DESCARTES ON THE PHENOMENON OF MAN AND THE OF

BOUNDARIES DOUBT Purpose of the article is to reconstruct the ideological and philosophical context in which Descartes actualizes the phenomenon of man and the task of refuting scepticism. A precondition for its implementation is attention to the explication of the peculiarities of reception by researchers of scepticism and the doctrine of doubt; delineation of the semantic implications of the anthropological intention of philosophizing and the boundaries of doubt. Theoretical basis. I base my view of Descartes’ legacy on the conceptual positions of phenomenology, existentialism and her-meneutics. Originality. Based on the tendency of anthropologization of Descartes’ basic project, I refute the widespread tendency to qualify Descartes’ position as a sceptic, which is based on superficial stereotypes about the impersonality of his philosophy. The modern reception of the thinker’s texts indicates the priority for him of the task of explicating the conditions of man’s realization of his own vocation in the Universe, which is supplemented by the idea of the limits of science and the doubt correlative to it. Accordingly, Descartes’ refutation of scepticism appears in the form of concern for the creation of favourable conditions for human self-development, which implies a restrained attitude to the spheres of morality and religion. Conclusions. The author based on his own interpretation of the philosophical searching of the thinker attempted to rehabilitate Descartes’ position on scepticism. An appeal to the texts of the French philosopher shows that doubt is for him a means of creating conditions for the representation of the human in man. A deeper meaningful clarification of the method chosen by Descartes to refute scepticism involves appeal to the will and practical mastery of a new system of semantic coordinates of life.


Introduction
The uniqueness of the present time lies in the dramatic changes and at the same time kinship with the previous revolutionary epochs. In particular, openness to the future, pluralism and relativism to some extent make it related to European culture of the Early New Age. Today we again face the task of adequately responding to the challenge of scepticism as a phenomenon of the transition period. The threat of the nihilism expansion prompts us to focus on the lessons of its constructive overcoming that previous history demonstrates. Among the underestimated precursors of the past is the unique development of Rene Descartes. A significant obstacle in this way is the widespread stereotypes that contribute to the distortion of the basic intention of his search and the originality of his philosophical revolution. Among the representative forms of manifestation of these outlived ideas, a prominent place belongs to modern researchers of scepticism, which are summarized in the unambiguous attribution of Descartes to the representatives of this trend (R. Popkin, E. Curley). In fact, more general ideas about the obsoleteness of the Cartesian philosophical legacy lie behind this particular episode. It is significant that the axiomatic nature of Descartes' radical doubt is assumed and the thinker's thesis about the boundaries of doubt is ignored. In modern consciousness, the question of the nature of knowledge and its limits is closely related to the limits of the application of mathematics and digital technologies .
At the same time, in recent decades, innovative approaches have emerged that provide sufficient grounds for a critical rethinking of these assessments. It is, firstly, about the powerful movement "Back to Descartes" (J.-L. Marion) and, secondly, about the tendency to anthropologize the basic project of the thinker (Malivskyi, 2019). Therefore, for a critical rethinking of the notions of Descartes' belonging to scepticism, it is appropriate to turn to the texts of the thinker and modern research literature.

Purpose
Based on the above the purpose of this article is to reconstruct the worldview and philosophical context in which Descartes comprehends the phenomenon of man in the direction of refuting scepticism. A precondition for its implementation is attention to the following points: the explication of the peculiarities of reception by scepticism researchers of the doctrine of doubt; delineation of the semantic implications of Descartes' position on anthropology and the boundaries of doubt.

Reception of the scepticism of the thinker's anthropology and his doctrine of doubt by researchers
Descartes' philosophical doctrine is the embodiment of the Early New Age, which is characterized by the destruction of the established image of the world, and consequently an increase in attention to scepticism. In this context, Descartes is faced with the fateful question of his personal ability to resist scepticism and the ability to outline ways of its overcoming.
