Abstract

Until recently, Cartesian scholars have not read Descartes's thoughts about the faculty of imagination with much vigor or interest. In particular, Cartesian scholars often ignore Descartes's arguments concerning imagination in his Meditations on First Philosophy. However, as I show in this work, Descartes's thoughts about the faculty of imagination affect the interpretation of his larger epistemic project. Descartes's hesitatingly attributing the faculty of imagination to his mind in Med. II reveals that his initial skepticism about sensory perceptions goes well beyond the banal doubts that his sensory perceptions might merely be imaginings. In fact, as I demonstrate, Descartes does not fully accept either sensory perception or imagination as real faculties of his mind in Med. II. Not until Med. V does Descartes fully accept that his faculty of imagination is genuine faculty of thought. This skepticism, I argue, is due to his doubting that the modes of imagination and sensory perception produce materially true ideas. ;Most importantly, Descartes's arguments concerning imagination in Med. IV, long ignored as interesting asides, do play specific roles in dampening the narrator's skeptical worries regarding his knowledge of external corporeal substances. More specifically, Descartes's arguments regarding the relation between the essence of thought and the faculty of imagination is a necessary step towards concluding that corporeal objects exist as the objects of his sensory perceptions