{"id":35991,"date":"2026-01-17T19:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T19:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drdavidcring.net\/descartes-ideas\/?p=35991"},"modified":"2026-02-20T19:15:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T19:15:17","slug":"critical-analysis-of-deborah-boyles-descartes-natural-light-reconsidered-1999-with-chatgpt-5-2-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drdavidcring.net\/descartes-ideas\/orientation\/critical-analysis-of-deborah-boyles-descartes-natural-light-reconsidered-1999-with-chatgpt-5-2-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Critical Analysis of Deborah Boyle\u2019s \u201cDescartes’ Natural Light Reconsidered\u201d (1999) by ChatGPT 5.2 Thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n

Bibliographic anchor<\/h3>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n

\"An\u00a0 Deborah<\/a> Boyle<\/a><\/strong> \"An<\/a>, \u00a0\u201cDescartes\u2019 Natural Light Reconsidered<\/a>,\u201d Journal of the History of Philosophy<\/em> 37, no. 4 (October 1999): 601\u201312.<\/p>\n

\"AnJohn<\/a> Morris<\/a>, \u201cDescartes’ Natural Light<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0Journal of the History of Philosophy,\u00a0<\/a>Volume 11, no. 2, April 1973, <\/a>169-87.<\/p>\n

\"AnJames<\/a> D. Collins<\/a>, Descartes\u2019 Philosophy of Nature<\/i><\/a>, Oxford: Blackwell, 1971, see 85\u201387. Also downloadable from Dokumen<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n

What follows is based exclusively<\/strong> on the text provided (pp. 601\u201312). All quotations are verbatim from Boyle\u2019s article as provided, with Boyle\u2019s page numbers. The square bracket English translations of the Latin and French have been added and were not in the original. Click for English Translation Considerations <\/a>below.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/h3>\n

I. Boyle\u2019s target: Morris\u2019s 1973 \u201cclick of recognition\u201d account<\/h3>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n

Boyle frames John Morris (1973) as offering the only sustained Anglophone treatment and as advancing a sharply determinate thesis: the \u201cnatural light\u201d is a passive<\/strong> function of intellect that \u201crecognizes\u201d truth.<\/p>\n

She presents Morris\u2019s position in a compact quotation that is also the fulcrum for her rebuttal:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201ca power of cognition, which contrasts with the \u2018active\u2019 power of conceiving. Unlike this power, it does not form ideas, or bring them to consciousness. Instead, it simply gives a click of recognition when a true idea is brought before it.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 602)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Boyle immediately signals both the methodological weakness (insufficient textual basis) and the interpretive direction of her own project:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cHowever, the textual evidence for Morris\u2019 interpretation of the natural light is slender, and in fact the texts support a quite different reading. I shall point out some problems with Morris\u2019 reading, and offer the beginnings of an alternative account.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 602)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So the dispute is not merely about terminology (\u201crecognition\u201d vs \u201cperception\u201d), but about the architecture of Descartes\u2019s philosophy of mind and the division of labor between intellect and will, especially as articulated in Meditation IV.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/div>\n

II. Boyle\u2019s central line of criticism: Morris mislocates activity\/passivity and misreads Descartes\u2019s development<\/h3>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n

A. The decisive structural point: Meditation IV and the intellect\/will division<\/h4>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n

Boyle begins by re-centering the Meditations\u2019 mature framework: intellect (passive perception of ideas as \u201csubjects for possible judgments\u201d) vs will (active affirmation\/denial). She quotes Descartes to lock down the canonical functional contrast:<\/p>\n

