Day 13: Meditation Six

• Finish Last Lecture: Common Questions & Argument from Unnecessary Suffering

• Understanding and Imagination

• The External World

• Mind and Body

•  Descartes’ “Philosophy of Science”

• Please read Hume’s Enquiry, sections IV-VI

Common  Questions

•      If there is conflicting testimony, can’t we just dismiss it all?

•      If we don’t require conclusive reasons, doesn’t that mean that there isn’t a right answer and that anything (or nothing) can be justified?

•      If you could prove God’s existence, why would you need faith?

•      Are there arguments against the existence of God?

Argument From Unnecessary/Undeserved Suffering

•      If God exists, then God is all good, all powerful, and all knowing.

•      If such a being exists, then such a being would want to prevent unnecessary suffering, would have the power to do it, and would know how to do it.

•      However, unnecessary suffering does exist.

•      Therefore, a being that is all good, all powerful, and all knowing (i.e. God) does not exist.

•      Concerns, comments or objections?

Understanding and Imagination

•      Can you imagine a triangle? A square? Can you imagine a chiliagon?

•      Do you understand what a chiliagon is?

•      How does Descartes use the answers to the last two questions?

Understanding and Imagination

•      Can we conceive of the mind without imagination?

•      What does Descartes think the answer to the preceding question means for the status of the imagination?  Does it belong completely to the mind, or not?

The External World

•      What are the three possible ways that sense experience could arise in me?

•      What is Descartes’ general strategy for establishing the existence of the external world?

The External World

•      Why does Descartes think that my mind cannot be causing sensory experience?

•      Why does Descartes think that God could not be causing sensory experience?

•      What is the only remaining cause of sensory experience?

Mind and Body

•      Is body divisible?

•      Is mind divisible?  How does Descartes argue for the answer to that question?  What example does he use?

•      Some possible worries

Descartes’ “Philosophy of Science”

•      What are clear and distinct ideas?

•      To which class of clear and distinct ideas does Descartes attach great importance?

•      Some important passages regarding the mathematization of the study of nature

•      How far can the mathematical study of nature go?