The Missing Piece in Descartes’ Metaphysical Project: Time

Year 2018, Volume: 8 Issue: 1, 45 - 60, 21.07.2018

Volkan Çifteci

https://doi.org/10.18491/beytulhikme.446389

Abstract

Descartes’ metaphysical
project revolves around the themes of the self, God, and the external
world. He takes the self as a thinking substance by separating it from
the extended substance. Unlike God – the uncreated substance – the self
and the external world are considered to be created substances. This
paper has three objectives. The first is to find out Descartes’ answer
to the question of what the self and the external world are by examining
existence and persistence. The second is to show how Descartes
demonstrates the self-getting access to this world. The last is to point
out the deficiency in his metaphysical project, namely, the deficiency
in his accounts of the self, the external world, and the relation
between them. This paper attempts to make up for this deficiency by
putting the missing piece, i.e., time into its place.

Keywords

The self, time, external world, access, metaphysics, God

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