ABSTRACT
A ‘dynamic’ interpretation of materially false ideas is one maintaining that the criteria that determine an idea as materially false change in the course of the Meditations, according to the changes in Descartes’s epistemic status. In this chapter, I offer a dynamic interpretation of materially false ideas. The chapter is divided broadly into three parts. The first part examines Suárez’s views on formal and material falsity, and shows how Descartes’s views on these two notions are closely based on Suárez’s. Certain key features of the Cartesian materially false idea are identified on the basis of this comparison. In the second and most substantial portion, Descartes’s own notion of material falsity is explored in detail. I show that the sorts of representational failure that make an idea materially false will change as Descartes’s epistemic perspective changes. In the final part, this reading of Cartesian material falsity will be defended against alternative readings.
