Descartes

Question 1

What is the aim of the Meditations for Descartes? QUOTES

Answer 1

“to withdraw the mind from the sense”

“to destroy everything” and “start again right from the foundations”

Question 2

Aims of Meditation 1?

Answer 2

Set the Foundation for Metaphysics

Set the Foundation for Descartes’s Epistemology

Set the Foundation for Physics

Question 3

What does Descartes try to talk about in Meditations 1?

Answer 3

Things which can be called into doubt

Question 4

Descartes Method of Doubt Quotes ABOUT REJECTING THINGS
?

Answer 4

“it will be sufficient to justify the rejection of the whole”

if he finds parts of it to doubt

To do the opposite is “endless labour”

Question 5

What is the point of Doubt?

Answer 5

To establish certainty!

Question 6

Dream Argument Descartes?

Answer 6

Dreams and life can have the same content

There is, Descartes alleges, a sufficient similarity between the two experiences for dreamers to be routinely deceived into believing that they are having waking experiences while we are actually asleep and dreaming.

Question 7

Descartes Dream Argument Quotes?

Answer 7

“How many times have I dreamed, at night, that I was in this place, that I was dressed, that I was near the fire, although I was quite naked in my bed?

Question 8

What is left untouched by the Dream Argument?

Answer 8

Maths

Question 9

How does Descartes destroy Maths?

Answer 9

Malicious Demon Hypothesis How can we doubt that 2 + 3 = 5

Answer: Maybe God is a Deciever

Question 10

What is a malicious Demon Hypothesis?

Answer 10

P1: I know a proposition only if I can rule out the possibility of it being false.

P2: If I am being deceived by an evil demon then all propositions I believe are false.

C1: Therefore, in order to know a proposition I need to rule out the evil demon possibility.

P3: I cannot rule out the evil deceiver possibility.

2: Therefore, I lack knowledge.

Question 11

The deceiving God argument?

Answer 11

We believe that there is an all powerful God who has created us and who is all powerful.

2. He has it in his power to make us be deceived even about matters of mathematical knowledge which we seem to see clearly.

therefore,

3. It is possible that we are deceived even in our mathematical knowledge of the basic structure of the world.

For those who would hold (as Descartes himself will later) that God would not deceive us, Descartes introduces an evil demon instead.

Question 12

The argument for his existence (The “Cogito” argument)

Answer 12

Even if we assume that there is a deceiver, from the very fact that I am deceived it follows that I exist.

2. In general it will follow from any state of thinking (e.g., imagining, sensing, feeling, reasoning) that I exist. While I can be deceived about the objective content of any thought, I cannot be deceived about the fact that I exist and that I seem to perceive objects with certain characteristics. (The famous statement of this from D.’s Discourse on Method is “Cogito ergo sum.” or “I think, therefore I am.”)
3. Since I only can be certain of the existence of myself insofar as I am thinking, I have knowledge of my existence only as a thinking thing (res cogitans)

Question 13

The Argument that the Mind is More Certainly known than the Body:

Answer 13

It is possible that all knowledge of external objects, including my body, could be false as the result of the actions of an evil demon. It is not, however, possible that I could be deceived about my existence or my nature as a thinking thing.

Therefore, our mind is much more clearly and distinctly known to us than our body.

Descartes still has no knowledge of anything outside of his mind. He still has to make the crucial leap to the existence of an object outside of his mind. He must do this, however, strictly on the basis of the contents of his own mind. It is the idea of God that he finds in his mind that allows him to make this leap, and which forms the basis for his knowledge of all other external objects.

Question 14

The argument that material objects exist?

Answer 14

. God is no deceiver.

2. He created me and gave me reason which tells me that my ideas come from external corporeal things.
3. If they do not come from external objects, then God must be a deceiver. But this is an absurdity.

Therefore,

4. Material objects exist.

Question 15

Evaluation of Descartes’s Doubt

Answer 15

..

Question 16

Descartes Trademark Argument?

Answer 16

I have the concept of God

The concept of God is a concept of something infinite and perfect (Page 12)

As a mind, a thinking substance, I can think of many ideas

But I am finite, whereas God is infinite

Therefore, it is a concept of something with more reality than my own mind

Question 17

The Contingency Argument for God
Part 1?

Answer 17

• Premise: If I cause my own existence, I would give myself all perfections (omnipotence, omniscience, etc.).
• Premise: I do not have all perfections.
• Conclusion: Therefore, I am not the cause of my existence.

Question 18

Quotes - Contingency Argument for God part 1?

Answer 18

“then I should neither doubt nor want, Nor lack anything at all”

“Since I am a thinking think, it would have been far more difficult for me to emerge out of nothing than merely to acquire knowledge of the many things of which I am ignorant”

Question 19

Contingency Argument - Part 2?

Answer 19

• Premise:

A lifespan is composed of independent parts, such that my existing at one time does not entail or cause my existing later.

• Premise:

Therefore, some cause is needed to keep me in existence. My existence is not uncaused.