\n

Intellect \u201callows him \u2018to perceive the ideas which are subjects for possible judgements\u2019 (CSM II 39\/AT VII 56),\u201d while the will \u201c\u2018simply consists in our ability to do or not do something (that is, to affirm or deny, to pursue or avoid)\u2019 (CSM II 41\/AT VII 57).\u201d (Boyle 1999, 602)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Then she supplies decisive textual support from Descartes\u2019s 1641 letters and Passions<\/em>, explicitly articulating the \u201cpassivity\u201d of intellection and the \u201cactivity\u201d of volition:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cstrictly speaking, he says, \u2018understanding [intellectio<\/em>] is the passivity of the mind and willing [volitio<\/em>] is its activity\u2019 (CSMK III 182\/AT III 372).\u201d (Boyle 1999, 602)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u201c\u2018we should use the term \u201caction\u201d for what plays the role of a moving force, like volition in the mind, while we apply the term \u201cpassion\u201d to what plays the role of something moved, like intellection [intellectio<\/em>] and vision in the same mind\u2019 (CSMK III 199\/AT III 454\u201355).\u201d (Boyle 1999, 602)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u201cwhile volitions are actions, \u2018the various perceptions or modes of knowledge present in us may be called its passions, in a general sense\u2019 (CSM I 335\/AT XI 342).\u201d (Boyle 1999, 602)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This sets up Boyle\u2019s first deep objection: Morris\u2019s picture trades on a Rules-era schema (an \u201cactive\u201d and \u201cpassive\u201d intellect) that Descartes outgrows once the will is installed as a distinct faculty in the Meditations.<\/p>\n

Boyle\u2019s developmental claim is direct:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIn the Meditations, Descartes\u2019 philosophy of mind has expanded to provide a place for the will, which can take over the active functions previously assigned to the intellect.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 603)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/div>\n

B. Morris\u2019s reliance on the Rules<\/em>: Boyle\u2019s critique of the \u201cseal\/wax\u201d move<\/h4>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n

Boyle identifies Morris\u2019s argumentative starting point: a Rules<\/em> passage where Descartes compares the cognitive power (vis cognoscens<\/em>) to \u201cseal\u201d and \u201cwax,\u201d allegedly legitimating \u201cactive\u201d vs \u201cpassive\u201d intellect.<\/p>\n

She then presses several distinct objections, each aimed at showing that Morris\u2019s inference is illegitimate.<\/p>\n

    \n
  • \n

    1) Ingenium<\/i>\u00a0is not the active\/passive split.<\/span><\/strong> Boyle denies that Morris\u2019s active\/passive distinction is what Descartes is doing with ingenium<\/em>:<\/p>\n

    \n

    \u201cFirst, it is not clear that Descartes means to equate the active and passive functions of the vis cognoscens with the two functions he calls ingenium<\/em>; the functions of ingenium<\/em> seem rather to be two uses among several to which the cognitive power can be put.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 603)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n

  • \n

    2) Ingenium<\/i>\u00a0is tied to imagination, whereas natural light is not.<\/span><\/strong> Boyle insists that the natural light involves \u201cpure intellect\u201d and does not \u201crequire turning to the imagination\u201d:<\/p>\n

    \n

    \u201cFurthermore, ingenium<\/em> is explicitly said to be concerned with ideas in the corporeal imagination [phantasia<\/em>], and Descartes appears to contrast it with the cognitive ability \u2018when it acts on its own\u2019\u2014that is, with pure intellect (CSM I 41\/AT X 416). The natural light, we shall see, involves the operation of pure intellect, and does not require turning to the imagination in any way; hence it cannot be equivalent to either the passive or the active aspect of the \u2018native intelligence\u2019 Descartes mentions here.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 603)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n

  • \n

    3) No evidence Descartes retains the two-role intellect after the Rules<\/em>.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n

    \u201cMoreover, there is no evidence that Descartes continued, after the time of the Rules, to maintain that the intellect itself had active and passive roles.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 603)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    \u00a0<\/div>\n

    These claims are not peripheral. They are Boyle\u2019s core methodological insistence: one must not read the Meditations through an early cognitive schema that Descartes revises once he develops the intellect\/will distinction.<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/div>\n

    C. Terminological engineering: Boyle dismantles Morris\u2019s conna\u00eetre<\/em>\/concevoir<\/em> [to know\/to conceive] apparatus<\/h4>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n

