quiz #2 philosophy

meditation #3

the proof for gods existence

1) I have the idea of God as a supremely perfect being

2) the other possible cause of the objective reality of of my idea of God is a being with a supremely perfect formal reality

3) if 1 and 2 then God exists

4) therefore god exists

objections:

I have the idea of the finite so I can just negate that idea and then I have the idea of the infinite. (Descartes rejects this because the idea of god is not the absence of finitude it is the possession of every perfection)

I actually could have thought of God being I can know 10 items of knowledge, then 11, then 12 and keep learning more knowledge until I could think of God. (Descartes rejects this because it would take forever to get to infinite knowledge so you will never get there)

Meditation 4

The epistemological problem of evil:

Descartes realizes now that there there is a supremely perfect being a this existence depends on this being but now he questions why he makes mistakes if he depends on this supremely perfect being.

Descartes says error comes from 2 things:

1. the will or the ability to affirm a proposition (we can either affirm a proposition, deny a proposition, or suspend judgement. Oftentimes the will will affirm or deny judgement when we don’t really know the answer and this is where sin comes from. Therefore we should suspend judgement instead)

2. error also comes from the power of understanding - our understanding is limited so we lack knowledge of many things

3 questions about the problem of evil

1. Why doesn’t God increase the scope of my understanding? (because we are finite beings so it is in our nature to have limited understanding)

2. Why doesnt God limit the scope of my will? (the will is invisible so God cant limit the scope of it)

3. Why does God permit me to err? (I don’t know why God lets me err but he wouldn’t let it happen unless it brought about a greater good)

Meditation 5

another proof of Gods existence

1) God is the supremely perfect being'

2) existence is a perfection

3) so God exists

Objection: I would reject premise 2 because this builds existence into the definition of God. For example I could think of a perfect island that lacks no perfection. If the island lacks existence then that would mean that it lacks a perfection. Therefore using this structure we could claim the existence of anything that is labeled perfect.

meditation 6

Overall claim: the body and soul are distinct

1) I can clearly and distinctly conceive of my soul without my body

2) I can clearly and distincltly conceive of my body without my soul

3) if 1 and 2, the my soul and body are really distinct

4) so my soul and body are really distinct

Objection: I would reject premise 1 because just because I can conceive of my soul without my body does not mean that they are separate from each other. For example I can conceive of water without thinking of h20. But water is h20 so the word conceive does not properly show real possibility.

3 types of distinction

1. real distinction - the two things distinguished can exist without each other ( my soul can exist without my body and my body without my soul)

2. model distinction - distinction between a things and its modes (such as the mind and its thoughts, the mind can exist without thoughts but thoughts cant exist without a mind)

3. conceptual distinction - in the mind, but the two things distinguished cannot exist without each other (front sheet and back sheet of paper)

difference between res cogitates and res extensa

res cogitans is a thinking substance without a body, res extends is a material substance such as body or matter that does not think