ABSTRACT
Besides, the answer Descartes gives to ‘what belongs to the wax?’—to be something extended, flexible, mutable-obviously provides no sort of answer at all to the question, ‘what makes wax wax?’ or to ‘what makes this thing the same individual?’ In fact Descartes has already asserted in the Synopsis that a body that changes ‘its’ shape is in reality no longer the same individual! (Cf. AT VII, 13-14; HR I, 141.)54 The point that Descartes is beginning to try to get across in the wax discussion is the conclusion required (as he sees it) for his physics: that it is the nature of any body at all (just) to be something extended, flexible and movable. And he thinks in recognizing this we must necessarily recognize at the same time that it is ‘the mind’ rather than sense that perceives the nature of body. He characteristically tries to reach these conclusions from a commonsense starting point by proceeding from the fact that we don’t commonly require constancy of sensible appearances in order to make judgments about body.