    Morris\u2019s apparatus depends on a lexical thesis: conna\u00eetre<\/em> expresses the passive \u201crecognition\/knowing\u201d and concevoir<\/em> (or Latin percipere<\/em>) expresses the active \u201cconceiving\/bringing-to-consciousness.\u201d Boyle\u2019s rebuttal is that the French Meditations do not behave as Morris requires.<\/p>\n

    Boyle states the key point as a flat contradiction of Morris\u2019s partition:<\/p>\n

    \n

    \u201cDescartes indeed refers to a puissance de conna\u00eetre<\/em> [power to know], which he equates with the entendement<\/em>, or understanding, and to a puissance d\u00e9sirer<\/em> [power to desire], or volont\u00e9<\/em>, will (AT IX 45). . . . On the next page, Descartes refers to \u2018la puissance d\u2019entendre ou de concevoir<\/em>\u2019 [the power to hear or conceive] (AT IX 46); again, the puissance de concevoir<\/em> [power to conceive] is equated with the understanding. In other words, conna\u00eetre<\/em> and concevoir<\/em> both seem to pertain to the understanding in general, not to distinct parts of the understanding.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 605)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Then Boyle delivers a decisive exegetical observation: the very passage uses percipio<\/em>\/con\u00e7ois<\/em> [prceive\/conceive] <\/em>with the understanding that Morris wants to reserve for \u201cconceiving\u201d as a separate active power.<\/p>\n

    \n

    \u201cDescartes characterizes the entendement<\/em> [understanding], which he has just equated with the puissance de conna\u00eetre<\/em> [power of knowing], as that by which he perceives ideas; in the Latin original he uses the verb percipio<\/em> [perceive] (AT VII 56), and in the French translation it is con\u00e7ois<\/em> [perceive] (AT IX 45). But, as we have seen, Morris wants to match instances of the verbs concevoir<\/em> [to perceive] and percipere<\/em> [to perceive] with the supposedly active puissance de concevoir<\/em> [power of perceiving], and not with the supposedly passive puissance de conna\u00eetre<\/em> [power of knowing]. Clearly, the passage at AT IX 45 flies in the face of Morris\u2019 interpretation.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 605)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Boyle\u2019s conclusion is unambiguous:<\/p>\n

    \n

    \u201cThus it seems that there is really no textual evidence for Morris\u2019 claims that Descartes distinguished two functions of understanding, that these \u2018are called\u2019 the power of recognizing and the power of conceiving, and that they are, respectively, passive and active.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 606)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    \u00a0<\/div>\n

    D. Boyle\u2019s pressure point against Morris: the will\u2019s role makes Morris\u2019s natural light redundant or incoherent<\/h3>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n

    This is where Boyle\u2019s critique becomes philosophically decisive rather than merely philological.<\/p>\n

    Morris\u2019s \u201cclick\u201d model assigns to the natural light the function of \u201crecognizing\u201d truth. Boyle argues that this function belongs to the will\u2019s assent, and so Morris either (a) renders the will idle, or (b) smuggles an act of assent into a \u201cpassive\u201d faculty.<\/p>\n

    Boyle sets up the objection by quoting Morris\u2019s claim:<\/p>\n

    \n

    \u201cit simply gives a click of recognition when a true idea is brought before it.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 608)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Then she makes the systematic objection explicit:<\/p>\n

    \n

    \u201cThis reading contrasts with John Morris\u2019 interpretation of the natural light in an important way, for Morris ignores the role of the will in his account. Indeed, if his account were right, it would render the will superfluous in Descartes\u2019 system.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 610)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Boyle diagnoses a collapse in the Meditations\u2019 official story about clarity\/distinctness and truth:<\/p>\n

    \n

    \u201cOn a reading like Morris\u2019, Descartes would be read as suggesting that the will is wholly inclined to assent to a claim when\u2014and because\u2014the understanding already recognizes that the claim is true. And if that is so, then it seems a judgment has somehow already been made, before the will enters the picture.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 610)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    \n

