"Thirdly, the 'common' sense functions like a seal, fashioning in the phantasy or imagination, as if in wax, the same figures or ideas which come, pure and without body, from the external senses."
— Descartes, René (1596-1650)
Author
Place of Publication
Amsterdam
Publisher
P. and J. Blaeu
Date
w. 1628, published in 1684, 1701
Metaphor
"Thirdly, the 'common' sense functions like a seal, fashioning in the phantasy or imagination, as if in wax, the same figures or ideas which come, pure and without body, from the external senses."
Metaphor in Context
Thirdly, the 'common' sense functions like a seal, fashioning in the phantasy or imagination, as if in wax, the same figures or ideas which come, pure and without body, from the external senses. The phantasy is a genuine part of the body, and is large enough to allow different parts of it to take on many different figures and, generally, to retain them for some time; in which case it is to be identified with what we call 'memory'.
(Rule 12, pp. 41-2)
(Rule 12, pp. 41-2)
Categories
Provenance
Past Masters
Citation
Reading Descartes, René. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothof, and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1985).
See Opuscula posthuma, physica et mathematica (Amsterdam: P. and J. Blaeu, 1701).
Not published in Descartes' lifetime. Dutch translation in 1684; published in Latin in 1701.
See Opuscula posthuma, physica et mathematica (Amsterdam: P. and J. Blaeu, 1701).
Not published in Descartes' lifetime. Dutch translation in 1684; published in Latin in 1701.
Date of Entry
10/01/2003
Date of Review
09/26/2011
