Da li i kako Descartesova ideja reprezentuje? [“Whether and How Descartes’s Ideas Represent?] by Predrag Milidrag

Milidrag, Predrag . “Da li i kako Descartesova ideja reprezentuje?” [“Whether and How Descartes’s Ideas Represent?”]. ODJEK – Revija za umjetnost, nauku i društvena pitanja 63, no. 3 (2010): 14–27. [Echo — Review for art, science and social issues 63, no. 3 (2010): 14–27.]

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NOTE: The English translation is primarily done by ChatGPT 4.0 under Merlin with additional correction using Google translate and common philosophical knowledge such as the actual English title of John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

NOTE: All bold or bold italic text (except for subtitles) was NOT in the original.

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It took a long time for historians of philosophy to understand and accept the fact that René Descartes was not Nicolas Malebranche. In other words, throughout the 20th century, they interpreted Descartes’ theory of ideas as essentially representational, according to which the spirit perceives representations of external things, their images, copies or something similar, and not the things themselves. At the same time, according to the mantra about him as the “father of modern philosophy,” they completely ignored the historical-philosophical context of Descartes’ thought, de facto viewing him as a miracle worker who pulls absolute concepts out of his head just like a magician pulls rabbits out of a hat. Representationalist interpretation and not relying on the late scholastic sources of Descartes’ thoughts go hand in hand, because if you look at how late scholasticism understood the process of human understanding, you simply cannot stay with the representationalist interpretation of Descartes’ ideas.¹

Almost nothing is known about us,² while abroad the research of that historical-philosophical period is at the beginning, this text will try to answer the question of whether and how Descartes’ idea represents, starting from Descartes himself. Namely, we will try to analyze places from Descartes’ works to get to some characteristics of his ideas, showing that Descartes himself is quite enough for us to see that he cannot be a representationalist in the Malebranchian sense; then we will turn to late scholasticism and in it show and recognize the sources of his understanding. We limit ourselves to Descartes’ ideas as modes of the mind and leave aside his concept of the idea as a material impression in the brain that he developed in some works.³ Accordingly, we will also consider the act of understanding among the late scholastics, i.e., the level of a purely spiritual action without a previous process of knowledge that implies the material sphere.

So, how does Descartes’ idea represent? Does it represent anything at all? What does it represent? What is representative in it, if anything? If he is not a Malebranche representationalist, is Descartes then a direct realist, i.e., if it’s not Malebranche, is it Arnauld? Or is it neither? Does it somehow unify the understandings of both? How are things represented, if they are represented? With your own image/copy? If so, what is the image? Do we perceive the image of a thing or the thing itself? How do we perceive things if we perceive them directly, i.e., if we perceive them and not their copies?⁴ What is the relationship between perceiving, representing and represented? If we perceive them directly, are things (i) in spirit? If we perceive them directly, does that mean that they are not represented? (At least in principle, we must immediately answer the last question: it does not mean.)

Problem

Two key places for understanding Descartes’ ideas are found, and where else, in the Meditations. Like all of Christianity, Descartes unquestioningly rejects the possibility that the idea of God has anything to do with any image, repeating that, unlike material things, God is unrepresentable with an image.⁵¹Cf. e.g., III resp.: VII 181, 183, V resp.: VII 385, to Mersenne, July 1641: III 393. How then to understand the following passage from Fifth Meditation:

The idea of God . . . is the image of true and immutable nature (imaginem verae et immutabilis naturae). (Fifth Meditation 11: AT VII 68)

The cited place attracts even more attention because on September 2, 1641, the Department of Philosophy of [the] Sorbonne approved the printing of the Meditations.⁶ If it were possible for Descartes to make an oversight due to some impossible twist of fate, the Sorbonne theologians would certainly not miss the heterodoxy of this place. However, the Sorbonne had no objections. Is it because its theologians believed that the human spirit can form an image of God?

Interestingly, not a single historian of philosophy who interprets Descartes’ theory of ideas as representational mentions this place. This is not surprising because this place is not explainable by representationalism (it is best to avoid it). Namely, the representationalist interpretation claims that the human spirit perceives representations, i.e., copies or images of external things, not the things themselves. Hence, the idea of God would have to be an image of God. Naturally, the place from the Fifth Meditation could perhaps be interpreted to mean that Descartes did not think of an image in a literal sense, but of some sort of “spiritual” image. However, such an interpretation would face at least two problems.

The first is internal: not only does Descartes claim in the quote that the idea of God is an image (later we will see some other places) but the interpretation itself asserts that images are perceived, so this place should be an argument in its favor. According to this interpretation, the idea of a stone must be an image of a stone, at best a “spiritual” image of a stone, and the spirit perceives it. But, what could a “spiritual image of God” be? An old man with a beard or a burning bush—certainly not. What, for instance, could a “spiritual image of the square root of three,” a chiliagon, or the meditative subject itself be? For if the spirit perceives images of things, then the ideas of all the above must also be images.⁷ Representationalism is unable to reconcile Descartes’ (and Christian) rejection of the possibility of forming an image of God with his claim that the idea of God is an “image.”

The second problem is that the claim that Descartes does not take the concept of an image in a literal sense explains nothing because the explanation of that “non-literal,” “spiritual” sense is missing. For example, M. H. complains that in the 17th and 18th centuries “everyone speaks of representation but no one actually says what it is”⁸ and in this assessment, he is not mistaken. But why would they talk about something that is a commonplace of contemporary philosophy? The fact that we do not know the commonplaces of that time is not a problem for those philosophers. Neither Descartes nor any of the early modern philosophers felt it necessary to explain to the learned people for whom they wrote what representation is and what an idea as an image is.

Further, in the 18th paragraph of the first part of the Principles of Philosophy, there is another important place in the context of understanding the concept of an idea as an image. There Descartes writes that “by the natural light it is quite evident” not only that the causal principle holds but also that an idea or image of a thing cannot exist in us without some archetype which really contains all its perfections existing either inside or outside us.⁹

Three moments in this quote are relevant to our problem. First, Descartes once again connects the idea and the image, talking about an idea or an image; we still do not know exactly what that “or” means: is it an idea as an image, an idea meaning an image, or something third, and what kind of image at all. Second, although we must put aside the concept of an archetype as such¹⁰ it is quite clear that here it refers to God or, at worst, to the meditative subject, therefore to completely immaterial beings. Descartes, therefore, repeats what he said earlier in the Fifth Meditation: the idea or image of a purely spiritual being. Third and most importantly, that archetype, says Descartes, can exist either within us or outside us.

If it is outside us, the archetype could indeed cause its image or copy in the spirit which the spirit would then perceive, just as representationalism claims. But what happens if the archetype can be within the spirit itself? Does an intramental cause of the idea cause its own intramental image which the spirit perceives? If the cause of the idea is intramental, why wouldn’t the spirit perceive it directly, why would it perceive its image? Why would the spirit perceive a copy of something present to the spirit just as much as the thing itself? Occam’s razor tells us that the idea as a perceived copy of the thing in this context is simply redundant. But if the copy is redundant, then the image refers to something other than a perceived representational copy of the thing! And it does. Exactly what it refers to will be indicated by another key place, namely the beginning of the Third Meditation.

Turning to the examination of his own thoughts to see if anything exists outside himself, the fifth passage of the Third Meditation begins as follows: “Now it is necessary to go step by step, and first having divided all my thoughts into certain classes, to investigate in which of them truth or falsity actually resides,” and then moves on to those thoughts which are ideas:

Some of them [of the thoughts] are like images of things and it is only to them that the term idea properly applies: as when I think of a man, a chimera, an angel, the sky, or. Others, however, besides this, have other forms: as when I will, when I fear, when I affirm, when I deny. (AT VII 36–37)¹¹

There are few places in Descartes’ work that are more misleading, more prone to misinterpretation, but also more incomprehensible than this characterization of ideas in the strict sense: like images of things. He is quoted by everyone who writes about ideas; many overlook the “like,” and almost no one has tried to answer the self-evident questions: what is the meaning of image in this place, what is in one idea, in one thoughts are like pictures, why does an idea stand in relation to a picture at all, and what kind of relations is that, if ideas are in the strict sense “like pictures of things,” what would ideas be in a non-strict sense?

