Descartes's Dreams: Ann Scholl

SchollAnn0820452459:SchollAnn0820452459.
qxd 4/10/2012 9:18 AM Page 1
56
Ann Scholl revises the traditional understanding of
the role of imagination and sensory perception in 56
Scholl
Descartes’s Meditations. Traditionally, Cartesian schol-
ars have focused primarily on sensory perception as the
more significant of the two “special” modes of thought.
Descartes’s Dreams
In this work, Ann Scholl describes how a better under-
standing of Descartes’s skepticism and his arguments
for dualism are reached when imagination instead is
understood as the more primary of the two special
modes of thought. The result is a fresh reading and
interpretation of Descartes’s most influential work.
Imagination in the Meditations

Ann Scholl received her Ph.D. in philosophy from the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She was formerly a
Visiting Professor of Philosophy at European
Humanities University-International and Byelorussian
State University, Minsk, Belarus. She has been an
Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the American
University in Kuwait since Fall 2005. Her scholarly
interests include research and publications in applied
ethics and feminist theory.
Ann Scholl
www.peterlang.com PETER LANG P E T E R L A N G P U B L I S H I N G
SchollAnn0820452459:SchollAnn0820452459.qxd 4/10/2012 9:18 AM Page 1
56
Ann Scholl revises the traditional understanding of
the role of imagination and sensory perception in 56
Scholl
Descartes’s Meditations. Traditionally, Cartesian schol-
ars have focused primarily on sensory perception as the
more significant of the two “special” modes of thought.
In this work, Ann Scholl describes how a better under-
standing of Descartes’s skepticism and his arguments
for dualism are reached when imagination instead is
understood as the more primary of the two special
modes of thought. The result is a fresh reading and
interpretation of Descartes’s most influential work.

Ann Scholl received her Ph.D. in philosophy from the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She was formerly a
Visiting Professor of Philosophy at European
Humanities University-International and Byelorussian
State University, Minsk, Belarus. She has been an
Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the American
University in Kuwait since Fall 2005. Her scholarly
interests include research and publications in applied
ethics and feminist theory.
Ann Scholl
www.peterlang.com PETER LANG P E T E R L A N G P U B L I S H I N G
Studies in the Humanities
Literature—Politics—Society
Guy Mermier
General Editor
Vol. 56
PETER LANG
New York y Washington, D.C./Baltimore y Bern
Frankfurt am Main y Berlin y Brussels y Vienna y Oxford
Ann Scholl
PETER LANG
New York y Washington, D.C./Baltimore y Bern
Frankfurt am Main y Berlin y Brussels y Vienna y Oxford
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Scholl, Ann.
Descartes’s dreams: imagination in the Meditations / Ann Scholl.
p. cm. — (Studies in the humanities; vol. 56)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Descartes, René, 1596–1650. Meditationes de prima philosophia.
2. Imagination (Philosophy)—History—16th century. I. Title.
II. Studies in the humanities (New York, N.Y.); vol. 56.
B1854 .S36 194—dc21 2001034688
ISBN 0820452459 (hardcover)
ISBN 9781453908983 (eBook)
ISSN 07426712
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek.

Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data is available
on the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de/.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity
of the Council of Library Resources.
© 2005 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York

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All rights reserved.

Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,
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Printed in Germany
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: The Importance of Imagination 1
I. Theory of Sensory Perception 3
II. Psychophysiology of Imagination 27
III. Imagination in Meditation II 41
IV. Imagination in Meditations V and VI 71
V. Speculation That a Body Exists 105
Notes 125
Bibliography 137
Index 143
Acknowledgments
I owe a number of people for their support in writing this book. First, to my
graduate professors, especially Nelson Potter, Harry Ide, Joseph Mendola and
Robert Audi for their numerous and helpful commentaries on this work. I also
am deeply grateful to Pauline Phemister for eliciting my interest in modern
philosophy and Descartes in general. I particularly owe her thanks for inform-
ing me that understanding Descartes’s views on sensory perception and imagi-
nation first require reading and understanding scholastic theories. Unfortu-
nately, Professor Phemister was correct, and her advice served me well. I also
owe thanks to my former colleagues at Creighton University for their helpful
and numerous comments. Their support while writing this work was invalu-
able.
Portions of this work have been read at numerous conferences and I am in-
debted to the helpful comments I received from Dennis Sepper in particular
and the participants in these conferences. These conferences include The Cen-
tral States Philosophy Conference of 1999 and Minnesota State Philosophical
Association Annual Meeting of 1999. I am especially grateful for the kindly
worded corrections given to me by John Cottingham regarding his own inter-
pretations of Descartes at the International Descartes Conference in Spain of
2004. Many revisions of this text are due to the helpful conversations and
commentary I enjoyed with all participants at this conference. I have particu-
larly benefited from the commentary by Larry Nolan and his sharing his work
on Descartes’s early work of imagination. Special thanks goes to Alberto Nones
for his last-minute insightful comments and proof-reading.
I also will note how influential the writings of Alison Simmons have been
on my thoughts. Her analyses of later Scholastic works, as well as her work on
Descartes’s sensory perception, have greatly influenced both the structure and
viii Descartes’s Dreams
content of my own work, particularly of my understanding of Descartes’s

thoughts on the representational content of sensory and imaginary ideas.
Special thanks go to editors at Peter Lang, Sophie Appel and Heidi Burns,
both of whom showed great patience through my computer glitches, moving
across the world and other delays. Thanks also go to the anonymous reviewer
of the manuscript for many helpful comments and directions.
Thanks go to my family, who provided invaluable support throughout my
career. My parents never understood my choice of philosophy as a major, but
supported my choice. Their good–humored commentary, “fine, but you can’t
move home when you are finished,” I will always appreciate. My family’s un-
derstanding and support has stood me well throughout the years.
Finally, to all my friends who helped, especially the inmates at the “G”
street commune for the good food and friendship we shared. I appreciate the
tolerance of my single-minded and occasionally grumpy pursuit of my re-
search. Lou, Xiao-Mei, Brian: thanks.
Ann Scholl, PhD

International Scholar with Academic Fellowship Organization
Assistant Professor, American University Kuwait
Introduction
The Importance of Imagination
Meditation VI, Descartes says in his synopsis, contains his arguments for the
existence of corporeal substance and his arguments for the dualistic nature of
human beings.1 These well-known arguments mainly center upon the faculty of
sensory perception. Despite the emphasis upon the faculty of sensory perception
(including the “internal” senses like hunger as well as the external senses), Med.
VI begins with a discussion of the faculty of imagination. Specifically, Med. VI
begins with the narrator analyzing four aspects of the mental function of imagi-
nation:
(1) why imagining a corporeal substance is often more difficult than understanding one
(2) the relation of the power of understanding to the essence of the mind
(3) the nature of the phenomenal content of imaginary states
(4) the source of the phenomenal content of imaginary states.2
These analyses culminate in Descartes’s narrator positing the possible existence

of a body to which his mind is joined, followed by his turning to a discussion of
sensory perception.
These analyses and this possibility, however, receive little attention from
Cartesian scholars. This is because Descartes did not clearly specify what role,
if any, these analyses play in the epistemic structure of Med. VI. Indeed, most
broad accounts of Descartes’s Meditations do not even discuss these analyses.
If they do, they are treated as interesting asides which play no central role in
Descartes’s arguments for the existence of corporeal substance or the dualistic
nature of human beings. Even Cottingham, who uses these arguments as evi-
dence of Descartes’s suggesting a trialism, sees no important role for these
analyses of imagination in the main arguments of Med. VI.3
One might pardon such neglect, for arguments and analyses culminating in
the mere possibility that a body exists seems a failed argument not worthy of
2 Descartes’s Dreams
much attention. Given the strict certainty principles laid out in the earlier Medi-
tations, Cartesian scholars seem correct in viewing Descartes’s arguments re-
garding imagination as unimportant, yet interesting introductory comments to
bigger and better arguments. This neglect of the faculty of imagination in the
epistemic structure of Med. VI is not fully justified. In particular, further study
shows that Descartes’s narrator must begin Med. VI with an examination of his
faculty of imagination and not his faculty of sensory perception. That is, a dis-
cussion of his faculty of imagination is a necessary starting point for his later
proofs for the existence of corporeal substance and his dualistic nature.
Understanding the role of imagination in Med. VI requires a study of the
concerns that the narrator poses in the earlier Meditations about his faculties of
sensory perception and imagination. The skeptical worries posed by the narrator
in Med. II and III are such that the narrator cannot begin Med. VI with a discus-
sion of sensory perception. This is because the skeptical worries prevent him
from claiming that he has a faculty of sensory perception that is distinct from his
faculty of imagination. As shown herein, the narrator only hesitantly attributes
the faculties of sensory perceptions and imagination to himself in Med. II in that
he only attributes limited faculties of imagination and sensory perception to
himself, qua a mind only. I say this because in Med. II, Descartes’s narrator nei-
ther presumes nor establishes the existence of either the objects of imagination
and sense-perception or the corporeal mechanisms he believes necessary for a
thinking subject to imagine and sense-perceive. So, in order to understand Des-
cartes’s claims that the narrator imagines and sense-perceives only in a limited
sense in Med. II, we must first understand what Descartes cannot claim about
the mental powers of imagination and sense-perception in Med. II. Since what
he does not and cannot claim about sense-perception and imagination in the
early Meditations ought to be consistent with and understood in light of his
theories regarding the processes of both sense-perception and imagination, I
begin my discussion, in the first chapter, by outlining his theory of the psycho-
physiology of sense-perception.
Chapter I
Theory of Sensory Perception
The exact physiological story provided by Descartes for imagination and sen-
sory perception is rarely of debate. Theories may differ on the details of the
‘figures’ created on or by the pineal gland, or as to exactly how Descartes
meant to describe the causal relation of corporeal objects and the external
senses, but scholars generally agree as to the general mechanistic story. The
cognitive aspects of Descartes’s theory, however, are rarely agreed upon, ex-
cept in vague terms. Most concede that Descartes flirts with the claim that sen-
sory and imaginary ideas are representational, but rarely agree that he is even
weakly committed to representational sensory and imaginary states.1 Most
agree that for Descartes, if they are representational, sensory and imaginary
ideas are not representational in terms of resembling the objects they might
represent.
The point of this and the following chapters is to outline the general theory
of how sensation and imagination occur, according to Descartes. The interpreta-
tion given is one allowing for Descartes’s claims that sensory states and imagi-
nary states are representational mental states. However, the interpretation given
is not intended to defend Descartes as holding a representational view.
The debate regarding Descartes’s claiming that sensory ideas are representa-
tional is not cast in light of his theories concerning the cognitive import of
imaginary ideas. Any interpretation of Descartes’s claims about how one will-
ingly imagines, I believe, ought to allow that such voluntary imaginary states
are representational. Indeed, one has difficulty accounting for Descartes’s trian-
gle/chilagon example in Med. VI if one does not explain how the imaginary
state of the triangle acquaints the mind with the geometrical figure of the trian-
gle.2 Also, a nonrepresentational account would also have difficulty explaining
why the imaginary state of the chilagon fails to acquaint, in any significant way,
the cognizer with the chilagon. The following two chapters show how Descartes
treated the sensory imaginary state similarly in how they are caused and affect
the cognizer. Thus, since the imaginary states must be representational, I inter-
pret Descartes as allowing sensory states to be representational in some cogni-
tively significant way.
Cartesian Theory of Sensory Perception

Descartes distinguishes between three grades of sense-perception:
The first is limited to the immediate stimulation of the bodily organs by external objects;
this can consist in nothing but the motion of the particles of the organs, and any change
of shape and position resulting from this motion. The second-grade comprises all the
immediate effects produced in the mind as a result of its being united with a bodily or-
gan which is affected in this way. Such effects include the perceptions of pain, pleasure,
thirst, hunger, colours, sound, taste, smell, heat, cold and the like, which arise from the
union and as it were the intermingling of the mind and body…The third grade includes
all the judgements about things outside us which we have been accustomed to make
from our earliest years —judgements which are occasioned by the movements of these
bodily organs. (AT VII. 437–438: CSM II 50–51)
The first grade of sensory perception is limited to bodily responses to external

corporeal substances. (These need not be observable bodily behaviors.) The
second-grade of sensory perceptions is limited to mere phenomenal awareness
of external corporeal substances. The third grade of sensory awareness occurs
when the thinking subject of sensation refers the content of second-grade sen-
sory states to external corporeal substances. The first grade is merely bodily
awareness of external corporeal substances (which even animals have). Third
grade sensory awareness, he claims, is not properly considered sense-
perception, but a judgment of the intellect.
In this section, I propose and defend what I call The Mechanistic Assimila-
tion Interpretation (MAI) of Descartes’s psychophysiological theory of second-
grade sense-perception.3 According to MAI, Descartes claims that
(1) The physiology of sense-perception can be fully explained in crude, motive, mechanis-
tic manners
(2) The phenomenal states of second-grade sensory awareness are innate and activated by
external corporeal substances
(3) The content of phenomenal sensory states does not resemble its extramental causes
In addition, I argue that if MAI is correct, then examination of Descartes’s psy-

chophysiological theory of sense-perception, by itself, will not answer the cur-
rently debated issue of whether he accepts that second-grade sensory states are
representational.4 Towards explaining and defending MAI, I will also examine
how Descartes’s psychophysiological theory of sense-perception differs from
Theory of Sensory Perception 5
that of the Aristotelian Scholastics, Descartes’s claims regarding the relationship

between the purely mental states of sense-perception on the one hand and vari-
ous cerebral states on the other and Descartes’s use of ‘idea’ during his com-
ments on sense-perception.
Scholastic Theories of Sensory Perception

Crucial to understanding Descartes’s psychophysiological theory of sense-
perception is knowing which of the Scholastico-Aristotelian doctrines he denies.
Many Scholastics hold to at least three basic Aristotelian claims, which I shall
call Aristotle’s Direct Contact Thesis, Aristotle’s Perception by Assimilation
Thesis and Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Material-less Forms, respectively.5 Scho-
lastics interpret Aristotle differently and therefore, hold to these Aristotelian
theses in varying degrees and manners, thus a full accounting of the relevant
Scholastics is much too vast for current purposes. Simmons focuses on three
Scholastics in particular: Suarez, Rubio and Toledo.6 Simmons provides an ex-
cellent account of their reliance upon and interpretation of Aristotle’s doctrines.
The following paragraphs recount her summations.
According to Aristotle’s Direct Contact Thesis, a mental state of sensory
perception occurs only when the mind is in direct contact with an external cor-
poreal substance. Scholastics believe that the object of the mental state of sen-
sory perception must be an external corporeal object, not a mental idea or even a
cerebral image, for sense-perception, by definition, is the mental awareness of
an external corporeal substance and if a mental state has as its object a purely
mental idea and not an external corporeal substance, then the mental state is not
an awareness of an external corporeal object and thus is not rightly considered
an act of sense-perception. So if the immediate object of sense-perception is a
cerebral image or a purely mental idea, what the cognizer is aware of is not an
external corporeal substance, but a cerebral image or a purely mental idea.
Moreover, since the Scholastics hold that mind perceives via the external
sense organs and the sense organ in the brain, both the external sense organs and
the cerebral sense organ must also be in direct contact with the corporeal object
perceived. Thus, the complete psychophysiological story proposed by the Scho-
lastics must explain how (a) the mind directly accesses external corporeal ob-
jects when it sense-perceives, (b) the cerebral sense organ directly accesses cor-
poreal substances, and (c) the external sense organs are directly contacted by
external corporeal substances at a distance. Explaining (a)–(c) is especially dif-
ficult for the Scholastics, for they rightly note that seeing a corporeal substance,
such as a black sphere, is impossible when it is touching the eye (i.e., when the
external corporeal substance is in direct contact with the eye) and do not accept
that action (motion) at a distance occurs.
According to Simmons, Scholastics then introduce Aristotle’s Perception by

Assimilation Thesis as a partial explanation of (a) above. According to this the-
sis, mental awareness of an external corporeal substance (i.e., a mental state of
sense-perception) is a mental state in which the mind becomes like the external
corporeal substance. When the mind sense-perceives, a sensitive faculty of the
mind becomes like the corporeal substance perceived. So, the human mind
sense-perceives, not by merely examining some object of thought, but by re-
sembling the external object perceived. In Scholastico-Aristotelian lingo, the
mind “takes on” the intentional form of a corporeal object when it perceives via
the senses. For many of the early Scholastics particularly the Averroists (and
perhaps Aquinas) —the form the mind takes on is an exact replica of the exter-
nal corporeal substance. For the followers of Averroës, then, a mind, when
sense-perceiving, resembles an external corporeal substance by becoming ex-
actly similar to the external corporeal substance. For the later Scholastics (e.g.,
Rubio and Suarez), however, the mind does not resemble an external corporeal
substance by becoming exactly similar to it. The form the mind takes on, as
Simmons suggests, in the thought of Rubio and Suarez, is like the external cor-
poreal substance emitting it in that the form is identical to the corporeal sub-
stance emitting it.
Since the theories concerning how the mind becomes identical to a corpo-
real substance without becoming exactly similar to it are as numerous as the
Scholastics themselves, I will explain only one of Simmons’s interpretations so
that I might illustrate how Scholastics provided the details. Rubio suggests that
an intentional form still has all of the qualities of the corporeal substance which
emitted it, but is not exactly similar to corporeal substance because it only re-
tains the intentional essences of the corporeal substances’ qualities and not the
natural (fully corporeal) essence of these qualities.7 An intentional species is
unlike the corporeal substance of which it is a form in that it is not itself percep-
tibly colored, stinky, tasty, etc., but is identical to the corporeal substance in that
it retains this (intentional) essence of these qualities.
The Assimilation Thesis thus vaguely explains how the mind directly “ac-
cesses” an external corporeal object present to the external sense organs: the
mind directly accesses an external corporeal object by taking on the form of, by
resembling in some fashion, an external corporeal substance. Exactly how the
mind receives or takes on this form is something the completed Scholastic psy-
chophysiological theory of sense-perception attempts to explain.
Finally, the Scholastics accepted Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Material-less
Forms. They introduce this doctrine to account for (c) above and to partly ex-
plain what the form received by the mind is. According to Aristotle, corporeal
substances emit “forms,” which alter a medium (e.g., transparent bodies, air)
which then contacts and alters an individual’s external sense organs. (The exter-
nal sense organs alter in that they become like the corporeal object emitting the
form.) These forms are the substances themselves without their matter. Thus,
they are the substances themselves, but in a different mode of being.
For Scholastics, these forms are intentional forms [species] and are quasi-
material: the intentional forms are material substances, but are material in an
inferior or degenerate manner. These species have only the intentional essence
(esse intentionale) of corporeality, while fully corporeal substances have the
natural essence (esse naturale) of corporeality. That is, species are quasi-
material in that they are degraded forms of fully corporeal entities, not in that
they are quasi-immaterial.
As Simmons explains, for Averroists, species are images, fully sensible (but
not sensed) and are exactly similar to the corporeal substances themselves, even
when they exist in the medium and the external senses. So, for the Averroists,
the medium takes on the intentional form of a blue substance by literally becom-
ing blue. Noting that this creates a problem of compresence of opposites, the
later Scholastics claim that because they are only quasi-material, the intentional
forms are not themselves sensible (e.g., they cannot be smelled, tasted, seen or
heard) but do have sensible qualities.8 For the later Scholastics, the medium be-
comes like the corporeal substance in that the medium, by assimilating the in-
tentional form of the corporeal substance, becomes identical to the corporeal
substance without necessarily resembling it. For instance, the medium, when
assimilating the intentional form of a brown hat, alters so that it has the qualities
of the hat (one being brown-ness), but since the intentional form is not fully
corporeal, the medium does not itself become sensibly brown, even though it
has the property of brown. Nonetheless, the reception of the intentional forms
(even for the later Scholastics) causes the medium and then the mind to become
like external corporeal substances and the mind to have awareness of corporeal
substances’ sensible qualities. The intentional forms can accomplish these two
things because they are not the objects of our mental faculty of sense-perception
(i.e., they are not themselves perceived). Instead, they are the means by which
our minds sense-perceive fully material objects. That is, the “taking on” or re-
ception of intentional forms is the means by which our minds directly access or
contact corporeal substances. The completed Scholastic psychophysiological
story of sense-perception, then, needs to explain how the mind receives or takes
on this intentional form, how it reaches the cerebral sense organ, how the cere-
bral sense organ takes on insensible species and how mental reception of species
results in the sense-perception of (awareness of) external corporeal substances.
According to the completed Scholastic theory of sense-perception, when a
human perceives via the senses, an external corporeal object emits an inten-
tional form which alters a medium, like air. Through contact with this altered
medium, the external sense organs themselves are then altered so that they take
on the intentional form which exists in the altered medium. The animal spirits in
the nerves then alter in that they become like the corporeal substance by taking
on its intentional form. The animal spirits in the nerves then carry the inten-
tional form to a cerebral sense organ. Once the intentional form arrives at the
cerebral sense organ, the sense organ itself becomes like the external corporeal
substance by taking on its intentional form.
The internal cerebral sense organ, which is the organ of the “common”
sense, assimilates the intentional form in that the intentional form alters the
cerebral sense organ by impressing itself upon the surface of the organ. As a
result, the intentional form becomes fully materialized (corporeal) and sensible.
So the assimilation of the internal sense organ to the intentional form creates a
sensible species. For the Averroists, the sensible species is an exact replica, an
image of a corporeal substance present before the external sense-organs. For the
later Scholastics, however, the sensible species, while being identical to the ex-
ternal corporeal substance, is not exactly similar to and thus not an exact replica
of the external corporeal substance.9
While the internal cerebral sense organ is often called the common sense,
the common sense is actually a mental power or function operating the internal
cerebral sense organ. As Simmons explains
The later Scholastics interpret the senses hylomorphically; that is, the sensitive power
informing the sensory organ and the matter of that organ are one and the same subject
of sense-perception, since the power is just what makes that particular matter to be the
functional sensory organ that it is. The senses, they say, are material powers of the soul.
Consequently, on this view, the psychology of sensory perception cannot be divorced
from sensory physiology insofar as the latter concerns functioning sense-organs (as op-
posed to inert pieces of organ-stuff.) Sense-perception [for the Scholastics] is a single,
10
thoroughly psychophysiological phenomenon.
So for the Scholastics, the common sense is thoroughly psychophysiological,

involving a mental functioning power as well as a material organ. Since the
common sense is both mental and cerebral, the assimilation of the functioning
cerebral organ of the common sense to the species results not only in the crea-
tion of a sensible species, but in the assimilation of the mind to the intentional
form. That is, not only does the organ of the common sense assimilate the inten-
tional form, but the common sense as a whole takes on the intentional form.
Thus, the mind receives or takes on an intentional form and the mind then be-
comes like an external corporeal substance present to the external sensory or-
gans. So, the assimilation of an intentional form by the common sense explains
how both the cerebral sense organ and mind assimilate or become like an exter-
nal corporeal substance: the mind, via the common sense, assimilates the inten-
tional form of an external corporeal substance. Thus the mind resembles, either
by identity or exact similitude, an external corporeal substance.
The assimilation of an intentional form also explains how the mind directly
contacts an external corporeal substance. For the Scholastics, the mind directly
contacts an external corporeal substance because external corporeal substances
are the direct intentional objects of mental states of sense-perception and the
sensible species in the common sense are the content but not the object of the
mental state of sense-perception. For the Scholastics, the mental state of sense-
perception is an intentional state, meaning not only that the mind is in the al-
tered state of “taking on” the intentional form of an external corporeal substance
but also that the mind intends an external corporeal substance.11 That is, when
the mind sense-perceives, it has as its object the external corporeal substance
itself. Instead of being a mediate object of the intentional mental state of sense-
perception, the sensible species in the common sense plays two other roles in
the psychophysiology of sense-perception: it is both the means by which the
mind is directed toward an external corporeal substance and the content of the
mental state of sense-perception. The colors one sees, the textures one feels,
etc., are all qualities of the sensible species found in the organ of the common
sense, not of the external corporeal substance. That is, the content of a mental
state of sense-perception is a part of the mental intentional state itself, rather
than being a part of the object of the intentional mental state of sense-
perception. Thus, for the Scholastics, corporeal qualities (the smells, sounds,
colors, etc., that are actually perceived by a mind), insofar as they are perceived
by a mind, exist as a part of the sense-perceiving mind. However, since the sen-
sible species is a fully materialized intentional form of an external corporeal
substance, and since the intentional form resembles (either through identity or
exact similitude) the external corporeal substance, the qualities which comprise
the content of one’s intentional mental state of sense-perception resemble (i.e.,
are either identical to or exactly similar to) the qualities had by the external cor-
poreal substance.
So, according to the completed Scholastic psychophysiological theory of
sense-perception, mental awareness of a material substance is at once psycho-
logical, physiological and physical, involving an intentional mental state, cere-
bral qualities that are the content of the mental state, and an external corporeal
substance which is the object of the intentional mental state. Moreover, the as-
similation of an intentional form by the common sense supposedly explains both
how the mind directly accesses an external corporeal object and how the mind
becomes like a corporeal substance. Finally, the mental act of sense-perceiving
an external corporeal substance, according to the Scholastics, is not distinct
from the content of sense-perception: the form (state) the mind takes on, when it
sense-perceives, is an intentional, but not content-less form.
Cartesian Theory of Sensory Perception

Given his “simplistic” mechanistic account of the corporeal world, Des-
cartes has little need or tolerance for theoretical entities like the Scholastic spe-
cies. Like the Scholastics, Descartes accepts that motion at a distance does not
occur. He does, however, claim that causal motive chains can occur. He then
explains (a) how the mind has mental states of perception and (b) how our ex-
ternal organs access corporeal substances at a distance by appealing to causal
motive chains. In regard to the latter, Descartes believes that, instead of emitting
species, external objects move a medium (e.g., air), which in turn moves the
external bodily sense-organs (olfactory glands, taste buds, etc.):
…I would have you consider the light in bodies we call ‘luminous’ to be nothing
other than a certain movement, or very rapid and lively action, which passes to our eyes
through the medium of the air and other transparent bodies, just as the movement or re-
sistance of bodies encountered by a blind man passes to his hand by means of his
stick…this will prevent you from finding it strange that this light can extend its rays in-
stantaneously from the sun to us. For you know that the action by which we move one
end of a stick must pass instantaneously to the other end, and that the action of light
would have to pass from the heavens to the earth in that same way, even though the dis-
tance in this case is much greater than that between the ends of a stick. (AT VI.84:
CSM I.153)
Thus, by accepting that the motion of corporeal substances travels through a

medium (i.e., that a medium can be moved by a corporeal substance), Descartes
accounts for sense-perception at a distance without positing the existence of any
theoretical entities like the Scholastic species. Moreover, his mechanistic ac-
count of how corporeal substances contact our external sense-organs also elimi-
nates the need for the medium to become like the corporeal substance moving it
and the need for the external sense-organs to become like the corporeal sub-
stance which moved the medium. That is, neither the medium nor our external
sense organs need to assimilate either the esse intentionale or the esse naturale
of corporeal substances for our minds to sense-perceive.12 Thus, Descartes de-
nies that the medium and our external sense-organs must resemble, either by
means of identity or by means of similitude, a corporeal substance in order for
our minds to sense-perceive a corporeal substance.
At this point, then, Descartes clearly denies several aspects of the Scholastic
interpretations of Aristotle’s doctrines and clearly accepts one of these doc-
trines. First, he clearly denies that intentional forms (or any Aristotelian forms,
for that matter) exist in either the medium or the external sense-organs. In so
doing, he rejects various aspects of Aristotle’s Doctrine of Material-less Forms.

Specifically, he rejects Aristotle’s claim that corporeal substances emit forms as
well as the Aristotelian claim that the medium is altered by a corporeal sub-
stance in that it becomes like the corporeal substance. Instead, the medium is
altered only in that it is moved by the corporeal substance. Second, Descartes
rejects various aspects of Aristotle’s Assimilation Thesis. Specifically, he denies
that the external sense-organs must become like a corporeal substance, either by
resembling it or by taking on its esse intentionale, in order for one to sense-
perceive the substance. He does, however, agree that the external sense organs
must alter in order for sense-perception to occur. The external sense organs do
alter, but only insofar as they are moved by a medium. Finally, he does not deny
The Direct Contact Thesis. Instead, he believes the external sense organs are in
direct contact with the corporeal substances via the motion of bodies, the me-
dium and the external sense organs themselves.13 What he now needs to explain
is how the mind is in direct contact with corporeal substances.
Like the Scholastics, Descartes notes that damage to one’s brain or nerves
can prevent one’s ability to sense-perceive.14 He then agrees with the Scholas-
tics that a sense organ in the brain plays a central physiological role in sense-
perception. So he must, like his Scholastic predecessors, (a) explain how the
external sense organs are connected to and affect the cerebral sense organ and
(b) define the purpose and role of the cerebral sense organ in sense-perception.
In regard to (a), Descartes once again appeals to motion. By describing the mo-
tion of the animal spirits through the nerves, he explains how stimulation of the
external sense organs affects the cerebral sense-organ:
The figure which [the external sense organ] receives is conveyed at one and the same
moment to another part of the body known as the ‘common sense’, without any entity
really passing from one to the other. In exactly the same way I understand that while I
am writing, at the very moment when individual letters are traced on the paper, not only
does the point of my pen move, but the slightest motion of this part cannot but be
transmitted simultaneously to the whole pen. All of these various motions are traced
out in the air by the tip of the quill, even though I do not conceive of anything real
passing from one to the other. (AT X.414: CSM I.41)
The motion of the animal spirits through the nerves creates an impression of
an external corporeal substance in the common sense (the cerebral sense or-
gan).15 Just as the letters I write are formed in the air by the motions of the p en
with which I write, a fully corporeal cerebral impression of the object which
stimulates my external sense organs is formed, as if in wax, on the surface of the
common sense. That is, the movement of the nerves on the surface of the organ
of the common sense (the pineal gland) results in the formation of an impression
on the cerebral sense organ’s surface.16
For Descartes, as for the Scholastics, the cerebral sense organ must alter
for sense-perception to occur and alters so that it represents the corporeal sub-
stance present to the external sense organs. For Descartes, however, the cerebral
sense organ alters so that it becomes something that merely signifies the exter-
nal corporeal substance, in the same way dots on a map represent cities or words
represent objects:
We should, however, recall that our mind can be stimulated by many things other than
images —by signs and words, for example, which in no way resemble the things they
signify…You can see this in the case of engravings: consisting simply of a little ink
placed here and there on a piece of paper, they represent to us forests, towns, people,
and even battles or storms; and although they make us think of countless different
qualities in these objects, it is only in respect of shape that there is any real resem-
blance. And even in this, the resemblance is very imperfect…Now we must think of the
images in our brain in just the same way, and note that the problem is to know simply
how they can enable the soul to have sensory perceptions of all the various qualities of
the objects to which they correspond —not to know how they can resemble these ob-
jects. (AT VI.113–4: CSM I.167)
Descartes, then, rejects the Scholastic claim that the cerebral sense organ
becomes like the corporeal substance which acts upon the external sense organs
by resembling it in any fashion. While he agrees with the Scholastics that the
cerebral sense organ alters so as to represent a corporeal substance, he rejects
their claim that the cerebral sense organ represents the corporeal substance by
becoming identical to it. Thus, Descartes denies yet another aspect of the Scho-
lastic understanding of Aristotle’s Perception by Assimilation Thesis: namely,
that the cerebral sense organ must become like the corporeal substance present
to the external sense organs by becoming something which bears an identity
relation to the external corporeal substance. Instead, for Descartes the cerebral
sense organ becomes like an external substance only insofar as it is altered by
the motions of the nerves to become something signifying the external corporeal
substance.
But how does the formation of this representation give rise to a mental state
of sense-perception? Descartes, in dioptrics, says,
…when this [retinal] picture thus passes to the inside of our head, it still bears some re-
semblance to the objects from which it proceeds…we must not think that it is by means
of this resemblance that the picture causes our sensory perception of these objects —as
if there were yet other eyes within our brain with which we could perceive them. In-
stead, we must hold that it is the movements [of the animal spirits] composing this pic-
ture which, acting directly upon our soul in so far as it is united to our body, are or-
dained by nature to make it have such sensations. (AT VI.130–1: CSM I.167)
Understanding how the motions of the animal spirits through the nerves
give rise to the mental state of sense-perception first requires a few comments
on Descartes’s psychology of sense-perception. First, Descartes, like his prede-
cessors, conceives of the mental state of sense-perception as an intentional men-
tal state. For the Scholastics, the mental state of sense-perception is intentional
in that (a) the mind is in the altered state of assimilating an intentional form and
(b) the mind intends (is directed toward) an external corporeal substance.
Clearly, since he denies the existence of intentional forms, Descartes cannot
mean that sense-perception is intentional in that (a). He does, however, mean
that sense-perception is an intentional mental state in that (b).17 Moreover, even
though Descartes denies the existence of intentional forms, he agrees that inten-
tional mental states of sense-perception have content.18 (The content will be dis-
cussed later.)
Secondly, given his mechanistic account of the corporeal realm and his con-
ception of the human body as a machine, Descartes does not interpret the senses
hylomorphically. That is, unlike the Scholastics (and Aristotle), he fully materi-
alizes the functioning power of the common sense. While he agrees that the or-
gan of the common sense is a functioning cerebral sense organ(s), Descartes
describes the power operating the organ as the motive power, a mere mechanis-
tic power which is fully attributable to the body.19 For Descartes, the impression
on the surface of the common sense does not (and cannot) perform the same
psychophysiological roles in sense-perception as the Scholastic sensible species.
Given Scholastic hylomorphic understanding of the senses, the assimilation of
an intentional form by the organ of the common sense involves the assimilation
of the intentional form by the mind. That is, their interpretation of the common
sense as being both a functioning power of the soul which operates a cerebral
organ allows them to claim that the sensible species plays two psychological
roles: (1) the species is the content of the intentional mental state of sense-
perception and (2) the species is the means by which the mind intends an exter-
nal corporeal substance. Since Descartes fully materializes the common sense,
he cannot claim that the figure on the surface of the common sense causes a si-
multaneous assimilation of the figure by the mind. Thus, Descartes does not
(and cannot correctly) claim that the figure on the surface of the cerebral sense
organ plays the two psychological roles performed by the Scholastic sensible
species. For Descartes, then, the representative figure formed on the surface of
cerebral sense organ is neither the content of mental states of sense-perception
nor the direct means by which the mind becomes aware of an external corporeal
substance.
So, we are one step closer to defining the role of the figure in the common
sense: we know what roles it does not play. In fact, quotations AT. 177 and AT.
130–1 both indicate that the figure formed on the surface of the common sense
plays no psychological role in sense-perception. Even though the figure im-
pressed on the cerebral sense organ does not play any psychological role, its
formation plays a central physiological role, namely, unifying the motion of the
various animal spirits. The animal spirits arrive at the cerebral sense organ via
different nerves and from different external sense organs. These various motions
require unification because, according to Descartes,
But in so far as we have only one simple thought about a given object, there must nec-
essarily be some place where the two images coming through the two eyes, or the two
impressions coming from a single object through the double organs of any other sense,
can come together in a single image or impression before reaching the soul, so that they
do not present to it two objects instead of one. (AT XI.353: CSM I.340)
For Descartes, then, the cerebral sense organ functions as a mechanical receptor
and unifier of the motions of the animal spirits during sense-perception.
Descartes quite clearly claims that the mind is not aware of the altered pin-
eal gland.20 (More specifically, the mind is not aware of the impression on the
surface of the pineal gland.) Instead, the mind directly considers the unified mo-
tion of the animal spirits as they leave the pineal gland. In fact, in Treatise, Des-
cartes claims that the mind directly considers, not the figures impressed on the
surface of the pineal gland, but figures “traced in the animal spirits” as they
leave the pineal gland. He even calls these figures “ideas”.21 At the very least,
this indicates that the “figures traced in the animal spirits” are the cerebral cause
of mental states of sense-perception (versus the figures impressed on the surface
of the pineal gland). However, three questions now arise:
(1) what are the figures traced in the animal spirits?

