Abstract

In the Passion of the Soul Descartes sets out to explain the origins and structure of intentional voluntary action, to give an account of physical behavior and motion that has psychological and intellectual causes.Actually of course this is not at all what he says. He announces an analysis of the passions of the soul. But why does he define his subject as he does? His correspondence had forced a concern with questions of virtue. How is he to introduce an account of virtue in his metaphysically, scientifically oriented philosophy of mind, a theory which must accommodate his normative epistemology on one hand and his mechanistic physiological psychology on the other? Other pressures forced closely related questions. Just what is the character of the ‘substantial’ union of mind and body? What is the psychological status of perception, and what are the relations among various types of perceptions? It is these questions that Descartes sets out to answer.