text,updated_at,metaphor,created_at,context,theme,reviewed_on,dictionary,comments,provenance,id,work_id
"Let us then conceive of the matter in the following way. First, in so far as our external senses are all parts of the body, sense-perception, strictly speaking, is merely passive, even though our application of the senses to objects involves action, viz. local motion; sense-perception occurs in the same way in which wax takes on an impression from a seal. It should not be thought that I have a mere analogy in mind here: we must think of the external shape of the sentient body as being really changed by the object in exactly the same way as the shape of the surface of the wax is altered by the seal. This is the case, we must admit, not only when we feel some body as having a shape, as being hard or rough to the touch etc., but also when we have a tactile perception of heat or cold and the like. The same is true of the other senses: thus, in the eye, the first opaque membrane receives the shape impressed upon it by multi-coloured light; and in the ears, the nose and the tongue, the first membrane which is impervious to the passage of the object thus takes on a new shape from the sound, the smell and the flavour respectively.
(Rule 12, p. 40)",2013-10-07 19:24:41 UTC,"""First, in so far as our external senses are all parts of the body, sense-perception, strictly speaking, is merely passive, even though our application of the senses to objects involves action, viz. local motion; sense-perception occurs in the same way in which wax takes on an impression from a seal.""",2003-10-01 00:00:00 UTC,Rule Twelve,"",2012-01-26,Impressions,"•INTEREST. But not a ""mere analogy""! Interesting, then what is it?
• USE IN ENTRY.","Reading; found again in Past Masters. Found again in Margreta de Grazia’s ""Imprints: Shakespeare, Gutenberg, and Descartes,"" in Printing and Parenting in Early Modern England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005): 29-58, p. 31.",9785,3797
"Fifthly, and lastly, the power through which we know things in the strict sense is purely spiritual, and is no less distinct from the whole body than blood is distinct from bone, or the hand from the eye. It is one single power, whether it receives figures from the 'common' sense at the same time as does the corporeal imagination, or applies itself to those which are preserved in the memory, or forms new ones which so preoccupy the imagination that it is often in no position to receive ideas from the 'common' sense at the same time, or to transmit them to the power responsible for motion in accordance with a purely corporeal mode of operation. In all these functions the cognitive power is sometimes passive, sometimes active; sometimes resembling the seal, sometimes the wax. But this should be understood merely as an analogy, for nothing quite like this power is to be found in corporeal things. It is one and the same power: when applying itself along with imagination to the 'common' sense, it is said to see, touch etc.; when addressing itself to the imagination alone, in so far as the latter is invested with various figures, it is said to remember; when applying itself to the imagination in order to form new figures, it is said to imagine or conceive; and lastly, when it acts on its own, it is said to understand. How understanding comes about I shall explain at greater length in the appropriate place. According to its different functions, then, the same power is called either pure intellect, or imagination, or memory, or sense-perception. But when it forms new ideas in the corporeal imagination, or concentrates on those already formed, the proper term for it is 'native intelligence'. We are regarding it as being capable of performing these different operations; and the distinction between these terms will have to be kept in mind in what follows. If all these matters are conceived along such lines, the attentive reader will have no difficulty in gathering what aids we should seek to obtain from each of these faculties and the lengths to which human endeavour can be stretched in supplementing the shortcomings of our native intelligence.
(Rule 12, p. 41-3)",2012-01-26 14:59:47 UTC,"""In all these functions the cognitive power is sometimes passive, sometimes active; sometimes resembling the seal, sometimes the wax.""",2003-10-01 00:00:00 UTC,Rule Twelve,"",2012-01-26,Impressions,"•Not published in Descartes lifetime. First Dutch translation in 1684. First Latin in 1701.
• USE IN ENTRY",Past Masters,9789,3797
"Let us then conceive of the matter in the following way. First, in so far as our external senses are all parts of the body, sense-perception, strictly speaking, is merely passive, even though our application of the senses to objects involves action, viz. local motion; sense-perception occurs in the same way in which wax takes on an impression from a seal. It should not be thought that I have a mere analogy in mind here: we must think of the external shape of the sentient body as being really changed by the object in exactly the same way as the shape of the surface of the wax is altered by the seal. This is the case, we must admit, not only when we feel some body as having a shape, as being hard or rough to the touch etc., but also when we have a tactile perception of heat or cold and the like. The same is true of the other senses: thus, in the eye, the first opaque membrane receives the shape impressed upon it by multi-coloured light; and in the ears, the nose and the tongue, the first membrane which is impervious to the passage of the object thus takes on a new shape from the sound, the smell and the flavour respectively.
