display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
17 ideas
| 24025 | Clear and distinct truths must be known all at once (unlike deductions) [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: We require two conditions for intuition, namely that the proposition appear clear and distinct, and then that it be understood all at once and not successively. Deduction, on the other hand, implies a certain movement of the mind. | |
| From: René Descartes (Rules for the Direction of the Mind [1628], 11) | |
| A reaction: A nice distinction. Presumably with deduction you grasp each step clearly, and then the inference and conclusion, and you can then forget the previous steps because you have something secure. |
| 24022 | Our souls possess divine seeds of knowledge, which can bear spontaneous fruit [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The human soul possesses something divine in which are deposited the first seeds of useful knowledge, which, in spite of the negligence and embarrassment of poorly done studies, bear spontaneous fruit. | |
| From: René Descartes (Rules for the Direction of the Mind [1628], 04) | |
| A reaction: This makes clear the religious underpinning which is required for his commitment to such useful innate ideas (such as basic geometry) |
| 3630 | Our thinking about external things doesn't disprove the existence of innate ideas [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: You can't prove that Praxiteles never made any statues on the grounds that he did not get from within himself the marble from which he sculpted them. | |
| From: René Descartes (Reply to Fifth Objections [1641], 362) |
| 2602 | What experience could prove 'If a=c and b=c then a=b'? [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Please tell me what the corporeal motion is that is capable of forming some common notion to the effect that 'things which are equal to a third thing are equal to each other'. | |
| From: René Descartes (Comments on a Certain Broadsheet [1644], p.366) |
| 2279 | A triangle has a separate non-invented nature, shown by my ability to prove facts about it [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: A triangle has a determinate nature, which I did not fabricate, and which does not depend on my mind. This is evident from the fact that various properties can be demonstrated regarding it, such as that its three angles are equal to two right angles. | |
| From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §5.64) |
| 5012 | 'Nothing comes from nothing' is an eternal truth found within the mind [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The proposition 'nothing comes from nothing' is not to be considered as an existing thing, or the mode of a thing, but as a certain eternal truth which has its seat in our mind and is a common notion or axiom. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.49) | |
| A reaction: There is a tension here, in his assertion that it is 'eternal', but 'not existing'. How does one distinguish an innate idea from an innate truth? 'Eternal' sounds like an external guarantee of truth, but being 'in our mind' sounds less reliable. |
| 3617 | I aim to find the principles and causes of everything, using the seeds within my mind [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I have tried to find in general the principles or first causes of everything which is or which may be in the world, ..without taking them from any other source than from certain seeds of truth which are naturally in our minds. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §6.64) |
| 6490 | For Descartes, objects have one primary quality, which is geometrical [Descartes, by Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Descartes denies any similarity between the physical world and ideas, as matter possesses only geometrical properties; Locke allows more primary qualities, but follows Boyle and the atomists in treating secondary qualities as creations of sense. | |
| From: report of René Descartes (Meditations [1641]) by Howard Robinson - Perception 1.5 | |
| A reaction: The interesting point to note here is that Descartes' geometrical view of objects (they are defined purely by 'extension') is the view that they have one minimal primary quality. I prefer Locke's view, of which the history (given here) is interesting. |
| 22593 | Our sensation of light may not be the same as what produces the sensation [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: There can be a difference between our sensation of light and what is in the objects that produce that sensation in us. | |
| From: René Descartes (The World [1631]), quoted by Ian Dunt - How to be a Liberal 1 | |
| A reaction: Note only that they 'may' differ, and that he does not assert that they are entirely different. Secondary qualities give information, and are not just mental events. |
| 7400 | Descartes said images can refer to objects without resembling them (as words do) [Descartes, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: Descartes argued (in 'The World') that just as words refer to objects, but they do not resemble them, in the same way, visual images or other sensory inputs relate to objects without depicting them. | |
| From: report of René Descartes (works [1643]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a rather significant and plausible claim, which might contain the germ of the idea of a language of thought. It is also the basis for the recent view that language is the best route to understanding the mind. |
| 2295 | Why does pain make us sad? [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Why should a certain sadness of spirit arise from a sensation of pain? | |
| From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §6.76) |
| 3627 | Dogs can make the same judgements as us about variable things [Gassendi on Descartes] |
| Full Idea: A dog certainly makes similar kinds of judgement to your perceiving men by their hats and cloaks when they see their master's hat or clothes, …and they can recognise their master even if he is standing, sitting, lying down, or crouching. | |
| From: comment on René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §2.32) by Pierre Gassendi - Objections to 'Meditations' (Fifth) 272 |
| 2265 | We perceive objects by intellect, not by senses or imagination [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Bodies are not, properly speaking, perceived by the senses or by the faculty of imagination, but by the intellect alone. | |
| From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §2.34) |
| 3611 | Understanding, rather than imagination or senses, gives knowledge [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Neither our imagination nor our senses could ever assure us of anything, if our understanding did not intervene. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §4.37) |
| 2263 | The wax is not perceived by the senses, but by the mind alone [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The perception of the wax is neither a seeing, nor a touching, nor an imagining. Rather, it is an inspection on the part of the mind alone. | |
| From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §2.31) |
| 2264 | We don't 'see' men in heavy clothes, we judge them to be men [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Were I to look out of my window and observe men crossing the square, I would ordinarily say that I see the men themselves. But what do I see but hats and clothes, which could conceal automata? Yet I judge them to be men. | |
| From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §2.32) |
| 24034 | If someone had only seen the basic colours, they could deduce the others from resemblance [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Let there be a man who has sometimes seen the fundamental colours, and never the intermediate and mixed colours; it may be that by a sort of deduction he will represent those he has not seen, by their resemblance to the others. | |
| From: René Descartes (Rules for the Direction of the Mind [1628], 14) | |
| A reaction: Thus Descartes solved Hume's shade of blue problem, by means of 'a sort of deduction' from resemblance, where Hume was paralysed by his need to actually experience it. Dogmatic empiricism is a false doctrine! |