
born on July 16, 1551, in Tuy, a city of northwestern
Spain..." (Limbrick 1988: 4): situated across the border
from the Portuguese city of Braga, with which it shared an archdiocese
(Cazac 1903, 1904). Supposedly, a distant cousin of Michel de
Montaigne, and born to a family of "conversos" (Orden
Jimenez 2012, in Other Internet Resources), in 1562 the Sanches
family moved to the Bordeaux region where the cultural and political
climate was much more amicable towards Jews and converts (Limbrick
1988: 5). It was in Bordeaux that Sanches attended the prestigious
College de Guyenne between the years 1562 and 1571. The
College de Guyenne, whose course of study ranged from secondary
school to college, included a curriculum that emphasized the rhetoric
of Aristotle and the scholastics. 



> 
> 
> The existence of higher groups in philosophy and of public lectures in
> Greek and mathematics indicates the overlapping of school and
> university, (Woodward 1906: 143) 
> 
> 
> 



which gives one some idea as to the kind of education Sanches received
at the College. And in effect, the first two years of college
level courses included the study of Aristotelian logic and natural
philosophy (based on the *Physica* and on *De
Caelo*).



Moreover, the teaching of Aristotle, as Michel Reulos has pointed out,
focused on manuals and commentaries on "the Philosopher"
rather than on the actual works of Aristotle (Reulos 1976: 149); and
that in turn, had mostly to do with the fact that relatively little of
Aristotle (and much less of Plato) had been translated into Latin. The
translated excerpts were put at the service of the study of theology
(1976: 152), and the way in which Aristotle was taught, says Reulos,
did not change until the early 1600s, when due to the influence of
 Petrus Ramus (1515-1572),
 the study of Aristotle in the colleges began to emphasize a return to
the texts themselves, and deemphasize the medieval commentaries (1976:
154). This explains two major factors regarding Sanches' early
academic background in light of his work: On the one hand, the
fluidity of his Latin and on the other, Sanches' own
acknowledgment that the target of the attack in *That Nothing is
Known* was not so much Aristotle, but rather the scholastic use of
Aristotle. In contrast to the style of Scholastic logicians,
Sanches' style is direct, informal, and devoid of rhetorical
flourishes. And yet while Sanches approvingly cites the Spanish
humanist, Juan Luis Vives' (1492-1540) criticism of the
non-sense produced by the Scholastic dialecticians who only knew
Aristotle "through Latin translations and commentaries",
argues Limbrick (TNK: 29), Petrus Ramus, on the other hand, fails to
get mentioned, due to the latter's wish to fuse rhetoric with
dialectic and more significantly, reconfigure the Galenic method so as
to "ascend" from particulars to universals (Ong 1958
[1983: 257-258]). For it's a noteworthy fact that in 1571
Sanches went to study medicine at La Sapienza in Rome: where
 Galen
 was one of the key figures of medical studies. And to a great extent
one could argue that Sanches' empiricist scepticism can best be
understood against the background of Galen's inductive method
and his own training as a physician. Medical pedagogy at La Sapienza
underscored the importance of observation while giving much less
weight to logic and dialectic; in other words, it centered its
teachings on Galen's method as exemplified in the *Ars
medica*, and underplayed the Aristotelian logic and natural
philosophy of the scholastics; a factor that doubtlessly, impacted on
Sanches' philosophy. Sanches, however, did not graduate from La
Sapienza. Instead, two years later, in 1573, he returned to the south
of France, to conclude his studies at the more pedagogically
conservative University of Montpellier, which like La Sapienza
concentrated primarily on Galenic theory (and secondarily on
Hippocrates) (Limbrick 1988: 63). And on 13 July 1574 he received his
doctorate from the University of Montpellier, where he unsuccessfully
tried to secure a position as chair in the Medical Department.
Disappointed with internal and external (religious) politics, Sanches
gained employment at the University of Toulouse (1575) where he
remained until his death in 1623, as professor of both medicine and
philosophy.


## 2. Philosophical Works

 

Sanches wrote treatises on medicine and philosophy, and of his
philosophical works, only two were published in his lifetime, *Quod
nihil scitur* (1581; *That Nothing is Known*) and
*Carmen de cometa anni M.D.LXXVII* (1578; *Poem of the Comet
of 1577*). The other philosophical writings were published by his
sons in 1636, and they included *De longitudine et brevitate vitae,
liber*; *In liber Aristotelis physiognomicon commentarius*;
and *De diviniatone per somnum, ad Aristotelem*. All of which
can be found in the various editions of his philosophical
oeuvre--see the discussion at the beginning of the
Bibliography.



Although occasionally there may be references to a variety of texts,
for reasons of space, the focus here will be on *Carmen de
cometa* [Poem of the Comet] and the Letter to Christopher Clavius,
for they best serve as a bridge to *Quod nihil scitur*/*That
Nothing is Known* (*QNS/TNK*), the work that made Sanches
famous and continues to be studied; either because of its own
intrinsic merits or in connection with
 Rene Descartes' (1596-1650)
 "radical doubt", and other sixteenth and seventeenth
century sceptics like Pierre Charron (1541-1603) or
 Montaigne.
 The essay will consequently begin with *Carmen de cometa*
(1578)/Poem of the Comet, move to Sanches' "Letter to
Christopher Clavius", and will lastly deal with *Quod nihil
scitur* (1581)/*That Nothing is Known* (1988, TNK).


### 2.1 *Carmen de cometa anni M.D.LXXVII*/Poem of the Comet of 1577



As Elaine Limbrick points out, Sanches wrote *Carmen de cometa anni
M.D.LXXVII* in the style of Lucretius' *De rerum
natura* or *The Nature of Things*. His two main targets
were (1) Francesco Giuntini's *Discours sur ce que menace
devoir advenir la comete apparue a Lyon le 12 de ce mois de
Novembre de 1577. laquelle se voit encores a present,* a
treatise that proposed that the comet of 1577, and comets in general,
were prophetic phenomena of bad things to come, such as plagues and
the deaths of kings; and (2) Aristotelian notions of the heavens, the
spheres, and the place of comets within this hierarchical,
astronomical ontology.



It is indeed telling that Sanches begins the *Carmen de cometa*
in a mocking and critical tone on the question of knowledge. He
writes: 



> 
> 
> Why do you pretend to know such profound things you, impulsive youth?
> To what end do you pretend to know these things, you trembling old
> age? Thus I want to show above all else that the long-haired star
> cannot predict anything. And even if it could predict, it would not
> provide any knowledge. It serves no purpose. So why want what is
> useless? (CC: 143: 1-2; 146: 25-27, my translation) 
> 
> 
> 



This is the scepticism that frames the Poem of the Comet.



Firstly, we have Sanches' view of comets, more or less derived
from Aristotle's notions of the heavens and the place of comets
within them. For Aristotle comets were celestial bodies inhabiting the
space between the Earth and the upper heavenly spheres. They were
created by hot dry exhalation that emanated from the terrestrial
sphere, and clashed, as it were, with the movement of the heavenly
sphere (*Meteorologica* 344a8-33); or as Aristotle
explained: if the exhalation extended in all directions it was called
a "comet or long-haired star", and if it extended
lengthwise only it was called a "bearded star". 



> 
> 
> Now when as a result of the upper motion there impinges upon a
> suitable condensation a fiery principle which is neither so very
> strong as to cause a rapid and widespread conflagration, nor no feeble
> as to be quickly extinguished, but which is yet strong enough and
> widespread enough; and when besides there coincides with it an
> exhalation from below of suitable consistency; then a comet is
> produced, its exact form depending on the form taken by the
> exhalation--if it extends in all directions it is called a comet
> or long-haired star, if it extends lengthwise only it is called a
> bearded star. (344a15-26 51)
> 
> 
> 



The fact, thereby, that comets were conceived objects of secondary
importance in the great hierarchy of the heavenly spheres, reduce
their ontological significance for Sanches. How could such unimportant
phenomena prophecy great events and determine the actions of rational
beings? Since comets were the product of dry exhalations "with
excessively weak forces" that occurred at great distances from
the earth, they "could not be the cause of anything" (CC:
194: 658-661, my translation). "What could your
long-haired star achieve then? What can that minuscule breath with its
dim light, transmit to us from the heights of the heavens" (CC:
666-669). The answer for Sanches, as would be expected, was
"*nihil*". Nowhere was it observable that comets
were either signs or final causes (cf. Orden Jimenez 2003) In
short, comets were not natural phenomena with consciousness that
"gave greater importance to kings than to common citizens"
(CC: 174-174: 409-410); and they certainly could not be
the cause of human actions, for then they would obviate free will.




