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Full Idea
I can understand myself without the faculties of imagining and sensing, but not vice versa; I cannot understand them without me - a substance endowed with understanding.
Gist of Idea
I can exist without imagination and sensing, but they can't exist without me
Source
René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §6.78)
Book Ref
Descartes,René: 'Discourse on Method/The Meditations', ed/tr. Sutcliffe,F.E. [Penguin 1968], p.157
A Reaction
I think this is a fundamental and important error on Descartes' part. The idea that understanding is possible without imagination (and even sensation) is wrong, and it leads to the misleading concept of 'pure' reason.
5266 | It would seem that the thinking part is the individual self [Aristotle] |
1401 | Since I only observe myself to be thinking, I conclude that that is my essence [Descartes] |
2299 | I can exist without imagination and sensing, but they can't exist without me [Descartes] |
6907 | For Descartes a person's essence is the mind because objects are perceived by mind, not senses [Descartes, by Feuerbach] |
5017 | In thinking we shut ourselves off from other substances, showing our identity and separateness [Descartes] |
6721 | Ideas are perceived by the mind, soul or self [Berkeley] |
1352 | Thoughts change continually, but the self doesn't [Reid] |
5549 | Mental representations would not be mine if they did not belong to a unified self-consciousness [Kant] |