display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
16 ideas
| 5686 | In some thoughts I grasp a subject, but also I will or fear or affirm or deny it [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Other thoughts are different from ideas, as when I will, or fear, or affirm, or deny, there is always some thing that I grasp as the subject of my thought, yet I embrace in my thought something more than the likeness of that thing. | |
| From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §3.37) | |
| A reaction: Note that the class of mental events we call 'propositional attitudes' had already been identified by Descartes. His categories of thinking in Med. Three might be one of his most important contributions, because that is what matters in the mind. |
| 4015 | For Descartes passions are God-given preservers of the mind-body union [Descartes, by Taylor,C] |
| Full Idea: Descartes sees passions not as opinions, but as functional devices that the Creator has designed for us to help preserve the body-soul substantial union. | |
| From: report of René Descartes (The Passions of the Soul [1649]) by Charles Taylor - Sources of the Self §8 | |
| A reaction: I wonder what Descartes would have made of the theory of evolution? |
| 23989 | There are six primitive passions: wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness [Descartes, by Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Descartes said there are six primitive passions, namely wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness. The others are either species of these, or composed of them. | |
| From: report of René Descartes (The Passions of the Soul [1649], 353) by Peter Goldie - The Emotions 4 'Evidence' | |
| A reaction: [not sure about ref] It's a nice touch to add 'wonder', which doesn't make it onto anyone else's list. |
| 4313 | Are there a few primary passions (say, joy, sadness and desire)? [Descartes, by Cottingham] |
| Full Idea: Descartes says there are six primary passions (wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness); Spinoza says there are just three (joy, sadness and desire). | |
| From: report of René Descartes (The Passions of the Soul [1649]) by John Cottingham - The Rationalists p.172 | |
| A reaction: A dubious project. However, it is now agreed that there are a few (six?) basic universal facial expressions, to which these passions may correspond. |
| 4017 | Descartes created the modern view of rationality, as an internal feature instead of an external vision [Descartes, by Taylor,C] |
| Full Idea: Rationality is now an internal property of subjective thinking, rather than its consisting in (according to Plato) its vision of reality. This view of Descartes' has become the standard modern view. | |
| From: report of René Descartes (Meditations [1641]) by Charles Taylor - Sources of the Self §8 | |
| A reaction: Greek 'logos' actually seemed to be both internal and external. We have certainly lost the idea that the universe is rational, even though it is ordered. |
| 2284 | I make errors because my will extends beyond my understanding [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: My errors are owing simply to the fact that, since the will extends further than the intellect, I do not contain the will within the same boundaries, but extend it to things I do not understand. | |
| From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §4.58) |
| 5007 | Most errors of judgement result from an inaccurate perception of the facts [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: What usually misleads us is that we very frequently form a judgement although we do not have an accurate perception of what we judge. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.33) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me a generally accurate observation, particularly in the making of moral judgements (which was probably not what Descartes was considering). The implication is that judgements are to a large extent forced by our perceptions. |
| 3614 | A machine could speak in response to physical stimulus, but not hold a conversation [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: One may conceive of a machine made so as to emit words, and even emit them in response to a change in its bodily organs, such as being touched, but not to reply to the sense of everything said in its presence, as the most unintelligent men can. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §5.56) | |
| A reaction: A critique of the Turing Test, written in 1637! You have to admire. Because of the advent of the microprocessor, we can 'conceive' more sophisticated, multi-level machines than Descartes could come up with. |
| 5685 | True ideas are images, such as of a man, a chimera, or God [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Some of my thoughts are like images of things; to these alone does the word 'idea' properly apply, as when I think of a man, or a chimera, or the sky, or an angel, or God. | |
| From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §3.37) | |
| A reaction: Descartes is obviously aware of a problem with the application of the word 'idea'. This definition seems rather narrow (and visual), but it is certainly confined to concepts, and does not expand to include propositions. |
| 3629 | All ideas are adventitious, and come from the senses [Gassendi on Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I would go further than you and note that all our ideas seem to be adventitious - to proceed from things which exist outside the mind and come under one of our senses. ..The idea of a giant is a man of ordinary size which the mind enlarges at will. | |
| From: comment on René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §3.38) by Pierre Gassendi - Objections to 'Meditations' (Fifth) 280 | |
| A reaction: A classic early statement of modern empiricism. Gassendi needed to think about logic, maths, and necessities to make his case more secure. Where did his idea to 'enlarge' the giant come from? |
| 2286 | The idea of a supremely perfect being is within me, like the basic concepts of mathematics [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The idea of God, that is, the idea of a supremely perfect being, is one discovered to be no less within me than the idea of any figure or number. | |
| From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §5.65) |
| 3631 | A blind man may still contain the idea of colour [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: How do you know that there is no idea of colour in a man born blind? | |
| From: René Descartes (Reply to Fifth Objections [1641], 363) |
| 2600 | The mind's innate ideas are part of its capacity for thought [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I have never written or taken the view that the mind requires innate ideas which are something distinct from its own faculty of thinking. | |
| From: René Descartes (Comments on a Certain Broadsheet [1644], p.365) |
| 2273 | The ideas of God and of my self are innate in me [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The idea of God is innate in me, just as the idea of myself is innate in me. | |
| From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §3.51) |
| 2285 | I can think of innumerable shapes I have never experienced [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I can think of countless geometrical figures, concerning which there can be no suspicion of their ever having entered me through the senses. | |
| From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §5.64) |
| 2601 | Qualia must be innate, because physical motions do not contain them [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The ideas of pains, colours, sounds etc. 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 motions. | |
| From: René Descartes (Comments on a Certain Broadsheet [1644], p.365) | |
| A reaction: Simple and brilliant! We know perfectly well that there is no redness zooming through the air from a tomato (or the air would be pink!). Redness occurs when the light arrives, so we add the redness, so it is innate. |