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Descartes Theory of Ideas

Copyright c 2009 by the authorAndrew Pessin

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Descartes' Theory of IdeasFirst published Wed Mar 14, 2007

Idea, in its various linguistic forms, has been used in many ways bymany philosophers, ancient, medieval, and early modern. Unfortunatelyfor our current purposes, it was also used in many ways by Descarteshimself. Exegesis of his views is, as a result, both a challenging andinescapably contentious affair. Amongst the many problems a completeexegesis would make sense of are these:

1. Descartes' uses of the term idea diverge from perhaps the originalor primary scholastic use;

2. He provides multiple non-equivalent definitions of the term, uses itto refer to as many as six distinct kinds of entities, and divides ideasinconsistently into various genetic categories;

3. He makes a trio of apparently inconsistent distinctions concerningideas, invoking other opaquely employed scholastic concepts;

4. It's not clear that his ideas are consistent with his own ontology ingeneral;

5. What he says about ideas suggests a veil of perception account ofcognition,[1] on which the cognizing mind is not directly aware ofthe external object itself, but only of some representative proxy; yetat the same time his texts sometimes indicate some form of directcognition of the object itself;

6. Ideas' most important epistemic property that of being clear anddistinct is ill-defined and poorly explicated, to the point thatdebates arise about whether and which ideas have this property;[2]

7. To this day there are divergent interpretations of Descartes' accountof sensory processes and ideas, concerning where and how hedistinguishes between them and intellectual processes and ideas,whether sensory ideas have representational content, what Descartesmeans by the material falsity of some (or all?) sensory ideas, what

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means by the material falsity of some (or all?) sensory ideas, whatthe ontological status of secondary qualities is, etc.

These issues may be divided, roughly, into the metaphysical and theepistemological, reflecting the central role ideas play in both domains forDescartes. Since Descartes' conception of clarity and distinctness isdiscussed elsewhere in SEP,[3] and since an adequate account of hisviews on sensation and its relationship to the intellectual would require awhole article in its own right, this entry will focus on (1)(5) above, andthus primarily on the metaphysical issues and on intellectual ideas. Sincemany of the difficulties in Cartesian ideas arise from his simultaneouslyboth reflecting and attempting to reject the relevant scholastic philosophy,we must begin there.

1. The Scholastic Background2. The What and the Whence of Cartesian Ideas3. Formal, Material, Objective4. Cartesian Ontology, and Ideas5. Ideas and Direct CognitionConclusionBibliography

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1. The Scholastic Background[4]

I used the word idea because it was the standard philosophicalterm used to refer to the forms of perception belonging to thedivine mind (3rd Replies, II.127, AT VII.181)[5]


2 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

For Christian philosophers from Augustine onwards, ideas werecommonly conceived to be the forms of divine perception: roughly,Platonic forms transported into the divine mind, where they served asarchetypes according to which God created the particulars of the createdworld.[6] But this general formulation invited much scholastic debate overtheir precise nature: Are they eternal and necessary and so perhapsuncreated beings ontologically independent of God? Or are they insome way dependent on God or God's intellect? If the latter, would thatmean that actual being somehow comes in degrees, since the being ofbeing-known seems less real than that of mind-independent beings?Are they actual universal beings since many created particulars caninstantiate the same form or are they too as particular as the createdbeings modeled on them? Or are they best construed as merely possiblebeings, i.e. as essences which are possibly (but not always actually)instantiated in the created world? But then what are those? Nor was itstraightforward simply to identify them with God Himself, for ideas andessences are all limited in a way that God is not. Aquinas suggested thatthey be identified with the various finite ways in which God's infinitebeing may be imitated, but that just buries the problem deeper: What arethese possible modes of imitation, exactly, and how are they to begrounded in a purely actual being?

At the same there was equally much debate about the nature of humancognition. Through an enormous thicket of jargon forms, essences,intentions, species, notions, concepts, phantasms, images, agent andpatient intellect, etc roughly the following general picture emerged.The cognitive process the activity of coming to know the world begins in the world, works through the senses, and culminates in theintellect. The form of some sensible quality such as (say) the color red informs some matter or object, and is then transmitted through therelevant medium (such as the air) to the relevant sensory organ (the eye),and ultimately to the intellect. The object instantiates or realizes theform formally, such that the object becomes actually red; but the air and

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form formally, such that the object becomes actually red; but the air andthe eye realize the form only intentionally, as a species, which meansthat they carry the red information without themselves actuallybecoming red. The form realized in the eye results in an act of sensationdirected towards or attentive of that quality. The immaterial intellectmay then in turn, by a complex process, extract or abstract the form inorder to contemplate it, as it were, at which point the original object orquality is fully cognized or perceived or understood.

A few key points:

i. The account reflects the Aristotelian doctrine that in cognizing, thecognizer becomes identical to or like the thing cognized (DeAnima 5, 7 (430a20, 431a1)): the thing and the sense organ and theintellect all realize the very same form, albeit in different manners ormodes.

ii. Intentional species were generally held to causally mediate cognitionwithout themselves being objects of cognition, i.e. what iscognized.[7] The relevant form insofar as it informs the medium,sense organs and/or perhaps even the intellect, in other words,directs the latter not to the transmitting media nor to the states of thesense organ themselves, nor to its own states, but to the originalquality or object initiating the sequence. Consequently the scholasticaccount is generally interpreted as one of direct cognition.[8]

iii. Species are said to represent the external quality or object, whichmeans, at the least, that they make the thing knowable or known. Butthey perform this function by virtue of the fact that they resembleor are similar to the thing they represent. Due to this resemblancethey are sometimes referred to as images of things, which givesrise to the picture later ridiculed by Descartes (Optics I, I.153-4,AT VI.85) that objects continuously slough off little images ofthemselves in order to allow our cognition of them. But Descartes'ridicule here was not perfectly fair. The scholastics were well aware



ridicule here was not perfectly fair. The scholastics were well awarethat something which does not formally instantiate a sensible qualitydoes not literally resemble the thing which does. All they meant byinvoking terms such as image and resemblance was that speciescarry information (in-form-ation) about i.e. the form of thequality despite themselves not (formally) instantiating the quality:species are images of and resemble the object only insofar as thesame form is (differently) realized in each.[9] In any case, as we'llsee shortly, Descartes himself sometimes uses the notions of imageand resemblance in just the same way.

How, then, are ideas qua archetypes in the divine mind connected to thisaccount of human cognition? The very short answer might start with thistext from Aquinas:

Universal forms are present in the divine intellect. On the basis of theseGod creates the world, bringing these forms to be realized, formally, inthe world, particularized through matter. Through the processes of humancognition these same forms come to be in the human intellect. Aquinas's(and scholasticism's) empiricist bent is reflected in the requirement thatwe proceed via deriving the forms, ultimately, from things, as sketchedabove at the same time as it is recognized that our intellect's ability toextract or abstract forms also involves an ultimately divine light.

[T]he human soul knows all things in the eternal types, since byparticipation of these types we know all things. For the intellectuallight itself which is in us, is nothing else than a participatedlikeness of the uncreated light, in which are contained the eternaltypes . But since besides the intellectual light which is in us,intelligible species, which are derived from things, are required inorder for us to have knowledge of material things; therefore thissame knowledge is not due merely to a participation of the eternaltypes, as the Platonists held (ST 1.84.a5, 427)

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extract or abstract forms also involves an ultimately divine light.

Descartes, of course, rejects many of the particulars of the doctrinesabove, since his ontology leaves no room for the sorts of forms (such asthose of colors) being discussed. Nevertheless, as we'll see, he appears toadopt the account in its broader strokes, mutatis mutandis. Indeed, thevery fact that he co-opts the term idea from its original use with respectto divine perception and applies it to human cognition is some evidencefor this suggestion.

