Mark Hulbert

In recent years commentators in the history of philosophy have been moving away from representationalist interpretations of early modern philosophers. Descartes and Locke, once thought of as paradigmatic holders of representationalist theories of perception, are now being interpreted in ways that indicate that they are not best described in such a manner. That they are not consistent representationalists is something about which the philosophical community is beginning to reach a consensus. Such a consensus is, however, notably absent with respect to what position should be ascribed to these philosophers. ;In this dissertation I shall be focusing upon the contrast between representationalist and direct realist interpretations of Descartes. Under the traditional interpretation Descartes is seen as holding the view that in normal veridical perception we only mediately perceive the objects of the material world in virtue of our immediate perception of representative mental ideas. These ideas provide a tertium quid between the perceiver and the actual physical object. I argue that this interpretation is incorrect, and show that the apparent textual support for such a position does not in fact justify the postulation of such a tertium quid. In place of the traditional, representationalist, interpretation, I offer a direct realist reading of Descartes' position on sense perception; a reading that accords more happily with the textual evidence of the Cartesian corpus, and solves a number of problems of interpretation