At the heart of Descartes’s theory of cognition is the act of perceiving an idea. However, it remains unclear what precisely an idea is, what the act of perceiving ideas amounts to, and how that act contributes to the formation of cognition under Descartes’s view. In this paper, I provide an account of perceiving ideas that clarifies Descartes’s notion of an idea and explains the fundamental role that the perceiving of ideas occupies in his theory of cognition. At the end of the paper, I will address an issue that arises regarding the objective reality of ideas and the unity of mind.
【Abstract】In the Sixth Meditation of his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes presents an account of sensations as mental modes arising from the causal interaction between two distinct substances, mind and body. According to Margaret Wilson, that the causal relation is instituted one way rather than another is at best arbitrary and purely contingent. In this paper, I will argue, contra Wilson, that there are important constraints restricting the scope of arbitrariness and contingency characterizing the institution of the causal relation. In particular, I argue that the causal relation between mind and body is in fact necessary within the restricted context of human nature, which determines the nature of the causal relation itself, and thereby places constraints on the sort of relations that can occur between mind and body.
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