Persuade yourself not to think about anything

Abstract

I would like to suggest how Descartes seems to combine two kinds of "idiocy" in his work: In the first, he urges us to strip ourselves of our accumulated knowledge from early childhood, in order to enter again "ignorant into this world". In short, we must cultivate a form of idiocy before we can stimulate our cognitive power. And yet, in his letters to Elizabeth, he advises those who are too persistent in pursuing serious meditations (for example on the relationship between soul and body) to refrain from doing philosophy: instead, like an ignorant, one should "give all one's time to the relaxation of the senses and the rest of the mind" (FA III, 45).

What is the relation between these two forms of "ignorance"; this is the content of my article.