デカルトの實體論 : 理論、經驗、實踐

Abstract

Tne Descartes' notion of substance is of bad reputation among the historians of philosophy. But we must reject those criticisms which do not make efforts to understand this notion without any prejudice. This notion is to be examined in comparison with the notion of attribute or of mode, and the question ashed particularly by the cartesian philosophy is about the relation between substance and "principal attribute". MM. Laporte, Alquié, etc. have indicated that in the philosophy of Descartes, there can be distinguished two tendencies, one of which is to identify the substance with its attribute or with its principal attribute, and the other is to separate them. The opposition makes the starting-point of our study. According to the former tendency, influenced by the medieval realism and moves with the current of modern idealism, we can take for substances : thought, extension, the God of deism and the union of mind and body. According to the latter, which belongs rather to the current of modern realism, we can take for substances : the volitional self, the unknown matter, and the God of theism. The former is the result of Descartes' intention to analyse thoroughly. Since several historians have held this tendency to be the sole one, they have had to regard the physics of Descartes as a mere deductive science without any regard to experience. But we hold that it is the latter tendency that should determine what are properly to be called substances in Descartes' philosophy. By so judging we can better understand Descartes' intention not to neglect the part played by experience. As to the substance itself, we may say that the substance of cartesian philosophy is, properly speaking, "ce qui agit" as in the philosophy of Leibniz. But the action of the substance is : for the mind, the will ; for the matter, the action to produce in the mind the ideas of bodies ; and for God, the action to create both mind and body. Thus we may say that the cartesian notion of substance comprises the problems of logic, experience and practice.