(2) how do these figures cause the mind to sense-perceive?
and
(3) what, exactly, is Descartes claiming when he calls these figures ideas?
In regard to (1), Descartes understands the figures traced in the animal spir-
its to be the motive pattern of the subtle matter (fast-moving, tiny bits of corpo-
real matter) which composes the animal spirits. When moved by an external
sense organ, the subtle matter of the animal spirits moves toward the common
sense at a certain velocity, arranged in a certain pattern and with certain other
motive qualities (e.g., duration, consistency, etc.)22 Once they impact the pineal
gland, the various motive patterns of the subtle matter alter (in that they are uni-
fied into one motive pattern) and these altered motive patterns are the figures
Descartes calls ideas.
In regard to questions (2) and (3), three possible options seem the most
likely. First, is what I shall call The Diatic Relation Interpretation (DRI).23 Mo-
tivated by Descartes’s frequent claims that the mind “directly considers” and
“inspects” cerebral figures, some Cartesian scholars interpret Descartes as
claiming that the figures traced in the animal spirits are mediate objects of inten-
tional mental states of sense-perception. That is, the mind, when sense-
perceiving an external corporeal substance, first intends a motive pattern of the
subtle matter composing the animal spirits and is thereby caused to intend the
motive pattern’s formal cause: the external corporeal substance present to the
external sense organs. According to this interpretation, then, the mind, when
sense-perceiving, bears a diatic intentional relation to an external corporeal sub-
stance. The figures traced in the animal spirits, according to DRI, are ideas in
that they are the objects of the sense-perceiving mind.
Now recall that the Aristotelian Scholastics hold that the formation of a sen-
sible species mediates that mental awareness of an external substance in that the
sensible species is a necessary psychophysiological means by which the mind
becomes aware of an external corporeal substance. They deny, however, that the
sensible species (or any other part of the brain) mediates this mental awareness
by being a mediate intentional object of the sense-perceiving mind. If DRI is
correct, then not only does Descartes claim that (a) the figures traced in the
animal spirits mediate the mental awareness of an external corporeal substance
in that they are necessary physiological means by which the mind becomes
aware of an external corporeal substance, but also that (b) the figures traced in
the animal spirits mediate this mental awareness by being a mediate object of
the mental state of sense-perception. Thus, if DRI is correct, Descartes rejects
an aspect of the Scholastic interpretation of Aristotle’s Direct Contact Thesis,
namely, that the sense-perceiving mind directly and immediately intends an ex-
ternal corporeal substance.
However, DRI faces several problems, two of which I will mention here.
First, as proponents of DRI rightly concede, Descartes clearly indicates that fig-
ures traced in the animal spirits mediate mental awareness of an external corpo-
real substance in that they are necessary physiological causes of mental states of
sense-perception:
And note by ‘figures’ I mean not only things that somehow represent the position and
edges and surfaces of objects [that is, their shape], but also everything which, as indi-
cated above, can cause the soul to sense movement, size, distance, colors, sounds,
odors, and other such qualities; and even things that can make it sense titillation, pain,
hunger, thirst, joy, sadness, and other such passions. (AT XI.176: CSM I.105, emphasis
mine)
Here, as elsewhere, Descartes claims that the figures traced in the animal spirits
are the direct physiological causes of mental states of sense-perception. How-
ever, proponents of DRI fail to note that defining the figures traced in the ani-
mal spirits as the direct physiological causes of mental states of sense-
perception is incompatible with their being mediate intentional objects of the
sense-perceiving mind. If, for example, figure A (a specific motive pattern of
the animal spirits) is the direct cause of my sense-perceiving a red, round exter-
nal corporeal substance, in that figure A is a mediate object of my mental state
of sense-perception, then what causes the mind to intend figure A must be ex-
plained. According to DRI, the mental state of sense-perception is a state in
which the mind bears a diatic intentional relation to an external corporeal sub-
stance. However, if this is how Descartes conceives of the mental state of sense-
perception, then the figures traced in the animal spirits cannot be the direct
cause of this mental state. If this were the case, then something preceding the
mind’s intending the figures traced in the animal spirits (that is, something be-
sides the figures traced in the animal spirits) must cause the mind to intend the
figures traced in the animal spirits.
Second, DRI answers (3) by interpreting Descartes’s assertion that the fig-
ures traced in the animal spirits are ideas as a claim that these figures are objects
of thought. However, Descartes denies that “idea,” even when used objectively,
refers to anything extramental:
‘Objective being in the intellect’, [says Caterius] ‘is simply the determination of an act
of the intellect by means of an object and this is merely an extraneous label which adds
nothing to the thing itself’. Notice here that he is referring to the thing itself as if it were
located outside my intellect, and in this sense, ‘objective being in the intellect’ is cer-
tainty an extraneous label: but I was speaking of the idea, which is never outside the
intellect and in this sense ‘objective being’ simply means being in the intellect in way
in which objects are normally there. For example, if anyone asks what happens to the
sun through its being objectively in my intellect, the best answer is that nothing hap-
pens to it beyond the application of an extraneous label which does indeed ‘determine
an act of the intellect by means of an object.’ But if the question is about what the idea
of the sun is, and we answer that it is the thing which is thought of, insofar as it has ob-
jective being in the intellect, no one will take this to be the sun itself with this extrane-
ous label attached to it. ‘Objective being’ in the intellect will signify the object’s being
in the intellect in the way in which its objects are normally there…By this I mean that
the idea of the sun is the sun itself existing in the intellect. (AT VII.102–3: CSM II.74–
75, emphasis mine)
So, Descartes considers an extramental object of intentional mental states as

having objective reality insofar as it “determines the act of the intellect by
means of an object.” However, extramental objects of intentional mental states
are not themselves considered ideas because they are objects of thought. So,
even if we accept DRI’s central claim that the figures traced in the animal spirits
cause the mental states of sense-perception [i.e., their answer to (2)], the figures
being mediate intentional objects of the sense-perceiving mind does not explain
Descartes’s calling them ‘ideas.’
The second possible answer to questions (2)–(3) is what I shall call the
Cerebral Content Interpretation (CCI). Proponents of this interpretation, moti-
vated by Descartes’s claims that the mind directly considers figures traced in the
animal spirits, and that these figures are ideas, interpret Descartes as claiming
that the figures traced in the animal spirits not only cause mental states of sense-
perception, but cause these mental states because they are the content of mental
states of sense-perception. The figures traced in the animal spirits are ideas, they
claim, in that they are the content of intentional mental states of sense-
perception. According to CCI, the content of one’s mental state of sense-
perception—the sounds one hears, the colors one sees and the sweetness one
tastes—are nothing more than the motive patterns of the animal spirits as they
leave the pineal gland. Moreover, CCI fits with Descartes’s description of how
ideas may be taken objectively: the figures traced in the animal spirits are ideas
in that the figures are how the objects of mental states of sense-perception (the
external corporeal substances) exist in the mind. Thus, according to this inter-
pretation, the content of one’s mental states of sense-perception are cerebral,
not mental.
If CCI is the correct interpretation, then Descartes agrees with the Scholas-
tics that sense-perception is a thoroughly psychophysiological state involving
(a) an intentional mental state, (b) cerebral states which are the content of the
intentional mental state and (c) an external corporeal substance which is the ob-
ject of the intentional mental state. Recall however, that the Scholastics can
claim that (b) because they interpret the senses hylomorphically; that is, they
presume that the cerebral sense organ and the mental power which functions the
cerebral sense organ are one and the same subject of sense-perception. Thus,
CCI seemingly must also claim that Descartes also interprets the senses hylo-
morphically.24 Indeed, despite Descartes’s claim that the power which operates
the internal sense organ is a mechanistic power fully attributable to the body, he
also claims that the power of the “common” sense is a cognitive power which
the mind exercises in the brain.25 In addition, he also claims that (a) the mind is
present in the pineal gland,26 (b) the power of sense-perception (as well as the
power of imagination) is exercised in the brain (specifically, in the organ of the
common sense)27 and (c) the power of sense-perception depends on the exis-
tence of a body which is joined to a body, in that a mind not joined to a body
does not sense-perceive.28 All of this seems to indicate that CCI is correct in
answering (2) and (3) by interpreting Descartes as claiming that the figures
traced in the animal spirits cause mental states of sense-perception in that the
presence of the mind in the brain is such that the mind “receives” these figures
and that the figures traced in the animal spirits are ideas in that they are the con-
tent of thought.
CCI also faces several problems, two of which I will explain here. First,
proponents of CCI must reconcile Descartes’s understanding of the body and its
sense organs as operated by a mechanistic power which is fully attributable to
the body with his claims that the mind is present in the pineal gland and exer-
cises its powers of the common sense and sense-perception in the brain. How-
ever, as I will show, the reconciliation of these claims does not result in the fig-
ures traced in the animal spirits being the content of mental sensory states.
Reconciling these claims requires inspecting Descartes’s claims regarding
how the mind is present in the pineal gland and his understanding of the distinc-
tion between the cognitive power(s) which the mind exercises in the brain on
the one hand and mechanistic motive power which operates the body’s organs
on the other. In regard to the former, Descartes illustrates the presence of the
mind in the pineal gland by means of an analogy:
And finally, when a rational soul is present in this machine, it will have as its princi-
pal seat in the brain and reside there like the fountain-keeper who must be stationed at
the tanks to which the fountain’s pipes return if he wants to produce, or prevent, or
change their movements in some way.(AT XI. 132: CSM I.101)
The body is akin to the fountain, which, once set into motion, operates on
its own internal mechanistic motive power. The mind, akin to the fountain-
keeper, can exercise its powers in such a way as to redirect, stop, or create cer-
tain effects in the body. Thus, while the functioning power of the bodily organs
is not itself a mental power (as it is for the Scholastics), it can be causally influ-
enced by mental powers. The mind’s presence in the brain, then, is such that the
mind can affect the corporeal motive powers of the body so as to cause altera-
tions in the body’s organs. The mind’s powers, when exercised in the brain, do
not operate or themselves function the body’s organs. Instead, they causally in-
fluence the corporeal functioning powers of the body’s organs.
In Passions, Optics and de Regulae, Descartes also indicates that the mind
is in the brain in that the mind can be directly causally influenced by the mecha-
nistic operative powers of the body, as it is in the case of imagination and sense-
perception:
After having considered in what respects the passions of the soul differ from all its
other thoughts, it seems to me that we may define them generally as those perceptions,
sensations or emotions of the soul we refer particularly to it, and which are caused,
maintained and strengthened by some movement of the spirits. (AT XI.349: CSM
I.339, emphasis mine)
In regard to the latter, Descartes describes the difference between the mo-
tive power which functions the sensory organs and the cognitive power which
receives sensory information in Rule Twelve of de Regulae. Here Descartes de-
scribes the motive power as a subject of sensory perception only insofar as it
regulates bodily responses to the motion produced in the body by the external
corporeal substances present to the external sense organs. The motive power not
only receives (i.e., is altered by) the motion of the medium striking the external
sense organs, but also “transmits” sensory information by causing the figures
traced in the animal spirits (the unified motive patterns of the subtle matter) to
travel from the cerebral sense organ to the muscles and organs of the body.
Thus, the motive power is a subject of sense-perception in that it “informs” the
body of external corporeal substances and is that which causes automatic
physiological responses to external corporeal substances. However, Descartes
does not consider this purely mechanistic power a true subject of sense-
perception, for a true subject of sense-perception is aware of an external corpo-
real substance.29 The body, even though it responds to external corporeal sub-
stances, is no more aware of them than my computer is aware of my presence
when it responds to my pressing its keyboard.30
The cognitive power is a subject of sense-perception in that it is through the
activation of this power that the mind becomes aware of external corporeal sub-
stances. The purely mental power, however, is activated when it receives sen-
sory information from the purely corporeal motive power.31 Even though the
motive power affects the cognitive power during sense-perception (in that the
cognitive power “receives figures” from the motive power), Descartes cautions
us that he conceives of this power as “no less distinct from the body as blood is
from bone.”32 Then, in contrast to his Scholastic predecessors, Descartes holds
that the corporeal power which is responsible for making the sense-organs the
functioning organs that they are also informs the cognitive power, which is the
true subject of sense-perception, about external corporeal substances. Thus, for
Descartes, the sensitive, corporeal powers informing both the internal sense or-
gan and the cognitive power about external corporeal substances are not them-
selves the true subjects of sense-perception.
In short, Descartes reconciles his claims that the body is a machine operated
by a corporeal motive power with his claims that the mind operates certain cog-
nitive powers in the body by first proposing a straight causal interactionism. The
mind is joined to and present in the pineal gland in such a way as to allow men-
tal functions to causally affect bodily states by moving the pineal gland to pro-
duce or prevent certain motive patterns of the subtle matter and the motions of
the animal spirits (specifically, the motive patterns of the animal spirits) to
causally produce certain mental states. Descartes also reconciles his claims by
dividing the power of the common sense into two powers: the corporeal power
responsible for functioning the organ of the common sense (the pineal gland)
and the cognitive power which receives sensory information from the corporeal
power and is the subject of sense-perception.
Thus, Descartes reconciles his seemingly contradictory claims, not by inter-
preting the senses hylomorphically, but (in true Cartesian dualistic fashion) by
interpreting the mental power of sense-perception as a passive mental power
which can be affected by (i.e., caused and informed by) the corporeal motive
power responsible for operating the body’s sense organs. Given Descartes’s de-
nial that ‘idea’, used objectively, refers to anything extramental, his claim that
‘idea’, when used objectively, refers to the content of a thought (an object of
thought qua its existing in the mind) and his claims that the motive patterns in
the animal spirits are formed by the corporeal power responsible for operating
the sense organs (and thus are themselves corporeal and extramental), which is
not itself a subject of sense-perception, CCI’s claim that the figures traced in the
animal spirits cause mental states of sense-perception and are ideas in that they
are the content of mental sensory states seems incorrect.
Second, Descartes denies that corporeal figures are the content of any
mental state:
So much so that there is nothing in our ideas which is not innate to the mind or the fac-
ulty of thinking, with the sole exception of those circumstances which relate to experi-
ence, such as the fact that we judge that this or that idea which we now have immedi-
ately before our mind refers to a certain thing situated outside us. We make such a
judgment not because these things transmit the ideas to our mind through the sense or-
gans, but because they transmit something which, at exactly that moment, gives the
mind occasion to form these ideas by means of the faculty innate to it. Nothing reaches
our mind from the external objects through the sense organs except certain corporeal
motions…The ideas of pain, colors, sounds and the like must be all the more innate if,
on the occasion of certain corporeal motions, our mind is to be capable of representing
them to itself, for there is no similarity between these ideas and the corporeal mo-
tions.33 (AT VIIIB.359: CSM I.42)
In fact, here Descartes goes so far as to claim that sensory ideas are innate ideas.
Given his claim that sensory ideas are adventitious, this seems an odd claim.34
While I will later explain away this incongruity, at least this much is clear: CCI
cannot account for Descartes’s claims that sensory ideas are innate and CCI’s
claim that the content of mental states of sense-perception are the figures traced
in the animal spirits is in direct contrast with Descartes’s claim that the corpo-
real motions merely cause the mind to form the content of intentional mental
states of sense-perception, but are not themselves “transmitted” to the mind.
The third possible answer to (2) & (3), which I call Mechanistic Assimila-
tion Interpretation (MAI) seems the most likely. According to this interpret at-
ion, the figures traced in the animal spirits cause mental states o f sensory per-
ception in the same mechanistic fashion as they cause bodily responses to the pre-
sence of external corporeal substance. They produce mental states of sense-per-
ception in that they cause the mind to intend an external corporeal substance by
mechanically informing the mind how to alter so as to be in specific sensory
states. They inform the mind which sensory states correspond to the external
corporeal substance present to the external sense organs. These figures represent
(here meaning present, not signify) a mental state to the mind. The figures
traced in the animal spirits do not represent (signify) external corporeal sub-
stances or their qualities, but instead present to the mind certain specific sensory
states (e.g., seeing red, seeing roundness, tasting sweetness).35
Descartes indicates that the motion of the animal spirits, as they form a fig-
ure on the common sense, “transmit” the figure to the mind (see above quote)
and that the mind “receives” figures from the organ of the common sense. How-
ever, he also clearly denies that the mind receives “any corporeal semblance”.36
Clearly, Descartes wishes to deny certain aspects of the Scholastic understand-
ing of Aristotle’s Assimilation Thesis, namely, that the mind receives an Aristo-
telian form (intentional or fully corporeal). However, he also seemingly claims
that the motion of the animal spirits transmits something to the mind.
To understand how the motions of the animal spirits, as they leave the pin-
eal gland, “transmit” something to the mind, consider Descartes’s claims re-
garding how the motions of the animal spirits cause bodily responses to the
presence of external corporeal substances. The unified motive patterns of the
animal spirits (the figures traced in the animal spirits), Descartes stipulates, act
upon the muscles and the organs of the body, altering them so that they respond
to the external corporeal substance present to the external sense organs. These
figures inform the body how to respond to the external corporeal substance cur-
rently present to the external sense organs. But if these figures merely inform
the bodily organs of the external corporeal substances by representing the exter-
nal corporeal substances in the way the figures impressed in the internal sense
organ represent external corporeal substances, then how they cause bodily reac-
tions is left unexplained.37 In fact, the body’s organs do not become aware of the
qualities of the corporeal substance (i.e., the motions of the animal spirits do not
signify or present to the body the motions or other qualities of an external cor-
poreal substance). Instead, the figures traced in the animal spirits cause bodily
reactions because they present to the body’s muscles and organs the motive pat-
terns needed to alter the states of those organs. If so, then the organ of the com-
mon sense (the pineal gland) does more than simply unify the animal spirits.
The striking of the animal spirits upon the organ of the common sense unifies
the animal spirits in such a way that the resulting motive pattern presents to (in-
forms) the rest of the body the alterations which are the bodily responses to an
external corporeal substance. Even though the altered bodily states are not
themselves signified by or otherwise contained in the animal spirits’ unified
motive patterns, the motive patterns represent the altered bodily states in that
they mechanically inform or “present” these altered states to the body’s organs
and muscles.38
Similarly, MAI interprets the figures traced in the animal spirits as motive
patterns which mechanically inform the mind as to which sensory states corre-
spond to the qualities of the external substances present to the external senses. A
figure traced in the animal spirits is not a figure signifying or resembling an ex-
ternal corporeal substance, nor does it present to the mind the corporeal qualities
of an external corporeal substance. Instead, the figure traced in the animal spir-
its is a corporeal motive pattern which (a) mechanically informs (or presents to)
the mind of the specific intentional, sensory mental state corresponding to the
qualities of the external corporeal substance and (b) alters the mind in that the
figure traced in the animal spirits causes the mind to be in that specific inten-
tional sensory state (i.e., the figure causes the mind to “take on” a specific sen-
sory state.)
If MAI is correct, then Descartes denies that the mind “receives” the figure
in a Scholastico-Aristotelian fashion, instead claiming that the mind receives the
figure in a straight-forwardly mechanistic fashion. Indeed, Descartes’s under-
standing of the reception of a corporeal motive pattern differs from the Scholas-
tic understanding of the mind’s receiving a species in several ways. First, for
Descartes, no real figures exist in the animal spirits. The Scholastic intentional
form is an ens reale, a real substance which exists at all stages of sense-
perception. For Descartes, however, no real entity is transferred from the exter-
nal sense organs to the common sense.39 Thus no real figure exists in the animal
spirits. Second, since there is no real figure in the animal spirits, the animal spir-
its “transmit” the figure by causing the mind to be in a mental state which corre-
sponds to an external corporeal substance, not by “passing” a figure to the mind.
For Descartes, the sounds, colors, tastes, etc. (the content of second-grade sen-
sory states), that I perceive do not literally travel from the medium, through the
nerves to my mind, but instead are mental states which form in my mind:
Suppose we hear only the sound of some words, without attending to their meaning. Do
you think the idea of this sound, as it is formed in our mind, is anything like the object
which is its cause? A man opens his mouth, moves his tongue, and breathes out: I do
not see anything in these actions which is not very different from the idea of the sound
which they make us imagine. Most philosophers maintain that sound is nothing but a
certain vibration of air which strikes our ears. Thus, if the sense of hearing transmitted
to our mind the true image of its object then, instead of making us conceive the sound,
it would have to make us conceive the motion of the parts of the air which is then vi-
brating against our ears…
Now, I see no reason which compels us to believe that what it is in objects that gives
rise to the sensation of light is any more like this sensation than the actions of a feather
and a strap are like a tickling sensation and pain.40 (AT XI. 5–6: CSM I.41)
Thus, if MAI is correct, then Descartes clearly denies several aspects of the
Scholastic understanding of Aristotle’s Assimilation Thesis and Doctrine of the
Material-less Forms. Specifically, he denies that the mind becomes like an ex-
ternal corporeal substance when sense-perceiving an external corporeal sub-
stance. He also denies that the “form” the mind takes on is a corporeal form
which resembles, or even signifies, the external corporeal substance. Moreover,
he denies that the corporeal motions which contact and alter the mind resemble
or even signify corporeal substances. Finally, MAI entails Descartes’s denial
that the corporeal, cerebral figures which directly contact and alter the mind are
the content of the intentional mental state of sense-perception. In addition, if
MAI is correct, then Descartes agrees with his Scholastic predecessors on a
more basic point: that the mental state of sense-perception is not a content-less
mental state. Stated more positively, MAI interprets Descartes as claiming that
the content of the intentional mental act of sense-perception is inseparable from
the act itself. However, unlike his Scholastic predecessors, Descartes does not
claim that the content of intentional mental sensory states signifies or resembles
external corporeal substances.
So far, MAI has only answered: (2) how do these figures cause the mind to
sense-perceive? But how does MAI answer: (3) what, exactly, is Descartes
claiming when he calls these figures ideas? In regard to how these figures might
be ideas, MAI suggests that they are ideas in the material sense of idea, not in
the formal or objective sense of idea. Descartes distinguishes his two uses of the
term ‘idea’ in his preface to the Meditations:
…there is an ambiguity here in the word ‘idea’. ‘Idea’ can be taken materially, as an
operation of the intellect, in which case it cannot be said to be more perfect than me.
Alternatively, it can be taken objectively, as the thing represented by that operation...
(AT VII.8: CSM II.7)
Often, Cartesian scholars presume that the figures traced in the animal spirits
are ideas in the latter sense. But since MAI even denies that the figures traced in
the animal spirits signify or present to the mind the qualities of an external cor-
poreal substance, MAI cannot interpret these ideas objectively. Indeed, more
sense is made of Descartes’s calling these figures ‘ideas’ if we understand that
their reception is an act of the mind and it is their reception that Descartes calls
ideas. In fact, Descartes himself claims that
The sense in which I include imaginations in the definition of cogitatio or thought dif-
fers from the sense in which I exclude them. The forms or corporeal impressions which
must be in the brain for us to imagine anything are not thoughts; but when the mind
imagines or turns towards those impressions, its operation is a thought. (AT III.361:
CSM III.180)
What Descartes calls ideas in Treatise, then, are not the figures traced in the
animal spirits. Instead he uses ‘ideas’ to refer to operations of the mind. Sense-
perception, for Descartes, is a passive function of the mind (a passion of the
soul). By this, Descartes means that sense-perception is a receptive faculty acti-
vated by extramental events and substances.41 While a specific motive pattern of
the animal spirits’ subtle matter causes the mind to be in a specific sensory state,
the mind’s being altered by local cerebral motions (its receiving the figures
traced in the animal spirits) is a passive mental function, not an active bodily
function.42 The sensory ideas form when the motive power acts upon the cogni-
tive power. In this way, Descartes views the reception of the motive power by
the cognitive power as a passive operation of the mind, and, as an operation of
the mind, the mechanistic assimilation of a motive pattern is a material idea.
Moreover, the figures traced in the animal spirits are not substances, but are
merely specific, local, cerebral motions. As motions of subtle matter, the figures
cannot themselves have (or be) the sensory qualities of being red, or sweet, etc.;
nonetheless, when they act upon the mind, they produce certain intentional men-
tal sensory states such as “seeing red” or “hearing thumps,” etc. The motions,
then, do not literally pass sensory qualities to the mind. If so, then the sensory
qualities of colors, sights, smells, etc., (the content of the intentional mental sen-
sory states) are inseparable from the mental operation of sense-perception and
are thus innate. That is, the phenomenal quality of “red” is inseparable from the
mental act of perceiving red and thus is as innate to the mind as the act itself.
This, then, is how second-grade sensory ideas are innate, for the mental opera-
tion of “seeing red” is a mental operation, which exists potentially in the mind.
These ideas are also adventitious, for they have an extramental cause in that the
mental operation of “seeing red” is actualized by extramental substances and
events, rather than by another mental function.43
In short, MAI is a better interpretation of Descartes’s psychophysiological
theory of sense-perception than DRI and CCI, for several reasons:
(1) DRI cannot explain the causal role of the figures traced in the animal spirits,
whereas MAI can
(2) Both DRI and CCI interpret Descartes’s use of ‘idea’ in Treatise in ways contrary
to his own comments about his use of ‘idea’, whereas MAI does not.
(3) CCI attributes to Descartes an Aristotelian-Scholastic understanding of the mind-
body unity which (a) he clearly denies and (b) is in direct contrast to his strict du-
alism, and MAI does not.
(4) MAI more clearly demarcates Descartes’s psychophysiological theory of sense-
perception from his Scholastic predecessors than does either DRI or CCI.
Finally,
(5) MAI can explain Descartes’s viewing second-grade sensory perceptions as being
innate, whereas neither CDI nor CCI can.
Conclusions
If MAI is the correct interpretation, Descartes’s claim that the figure im-
pressed upon the surface of the pineal gland represents (signifies) an external
corporeal substance does not entail that the local motions which cause mental
sensory states also represent external corporeal substances or that second-grade
sensory states represent external corporeal substances. In fact, no part of Des-
cartes’s psychophysiological theory of sense-perception entails that second-
grade sensory states are representative, nor does his theory entail that they are
not.
Next, Descartes claims that the content of second-grade sensory states are
phenomenal qualities and not cerebral qualities. Those images necessarily pre-
sent in the brain for the mind to be in second-grade sensory states are not them-
selves sensed or the content of thought. Instead, these images (figures) causally
mediate the sensory process. Descartes agrees with his predecessors that the
intentional mental state of sense-perception has content and that the content of
mental sensory states is not separable from the mental act of perceiving, but he
rejects their claim that the content is cerebral.
Finally, the role of the pineal gland in sensory perception, so often misun-
derstood, is limited to merely physiological roles: receiving local motions from
the external sense organs and unifying the motions of the animal spirits’ subtle
matter so that they mechanically cause the body and the mind to alter (the body
by moving, the mind by being in specific sensory states) in response to external
corporeal substances. The pineal gland itself, however, does not directly cause
mental states of sensory perceptions, nor are the representative figures im-
pressed on its surface the object or the content of intentional, mental sensory
states. Instead, the patterns of the animal spirits, as they leave the pineal gland,
are those “received.”
Chapter II
Psychophysiology of Imagination
Descartes’s theory of the process of imagination is, in many respects, like his
theory of the process of second-grade sensory perception. How Descartes con-
ceives of imaginary states as intentional states having extramental corporeal
substances as their objects is demonstrated in this chapter. The phenomenal con-
tent of imaginary states, Descartes suggests, is about and is caused by these ex-
tramental corporeal substances. As with my interpretation of his theory of the
psychophysiology of second-grade sensory perception, I claim that Descartes
explains the physiology of imagination in crude, mechanistic terms. Also shown
is that he conceives of the object of imagination as an extramental, fully corpo-
real cerebral substance that is sufficiently malleable to represent actual or fic-
tional corporeal substances. Finally, I will argue that, unlike his categorization
of second-grade sensory states, Descartes claims that, in addition to being about
the objects of imagination, phenomenal states of imagination are also about the
corporeal substances represented by the objects of imagination.
The Objects of Imagination

What immediately follows is an interpretation of Descartes’s claims regard-
ing the objects of imagination. Specifically argued is that Descartes views the
objects of imagination as extramental, fully corporeal cerebral semblances.
While defending this interpretation, explanations of how his conception of
imaginary objects differs from that of his Scholastic teachers is also offered. I
also provide an account of Descartes’s more general explanation of how these
objects form.1
Descartes provides at least two arguments for his claim that imaginary ob-
jects are extramental and fully corporeal. In the first argument, Descartes notes
that imagining incorporeal substances or qualities (e.g., God) is impossible.2 The
objects of imagination, he decides, must be corporeal in nature. Thus, he con-

cludes, the objects of imagination cannot be purely phenomenal ideas or images.
Therefore, he concludes, objects of imagination are necessari l y ex tramental sub-
stances.3
Descartes implies the second argument in Passions of the Soul.4 This argu-
ment is, roughly, as follows:
(1) Imaginable qualities (shape, color, etc.) are properly referred to the objects of
imagination, not to the subject (the imagining mind) of imagination.
(2) Imaginary qualities are referable only to corporeal substances.
Therefore
(3) The objects of imagination are corporeal in nature.
Therefore
(4) The objects of imagination are necessarily extramental.
For example, suppose one imagines a red sphere. In the same manner that
the redness which is the content of a sensory state is correctly referred to an ex-
ternal corporeal object and not to one’s mind, the redness which one imagines is
correctly referred to the object of one’s imagination—the sphere. The mind is
not that which is red when one so imagines; it is the sphere which is red. Since
ideas cannot themselves be colored, stinky, etc., the sphere cannot itself be a
mental image or picture. Instead, the sphere must be an extramental corporeal
substance.5
Following his Scholastic teachers, Descartes also claims that the objects of
imagination are cerebral semblances, created in the part of the brain dubbed the
phantasy or corporeal imagination by the Aristotelian Scholastics:
Here you ask how I think that I, an unextended subject, could receive the semblance or
idea of a body that is extended. I answer that the mind does not receive any corporeal
semblance: the pure understanding both of corporeal and incorporeal things occurs with-
out any corporeal semblance. In the case of imagination, however, which can have only
corporeal things as its object, we do indeed require a semblance which is a real body; the
mind applies itself to this semblance but does not receive it. (AT VII.387: CSM II.262)
For the Aristotelian Scholastics, these semblances (what they call phan-
tasms) represent (signify) other (fictional or external) corporeal substances by
resembling them in some fashion. Scholastic tales concerning exactly how these
representations resemble actual or fictional objects vary greatly. Nonetheless,
they all seemingly accept that the intentional form of a substance and the cere-
bral matter of the corporeal imagination together constitute a semblance and that
the intentional form bears either an identity or a resemblance relation to a corpo-
real substance. Indeed, the intentional form need not represent an actual, for-
Psychophysiology of Imagination 29
mally existing external corporeal substance, but can also represent fictional cor-
poreal substances which exist only objectively (as in the case of a unicorn). The
matter of the corporeal imagination, the Scholastics suggest, takes on the inten-
tional form of a corporeal substance. The objects of imagination, then, are dis-
tinct substances in their own right, composed of intentional forms and the cere-
bral matter of the phantasy. The intentional forms of actual corporeal substances
are deposited into the phantasy as after-affects of sense-perception.
Thus, imagining a corporeal substance previously perceived via the senses
is a matter of the mind being aware of a semblance already present in the phan-
tasy.6 However, imagining a fictional object, such as a unicorn, first requires the
formation of a semblance of a unicorn. The details of how such semblances
form vary from Scholastic to Scholastic and are quite complicated. Essentially,
the semblance of a fictional object is created from an intelligible species. An
intelligible species in this case is the intentional form of a corporeal substance
qua the phenomenal content of a purely mental state (often either the creative or
the active intellect); in this mode of being, corporeal substances exist objec-
tively. In Scholastic terms, the intelligible species of a corporeal substance is the
form the mind takes on when it understands a corporeal substance. For example,
when one creates the idea of a nonexistent animal, such as a unicorn, the animal
exists objectively as an intelligible species. Various mental powers (usually in-
volving the creative intellect or a power of volition) then cause the construction
of a semblance of a unicorn. This semblance is an image or picture of a unicorn
rather than an actual unicorn, for it only has the intentional essence (versus a
natural essence) of a unicorn.
Moreover, the Scholastics interpret the phantasy hylomorphically. That is,
they assert that the power informing and providing the cerebral matter with an
intentional form is the mental power of imagination. As with their claims re-
garding sense-perception, the Scholastics do not divorce the psychology of
imagination from the physiology of imagination. On this theory, the content, the
object and mental act of imaginary awareness are inseparable. The mental
power of imagination, some Scholastics suggest, “resides” in the phantasy,
where it operates and provides the cerebral matter of the phantasy with inten-
tional forms. The object of a phenomenal state of imagination, the phantasm
(semblance), is also the content of the phenomenal state. So, for the Scholastics,
the objects of imagination are genuine substances composed of intentional
forms plus the cerebral matter of the phantasy. These semblances are identical
to and, on most Scholastic accounts, fully resemble the corporeal substances
they represent.7
Even though Descartes calls the objects of imagination “semblances,” how
he conceives of imaginary objects as such must differ from the Scholastic con-
ception for three reasons. First, he does not interpret substance hylomorphically
(as being constituted by both form and matter). For Descartes, the semblances
are not substances in their own right comprised of intentional forms and cere-
bral matter. Second, he denies both that intentional forms exist and that the
physiological mechanisms create or transmit intentional forms. Third, he argues
that if the objects of imagination were identical to or exactly resembled actual
corporeal substance, then there is no manner by which to distinguish the objects
of imagination from those of sense-perception. The semblance of a coffee cup
which is now the object of my imagination, Descartes would claim, is not the
same object as the coffee cup I perceived an hour ago, even if they significantly
resemble each other. The Scholastic theory, he argues, leaves little, if any, room
to explain how the two objects differ.8
Descartes’s rejection of the Scholastic theory raises then two questions: (1)
what, exactly, are semblances, according to Descartes and (2) why does he con-
sider them semblances? In regard to (1), he indicates that the objects of imagi-
nation are nothing more than specific arrangements of the nerves, organs and
the cerebral matter of the phantasy (which he sometimes calls the corporeal
imagination):
To this end, suppose that after the spirits leaving gland H < the pineal gland> have re-
ceived the impression of some idea, they pass through tubes 2, 4, 6, and the like, into the
pores or gaps lying between the tiny fibres which make up part B of the brain. And sup-
pose that the spirits are strong enough to enlarge these gaps somewhat, and to bend and
arrange in various ways any fibres they encounter, according to the various ways in
which the spirits are moving and the different openings of the tubes into which they
pass. Thus they also trace figures in these gaps, which correspond to those of the objects.
At first they do this less easily and perfectly than they do on gland H, but gradually they
do it better and better…9(AT XI. 177–8: CSM II.107)
According to Descartes, various possible effects cause the pineal gland to

move, setting the animal spirits into motion. Among these possible effects are
volitions, random motions of the animal spirits and various bodily states or
processes (e.g., digestion, sensation). As the spirits leave the pineal gland, they
move through parts of the brain, including the corporeal imagination (phan-
tasy).10 The motions of the animal spirits arrange the cerebral matter, the nerves
and cerebral organs of the phantasy into various patterns. These patterns, he
says, are the objects of mental imaginary states. So, for Descartes, the only true
substance here is the phantasy, which, being a part of the brain, is a fully corpo-
real substance. The phantasy does not literally become different substances
when arranged in varying patterns; it does not become a unicorn, a coffee mug,
a triangle, etc. The phantasy always remains the substance that it is. That is, the
motions of the animal spirits do not cause the phantasy to take on any essence
(intentional or otherwise) than the one it already has. Thus, the substance which
is always the object of imagination is the phantasy itself, even though the ar-
rangement of the matter of the phantasy differs at various times.11
In regard to how the objects of imagination are semblances, Descartes
agrees with his Scholastic predecessors that objects of imagination are sem-
blances of external or fictional corporeal substances. Descartes also agrees with
his Scholastic predecessors that the objects of imagination semble other corpo-
real substances in that the objects of imagination represent external or fictional
substances.12 The Scholastics, however, interpreted the representation relation
between the objects of imagination and the substances they represent as either
one of identity or of resemblance. Since Descartes denies both that intentional
forms exist and that the phantasy becomes a different substance (i.e., takes on a
different form), he cannot and does not interpret the representationality of the
objects of imagination in terms of identity or resemblance. Instead, he seem-
ingly conceives of the objects of imagination as mere shadows of the substances
they represent. Descartes seemingly suggests that the objects of imagination
represent external or fictional substances in the same manner in which a paint-
ing or sculpture represents these things. This might entail that the objects of
imagination resemble that which they represent in at least some respects, but
Descartes seemingly speaks against this in several places.13 Even if Descartes
does not claim that the objects of imagination do not significantly (or even no-
ticeably) resemble that which they represent, he might interpret their representa-
tionality as one of mere signification or presentation.14
Determining how the objects of imagination represent fictional or actual
substances seemingly involves answering two questions: (1) determining which
sense of representation Descartes has in mind and (2) determining what proper-
ties Descartes attributes to the cerebral semblances. In what follows, I will cen-
ter on accomplishing (1), but will accomplish (2) en route.
Descartes might claim that the cerebral semblances either resemble, signify
or present other corporeal substances (either actual or fictional.) As to whether
the semblances resemble that which they represent, inspection of two points
suggests that Descartes does not hold that the objects of imagination signifi-
cantly resemble that which they represent. First, reconsider Descartes’s com-
ments in dioptrics:
If…we prefer to maintain that the objects we perceive by means of our senses really
send images of themselves to the inside of our brains, we must at least observe that in
no case does an image have to resemble the object it represents in all respects, for oth-
erwise there would be no distinction between the object and its image…It is enough
that they resemble their objects in a few respects. (AT VI. 112–3: CSM I.165)
While Descartes provides these comments in the context of sensation, they

nonetheless raise an important claim regarding representation, specifically, that
distinguishing representations from the substances they represent necessarily
involves the representations being different from that which they represent. For
instance, a painting of a human represents a human, in part, because it is not a
human.15 Similarly, it might be inferred that the objects of imagination represent
unicorns, triangles, coffee mugs, etc., in part because they are not these sub-
stances and do not significantly resemble them. Descartes seemingly suggests
that while some resemblance may be necessary for one substance to represent
another, why one substance represents another is not explained by the resem-
blance, nor is resemblance sufficient for representation. In fact, he claims that
significant differences are required in order to distinguish a representation from
that which it represents.
Second, Descartes’s description of how the objects of imagination form
seemingly does not allow the semblances to significantly resemble the corporeal
substances they represent.16 In both Treatise and de Regulae, Descartes seem-
ingly suggests that the motions of the animal spirits do not “deposit” or recreate
the properties had by external corporeal objects. On his view, the phantasy does
not literally become colored like, textured like, as heavy as or as large as the
corporeal substance it represents at various times. Hence, given his descriptions
of how cerebral semblances form, the objects of imagination could not signifi-
cantly resemble that which they represent, particularly in regard to size and sen-
sible qualities.17
One points speaks against the cerebral semblances signifying the objects
they represent. Descartes claims that we cannot imagine incorporeal substances,
e.g., God. Imagining, according to Descartes, is a phenomenal state of inspect-
ing a cerebral, fully corporeal object. He also claims that a cerebral object of
imagination represents either “an idea understood by the mind or perceived by
the senses.”18 If the objects of imagination represent by signifying and they need
not significantly resemble that which they represent, it is possible that a sem-
blance could signify God, in the same way a painting might.19
However, those wishing to interpret Descartes’s claim that cerebral sem-
blances represent external or fictional corporeal substances by signifying them
are not at loss when this apparent contradiction arises. They may argue that
Descartes’s claim that imagining incorporeal substances is impossible and the
outcome of their interpretation—the possibility that the cerebral semblances
signify incorporeal substances—pose no contradiction. Descartes claims that
imagining incorporeal substances is impossible, they might argue, because the
resulting phenomenal state cannot be about incorporeal substances. That is,
while nothing prevents the cerebral semblances from signifying incorporeal
substances, these cerebral semblances do not produce mental states which corre-
spond to the qualities had by incorporeal substances; e.g., doubting, willing,
omniscience, etc. That is, “seeing red,” “feeling warmth,” etc., are not phe-
nomenal states corresponding to incorporeal qualities. On this view, then, imag-
ining incorporeal substances is impossible because the phenomenal states result-
ing from the formation of semblances in the phantasy cannot be about incorpo-
real substances.
Nonetheless, this defense is misguided for two reasons. First, Descartes
seemingly claims that the content of the phenomenal states of imagination are
not only about that which they represent, but about the cerebral semblances
themselves.20 The phenomenal states resulting from the formation of the objects
of imagination, it seems, correspond to and are about the semblances them-
selves. In the case of imagining fictional substances, for example, the phenome-
nal content of imaginary states cannot be about the idea (taken materially, as an
operation of the mind) of a fictional substance. The idea of a unicorn (i.e., the
phenomenal content of understanding a unicorn), for example, is not itself col-
ored, shaped, etc.21 Nonetheless, the resulting imaginary state is about both
one’s idea (one’s understanding) of a unicorn and the semblance of the unicorn,
insofar as the idea of the unicorn is represented by the cerebral semblance.
Therefore, the resulting phenomenal state is about the idea of a unicorn as rep-
resented by the cerebral semblance of the unicorn. The awareness the cognizer
has of the unicorn when imagining one is of how the idea of the unicorn is rep-
resented by the cerebral semblance.22
Second, the defense is contrary to Descartes’s own claims. For example, in
his conversations with Berman, he says
It is true that a thing of such a [incorporeal] nature cannot be imagined, that is, cannot
be represented by a corporeal image. But that is not surprising, because our imagina-
tion is capable of representing only objects of sense-perception; and since our soul has
no colour or smell or taste or anything which belongs to the body, it is impossible to
imagine it or form an image of it.23 (AT II.394: CSM II.51)
Here Descartes clearly indicates that corporeal images cannot represent incorpo-
real substances. Even though corporeal substance can signify incorporeal sub-
stances, he denies that the objects of imagination, which are corporeal represen-
tations, can represent them to an attending mind.
So, one is left with the final option. On this interpretation, Descartes’s
claims that cerebral semblances represent other corporeal substances by present-
ing or exhibiting the properties of the external or fictional substances they rep-
resent. According to this option, qualities of the cerebral semblances are such
that they make any mind observing them aware of the properties of the sub-
stances they represent. This option is advantageous in that it explains why Des-
cartes claims that cerebral semblances cannot represent incorporeal substances.
On this interpretation, the cerebral semblance cannot present or exhibit such
properties as doubting, thinking, omniscience, etc. Moreover, presenting does
not require that the cerebral semblances themselves significantly resemble the
corporeal substance they represent. So, according to this view, even though a
pattern of the phantasy, created by the motion of the animal spirits, does not
have exactly the same properties as or, more weakly, is not significantly similar
to the object it represents, it nonetheless presents at least some qualities of the
represented corporeal object to any observing mind. Presenting (versus signifi-
cation) requires that the object of imagination produce a phenomenal state
which, compresently, corresponds to and is about both the object of imagination
and the substance represented by the object of imagination. In the end, phe-
nomenal imaginary states resulting from the formation of cerebral semblances
correspond both to the arrangement of the phantasy and are about the substance
represented by the arrangement of the phantasy. The objects of imagination rep-
resent external or fictional substances in that they present, to an attending mind,
at least some of their properties without having all or even a significant number
of their properties.
The Psychology of Imagination

