LIV explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Mind-Body Dualism

  The chapter distinguishes the attributes of thought from those of extension, reinforcing the dualism between thinking substance and corporeal substance.

• Existence of God

  The chapter asserts that we have a clear and distinct idea of God as an absolutely perfect Being, and that denying this idea is groundless.

Characters to notice

• Narrator

  The narrator explains the method for obtaining clear and distinct ideas of thinking substance, corporeal substance, and God.

• God

  God is discussed as an uncreated and independent thinking substance, the idea of whom is present in the human mind.

Key passages

• “And thus we may easily have two clear and distinct notions or ideas, the one of created substance, which thinks, the other of corporeal substance, provided we carefully distinguish all the attributes of thought from those of extension.”

  By separating the properties of thought from those of extension, we can readily form clear and distinct ideas of thinking substance and physical substance.

  This summarizes the core method for achieving dualistic clarity.

• “We may also have a clear and distinct idea of an uncreated and independent thinking substance, that is, of God, provided we do not suppose that this idea adequately represents to us all that is in God, and do not mix up with it anything fictitious, but attend simply to the characters that are comprised in the notion we have of him, and which we clearly know to belong to the nature of an absolutely perfect Being.”

  We can also have a clear and distinct idea of God as an uncreated, independent thinking substance, as long as we focus only on the attributes we know belong to a perfect being and avoid adding any fictions or claiming to fully comprehend God.

  This explains the proper approach to forming the idea of God without overreaching.