Once the link is made between the forms in the divine and humanintellects, now, many of the problems mentioned above arise again in thenew context. In particular, there's much scholastic debate over the precisenature of and relationships between forms, objects, acts of cognition, andthe cognizers themselves. Already in Aquinas we read the following, aspart of his argument that species mediate cognition without being objectsthereof:

As we noted, when the relevant form is in a state or act of thinking(say), the mind (or that state) is (somehow) directed towards the object(or the form qua present in the object). Consequently an act or state ofthinking may be considered in at least two ways: as a state or propertyintrinsic to a thinker, and as a mechanism by which the thinker is related

Hence that by which the sight sees is the likeness of the visiblething; and the likeness of the thing understood, that is, theintelligible species, is the form by which the intellect understands.But since the intellect reflects upon itself, by such reflection itunderstands both its own act of intelligence, and the species bywhich it understands. Thus the intelligible species is that which isunderstood secondarily; but that which is primarily understood isthe object, of which the species is the likeness [I]t follows thatthe soul knows external things by means of its intelligible species.(ST 1.85.a2, 434)



intrinsic to a thinker, and as a mechanism by which the thinker is relatedto the external object, O, thought about. Similarly, the act or state ofthinking may perhaps be considered as a way in which O exists in theintellect, as O-in-thought: after all, both actually being a particularobject O and being a thought of O involve the same form being realized(if in different media or ways).[10] Although a strong distinction wasmade between an actually existing external O and the act of thinkingabout O, much debate occurred over precisely what sorts of distinctions tomake (if any) between the external O and O-in-thought, and between O-in-thought and the act of thinking, especially in cases where O does notactually exist in external reality. The core questions were these: Must O-in-thought be granted its own mode of (actual) being somehow distinctfrom the act of thought itself? If so, what is that kind of being thebeing of being-known exactly? Must O-in-thought stand as a thirdthing, a tertium quid, between the cognizing mind and the external O (ifthere is one), thus introducing the veil of perception? Or could O-in-thought possibly be identified either with the act of the thought or Oitself, thus eliminating it as a distinct ontological category?

By the time of Surez, these debates had crystallized around what he callsthe common distinction (vulgaris distinctio) between a formal and anobjective concept. He writes:

When we conceive of a man, the act which we perform in ourminds is called the formal concept, while the man known andrepresented by that act is called the objective concept. [Thelatter] is doubtless called a concept by an extrinsic denominationfrom the formal concept through which, as it is said, the objectis conceived and so it is properly [also] called objective,because it is not conceived as a form intrinsically terminating theconception, but as an object and subject-matter with which theformal concept is concerned and towards which the mind's gaze isimmediately directed. (DM 2.1.1, transl. Ayers 1998 (1099))

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The formal concept is called a concept, (conceptus) from the verb toconceive (concipere), because it is, Surez notes, as if an offspring ofthe mind (veluti prolis mentis) (DM 2.1.1:25, 64-65); the thinking-of-Oinvolves O being taken into or generated in the mind just as biologicallyconceiving of O involves O being taken into or generated in a womb. AsWells 1990 notes, it is designated as formal because it is the finalform of the mind (ultima forma mentis), or because it formallyrepresents (formaliter repraesentat) to the mind the thing known, orbecause it is the intrinsic formal terminus of the act of mentalconception (intrinsecus et formalis terminus conceptionis mentalis)(40).[11] The formal concept, then, just is the act of a mind, and as suchrealizes (formally) some relevant mental form, to make it that very mentalact; but at the same time it realizes (intentionally) the form of some objector quality O, which makes the act to be of O.

This latter leads to the objective concept, i.e. to the thing which isknown and represented by the mental act.[12] Note that the objectiveconcept does not do the representing; it is, rather, the thing represented bythe formal concept, which does. It is called a concept only by extrinsicdenomination, insofar as (in being thought) it is related to the act ofmind which in the strictest sense is a concept. It is called an objectinsofar as the mental act is not directed (merely) towards either itself, nortowards the form intentionally realized in the act, but towards the objectitself (formally) realizing that form. While the formal concept, as anactual act or state of a mind, is always a true positive thing inhering as aquality in the mind (DM 2.1.1, 25, 65) and is thus always a singular orparticular, the same is not always the case for the objective concept: wecan conceive of mere beings of reason (such as privations), and ofuniversals (such as man), and of mere possibilities, or possibleessences. One can say of such things that, though not actually existing inthe world, they have, qua objective concepts, objective being.

immediately directed. (DM 2.1.1, transl. Ayers 1998 (1099))



the world, they have, qua objective concepts, objective being.

As a result, however, Surez's common distinction does not itself solveany of the problems mentioned above, but merely provides a terminologyfor expressing them. For it is tempting to identify the objective conceptwith some externally existing object until we recognize that, in manycases, there is no such object available. This point is particularly pressingwith respect to possible essences, commonly invoked to provide a groundfor the eternal truths involved in essential predication. When we think of aperfect triangle, or a chiliagon, or even of some possible animal notactually existent, the object of our thought, the objective concept, is apossible essence. But what sort of being, precisely, does that thing enjoy,particularly insofar as it doesn't actually exist in the world? Well, thebeing of being-thought. But what is that, and how is related to the act ofthinking, etc.?

There is much scholarly debate over how precisely to interpret Surez'sviews on these questions. Readers familiar with the secondary literatureon Descartes will recognize that precisely analogous debate occurs overinterpreting Descartes' views on the very same questions. Roughly, thelogical geography of the competing interpretations of both philosophersmirrors that of all the possible theories relating the relevant entities. Evenrestricting ourselves to the paradigm case of an act of thought T aboutsome actually existing external object O, we have at least the followingoptions:

a. Admit only T and O into our ontology. Here talk of objectiveconcepts (or the objective being of O) has no ontologicalcommitment distinct from that of the being of T or O.

b. Admit T and O, plus some tertium quid Q, which enjoys anobjective being distinct from the being of T and O.

But now both (a) and (b) come in two versions. On (a1), T is related insome intrinsic way to O, while on (a2) T is related only extrinsically to O.

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some intrinsic way to O, while on (a2) T is related only extrinsically to O.Thus on (a1) we might say something like T is O-itself-existing-in-thought, while on (a2) we might merely say that T terminates at O, orrepresents O. Similarly, on (b1) the tertium quid Q is related to O in someintrinsic way, while on (b2) it is not. Thus on (b1) we might think of Q asO-existing-in-thought, while on (b2) we wouldn't, and instead think of Qas (say) some mental thing representing O.

But now, unfortunately, (a1), (a2), (b1), and (b2) themselves each come intwo versions. Suffice to say that the dividing factor is whether T or Q aretaken to be objects of cognition, i.e. what we cognize, or merely causalintermediaries in the cognitive process. The former is prone to generate aveil of perception, while the latter is not.

These are a lot of options from which to choose. It's no surprise that thescholastics spent centuries debating which is the best theory, nor thatcontemporary scholars spend years debating interpretations both of thevarious scholastics and of Descartes. Roughly, contemporary debate aboutDescartes' theory of ideas and so his theory of cognition amounts toan attempt to locate him in the logical space above, and the various pointswe'll explore below constitute some of the arguments supporting differentlocations. For now, our main conclusion is merely this modest one:despite Descartes' 1st-Meditation-fueled reputation as developing hisphilosophy from scratch, his conception of and doctrines concerning ideasnot only do not come out of an intellectual vacuum, but in fact areextracted from something more resembling a plenum.

Sources/Further Reading: Cronin 1966, Wells 1967, O'Neill 1974, Doyle1984, Yolton 1984, Normore 1986, M. Adams 1987, Hoffman 1990,Wells 1990, Grene 1991, Wells 1993, Ariew & Grene 1995, Pasnau 1997,Ayers 1998, Hatfield 1998, Hoffman 2002, King 2005, Lagerlund 2005,and mental representation in medieval philosophy.