Even though Descartes considers the objects of imagination the final causes
of phenomenal imaginary states, he also recognizes that the formations of the
various cerebral semblances also have their own various causes. Indeed, the
cause of a cerebral semblance, he suggests, is reason to consider some imagin-
ings actions of the soul rather than passions of the soul. In Passions of the Soul,
Descartes divides mental states into two roughly defined categories: passions
(in a general sense) of the soul and actions of the soul. The latter, he stipulates,
are mental states which “…we experience…as proceeding directly from our
soul and as seeming to depend on it alone….”24 All volitions, he notes are ac-
tions of the soul. In contrast, of passions he says
…the various perceptions or modes of knowledge present in us may be called passions,

in a general sense, for it is often not our soul which makes them such as they are, and
the soul always receives them from the things that are represented by them. (AT X.342:
CSM I.335)
Descartes, then, seems to define and distinguish actions of the soul from pas-
sions of the soul in this way:
(1) Actions of the soul are mental states caused or sustained by the soul itself
and
(2) Passions of the soul are mental states caused or sustained (at least in part) by extra-
mental substances and whose content represents these extramental causes.
To clarify this distinction, I suggest that we understand the causation Des-

cartes has in mind as not a temporal causation, but a creative causation.25 While
my soul may determine, via a volition, that I now (temporal causation) sense the
Hibs team coffee cup on my desk, the content of my mental sensory state
largely depends on—is determined by—(creative causation) the existence and
qualities of extramental corporeal substances. The coffee cup, the medium, the
state of my brain and external sense organs together determine the content of
my sensation. Moreover, the content of this mental state is about the coffee cup
and is, on a third-grade sensory level, properly referred to the coffee cup. Such a
state, Descartes would claim, is a passion, for extramental substances (not the
volition causing me to turn my head toward the coffee cup) determine their con-
tent, and the content is about (represents) actual extramental corporeal sub-
stances. In contrast, a volition could determine that I now construct a new proof
for a theorem of logic or even that I now recall a theorem to mind. The content
of either mental state, Descartes might well claim, is determined solely by the
content of the volition. That is, the soul, via a volition, creates the content of the
mental state. The respective contents of these mental states are not about nor do
they represent extramental substances or events. Thus a voluntary recalling or
construction of a logical proof is properly called, according to my understanding
of Descartes’s distinction, an action of the soul. So, even though a volition plays
a temporal causal role in both cases, it plays a creative causal role only in the
latter, thus providing Descartes with a clearer and more viable action/passion
distinction.
However, among the perceptions he considers actions are “…perceptions of
our volitions and of all the imaginings or other thoughts which depend on
them.”26 Yet, the imaginings he lists here he later describes as the voluntary
imaginings of nonexistent or unimaginable (e.g., immaterial) substances.27
Nonetheless, according to his own theory, all imaginings require and are caused
by cerebral semblances. If so, then Descartes should consider all imaginings
passions of the soul, for all imaginings are caused by and about extramental
substances. As I will now explain, if my analysis of his distinction between ac-
tions and passions is correct, why he considers such imaginings actions rather
than passions becomes evident.
In the case of a voluntary imagining of a nonexistent (fictional) corporeal
substance, a volition itself plays a creative causal role. For in such a case, the
content of the volition (versus an extramental substance) determines the phe-
nomenal content of the resulting imaginary state. The content of the imaginary
state is about and represents the volition itself (at least its content) rather than an
extramental substance. That is, the content of the imaginary state is about an-
other mental state and represents the content of that mental state.
This is not to say, however, that Descartes asserts that voluntary imaginings
of nonexistent substances have volitions (the mental states) as their causes. Vol-
untary imaginings of nonexistent substances, like all imaginings, have cerebral
semblances as their objects. Like the objects of voluntary imaginings of sub-
stances previously sense-perceived, the cerebral semblances are created by the
motive pattern of animal spirits as they travel through the corporeal imagina-
tion. Unlike cerebral semblances created as an after-effect of sense-perception,
however, cerebral semblances which are objects of voluntary imaginings of
nonexistent substances are created as the result of a volition moving the pineal
gland. The power of volition in these cases, Descartes suggests, creates or de-
termines the motive pattern of the animal spirits. That is, the soul, via a volition,
moves the pineal gland in such a way as to create a semblance which represents
the content of the volition. Since the semblance represents the content of the
volition, the content of the resulting imaginary state represents the content of the
volition. So, even though the object of a voluntary imaginary state is a part of
the brain, the content of the imaginary state is about the volition.
Thus, if my understanding of Descartes’s action/passion distinction is cor-
rect, even though motions of the animal spirits and cerebrum play a causal role
in the production of the voluntary imaginings of a nonexistent corporeal sub-
stance, according to Descartes such an imagining is properly considered an ac-
tion of the soul. Even so, the phenomenal states are about the cerebral sem-
blance, i.e., the idea as it is represented by the arrangement in the phantasy. If
we instead interpret the causation in Descartes’s action/passion distinction as
mere temporal causation, discerning why he lists these imaginings among the
actions of the soul is more difficult. Indeed, Descartes claims that the cerebral
semblances are the objects of even voluntary imaginary states. He further agrees
with his Scholastic predecessors that the objects of these mental states are also
causes of those states. Hence, voluntary imaginings of nonexistent objects
would then be passions; for they are (in part) temporally caused, sustained and
about corporeal substances.
In contrast, explaining why Descartes includes the voluntary imaginings of
immaterial and “unimaginable” substances among the actions of the soul is dif-
ficult. For instance, say one attempts imagining her own mind. The volition
moves the pineal gland so that the animal spirits create a corporeal semblance of
the content of the volition, since the volition wills the imagining of one’s own
mind. However, her mind, like all immaterial substances, lacks corporeal attrib-
utes. This, then, necessitates a choice: either (1) the content of the volition is not
about her own mind or (2) the cerebral figure does not represent (is not a sem-
blance of) the content of the volition. If Descartes’s action/passion distinction
hinges on creative causation, as I have suggested, then (1) is the better choice.
Indeed, one’s mind is a thinking, incorporeal substance, according to Descartes.
However, when willing the imagining of this incorporeal substance, the volition
must then play a creative role, namely creating a cerebral representation of the
content of the mental state of understanding one’s own mind. When imagining
an “unimaginable” substance, the volition determines the object of the imagi-
nary state by determining the qualities of a cerebral figure. This figure suppos-
edly represents the content of the volition and in turn determines the content of
the resulting imaginary state. The resulting imaginary state, Descartes claims, is
an action of the soul insofar as it is caused by the volition. The resulting imagi-
nary state cannot be about or determined by the idea (the content of one’s un-
derstanding) of the immaterial thinking mind, for minds do not smell, have col-
ors, etc. So, the content of the volition is not about the immaterial thinking mind
(nor about the idea of the thinking mind.)
The volition itself plays two creative roles in this case. First, it determines
its own content and the content of the resulting imaginary state by creating a
cerebral semblance. This is in contrast to the previously discussed imaginings of
fictional corporeal substances, whose objects and contents represent the content
of states of understandings. In the case of imagining fictional substances, the
contents of mental states of understanding determine the contents of volitions
creating the objects of imagination. For instance, my idea of a unicorn would
determine the content of the volition creating the semblance of the unicorn in
my phantasy. However, the content of my understanding my own mind as a
thinking thing would not determine what the volition wills when it creates the
semblance which my mind looks at when it attempts imagining itself.28
In addition, if the volition does not creatively determine the object of the
imagination, the resulting imaginary state is not a voluntary imagining and thus
not an action. Nonvoluntary imaginings, Descartes claims, are passions.29 They
are passions, he says, because the motions of the animal spirits or motions of the
spirits brought on by various bodily contingencies (e.g., the proverbial bit of
undigested cheese in one’s stomach) cause a particular semblance to form in the
corporeal imagination.30
Now in a position to raise another of Descartes’s distinctions, now consider
that Descartes considers some of these passions passions* (passions in a strict
sense). While passions (general sense) are mental states creatively determined
by the motions of the animal spirits, passions* (strict sense) are those passions
whose content is properly referred to the soul itself.31 For example, while sens-
ing a particular substance (e.g., eating chocolate) may cause the sensation of
joy, the joy experienced is properly referred to the subject of joy and not the
extramental object (the chocolate) which is the cause of joy. Such emotions,
Descartes says, are passions.*32 In contrast, while pain in the left foot is a men-
tal state, the content of the state is properly referred to the left foot. That is, it is
my left foot that is in pain. Even though the pain state is purely phenomenal, its
content is referred to a part of the body. Such states, Descartes says, are pas-
sions, but not passions.*33
Similarly, he conceives of some imaginings as passions* in that their con-
tent properly refers to the soul. In particular, those states which we today might
call the emotions are passions. Just as one experiences sights, aromas, tastes,
etc., while dreaming, one often experiences fear, joy and sadness while dream-
ing. However, in contrast to the colors, shapes, smells, etc., which one attributes
to the objects of such dreams, the joy, fear, sadness, etc., which one experiences
while dreaming are attributed to the subject of these emotions. Thus, Descartes
concludes that even though these emotions are produced by objects of imagina-
tion, they are no less real (i.e., no less fictional) than the joy or fear felt by the
soul while awake.34 Nonetheless, Descartes categorizes the passions* resulting
from dreams and daydreams as imaginary states and the passions* caused by
sense-perception as nonimaginary. We might understand his categorizing pas-
sions* as imaginary if we presume that passions* are imaginary insofar as they
are caused by the formation of cerebral semblances in the phantasy. Moreover,
the fear, joy, etc., are directed toward these cerebral figures. For instance, dur-
ing a nightmare, what is feared (the object of fear) is a cerebral figure (e.g., a
representation of a monster). Like all passions, the passions* are caused and
sustained by the motions of the animal spirits. When the formation of a sem-
blance in the corporeal imagination (phantasy) causes certain motive patterns of
the animal spirits, the resulting joy or fear, etc., is an imaginary state. Such a
state is not an imaginary one when caused by motive patterns of the animal spir-
its formed as the result of sense-perception.35
A question arises at this point. Descartes stipulates that all passions* are
also passions.36 He considers all nonvoluntary imaginary states and voluntary
imaginings of previously sensed external corporeal substances as passions of the
soul. Yet, in his definitions of passions, Descartes indicates that passions are
perceptions which represent extramental substances. The passions*, however,
seemingly do not represent and are not referable to their extramental causes. So,
how are the “imaginary” passions* also passions? In answer to this, Descartes
claims that the passions inform a subject regarding the harmful or beneficial
qualities of a given object: “The function of all the passions consists solely in
this, that they dispose our soul to want the things nature deems useful for us,
and to persist in this volition…”37 The easy answer Descartes provides here is
this: even though the imaginary passions* are referable to the soul, they none-
theless inform and are about their extramental causes in that they inform the
soul whether the imagined substance would be harmful or beneficial. Thus,
imaginations which are passions* are passions in that they inform the soul as to
whether the corporeal substance represented by the cerebral semblance is harm-
ful or beneficial to the subject of such passions*.38
In summary, Descartes, unlike his Scholastic teachers, separates the psy-
chology of imagining from the physiology of imagining. However, like his
Scholastic teachers, he conceives of the objects of imagination as being neces-
sarily extramental. He also agrees with his Scholastic predecessors that the ob-
jects of imagination are cerebral semblances which represent external or fic-
tional substances. These cerebral semblances, according to Descartes, are noth-
ing more than the corporeal imagination arranged in various patterns by the
phantasy.
In regard to the psychology of imagination, Descartes claims that the con-
tent of imaginary states is purely phenomenal, determined by the motive pat-
terns. While initially, we might conclude that the content of imaginary states
represents (is about) the objects of imagination, Descartes’s manner of catego-
rizing some imaginings as actions of the soul and others as passions of the soul
suggests that phenomenal states of imagination are also about the substances
represented by the cerebral semblances. Since Descartes considers imaginings
actions of the soul when they are caused by and about a volition, and considers
imaginings passions of the soul when they are caused by and about extramental
substances, seemingly we must interpret him as claiming that the contents of
imaginings are not only about the cerebral semblances themselves, but also
about the substances which cause and are represented by the cerebral sem-
blances. They represent these substances in that their own properties present the
properties of the fictional or actual substances they represent to any attending
mind.
At this point several questions now remain unanswered. Among these are:
(1) How does Descartes distinguish imaginings from sensations?

(2) Given the answer to (1), can Descartes distinguish imaginings from sensations in
Med. II?
(3) How, exactly, do the objects of imagination represent fictional or external corporeal
substances?
(4) How, exactly, are the phenomenal contents of imaginary states about the substances
represented by the objects of imagination?
(5) How do the answers to (1)–(3) affect Descartes’s reasoning in The Meditations?
In the following chapters, I attempt to answer these and other questions.

Chapter III
Imagination in Meditation II
In Meditation I, for the purpose of eventually arriving at a set of indubitable
basic principles, Descartes places the narrator in a state of doubt regarding most
of his previously held beliefs.1 In Med. II, the narrator arrives at the first of
these certain truths: cogito and res cognitans.2 Following this is an interesting
account of the narrator’s conclusions regarding this ‘I,’ this thinking thing he
now knows himself to be. Attributed to the ‘I’ are a number of mental opera-
tions (functions) or, in Cartesian lingo, modes of thought.3 Among the modes of
thought attributed to the narrator are those of imagination and sensory percep-
tion. Here, however, the narrator only attributes mental operations to himself,
though his skepticism does not permit the narrator to conclude that the represen-
tative contents of his own mental operations, particularly those of sense-
perception, are accurate. The truth of summa res cognitans only entails that the
narrator has certain mental operations. Summa res cognitans, by itself, does not
entail that the contents of these operations are accurate, nor does it entail that
any of the external substances (God, angels, corporeal substances, etc.), of
which the narrator thinks when performing these mental operations, exist or are
real.
However, according to Descartes’s completed psychophysiological theories
of imagination and sense-perception, imaginings and sensory perceptions (un-
like the other mental functions attributed to the narrator in Med. II) have only
external corporeal substances as their objects. According to his completed the-
ory (which, of course, is not presumed by the narrator of the Meditations),
imaginings and sensations are operations of thought in which the narrator is
aware of bodily substances. That is, when imagining or sense-perceiving, the
narrator is phenomenally aware of a corporeal substance. How could the narra-
tor be said to have mental operations which are, by definition, awarenesses of
corporeal substances in Med. II? Clearly Descartes, when claiming that the nar-
rator imagines and sense-perceives in Med. II, does not attribute his “full” sense
of imagining and sensory perception to the narrator in Med. II.
This chapter consists primarily of an examination of Descartes’s remarks
regarding the narrator’s mental operations of imagination and sense-perception
in Med. II. The conclusion reached is that Descartes attributes only “restricted”
senses of both imagination and sensory perception to the narrator in Med. II.
Argued herein is that imagination and sensory perception are “restricted” in two
ways. First, the narrator’s skepticism implies that the narrator cannot distinguish
his mental operation of sense-perception from that of imagination in Med. II.
Second, while Descartes still regards sensory perceptions (second-grade) and
imaginations as awarenesses of corporeal substances in Med. II, he leaves open
the possibility that they are not. Descartes then leaves open the possibility that
the narrator’s imaginations, as well as his sense-perceptions, are materially
false. While they seem awarenesses of corporeal substance, the obscurity of
imaginations and sensory perceptions render them candidates for material fal-
sity. As I will show, being possibly materially false means not only that the nar-
rator’s imaginings and sensory perceptions might not be about (in an intentional
sense) corporeal substances, but, more deeply, that they might not be about any
substance at all. If so, then in Med. II, the narrator can conclude neither that his
sensory perceptions are the mental states that they seem nor that his imaginings
are what they seem (and they seem the phenomenal awareness of corporeal sub-
stances, or at minimum, the awareness of the representations of corporeal
things).
Possible Interpretations of Med. II

In Med. II, Descartes lists imagination and sense-perception among the
modes of thought:
But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understands,
affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions.
This is a considerable list, if everything on it belongs to me. (AT VII. 28: CSM II.19)
Cottingham suggests that the separation of imagination and sense-perception by

the conjunction “and also” indicates a certain hesitancy on the part of Des-
cartes.4 More specifically, this hesitancy is in regard to Descartes’s inability to
claim that the narrator has mental states which have corporeal substances as
their objects. Descartes conceives of both imagination and sense-perception as
states of phenomenal awarenesses of corporeal substances. Yet, in Med. II, Des-
cartes remains skeptical regarding the existence of corporeal substances (includ-
ing his body). Indeed, this skepticism remains until Med. VI. Since this is so, he
Meditation II 43
cannot rightly claim, in Med. II, that he imagines and sense-perceives in a

“strong” sense. Indeed, in Med. II, Descartes claims that the narrator can only
conclude that he seems to perceive:
Lastly, it is also the same ‘I’ who has sensory perceptions, or is aware of bodily things
as it were through the senses. For example, I am now seeing light, hearing a noise, feel-
ing heat. But I am asleep, so all this is false. Yet I certainly seem to see, to hear and to
be warmed. This cannot be false; what is called ‘having a sensory perception’ is strictly
just this, and in this restricted sense of the term it is simply thinking. (AT VII.29: CSM
II.19)
But what, exactly, is this “restricted sense” of sense-perception? Clearly, here

Descartes excludes both first and third-grade sensory perceptions from the “re-
stricted sense” of sensory perception attributed to the narrator in Med. II. What
remains for second-grade sensory perceptions? Seemingly, Descartes, by claim-
ing that such mental states as “feeling warmth” and “seeing light” are false, also
excludes real (versus apparent) second-grade sensory states from this “restricted
sense” of sense-perception.
However, he must claim that the narrator sense-perceives in at least some
way in Med. II. At this point, several crude possible interpretations come to
mind. In particular, Descartes might be suggesting that the restricted sensory
perceptions had by the narrator are:
(A) Mental states which seem awarenesses of external corporeal substances but in fact
might be mere imaginings
(B) Merely phenomenal states whose real causes and objects are unknown and, as yet,
cannot be thought of as awarenesses of corporeal substance,
or
(C) Sense-perceptions are awarenesses of nonthings.
Each of these contain but a portion of the correct interpretation. Since Des-
cartes acknowledges the possibility that the narrator is in a dream (imaginary)
state in Med. II, he seemingly also leaves open the possibility that all the narra-
tor’s sensory perceptions are really imaginary states. That is, Descartes seem-
ingly claims that (A); they seem not imaginary states because they are “more
lively and vivid” than most imaginary states. Even so, this is not sufficient rea-
son for believing that phenomenal states which seem to be sensory are instead
imaginary states.5
In regard to (B), Descartes might merely wish to claim that sense-perception
(second-grade) is a mode of thought only insofar as the narrator cannot doubt
that it is ‘I’ (the narrator qua a mind) which is the subject of these sensory
states. He might merely wish to claim that if the states that seem sensory states
really are sensory states, then such states are properly attributed to the cognizant
mind. However, the narrator is not properly justified in believing that his own
sensory states are in fact either caused by corporeal substances or have corpo-
real substances as their objects. Thus, if (B) is correct, then Descartes claims
that what seems a sensory state is indubitably a mental state properly under-
stood by the narrator to be his own phenomenal state. However, whether such a
state is an awareness of external corporeal substance (i.e., whether these states
are in fact sensory states) is dubitable.
The strongest interpretation of Descartes’s claim that the narrator only ap-
parently perceives is (C). According to (C), this claim of Descartes’s presumes
that sensory states are indeed mental states which are about external corporeal
substances. That is, the narrator is justified in believing that these states, on the
surface, are sensory states. However, the narrator, according to (C), doubts the
existence of corporeal substance in Med. II. Thus, he might well conclude, in
Med. II, that the mental states which seem sensory states might be awarenesses
of nonexistent substances. The narrator has a manner of thinking which is about
nonthings. Such states, while seemingly caused by extramental corporeal sub-
stances, are perhaps instead caused by other mental states (e.g., volitions) or by
an evil deceiver. If so, then second-grade sensory perceptions are properly con-
sidered awarenesses of nonthings.6
Now consider Descartes’s claims regarding imagination in Med. II:
Which of them can be separated from myself? The fact that it is I who am doubting and
understanding and willing is so evident that I see no way of making it any clearer. But
it is also the case that the ‘I’ who imagines is the same ‘I.’ For even if, as I have sup-
posed, none of the objects of imagination are real, the power of imagination is some-
thing which really exists and is part of my thinking. (AT VII.29: CSM II.19)
How we interpret this claim about imagination might depend on how we under-
stand the substances designated as ‘the objects of imagination.’ In Med. II, Des-
cartes might not presume his arguments for the objects of imagination being
extramental corporeal substances. That is, he might leave open, in Med. II, the
possibility that the objects of imagination are intramental ideas rather than cere-
bral semblances. In fact, in Med. II, Descartes describes imagining as “simply
contemplating the shape or image of a corporeal thing.”7 This shape or image
might be a phenomenal representation or image. (That is, the representative con-
tent of the imaginary idea might itself be its object.) So, when Descartes denies
that the objects of imagination exist, he might merely be denying the existence
of external corporeal substances represented by the intramental shapes and im-
ages. If so, then Descartes’s claim that the narrator imagines in Med. II is
stronger than his claim that the narrator sense-perceives. Since Descartes does
Meditation II 45
not presume that the objects of imagination are extramental corporeal sub-
stances, he has no reason to conclude in Med. II that the narrator imagines only
in a “restricted” sense.
On the other hand, Descartes might well presume his arguments for the ob-
jects of imagination being extramental corporeal substances. So, when he sup-
poses that the objects of imaginary states do not exist, he presumes that the ob-
jects of imagination are extramental substances. At the very least, he might
claim that the objects of imagination seem to be extramental semblances and
that as such, their existence is dubitable. If so, then Descartes’s claims about
imagination might be as weak as his claims about sense-perception. That is, he
would then claim that the narrator imagines in a “restricted” sense in Med. II.
So, we have a variety of possible interpretations of Descartes’s claims about
imagination in Med. II:
(D) The narrator imagines in the “full” sense: imagination is the phenomenal aware-
ness of the phenomenal representations of an external corporeal substance
(E) The narrator imagines only in a restricted sense in that imagination is merely the
phenomenal state whose causes and objects are unknown
(F) The narrator imagines only in a limited sense in that his imagination seems the
phenomenal awareness of corporeal substances, but may not be awareness of any-
thing
If (D) is correct, then Cottingham is wrong to claim that Descartes spoke as

hesitantly about imagination as he did about sense-perception. Descartes does
not claim that the narrator merely seems to imagine. Instead, in Med. II, Des-
cartes leaves open the possibility that the narrator’s cognitive power of imagina-
tion—neither its subject, content nor objects—needs more explanation than say,
the narrator’s volitions, affirmations, denials, understands and doubtings. How-
ever, even presuming that the images that are the immediate objects of imagina-
tion exist does not, by itself, lead to this conclusion. These images, even if phe-
nomenal ideas, nonetheless represent corporeal substances, which may not exist.
Imagination, then, does need further explanation insofar as imagination is
awareness of the representation of corporeal substances. That is, the nature of
imagination is such that it is about corporeal substances (insofar as it is about
the representations of corporeal substances). Imagination then is a mental fac-
ulty which is about substances whose reality the narrator doubts. Imagination
needs further explanation, if (D) is correct, because its objects are necessarily
representations of corporeal substances. So what needs further explication, ac-
cording to (D), is not the power of imagination itself, but that represented by the
objects of imagination. Thus, even if Descartes does not presume that the ob-
jects of imagination are extramental substances in Med. II, then only that repre-
sented by these objects needs further explanation.
(E), like (D), presumes that Descartes at least leaves open the possibility
that the objects of imagination are phenomenal representations of corporeal sub-
stances. According to (E), the narrator (in Med. II) is not said to imagine in the
“full” sense. On this interpretation, in Med. II, Descartes claims that the narrator
imagines only insofar as he has certain mental states seeming to have represen-
tations of corporeal substances as their objects. However, whether the represen-
tations are representations of corporeal substances or the objects of imaginations
are representations of anything at all cannot be determined in Med. II with the
requisite certainty. According to (E), while Descartes claims that the narrator
cannot doubt that he has phenomenal states which seem awarenesses of the rep-
resentations of corporeal substances, he cannot know, in Med. II, either the
causes or the objects of these phenomenal states.
Like (E), (F) claims that Descartes only attributes a “restricted” sense of
imagining to the narrator in Med. II. Unlike (E), however, (F) suggests that the
objects of imagination are representations of corporeal substances. However,
since Descartes doubts, in Med. II, that corporeal substances exist, the narrator’s
imaginations are phenomenal awarenesses of nonthings. However, there are two
ways of conceiving of imagining as the phenomenal awareness of nonthings. If
Descartes, in Med. II, leaves open the possibility that the objects of imagination
are phenomenal representations of corporeal substances, then (F) should be un-
derstood as
(F1) The narrator imagines, but his imaginings might only be phenomenal aware-
nesses of the representations of nonthings.
If Descartes presumed, in Med. II, that the objects of imagination are corpo-
real semblances, then (F) should be understood as
(F2) The narrator imagines, but his imaginings might only be phenomenal aware-
nesses of nonthings.
(F1) implies that the narrator imagining is restricted in that while he can be said
to have phenomenal awareness of representations of corporeal substances, the
representations represent nonthings. According to (F2), the narrator’s imagining
is restricted in that the representations themselves are nonthings.
Correctly interpreting Descartes’s comments regarding the narrator’s ima-
ginary and sensory states in Med. II requires inspecting Descartes’s manner of
distinguishing imaginary and sensory states. For if Descartes’s manner of dis-
tinguishing imaginary from sensory (second-grade) states is not available to him
Meditation II 47
in Med. II (given his skepticism regarding the existence of corporeal sub-

stances), then at least (A) is correct. In addition, interpreting whether the nature
of the objects of sensation and imagination is known to be corporeal by the nar-
rator in Med. II requires understanding how these states might be mistaken or
false, given the narrator’s skepticism regarding the existence of corporeal sub-
stance in Med. II. Since Descartes attempts explaining how various mental
states might be false in Med. III by distinguishing between formal and material
falsity and suggesting that second-grade sensory states might be materially (ver-
sus formally) false, inspecting his claims regarding material falsity will aid in
our interpreting the “restricted” sense of sensory perception he attributes to the
narrator in Med. II. Moreover, applying his reasoning regarding the possible
material falsity of sensory ideas to imaginary states will also help determine if
Descartes attributes only a “restricted” sense of imagination to the narrator in
Med. II and, if so, what this “restricted” sense of imagination is.
The Distinction between Imagination and Sensory Perception

Descartes repeatedly states that the only true metaphysical distinction be-
tween imaginary states and sensory states is their objects.8 However, a differ-
ence in objects might well entail phenomenal distinctions as well. In fact, Des-
cartes also describes phenomenal states of imagination as being “less lively”
and “less vivid” than sensory states.9 Despite this, he admits that the non-
liveliness and nonvividness of imaginary states is often so minor as to go unno-
ticed.10 In this section, I examine Descartes’s claims regarding the distinction
between the objects of imaginary states and sensory states and how the content
of phenomenal imaginary states differs from phenomenal, second-grade sensory
states. I will first conclude that Descartes did not assert a necessary distinction
between the phenomenal content of imaginary and sensory states. I will then
conclude that Descartes cannot assert a certain distinction between the narrator’s
imaginary and sensory states in Med. II.
Regarding the Distinction between Objects

The first obvious distinction between the objects of imagination and the ob-
jects of sense-perception is that the latter are external, formally existing corpo-
real substances, and the former are extramental, cerebral semblances. But this
merely causes one to wonder how Descartes conceives of cerebral semblances
as differing from their “actual” counterparts. Both the semblances and the ob-
jects of sensory states are actual, he claims, insofar as they are genuine corpo-
real substances. Cerebral semblances, Descartes says, exist formally insofar as
they are genuine parts of the brain.11 Indeed, just as a painting of the Duke of
Wellington is no less actual than the Duke himself, the cerebral semblances are
no less actual than the external corporeal substances they often represent. In the
case of imagining fictional substances, the objects of imagination are actual ex-
tramental corporeal substances, whereas that which they represent are not. So,
Descartes’s distinction between the objects of imagination and the objects of
sense-perception is not that the former are not actual (formally existing) and the
latter are.
Consider, however, two of Descartes’s basic metaphysical claims. First, he
does not interpret the phantasy hylomorphically. Second, he defines substances
as “…things which subsist on their own…”12 Yet, given his other claims that
the cerebral semblances are nothing more than the phantasy arranged in various
patterns, Descartes seemingly commits himself to the claim that the cerebral
semblances are not themselves actual substances, but mere modes of the phan-
tasy.13 Indeed, Descartes, wishing to avoid the hylomorphism of the Scholastics,
often emphasizes that the phantasy itself is the only true object of imagination.14
Descartes clearly embraces the outcome of his metaphysical claims: that the
object of imagination is always the phantasy itself and does not itself literally
become unicorns, coffee mugs, etc.
Yet, by embracing this, Descartes must concede that the objects of imagina-
tion are not distinct substances. Seemingly, the object of imagination, when one
imagines a unicorn, is distinct from the object of imagination when one imag-
ines a coffee mug. Descartes, however, could distinguish various objects of
imagination from each other by appealing to the different arrangements of the
cerebral matter. For instance, he could claim that
(1) The object of imagining a coffee mug is the phantasy when arranged in pattern
X1-n
and
(2) The object of imagining a unicorn is the phantasy when arranged in pattern X1-n.15
If this is how Descartes distinguishes the various semblances from each other, a
deeper distinction between sensory versus imaginary objects arises. The deeper
distinction, then, is this: the objects of imagination are only modally distinct
from each other, and the objects of sensory states are really distinct from each
other.16 While Descartes claims that the substance which is always and neces-
sarily the object of phenomenal imaginary states is the phantasy itself, the object
of a particular imaginary state is the phantasy only when it is in a certain range
of modal states —whereas the object of phenomenal sensory states is not always
or necessarily the same substance. So, the first obvious distinction between sen-
sory versus imaginary objects reveals a deeper (and perhaps a problematic)
one.17
Meditation II 49
The Phenomenal Differences

Even though Descartes claims that the only metaphysical difference be-
tween imagination and sense-perception is their respective objects, he also
claims that mental states of imagination are less lively and vivid than sensory
states.18 This section contains arguments for the interpretation that the represen-
tative nature of imaginary objects commits Descartes to claiming that imaginary
states are phenomenally distinct from sensory states, and that the phenomenal
imaginary states are representative in a manner that sensory states are not.
Nonetheless, I argue that the phenomenal distinction is not so apparent as to
provide Descartes with sufficient means to epistemically distinguish imaginary
mental states from sensory states in Med. II. Toward defending these claims, I
will explore (1) Descartes’s statements regarding less lively and vivid ideas and
(2) his understanding of the “aboutness” and representationality of imaginary
ideas.
To begin, one must, I think, take care not to confuse Descartes’s “lively and
vivid ideas” with his “clear and distinct ideas.” He seemingly does not equate
the two categories, for he holds that some ideas (second-grade sensory percep-
tions, in particular) are among the more lively and vivid of the narrator’s ideas,
yet also claims that they are among the more obscure and indistinct (not clear
and distinct) ideas.19 That is, an idea’s being nonlively and nonvivid does not
entail that it is obscure and indistinct and vice versa. Indeed, Descartes says that
clear and distinct ideas are ideas which are “…present and accessible to the at-
tentive mind…” (clear) and “…so sharply separated from all other perceptions
that it contains within itself only what is clear…” (distinct).20 An idea is obscure
and indistinct, seemingly, when it fails as a phenomenal representation. Given
that in Med. III Descartes stipulates, that “…whatever I perceive very clearly
and distinctly is true,” the obscure and indistinct idea is less able to provide the
raw materials for correct judgments about their objects.21 The result being that
clear and distinct ideas are distinguished from their obscure and indistinct coun-
terparts in virtue of their relative ability to phenomenally present (or, in Carte-
sian lingo, objectively contain) something to the attending mind. According to
Descartes, sensory and imaginary ideas are among the more obscure and indis-
tinct and are so because they are less than representionally clear.22
In contrast, lively and vivid ideas might well be representionally obscure:
my understanding of a triangle might be more clear and distinct, for example,
than my sensing a triangle, even though my sensory idea of the triangle may be
more lively and vivid. Whether an idea is lively and vivid, then, has seemingly
little to do with the representational quality of a given idea. Instead, a lively and
vivid idea, on Descartes’s view, seems the relatively more phenomenally clear
idea. A nonlively and nonvivid idea, then, is the relatively more distorted, fuzzy
or phenomenally weaker idea. The lively and vivid idea, then, is so, not in terms
of its being better representationally, but in terms of its relative cognitive force-
fulness and clarity.
So, when Descartes suggests that sensory ideas tend to be more lively and
vivid than imaginary states, Descartes is not suggesting that imaginary ideas are
less adequate representationally than sensory states. Instead, one might deter-
mine that one’s current mental state is an imaginary versus a sensory state on
the basis that the content of the state is fuzzy, distorted, indistinct or pallid. Sec-
ond, in Passions, Descartes indicates that the motive patterns of the animal spir-
its, which act upon the pineal gland in such a way as to produce imaginary
states, are themselves less lively and vivid than the motive patterns produced via
the process of sense-perception.23 This seems to indicate that, according to Des-
cartes, the phenomenal content of imaginary state reflects the degraded motive
pattern of the animal spirits.
To fully understand how imaginary states are less phenomenally clear than
sensory states, two questions must be answered:
(q1) Does Descartes believe that all imaginary states are less than phenomenally clear?
and
(q2) Why are motions of the animal spirits producing some imaginary states less lively
and vivid than the motions producing second-grade sensory states?
In regard to (q1), Descartes occasionally singles out imaginings which are

actions of the soul (those caused by a volition) as those that are less than phe-
nomenally clear.24 Moreover, he specifies, in Med. VI, that an idea’s being phe-
nomenally less lively and vivid, is possible evidence that the mind causes that
idea:
And since the ideas perceived by the senses were much more lively and vivid and even,
in their own way, more distinct than any of those which I deliberately formed through
meditating or which I found impressed on my memory, it seemed impossible that they
should have come from within me; so the only alternative was that they came from
other things…I saw that the ideas which I formed myself were less vivid than those
which I perceived with the senses… (AT VI.75: CSM II.52)
Here Descartes seemingly claims that an idea’s being less lively and vivid is
evidence that the cognizant mind is at least a partial cause of that idea and that
the idea is thus not a sensory idea. Seemingly, Descartes does not claim that all
imaginary states are phenomenally nebulous. However, Descartes’s singling out
imaginings which are actions of the soul does not, by itself, indicate that the
imaginings which are passions are not necessarily less lively and vivid than sen-
sory states. Indeed, in the above passage, Descartes includes in the category of
Meditation II 51
the less lively and vivid imaginary states imaginings which are memories of
previous sensory objects, which he considers passions.
The answer to (q2), however, indicates that Descartes holds that imaginings
which are passions are not necessarily less lively and vivid than sensory states.
In regard to why the motive patterns of the animal spirits, in the case of imagin-
ing, are less lively and vivid than those in the case of sense-perception, first
consider Descartes’s reasons for claiming that imagining is more difficult than
understanding:
This makes it quite clear why I can imagine a triangle, pentagon, and such like, but not,
for example, a chiliagon. Since my mind can easily form and thus depict lines in the
brain, it can easily go on to contemplate them, and thus imagine a triangle, pentagon,
etc. It cannot, however, trace out and form a thousand lines in the brain except in a con-
fused manner, and this is why it does not imagine a chiliagon distinctly, but only in a
confused manner. (AT V.162: CSM III.345)
Here and elsewhere25 Descartes claims that imagining is more difficult than un-
derstanding. Important here, however, is his explanation of why imagining is
more difficult. Imagining is difficult, he suggests, because the mind cannot eas-
ily and distinctly form the objects of imagination. This suggests that the volition
is a shabby artist: the motive patterns of the animal spirits one’s volition pro-
duces by wiggling the pineal gland are weaker than the motive patterns arriving
from the external senses. The cerebral semblances are then themselves weak,
incomplete, indistinct or fuzzy. This is not to suggest that the semblances fail to
fully resemble the phenomenal content of ideas of corporeal substances in such
cases. Instead, this suggests that the objects of imaginings which are actions of
the soul are often more incomplete or more fuzzy than sensory objects. Since
the cerebral semblances are incomplete, confused or indistinct, the motive pat-
terns created by their formation will also be weak. Thus, motive patterns pro-
ducing imaginings that are actions of the soul are often less lively and vivid be-
cause the mental power of volition does not act as strongly or as accurately
upon the phantasy as do the motions produced by external objects. The end re-
sult, then, is that imaginings of the soul are less phenomenally clear than sen-
sory states.
But this interpretation must be presented with words of caution and reserva-
tion. While the answer to (q1) seems “no, only imaginings which are actions of
the soul are less lively and vivid than sensory states,” this answer should not be
understood as a claim that all imaginings which are actions of the soul are nec-
essarily less lively and vivid than second-grade sensory states nor should it be
understood as a claim which excludes the possibility that imaginary states which
are passions are not also at times less vivid and lively. For instance, Descartes
indicates that one might clearly, distinctly and willfully imagine a triangle.
Moreover, nothing he says excludes the possibility that a bit of undigested spicy
food might produce distorted and fuzzy dreams (which are passions). We can
conclude from this that Descartes’s claim that the phenomenal content of imagi-
nary states is less lively and vivid amounts to no more than a general heuristic
guideline and not a certain metaphysical claim. Indeed, he admits (and the ini-
tial skepticism he proposes in The Meditations presumes) that one’s own imag-
inings are often so lively and vivid that the individual may mistake them for
sensations.26
So, imaginings that are frequently less lively and vivid than sensory states
does not provide Descartes with a certain manner of distinguishing sensory
states from imaginary states in Med. II. Since he requires certainty, he does not
and cannot distinguish sensory states from imaginary states in Med. II. Instead,
he leaves open the possibility that a mental state which seems a sensory state,
even if lively and vivid, is an imaginary state. Conversely, Descartes also leaves
open the possibility that a mental state which seems an imaginary state, even if
less than phenomenally clear, might be a sensory state.
Descartes says that the phenomenal content of a mental state is about the
object of that state.27 Since he views the cerebral semblances as the objects of
imaginary states, then the phenomenal content of an imaginary state is about a
cerebral semblance. That is, the phenomenal content of an imaginary state rep-
resents, in some manner, the cerebral semblances. For instance, according to
Descartes, when I imagine the red shirt I wore yesterday, the redness which is a
part of the phenomenal content of my imaginary state corresponds to and is
about the cerebral semblance which represents the shirt I wore yesterday.
However, Descartes suggests that phenomenal contents of imaginary states
are also about the corporeal substances (fictional or external) which the objects
of imagination represent. In particular, his manner of distinguishing imaginings
which are passions from those that are actions of the soul seemingly relies upon
the assumption that the phenomenal contents of imaginings are in some manner
about the cerebral semblance’s causes. In the case of imaginings which are ac-
tions of the soul, the phenomenal content of imaginary states is about the ideas
of fictional corporeal substances and the volition creating the objects of the
imaginary states. In the case of imaginings which are passions, the resulting
imaginary state is, in some manner, about the external corporeal substances or
internal bodily processes which create the objects of the imaginary states.
Moreover, Descartes’s reason for concluding that we cannot imagine corpo-
real substances is that no cerebral semblance can adequately represent incorpo-
real substances. That is, the cerebral semblances cannot present to an attending
mind the qualities of the incorporeal substances. The phenomenal content pro-
Meditation II 53
duced by any cerebral semblance, while perhaps adequately corresponding to

