Descartes propounded the allegedly "strange", "peculiar", "curious" and "incoherent" doctrine that necessary truths are made true by God's voluntary act. It is generally held that this doctrine must be kept out of sight while other Cartesian topics are being discussed. This paper offers an interpretation of this Cartesian doctrine under which it comes out as reasonable, consistent with the rest of his philosophy, and possible even true. According to this interpretation--which is more respectful of and close to Descartes's text than (...) is the customary one--Descartes equated the alethic modalities with facts about human intellectual limitations, somewhat in the manner of Wittgenstein. Thus, God created modalities creating humans in the way he did. (shrink)

Life and works -- Cartesian doubt -- Cogito ergo sum -- Sum res cogitans -- Ideas -- The idea of god -- The ontological argument -- Reason and intuition -- Matter and motion zoo -- Mind and body.

In the Fifth Meditation, Descartes makes a remarkable claim about the ontological status of geometrical figures. He asserts that an object such as a triangle has a 'true and immutable nature' that does not depend on the mind, yet has being even if there are no triangles existing in the world. This statement has led many commentators to assume that Descartes is a Platonist regarding essences and in the philosophy of mathematics. One problem with this seemingly natural reading is that (...) it contradicts the conceptualist account of universals that one finds in the Principles of Philosophy and elsewhere. In this paper, I offer a novel interpretation of the notion of a true and immutable nature which reconciles the Fifth Meditation with the conceptualism of Descartes' other work. Specifically, I argue that Descartes takes natures to be innate ideas considered in terms of their so-called 'objective being'. (shrink)

ne of the leading problems for Cartesian dualism is to provide an account of the union of mind and body. This problem is often construed to be one of explaining how thinking things and extended things can causally interact. That is, it needs to be explained how thoughts in the mind can produce motions in the body and how motions in the body can produce sensations, appetites, and emotions in the mind. The conclusion often drawn, as it was by three (...) of Descartes's illustrious successors, Malebranche, Spinoza, and Leibniz, is that mind and body cannot causally interact.' I mention this problem of the interaction between thinking things and extended things only to distinguish it from the problem concerning the union of mind and body which I wish to discuss. Some commentators, such as Daisie Radner, maintain that the.. (shrink)

In the Principles of Philosophy, Descartes makes a remarkable claim that has never received the proper recognition it deserves. He asserts that there is merely a "rational distinction" between a substance and each of its attributes. I argue that, properly understood, this claim means that a substance and each of its attributes are numerically identical in reality, and distinguished only within our thought by means of reason. I then use this central insight to resolve a number of apparent inconsistencies and (...) interpretive puzzles that have plagued Descartes' philosophy. ;The most important of these problems concerns Descartes' theory of essences. In the Fifth Meditation, Descartes claims that certain objects such as geometrical figures have "true and immutable natures or essences" that do not depend on the mind, yet have being even if there are no such things existing in the world. On the basis of this statement, a number of influential scholars have concluded that Descartes is a Platonist regarding essences and in the philosophy of mathematics. One problem with this seemingly natural reading is that it contradicts the conceptualist, anti-realist strain that one finds in his other works. I enlist the theory of rational distinction to show decisively that Descartes is a conceptualist regarding essences and all universals. ;The theory of rational distinction illuminates several other features of Descartes' ontology as well--including the status of attributes and their distinction from modes, the notion of substance, the relation between essence and existence, the nature of space, the doctrine of divine simplicity, and the notion of a principal attribute. ;My central thesis also reveals that the so-called ontological "argument" is not a formal proof but the assertion of an intuition akin to the Cogito. I confirm this interpretation by investigating a poorly understood method called "analysis" employed in the Meditations. Descartes holds that the greatest impediments to knowledge are various philosophical prejudices that obscure and confound our innate ideas, particularly our innate idea of God. Analysis is the method for dispelling these prejudices. Once they are removed, God's existence is more self-evident than the simplest mathematical truth. (shrink)