In this context, first of all, the credo of the thinker draws attention. It is voiced in the Responses to the Remarks of Father Bourdin on his scepticism: "I became the first philosopher ever to overdone the doubt of the sceptics" (Descartes, 1996, VII: 550). The question of how to authentically understand this ambitious Cartesian statement is still debatable and needs to be clarified. The situation is dramatized, as researchers of his position are often inclined to assess it as a hidden scepticism. This approach is vividly represented by Richard Popkin, who figuratively illustrates his vision of this problem in the form of a thesis about the transformation of the proclaimed "triumph" of Descartes into its opposite -into the "tragedy" of the thinker. In my opinion, an essential factor in a constructive comprehending of the way of the thinker's attitude to scepticism is attention to his hitherto underestimated thesis about the boundaries of doubt. Among its most representative manifestations the beginning of the first part of the "Principles of Philosophy" is worth recalling, where the author emphasizes the importance of universal doubt and notes the need to limit doubt by the scope of contemplation of truth.
Outlining the originality of the great Frenchman's position on scepticism, Popkin rightly emphasizes that he, as a courageous thinker, is not so much attacks him externally as he is looking for the ways to overcome him internally on the way of his radicalization. Emphasizing the dramatic nature of the process of searching for truth, the researcher describes his vision of a fateful episode of his work. It is about Descartes' behavior during the discussion of Sieur de Chandoux's report at the end of 1627: "What appeared most certain was shown to be dubious. What appeared most dubious was shown to be certain. The basis for a complete scepticism was provided in order to shock an audience and get them to seek for absolute certainty" (Popkin, 2003, р. 147). Evaluating the overall efficiency of this approach of the French thinker, Popkin describes it as successful primarily in the first part. The second part has proved to be fruitless, because in his opinion, Descartes' position convincingly demonstrates the insurmountable radical subjectivism: "we could never relate to any real world outside of us nor guarantee as absolute true" (Popkin, 2003, p. 168).
The study of the question of how well-founded is the above interpretation, involves attention to modern literature. It is about the prevalence of the tradition of interpreting the philosophical legacy of the thinker in the context of the technocratic concept of metaphysics, which is shared by researchers of scepticism. They also suggest that we agree with the thesis that the main task of his philosophical teaching Descartes sees in the substantiation of the scientific picture of the world. In particular, this is the opinion of Edwin Curley, who emphasizes the successful overcoming of the threat of scepticism spread during the deep worldview crisis of 1628. The result is a more optimistic position on the possibilities of the authentic nature of human knowledge (Curley, 1978, p. 45).
However, unambiguously associating the basic project of Descartes' philosophy with physics in the narrow sense of the word, Curley encounters significant difficulties in explaining the meaningful originality of his later works. Noting their antisceptic orientation, he is forced to admit that they go beyond the reductionist program of the "Discourse" and "Meditations" and testify to the French thinker's focus on anthropology. It is about the manifestation of "very much interested in psychological and moral problem" (Curley, 1978, p. 235).
Although this assessment of the key importance of physics for Descartes' philosophical revolution is acceptable to Popkin, he is much more pessimistic about its role in the radicalization of scepticism. Outlining his own position on the forms of the thinker's going beyond the boundaries of the scientific revolution, he voices a fair insight concerning the key role of the individual in Descartes' searching. Unfortunately, it never received its meaningful outline either in his texts or in the texts of his followers. It is about the ability of man to go beyond nature and establish himself as a self-sufficient person. Outlining his own vision of the spiritual landscape of the Early New Age, the researcher writes that "the force of cogito could emerge as a tidal wave, sweepings away la crise pyrrhonienne and carrying the newly illuminated person into the realm of solid, unshakable truth" (Popkin, 2003, p. 155). This is an eloquent confirmation of the legitimacy of my own reflections on the key importance of anthropology for Descartes in the process of finding his own version of the answer to the threat of scepticism.
When studying Popkin's interpretation of the role of Descartes in the history of scepticism, it is appropriate to focus on a fragmentary interpretation of his philosophical revolution. In particular, Popkin tends to associate the challenge of the era with a narrow understanding of philosophy as epistemology, where the opposition of objectivity and subjectivity comes to the fore. At the same time, the narrow vision of the context of Descartes' search is interpreted as meaningfully related to the subjectivism of the Reformation (Luther and Calvin). In this context, scepticism appears as insurmountable. And since the latter, according to , pursues European philosophy, philosophers are struggling to open the possibility of accepting it without destroying all human definitions (p. 173).