the cerebral semblance, does not and cannot adequately correspond to the quali-
ties of an incorporeal substance. The cognizant mind does not become imme-
diately aware of the qualities of an incorporeal substance when in an imaginary
state.28
This ostensibly suggests that the phenomenal content of imaginary states,
while directly about and corresponding to the objects of imagination, also repre-
sents, in some fashion, the corporeal substances represented by the cerebral
semblances. Descartes should be understood as claiming that the representation-
ality of the cerebral semblances produces phenomenal states which are about
and correspond to the substances represented by the cerebral semblances. Previ-
ously, I argued that the semblances are constructed so that they present the
qualities of the objects which they represent, so that the attending mind becomes
immediately aware of the objects represented by the objects of imagination.
This suggests that the objects of imagination, while themselves not significantly
resembling the substances they represent, produce phenomenal contents similar
to the phenomenal contents produced when or if the represented substances
were sensed. For instance, when imagining the red shirt I wore yesterday, the
phenomenal content of my imaginary state, while perhaps less lively and vivid
than my previous second-grade sensory state, is nonetheless similar to the phe-
nomenal content of the sensory state. In the case of imagining a fictional sub-
stance, such as a unicorn, the cerebral semblance produces a phenomenal state
which corresponds to one’s understanding of what a unicorn is; the cerebral
semblances are such that they produce a phenomenal content similar to what
would be produced if one were to sense a unicorn.
So, the representationality of the phenomenal contents of imaginary states
is, in one sense, distinct from the representationality of the objects of imagina-
tion: the phenomenal contents of imaginary states resemble the phenomenal
contents of (possible or actual) sensory states, but the objects of imagination do
not resemble the objects they represent. In another sense, however, the represen-
tationality of the phenomenal content of imaginary states is inseparable from the
representationality of imaginary objects. The objects of imagination represent
other corporeal substances by presenting them to an attending mind. That is, the
objects of imagination are such that they cause any attending mind to become
immediately aware of the represented corporeal substances. An attending, imag-
ining mind becomes aware of an object in the same manner as an attending,
sensing mind: by hearing sounds, seeing shapes and colors, tasting, smelling,
etc. The attending, imagining mind is simultaneously aware of the object of
imagination, a cerebral semblance, and aware of the substance represented by
the cerebral semblance. But this is not to suggest that the awareness of the mind
is two-fold. Since the cerebral semblance is such that it represents an external or

fictional object, and since the phenomenal content of the resulting imaginary
state resembles the phenomenal content of a previous or hypothetical sensory
state, to be in a state of imagining is to be in the state of being aware of corpo-
real object X as represented by semblance Y. Since semblances often do not
adequately represent external or fictional objects, the phenomenal content of an
imaginary state will often fail to exactly resemble sensory states:
Nonetheless their <imaginings which are passions> cause is not so conspicuous and
determinate as that of the perceptions which the soul receives by means of the nerves,
and they seem to be mere shadows and pictures of these perceptions. (AT XI.345: CSM
I.336, italics mine)
In the end, then, this suggests that the sensory perception had by the narra-
tor in Med. II is not a full sense of sensory perception. Instead, the narrator’s
sensory perceptions might not be awarenesses of external corporeal substances.
Given that no certain difference between his imaginary states and sensory states
is available to the narrator in Med. II, the narrator’s sensory perception is re-
stricted at least in the sense of
(A) Mental states which seem to be awarenesses of external corporeal substances but in
fact might be mere imaginings.
On the Material Falsity of Ideas

In Med. III, Descartes turns from analyzing the implications summa res
cognitans has for the narrator’s nature to analyzing the contents of the narrator’s
mental operations. In particular, he inspects the contents of certain mental op-
erations that are about extramental substances to determine if such mental op-
erations provide certain evidence that such extramental objects exist. In regard
to the mental operations of imagination and sense-perception, Descartes, in
Med. III, regards their content as being too obscure and indistinct to provide
certain evidence that their objects, corporeal substances, exist. In fact, their ob-
scurity and indistinctness, Descartes seemingly suggests, are evidence that the
narrator’s second-grade sensory perceptions and the narrator’s imaginings are
possibly materially false.29 The purpose of this section is to demonstrate that
imagining and sense-perceiving being possibly materially false implies that
Descartes conceives of both as phenomenal awarenesses of corporeal substances
in Med. II. More precisely, Descartes’s claims regarding the possible material
falsity of sensory perceptions and imaginings of the narrator imply that the cor-
Meditation II 55
rect interpretation of the restricted sense of sense-perception attributed to the

narrator in Med. II is a revised form of:
(C) Sense-perceptions are awarenesses of nonthings.
I will also show that the correct interpretation of Descartes’s claims regarding
the narrator’s imagining in Med. II is that imagining is restricted in the sense of
(F) The narrator imagines only in a limited sense in that his imagination seems the
phenomenal awareness of corporeal substances, but may not be awareness of any-
thing.
Descartes seemingly implies in Med. III, that if the narrator’s imaginary and
sensory states are materially false, the true causes of these mental operations are
unknown. Therefore, (B) and (E) are true in a weak sense, and both (C) and (F)
should be revised accordingly.
On Material Falsity in General

In the beginning of Med. III, Descartes emphasizes that the narrator, at this
point in the Meditations, regards the mental operations of imagination and
sense-perception as “vacuous, false and worthless,” even though the operations
truly exist as the narrator’s own mental operations.30 Understanding how the
narrator’s imaginings and sensory perceptions might be false and worthless is
explained in the context of Descartes’s distinction between formal and material
falsity and his claims that his ideas of corporeal substance might be materially
false. So, correctly interpreting the status of the narrator’s sense-perception and
imagination in Med. II and III requires coming to some understanding of Des-
cartes’s claims regarding material falsity in both Med. II and Fourth Replies.31 I
say some understanding, for Descartes’s claims regarding material falsity are
seemingly (and notoriously) at odds with one another. In fact, many contempo-
rary Cartesian scholars find Descartes’s views on material falsity hopelessly
confused.32 Margaret Wilson portrays Descartes’s comments regarding material
falsity as “a model of confusion confounded.”33 So, I will not pretend that I can
here resolve all difficulties raised by Descartes’s claims regarding material fal-
sity. Nonetheless, I will extract enough from these claims to clarify Descartes’s
views regarding the status of the narrator’s imaginings and sensory perceptions
in the early Meditations.
Descartes, in Med. II, distinguishes between two general types of mental
states: those that are ideas, strictly speaking, (which he calls “images”) and
those “which include more than the likeness of the [thought of].”34 Included in
the first kind are ideas such as “when I think of a man or a chimera, or the sky,
or an angel, or God.”35 The latter includes willings, affirmations, volitions, emo-

tions and judgments.36 In regard to the former, Field suggests we understand
them as thoughts which “represent some thing or intentional object to the
mind.”37 More precisely, Descartes seemingly suggests that S’s mental state, X,
is of the first type only when
(a) X is merely S’s state of being phenomenally aware of Y, where Y is an intentional

object of thought
and
(b) S is phenomenally aware of Y as Y is “imaged” (represented) by X’s content
However, according to Descartes, we must take these thoughts materially and

not formally in that we should view these thoughts, not as “representing this or
that but simply as operations of the intellect…”38 As both Field and Wilson
claim, this means we should view these strict ideas, not in terms of the relation
the content of X has to Y (its representing the formally existing Y), but in terms
of the content of X as having objective being, insofar as the content of X is rep-
resentative.39 That is, “an idea, then has objective being, and is the representa-
tion of something, quite apart from any relation, whether actual or hypothetical,
it might have to a thing. In other words, the idea is in itself, or essentially, repre-
sentative.”40 To have an idea of something, to merely think of something, is
merely to be in a mental state which “images” an intentional object to the cog-
nizant mind, without regard to how or whether the content of the mental state
corresponds to an actual or hypothetical external thing represented by the men-
tal state. For instance, the idea of the sun, Descartes tells Caterius in First Re-
plies, “…is the thing thought of, in so far as it has objective being in the intel-
lect,” versus “…the determination of an act of the intellect by means of an ob-
ject.”41 Viewing these strict ideas materially, then, involves viewing the repre-
sentative content of the ideas in and of themselves, as having objective being,
and not as being determined by the objects represented by their contents.
This category then contains, not only second-grade sensory perceptions and
imaginings, but also understandings of a certain kind. Second-grade sensory
perceptions and imaginings are included because they are no more than mere
awarenesses of intentional objects. The understandings in this category would
be those at the brute level of awareness or conception, without judgment or be-
lief. Understandings (qua a mental operation) can occur on a prejudgmental
level and are, according to Descartes, ideas in this strict sense. For example, one
might think of God in that one conceives of God, yet still judges that such a be-
ing has no formal reality. Likewise, one might think of a human, only insofar as
one understands or conceives of human, but does not believe that humans exist
or that the understanding one has of a human is the correct one.42
Meditation II 57
When does one think of God, an angel or a human versus something else? I
may think of a substance with eight legs and six horns and judge that such a rep-
resentation is God, existing objectively. Although Descartes seemingly de-
scribes strict ideas nonrelationally, his apparent answer to this question de-
scribes strict ideas relationally. In Med. V, Descartes suggests that to think of an
object is to perceive its essence:
I find within me countless ideas of things which even though they may not exist any-
where outside of me still cannot be called nothing; for although in a sense they can be
thought of at will, they are not my invention, but have their own true and immutable
natures. (AT VII.64: CSM II.44)
The narrator, when having clear and distinct idea X (an idea which, as I will
later discuss, is materially true), is aware of object Y in virtue of Y’s essence
being represented by the content of X. This, however, is to view the idea for-
mally insofar as we view idea X as representing Y’s (versus some other) essence
to the narrator/cognizer. To consider idea X materially, however, is to view the
ideas as a representation of something, any res.43 Viewing an idea materially,
then, according to Descartes, is not to view or understand what essence or thing
has objective being qua being represented by the idea, but merely to view the
idea as an operation of the intellect whose function is to represent some res to
the narrator/cognizer. This is to view the idea apart from its relation to its for-
mally determining cause. So, to consider an idea as a strict idea, the narrator
views it as a phenomenal representation of a substance without regard to
whether the represented essence exists formally (or what this essence is) as the
idea’s formal determining cause or how even how accurately the idea represents
this essence. So, the former thoughts, the strict ideas, should be understood as
mere representative operations of the intellect and should be taken materially—
without regard to how well or what they represent.
The latter seem mental states of a more complex intentional relation be-
tween a cognizant subject and an object of thought. More specifically, Descartes
seemingly suggests that S’s mental state, X, is of the latter type when:
(3) While in X, S is phenomenally aware of Y, where Y is an object of thought,

(4) S is phenomenally aware of Y as Y is “imaged” or represented by the content of X
and
(5) S, when in X, bears a mental attitude, Z, towards Y.
Descartes seemingly allows that the mental attitude S bears towards Y varies.44
For example, the mental attitude S bears towards Y when X is a state of joy dif-
fers from the mental attitude S bears towards Y when X is a judgment. The
relevant mental attitude to inspect here is the one Descartes stipulates is present
when X is a judgment, particularly, those judgments which are first-grade sen-

sory perceptions. Descartes suggests that when S refers the content of X to Y, S
renders a complex judgment: there is some Y whose properties correspond to
the content of X. We might then interpret Descartes as characterizing the mental
attitude S bears towards Y, when S’s mental state is a judgment about an exter-
nal corporeal substance, as one of belief: S is more than merely aware of Y, S
believes certain things of Y, partly in virtue of how S is aware of Y. Similarly,
when X is a judgment about an imaginary object, S believes certain things of Y,
partly in virtue of how the content of X represents Y to S.45
Only judgments, Descartes stipulates, can be false in a strict sense.46 Des-
cartes calls this strict sense of falsity formal falsity. In the case of formally false
judgments, the crucial error is not so much the content of an idea’s misrepre-
senting its intentional object, but judging that the content of the idea accurately
represents its object:
…the only remaining thoughts where I must be on my guard against making a mistake
are judgements. And the chief and most common mistake which is to be found here
consists in my judging that the ideas which are in me resemble, or conform to, things
located outside me. (AT VII.37: CSM II.26)
The mistake here characterized by Descartes is the cognizer’s wrongly referring

the representative content of an idea to an object of thought. That is, a cognizer,
when having a formally false belief, wrongly takes on a certain belief attitude
toward an object. The common error of the cognizer’s thinking is believing that
(judging that) the content of an idea corresponds to an external, formally exist-
ing substance. However, this is only the most common error in judgment and, as
I will later explain, other kinds of judgments may be formally false. The main
point here is that judgments are not formally false in virtue of an idea’s misrep-
resenting an intentional object of thought, but in virtue of the cognizer’s taking
on a mistaken belief attitude toward the intentional object.47
Ideas, being prejudgmental mental operations, cannot be formally false. In-
deed, the narrator is not mistaken in having them, insofar as they are considered
solely as mental operations properly ascribed to the narrator. However, they can
be mistaken (false) in that they “…can provide [the narrator] with the subject-
matter for error.”48 Of this falsity, Descartes says
…there is another kind of falsity, material falsity, which occurs in ideas, when they
represent nonthings as things. For example, the ideas which I have of heat and cold
contain so little clarity and distinctness that they do not enable me to tell [judge]
whether cold is merely the absence of heat or vice versa, or whether both of them are
real qualities or neither is. And since there can be no ideas which are not as it were of
things, if it is true that cold is nothing but the absence of heat, the idea which represents
Meditation II 59
it to me as something real and positive deserves to be called false; and the same goes
for other ideas of this kind. (AT VII.43–4: CSM II.30, italics mine)
Present in this are several points useful for understanding the “current” status of
the narrator’s sensations and imaginings. First, an idea is materially false when
it provides the narrator with cognitive material which tends to lead him to errors
in judgment. The central judgments here, as exemplified by the “cold example,”
are not necessarily the commonly mistaken complex judgments rendered about
external objects. As Descartes clarifies in his conversations with Berman:
Even if I do not refer my ideas to anything outside myself, there is still subject-matter
for error, since I can make a mistake with regard to the actual nature of the ideas. For
example, I may consider the idea of colour, and say that it is a thing or a quality; or
rather I may say that the colour itself, which is represented by this idea, is something of
a kind. For example, I may say whiteness is a quality; and even if I do not refer this
idea to anything outside myself—even if I do not say or suppose that there is any white
thing—I may still make a mistake in the abstract, with regard to whiteness itself and its
nature or the idea I have of it. (AT V.172: CSM III.337)
While Descartes does not exclude the possible mistakes in the narrator’s judg-
ments when he refers the content of an idea to an external object of thought,
here Descartes focuses upon the possible errors the narrator might make about
the nature of the representative content of the idea itself. The idea of cold might
well lead the narrator to a formally false judgment that coldness (the mental op-
eration of ‘feeling cold’) represents a real property if coldness is nothing but an
absence of heat. That is, the judgment the narrator makes that his second-grade
sensation of cold represents a real property of a substance will be formally false.
The sensation of cold is itself the “subject-matter” for this error. According to
Descartes, then, an idea does not provide subject-matter for error in that it will
lead the narrator to make false judgments about a formally existing intentional
object represented by the idea, but in that it might lead the narrator to make
formally false judgments about the idea itself or, more precisely, about its repre-
sentative content. As Field suggests, “…the idea must provide subject matter for
error in the sense that if one were to judge that the idea is a true representation
of a thing then the judgment would be false.”49
Second, the reason an idea is materially false has to do with the nature of
the idea itself, rather than its relation to an external intentional object. More
specifically, an idea is possibly materially false when the representational con-
tent of the idea is flawed, most usually in terms of its being obscure and con-
fused: “For I do not claim that an idea’s material falsity results from some posi-
tive entity; it arises solely from the obscurity of the idea.”50 As Wells suggests,
the possibly materially false idea provides the subject–matter for error in that
Due to the alleged deficiency of our sensory ideas, in spectator-like fashion, we cannot
decide judgmentally what their objects are. Do they represent a reale quid et positivum
or a nulla res? In such a cognitive situation, our judgments are at risk because, in the
presence of a flawed representation, we are in the presence of materia errandi.51
Moreover, the obscure representation is flawed, not in terms of its misrepresent-

ing an object, but in terms of its own cognitive clarity and distinctness. Instead,
the obscurity pertains to the narrator’s inability to determine whether something,
a substance (actual or fictional), is represented by the idea, or nothing is. The
obscure idea is representationally flawed in that the narrator cannot determine
whether the idea gives a res, a definable essence, objective reality. The repre-
sentational content, on Descartes’s theory, gives objective reality to a res.52
Since the content of an idea is representative in virtue of its representing, “as it
were, a thing,” the obscure idea is suspect because the narrator cannot determine
that the obscure idea’s content is representative. The obscure idea is suspect not
because it lacks the representational clarity necessary for the narrator to judge
that the idea truly represents this or that. Instead, the obscure idea is suspect
because its obscurity doesn’t allow the narrator to judge that the idea is truly a
representation. The possibly materially false idea is so obscure that the cognizer
cannot judge whether the idea represents a substance or, more precisely,
whether it represents a definable essence. The obscurity is not in regards to the
cognizer’s inability to determine what is represented by the idea (e.g., whether
God or a human is represented by the idea.) Instead, the obscurity is in regards
to whether something, a substance (either actual or fictional), is represented by
the idea (i.e., has objective reality) or nothing is.
In the above commentary Wells suggests that all ideas this obscure are ma-
terially false, but this seems incorrect, for Descartes also writes:
…such [obscure and indistinct] ideas do not require me to posit a source distinct from
myself. For…if they are false, that is, represent nonthings, I know by the natural light
that they arise from nothing —that is, they are in me only because of a deficiency and
lack of perfection in my nature. If on the other hand they are true, then since the reality
which they represent is so extremely slight that I cannot even distinguish it from a
nonthing, I do not see why they cannot originate from myself. (AT VII.44: CSM II.30,
italics mine)
Here Descartes leaves open the possibility that such obscure ideas are materially
true, in that they represent a distinct possible, but not actual, essence.53 (That is,
the obscure materially true ideas represent fictional substances whose very na-
ture is an invention of the narrator.) So, being obscure is a necessary, but not
sufficient, condition for an idea’s being materially false.54
Meditation II 61
Third, actually materially false ideas (versus the merely possibly materially
false ideas) are those which represent nonthings as though they were things.
This is not to say that the materially false idea represents a fictional substance as
though it were an actual substance, for we can have, according to Descartes (as
implied in the above quote), materially true ideas about chimeras:
When, for example, I imagine a triangle, even if perhaps no such figure exists, or has
ever existed, anywhere outside my thought, there is still a determinate nature or essence
or form of the triangle which is immutable and eternal and not invented by me or de-
pendent on my mind… Everything in a chimera that can be clearly and distinctly con-
ceived is a true entity. It is not fictitious, since it has a true and immutable essence…
(AT V.163: CSM III.345)
Indeed, understanding this claim as such would be to consider ideas formally, in

terms of their misrepresenting some possible substance —a mistake Descartes
attributes to Arnauld in Fourth Replies.55 If we are to understand the materially
false idea as representing a nonthing as though it were a thing, we must consider
the idea materially, apart from the relation it has to the substance that it repre-
sents. So viewing the materially false idea involves viewing it from the perspec-
tive of a thing, any thing (versus some particular thing) having objective being
in the intellect, in virtue of the content of the idea representing a thing. Des-
cartes views the materially false idea from the perspective of a res having objec-
tive being in the intellect, rather than from the perspective of the idea’s content
representing some particular essence.
The problem with a materially false idea (i.e., why it is false), then, is not
that it misrepresents some substance or attribute of a substance, but that it fails
to represent an essence. A materially false idea is so because it fails to represent
a definable res. Consider Descartes’s example of the idea of cold. If cold is
nothing but the absence of heat, Descartes says, then the idea of cold (the men-
tal operation of feeling cold) is materially false.56 Yet, according to the interpre-
tion(s) I am here promoting, the idea of cold is mistaken in that it fails to repre-
sent a “true and immutable nature” (i.e., a possible essence) to the narra-
tor/cognizer. But now two questions arise:
(1) How could a second-grade sensation fail to represent an essence?

and
(2) Why would cold = the absence of heat entail that the idea of cold is materially
false?
The answer to (1), according to Descartes, is that all modes of a substance (and
cold is a mode of a substance), presume an essence in that “…we can clearly
perceive a substance apart from the mode which we say differs from it, whereas
we cannot, conversely, understand the mode apart from the substance.”57 So,
according to Descartes, conceiving of the mode of a substance involves con-
ceiving of the essence which the mode presumes. Thus, to have an idea of cold
is to have an idea which represents the mode, cold, by giving objective reality to
the res which cold presumes. An idea would represent a nonthing as though it
were a thing, then, by giving objective being to that which cannot and does not
have any degree of objective reality. The materially false idea is thus flawed in
terms of its failing to be a representation in that it fails to be a representation,
“as it were, of a thing.”58 So, the idea (sensation) of cold is materially false just
in case the idea of cold fails to represent some essence. The idea of cold is mate-
rially false when it gives objective being to that which is not “a true and immu-
table” nature.
How would a sensation, like the idea of cold, fail to be a representation? If
cold is not a mode of an essence (i.e., if cold cannot be the property of a true
and immutable nature), then an idea which represents cold as though it were the
mode of an essence does so by representing cold as though it were the mode of
some essence. If cold is not a property of an essence, there is no essence which
the mode, cold, presumes. Thus, any idea which represents cold does so by pre-
senting an impossible essence: a nulla res. So, a sensation (second-grade) like
“feeling cold” represents a nonthing as though it were a thing by representing
what cannot be the mode of an essence as though it were.
In answer to (2), cold being nothing more than the absence of heat entails
that the idea (sensation) of cold is materially false because the absence of a
mode is not itself a mode of a substance. (Indeed, the absence of the mode of
heat would be properly represented by the absence of the idea of heat.) Since no
possible essence (i.e., no true and immutable nature) can determine the repre-
sentative content of the idea of cold and since cold, the mode, cannot presume
any possible essence. Hence, the idea of cold does not truly represent, as it
were, a thing and is thus a “mistaken” mental operation:
Thus if cold is simply an absence, the idea of cold is not coldness itself as it exists ob-
jectively in the intellect, but something else, which I erroneously mistake for the ab-
sence, namely a sensation which in fact has no existence outside the intellect. (AT VII.
233: CSM II.163)
Implication of Material Falsity for Sensory Perceptions and Imaginings

Several points regarding Descartes’s claims about material falsity seem im-
portant for clarifying his claims regarding the restricted status of the narrator’s
faculties of sensation and imagination. The first is that sensory (second-grade)
and imaginary states are, according to Descartes, strict ideas. Thus, they are
Meditation II 63
mental states representing essences. Second, when determining whether these

ideas of his are mistaken, the narrator should view them materially, as mental
operations which represent, without regard to what essence (corporeal or other-
wise) the ideas represent. Third, sensory and imaginary ideas are suspect, not
because they are about corporeal substances, but because they are so obscure
and indistinct that the narrator cannot determine whether they are true represen-
tations or not. Fourth, being prejudgmental mental states, these ideas, if false,
would not be formally false, but only materially false. Fifth, if materially false,
they are so because they fail to represent genuine modes of true and immutable
essences. That is, they are materially false because they fail to represent, as it
were, a thing. In what follows, I will examine the implications these points and
others have for the previously suggested interpretations of Descartes’s claims
regarding the narrator’s “restricted” sensory and imaginary states in the early
Meditations.
The Narrator’s “Restricted” Sensory Perception

Throughout The Meditations, problems of hallucination and perceptual rela-
tivity plague the narrator. To be sure, these problems raise doubts concerning
the formal truth of judgments about corporeal substances derived from the nar-
rator’s second-grade sensory ideas, judgments such as, “a blue triangle is now
before me,” “triangles exist” or even “whiteness is a mode of extended sub-
stances.” These problems of hallucination and perceptual relativity also raise
doubts concerning the narrator’s second-grade sensory perceptions.59 However,
second-grade sensory ideas, so far as Descartes is concerned, are strict ideas,
and as such, can only be materially false.60 As I discussed previously, when
questioning the material truth of ideas, the narrator supposedly takes the strict
ideas materially (vs. formally). When questioning the truth of his sensory ideas,
he takes them as representations, without regard to what essence, corporeal or
otherwise, they represent and without questioning whether the ideas misrepre-
sent this or that essence. Instead, the narrator questions whether his sensory
ideas are, in and of themselves, truly representations of a thing. Given that we
usually understand problems of hallucinations and perceptual relativity as rais-
ing questions concerning the accuracy of sensory ideas (i.e., their apparent ten-
dency to misrepresent corporeal substances), how do these problems raise ques-
tions concerning the material truth of the narrator’s second-grade sensory per-
ceptions? First, recall that only the obscure and indistinct ideas are candidates
for material falsity. Thus, the narrator can doubt the material truth of his sensory
ideas only if they are obscure and indistinct. As Descartes discusses in the wax
example, problems of perceptual relativity reveal not so much the inaccuracy of
sensory ideas, but their obscurity and indistinctness:
Let us consider the things which people commonly think they understand most dis-
tinctly of all; that is, the bodies which we touch and see…Let us take, for example, this
piece of wax. It has just been taken from the honeycomb…I put the wax by the fire,
and look: the residual taste is eliminated, the smell goes away, the color changes, the
shape is lost, …But does the same wax remain? It must be admitted that it does…So
what was it in the wax that I understood with such distinctness? Evidently, none of the
features which I arrived at by the senses; for whatever came under taste, smell, sight,
touch or hearing has now altered — yet the wax remains. (AT VII.30: CSM II.20, ital-
ics mine)
Here Descartes suggests that an idea which represents a substance that remains
represented during the absence of the idea would be an indistinct idea. So, prob-
lems of perceptual relativity, while certainly raising issues of the accuracy of
sensory ideas, seemingly show these ideas to be unclear and indistinct. Thus, the
worry raised by problems of perceptual relativity is not so much that they are
about (in an intentional sense) bodily, corporeal substances, but that the second-
grade sensory ideas themselves are obscure and indistinct. What is dubious,
what is not represented with sufficient cognitive clarity and distinctness, is a
definable essence. The narrator, when considering the piece of wax, is not dem-
onstrating so much that the senses do not accurately portray bodily things, but
that, contrary to his long-held beliefs, sensory ideas do not clearly and distinctly
represent corporeal substances. In contrast, several of the narrator’s nonsensory
ideas do clearly and distinctly represent corporeal substances. In fact, Descartes
claims in Med. III that the narrator does have some clear and distinct ideas of
corporeal substance, all nonsensory ideas:
As to my ideas of corporeal things…if I scrutinize them thoroughly and examine them

one by one, in the way in which I examined the idea of the wax yesterday, I notice that
the things which I perceive clearly and distinctly in them are very few in number. The
list comprises size, or extension in length, breadth, and depth;
shape…position…motion…substance, duration and number. But as for all the rest, in-
cluding light and colours, sounds, smells, tastes, heat and cold and the other tactile
qualities, I think of these in only a very confused and obscure way, to the extent that I
do not even know whether they are true or false. (AT VII.43: CSM II.30)
From this, we can conclude that the narrator’s worry about his sensory
perceptions in Med. II and III isn’t based mainly on their being about bodily
things, since many nonsensory ideas are also about corporeal substances and are
not subject to the same suspicions facing second-grade sensory ideas.61 To be
sure, the narrator, in Med. II and III, is concerned with problems of
hallucination and perceptual relativity. The problems of hallucination and
perceptual relativity are endemic to the faculty of sensory perception (versus,
say the faculty of understanding) and reveal not so much the inaccuracy of
Meditation II 65
second-grade sensory states as their obscurity and indistinctness.

Since they are so obscure and indistinct, sensory ideas, such as “feeling
warmth” and “seeing red,” while seeming to be representations of external, cor-
poreal substances, may not be what they appear. That is, such sensory ideas
might be materially false. Their obscurity and indistinctness is such that the nar-
rator cannot determine whether they truly represent substances, corporeal or
otherwise. What might be false about sensory ideas, then, is that they do not
represent a thing, as it were, at all.
What implications does this have for the rough interpretations of Des-
cartes’s comments regarding the narrator’s restricted sensory perceptions in
Med. II? Well, first, the narrator is not primarily worried that his sensory per-
ceptions aren’t his being aware of external corporeal substances, but is con-
cerned that sensory perceptions aren’t his being aware of anything. While “feel-
ing warmth” and “seeing red” seem to the narrator as his own mental operations
(and about this there is no doubt) which truly represent external substances, the
obscurity and indistinctness of such sensory states prevents him from conclud-
ing, in Med. II and III, that they are in fact what they seem to be. In other words,
while he seems to have such mental operations (i.e., the mental awarenesses of
the modes of substances), the narrator’s mental states are really about nonthings
— unreal — things. Thus, these mental states are not in fact ideas. So, consid-
eration of Descartes’s discussion of material falsity is evidence that
(C) Sense-perceptions are awarenesses of nonthings
is one of the ways in which the narrator’s faculty of sensory perception is re-
stricted in Med. II and III. If this is the case, then we should understand the sort
of sensory perception attributed to the narrator in Med. II as one which is, at
best, merely a manner of thinking, but which, as yet, cannot be said to be truly a
mode of thinking which represents, to the narrator, things, as it were.
But what about:
(B) Sense-perceptions are merely phenomenal states whose real causes and objects are
unknown and, as yet, cannot be thought of as awareness of corporeal substances
as another restriction on the narrator’s sensory perception? Certainly, if the con-

tents of the narrator’s sensory ideas are formally determined by something other
than corporeal substances, Descartes stipulates in Med. III, the true cause of
such ideas is nothing and arises only from a fundamental defect in his essence.
He has a dysfunctional mode of thinking which cannot do what, on the surface,
it intends to do: represent substances.62 Moreover, if the narrator’s sensory per-
ceptions cannot be said to be of things, then they could not consistently be con-
sidered awarenesses of corporeal substances. Thus, given that the narrator’s
ideas, being sufficiently obscure and indistinct, might be materially false, the
narrator cannot say, in Med. II, that his sensory perception is truly an awareness
of bodily things. However, one should understand the concern behind limitation
(B). This is not a worry that extended substances do not exist as immediate ob-
jects of the narrator’s sensory perceptions; it is a worry that nothing is. Corpo-
real substances might exist, but whether they are indeed the intentional objects
of the narrator’s second-grade sensory ideas is not so clear. Indeed, the narrator,
in Med.’s II & III, cannot determine that his second-grade sensory ideas are, as
it were, about things.
What then is this “restricted” mental function the narrator finds in himself in
Med. II? It is, in the end, a bundle of various functions (tactility, sight, hearing,
smelling and taste) through which the narrator seems aware of bodily things, as
it were. The narrator, however, cannot say with certainty that these mental op-
erations are what they seem. Certainly, these functions are mental functions,
modes of thought, but even so, they cannot be said to be functions through
which the narrator is phenomenally aware of things, as it were. Moreover, since
the narrator cannot say that these ideas are truly representations, he cannot say
that they are awarenesses of external corporeal substances. Thus, he cannot con-
clude that his mental operations of sense-perceiving are ideas, according to his
strict definition of “idea.”
The Narrator’s Restricted Sense of Imagination

In addition to having doubts about the narrator’s sensory perception in Med.
I-III, Descartes seemingly raises doubts concerning the narrator’s faculty of
imagination. On the surface, the reason for these concerns seems similar to that
motivating the narrator’s skepticism about his sensory perception: skepticism
regarding whether “…the objects of imagination are real.”63 However, problems
of perceptual relativity and hallucination hardly seem sufficient for doubting
either the “reality” (take reality, for now, to mean existence) of the objects of
imagination or the ability of the narrator to “fully” imagine. (For instance, leav-
ing open the possibility that one merely dreams one is imagining a part goat,
part human, substance doesn’t raise doubts about whether one really imagines.)
If one takes imagination as “…merely the contemplation of the shape or
image of a corporeal thing,”64 without also presupposing that the objects of
imagination are extramental, cerebral substances, why the narrator need concern
himself at all with the reality of the objects of imagination is unclear. Indeed, if
one also understands the concern as being about the formal existence of the ob-
jects of imagination, the reader of Meditations has difficulty discerning just why
Meditation II 67
the narrator would even need raise the question of the reality of supposedly
nonexistent substances when determining whether he really imagines.
As for sensory perception, the interpretative answer seems not to under-
stand the narrator’s doubts about the reality of the objects of imagination as
skepticism about their formal existence. Instead, the question is about whether
phenomenal imaginary states have objects insofar as they represent true and
immutable natures to the mind. As discussed in the wax example, the doubts
about the narrator’s imaginary states concern whether the content of the mental
operations truly contains objective reality:
…let us concentrate, take away everything which does not belong to the wax, and see
what is left: merely something extended, flexible and changeable. But what is meant
here by ‘flexible’ and ‘changeable’? Is it what I picture in my imagination: that this
piece of wax is capable of changing from a round shape to a square shape…Not at all;
for I can grasp that the wax is capable of countless changes of this kind, yet I am unable
to run through this immeasurable number of changes in my imagination, from which it
follows that it is not the faculty of imagination that gives me my grasp of the wax as
flexible and changeable…I must therefore admit that the nature of this piece of wax is
in no way revealed to my imagination, but is perceived by the mind alone. (I am speak-
ing of this particular piece of wax; the point is even clearer with regard to wax in gen-
eral.) (AT VII.31: CSM II.21)
What raises the narrator’s skeptical eyebrows, then, is not the possible nonexist-
ence of cerebral semblances itself (or even the possible nonexistence of the ex-
ternal corporeal substances represented by objects of imagination), but the ap-
parent evidence that his imaginary ideas do not objectively <representationally>
contain the immutable nature of the wax: the true essential properties of the wax
seem not themselves represented or objectively contained in his imaginary
ideas. The wax, to be sure, (thinks the narrator) can be imagined in a number of
different ways. However, the essential attributes of the wax are not themselves
clearly and distinctly represented by the various imaginary ideas the narrator
might have of the wax. The narrator imagines malleability, for example, by
imagining the wax in various sensible states (being yellow and then red, smell-
ing sweet, then smelling of skunk, for example); but this is not to directly and
immediately call to mind an idea of malleability. The idea of malleability, the
thought which clearly and distinctly gives objective reality to the res having
malleability as a true and immutable attribute, is contained in the judgment that
the piece of wax is malleable. Indeed, the imaginary ideas, the narrator is led to
conclude, seem not thoughts through which he becomes immediately aware of
the piece of wax. In fact, his imaginary ideas of the wax seem, upon inspection,
not to represent the wax at all.
While the narrator here concerns himself with his awareness of a single
piece of wax, the point is a more general one. Imaginary ideas such as “imagin-
ing heat” or “imagining red” are not ideas which bring the narrator to an imme-
diate clear and distinct awareness of a true, immutable, real essence. Indeed,
once the narrator discovers that his imaginary ideas are so obscure that he can-
not determine that they represent things, as it were, he must question whether
his imaginary ideas represent genuine modes of a real essence. So, in the end,
the narrator’s imaginings are suspect for the same reasons as his sensory percep-
tion: upon initial inspection, they are such that the narrator cannot determine
that they truly represent substances at all.
Indeed, if “imagining cold” is not phenomenally distinct from “feeling
cold,” then Descartes seemingly cannot claim that the former are clear and dis-
tinct and the latter are not. Imagining cold, the idea, formally speaking, on Des-
cartes’s view, plays the same phenomenal role as sensing cold: an awareness of
a particular mode of a corporeal substance. That is, both represent the same
thing to the attending mind. Since both imaginary and sensory states (taken ei-
ther materially or formally), on Descartes’s view, play the same phenomenal
role representing the modes of corporeal essences, and since both do so with
equivalent lack of clarity and distinctness, both are subject to the same sort of
skepticism in the early Meditations.
What, then, is the status of the narrator’s imaginings in the early Medita-
tions? To be sure, Descartes claims (at minimum) that such thoughts are indeed
thoughts and the narrator’s thoughts at that. Descartes cannot claim, however,
that the narrator truly imagines in a “full” sense. That is, he cannot claim that
(D) The narrator imagines in the “full” sense: imagination is the phenomenal aware-
ness of the phenomenal representations of an external corporeal substance.
He cannot claim that (D) because, being so obscure and indistinct, imaginary
ideas are possibly materially false. Since they might be materially false, imagi-
nary ideas might not be representations at all. If so, then the narrator cannot be
said to imagine in the manner suggested by (D).
The discussion of material falsity in Med. III and the wax example in Med.
II show that
(F) The narrator imagines only in a limited sense in that his imagination seems the phe-
nomenal awareness of corporeal substances, but may be not be awareness of any-
thing
is a correct understanding of how the narrator’s imaginings are restricted in

