ABSTRACT
If Descartes chooses analysis as his method, then analysis applies equally to all types of inquiry. In the last chapter we discussed how analysis proceeded in the search for natural laws. Since clear and distinct ideas represent the essences of things (AT 7: 78, CSM 2: 54), and since “according to the laws of true logic, we must never ask about the existence of anything until we first understand its essence” (AT 7: 107-8, CSM 2: 78), a clear and distinct idea is prior in the epistemic order to any judgments one might make regarding the existence of a thing of a specific kind. Thus the method of analysis is germane to finding clear and distinct ideas, or, as we shall show, how ideas are clarified.
