Philosophy: Descartes and Nietzsche Final Exam

What is Descartes the father of?

Modern philosophy (philosophy can become a science)

What is the difference between rationalism and empiricism?

Rationalism knows according to pure reason; empiricism knows the world through experience

What is the difference between ancient and modern philosophy?

The ancient philosopher doesn’t think they are scientists necessarily; Socrates says I know I don’t know. Modern philosophy has the ambition of turning philosophy into a science. Descartes claims to know the certainty of knowledge through doubt and reason.

What is scholasticism?

Tried to synthesize Aristotle’s metaphysics with Christian revelation.

Who created the philosophical system of scholasticism?

Thomas Aqui

Who is the most important philosopher of the Middle Ages?

Aristotle

What did Descartes like about the scientific revolution (Copernicus, Galileo) ?

It was advocating a new mathematics (the language of nature is mathematics); it emphasizes observation and experiment as opposed to dogmatic authority.

What language is the Meditations written in?

Latin

What does First Philosophy mean?

Metaphysics

What is the full title of the Meditations?

Meditations on First Philosophy: To prove the existence of God and that the soul is shown to be distinct from the body

How many Meditations are there?

Six

Who did Descartes write the Dedicatory Letter to?

Writing the letter to the theology faculty at the university of Paris (Sorbonne)

What is the easiest thing to know according to Descartes in the Dedicatory Letter?

The easiest thing to know is God

What are the four stages of doubt?

1. Senses

2. Dreaming

3. Math

4. Evil Genuis

What does it mean to doubt?

Suspending judgment

Why can’t you be sure you’re not dreaming right now?

You thought you were awake while you were dreaming

What specifically does the evil genius undermine your ability to do?

To think clear and distinct ideas

Why can’t God be a deceiver for Descartes?

Perfect being cannot lie or deceive.

What is the difference between a simple and a combined science?

A simple science is true even if bodies don’t exist. Simple sciences are mathematical. Combined sciences rely on the existence of bodies

What does Descartes mean by Archimedean Point?

The Cogito

What does Cogito Ergo Sum mean?

I think therefore I am

Why does Descartes doubt that we have a body, but not that we have a mind?

Maybe the body is an illusion projected by an evil genius. But to doubt we have a mind, is a form of thinking. You cannot escape the fact you’re thinking

What’s another name for a substance? What kind of substance are we? What kind of substances are material things?

Substance is a thing. We are an immaterial substance, a thinking thing. Material substances are extended things.

What are the properties of a thinking thing?

Doubt, understand, believe, will, sense, imagine, dream

How do we know that we are a thinking thing?

We doubt

What does the wax example prove for Descartes?

It proves that we do not know things via the senses, but through the intellect. We appreciate that the wax remains wax because it is a material SUBSTANCE.

What is the significance of the three dreams Descartes had when visiting Bavaria?

Motivated him (scared him) to break from Scholasticism once and for all.

Why did Descartes like Holland?

1. Tolerant

2. Quiet

Who asked Descartes to tutor her in Sweden?

Queen Christina

How did Descartes die?

Caught a bad cold

What does Descartes mean by “read book of the world”?

He was “well-traveled” *

What is the difference between objective and formal reality?

Objective Reality: Idea of something

Formal Reality: Existence of something

How do we know this idea of God comes from God?

An infinite idea could only come from an infinite source

What does Descartes mean by something of less reality cannot cause something of more reality to come into existence?

Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR)

1. Every effect has a cause

2. Something can’t come from nothing

3. Something of less reality cannot cause something of more reality

What kind of thought is the only one that has a truth value; that it can either be true or false?

Judgment

What are some of God’s attributes or qualities?

Existence, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, eternal, infinite

Why can’t Descartes be God?

He doubts. Also, something of less reality cannot cause something of more reality to come into existence

Why are we more certain of our dependence on God for our existence than your parents?

We don’t even know if your parents really exist in Med3. Also, something has to preserve and conserve your existence moment to moment, and that would be ultimate reality, i.e., God.

How much formal reality does God have? Have much objective reality?

Formal Reality: Infinite

Objective Reality: Infinite

What is an innate idea?

Inherent to your mind; you do not pick them up through experience

Ex: You & God

What kind of substance is God?

Infinite substance

As finite creatures, what two things are we between?