Med. II. The narrator cannot conclude, with certainty (in Med. II) that his imag-
Meditation II 69
inings are indeed awarenesses of even the representations (be they presumed
phenomenal or cerebral) of substances, let alone corporeal substances. Descartes
speaks hesitantly when attributing the mode of imagination to the narrator in
Med. II, not so much because the truth of res cogitans does not entail that the
phantasy (the true object of imagination) exists, but because the narrator’s imag-
inings are obscure and indistinct. So indistinct and obscure are they that the nar-
rator cannot determine that his phenomenal states of imagining are what they
appear: ideas whose contents represent (thus make the narrator aware of) the
representations of corporeal things. The narrator, then, cannot be sure that he
really imagines in the sense that his imaginings make him aware of anything.
The narrator’s worry is neither that his imaginations aren’t really his ideas or
that they lack some truly existent formal cause, but that they are not really his
ideas.
Conclusions
In the early Meditations, the narrator’s concerns about his powers of imagi-
nation and sensory perceptions stem from his concern about his sensory and
imaginary ideas themselves. The narrator, by presuming neither the existence of
corporeal substances nor the reality of the corporeal essence, cannot determine
that his sensory perceptions and imaginary faculties are true faculties of his
mind. The narrator worries that his obscure and indistinct sensory and imagi-
nary ideas might be materially false in that they might not be, materially speak-
ing, ideas. His sensory and imaginary ideas are materially false just in case they
are not phenomenal representations. They fail to be what they seem (and they
seem ideas, in the sense that they are phenomenal representations) just in case
they do not present to the narrator any genuine essence or nature. If none of his
sensory or imaginary ideas are materially true, he must at least include the fac-
ulties of imagination and sensory perception among his functions of thought,
but cannot say with certainty that they are like the other modes of thought. Un-
like the other ideas attributed to the narrator in Med. II, all imaginary and sen-
sory ideas are unclear and indistinct. So unclear and indistinct are they that the
narrator cannot determine that the very functions of imagination and sensory
perceptions are not mistaken functions which seem what they are not: modes of
thought representing corporeal substances.
To allay his skeptical worries about the functions of imagination and sen-
sory perception, the narrator must show that at least some of his imaginary ideas
and some of his sensory ideas are not materially false. To show that they are not
materially false, the narrator must show either that at least a number of either
imaginary or sensory ideas are, upon closer inspection, clear and distinct, or
despite their obscurity and indistinctness, he has certain evidence that at least
some of his imaginary and at least some of his sensory ideas are both represen-
tations and representations of corporeal substances.
Chapter IV
Imagination in Meditations V and VI
As shown in the previous chapter, the narrator’s skeptical worries cause him to
speak with hesitation when attributing the faculties of imagination and sensory
perception to himself (qua a thinking thing.) His hesitation comes in the form of
the narrator attributing only restricted senses of imagination and sensory percep-
tion to himself. The senses of imagination and sensory perception he attributes
to himself are restricted in that they are only functions of seeming to imagine
and seeming to sense-perceive. As I suggested, we ought to interpret the narra-
tor’s power of seeming to imagine as nothing more than a power through which
the narrator apparently has ideas of corporeal substances. That is, his power of
imagination seems a power which allows him to phenomenally represent corpo-
real substances. However, his imaginary ideas are so obscure and indistinct that
he cannot be sure that they are truly phenomenal representations. I also sug-
gested in the previous chapter that we understand the narrator’s power of seem-
ing to sense-perceive as being restricted in two ways.
First, the narrator only seems to perceive (given the dream problem) in that
he cannot determine that he ever really sense-perceives. The narrator cannot
determine that his sensory ideas are truly ideas representing actual, external
corporeal substances. Since this is so, he can only attribute to himself a sensory
power only distinguishable from his imaginary power in that his sensory power
seems a different mental power from his imaginary power. In the early Medita-
tions, the narrator cannot, then (given his skeptical epistemic principles), attrib-
ute a sensory power to himself that is distinct from his power of imagination.
Second, the narrator only seems to sense-perceive in that he cannot deter-
mine that his sensory ideas are truly ideas. Given the obscurity and indistinct-
ness of his second-grade sensory ideas, he cannot, with certainty, determine that
they are materially true ideas. The narrator’s skeptical stance in the early Medi-
tations leaves open the possibility that none of his sensory ideas are really phe-
nomenal representations. Since this is so, he cannot then determine that his fac-
ulty of sensory perception is what it seems. His sensory faculty seems a mental
faculty through which he is aware of external corporeal substances. But if none
of the ideas generated by this faculty are materially true ideas, then the faculty
itself is a mistaken faculty insofar as it is a faculty which seems to generate
ideas, but does not.
To attribute the “full” senses of imagination and sensory perception to him-
self, the narrator must demonstrate that at least some of his imaginary and sen-
sory ideas are, materially speaking, ideas. Thus the narrator must show that, de-
spite the obscurity and indistinctness of his imaginary and sensory ideas, at least
some of them are not materially false. By showing that his imaginary or sensory
ideas can truly be ideas, the narrator can establish that the faculties are genuine
faculties of his mind.
The narrator must also demonstrate that sensation is a distinguishable men-
tal faculty from imagination. That is, he must demonstrate that his second-grade
sensory function is indeed a mental function through which he is phenomenally
aware of actual, external corporeal substances (versus the nonactual, external
corporeal substance of which he is aware when imagining). To establish that
sensation is a genuine, distinct faculty from imagination, the narrator must show
that sensory ideas are distinct from imaginary ideas. This is not to say that the
narrator must satisfactorily demonstrate that sensory ideas are epistemically dis-
tinguishable from imaginary ideas. All he need show is that he has adequate
justification for believing that his sensory powers have actual, external corpo-
real substances as their objects insofar as he has ideas which are about (inten-
tional sense) actual, external corporeal substances.
Moreover, before the narrator can even begin to consider the problem of
whether corporeal substances exist, he must first have reason to raise the ques-
tion. If he has no materially true ideas of corporeal substances, he really needn’t
worry about their existence, for if his second-grade sensory and imaginary ideas
are materially false, the very thoughts he has of corporeal substances aren’t
really about (in an intentional sense) the corporeal substances. The thoughts he
has of corporeal substances would not even be ideas insofar as they would not
objectively contain any essence. If so, the narrator need not even search for a
formal cause of his ideas of corporeal substance, for the materially false idea
has no formal cause.1 So, to even begin his arguments for the existence of cor-
poreal substances, the narrator needs to show that his powers of imagination and
sense-perception are what they seem. That is, the narrator must begin his proof
that his imaginary and sensory powers are real powers by proving that they are
not materially false.
To show that his sensory and imaginary faculties are fully powers of his
mind (in the manner in which his understanding is fully a power of his mind),
Meditations V and VI 73
the narrator must first demonstrate that at least some of his imaginary and sen-
sory ideas are not materially false. That is, he must show that some of his
imaginary or sensory ideas are clear and distinct ideas (and thus not candidates
for material falsity) or that, despite their obscurity and indistinctness, he has
sufficient reason for believing that they represent (in some manner and to some
degree) the corporeal essence.
In short, to prove that his powers of imagination and sensory perception are
real powers of his mind (versus merely apparent ones), the narrator must first
establish that at least some of his imaginary or sensory ideas are not materially
false. To establish this, he must demonstrate that either some of his imaginary
ideas are not obscure and indistinct or despite their obscurity and indistinctness,
at least some of his imaginary or sensory ideas are phenomenal representations
(i.e., they objectively contain some true immutable essence). The narrator must
then demonstrate that his power of sensation is truly a distinct power from his
imaginary power. To show this, he must demonstrate that his sensory ideas are
about (in an intentional sense) external corporeal substances. To so demonstrate,
he must show that the objects of his sensory states are in fact what they seem:
actually existing corporeal substances.
Imagination in Meditation V
In Med. V, the narrator returns again to the worries that plagued him in
Med. III; the proof for God’s existence and the material truth of his ideas of
corporeal substances. Relevant for my purposes here is Descartes’s recognition
that the material truth of some of the narrator’s ideas of corporeal substances:
…I find within me countless ideas of things which even though they may not exist
anywhere outside me still cannot be called nothing; for although in a sense they can be
thought of at will, they are not my invention but have their own true and immutable na-
tures. When, for example, I imagined a triangle, even if perhaps no such figure exists,
or have ever existed, anywhere outside my thought, there is still a determinate nature,
or essence, or form of the triangle which is immutable and eternal, and not invented by
me or dependent on my mind. This is clear from the fact that various properties can be
demonstrated of the triangle, for example that its three angles equal two right angles,
that its greatest side subtends its greatest angle, and the like; and since these properties
are ones which I now clearly recognize whether I want to or not, even if I never thought
of them at all when I previously imagined the triangle, it follows that they cannot have
been invented by me. (AT VII.64: CSM II.44–5)
Here Descartes’s narrator “discovers” that some of his ideas regarding corporeal
substances present determinate essences to him. That is, the clarity and distinct-
ness had by some of his ideas about corporeal substances are sufficient for him
to judge that they objectively (representationally) contain and present genuine

essences. Given the criteria provided in Med. II regarding material falsity, Des-
cartes’s narrator may here conclude that at least some of his ideas regarding
corporeal substances are materially true. His idea of the triangle is clear and dis-
tinct enough for him to judge that the idea is about (in an intentional sense) a
real essence and thus does not present a nonthing as though it were a thing.
However, the narrator doesn’t mean to count all his ideas of corporeal sub-
stance among the materially true. All he concludes here is that his idea of the
triangle (and, seemingly, other similar ideas) is sufficiently clear and distinct for
him to render the judgment that his idea of the triangle is materially true. The
evidence he provides for the sufficient clarity and distinctness of his idea of the
triangle is that certain properties of the object represented by his idea are
mathematically demonstrable. The properties listed (e.g., the internal angles’
sum is 180º) are all mathematical formulas describing how the triangle occupies
space. The demonstrable properties had by the triangle are the properties de-
scribing its manner of being extended in space. So, here the narrator considers
ideas of corporeal substances insofar as he considers ideas representing “…the
subject-matter of pure mathematics.”2 While the ideas may also represent the
objects as being colored, stinky or otherwise perceptible, the ideas about corpo-
real substances that the narrator here concludes are materially true are those
ideas whose objects are mathematically definable figures and shapes. The mate-
rially true ideas discussed here are those about (in an intentional sense) shaped
objects. Further, the extension of the objects of these ideas is not mentally ap-
prehended by the objects’ sensible or imaginable properties (colors, sounds,
etc.). Instead, the extension is represented by the objects’ being phenomenally
represented in such a way that the understanding may grasp and mathematically
define their respective manners of extension. The narrator, in Med. V does not
conclude that such objects exist. He merely concludes that his ideas of corporeal
substances, when taken as representations of the subject-matter of pure mathe-
matics (geometry), represent genuine essences and are thus materially true.
Moreover, these ideas of corporeal substance, he suggests, are innate ideas.3
But how so? He seemingly concludes this by a process of elimination. Earlier,
in Med. II, he divided ideas into three classifications: innate, adventitious and
invented by his mind.4 He begins his defense by suggesting that the essence or
nature of the geometrical shapes do not depend upon him.5 This distinguishes
his ideas of corporeal figures from those ideas which are his own invention. Un-
like his idea of a centaur, whose essence is invented by the mind, the idea of a
triangle as an enclosed three-sided figure is not composed of parts of other ideas
(as in the case of the centaur). The essence of the triangle—its manner of exten-
sion—is not something invented by the narrator’s mind.
The narrator then argues that his ideas of the triangle do not presuppose his
having previously sensed a triangle:
It would be beside the point for me to say that since I have from time to time seen
bodies of triangular shape, the idea of the triangle may have come to me from external
things by means of the sense organs. For I can think up countless other shapes which
there can be no suspicion of my ever having encountered through the senses, and yet I
can demonstrate various properties of these shapes, just as I can with the triangle. (AT
VII.64–5: CSM II.45)
This distinguishes his ideas of the triangle from his adventitious ideas. His ideas
of the geometrical figures are not activated or most clearly apprehended by sen-
sory stimuli (as are the ideas of color). Instead, his ideas of the geometrical
shapes are ideas arrived at through a priori reasoning about the imagined trian-
gle:
…when I consider the nature of a triangle, it appears most evident to me, steeped as I
am in the principles of geometry, that its three angles are equal to two right angles; and
so long as I attend to the proof, I cannot but believe this is true. (AT VII.69–70: CSM
II.48)
The ideas he derives from and about the imagined triangle are, then, materially
true ideas, for they are self-evident, innate ideas. But of what form are these
ideas? The narrator here indicates that he refers to the triangle he imagined, thus
indicating that the materially true idea of triangle is a phenomenal act of imagin-
ing. In Descartes’s strict sense of imagining, imagining is only the phenomenal
act of “picturing” (not limited to mere visual picturing, but “picturing” in a
broader sensual sense) before the mind’s eye as described in my second chapter.
However, the narrator may here use the term more loosely, to mean “conceive.”
If so, then he may imagine a triangle in that he pictures a triangle before his
mind’s eye or he imagines a triangle in that he conceives of an enclosed, three-
sided figure without also “picturing” it before his mind’s eye. If only the former,
then the narrator’s idea of the triangle is one employing his use of imagination.
If only the latter, the narrator’s idea is one of understanding. If only the former,
then Descartes’s narrator’s imagining a triangle (picturing a three-sided, en-
closed figure) is a materially true idea. If only the latter, the narrator’s under-
standing the triangle (understanding that the object of the idea is a three-sided,
enclosed figure) is a materially true idea. If he uses “imagined triangle” to mean
either understanding or imagining a triangle in the sense of merely having an
idea (without regard to what kind of idea it is) of a triangle, then he means both
his picturing a three-sided, enclosed figure and his understanding what it means
for a triangle to be a three-sided, enclosed figure are materially true ideas.
Given his defense that his idea of the triangle is materially true, the narra-
tor’s conclusions regarding the material truth of his idea of the triangle might
only pertain to his understanding the triangle. The mathematical formulae de-
scribing the extension of the triangle are, of course, ideas of understanding, not
ideas of imagination (in the strict “picturing” sense). We generally believe that
one does not “picture” mathematical formulae before the mind’s eye. Instead,
one conceives of mathematical equations describing geometrical figures as be-
ing mental acts of understanding which are not pictured in the imagination. The
ideas which phenomenally represent the triangle, then, are those ideas giving a
mathematical description of the triangle’s extension—the ideas of understand-
ing a triangle. The ideas picturing the triangle do not give mathematical descrip-
tions of the triangle’s extension and thus are not ideas representing the triangle.
Consider again, however, the problems that Descartes’s narrator attempts to
resolve. The narrator needs to counter the problems of material falsity of his
ideas of corporeal substance. He also needs to counter the problems of whether
his sensory and imaginary faculties may produce any materially true ideas. Des-
cartes’s narrator, in Med. II, never doubts the material truth of his ideas of un-
derstanding corporeal substances. He only doubts the material truth of his sen-
sory and imaginative ideas of corporeal substances. This argument in Med. V
aims at the narrator’s discovering his materially true ideas of corporeal sub-
stances and is thus meant to resolve some of the earlier concerns regarding the
possible material falsity of his ideas about corporeal substances. Thus, if this
argument does what the narrator intends, it must be an argument concerning the
narrator’s imagining (strict sense of “picturing”) the triangle, drawn out, as it
were, before the mind’s eye. At the very least, the narrator’s materially true
ideas of the “imagined” triangle should include the idea of the triangle as it is
depicted in the imagination. This isn’t to say he wishes to exclude his under-
standing of the triangle from the ideas he discusses here in Med. V. Nonethe-
less, his picturing the triangle in his imagination must be counted among the
materially true ideas if this line of argumentation is to accomplish its task.
But how could an imaginary idea contain the essence of the triangle, if the
essence of the triangle is revealed in mathematical equations? First, the pictur-
ing of the triangle itself does not contain the mathematical equation. The figure,
drawn out in the imagination, does not objectively contain or represent mathe-
matical formula per se, but objectively contains the same manner of extension
represented in the idea of the mathematical formula. Both the ideas giving
mathematical descriptions of how the triangle occupies space and the imaginary
ideas giving pictorial renditions of the extension of the triangle represent the
same manner of extension. Second, given Cartesian geometry, the shapes can be
described equally well either graphically or “mathematically.” Anyone recall-
ing the tiresome parabolas knows that the geometrical figures described by
mathematical formulae can be clearly and distinctly represented pictorially. The
triangle, as drawn in the imagination, contains the same essence described in
certain mathematical equations. The same is true for other figures whose man-
ners of extension can be clearly and distinctly described mathematically.6
If the narrator concludes, here in Med. V, that imaginary ideas of mathe-
matical shapes are materially true ideas—and I believe he does—he resolves
several problems raised in the earlier Meditations. First, this conclusion estab-
lishes the narrator’s faculty of imagination as a genuine faculty of his mind. The
narrator does not merely seem to imagine, but does in fact imagine. Recall that,
in Med. II, the narrator, given his skepticism, could only conclude that he imag-
ined in a restricted sense. The imagining he attributed to himself in Med. II was
restricted in that
(F) The narrator imagines only in a limited sense in that his imagination seems the phe-
nomenal awareness of corporeal substances, but may be not be awareness of any-
thing.
Since he now has proved that his imaginary ideas, at least in the case of imagin-
ing geometrical figures, can be materially true, he may then conclude that his
imaginary ideas are genuine ideas. He may now conclude that his imaginings
are phenomenal awarenesses which represent genuine essences. Thus, hence-
forth from Med. V, the narrator may now presume that he imagines in that
the narrator imagines in the “full” sense:
(D) Imagination is the phenomenal awareness of the phenomenal representations of an

external corporeal substance
In addition, recall that in the previous Meditations the narrator could not
distinguish his faculty of sensory perception from his faculty of imagination. He
only seems to perceive in that his sensory perceptions are mental states which
seem to be awarenesses of external corporeal substances but in fact might be
mere imaginings. While his concluding that his imaginary ideas of geometrical
forms are materially true does nothing to reestablish the distinction between
imagination and sensory perceptions, this does indicate that some of his imagi-
nary states which seem to be sensory states (and which the narrator considers to
be imaginary for now) are materially true. For instance, the narrator might con-
sider an idea of a triangle, an idea which seems a sensory idea. This idea is ma-
terially true insofar as it clearly and distinctly contains a genuine essence. Thus,
in Med. V, the narrator may also conclude that those ideas which have mathe-
matical figures as their objects and seem to be sensory states are materially true
ideas. He cannot and does not conclude, however, that these materially true
ideas are in fact sensory, rather than imaginary, ideas.
To summarize the narrator’s conclusions, the narrator here in Med. V, dem-
onstrates that some of his imaginary ideas, specifically, those about (in an inten-
tional sense) the figures which are the subject matter of pure mathematics, are
materially true. Thus, he may conclude that his power of imagination is a genu-
ine faculty of thought insofar as the power is capable of producing genuine (ma-
terially true) ideas.7 He does not merely seem to imagine, but really imagines.
By the end of Med. V, the narrator can claim, with the requisite certainty, that
he does in fact have a faculty of thinking in which he contemplates the shape or
image of corporeal things.
By the end of Med. V, the narrator may also claim that some of his ideas
which seem sensory ideas are also materially true. The idea of a triangle, in fact,
may seem an idea about (in an intentional sense) an externally existing triangle,
rather than a triangle drawn in the imagination. This idea (and all other “sen-
sory” ideas about mathematical shapes and figures) is materially true for the
same reason(s) that the imaginary idea of the triangle is materially true. How-
ever, Descartes’s narrator cannot claim that this quells all doubts regarding sen-
sory perceptions. Not all the skeptical problems raised by the cases of hallucina-
tion and relativity in the earlier Meditations are erased by his demonstration that
some of the apparent sensory perceptions are materially true. For instance, that
the narrator’s “sensory” idea of a triangle is materially true is not sufficient for
the narrator to conclude that the idea isn’t instead a mere imaginary idea. He has
no proof, as of yet, that corporeal substances exist, let alone that a triangle is
now before his senses.
Thus, the narrator cannot make the same strong conclusion about his faculty
of sensory perception that he makes about his power of imagination. While he
may claim that he really imagines, he cannot claim that he really sense-
perceives or that he has sensory ideas distinct from imaginary ideas. He cannot
claim, with any certainty, that he has a faculty of thinking through which he is
aware of externally existing corporeal substances. That is, he cannot claim, at
the conclusion of Med. V, that he does in fact have a faculty of sensory percep-
tion.
Since he cannot claim that he really sense-perceives, Descartes’s narrator is
not in a position to begin Med. VI with his proofs for the existence of corporeal
substance with arguments presuming that he really sense-perceives. Instead, he
must begin with a discussion of the mental faculty which he has shown to be a
genuine faculty of his mind —his power of imagination. Moreover, he cannot
begin his arguments regarding the existence of corporeal substance with com-
ments about any of his imaginary ideas. Since he has only shown that the
imaginary ideas about geometrical figures are materially true, he must limit his
arguments to such ideas. This is why Med. VI begins:
It remains for me to examine whether material things exist. And at least I now know
that they are capable of existing, in so far as they are the subject-matter of pure mathe-
matics, since I perceive them clearly and distinctly…The conclusion that material
things exist is also suggested by the faculty of imagination, which I am aware of using
when I turn my mind to material things. (AT VII.71–2: CSM II.50)
A discussion of the “faculty of sensory perception” is noticeably absent here.

The arguments concerning imagination found at the beginning of Med. VI, to
which I now turn, then play a necessary starting point for the narrator’s proof of
material things.
First Difference between Imagination and Understanding

Early in Med. VI, the narrator names one of his goals as proving that the
power of imagination is “…nothing else but an application of the cognitive fac-
ulty to a body which is intimately present to it and which therefore exists.”8 He
begins his proof by showing a major difference between his power of imagina-
tion and his power of understanding. The difference is that the power of imagi-
nation requires a “…a peculiar effort of mind not required for understand-
ing…”9 The narrator demonstrates this by presenting the well-known “chiliagon
example.”10 Descartes’s narrator compares both his abilities to understand and
imagine a triangle to his abilities to understand and imagine a chiliagon. He can
clearly and distinctly both understand and imagine a triangle. He can also
clearly and distinctly understand the chiliagon. He cannot, however, clearly and
distinctly imagine a chiliagon:
But if I want to think of a chiliagon, although I understand that it is a figure consisting

of a thousand sides just as well as I understand the triangle to be a three sided figure, I
do not in the same way imagine the thousand sides or see them as if they were present
before me. It is true that since I am in the habit of imagining something whenever I
think of a corporeal thing, I may construct in my mind a confused representation of
some figure; but it is clear that this is not a chiliagon. For it differs in no way from the
representation I should form if I were thinking of a myriagon, or any figure with very
many sides. Moreover, such a representation is useless for recognizing the properties
which distinguish a chiliagon from other polygons. (AT VII.72: CSM II.50)
In a way, this difference counters a problem that many may raise upon reading
Med. V. The problem is the reader’s skepticism regarding one’s own ability to
clearly and distinctly imagine the geometrical shapes. To draw the geometrical
shapes before the mind’s eye, with sufficient precision, is very difficult. One
might grant that the parabola described in a mathematical formula, when drawn
out on precisely lined graphed paper by a skilled artist, represents the same pa-
rabola’s manner of extension with the same clarity and distinctness as the
mathematical equation. Aside from the more gifted among us, most would
speak even more hesitantly about one’s abilities to clearly and distinctly imag-
ine this parabola. Thus, a question arises about the narrator’s conclusions in
Med. II—one does not clearly and distinctly imagine the figures which are the
subject-matter of geometry.
Descartes’s narrator, in Med. VI, seemingly counters this objection with the
triangle example. Surely, he suggests, his imagining a triangle (and a pentagon)
is sufficiently clear and distinct for him to claim that it contains a genuine es-
sence. With the chiliagon example, he concedes that his imagining such a com-
plex figure is less clear and distinct. But rather than conceding that this under-
cuts his arguments in Med. V, he then concludes that this shows that imagina-
tion requires a special effort not required by the understanding. Three questions
arise at this point. First, what is this peculiar effort? Second, why is it entailed
by the example? Finally, how does this avoid the problem concerning the clarity
and distinctness of imaginary ideas?
First, the peculiar effort required by the imagination might be construed as
one of an extra difficulty. Descartes’s narrator, on this interpretation, merely
claims that imagining these figures is more difficult than understanding them.
Imagining a triangle is difficult enough, he might be saying, but imagining
something as complex as a chiliagon is much too difficult for the average cog-
nizer. On this view, it is more difficult to draw the extension of the mathemati-
cal figures than it is to form the ideas “a triangle is a three-sided figure” or “a
chiliagon is a thousand-sided figure.” So, the imaginary ideas of mathematical
figures require a peculiar effort insofar as imagining figures clearly and dis-
tinctly is more difficult than understanding them.
On one level, this is an innocuously correct interpretation in that Descartes
here and elsewhere suggests that the more complicated mathematical figures are
more easily grasped by the understanding. However, this is not itself the pecu-
liar effort, but the reason for believing that the imagination requires a peculiar
effort. Descartes’s narrator believes the only way to account for the difficulty of
forming imaginary ideas of mathematical figures and shapes is that imagination
requires an extra effort on the part of the mind. The extra effort is the extra ef-
fort one must put into creating the ideas of mathematical figures.
Given the Med. II definition of imagination as “…the contemplation of the

shape or image of a corporeal thing…” we might understand the extra effort as
the effort required to form the shape or image of the corporeal things imag-
ined.11 The power of understanding does not require that the cognizer form
shapes or images of corporeal things when understanding corporeal figures.
With the power of understanding, the idea of the corporeal substance is itself
represented in the essence of the represented corporeal. With the power of
imagination, the essence of the represented corporeal figure must be first repre-
sented in an image or shape of the corporeal figure before an idea which objec-
tively (representationally) contains the essence, as it is represented by the shape
or image, may be formed. The power of imagination does not directly contem-
plate the mathematical figures, as does the understanding, but only contemplates
representations of them.
The extra effort on the part of the mind is then the effort required to form
representations of the corporeal figures. Whereas the understanding need only
perform acts of understanding to have genuine (materially true) ideas of the
corporeal substances, the power of imagination must form adequate representa-
tions of the corporeal figures before having genuine (materially true) ideas of
corporeal figures. The resulting imaginary ideas, the ‘contemplations of the
shapes or images of mathematical shapes’ objectively contain and are about (in
an intentional sense) the figures themselves insofar as the figures are representa-
tionally contained in the shapes or images formed by the imagination. That is,
the imaginary ideas about geometrical figures are materially true insofar as the
imaginary ideas are both about the representations formed by the acts of imagin-
ing them and the representations formed clearly and distinctly represent the es-
sences of the figures imagined.
The difference between the difficulty of imagining a mathematical figure
versus understanding one is thus explained by the imagination’s requiring the
formation of representations of corporeal figures. These representations serve as
the objects of the imagination. They are what the imaginary ideas are about.
That is, imaginary ideas are about pictorial representations of the geometrical
figures. Ideas of understanding are about the geometrical shapes themselves.
The mind need not form the objects of understanding before the mind’s eye.
The mind must, however, form the objects of imagination before the mind’s
eye. Thus, the mind requires an extra effort not required by the understanding,
the effort being the mental effort required to form the objects of imagination.
Moreover, this argument suggests that imagination is a limited power.12 The
imagination is limited by the ability of the cognizer to form the more complex
representations. However, it is not clear that he claims here that the imagination
itself is limited. Instead, limited are the cognizer’s “artistic” abilities, his abili-
ties to form clear and distinct representations of corporeal substances before the
mind’s eye. The faculty of imagination grasps the formed representation of the
chiliagon as easily as it apprehends the representations of the pentagon. The
representation of the chiliagon, however, is not clear and distinct whereas the
representation of the pentagon is. The resulting imaginary idea of the chiliagon,
then, is only as clear and distinct as the formed representation of the chiliagon.
So, we should not read this argument as implying that the faculty of imagination
is limited in its ability to apprehend the objects of its ideas. Instead, we should
read this as implying that the “peculiar effort” (the effort responsible for creat-
ing the representations apprehended by the imagination) is limited. The peculiar
effort can represent, with ease, the simpler figures, such as a triangle, but cannot
form clear and distinct representations of the more complex figures, such as a
chiliagon.
So, how does this avoid the problem concerning the clarity and distinctness
of imaginary ideas? Several possibilities arise. First, the narrator has discovered
that at least some of his imaginary ideas (specifically, those of the simpler
mathematical shapes) are clear and distinct enough for him to conclude that
such ideas are materially true. This would be sufficient for him to conclude that
he really imagines. All he needs to demonstrate is that some of imaginary ideas
of geometrical shapes are clear and distinct enough for him to conclude that his
imagination is materially true. He demonstrates this with the triangle and penta-
gon examples.
A second possibility is to understand the narrator as claiming that the
imaginary ideas, even those of the more complex figures, are clear and distinct
insofar as they adequately present the objects of the imagination. The faculty of
imagination adequately presents its objects to the attending mind, despite any
inadequacies of the representations presented by the imagination to the attend-
ing mind. According to this interpretation, the imaginary ideas, even those of
the more complex figures, are clear and distinct insofar as they adequately pre-
sent the objects of the imaginary ideas to the narrator.
However, an obvious difficulty presents itself to this second possibility. A
cognizer may judge that an idea is materially true so long as the idea is suffi-
ciently clear and distinct for the cognizer to determine that the idea objectively
contains some essence. If the object of imagination does not adequately repre-
sent some essence, then the resulting imaginary idea most likely does not repre-
sent some essence. That is, if the representations apprehended by the faculty of
imagination are not themselves such that they clearly and distinctly represent
some essence, then the ideas about these obscure representations do not clearly
and distinctly represent some essence. Given objects of imagination which are
so obscure and indistinct that they cannot be said to represent some particular
essence, the ideas about these representations, no matter how adequately pre-
senting the obscure and indistinct representations, are themselves obscure and
indistinct. These resulting ideas are obscure and indistinct in that they fail to
adequately represent some essence as well. An idea representing an obscure and
indistinct representation is itself obscure and indistinct. If one cannot determine
that a representation is about an essence, then one cannot determine that the idea
about the representation is about an essence. Thus, the imaginary idea about
obscure and indistinct representation (e.g., the imaginary idea of a chiliagon)
cannot be determined to be a materially true idea. Thus this second possibility
ought to be rejected.
The third possibility agrees with the second in reading the narrator as con-
cluding that the idea of the chiliagon is materially true. This third possibility
also agrees with the first in reading the narrator as claiming that the idea of the
chiliagon is not terribly clear and distinct. According to this reading, Descartes’s
narrator maintains that his imaginary idea of the shabbily shaped representation
of a chiliagon is materially true despite its obscurity and indistinctness. The
formed representation, as the narrator notes, is not distinguishable from other
polygons. In fact, the representation may be of any number of polygons. The
resulting imaginary idea about this poorly formed representation may be about
any number of polygons and is thus an unclear and indistinct idea.
Yet, how unclear and indistinct is this idea? Recall that obscurity and indis-
tinctness are merely necessary, but not sufficient conditions for an idea’s being
materially false. The idea must be so confused and indistinct that the narrator
cannot determine that the idea represents a genuine essence. Remember as well
that the materially false idea is so because it presents a nonthing as though it
were a thing. That the confused representation of the chiliagon might instead
represent a myriagon isn’t the type of skeptical worry leading the narrator to
conclude that the imaginary idea of the chiliagon is materially false. The way in
which the imaginary idea represents the chiliagon may lead the narrator to con-
clude that he now “sees” a chiliagon before him when he instead imagines a
centagon. This possibility, however, does not lead him to conclude that he imag-
ines something when he isn’t imagining anything at all.
The obscure and indistinct idea of the chiliagon is not like the idea of cold.
If cold is the absence of heat, then the sensation of cold, the idea, is materially
false, for it presents a nonthing, an absence, as though it were a thing. If the
imaginary idea of the chiliagon is instead about a representation which doesn’t
clearly represent a chiliagon, but does represent a polygon of some sort, the
imaginary idea does not present a nonthing as though it were a thing. Instead,
the unclear and indistinct imaginary idea presents one thing as though it were
another. The level and manner of the formed representation’s lack of clarity and
distinctness, then, is not cause for the narrator to reconsider the worry that his
imaginary ideas of the “subject-matter of pure mathematics,” even those of the
more complex geometrical figures, are materially false.
The first and third possibilities now remain the viable interpretative options.
If the first possibility is the case, the narrator only weakly defends his conclu-
sions regarding his abilities to imagine. If the third possibility correctly inter-
prets the chiliagon example, the narrator completely dismisses the objection to
his conclusions regarding the material truth of his imaginary ideas. For this rea-
son alone, I am inclined to accept the third option over the first. Nonetheless,
better reasons remain for accepting the third.
First, some might claim—and among them, some with unfortunate sincer-
ity—that they cannot clearly and distinctly imagine even a triangle. Such
shabby imaginative artists are they that even the triangles they form before their
minds’ eyes are confused representations. Descartes’s defense, if understood as
described in the third option, would defend his claims about imaginary ideas
against such unskilled imaginers’ claims. Even one’s poorly forming a represen-
tation of a triangle doesn’t entail that the imaginary idea of the triangle is mate-
rially false.
Second, along the same lines, consider also the imaginative ideas not
formed by the will, specifically, those ideas which seem formed by forces ex-
ternal to the narrator (i.e., the narrator’s mind.) For example, the “sensory” idea
of a triangle may also be obscure and indistinct. This “chiliagon argument”
would also defend the material truth of such ideas, if interpreted as described in
the third option. The argument would not defend the material truth of such ideas
if interpreted as described in the first option. One’s “sensing” a triangle would
not be materially false because the triangle is so poorly formed that one could
not distinguish it from a rhombus. The “sensing” of a poorly formed triangle
still objectively contains the essence—even if the attentive mind misjudges the
essence the idea contains
Third, given the above two reasons, the third possibility does not place the
“responsibility” for an idea’s material truth or falsity upon the peculiar effort
external to the idea itself. Two cognizers may each form, before their respective
“mind’s eyes” representations of a triangle. One does so poorly, so poorly that
the formed triangle is indistinguishable from other geometrical shapes. The
other cognizer forms the triangle well in that the formed shape is distinguishable
from other geometrical shapes. According to the first interpretative option, the
cognizer forming the representation poorly has a materially false idea and the
other cognizer has a materially true idea. So, the first option implies that the
material truth value of imaginary ideas depends on something external to the
ideas themselves. More specifically, the material truth of imaginary ideas, on
the first interpretation, depends on the effectiveness of the process producing

the image. This seems not in line with Descartes’s views regarding material fal-
sity.13
Given the third option, however, both cognizers have materially true imagi-
nary ideas of the triangle. The cognizer who poorly forms the representation of
the triangle still has an idea which presents some genuine essence, even if
poorly. This seems more in line with Descartes’s criteria for material falsity.
This interpretation, unlike the first, does not have Descartes asserting that the
material truth of an imaginary idea depends upon “peculiar effort” needed to
produce the object of the imagination. Thus, the third option seems the prefer-
able interpretation of how the “chiliagon example” defends the narrator’s claims
that at least some of his imaginary ideas are materially true.
The chiliagon example thus plays an important starting point for the narra-
tor’s proof for the existence of material things. Primarily, the argument provides
the basis for a defense that the narrator’s imaginary ideas of geometrical figures,
even if not terribly clear and distinct, are materially true ideas. The example also
provides the starting point for the narrator’s attributing the “full” imagination, as
described in my second chapter, to himself. This because this argument provides
an important conclusion: the conclusion that imaginary ideas require the forma-
tion of representations distinct from the imaginary idea itself.
This implies that imaginary ideas, even when clear and distinct, are not in-
nate ideas. That is, unlike the ideas of understanding the triangle, imagining a
triangle is not found by his inspecting his ideas via an a priori proof. The ideas
of understanding the geometrical figures are innate in that the mind does not
create either their objects or their phenomenal contents to have such ideas. The
mind, Descartes suggests in Med. V, does not create or gain the ideas of under-
standing the geometrical figures but discovers them via a priori proofs.14 His
ideas of understanding such figures do not require him to creatively determine
their phenomenal content.15
The imaginary ideas of the geometrical figures, however, require the crea-
tion of both the contents and the objects of imagination. While the creative con-
tents of the narrator’s understandings of the geometrical figures are not crea-
tively determined by the narrator’s will, the contents of the imaginary ideas are
determined by their objects. The objects of imagination (the representations of
the geometrical figures) are creatively determined by the narrator’s will. In the
case of his voluntary imaginings of geometrical figures, the narrator’s will de-
termines the phenomenal content of the imaginary ideas. Thus, these ideas are
not innate.
Yet the natures or essences of the geometrical shapes are not creatively de-
termined by the narrator. Thus, the imaginary ideas, while not innate, are not
invented ideas in the sense in which a centaur or unicorn is an invented idea.16

The invention of the narrator occurs on a different level. While the narrator does
not creatively determine the nature of the geometrical figures, he determines
how these figures appear before his mind’s eye. He determines the phenomenal
content of the imaginary ideas by determining how their objects represent the
geometrical shapes.
Thus, the “peculiar effort” on the part of the mind, when voluntarily imagin-
ing the geometrical figures, is the effort needed to create their phenomenal con-
tents. The imagining of the geometrical figures differs from understanding them
insofar as the ideas of understanding them are innate, and the ideas imagining
them are not. The phenomenal contents are about the representations of corpo-
real substances. The formation of these representations depends on the cognizer.
Thus, the phenomenal content of these ideas is dependent upon the will and
abilities of the cognizer.
Moreover, the narrator here only concerns himself with willful imaginings
of geometrical shapes. While we may “extend” the narrator’s arguments here to
those apparent sensory perceptions of geometrical shapes, we must, along with
the narrator, take these apparent sensory perceptions, not as sensory perceptions
per se, but as imaginings of representations formed by some effort (even if not a
willing one) on the part of his mind. The chiliagon example defends the narra-
tor’s claim that his “sensory” perceptions about geometrical figures, even if un-
clear and indistinct, are materially true. Establishing the material truth of the
narrator’s sensory ideas is an important step towards his proof that corporeal
substances exist as the objects of his sensory perceptions, for he does not need
to raise the question of their actual existence if none of his sensory perceptions
are materially true ideas. So if the narrator’s sensory perception is only an ap-
parent faculty of thought, he need not worry about a proof for the existence of
these objects. However, since he has now proven that some of his imaginary
ideas, specifically, those about geometrical objects, are materially true, the nar-
rator may now proceed to raise the question regarding the existence of these
objects.
The Second Difference: Essence and Imagination