The researcher considers the claims of philosophy to protection of science as objective knowledge, which seem to be the most powerful solution to the crisis of Pyrrhonism, to be a key factor. However, he is forced to state that Descartes' heroic efforts were unsuccessful and led to the complete failure of this plan. Therefore, this position has no prospects. An illustration of this thesis is the controversy with Fr. Bourdin and Voetius, which demonstrated that from now on there is "no way and no hope" (Popkin, 2003, p. 162). Arguing for this pessimism, Popkin emphasizes that the perception of the First "Meditation" seriously makes any further steps meaningless. If we start with the Second "Meditation", then the whole beautiful system is reduced only to the conjecture of Rene Descartes, which is unable to determine the truth. Therefore, he offers a pessimistic conclusion: "An every turn the sceptical dragon that he was supposed to have slain would rise up and attack him" (Popkin, 2003, p. 170). For the researcher, there is no doubt that in this coordinate system, the attempt to build a transition from subjective certainty to objective truth leads only to subjective certainty. Thus, he concludes, the new philosophical system conceived by Descartes is based "on faith" (Popkin, 2003, p. 172). The most representative manifestation of the inability of the French thinker to overcome scepticism is Popkin's characterization of large-scale deformations of human nature. They become more pronounced in the process of correlating them with the humanism of the Renaissance. According to the researcher, in the context of the maximum radicalization of scepticism there is a deformation of the rational component of human nature as its core: "Once it had been suggested that the reliability of our most rational faculties was questionable, man has been transformed from a repository of truth into a sink of uncertainty and error" (Popkin, 2003, р. 148).
But for me, the reasoning and arguments of an authoritative researcher are not convincing. I consider the appeal to the context of Descartes' epoch and his texts to explicate the main points of the philosophical system conceived by him to be a precondition for substantiating my position.

The phenomenon of man and the boundaries of doubt in the doctrine of Descartes
The actualization of scepticism observed in the Descartes' era is closely linked to large-scale culture changes that is, the openness of the world to man and man to the world. Under such conditions, the priority for a man is the problem of ways of self-realization and obtaining relevant knowledge. Clarification of these problems is observed in the first written notes, i.e. in the "Early Writings" of Descartes (Malivskyi, 2019). It is now indisputable that the reduction of his philosophy to physics and epistemology makes it impossible to formulate and comprehend the problem of man. Considering the question of the most unambiguous clarification of his position, it is worth referring to the latest publications of Descartes. This is the Preface to the "Principles of Philosophy" of 1647, where he points to ethics as a form of completion of philosophizing. Here the anthropological and ethical motive is recognized, as the driving force of philosophizing, which involves attention to human self-knowledge and the principles of its proper existence. In my opinion, they should be taken into account in the process of studying the implications of Descartes' thesis on refuting his scepticism hidden from the modern researchers.
In the conditions of critical rethinking of the impersonal technomorphic interpretation of Descartes, it is appropriate to draw attention to the way he characterizes the nature of philosophical knowledge. Warning against uncritical reproduction of ideas about its speculativeness (which is reduced to logic and syllogism), he emphasizes -it is a speculativeness based on his own experience. Man for Descartes (1996) is "thinking thing, this is a primary notion which is not derived by means of any syllogism" (AT VII: 140).