2. The What and the Whence of Cartesian IdeasSo what are ideas, according to Descartes? Here are just some of hisdefinitions or relevant texts:

1. I use the word idea to mean everything which can be in ourthought (To Mersenne 16 June 1641, III.183-4)

2. [A]n idea is the thing which is thought of in so far as it hasobjective being in the intellect. (1st Replies, II.74, AT VII.102)

3. Idea. I understand this term to mean the form of any given thought,immediate perception of which makes me aware of the thought. (2ndReplies, II.113, AT VII.160-1; cf. 3rd Replies, II.132, AT VII.188)

4. I am taking the word idea to refer to whatever is immediatelyperceived by the mind. For example, when I want something Isimultaneously perceive that I want and this is why I countvolition among my ideas. (3rd Replies, II.127, AT VII.181)

5. Some of my thoughts are as it were the images of things, and it isonly in these cases that the term idea is strictly appropriate forexample, when I think of a man, or a chimera, or the sky, or anangel, or God. (3rd Med., II.25, AT VII.37)

The difficulties are immediately apparent. In (5) ideas are equated withour thoughts, or acts of thinking, some of which are as it were images.But it's clear that Descartes doesn't mean image literally here, as a kindof visual picture, since his examples include the idea of God, of whomwe can form no such image. In (1) idea is applied not to our thoughtsbut to that which can be in our thoughts, which would seem to includeall sorts of non-mental things, in our thoughts at least in the sense thatthese are what we can think of. But (2), invoking a scholastic term,suggests there's a special way of being in our thought, viz. objectivebeing, which raises the question of how or whether these objective(perhaps mental) beings are identifiable with (or otherwise related to) thenon-mental things external to mind. In (3) idea is applied specifically to

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non-mental things external to mind. In (3) idea is applied specifically tothe form of the thought another scholastic term immediateperception of which makes us aware of the thought itself. (4) may implythat what is immediately perceived is not a form but the act of thinkingitself (but then again may not). We see within these definitions all theelements generating our logical geography above: the act of thinking, theobject-in-thought (which may or may not be a mind-dependent being),the external object, and the immediate object of cognition. Asunhelpfully as perhaps possible, Descartes uses the term idea ratherindiscriminately for all of them.

Even worse, in his earlier works Descartes was inclined also to refer tovarious images in the brain as ideas.[13] And though he abandons this usein his later work, that's not so much a change of view as a clarification.Continuing definition (3) above, he writes:

Corporeal images merited the term idea, in other words, insofar as theywere related in some way to thought; just as, perhaps, external objectsmay merit the term idea insofar as they, as objects thought of or asobjects-in-thought, are related to thought. This allows us, at least, tograsp the unifying theme of all these applications of idea: it isDescartes' generalized term for perhaps all the elements relevant to atheory of human cognition.

There is possibly one more important use. When discussing innate ideasDescartes is prone to speak of dispositions: roughly, to have an innateidea is to have a disposition towards forming certain thoughts on certain

[I]t is not only the images depicted in the imagination which Icall ideas. Indeed, in so far as these images are in the corporealimagination, that is, are depicted in some part of the brain, I donot call them ideas at all; I call them ideas only in so far asthey give form to [informant] the mind itself, when it is directedtowards that part of the brain. (2nd Replies, II.113, AT VII.160-1)



idea is to have a disposition towards forming certain thoughts on certainoccasions. What is less than perfectly clear is whether the disposition ismeant to be identified with the idea itself or merely with the manner inwhich the idea is stored in the mind. If the former, then we have a newuse of idea, to refer to certain mental dispositions; but if the latter, thenidea may be restricted to its previously discussed uses.[14]

What, then, are Cartesian ideas? Depending on context (andinterpretation) the term may refer to: some (or all) of our acts of thinking,the external objects we think of (qua thought-of), objective (perhapsmental) beings, the forms of our acts of thinking, images in the brain, orcertain kinds of mental dispositions we have with respect to all thepreceding. What all these share, as noted, is their relevance to the theoryof human cognition. To work out Descartes' theory of ideas, then, is todetermine the nature of each of these elements and exactly how they're allrelated to each other. If the word idea itself is not used with perfectconsistency by him, or subsequently by us then so be it.

As to the whence of Cartesian ideas:

This passage appears to explain where his ideas at least seem to comefrom: his own nature (innate), from outside (adventitious), or from hisinvention. But immediately there's a small problem: the third categorymight reduce to the prior two, for his invention of ideas may involveonly a recombination of ideas he already has, presumably from the first

Among my ideas, some appear to be innate, some to beadventitious, and others to have been invented by me. Myunderstanding of what a thing is, what truth is, and what thoughtis, seems to derive simply from my own nature. But my hearing anoise, as I do now, or seeing the sun, or feeling the fire, comesfrom things which are located outside me, or so I have hithertojudged. Lastly, sirens, hippogriffs and the like are my owninvention. (3rd Med., II.26, AT VII.37-38)

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only a recombination of ideas he already has, presumably from the firsttwo sources. And then there's a slightly larger problem: in a later workDescartes offers an account of the origin of ideas inconsistent with thepreceding.

According to this text, it would seem, all ideas are innate, including thevery sensory ideas which were paradigms of adventitious ideas in theearlier text.

But fortunately this problem is easily resolved: Descartes merely appearsto be using innate in different senses between the two texts. In the latertext an idea is innate insofar as it may be grounded in our very faculty orpower of thinking; and since the Cartesian mind is created with theability, roughly speaking, to think of or experience everything it will infact think of or experience, then every such thought or experience (i.e.idea) will count as innate:

[I]n no case are the ideas of things presented to us by the sensesjust as we form them in our thinking. So much so that there isnothing in our ideas which is not innate to the mind or the facultyof thinking . Nothing reaches our mind from external objectsthrough the sense organs except certain corporeal motions Butneither the motions themselves nor the figures arising from themare conceived by us exactly as they occur in the sense organs Hence it follows that the very ideas of the motions themselves andof the figures are innate in us. The ideas of pain, colours, sounds,and the like must be all the more innate for there is nosimilarity between these ideas and the corporeal motions [whichcause their production]. (Comments, I.304, AT VIIIB.358-9)

Consequently these ideas, along with that faculty [of thinking], areinnate in us, i.e. they always exist within us potentially, for toexist in some faculty is not to exist actually, but merely potentially



In the earlier text, to the contrary, the genetic distinction appears toconcern the immediate causal origin of the ideas: adventitious ideas arethose (perhaps typically) triggered externally, invented ideas are thosewhose construction entirely depends on our own relatively unconstrainedwill, and innate ideas are those we form (or actualize) not merely on thebasis of our will but by reasoning or self-reflection.[15] So construed,ideas which are not innate in the earlier sense may count as innate in thelater sense.[16]

Sources/Further Reading: McRae 1965, Kenny 1968, McRae 1972, R.Adams 1975, Costa 1983, Chappell 1986, Jolley 1990, Schmaltz 1997,Gorham 2002, and Nadler 2006.

3. Formal, Material, Objective

In this text Descartes famously introduces the distinction between

The formal reality of ideas corresponds to what they are, intrinsically,or actually, viz. states or acts or modes of thinking. All ideas are,formally, on a par, sharing the same degree or kind of formal reality.But at the same time it is the nature of such states to contain orrepresent external objects,[17] and insofar as ideas vary here they are notall on a par:

(Comments I.305, AT VIIIA.360)

In so far as the ideas are simply modes ofthought, there is no recognizable inequality among them But inso far as different ideas represent different things, it is clear that they differ widely. (3rdMed., II.27-28, AT VII.40; cf. Principles I.17, I.198-9, ATVIIIA.11)

(a) formal reality and objective reality.

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all on a par:

Our concern won't be with the ontological hierarchy here, but with thenotion that ideas have or contain an objective reality corresponding tothe object they represent, or at least may be considered as such.

