Descartes on Innate Ideas

by Deborah A. Boyle

Overview

The concept of innateness is central to Descartes' epistemology; the Meditations display a new, non-Aristotelian method of acquiring knowledge by attending properly to our innate ideas.  Yet understanding Descartes's conception of innate ideas is not an easy task and some commentators have concluded that Descartes held several distinct and unrelated conceptions of innateness.

In Descartes on Innate Ideas, however, Deborah Boyle argues that Descartes's remarks on innate ideas in fact form a unified account. Addressing the further question of how Descartes thinks innate ideas are known, the author shows that for Descartes, thinkers have implicit knowledge of their innate ideas.  Thus she shows that the actual perception of these innate ideas is, for Descartes, a matter of making them explicit, turbaning the intellect away from sense-perceptions and towards pure thought.  The author also provides a new interpretation of the Cartesian 'natural light', an important mental faculty in Descartes' epistemology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781847061904
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	07/28/2009
Series:	Continuum Studies in Philosophy , #59
Pages:	186
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Deborah Boyle is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the College of Charleston, USA.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 The Multiple Meanings of 'Innate Idea' 7

1.1 Ambiguities in Descartes' Idea of 'Idea' 8

1.2 The Dispositional Interpretation of Cartesian Innate Ideas 13

1.3 A Unified Account of Cartesian Innate Ideas 19

1.4 The Recollection Account 22

1.5 Conclusion 26

Chapter 2 Innate Ideas as Objects and Acts 28

2.1 The Role of the Meditator's Nature 29

2.2 Distinguishing the Innate from the Adventitious and the Factitious 38

2.3 The Clarity and Distinctness of Innate Ideas 45

2.4 Conclusion 52

Chapter 3 The Role of Reflection in Perceiving Innate Ideas 54

3.1 The Reflective Account 55

3.2 Attention, Reflection, and the Interference of the Body 62

3.3 Applying the Reflective Account: Some Examples 67

3.4 Another Example: The Innate Idea of God 72

3.5 Conclusion 80

Chapter 4 The Natural Light Reconsidered 81

4.1 The Natural Light, Common Notions, and Innateness 82

4.2 A Keply to an Objection 84

4.3 John Morris on the Natural Light 86

4.4 The Natural Light and the Role of the Will 92

4.5 The Metaphor of Light 98

4.6 Conclusion 104

Chapter 5 The Natural Light and Its Truths 105

5.1 Perception by the Natural Light 105

5.2 Some Examples of Perception by the Natural Light 111

5.3 Conclusion 117

Chapter 6 Innate Ideas, Corporeal Substance, and Mathematics 119

6.1 The Innate Idea of Extension 120

6.2 Discovering the Innate Idea of Extension 121

6.3 Perceiving Ideas of Shapes 126

6.4 Perceiving Geometrical Propositions 136

6.5 Perceiving Other Mathematical Propositions 140

6.6 Descartes' Laws of Motion 144

6.7 Conclusion 146

Notes 147

Bibliography 170

Index 175