 Indeed, one reason why it is important to highlight the distinction between modal claims that are confused and modal claims that are not is that there are many modal claims that we might want to give a rigorous analysis but that Descartes would not. That is to say, the account that he offers will not necessarily square with all of the modal claims that we would advance pre-reflectively. For example, we might observe a blue table in front of us and put forward the claim that it is possible that the table not be blue and that it could have been black. Descartes himself is going to be careful about accepting such a claim at face-value. He subscribes to the view that strictly speaking our senses “provide only very obscure information” (The Sixth Meditation, AT 7:84, CSM 2:58) about the bodies located outside of us. Our “knowledge of the truth of such things [located outside of us] seems to belong to the mind alone, not to the combination of mind and body” (ibid., AT 7:82–83, CSM 2:57), and what the mind perceives clearly about bodies are non-sensory qualities like extendedness and flexibility (The Second Meditation, AT 7:30–31, CSM 2:20). Or as he says elsewhere, the certainty that we seek in metaphysical inquiry “occurs in the clear perceptions of the intellect and nowhere else” (Second Replies, AT 7:145, CSM 2:104). Returning now to the claim that it is possible that a given table not be blue and that it could have been black, we need to keep in mind that on Descartes’ view colors are not in objects in the way that we normally imagine them to be (Principles of Philosophy I.68, AT 8A:33, CSM 1:217). We might also advance the claim that our blue table could occupy a different position in empty space, or the claim that it could begin to move without being pushed into motion by a cause. The first claim supposes what Descartes denies – that there is empty space (Principles II.10–12, AT 8A:45–47, CSM 1:226–28) – and the second contradicts a Cartesian law of motion that falls immediately out of our idea of God (Principles II.36–37, AT 8A:61–63, CSM 1:240–41; Nadler 1987). However the debate is resolved on these important systematic issues, it is important to keep in mind that Descartes’ theory of modality will be somewhat  circumscribed.[2]  His theory of modality will do justice to truths about possibility and truths about necessity, but much of what he takes to be possible or necessary is not what we would take to be possible or necessary at first glance. If we suppose that we are being charitable by allowing his theory of modality to accommodate a modal claim that we are certain is true, we might be foisting upon him an interpretation that he would prefer to resist. No doubt he might be mistaken in what he takes to be the set of true modal claims, but his account would end up being mindful of those and not any others.