Note, to start, that distinction (a) is similar to another distinctionconcerning not ideas directly but the modes of existence of objects: thesun (say) exists formally in the sky but may also exist objectively,in a mind or intellect, insofar as someone is thinking of it. SinceDescartes is explicit that the former is really distinct from the latter,[18]we'll speak, for convenience, of the formal sun and the objective sun.The obvious temptation now would be to equate or identify the objectivesun with the objective reality of the idea of the sun, but that would be tooquick. Since Descartes also suggests that the objective and formalrealities of an idea in fact are two aspects of some single thing, two waysan idea may be considered, these are not really but merelyconceptually distinct[19] but then the objective sun would be reallyidentical not merely to the objective reality of the idea of the sun but alsoto the formal reality of that idea, since these are really identical. In short,the objective sun would be identified with the idea simpliciter:

This result naturally opens a large can of (fortunately, objective) worms.The core problem is that the objective sun here seems to enjoy some kind

Undoubtedly, the ideas which represent substances to me contain within themselves more objective reality than the ideaswhich merely represent modes or accidents. (3rd Med., II.28, ATVII.40)

[T]he idea of the sun is the sun itself existing in the intellect not of course formally existing, as it does in the heavens, butobjectively existing, i.e. in the way in which objects normally arein the intellect. (1st Replies, II.75, AT VII.102-03)



The core problem is that the objective sun here seems to enjoy some kindof identity both with the act of thought (as just described) and with theformal sun, since the objective sun is in some sense the sun itself and yet the act of thought is really distinct from the formal sun. But ofcourse this problem is familiar by now: we have here the usual suspects the act of thought, the object-in-thought, and the external object described in the roughly Surezian vocabulary from Section 1 above, sowe ought to expect the usual problems in working out their precisenatures and relations. Teasing it all apart will take some work. But firstDescartes complicates the picture by introducing two other, apparentlyinconsistent distinctions.

In another famous passage, Descartes writes:

Here we have what appears to be the same distinction as in (a): an ideamay be considered or taken (sumpta) in terms of what it is actually,intrinsically, in itself, i.e. an operation or act of thought, or it may betaken in terms of the external thing it contains or represents. But theterminology changes, as the distinction is now said to be between

When M. Arnauld says if cold is merely an absence, there cannotbe an idea of cold which represents it as a positive thing, it isclear that he is dealing solely with an idea taken in the formalsense. Since ideas are forms of a kind, and are not composed ofany matter, when we think of them as representing something weare taking them not materially but formally. If, however, we wereconsidering them not as representing this or that, but simply asoperations of the intellect, then it could be said that we weretaking them materially, but in that case they would have noreference to the truth or falsity of their objects. (4th Replies,II.162-3, AT VII.232)

(b) an idea taken materially v. taken formally,

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where in distinction (a) the formal reality of the idea seems equivalentto the idea taken in the material sense here! As if that weren't confusingenough, Descartes elsewhere also writes:

Again, apparently we have the same distinction, here said to be between

where the material sense corresponds to the material sense of (b);only now, he uses objective where he used formal in (b), but just ashe'd used it in (a). Overall, then, the word material seems to be usedwith the same meaning in (b) and (c), but is absent from (a); the wordobjective seems to be used with the same meaning in (a) and (c), but isabsent from (b); and the word formal seems to switch dramatically inmeaning between (a) and (b), but is absent from (c).

The problems here are more than merely terminological, unfortunately;for while it does appear to be the same underlying distinction in play in(a)-(c) and indeed all three are invoked in and around the Meditations even that underlying distinction seems susceptible to differinginterpretations with different metaphysical implications. On the one hand,the distinction may be roughly a semantic one: the word idea can beused to refer to two distinct entities, viz. an act of thought and the objectof that thought where, pending resolution of Descartes' ontology, theobject may be either a mental object in some way distinct from the

[T]here is an ambiguity here in the word idea. Idea can betaken materially, as an operation of the intellect, in which case itcannot be said to be more perfect than me. Alternatively, it can betaken objectively, as the thing represented by that operation; andthis thing, even if it is not regarded as existing outside theintellect, can still, in virtue of its essence, be more perfect thanmyself. (Preface to Med., II.7, AT VII.8)

(c) an idea taken materially v. taken objectively,



object may be either a mental object in some way distinct from thethinking mind, or some actual external or abstract object itself. On theother hand, the distinction might be meant as a metaphysical one: ideasjust are entities with a two-fold nature, or with two distinguishableaspects, viz. they are modes-of-thought-containing-objects, i.e. modes-of-thought-with-representational-content. When Descartes invokes (a)and (b) he sounds as if he may, possibly, have the latter in mind; when hespeaks of the ambiguity of the word idea, in invoking (c), he soundsas if he may, possibly, have the former in mind. Either way, once againwe have the usual suspects in play, and thus all the familiar problems.

The central question, of course, is the nature of the objective reality ofideas, or, alternatively, of the objective mode of existing of objects. Wenoted above that Descartes seems to want to identify the objective sun(for example) both with the act of thought and the formal sun, whilenoting these latter two are really distinct. But in addition to some of thetexts we've seen, various aspects of Cartesian metaphysics in generalthemselves seem to pull in opposing directions here, thus sharplydeepening this difficulty.

1. On the one hand, Descartes notes that the formal reality of his ideadoes not have the same causal requirements as its objective reality,which may imply that the objective sun is really distinct from the actof thought:

The nature of an idea is such that of itself it requires noformal reality except what it derives from my thought, ofwhich it is a mode. But in order for a given idea to containsuch and such objective reality, it must surely derive it fromsome cause which contains at least as much formal reality asthere is objective reality in the idea. (3rd Med., II.28-29, ATVII.41)

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Indeed, his very application of his causal principle that theremust be at least as much in the efficient and total cause asin the effect of that cause (3rd Med., II.28, AT VII.40) to theobjective reality of ideas itself strongly suggests that the objectivesun might somehow be identified with the formal sun, the sun itself,since each requires a cause of equivalent reality or stature.

2. On the other hand, his general dualist substance-mode ontologywould seem to rule out any mental objects distinct from a mind, andso reinforce the identity between the objective sun and the act ofthought. Nor would it do here to identify the objective sun with aphysical object, the formal sun, as (1) does, since the objective sunhas something to do with the objective reality of an idea, and an idea,Descartes insists, is never outside the intellect (2nd Replies, II.74,AT VII.102) which the formal sun most certainly is.

3. On a third hand, Descartes stresses the mind-independence of theobjectively existing essences providing the objective reality of atleast some of his ideas (5th Med., II.44-45, AT VII.64). Thoughthere's debate over just what the mind-independence amounts to,[20]it too at least suggests strengthening the distinction between theobjective sun and the act of thought, as in (1). But at the same time,contra (1), Descartes also admits objective beings which may noteven have any actually existing formal counterparts at all (5th Med.,II.44-45, AT VII.64) in which case there's no external formalthing with which they may be identified.

Ayers 1998 offers a particularly succinct way of stating the problem, towhich the preceding three points have been supplying arguments for theopposed responses:

The question could be put as follows. Which is the mere[conceptual distinction], and which the real distinction: (1) thedistinction between the idea as mode of thought and the idea as



Ayers notes that much rides on the answer: If (2) is the conceptualdistinction, for example so there is no real distinction between theobjective and formal suns then we have support for a directcognition interpretation of Descartes: that ideas are the immediateobjects of thought wouldn't preclude a sense in which external objects areas well. The problems here of course include those just noted: theobjective and formal object couldn't be really identical since the former isin the intellect in a way the latter isn't, and the account must explain thecases where no relevant formal object exists extra-mentally. If, on theother hand, (1) is the conceptual distinction, it's not apparent how thoughtever makes contact with the external world, since the object of thoughtturns out to be really identical just to the act of thinking itself. Further,there are the problems just noted, including that the real distinctionbetween the objective and formal sun leaves unexplained Descartes'insistence that the objective sun just is the sun itself.

Ayers himself asserts that Descartes takes (1) to be the conceptualdistinction. But Ayers makes no effort to accommodate the conflictingtensions both in the Cartesian texts and in his metaphysics, as expressedin points (1) and (3) above. Nor does he accommodate the apparent hintof direct cognition in Descartes' suggestion that the mind grasps the sunitself.