So, what does Descartes say at this point? First, he tells us that there are two types of thoughts: some are ideas, and others are volitions. We leave the volitions completely aside and focus on ideas.

Second, he tells us that as thoughts, ideas are like pictures of things, that those thoughts that are like pictures of things are properly called “ideas.”¹² When I think about a man, a chimera, the sky, or God, my ideas by which I think of them, my thoughts are like pictures of things; they are not like pictures of things God, man, sky, or chimera. Furthermore, it follows from the quote that, in any case, God, man, chimera, or sky, in short, the object of representation as such does not properly bear the name “idea” because they are not my thoughts. Whether they belong “improperly” we will see later.

Descartes would not be Descartes if he had randomly chosen the examples he mentioned: man – a general concept; chimera – usually a being of reason, a being that cannot exist in the world but only in the mind; sky – a spatial being; angel – a being that is pure reason; God – omnipotent and infinite being. In addition, the idea of man is a product of abstraction, the idea of a chimera is the idea of an imagined/made-up being, the idea of the sky is a derived idea, the idea of an angel can be composite,¹³ and the idea of God is innate. So, under the determination that ideas are like images of things, Descartes subsumes all thoughts which are ideas, regardless of what is represented by them.

Ideas in the material and formal sense

In thoughts that are ideas, the quality of mental activity is perceiving. What distinguishes ideas as thoughts from individual volitions is that they are acts of representation: volition is also a thought but not a representational thought.¹⁴ Responding to objections addressed to the Discourse on the Method, in the Preface to the Meditations, Descartes clarifies how he uses the word “idea.”

In the word idea itself, there is ambiguity: it can be taken materially, for the action of reason, in which sense it cannot be said that it is more perfect than me, or objectively, for the thing represented by the same action, and that thing, although not assumed to exist outside reason, can be more perfect than me by its essence. (M, Preface. 4: VII 8)¹⁵

Generally speaking, an idea in the material sense is named that which really exists when an idea exists in the world: the perception of the mind.¹⁶ At the same time, the ontological status of perception, a mode of the mind, is expressed: when it perceives something, the mind exists in the manner of a perception. The action of reason is perceiving, and that action represents: only perception is representable (“represented by the same action”). This passage simultaneously speaks about the non-strict sense of the word idea: that which is represented, which again can be intramental (“although not presumed to exist outside the mind”). Hence, a strict distinction must be made between two senses of the idea: one is an idea taken materially, which means “the action of reason,” i.e., perception. The term “idea” then refers to a mode of the thinking substance that has a certain epistemological function, namely to represent. The other sense of idea is an idea taken objectively, which refers to what is represented, whatever it may be; this is the non-strict sense of idea because the object of representation is not the action of reason but some thing (God, stone, me) or some being of reason (privation, negation, abstraction).

Let us, for now, leave this second sense aside. Hence, it is already clear that Descartes is a representationalist, but by no means in the Malebranchean sense; while for Malebranche, the representative function is held by the object of representation¹⁷ (the representation is perceived) for Descartes, that function is held only by perceiving, which by its nature represents (the object of representation is perceived).¹⁸ How does perceiving represent and what does it represent?

Due to space, we will limit the consideration to the simplest example of representing a thing (res),¹⁹ while non-things, i.e., beings of reason, we leave aside, as well as innate ideas.²⁰ At one point in the responses to Gassendi, Descartes says: “The idea represents the essence of the thing.”²¹ To understand the relationship between the represented essence of a thing and the act of representation itself, it must be observed in the scholastic context in which the essence of the thing is viewed as form, and perceiving as matter.²² Therefore, representation of a thing is the result of the relationship between perceiving, seen as that which can be shaped, and the intelligible essence of a thing seen as shaping. So, we have something, let’s call it, “bare” perceiving²³ which we view as the matter of an idea. To it comes the form of some thing and shapes it. By taking on the form of a thing, sharing its form with the thing, the mere perceiving becomes similar to that thing: perceiving represents by the form of the thing conforming itself to the represented thing.²⁴ It is a representation by conforming the conforming; the conformed is perceiving, and the conforming is the form of the thing. By taking on the form of the thing, perceiving becomes like, becomes similar to, becomes the image of the thing, its picture. The picture is the representing perceiving itself, which has taken on the form of the represented thing.

How are ideas differentiated among themselves? “If I consider ideas themselves as merely modes of my thinking,” then “I do not discern any inequalities among them and it seems that they all originate from me in the same way” (M III 6, 13): VII 37, 40). There is no difference between the two perceptions as such: in both cases, these are modes of the thinking substance, ideas taken materially. So, how then do the perception of a stone and the perception of God differ? The answer is obvious:

“[B]ut if one represents one thing and the other another, it is clear that they differ greatly from each other” (M III 13: VII 40).

However, one must carefully read what Descartes writes. Ideas differ in terms of the object they represent: in the context of discussing form and matter, it means that one perception is formed by the form of one thing, and the other is formed by the form of another thing. Moreover, the representations themselves [italics in originsl] are different: ideas differ in that one is a representation of one thing and the other a representation of another thing, which are never interchangeable. The difference in the object of representation produces a difference in the very representation, i.e., in the image of the thing.

Regarding form, by forming the perception, the form of the thing becomes represented by it. It is very important to note that the form of the thing is observed from two perspectives: once as the essence of the thing, and another time as the form of perception. The object of representation is the form-as-essence-of-the-thing, but perception represents that object because that form is at the same time [italics in original] also the form-of-the-thing-as-the-form-of-perception of that thing. Therefore, the form of perception does not represent the form of the thing, as that is not possible, nor are there two forms involved, but only two aspects of the actuality of one form in the mind: the form of the thing as the form of perception enabled the representation (formed the perception), whereas the form of the thing as the form of the thing is what is represented by that representation.

So, the image does not refer to the object of representation, because perception does not represent some image or copy of the thing, but representation itself is understood as a process of picturing. Perception represents the thing by becoming similar to it; thus, it becomes structured by the form of the represented thing and the result is the representation of the thing as an intelligible image.²⁵ Hence, as Norman Wells aptly put it, “as an imago, the idea represents.”²⁶ It is clear that it cannot be an image in the literal sense. The image as we understand it today simply cannot cover everything perception must represent: material substances, thinking substances, sensory qualities, rational beings, abstractions, the square root of two, a thousand-sided polygon, and, of course, God.

So, an idea is an image and an image is a representation, but the mind does not perceive that image: we do not perceive our representations of things; we perceive things! [original italicsl The idea is not just a thought, as a mode of the mind, like an image of the thing, but it is the idea as a representation of an intramental or extramental thing or some rational being. Thus, the intramental represented cause of the idea indeed causes its own intramental image, but the mind does not perceive that image, rather through it, it perceives the intramental cause itself, the thing itself.²⁷

We have already mentioned that Descartes speaks of ideas in a material sense and ideas in an objective sense. We have also seen that the function of perception is to represent things in the mind. Furthermore, we said that the difference in the object of representation produces a difference in the very representation. For the epistemological function of perception, Descartes has a special name: the idea in the formal sense.

Since ideas are forms (formae) and since they are not composed of any matter, if considered as those that represent something, they are taken not materially but formally. However, if they are viewed not as those that represent this or that, but simply as activities of the mind, it could be said that they are taken materially. (IV Reply: VII 232)²⁸

Viewed in terms of their epistemological function, regarding the fact that they represent, ideas in the material sense are called ideas in the formal sense. The representation of a thing, which we have seen Descartes also names as the image, is called the idea in the formal sense. The concept of the idea in the formal sense is the result of abstracting the epistemological function of the idea in the material sense from the ontological basis of that function, i.e., from the idea considered as a mode of the thinking substance. Ontologically considered, there is only the idea as a mode of the thinking substance, but it can be considered materially and formally; first is the perceptio,²⁹ the idea in the material sense, and the second is the repraesentatio, the idea in the formal sense. Hence, the “idea or image” from the Principles of Philosophy means perception taken in its epistemological function of representing things in the mind and for the mind: the idea taken formally.

