Abstract

Descartes is often presented as the "father" of modern subjectivity, because of his identification of thinking and being (cogito ergo sum).However, the autonomy of the cogito rests for its validation on the idea of the infinite. Consequently, what is the relation between the subject and that idea? This article tries to elucidate the complex role of an idea which, as Descartes himself seemed to admit, is very ambiguous, being "cognoscibilis et effabilis" and "ineffabilis et incomprehensibilis" at the same time. This ambiguity, as is argued, determines the very nature of the "Cartesian subject" as such, and that Descartes describes as being "something intermediate between God and nothingness". What is this "between"?