My acquaintance with Descartes' legacy gives me sufficient grounds for the thesis of the pervasive nature of the idea of the rootedness of philosophizing in his own empirical experience. Among the first unequivocal evidence of this is the first part of the "Discourse", where its author emphasizes the decision to base the method of his own search for truth on his own experience and determination. After several years of observing the world, "trying to gain some experience, I resolved one they to undertake studies within myself too and to use all the powers of mind in choosing the paths I should follow" (Descartes, 1996, AT VI: 10). Returning in the Replies to the Fifth Objections to the "Meditations", Descartes (1996) connects his own claim to universality: "I affirm what I have experienced and what anyone else can experienced for himself" (AT VII: 377). An original manifestation of the idea of the pervasive nature of Descartes' philosophizing in his own experience is the perspective of mentioning it in the final part of "Conversation with Burman", which deals with the issues of medicine and the problems of a healthy lifestyle. Here he declares personal experience as a decisive criterion for clarifying the question of the optimal diet. His words about the ability of an adult to decide on their own the expediency of seeking medical attention and seeking help outside after reaching the age of thirty are a kind of testament to the next generation. This aspect in the modern research literature deserves attention and is the subject of a separate study .
Of undeniable value in the context of the search for a modern way of philosophizing are those pages of the thinker's legacy, which are about the rootedness in one's own experience of key concepts of metaphysics, in particular the concept of "freedom of will". In the discussion of the key provisions of the "Meditations", Descartes (1996) voices this idea as the most powerful argument to protect his own doctrine: "On the question of our freedom, I made no assumption beyond what we all experienced within ourselves" (AT VII: 191).
In my opinion, today, in the conditions of a cardinal rethinking of the reduced image of Descartes, it is appropriate to comprehend his legacy known to us as a consistent refutation of a number of temptations. In other words, it is a question of attention to those alternative courses of thought from which the French thinker distanced himself. This step will make it possible to make the modern reception of his work more relief. This view is consistent with the position of modern Cartesian scholars: "To understand what he thought, it is useful to be clear about just what he was rejecting" (Brown & Normore, 2019, p. 5). First of all, we should take into account the possibility of exaggerating the importance of man and his thinking in the Universe, with which one used to associate Descartes' position in the textbooks (and not only there). In the pages of "Meditations" among the significant temptations are those manifestations of vanity and arrogance of man, which are generally classified as atheism. In the "Letter" to the representatives of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris, the latter position is defined as unfounded claims to the title of intelligent and learned people of those individuals who are amateurs ("more ignorant"). Concretizing the substantive disadvantages of this approach, Descartes notes the existence of the illegitimacy of the anthropomorphic God. Among its manifestations, he attributes "either … attributing human feelings to God or on arrogantly supposing our own minds to be so powerful and wise" (Descartes, 1996, AT VII: 6, 9). Based on his own worldview, Descartes warns against the temptation to absolutize human knowledge. And since human "nature is not omniscience", its "perfection should be limited" (Descartes, 1996, AT VII: 84).
One of the most dangerous temptations on the way to understanding the connection between man and God is the interpretation of God by analogy with man, which is based on the human way of life as a process of purposeful activity. Noting the disadvantage in the absolutization of man as a measure of God, Descartes (1996) describes it as His humiliation: "We think of Gods as a sort of superman, who thinks up such-and-such a scheme, and try to realize it by such-and-such a means. This is clearly quite unworthy of God…"(AT V: 158), he emphasizes.
For the powerful genius of Descartes, the dangerous stereotype about the possibility of unambiguous judgments was not ignored. Strictly speaking, he emphasizes, none of the attributes can belong to God and man at the same time. It would be naive and unwise to assume that everyday images and ideas extend to God, who is by definition out of proportion of the scale of everyday human experience. Clarification of the question of what caused this way of interpreting God, involves appeal to the moral doctrine of the thinker.
In the context of rethinking the reduced image of Descartes and rehabilitating him as a critique of scepticism, the temptation to cultivate pure objectivity and neglect of man comes to the fore. Descartes emphasizes the inadmissibility of absolute truth, deprived of a certain medium "What it is to us", he asks rhetorically, "that someone may make out that the perception whose truth we are so firmly convinced of may appear false to God or an angel, so that it is, absolutely speaking, false? Why should this alleged 'absolute falsity' bother us, since we neither believe in it nor have even the smallest suspicion on it?" (Descartes, 1996, AT VIІ: 145). As I found out earlier, this is about the constitutive nature of the thinker's personality for his metaphysics (Malivskyi, 2020).
