A mirror for Cogito: the problem of memory in Descartes’ philosophy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22240/sent25.02.042Abstract
In this paper, we attempted to show how the reflections on the nature of memory link together different parts of Descartes’ philosophy and how the distinction between body and soul, substantial nature of thinking and singular acts of thought are determined in the context of these reflections. The outcomes of the paper can be summarized as following. 1) Body memory determines the possibility for matter to be organized in the form of an autonomous unit of the body-machine as a whole related to itself. 2) This memory corresponds to the limitation of the infinite divisibility of matter, which indicates the unique choice made by God in the moment of creation in the favor of certain laws of motion of bodies. 3) Intellectual memory, or reflection, allows the soul to hold a substantial knowledge of its single substantial nature in the variety of individual cognitive acts and modes of its existence in the body. 4) The act of Cogito, insofar as it sets the principle of unity of a single act of thought and the substantial nature of thinking, essentially reproduces the structure of memory.References
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Descartes R. OEuvres. T. I-XI. publiées par Charles Adam et Paul Tannery. Paris : Vrin, 1996.
Draaisma D. Metaphors of Memory: a history of ideas about the mind. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000.
Gaukroger S. The Sources of Descartes's Procedure of Deductive Demonstration in Meta-physics and Natural Philosophy. In S. Gaukroger, Reason, will and sensation: studies in Descartes's metaphysics. Edited by John Cottingham. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001.
Khoma, O. (2011). Ingenium and deductive method of Descartes. [In Ukrainian]. Sententiae, 22(1), 192-207. doi: https://doi.org/10.22240/sent22.01.192
Larmore Ch. Descartes and Skepticism. In The Blackwell Guide to Descartes' Meditations. Edited by Stephen Gaukroger. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470776476.ch2
Pons, A. (2011). Genius. [In Ukrainian]. In B. Cassin et al. (Eds.), European Dictionnary of Philosophies: Lexicon of Intranslatabilies (Vol. 2, pp. 117-125). Kyiv: Duh i Litera.
Rossi P., Clucas S. Logic and The Art of Memory. London, New-York: Continuum Interna-tional Publishing, 2006.
Sepper D.L. Descartes's Imagination. Proportion, Images, and Activity of Thinking. Berk-ley, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of California Press, 1996.
Sutton J. Philosophy and Memory Traces: Descartes to connectionism. Cambridge UP, 1998.
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Published
2011-12-16
How to Cite
Shevtsov, K. (2011). A mirror for Cogito: the problem of memory in Descartes’ philosophy. Sententiae, 25(2), 42–69. https://doi.org/10.22240/sent25.02.042
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