Traditionally, scholars have interpreted such passages as telling us that Descartes' view is that in an idea's representing or presenting an object to the mind, it is a mode that in some sense possesses content (Wilson 1978, Chappell 1986).
They simply present an object to the mind without taking a stance towards it.
For, even though an instance of one of the more complex modes of thought presents an "object" to the mind, as in the case of one's fearing a lion or affirming the Pythagorean Theorem (where the lion and the theorem are the "objects" presented), it is the ideational element (the idea) that does the presenting.
This object brings to mind a glass-fronted Joseph Cornell box.
Yet another is that they derive from universal demands of the communication situation (e.g., Sapir 1921, argued that the distinction between nouns and verbs arises from the fact that language is used to communicate propositions, hence needs a way to bring an object subject to mind and a way to say something about it).
While most of Libsyn's podcasts, I'm assuming, aren't on par with in-depth analyses like Radiolab or Serial we can assume that at least a few of those podcasts – Hardcore History and A History of the World in 100 Objects spring to mind – have multiple thousands of downloads and are designed for the careful, curious listener.
If an object exists objectively in a given perception as having a given property, then Arnauld says that the perception represents the object as having that property, that is, makes the object known to the mind as having that property.[4] Furthermore, an idea (or perception) can represent its object to the perceiving mind as having this or that property contingently or necessarily.
In a similar way to using a mantra, you can use a simple visual object to fill your mind and allow you to reach a level of deeper consciousness.
In this passage, ideas are cast as modes of thought that represent (or present or exhibit — Descartes uses such terms interchangeably) "objects" to the mind.
Touch (IHM ch. 6), for example, presents qualities of objects to the mind in ways more direct than does vision (IHM ch. 7), resulting in what has been referred to as Reid's hybrid theory of perception.
