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Chapter 4 - Thinking:

The nature of Descartes’ mental substance

from Part II - Substance and cause

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2013

Karen Detlefsen
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Summary

This chapter examines Descartes' non-Aristotelian account of the constitution of substance in light of criticisms on the part of some of his prominent contemporaries. The Meditations deploys a general method of inquiry about substances. Descartes explains that in order to know the nature of a mind, it is not necessary to have a complete enumeration of the modes that belong to a mind. The method is grounded on epistemic and metaphysical doctrines to the effect that the ideas to judge that there is an accident of such-and-such a sort are entirely accurate and complete representations of the dependence relations comprised in a substance. A functional-causal view of the nature of substance is proposed by other seventeenth-century philosophers, such as Locke. Malebranche is not alone in ascribing the model to Descartes. All fully determinate acts, or modes, of a thinking substance are unified by being determined in regard to the object.
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Chapter
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Descartes' Meditations
A Critical Guide
, pp. 64 - 81
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

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