"Ardent Masturbation" (Descartes, Freud, and Others)

A long tradition in Cartesian scholarship has taken that certainty for granted even while frequently attacking the grounds of Rene Descartes's apparently secure assurance of being. In the third of the seven sets of Objections solicited by Descartes himself and published in the same volume as th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCritical inquiry Vol. 38; no. 1; p. 1
Main Author Bersani, Leo
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Chicago University of Chicago, acting through its Press 01.09.2011
Subjects
Descartes, Rene (1596-1650)
Literary criticism
Ontology
Philosophers
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Summary:A long tradition in Cartesian scholarship has taken that certainty for granted even while frequently attacking the grounds of Rene Descartes's apparently secure assurance of being. In the third of the seven sets of Objections solicited by Descartes himself and published in the same volume as the first and second editions of the Meditations in 1641 and 1642, Thomas Hobbes (who had fled to France for political reasons in 1640) writes: "All philosophers make a distinction between a subject and its faculties and acts, i.e. between a subject and its properties and its essences." But Descartes, he objects, "is identifying the thing which understands with intellection, which is an act of that which understands." Here, Bersani discusses the status of ontological certainty in the work of Descartes.
ISSN:0093-1896
1539-7858
DOI:10.1086/661642