Abstract
This article develops and then qualifies what may be called the FROR thesis: when an occurrent Cartesian idea contains objectively real representational content, that content, insofar as it actually exists in the occurrent mental modification, possesses formal reality. The thesis initially appears compelling. An objectively real representation that is actually present in thought cannot be nothing; as an actually existing determination of thought, it appears to possess formal reality. This claim must be distinguished from the quite different and false claim that the representatum itself exists formally in the mind. The sun objectively present in an idea is not the formally existing sun in the heavens. Rather, the claim concerns the actual existence of the objectively real representational content within the mental mode. For ideas representing finite substances, modes, principal attributes, and true and immutable natures, FROR presents no obvious difficulty. Descartes’s idea of God, however, generates an exceptional case. Descartes maintains both that every human idea is formally a mode of a finite mind and that the idea of God contains more objective reality than ideas representing finite substances. If the latter is genuinely an infinite amount of objective reality, universal FROR appears to require infinite objective-reality content to acquire formal reality within a finite mental modification. An apparently attractive response—the imperfect-OR defense—appeals to Descartes’s description of objective being as imperfect relative to formal being. This defense fails. If the imperfection of objective being reduces the God idea’s objective reality to something finite, Descartes loses the causal inference to an infinitely formally real cause. If it does not reduce that objective reality, the original problem remains. The idea of God therefore constitutes a principled exception to universal FROR and exposes an important tension between the finitude of Cartesian mental modes and the causal work assigned to infinite objective reality in the Third Meditation.
Introduction
Descartes’s distinction between formal and objective reality is indispensable to the causal argument of the Third Meditation. Considered formally, an idea is an actually existing mode of thought. Considered with respect to what it represents, however, an idea may contain objective reality, and ideas differ according to the degree of objective reality they contain. Descartes makes the contrast explicit: “In so far as the ideas are considered simply as modes of thought, there is no recognizable inequality among them: they all appear to come from within me in the same fashion.” (AT VII 40; CSM II 27–28) Yet when ideas are considered representationally, their equality disappears: “But in so far as different ideas are considered as images which represent different things, it is clear that they differ widely.” (AT VII 40; CSM II 28)
The difference is not merely semantic. Descartes assigns ideas different degrees of objective reality according to the ontological status of what they represent. “Undoubtedly, the ideas which represent substances to me amount to something more and, so to speak, contain within themselves more objective reality than the ideas which merely represent modes or accidents.” (AT VII 40; CSM II 28) He then places the idea of God above ideas representing finite substances: “Again, the idea that gives me my understanding of a supreme God, eternal, infinite, {immutable,} omniscient, omnipotent and the creator of all things that exist apart from him, certainly has in it more objective reality than the ideas that represent finite substances.” (AT VII 40; CSM II 28)
These passages establish an objective-reality hierarchy corresponding to the formal-reality hierarchy. An idea representing a mode has mode-level objective reality; an idea representing a finite substance has finite-substance-level objective reality; and the idea of God has the objective reality appropriate to infinite substance. The objective-reality ranking of a representatum therefore corresponds to the formal-reality ranking that the represented item possesses, or would possess, considered formally. This correspondence is indispensable to Descartes’s causal adequacy principle, since his inference moves from the degree of objective reality contained in an idea to the minimum degree of formal or eminent reality required of its adequate cause.
This article investigates a consequence of that ontology that becomes especially acute in the case of the idea of God. The starting point is the FROR thesis: objectively real representational content that actually occurs in an idea ordinarily appears itself to possess formal reality as actually existing content of that mental mode. The thesis must immediately be distinguished from the claim that the represented extramental object itself exists formally in the mind. That distinction is essential. Nevertheless, once FROR is applied to the idea of God, Descartes faces a difficulty: a finite mental modification is supposed to contain an infinite amount of objective reality. The problem is not simply how a finite mind can refer to infinity. It is how a finite mental mode can contain the infinite objective reality required by Descartes’s own causal proof without that infinite content becoming formally infinite when actually instantiated in thought.
The FROR Thesis
The FROR thesis concerns the ontological status of objectively real representational content when that content is actually thought. It may be formulated as follows:
FROR Thesis: Whenever an occurrent idea contains an objectively real representation of X, that objectively real representational content possesses formal reality insofar as it actually exists as content in the occurrent mental mode.