In Med. VI, Descartes argues that the power of imagination depends upon a
substance other than his mind:
…I consider that this power of imagining which is in me, differing as it does from the
power of understanding, is not a necessary constituent of my own essence, that is, of
the essence of my mind. For if I lacked it, I should undoubtedly remain the same indi-
vidual as I now am; from which it seems to follow that it depends on something distinct
from myself. (AT VII.73: CSM I.51)
Here Descartes argues that the previous difference between imagination and
understanding entails a second difference between the two; that the power of
imagination is not a necessary constituent of the essence of the mind of the nar-
rator. This in turn entails that the narrator’s power of imagination depends on
some other substance. The whole argument may be roughly characterized as:
(1) The power of imagination differs from the power of understanding in that the power
of imagination requires an extra effort (on the part of the mind) not required by the
power of understanding
Therefore
(2) If the narrator lacked the power of imagination, he would remain an incorporeal
thinking substance
and
(3) [implied] If the narrator lacked the power of understanding, he would not remain
an incorporeal thinking substance17
Therefore
(4) The power of imagination is not a necessary constituent of the essence of the narra-
tor’s mind
and
(5) [implied] The power of understanding is a necessary constituent of the essence of
the narrator’s mind
Therefore
(6) The power of imagination depends upon some substance other than my mind
However, several ambiguities and contradictions are present in this argu-

ment. Primarily, why (1)–(5) entails (6) is unclear. Second, (4) is ambiguous in
that it could mean either that the narrator’s power of imagination is not a neces-
sary constituent of the essence of his mind or that it is not a constituent of the
essence of his mind at all. [(5) is similarly ambiguous in that it could mean that
the power of understanding is a necessary constituent of the essence of the mind
or that it is merely a constituent, but not a necessary one.] Third, the antecedents
of (2) and (3) are unclear.18
In this section, I will show how Descartes’s implicit presumptions about
modes, attributes and essences reveal that (4) should be understood as
(4*) The power of imagination, while a constituent of the essence of the mind, is not a
necessary constituent of the essence of the mind
and that (5) should be understood as

(5*) The power of imagination is not only a constituent of the essence of the mind, but
a necessary constituent
Finally, I will explain that Descartes’s views regarding modes and their relation-
ship to the essence of thought, when brought to the forefront, show why he be-
lieves that (1)–(5) entail (6).
Respective Relations to the Essence of the Mind

Two aspects of (4) and (5) are not readily apparent. First is an ambiguity.
Both (4) and (5) could be interpreted strongly or weakly. The weak interpreta-
tion of (4) is
(4') The power of imagination is not a necessary constituent of the essence of the mind
and is not a constituent of the essence of the mind
The strong version of (4) is
The difference concerns how strongly each presents of the relation of the power
of imagination to the essence of the mind, the former providing only for a weak
relation between the power of imagination and the essence of the mind and the
latter attributing a stronger relation between the two.19 According to the former,
the power of imagination is not a part of the essence of the mind at all. Accord-
ing to the latter, the power of imagination is part of the essence of the mind, but
not a necessary one. Understanding the difference between the two and deter-
mining which is the correct interpretation requires first understanding Des-
cartes’s presumptions regarding essences and their constituents. That is, discov-
ering which of the above is the correct interpretation of (4) [and which of the
possible correlative interpretations of (5)] requires understanding how the pow-
ers of understanding and imagination are related to the essence of the mind
(thought) and how exactly Descartes understood them as powers of the mind
versus mere states of the mind.
The other interpretative problem regarding (4) and (5) is the narrator’s rea-
sons for deriving them from (1)–(3). As I will show, Descartes’s presumptions
regarding the essences of substances, in addition to resolving the ambiguity of
(4) and (5), will also explain why the narrator believes them to be entailed by
(1)–(3). In particular, once Descartes’s criteria for the constituents of essences
are added to the argument as premises, the narrator’s reasons for concluding that
(4) and (5) become clear.
Powers of Understanding and Imagination as Modes of Thought

Clearly, in
(2) If the narrator lacked the power of imagination, he would remain an incorporeal
thinking substance
and
(3) [implied] If the narrator lacked the power of understanding, he would not remain an
incorporeal thinking substance
the narrator does not wish to say merely that “if I am not currently in the state of
imagining (understanding), then I would (not) remain an incorporeal thinking
substance,” since such is not entailed by (1). [Moreover, discerning just why not
being in the state of imagining something versus not being in the state of under-
standing something has the differing implications suggested in (2) and (3) is
difficult, given such a reading.] Instead, the narrator considers the implications
of the impossibilities of his being in states of understanding and imagining. That
is, the narrator ponders the possible implications for his essence should he lack
the abilities or the phenomenal capabilities of imagining and understanding. If
he lacks the phenomenal capabilities of imagining and understanding, then his
being in states of imagining or understanding is impossible. So, initially, we
might better understand (2) and (3) as
(2') If it is impossible for the narrator to imagine, he would remain the thinking sub-
stance that he is
and
(3') If it is impossible for the narrator to understand, he would not remain the thinking
substance that he is
A phenomenal ability, according to Descartes, is a function of thought. Des-

cartes refers to these functions as modes of thought. So, understanding how the
narrator might have/lack the functions of imagination or understanding requires
understanding his claims regarding the modes of substances and his specific
claims regarding the modes of thought. A mode, in the Cartesian lexicon, is an
attribute. Descartes uses ‘attribute’ in a general sense to refer to something
which “…is ascribable to a substance, whether it be a mode which is susceptible
of change or the absolute, immutable essence of the thing in question.”20 Des-
cartes then uses ‘attribute’ when he thinks “…in a more general way of what is
in a substance.”21 In more contemporary terms, ‘attribute’ refers to a property of
a substance.
Although Descartes uses ‘attribute’ in a general way to refer to all things
found in a substance, he also uses ‘attribute’ to refer specifically to those things
in a substance which remain “unmodified”:
…we do not, strictly speaking, say that there are modes or qualities in God, but simply
attributes, since in the case of God, any variation is unintelligible. And even in the case
of a created thing, that which always remains unmodified—for example, existence or
duration in a thing which exists and endures—should be called not a quality or a mode
but an attribute. (AT VIII.348: CSM I.297)
Attributes (general sense) are then not attributes* (specific sense) if they are
modifications or variations of a substance.22 Since Descartes employed the term
‘mode’ when he was “…thinking of a substance as being affected or modified,”
modes are not attributes*.23 While Descartes does not directly address the ques-
tion of when a substance is affected or modified, he seemingly suggests two
criteria for an attribute’s being an affectation or modification of a substance.
The first of these appears in his Principles of Philosophy, Part 1:
…extension in length, breadth and depth constitutes the nature of corporeal substance;
and thought constitutes the nature of thinking substance. Everything else which can be
attributed to body presupposes extension, and is merely a mode of an extended thing;
and similarly, whatever we find in the mind is simply one of the various modes of
thinking. For example, shape is unintelligible except in an extended thing…by contrast,
it is possible to understand extension without shape or movement, and thought without
imagination or sensation, and so on; and this is quite clear to anyone who gives the
matter his attention. (AT VIIIA.25: CSM I. 210–11)
An attribute is then a modification when its being in a substance presupposes

the substance having some principal attribute which defines the substance’s es-
sence. For instance, the narrator’s faculty of understanding presupposes that the
narrator has the attribute* of thought. Conversely, Descartes implicitly suggests,
in the above quotation, that the attribute* of thought is not a mode, for a sub-
stance’s having thought does not presuppose the substance’s having the power
of understanding, etc.
Initially, one might take Descartes’s claim that modes “presuppose” some
principal attribute as a claim that the modes bear a causal or necessity relation to
the principal attribute of a substance. More to the point, by claiming that the
modes presuppose some principal attribute, Descartes lays out one or more con-
ditions for being a mode, which are that m is a mode of S only if
(M1) S is m, S’s being essentially y is the cause of S’s being m and S could not be m if S
were not essentially y
or
(M2) S is m and S’s being essentially y is necessary for S’s being m.24
(Of course, M1 implies M2, but not vice versa.)

While M1 and M2 seem innocuously correct, they only scratch the surface
of Descartes’s proposals. Descartes seemingly suggests a far more complex re-
lation between modes and their principal attributes. This more complex account
I shall call the Functionalist Account of Modes. First, this quasi-Aristotelian
account takes seriously Descartes’s claims that the modes of a substance are
modifications of the substance. A corporeal substance is modified, for instance,
when it is extended in one manner versus another.25 Moreover, no corporeal
substance is unmodified.26 All corporeal substances are extended in virtue of
being extended in some particular manner. Similarly, the incorporeal substance
that is the narrator (at this point in the Med.) is modified in that at any given
time during the narrator’s existence, the narrator performs one of the functions
of thought.27 As with corporeal substances, no incorporeal substance is unmodi-
fied. All incorporeal substances think in virtue of thinking in some manner. If
so, we might understand Descartes as claiming that modes are modifications of
some principal attribute. The modes of a given substance,then, are its principal
attribute, as it is instantiated in the substance in some manner. Descartes then
employs the term ‘mode’ when referring to one of the manners a given principal
attribute is instantiated in a substance. In this way, a mode presupposes a princi-
pal attribute in that m is a mode of S only if
(M3) S is m and m is a manner or way of S’s being essentially y.
M3 also suggests that we take care in understanding the causal relation sug-
gested in M1. I believe Descartes here follows Aristotle in holding that the prin-
cipal attribute* (for Aristotle, an essential property) is so in virtue of the attrib-
ute*’s ability to define, explain and account for the substance’s basic innate
functions.28 The causal relation exists between the principal attribute of a sub-
stance and the modes of the substance in that if the substance has a certain prin-
cipal attribute*, then the substance has the capacity to perform certain functions.
In the case of the narrator’s mind, the attribute of thought causes the narrator to
have the modes of thought in that the narrator has the principal attribute of
thought (versus some other principal attribute) to have the phenomenal capaci-
ties to perform phenomenal functions. Moreover, according to M1, a sub-
stance’s having a particular mode can only be explained by the substance’s hav-
ing some particular essential attribute.* For instance, the narrator’s doubting can
only be explained by his having thought. Doubting can only be adequately and
fully explained by its being a manner of thinking and cannot be fully explained
by its being a manner of some other principal attribute, such as extension. This
seems the case for most, if not all, modes in Descartes’s metaphysics.29 Being
manners or modifications of principal attributes, most modes can be functions
of only one essence.
Besides the presupposition criterion, Descartes seemingly suggests a second
necessity criterion for an attribute’s being a mode. In Comments on a Certain
Broadsheet, for example, Descartes responds to Regius’s criticism that Des-
cartes, “…seems to leave open the possibility that the human mind is either a
substance or a mode of a corporeal substance” by chastising Regius for using
‘attribute’ to refer only to modes.30 This indicates Descartes’s belief that Regius
would have known that the nature of things does not leave open the possibility
that the human mind is a mode of a corporeal substance, if Regius had better
understood the distinction between modes and attributes:
It can undoubtedly be said of contingent items that the nature of things leaves open the
possibility that they may be either in one state or in a different state. For example, at
present, I may be either writing or not writing. But when it is a question of the essence
of something, it would be quite foolish and self-contradictory to say that the nature of
things leaves open the possibility that the essence of something may have a different
character than the one it actually has. …We must take care here not to understand the
word ‘attribute’ to mean simply ‘mode,’ for we term an ‘attribute’ whatever we recog-
nize as being naturally ascribable to something, whether it be a mode which is suscep-
tible of change or the absolutely immutable essence of the thing in question. (AT VI-
IIB.348: CSM I.297)
Taken at face value, this indicates that modes are unnecessary, mutable proper-
ties of a substance and, at least in the case of principal attributes (and most
likely in the case of all attributes*), that attributes* are necessary, immutable
properties of a substance. If this initial reading is correct, then Descartes also
suggests that m is a mode of S only if
(M4) S is m and S is not necessarily m.
This would explain why Descartes derives
tor’s mind
from (2). Since the power of imagination is not necessary to the continued exis-
tence of the narrator’s mind, the power of imagination is a mode which is not a
constituent of the narrator’s essence.
As convenient as M4 is, a serious problem arises if Descartes implicitly pre-
sumes and uses it in this argument. The problem is that Descartes straightfor-
wardly suggests that the power of understanding is at least a de dicto necessity
of his mind in
So, Descartes cannot consistently and coherently presume M4 and have the nar-
rator claim (3') as a premise in this argument.
To summarize, Descartes considers the powers of understanding and
imagination as modes of thought. The narrator has these modes of thought in
virtue of his having the phenomenal capabilities of imagining and
understanding. For Descartes, the phenomenal functions/capabilities are man-
ners of thought. The narrator’s powers of understanding and imagination are
modes of the attribute* of thought in that
(M1n) The narrator has the capability of understanding or imagining, in that the narra-
tor’s being essentially a thinking substance is the cause of the narrator’s under-
standing and imagining and the narrator could not understand or imagine if S
were not essentially a thinking substance
(M2n) The narrator has capabilities of understanding and imagining and the narrator’s
being essentially a thinking thing is necessary for the narrator’s understanding
or imagining 31
(M3n) The narrator has the capabilities of imagining and understanding and both are
manners or ways of S’s being essentially a thinking substance.
However, they are not modes of thought because of
(M4n) The narrator has the capabilities of imagining and understanding and the narra-
tor does not necessarily have these capabilities
The narrator’s claiming that (2') prevents him from assuming (M4n) in this ar-
gument. However, Descartes does seemingly suggest (M4). Reconciling Des-
cartes’s claims about the necessity status of modes with his arguments regarding
imagination in Med. IV is best done in the context of a discussion of Descartes’s
essentialism, to which I now turn.
Descartes’s Essentialism
The narrator, in deriving
tor’s mind
and

the narrator’s mind
from (1)–(3') clearly assumes Descartes’s criteria for an attribute’s being an es-
sential property as a premise. Moreover, as a reminder, we have two possible
readings of (4):
and
(4) The power of imagining is not a necessary constituent of the essence of the mind
and not a constituent of the essence of the mind
(4') is the “weaker” reading of (4) in that it presumes a “weaker” relationship

between the modes of thought and the essence of the human mind. (4') interprets
Descartes as holding that a mode unnecessary to the continued existence of a
substance (qua the substance that it is) is not a constituent of the substance’s
essence. (4*) is a stronger reading, for it presumes Descartes’s proposing a
stronger claim regarding the relationship between a mind’s essence and the
modes of thought. (4') presumes that Descartes’s essentialism includes the claim
that when a mode is unnecessary to the continued existence of a substance (qua
the substance that it is), the mode may still remain a constituent of the sub-
stance’s essence, but an unnecessary one. Most commentators, I believe, would
be more inclined to read (4) as (4'), for the concept of an essential but unneces-
sary attribute seems an oxymoron. However, deeper inspection of Descartes’s
essentialism will show that Descartes did intend (4*) rather than (4').
The essentialist criterion that implicit in this argument is that of de re neces-
sity:
(E1) If the narrator can exist without attribute m, then m is not an essential attribute of
the narrator
E1 is obviously an outcome of Descartes’s essentialism, for he clearly asserts a

de re necessity requirement for all essential attributes when saying, “…for if
something can exist without an attribute, then it seems to me that that attribute is
not included in its essence.”32 As Schiffer explains, this de re necessity is such
that “x is necessarily Φ provided that x, no matter how described or referred to,
cannot possibly exist without being Φ.”33 However, an attribute’s being a de re
necessity of a substance is not sufficient for its being a constituent of an es-
sence. In fact, some attributes, Descartes claims, are necessary but not essential
attributes of a substance.34
Descartes stipulates that all substances each have one principal attribute*
which comprises their respective essences and on which all other attributes de-
pend:
…but each substance has one principal property which constitutes its nature and es-
sence, and to which all its other properties are referred. Thus extension in length,
breadth and depth constitutes the nature of corporeal substance; and thought constitutes
the nature of thinking substance. Everything else which can be attributed to body pre-
supposes extension, and is merely a mode of an extended thing… (AT VIIIA.29: CSM
I.211)
So, for an attribute to be a constituent of an essence, the attribute must also be a

principal attribute.
In addition, Descartes might suggest that de dicto necessity is sufficient for
an attribute’s being a constituent of a substance’s essence:
But when it is a question of the essence of something, it would be quite foolish and
self-contradictory to say that the nature of things leaves open the possibility that the es-
sence of something may have a different character from the one it actually has. The
impossibility of existing without a valley is a part of the nature of a mountain…35
Perhaps Descartes is merely confused about the distinction between an attrib-

ute’s being necessary to the continued existence of a substance and its being
necessary to the substance existing qua the substance that it is, and here merely
badly expresses his de re criterion for the constituents of essences. Descartes,
however, often discusses the necessity criterion for particular kinds of corporeal
substances (e.g., mathematical shapes, mountains, etc.) as their necessarily hav-
ing the character that they have. Descartes does not discuss the criterion for the
more general essences of corporeality or incorporeality in such a manner. He
only applies the de re criterion to these more general essences. We might have
an easy way to resolve the inconsistency here; by interpreting Descartes’s essen-
tialism as two-fold. On this interpretation, Descartes applies the de dicto crite-
rion to the particular kinds of each general type of essence and applies to all
essences the de re necessity of their having some general attribute (e.g., God
necessarily having perfection, minds having thought and all bodies having ex-
tension).
However, Schiffer suggests that we not interpret Descartes as holding to a
de dicto necessity criterion for essences. First, Schiffer says, nothing would pre-
vent a mind from being identical with a body, given a de dicto essentialism.
Second, Descartes does not indicate that he holds two essentialist theses. Third,
many of Descartes’s arguments commit the fallacy of equivocation if he does
promote a two-fold essentialism.36 For instance, consider the arguments in Med.
IV in which Descartes makes conclusions regarding the essence of God. These
conclusions demand a de re essentialism. These conclusions are drawn from
claims about the essences of triangles and other mathematical shapes, to which
he would apply a de dicto essentialism if he promotes a two-foldessentialism.
Thus, Schiffer argues, since Descartes is best interpreted as not holding to both
de re and de dicto essentialisms and we have reason to think that he did not hold
to a de dicto essentialism, Descartes is best interpreted as not holding the two-
foldessentialism.37
Schiffer’s interpretation of Cartesian essentialism provides the basis for an
even better interpretation. Schiffer is correct in rejecting Descartes’s adhering to
the two-foldessentialism as previously described. He is also correct, in part, to
reject Descartes’s proposing a de dicto essentialism. He is not correct, however,
in claiming that Descartes did not hold to a de dicto essentialism at all. As I will
argue, Descartes did hold to a de dicto essentialism which he did not sharply
separate from his de re essentialism. The problems of reconciling Descartes’s
essentialist claims with each other and with his claims about substances remain.
Resolving these problems begins with returning to Descartes’s claims regarding
the relationship between the modes of an essence and the principal attribute of
that substance. Examining Descartes’s views regarding the relationship of
modes of thought to the essence of thought reveals his criteria for essences and
how he uses them in the argument at hand.
I previously argued for what I dubbed The Functionalist Account of Des-
cartes’s claims regarding the relationship between a substance’s modes and its
principal attribute*. On this interpretation, Descartes holds that a substance’s
modes are modes in that they are manners of the substance having the essence
that it has. All (created) substances have their respective principal attributes* in
virtue of the principal attributes* being instantiated in some manner or other.
All substances have their respective principal attributes* in some mode or other.
No (created) substance has an unmodified principal attribute. For example, the
narrator does not think only, but thinks in some manner or other.
Another claim attributed to Descartes by my Functionalist Account is that
the principal attribute* is the essential property of a substance, explaining and
accounting for the substance’s modes. Earlier, I briefly described this relation as
if the substance has a certain principal attribute*, then the substance has the ca-
pacity to perform certain functions. A more full account can be given once Des-
cartes’s claim that the principal attribute* of a substance is the defining attrib-
ute* of that substance is taken seriously.
What can it mean for a principal attribute* to be a defining attribute*? The
best answer is that Descartes again follows Aristotle insofar as he understands
the principal attribute as that which proscribes and limits the modes of a sub-
stance. The principal attribute* of a substance is the attribute which defines the
essential character of the substance. So, the principal attribute* determines not
only the existence of a substance, but its essential character as well. The princi-
pal attribute determines the essential character of a substance in that it deter-
mines the possible states (manners) of a substance’s existence. In the case at
hand, the narrator’s mind having thought as its defining essential attribute* ex-
cludes the possibility of the narrator’s mind being triangular, mountainous or
stinky, for none of these are modes of thinking. The “nature of things,” as Des-
cartes proposes in “Commentaria,” leaves open the possibility that the narrator
understands, wills, imagines, etc., but does not leave open the possibility that
the narrator has some principal attribute other than thought.38 The narrator’s
mind being squared or otherwise extended in some manner involves the narrator
having the principal attribute* of extension, not the principal attribute of
thought.
All commentators on Descartes would agree that Descartes’s essentialism
involves the de re essentialism suggested by Schiffer.39 The de re essentialism
held by Descartes clearly involves the claim that each substance has one and
only one principal attribute which is necessary to the existence of that sub-
stance. Descartes also holds that the principal attribute* had by a particular sub-
stance cannot be replaced by a different principal attribute*. For instance, a
mind will not continue to exist without the attribute* of thought. For Descartes,
if a substance loses the principal attribute that it has, the substance no longer
exists. This suggests that, in virtue of a substance’s having the principal attrib-
ute that it has, the substance has a de re essential character. An essential charac-
ter is essential in that without the character, the substance no longer exists. The
loss of a principal attribute* involves not only the expiration of the substance,
but of the substance’s essential core manner(s) of existing. A substance loses its
essential character only when it loses its principal attribute*. If so, then for Des-
cartes, a substance’s ceasing to exist qua the substance that it is (e.g., as a think-
ing thing) would involve the expiration of the substance, for it is the loss of the
substance’s attribute which causes both.
So, when we read
(2') If it is impossible for the narrator to imagine, he would remain the thinking sub-
stance that he is
and
we should understand their consequents as meaning that not only would the nar-
rator (not) cease existing as a mind, but that his (not) existing as a mind entails
that he would (not) cease to exist. That is, (2') and (3') should be understood as
(2'') If it is impossible for the narrator to imagine, he would continue to exist as a think-
ing thing and would thus not cease to exist
and
(3'') If it is impossible for the narrator to understand, he would not exist as a thinking
thing and would thus cease to exist
What implications does this have for the argument as a whole? Initially, one
might understand Descartes as wrongly applying his own de re essentialist the-
sis regarding principal attributes* as an implicit premise when concluding that
tor’s mind
and

the narrator’s mind.
However, understanding that Descartes holds that the principal attribute* of a

substance also defines a substance’s basic, essential character provides a differ-
ent way of understanding why he concludes that (4) and (5). We should under-
stand (4) and (5) as claims regarding whether the modes of imagining and un-
derstanding are necessary constituents of the essential character of a thinking
substance. For Descartes, an essential character is a set of modes including all
functions determining the possible states of existence a substance might have
and those it cannot have. The essential character of a substance, on this view,
would include all the basic functions that a substance has in virtue of being the
substance that it is. That is, the essential character of a substance includes all
those functions (modes) involved in the substance’s having the principal attrib-
ute* that it in fact has. In the case of the narrator’s mind, for example, the narra-
tor’s having the principal attribute of thought entails that the narrator has certain
modes. A substance which lacks the basic functions of thought is not a sub-
stance which has the attribute of thought. In this way, the essential character is a
de re necessity of the substance in that the essential character of a substance is
both necessitated by a substance’s having the principal attribute that it has, and
is lost only when the substance lacks its principal attribute. This is not to say
that the modes comprising the essential character of a substance are themselves
directly de re necessities of a substance. The essential character itself (i.e., the
set of modes comprising the essential character) is necessary to the existence of
a substance, and even then, it is necessary only insofar as it is necessitated by
principal attribute* of a substance. If a substance has the principal attribute of
thought, for instance, then it wills, understands, doubts, etc. A substance losing
the set of basic functions of thought cannot be said to think.
This is not to say that all particular modes of a substance are necessitated by
the substance’s having its particular principal attribute* or that particular sub-
stances having the same principal attribute* all have exactly the same essential
character. Indeed, the initial temptation is to interpret Descartes as claiming, in
(4) and (5), that the power of understanding is a part of the essential character
of the narrator’s mind, whereas the power of imagining is not. The easy answer
is to interpret (4) weakly, as
(4') The power of imagining is not a constituent of the essence of the narrator’s mind
and (5) as
(5*) The power of understanding is a constituent of the essence of the narrator’s mind
If this easy interpretation is correct, then the implicit premise between (3'') and
(4) is, roughly,
(E2) A mode of a substance is a part of the essential character of a substance only if the
mode is a necessary outcome of the substance’s having the principal attribute that
it has
However, this would be a hastily derived interpretation, without fully analyzing

Descartes’s comments regarding the modes and the essential characters of sub-
stances. For instance, consider the purpose of the narrator’s listing the modes of
thought in Med. II:
But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understands,
affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions.
(AT VII.28: CSM II.19)
Here the narrator puts forth the modes of thought to define (in an explanatory
manner) the thinking substance that he is. Just as a horse is a four-legged mam-
mal of the equestrian family, a thinking thing is a substance having certain fac-
ulties. While listed modes are offered as a basic definition/description of a
thinking substance, not all of the modes of a substance are a part of this “essen-
tial” (basic) definition. For instance, Descartes's narrator does not include the
strict passions (joy, etc) in this list.40 As another example, a human might be
clothed, in which case the clothes are a mode of the human wearing them.41
However, this is not to say that being clothed is a part of the basic definition of
a human or that the capacity for being clothed is a part of the basic definition of
a human.
Given this, Descartes does not limit the modes comprising the essential
character of a substance to those which are necessary to the substance’s essen-
tial character. Indeed, we may interpret the “…and also…” in the above quota-
tion as a disjunct, as well as a hesitation. A thinking substance’s essential char-
acter would then be expressed in a hypothetical of the form, “if a substance has
the principal attribute of thought, then the substance doubts and understands and
affirms and denies and wills and unwills or imagines or sense-perceives.”42 In
this way, some modes of a substance will be counted among the constituents of
its essential character, but not among the necessary constituents of its essential
character. If this is the case, then Descartes does not employ
(E2) A mode of a substance is a part of the essential character of a substance only if the
mode is a necessary outcome of the substance’s having the principal attribute that
it has
as either a criterion for a mode’s being a constituent of a substance’s essential

character or as an implicit premise between (3) and (4) of the argument at hand.
Instead, Descartes seemingly relies upon a criterion such as
(E3) A mode of a substance is constituent of its essential character only if the mode is a
part of the basic definition of the substance
So, when would a mode be a part of the basic definition of a substance?

First, consider Descartes’s definition of one type of modal distinction:
The first kind of modal distinction can be recognized from the fact that we can clearly
perceive a substance apart from the mode which we say differs from it, whereas we
cannot, conversely, understand the mode apart from the substance. (AT VIIIB.29: CSM
I.214)
Here Descartes offers, not a definition of a mode per se, but a definition of the
distinction between a substance and one of its modes. Nonetheless, a mode, he
says, cannot be understood apart from the substance in which it inheres. Imagi-
nation and understanding alike are manners of thinking and thus cannot be un-
derstood apart from thought; thought is necessarily included in the definition of
the modes of thought, for they are manners of thinking. Descartes also suggests
that a substance can be perceived apart from any one of its modes, which might
suggest that a substance’s essential, basic definition not include any modes at
all. However, consider his claims regarding a “conceptual distinction”:
…a conceptual distinction is a distinction between a substance and some attribute of

that substance without which the substance is unintelligible; alternatively, it is a dis-
tinction between two such attributes of a single substance. Such a distinction is recog-
nized by our inability to form a clear and distinct idea of the substance if we exclude it
from the attribute in question, or, alternatively, by our inability to perceive clearly the
idea of one of the two attributes if we separate it from the other. . .And in the case of all
the modes of thought which we consider as being in objects, there is merely a concep-
tual distinction between the modes and the object which they are thought of as apply-
ing to. (AT VIIIB.30: CSM I.214, emphasis mine)
Here Descartes suggests that the clear and distinct idea of a substance includes
all the substance’s modes. The result of this is that for Descartes, a substance is
more clearly and distinctly perceived when a cognizer includes all its modes in
the concept of the substance.
Descartes’s description of conceptual distinctions need not be read as con-
flicting with his claims regarding modal distinctions. Descartes can be inter-
preted as claiming that one cannot think of a mode at all, unless one thinks of
the mode as inhering in a substance. A substance, however, can be thought of as
existing in its own right in that one need not conceive of a substance as inhering
in or being a part of another substance or attribute. In this way, Descartes’s
claims regarding the modal distinction between a mode and the substance in
which it inheres are outcomes of both his acceptance of Aristotle’s dictum that
all attributes are instantiated (inhere in) substances and Descartes’s own defini-
tion of a substance as that which “…can exist by itself, that is without the aid of
any other substance.”43 Descartes here suggests that a substance is distinguish-
able from its modes in that a mode inheres in the substance and not vice versa.
The power of imagination, for example, is conceivable only as being a mode of
a thinking substance —i.e., as inhering in a thinking substance. The substance
which can imagine, however, can be thought of as being independent in that it

need not be thought of as a mere part of something else.
In contrast, Descartes’s comments regarding conceptual distinctions can be
taken as comments regarding the essential character or basic definition of a sub-
stance. We cannot clearly and distinctly conceive of a substance, Descartes
says, apart from its principal attribute.44 As already established, for Descartes,
conceiving of a substance as having a certain principal attribute is to conceive of
the substance as having certain functions. For example, one cannot conceive of
a mind without also conceiving of the mind as a thinking substance. Conceiving
of a substance as a thinking substance is to conceive of the substance as having
the functions (powers) of thought.
But which of the modes of thoughts does Descartes include in the list defin-
ing the essential (basic) character of thought? What he would not include, I be-
lieve, are those modes that aren’t themselves directly modes of the substances’
principal attribute. Being clothed, for instance, is not itself directly a manner of
a human body’s being extended. A human’s being clothed is not a manner by
which the human body’s principal attribute of extension is itself instantiated.
The capacity for being clothed is only a secondary result or outcome of the hu-
man body’s being extended in the manner that it is.
In contrast, included in the essential (basic) definition or character of a sub-
stance are those modes which are themselves manners of the substance’s having
its principal attribute. A mode is a part of a substance’s essential character when
the mode itself is a manner by which the substance’s principal attribute is in-
stantiated. The power of imagination (and that of sensory perception) is itself a
manner of thinking, not an outcome of some other manner of thinking. The
power of imagination (and that of sensory perception) is then a part of the basic
definition of a thinking substance and is thus rightfully included in the list defin-
ing the narrator’s essential character in Med. II.
The result for the argument in Med. VI. is that the power of imagination is
included in the basic definition or concept of a thinking substance. However, the
power of imagination is not a necessary part of the basic concept of a thinking
substance. The narrator could lack the power of imagination (and think of him-
self clearly and distinctly) without its lack entailing the loss of his principal at-
tribute of thought. Understanding, however, is a manner of thinking and hence a
necessary part of the essential character of a thinking substance. Thus, we
should read (4) and (5) as
and
(5*) The power of understanding is not only a constituent of the essence of the mind,
but is a necessary constituent
rather than as
(4') The power of imagination not a necessary constituent of the essence of the mind
and
(5') The power of understanding is a necessary constituent of the essence of the mind.
Chapter V
Speculation That a Body Exists
Descartes’s narrator suggests that (4) and (5) imply that
Understanding why the narrator derives (6) from (4) and (5), as I will show,
involves applying Descartes’s views regarding substances to this argument. In
particular, Descartes’s views regarding composite substances reveal that the
narrator concludes, in (6), that his having the power of imagination implies that
he is a composite substance.
Cottingham uses this argument as evidence for his interpreting Descartes as
a trialist rather than a dualist.1 Citing Descartes’s letters to Elizabeth,2 Cotting-
ham claims that Descartes proposes three primitive categories or notions of
thing: extension, thought and the union of body and soul. This is despite Des-
cartes’s “official” position of only two categories: extension and thought. Des-
cartes’s “union” of body and soul has attributes of own, e.g., sensation and
imagination, had by neither the soul itself or the body itself, says Cottingham:
If sensory experiences and imagination cannot properly be treated either simply as

modes of extension or simply as modes of thought, then a separate category seems
called for. To pursue the mule analogy a bit further: this hybrid animal may be the re-
sult of a union of two or more primitive species; but for all that it has genuine distinct
properties of its own which cannot satisfactorily be classified either as equine proper-
ties or as asinine properties.3
According to Cottingham, Descartes’s narrator concludes that imagination and

sensory perceptions are modes, not of the mind per se, but of a compound no-
tion, the union of mind and body, formed by the mind’s being joined with some
other substance.4 Imagination and sensory perception are properties of the un-
ion, for they both involve a psychological as well as a physiological component.
Descartes suggests that the components are so intertwined, on this interpreta-

tion, that one may not discuss the psychological without also discussing the
physiological; one may not attribute only the psychological component of
imagination to oneself without also attributing the physical component. The
powers of imagination and sensory perception are like those properties of a
mule which are not fully explained by the mule’s being part horse nor by the
mule’s being part donkey. They are explained only by the mule’s being both
part horse and part donkey.
The argument at hand in Med. VI provides evidence for this trialist interpre-
tation, Cottingham suggests, for in it, Descartes’s narrator concludes that the
power of imagination is not a necessary constituent of the essence of his mind,
but is nonetheless attributable to himself. Given a trialism, why the narrator
concludes that (6) becomes more clear. On Cottingham’s interpretation, (6) is
understood as
(6') The power of imagination is not a mode of thought, but a mode attributable to a
composite substance of which my mind is a part, and thus both the composite sub-
stance and the substance joined with my mind exist
According to this reading, the narrator’s having the power of imagination is evi-
dence that some other substance—the one with which the mind joins to form a
composite substance—exists. In addition, the compound substance formed by
this joining exists.
This interpretation is not without merit. Cottingham proposes two meritori-
ous lines of defense for this interpretation. The first is the application of Des-
cartes’s comments regarding substances, especially those concerning composite
substances and those concerning how substances may be known. The second is
Cottingham’s “trialistic” reading of Descartes’s stipulation that the powers of
sensory perception and imagination are “special” modes of thought.5
In regard to the former, Descartes stipulates that a substance “…is just this
—that it can exist by itself, that is without the aid of any other substance.”6 A
substance, then, is that which does not presume the existence of any other thing.
In the end, a substance, according to Descartes, is that which has a principal
attribute* which does not presume (depend upon) the existence or presence of
any other attribute. The possession of a principal attribute* allows a substance
to subsist on its own apart from any other substance.
Composite substances are unique in that they are comprised of two or more
substances:
A composite entity is one which is found to have two or more attributes* each one of
which can be distinctively understood apart from the other. For, in virtue of the fact that
Speculation 107
any one of these attributes can be distinctly understood apart from the other, we know
that one is not a mode of the other, but is a thing, or attribute* of a thing, which can sub-
sist without the other. A simple entity on the other hand, is one in which no such attrib-
utes are to be found. (AT VIIIB.357: CSM I.299)
A composite substance, then, is a substance having at least two principal attrib-

utes*, indicating that it is a thing comprised of at least two other things. Each of
the substances found in the composite substance can be said to exist on its own,
apart from being joined to another substance. A composite substance, then, is a
substance having two or more principal attributes*, neither of which can be
taken, strictly speaking, as a mode of the other.7
We know a substance, Descartes says, by becoming aware of one or more
of its attributes:
However, we cannot initially become aware of a substance merely through its being an
existing thing, since this alone does not of itself have any effect on us. We can, how-
ever, easily come to know a substance by one of its attributes, in virtue of the common
notions that nothingness possesses no attributes, that is to say, no properties or quali-
ties. Thus, if we perceive the presence of some attribute, we can infer that there must
also be present an existing thing or substance to which it may be attributed. (AT VI-
IIA.25: CSM I.210)
Not only are attributes* not themselves substances, but their existence indicates
that some substance, which has these attributes, exists. Descartes suggests,
merely the outcome of accepting Aristotle’s dictum that all properties are in-
stantiated. Moreover, since we do not have immediate knowledge of substances
and know that a substance exists only if we perceive its attributes, then
…if we subsequently wanted to strip the substance of the attributes through which we
know it, we would be destroying our entire knowledge of it. We might apply various
words to it, but we could not have a clear and distinct perception of what we mean by
these words.
I am aware that certain substances are called ‘incomplete.’ But if the reason for call-
ing them incomplete is that they are unable to exist on their own, then I confess that I
find it self-contradictory that they should be substances, that is, things which subsist on
their own. It is also possible to call a substance incomplete in the sense that, although it
has nothing incomplete in it qua substance, it is incomplete in so far as it is referred to
some other substance in conjunction with which it forms something which is a unity in
its own right. (AT VII.222: CSM II.156–7)
If a substance lacks one of the attributes through which we know it, the sub-
stance is incomplete in one of two ways. If a substance lacks one of its attributes
and the lack of this attribute results in the substance not existing on its own, the
substance is incomplete qua substance and thus ceases to exist as a substance.
Consider the case of the narrator’s mind lacking the power of understanding. In
such a case, the deficiency results in the narrator’s not continuing to exist. Thus,
the lack of the power of understanding would entail that the narrator’s mind is
incomplete qua a substance.
However, if a substance lacks one of its attributes, and the lack of this at-
tribute does not cause the substance to exist on its own, the substance is only
incomplete qua unity with another substance. In such a case, the substance is
not incomplete as a substance, but is incomplete qua composite substance. In
this case, the substance is only incomplete qua a unity with another substance.
Because the narrator’s lacking the power of imagination does not cause him to
cease existing, his not having the power of imagination only implies that the
narrator (qua a mind) is incomplete qua a unity with another substance. Stated
positively, the narrator has the power of imagination only when the narrator
(qua a mind) is united to another substance in such a manner as to form a com-
posite substance.
Finally, a substance is known, Descartes says, by a mind’s becoming aware
of one or more of the substance’s attributes:
…is that by a ‘complete thing’ I simply mean a substance endowed with the forms or
attributes which enable me to recognize that it is a substance.
We do not have immediate knowledge of substances, as I have noted elsewhere. We
know them only by perceiving certain forms or attributes which must inhere in some-
thing if they are to exist; and we call the thing in which they inhere a ‘substance.’ (AT
VII.333: CSM II.156)
Thus a cognizer becomes aware of a substance by becoming aware of one of the

