Solving a Cartesian Conundrum
نویسنده
چکیده
LIn a recent issue of this journal, Robert Oakes has proposed a “Cartesian conundrum,” arguing that certain elements in Descartes’ philosophical theology are incompatible.^ I believe that this conundrum can be solved. It does, however, lead to an interesting question about what constitutes the “materiality” of a material object. In this article I propose to solve the conun drum, and to say a little about that question. The Cartesian theses which Oakes takes to be incompatible are the claims that God exists necessarily, that contingent things depend for their continued existence (perdurance) on God’s conserving activity, and that there exist some (non-Berke ley ian) contingent material objects. And what is non-Berkeley ian materiality? Oakes suspects that the attempt to provide a full analysis may be “quixotic,” but he provides a necessary condition: “conceivably, anything which is a material object is able to perdure without depending for such perdurance upon its having the relational ‘epistemic’ property of being an object of awareness.” And again, such an object “lacks the property being dependent upon awareness for perdur a n c e (p. 146) Given this understanding, Oakes formulates his argument as follows (p. 148):
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