Based on the above, it is possible to draw the following conclusion regarding the passage from the Third Meditation: a) thoughts that are ideas are representational perceptions, b) thoughts that are ideas are like images of things, c) therefore, representational perceptions are like images of things.³⁰

The idea taken formally is like an image of things because representation is a picturing process, and its result is an intelligible image. And precisely because representation is not merely an image (but it is a similitudo³¹), Descartes with a calm soul can say that the idea of God is “an image of true and unchanging nature” without fear of falling into heresy, because he does not say anything at all about the object of representation, about God, but about the representation itself, about one own thought, namely about the idea of God: the image of God is the idea of God taken formally, the representation of God in the human spirit.³²

Image in the spirit. Is that the idea of those things taken formally as an intelligible image? No, it is not. Since the ideas of sensory things imply the action of imagination, these ideas imply the existence of some image, but an image as a material impression in the brain: “…insofar as they are imprinted in some part of the brain I do not call them ideas at all but only because they give form to the spirit itself, when it is directed towards that part of the brain” (Second Responses: VII 160–161). Besides the image in the brain, the ideas of material things in the spirit taken formally are, like all other ideas taken formally, intelligible images. Therefore, in the case of ideas of material things, there is an equivalence between the images of those things in the brain and the ideas of those things in the spirit: if and only if the image of a material thing is in the brain, then and only then is the idea of the material thing in the spirit: “Everything we perceive without an image is an idea of the pure spirit, and everything we perceive with an image is an idea of the imagination” (Mersenne, July 1641: III 395). In the case of ideas of immaterial things, God, the Self, angels, eternal truths, abstractions, there is no image in the brain but their idea taken formally as an image still exists.³³ Once again, we understand (intellectio) both a triangle and a thousand-sided polygon, but we can only imagine (M VI 2: VII 72) a triangle.

Ideas in the objective sense

We said that in addition to being a form of perceiving, a thing is also considered an object of representation, primarily an object of representation. For that object, Descartes says that it can be in the spirit or also outside it. Talking about things in the spirit is strange from today’s perspective, but in Descartes’ time, this was not the case, and in scholasticism as a whole, interpreted in one way or another, it was the basis for direct realism.³⁴

What is the difference between a thing that is “in the spirit” and the same thing in the world? Obviously, in that the thing in the world has real existence, while “in the spirit” it does not, even though it is the same thing. The presupposition of such an answer is the metaphysical difference between essence and existence. This is a major theme in medieval philosophy, and the understanding ranged from the idea that essence and existence are really different (Thomists), to the idea that it is a modal difference (Scotists), to Francisco Suárez’s response that there is only a rational distinction.³⁵ Descartes inherits Suárez’s understanding and in an important letter says: “If by essence we mean the thing as it is in reason, and by existence the same thing as it is outside reason…” (Letter ***, 1645 or 1646: IV 350).

“The thing in the spirit” is actually nothing other than the essence of the thing that lives in its intelligible mode of being.³⁶ That mode of being was called, among other things, the objective mode, and Descartes also calls it that (modus essendi objectivus, M III 14: VII 42; cf. First Replies: VII 102, M III 27: VII 47). In the shortest terms, it got its name because when it is in the spirit, the thing is considered an object of consciousness.³⁷ Unlike it, the mode of being of essence in the world was called formal (modus essendi formalis, M III 14: VII 42; cf. also Def. 4 in Second Replies: VII 161). Because it is represented by some perception, the thing in the spirit gets the name “idea” in the objective sense, it is its external mark. In other words, the object of representation can be some essence of a thing that has real existence or it can be the same or some other essence without real existence. My idea of the Eiffel Tower is the idea of an extended thing that has extramental existence; its essence is represented by the idea. On the other hand, my idea of the Colossus of Rhodes is the idea of a thing that does not have extramental but only intramental existence. However, that does not mean that the idea of the Colossus represents something invented, something that has no essence, which is a being of reason or an abstraction. Its essence, Descartes would say, still exists in his consciousness, in the consciousness of other people, and in the divine spirit, except that its existence is exclusively objective, without real existence.³⁸

The object of representation, as we have seen, Descartes calls an idea in an objective sense (“for the thing represented by it”). From what has been said so far, it is clear that the represented thing cannot inherently bear the name of an idea. Why? Because the idea in a strict sense is representing perception, and things are (essences) things. At absolutely no single moment and at no cost may we forget: for Descartes, in the strictest sense, ideas are thoughts.

Things, the Eiffel Tower, the Colossus, God, are not my thoughts, but (essences) things. Those things are represented by my thoughts, by perception, but they are really different from them: nor do I ever need to have any of the given ideas, not even one about God,³⁹ nor does the real existence or essence of those things depend on me and my perception in any way. However, if I perceive them, they are represented, and they are a “part” of an idea (give form to some perception), namely one about themselves and because of that, as objects of representation, they receive the external designation “idea”, in an objective sense;⁴⁰ as we will soon see, and this is also the legacy of late scholasticism.

It is truly of immense importance to grasp the difference between ideas in the material and formal sense on one hand, and ideas in the objective sense, on the other. An idea in the material/formal sense is a representing perception which is a mode of thinking substance, it is contained in the nature of the idea. It really exists, it is a mode of the spirit and it is a thing; besides that, it has an epistemological function of representation. An idea in an objective sense is the essence of some thing; it objectively exists in thought, it has some degree of objective reality, and it is also a thing. So, we are talking about two concepts. Now, one idea, some things make two things (beings aside): representational perception and the represented real essence.

What, then, can ideas taken objectively represent, what can our ideas represent? First, they can represent extra-mental, really existing things (Eiffel Tower, God, myself). Second, they can represent intra-mental essences, i.e., things without real existence, whether those that no longer exist in the world (Colossus of Rhodes, Napoleon) or those that do not yet exist in the world but are possible (a ship for a journey to Mars). Third, they can also represent beings of reason in the broadest sense, i.e., everything that cannot really exist (negations, privations, numbers, abstractions, eternal truths). What is an idea taken objectively, then? “Ideas taken objectively for Descartes have no object; they are objects that can be represented by ideas taken formally.”⁴¹

In conclusion to this part, let us sum up the stated example of one idea. Let’s say that in the past you saw the Eiffel Tower and today you remember it. That memory is one idea, namely the idea of “remembering the Eiffel Tower.” The memory itself is a kind of perception, i.e., generally speaking, thought: when I remember the Eiffel Tower, I think of that building through memory. Of course, I can perceive it in other ways, such as imagining it, by will doubting that it exists, or by observing it. The idea of “remembering the Eiffel Tower” taken materially is, therefore, a perception and as such is a mode of my spirit as a thinking substance. However, since perception by its nature is representational, the representation of the Eiffel Tower in my spirit by memory is the idea of “remembering the Eiffel Tower” taken formally, an individualized representation. As we said, such a representation is also called the image of the represented because perception, i.e., in our case memory, has become similar to the tower. The idea of “remembering the Eiffel Tower” taken objectively is that tower itself, its essence which is the object of representation. Since it is the object of representation, the Eiffel Tower exists objectively in my mind; it is in my spirit but is not of my spirit, my spirit is in no way the cause of the Eiffel Tower. As represented, the thing that is the Eiffel Tower gets the name “the idea of the Eiffel Tower in the objective sense.”

In the briefest terms, what has been stated constitutes the core structure of Descartes’ theory of ideas. Now added to this are the interpretations of ideas of beings of reason, materially false ideas, and innate ideas, two senses of objective being, degrees of objective reality of ideas, their relation to degrees of formal reality, the relationship between modes of reality and their degrees, and finally, the causation of degrees of objective reality of ideas.

Suarez: formal and objective concept

We said at the beginning that representationalism is complementary with neglecting the historical-philosophical sources of Descartes’ theory of ideas. These sources are found in the late scholastic understanding of the act of human conception and the understanding of divine ideas, particularly among Jesuits, primarily Francisco Suarez.⁴³

The simplest expression of Suarez’s understanding can be found in his interpretation of the following place from the Summa Contra Gentiles by Thomas Aquinas: “Truth relates to that in the mind which the mind expresses, not to the act by which it expresses it”;⁴⁴ to translate into the language already used, truth does not relate to the act of representation but to its object.

Unlike conservative late scholastic Thomists, Suarez interpreted this claim in a non-classical-Thomistic way: for him, an act of reason, that is, the act of representing can be observed in two ways, materially and formally.⁴⁵ Observed materially, the activity of reason is only modally different from reason itself, while if observed formally, considering its epistemological function, it represents things to the mind.⁴⁶ Such a distinction was unknown to Thomas Aquinas.

