{"id":49376,"date":"2026-08-12T17:14:59","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T17:14:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drdavidcring.net\/descartes-ideas\/?p=49376"},"modified":"2026-09-10T18:58:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T18:58:18","slug":"can-objective-reality-exist-unthought-milidrag-intramental-essences-and-cartesian-mental-representation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drdavidcring.net\/descartes-ideas\/objective-reality\/can-objective-reality-exist-unthought-milidrag-intramental-essences-and-cartesian-mental-representation\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Objective Reality Exist Unthought? Milidrag, Intramental Essences, and Cartesian Mental Representation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Can Objective Reality Exist Unthought? Milidrag, Intramental Essences, and Cartesian Mental Representation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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Milidrag\u2019s stronger claim must be stated carefully. He does not merely say that an essence<\/a> exists in the intellect waiting someday to become represented. On the interpretation examined here, the objectively existing essence is already present in the intellect as representational content<\/strong> even when it is not being actively thought or consciously apprehended. Its becoming a res cogitata<\/em> [a thing occurrently thought] therefore does not first make it representational. Rather, a standing objectively existing representation becomes the object of an occurrent act of conscious thinking. This distinction is central to Milidrag\u2019s account of innate ideas<\/a>, the intelligibility of essences, and Descartes\u2019s extension of efficient causation to objective being<\/a>.1<\/a><\/sup>Milidrag\u2019s Serbian text supports each of these claims:

On the ontological basis of innate ideas<\/a><\/strong> he writes: \u201cIf it is intramental, the essence of a thing must be in the genuine objective mode of being, but it need not also be represented by an idea, that is, the human mind need not know at all that it is in its intellect; these are the innate ideas\u201d (55<\/a>), and in the accompanying note: \u201cThis genuine mode of being of essences in the intellect is the ontological basis of innate ideas in Descartes\u201d (55 n. 39). Milidrag\u2019s expression \u201cneed not also be represented by an idea\u201d should not be read here as denying that the standing essence is representational in the broader sense at issue in his ontology. His contrast is between the essence\u2019s standing objective presence in the intellect and its becoming an actively thought res cogitata<\/em> [a thing as actively thought].

On conceivability and intelligibility<\/strong> he writes: \u201cBecause it is intelligible, the essence of a thing can also be in the human intellect, and because it is in it, it can be an object of consciousness and so receive the extrinsic denomination<\/a> \u2018objective being\u2019\u201d (55<\/a>).

On the extension of efficient causation to objective being<\/strong> he writes in the article\u2019s abstract: \u201cTo the late-Scholastic understanding Descartes opposes his new \u2018ontology of the possible,\u2019 according to which the intramental essences of things are in the human intellect, whose objective being cannot be reduced to an extrinsic denomination [a denomination, or description, applied to an object because of something extrinsic to it, without anything about the object itself having to change; not author\u2019s]<\/span>, and which therefore requires actual efficient causation. Hence he claims that the very conceivability and intelligibility of essences must have an actual efficient cause, which is equivalent to the creation of the eternal truths\u201d (45<\/a>). Milidrag further notes that Descartes names this genuine mode of being of an essence esse objectivum<\/em> and also relates it to esse potentiale<\/em>, in contrast with esse formale sive actuale<\/em> (55<\/a>).

Translations from the Serbian are by Claude Opus 5; the Latin is reproduced as it stands in the original.

