We have given up on the idea of having a body. Sense-perception is only known through the body. Then Descartes states that a thinking thing includes having sensory perceptions (CSM 19). Confusion and discrepancy in the meditations? Not possible! therefore there must be some sort of explanation… I hope.
The meditator states that the “I” has “sensory perceptions, or is aware of bodily things as it were through the senses. For example, I am now seeing light, hearing a noise, feeling heat. But I am asleep, so all this is false. Yet I certainly seem to see, to hear, and to be warmed. This cannot be false; what is called ‘having sensory perception is strictly just this, and in this restricted sense o the term it is simply thinking.” (CSM 19). Here Descartes has made a distinction between sense-perception as a literal and real function of the body taking place and the mind’s perceiving of what seem to be the senses, which he equates with just thinking. In this case the senses are not really happening in the physical world, but because we think that the senses are real in our mind and we perceive them to be happening then they cannot be false because it is just our thought.
Hatfield states that this seemingly contradictoriness of not engaging and then engaging in sense-perception is explained by stating that the sense-perception that is true to us is related to “imagining” and is viewed as “a type of experience” (Hatfield 122). Despite the fact that the body no longer exists and there is nothing for the now doubted and false literal and physical senses to sense there is still the mind’s experience of the senses, which are a part of the meditator’s thoughts (Hatfield 122).
Wilson also argues along these same lines making the distinction between sensory-perception and “sensation” (Wilson 75). She states, “sensation can be viewed ass a type of thought, and that hence our experience of sensation can be abstracted form any commitment to what are ordinarily regarded as the necessary physical aspects of sensation… Descartes is concerned to establish the distinction between sensations construed as modes of thought, and sensation construed as modes of matter.” (Wilson 75).
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Outside of a few typos in the quotes (I assume that you meant "of" by "o" in the second paragraph, and "as" by "ass" in the Wilson quote) I agree with your assessment of the meditator's reference to sense perception. In some sort of nit-picky attempt to not just say I agree and that's it, I will say that though you entitled the post "My two cents..." I did not really see your two cents. You seemed to explain the text a bit and lay out Hatfield and Wilson's thoughts, but it was hard to see where you landed on the topic. I realize that you most likely agree with the two, but it was not explicitly said. In any case, you do a good job of showing the difference between sense perception in the physical sense and in the intellectual sense, and I agree completely with the distinction.
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