Open AccessDescartes’ idea and the representations of things
Author(s) -
Predrag Milidrag
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
filozofija i društvo
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.116
H-Index - 1
eISSN - 2334-8577
pISSN - 0353-5738
DOI - 10.2298/fid1103235m
Subject(s) - epistemology , direct and indirect realism , object (grammar) , philosophy , representation (politics) , nominalism , metaphysics , philosophy of science , realism , linguistics , politics , political science , law
On the basis of the analysis of relevant passages from Descartes’ writings, the article shows that Descartes’ ideas represent things in mind, but that he is not a representationalist in a Malebranchean sense: in Descartes, represented object is perceived, not the very representation of that object. Hereafter, three senses of idea in Descartes were analyzed, objective, formal and material, as well as the notions conceptus formalis and conceptus objectivus of Francisco Suárez who is direct historical source of Descartes’ theory of ideas. In the conclusion the centrality of the notion of idea in formal sense in Descartes’ theory of ideas is shown, and it is claimed that the representationalism and direct realism are equivalent in Descartes. At the end, the survey of influence and transformation of understanding of ideas in early modern philosophy is presented