    \u201cBut Descartes emphasizes at the end of the Fourth Meditation that it is on the basis of the clarity and distinctness of a proposition that one judges that proposition to be true; the former are criteria of the latter.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 610)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    \n

    \u201cOn the reading which Morris seems forced to give, Descartes\u2019 distinction between clarity and distinctness on the one hand and truth on the other hand collapses.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 610)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Finally, Boyle adds a regress objection that directly attacks \u201crecognition\u201d readings:<\/p>\n

    \n

    \u201cIndeed, the natural light should not be taken as a power of recognition at all, for any such interpretation opens the door to an infinite regress: to recognize that some perception is clear and distinct is presumably to judge that it is clear and distinct, and so a judgment seems to be necessary even before the perception is judged to be true.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 611)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    \u00a0<\/div>\n

    III. Boyle\u2019s positive proposal: natural light as luminous intellectual perception of propositions, inseparable from volitional assent<\/h3>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n

    A. Natural light belongs (strictly) to intellect as passive perception, but it is \u201cvery closely tied\u201d to will<\/h4>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n

    Boyle\u2019s definitive formulation is:<\/p>\n

    \n

    \u201cthe natural light is indeed passive, \u2026 because Descartes associates it with the \u2018power of understanding\u2019 [vim intelligendi], where that is contrasted with the will. However, the natural light is very closely tied to the operation of the will; when the intellect perceives some proposition particularly clearly and distinctly, the will feels itself compelled to assert the truth of that proposition, and in these cases Descartes says that the natural light has shone.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 612)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    This is the heart of Boyle\u2019s interpretation: the \u201clight\u201d is intellectual clarity\/distinctness with respect to propositions; the will\u2019s assent is an immediate, practically inseparable sequel.<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/div>\n

    B. Boyle\u2019s core textual anchor: \u201cgreat light in the intellect\u201d followed by \u201cgreat inclination in the will\u201d<\/h4>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n

    Boyle treats the Fourth Meditation passage as a functional description of what it is for something to be \u201cshown by the natural light\u201d:<\/p>\n

    \n

    \u201cI could not but judge that something which I understood so clearly was true; but this was not because I was compelled so to judge by any external force, but because a great light in the intellect was followed by a great inclination in the will.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 609; Descartes citation: CSM II 41\/AT VII 58\u201359)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    \u00a0<\/div>\n

    C. Natural light illuminates propositions to which assent is compelled<\/h4>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n

    Boyle states the upshot in a compressed, systematic form:<\/p>\n

    \n

    \u201cThe truths illuminated by the natural light, then, are propositions to which the will feels compelled to assent: some proposition is perceived so clearly and distinctly that it is as if a great light has illuminated the proposition in the mind, and the will immediately grants that the proposition is true.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 610)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Boyle explicitly rejects attributing \u201crecognition\u201d to the natural light; instead she recasts the phenomenon as illumination of perception plus inevitable assent:<\/p>\n

    \n

    \u201cRather, we should read Descartes as saying that particularly clear and distinct perception makes the intellect seem to be illuminated by a great light, and the assent of the will invariably follows.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 611)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    She then allows a looser, derivative sense in which \u201cnatural light\u201d can be called active, not because the intellect has an \u201cactive\u201d function (Morris\u2019s mistake), but because the will\u2019s activity is inseparable from the illuminated perception:<\/p>\n

    \n

    \u201cThis inseparability of the operation of the passive natural light from the operation of the active will might even entitle us to call the natural light, more broadly speaking, active.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 610)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    \u00a0<\/div>\n

    IV. Why Boyle\u2019s interpretation is superior to Morris\u2019s, on Boyle\u2019s own argumentative standards<\/h3>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n

    Boyle\u2019s superiority case is an integrated triad of virtues.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. \n

      It fits the mature faculty-psychology of the Meditations.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

      \n

      \u201cI have argued that although Morris is right to associate the natural light with the passive function of intellect, he is wrong to claim that the intellect has an additional active function; Descartes did attribute active and passive roles to the intellect in his early Rules, but only because he had not yet developed his later distinction between intellect and will.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 612)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n

