The Southern Journalof Philosophy zyxwvu (1985) Vol. zyxwvu XXIII. No. 2 DESCARTES ON MYTH AND INGENUITY/ INGENIUM Stephen H. Daniel Texas A&M University zyxw Many of Descartes’ writings, especially his early ones, reveal his fascination with the philosophic function of dreams, myth, fable and poetic inspiration. Not only does Descartes repeatedly refer to his physical description of the world as a myth or fable; he also points out that philosophic ingenuity (ingenium), by its very nature, embodies the imaginative character of mythopoesis. For Descartes myth codifies the sensible and provides the activity of figuration or sensible instantiation upon which rational thought is based. zyxw In other words, before Descartes was able to provide a method for philosophical reflection or the rules for the rational direction of the mind, he had to show the antecedent conditions which made such an enterprise possible. Rational discourse presumes a linguistic network which provides the sense-based background of meanings and the code of rules for their use and application. Because myth and fable do not presume such a prior codification of meaning but rather are self- conscious expressions of the need to establish a system of linguistic signs, they are pre-philosophic to the extent that philosophic reflection relies on such a previously established system. To the extent that philosophy seeks to extend or revise such a sign system, it recaptures the spirit of its mythic origins. Descartes’turn to the mythic and fabular thus not only acknowledges the historical priority of myth as the sign system out of which philosophy developed but also reestablishes the starting point for the philosophical renovation of the procedures by which the cogito can be used as a basis for determining certainty. As in myth, the cogito establishes its own codification of signs, its own system of meaning. Aboriginally, the cogito can only tentative1y“speak”itself in adopting a role as yet inadequately incorporated into a semiotic system which will in part result from its own creative activity. Through its autobiography, the cogito posits itself as a masked poetic figure on the stage of the world, an element within a system of signs. The speech of the cogito, the “I think,” is the word which stands as the sensible sign, the figurative image prior to the positing of meaningful reality and necessary for the emergence of knowable reality. Stephen H. zyxwvutsr Danielisassistantprofessor ofphilosophyat Texas A&M University. He is rheauthorofJohnToland: His Method, Mannersand Mind (McCill-Queen?,1984)and of several articles in various philosophical journals. zyxwv 157