This interpretation in late scholasticism served as the basis for the distinction between the concepts conceptus formalis and conceptus objectivus. Suarez says this distinction is the “common place (distinctio vulgaris)” of contemporary philosophy⁴⁷ and is indeed encountered both among conservative Thomists and Jesuits.⁴⁸ Almost all of them use the term conceptus, not idea, because it is about the process of conception in the human mind; man has concepts, and God has ideas. As will be clear based on what follows, although it has very little to do with the scholastic conceptus, the modern meaning of the term “concept” still preserves the original sense of that term which is relevant here, which the term “notion” does not.⁴⁹ How does Suarez define the formal and objective concept and the distinction between them? Very similarly to Descartes, or rather vice versa:

The formal concept is the act itself or, what’s the same, the word by which the mind conceives a thing or a general notion. It is called a concept because it is like an offspring of the mind; it is named formal either because it is the ultimate form of the mind or because it formally represents the known thing to the mind or because it is the true and ultimate formal outcome of mental apprehension, distinguishing it from the objective concept.⁵⁰

The formal concept is always a true and positive thing,⁵¹ singular and individual,⁵² an accident of the mind, modally different from it, belonging to the category of quality.⁵³ Viewed this way, the formal concept is considered materially.

Suarez tells us that the formal concept is called formal for three basic reasons. First, it is the perceiving activity of the spirit that structures it, giving it a formal qualitative determination; spirit is seen as initially formally indeterminate, but nevertheless determinable or capable of being specified by the cognitive process. At the same time, secondly, the conceptus formalis formally represents⁵⁴ or functions as a natural formal sign of the thing in question,⁵⁵ which makes the thing in question known to the mind; representation is the epistemological function of a formal concept, and it is a formal concept observed formaliter.⁵⁶ Thirdly, this spiritual activity of understanding is its own formal limit (terminus), but not its own objective limit.⁵⁷ Because it is an “outgrowth of the spirit,” conceptus formalis by its very nature is a concept.

The operation of the mind by which something is represented by a formal concept, i.e., the operation that is a formal concept, Suarez calls simple understanding or grasping (simplex conceptio seu apprehensio)⁵⁸ of the nature of something, without confirming or negating anything about that nature.⁵⁹ At that level, there is always a correspondence between the knowing reason and the known thing, whatever that thing is, because the concept simply represents what it represents.⁶⁰

The process of simple understanding (conceptio) is defined by Suarez as a spiritual word (verbum mentis),⁶¹ while he observes the representative function of that process as a process of imagining, and names it as an image (imago)⁶² or similitude (similitude).⁶³ Thus, a formal concept viewed with regard to its epistemological function is one intelligible picture.

Suarez then defines an objective concept, i.e., what will become an idea taken objectively in Descartes:

An objective concept is that thing, or concept, that is strictly and immediately known or represented by means of a formal concept. For example, when we conceive of a man, the mental act that we produce in order to conceive him is called a formal concept, but the man who is known in this way or represented by that act is called an objective concept. It is named a concept by the external sign [which comes] from the formal concept, by means of which the object is understood; it is called objective because it is not a single concept in the sense of form that intrinsically limits understanding, but in the sense of object and matter around which the formal concept is developed and on which [the object] is directly controlled by the spirit.⁶⁴

The objective and formal concept differ in the following:

A formal concept is always a true and positive thing and is one quality in creatures that the spirit contains, but an objective concept is not always a true and positive thing, because sometimes we understand privations and other things called being- of reason that only have an objective existence in the understanding … [and it can also be] something universal or confusing or common, such as man, substance and the like.⁶⁵

Just like Descartes’ idea taken objectively, nor Suarez’s objective concept does not represent anything, but it is itself a represented thing that is only named as a concept. The thing is the objective outcome or the objective limit (terminus) of the formal concept; that’s why it’s a matter of reason in an objective way.

It is of immense importance not to overlook that in late scholasticism the determination of the represented thing as an objective concept is also an external mark of that thing that arises from its connection with the spirit.⁶⁶ The very relationship between the formal and the objective concept is the relationship between the representative and the represented, the image and the painted. , sign and signified, knower and known, form and matter.

* * *

Although it was dedicated to understanding in the human spirit, the entire previous section is not only important for the understanding of finite spirits. On the basis of the previous part of the paper, the eyes – that is why the late scholastic understanding of the act of understanding is relevant, but does Descartes himself refer us to divine ideas in late scholasticism? In his reply to Hobbes, Descartes writes in one place:

I used the word [idea] because philosophers usually already used it to denote the form of perception of the divine spirit … and I did not find any more suitable”. (III Re: VII 181)⁶⁷

Descartes, therefore, uses the philosophical concept of idea, which stands in connection with the divine spirit, in order to denote human ideas. This quote clearly indicates that the second late scholastic source of his theory of ideas was the late scholastic understanding of God’s ideas. The concept of the form of perception is already familiar to us: it refers to the representation of things in the mind.

Descartes’ answer to Hobbes suggests that he was aware of the “overarching systematic difference”⁶⁸ that dominated discussions about divine ideas in late scholasticism, namely the understanding of divine exemplary and effective causality in the context of the distinction between formal and objective concepts. This place in Descartes is very important, because it undoubtedly indicates that his concept of idea cannot be understood not only without late scholasticism, but especially without how divine ideas were comprehensible in it, that is, the status of creatures before the act of assigning them real existence and, therefore, without understanding the relationship of God to the created.⁶⁹

Divine ideas as exemplary forms in late scholasticism were identified with the formal concept because it is a conceptual or perceptual form; exemplary causality in man was understood in the same way.⁷⁰ Divine ideas are, therefore, formal concepts, or as Descartes would say, to some “thoughts … in particular belongs the name of ideas” (M III 5: VII 37). Unfortunately, at this point we cannot say anything more in detail about Suarez’s understanding of divine ideas, because that would require an analysis of his understanding of the difference between essence and existence, the status of essences in the divine spirit and their relationship to God’s reason and his will. and the understanding of eternal truths.⁷¹

Equivalence: Both representationalism and realism

From what has been said about Suarez, it is obvious that in understanding ideas, Descartes firmly relies on the late scholastic distinction between formal and objective concepts, as well as on the understanding of divine ideas. He even, although rarely, uses the late scholastic terms esse objectivum, conceptus formalis.⁷² As Norman Wells observes, “[w]hilst Descartes is unfaithful to the chosen term idea, and returns to the more traditional conceptus, some scholastics, dedicated to the use conceptus, they spontaneously switch to the use of the expression idea.”⁷³

We believe that the similarities, even the sameness, between Descartes’ theory of ideas and Suarez’s understanding of the basic structure of the act of human perception have been clearly demonstrated.⁷⁴ Therefore, just a summary:

Along with the expression idea, Descartes inherited the Jesuit interpretation of idea as conceptus formalis and/or conceptia formalis, whereby the conceiving process itself was identified with the spiritual word and the displaced image, and all this in direct confrontation with the orthodox Thomistic tradition. In doing so, Descartes embraced this process of understanding as an intelligible specimen or form that represents its intramental intelligible counterpart or object, the traditional conceptus objectivus.⁷⁵

However, in Suarez, two moments should be singled out that are extremely important for understanding Descartes’ ideas, because of them it directly depends on whether he will appear to us as a representationalist, as a direct realist or perhaps as something else. First, the activity of simple understanding (conceptio), i.e. the formal concept (conceptus) is named as an image (imago); the image, therefore, is not what is represented, an objective concept. Second, “concept” in an objective concept is an external label of a represented thing that objectively exists in reason or a represented being of reason.

The basic cause of understanding Descartes’ ideas taken objectively as a representation of things (and hence as their images, copy) is ignorance of the late scholastic sources of his theory of ideas: “[A] lack of familiarity with Suarez and scholasticism created the conviction of historians that modern movements were absolutely original creations” that, when it comes to represented things in the mind, the “idea-self” is only their external label that they get because they are in the mind, as opposed to representative perceiving, which is an idea by its nature. As a result, the idea in the objective sense is reduced to the idea taken formally: from the idea in the objective sense, only the name remains, under which, in fact, the idea taken formally is hidden. In fact, for this interpretation, the thing is not in the mind at all, but only its image, copy or reflection. However, a thing (idea taken objectively) is not a picture, a thing is a thing, and a picture of a thing can only be what that thing represents, because it resembles a thing: an idea taken formally. In other words, the essence of things is not represented by the mode of spirit, but the mode of spirit is what this essence is represented by. Unfortunately, the vast majority of authors understand Descartes’ ideas in an objective sense as images of things. The reason for this is that they understand ideas in the objective sense as representations of things, and not as things themselves in reason.⁷⁷

Another type of this is the claim that the objective reality of an idea represents the formal reality of an object.