> 
> 
> The free mind is not subject to laws, and neither are its own acts: it
> can turn either way; at times the soul turns to a certain thing, and
> at times to others...Why do you persist that the long-haired
> stars can predict harmful arguments or cruel poisons in my life? No
> one can foretell what is subject to free will. (CC: 170:
> 336-339, 342-346) 
> 
> 
> 



And he adds: 



> 
> 
> Religion and the habits of our souls are free acts of our will. What
> effects can celestial bodies have on free acts? What is the relation
> between our mind and a bearded star? Celestial bodies have not been
> given any power over the mind.... (CC: 171: 354-359, my
> translation) 
> 
> 
> 



Religion, and even more so, "good acts" can only be
attributable to free will. Or to put it another way, morality is
contingent on free will. If God were to put special powers into comets
such that they could influence human actions, then comets--these
material objects--would be superior to humans. Humans would be
the playthings of comets, and "good acts" *qua*
determined acts would no longer be good. On the other hand, human acts
would be subject, to what in the Middle Ages was deemed as
"Fortuna", predestination, and to some extent
providence.



Finally, there is Sanches' tacit criticism of a theory based on
nothing more than a syllogistic argument that fails to prove any
connection between comets and human actions, not to mention, any
connection between the appearance of a comet as a cause, and its
putative effects on human actions, death, harvests, and diseases. For
how many years could go by before a comet was witnessed, asked
Sanches, and still harvests failed, earthquakes rattled the earth, and
kings died? Not to mention the fact that comets were often witnessed
by certain peoples around the globe and not by others. Did that mean
that if the comet were only seen by the peoples of India, it would
only have an effect on that particular population, and not on the
peoples of the south of France? If comets only predicted certain
things, one was left to ask: why these and not others? And what is
more, why could they not equally be the cause of good things?
"There is no reason for it", says Sanches (CC: 186: 563).
And as such, at the very core of Sanches' poem, lies the kernel
of his scepticism. After all, the Poem of the Comet of 1577 and
*That Nothing is Known* were written at nearly the same time.
In this respect, Sanches' Poem is an attack on Ptolemaic
astrology, which anticipated Pierre Gassendi's (1592-1655)
criticisms of astrology's vis-a-vis its threat to the
notion of free will (Sarasohn 1996: 99). Interestingly, Sanches and
Gassendi shared what Popkin calls a "constructivist
scepticism" (1964: 17); which in both cases resulted from their
anti-Aristotelianism and scientific empiricism (Popkin 1964:
86-87). As such, then, from this perspective, *Carmen de
Cometa*/Poem of the Comet ought to be considered one of
Sanches' philosophical works, and one which sheds light upon his
more popular *Quod nihil scitur/That Nothing is Known*.


### 2.2 Letter to Christopher Clavius



Just as everything else that has to do with Sanches, there is even
uncertainty as to the date the Letter to Christopher Clavius was
written. Raymond Delassus, Sanches' disciple, and first
biographer, dates the letter to around 1575, while J. Iriarte believes
that the latter was written much later, in 1589, in which case it
would place the writing of the letter at least eight years after the
publication of *Quo nihil scitur* (1581). Given, however, that
Clavius' translation and commentary on Euclid's
*Elements* was published in Rome in 1574, it would seem that
the former date of 1575, makes much more sense. It stands to reason
that Sanches would have responded to Clavius' commentary soon
after its publication rather than fifteen years later, especially when
so much of what is in the letter is implicitly related to
Sanches' epistemology in *Quod nihil scitur*. In that
sense the Letter to Clavius constitutes a debate between those who
like Clavius believed that the truths of mathematics were *a
priori* and indubitable, and thinkers like Sanches who held an
anti-Platonist, empiricist view of the world. A few quotes from
Clavius' *Opera mathematica* and from Sanches's
Letter help us to understand the debate. Clavius wrote:



> 
> 
> Since the mathematical disciplines treat things which are considered
> without any sensible matter (although they are actually impressed in
> matter), it is clear that they occupy the intermediate place between
> metaphysics and natural science...If the nobility and preeminence
> of a science is truly judged by virtue of the certainty of the
> demonstrations it uses, undoubtedly the mathematical disciplines will
> occupy the first place among all. (quoted in Sasaki 2003: 56)
> 
> 
> 



By the time that Descartes wrote the *Meditations*,
Clavius' view concerning what he called the
"preeminence" of mathematics was generally accepted. It
was the prevailing view that something like Euclid's theorems
were time-tested to be demonstrably true. And indeed it was for this
reason that Mersenne suggested to Descartes that he present his
arguments in his Second Replies in geometrical fashion, in the form of
Definitions, Postulates, Axioms, Common Notions, Propositions and
Demonstrations (Dear 1995: 44-45). But at the end of the
sixteenth century, Sanches would have none of it. Probably influenced
by what he had read of
 Carneades'
 sceptical-empiricist critique of mathematics' universal truths
(cf. Cicero, *Academica* 2.116-118; Sextus Empiricus,
*Against the Professors* Book III: "Against the
Geometers"), Sanches anonymously challenged the
 Platonist mathematics
 of the most renowned mathematician of the age. In the guise of a
modern day Carneades, Sanches wrote:



> 
> 
> In my opinion... lest the senses should fail us, we should
> attempt to get whatever we can get through the eyes, with the help of
> compass and rule, and not get into long, complicated demonstrations
> that often make things more confusing. Far is it for me to praise an
> overabundance of complex and long demonstrations, by which we often
> make more obscure that which in itself was clear. (LC: 300: #10, my
> translation)
> 
> 
> 



For Sanches, therefore, the geometrical sign functions in the same way
as the thing represented. In other words, geometry, for Sanches, is
the science of phenomenal objects of perception. Here Jean-Paul
Dumont's explanation of the way in which
 ancient scepticism
 understood phenomena may aid in contextualizing Sanches' own
view. For the ancient sceptics, writes Dumont: 



> 
> 
> The phenomenon is not a subjective representation that exists only for
> thought, or for the imagination of the perceiving subject. The
> phenomenon is a material reality or, if one prefers, a body. (1972: 8)
> 
> 
> 
> 



This Protagorean scepticism--and rejection of Platonism--is
exemplified in Sanches' critique of Proclus'
(412-485 CE) commentary on Proposition XIV of Euclid's
*Elements*.



Sanches had addressed his critique of Proclus' commentary in an
earlier letter he sent to Clavius. However, while this first letter
was lost, the extant letter, "Ad. C. Clavium Epistola",
demonstrates his dissatisfaction with Clavius' Scholastic appeal
to consecrated authority or Proclus. In the first letter, Sanches
congratulates Clavius for his ability to demonstrate some of
Euclid's propositions, with fewer words than Proclus and even
Euclid. In keeping with common opinion, he believes it is a virtue to
state things as clearly as possible in order to avoid unnecessary
confusion "especially in mathematics, where we should understand
as much as possible through the use of our senses" (LC: 300:
#10, my translation).



While the first part of the paragraph above refers to the virtue of
brevity, the second, and more important part of it, has to do with
Sanches' empiricist notion of mathematics, for this is the basis
of Sanches' direct critique of Proclus, and indirectly of
Clavius. Sanches writes to Clavius: 



> 
> 
> ... [Proclus] says that angles ACF and angle ACE are equal to two
> right angles, to which you respond that such angles should be added
> separately and not in terms of one being part of the other, and that
> in this way, they are equal to two right angles. We had already come
> to that response to in previous discussion on the matter, and we agree
> that we have refuted it [Proclus] satisfactorily. Nevertheless, we
> will demonstrate it now with greater clarity. (LC: 301: #12)
> 
> 
> 



And from here, Sanches, with more than a touch irony, similar to that
exhibited in many parts of *QNS/TNK*, says the following:



> 
> 
> Suppose I said that the eminent Clavius with his own head is a Janus
> with two heads, would anyone believe me? Suppose that a father common
> to you and me, were to leave you in his testament two parcels of
> arable lands, the ones that are two right angles, and made me the
> executor, would you be satisfied if I gave you the equivalent of the
> land represented by angle ACF
>  [figure 1],
>  which according to Proclus' demonstration equals two right
> angles? But on the other hand, we would have to consider this, for the
> question is one of geometry, which is to say, of *measuring the
> land*. (LC: 301: #12, my emphasis)
> 
> 
> 



![a diagram consisting of an origin, C, with lines to B at -90 degrees, to A at 90 degrees, D at 0 degrees, E at 45 degrees, and F at -45 degrees](figure1.svg)

Figure 1




Here we witness Sanches turning to the etymology of *geometry*
(*geo
metria*), meaning: the measurement
of the land or earth (*terrae mensura*), followed by a second
example, which much like the first is based on a pragmatist view of
mathematics
 [figure 2].