The thesis does not claim that X itself thereby exists formally in the intellect. If the idea is an idea of the sun, the formally existing physical sun does not somehow become a constituent of the mind. Descartes explicitly rules out that interpretation in the First Replies: “The idea of the sun is the sun itself existing in the intellect—not of course formally existing, as it does in the heavens, but objectively existing, i.e. in the way in which objects normally are in the intellect.” (AT VII 102–3; CSM II 75)
FROR instead concerns the representational content through which the sun is objectively present. When the idea is occurrent, that content actually exists as a determination of the thinking mind. The formally existing item is therefore not the physical sun but the actual representational content of the mental modification. The sun is objectively present as the representatum; the representation of the sun is actually instantiated as mental content.
This interpretation receives prima facie support from Descartes’s treatment of ideas as modes of thought. “The nature of an idea is such that of itself it requires no formal reality except what it derives from my thought, of which it is a mode.” (AT VII 41; CSM II 28) An occurrent idea is therefore not an ontological nothing. It actually exists as a mode of a thinking substance. If its objectively real content is genuinely present within that occurrent mode, there is an initially powerful reason for holding that the content itself is formally actual as a determination of the mode.
Objective-Reality Rank and Formal-Reality Rank
FROR must be distinguished from a second principle concerning the rank of objective reality. Descartes does not assign objective-reality ranks arbitrarily. The amount of objective reality contained in an idea is determined by the ontological rank of its representatum considered under formal reality. Thus an idea representing a mode possesses less objective reality than an idea representing a finite substance, while an idea representing infinite substance possesses still more.
This correspondence between objective and formal ranking explains why Descartes can apply causal adequacy to ideas. He writes: “But in order for a given idea to contain such and such objective reality, it must surely derive it from some cause which contains at least as much formal reality as there is objective reality in the idea.” (AT VII 41; CSM II 28)
The relevant comparison is therefore not between the formal rank of the mental mode and the objective rank of its content. Every human idea, considered formally, is a mode of a finite thinking substance. Nevertheless, an idea may contain the objective reality of a mode, a finite substance, or infinite substance. Rather, the important correspondence is between the objective-reality rank of the represented content and the formal-reality rank of the representatum. The idea of a finite substance has finite-substance-level objective reality because its representatum, considered formally, has finite-substance-level formal reality. The idea of God has infinite-substance-level objective reality because its representatum, God, possesses infinite-substance-level formal reality.
This distinction prevents a common confusion. The idea of God, considered formally as an idea, is a finite mode. Yet the objective reality it contains is not thereby mode-level objective reality. Its objective rank is determined by what it represents, not by the formal ontological rank of the mental act that represents it.
Why the Idea of God Creates an Exception to FROR
The difficulty emerges when the preceding commitments are combined. Modes of a finite mind are themselves finite. A finite item cannot possess infinite formal reality. Nor can an infinite amount of formally real content literally exist as a formally infinite constituent of a finite mental modification. Yet Descartes maintains that his idea of God, although itself a finite mental mode, contains objective reality exceeding that contained in every idea of a finite substance.
The problem can be displayed through six commitments:
- Modes of a finite mind are themselves finite.
- A finite item cannot be formally infinite.
- An infinite amount cannot be formally contained as an infinite actuality within a finite mental mode.
- Descartes’s idea of God is a finite modification of his finite mind.
- An infinite amount of objective reality cannot simply be redescribed as a finite amount of objective reality.
- Descartes nevertheless requires his finite idea of God to contain the objective reality appropriate to infinite substance.
Why Mere Representation of Infinity Cannot Solve the Problem
An initially plausible response is that a finite representation can represent something infinite without itself containing infinitely many formally real components. A short mathematical expression, for example, can specify an infinite sequence. Similarly, perhaps a finite Cartesian idea can represent an infinite God without containing anything formally infinite.
As a general theory of representation, this proposal is entirely plausible. As a defense of Descartes’s Third Meditation argument, however, it is insufficient. Descartes requires more than the claim that a finite mental state can refer to an infinite object. His causal proof depends upon the idea itself containing an amount of objective reality exceeding that contained in ideas of finite substances.