(Rule 12, p. 40)",2013-10-07 19:23:33 UTC,"""It should not be thought that I have a mere analogy in mind here: we must think of the external shape of the sentient body as being really changed by the object in exactly the same way as the shape of the surface of the wax is altered by the seal.""",2012-01-26 14:55:12 UTC,Rule Twelve,"",,Impressions,"• INTEREST. ""no mere analogy"" ... The deflationary mere in metaphors like this deserves comment. USE IN ENTRY.","Reading; found again searching in Past Masters. Found again in Margreta de Grazia’s ""Imprints: Shakespeare, Gutenberg, and Descartes,"" in Printing and Parenting in Early Modern England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005): 29-58, p. 31. ",19542,3797
"Now among these figures, it is not those imprinted on the external sense organs, or on the internal surface of the brain, which should be taken to be ideas--but only those which are traced in the spirits on the surface of the gland (where the seat of the imagination and the 'common' sense is located). That is to say, it is only the latter figures which should be taken to be the forms or images which the rational soul united to this machine will consider directly when it imagines some object or perceives it by the senses.",2012-01-30 21:16:15 UTC,"""Now among these figures, it is not those imprinted on the external sense organs, or on the internal surface of the brain, which should be taken to be ideas--but only those which are traced in the spirits on the surface of the gland (where the seat of the imagination and the 'common' sense is located).""",2012-01-30 21:10:17 UTC,"","",,Impressions and Throne,"",Reading,19558,3623
"Here I could add something about how the traces of these ideas pass through the arteries to the heart, and thus radiate through all the blood; and about how certain actions of a mother may sometimes even cause such traces to be imprinted on the limbs of the child being formed in her womb. But I shall content myself with telling you more about how the traces are imprinted on the internal part of the brain which is the seat of the memory.",2012-01-30 21:12:52 UTC,"""But I shall content myself with telling you more about how the traces are imprinted on the internal part of the brain which is the seat of the memory.""",2012-01-30 21:12:52 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,19560,3623
"I should like you to consider, after this, all the functions I have ascribed to this machine -- such as the digestion of food, the beating of the heart and arteries, the nourishment and growth of the limbs, respiration, waking and sleeping, the reception by the external sense organs of light, sounds, smells, tastes, heat and other such qualities, the imprinting of the ideas of these qualities in the organ of the 'common' sense and the imagination, the retention or stamping of these ideas in the memory, the internal movements of the appetites and passions, and finally the external movements of all the limbs (movements which are so appropriate not only to the actions of objects presented to the senses, but also to the passions and the impressions found in the memory, that they imitate perfectly the movements of a real man). I should like you to consider that these functions follow from the mere arrangement of the machine's organs every bit as naturally as the movements of a clock or other automaton follow from the arrangement of its counter-weights and wheels. In order to explain these functions, then, it is not necessary to conceive of this machine as having any vegetative or sensitive soul or other principle of movement and life, apart from its blood and its spirits, which are agitated by the heat of the fire burning continuously in its heart -- a fire which has the same nature as all the fires that occur in inanimate bodies.",2012-01-30 21:20:40 UTC,"""I should like you to consider, after this, all the functions I have ascribed to this machine -- such as the digestion of food, the beating of the heart and arteries, the nourishment and growth of the limbs, respiration, waking and sleeping, the reception by the external sense organs of light, sounds, smells, tastes, heat and other such qualities, the imprinting of the ideas of these qualities in the organ of the 'common' sense and the imagination, the retention or stamping of these ideas in the memory, the internal movements of the appetites and passions, and finally the external movements of all the limbs (movements which are so appropriate not only to the actions of objects presented to the senses, but also to the passions and the impressions found in the memory, that they imitate perfectly the movements of a real man).""",2012-01-30 21:20:40 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,19562,3623
"But before I proceed to these Arguments, it may be necessary to observe the various Opinions of learned Men concerning the means of attaining the Knowledge of God: Some think that the notion of God is imprinted on the Hearts of all Men by nature; others deny that there is any such Idea of a God in the Minds of Men by nature: Some think that the Knowledge of God is convey'd to us by Revelation, or deriv'd by Tradition from the first Man, who was immediately created by God. But without entring upon a nice Examination of these several Opinions, I hope this will be granted on all Hands, That by the right use of our rational Faculties, with the help of those Principles that are known by the Light of Nature, we may may arrive at the certain Knowledge of God, whose Existence therefore I shall endeavour to demonstrate by the following Arguments.
(p. 49)",2013-09-18 04:52:06 UTC,"""Some think that the notion of God is imprinted on the Hearts of all Men by nature; others deny that there is any such Idea of a God in the Minds of Men by nature.""",2013-09-18 04:52:06 UTC,"","",,Impressions,"",Searching in ECCO-TCP,22787,7680