Abstract
There is considerable textual evidence in Descartes’ Meditations that suggests he held the human perceiver to be passive during sense-perception—that is, the perceiver plays no active role in accomplishing such sensory perception. In this paper, I argue that the Cartesian human perceiver does play an active role in accomplishing her own sense-perceptions.
The paper begins by pointing to Descartes’ Meditations, which strongly suggests that he thought that sensory perception is passive. I then elucidate the sense(s) in which the Cartesian perceiver might be passive, given Descartes’ adherence to mind-body dualism. Finally, I argue, on the basis of texts external to the Meditations, that Descartes did not in fact hold that the perceiver is passive.
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Notes
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For Descartes, such sensory perceptions are to be distinguished from acts of the imagination. While he thinks that both can only take place with a physical body, cases of imagination, e.g. in dreams and hallucinations, have their distal cause within the perceiver’s own body. In contrast, sensory perception has its distal cause outside the thinker’s body and involves the relevant sensory organs such as the eyes, nose etc. Descartes also distinguishes between acts of imagination that involve the will, and “passive” imagination (e.g. in dreams) that do not. (AT 11:344–5, CSM 1:336).
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As mentioned, in order for sensory perception to take place, the causal chain for such perception must originate from outside the perceiver’s body.
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Shapiro (2003, p. 38).
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See, for example, Hoffman (1990).
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Normore and Brown (2003, p. 92).
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Normore and Brown (2003, p. 93).
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Indeed, some writers have held that Descartes thinks that it is such qualia that are directly perceived by the senses. They suggest that it is from our direct sensory perception of these qualities that we infer that there are finite substances like minds and matter in which they inhere. Such writers would include Vinci (1993); Wee (2002, 2006).
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For Descartes, items like the wax, towers or statues are not of course themselves substances. For Descartes, there are in the created universe only two kinds of substances—finite minds and extended matter.
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See, for example, Aristotle’s De Anima, 2:12 424a17. Note that the passive reception of forms for Aristotle does not in the first instance take place in the mind, but (arguably) in the relevant sense-organ. (Aristotle did not of course hold on to the dualism of mind and matter–or at least not in the way that Descartes did. For a solid discussion of this issue, see Wilkes (1992).
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Kenny (1968, p. 123).
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Descartes would of course hold that these third-grade sensory judgments of the intellect can then be followed by judgments of the will (i.e., by affirmations and denials by the will).
- 14.
I would like to thank Annette Baier and C.L. Ten for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
Bibliography
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Wee, C. (2014). Descartes and Active Perception. In: Silva, J., Yrjönsuuri, M. (eds) Active Perception in the History of Philosophy. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04361-6_11
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