Descartes does not merely say that the idea of God has an infinite referent. He says that it “certainly has in it more objective reality than the ideas that represent finite substances.” (AT VII 40; CSM II 28) The causal inference subsequently operates upon precisely this objective reality. If the representation of God were entirely finite and its infinity consisted merely in its capacity to denote or specify an infinite object, then what actually required causal explanation would apparently be only a finite representational state. A finite cause could in principle possess enough formal reality to produce such a state.
Descartes’s proof therefore cannot reduce infinite objective reality to finite representational machinery directed toward an infinite semantic target. The idea must genuinely contain objective reality sufficient to require an infinitely formally or eminently real cause. Otherwise the decisive causal transition from the idea of God to God is lost.
The Imperfect-OR Defense
A more sophisticated response may be called the imperfect-OR defense. It begins from Descartes’s explicit acknowledgment that objective being is an inferior or imperfect mode of being. What exists objectively in an idea does not possess the same mode of existence as something existing formally. The sun objectively present in the intellect is not a formally existing extended substance, and God objectively present in an idea is not the formally existing infinite substance.
Descartes provides an obvious textual basis for this response: “The mode of being by which a thing exists objectively {or representatively} in the intellect by way of an idea, imperfect though it may be, is certainly not nothing, and so it cannot come from nothing.” (AT VII 41; CSM II 28)
The defender can emphasize “imperfect though it may be.” Objective existence is attenuated relative to formal existence. An objectively existing sun does not heat the intellect. An objectively existing body occupies no physical region inside the mind. God as objectively present in a finite idea does not thereby exercise omnipotence or create the universe. Objective existence permits a representatum to be present in the intellect without the intellect formally instantiating the properties and causal powers belonging to the represented thing.
Applied to the idea of God, the defense contends that infinite objective reality need not constitute infinite formal reality within the finite mind. The idea is formally a finite mental modification while its representatum is infinite substance. Because objective existence is less perfect than formal existence, perhaps infinity can be objectively present within a finite mental mode without making either the mode or its formally actual mental content infinite.
This proposal can be strengthened by appealing to Descartes’s distinction between an idea’s formal reality and its objective reality. He writes: “The nature of an idea is such that of itself it requires no formal reality except what it derives from my thought, of which it is a mode.” (AT VII 41; CSM II 28) The defender may therefore maintain that the idea of God possesses only finite formal reality as a mental modification while possessing infinite objective reality through the inferior objective mode of being.
On this interpretation, objective being appears to provide a kind of ontological compression. The finite mind need not contain God formally or reproduce divine infinity as an infinity of mental parts, explicit predicates, or psychological complexity. It contains God objectively, and objective existence is sufficiently imperfect to permit the infinite representatum to occur within a finite mode without rendering that mode formally infinite.
Why the Imperfect-OR Defense Fails
The imperfect-OR defense ultimately fails because it threatens to conflate two importantly different claims: that objective reality is an imperfect mode of being, and that something existing objectively therefore possesses a diminished amount or degree of reality. Descartes can accept the first proposition. His causal proof prevents him from accepting the second whenever it would reduce the infinite objective reality of the idea of God to a merely finite amount.
The phrase “imperfect though it may be” qualifies the objective mode of existence. It does not establish that infinite objective reality becomes finite objective reality merely because its mode of being is objective. Indeed, the sentence containing the qualification immediately insists that objective being retains enough ontological status to demand a cause: “The mode of being by which a thing exists objectively {or representatively} in the intellect by way of an idea, imperfect though it may be, is certainly not nothing, and so it cannot come from nothing.” (AT VII 41; CSM II 28)
The causal significance of objective reality is then made explicit: “But in order for a given idea to contain such and such objective reality, it must surely derive it from some cause which contains at least as much formal reality as there is objective reality in the idea.” (AT VII 41; CSM II 28)
The expression “such and such objective reality” requires a determinate degree of reality. The cause must contain at least as much formal reality as the idea contains objectively. Consequently, whatever ontological attenuation accompanies objective existence cannot destroy the commensurability between objective and formal degrees of reality upon which the causal adequacy principle depends.
This creates a dilemma for the imperfect-OR defense. If the imperfection of objective being reduces the objective reality of the idea of God to a finite amount, then only a finite amount of formal or eminent reality is required in its adequate cause. Descartes could no longer infer an infinite cause from the idea. The meditator himself is a finite substance and possesses more formal reality than a finite mode of thought. The causal route to God would therefore be blocked.
