ABSTRACT
In the Meditationes Descartes introduces the technique of methodic doubt to gain knowledge. In the First Meditation he systematically questions both sense experience and the imagination in order to reveal in later Meditations what can be known clearly and distinctly about the soul and God. Since philosophers have concentrated on the Meditationes, they have assumed that a negative view of the imagination and sense-experience carries through his other writings as well. It is therefore surprising and
confusing to find passages which belie this standard view. In the Regulae, which predates the Meditationes, we find Descartes writing:
Within ourselves we are aware that, while it is the intellect alone that is capable of knowledge, it can be helped or hindered by three other faculties, viz. imagination, sense-perception and memory. We must therefore look at these faculties in turn, to see in what respect each of them could be a hindrance, so that we may be on our guard, and in what respect an asset, so that we may make full use of their resources.1