We can do better.

distinction between the idea as mode of thought and the idea asintentional object of thought [i.e. the objective being] or (2) thedistinction between the latter and the real object (the thing as itexists in reality)? It seems clear that, at least on ordinary realistassumptions, there cannot be one thing, the idea, which is reallyidentical both to the mode of thought and to the real object. (Ayers1998, 1067)

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Sources/Further Reading: Kenny 1970, Chappell 1986, Jolley 1990;Bennett 1994, Chappell 1997, Nolan 1997, Ayers 1998, Hoffman 2002,Clemenson 2005, Nadler 2006, and Rozemond (forthcoming).

4. Cartesian Ontology, and IdeasLet us remind ourselves of four of the basic elements of Descartes'ontology.

1. All created entities are either substances or properties of substances(Principles I.48, I.208, AT VIIIA.22).

2. Created substances are either mental or physical in nature, i.e., eitherminds or bodies (Principles I.48, I.208, AT VIIIA.23). Each kind hasa principal attribute thought and extension respectively andeach has corresponding properties, which are construed asmodifications or modes of that principal attribute (Principles I.53,I.210, AT VIIIA.25).

3. Descartes generally rejects scholastic hylomorphism, aspects ofwhich were sketched in Section 1 above.[21] In brief, this was thetheory that created things are composed of matter and form. Thematter here is not physical matter, but rather a kind of indeterminatepotentiality which becomes actualized when in-formed by a form.Forms were generally understood as kinds of universals or essencesbut, unlike those of the Platonic variety, were not conceived to haveany independent ontological status but rather only to exist whenparticularized in things, either formally or intentionally.[22] Formsdivide into substantial forms, which make something into the kindof thing it is and thus bestow its essential properties andcharacteristic behaviors on it, and accidental forms which bestowits non-essential or contingent properties on it. That Descartes rejectshylomorphism is supported by (i) his generally negative remarksabout it, (ii) the fact that he dispenses with it in his physical science,and (iii) items (1) and (2) in his ontology above: his substances are



and (iii) items (1) and (2) in his ontology above: his substances arecapable of existing independently in a way that substantial forms(requiring matter) ordinarily are not, and properties quamodifications seem attached to a substance more intimately thanaccidental forms would be.[23]

4. Descartes has at least an inclination towards nominalism, i.e. theview that everything that exists is a particular:[24]

This sounds like a traditional nominalist position: there are nogenuinely universal beings, we merely apply the same term [nomen]or idea to particular things which resemble each other. IndeedDescartes goes so far as to claim that universals are merely modesof thinking, suggesting they have no mind-independent reality atall.

Overall, then, Descartes subscribes to a substance-mode, dualist, anti-hylomorphist, and nominalist-inclining ontology. Yet much in ourdiscussion of Cartesian ideas, so far, was possibly in tension with thisontology. There were suggestions that objective beings might be mentalobjects which are not minds, or that mental states somehow contain(otherwise) mind-independent, non-mental objects such as bodies, or evenabstract or universal beings. We've also seen Descartes invoke thehylomorphic matter-form terminology in his various distinctions. Any

[N]umber, when it is considered simply in the abstract orin general, and not in any created things, is merely a mode ofthinking; and the same applies to all the other universals, aswe call them These universals arise solely from the factthat we make use of one and the same idea for thinking of allindividual items which resemble each other: we apply oneand the same term [nomen] to all the things which arerepresented by the idea in question, and this is the universalterm. (Principles I.58-59, I.212, AT VIIIA.27)

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hylomorphic matter-form terminology in his various distinctions. Anycoherent exegesis of Cartesian ideas must make sense of these conflictingtendencies.

It must also make sense of his conflicting terminologies. We saw, inSection 3, that Descartes had three distinctions in play with respect toideas, invoking these terms:

a. formal v. objective,b. material v. formal,c. material v. objective.

Since these seemed to be three ways of stating the same (if ambiguous)distinction, two questions arise: Why introduce all these terms? And whydoes formal seem to shift so dramatically in meaning between (a) and(b)? With these questions in mind, let's now see what we can learn byrevisiting Descartes' also conflicting definitions of idea from Section 2.

The word form in definition (3) naturally calls hylomorphism to mind.Again, as Aquinas writes:

Now Plato held that the forms of things subsist of themselvesapart from matter by participation of which he said that ourintellect knows all things: so that just as corporeal matter byparticipating the [form] of a stone becomes a stone, so ourintellect, by participating the same [form], has knowledge of astone. But since it seems contrary to faith that forms of thingsshould subsist of themselves, outside the things themselves andapart from matter Augustine substituted the types of allcreatures existing in the Divine mind, according to which types allthings are made in themselves, and are known to the human soul.(ST 1.84.a5, 427)



The form of a stone in matter makes the matter (formally) a stone; thesame form in intellect does not make the intellect formally into a stone,but only intentionally, by forming it into the thought of a stone.Augustine, placing these forms into the divine mind, called them ideas.And we can now appreciate, I think, just how deliberately Descarteschooses the term idea for the elements of human cognition: for hisaccount of human cognition, ultimately, invokes entities playing preciselythe same role that forms played for the scholastics.

We see this in definition (3), to be sure: an idea is the form of a thought.That suggests that mind is playing a role much like that of hylomorphicmatter: in itself it is, in a sense, indeterminate, a potential or capacity forthought or thinking, but when in-formed it becomes a determinatethought, i.e. one with a determinate object or content.[25] In light of this,Descartes' distinction (b) makes perfect sense: a thought (or mind)considered in itself or intrinsically is like matter, and only insofar as itis in-formed, or considered with respect to a form, and thus to an object,is it taken formally. In our current example the form in question wouldbe the form of the stone.

But forms, of course, also make something what it actually (formally) is.If the form of the stone makes matter into a formal stone, then theCartesian dualist might also entertain forms for the mind, mental formswhich make a mind (and particular mental states) formally into minds andmental states respectively. And indeed Descartes observes that some ofhis thoughts, in addition to representing objects (thus counting as ideas),have various additional forms: thus when I will, or am afraid, or affirm my thought includes something more than the likeness of [its object](3rd Med., II.25-26, AT VII.37; cf. 3rd Replies, II.128, AT VII.182-82).But of course there's an important difference here between the case of thephysical stone and that of mental entities. The stone can ultimately bedescribed, for Descartes, as a modification of extension, in precise,quantifiable terms, as some sort of mathematical essence. The mental

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quantifiable terms, as some sort of mathematical essence. The mentalforms here determining the category of representational state viz.willing, fearing, etc. enjoy nothing more precise than that vocabularyitself. More importantly, no account is given here of what mental formturns the state into one with that particular representational content. AsMalebranche would later critique Descartes, we might say here that welack a perfectly clear idea of the mind:[26] we do not conceive of mindin a way allowing us to understand its modes or states, or at least nonecomparable to the way our conception of mathematics affords us a graspof the nature of extended matter and its modifications.

Still, we have enough now to also make sense of Descartes' distinction(a). The notion of form in play there is not that (say) of the stone, butthat indescribable one which makes the mind what it actually orintrinsically is; in the common scholastic idiom we saw in Surez inSection 1, this formal will contrast with objective, which invokes theobject represented or its form. And this partly answers one of ourquestions: the apparently dramatic shift in meaning of formal between(a) and (b) is not so dramatic, as formal refers to forms in both. In ourthinking of a stone, we can now see, there appear to be two forms in play:the form of the stone, and the relevant (if indescribable) form of the mindor mental state. When invoking (a), Descartes' focus is on the latter; wheninvoking (b), on the former.

What, then, about distinction (c)? We saw earlier that Descartes appearsto take all three distinctions to be equivalent, and we can now see howthis may be so: (c) merely combines the hylomorphic material with thecommon scholastic idiom of objective. This in turn partially answersour other question: Descartes uses this shifting vocabulary because all ofit means what he wants it to mean, and would be familiar to his readers asso meaning. Its messiness, in other words, derives from his predecessors'own terminological profligacy.



