Teresa of Ávila, Infused Contemplation, and The Question of Her Influence Over René Descartes

Abstract In the wake of the recent movement to resurface and explore historically underrepresented figures in the history of philosophy, Teresa of Ávila has notably received little attention among philosophers. Of the literature that has been produced, most of the discussion is around Teresa’s potential influence over Descartes’s evil demon argument. In this essay, I turn away from this debate and demonstrate that Teresa diverges from Descartes on key methodological issues. In particular, I show that Teresa is primarily interested in states of ‘infused contemplation’ – passive, supernatural cognitive states, while Descartes explicitly distances himself from relying on such states. Along the way, I argue that Teresa is deserving of further philosophical attention, but not because her work may have served as source material for Descartes’s Meditations .