The third aspect is the claim that an idea has both formal and objective reality.⁷⁸

We have already mentioned the fourth aspect: equating an idea in a formal sense with an idea in an objective sense. If an idea would represent something in an objective sense, then:

1a) the function of representation would be divided/doubled, so the idea taken formally would represent the idea taken objectively that would represent the thing;

1b) ideas taken formally, states of one’s own spirit, would be perceived, and not ideas taken objectively, the things themselves;

2) reason would have two activities, perceiving ideas and representing things, instead of two aspects of one; and most importantly,

3) a third being, an idea, would be inserted between spirit and matter.

For Descartes, we do not perceive ideas, but perceive things themselves, since it is not the representation that is re-presented, but the represented thing, the extramental or intramental, or some being of reason.

Furthermore, one cannot talk about Descartes’ ideas without specifying which meaning of the idea is meant (as well as whether we are talking about the ideas of the essence of things or the ideas of the being of reason). Within the framework of Descartes’ philosophy, the term “idea as such” is so abstract that it is empty, because, as the ideas of the essence of things show us, there is nothing common to all ideas in the material/formal sense and ideas in the objective sense. I mean, those are two really different things. That, however,

It does not mean at all that one cannot talk about the essence of an idea, nor that Descartes ever doubts what its essence is: he perceived it as the mode of a thinking substance, an idea taken materially.⁷⁹ However, its essence is only one of the three senses of the idea in Descartes.

The key meaning of the idea for understanding Descartes’ ideas is the idea in the formal sense, because that is how the idea differs from the will, which are also the modes of the thinking substance. An idea is an idea because of what it represents, not because of what it represents, nor because it is the mode of a thinking substance, nor because it is not a will. That’s why: the concept of idea in the formal sense is the central concept of Descartes’ theory of ideas— representation; that is why the name idea corresponds to thoughts that are like images of things (M III5: VII 37) and that is why ideas are forms of perception, divine as well as human. An idea defined in this way entails two important, and already known, consequences. First, since the essence of a thing is not an idea, the represented essence of a thing can be called an idea only in the manner of an external label. For a represented thing or being of reason to say that they are an idea (in the objective sense) means to give them an external label based on the fact that they are represented⁸⁰ (again: “for a thing that is represented by the same action”).

Another consequence is direct realism. This will be clear from the explanation why Descartes characterizes perception as immediate in the definition of the idea.⁸¹

The immediacy of perception has two dimensions. The first is “temporal” in the sense that perceiving a form of thought must be now-perceiving, because in order to be perceived the form must be actual, i.e., now-form of thought: perceiving a potential form of thought is a contradiction.⁸² The word is, therefore, on equivalence: if and only if actual form and spirit, then and only then perceived form.

The second dimension of the aforementioned immediacy of perception is “spatial”. Descartes hereby claims that what is perceived must be the form of thought itself, not its representation, image or copy. Why? Because on the contrary, perceiving the representation of the form does not imply the actuality of the form in the spirit, the representation/copy of the form is not the form itself, and it must necessarily be actual, because otherwise it is not a form of perception! In order to have cognition, the object of cognition must be represented, but also directly perceived. Therefore, a formal cause, the form of things, must be present. That is why the thing, i.e. its essence, must be in the spirit.

Considering what has been said, Descartes’ theory of ideas can be characterized as representational direct realism. To a reader unfamiliar with scholasticism and early modern philosophy, and familiar only with the contemporary meanings of the above definitions, this will sound like a wooden iron, but this is no longer a problem for historians of philosophy, but for those who do not (want to) know that history. For Descartes, an idea by its definition (an idea taken materially/formally) either represents or is not an idea, regardless of whether it is the object of representation. But Descartes is also a direct realist because for him we directly perceive things that are represented in the spirit or that actually exist in the world. In his theory of ideas, there is an equivalence between representationalism and direct realism: if and only if the representation of things in the spirit, then and only then the direct perception of things.

As is usual with great ideas in philosophy, they achieve their influence independently of that, whether later generations followed their ways; moreover, they are influenced by the very fact that they are abandoned. Descartes’ theory of ideas is a good example of such influence. On the one hand, its historical-philosophical significance is reflected in the establishment of a general framework for the understanding of human ideas in modern philosophy, a framework defined by dualism and the understanding of human ideas based on divine ones. On the other hand, at least in early modern philosophy, its influence is also manifested through constant attempts to free itself from its influence, more precisely from the influence of its late scholastic postulates in their original form.

Already for Malebranche, perception is no longer representative: the object of perception is called an idea, and that object is the representation of things that actually exist in the world.⁸³ In the discussion with Malebranche, Arnauld  remains faithful to Descartes’ understanding of the idea as representing perception and to the idea taken objectively as an external sign.⁸⁴ Although he understands ideas in the same way as Descartes, with Arnauld there is no longer the essence of things in reason,85 because he did not see that the negation of Malebranche’s position does not imply the negation of an intramental and non-representational, mind-independent object of perception. Therefore, neither for Arnauld, nor for Malebranche, nor for the empiricists, there are no essences of things in reason.

Spinoza is the first to narrow the scope of the term “idea”: we do not have an idea of an object that does not exist at all.86 Locke goes in the other direction. : the idea of a non-existent thing is an idea, but it does not represent anything.87 Leibniz maintains the connection between perception and representation, but narrows the scope of the concept of idea by, on the one hand, extending the field of perception to unconscious perceptions, while, on the other hand, he doubts that the human spirit capable of carrying out a complete analysis of the content and of a single idea; and of course, because of metaphysics, all ideas are innate to him.

First, like all the others, he confirmed that the presence of self-awareness constitutes some perception as an idea: there is representative perception without an idea and, these are unconscious perceptions, but there are no ideas without self-awareness. The very fact that its perception can be self-aware is a feature that elevates the human spirit above all other created complete substances. The consequence of this separation was the emphasis on the character of ideas as concepts. The very concept of an idea began to change, it began to be emptied of empirical/sensual content. Hume is on the same path, with the division of perceptions into impressions and ideas, where ideas or thoughts are the product of thought, although dependent on impressions. This path is completed in Kant, in the idea as chi-

with the concept of mind.

Descartes’ theory of ideas can also be seen as an attempt to save what can be saved from scholasticism. He kept open the late scholastic metaphysical way of understanding the act of perception, placing it at the disposal of early modern philosophers. Viewed in this way, it is an attempt, intentional or unintentional, accidental or necessary, to reconcile or transform or reconstitute late scholastic proto-modern insights in accordance with the new basis of philosophy and new sciences. It was only Hume who finally showed that this attempt was hopeless.88

Based on everything that has been said, it is obvious that the continuity of the history of philosophy at this point passes from late scholastic to modern philosophy, not that it is problematic, as many still mystify today. Descartes’ originality is already so strong that it took philosophy more than a hundred years to break it.

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Notes

¹ This is unquestionably shown precisely in the interpretations of those historians of philosophy who turned to late scholasticism as one of the sources of Descartes’ philosophy, above all Norman Wells and David Clemenson (Norman Wells, David Clemenson). For them, see the literature and Mi-lidrag 2010a.

² I am not aware that anyone but me has written about late scholasticism as Descartes’ source in South Slavic languages; cf. Milidrag 2001, 2010a, 2010b. For the state of study in the West, see Mili-drag 2006, 2010a, 2010b.

³ “I don’t call ideas only images imprinted in the imagination (non so-las imagines in phantasia depictas). In fact, if these images are in the material imagination (phantasia corporea), i.e., if they are imprinted in some part of the brain (inporte aliqua cerebri depictae), I do not call them ideas at all, but only if they give form to the spirit itself, when it is directed towards that part of the brain”, II Answers: VII 160–61 (henceforth: II Answer; after the colon, the volume and pages of the standard edition of Adam and Tannery are listed). For the relationship between these two senses, see Milidrag 2010b: 15–19. All underlinings in the quotes are mine.