But now reading Descartes as adopting, in broad strokes, this scholasticaccount of cognition, has the additional virtue of making sense of hisvarying definitions of idea from Section 2. Definition (1) reflects thefact that objects can be in our thought, i.e. insofar as their forms in-form our minds. Definition (5) asserts that ideas are thoughts which areas it were images, where image invokes the notion of some sort of(non-literal, non-pictorial) likeness or resemblance between the thoughtand its object. As we saw in Section 1, forms were frequently referred toas images precisely when they were intentionally realized either inspecies or in the mind, and we can now see Descartes to be followingsuit: Our thought of a stone is an image of the stone insofar as the formof the stone (intentionally) in-forms our mind. Definition (2) reflects asimilar point: a thing has objective being in the intellect insofar as itsform intentionally in-forms the mind. And of course definition (3): If themind is like matter, it only becomes determined into a particular modeor thought, with an object, once in-formed. The idea-ness of a thought,its having an object, is thus traced to its form. Similarly for definition (4):it's precisely by their forms (as we saw) that mental states become thetype they are, thus volition etc. count as ideas by virtue of their forms.

But (3) and (4) also introduce something new: the notion of immediateperception. In (3) the idea is the form of a thought immediateperception of which makes me aware of the thought; in (4) the mindimmediately perceives that it's willing, etc., which (again) is traced tothe forms of its states. To simplify we'll ignore the mental formsresponsible for generating the categories of representational states, andthus focus on (3) and the problem of representational content. The idea in(3) is the immediately perceived form, but as we've seen, there areapparently two in play: the form of the object of the thought (the stone),and the mental form of the thought itself qua representational state. Sowhich one is relevant here?

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To read Descartes in broadly scholastic terms is to recognize that theyboth are and they both are because they are one and the same. As withthe scholastics, when the form is realized in matter you get a formal,actual, particular stone; when that very same form is realized in aCartesian mind, now, you get a particular thought of a stone.

A scholastic reading of Descartes appears to have a number ofadvantages:

(1) It's economical. With respect to substance dualism, the one form doesboth sorts of work: (formally) modifies matter, and (intentionally)modifies mind. Or with respect to the mind alone, the one form does bothsorts of work: modifies the mind, and provides it with its representationalcontent.

(2) Descartes appears to hold that all thought is representational, i.e. thatit's the very nature of mind to represent (3rd Med., II.25, AT VII.36-37;II.29, AT VII.42).[27] But it also seems that our only epistemic access tothe nature of our mind is via the contents of our thoughts. What we knowin knowing our thoughts, in other words, are their objects. Thus definition(3): our immediate perception of the form of a given thought makes usaware of the thought. Which form is that? The form of the stone. It isboth that which gives the thought its object AND that which makes thethought what it actually is, viz. a thought of a stone. Descartes has noneed to specify which form is in play here, because there is only one.

Or to put this point more metaphysically: given the mind's nature torepresent, thoughts are partly individuated by their contents.[28] If so, thenthat form which bestows content on the state is also that which determineswhat state it is. If some other form were required for the latter, then we'dneed an entire theory relating the modes of the mind, individuated bynameless forms, to their representational contents, a theory conspicuouslylacking in Descartes. Or even more succinctly: Cartesian minds are,primitively, thought-makers, which on receiving the forms of objects



primitively, thought-makers, which on receiving the forms of objectsbecome thoughts of those objects. No distinct mental forms are necessaryfor representational content, just as the scholastic reading suggests.

(3) We saw a moment ago that Descartes' shift in meaning of the termformal between distinctions (a) and (b) was not actually that dramatic.In light of definition (3) we can now see that it may in fact be no shift atall if the same form provides the formal in both (a) and (b)!

(4) A fourth advantage of the scholastic reading is that it affords ageneral, coherent account of the various conflicting metaphysicaltendencies raised in Section 3.

We saw there, for example, that the objective sun seemed to enjoy somekind of identity both with the act of thought (since the formal andobjective reality of an idea seemed to be two aspects of some single thing)and with the formal sun (since the objective sun is in some sense the sunitself) and yet the act of thought is really distinct from the formal sun.But this tension is now easily satisfied: the act of thought is reallyidentical to the objective sun, since both are constituted by the mind-informed-by-the-sun-form; the objective sun is the sun itself, since thevery same form constitutes both the objective and formal suns (if indifferent media); and the act of thought remains really distinct from theformal sun.[29]

Similarly, we saw both that the objective being and the formal being of anobject require causes of equal stature while the objective and formalrealities of an idea differ in causal requirements; further, that Descartessometimes stresses the mind-independence of objectively existingessences. These points supported distinguishing the objective sun from theact of thought and perhaps even identifying it with the formal sun. Yet atthe same time Descartes also restricted objective beings to the mind:they're never outside the intellect, and sometimes no formal being existsto correspond to them.

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to correspond to them.

But these tensions are now also satisfiable. Objective and formal beingsrequire equal causes due to their sharing the same form. Yet that theobjective and formal realities of an idea differ in causal requirements neednot require that they be really distinct, for a conceptual distinction maysupport diverse causal explanations: The informed mind is a mind-thinking-of-O; when we consider it intrinsically, we need onlyinvoke causes sufficient to create the finite mind, while when weconsider it as of-O we need to invoke a cause sufficient to make itthat particular state, of-O, which involves the form of O.[30] Meanwhileobjective beings are naturally restricted to the mind, since objectivebeings are forms-realized-in-mind. If a given form is realized in mind andnot in matter, we'll have an objective being that does not correspond to aformal one, but there's nothing particularly metaphysically problematicabout that. But even if there does exist a corresponding formal being,nothing here requires a real identity between the objective and formalbeings; they will share a form, but be really distinct instantiations orparticularizations of that form. Finally objective essences may be mind-independent in the sense that the contents (or possible states) of ourthoughts are not up to us: an objectively existing triangle mayreasonably be said to contain all the essential properties of a trianglewhether I notice it or like it or will it or not.[31] But whatever the finalaccount of that fact, it doesn't entail that the objectively existing triangleitself exists outside the mind.

Lastly, Ayers' Descartes placed the real distinction between the objectiveand formal suns, as the scholastic Descartes does, thus identifying theobjective sun with the act of thought. But Ayers made no effort toaccommodate the conflicting tensions in the Cartesian texts above, andindeed, left as a major problem the hint of direct cognition in Descartes'suggestion that the mind grasps the sun itself: if the objective sun isidentified with the act of thought, and so in thinking of the sun the mind



identified with the act of thought, and so in thinking of the sun the mindis only aware of its own state, how does the mind make cognitive contactwith the external world? The scholastic reading, to the contrary, supplieswhat Ayers' thesis lacked: the conflicting tensions are resolved as above,and the direct cognition is accommodated, as we'll see further in Section5, by the fact that the very same form constituting external objects also in-forms the mind.

(5) The scholastic reading's fifth and final advantage is that it provides acoherent account of Descartes' overall ontology, as sketched at the start ofthis section. Three points in particular need attention: (i) Descartes rejectsscholastic hylomorphism, yet often invokes the hylomorphic vocabulary;(ii) his objective beings sometimes seem to be mental objects which arenot minds, or kinds of mental states which somehow contain non-mental objects, both of which seem inconsistent with his dualist,substance-mode ontology; and (iii) the mind-independent essencessometimes constituting his objective beings often seem to be abstract oruniversal beings, despite his inclination towards nominalism.

(i) Descartes' bark about hylomorphism is in general far worse than hisbite: he does not so much reject it as refurbish it in accord with themechanical philosophy.[32] Gone are the vast array of particularscholastic forms conjoined with hylomorphic matter in the physical world(such as those constituting secondary qualities and perhaps the genera-species of scholastic essences), but in their place are roughly analogousmechanical, and ultimately mathematical, essences (Principles IV.198,I.285, AT VIIIA.321-23; To Regius, January 1642, III.206-209, ATIII.499-509). Gone are the sensible and intelligible species which conveythe scholastic forms ultimately to the cognizing intellect, but in their placeis matter in motion conveying in-form-ation about the surface texturesof objects to the sensory organs, then onwards to the pineal gland, whichin turn leads the cognizing mind to sense or understand, such that theobject of cognition itself is now present to the mind (Optics 4-6,

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object of cognition itself is now present to the mind (Optics 4-6,I.165ff., AT VI.112ff.; 6th Replies, II.295, AT VII.437; PrinciplesIV.197-8, I.284-5, AT VIIIA.320-23; cf. O'Neil 1974). Nothing in thisrefurbishing precludes Descartes' accepting the basic scholastic notionthat the same form i.e. mathematical essence may enjoy twokinds of realization, corresponding to his two kinds of substances. ThatDescartes expresses his account of cognition in thoroughly scholasticterms, and (again) that he chose the word idea in the first place, isperhaps the strongest evidence that he embraces the account in its broadoutline, while differing in the important particulars above.

