Descartes Study Questions and Summary PDF

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Review questions provided by Professor Markie for the Descartes exam and a summary of Descartes "Meditations on First Philosophy" ...

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Descartes Study Questions

Descartes Study Questions (1) What is Descartes’ answer to each of the following questions: (a) What is the nature of knowledge? “There is conviction when there remains some reason which might lead us to doubt, but knowledge is conviction based on a reason so strong that it can never be shaken by any stronger reason.” Knowledge is clear and distinct. (b) What are the limits to our knowledge? Doubt, reason to believe otherwise – does not start with claims about the external world/mathematics (c) How can we best obtain knowledge about ourselves and the external world? To obtain any knowledge about the external world, we must know that God exists. Must throw away all previous ideas that we had about ourselves and start fresh. I am, I exist. Because we exist, we know that God exists. God gave us a faculty of judgement and will that allows us to obtain knowledge about other things around us. “I am certain that I can have no knowledge of what is outside me except by means of the ideas I have within me.” (d) How do we gain our ideas? Ideas are any direct object of consciousness. Adventitious ideas are sensations, mental images, and had/have part of an experience. Factitious ideas are sensations, mental images, concepts created by us from adventitious ideas. Both of these are formed by our experience. Innate ideas are all concepts not gained directly or indirectly from experience, “in” our mind but not in consciousness from creation. They are brought to consciousness by some triggering experience. (e) Does God exist? Yes, God exists. P(1) I have an idea of God P(2) The cause of an idea must have as much reality as the idea itself P(3) My idea of God has infinite reality P(4) Therefore the cause of my idea of God has infinite reality P(5) If the cause has infinite reality, then it is God (C) Therefore, God is the cause of my idea of God – another way to say that God exists (f) Are we purely material things? No. We are a mind that is not material. (2) What are Descartes’ arguments for his claim that his metaphysically certain knowledge does not begin with external world beliefs evidenced A posteriori? Dream hypothesis – belief (there’s a fire) – evidence (I seem to see light, hear noise, feel heat – Dream hypothesis (I am dreaming) – Deceiver Argument – some demon/God deceives me – Brain-InA-Vat Argument – we are just a brain in a vat. Why does he think that his beliefs about his current thought and existence resist those arguments? We know what we experience as metaphysically certain is not under any of these arguments because there is no reason for doubt. His current thoughts and beliefs are metaphysically certain because what he clearly and distinctly perceives to be true is true. No one can deceive him about his existence because doubting his existence would just prove that he is thinking and therefore existing. What does he think is the source of his certainty of his beliefs about his thought and existence? His vivid and clear perceptions of his thought and existence (3) Does Descartes think that either form of clear and distinct perception is immune to the reason for doubt provided by the Deceiver Hypothesis? Descartes believes that clear and distinct perceptions as the source of his metaphysical certainty that he thinks is immune to the Deceiver Hypothesis. Is he correct? Insofar as he takes a form of clear and distinct