⁴ It should be noted that in early modern philosophy, perception is not the same as perception: every perception is perception, but not every perception is perception. For Descartes, and not only for him, remembering, imagining or understanding are perceptions, but they are not observations. For him, perception refers exclusively to sensory perception, while perceiving also includes processes of pure spirit (cf. Principles of Philosophy I 32: VIIA 17). In strictly metaphysical categories, if there is no body/matter there is no perception; perception also exists without a body, as Descartes’ thinking substance, Leibniz’s monads, and Malebranche’s and Berkeley’s spirit unequivocally show (Leibniz, Berkeley). Perception/perception is foreign (philosophical!), but there is no reason not to use it for the distinction that cannot be made in other languages between perceiving and perceiving.

⁵ Cf. e.g., III resp.: VII 181, 183, V resp.: VII 385, to Mersenne, July 1641: III 393.

⁶ Cf. Rodis-Lewis 1998: 245, eg. 48. By the way, even if there is no other place, considering this place from Meditations, it is factually -graphically incorrect to claim that “the only thing that Descartes calls an image is that cerebral trace that is recorded in our brain” (Šakota-Mimi- ca 2008: 385).

⁷ “If I want to think about a ‘thousand-[sides?]’, I understand very well that it is a figure consisting of a thousand [sides] . . . but I do not imagine those thousand [sides?] in the same way, nor do I see them as present” as when it comes to the triangle (Sixth Meditation, paragraph 2: VII 73) (henceforth M, number of Meditation and number of pauses); I cannot imagine, represent a chiliagon [a 1,000 sided geometrical figure] with a picture, but I can understand it.

⁸ Hight 2008: 39. Or: “[The way the idea represents is basic and inexplicable,”] Nadler 1992: 49–50.

⁹ ” . . . sed neque etiam i nobis ideam sive imaginem ullius rei esse posse, cujus non alicubi, sive in nobis ipsis, sive extra nos, Archetypus aliquis, omnes ejus perfectiones seipsa continens, existent“, VIIIA 12.

¹⁰ I tried to explain its meaning elsewhere. Cf. Milidrag 2006: 205–224 and 2010b: 204–217. This passage from the Principles corresponds to the passage from the fifteenth paragraph of the Third Meditation, VII 42.

¹¹ “Nunc autem ordo videtur exigere, ut prius omnes meas cogitationes in certa genera distribuam, & in quibusnam ex illis veritas aut falsitas proprie consistat, inquiram. Quaedam ex his tanquam rerum imagines sunt, quibus solis proprie convenit ideae nomen: ut cum hominem, vel Chimaeram, vel Coelum, vel Angelum, vel Deum cogito. Aliae vero alias quasdam praetera formas habent: ut, cum volo, cum timeo, cum affirmo, cum nego.“

¹² For thoughts as operations of the soul, see “To Reneri for Pollot,” April or May 1638: II 36, Klerslijeu 1. 1646: IXA 208. Also, in a letter to Clerselier dated April 23, 1649 (V 354–355), Descartes also calls ideas thoughts.

¹³ Cf. M III 18: VII 43. It should be noted that Descartes does not state the idea of the Self, since until the Sixth Meditation and the real difference between spirit and body he does not know either what the Self is or what man is; that is, he knows that the Self is a spirit, but he does not know that he is only a spirit; that he does not know this is clear to him even in the Second Meditation; cf. M II 7: VII 27–28 (for the interpretation of that place, see Milidrag, 2010b: 50–59).

14 But desires can be objects of representation and only then do we know about them because only then do we perceive them; for that in the context of this passage from Meditations, see Milidrag 2010b: 153–154. (There is no parallel between volition and the previously mentioned problem in connection with representationalism: as such, volitions are not “in” the spirit, but are the volitions of the spirit, modes of its real existence that can be represented when the spirit is in an explicitly self-reflexive state ).

¹⁵ Cf. To Mersenne, January 28, 1641: III 295.

¹⁶ For the idea as perception, cf. To Clerselier, 12 January 1646: IX 210, III Answer: VII 185, Passions of the Soul I 17: XI 342.

¹⁷ Cf. The Search for Truth III 1 (Malebranche 1997: 217–219).

¹⁸ This is very well explained by Robert McRae in what is still perhaps the best review text on ideas in early modern philosophy; cf. McRae 1965.

¹⁹ That is. essences that can exist outside of thought as individual spiritual or material beings; for the full meaning of the concept of things in scholasticism and early modern philosophy, which is completely lost today, see Milidrag 2010b: 33–35, 39–44, 193–198 and the literature cited there.

²⁰ The crucial experiment of any interpretation of Descartes’ theory of ideas is the interpretation of innate ideas, what they are and how they exist in the spirit; for that, see Milidrag 2010b: 126–33.

²¹ “Idea enim praesapsaent rei essentiam,” V Adg: VII 371. Cf. and M V 5: VII 64, I Re: VII 115–16.

²² There is simply no room in this text to explain this in more detail; for that, see Milidrag 2010: especially 64–74. Cf. Letter to Mesland dated May 2, 1644 (V 113–114), in which, comparing her to wax, Descartes speaks of the soul as the one that “receives ideas”, where by ideas we mean the essence of things (ideas taken objectively).

²³ “Naked” because it is about abstraction due to the inherent intentionality of perception.

²⁴ [In the] Serbian or Croatian language[s] they have a perfect translation for the Latin word forma: “face.” This is still clearly heard in our words for transformation—transformation, and for uniformity—uniformity, but also in the word co-mingling; traces of this sense of meaning can also be heard in the use of the words education and education; accordingly, our word for shaping would be imagination. Unfortunately, together with almost all its derivatives, the face was forever lost to philosophy in Serbs and Croats. Yes, the term “shaping” is sarcastic, but it, not “shaping,” captures the point: the form is the cause, and the form is not.[?] “Formative cause” implies the activity of the agent (the one who shapes) and does not imply the activity of the shape itself (what it shapes). Hence, “formation” includes the presence of an effective cause, and formation implies the presence of a formal cause. The form shapes because the agent is the cause (causa efficiens), the form shapes because the form itself is the cause (causa formalis). For some other reasons in support of the use of the term “formation,” see Milidrag 2010b: 70–71, e.g., 97.

²⁵ Cf. Wells 1993: 531.

²⁶ Wells 1984: 39, esp. 75.

²⁷ That is, with the language of form, we do not perceive form as a form of perceiving but form as a form of things.

²⁸ “Nam, cum ipsae ideae sint formae quaedam, nec ex materia ulla componantur, quoties considerantur quatenus aliquid repra-esentant, non materialiter, sed formaliter sumuntur; si vero spec-tarentur, non prout hoc vel illud repaesentant, sed tantummodo prout sunt operationes intellectus, dici quidem posset materialiter” . . . Cf. and the mention of the idea taken formally also in IV Re: VII 231, as well as immediately before the above quote. Also, see forma cogitationis, II Answer: VII 160; forma perceptionis, III Re: VII 188; cogitationum formae, Remarks on a Program: VIIIB 358. Ideas taken formally must in no way be confused with the formal reality of ideas. Formal reality is the determination of an idea’s ontological status – a realistically existing mode, while an idea in the formal sense is the epistemological function of that mode of a thinking substance—representation.

²⁹ Cf. To Clerselier, 12 January 1646: IX 210, III Answer: VII 185, Passions of the Soul I 17: XI 342.

³⁰ And Arnauld will also define representative perception as an image: “When it is said that our ideas and our perceptions (because I think they are for the same thing) represent the things we perceive, and that they are images of those things…”, On True and False Ideas, ch. 5, definition 8 (Arnauld 1990: 20).

³¹ “Similitudo is a technical term that should not be understood in the sense of ‘pictorial resemblance’ or ‘spiritual image.’ For Thomas, x is similar to y if and only if x and y share the same form,” Perler 2000: 15.

