자연의 빛:데카르트와 모리스

초록

In his paper “Descartes’ Natural Light”, Morris divides Understanding(intellectus) into “power of conceiving” and “power of cognition”(vis cognoscendi or puissance de connaitre), and considers the latter only natural light of Descartes. He presents on that basis some sentences of the third Meditation of Meditationes, of Principia philosophiae and of Regulae. So the truth of notiones communes “recognised” by the light of nature prescribed in this way is excluded from the Cartesian doubt, and he argues that Descartes will be free from the cicious circle in this sense. I affirm his argument about the Cartesian vicious circle. Unlike Morris, however, I believe that in the third Meditation, the light of Natur associated with the notiones communes is “a intellectual instinct”(or intuitus mentis) that pairs with “natural impulses”(impetus naturales), not with vis cognoscens or vis intelligendi, and Descartes has attracted this instinct as a guarantor of the truth of the notiones communes when attempting to prove God’s existence in the third Meditation.

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