God and nothingness

Why didn’t God give us a flawed/defective intellect or a flawed/defective will?

Because he is perfect, and a perfect being cannot be a deceiver, and give you something defective

How do mistakes happen? Whose fault is it when mistakes happen?

Since your will outpaces your intellect, and is infinite in scope, it can apply itself to ideas that are not clear and distinct, and thus be prone to error. It is YOUR fault if a you misapply your will, not on God.

What kind of causes does Descartes say we shouldn’t worry about in physics? What kind of causes does Descartes say we should search for?

Don’t worry about teleological causes (Aristotle)

Worry about efficient causes

Why can’t error/evil/mistakes be real?

If they were real, God would be responsible for them, and thus they wouldn’t be errors, evils, and mistakes, but would be things that are correct and good.

What is the difference between God’s responsibility and cooperation when it comes to bad things?

God is NOT responsible for bad things, but he does cooperate when bad stuff happens.

Why didn’t God make us perfect?

God owed you nothing, so be happy that he gave you a mind in the first place. If everything was perfect, it would be monotonous. Perfection need the imperfect to better express itself

What is the difference between essence and existence?

Essence = Definition

Existence = Being (something actually existing)

Does a clear and distinct idea necessarily have to exists? Give an example

No. I can have the idea of a triangle. That doesn’t mean the triangle exists.

How is God not like the other clear and distinct ideas?

Because God’s essence necessarily entails God’s existence

What is the mountain/valley example?

You cannot think of a valley without a mountain anymore than you can think God’s essence without God’s existence.

What is the faculty of imagination?

Modification of your intellect that perceives bodies

How do we know about bodies, including our own?

Because the imagination is a passive faculty, it is dependent upon something active and independent. That active faculty is nature (the collection of finite bodies, including yours).

What can the imagination do? What can’t it do?

Perceive bodies and picture things. It CANNOT think clear and distinct ideas.

Can you have an imagination without an intellect? Can you have an intellect without imagination?

You cannot have an imagination without an intellect. You can have an intellect without the imagination, because you are primarily a thinking thing and not a body.

Why don’t we have to doubt everything all over again?

1. You’re a thinking thing.

2. There’s a god (and you can do math because God is not a deceiver)

3. The imagination is a passive faculty that presupposes the active faculty of nature

What is the difference between your mind and your body?

The mind is immaterial, indivisible, and imperishable

The body is material, divisible, and perishable

How do the mind and the body interact for Descartes? What gland connects them?

Pineal

What are the two reasons you’re not dreaming right now?

1. Intensity of experience

2. Continuity

How does Elisabeth criticize Descartes’ on mind-body interaction? How does Descartes respond? What is her solution

If these are separate substances, how do they interact? Descartes says, well, maybe the mind has the property of heaviness. Elisabeth thinks that’s stupid. Her solution is to say that mind is a product of matter.

What was Schopenhauer’s argument about existence? How does art help us cope with it?

Existence sucks. The will is at the heart of reality, and it can never be satisfied.

Existence is thus bound up with suffering. Only music can help us cope with the fundamental irrationality of existence.

What was Nietzsche’s first book?

Birth of Tragedy (1872)

Which two Gods united to create Greek tragedy for Nietzsche? How does their union create art? Why does art decline in the ancient world?

Apollo and Dionysus. Apollo is the god of representation, reason, the sun, form, healing, and Dionysus is the God of content, mystery, excess, suffering, intoxication, wine, son. Together, art can represent suffering on stage as the chorus sings about the hero’s story, and the audience can consume the hero’s suffering as entertainment.

Art declines because the music is taken out of drama the Greeks become complacent after the win of the Persian Wars, and Socrates becomes

Why does Nietzsche say “God is Dead”? What murders God for Nietzsche?

Jesus said I am the truth. Christianity was founded on this will to truth. The will to truth became a will to criticize things as untrue, an eventually, it wound up criticizing God himself as a fiction.

What is the eternal return in Nietzsche?

Everything that’s going to happen will happen, over and over again, ad infinitum

What does Nietzsche mean by the Ubermensch?

Superman/Overman

Someone who can legislate their own values and live by them. They do not need an external source of authority but are their own authority and commander.

Who are Nietzsche’s Last Men?

Mindless consumers who just want pleasure and entertainment/ They do not want to do anything great or adventurous. They just want warmth. “One herd, no shepherd.”