Rene Descartes 1596-1650 Rene Descartes 1596-1650

Objective vs. Formal Reality:When Descartes speaks of things as having more or less reality than other things, he roughly dividesup reality along a scale where infinite substances (i.e., God) have the most reality, followed by finitesubstances, followed by modes. As we mentioned earlier, finite substances are bodies and minds,while modes are modifications of body and mind, like color, shape, size, imagination, idea, will, etc.This implies, among other things, that ideas have the formal reality of modes, since they aremodifications of mind. So, for instance, the idea of a car would have the formal reality of a mode (sinceit is an idea) and the objective reality of a finite substance (since the idea is of a car, which is a body).On the other hand, the idea of the fear of cars would have the formal reality of a mode (since it is anidea) and the objective reality of a mode (since the idea is of a fear, and fear is also a mode of thought).According to Descartes, something with a certain degree of objective reality must ultimately be causedby something with that degree of formal reality. So, for instance, the idea of a car (which has theobjective reality of a finite substance) might be caused by the idea of a bicycle, which only has theformal reality of a mode, but that idea of a bicycle might then have been caused by a bicycle itself,which has the formal reality of a finite substance. If we trace the causal chain far enough back, we willfind a cause with as much formal reality as the idea has objective reality. If the Meditator can locate anidea that has more objective reality than he has formal reality, he can conclude that there must existsomething outside of himself which had to create the idea. Since he has the formal reality of a finitesubstance, the only thing that has more reality is infinite substance. Thus, he will try to prove thatsomething besides himself exists by contemplating his idea of God.88