more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
We can understand thinking without imagination or sensation, as is quite clear to anyone who attends to the matter.
Gist of Idea
We can understand thinking occuring without imagination or sensation
Source
René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.53)
Book Ref
Descartes,René: 'Philosophical Essays and Correspondence', ed/tr. Ariew,Roger [Hackett 2000], p.245
A Reaction
We may certainly take it that Descartes means if it is understandable then it is logically possible. To believe that thinking could occur without imagination strikes me as an astonishing error. I take imagination to be more central than understanding.
| 5014 | We can understand thinking occuring without imagination or sensation [Descartes] |
| 20741 | Consciousness is shaped dialectically, by opposing forces and concepts [Hegel, by Aho] |
| 22212 | Pure consciousness is a sealed off system of actual Being [Husserl] |
| 6151 | Sartre says consciousness is just directedness towards external objects [Sartre, by Rowlands] |
| 24016 | Consciousness always transcends itself [Sartre] |
| 7437 | Consciousness and experience of qualities are not the same [Armstrong] |
| 21890 | Heidegger showed that passing time is the key to consciousness [Derrida] |
| 3479 | The mind experiences space, but it is not experienced as spatial [Searle] |
| 3286 | An organism is conscious if and only if there is something it is like to be that organism [Nagel] |
| 9319 | Is consciousness a type of self-awareness, or is being self-aware a way of being conscious? [Gulick] |
| 2391 | Can we be aware but not conscious? [Chalmers] |
| 4931 | Consciousness is a process (of neural interactions), not a location, thing, property, connectivity, or activity [Edelman/Tononi] |