8

This article intends to question the validity of the essence of the ego identified in Meditatio IIa, as its relationship to bodies and to God then remains undetermined (§1). It appears that bodies, far from being purely evacuated de re, are only suspended by an abstraction of suspension (§2), while the relationship to God must be thought of in the mode of the abstractio mentis (§3). It is therefore necessary to deepen the contrast between these two concepts of abstraction that Descartes did not formally distinguish, in particular by the different types of clarity they elicit (§4). Therefore, the validity of the essence of the ego is clarified by these two abstractions in Meditatio IIa and then enriched in the course of the Meditationes, which therefore resemble a progressive egology (§5).