Perception plays a central and wide‐ranging role in the philosophy of Margaret Cavendish. In this paper, I argue that Cavendish holds a naïve realist theory of perception. The case draws on what Cavendish has to say about perceptual presentation, the role of sympathy in experience, the natures of hallucination and of illusion, and the individuation of kinds. While Cavendish takes perception to have representational content, I explain how this is consistent with naïve realism. In closing, I address challenges to the (...) interpretation, one of which turns on whether Cavendish allows for action at a distance. I argue that she does. (shrink)

This article is about the exchanges between Leibniz, Arnauld, Bayle and Lamy on the subject of pain. The inability of Leibniz’s system to account for the phenomenon of pain is a recurring objection of Leibniz’s seventeenth-century Cartesian readers to his hypothesis of pre-established harmony: according to them, the spontaneity of the soul and its representative nature cannot account for the affective component of pain. Strikingly enough, this problem has almost never been addressed in Leibniz studies, or only incidentally, through the (...) more general problem of evil. My purpose in this article is to clarify Leibniz’s psychophysical parallelism by opposing his representationist account of pain to the functionalist account endorsed by Arnauld, Bayle, Lamy and Malebranche. (shrink)

Descartes holds that ideas have or contain _objective reality_ of their objects, so that the idea of the sun is the sun itself existing in the intellect. In this paper, I examine this obscure thesis which grounds the disagreement about Descartes’ commitment to direct or indirect realism. I suggest that, importantly, both readings are correct to a certain extent. I argue that the view of objective reality Descartes develops bears the earmarks of both direct and indirect realist views but must (...) be classified as a third alternative combining some central features of both. I elaborate first on the direct realist interpretations of Descartes’ objective reality and explain their most significant shortcomings. My interpretation of objective identity comes in the form of attributing to Descartes a view about identity and persistence of objects known as _sortalism_. I argue that Descartes’ objective identity turns out to be much like the Aristotelian view of _formal identity_, yet without the forms. By way of discussing the case of Theseus’ ship, I point out how Cartesian sortalism, contrary to other versions of sortalism, allows us to analyze the puzzle as a tension between two distinct yet independently legitimate criteria of identity. It is this sortalist insight that helps to render Descartes’ account of objective identity consistent. This point also grounds my argument that we need not consider direct and indirect realism as logical complements, contrary to the received wisdom. (shrink)

In his dispute with Malebranche about the nature of ideas, Arnauld endorses a form of direct realism. This appears to conflict with views put forward by Arnauld and his collaborators in the Port-Royal Grammar and Logic where ideas are treated as objects in the mind. This tension can be resolved by a careful examination of Arnauld's remarks on the semantics of ‘perception’ and ‘idea’ in light of the Port-Royal theory of language. This examination leads to the conclusion that Arnauld's ideas (...) really are objects in the mind, and not perceptual acts as many commentators hold. What Arnauld denies is that these mental objects are really distinct from the external objects they represent. Instead, Arnauld holds that, by the act of conception, the external objects themselves—not copies—come to be present in the mind and are therefore called ‘ideas’. (shrink)

This paper tackles the famous predicament known as the Cartesian Circle. This notorious problem can be understood as manifesting an ancient dilemma—the diallelus, or the problem of the criterion. Now, the problem of the criterion can be approached from either particularistic or methodistic standpoint. In a nutshell, a particularist accepts instances of knowledge prior to criteria of knowledge, and the methodist goes the other way around. In this paper Descartes's struggle with the problem receives a particularistic reading. Using James Van (...) Cleve's and Jaakko Hintikka's thoughts as my main leverage, I argue that the particularist Descartes can reach knowledge without circularity. However, problems will remain and I shall bring out those that to me seem most pressing. (shrink)