³² True, he will say in paragraph 17 of the first part of the Principles of Philosophy that the thing in its cause must be “not only objective or conceptual (objective sive represaentative)”, but also formally or eminently (VIIIA 11), but it is the context of exemplary causation that allows it to be said, without still implying the absolute identification of the object of representation and the intelligible image; all this is clear on the basis of late scholasticism. For the interpretation of that and some other apparently problematic places, see Milidrag 2010b: 245–249.

³³ “Having the idea of an angel means understanding what an angel is, and not having a mental image of a flame or a ‘human child with wings’, as Hobbes puts it. thought. As inextensible, spiritual things cannot be imagined at all; and although extended things can be both imagined and understood, the two processes must not be confused”, Ashworth 1975: 333.

³⁴ “Scholastics were practically unanimous in rejecting representationalism. They believed that such a view of knowledge is incompatible with certainty about the external world, because, they argued, if our knowledge ends only in the spiritual representation of an external object, how could we ever compare that representation with an external physical object , in order to judge whether it is correct?”, Clemenson 1991: 188. In the book on Descartes’ ideas, Clemenson rightly speaks of the “double presence” of things, in spirit and in the world, whereby numerical identity is at work: “Representation has literally become a ‘re-presentation’, another presence of an external object”, Clemenson 2007: 3; cf. and 47–76, 79–87).

³⁵ For this in Suarez, see Milidrag 2010: 254–262.

³⁶ The intelligible essence “does not have an actual existence separate from sensory embodiment. However, it is intelligible apart from any sensuous embodiment, it is truly intelligible only when it is conceived in complete difference from it… Intelligible is that which is capable of being so distinguished from the sensuous that it can become an object of knowledge by itself to myself. The criterion of object intelligibility in this sense is the capacity to be defined”, Foster 1935: 460. In co-knowledge, “[t]he key thing is that one and the same form (or nature) can exist both in extramental reality and in reason . . . ‘To include a form in reason’ simply means to include a form insofar as it has rational (or immaterial or intelligible) being”, Perler 2000: 113.

³⁷ “Thinking about something” it implies awareness of it as an object of one’s own consciousness, because awareness of thought is its constitutive element. Since we are talking about ideas, “thinking about” means “perceiving”, namely the objects of one’s own consciousness as objects of consciousness. In scholasticism, there was also a great debate about the ontological status of essences in the divine spirit before the act of creation (for this in Suarez, see Milidrag 2010b: 252–262), but also in the human spirit, and so it is, mainly in the Scotistic tradition that had great influence on late Jesuit scholasticism, attributed to esse diminutum, esse objectivum or esse cognitum; for that, see Perler 1994, 1996, 2001.

³⁸ For details of Descartes’ understanding of objective being and its relations to other moments of the theory of ideas, see Milidrag 2010b: 118–141, 288–290.

³⁹ “For although it is not necessary to ever engage in any thought about God . . . “, M V 11: VII 67.

⁴⁰ For the idea taken objectively as an external sign, see I Dg: VII 102, 102–103.

⁴¹ Wells 1990: 36.

⁴² At this point we cannot deal with the exact meaning of “Eiffel’s the tower exists objectively in my spirit”; in short, it means: if it exists in reality, it has properties that I perceive in my idea of it. For that, see Milidrag 2010b: 133–141.

⁴³ We say “first of all” because Descartes was educated by Jesuits, but also because Jesuit philosophers were the leading intellectual force in late-holistic philosophy. For that, see Milidrag 2010a: 9–13.

⁴⁴ Summa I 59 (Aquinas 1993: 237). For this and for Suarez’s interpretation, see Perler 2000: 114, as well as the works of N. Vels.

⁴⁵ On the differences between conservative Thomists and Jesuits, see Stone 2006, Clemenson 2007: 4–5 and related notes, as well as Pereira 2007: 43–64. See also Milidrag 2010b: 231–232.

⁴⁶ Of course, Descartes’ ideas in the formal sense: “If one represents one thing and the other another thing, it is obvious that they are very different from each other,” (M III 13: VII 40). It should be borne in mind that this is an extreme simplification of Suarez’s interpretation; but it cannot be done otherwise.

47 Disputationes Metaphysicae 2.1.1: XXV 64 (from now on DM, after the colon the volume and page of the standard edition are listed).

⁴⁸ For the corresponding places in Cajetan, Rubio, Francisco Toledo, Abre de Rakonis (Cajetan , Rubio, Francisco Toledo, Abra de Raconis) and others, see Milidrag 2010b: 239–242.

⁴⁹ “When reason understands something that is not itself, the thing that is understood is, so to speak, the father of the word (verbum) that is conceived in reason, while reason itself is more like a mother whose function is to conceive (conceptio) in her”, T. Aquinas, Compendium theologiae I 39 (Aquinas 1952: 36). A concept is “a mental representation in itself of a form or essence of a thing”, but it is also “a mental activity of the formation of such a representation”, Wuell-ner 1956: 25, determinant “Conceptus”; it is precisely on the basis of this duality that in late scholasticism the terms concep-tus and conceptio, the result and the action leading to it, are equated.

⁵⁰ “Conceptus formalis dicitur actus ipse seu (quod idem est) verbum quo intellectus rem aliquam seu communem rationem concipit; qui dicitur conceptus, quia est veluti proles mentis; forma-lis autem apellatur, vel quia est ultima forma mentis, vel quia formal-maliter represaent menti rem cognitam, vel quia revera est in-trisecus et formalis terminus conceptionis mentalis in quo differ a conceptu objectivo“, (DM 2.1.1: 25, 64–65).

⁵¹ “Vera ac positiva res”, (DM 2.1.1: 25, 65).

⁵² “Res singularis, et individua”, ibid.

⁵³ Precisely Descartes’ ideas in the material sense: they are things, modally different from the thinking substance and quality of spirit (cf. Mersenne 20 April 1643: III 648, PF I 56: VIIIA 26). The quoted passage from Suarez should also be compared with the following passage from Descartes: “[It is not only about the essence of an idea, considering that it is only one mode that exists in the human spirit…”, Regius, June 1642: III 566.

⁵⁴ “Conceptus formalis, ut repraesentans,” (DM 8.4.18: 25, 289).

⁵⁵ For the formal sign, see Deely 1994: 138 and Deely 2009: 53–55.

⁵⁶ To recall: “Since ideas are forms (formae) and since they are not composition- separated from any matter, if they are seen as those that represent something, they are taken not materially but formally. However, if they are viewed not as those that represent this or that, but simply as activities of reason, then it could be said that they are taken materially”, IV Re: VII 232.

⁵⁷ What Descartes will explicitly agree with in his reply to Caterus (Caterus); cf. I Re: VII 102–103. For an interpretation of Caterus’ late-holistic remarks and Descartes’ responses, see Milidrag 2010b: 270–288.

⁵⁸ “Human reason is capable of three basic types of activity: simple apprehension, judgment and conclusion. Simple apprehension is analogous to sensory knowledge: it consists of simply ‘seeing’ some intelligible content, without affirming or negating anything about it”, Clemenson 1991: 23. “The second level, judging, consists of confirming or negation of the covered proposition. The highest level, inference, consists of drawing conclusions based on premises”, Clemenson 2007: 32. Descartes explicitly mentions these three activities in Second Answers (VII 139). For the apprehension of Descartes in the context of late scholasticism, cf. Wells 1984: 28–35.

⁵⁹ Cf. and the term “Concept” in the New Catholic Encyclopedia (New Catholic Encyclopedia 2002: IV 151).

⁶⁰ Descartes practically says the same thing: “As for ideas [representing perceptions!], if they are observed in themselves, without relation to after all, they cannot actually be false, because if I imagine a goat [a being that can realistically exist or does exist] or a chimera [a being of reason], nothing is less true that I imagine one as well as the other”, M III 6: VII 37.

⁶¹ For this in scholasticism, see Foster 1936: 8–9, Owens 1982: 443. For the classical sense of the word in Thomas, see Copleston 1989: 385–386; Boland 1996: 235–248. In short, the expression of the understood essence is a spiritual word or concept.

⁶² The spirit “through formal representation forms a unique re-presenting image … which image is the formal concept itself ([mens] format unam imaginem unica representation formali repraesen-tatem … quae imago est ipsa conceptus formalis)”, DM 2.1.11: 25, 69. Cf. and “imago Petri“, and in connection with “in conformance immediata inter representationem imaginis, et rem ipsam praepraesentatam“, DM 8.13: 25, 276. “The image is the very act by which the object is thought”, Suarez, De Anima, d5, 25; cited according to Vazquez-Amaral 1984: 127.