substance’s attributes. In the case of the power of understanding, the narrator’s
awareness of his own power of understanding is his awareness of his own exis-
tence. On Cottingham’s view, the power of imagination, being a mode had by
the narrator only when the narrator is a composite substance, the narrator’s
awareness of his own power of imagination is his awareness of himself as a be-
ing joined with another substance to form a unity and thus providing him with
an awareness, or notion of the composite of mind and body. The power of
imagination is an attribute through which the narrator gains awareness of his
mind being joined to another mind to form a unity.
According to Cottingham’s interpretation, this shows that the powers of
imagination and sensory perception are not modes attributable to the essence of
the narrator’s mind. These powers, Cottingham suggests, are modes of the com-
posite of mind and body. So for Cottingham, these powers are modes of the no-
tion of the union of the two substances.
Speculation 109
Bolstering the first line of defense is Descartes’s considering the modes of

imagination and sensory perception the “special” modes of thought:
Besides this, I find in myself faculties for certain special modes of thinking, namely
imagination and sensory perception. Now I can clearly and distinctly understand my-
self as a whole without these faculties; but I cannot, conversely, understand these facul-
ties without me, that is, without an intellectual substance to inhere in. This is because
there is an intellectual act included in their essential definition…(AT VII.78: CSM.
II.54)
As Cottingham understands this, the powers of imagination and sensory percep-

tion are “special” in that they cannot be fully explained as modes of thought,
even though they are manners of thinking. Certain aspects of these modes are
explained only by the presence of some extension united to the mind. The pow-
ers of imagination and sensory perception are not modes of the mind alone, nor
are they modes of the body alone. Instead, they are modes of the union of mind
and body. These powers, on Cottingham’s interpretation, are modes of both the
essence of thought and the essence of extension. Only composite substance hav-
ing both essences has these “special” modes.
Cottingham, I believe, is quite right to apply Descartes’s comments regard-
ing composite substances to this argument. The implicit argument from (4) and
(5) to (6) would then roughly read as:
(5*) The power of understanding is not only a constituent of the essence of the mind,
but a necessary constituent of the mind
(S1) If an attribute is not a necessary constituent of an essence, the lack of the attribute
would then cause the substance to be incomplete qua a composite substance but
would not cause the substance to be incomplete qua a substance
(S2) If a substance has an attribute which is an unnecessary constituent of its essence,
the substance is joined with another substance in such a way as to form a compos-
ite entity
Thus
(S3) If I lack the power of imagination, my mind is incomplete qua a composite sub-
stance, but is not incomplete qua a substance
(S4) I have the power of imagination
Thus
(S5) My mind is joined with another substance in such a manner as to form a composite
substance
(S6) If my mind forms a unity with another substance, this other substance exists
Therefore
However, Cottingham’s interpretation is one step too radical a reading. He

is not correct in interpreting Descartes’s narrator as claiming that his power of
imagination is not a mode of thought alone. My belief is due to the following
reasons. First, such an interpretation presumes that (4) should be understood as
(4') The power of imagination is not a necessary constituent of the essence of the mind
Rather than (4*). Moreover, this interpretation would even understand (4') as
(4'') The power of imagination not a necessary constituent of the essence of the mind
and is not a constituent of the essence of the mind and is therefore not a mode of
thought
Cottingham’s interpretation does not even allow that the power of imagination
is a mode of thought at all, while (4*) presumes the power of imagination is a
mode of thought. An interpretation that relies upon (4') is problematic because,
as shown previously, no sense can be made of this argument if (4) is understood
as (4'). Also shown previously was that we have independent reasons for accept-
ing (4*) as the more palatable reading. Cottingham’s interpretation, then, ought
to be rejected because it weakens the argument as a whole.
Second, the narrator attributes the power of imagination to himself in Med.
II. While the power of imagination he attributed to himself was a restricted
imagination, it is not restricted in the manner Cottingham suggests. Cotting-
ham’s interpretation cannot explain why the narrator attributes the powers of
imagination and sensory perception to himself in Med. II, let alone why he
names them in a list defining a thinking thing. Cottingham’s interpretation can-
not explain this because on his trialist reading, the powers of sensory perception
and imagination are not modes of thought, but a mode of a composite substance
having two essences. Cottingham’s interpretation also does not include the
powers of imagination and sensory perception in the essential character of a
thinking substance. In Med. II, however, the narrator conceives of himself as a
mind only, not as a composite substance. Cottingham’s interpretation seems at
odds with the narrator’s attributing this to himself in Med. II.
Noting this tension, Cottingham attempts a resolution by noting the hesita-
tion with which the narrator attributes the faculties of imagination and sensory
perception to himself in Med. II.8 If this hesitation is to allow Cottingham a
consistent interpretation, it must be understood as a hesitation about whether the
narrator’s imaginings (qua a mind) are real imaginings. Cottingham has a con-
sistent reading only if the narrator hesitantly attributes the faculty of imagina-
Speculation 111
tion to his mind. However, as I previously argued, the narrator’s worry isn’t that
the power of imagination isn’t a faculty of his mind, but a worry that it isn’t a
“real” faculty. The narrator does not doubt that, if the power of imagination is a
real faculty, it is a faculty attributable to his mind:
Which of all of these faculties is distinct from thinking? Which of them can be separate
from myself? The fact that it is I who am doubting and understanding and willing is so
evident…but it is also the case that the ‘I’ who imagines is the same ‘I.’ For even if, as
I have supposed, none of the objects of imagination are real, the power of imagination
is something which really exists and is part of my thinking. (AT VII.29: CSM II.19,
emphasis mine)
Third, for Descartes, the power of imagination is a mode, a manner of a

substance’s being the substance that it is. The composite being of a human has
only two essences: thought and extension. Descartes never describes a third es-
sence arising from the union of thought and extension. A substance, according
to Descartes, has a mode in virtue of having a principal attribute*. A substance’s
having a mode presupposes that the substance has a particular principal attrib-
ute*. On Cottingham’s interpretation, it becomes unclear which essence, if any,
imagination is a mode. Cottingham cannot even read Descartes as claiming that
imagination is both a mode of thought and a mode of extension, for Descartes
himself excludes the possibility of a mode’s being both a mode of extension and
a mode of thought:
Everything else which can be attributed to body presupposes extension, and is merely a
mode of an extended thing; and similarly, whatever we find in the mind is simply one
of the various modes of thinking…shape is unintelligible except in an extended thing;
and motion is unintelligible except as motion in an extended space; while imagination,
sensation and will are intelligible only in a thinking substance. (AT VIIIA.25: CSM
I.210–11)
Cottingham’s interpretation of Descartes as claiming that the powers of imagi-

nation and sensory perception are modes, not of the soul, but of the union of the
soul seems in conflict with these claims regarding modes and their relation to
principal attributes*.
Finally, Descartes clearly considers sensory perception and imagination
modes of thought, not only as shown in the above quote, but more clearly ar-
ticulated in his correspondence:
I do not see any difficulty in understanding on the one hand that the faculties of imagi-
nation and sensation belong to the soul, because they are species of thoughts, and on
the other hand that they belong to the soul only in so far as it is joined to the body, be-
cause they are kinds of thought without which one can conceive the soul in all its pu-
rity. (AT III.479: CSM III.203)
Thus Cottingham’s trialistic reading of this argument in Med. VI is incorrect.

Nonetheless, one of Cottingham’s strongest cases for the trialistic reading of
this argument is that this argument presents difficulties with his “official” dual-
istic standpoint:
…in the official formulations of his views to be found in his published works, Des-
cartes always adheres firmly to a dualistic account. There are two substances, mind and
body, each defined by its ‘principal attribute’ of thought and extension respec-
tively…The official doctrine is firm and unwavering. But for all that, the threefold pat-
tern…is consistent with Descartes’s frequent recognition of the special character of
sensation, and its recalcitrance to straightforward classification under the categories of
thought or extension.9
However, the situation may not be so dire for Descartes’s “official” dualistic
position. That is, at least in the case of Descartes’s narrator concluding that his
having the power of imagination is evidence for his existing as a composite sub-
stance, Descartes need not depart from his official dualist position. Granted,
adequate reasons might remain for Cottingham’s trialistic reading, but Des-
cartes’s arguments concerning imagination at the beginning of Med. VI are not
among them. To show this, we need look no further than the relation of the
modes of thought to the essential character of a thinking thing.
Descartes considers the power of imagination a mode of thought. Not only
that, but he lists the power of imagination and sensory perception among the
modes constituting the defining essential character of a substance. Nonetheless,
he does not consider the power of imagination necessary to a substance’s having
the essential character of thought. As I suggested previously, Descartes is best
read as describing the relationship between the modes of thoughts and the at-
tribute* of thought as a hypothetical of the form, “if a substance has the princi-
pal attribute* of thought, the substance can will, unwill, understand, doubt, af-
firm, deny or imagine or sense-perceive.” Within the context of a discussion
concerning Descartes’s claims regarding composite substances, the disjoined
faculties can be understood as those which, when had by the mind, are evidence
of its existing as a composite substance. They are numbered among the powers
of the soul, even though they are unnecessary to the substance’s having the at-
tribute of thought, for they presume the attribute of thought—that an imagining
thing (i.e., a thing contemplating the geometrical shapes) is necessarily a think-
ing thing. The narrator, in Med. II, includes the powers of imagination and sen-
sory perception (in the “restricted” sense), for they are attributes he undoubtedly
perceives and cannot distinguish from the “I” whose existence is indubitable.
Speculation 113
These imagining and sensory powers must belong to his mind. Moreover, the
powers of imagination and sensory perception, taken in a restricted sense, are
attributable to a mind alone. This is in contrast to the “mixed” modes the narra-
tor attributes to himself after he proves the existence of his body.10
Aside from the narrator including them in Med. II, why include these pow-
ers in the basic definition of a thinking substance? The list defining a thinking
substance must acknowledge, in some way, the possibility that the human mind
may exist as a conjoined substance. The inclusion of imagination and sensory
perception in this list admits of this possibility. Granted, Descartes’s narrator
admits that he may conceive of himself as a complete substance without these
properties, but in virtue of the possibility of the mind’s being united with an-
other substance, the essential character of a thinking substance includes the
powers of imagination and sensory perception. The list defining a thinking sub-
stance includes them, for a mind’s essential character includes its capacity to
join with another substance. One may give a complete definition of a thinking
substance without including them in this list, only if one is defining a thinking
substance as a simple substance. A substance may have the attribute of thought
alone and meet Descartes’s criterion for being a substance. Yet, a more com-
plete list would include those attributes gained by the mind when it joins with
another substance to form a composite substance. However, since a mind is a
substance in its own right, it need not exist as a part of a composite substance.11
This is why the narrator includes them in the list of modes defining a thinking
substance, but also disjoins (as opposed to conjoining) them from the others in
the list.
Thus, the narrator’s power of imagination’s being an unnecessary constitu-
ent of the mind’s essential character does provide evidence that some substance,
on which the power of imagination depends, exists. The narrator’s conclusion
should be understood as a claim that the mind’s having the mode of imagination
is evidence that the narrator (qua a mind) exists as a composite entity and that
the substance to which the mind is joined exists. This conclusion should not be
understood as a claim that the power of imagination is a mode of a composite
substance. Moreover, this argument implicitly relies upon Descartes’s views
regarding composite substances.
This argument for the existence of a substance to which the mind is joined,
however, is not presented with the utmost certainty. The narrator, when deriving
(6), hesitantly posits the existence of some substance joined to his mind. I say
hesitantly, for the narrator does speak cautiously, saying, “…it seems to follow
that that [the power of imagination] depends upon something distinct from my-
self.”12
However, this argument is presented as a deductive argument. The narrator

does not seem concerned about the possibility that the entailments he makes
may be being invalid or being of an inductive and thus uncertain nature. The
narrator is concerned about the certainty of his positing that the power of imagi-
nation is not necessary to his own existence. Little to no evidence is provided
for this claim. While the positioning of this argument in the Meditations sug-
gests that the “peculiar effort” required by the imagination is evidence that the
power of imagination is an unnecessary constituent of the essential character of
his mind, the narrator does not provide any clues as to why the effort required
by the power of imagination suggests that the power of imagination is an unnec-
essary constituent of the mind. Thus, we have no reason to believe that the
power of imagination’s requiring a peculiar effort on the part of the mind is the
evidence offered for his possibly existing without his power of imagination.
Even if it is, the entailment seems so weak as not to provide adequate evidence
for his ability to exist without the power of imagination.
Speculation That the Substance on Which the Mind Depends Is a Body

While the second difference between the power of imagination and the
power of understanding leads the narrator to posit the possibility that his mind
forms a composite substance, the first difference leads him to further speculate
that his mind is joined to a body:
I can easily understand that, if there does exist some body to which the mind is so
joined that it can apply itself to contemplate it, as it were, whenever it pleases, then it
may possibly be this very body that enables me to imagine corporeal things…since
there is no equally suitable way of explaining imagination that comes to mind, I can
make a probable conjecture that the body exists. But this is only a probability…I do not
yet see how the distinct idea of corporeal nature which I find in my imagination can
provide any basis for a necessary inference that some body exists. (AT VII.73–4: CSM
II. 51)
The conclusion here is clear. The narrator has good inductive reasons for
positing the possibility that a body, which his mind can contemplate, exists.
This argument of “best of all possible explanations” is not sufficient, however,
to meet the narrator’s high certain standards. This argument leads the narrator to
at least posit the possibility that a body exists and is intimately joined with his
mind. Fully understanding why and how the narrator posits this possibility re-
quires further analysis of three points. First, while the body is one to which the
mind applies itself, neither the Latin nor the French specifies that this possible
Speculation 115
body is the narrator’s body.13 Nonetheless, I will show that here Descartes’s
narrator refers to his body in a weak sense.
Second, the power of imagination is that leading the narrator to posit the
possible existence of a body, but exactly what in the power of imagining pulls
the narrator to this conclusion is not clear. True, he asserts that it is the “corpo-
real nature” found in such ideas which lead him to posit the possible existence
of a body joined to his mind. As I will show, the “corporeal nature” is the exten-
sion objectively <representationally> contained in his imaginary ideas of pure
mathematics, because of the manner in which imaginary ideas objectively con-
tain the extension of the geometrical shapes.
Finally, the purpose of this inductive speculation is unclear. Since the narra-
tor’s epistemic principles demand certainty, this argument from imagination to
the possibility of his having a body seems a failed project better left out of the
Meditations. This seems especially the case, since he has already proven the
powers of imagination and “sensory perception” to be real faculties of his mind.
This argument seems not relevant to his other need: proving that his faculty of
sensory perception is really a faculty through which he is aware of actually ex-
isting corporeal substances. Hence, this argument seems an ancillary addendum
to his defense that the faculty of imagination does produce materially true ideas.
Nonetheless, this argument does have a purpose. In fact, this argument is a nec-
essary step toward reaching his final proof for his dualism. The narrator needs
to prove the existence of his body and yet retain that the mind is a distinct sub-
stance from this body. I will show how the narrator’s concerns about the possi-
ble implications of his imagining aid him in retaining the mind-body distinct-
ness.
Body As His Body

In most places in which Descartes (or his narrator) refers to his own body or
to the human body, he does so with the definite article, “the.” Here in Med. VI,
the narrator speculates that a body exists. Perhaps one might argue that the nar-
rator here does not posit the possibility that his body exists, but that some cor-
poreal substance (whether his or not) exists. According to this reading, then, his
having the power of imagining suggests that some corporeal substance, of some
sort, exists.
However, this interpretation seems not in line with the general context of
this argument for two reasons. First and primarily, the narrator has just con-
cluded that his power of imagination might imply the existence of some sub-
stance joined to his mind. His reasoning suggests that this other substance is one
that joins with the mind to form a composite substance. This substance, which
he speculates is a body, is the narrator’s “substance” in that it is a substance to
which his mind is joined. This possible body is his in the sense that it is joined
to him (the narrator qua a mind.)
Second, the narrator’s reason for positing the possibility that a body exists is
its explanatory value:
…And I can easily understand that, if there does exist some body to which the mind is
so joined that it can apply itself to contemplate it, as it were, whenever it pleases, then
it may possibly be this very body which enables me to imagine corporeal things. (AT
VII.73: CSM II.51)
The narrator believes that his mind’s being connected to a body explains how
the mind contemplates the representations of corporeal substances. The mind,
when imagining, can apply itself to this hypothetical body both to form the rep-
resentations and to contemplate them. This suggests that the “some” body is a
corporeal substance having a special connection to the mind. Consider also the
narrator’s description of the faculty of imagination, upon further inspection, is
really nothing more than “…the application of the cognitive faculty to a body
which is intimately present to it…”14 This also suggests that the possible body is
one joined to the mind, not a body contemplated from afar. The application of
the mind does not seem to the narrator an application of his mind to a substance
completely external to him, but instead an internal application of the faculty of
one substance to another substance when the two are joined to form a composite
substance.
These two points together suggest that the narrator here discusses the possi-
ble existence of his body. This possible body is one joined to his mind in such a
manner as to permit the mind’s contemplating representations of the geometri-
cal figures. This body is the narrator’s body, however, only in the sense that it is
a body joined to his mind. Specifying the “some” body as his body only identi-
fies the some body as a corporeal substance connected to his body in such an
intimate manner that this body is as much a part of him as is his mind. This is
not a claim that this body is the one with hands, eyes, brain, etc. that the narrator
seemingly senses. All he knows of this body is that it is malleable enough to
take on the various representations of the geometrical figures so that he may
contemplate them. This possible body is nothing more than a corporeal figure
capable of performing the functions of the pineal gland and corporeal imagina-
tion. This possible corporeal substance need not perform the functions exactly
as described by Descartes in his “full” psychophysiological theory of imagina-
tion. More precisely, the narrator, at the beginning of Med. VI, does not neces-
sarily posit the possible existence of a corporeal substance having the human
physiology accepted by Descartes. This body is the narrator’s body only in a
restricted sense of its being a corporeal substance joined to his mind.
Speculation 117
Evidence for This Speculation

The narrator asserts that his mind’s being joined to a corporeal substance
most easily explains his power of imagination. Given that he has already ac-
counted for the material truth of his imaginary ideas of geometrical figures,
though, what about his power of imagining still requiring explanation is unclear.
The narrator asserts that the corporeal nature in his imagination suggests that he
exists as a mind joined to a body.15 At first glance, this “corporeal nature” found
in his imagination seems nothing more than the res extensa as it is objectively
contained in the narrator’s imaginary ideas of corporeal figures. The narrator
has just demonstrated, with the chiliagon and triangle examples, that the power
of understanding may also generate ideas objectively containing this same cor-
poreal nature.16 Yet the power of understanding, according to Descartes, does
not suggest the possible existence of a body to which the mind is joined. Thus,
the “corporeal nature” found in the narrator’s imagination cannot simply be that
imaginary ideas are about geometrical figures.
Another possibility is that the corporeal nature found in his imagination is
the power of imagination’s being limited to contemplations of corporeal figures.
The power of understanding is not so limited. This may likely be what the narra-
tor has in mind, but this seems an unsatisfactory reading. That his power of
imagination only contemplates representations of corporeal substances doesn’t
seem evidence that these representations are in a body joined to his mind.
Moreover, while not directly contrary to the broader context, this understanding
of the “corporeal nature” found in his imagination is not suggested by the narra-
tor’s previous arguments.
The narrator does suggest that the existence of his body not only best ex-
plains the corporeal nature found in his imagination, but also accounts for the
two ways in which his power of imagination differs from the power of under-
standing:
So the difference between the modes of thinking and pure understanding may simply
be this: when the mind understands, it in some way turns towards itself and inspects
one of the ideas which are within it; but when it imagines, it turns towards the body and
looks at something in the body which conforms to an idea understood by the mind or
perceived by the senses. (AT VII.73: CSM II.51)
Indeed, the first difference between the imagination and the understanding itself
suggests a better understanding of the “corporeal nature” found in the narrator’s
imagination. The first difference is that the power of imagination requires a pe-
culiar effort not required by the power of understanding. Imagination, by Des-
cartes’s own definition, requires the existence of some representation to con-
template. This effort is the one needed to form the representation of a triangle
before mind, which is then contemplated by the imagination. The power of un-
derstanding, when contemplating the geometrical figure of a triangle, need not
contemplate a specific triangle or representation of a triangle. The understand-
ing of a triangle, the idea, contemplates the nature of a triangle, and such an idea
is one about (in an intentional sense) the triangle by virtue of its contents de-
scribing the triangle’s manner of extension.
On the other hand, the imagining of the nature of the shape, triangle, in-
volves the contemplation of a specific instance/representation of a triangle. The
imagining of an enclosed, three-sided figure is an idea about (in an intentional
sense) a representation of a triangle. The representationality of the imaginary
idea of a triangle is two-fold in that the idea objectively contains the representa-
tion of a triangle. The power of imagination is about (in an intentional sense) the
representations of corporeal things in that imaginary ideas present, to a cog-
nizer, representations of geometrical figures.
Both the imaginary idea of the triangle and the idea of understanding a tri-
angle contain the corporeal nature of a triangle. Yet only the imaginary idea
contains the representation of the triangle. This suggests that that the corporeal
nature found in the imagination is the corporeal nature of the representations
(the shapes or images) of geometrical shapes. The corporeal nature found in the
imagination is not the corporeal essence represented in the shapes and figures
contemplated by the imagination. Instead, the corporeal nature found in the
imagination is the corporeal nature of the representations themselves as it is ob-
jectively contained in imaginary ideas. That is, the corporeal nature found in the
imagination is the phenomenal representation of the representations of the geo-
metrical shapes and figures.
The representations formed by the “extra” effort on the part of the mind, the
narrator reasons, are best explained if they are formed in a body that is joined to
his mind. This would explain, first of all, the corporeal nature found in the nar-
rator’s imaginary ideas. These representations formed before his mind’s eye
appear in his imaginary ideas as though they are corporeal representations. That
his mind is attached to a body best explains why the representations appear be-
fore his mind as corporeal representations. The presence of a body to which the
mind is joined also best explains the process of forming the representations in-
spected by the imagination. The extra effort of the mind is one in which the
mind applies itself to the body, creating in it a representation of a geometrical
figure. The imagination then contemplates the geometrical figure by applying
itself to this body.
In sum, the manner in which the narrator’s power of imagination differs
from his power of understanding suggests the possibility of his existing as a
mind joined with a body. That his power of imagination inspects what appears
Speculation 119
as corporeal representations of geometrical figures suggests that the corporeal

representations are formed in a body to which his mind is joined. His power of
imagination’s being an unnecessary constituent of his mind’s essential character
implies that his mind exists as a conjoined entity. Thus, the two ways in which
his power of imagination differs from his power of understanding lead the nar-
rator to posit the possibility that his mind is joined to a body.
The Purpose of This Speculation

In Med. V, Descartes’s narrator quells his doubts regarding the possible ma-
terial falsity of his imaginary ideas. He does so by pointing to the sufficiently
clear and distinct imaginary ideas of simple geometrical figures.17 From his ex-
ample of the triangle and the “essence” argument, he concludes that his being
joined to a body is at least possible. That is, the material truth of his imaginary
ideas of geometrical figures implies the possibility that he contemplates these
figures by applying his mind’s eye to a body intimately joined to his mind.
More specifically, the mind, when imagining, might well inspect corporeal rep-
resentations of geometrical figures formed in this body. In the end, the narrator
suggests that he can best explain the material truth of his imaginary idea by pos-
iting the possible existence of a body contemplated by his mind when imagin-
ing.
The narrator’s skeptical principles, however, require certainty. Positing the
mere possibility that his mind imagines by contemplating a body to which his
mind is joined seems a failed argument having no useful purpose in the overall
structure of the Meditations. Nonetheless, this modest proposal is, as I will now
show, a useful step in the narrator’s proof for the mind-body distinction. First,
consider the narrator’s later reference back to this speculation:
First, I know that everything which I clearly and distinctly understand is capable of be-
ing created by God so as to correspond exactly with my understanding of it. Hence the
fact that I can clearly and distinctly understand one thing apart from another is enough
to make me certain that the two things are distinct, since they are capable of being
separated, at least by God…Thus, simply by knowing that I exist and seeing at the
same time that nothing else belongs to my nature or essence except that I am a thinking
thing, I can infer correctly that my essence consists solely in the fact that I am a think-
ing thing. It is true that I may have (or, to anticipate, that I certainly have) a body that is
very closely joined to me. But nevertheless, on the one hand I have a clear and distinct
idea of myself, in so far as this is simply an extended, non-thinking thing. And accord-
ingly, it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it. (AT
VII.78: CSM I.54)
Here the narrator refers back to his previous conclusion that he may have a
body. This reference comes in the midst of what Wilson takes as Descartes’s
main argument for mind-body distinctness.18 Wilson characterizes this argument

as
(1) If A can exist apart from B, and vice versa, A is really distinct from B, and B from
A.
(2) Whatever I clearly and distinctly understand can be brought about by God as I un-
derstand it.
(3) If I clearly and distinctly understand the possibility that A exists apart from B, and
B apart from A, then God can bring it about that A and B do exist in separation.
(4) If God can bring it about that A and B exist in separation, then A and B can exist
apart and hence, by (1) they are distinct.
(5) I can clearly and distinctly understand the possibility of A and B existing apart
from each other, if there are attributes Φ and Ψ, such that I clearly and distinctly
understand that Φ belongs to the nature of A, and that Ψ belongs to the nature of
B, and that Φ ≠Ψ, and I clearly and distinctly understand that something can be a
complete thing if it has Φ even if it lacks Ψ (or has Ψ and lacks Φ).
(6) Where A is myself and B is body, thought and extension satisfy the conditions on
Φ and Ψ respectively.
(7) Hence, I am really distinct from body and can exist without it. 19
Rozemond parts company with Wilson on this interpretation, suggesting that

Wilson relies too much on arguments regarding sensation as a special mode of
thought. Instead, Rozemond argues for the following characterization of the
Real Distinction Argument:
(1) I can doubt that I am extended but I cannot doubt (that is, I am certain) that I
think.
(2) For any (intrinsic) properties Φ and Ψ, if it is possible to doubt that something is
Ψ while not doubting that (that is, while being certain) that it is Φ then Φ is not a
mode of Ψ.
(3) Thought is not a mode of extension. (1,2)
(4) Extension is the principal attribute of body, that is, corporeal substance.
(5) If thought is not a mode of extension, it is a principal attribute distinct from exten-
sion.
(6) Thought is a principal attribute distinct from extension. (3,5)
(7) Every substance has exactly one principal attribute.
(8) The substance that is the subject of my thoughts (=my mind) is not extended.
(4,5,7)
(9) My mind is a different substance from body. (4,8, Lebniz’ Law)
(10) If A and B are different substances, they are really distinct.
(11) My mind is really distinct from body. (9,10)20
This, I believe, is an adequate interpretation of this argument, and I concur with

it in that it relies more on Descartes’s principles regarding essences and sub-
stances more than Wilson’s. Both understand the real distinction argument as
stemming from Descartes’s basic metaphysical principles regarding substances,
Speculation 121
essences and modes. However, neither gives a truly adequate rendering because
neither truly understands the full metaphysical ideas Descartes presents regard-
ing essences, substances and modes. In addition, neither interprets this argument
in light of the role the special mode of imagination plays in Meditations.
However, taking this argument in light of Descartes’s views regarding
imagination as possibly implying the existence of a body to which his mind is
joined reveals a more significant understanding of this argument. This discus-
sion suggests that the possibility of the narrator’s having a body might effect his
concluding that his mind is a substance in its own right, a suggestion which he
here dismisses. On Wilson’s reading, Descartes’s narrator defends the mind-
body distinction by referring to his concept of a complete substance qua sub-
stance versus his concept of a complete substance qua a composite substance.21
Imagining’s possibly implying the existence of a body might suggest that the
mind is a mode of a body or vice versa. That is, the power of imagining’s sug-
gesting or implying the presence of extension might suggest that the mind is not
a substance in its own right. To this the narrator replies:
Besides this, I find in myself faculties for certain special modes of thinking, namely
imagination and sensory perception. Now I can clearly and distinctly understand my-
self as a whole without these faculties; but I cannot, conversely, understand these facul-
ties without me, that is, without an intellectual substance to inhere in. This is because
there is an intellectual act included in their essential definition; and hence I perceive
that the distinction between them and myself corresponds to the distinction between the
modes of a thing and the thing itself. Of course I also recognize that there are other
faculties (like those of changing position, of taking on various shapes, and so on)
which, like sensory perception and imagination, cannot be understood apart from some
substance for them to inhere in, and hence cannot exist without it. But it is clear that
these other faculties, if they exist, must be in a corporeal or extended substance and not
an intellectual one; for the clear and distinct conception of them includes extension, but
does not include any intellectual act whatsoever. (AT VII.78–9: CSM II.54–55)
The imaginary ideas must be included in the definition of thought, but that does
not involve including any of the modes of extension (e.g., changing position and
malleability) suggested by the peculiar effort needed to form the objects of
imagination in the definition of a thinking substance. The modes of extension
suggested by the power of imagination must exist in a substance. However, the
narrator claims, this is not to suggest that his mind is incomplete qua a sub-
stance—that it is only an attribute of extension. It merely shows that his powers
of imagination and sensory perception are evidence of his mind’s being joined
to another substance. Despite his previously concluding that his obviously true
imaginary ideas suggest the existence of his body, this suggestion in no way
implies that his mind is not fully and really distinct from his body.22 By outlin-
ing, early in Med. VI, the relationship the power of imagination has to the es-
sence of the mind, the narrator avoids a possible difficulty with later asserting a
true dualism. By explaining why and how the power of imagination suggests the
presence of a body, the narrator avoids eroding the mind-body distinctness.
Conclusion
The narrator must begin Med. VI with a discussion of imagination, for his
skeptical doubts prevent him from discussing sensory perception as a mode of
thought distinct from imagination. At the beginning of Med. VI, the narrator
only has evidence that at least some of his imaginary (and sensory) ideas, inso-
far as they objectively contain a shaped object, are materially true. He hasn’t
evidence, however, that his sensory ideas are really sensory ideas. At the begin-
ning of Med. VI, he cannot know that his sensory ideas aren’t imaginary ideas.
While he can be certain that he imagines, he cannot be certain that he sense-
perceives. Thus, the narrator must begin his arguments for the existence of cor-
poreal substances and for the mind-body distinction with a discussion of his
faculty of imagination.
Moreover, this study reveals that Descartes’s skepticism relies not only on
worries concerning sensory perception, but also on worries regarding imagina-
tion. In Med. II, Descartes’s narrator cannot claim that he really imagines be-
cause the corporeal content of imaginary ideas might not exist —thus imaginary
ideas are suspect. Med. VI must begin with a discussion of the faculty of imagi-
nation. Med. V concludes, among other things, that the corporeal nature repre-
sented in purely intellectual ideas of geometrical figures (those mental forma-
tions of the formulas describing geometrical shapes) is such that the ideas of it
produced in the understanding alone are materially true. So Med VI begins with
the narrator raising the question as to whether the corporeal nature, as expressed
by the understanding, is as clearly and distinctly presented by the imagination.
While some ideas of the corporeal nature are sufficiently clear and distinct by
the imagination, as in the case of the triangle, others are not. This leads the nar-
rator to conclude that the imagination depends on something other than the
mind. Some force, such as an external force produced extramentally (such as
random motions of the animal spirits) or an intramental force (such as a voli-
tion) plays a creative part in determining the phenomenal content of imaginary
ideas. This is that which is best explained by the presence of a body to which
the mind applies itself when imagining. While this does not prove the existence
of a body, the argument redeems imagination as a real power of thought. In ad-
dition, this gives the narrator reason to raise further arguments that the possibil-
ity is a reality. The essence expressed in imaginary ideas is materially true.
Speculation 123
Imaginary ideas are about something. Sensory perception is discussed next be-
cause there is much in the imagination aside from geometrical shapes —colors,
sounds, etc.–– that seemingly arrives from the senses: and that is why the narrator
turns to sensory perception. A full accounting of sensory perception as a real
faculty of the mind can explain imagination. Thus, imagination plays a much
more central role in Descartes’s Meditations than previously thought.
Notes
Introduction: The Importance of Imagination

1
Cottingham, Stoothoff and Murdoch, editors. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, (Cam-
bridge: 1984), p. 11. Hereafter, references to Descartes’s writings will be from this translation,
referred to as ‘CSM’ followed by volume numbers and page numbers and preceded by stan-
dard reference ‘AT’ to the Adam-Tannery volumes.
2
AT VII. 72–74: CSM II. 50–51.
3
J. Cottingham, “Descartes, Sixth Meditation: The External World, ‘Nature’ and Human Na-
ture,” Philosophy Supp. 20 (1986): 73–89. Reprinted in Descartes’s Meditations, edited by V.
Chappell, Rowman & Littlefild (1998): 207–223. All future references will be to the reprint.
Chapter I: Theory of Sensory Perception

1
For instance, see A. MacKenzie, Descartes on Sensory Representation: A Study of dioptrics,
Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 109–147, 1990 and A. Simmons. “Are Cartesian Sensations
Representational?” Noûs, 1999.
2
AT. VII. 72: CSM I. 100–108.
3
In this essay, I am primarily concerned only with second-grade and only briefly discuss the
first grade level for purposes of clarification and do not discuss the third-grade sensory percep-
tions.
4
For example, see M. Wilson, Descartes (Routledge: 1978); R. Arbini, “Did Descartes Have a
Philosophical Theory of Sense-perception?” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 21, 317–38,
Nancy Maull, “Cartesian Optics and the Gemetrization of Nature,” The Review of Metaphysics
XXXII, #2, 1978; by M. Hooker, editor, Descartes: Critical and Interpretive Essays (Balti-
more, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978); N. Wells, “Objective Reality of Ideas in Des-
cartes, Caterus, and Suarez,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 28:1 1990; M. Costas,
“What Cartesian Ideas are not,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 1983; J.J. Macintosh,
“Perception and Imagination in Descartes, Boyle and Hooke,” Canadian Journal of Philoso-
phy 13, 327–352; and A. MacKenzie, Descartes on Sensory Representation: A Study of diop-
trics, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 109–147, 1990.
5
See De Anima III.2, 425b23, 424a18–19, III.12,434a29, De Sensu 1, 436a7–b7. The main dis-
cussion of the process of sense-perception is in De Anima III. For the Scholastics, see Antonio
Rubio, Commentaria in libros Aristotelis de Anima, Francisco Suarez, Commentaria ac dispu-
tationes de Anima, Jorge Gracia, translator (Milwaukee, Marquette University Press, 1982);
Fransico de Toledo, Commentaria…in tres libros Aristotelis de Anima; Thomas Aquinas,
Summa Theologiae; Bernardo Carlos Bazan, “Intellectum Speculativum: Averroes, Thomas
Aquinas, and Siger of Brabant on the Intelligible Object,” History of Philosophy; Daniel Gar-
ber, “Descartes, The Aristotelians, and The Revolution that did not Happen in 1637”; George
Kmieck, “The Role of the Sensible Species in St. Thomas’ Epistemology: A Comparison with
Contemporary Perception Theory,” International Philosophy Quarterly 14, 1974, 455–475;
Leen Spruit, Species Intelligibilis, From Perception to Knowledge, Brill, 1994 and John
Marenbon, Later Medieval Philosophy (1150 –1350) An Introduction, Routledge, 1987.
6
The account I give is derived from the secondary literature, namely, Allison Simmons, “Ex-
plaining Sense-perception: A Scholastic Challenge,” Philosophical Studies 73: 257–75, 1994.
7
Rubio. II.v-vi.6. See Suarez III.ii.25. The account I give here is Allison Simmon’s (“Explaining
Sense-perception: A Scholastic Challenge) interpretation of Rubio and Suarez. Both seemingly
suggest this claim, but given that most of the later Scholastics claimed that only substances
have essences (properties of substances do not themselves have essences), a better interpreta-
tion of Rubio (and Suarez as well) might be proposed.
8
The Scholastics stipulate this to avoid the obvious problems with Aristotle’s theory. If the me-
dium, air, or my external sense organs, my eyes, were to become literally like a blue object
when they assimilate the intentional form of the blue object, then the air and my eyes would
become blue. But if this happens, then the blue-ness of the air and my eyes would prevent me
from correctly sense-perceiving other colors.
9
See A. Simmons and B. Bazan.
10
A. Simmons. “Explaining Sense-Perception: A Scholastic Challenge,” 268
11
Toledo.II.xii.34. Suarez, II.ii.9.
12
See AT VI. 113–4: CSM I. 165–66.
13
See AT VII. 434: CSM II. 293 and AT VII. 249-50: CSM II. 173–74.
14
See AT VI. 109: CSM I. 164.
15
See also AT VI. 130–31: CSM I. 167.
16
See Treatise on Man (AT XI. 175–177: CSM I.105–106) for a more detailed description of
how these impressions are formed.
17
See AT VII. 434: CSM II. 293.
18
See AT IIIA. 315–23: CSM I. 279–85, AT VI. 84–85,135: CSM I. 153,169.
19
See de Regulae, Rule XII, (AT X. 415: CSM I. 42) and Treatise (AT XI. 202: CSM I. 108).
20
See dioptrics, (AT VI. 113–34: CSM I. 165–68).
21
AT XI. 177: CSM I. 106.
22
See dioptrics, Discourse VI (AT VI. 131–33: CSM I. 167), Passions (AT XI. 355: CSM I. 341)
and Comments (AT VIIIB. 359: CSM I. 304). Cartesian scholars often confuse figures traced
in the animal spirits with what Descartes calls “figures traced on the internal surface of the
brain.” Costa, for example, claims that the figures in the animal spirits are the figures created
by the arrangement of the nerve ends and connected cerebral matter, as the animal spirits enter
and leave the various nerves. These figures, however, are ones Descartes denies are the cere-
bral ideas directly considered by the mind.
23
A. Kenny (Descartes, New York, Random House, 1967) implicitly proposes this interpretation.
See his chapter five. Costas seemingly holds both this view and the following one. D. Sepper,
(“Imagination, Phantasms, and the Making of Hobbesian and Cartesian Science”) seemingly
holds to this as well.
24
There is another option here. Descartes might also assume some form of Spinoza’s Numerical
Identity Thesis, according to which, some parts of the body may be considered as such insofar
as they are extended and may also be considered ideas insofar as they are contents of thought.
This option seems unlikely, however, given (1) Descartes’s exclusive conception of essences
Notes 127
(That which has the principle essence of thought necessarily cannot be extended), (2) his claim
that the mind and the body are completely distinct substances which do not (given their dis-
tinct essences) bear an identity relation to each other and (3) that Descartes presumes a causal
interaction between the mind and the body, which Spinoza denies (and must deny when hold-
ing to the Numerical Identity Thesis.) See M. D. Rocca, “Spinoza’s Argument for the Identity
Theory” (Philosophical Review 102:2, 1993) for more details regarding (3).
25
See dioptrics, Discourse IV (AT VI. 109: CSM I. 164).
26
Passions, AT XI. 352: CSM I. 340.
27
Passions, AT XI. 353: CSM I. 340.
28
AT VII. 75: CSM II. 52.
29
AT X. 415: CSM. 42.
30
Descartes considers this automated bodily response to external corporeal substances the first-
grade level of sense-perception. (See my footnote # 2) This kind of sensory perception does
not require a body’s being attached to a rational soul and is had by animals (who have no
mind) as well as humans. Although the mind’s being in a sensory state (e.g., pain) can cause
bodily responses to external corporeal substances, as I later explain.
31
See AT X. 415–16: CSM I. 42.
32
AT X. 415: CSM I. 42. See also Fourth Replies (AT VII. 230–31: CSM II. 161–62) where
Descartes appeals to the distinction between the motive power and the cognitive power in re-
plying to Arnauld’s charge that Descartes’s understanding of sense-perception entails that ani-
mals have a rational soul.
33
The judgment that “this or that idea….refers to a certain thing situated outside us” is a judg-
ment of the third grade sensory perception, which is an act of the intellect, not sense-
perception. What follows, however, is a description of the content of second-grade sensory
perception. See also AT VII. 387: CSM II. 265).
34
See Med. III (AT VII. 38: CSM I. 26).
35
The Latin word representare is ambiguous. While generally translated as “signify” or “stand
for” (what the Scholastics meant by the word), it can also mean “to present”, “to show” or “to
inform.” See Margaret Wilson’s “Descartes on the Representationality of Sensation,” Central
Themes in Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Cover and Kulstad (Hackett, 1990).
36
37
To use another mechanistic example, if the electrical patterns which travel from my computer’s
keyboard to the computer and then to the computer’s monitor merely signified the motion of
my finger pressing a button, then why is it that symbols, which do not signify the motion of
my fingers or any other quality of my fingers, appear on the screen? Simply because the
hardware and software of the computer is such that the electrical patterns created by my press-
ing on the computer’s keyboard present to the monitor the letters, and not the motions or the
qualities of the substances which caused the electrical patterns. Even though the symbols
themselves are not contained in the electrical patterns nor do the patterns representatively sig-
nify the symbols (i.e., the altered state of the monitor caused by the electrical patterns) which
appear on my screen, the electrical patterns are such that they cause the monitor to alter so as
to display the symbols.
38
See de Regulae, Rule XII (AT X. 414: CSM I. 42).
39
AT X. 414: CSM I. 41.
40
Moreover, here Descartes seemingly denies that mental sensory states resemble or even signify
external corporeal substances or their qualities. The sounds which are the content of my sen-
sory state do not, in any way, represent the qualities of another’s vocal cords, nor does the tick-
ling or pain which is the phenomenal content of my sensory states inform me of the qualities
of the external corporeal substance which causes my tickling or my pain. My state of being in
pain is, certainly, a mental state in which I am aware of an external corporeal substance which
causes the pain, but to say that my sensory state of pain stands for a rock in my shoe (or the
qualities of the rock) versus a piece of glass in my shoe is incorrect. But I will not argue for
this interpretation here.
41
See AT XI. 349–55: CSM I. 338–41.
42
To motivate this point, consider my passive act of receiving a gift. While this act is caused by
someone’s active act of giving me a gift, the gift’s reception is my action. Similarly, my
mind‘s becoming aware of an external corporeal substance involves, for Descartes, the mind’s
being altered by local cerebral motions, but the alteration of the mind itself is a function of the
mind.
43
See AT IIIB. 360–61: CSM I. 305.
Chapter II: Psychophysiology of Imagination