![a diagram consisting of two lines, one above the other. The top line is labeled A on the left and B on the right. The bottom line is two thirds the length of the top line and is labeled C on the left and D on the right and the midpoint is labeled E.](figure2.svg)

Figure 2




> 
> 
> If you were to purchase a piece of cloth of the length AB, in order to
> make a jacket, and the merchant were to give you a piece of cloth of
> size CD alleging that that CD and CE were equivalent to AB,
> don't you think the jacket would come out too short? (LC: 301:
> #12, my translation).
> 
> 
> 



He summarily concludes: 



> 
> 
> If one were to proceed in this fashion in all mathematical matters, in
> which way would math be different than other deceiving disciplines?
> 
> 
> 
> 



Proclus was a Pythagorean and Platonic philosopher, the author of two
commentaries on Plato's *Timaeus* and the
*Parmenides*. For Proclus mathematical objects--and that,
of course, included the objects of geometry--were not derived by
way of abstraction from sensible particulars, but rather from ideas
already contained in the mind. And it was this very kind of
"dogmatic" philosophy that Sanches opposed. For Sanches
concepts were either unprovable outside of their circular discursive
language (e.g., the syllogism), or easily dismissed through the
senses, as in the two cases mentioned above. It is for this reason
that one can justly qualify Sanches' philosophy as being
empiricist and sceptical at once. Clavius, the addressee of the
letter, was clearly against of the sceptics' conception of
knowledge. Chikara Sasaki writes: 



> 
> 
> Clavius seems to have known to some extent how the skeptics attacked
> human knowledge. He is also reported to have reacted against a
> skeptical attitude in astronomy, which took an instrumental view
> concerning the status of astronomical hypothesis, defending a kind of
> realist philosophy together with Johannes Kepler. (Sasaki 2003: 58)
> 
> 
> 
> 



And Clavius himself in opposition to Pyrrhonism wrote:



> 
> 
> Unless one was revived by the recognition and knowledge of arithmetic,
> geometry and dialectic (these arts had been established by
> forefathers), he would almost arrive at the undecidedness of the
> Pyrrhonists (they were philosophers who decided nothing but doubted
> everything). (Clavius quoted in Sasaki 2003: 58)
> 
> 
> 



Almost as a challenge, then, Sanches ended his letter to Clavius, with
the following words: 



> 
> 
> Do not ask who I am, for I am another Carneades [214-129/8 BCE]:
> who rather than being a friend of glory, is a friend of the truth and
> of you. Goodbye. (LC: 305 #18) 
> 
> 
> 



This, in a nutshell, describes his brand of scepticism, which rather
than being absolute in its denial of truth is a denial of certainty
and perfect knowledge, and the Scholastic belief that the Aristotelian
syllogism guaranteed access to truth. For Sanches the truths of the
syllogism and dialectic were the immanent truths of (self-referential)
language, and nothing else.


### 2.3 *Quod nihil scitur/That Nothing is Known*



Sanches, the self-proclaimed follower of Carneades, begins
*QNS/TNK* with the famous quote from Aristotle's
*Metaphysics*: "'Mankind has an inborn desire to
know'" (TNK: 166, quoting *Met.* 1, 980a). As
Elaine Limbrick points out: 



> 
> 
> This quotation from the first line of Aristotle's
> *Metaphysics* ironically prefaces a treatise whose entire
> purpose is to destroy the Aristotelian system of knowledge by pointing
> out the inadequacies of the Aristotelian scientific methodology and
> the failure of most ancient philosophers to formulate a theory of
> knowledge leading to absolute truth. (TNK: 166-167, note 8) 
> 
> 
> 



But the irony doesn't stop there. Also ironic is the fact that
*That Nothing is Known*, marks a turning point in
philosophy--as did Descartes' *Meditations on First
Philosophy* sixty years later--from an emphasis in
metaphysics to one in epistemology; a philosophical turn often
associated with the birth of Western modern philosophy. To the person
familiar with Descartes' *Discourse on the Method* (1637)
the opening paragraph of *That Nothing is Known* may appear
somewhat surprising, since the methodical doubt expressed in the first
person, conversational tone in the *Discourse* (Part II) seems
almost directly lifted from Sanches' *QNS/TNK* (more on
Sanches and Descartes in
 SS4).
 The French historian of philosophy, Etienne Gilson was among
first to note the similarity of the language employed by both thinkers
to give personal voice to their distinct notions of scepticism (Gilson
1925: 267-268). Sanches wrote:



> 
> 
> My own lot has in no way differed from that of other men. From my
> earliest years I was devoted to the contemplation of Nature so that I
> looked into every-thing in great detail. At first my mind, hungry for
> knowledge, would be indiscriminately satisfied with any diet that was
> proffered to it; but a little later it was overtaken by indigestion,
> and began to spew it all forth again. Even at that period I was
> seeking to find some sustenance for my mind, such that my mind could
> grasp it completely and also enjoy it without reservations; but no one
> could appease my longing. I pored over the utterances of past
> generation of men, and picked the brains of my contemporaries. All of
> them gave me the same answer, yet they brought me no satisfaction at
> all. Yes, I admit that some of them reflected a kind of shadow-image
> of the truth, but I found not one who gave an honest and full report
> of the judgments one ought to form concerning facts [*res*].
> Subsequently I withdrew into myself; I began to question everything,
> and to examine the facts themselves as though no one had ever said
> anything about them, which is the proper method of acquiring
> knowledge. I broke everything down into its ultimate first principles.
> (TNK: 167)
> 
> 
> 



From this point on, Sanches who begins by taking on Scholastic
Aristotelianism, states that his treatise will be written in simple,
plain language. "Accordingly you are not to look in me for an
elegant, polished style" (TNK: 171). He could write, if he
wanted to, in such a style, he tells his reader, but he refuses to do
so because "Truth slips away while we substitute one word for
another and employ circumlocutions--for this is verbal
trickery" (TNK: 171). If that is what the reader wants then she
should turn to the elegant language of the rhetoricians like Cicero.




> 
> 
> And you should not ask me to quote many authorities, or to treat my
> authorities with deference; deference is rather the mark of a servile,
> untrained mind than of one that is truly investigating the Truth.
> (TNK: 171-172) 
> 
> 
> 



The aim of such statements was clearly to criticize and to distinguish
himself from the Aristotelian emphasis on rhetoric as practiced by the
Scholastics. Rather than follow Aristotle, or any other authority, he
wrote, 



> 
> 
> I shall follow Nature alone. Authority bids us *believe*,
> whereas Reason *demonstrates*; the former is more suited to
> faith, the latter to the sciences. (TNK: 172) 
> 
> 
> 



Here his notion of science is highly significant, because it is this
on which his scepticism rests. Science, as becomes clear by the end of
*That Nothing is Known*, has to do with rational demonstrations
based on facts or things (*rerum*) that come to us from the
senses (the eyes), albeit imperfectly. What Sanches seems to find most
difficult to "swallow" are metaphysical statements and
arguments that cannot be proven, except syllogistically by accepting
their first principles on faith. Concepts that do not "possess
an understanding of natural phenomena ["*res
intelligas*", QNS: 92]" are "inventions",
says Sanches; "for who could understand non-existent
things?" (TNK: 168). The list of such abstract concepts include:
"Democritus's Atom, Plato's Ideas,
Pythagoras's Numbers, and Aristotle's Universals, Active
Intellect, and Intelligences" (TNK: 168). He addresses himself,
he says, only to those who are "'not bound by an oath of
fidelity to any master's words,'" but rather
"assess the facts for themselves, under the guidance of
sense-perception and reason" (TNK: 168). Having said this, he
ends the introduction to *QNS/TNK*, just as he did the Poem of
the Comet, with the sceptical "*Quid*?" or
What?