See Predrag Milidrag, \u201cKaterus i Dekart o idejama, uzrokovanju i ve\u010dnim istinama,\u201d Theoria<\/em> 55, no. 1 (2012): 45\u201369<\/a>.<\/span>
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\"AThis post argues that Milidrag has identified a genuine and philosophically important strand in Descartes\u2019s response to Caterus<\/a>, but that Milidrag\u2019s standing-representation interpretation creates a further ontological problem. I call the constraining principle the Objective-Reality Content Exhaustion Thesis<\/mark> (ORCET<\/mark>)<\/strong>.2<\/a><\/sup>For further development and explanation of ORCET, see \u201cWhen Does Content in an Idea Have Objective Reality?<\/a>,\u201d \u201cStrict and Broad Ideas in Descartes<\/a>,\u201d and \u201cInfinite Objective Reality in a Finite Idea: Why Should It Require an Infinite Cause?<\/a>.\u201d<\/span>
<\/span> Properly stated, ORCET<\/mark><\/strong> says that, in an occurrent pure strict Cartesian idea<\/a>, its OR<\/a>-bearing representation exhausts its first-order internal representational content<\/strong>. ORCET<\/mark><\/strong> does not contradict Milidrag\u2019s thesis, since it constrains only what an occurrent idea contains, not where objective being<\/a> can obtain. It does, however, remove one easy way of accommodating that thesis: if the OR<\/a>-bearing representation exhausts an occurrent idea\u2019s internal first-order content, there is no residual content in which a standing unthought essence could be lodged. It therefore does not yet say that objective reality<\/a> can exist only in occurrent cognition. That stronger conclusion requires argument against Milidrag\u2019s proposal that the same objectively real representation can also subsist as an independently standing unthought res in intellectu<\/em> [in the intellect whether thought about or not].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"AnThe central question<\/strong> is therefore not whether objectively real<\/a> content can somehow exist \u201cwithout being represented.\u201d Milidrag\u2019s stronger interpretation already treats the standing OR<\/a> as representational. The question is: Can an<\/strong> OR<\/a>-bearing intramental representation<\/strong> of X remain genuinely instantiated in a finite Cartesian intellect when X is not being actively thought?<\/strong> This formulation also avoids an important confusion about \u201cactuality.\u201d To say that objective content is presently instantiated in the intellect does not require denying formal or actual reality<\/a> to the mental determination in which that content exists objectively. An OR<\/a>-bearing mental determination may itself actually and formally exist as a finite determination of a finite intellect. What does not follow is that X itself, merely in virtue of being represented, thereby formally exists in the intellect. An actually existing finite representation of God may possess finite formal reality<\/a> as a determination of the intellect while possessing infinite objective reality<\/a> insofar as it represents God; God himself does not therefore possess formal existence in the finite mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"AnThe decisive difficulty<\/strong> for Milidrag\u2019s standing-representation interpretation is consequently ontological<\/a><\/strong>. Milidrag himself locates the dispute with Caterus<\/a> at exactly this level:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201eSada je o\u010dita priroda razlike izme\u0111u Dekartovog i Katerusovog razumevanja: to je razlika u ontologijama, jer za Dekarta postoji modus bivstvovanja su\u0161tina kojeg za Katerusa nema, naime bivstvovanje u razumu.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[\u201cThe nature of the difference between Descartes\u2019s and Caterus\u2019s<\/a> understanding is now evident: it is a difference in ontologies, because for Descartes there is a mode of being of essences that Caterus<\/a> does not have, namely being in the intellect.\u201d] (Milidrag 2012, 55<\/a><\/u><\/span>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

