Meditation on First Philosophy - General Flashcards
What is the Archimedean point and why is it relevant to Descartes’ method?
An Archimedean point is a hypothetical viewpoint from which certain objective truths can perfectly be perceived. The discovery of the cogito as a sure reference point (because it is self-evident), becomes the gateway to a new method for the search for truth.
There are 4 steps in the Cartesian method…
1) EVIDENCE (criterion of truth)= evidence establishes that an idea is clear and distinct if evident a
priori in the intellect. So our mind establishes what is true and what is false.
Clear = when the mind grasps an idea
completely, without any part of the idea remaining in obscurity.
Distinct = an idea must be separate and autonomous from other clear and distinct ideas.
ex. thought and extension are separate and therefore true.
2) Analysis = division in the etymological sense = If I do not have a clear and distinct idea then I must
divide complex ideas into simpler ones.
3)Synthesis = opposite of analysis -> reconstruct the simple parts into one more complex idea
4) enumeration =reviewing and checking
Descartes method is contaminated by which other method?
The scientific method (modus ponens). The reasoning is logically correct regardless of the truth of the conclusion.
The method is analytic and synthetic. What does it mean?
- Analytic ( used to achieve first principles->deduction)
starts from a particular problem and works backward, as it were until some simple and evident truths by which the problem could be proved or solved are reached. - Synthetic
starts from (implicit / assumed) definitions, axioms, and postulates and moves on, in an unbroken chain of demonstrations, to prove theorems.
What’s the objective of the meditations?
-Demolishing the “edifice” of existing (pars destruens)
-Freeing from childhood prejudices
-Therefore freeing from the obtained through the senses (perception being tied to “immaturity”)
- Obtaining a priori truths (not inductive) ->Anti-Aristotelianism (“there is nothing in the intellect
that was not first in the senses.”)
What are Descartes’ objectives in the dedicatory letter to the Sorbonne?
Descartes wants to use his theories, to convert the non-believers.
Why can’t we find any cosmological theory?
Descartes has avoided writing one is because it would have probably been coherent with Galileo’s and he would have risked being stigmatized as heretic and persecuted.
How does Descartes respond to “if the mind perceives itself only as a thinking thing, it does not follow that its nature is only that”
he wasn’t saying that the mind being only a thinking thing was true, but only that -in his own perception- he could not think of himself as anything other than a thinking thing: if he’s not aware of anything else belonging to his essence, then it’s true
How does Descartes respond to “if I have in my mind the idea of something more perfect than my own self, it does not
mean it is true and that that thing exists”
the word “idea” is ambiguos: it can be taken
- materially: as an operation of the intellect = it can’t be more perfect than me
- objectively: as the thing represented by the operation of the intellect = it can be