"I do not *know* even this one thing, namely that I know
nothing", is the opening sentence of the treatise (TNK: 172).
Sanches, next considers whether this is a paradoxical or contradictory
principle of scepticism. For if you *know* how to establish
that you do not know anything, it follows that you already know
something. Furthermore, he argues, if you "have understood the
ambiguity of the inference, you have clearly perceived that nothing is
known" (TNK: 173). And nothing is known, clearly because such
ambiguities only point to the fact that language does not give us
access to absolute knowledge. Dialectical, logical, and linguistic
entanglements such as the one mentioned above only proves his point.
Thus in an allusion to Aristotle's *Metaphysics*
(995a30), he asks his reader to help him "untie this knot"
(TNK: 173). This marks the beginning of his critique of Aristotelian
nominalism.



For Sanches names are arbitrary, and therefore they can in no way
define "the nature of things", or their essences. Now, if
you argue that you can use definitions to *demonstrate* the
nature of a thing, "then show me one such", responds
Sanches. In a manner that recalls some twentieth century philosophers
of language, Sanches questions whether words like Being, Substance,
and Essence mean anything at all beyond the circularity of their
definitions, and whether we even understand what we mean when we
employ them. For example, with respect to the notion of Being, he
writes: 



> 
> 
> You will say that you will not define this being, for it has no higher
> genus to which it belongs. This I do not understand, nor do you. You
> do not know what Being is; much less do I. (TNK: 175) 
> 
> 
> 



To muddy the waters even more, we often use different names to refer
to the same thing (*res*), e.g., "Being, Substance, Body,
Living, Animal, Man, and finally Socrates" to refer to humans.
This way a human being "who is something large, solid, and
perceptible by the senses" becomes an incomprehensible,
conceptual abstraction.



In fact, not only do we not know anything through language, we do not
even know what is "'knowledge'
[*scientia*]" (TNK: 177). Statements such as
Aristotle's "Knowledge is a mental disposition, acquired
by demonstration" only beg the question, what is "a mental
disposition"? And this, says Sanches, he does not know, so
Aristotle's definition of knowledge has failed to provide any
kind of knowledge about what constitutes knowledge. "You are
attempting to force me into a linear series of categorical
propositions", writes Sanches as though he were playing some
kind of language game with another philosopher (player); and
continues, "from these continually onwards, to Being--and
what *that is*, you do not know" (TNK: 178). In this
manner all questions of knowledge are reduce to categorical
propositions, and what are categorical propositions, if not "a
long series of words" (TNK: 178). Now, if such a term as a
"mental disposition" is obscure, so is, to the same
degree, the definition of a "demonstration", says Sanches.
For a demonstration is defined as a "'syllogism'
that gives birth to knowledge" and so judges Sanches in his
Tribunal of Truth, "You have been guilty of a circular argument,
and have deceived me just as you have deceived yourself" (TNK:
181). Not to mention, that there simply is "no science
[*scientia*] of syllogism". And there is no science, or
knowledge that can be derived from the syllogism because all of
Aristotle, including the *Metaphysics,* is nothing but an
inquiry about a name, as for 



> 
> 
> example whether substance can be predicated of a man...And
> inasmuch as no one can know this for sure, there is no knowledge,
> either of things ["*rerum*", QNS: 101] or words
> ["*verborum*", QNS: 101]. (TNK: 183)
> 
> 
> 



We begin and end with particulars. In other words, with material
objects of perception: like *this* table before me, and not any
sort of Platonic Form of table. 



> 
> 
> Individuals alone exist, and can be perceived; it is only of
> individuals that knowledge can be possessed, and only from individuals
> that it can be sought, 
> 
> 
> 



argues Sanches. 



> 
> 
> If this is not so, show me where those 'universals' you
> speak of occur in nature; you will admit that they occur in the
> particulars themselves. (TNK: 213) 
> 
> 
> 



Sanches is clearly a nominalist. In fact, midway through
*QNS/TNK*, he writes in capital letters: "KNOWLEDGE IS
PERFECT UNDERSTANDING OF A THING" (TNK: 200). As Joseph Moreau
points out in "Doute et Savoir chez Francisco Sanches"
(1960), this conception of knowledge or science as the "absolute
and perfect" understanding of a thing, is a left-over of ancient
thought (1960: 37). But again, in any case, such "perfect
understanding" only means apprehending all the qualities of a
particular object of perception. It does not mean apprehending the
object or the thing-in-itself, to put it in Kantian terms. Sanches
writes:



> 
> 
> The sense perceives only the outward appearance of things, and does
> not attain understanding (I am for the moment applying the word
> "sense" to the *eye*). It is the mind that receives
> images from the sense, and considers them. If the sense was deceived,
> so is the mind; but if not, what follows next? The mind regards only
> the images of things, which the eye has taken in; it studies them from
> this side and from that, and turns them about, putting the questions
> "What is this?" and "Whence comes its nature?"
> and "Why"--and no more than this, for it too sees
> nothing that is certain. (TNK: 236)
> 
> 
> 



Not only does sensory perception fail to give us the answers to
questions of essences, natures, and origins (of *noumena*), it
also fails to give us certainty; for all we perceive are
"accidents...the most commonplace of all existents"
(TNK: 237). We can only make inferences, says Sanches, from the
"accidents" of "compound bodies". The
impediment to knowledge, he interestingly states, does not reside in
the object, but rather in the perceiving subject who cannot access
things themselves. 



> 
> 
> Experience is in every instance deceitful and difficult. Even if it is
> possessed perfectly, it only reveals the external aspect of events; in
> no way does it reveal the natures of *things*. (TNK: 278) 
> 
> 
> 



Sanches continues:



> 
> 
> In respect to the natures of things, it [judgment] reveals them only
> by speculation; and since it has not ascertained them by means of
> experience, not only does it too fail to reach the thing itself, but
> sometimes it forms an opinion in exactly the wrong sense. (TNK:
> 278)
> 
> 
> 



Obviously if we do not have access to the things themselves, but only
to the outward appearances of particulars, we cannot come to know
things by their causes either: "Whence comes its nature?"
as he says. We are told, states Sanches, that knowledge means
understanding something by its causes. But this cannot be the case and
the example he gives to illustrate his point, is that of the
father-son causal relation from Aristotle's *Physics*
194b30: "the father is the cause of the child". But this,
argues Sanches, does not lead to any kind of knowledge about the
child, "for what does my father contribute to an understanding
of *me*?" (TNK: 195). Nothing. The infinite regress
required by the notion of causes applies no less to universals than it
does to particulars. For even if one were to stop at God, as
"both the first cause and the final end of all things"
(TNK: 196), and avoid the infinite, in 



> 
> 
> avoiding the infinite you fall into what is infinite and measureless,
> incomprehensible, ineffable and beyond the reach of the understanding.
> (TNK: 196) 
> 
> 
> 



And yet, according to you, says Sanches to his reader, this Being that
is admittedly beyond your understanding "is the cause of
everything; and therefore, according to your definition, understanding
of Him is necessary for the understanding of His works", which
only proves that "you know nothing" (TNK: 196). It was
this, Sanches' fideism that probably saved him from a fate
similar to that of Giordano Bruno's. Sanches' target was
Aristotelian epistemology, never faith. He denied not only knowledge
of efficient and first causes, but also of material and formal causes.
Aristotle's answers to sundry philosophical matters failed to
convince him. When Aristotle wrote in the *Posterior Analytics*
that "[s]ome hold that, owing to the necessity of knowing the
primary premises, there is no scientific knowledge" (1.3
72b5-6), he was addressing the very sceptical notion of
knowledge held by someone like Sanches. "Our own
doctrine", wrote Aristotle, "is that not all knowledge is
demonstrative: on the contrary, *knowledge of the immediate
premises* is independent of demonstration" (1.3
72b18-20, my emphasis). But this is exactly the problem for
Sanches; for if primary and immediate premises do not require
demonstration, that means one has perfect knowledge of them, as one
would of first causes (like God), but that is not true. And if one
does not have perfect knowledge of primary and immediate premises,
then where do they come from? What makes an indemonstrable primary
premise the guarantor of knowledge? Nothing, answers Sanches. Primary
premises are inventions that we need to take on faith in order to
elude an infinite regress, and end up in the kind of scepticism that
Aristotle wanted to avoid. However, if, as Aristotle proposed,
"demonstration must be based on premises prior to and better
known than the conclusion" (1.3 72b25-26), and
demonstrations were based on premises that were themselves arbitrary
inventions, then demonstrations were not to be taken as reflecting
perfect knowledge, or as Sanches would have it, any knowledge at all.
Sanches writes:



