The Cartesian intervention in body and mind through the notions of «habit» and «memory»

Abstract

The Cartesian habit is the key element that enables the implementation of certain regularities in mind and body, allowing the intervention of the subject in both dimensions. Habits play a central role in important Cartesian proposals ―the assumption of the method, the prejudices of childhood or the education of passions—, for that reason, the present article will elucidate the meaning of habit. This aim will require a distinction between types of movements which generate different habits and an analysis of the kinds of memory which preserve the connections of habits. Once offered this explanation about how habits are produced, it will be proposed a categorization of them appealing to Descartes’s distinction between soul and body.