    2. \n

      It avoids collapsing clarity\/distinctness into truth.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

      \n

      \u201cOn the reading which Morris seems forced to give, Descartes\u2019 distinction between clarity and distinctness on the one hand and truth on the other hand collapses.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 610)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n

    3. \n

      It blocks regress by refusing to treat natural light as a \u201crecognition\u201d faculty.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

      \n

      \u201cthe natural light should not be taken as a power of recognition at all, for any such interpretation opens the door to an infinite regress\u2026\u201d (Boyle 1999, 611)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      \u00a0<\/div>\n
      \u00a0<\/div>\n

      V. Critical assessment: where Boyle is strongest, and where her account still invites pressure<\/h3>\n
      \u00a0<\/div>\n

      Boyle\u2019s criticisms of Morris are compelling on the evidence she marshals. The decisive point is systematic: Morris\u2019s \u201cclick\u201d model assigns to a \u201cpassive\u201d intellectual power a function that behaves like volitional assent.<\/p>\n

      However, Boyle\u2019s own account invites two pressures, even within pp. 601\u201312.<\/p>\n

        \n
      • \n

        A. Does \u201cinevitable\u201d assent overstate Descartes\u2019s freedom of suspension?<\/span><\/strong> Boyle characterizes the sequel from illuminated perception to assent as unavoidable:<\/p>\n

        \n

        \u201cthe assent of the will invariably follows.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 611)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

        \n

        \u201cit is impossible, Descartes would say, for someone to perceive the idea and not assent.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 610)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

        Given Boyle\u2019s own emphasis on volition\u2019s role in directing attention (Boyle 1999, 608), one can press whether inevitability should be restricted to cases where the subject sustains attention on the clear and distinct content.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

      • \n

        B. Is Boyle\u2019s account too deflationary: does it reduce \u201cnatural light\u201d to \u201cclear and distinct<\/span> perception\u201d?<\/strong> Boyle notes her scope explicitly:<\/p>\n

        \n

        \u201coffer the beginnings of an alternative account.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 602)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

        Still, one can ask whether \u201cnatural light\u201d is doing explanatory work beyond labeling a familiar epistemic situation (clarity\/distinctness plus compelled assent).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        \u00a0<\/div>\n
        \u00a0<\/div>\n

        VI. Boyle\u2019s conclusion against Morris, in her own words<\/h3>\n
        \u00a0<\/div>\n

        Boyle\u2019s concluding verdict rejects Morris\u2019s core characterization:<\/p>\n

        \n

        \u201cIn sum, the natural light is not, as Morris claims, a \u2018power of cognition, which contrasts with the \u201cactive\u201d power of conceiving\u2019 and which gives a \u2018click of recognition when a true idea is brought before it.\u2019 \u201d (Boyle 1999, 611)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

        And she states her replacement view in a compact form:<\/p>\n

        \n

        \u201calthough by \u2018natural light\u2019 strictly speaking Descartes means only the perception of certain ideas in the intellect, which is a passive operation, there is a sense in which the natural light is active, insofar as the active will inevitably asserts the truth of whatever proposition has been illuminated by the natural light.\u201d (Boyle 1999, 610)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

        That is Boyle\u2019s superiority claim: she preserves Descartes\u2019s mature faculty architecture while capturing the felt compulsion of natural-light episodes, without turning natural light into a judgment-like \u201crecognition\u201d faculty.<\/p>\n\n\n

        <\/div>\n\n\n\n
        \n\n\n

        <\/p>\n

        \u00a0<\/div>\n

        English Translation Considerations<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
        <\/div>\n\n\n\n

        Why \u201cpuissance de concevoir\u201d need not be translated as \u201cpower of conceiving\u201d here<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
         <\/div>\n\n\n\n