> 
> 
> "Knowledge is acquired by demonstration": this in turn
> assumes a definition. Now, definitions cannot be *proved*, but
> have to be *believed*; therefore demonstration based on
> assumptions (*ex suppositis*) will produce knowledge of a
> suppositious kind, not sound exact knowledge...So the conclusions
> to be drawn from these first principles will be things assumed, not
> things known. (TNK: 201)
> 
> 
> 



Therefore Aristotle's statement in the *Posterior
Analytics* that "since the object of pure scientific
knowledge cannot be other than it is, the truth obtained by
demonstrative knowledge will be necessary" (1.3 73a2-23),
was epistemologically insufficient for Sanches. Such necessity would
merely be the syllogistic necessity of a conclusion following from
arbitrary premises. But beyond the logical, there was also a
psychological dimension to Sanches' scepticism, which is
implicit in the rhetorical tone of *QNS/TNK*, and the ever
present other, to whom the treatise is directed. The tone vacillates
from exasperation to despair at not being able to know more than what
is derived from the language and the senses. Sanches dramatically
states:



> 
> 
> How unhappy our situation is! We are blind in the midst of light. I
> have often reflected about light, but always given up without thinking
> it through or understanding or comprehending it. It is the same if you
> reflect on the will and the intellect and other objects that are not
> perceived by means of the senses. (TNK: 243)
> 
> 
> 



And in words that anticipate Descartes' certainty regarding the
existence of the *cogito* (cf. Cottingham 1998: 9), he
declares: 



> 
> 
> Of this I am sure, that I am at this moment thinking of the words that
> I am writing, and that I wish to write them, and long for them both to
> be true and win your approval; (TNK: 243) 
> 
> 
> 



but 



> 
> 
> when I try to reflect on what this thinking is, and this wishing, and
> this longing...then my thinking quite fails me, my wishing is
> frustrated, and my yearning grows ever greater while my concern also
> increases. (TNK: 243) 
> 
> 
> 



All this initially reminds us of Descartes; but later in a pessimistic
tone, he goes on to say that it is this epistemological uncertainty,
this wish to understand (*cognitio*) "inward ideas"
and the impossibility of attaining such knowledge and understanding
beyond the senses that drives him to despair. "I see nothing
that I could seek to lay hold on, or might possibly grasp" (TNK:
243), he writes in frustration. Then in a moment that recalls
Vives' scepticism (cf. Casini 2009), he ponders: if I am
"incapable of comprehending [even] the self" perfectly,
how am I "to comprehend the most abstruse secrets of Nature,
among which are included spiritual things...?" (TNK: 239).
Clearly, argues Sanches, no one doubts that scientific knowledge
(*scientia*) ought to be perfect, but there is nothing, not
even in Nature, that is perfect (TNK: 289). And yet this does not lead
Sanches to the equanimity or *ataraxia*
(ataraxia) of the Stoics.
Instead his impassioned scepticism encourages the active search for
knowledge. To that end, he ends his treatise with the exhortation:
"To work" (TNK: 290) and asks his imaginary interlocutor
to teach him what he knows, while he sets to do the double work of
examining "*Things*" while questioning everything
that ought to be questioned. Like the Poem of the Comet the
treatise's final word is the interrogative: Quid?/What?


## 3. Sanches' Empiricist Scepticism



One topic of debate regarding Sanches' scepticism revolves
around the question of whether he was an Academic sceptic like
Carneades with whom he identified himself in his letter to Clavius
 (SS2.2)
 or whether his scepticism was of the Pyrrhonian variety as Pierre
Bayle (1647-1706) claimed it to be in his Dictionary entry on
Sanches (1697 [1820: 76]). However, the distinction between Pyrrhonian
and Academic scepticism has not always been clear (cf. Striker 1996:
140-141, 148-149). For Popkin (1964), Sanches'
scepticism unlike
 Pyrrho's
 (c. 360 BCE-c. 270 BCE) or
 Sextus Empiricus'
 (c. 160 CE-c. 210 CE), does not call for the suspension of
judgment "but rather the more full-fledged negative dogmatism of
the Academics" (Popkin 1964: 41). Popkin continues: 



> 
> 
> The Pyrrhonists, with their more thoroughgoing scepticism, could
> neither assent to the positive theory of knowledge, nor to the
> definite conclusion that *nihil scitur*. (Popkin 1964: 42) 
> 
> 
> 



But this characterization of Sanches' "*nihil
scitur*" does not seem completely correct either, for it did
not mean, as previously suggested, that absolutely nothing was known.
Instead Sanches presented it as a diagnosis, pertinent on the one
hand, to the medical treatment of the body and on the other, to
philosophical inquiry concerning the things (*rerum*) that
could indeed be known with some degree of certainty (Lupoli 2009).
Now, while Limbrick, like Popkin, also views Sanches as an Academic
sceptic, she, on the other hand emphasizes the notion of Carneadean
probabilism and its connection to Sanches' "medical
practice" (1988: 79). To the point, it is not clear that Sanches
had any direct knowledge of Sextus Empiricus' work; what is
evident, nevertheless, is that he was familiar with Galen's
work, which seems to have influenced his own empiricist
scepticism.



Admittedly, pairing Sanches with Galen may at first seem rather odd,
given the latter's rejection of scepticism. In "My Own
Books" he wrote that he wished to learn "the science of
logical proof" (GAL2: 18) and the method by which to recognize
whether a particular proof was sound or not. To accomplish such, he
says, he turned to "the best-reputed Stoic and Peripatetic
philosophers of the time" (GAL2: 18), but their conflicting
logical theories culminated in confusion. 



> 
> 
> Indeed, as far as these teachers were concerned, I might well have
> fallen into a Pyrrhonian despair of knowledge, if I had not had a firm
> grip of the disciplines of geometry, mathematics, and
> arithmetic.... (GAL2: 18) 
> 
> 
> 



And yet while Galen divided the different approaches to knowledge into
roughly that of the Rationalists (or Dogmatists), the Empiricists, and
the Methodics, his scientific method was a mix of each one of them,
emphasizing a marriage between theory and empiricism. In his
introduction to *Galen: Selected Works*, P. N. Singer writes:




> 
> 
> The Empiric school, which was founded in the mid-third century BC by a
> follower of Herophilus [335 BC-280 BC], was influenced by
> Sceptical philosophy, and represented an attempt to engage in the art
> of medicine with as little as possible in the way of theoretical
> postulates. (Singer 1997: xiv) 
> 
> 
> 



This almost seems as a corollary to Sanches' sceptical rejection
of the theoretical, dogmatic postulates of the Aristotelian syllogism
and Plato's Ideas. 



> 
> 
> Denying the possibility of true knowledge concerning the body, the
> Empiric's view is that the doctor must rely on experience
> (*peira*) and precise observation
> (*teresis*).... (1997: xiv) 
> 
> 
> 



In that light, if indeed it was the mathematical disciplines that
saved Galen from falling into a Pyrrhonian despair concerning
knowledge, it is because his vision of mathematics seems to have had
the function of proving along with experience (or experimentation)
theories necessary to arrive at correct diagnoses, and not because he
envisioned mathematics as an abstract, Platonic discipline.



