Philosophy Descartes Meditations

What does Descartes do in the beginning of the Meditations in order for them to happen?

Forget or discard all of his prior foundations of knowledge.

Epistemology

The study of knowledge

What is the Method of Doubt?

To forget what you once knew or believed in order to learn what is right or new.

What is total skepticism?

Nothing can truly be known for certain. 

What is one of Descartes main goals in the first Meditation?

He wants to find a belief so certain that it can serve as a basis for all other knowledge.

What is the Cogito present in Descartes Meditation II?

“I think, therefore I am”

Res Cognitas

Thinking Substance

What does Descartes think of himself as in Meditation II?

Res Cognitas/Thinking Substance

What type of example does the wax play in Descartes Meditation II?

How reason, and not sense, leads to true knowledge. Wax’s solid and liquid forms have very different sensory properties, yet it is the same thing.

All perception is…

conception

What theme does Descartes discuss in the third Meditation?

Of God, that he exists.

Ideas

Type of mental content, “forms” of things in the mind. They are not necessarily true or false, they just are.

Volitions

Type of mental content, decisions or choices that are in your favor.

Affects

Type of mental content, feelings, that are subjective experiences that arise in the mind.

Judgements

Type of mental content, the mental acts of affirming or denying something, error can occur because it is going beyond the idea and claim that something is true.

What is the second casual principle mentioned in Descartes Meditation III?

Something cannot come from nothing.

Objective reality 

reality presented by an idea

Formal reality

Actual reality of a thing

Clear and distinct ideas

reliable, vivid, unmistakeable ideas.

Deus Deceptor

A hypothetical deceiving God

What is the principle of sufficient reason?

There must be at least as much reality in the efficient and total cause as there is in the effect of that cause.

What does Descartes describe God as in Med. 3?

God is an infinite substance (being)

You cannot get the infinite from…

The finite

What theme does Descartes visit in Meditation 4?

The Deus Deceptor/demon arguments because he knows he hasn’t spoken about it yet.

Only a being that is limited…

Would use trickery or deception.

Because God is perfect and creates all, God gives you…

The “tools” to do the right/good thing.

God is perfect, God CANNOT…

Be a deceiver

So if God is perfect and he gives us the right tools for life…

Why do we make mistakes?

Humans make errors because

They are between God and nothingness on the chain of being, making them not completely perfect.

With a circular argument…

There is a predetermined conclusion.

What is the first step of the Ontological Argument?

The idea of God is the idea of a perfect being.

What is the second step of the Ontological Argument?

Perfection means lacking nothing appropriate to a things nature. 

What is the third step of the Ontological Argument?

If God lacked existence, God would not be perfect.

What does the Ontological Argument prove?

God is real