        Puissance de concevoir<\/em> can<\/strong> be translated as \u201cpower of conceiving.\u201d The reason to hesitate (or to choose a less committal English rendering like \u201cpower of understanding\u201d \/ \u201cpower of apprehending\u201d) is not that \u201cpower of conceiving\u201d is linguistically illegitimate, but that, in this precise dialectical context<\/strong>, that English phrase too easily smuggles in exactly the technical contrast<\/em> Morris needs and Boyle is denying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

         <\/div>\n\n\n\n

        1) Boyle\u2019s target is Morris\u2019s technical bifurcation within the understanding<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
         <\/div>\n\n\n\n

        Boyle\u2019s central point in the surrounding paragraphs is that Morris tries to manufacture, out of the French vocabulary, two distinct sub-powers<\/strong> of the understanding:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          \n
        • puissance de conna\u00eetre<\/em> = a passive \u201crecognition\/knowing\u201d function<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        • puissance de concevoir<\/em> = an active \u201cconceiving\/bringing-to-consciousness\u201d function<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
           <\/div>\n\n\n\n

          Boyle argues that the French text does not support treating these as two distinct parts of the intellect. She writes that puissance de conna\u00eetre<\/em> is equated with the understanding and that puissance de concevoir<\/em> is also equated with the understanding (Boyle 1999, 605). So translating puissance de concevoir<\/em> as \u201cpower of conceiving\u201d risks sounding, to an English reader, like it names a separate faculty<\/strong> (a discrete \u201cconceiving power\u201d)\u2014which is exactly Morris\u2019s move. Boyle\u2019s stance is that Descartes is not introducing a distinct faculty here; he is piling up near-synonyms for the understanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

           <\/div>\n\n\n\n

          2) \u201cConceiving\u201d in English invites the active concept-formation gloss Boyle is resisting<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
           <\/div>\n\n\n\n

          In ordinary philosophical English, \u201cconceive\u201d often suggests forming<\/strong> or constructing<\/strong> a concept (or at least an \u201cactive\u201d mental operation). That is precisely the sense Morris wants to attach to concevoir<\/em>\/percipere<\/em>, which Boyle reports as \u201cto bring an idea or concept before the mind\u201d (Boyle 1999, 604).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Boyle\u2019s rebuttal in the cited passage is that the French translator uses con\u00e7ois<\/em> (from concevoir<\/em>) exactly where the Latin is percipio<\/em>\u2014in a passage describing the understanding as that by which one perceives<\/strong> ideas. Her point is: if concevoir<\/em> is functioning there as the translation of percipere<\/em> (perception\/apprehension), then it cannot be reserved for a special \u201cactive\u201d power opposed to conna\u00eetre<\/em>. So \u201cpower of conceiving\u201d is pragmatically risky in this setting because it encourages the very \u201cactive concept-forming\u201d reading Boyle is trying to block.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

           <\/div>\n\n\n\n

          3) Boyle\u2019s neutralization strategy: treat the French as overlapping labels for the understanding, not distinct operations<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
           <\/div>\n\n\n\n

          Boyle\u2019s conclusion is explicit: conna\u00eetre<\/em> and concevoir<\/em> \u201cboth seem to pertain to the understanding in general, not to distinct parts of the understanding\u201d (Boyle 1999, 605). Given that claim, the most Boyle-faithful English is one that does not pre-commit the reader to a Morris-style faculty distinction. That is why an expository choice like \u201cpower of understanding\u201d (or \u201cpower of apprehending\/perceiving\u201d) is often preferable, even if \u201cpower of conceiving\u201d is a possible literal rendering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Put sharply: \u201cpower of conceiving\u201d is not wrong as French-to-English; it is pragmatically risky<\/strong> in this argumentative context because it makes it too easy to hear Descartes as naming the very \u201cactive\u201d sub-power Boyle says he is not naming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

           <\/div>\n\n\n\n

          A Boyle-consistent translation set (for expository purposes)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
           <\/div>\n\n\n\n

          If the aim is to keep the English aligned with Boyle\u2019s stance (and with her key pairing percipio<\/em> \u2194 con\u00e7ois<\/em>), then the following translation choices are typically best:<\/p>\n\n\n\n