ABSTRACT
In 1689, the Catholic priest and erudite/skeptic Pierre Daniel Huet published the first edition of his Censura philosophiae cartesianae. Antoine Arnauld was a Catholic theologian and the intellectual leader of the embattled Jansenist movement in France. He was also one of the most talented and analytically gifted philosophical minds in the second half of the century. More clearly and explicitly than any other philosopher of the period, Arnauld accounts for consciousness by insisting that every mental act is reflective upon itself and thus accompanied by awareness. Self-reflection is an essential part of any mental act, identical with the act, and the immediate awareness of a perception is not an experience distinct from simply having a perception. Virtual reflection necessarily and involuntarily accompanies every perception; explicit reflection is a deliberate act performed upon one’s first-order perception and has the latter as its intended object.