If the difference is indeed a difference in ontologies, then the question of what kind<\/em> of existent the standing essence is cannot be deferred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What sort of Cartesian existent is the unthought res in intellectu<\/em> (in the intellect whether thought about or not)?<\/strong> If it is a formally real<\/a> mode of the finite mind, Descartes\u2019s consciousness doctrine creates a problem concerning how a representational mental mode can exist without being actively thought. If it is formally real<\/a> in the intellect but not a mode of the thinking substance, an additional Cartesian ontological category is required. If it possesses no formal reality<\/a> as an intramental existent, Milidrag must explain what makes it a genuinely existing standing representation rather than a faculty, disposition, potentiality, or other determinate structure from which an OR<\/a>-bearing cognition can later be elicited.3<\/a><\/sup>Milidrag\u2019s characterization of this genuine intramental mode as both esse objectivum<\/em> (objective being) and esse potentiale<\/em> (potential being), in contrast with esse formale sive actuale<\/em> (formal or actual being), makes the distinction between presently instantiated objective representation and merely dispositional availability especially pressing. The terminology does not decide that question: Milidrag plainly intends a genuine mode of being, but an additional argument is still required to show that this being constitutes an already instantiated standing representation rather than the antecedent ground from which an OR-bearing cognition can subsequently be elicited. See Milidrag 2012, 55<\/a>.<\/span>
<\/span> This ontological fork<\/mark><\/strong> provides the principal pressure on Milidrag\u2019s<\/a> standing-essence interpretation developed in this post. A companion post [\u201cCan Objective Reality Exist Unthought? Milidrag, Intramental Essences, and Cartesian Mental Representation<\/u><\/a>\u201d] examines objections and possible replies in greater detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The faculty alternative therefore must not be caricatured as the absence of representational determination. A faculty capable of eliciting an idea of a triangle rather than an idea of God, the sun, or a rock must itself be determinately constituted. The relevant contrast is instead between a standing actually existing representation<\/strong> and a determinate representational power<\/strong>. Encoding X-directed determination in a faculty does not by itself make X objectively present. Conversely, merely calling antecedent determinacy an \u201cimplicit representation\u201d cannot by itself transform dispositional availability into presently instantiated objective being<\/a>.4<\/a><\/sup>Milidrag\u2019s own explanatory order runs from intelligibility to intramental being to objecthood for consciousness: \u201eZato \u0161to je inteligibilna, su\u0161tina stvari mo\u017ee bivstvovati i u ljudskom razumu, a zato \u0161to bivstvuje u njemu mo\u017ee biti objekt svesti te dobiti spoljnu oznaku \u201eobjektivno bivstvovanje\u201c.\u201d [\u201cBecause it is intelligible, the essence of a thing can also have being in the human intellect, and because it has being in it, it can be an object of consciousness and so receive the extrinsic denomination \u2018objective being.\u2019\u201d] (Milidrag 2012, 55<\/a><\/u><\/span>) The faculty model can accept every step of that order while declining the further claim that what grounds intelligibility must itself be an already instantiated objective representation; intelligibility grounds a determinate representational power, and the power is exercised in the occurrent idea.<\/span>
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The triangle case developed below remains important, but primarily as a test of the distinction between what a cognition represents and what the thinker explicitly attends to.5<\/a><\/sup>The passage referred to here as the triangle case is the discussion of the true and immutable nature of the triangle in the Fifth Meditation<\/a><\/em>, where the triangle is said to have a determinate nature even if no such figure exists anywhere outside thought, and where its properties are said to be demonstrable and to be recognized whether the meditator wills it or not: AT VII 64<\/a>; CSM II 44\u201345<\/a>, continuing at AT VII 64\u201365<\/a>; CSM II 45<\/a>. It is this second stretch of text that carries the point that a finite occurrent act need not explicitly represent every necessary property of what it represents. For the exchange with Caterus over the same nature, where Caterus quotes the passage back and calls the nature of the triangle an eternal truth requiring no cause, see AT VII 93<\/a>; CSM II 67<\/a>, together with Descartes’s reply at AT VII 101\u2013105<\/a>; CSM II 73\u201376<\/a>.<\/span>
<\/span> The Fifth Meditation<\/a> establishes that an occurrent representation of a triangle need not explicitly represent every necessary property of triangular nature. It establishes property-opacity<\/strong>, not the stronger claim that the triangle can possess objective being<\/a> in the intellect when no representation of triangular nature is actively occurring.6<\/a><\/sup>Milidrag reads the corresponding question in the First Replies as concerning the presence of the nature in the intellect rather than its occurrent representation. Descartes\u2019s question is \u201eza\u0161to postoji njegova ideja [uzeta objektivno] u nama\u201d [\u201cwhy its idea (taken objectively) is in us\u201d] (Milidrag 2012, 61<\/a><\/u><\/span>, quoting First Replies: VII 104), and Milidrag glosses it as asking \u201eza\u0161to je ona u nama, za\u0161to je u razumu (ne u ideji), \u0161to ne implicira da je nu\u017enim na\u010dinom i reprezentovana.\u201d [\u201cwhy it is in us, why it is in the intellect (not in an idea), which does not imply that it is necessarily also represented.\u201d] (61) That gloss secures a cause for the nature\u2019s presence to the intellect; the further step to a presently instantiated standing representation is what this post contests.<\/span>
<\/span> The actually infinite range of necessary consequences grounded by triangular nature intensifies this issue but does not decide it. A finite generative intellectual structure can ground indefinitely many consequences, so infinity alone does not substantially favor either Milidrag\u2019s standing-representation ontology or the faculty model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea of God supplies a separate clarification that should not be conflated with the standing-essence dispute. The same cognition may possess finite formal reality<\/a> as a mental determination while possessing infinite objective reality<\/a> insofar as it represents infinite substance. Milidrag also offers substantial resources for explaining why objective being<\/a> and its determinate character require causal grounding rather than being metaphysically negligible.7<\/a><\/sup>This is Milidrag\u2019s central causal conclusion: the degree of objective reality is \u201eunutra\u0161nja oznaka su\u0161tine stvari koja zahteva delotvorno uzrokovanje\u201d [\u201can intrinsic denomination of the essence of a thing that requires efficient causation\u201d], and this requirement \u201eje ekvivalentno sa stvaranjem ve\u010dnih istina\u201d [\u201cis equivalent to the creation of the eternal truths\u201d] (Milidrag 2012, 45, 63<\/a><\/u><\/span>).<\/span>
<\/span> But causal grounding and standing instantiation are distinct questions. Even if objective being and its determinate structure require efficient causal explanation, it does not follow that objectively real representational content remains presently instantiated in a finite intellect between acts of cognition. A causally grounded determinate intellectual structure could instead ground the capacity to instantiate the relevant objective content when cognition occurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a> to skip the very detailed outline below and jump to \u201cThe Argumentative Spine<\/strong><\/mark>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Graphic for the Detailed Outline below<\/mark><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Detailed Outline<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Can Objective Reality Exist Unthought? Milidrag, Intramental Essences, and Cartesian Mental Representation<\/mark><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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I. Abstract<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A. Milidrag\u2019s interpretation of Descartes and Caterus<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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  1. Milidrag argues that Descartes does not simply reject the late-Scholastic conception of objective being<\/u><\/span><\/a> as an extrinsic denomination (a denomination, or description, applied to an object because of something extrinsic to it, without anything about the object itself having to change).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Descartes instead employs objectivum<\/em> in two distinguishable senses:\n\n\n