Descartes Study Questions

perceptions to be open to doubt, how does he try to eliminate that doubt? By not allowing his will to believe what is not metaphysically certain (4) How might an atheist mathematician best respond to Descartes’ position? Should the atheist argue that his clear and distinct perceptions of mathematical truths suffice to make those truths metaphysically certain for him? Should he argue that the theist is no better situated than he is to gain knowledge in mathematics? Should he become a theist? Objection: Regarding the kind of knowledge that an atheist can have: When the atheist asserts ‘If equals are taken from equals the remainders will be equal’ or ‘The three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles’ or the like, he maintains that his knowledge ·of these truths· is very certain and indeed—on your own criterion—utterly evident. For he can’t think of these propositions without believing them to be wholly certain. He maintains that this is so true that even if God doesn’t exist—even if God isn’t even possible (which is what he believes)—he is just as certain of these truths as if God really existed. No reason for doubt can be produced (he thinks) that could shake his confidence. What reason can you produce? That God, if he exists, may deceive him? The atheist will reply that he can’t be deceived about these truths even by a God who exercises all his omnipotence to this end.” Reply: “It is easy to demonstrate that the atheist’s kind of knowledge is not rock-solid and certain. As I have already said, the less power the atheist attributes to his creator the more reason he will have to suspect that his nature may be so imperfect that he can be deceived even in matters which seem utterly evident to him. And he’ll never get free of this doubt until he recognizes that he has been created by a true God who doesn’t have it in him to be a deceiver.” - Descartes and Mersenne “and others” (5) Explain the nature of Arnauld’s worry: What does he take Descartes to be trying to do? What is the problem he finds in Descartes’ attempt? Has Arnauld uncovered a serious problem in Descartes’ epistemology? If so, how might Descartes’ epistemology best be revised to remove it? Arnauld points out “The Cartesian Circle” – asks Descartes how he can know all of his premises/does not see how Descartes can have both claims at once – Until I know that God exists and is not a deceiver, my clear and distinct perception does NOT give me knowledge of the external world (I’m stuck inside my head – I think, therefore I exist) - I know my premises of my proof of God’s existence by clear and distinct perceptions à premises are claims about the external world (6) ? (7) What is it for an idea to be innate? “My understanding of what a thing is, what truth is, and what thought is, derives purely from my own nature, which means that it is innate.” What ideas does he take to be gained by sense experience? A guide to what is beneficial and harmful for my mind-body complex. What ones does he take to be innate? Mind (finite) Body (Infinite) God. What considerations does he present to support his claim that we have innate ideas? Given that the human (or embodied) mind has the faculty or capacity to have sensory ideas of pains, colors, sounds, and so on, where these are occasioned on the occurrence or presence of certain motions in the brain, and nothing of the motions in the brain is

Descartes Study Questions

transferred to the mind, and nothing resembling the pains, colors, and sounds is present in bodies (including the brain), then the ideas of pains, colors, and sounds (i.e., the ideas of those qualities) “must be all the more innate.” the objective reality of his idea of body, also innate, must have, like the innate idea of God, its origin in the formal reality belonging to something other than his own mind, namely, it will have its origin in an existing corporeal substance (an extended being that possesses a finite level of formal reality). Ultimately, the objective reality (i.e., contents) of his innate ideas and adventitious ideas must have their origin in the formal reality of things, some of the latter being things existing independently of his mind. We have an idea of X (2) We could not gain that idea from experience (3) Therefore, it must be innate – the content of the idea is greater than that of any experience (x) (8) Descartes’ arguments for proving the existence and goodness of God: Descartes’ arguments for the real distinction between the mind and body: (9) How does Descartes reconcile his belief that he is the creation of a perfect God who has given him infallible intellectual faculty with the obvious fact that he makes mistakes in judgement? Believes that it is impossible for God to deceive him because that is a sign of malice or weakness and God is perfect. Argues that God wouldn’t give him a faculty of judgement that would lead him into error while using it CORRECTLY. BUT that implies that he can never be in error. There is a real and positive idea of God (supremely perfect) and a negative idea of nothingness (furthest from all perfection). Descartes says that he is somewhere in between the two. Error is not something real that depends on God, merely something negative – a lack, a defect. “When I go wrong I do so because the faculty of true judgement that I have from God is in my case not free of all limitations – that is, because it partly involves nothingness.” BUT error isn’t a mere negation, it is a privation – a lack of some knowledge that I should be. He says that (1) it makes sense that we don’t know God’s purpose or reason for things (2) to look at the universe as a whole, not each creation one by one when estimating whether God’s works are perfect – that judgements about what is perfect or imperfect in me should be made not just on the basis of my intrinsic behavior, but also my role or function in the universe (3) my errors are the only evidence I have that I am imperfect – errors depend on (a) intellect and (b) will – there are some ideas that I don’t have, negative fact just like I can’t fly, but that doesn’t mean that there is anything wrong with my nature. The power of willing that God gave me is not the cause of my mistakes. When you let your will run loose applying it to matters you don’t understand there is nothing to stop the will from veering this way or that – so it easily turns away from what is true and good. (10)

The Dream Argument and The Deceiver Argument.