If, by contrast, the imperfection of objective being does not reduce the amount of objective reality, then the idea of God continues to contain infinite objective reality. In that case the Third Meditation argument is preserved, but the original problem returns: a finite mental modification somehow contains an infinite amount of objective reality.
Descartes reinforces the difficulty by refusing to allow the merely objective status of the relevant reality to diminish what must exist in the cause: “And although the reality which I am considering in my ideas is merely objective reality, I must not on that account suppose that the same reality need not exist formally in the causes of my ideas, but that it is enough for it to be present in them objectively.” (AT VII 41; CSM II 28)
The word “merely” therefore does not provide the reduction required by the imperfect-OR defense. Descartes instead insists upon a causal correspondence between reality present objectively in the idea and reality present formally or eminently in its adequate cause. The inferiority of objective being concerns the manner in which the represented item exists in the intellect; it cannot reduce the relevant amount of reality without simultaneously reducing the amount of formal reality demanded of the cause.
The Archetype Requirement
Descartes’s appeal to an archetype makes the failure of the imperfect-OR defense still clearer. He does not merely require some cause of an idea. The causal series must ultimately terminate in something possessing formally the reality that the idea contains objectively: “Eventually one must reach a primary idea, the cause of which will be like an archetype which contains formally {and in fact} all the reality {or perfection} which is present only objectively {or representatively} in the idea.” (AT VII 42; CSM II 29)
The phrase “all the reality” is crucial. If the idea of God contains only a finite amount of objective reality because objective existence is imperfect, then the archetypal cause need contain only that finite amount formally or eminently. Nothing in the causal adequacy principle would warrant the transition to an infinite cause. Descartes’s proof therefore requires the idea of God to retain the objective-reality degree corresponding to infinite substance despite the imperfection of its objective mode of being.
The distinction needed by Descartes is consequently subtle but unavoidable. Objective being may be ontologically inferior to formal being while the degree of reality present objectively remains sufficient to require an equal or greater degree of formal or eminent reality in the cause. God is present in the idea under an inferior mode of being, but the reality present under that inferior mode must still be infinite in the relevant causal sense. Otherwise the proof cannot reach God.
The Failure of Ontological Compression
The imperfect-OR defense can therefore explain why God need not exist formally as God inside Descartes’s mind. It cannot explain how the infinite objective reality necessary for the causal proof can be contained within a finite mental modification while satisfying universal FROR.
There are two importantly different forms of compression that must not be confused. Representational compression is unproblematic: a finite sign, description, formula, or mental representation can specify something infinite without reproducing all of it formally. Ontological compression, however, is precisely what Descartes cannot invoke without argument: an infinite amount of objective reality cannot simply become a finite amount because it exists under the objective mode.
If Descartes resorts to representational compression and claims that the finite idea merely represents an infinite being through finite content, he undermines the causal proof. The finite content would require only a cause sufficient to account for that finite representational state. Its semantic direction toward infinity would not establish that an infinite amount of reality exists in the idea and therefore would not establish the need for an infinitely real cause.
If, instead, Descartes insists—as the Third Meditation requires—that the idea genuinely contains the objective reality appropriate to infinite substance, representational compression cannot remove the problem. The relevant infinity belongs to the objective reality contained in the idea, not merely to the external or intentional target picked out by a finite representational device.
Consequently, describing objective being as imperfect cannot function as ontological compression. The objective mode may be less perfect than the formal mode while the amount of objective reality remains infinite. But if the amount remains infinite, the finite-containment problem remains untouched.
The Idea of God as the Exception to Universal FROR
The preceding argument supports a restricted rather than universal FROR thesis. In ordinary finite cases, there is no evident obstacle to holding that objectively real representational content, when actually instantiated in an occurrent thought, possesses formal reality as content of that mental mode. The objectively real representation is actually occurring and therefore cannot simply lack actual existence.
The idea of God is different. If its objectively real content possesses infinite objective reality, then universal FROR threatens to convert that infinite objective reality into formally actual content within a finite mental modification. Yet the modification remains finite. The result is precisely what the distinction between objective and formal reality must prevent: the finite human idea cannot itself become the locus of infinite formal reality.
