Descartes, Principal Attributes, and God

Abstract Scholars generally agree that René Descartes's God has no principal attribute. In this paper, I argue against this consensus. More specifically, I argue that Descartes's God's principal attribute is infiniteness qua ontological independence. Descartes's God is a res infinita in very much the same way as a mind is a res cogitans and a body is a res extensa . In order to make my case, I begin in section 1 with Descartes's account of principal attributes and argue that nothing about this account precludes God's having one. In section 2, I offer a prima facie case for the view that God's principal attribute is infiniteness qua ontological independence. And in section 3, I consider several passages which reveal the central role ontological independence plays in Descartes's account of God's nature and other attributes. I conclude that Descartes's God's principal attribute is infiniteness qua ontological independence.