(ii) Texts suggestive of mental objects are understandable: the mind'sawareness of its state of thinking, which is individuated by its form, is atthe same time awareness of the object of the state which formally is (orwould be) constituted by that form. Equally understandable is talk ofthese objects as in the mind: there's a real identity, after all, between theobjective being and the act of thought. And so too we can understand thesense in which non-mental objects are contained in thought: the sameform which, by in-forming matter, constitutes the object, by in-formingthe mind constitutes a thought of that object. But nothing here violatesDescartes' dualist, substance-mode ontology at least on the obviouslycrucial assumption that his forms which we'll now speak ofinterchangeably with his (ultimately mathematical) essences do not.

(iii) Unfortunately, the ontological status of Cartesian essences is a matterof much dispute, as is, consequently, the question whether they truly fitwithin his overall ontology. A proper account of this issue would requireits own article, so here I must be overly brief.

The major positions on Cartesian essences are roughly these:

A. Essences are mind-independent, universal, abstract entities, likePlatonic forms (Kenny 1968, 1970);



B. Essences are grounded in the human cognitive structure, i.e. ourcapacities for thinking. That there is a triangle essence containingthe essential properties of triangles, then, means merely that ourminds are so structured that we cannot conceive of triangles without,ultimately, ascribing them their essential properties (Bennett 1994,Chappell 1997, Nolan 1997);[33]

C. Essences just are the objects which have those essences (Cunning2003);

D. Essences are to be identified either with divine decrees or with thecontents thereof (Schmaltz 1991, Rozemond (forthcoming)).

Each position finds some textual support. 5th Med., for example, displaysa strong hint of (A) in its insistence on the eternal, immutable, (human)mind-independent status of essences. We saw in Principles, to thecontrary, the nominalist inclination which may support (B). ThatDescartes denies a real distinction between (say) a substance and itsattributes is some evidence for (C) (To ***, 1645 or 1646, III.280-1, ATIV.349-51). And in Descartes' mysterious doctrine of the divine creationof eternal truths and thus of essences, with which the eternal truths areidentified (To [Mersenne], 5/27/30, III.25, AT I.152) we may findindications of (D). Yet another Cartesian conundrum but one whichperhaps, too, may be made intelligible by a scholastic reading.

When an essence in-forms a mind, the result is an act of thought whosecontent is determined by the essence. But we saw just above that thatcontent may be mind-independent in the sense that it is not up to us, inparticular to our wills, what must be included in the content. If that's notup to us, then what it is up to the Cartesian God's eternal, immutablewill is free to confer that eternality and immutability on the content(To Mersenne, 4/15/30, III.23, AT I.145-46; To [Mesland], III.235, ATIV.118-19). But that fact does not require that essences ever exist exceptwhen realized or particularized in matter or minds. Thus we may makesense of the Platonic-sounding texts without reaching the Platonist

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sense of the Platonic-sounding texts without reaching the Platonistconclusion. So much for (A).

(B) is more of a contender. For the scholastic Descartes, mental states areindividuated by the essences realized in them, which may supportidentifying essences and our cognitive structure and so make sense of thetexts supporting (B). Yet (B) may not do full justice to Descartes'references to eternal essences, since our minds are not eternal. Further,these same essences may be realized in matter as well. These pointssuggest that the essences are in some sense prior to our cognitivestructures.

(C), similarly, has something right about it, insofar as essences do in-formmatter; but it, too, may not do full justice to their eternality, and inparticular, may struggle with the cases where essences exist in thoughtwithout any formally existing external object with which to identify them.

What about (D)? For our purposes we need not distinguish between itstwo versions: given the Cartesian God's simplicity, there can be no realdistinction between God's decrees and their contents, just as we sawthere to be none between the objective and formal realities of humanideas. And though we cannot engage here with the complex mysteries ofDescartes' creation doctrine, we can observe at least an element of truth in(D): ultimately all Cartesian things must find their source in the CartesianGod, including essences. As such (D) gets closest to accommodating theeternality and mind-independence of essences supporting (A) whileavoiding the demerits of (B) and (C).

Still we must note that (D) need not exactly rule out (B) and (C):

First, briefly, divine simplicity entails that the distinctions we make inGod between His perfections, faculties, decrees, etc. are merelyconceptual ones. Following a long scholastic tradition, Descartes will holdthat anything we say about God involves our applying our very limited



that anything we say about God involves our applying our very limitedconcepts to something with respect to which they are not fully adequate.But then our very characterization of the divine essence as omnipotent,omniscient, infinite, etc. will be determined by our own cognitivestructure. And since it's that characterization which ultimately groundsDescartes' affirmation of (D) and since it is our cognitive structurewhich determines how/what essences we can grasp in the first place we have a sense, distinct from the earlier one, in which our cognitivestructure might in fact be prior to the essences.

Second, more generally, Descartes' God's perfection precludes Hissystematically deceiving us (4th Med., II.37, AT VII.53). He has thuscreated us with a cognitive structure which accurately maps the generalstructure of reality, i.e. the complete set of what's possible; but thisstructure in turn maps neatly onto the structure of God's will, to thedegree to which it's intelligible, since He is the causal source of allpossibilities. While the order of explanation certainly starts with God, itmay be a matter of taste to decide whether to identify the essences withthe divine decrees or their content or with the minds and matter which aretheir causal consequences, or even all of the above. After all, it's thesame essence present in all domains.

Similarly, lastly, perhaps the biggest problem for (D) arises from the factthat Descartes holds not only that God is the efficient cause of essencesbut that God is not the efficient cause of Himself (4th Replies, II.164-6,AT VII.235-7). Since, by divine simplicity, there can be no realdistinction between God and His decrees (or their contents), it wouldseem that essences cannot be identified with divine decrees withoutentailing, contra Descartes, that God is the efficient cause of Himself. Butthe availability of (B) and (C) mitigate this problem: the very sameessences present in the divine decrees are also present in creatures, asrealized either in minds or in matter. Since creatures are uncontroversiallythe products of God's efficient causation, we can make sense of Descartes'

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the products of God's efficient causation, we can make sense of Descartes'claim that God is the efficient cause of essences without giving up(D).[34]

It may not matter, then, whether we ultimately go with (B) or (C) or (D),or all three (more or less). None raises an immediate problem forDescartes' ontology, which indisputably accepts minds with theircognitive structure, bodies with mechanical essences, and God with Hisdecrees and their contents. Nevertheless a deeper problem is brewing. TheCartesian essences, even if originating with God, are realized notmerely in God's decrees but also (consequently) in finite minds andmatter. But does that mean we must say that essences are universalbeings, and thus inconsistent with Descartes' nominalist leanings?

Let us briefly return to the Principles text above:

There are several important points here:

First, nothing in this text in fact is inconsistent with the scholasticDescartes. Descartes insists that universals essences consideredsimply in the abstract or in general, are merely modes of thinking, butthat is consistent with allowing that universals, considered in createdthings, in fact also are realized in those things. He speaks of itemsresembling each other, but nothing precludes that resemblance's being amatter of their sharing the same essence. His account whereby material

[N]umber, when it is considered simply in the abstract or ingeneral, and not in any created things, is merely a mode ofthinking; and the same applies to all the other universals, as wecall them These universals arise solely from the fact that wemake use of one and the same idea for thinking of all individualitems which resemble each other: we apply one and the same termto all the things which are represented by the idea in question, andthis is the universal term. (Principles I.58-59, I.212, AT VIIIA.27)



matter of their sharing the same essence. His account whereby materialparticulars are subsumed under an idea is both one of explaining theorigin of an idea as well as its ability to represent a multiplicity; but whenhe says that universals are modes of thinking, he is merely saying that,when they are not realized in matter, they are realized only in mind. Whathe is keen to deny is just that essences exist in that mind-independent,Platonic way, which we may falsely think when we think about them inthe abstract or in general.