Thus, what *prima facie* seems to be a major difference between
Galen and Sanches regarding the truths mathematics may not be so great
after all. Doubtlessly, Galen was an Aristotelian philosopher and
physician, who subscribed to Aristotelian logic and definitions,
whereas Sanches was not and did not; and yet much like Sanches he
doubted that any knowledge of the *noumenal* world (e.g., God,
the substance and immortality of the soul, etc.) was possible.
Interestingly, Galen's "An Outline of Empiricism"
begins with the following sentence: 



> 
> 
> All doctors who are followers of experience, just like the
> philosophers who are called Sceptics, refuse to be called after a man,
> but rather want to be known by their frame of mind. (GAL1: 23) 
> 
> 
> 



Such a statement bears resemblance to Sanches' questioning of
universals for the very much the same reason; that is to say, because
the experience of things (*rerum*) is always the experience of
particulars and not of universals (like Man). Galen later explains:




> 
> 
> We say that the art of medicine has taken its origin from experience,
> and not from indication. By "experience", we mean the
> knowledge of something which is based on one's own perception,
> by "indication", the knowledge which is based on rational
> consequence. For perception leads us to experience, whereas reason
> leads the dogmatics to indication. (GAL1: 24) 
> 
> 
> 



Earlier empiricists, argues Galen, viewed perception and experience as
both the activity of seeing for oneself (*autopsia*) and as
cognition, and that is how he thought medical practice ought to be
conducted (GAL1: 25-26). Here we have Galen the physician and
the philosopher who wrote: "The best doctor is also a
philosopher" (GAL2: 30-34), and the Galen who was to be a
predecessor of Sanches. But Galen was not alone in being a philosopher
and a physician. His contemporary Sextus Empiricus seems also to have
been both.



In section XXXIV of *Outlines of Scepticism*, Sextus Empiricus
posed the question "Is medical empiricism the same as
scepticism?" (SE-OS: 62: 235), to which he answered that if
empiricism made assertions about "the inapprenhensibility of
unclear matters" then it could not be the same as scepticism,
and the same applied to scepticism, for scepticism was precisely a
rejection of belief in things that could not be proven (dogmatism).
Nowhere else did these two modes of thought function better, wrote
Sextus Empiricus, than in medicine. He argued:



> 
> 
> They might rather adopt, as it seems to me, what is called the Method,
> for this alone of the medical schools seem to practice no rashness in
> unclear matters and does not presume to say whether they are
> apprehensible or inapprehensible, but it follows what is apparent,
> taking thence, in line with Sceptical practice, what seems to be
> expedient. (SE-OS: 63: 236-237).
> 
> 
> 



Medicine, then, for Sextus Empiricus was what medicine would equally
be for the late sixteenth century Sanches: a combination of empiricism
and scepticism. Medicine took as much from philosophical scepticism,
as philosophical empiricism took from medicine. Galen's above
critique of "indications" or *indicans* (cf.
Maclean 2002: 308-310)--which bears a certain similarity to
Sanches' critique of demonstration and naming--is best
explained by Sextus Empiricus:



> 
> 
> A sign is indicative, they say, if it signifies that of which it is a
> sign not by having been observed evidently together with the thing it
> signifies but from its proper nature and constitution (as bodily
> movements are signs of the soul). That is why they also define this
> sign as follows: An indicative sign is a pre-antecedent statement in a
> sound conditional, revelatory of the consequent. There being two
> different sorts of signs...we argue not against all signs but
> only against indicative signs, which seem to be a fiction of the
> Dogmatists. For recollective signs are found convincing by everyday
> life: seeing smoke, someone diagnoses fire, having observed a scar, he
> says that a wound was inflicted. (SE-OS: 93: 101, 102)
> 
> 
> 



To put it Sanchean terms, indicative signs are helpful when they
*refer* to particular things (*rerum*) in the world; and
they are unhelpful when they refer to the dogmatic notion of
universals. Just as *Carmen de Cometa*/Poem of the Comet was
written to dispel the notion of comets as signs of bad things to come,
*De divinatione per somnum, ad Aristotelem*, rejects the idea
that any knowledge can be attained by way of demonic states,
prophecies, or dreams. In John Owen's quirky but insightful
book, *The Skeptics of the French Renaissance*, one of the
characters of the dialogue says at the very beginning of the chapter
on Sanches that 



> 
> 
> [i]n an age when science and medicine was mixed up with astrology,
> divination, charms, and an enormous farrago of superstitious nonsense,
> Sanchez held up to his brother physicians the torch of a true Science
> founded upon experiment, and a due recognition of natural laws. (1893:
> 617) 
> 
> 
> 



This is obviously significant for its recognition of the importance of
the scientific method in Sanches' elaboration of his scepticism.
Here both Damian Caluori and Limbrick agree that Sanches's
critique of Aristotelianism and his proposed scepticism was "not
only of theoretical concern" (Caluori 2007: 45), but a practical
one that sought "the answer to the question of the right
scientific method to be used in the quest for true knowledge"
(Limbrick 1988: 25). And while Caluori argues that his empiricist
scepticism was Pyrrhonian in nature, what is clear for both Caluori
and Limbrick is that his scepticism was by no means absolute, and that
fundamental to his rejection of Aristotelianism was his medical
training where particular things needed to be perceived and analyzed
not by their names or definitions but rather by the external qualities
that they presented to the senses, since such practical matters as
diagnoses needed to be made, and cures needed to be prescribed and
administered. In comparison to the treatment of the body, such a thing
as the content of his mind would have seemed much less important to
Sanches.


## 4. Sanches and Descartes



The division of the world into one of external and internal realities,
is one of the notions that Sanches and Descartes share. Where they
each end up, is, of course, completely different. What is similar, on
the other hand, is their starting point; that is to say, the way they
articulate the radical doubt with which they begin their respective
inquiries; and for that reason Sanches has often been considered a
precursor of Descartes. It is undeniable that the personal expression
of their scepticism as found both in *That Nothing is Know*
(1581) and the *Discourse on the Method* (1637) share more than
a coincidental resemblance. Pamela Kraus points out in her
introduction to the *Discourse on Method* [DM], that the word
"discours" had a wider meaning in the seventeenth century
signifying among other things "'talk' or
'conversation'" ([DM: 1]). But this was not the case
for Sanches, who wrote *Quod nihil scitur* over forty years
earlier, and whose conversational style was in the service of a
treatise aimed at the Aristotelianism of his time, and particularly at
the Aristotelian notion of demonstrative truths. What is indeed
striking are the passages in the *Discourse* that seem to be
directly lifted from the Iberian philosopher's 1581 treatise.
Here are two examples: the first from Sanches, the latter from
Descartes:



> 
> 
> My own lot has in no way differed from that of other men. From my
> earliest years I was devoted to the contemplation of Nature so that I
> looked into everything in great detail. At first my mind, hungry for
> knowledge, would be indiscriminately satisfied with any diet that was
> preferred to it...Subsequently I withdrew into myself; I began to
> question everything, and to examine facts themselves as though no one
> had ever said anything about them, which is the proper method
> ["*modus*", QNS: 92] of acquiring knowledge. I
> broke everything down into its ultimate first principles. Beginning as
> I did, my reflection at this point, the more I reflected the more I
> doubted. (TNK: 167)
> 
> 
> 



Here is Descartes in the *Discourse*: 



> 
> 
> From my childhood I have been nourished upon letters, and because I
> was persuaded that by their means one could acquire a clear and
> certain knowledge of all that is useful in life, I was extremely eager
> to learn them. But as soon as I had completed the course of study at
> the end of which one is formally admitted to the ranks of the learned,
> I completely changed my opinion. I had found myself beset by so many
> doubts and errors that I came to think I had gained nothing from my
> attempts to become educated but increasing recognition of my
> ignorance. (Descartes 1637 [PWD: 112-113])
> 
> 
> 



He will later say that among the steps included in his method is the
direction of his mind into the "simplest and most easily known
objects in order to ascend little by little, step by step, to
knowledge of the most complex" (1637 [PWD: 120]), which even if
it is not exactly what Sanches meant by "first principles"
["*extrema principia*", QNS: 92], it does sound a
lot like it.



In any case, one of the first to note the similarities in tone, and
even to go as far as to declare Sanches a precursor of Descartes was
Etienne Gilson in his commentary on *Discours de la
methode* (1925). More than Charron or the Montaigne of
*Apologie de Raimond Sebond* (1580), it is Sanches, says
Gilson, who seems to have had the greater impact on Descartes'
doubt and his response to the sceptical position (1925: 267, 268;
Paganini 2009: 254-255), given the "striking parallelism
of their respective experiences" (1925: 267, my translation). In
fact, the linking of their names in the seventeenth century at the
universities of Utrecht, Groningen and Leiden, says Limbrick, is what
led them to be considered Pyrrhonian sceptics with atheistic leanings
(TNK: 82). What nonetheless remains unknown is when and how Descartes
came across *Quod nihil scitur*. In *Les premieres
pensees de Descartes* (1979), Henri Gouhier conjectures
that Descartes might have come across *Quod nihil scitur*
sometime during his student years at La Fleche
(1606-1614), or read the 1618 Frankfurt edition of the treatise
(1979: 116), "when he was in Frankfurt for the coronation of the
Emperor Ferdinand II in 1619" (Limbrick 1988: 83). According to
Limbrick the Frankfurt 1618 edition of *Quod nihil scitur*
seems to have impacted the European philosophical scene, and to have
contributed to Sanches' reputation as a leading Pyrrhonian
sceptic (1988: 85). What is not at all convincing is that Descartes
would have been apprised of Sanches' treatise through a letter
addressed by someone by the name of Huebner (supposedly an English
doctor), to Marin Mersenne.