Arguments against Descartes and his replies: http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/descartes1642_4.pdf A beginners guide to the meditations:

Descartes Study Questions

https://sakai.claremont.edu:8443/access/content/group/CX_mtg_60921/Readings/Southw ell2008-Ch1-2.pdf Mediation Summaries: Meditation One: About the Things We May Doubt ● ●

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Descartes wants to get to the bottom of the questions “How can I be certain that I know anything?” and “How do I know that I am not mistaken about everything?” The Argument from Illusion - (background) “Everything I have accepted up to now as being absolutely true and assured, I have learned from or through the senses.” Descartes points out that human beings are most reliant on our senses in order to make judgements however our senses can and do mislead us. (Descartes and Plato both agree on this - both rationalists) - (argument) What we see, hear, feel, etc. may be an illusory representation of what really exists. (example) When a straight stick is half submerged in water it appears bent. ○ Descartes’ (conclusion) - because the senses have once deceived us, we should not trust them at all The Argument from Dreaming - Descartes argues, Have we not at one time or another, dreamt that we were awake, or sitting in a chair reading? ○ Even if the images he is presented with in the course of his life are all false, and part only of some dream or grand illusion, some of the parts of which they are made up must have at least some reality. The dream images of individual objects (ships, people, animals, etc.) may not actually exist, but in considering them we can see that they involve more general ideas, such as shape (the roundness of an apple) and the number (how many apples there are). So while apples themselves may not exist, the principles of mathematics and geometry which the idea of apples involves may still apply, since such principles do not rely on the existence of anything for their truth. ○ Descartes believes that the ideas which have least connection with the senses are valued most The Evil Demon/Argument from Deception (Part One) - There could be some evil demon that is deceiving us. ○ This argument is found in many guises - the idea that we are deliberately deceived by malevolent beings is the plot device of the Matrix films ○ Similar to what is known in philosophy as the Brain in Vats scenario but differs because Descartes is not asking “Am I merely the brain?” but is asking “Am I merely the mind?” Each of these arguments is considered to be in the Method of Doubt Main purpose of the First Meditation: to undermine our commonly held beliefs regarding reality and our certainty regarding our knowledge of it - the importance of these arguments lies in their identifying the exact source of our problems ○ The Problems ■ (1) He identifies the untrustworthiness of our senses

Descartes Study Questions

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(2) That we do not seem to have a means of guaranteeing which perceptions are real (3) That we do not have a foundation upon which to base all knowledge

Meditation Two: Of the Nature of the Human Mind, and that it is Easier to Know than the Body ● The Evil Demon (Part Two) and the Cogito ○ Descartes asks “Am I so dependent on body and senses that I cannot exist without them?” → He is interested in proving two main points (1) That the mind (or soul) is the true essence of the human being and (2) That it is possible to conceive of this essence as existing separately from the body ○ The key step lies in the role played by the evil demon → That however powerful this evil, deceiving demon is, while he (Descartes) is being deceived, it is at least true that he (Descartes) exists. ■ “There is therefore no doubt that I exist, if he deceives me; and let him deceive me as much as he likes, he can never cause me to be nothing, so long as I think I am something. So that, after having thought carefully about it, and having scrupulously examined everything, one must then, in conclusion, take as assured the proposition: I am, I exist, is necessarily true, every time I express it or conceive of it in my mind.” ■ Cogito ergo sum: “I think, therefore I am.” ● A Thinking Thing - For it’s all very well being absolutely certain that ‘I exist’, but what is the nature of this ‘I’? ○ Descartes rejects common definitions (a man, or a rational animal) and restricts himself solely to those ideas which occurred to him when he considered his direct experience of himself → Concluded he is two things (1) a body which is composed of physical parts and (2) a soul or a mind, which seems to possess the capacity for being conscious, having sensations, making decisions, etc. ○ “Another attribute is thinking, and I here discover an attribute which does belong to me, this alone cannot be detached from me. I am, I exist: this is certain; but for how long? For as long as I think, for it might perhaps happen. If I ceased to think, that I would at the same time cease to be or to exist. I now admit nothing which is not necessarily true: I am therefore, precisely speaking, only a thing which thinks, that is to say, a mind, a understanding, or reason, terms whose significance was hitherto unknown to me.” ○ Definition - a thing that doubts, perceives, affirms, denies, wills, does not will, that imagines also, and which feels. ● The Wax Argument ○ He exists and possesses knowledge of his own nature; the existence of the outside world, on the other hand, is doubtful and its true nature difficult to comprehend. Why are we tempted to think the opposite? Descartes says because of force of habit; we are more used to thinking of the world as ‘real’ and less used to examining our own mental nature. ○ Descartes considers a piece of wax which has just been taken from the hive - he

