Descartes and his presentation of the notion of idea

Abstract

The great Cartesian epistemological revolution was to reverse the pole of knowledge from the thing to the subject to establish it from the subject to the object, becoming increasingly important mental contents in the process of knowledge. This paper is an inquiry into these mental contents or ideas in the Cartesian offer, for which the operations of the mind (intuition-deduction), the possible origin of that contents (innate, adventitious and fictitious) and the ideas as representation and concept are considered.