Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Principles of Philosophy

Amsterdam

Elzevir

1644, 1647

False judgments stick in the memory and are difficult to erase

In later years the mind is no longer a total slave to the body, and does not refer everything to it. Indeed, it inquires into the truth of things considered in themselves, and discovers very many of its previous judgements to be false. But despite this, it is not easy for the mind to erase these false judgements from its memory; and as long as they stick there, they can cause a variety of errors. For example, in our early childhood we imagined the stars as being very small; and although astronomical arguments now clearly show us that they are very large indeed, our preconceived opinion is still strong enough to make it very hard for us to imagine them differently from the way we did before.
(Part One, p. 219-20)

Writing::Erasing

Past Masters

Descartes, René, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothof, and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

10/03/2003