Descartes Study Questions

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lists its qualities - its taste, smell, color, texture, etc. before placing it near a flame. If the wax loses all these qualities after being heated, what is there that defines it’s true nature? “I must therefore agree that I could not even conceive by means of the imagination what the wax is, and that it is my understanding alone which conceives it.” ■ A switch of emphasis from the thinking the “external” world is more easily understood than our own mental one to the opposite. The more our knowledge of something is arrived at through purely logical and mathematical principles, the more certain it will be. Analysis of the wax allowed Descartes to reach the following conclusions ■ (1) The imagination provides us with misleading impressions of the ‘external’ world ■ (2) However, certain ideas within the mind can be known with much greater certainty than perceptions which stem from ‘outside’ the mind ■ (3) Therefore, the mental world can be known with much greater certainty than the physical one ■ (4) The most certain knowledge is based upon contemplation of ideas alone, and does not involve the evidence of the senses. Therefore, the more we rely upon sense perception, the more uncertain our knowledge will be; the more independent of sense experience our knowledge is, the more certain it will be. Our greatest certainty resides in knowledge which is based on rational principles, and it is there which we must seek out in our investigations into the physical world.

Meditation Three: Of God; that He Exists ● Clear and Distinct Ideas - “Consequently it seems to me that I can already establish as a general rule that all the things we conceive very clearly and distinctly are true” ○ Ultimately, he needs to prove that God exists and is not a deceiver ● The Division of Ideas ○ Images - mental representations of things (example) an image of a blue car (truth value) none - simply having an image is neither true nor false (related to the external world?) not necessarily - it may not exist ○ Affections and Volitions - Expressions of desire, or like or dislike, towards something (example) I would like to own a blue car. That’s a nice shirt. I hate cheese. (truth value) none - having a desire or attitude is neither true nor false (related to the external world?) Not necessarily - it may not exist ○ Judgements - propositions (example) There is a blue car outside my house (truth value) yes (related to the external world?) mostly… ○ Three Categories of Ideas ■ Factitious - ideas which seem to have been created within the ind ■ Adventitious - ideas which would appear to have originated from the outside

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Innate - ideas which are true independently of external circumstances, not self-created or originating from outside ● Descartes believes that God somehow implanted these ideas in our mind, or that their existence was a consequence of His having created the human mind in a certain way The Origin of Things - Descartes asks - what reason do we have for considering that the ideas of external objects that we possess actually originate from objects which truly exist independently of us? ○ First argument - The belief that such objects exist is ‘taught me by nature’ ○ Second argument - These images, since they do not seem to originate from my own will, must originate from outside (and so are trustworthy representations of objects that actually exist) ■ Two reasons for rejecting this - (1) just because I am not aware of producing such images does not mean that there is not in fact some power within me that is responsible (2) even if such objects are the cause, this does not mean that such images are true representations of them, since quite often - as the argument from illusion shows - our senses can present misleading information on the true nature of the world ○ Descartes notes that some ideas seem to contain more ‘reality’ than others - a chair has more reality than a shadow or a patch of light because it contains substance, shape, etc. ○ Ultimately, Descartes also notes that the idea of God is more real than even the idea of physical substances ■ “Moreover, the idea by which I conceive a God who is sovereign, eternal, infinite, unchangeable, all-knowing, all powerful and universal Creator of all things outside himself, that idea, has certainly more objective reality in it than those by which finite sub...