Descartes Meditation 3 (K&D)

Question 1

What does clear mean?

Answer 1

When it is present and accessible to the attentive mind

Question 2

What is distinct

Answer 2

A perception is distinct, as well as being clear, if it so sharply separed from all other perceptions that it contains within itself only what is clear

Question 3

An example of a clear perception that’s not distinct

Answer 3

Being in intense pain. As we can have a very clear feeling of pain, but people often confuse where the pain is located. Only feeling of pain we perceive clearly. Judgement around pain is not distinct

Question 4

What does perceiving something as clear and distinct mean to descartes?

Answer 4

Anything I perceived clearly and distinctly is true

Question 5

Reasons for questioning ‘clear and distinct’ principle

Answer 5

• what if there had been things we had thought we had perceived as clearly and distinctly but later called into doubt
• he had felt very certain about beliefs from sense experience which he argues he had clearly perceived has he has ideas of sky, stars and people. However didn’t gave a ‘clear and distinct’ perception that these things exist in an external world outside his mind.
• dismisses counterexample so free to continuing trusting ‘clear and distinct’ rule

Question 6

Why has the power of God led him to doubt the possibility that knowledge of mathematical truths is clear & distinct?

Answer 6

Descartes realises earlier doubt about deceiving God is a reason to doubt the clear and distinctness of mathematical truths. Did descartes preciously have a clear & distinct perception that is now up to doubt. This would undermine his ‘clear & distinct’ rule.

• descartes agrees with claim made in med 1 that God could deceive him
• HOWEVER, when he turns full attention to idea he perceives very clearly & distinctly he becomes utterly convinced of its certainty
• it is not possible for deceiver to make it so he dosent exist or for 2+3 to equal anything other than 5
• takes maths & geometry to be completely certain when using ‘clear & distinct’principle and full focus
• if he removes focus he is vulnerable to being deceived by the deceiving God

Question 7

What are the 2 categories Descartes classifies thoughts into?

Answer 7

• IDEAS
- these include images of things that form in the mind, such as man, sky, angel or God.
- neither true or false
• VOLITIONS, EMOTIONS, JUDGEMENTS
- contain more than simply an image, as they have an object towards which they are directed
- emotions or volitions not true or false
- judgements can be true or false so must be careful when making them

Question 8

What are the 3 types of ideas

Answer 8

• INNATE IDEAS
ideas he believes he has been born with, such as his understanding of true
• ADVENTITIOUS IDEAS
ideas that come to him from something outside himself, & which seem to exist in the external world, eg. Seeing the sun or feeling fire
• INVENTED IDEAS
ideas he has created with his own imagination, like unicorns

Question 9

What is the casual adequacy principle

Answer 9

Degrees of objective reality (ideas) need to have same degrees of reality as formal reality (things which exist in the outside world)

For example, heat cannot be produced in an object which wasn’t previously hot, except by something of at the same order of perfection as heat

Question 10

What does the casual adequacy principle depend on?

Answer 10

There being degrees of reality - an infinite substance (this can only be God) has more reality than a finite substance (everything else) which in turn has more reality than a mode (a way of (being/thinking)

Question 11

What is the trademark argument?

Answer 11

God left an imprint of his innate idea of himself existing like a craftsman leaves a trademark. This idea couldn’t of come from us as the idea of an infinite substance has more objective reality than he does, being a finite substance.

Question 12

Why does descartes argue that his existence requires the existence of God?

Answer 12

• he has idea of God which must mean God created him and gave him idea
• if he created himself he could give himself every perfection but he can’t give himself every perfection so he couldn’t of cased himself
• parents don’t have sufficient power to cause idea of God in mind

Question 13

Why is God not a deceiver?

Answer 13

• has all perfections, meaning he couldn’t be deceiver
• descartes goes on in meditations to argue he can usually trust in evidence fron senses, since God exists and is no deceiver

Question 14

Evaluation of Descartes reliance on God

Answer 14

• God has a very important role for Descsrtes as if he can prove existence of God he can put complete trust in his reasoning & sense experience
• if God can’t be shown to exist then Descartes can’t fully eliminate the hypothetical doubts of being permanently decived
• established truth that he exists, however without God he is unable to progress in trusting sense experiences

Question 15

Issues with innate ideas

Answer 15

• David Hume suggests idea of the existence of God could be something the mind created. The idea is we combine ideas of goodness and power
  HOWEVER, Descartes would argue this is not enough to explain idea of God as perfect, infinite being.

Question 16

What if there is no ‘clear & distinct’ idea of God

Answer 16

• idea could come from hazy concept of perfection or infinite or by magnifying qualities we understand from limited human experience
• Descartes argues that even if he disent fully grasp concept of infinite, he still has clear and distinct perception of it - hard to accept as shouldn’t having a clear and distinct perception require grasping idea fully
• even if Descartes has clear and distinct idea of God it dosent mean I do.
• only proves God’s existence to those people who share perception
• someone following meditations should only be convinced it they also have clear and distinct perception

Question 17

Issues with CAP

Answer 17

• lighting a match and creating fire, or a whisper creating an avalanche
• these examples show an effect that seems to be greater than the cause
• HOWEVER, not true counterexample as the effects have the same reality as match is a substance, as is fire and an avalanche is caused by an accumulation of many things, not simply a whisper

Question 18

The question of the existence of ‘degrees of reality’ as a concept

Answer 18

• one could argue that something either exists or dosent.
• having more or less reality dosent obviously make sense
• denying possibility of degrees of reality undermines descartes reasoning for God.

Question 19

Does CAP apply to ideas

Answer 19

We can create ideas if things vastly more perfect than ourselves, perhaps because ideas seem to be less real than actual substances. The idea of God is still less real than actual descartes

Question 20

Is ‘clear and distinct’ rule reliable

Answer 20

• surely possible to think u have identified something as clear and distinct when in fact u haven’t
• descartes himself mistook his own faith in the existence of the external world as clear and distinct
• med 1 shows how easy it is to be mistaken when making a knowledge claim

Question 21

The cartesian circle

Answer 21

Descartes argument for the existence of God uses circular reasoning as he needs god to establish reliability of reason and to know God exists in the first place he needs to know his mind is reliable. It assumes to be true what it sets out to prove. To prove that his clear and distinct judgements can be trusted he needs to rely on God’s goodness. To know God exists he needs to rely on his clear and distinct idea of God.

• descartes could defend himself by saying he does have independent reasons to believe in clear and distinct perceptions based on the cogito