A Research On Descartes’s Theory Of Sensory Representation

Descartes began his skepticism in the First Meditation of his mature work Meditations on the First Philosophy,demonstrated the certainty of "cogito",and established his entire metaphysics and epistemological system.In the argument of skepticism,the primary goal of skeptic is the human sensory faculties and the resulting sensory ideas.Sense is treated as an object of skeptic because of its deceptive nature,and it seems that it cannot be used as a reliable source of metaphysical knowledge.But such a simple and straightforward conclusion does not reflect Descartes’ s full position on perceptions.In some texts,Descartes believed that all ideas,including sensory ideas,can represent objects outside the mind.In other paragraphs,he regarded sensory ideas as misrepresentations,that is,they represent external objects as other than they are.There have been many debates among scholars around these issues.The purpose of this article is to try to solve the following questions: Can sensory ideas represent external objects? If not,what is the function of sensory ideas? If sensory ideas can represent external objects,how can such representation be possible? And how should an appropriate sensory representation theory solve the problem of misrepresentation?In the first chapter of this dissertation,based on Descartes’ s theory of ideas and formal-objective reality,the author believes Descartes’ s indirect realism or sensory representationalism in terms of sensory ideas.At the same time,it clarified the different connotations of the terms sensation and sensory ideas in Descartes’ s philosophy,and clarified the premise of the problem and its explanation.In the second chapter,the author discusses and refutes the solutions of this problem and the interpretations of the problem of misrepresentation from previous scholars.In Chapter3,based on the viewpoints of some scholars,the author argued that sensory ideas cannot internally represent any object other than itself,but because of its causal relationship with physical substances outside the mind,it has a covariant relationship.This covariation allow us to distinguish external objects.Therefore,in this sense,the sensory ideas externally represents its object.Although they cannot bring us metaphysical truths,this distinction can guide the body-mind composite to seek advantages and avoid harms,and justify the knowledge we have acquired through clear and distinct intellectual ideas.In addition,sensory ideas wrongly represent the external object not because of its inherent obscurity and confusedness,but because of our habitual judgment.