Abstract

I discover the status given to the items Descartes dubs "simple natures" in the Regulae. Never defined, simple natures are merely classified into kinds and characterized. There are material simple natures , intellectual ones , and common ones . Scientia consists in perceiving how they compose things. Interest in simple natures in the U.S. is limited, stemming from the prevailing view that the doctrine was abandoned by Descartes. Non-U.S. critics tend to acknowledge the significance of simple natures, yet do not agree on what they are. Many even claim to see two lists of natures. Simple natures have been declared ideas or variations thereof and ontal elements. ;Chapter One is an exploratory journey through the first fourteen rules of the Regulae, in which we see Descartes blur epistemology and ontology, The first section of the text pertaining to general problem-solving, it is within the latter, regarding the nature and scope of human knowledge that the doctrine of simple natures emerges. I show how the theory occasions the problem of experience in science, a difficulty never resolved in Descartes. ;Chapter Two renders a critical account of the literature on the status of simple natures. I argue that underlying Descartes' treatment of composites is a distinction between simple natures and ideas of such, evidence that some natures themselves are ontal. All but the common notions are shown to be so. ;Chapter Three shows that common notions, in later texts often labeled "eternal truths", are general ideas of necessarily connected simple natures. Discovered in analysis, common notions are employed in metaphysics and science, sometimes in the latter with observation, to acquire further knowledge of particular things. Though not elements, common notions nonetheless can be regarded ontically, as properties of the present order of creation. ;I conclude that Descartes carries his theory of simplicity, of simple natures, to his discussions of the unity of man, and show how even Les Passions is a search for simple natures. Unabandoned, the doctrine of simple natures is the heart of the Cartesian system