The appropriate qualification is therefore:
Restricted FROR: The objectively real representational content of an occurrent finite idea may possess formal reality as actually instantiated mental content, provided that doing so does not require an infinite amount of formally real content to exist within a finite mental modification. Descartes’s idea of God constitutes the exceptional case: its infinite objective reality must remain objective rather than becoming formally infinite content of the finite idea.
This exception should not be confused with denying that the idea of God itself has formal reality. The idea unquestionably has formal reality as a mode of thought. Nor does the exception deny that its representational content actually occurs. Rather, it denies the universal inference from the actual occurrence of objectively real content to the conclusion that the amount of reality possessed objectively by that content thereby exists formally within the finite mental modification.
This is why the God case is exceptional in a way that an ordinary idea of a finite substance is not. In the latter case, the content and its representatum remain within the finite side of Descartes’s ontological hierarchy. In the God case, the finite mental mode is required to contain objective reality whose degree outruns the formal reality of every finite substance. Descartes needs that excess for the causal proof, but universal FROR would threaten to locate the corresponding infinity formally within the very finite mode whose causal insufficiency is supposed to establish the need for God.
A Dilemma for the Third Meditation
The difficulty can finally be expressed as a dilemma confronting any attempt to use the imperfection of objective being to reconcile universal FROR with the idea of God.
- If objective imperfection reduces the God idea’s objective reality to a finite amount, the idea no longer supplies the infinite objective reality required to infer an infinitely formally or eminently real cause. The Third Meditation causal proof fails.
- If objective imperfection does not reduce the God idea’s objective reality to a finite amount, the idea continues to contain infinite objective reality. The causal proof may survive, but the original problem remains: a finite mental modification contains an infinite amount of objective reality, and universal FROR cannot explain how that content could become formally real without placing infinite formal reality within a finite mode.
Conclusion
The FROR thesis begins from a plausible Cartesian principle: if objectively real representational content is actually present in an occurrent mental mode, that content appears to possess formal reality insofar as it actually exists as a determination of thought. Properly understood, FROR does not confuse the objectively existing representatum with the formally existing external object. The sun need not exist formally in the intellect for the objectively real representation of the sun to be actually instantiated as mental content.
For finite objectively real contents, this principle presents no immediate difficulty. The problem emerges with Descartes’s idea of God. Descartes requires that idea to remain formally a finite mode while containing objective reality exceeding that of every finite substance. This is not merely a finite representation directed toward an infinite semantic target. The Third Meditation proof requires the idea itself to contain the objective reality appropriate to infinite substance, since only that amount of objective reality can require an infinitely formally or eminently real adequate cause.
The imperfect-OR defense correctly observes that objective being is inferior to formal being. Descartes himself calls the objective mode of being imperfect. But this distinction cannot do the work required of the defense. The imperfection concerns the mode in which the representatum exists in the intellect. It cannot reduce an infinite degree of objective reality to a finite degree without simultaneously eliminating the causal requirement for an infinite formal or eminent cause.
Descartes therefore needs two propositions simultaneously. The idea of God must contain genuinely infinite objective reality, or the causal proof cannot reach God; yet that infinite objective reality cannot become infinite formal reality within the finite mental modification, or the finite idea would formally contain the very infinity whose causal source lies beyond the finite mind. The God idea consequently constitutes an exception to universal FROR.
The resulting problem is not adequately characterized as the familiar question of how a finite mind can conceive or refer to infinity. That question can readily be answered by appealing to finite representations capable of specifying infinite objects. Descartes’s difficulty is stronger because his causal argument assigns ontological weight to what is contained in the idea. The decisive question is therefore how a finite mental modification can genuinely contain an infinite amount of objective reality when that infinity cannot be reduced to finite representational content without defeating the causal proof, yet cannot acquire infinite formal reality within the finite idea without violating the finitude of the mental mode.
The exception thus reveals a structural tension internal to Descartes’s Third Meditation. Objective reality must be real enough, and infinite enough in the case of God, to impose an infinite causal requirement; at the same time, it must be sufficiently distinct from formal reality that its infinity can occur within a finite idea without making that idea formally infinite. Calling objective being “imperfect” identifies the distinction between the two modes of being, but it does not resolve this tension. If the infinity is diminished, the proof fails; if the infinity is preserved, the finite-containment problem remains.