⁶³ “A resemblance is called formal when it possesses the actual, appearing or structural characteristics of the original… Resemblance is the form by which something is intended”, Vazquez-Amaral 1984: 18, e.g. 39, 119. For the connection between imago and similitudo, cf. DM 8.1.6–7: 25, 277.

⁶⁴ “Conceptus objectivus dicitur res illa, vel ratio, quae propriae et immediate per conceptum formalem cognoscitur; ut, verbi gratia, cum hominem concipimus, ille actus quem in mente efficimus ad concipiendum hominem vocatur conceptus formalis; homo autem cognitus et repraesentatus illo actu dicitur conceptus objectivus, conceptus quidem per denominationem extrinsecam a conceptu formali, per quem objectum ejus concipi dicitur, et ideo recte dicitur objectivus, quia non est conceptus ut forma intrinsec termi-nans conceptionem, sed ut objectum et materia circa quam versatur formalis conceptio, et ad quem mentis acies directe tendit,” (DM 2.2.1: 25, 65).

⁶⁵ “[Conceptus] formalis semper est vera ac positiva res in creaturis qualitas menti inhaerens, objectivus vero non semper est vera res positiva; concipimus enim interdum privationes, et alia, quae vo-cantur entia rationis, quia solum habent esse objective in intellectu … res universalis, vel confusa et communis, ut est homo, substantia, et similla“, ibid. It should be noted that, just like Descartes’ ideas taken objectively, conceptus objectivus can equally be things (res) and beings of reason (privations, negations, abstractions, etc.).

⁶⁶ For the key concept of external sign in Suarez, key for Descartes , Spinoza and Leibniz, see Doyle 1984.

⁶⁷ “Ususque sum hoc nomine, quia jam tritum erata Philosophis ad formas perceptionum mentis divinae significandas, quamvis nu-llam in Deo phantasiam agnoscamus; & nullam aptius habebam.” For forma cogitationis/forma perceptionis, cf. and II Answer: VII 160; III Answer: VII 188; Remarks on a program: VIIIB 358.

⁶⁸ As characterized by N. Wells (Wells 1993: 517).

⁶⁹ Considering the response to Hobbes, it is surprising that D. Clemenson explicitly states that he will leave divine ideas aside when interpreting Descartes’ ideas because “ their [scholastic] theory of ‘repressed characters’ or ‘concepts’ and not their theory of ideas (as they understood ideas [therefore divine]) forms the immediate conceptual background of Descartes’ theory of ideas” (Clemenson 2007: 6).

⁷⁰ “The exemplar formally resides in reason as its formal concept (exemplar inest formaliter intellectui tanquam conceptus formalis eius)”, DM 25.1.26: 25, 906. This is directly opposed to the Thomistic understanding that divine ideas are conceptus objectivus; see Wells 1993: 514–519 and especially Wells 1994a: 35, esp. 152. For ideas as exemplars in Descartes’ time, see Ariew, Grene 1995.

⁷¹ For a detailed analysis of divine ideas in Suarez, see Milidrag 2010b: 252–269.

⁷² Cf. M VI 10: VII 78, II Re: VII 151. For all mentions of the terms conceptus and idea in Descartes, which should not be separated, see Gilson 1913: 48–149 and 136–137. As N. Vels characterized it (Wells 1993: 517).

⁷³ Wells 1993: 516. “Some scholastics” that is to say Suarez and T.K. Karl-ton (T.C. Charleton).

⁷⁴ There are still similarities, although they are not related to the theory of ideas, for example between Suarez’s principle of individuation, entitas, and Descartes’ concept of (objective and formal) reality. Descartes even uses the term entitas in the definition of objective reality (entitas rei, II Re: VII 161); for the analysis of this in Suarez and Descartes, see Milidrag 2010b: 133–139.

⁷⁵ Wells 1994c: 445.

⁷⁶ Vasquez-Amaral 1984: 1.

⁷⁷ For authors in whom it is possible to cite exactly the places where it is seen that Descartes’ ideas taken objectively are understood as representations, see Milidrag 2010b: 249, eg. 451; for those who certainly do not see them that way, except for N. Wales, see p. 252, eg. 457. It is a mistake to link Descartes’ “like pictures of things” to the seventeenth-century non-philosophical notion of idea, as R. Erju and M. Grin do (Ariew, Grene 1995: 89), but if we leave that aside, it is a very informative text; it’s only surprising that they cite all the authors who wrote about the meaning of the concept of ideas in Descartes’ time, but there is not even a word about Suarez!

⁷⁸ An idea has a formal reality because it is a mode of spirit, while the thing represented by an idea has an objective reality because it is an object of consciousness and the idea “contains” this reality (M III 14: VII 41, I Answer: VII 104, II Answer: VII 162, 166), “brings” it to the spirit (M III 13, 17, 25: VII 40, 42, 46) or represents it (M III 13, 20: VII 40, 44).

⁷⁹ For example, in a letter to Clairslia, Descartes says that he does not have the idea of God means not having a perception that corresponds to the meaning of the word “God” (IXA: 209–210).

⁸⁰ As Descartes does in his answers to Caterus; cf. I Resp: VII 102–103.

⁸¹ “Under the name of ideas I understand the form of every thought through whose immediate perception I am aware of that thought itself”, II Resp: VII 160. For an attempt to analyze this infinitely complicated definition, see Milidrag 2010b: 308–314.

⁸² Because that would meant that the perceived form of things is not the form of perception at the same time. However, this does not mean that in the human spirit there are no forms / essences of things that are not perceived: innate ideas.

⁸³ Cf. The Search for Truth III, 1 (Malebranche 1997: 217–219).

⁸⁴ “I said that I regard ‘perception’ and ‘idea’ as one and the same thing. Nevertheless, it must be noted that this thing, although it is only one, has two relations: one to the soul that it modifies, the other to the perception of the thing insofar as it is objectively in the soul; the word ‘perception’ more directly indicates the first relationship, and the word ‘idea’ refers to the second. Thus, the perception of a circle more directly points to my soul as the one that perceives a circle, while the idea of a circle more directly points to a circle if it is objectively in the spirit,” On True and False Ideas, ch. 5, definition 6 (Arnauld 1990: 20). For Arnauld’s critique of Malebranche and representationalism, see his work On True and False Ideas, chs. 3 and 4, and for his understanding see chapter 5 et seq.

⁸⁵ “[To say that a thing is objectively in our spirit … and to say that it is known by the spirit is to say the same thing in different ways,” On True and False Ideas, ch. 4 (Arnauld 1990: 14); cf. and the fifth definition in the fifth chapter. For Arnauld’s understanding, see Wells 1994b.

⁸⁶ Cf. Ethics, II, 7, derived position and II, 11, proof (Spinoza 1983: 51–52, 56).

⁸⁷ Cf. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, 8, 5–25 (Locke 1962: 126–36).

⁸⁸ “As far as metaphysics is concerned, the dividing line between medieval and modern philosophy does not go through the works of Francis Bacon (Francis Bacon) or Descartes; I am not even sure that it goes through Spinoza’s Ethics, but it is beyond any doubt that by Hume’s time philosophical readers had entered a new philosophical world”, Gilson 1952: 198. But, of course, Hume is also a metaphysician to the core: the source of the principle of causality through habit he placed in human nature, a pair of excellency metaphysical concepts; The principles of knowledge, therefore, come from human nature and are part of the structure of the human spirit. This opened the way for Kant’s transcendental apperception and a priori forms of sensibility and reason.

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Literature

Descartes’s works

1. Adam Paul, Tannery Charles (publ. pair). Oeuvres de Descartes. Paris: Vrin, 1996.

2. Cottingham John, Stoothoff Robert, Murdoch Dugald, Kenny Anthony. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Vol. III, The Correspondence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

3. Rene Descartes, Meditations on the First Philosophy. Translation by Tomislav Ladan. In E. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations I. Zagreb: Center for Cultural Activity, 1975.

4. Rene Descartes, A word about method, Practical and clear rules, Foundations of philosophy. Translation by Veljko Gortan. Zagreb: Matica hr-vatska, 1951.b)

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