• Premise:

I do not have the power to cause my continued existence through time.
Conclusion: Therefore, I depend on something else to exist

Question 20

Contingency Argument - Part 2 Quotes?

Answer 20

KEY QUOTES:

“does not necessary follow…”

“So that it does not follow from the fact that I existed a little while ago that I must exist now, unless there is some cause which as it were creates me afresh at this moment”

“For it is quite clear to anyone who attentively considers the nature of time that the same power”

“action are needed to preserve anything at each individual moment of its duration as would be required to create that thing a new if it were not yet in existence”

Question 21

Part 3: Contingency Argument?

Answer 21

Either what caused me is the cause of its own existence or its existence is caused by another cause.

If its existence is caused by another cause, then its cause is in turn either the cause of its own existence or its existence is caused by another cause.

Premise: There cannot be an infinite sequence of causes.

Therefore, some cause must be the cause of its own existence.

• Conclusion: What is the cause of its own existence (and so, directly or indirectly, the cause of my existence) is God.

Question 22

Part 3 Contingency Argument Quotes?

Answer 22

“Cannot produce greater perfection”

CDP 1: Creation/Preservation

Creation is AB INITIO

Preservation is circular

CDP 2: Cannot produce greater perfection

That, for him, is a CDP because he is a Catholic

Descartes’ explanation seems to be theological other than philosophical

Continuous creation is by definition an act of love

Question 23

Descartes Ontological Argument?

Answer 23

Th e argument has three premises:

p1. God is the supremely perfect being. No more perfect being can be conceived.

p2. We can conceive of a supremely perfect being existing in reality.

p3. What exists in reality is more perfect than what exists only in conception.

From these three premises, the reductio proceeds as follows:

1. Suppose: God does not exist.
2. We can then conceive of a being that is more perfect than God. (p2 and p3)
3. Th is is a contradiction, since no being more perfect than God can be conceived. (p1)
4. Th erefore, God exists.

Question 24

Descartes quote on senses and what they mean for his epistemology

Answer 24

“the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those which have deceived, even once”.

Sense perception cannot be trusted and therefore we cannot trust representational reality. This eliminates a large range of beliefs.

Question 25

Descartes quote on the Dream Argument?

Answer 25

“there are never any sure signs by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep”. “painters [cannot create anything] new in all respects” (Descartes uses the example of sirens and hippogriffs).

When asleep, you are convinced that you are places, in your dreams, that you are not, and there are never any definite signs until we wake up. It is logically possible that existence is a dream, and therefore Descartes doubts his existence. However, reality must come from somewhere, because there is nothing in dreams that is new in all respects.

Question 26

Gassendi COA to Meditation 1 Descartes?

Answer 26

If there is deception and falsity in the senses, then it is not found in the senses themselves, because the senses only report appearances. Instead, it is the mind that is to blame for deception.

DESCARTES REPLY – Gassendi hasn’t gotten rid of his old empiricist beliefs, and has assumed that the mind must be at fault rather than the senses. Gassendi’s objection is too small for the scope of Cartesian skepticism.

HOWEVER – whilst Descartes fiercely attacks the notion of empiricism, he uses inductive reasoning to reject empiricism.

Question 27

Bourdin COA to Meditation 1 Descartes

Answer 27

Bourdin – if you doubt some things, then you must doubt everything, including reason.

We must doubt reason and our ability to reason, and therefore methodological doubt is fundamentally irreconcilable with the goal of building a new rationalist system of knowledge This is worsened by the fifth wave – the “malicious demon” wave of doubt.

BUT – perhaps the malicious demon can only warp representational reality rather than representational and formal reality, which is where truth is. Hume makes (more or less) the same criticism.

Question 28

Locke COA first Meditation

Answer 28

Locke – even if we accept that Descartes’s methodological doubt works, its consequence is that it relies on the rationalist thesis of innate knowledge.

Locke rejects the innate concepts thesis because, for Locke, if we have innate concepts then we either are conscious of them or have the capacity to receive them. We are not always conscious of them, and if we have the capacity of receive them, it would follow that all our ideas are innate, which is illogical. BUT – is this an straw man?

HOWEVER – if we have “always known” things, they are still either confirmed or negated by experience and therefore dependent on experience

Question 29

What is the quote suggesting that we error by Descartes?

Answer 29

“by experience I am prone to countless errors” but “God always wills what is best

Question 30

Descartes quote on the intellect?

Answer 30

“all the intellect does is to enable me to perceive ideas which are subjects for possible judgments”…

“turns out to contain no error in the proper sense of that term”

Question 31

Gassendi objection to the Will Descartes?

Answer 31

Gassendi questions whether the scope of the mind is truly greater than that of the intellect, because the intellect seems to receive ideas on which no judgment is passed. We don’t necessarily think “that chair is blue”, we just notice it.

DESCARTES REPLIES (using the example of an apple) that this is a misunderstanding of his argument. Our will overextends within the context of sense perception, and the fact that is doesn’t act all the time doesn’t mean that it’s more limited than the intellect. Pretty persuasive reply.