Routledge History of Philosophy Volume IV

DESCARTES: METAPHYSICS AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 215
92 Conversation with Burman, AT V 163; CB 28.
93 Imagination and sensation are faculties ‘sine quibus totum me possum dare &
distincte intelligere’ (AT VII 78; CSM II 54). The ‘hybrid’ faculties of sensation
and imagination are often singled out for special treatment by Descartes. Compare
a passage earlier in the same Meditation, which asserts that imagination is not a
necessary constituent of my essence as a thinking thing: vim imaginandi, prout
differt a vi intelligendi, ad mei ipsius, hoc est ad mentis meae essentiam non
requiri (AT VII 73; CSM II 51). For more on the ‘hybrid’ faculties, see
J.Cottingham, Descartes [6.11], I22ff.
94 Sixth Meditation: AT VII 81; CSM II 56.
95 To this should be added motion, which Descartes sometimes describes as a
straightforward mode of extension (AT II 650; CSMK 217), but which, in the
Principles, is said to be specially imparted to matter by divine action (see
Principles, Part II, arts 36ff.
96 AT III 665; CSMK 218.
97 Letter of 28 June 1643, AT III 692 and 694; CSMK 227 and 228.
98 ibid.
99 Passions of the Soul, Part I, art. 42 (AT XI 360; CSM I 344). Descartes regarded
the pineal gland (or conarion) as the ‘principal seat of the soul’ and the locus of
psycho-physical interactions; cf. Passions, Part I, arts 31 and 32.
100 See for example Passions, Part I, art. 39.
101 See p. 211.
102 See Principles, II, 36 and 40.
103 It should be noted that some recent commentators have argued that Descartes did
not in fact regard interaction between heterogeneous substances as problematic.
See R.C.Richardson, ‘The Scandal of Cartesian Interactionism’ [6.51]. For criticism
of this view, see J.Cottingham, The Rationalists [6.12], 212f. and 202.
104 Comments on a Certain Broadsheet: AT VIIIB 359; CSM I 304. Compare also
Optics, Section Six: AT VI 130; CSM I 167. For more on the ‘occasionalist’
elements in Descartes’s account of mind and body, see J.Cottingham, ‘Descartes on
Colour’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 90 (1989–90) Part 3, 231–46.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Original language edition
6.1 Adam, C. and Tannery, P. (eds) Œuvres de Descartes, 1877–1913; Paris, Vrin/
CNRS, revised edn, 12 vols, 1964–76.
English translation
6.2 Cottingham, J., Stoothoff, R. and Murdoch, D. (eds) The Philosophical Writings of
Descartes, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2 vols, 1985. Volume III (The
Correspondence) by the same translators and Anthony Kenny, Cambridge University
Press, 1991.