H PHILOSIPHY - Meditation 3

What is Descartes' current position at the start of meditation 3?

Descartes has established that he can doubt everything, including his senses and his body, but he cannot doubt that he exists as a thinking being.

What does Descartes mean when he says he believes that the Cogito is clear and distinct?

Clear: meaning present to the attentive mind

Distinct: meaning not confused with anything not clear

Since the Cogito is true as well as being clear and distinct, other clear and distinct perceptions are also true.

At the start of meditation 3, does Descartes believe that clear and distinct perceptions are indubitable?

No.

He goes on to state that even though things like maths appear clear and distinct, he concedes that a God or evil Demon has the power to deceive his clear and distinct perceptions.

How does Descartes decide to try and overcome the decieving god/malicious demon argument?

He believes he has to prove the Christian God's existence to prove that God wouldn't deceive him, and therefore prove his clear and distinct perceptions are true.

What categories does Descartes split ideas into?

Innate: Ideas we are born with

Advantageous: Sensory perceptions

Imagined: Inventions e.g. sirens

What distinction between natural impulses and natural light does Descartes make?

Descartes says:

Natural impulses are things that can be doubted and have been believed through habit.

Natural light is clear and distinct perceptions that cannot be doubted.

What is the casual adequacy principle?

The causal adequacy principle is a key component of the Trademark Argument.

The principal states that something lesser cannot create something greater, the qualities of an effect must exist within the cause.

Descartes states that the principal also applies to our ideas, and that something lesser could not have an idea of something greater.

What example does Descartes use referring to the casual adequacy principle?

Descartes uses the example of heat.

It cannot come from something that's not hot or doesn't hold the same order of perfection as heat.

What is degrees of reality?

This is another key component of the Trademark Argument.

It is Descartes' idea that things exist at different levels of being, with some being more real or more perfect than others. He believes that lesser beings cannot create bigger ones. EG finite substances cannot create infinite ones. He applies this to the idea of god.

Descartes states that because we have the idea of God and that we could not have created the idea of an infinite substance, God must exist.

What is formal and objective reality?

Formal reality is a reality something holds because it exists in the physical world

Objective reality is reality something holds because it is a representation of something.

What are substances, accidents, and modes? (think about it SAM)

Substances (like a tree) have the most amount of reality

Accidents (the texture of a tree) have less reality

Modes (the expression of an accident e.g. rough) have the least reality.

What is the trademark argument?

The idea of God within us is a "trademark" of our creator, implying that God must exist to account for this idea.

He believes he cannot judge himself as finite without having an idea of the infinite (though he cannot fully grasp it). He asks how he could not be perfect without the idea of a more perfect being.

He therefore concludes that god exists, and he has not been created by his imagination.

How does Descartes realise he can trust god?

Descartes goes on to say that "fraud and deception depend on some defect" and since God has no defects, he cannot be a deceiver.

Therefore, he can trust he's not being deceived in his clear and distinct perceptions.

What is a criticism of the casual adequacy principle?

Some have challenged Descartes' reliance on the principle by looking to examples that go against the assumptions of the causal principle.

Some examples that people have suggested are things like lighting a match being the cause of a massive fire.

However, Descartes could refute that these effects have the same reality as their causes. The match is a substance, as is the fire. Therefore they don't involve something of a lesser reality causing something of a greater reality.

It is clear that these disputes do not contradict Descartes' findings as what may come across as smaller realities creating bigger ones at first, flagging flaws, Descartes can prove that these are more misinterpretations of reality rather than flaws.

What is a criticism of Descartes' clear and distinct perceptions?

The certainty and success of the Cogito relies on it being clear and distinct, but it is surely possible we can perceive something as clear and distinct when it actually isn't. Descartes fell victim to this when he thought his senses were clear and distinct.

Descartes calling maths and arithmetic false and then clear distinct is contradictory. According to him, it cannot be doubted if clear and distinct.

A rebuttal to the criticism is that the Meditations is presented through a narrator who may not be able to perceive things clearly and distinctly as Descartes might have. But it seems the narrator and Descartes appear to merge into one being at this point of the Meditations.

Overall the criticism that there are serious flaws with clear distinct perceptions is true, as it is inconsistent and subjective.

What is a criticism of the Descartes' argument for the existence of God?

Descartes' argument for the existence of God is circular.

To prove that his clear and distinct judgements can be trusted he needs to rely on God's goodness. To know that God exists and is good he needs to rely on his clear and distinct idea of God. Descartes should require independent proof of both the truth of clear and distinct perceptions as well as his reliance on God's goodness.

Rebuttal: One defence that Descartes could present would be to say that he does have independent reasons to believe in clear and distinct perceptions based on the Cogito (if clear and distinct perceptions weren't certain he couldn't be sure of his own existence), meaning that the reasoning may not be circular.