Abstract

At the beginning of the First Meditation, Descartes’s meditator considers not only the famous scenarios of dreaming and deceiver but also a third scenario: that she might be insane. This madness scenario is apparently rejected in favor of dreaming. I analyze the scenario of madness, drawing from Descartes’s comments about insanity as a medical condition, and compare it with the dreaming scenario. Overall, the scenario of madness has been generally neglected, receiving only minor discussion in the literature, most of which I take to be misguided, without well-driven attempts to place it in the narrative of the First Meditation or contrast it with Descartes’s more medical analysis of defects in the brain. However, the scenario deserves to be discussed more as it serves an important argumentative turning point in the narration of the First Meditation. I view the role of the madness scenario to be acting as a transitional passage between the natural common-sense attitude, used in practical everyday life, and the unnatural metaphysical doubt. These two should be considered two different states of mind, with the latter being the metaphysical attitude required for the Cartesian suspension of judgment.