This letter of August, 1641, can be found in *Correspondance du P.
Marin Mersenne, religieux minime. X, Du 6 aout 1640 a fin
decembre 1641* (1967: 730) wherein the author praises
Sanches' ingenious exaggerations concerning the possibility of
acquiring perfect knowledge, and criticizes Cartesianism for not being
able to advance ("non progreditur") beyond its
"hyperbolical doubt" (1967: 730) . But again, the letter
is too late to serve as proof of Descartes' knowledge of
Sanches' treatise prior to the writing and publication of the
*Discourse*. Its intended target seems to have been an
objection to the perceived scepticism of the *Meditations*.
Thus, if Mersenne informed Descartes of Huebner's letter
comparing his work to that Sanches's, then the letter would only
have apprised Descartes that he was being compared with the Iberian
"Pyrrhonist", which would not have made Descartes very
happy, given that by this time he had grown tired of answering
objections and trying to explain why his method was instead intended
to dispel scepticism and ground a science on clear and distinct ideas
(Mullin 2000: 8). Therefore, if we can imagine Descartes being upset
about being compared with Sanches, one can at least partially
understand why he would be so, and would "refuse" to
answer the objection (Mullin 2000: 8). It has been conjectured, for
instance, that Descartes might have been thinking of Sanches when he
wrote in the *Discourse* that the reason for his undertaking
was not to imitate or to copy "the sceptics, who doubt only for
the sake of doubting" but rather "to reach
certainty" (1637 [PWD: 125]). Significantly, while most scholars
of Sanches' work have noted the similarities between Sanches and
Descartes, for others like Joseph Moreau (1960) and Joaquim de
Carvalho (1955), there are significant differences. These similarities
displayed in two parallel columns in the introduction to
Sanches' *Opera philosophica* (1955: xxx-xxxiii),
merely establish, argues Carvalho, a "correlation of
words" (1955: xxxiii, my translation). One important difference
between the two thinkers, says Carvalho, is that although Sanches
doubts our perfect knowledge of external things, he never doubts their
existence. This obviously was not the case for Descartes, for whom the
search for certainty was the search for whatever knowledge could be
acquired through the light of reason, and not through the senses. Thus
for Moreau one major difference between them was their opposing views
concerning the truths of mathematics (1960: 30-34): for Sanches
*a posteriori* and dubitable; for Descartes *a priori*
and indubitable. What they did share was a rejection of the Scholastic
appeal to external authority. For Descartes, the opinions of others
could never lead to the kind of certainty only a mind
(*cogito*) reflecting on the content of its own thoughts could
reach; and for Sanches the opinions of scholarly
authorities--however illustrious--did not help us to arrive
at perfect knowledge. The assumed "knowledge" of the
authorities was derived from syllogistic and demonstrative logic,
which depended on the circularity of its definitions and premises
(*verba*) to arrive at their conclusions concerning things
(*rerum*). More often than not, these Aristotelian scholars
with their verbal gymnastics created great confusion out of what was
otherwise clear, even to a child.



Though a number of Sanches' contemporaries accused him of
advocating a radical form of Academic scepticism that led to
atheism--as also occurred with Descartes--Sanches'
sceptical project was not, as it may first seem given the title of the
treatise, either dogmatic or wholly destructive. And on this vital
point Richard H. Popkin (1963: ix; 1964: 42) and Gianni Paganini
(2009: 249) concur. For Paganini, in fact, 



> 
> 
> Sanches's *Quod nihil scitur* contains, besides a
> skeptical demolition, also a *pars construens,* which seems
> particularly relevant in order to understand the Cartesian certainty
> about reflexive knowledge, typically the *cogito*. (2009: 249)
> 
> 
> 
> 



The personal crisis experienced by Sanches and Descartes which
motivated their epistemological inquiry concerning what could and
could not be known with certainty, was responded to by means of
self-reflection. In both cases, albeit with very different approaches,
the self was the only legislator of certainty, and the only thing that
could be counted upon in founding a science: in Descartes' case,
founded on unquestionable internal, logical principles ("*I
cannot doubt my own existence*"), and in Sanches'
case, founded on the material things (*rerum*) the *I*
perceives, albeit imperfectly. Significantly, what constituted the
certainty of the internal states for Descartes did not constitute
certainty for Sanches, and moreover such "certainty" could
not serve as the foundation of a true science. In this respect,
whereas the late sixteenth century Sanches was operating within a
pre-Galilean Weltanschauung, Descartes undertaking studies in physics
and astronomy that paralleled those of Galileo and
"Galilean" science with its emphasis on mathematical
demonstration. For Descartes, mathematics was the language of Nature,
and even physical things or "natural phenomena" were
mathematical, as he stated in the "Principles of
Philosophy" (1644 [PWD: 247]). This was clearly not the case for
Sanches, who in his letter to Clavius
 (SS2.2),
 denied the universal and *a priori* truths of mathematics,
reducing mathematics to mere empirical measurement. In short, if
Descartes' method culminated in the "indubitable"
truths of mathematics placed at the service of sciences like physics,
optics, and astronomy, Sanches' sceptical method, with its
acceptance of imperfect knowledge, culminated in the probable and
empirical "truths" of the science of medicine. Descartes,
the philosopher, mathematician, and physicist; Sanches, the
philosopher and physician: the former emphasized the mind over the
body (*res cogitans* over *res extensa*), and the latter
the body over the mind.



Doubtlessly, such a generalization can only be taken so far; for
Descartes too wanted to "replace the speculative philosophy
taught in the schools" with a "practical philosophy"
that would employ his method even in an applied science like medicine,
whose primary goal was to maintain the health of the body: "the
chief good and the foundation of all the other goods in life"
(1637 [PWD: 142-143]). Most importantly was (1) their equal
concern with formulating a method that would allow them to arrive at
knowledge of the world, and (2) the constructive aspect of their
respective scepticism, which in both cases was a starting point. And
though it seems by all accounts that Descartes integrated
Sanches' autobiographical narrative into the *Discourse on
the Method*, without due attribution, their projects were quite
different: one epistemologically based on sense perception, the other
metaphysically based on internal (*a priori*) first principles.
Ironically, it has been argued that Descartes turned "first
philosophy" into epistemology.


## 5. Sanches' Place in the History of Philosophy



Regardless of the extent of the debt Descartes owed Sanches, great or
small, it is undeniable that even as a background figure in Cartesian
studies, Sanches holds a noteworthy place firstly in the history of
scepticism, and secondly in the history of modern philosophy. Possibly
thanks to Limbrick and Thomson's English edition of *Quod
nihil scitur*, Sanches was at last acknowledged as a source in
Cartesian studies in Ariew, Cottingham, and Sorell's
*Descartes' Meditations: Background Source Materials*
(1998). Here, along with some new translations of selected passages
from *Quod nihil scitur*, John Cottingham writes that 



> 
> 
> though Sanches, unlike Descartes, proposes no new method for the
> acquisition of knowledge, he does produce some interesting
> anticipations of the Cartesian approach, particularly when he
> distinguishes between "external" objects of cognition and
> the "inner" objects of the mind (e.g., its own inner
> awareness of its willing and thinking. (Cottingham 1998: 9) 
> 
> 
> 



But this is as much as Cottingham is willing to concede to Sanches,
for ultimately Sanches remains for him a man "trapped in the
inescapable ignorance of the pre-Enlightenment world" (1998: 9).
In some ways this has been the unfortunate fate of Sanches until very
recently: to be considered an interesting but insignificant
philosopher. This in part is due to the fact that the history of
philosophy used to be presented as a series of *ex nihilo*
events bearing the names of Plato, Aristotle,
 Immanuel Kant (1724-1804),
 etc., as though one day there was nothing and then the next day there
emerged, for example, the figure/event we know by the name of Kant.
But fortunately philosophy is no longer presented or taught this way.
Therefore, if Sanches was not a major philosopher, the originality of
his work, for example, combining "medieval epistemological ideas
and ancient sceptical habits of thinking" (Yrjonsuuri 2000:
243)--certainly impacted the work of other philosophers of his
time and beyond. However, because no else would pay attention, certain
early twentieth century Portuguese and Spanish thinkers, often for
nationalistic reasons, turned Sanches into the Spanish or Portuguese
"precursor" of Descartes, Bacon, Hobbes, and Kant. 



