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    STUDIA PHILOSOPHIA - Issue no. 3 / 2013  
         
  Article:   CAN ONE HAVE MANY THOUGHTS AT THE SAME TIME? A SCHOLASTIC CONTROVERSY AND ITS TREATMENT BY DESCARTES IN THE CONVERSATION WITH BURMAN / PEUT-ON AVOIR PLUSIEURS PENSÉES EN MÊME TEMPS ? UNE CONTROVERSE SCOLAIRE ET SON TRAITEMENT PAR DESCARTES DANS L’ENTRETIEN AVEC BURMAN.

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  Abstract:  Can One Have Many Thoughts at the Same Time? A Scholastic Controversy and its Treatment by Descartes in The Conversation with Burman. According to Burman, Descartes’ proof of the existence of God in the Third Meditation depends on the reader’s ability to attend to several axioms at the same time. However it is a claim endorsed by a wide range of Aristotelian schoolmen and by Burman after them that such a simultaneous conception is far beyond the capacity of our mind. Descartes takes an original stand in that controversy : human thought is a temporal process in which ideas not only succeed but also interfere with one another ; meditation can help stretching our attention so as to embrace more than one argument in a same moment. Indeed, metaphysics is not only a matter of order for Descartes, but also of synoptical power.

Keywords : Aristotelians, attention, axioms, Cartesianism, Descartes, meditation, metaphysics, simultaneity, temporality, proofs of the existence of God, psychology

 
         
     
         
         
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