Indeed Descartes quite explicitly refers to the idea as a universal. In thequoted text he calls it a universal term [quod nomen est universale], andin other parts of the text he makes several references to the universalidea [quae ide est universalis]. There can be no doubt that he considersour individual acts of thought to be particulars, but insofar as these havethe same content, they become, as he says in the text, one and thesame idea (my italics): what we have is a universal essence realized indiverse acts of thought. In light of the considerations in the precedingparagraph, there is no reason to resist allowing a universal essence to berealized in diverse material particulars as well.

Finally, Descartes is quite clear that there is no real distinction between athing's existence and its essence (To ***, 1645 or 1646, III.280-1, ATIV.349-351). What he does allow is a real distinction between theobjective object and the formal object, but in the former we have anessence realized in mind, and in the latter, an essence realized in matter.The realizations of this essence, in mind and in matter, are really distinct,or token-distinct; but he simply lacks the resources (and on thescholastic account the motive) to treat the essence in this case itself astoken-distinct across the instances. But if one and the same essence isrealized in two media, we do indeed have a universal essence.

The conclusion, then? For Descartes, every existing thing is indeed aparticular, and that will satisfy his nominalist inclinations. But that is

Andrew Pessin


particular, and that will satisfy his nominalist inclinations. But that isconsistent with allowing universal aspects or natures, i.e. essences, as longas these only exist insofar as they are realized in particulars.[35] Nowrealism about universals comes in many varieties, as does nominalism,and the position we've ascribed to Descartes may lean more towards therealist end of the spectrum than towards the nominalist. What's importantto note, however, is that Descartes is concerned to reject a Platonicrealism. Whether the resulting position still merits the label realism perhaps Aristotelian-scholastic realism is a merely terminologicalissue.

The broadly scholastic account of Cartesian ideas, then, nicely tiestogether the disparate elements of his ontology.

Sources/Further Reading: Kenny 1968, Kenny 1970, Brown 1980,Schmaltz 1991, Bennett 1994, Garber 1994, Chappell 1997, Nolan 1997,Bolton 1998, Rozemond 1998, Cunning 2003, Pessin 2003, Rozemond(forthcoming), Aristotle's psychology, medieval theories of universals,and properties.

5. Ideas and Direct Cognition[36]

The Cartesian texts often suggest, as we've seen, that (i) ideas are theimmediate objects of our thoughts, (ii) they are never outside theintellect, (iii) they're distinct from the act of thought, but (iv) they can'tbe identified with any formal, external object, etc. Put these together andyou've got strong hints at a doctrine in which ideas veil us offcognitively from the world: what we are aware of directly, incognition, are only ideas, and not external objects themselves. Similarlywe saw, in Section 3, Ayers' observation that the conceptual distinctionbetween the act of thought and the objective being seemed to preclude ourhaving cognitive contact with anything other than our own acts ofthought, and thus also to support a veil. Yet at the same time, there are



thought, and thus also to support a veil. Yet at the same time, there arealso hints of direct cognition in Descartes, in, for example, his insistencethat the objective sun is the sun itself, and more generally in hisaccount of simple natures which are both manifest in the physical worldand directly graspable by the mind (Rules 12, I.39ff., AT X.411ff.; cf.O'Neil 1974). Fortunately the scholastic reading of Descartes can makesense of this final Cartesian conundrum as well.

What Ayers has failed to consider, on the scholastic Descartes, is thesignificance of the sameness of form across realizations in matter and inmind. There is a real distinction between the act of thought (objectivebeing) and the formal being, but their sameness in form supports what wemight call an identity in reason between them. Thus the act of thought ismade determinate by a form, so constituting the objective being, whileone and the same form is particularized in matter. This allows Descartesto say both, as we've seen, that our immediate perception of the form ofa thought makes us aware of the act of thought itself, and that theobjective sun the object of our thought is the sun itself. This is howthe mind makes cognitive contact with the world, pace Ayers' concerns:the same form realized out there is also realized in here, and awareness ofone is therefore awareness of the other. There is no tertium quid servingas an object of cognition.

So yes, ideas are only in the intellect, and may be the immediateobjects of awareness; we can thus make sense of many of the textssupporting the veil. Nevertheless the identity in reason the samenessof form between the in-formed mind and in-formed matter ensures thatthe in-formed mind constitutes a thought directed towards the object,and the Cartesian intellect may be said to be (directly) aware of (say) thesun itself. Consequently, but unsurprisingly, the scholastic Descartesmay be seen as subscribing to direct cognition, exactly (as we saw inSection 1) as his scholastic predecessors are generally taken to do.[37]

Andrew Pessin


This doesn't solve every problem for the exegesis of Cartesian ideas,naturally. Most importantly, we've been focusing on intellectual ideas,the paradigm examples of which are the mathematical essences which canbe realized in the physical world; we've not addressed the problem ofsensory ideas, of which we certainly seem directly aware yet which donot and cannot in fact be manifest in the physical world of Descartes'mechanical philosophy. But that is a problem for another day.[38]

Sources/Further Reading: Lennon 1974, O'Neil 1974, Yolton 1975,Yolton 1984, Cook 1987, Nadler 1989, Wilson 1990, Tipton 1992, Wilson1994, Simmons 1999, Hoffman 2002, Clemenson 2005, and Pessin 2007.

ConclusionLet us close by situating this account in the logical geography sketched atthe end of Section 1, focusing on the paradigm case of an act of thought Tabout some actually existing external object O. While Descartes appearsto speak of a kind of tertium quid, Q, viz. an objective being, the mereconceptual distinction between Q and the act of thought T indicates thathe grants Q no distinct being from that of T, thus putting us into option(a). Given the sameness of form doctrine, T is intrinsically related toO, putting us into (a1). Finally, in light of the real identity between T andthe objective being, and the identity in reason between the latter and O,then T may indeed count as an object of cognition but not in a waywhich in fact, after all, generates a veil of perception.[39]

BibliographyPrimary Sources

Aquinas



[ST] Summa theologica, transl. Fathers of the English DominicanProvince (Allen, TX: Christian Classics, 1948/1981).

Aristotle

[De Anima] On the Soul, transl. by J. A. Smith, in ed. RichardMcKeon, Introduction to Aristotle (2nd Edition) (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1973), 153-247. References areto the page, column, and line numbers of the BerlinAcademy edition (1831-1870).

Descartes

[AT] Oeuvres de Descartes, eds. C. Adam & P. Tannery (Paris:1897-1910 and 1964-1978; Paris: Librairie Philosophique J.Vrin, 1996). References are to volume and page number.

[CSM] The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, v. I, II, transl. J.Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, & D. Murdoch, and v. III, transl.J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, D. Murdoch, & A. Kenny(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984, 1985,1991). References are to volume and page number.

[Comments] Comments on a Certain Broadsheet, in CSM I.[Med] Meditations on First Philosophy, in CSM II.[Optics] Optics, in CSM I.[Principles] Principles of Philosophy, in CSM I.[Replies] Objections and Replies, in CSM II.[Rules] Rules for the Direction of the Mind, in CSM I.[Treatise] Treatise on Man, in CSM I.

Malebranche

Andrew Pessin


[Elucidations] Elucidations of The Search After Truth, transl., ed.,Thomas Lennon, in Search.

[Search] The Search after Truth, transl./ed. by Thomas Lennon andPaul Olscamp (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1997).

Suarez

[DM] Disputationes Metaphysicae, in Opera Omnia, ed. Carolo Berton(Paris: Vives, 1856-66), vols. 25-26.

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