Descartes's imagination

by Dennis L. Sepper

Rene Descartes, one of the fathers of modern philosophy, is often portrayed as a strict rationalist whose works theorized a radical, unresolvable split between mind and body. It is widely believed that he rejected imagination, a hybrid psychological power somewhere between mind and body, as inessential to cognition. In Descartes's Imagination, the first book in more than fifty years to examine the role of imagination in Descartes's philosophy, Dennis L. Sepper argues that such interpretations are exaggerated, if not simply wrong. Sepper's study is based on a thorough analysis of all Descartes's writings, especially the less-known early works, and his new perspective shatters the strictly dualistic view of the philosopher's thought. Sepper shows how Descartes began his investigations of human knowing with an inquiry into the power of imagination, which premodern philosophy assigned a determinate role in the thought process. Descartes Imagination offers a critical reconception of Descart