Day 14: Descartes, Hume, and Early Modern Philosophy

•      Descartes on Mind and Body

•      Summary and Wrap-up of Descartes

•      Rationalists and Empiricists

•      Kinds of Human Inquiry

•      Cause and Effect

•      Please read Enquiry, sections V, VI, VII; and Treatise, Bk II, Part III, sections I & II

Descartes on Mind & Body (in General)

•      Two senses of the word “body”

–   The way we generally use it today

–   Body as corporeal nature or extended (physical) stuff or res extensa (extended substance)

•      Mind: res cogitans (thinking substance)

•      Which do we know better, mind or body?

Descartes on Mind and Body (Meditation 2)

•      How does Descartes argue for the natures of mind and body in Meditation 2?

•      How strong is the argument?

Descartes on Mind and Body (Meditation 6)

•      Is body divisible?

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

•      Some possible worries

Summary and Wrap-up of Descartes

•      Summary of the Meditations

•      What sort of problems did Descartes focus on?

•      What was his influence on the future of philosophy?

Rationalists and Empiricists

•      Who were the rationalists?  Roughly, people characterized by the following:

–   Significant role for a priori knowledge

–   Emphasis on necessary truths

–   Significant role for innate knowledge

•      Empiricists were inclined to deny the above

Rationalists and Empiricists

•      Some philosophers generally regarded as rationalists: Descartes (1596- 1650), Spinoza (1632-1677), and Leibniz (1646-1716)

•      Some philosophers generally regarded as empiricists: Locke (1632-1704), Berkeley (1685-1753), and Hume (1711-1776)

Kinds of Human Inquiry

•      What are the two types of human inquiry Hume identifies?

•      What characterizes these different types of inquiry?

Cause and Effect

•      What are reasonings concerning matters of fact based on?

•      Does Hume think that cause and effect reasoning can be understood a priori?

•      Some quotes