Reconstructing the authentic image of Descartes as a thinker who refuted scepticism, it is now difficult to resist the illusion concerning the absolutization of his own position. The latter is usually supplemented by the interpretation of his position as closed in relation to any other point of view. Therefore, I think it is appropriate to focus on the openness of Descartes' position and its basic intention. It presupposes both his own efforts and readiness to dialogue with his interlocutors. The research of today's Cartesian scholars convincingly testifies to the persistent desire of the thinker to distance himself from the image of the megaphone of depersonalized philosophical ideas. As an ardent supporter of the Socratic idea of the dialogical nature of philosophical truths, Descartes considered the idea of productive dialogue with his contemporaries attractive. The arguments are a) an unrealized plan to publish the "Discourse" with remarks and replies to them, b) now available to the public text "Meditations on First Philosophy", which is a whole with the Objections and Replies to them. It is important that the text of the "Meditations on First Philosophy" is 90 pages, and more than 500 pages -Objections and Replies. It is also appropriate to emphasize the importance of the dialogical nature of philosophizing for Descartes' idea, which was once made by authoritative Jean-Luc . Concretizing the thesis about the significance of the instruction on the dialogical nature of truth, it is necessary to draw attention to the hidden implications of the title of the main metaphysical work as meditations. This is not so much about the dispute between two interlocutors, each of whom knows the truth and who are ready to defend it, but about the unconditional priority of their author's inner readiness to seek the truth in the form of discussion: "I wanted to make it clear that I would have nothing to do with anyone who was not willing to join me in meditation and giving the subject attention consideration" (Descartes, 1996, AT VII: 157).
In my opinion, the fertile ground for the above-mentioned variants of the perception of Descartes' legacy as manifestations of scepticism is its fragmentary reception. Nowadays it is increasingly axiomatic that the teachings of the thinker should be perceived as a holistic philosophical system in which there is a synthetic combination of individual components. First, it is a paradoxical combination of man and God as opposites that complement and express each other. Here it is expedient to emphasize the importance of studying the procedural nature of their combination, i.e. the transition from statics to dynamics. Recognizing the hierarchy of the universe in which man is in some respect inferior to God, Descartes (1996) emphasizes that the way in which divinity is represented in me largely depends on my personal qualities and will efforts: "I am in this respect inferior to God in so far as I aspire to greater things, but also that these greater things are in God; and moreover, there is in me something resembling these greater qualities, since I venture to aspire to them" (AT VII: 373).
The paradox of Descartes' position is in that for him as a scientist the task of an adequate way of seeing the originality of human nature involves distancing himself from the scientific picture of the world. Emphasizing the specifics of the scientist's vision of external nature, he excludes the concept of soul and purpose from the key categories. There is a widespread illusion in the research literature about the universal nature of this setting, as evidenced by the erroneous tradition of fitting Descartes' interpretation of human nature into the reductionism stream. In the context of our topic, it should be noted that this universalization prepares the ground for scepticism and nihilism. Realizing the danger of such a temptation, Descartes repeatedly emphasizes the existence of boundaries for doubt, which for him is synonymous with emphasizing the differences between the spheres of physics and ethics. In the context of our topic, it should be noted that this universalization prepares the ground for scepticism and nihilism. Realizing the danger of such a temptation, Descartes repeatedly emphasizes the existence of boundaries of doubt that for him is synonymous with emphasizing the differences between the spheres of physics and ethics. And since this difference is one of the key provisions of Descartes, he repeatedly returns to it. Considering the most representative examples, we learn from the pages of "Discourse on the method" about the importance of their differentiation: "in practical life it is sometimes necessary to act upon opinions which one knows to be quite uncertain just as if they were indubitable" (Descartes, 1996, AT VI: 31).