One such writer was Teofilo [Teophilo] Braga (1843-1924),
a philologist and essayist, who was the second elected president of
the first Portuguese Republic (1911-1914). Not surprisingly,
then, in his 1881 essay "O portuguez Sanches, precursor do
positivismo" (The Portuguese Sanches, precursor of positivism)
Braga presented Sanches as precursor of
 Francis Bacon (1551-1626)
 and the nineteenth century positivism of
 Auguste Comte (1798-1856).
 And because Braga viewed Comte as a representative of the values of
science and republicanism, the "Portuguese Sanches"
(supposedly "born in Braga") Sanches served as the perfect
precursor of the positivist ideas Braga himself embraced.



In Spain, Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo argued in his essay
"De los origenes del criticismo y del escepticismo y
especialmente de los precursores espanoles de Kant"
(1918, On the origins of critique and scepticism and especially in the
Spanish precursors of Kant) that given the similarity of the opening
pages of Descartes's *Discourse on the Method* and
Sanches' *Quod nihil scitur*, it was obvious that
Cartesianism was in large part the product of ideas stolen from
Spanish philosophy (1918: 186). But nowhere in the essay does
Menendez y Pelayo prove this, or bother to consider the
differences between Sanches and Descartes. As to Kant's debt to
Sanches, he has little to say on this matter, except that some of
Sanches' ideas about God, eternity, and the creation of the
world, anticipated Kant's notion of the antinomies (1918: 195).
Finally, the only thing that he says with some level of sobriety with
respect to Kant and Sanches, is that they both made manifest the idea
that one can believe in God without having to believe in metaphysics
or logical demonstrations (1918: 196), and that was probably in order
to accommodate philosophy with Spanish Catholicism.



Interestingly, thirteen years earlier, in 1905, Eloy Bullon y
Fernandez, wrote in *Los Precursores espanoles de
Bacon y Descartes* that Sanches had anticipated Descartes, Bacon,
and Comte (1905: 181). But here the tone is more conciliatory and
sober, and Bullon y Fernandez takes the trouble to call
attention not only to similarities, but also to the differences
between these thinkers. He recognizes, for instance, that while both
Sanchez and Descartes begin their project with a critique of
scholasticism, and particularly, a critique of the appeal to
authority, their initial battle call, Sanches' dismissal of
metaphysics and its replacement with empiricism was not shared by
Descartes (1905: 170); and neither was it by Bacon, despite the
latter's questioning of the syllogism in the *Novum
Organum*. What, according to Bullon y Fernandez,
Sanches shares with Bacon is a belief in the observation of things
(*res*) over the analysis of words (*verba*). And one
can certainly hear echoes of Sanches in aphorism XIII from the
*Novum Organum* when Bacon writes: 



> 
> 
> The syllogism is not applied to the principles of the sciences, and is
> of no avail in intermediate axioms, as being very unequal to the
> subtlety of nature. It forces assent, therefore, and not things
> [*res*]. (1620 [1902: 13-14]) 
> 
> 
> 



Where they part ways is that while Sanches did not trust the senses,
Bacon believed that one could arrive at certain truths through the
observation of natural phenomena, and thereby avoid "the
arrogance of dogmatism, and the despair of scepticism" (1620
[1902: 5]). Now, what Sanches had in common with Kant, says
Bullon y Fernandez, is that neither one nor the other
believed that the mind was capable of apprehending the things
themselves (1905: 179).



What is missing from all these studies of Sanches who posit him as
precursor of this or that major philosopher--from Braga (1881) to
Bullon y Fernandez (1905), Menendez y Palayo
(1918), and Fernando A. Palacios (1991: 27-29) to Carlos Mellizo
(1982: 52-64)--is a certain lack of rigor. More fruitful
would be to consider Sanches as a representative of modern scepticism
with roots going back to ancient scepticism--someone whose form
of scepticism impacted modern philosophy, even in cases where it went
unacknowledged, as in the case of Kant. To this point, Dumont writes
that Kant's silence was historical in his dismissal of
Pyrrhonist and Academic scepticism; in his lack of knowledge regarding
Sextus Empiricus; and in designating Hume as the only author
representative of scepticism (1972: 73): as though Hume was not
himself responding to sceptics like Sextus Empiricus or Carneades. But
as M.F. Burnyeat explains in "The Sceptic in his Place and
Time", in Kant's silence regarding the sceptics,
scepticism itself became "the name of something internal to the
philosopher's own thinking, his alter ego as it were"
(1987: 35). 



Two philosophers who did acknowledge the importance of scepticism for
philosophy were
 G. W. Leibniz (1646-1716)
 and
 G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831;
 1801 [1985]). As a matter of fact, in response to a letter by French
mathematician, Pierre Varignon (1654-1722), who had asked him
for some clarification on what he meant by
"infinitesimal", Leibniz reference's Sanches'
*Quod nihil scitur* and his challenge to Clavius with some
admiration. Such scepticism, he says to Varignon, is important because
it keeps mathematics from becoming a dogmatic science (cf. de Olaso
1987: 149-150). The questions raised by sceptics like Sextus
Empiricus and Sanches, says Leibniz, are key for "establishing
sound foundations for a science" ([1702 [1970: 544]). Leibniz
writes: 



> 
> 
> I have often thought that a reply by a geometrician to the objections
> of Sextus Empiricus and to the things which Francis Sanchez, author of
> the book *Quod nihil scitur*, sent to Clavius, or to similar
> critics, would be more useful than we can imagine. (1702 [1970: 544])
> 
> 
> 
> 



Thus perchance, in Leibniz's generous appreciation of the
sceptics' challenge to dialectical and metaphysical dogmatism,
lies the answer to what Dumont calls Kant's
"silence": that which according to the author of the
*Critique of Pure Reason* did not need to be named, because it
was always at the heart of the philosophical enterprise.



In the Introduction to *Scepticism from the Renaissance to the
Enlightenment*, the editors Richard H. Popkin and Charles B.
Schmitt write that "Little effort seems to be made to study the
classical formulations, and the development of these from Sextus at
least to Hume and Kant" (1987: 10); and while that may certainly
be true, even less effort has been made to include twentieth century
philosophers. In the introduction to *Que nada se sabe*,
Fernando A. Palacios states that for Sanches there was no difference
between logic and rhetoric, as they both culminated in a series of
language games (1991: 24). Now, it would certainly be wrong to take
this analogy too far without due rigorous study, but there are moments
in Sanches' scepticism regarding the truths of metaphysics and
language that remind one of the
 Wittgenstein
 of the *Philosophical Investigations* (cf. Fogelin 1981).
"Sanchez's *Quod nihil scitur* almost reads like a
twentieth century text of analytic philosophy", wrote Popkin
(1964: 41). And here, for example, such a comparison, and there are
many (e.g., Mikko Yrjonsuuri's with the *homunculus*
of philosophy of mind "who understands mental
representations", 2000: 239), could be a worthwhile starting
point. The history of scepticism is inseparable from the history of
philosophy, and the history runs backwards and forwards. In that
history, Francisco Sanches, even as a "minor" figure, had
substantial things to say about philosophy, and we need to overcome
the traditional assessments of Sanches, such as J. Iriarte's
(1940: 449-451) or Frederick Copleston's for whom Sanches
"was prevented by his sceptical attitude from making positive
and constructive suggestions" (1953: 230). Quite to the
contrary, I agree with Agostino Lupoli (2009) that Sanches'
scepticism was constructive and mitigated, and was intended as a form
of intellectual therapy. Hence the "Quid?" with which he
ended his writings, and with which all philosophy worthy of the name
begins.