Meditație, simțire și cunoașterea lucrurilor materiale în Meditația a șasea la Descartes
Meditation, sensing and the knowledge of material things in Descartes’ sixth Meditation

Summary/Abstract: Descartes’ metaphysics exposed in Meditationes de prima philosophia (1641) could be seen as a circular arc that begins and ends with the sense experience. In the first two Meditationes, the meditating subject doubts the validity of sense experience and negates the existence of material things. In the last Meditatio, the existence of material things is clearly demonstrated through the senses while their knowledge is attributed to the intellect alone. This paper focuses on Meditatio sexta and reconstructs it on the basis of the exercise of metaphysical meditation. In this light, I will show how this exercice functions in emphasizing the sensing of material things phenomenon. The phenomen of sensing is, I shall argue, Descartes’ clear demonstration for the existence of material things. Secondly, I examine various subjects Descartes treats in Meditatio sexta and explain why his redefinition of knowledge of material things as intellectual knowledge involves an exercise of metaphysical meditation. Meditation and sensing, meditation and intellectual knowledge are two premises that establish the meditative character of the ending part of Descartes’ metaphysical arc.

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