Returning to the idea of the difference between ethics and physics in the dialogue on the meaning of the key ideas of "Meditations", he again emphasizes the probabilistic nature of ethical postulates, rehabilitating the concept of purpose: In ethics, then, where we may often legitimately employ conjectures, it may admittedly be pious on occasion to try to guess what purpose God may have had in mind in his direction of the universe; but in physics, where everything must be backed up by the strongest arguments, such conjectures are futile. (Descartes, 1996, AT VIІ: 375) In "Conversation with Burman", we again encounter an emphasis on the fundamental difference between these areas through the concept of purpose: "And for this reason alone I consider the customary search for final causes to be totally useless in physics". Explaining his position, he notes that Aristotle's greatest flaw is his use of the concept of purpose (Descartes, 1996, AT V: 158).
Analyzing the fateful question of the proper answer to sceptics who go beyond reasonable doubt, Descartes dissociates himself from unreasonable inclusion in the ranks of sceptics. Examining the arguments of the sceptics, he rightly observes that, first, their own doubts also have certain boundaries, since none of them dared to doubt that he has a head, that two plus three equals five, and so on; secondly, their only major mistake is the most dangerous, which is a kind of brand of all sceptics -"limited doubt". Distancing himself from it, Descartes emphasizes the central role of the idea of the boundaries of doubt. At the same time, for him, his own existence is that boundary of doubt, which is also the starting point for building a new picture of the world. However, the latter is possible only with prior proof of the existence of God: "I led my mind from knowledge of its own existence to knowledge of the existence of God", he notes (Descartes, 1996, AT VIІ: 550).
In my opinion, it is of fundamental importance that the concept of the boundary is used by Descartes to define the uniqueness of those areas of culture that are associated with space for human self-development. Here it is expedient to pay attention to the connection of the thinker's own philosophical credo with the concept of the degree of doubt. No one, he writes, should "dig more deeply into these questions than the author did; he has dealt with them quite deeply enough" (Descartes, 1996, AT V: 165).
Evidence of the key significance of this thesis for its author is the repeated appeal to it, because not everyone has read "Meditations" to the end: "the kind of extreme doubt, as I am frequently stressed", he writes, "is metaphysical and exaggerated and in no way to be translated to practical life" (Descartes, 1996, AT VII: 460).
The fundamental difference for Descartes in the fields of theology and philosophy is also important for us. Touching on it, he notes, it is about the truths that are in different spatial planes. It is axiomatic for the thinker that since theological truths depend on revelation, "the truths of theology are not inconsistent with those of philosophy, but we must not in any way subject them to critical examination" (Descartes, 1996, AT V: 176).
Reconstructing Descartes' position on sceptics, it is worth focusing on the context of the formation of his concept of so-called radical doubt. Already in the process of working on the material of the First "Meditations", it was obvious for the author the complexity of the truths outlined there, which was supplemented by the awareness of their extraordinary significance. As mentioned above, modern sceptics often fall prey to the literal reception of Descartes' doctrine of radical doubt. Since a similar tendency had already taken place in his time, by explicating his methodological principles in the Replies to the Objections to "Meditations", the author draws attention to a certain artificiality of this idea. As it turned out, Descartes' assumption about the attentive attitude of his readers to this text is a false illusion, which prompts him to emphasize the situationality and temporality of universal doubt. It was about solving the problem of finding "counter-balance the weight of preconceived opinion so that I should not incline to one side more than the other. I did not mean that I should regard either side as true, or set this principle up as a basis of a system of supremely certain knowledge" (Descartes, 1996, AT VIІ: 465).
As for the fundamental significance of those truths that are revealed to the reader in the process of acquaintance with the text of "Meditations", they are aimed at initiating a radical reorientation of personal priorities. It is about the importance of the First "Meditations" for the formation of the foundations of the new metaphysics. Since this text is not written for "weak minds", it is available only to intelligent and well-educated readers. Descartes (1996) is convinced that a firm and unshakable conviction is possible only in relation to those things that are perceived by the intellect (AT VII: 145). The last point is extremely important in the process of constructive confrontation with sceptics. This fact becomes even more apparent in the process of Descartes' (1996) study of the method of evaluating his position by Fr. Bourdin, who is characterized by him as one based on the "power of his imagination" (AT VII: 466). Evaluating the way of arguing generally elected by Fr. Bourdin's, Descartes (1996) acknowledges his own inability of constructive confrontation, because it is about the refutations in which there are no