Day 5: Mind & Body; God & Method
Return and Discuss Test 1
Review/Questions
Doubt; Mind and Body
Some Background
The Wax Experiment & Argument; Evaluation of the Wax Argument
Argument for the Existence of God
Clear and Distinct Ideas
Read Meditations 5 & 6 for next time
Doubt
In Meditation One, what does Descartes doubt?
In Meditation Two, what does Descartes say cannot be doubted?
Mind and Body
So I exist. According to Descartes,
what am I?
Why does Descartes answer the above question the way he does?
What are his reasons?
What is body?
Mind & Body
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?
Some Background
Aristotles four causes: efficient, final, material, and formal
Aristotelian emphasis on qualities
Descartes reaction to the above
The Wax Experiment
A Digression (sort of)
What is the wax like before it is heated?
What is the wax like after it is heated?
How does Descartes make use of the above information?
What kind of argument does he run?
The Wax Argument
(1) All the information offered by the senses about the wax has changed.
(2) The wax present after the heating is the same wax that was there before the
heating.
(3) Therefore, we cannot know what the wax is with the senses.
What claim/s is/are needed to make the premises support the conclusion?
The Wax Argument
Some possible candidates for missing claims:
(a) That which makes something what it is, is a property or relation that does
not change; and
(b) To have knowledge of what something is, is to have knowledge of what doesnt
change in it.
Does any of this sound familiar?
The Wax Argument
What does Descartes say the wax is?
If the senses cannot give us knowledge of the wax, what are the other possible
sources of knowledge?
The Wax Argument
Why is it that imagination cannot give us knowledge of the wax?
(4) We understand that the wax can take on an infinite number of shapes.
(5) We can only imagine a finite number of shapes with our imagination.
(6) Therefore, we cannot know the wax with the imagination.
The Wax Argument
How do we know the wax?
Evaluating the Wax Argument
(1) All the information offered by the senses about the wax has changed.
(2) The wax present after the heating is the same wax that was there before the
heating.
(a) That which makes something what it is, is a property or relation that does
not change; and
(b) To have knowledge of what something is, involves grasping what doesnt
change in it.
(3) Therefore, we cannot know what the wax is with the senses.
Argument for the Existence of God
Why is Descartes arguing for the existence of God?
In Meditation Three, how does Descartes Argue for the existence of God?
What are the premises of his argument?
At the end of Meditation Three, what does Descartes say about God?
Clear and Distinct Ideas
How is it that I am deceived if God is no deceiver?
According to Descartes, what are the two principal causes of error?
How do we avoid error?