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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2008
For all his insistence that the mind has no parts, Descartes often describes inner mental conflicts, sometimes his own: ambivalence, fixation to childhood prejudice, are for him fixtures of human life. “Sigmund Descartes?” examines this aspect of his thought.
1 Descartes is not alone among his contemporaries in having a low opinion of children. Bérulle, for example, writes at length about the vileness (bassesse) of childhood [for example pp. 117–119, vol.5 of Œuvres complètes, Cerf, Paris, 1997].
2 From the 2nd edition onward, the subtitle is “wherein the existence of God, and the distinctness of the human mind from body, are demonstrated”.
3 As it happens, this makes Descartes a follower of the Stoics: “some people say that passion is no different from reason, and that there is no dissension and conflict between the two, but a turning of the single reason in both directions, which we do not perceive owing to the sharpness and speed of the change.” Plutarch, On Moral Virtue, 446f—in Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol.1, p.412. I owe this reference to Jon Miller.
4 I owe this apt label to Kambouchner, Denis, L'homme des passions, (Paris, 1995), vol.2, p.173Google Scholar.