1
I provide more specific explanations in the next subsection.
2
See AT VII. 28: CSM II. 19
3
See AT VII. 73–74: CSM II. 51, where Descartes suggests that the corporeal nature of his
imaginary ideas weakly implies that the objects of imagination are not only extramental, but
corporeal as well. I discuss these arguments further in my last chapter.
4
AT XI. 343–344, 338: CSM I. 335–6, 338.
5
I discuss the first of these arguments in more detail in Chapter III and the second in Chapter IV.
6
This is a mere sketch of the Scholastic theory. There are a number of steps and details glossed
here. The Scholastics distinguished between various types and manners of imagining some-
thing previously sensed. For example, Aquinas described various modes of imagining based on
the causal influence of the passive intellect, active intellect and the creative intellect. For ex-
ample, imagining the red shirt I wore yesterday as though it were blue involves an act of the
creative intellect. See both L Spruit’s Species Intelligibilis: From Perception to Knowledge,
Vol.I and II (E.J.Brill, New York, 1994) and M. Bundy’s The Theory of Imagination in Classi-
cal and Mediaeval Thought (The University of Illinois Press, 1927) for a more complete ac-
count of the Scholastic theory of imagination.
7
See Aquinas, Brabant, Suarez.
8
See dioptrics, AT VI. 112: CSM I. 165.
9
See also Rule Twelve of de Regulae (AT. X. 413-5: CSM I. 40–42).
10
See AT XI. 177–78: CSM II. 107 and AT X. 428: CSM I. 50 where Descartes also stipulates
that the phantasy is large enough to retain these patterns, in which case they are to be equated
with memory.
11
That is, the phantasy only undergoes a modal change when rearranged by the motion of the
animal spirits. I discuss this and other interesting implications of this in my chapter 3, section
IIa.
12
AT VII. 28, 73: CSM II. 19, 50.
13
For examples, AT X. 413–14: CSM I. 41; AT VI. 109–114: CSM I. 163.
14
I discuss the representationality of the cerebral semblances (the objects of imagination) in
Notes 129
Chapter III.
15
Indeed, one way in which a representation might differ from that which it represents is that the
representation does not instantiate the universal of that which it represents.
16
AT XI. 177: CSM I. 107. See also de regulae (AT X. 413–14: CSM I. 41–42) where Descartes
describes what he means by ‘figures’: he clearly indicates that they are not little pictures or re-
semblances of the objects they represent.
17
They might resemble that which they represent in regard to shape, particularly when imagining
semblances of the objects of pure mathematics. See Converstation with Berman (AT V. 162–
63: CSM III. 345), where he suggests that the will creates the semblance of a triangle by draw-
ing out the figure of a triangle.
18
AT VII. 73, CSM II. 51.
19
See AT VIIIB. 360–61: CSM I. 305, where Descartes seemingly admits that an artist’s rendi-
tion of God or angels might signify them, but denies that such renditions can lead to phenome-
nal awareness of God’s incorporeal essence. That is, he implicitly suggests that the cerebral
semblances merely signifying that which they represent is not suffienct for them to play the
role needed in his theory of imagination.
20
I discuss and defend this more fully in the next chapter.
21
This will be explained and defended in more detail in the next subsection.
22
This is discussed further in the next section and in the next chapter.
23
Italics mine. See also Comments on a Certain Broadsheet, AT VIIIB. 360–361: CSM I. 305,
where he seemingly admits that an artist’s renditions represent God in terms of signifying God,
but do not represent God in the manner necessary for cognitive awareness of God.
24
AT X. 342: CSM I. 335.
25
The type of causation I suggest here has recently been promoted and discussed in the secon-
dary literature. For the main discussion of causation, see Amy Schmitter, “Formal Causation
and Intentionality,” Monist (1997) and Dan Garber, Descartes’s Metaphysical Physics, Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1995.
26
AT X. 343: CSM I. 335.
27
AT X. 344: CSM I. 336.
28
In fact, the volition cannot create a semblance which represents an immaterial substance: what
it creates, perhaps, represents only the content of the volition or perhaps a misguided under-
standing of what an immaterial substance would look like if it were a corporeal substance. I
discuss this more in Chapter III.
29
AT XI. 348: CSM I. 338.
30
AT XI. 348–49: CSM I. 338.
31
AT XI. 349: CSM I. 338–39.
32
AT XI. 347–48: CSM I. 337–38.
33
AT XI. 348–49, 350: CSM I. 337, 339.
34
AT XI. 348–49: CSM I. 338.
35
AT XI. 348–49: CSM I. 338.
36
AT XI. 348–49: CSM I. 340.
37
AT XI. 372: CSM I. 349
38
Of course, this is questionable.
Chapter III: Imagination in Meditation II

1
AT VII. 17–18: CSM II. 12.
2
AT VII. 25–28: CSM II. 17–19.
3
AT VII. 28–29: CSM II. 19.
4
J. Cottingham. Descartes. (Blackwell 1986.) pp. 122–23.
5
See AT VII. 27: CSM II. 18. I discuss this further in the next section.
6
This will be discussed further in a later section of this chapter.
7
8
See Conversation with Berman, AT V. 162: CSM III. 345.
9
See AT X. 345: CSM I. 336 and AT VII. 75: CSM II. 52.
10
AT X. 348–9: CSM I. 338 and AT VII.19: CSM II. 13.
11
See Correspondence with Mersenne, AT III. 392–93.
12
13
See Principles (AT IIIA. 28–30: CSM I. 213–14), where Descartes discusses the difference
between ‘modal’ difference, ‘conceptual’ difference and ‘real’ difference. I discuss Descartes’s
conception of ‘modes’ in more detail in the next chapter.
14
See AT VII. 387: CSM II. 265, AT XI. 173: CSM I. 104, AT X.361: CSM I. 344.
15
I stipulate a certain range of patterns for each in order to allow one to imagine various differ-
ences in each, e.g., one could imagine a white unicorn versus a purple one. I might also imag-
ine the coffee mug presently before me as though it were blue rather than white. This also ex-
plains why Descartes considers imaginary states less distinct than sensory states: determining
whether the small blue and white china cup I imagine is the same cup as the plastic mug before
my senses is a difficult task.
16
See AT VIIIA: 28–31: CSM I. 213–15.
17
I suggest that this might be a problematic distinction because I believe Descartes will have
difficulty then claiming that the objects of imagination are themselves corporeal substance.
18
AT X. 345: CSM I. 336 and AT VII 75: CSM II. 52.
19
See the wax example in Med. II (AT VII. 29–32: CSM I. 20–1), where he holds that the narra-
tor’s sensations of the wax are vivid, but indistinct.
20
AT VIIIA. 22: CSM 207–208.
21
ATVII. 35: CSM II. 35.
22
See AT VIII. 29–32: CSM I. 20–21. The interpretation I give here is most fully outlined in and
due to Alison Simmon’s work, “Obscurity and Representationality in Descartes’s Theory of
Sense-perception” (Unpublished work.) That is, my basic understandings of these distinctions
are derived from this work.
23
AT X. 348–49: CSM I. 338.
24
Ibid.
25
26
27
See AT VII. 37, 102–104, CSM II. 26, 74–75.
28
Imagining or perceiving a corporeal substance which signifies an incorporeal substance (e.g.,
the statue, The Thinker) may allow a cognizant mind to make judgments regarding the incor-
poreal substance. Instead, the phenomenal content of judgments made from the imaginary state
are about the incorporeal substance, not the corporeal signifier.
29
AT VII. 35. CSM II. 24.
Notes 131
30
AT VII. 34–5: CSM II. 25.
31
AT VII. 232–3: CSM II. 162–3.
32
For example, Anthony Kenny, Descartes: A Study of His Philosophy (New York: Random
House, 1968); John Cottingham, trans., Descartes’s Conversations with Berman, with com-
mentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1976); Margaret Wilson, Des-
cartes (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978).
33
M. Wilson. Descartes. p. 110.
34
35
36
37
Richard Field, “Descartes on the Material Falsity of Ideas.” The Philosophical Review,
Vol.102, No. 3 (July 1993), p. 310.
38
39
R. Field, “Descartes on the Material Falsity of Ideas,” p. 310 and M Wilson. Descartes. p. 111
40
R. Field.pp. 310–11.
41
42
AT V. 160: CSM II. 343.
43
Here I follow the interpretation Norman Wells suggests in “Material Falsity in Descartes, Ar-
nauld, and Suarez,” Journal of The History of Ideas 22 (1984): 25–50.
44
See AT VII. 37–38: CSM II. 26–27
45
I say “partly because” because Descartes allows that prior beliefs and further reasoning can and
do influence what judgments one renders about the objects of imagination and sense-
perceptions. This is discussed primarily in Discourse Six of his dioptrics.
46
AT VII. 37–8: CSM II. 26–27,
47
See Med. IV,
48
AT VII. 231: CSM II. 162,
49
R. Field, “Descartes on Material Falsity of Ideas,” p. 316. While I agree with Field on the gen-
eral point here, I do reject his interpretation of the above quoted passage from Conversations
with Berman. For Field’s interpretation, see his pp. 330–332.
50
51
N. Wells. “Material Falsity in Descartes, Arnauld, and Suarez,” Journal of The History of Ideas
22 (1984): 25–50, p. 37.
52
Following both Cottingham and Wilson, it is necessary to attribute to Descartes the distinction
between objective being and objective reality. The former, seems a matter of an idea’s having
representational content, regardless of whether it represents anything or not. The latter Des-
cartes seems to use to refer to the degree to which an essence is represented by the representa-
tive content of an idea. (See AT VII. 40–41: CSM 28 for Descartes’s discussion of the degrees
of objective reality. The ideas of modes or accidents, he says here, contain less objective real-
ity than the ideas which represent the essential qualities of a thing.)
53
I here disagree with Wells’ interpretation, in which he seemingly considers an idea’s being
obscure as sufficient condition for the idea’s being materially false. (N. Wells, “Material Fal-
sity in Descartes, Arnauld, and Suarez.” Journal of The History of Ideas.)
54
As an important side-note, an idea’s being obscure, as shown in the above quote, does not
require that the narrator to stipulate that the idea has a formal, extramental cause. That is, even
if the obscure idea turns out to be a true representation, the obscurity does not require the nar-
rator to stipulate either that the object of the idea (that which determines an act of the intellect)
formally exists or that the representative content of the idea is determined by some externally
existing formal cause. That is, even if an obscure idea is materially true, it does not follow that
the essence represented (i.e., that is, given objective reality) by the content of such an idea ex-
ists formally or even that its representative content is formally caused by an existing object.
Instead, the content of the idea may be merely eminently determined by the narrator. (See AT
VII. 44–5: CSM II. 30–1.)
55
56
AT VII. 233–4: CSM II. 163. I here disagree with Field on this point and agree with Wells.
57
AT VIIIA. 29: CSM I. 214.
58
59
AT VII. 18–20, 30, 38–9: CSM II. 12–13, 20, 26–27.
60
AT VII. 43–40: CSM II. 30.
61
This is not to say that these clear and distinct ideas are evidence that corporeal substances exist
as the formal causes of these ideas, for they contain such slight objective reality that they
might be eminently contained in the narrator. See AT VII. 44–5: CSM II. 30–1.
62
AT VII. 41–2, 44: CSM II. 28–9, 30.
63
AT VII. 28: CSM I. 19.
64
AT VII. 28: CSM I. 19.
Chapter IV: Imagination in Meditations V and VI

1
See AT VII. 41: CSM II. 28.
2
3
4
5
6
For more information on Descartes’s ideas regarding mathematics and imagination, especially
in his early works, see Larry’s Nolan’s “Reason’s Fancy,” forthcoming in A Companion to Ra-
tionalism, Alan Nelson, ed., Cambridge, UK: Blackwell Publishing.
7
Understand ‘idea’ here in Descartes’s strict sense of a thought which represents some object to
the attentive mind.
8
9
10
11
12
For a further discussion of the limits Descartes places on his imagination, see Dennis Sepper’s
“Descartes and the Eclipse of Imagination, 1618–1630,” Journal of the History of Philosophy
27, no. 3. 1989, pp.379–403, and Véronique Foti’s “The Cartesian Imagination.” Philosophy
and Phenomenological Research. 46, 1986, pp. 631–642).
13
See my Chapter Three.
14
15
See my Chapter Two for a discussion of creative determination.
16
See AT VII. 38: CSM II. 26
17
I here understand “…the same individual” as denoting the incorporeal substance that is the
narrator’s mind. however, understanding “the same individual” as “incorporeal thinking sub-
Notes 133
stance” still leaves an ambiguity. While Descartes obviously indicated that he would somehow
change if he lacked the power of understanding and that this change would not occur if he
lacked the power of imagination, he did not specify how he would change. If the narrator lacks
the power of understanding he might change in that he does
(C1) . . .not remain an incorporeal thinking substance (a mind)

or in that he does not
(C2). . .remain the same incorporeal thinking substance that he now is
While both (C1) and (C2) lack textual support, I assume that (C1) is the correct interpretation.
I assume (C1) because (4) and (5) are not implied by (1)-(3) if (C2) is presumed. (This become
apparent later when Descartes’s criterion for the constituents of essences is discussed.)
18
Also, why the difference between the powers of understanding and imagination (i.e., that the
latter requires an “extra” effort on the mind‘s part) entails that (2) and (3) is also not specified.
I remain unsure whether the previous difference is what leads the narrator to this second dif-
ference.
19
In this subsection, I will first consider only (4) and then point out the implications for (5) later.
(4) has both a strong and a weak interpretation. The weak interpretation for (5) is:
(5') The power of understanding is a constituent of the essence of the mind but not a necessary
constituent of the essence of the mind.
The strong interpretation for (5) is
(5*) The power of understanding is a necessary constituent of the essence of the mind.
20
AT VIIIB. 348: CSM I. 297
21
AT VIIIA. 7: CSM I. 195
22
I here and henceforth use ‘attribute*’ to refer to Descartes’s specific sense of attribute and
‘attribute’
23
AT VIIIA. 26: CSM I. 210–11.
24
See AT VII. 160–1: CSM I. 113, AT VIIIB. 351: CSM I. 214, AT VIIIB. 253: CSM I. 215.
25
AT VIIIB. 31: CSM I. 215–6.
26
See his The World, AT XI: 38–45: CSM I. 95–98.
27
28
See AT VII. 160–1: CSM I. 113, AT VIIIB. 351: CSM I. 214. For Aristotle, see: Met.
Z.810315–8,10.1035b34–1036a29, 15.1040a282, De an.409b13–18. For Commentary on Ar-
istotle’s essentialism, see Joan Kung, “Aristotle on Essence and Explanation,” Philosophical
Studies 31 (1977): 361–383; Richard Sorabji Necessity, Cause, and Blame: Perspectives on
Aristotle’s Theory (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1980); and Norman Dahl’s “Two Kinds
of Essence in Aristotle: A Pale Man is Not the Same as His Essence,” The Philosophical Re-
view, 106.2, April 1997: 233–265.
29
I argue in the next chapter that the functions of imagination and sense-perception are unique in
that they are not solely modifications/functions of one substance.
30
AT VIIIB. 348: CSM I. 297.
31
AT VIIIB. 31: CSM I. 215.
32
33
S. Schiffer. “Descartes on His Essence.” The Philosophical Review, LXXXV, 1 (January
1976), p. 22.
34
By essential here, I mean a constituent of a substance’s essence. These necessary but nonessen-
tial attributes are called transcendental properties. See S. Schiffer, “Descartes on His Essence,”
pp. 24–25.
35
AT VIIIB. 341: CSM I. 297, emphasis mine. A de dicto necessity is a modal property of a
proposition, such that some proposition, p, is a de dicto necessity if and only if there is no pos-
sible world in which p is false.
36
S. Schiffer. “Descartes on His Essence,” pp. 24–25.
37
Instead of a two-fold essentialism, Schiffer suggests that we understand Descartes’s seemingly
inconsistent claims about the criteria for constituents of essences along the lines of an “univocal
theory of essence.” According to Schiffer, on this view, Descartes should be interpreted as
holding to at least the following claims about essences:
a. the principal attribute of an essence is the total sum of the substance of which it is
an essence and of any quantity of it.
b. a single concept of essence is applicable to both particular substances and to the to-
tal sum of the substance (e.g., in the case of corporeal substances, extension is appli-
cable to both particular bodies and to matter, the total sum of that which comprises
particular bodies)
and
c. while the principal attribute of an essence is the whole essence of the total sum of
the substance of which it is an essence, it is not the whole essence of any particular
(type of) body.
(See Schiffer. “Descartes on His Essence.” 24–25.)
To explain, consider again Descartes’s claims regarding a valley’s being necessary to the
continued existence of the mountain. Descartes holds that the valley is necessary to the contin-
ued existence of mountain, he says, in that if the mountain lacked a valley, the mountain would
no longer exist. On Schiffer’s view, while the particular substance, the mountain, would not
exist, the matter which composed the substance would continue to exist, perhaps as a lump of
rubble or a glen. Extension comprises the whole essence of the mountain insofar as the moun-
tain consists entirely of extended matter (i.e., taking mountain = a particular bit of extended
matter.) However, the extension does not comprise the whole of the mountain’s essence (qua
mountain) in that in order for a mountain (versus some other kind of extended substance) to
exist, it must have a valley. Thus, a de dicto reading of Descartes’s essentialism is not needed.
Having a valley, on Schiffer’s view, is a de re necessity for a mountain’s existing, but a moun-
tain’s existing is not a de re necessity for the continued existence of the total sum of extended
substance which wholly constitutes the mountain.
38
AT VIIIB. 341: CSM I. 297–98.
39
Schiffer, p. 24.
40
This may be because pain, hunger, joy, etc., are awarenesses of a body, which he may not
have.
41
ATVIIIB. 357: CSM I. 299.
42
This may or may not be a “completed” list of the modes which the narrator, given the con-
straints of his skeptical foundationalism, attribute to himself in Med. II.
43
44
AT VIIIA. 31: CSM I. 215.
Notes 135
Chapter V: Speculation That a Body Exists

1
John Cottingham., Descartes, Blackwell Press. Oxford. 1986, pp. 119–32.
2
Letters of 21 May 1642 (CSM III.165) and 28 June 1643 (CSM III. 691).
3
Cottingham. Descartes, p. 127.
4
Cottingham does not assert that the primitive notion of the union is itself a substance. Larry
Noland has pointed out this creates more difficulty, for Cottingham’s interpretation, given that
essences are defining principles of a substance. If modes are modes in which an essence is ex-
pressed and the union itself has not defining essential property, then sensations and modes
cannot be modes of the union, but only of one of the two substances comprising the union.
5
6
AT VII. 220: CSM II. 159. See also CSM I. 210.
7
One of the substance may be taken as the principal substance, in which case we may take the
other substance as a mode of the principal substance, as in the case of a clothed person. An ar-
ticle of clothing is a whole complete substance in its own right, but we consider the clothing a
mode of the person wearing the clothes.
8
AT VII. 28: CSM II. 19. See Cottingham, Descartes, p. 122.
9
Cottingham. 130.
10
AT. VII. 81: CSM I. 56.
11
12
AT VII.73: CSM II.51. Emphasis mine.
13
14
AT VII. 72: CSM II. 50, emphasis mine.
15
16
17
See my Chapter II and Chapter IV.
18
M. Wilson. “The Epistemological Argument for Mind-Body Distinctness.” Nous Vol. X (1976)
3–15. Reprinted in Descartes, John Cottingham, editor. Oxford Univ. Press. (1998) 186–196.
All future references to this work will be to the reprint.
19
Wilson. 195–96
20
Rozemond. 35.
21
Wilson. 193–95.
22
This is another reason to reject Cottingham’s understanding the powers of imagination and
sensory perception as modes of the union. Cottingham’s interpretation blurs the mind-body
distinction.
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Index
A
actions vs. passions of the soul, perception. See sensory
34–39 perception, Cartesian theory
animal spirits. See figures traced of
in animal spirits CCI (Cerebral Content
Aquinas, 5 Interpretation), 17–20, 24–25
Aristotle centaur example, 74
Direct Contact Thesis, 5–6, Cerebral Content
11, 15 Interpretation (CCI). See CCI
essentialism of, 91, 101 cerebral semblances
Material-less Forms imaginings and, 28–30, 33–-
Doctrine, 5, 6–7, 10–11, 23 35, 47–48
Perception by Assimilation phenomenal differences and,
Thesis, 5–6, 11, 12, 21 53–54
See also Scholastics cerebral sense organ (common
Arnauld in Fourth Replies, 61, sense), 8–10, 11–14
127n32 chiliagon/triangle example
Assimilation Thesis (Aristotle), (Med. VI)
5–6, 11, 12, 21 material truth of idea and,
attributes, defined, 89–93, 107– 83–86
8 power of imagination and,
Averroës, 6 79–80
Averroists, 5, 7, 8 power of understanding and,
117–18
B representationality and, 3,
body, existence of. See 73–76, 81
speculation that body exists clothing example, 100, 102,
brain, 11, 17, 18–19, 28 135n7
cold example, 59, 61–62, 68
C color, ideas of, 75
See also seeing red
Cartesian theory of sensory
Commentaria (Descartes), 97 See also entries beginning

Comments on a Certain with Meditation
Broadsheet (Descartes), 92 dioptrics, 12
common sense. See cerebral Direct Contact Thesis
sense organ; pineal gland (Aristotle), 5–6, 11, 15
composite substances Doctrine of Material-less Forms
defined, 107–9 (Aristotle), 5, 6–7, 10–11, 23
essences of, 111 doubting by narrator, 91–92,
evidence of, 112–13 134n49
mind and, 114–15 DRI (Diatic Relation
narrator as, 105–7 Interpretation), 15–17, 25
compresences of opposites, 7, dualistic nature of human
126n8 beings, 1–2, 105, 112, 115,
conceptual distinctions, 101–2, 122
101–2, 111–12, 135n22
corporeal substances, 27–28, E
42–43, 73–76 Elizabeth, letters to, 105
Cottingham, John essentialism
on Descartes as trialist, 1, conceptual distinctions and,
105–11, 110–12, 135n4 101–2
on Descartes's hesitancy, 42, criteria for, 94–95
45 de dicto character of, 95–96
de re character of, 97–98
D Functionalist Account of
de dicto essentialism, 95–96 Modes and, 91–92, 96–97
de re essentialism, 97–98 implications of, 98–101
de Regulae (Descartes), 18–19, modes of thoughts and, 102
32, 127n30 power of imagination and,
Descartes, René (works) 102–3
Commentaria, 97 two-fold interpretation of,
Comments on a Certain 95–96, 134n37
Broadsheet, 92 examples
de Regulae, 18–19, 32, 92, centaur, 74
127n30 clothing, 100, 102, 135n7
Optics , 18 cold, 59, 61–62, 68
Passions, 19 mule, 105–6
Passions of the Soul, 34–39 wax, 11, 63–64, 67–68
Principles of Philosophy, See also chiliagon/triangle
Part I, 90 example (Med. VI);
Treatise, 14 unicorn, idea of
Index 145
extension, 74–80, 105, 109, 111, signifying, as a painting, 32

115
H
F hallucinations, 63–64, 66
falsity of ideas. See material
falsity of ideas in Meditation II I
Field, R., 56, 59, 131n49 imaginary states,
figures traced in animal spirits representationality of, 3–4
CCI and, 17–20, 24–25 imagination
defined, 13–14, 126n22 aspects of mental function of,
DRI and, 15–17, 25 1
ideas as, 23–24 components of, 135n4
faculty of, 1, 74, 77–78
MAI and, 21–25, 127n37
importance of, 1–2
motive patterns and, 14–16,
as mode of thought, 111–12,
19–22, 24, 36–48, 51 111–12
as objects of imagination, 30– narrator's "restricted" sense
31 of, 66–69
as physiological causes of peculiar effort required for,
mental states of sense- 79–81, 86, 114, 117–18, 121
perception, 15–16 See also psychology of
pineal gland and, 11, 14, 17, imagination; entries
19–20, 21, 30, 50 beginning with Meditation
first difference between imagination, objects of
imagination and as cerebral semblances, 28–
30, 33–35, 47–48
understanding, 79–86
corporeality of, 27–28
Fourth Replies, Arnauld in, 61,
extramentality of, 39, 47
127n32 forming of, 32
Functionalist Account of Modes, incorporeal substances and,
91–92, 96–97 32–33
intentional vs. natural essence
G of, 29
geometrical ideas. See motion of animal spirits and,
chiliagon/triangle example 11, 14, 21, 30–31, 34
(Med. VI) Scholastics and, 29–30
God See also phenomenal
differences in imagination
essence of, 96
in Meditation II; psychology
existence of, 73 of imagination
as external substance, 41 imagination, psychology of. See
as having attributes, 89 psychology of imagination
incorporeality of, 27, 56–57 intentional forms (species), 10–
11, 13, 22 existence of corporeal

interpretations of Meditation II. substances and, 42–43
See Meditation II, imagination vs. sensory
interpretations of perception, 122
material falsity of ideas and,
M 54–62
MAI (Mechanistic Assimilation overview, 41–42
Interpretation), 4–5, 21–25 "restricted" sense of sense-
See also figures traced in perception and, 43–44, 112–
animal spirits 13
material falsity of ideas in See also interpretations of
Meditation II Meditation II; material
"cold example" and, 59, 61– falsity of ideas in
62, 68 Meditation II; material
Descartes's claims regarding, falsity of ideas in
62–63 Meditation II; sensory
formal falsity and, 58 perception vs. imagination
material truth in obscure in Meditation II
ideas and, 60, 61, 131n52, Meditation II, interpretations of
131n53, 131n54 imaginary vs. sensory states
mental operations of narrator and, 46–47
analyzed (Med. III), 54 objects of imagination and,
mental states and, 55–56 44–46
narrator's restricted sense of "restricted sense" of sense-
imagination, 66–70, 71 perception and, 43
narrator's "restricted" sensory sense-perception as mode of
perception, 63–66 thought, 43–44
second-grade sensory sensory states presumed as
perceptions and imaginings mental states, 44
and, 56 skepticism on existence of
for sensory perceptions in corporeal substances, 42–43
Meditation II, 62–69 Meditation V, imagination in,
Material-less Forms Doctrine 71–79
(Aristotle), 5, 6–7, 10–11, 23 corporeal substances and, 73–
Mechanistic Assimilation 76
Interpretation (MAI). See MAI idea classifications and, 77–
Meditation I (Descartes), 41 78
Meditation II, imagination in, narrator's "restricted" sensory
41–70 perception, 71–73
definition of, 81 overview, 71–73
Index 147
sensory perception faculty 134n42

and, 78–79 of thought, 89–93, 100, 102,
triangle example and, 73–76 109, 111–12
Meditation VI, imagination and modes of thought, powers of
understanding in, 79–103 understanding and imagination
arguments favoring as
possibility 3, 84–86 attribute as modification of
essence and imagination and, substance, 90–92
86–88 distinction between modes
essence of mind and, 88–89 and attributes, 92–93
geometrical shapes and, 80, narrator as incorporeal
82–83 thinking substance, 89–90
imagination as limited power, motion of animal spirits, 11, 14,
81–82 21, 34
as modes of thought, 89–93 See also figures traced in
overview, 71–73 animal spirits
peculiar effort required for motive patterns. See figures
imagination, 79–81, 86, traced in animal spirits
114, 117–18, 121 motive power, 13, 18–19,
possibility 1, 80–82 127n32
possibility 2, 82–83 mule example, 105–6
possibility 3, 83–84
See also essentialism; power O
of imagination; power of objects of imagination. See
understanding imagination, objects of
mind-body distinctness Optics (Descartes), 18
arguments for, 119–22,
135n22 P
body as narrator's body, 115– Passions (Descartes), 18
16 passions, defined (general and
Real Distinction Argument, specific), 37–39
120–21 Passions of the Soul
modes (Descartes), 34
attributes and, 89–93 passions vs. actions of the soul,
defined, 89–91 34–39
of extension, 105, 109, 111, peculiar effort required for
115 imagination, 79–81, 86, 114,
Functionalist Account of 117–18, 121
Modes and, 91–92, 96–97 Perception by Assimilation
of a substance, 100–101, Thesis (Aristotle), 5–6, 11, 12,
21 powers of understanding and

perceptual relativity problems of imagination as modes of
narrator, 63, 66 thought. See imagination and
phantasms, 28–29 understanding in Meditation
phenomenal differences in VI
imagination in Meditation II primitive categories, 105
cerebral semblances and, 53– Principles of Philosophy, Part I
54 (Descartes), 90
clear and distinct ideas vs. psychology of imagination
lively and vivid ideas, 49– action/passion distinction,
52 34–36
difficulty of imagination and, causation of a cerebral
51 semblance and, 34–35
objects of imagination and, imaginary passions as
52–54 passions*, 38–39
pineal gland (common sense passions, defined, 37–38
organ) physiology of imagination
mind present in, 17–18 and, 39
sensory perception and, 25– unanswered questions and, 39
26, 30 volition and, 36–37, 129n28
volition and, 36, 51 psychophysiology of
See also figures traced in imagination. See imagination,
animal spirits; figures traced objects of; psychology of
in animal spirits imagination; Scholastics
power of imagination
ambiguity of aspects and, 87– R
88, 132n17 Real Distinction Argument,
as evidence that substance 120–21
exists, 113 Regius, Henricus, 92
narrator as composite de dicto, 131n54
substance, 105 resemblance, 30–31
as unnecessary constituent of Rozemond, M., 120–21
mind, 102–3, 112–14 Rubio, A., 6, 8
See also composite
substances S
power of understanding, 99, Schiffer, S., on essentialism,
100–102, 108, 117–18 96–97, 134n37
See also Meditation VI, Scholastico-Aristotelian theories
imagination and on sense perception, 5–10
understanding in Scholastics
Index 149
completed theory of sense- red and, 65

perception of, 7–10 hallucinations and perceptual
Direct Contact Thesis and, 5– relativity problems, 63–64,
6, 11, 15 66
Doctrine of Material-less mental functions of narrator,
Forms and, 5, 6–7, 10–11, 66, 71–73
23 as mode of thought, 111–12
hylomorphic interpretation wax example, 11, 63–64, 67–
of, 17, 126n24 68
intentional forms (species) sensory perception, theories of
and, 10–11, 13, 22 as mode of thought, 111–12
objects of imagination and, overview, 3–4
29–30 pineal gland and, 25–26, 30
Perception by Assimilation psychophysiology of, 4–5, 9–
Thesis and, 5–6, 11, 12, 21 10
semblance of a fictional See also material falsity of
object and, 29, 128n6 ideas in Meditation II;
second difference between Scholastics; entries
essence and imagination, 86– beginning with sensory
88 perception
seeing red sensory perception vs.
cerebral semblances and, 33 imagination in Meditation II
material falsity of, 65 clear and distinct ideas vs.
as object of imagination, 24, lively and vivid ideas, 49–
56, 67, 68, 128n6 52
semblances, cerebral. See distinction between objects,
cerebral semblances 47–48
sensory perception, Cartesian distinction between objects
theory of and, 43
animal spirits and, 10–15 See also phenomenal
CCI and, 17–20, 24–25 differences in imagination
cognitive power vs. motive in Meditation II
power and, 13, 18–20, sensory (second-grade) states,
127n32 62–63
DRI and, 15–17, 25 Simmons, Alison, 5–8
MAI and, 4–5, 21–25 soul, 34–39
sensory perception, narrator's speculation that body exists,
restricted 105–23
at end of Med. V, 78–79 body as narrator's body, 115–
feeling warmth and seeing 16
evidence for, 117–19 imagination of fictional

existence of body and, 115 object, 29
mind-body distinctness and, as invention of narrator, 86
114–16 volition and, 37
purpose of, 119–22 white vs. purple, 130n15
trialist interpretation and, 1,
105–11, 110–12, 135n4 W
truth in intellectual ideas vs. wax example, 63–64, 67–68
imaginary, 122–23 Wells, N., 59–60, 131n53
See also power of Wilson, Margaret, 55–56, 119–
imagination 20, 121
Suarez, F., 5, 6
substances
corporeal, 42–43, 73–76
defined, 48, 101, 106–8, 111
essential character of, 98–100
incorporeal, 32–33
thinking, 89, 98, 100–102,
111, 113, 135n7
See also composite
substances
T
thinking substances, 89, 100–
102, 111, 113, 135n7
Treatise (Descartes), 14, 32
trialistic nature of human
beings, 1, 105–11, 110–12,
135n4
triangle/chiliagon example
(Med. VI). See
chiliagon/triangle example
(Med. VI)
U
understanding, power of. See
power of understanding
unicorn, idea of
cerebral semblances and, 33,
53
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Imagination in the Meditations

Imagination in the Meditations

Imagination in the Meditations

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek.

© 2005 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York

All rights reserved.

Introduction: The Importance of Imagination 1

I. Theory of Sensory Perception 3

II. Psychophysiology of Imagination 27

III. Imagination in Meditation II 41

IV. Imagination in Meditations V and VI 71

V. Speculation That a Body Exists 105

content of my own work, particularly of my understanding of Descartes’s

Ann Scholl, PhD

These analyses culminate in Descartes’s narrator positing the possible existence

Cartesian Theory of Sensory Perception

The first grade of sensory perception is limited to bodily responses to external

In addition, I argue that if MAI is correct, then examination of Descartes’s psy-

that of the Aristotelian Scholastics, Descartes’s claims regarding the relationship

Scholastic Theories of Sensory Perception

According to Simmons, Scholastics then introduce Aristotle’s Perception by

So for the Scholastics, the common sense is thoroughly psychophysiological,

Cartesian Theory of Sensory Perception

Thus, by accepting that the motion of corporeal substances travels through a

doing, he rejects various aspects of Aristotle’s Doctrine of Material-less Forms.

(1) what are the figures traced in the animal spirits?

So, Descartes considers an extramental object of intentional mental states as

The Objects of Imagination

objects of imagination, he decides, must be corporeal in nature. Thus, he con-

According to Descartes, various possible effects cause the pineal gland to

While Descartes provides these comments in the context of sensation, they

The Psychology of Imagination

…the various perceptions or modes of knowledge present in us may be called passions,

To clarify this distinction, I suggest that we understand the causation Des-

(1) How does Descartes distinguish imaginings from sensations?

In the following chapters, I attempt to answer these and other questions.

Possible Interpretations of Med. II

Cottingham suggests that the separation of imagination and sense-perception by

cannot rightly claim, in Med. II, that he imagines and sense-perceives in a

But what, exactly, is this “restricted sense” of sense-perception? Clearly, here

If (D) is correct, then Cottingham is wrong to claim that Descartes spoke as

in Med. II (given his skepticism regarding the existence of corporeal sub-

The Distinction between Imagination and Sensory Perception

Regarding the Distinction between Objects

The Phenomenal Differences

In regard to (q1), Descartes occasionally singles out imaginings which are

duced by any cerebral semblance, while perhaps adequately corresponding to

is two-fold. Since the cerebral semblance is such that it represents an external or

On the Material Falsity of Ideas

rect interpretation of the restricted sense of sense-perception attributed to the

(C) Sense-perceptions are awarenesses of nonthings.

On Material Falsity in General

or an angel, or God.”35 The latter includes willings, affirmations, volitions, emo-

(a) X is merely S’s state of being phenomenally aware of Y, where Y is an intentional

However, according to Descartes, we must take these thoughts materially and

(3) While in X, S is phenomenally aware of Y, where Y is an object of thought,

when X is a judgment, particularly, those judgments which are first-grade sen-

The mistake here characterized by Descartes is the cognizer’s wrongly referring

Moreover, the obscure representation is flawed, not in terms of its misrepresent-

Indeed, understanding this claim as such would be to consider ideas formally, in