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    Notes On Descartes Meditations

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    TheHegel
    (1) Descartes engages in systematic doubt to withdraw his mind from the senses. He doubts what can be perceived by the senses and through dreams, as well as the possibility of an evil demon deceiving his perceptions. (2) Through his famous "I think, therefore I am" argument, Descartes discovers that he can be certain of his own existence as a thinking thing, establishing mind as distinct from body. He uses the wax argument to demonstrate how the mind can perceive an object without sensory inputs and how this shows a distinction between mind and matter. (3) In summary, Descartes employs radical doubt to distinguish mind from body and matter, and to discover what can be known with certainty through reason alone

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    Notes On Descartes Meditations

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    TheHegel
    253 views3 pages
    (1) Descartes engages in systematic doubt to withdraw his mind from the senses. He doubts what can be perceived by the senses and through dreams, as well as the possibility of an evil demon deceiving his perceptions. (2) Through his famous "I think, therefore I am" argument, Descartes discovers that he can be certain of his own existence as a thinking thing, establishing mind as distinct from body. He uses the wax argument to demonstrate how the mind can perceive an object without sensory inputs and how this shows a distinction between mind and matter. (3) In summary, Descartes employs radical doubt to distinguish mind from body and matter, and to discover what can be known with certainty through reason alone

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    Notes on Descartes Meditations

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    Notes on Descartes Meditations

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    (1) Descartes engages in systematic doubt to withdraw his mind from the senses. He doubts what can be perceived by the senses and through dreams, as well as the possibility of an evil demon deceiving his perceptions. (2) Through his famous "I think, therefore I am" argument, Descartes discovers that he can be certain of his own existence as a thinking thing, establishing mind as distinct from body. He uses the wax argument to demonstrate how the mind can perceive an object without sensory inputs and how this shows a distinction between mind and matter. (3) In summary, Descartes employs radical doubt to distinguish mind from body and matter, and to discover what can be known with certainty through reason alone

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    253 views3 pages

    Notes On Descartes Meditations

    Uploaded by

    TheHegel
    (1) Descartes engages in systematic doubt to withdraw his mind from the senses. He doubts what can be perceived by the senses and through dreams, as well as the possibility of an evil demon deceiving his perceptions. (2) Through his famous "I think, therefore I am" argument, Descartes discovers that he can be certain of his own existence as a thinking thing, establishing mind as distinct from body. He uses the wax argument to demonstrate how the mind can perceive an object without sensory inputs and how this shows a distinction between mind and matter. (3) In summary, Descartes employs radical doubt to distinguish mind from body and matter, and to discover what can be known with certainty through reason alone

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    of 3

    Meditations – Rene Descartes

    (1) Withdrawing the mind from the senses

     Meditation 1: What can be called into Doubt


     Preparing for the first meditation – what led him to the problem?
    o (a) Childhood –
    o (b) Foundations –
     What is Descartes’ method?
    o
     Level 1: Sensory Doubt
    o Summarize…
     Level 2: The Dream Argument
    o Summarize…
    o Painter’s analogy – summarize the painter’s analogy…
     Level 3: Powerful Deceivers
    o Can God deceive us about mathematics?
     Summarize…
    o Can an evil demon deceive us?
     Summarize…

    (2) Discovering the nature of mind

     Meditation 2: Discovering a new starting point – the Cogito


     The Archimedean point
    o Review of doubt – summarize his review of what he has doubted up to this point…
    o Cogito reasoning – what is the cogito reasoning?
     Limits of the Cogito Reasoning: What am I?
    o Rational Animal? What is he saying here… summarize
    o A Bodied Soul? Summarize…
    o A finite substance: mind?
     (a) Principle attribute of mind: Thinking Summarize…
     (b) Modes of thinking: doubting, understanding, affirming, denying, willing,
    refusing, imagining, sensing Summarize…
     Wax argument: set the radical doubt aside…does the wax by the fire remain the same?
    o (1) Sensing the wax: a flux of changing impressions – Summarize…
    o (2) Imagining the Wax – Summarize…
    o (3) Perceiving the wax by the mind alone - Summarize…
     Was Descartes wrong earlier to think that we can more easily know things than the mind?
    o Summarize…
    Summary Paragraph #1:

     (1) What is the author arguing for in this piece as a whole?


     (2) Based on what evidence or reason?

    Summary Paragraph #2:

     (1) Does the author’s argument change how I look at and live in the world? Is it the same or
    different?
     (2) Why or why not?

    Appearance and Reality – Bertrand Russell

     I. “Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt
    it?”
    o How does philosophy approach questions? Everyone else?
     II. Daily life is the basis for our thought
    o Problem: Immediate experience can be doubted?
    o Example of the Table
     Color
     Texture
     Shape
     Hardness
     Real Table?
    o Example of the Painter
     III. Getting clearer with our terminology
    o Our experiences are sensations that arise from sense-data
    o Problem: The Relation between sense-data and physical objects (or “matter”)
    o Bishop Berkeley said it is NOT absurd to deny that matter exists
    o Berkeley denies grounds for belief in extended unconscious matter (which must be
    mental in character)
    o For matter to exist (it is said) it must be experienced by God or by a universal mind
     IV. Russell’s Response
    o Russell denies such ‘idealism’, which claims that matter is ideas (Berkeley) or “a colony
    of souls” (Leibniz)
    o Most philosophers, even idealists, agree that tables exist, but why is this?
     V. The Point of the Exercise (or why was this helpful)?
    o Philosophy increases our sense of wonder by its questions (even when they are
    unanswerable)
    Summary Paragraph #1:

     (1) What is the author arguing for in this piece as a whole?


     (2) Based on what evidence or reason?

    Summary Paragraph #2:

     (1) Does the author’s argument change how I look at and live in the world? Is it the same or
    different?
     (2) Why or why not?

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