Work · Rationalism
On True and False Ideas
Against Malebranche: an idea is not a representative being that we see in God but the perception itself, a modification of our own mind that is directly of its object.
Introduction
Arnauld’s quarrel with Malebranche began over grace and providence, after Malebranche’s Treatise on Nature and Grace (1680), but he opened it in 1683 with a book on the theory of ideas. In The Search after Truth Malebranche had held that we perceive bodies through ideas that exist in God, distinct from our perceptions. Arnauld answers that such “representative beings” are a philosophers’ invention: an idea and a perception are the same modification of the mind, considered in two ways, and through it the mind is directly aware of its object. Malebranche replied in 1684, and the exchange went on until Arnauld’s death. The book is a main source for the debate on whether early modern philosophers held a “veil of ideas” view of perception.
Connections
Builds on
- Meditations on First Philosophy1641 · René Descartes
Criticizes
- The Search after Truth1674 · Nicolas Malebranche
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