Philosophical Works · Chapter
LXVIII explained
Descartes distinguishes between clear and obscure knowledge in sensations, emphasizing that sensations like pain and color are clearly known only as thoughts, not as external realities.
What happens
Descartes distinguishes between clear and obscure knowledge in sensations, emphasizing that sensations like pain and color are clearly known only as thoughts, not as external realities.
Themes in this chapter
Mind-Body Dualism
Sensations are clearly known as mental states, not as properties of external bodies.
Skepticism and Certainty
Certainty is found in sensations as thoughts, while judgments about external objects are uncertain.
Characters to notice
- René Descartes
Author and philosopher presenting the distinction between clear sensation as thought and obscure judgment of external existence.
Key passages
“we possess a clear and distinct knowledge of pain, colour, and other things of this sort, when we consider them simply as sensations or thoughts; but that, when they are judged to be certain things subsisting beyond our mind, we are wholly unable to form any conception of them.”
We clearly understand pain and color only as mental experiences; if we try to think of them as real things outside the mind, we have no real understanding of them.
Key distinction between subjective sensation and objective reality.