Exam 2: Decartes, Pascal, Kant

What is Descartes’ Method of Doubt?

1. The aim is to determine what you know as opposed to what you believe

   1. What you know can’t be wrong, what you believe can be wrong

2. Doubt everything that is doubtable: push doubt to the extreme

3. Can make mistakes with respect to senses: feelings, sound, sight: have to doubt that senses as such give you knowledge

Push doubt to extreme by using idea of the “evil genius.”

What role does the ‘evil genius’ play in this doubt?

1. The “evil genius’ is as intelligent as it is powerful and deceives you wherever you can be deceived. Helps you find what you know without any doubt. 

2. Discovers that the evil genius cannot deceive you that you exist, meaning that “I AM” is his first point of certitude. Because if you are being deceived, you must BE (exist), and therefore you exist

What is the first point of certitude which Descartes reaches?

I AM: he exists because in order for him to be deceived, he has to BE. 

What is Descartes' first definition of himself in Meditation Two?

1. He is a “thinking thing”, by thinking, he means he is a being with conscious experience 

2. Used to think of himself as a rational animal, now doesn’t know what an animal is exactly 

3. Every single person when we make judgements don’t only use sensations, we use concepts, that are based in senses

What is the meaning of the example of the wax?

1. Solid wax is hard, opaque, and cold. When you heat it, every single sensible property changes (liquid, transparent, and obviously warm). However, we know it is the same thing. 

2. This shows how humans use concepts to regulate our experience and group our sensations together within concepts. These concepts are not sensible qualities, but are used to organize our experience to make the world a coherent place

How does Descartes try to demonstrate the existence of God in Meditation Three?

1. Formal reality: The Kind of reality a thing has in and of itself because it is that kind of thing: On the level of formal idea, all ideas are the same

2. Objective reality: the kind of reality that an idea has, insofar as the idea makes reference to something

   1. On the level of objective reality, ideas are all different.

3. If you are the total cause of all your ideas, then there must be enough formal reality in you to produce ideas having the amount of formal and objective reality contained in them. So, if you have an idea of an all-perfect, infinite being (God) and consider its objective reality, you can see that there’s nowhere near enough formal reality in you to be the total cause of something with so much objective reality, so the only adequate cause of such an idea is that something has to have as much formal reality as the objective idea of God, which could only be God Himself, therefore, God exists.

What, according to Descartes, is the real source of error?

The extension of will beyond intellect. Our free will is more expansive, so it reaches for things that we don’t fully understand. So when we make choices regarding things we don’t understand, we can err. However, Descartes specifies that this should not be considered an imperfection in the way God created us.

What is Descartes’ demonstration for God’s existence in Meditation Five?

Must we think of GCB (Greatest Conceivable Being) as existing? In other words: is the notion of  existence necessarily attached to the thought of GCB? Descartes again answers Yes. He says: we cannot think of GCB as the kind of thing that might come into or go out of existence; if we think of GCB at all, and the kind of existence proper to GCB, we can see clearly and distinctly that GCB can only be thought of as necessarily existing—as the kind of thing that cannot not exist, that must exist. 

Although we're all free to think about whatever we want or to not think about it. Once you start to think about certain things, these things have a certain intellectual content that pulls you along so you have to think about them in certain ways. Body, you have to think of extension, once you start thinkinking about it, it pulls your intellect into a certain direction. Descartes says that once you think of God, the greatest conceivable being, you see that he is necessarily existing, and can’t not exist, because if it is possible to conceive of a greatest conceivable being, that must exist.

Explain what Pascal means by the wretchedness and greatness of man—why you can’t truly appreciate the one without recognizing the other.

Wretchedness and greatness are two sides of the same human coin. Humans are capable of amazing things, but we are also prone to wretched acts and emotions. If you see things about yourself that you don’t like and are worthy of criticism, this means that a part of you recognizes there is a better side of you than that of which you are ashamed.

What is Pascal’s analysis of ‘distraction’?

We use distractions to escape from what we believe to be our reality, The idea is that people think of themselves in a certain way, and they can't handle thinking about it, so they distract themselves to get away form it. In doing so, they lead to social and religious disaster. Distractions are bad because ultimately they won’t work anymore, and by trying to distract others from the bad parts of you (by putting on a mask), you end up pushing them away from your true self and can’t have a true connection.

How does Pascal’s psychological analysis of the human condition lead into his argument that Christianity is the true religion?

Christianity’s account is the best explanation for how humans can be both great and wretched. Being created in God’s image explains why we are great, and then the Fall and Original Sin explains our wretchedness. True religion must address all sides of human life and recognize the good and the bad. Christianity is able to recognize both sides of humanity: the side that messes up (wretched) and the side that is worthy of love (great). By recognizing the side that is worthy of love, Christianity also provides hope, which a true religion should do.

Explain his famous “wager argument.”

• Draw Box: God Exists / God Doesn’t Exist, You Believe / You Don’t Believe

• Vertical lines are great, diagonal lines mean you are wrong. Only for those who are convinced that the Christian life is the best way to live. If you think it’s the best way to live, you can’t wait for some proof of God because, in that way, you are betting that Christianity isn’t true. The only clue we have of truth is the way our heart feels, so if you believe Christian life is the best way to live in truth, then you should live it. Then, if God doesn’t exist, even though you are wrong, you have lived the way you thought was best.

What does Kant mean by a priori?

Prior to experience: not deriving from sensation

a judgment whose truth can be verified prior to sense experience

What does Kant mean by a posteriori?

After experience: derives from a sense experience

a judgment

whose truth can be verified only after some sense experience

What does Kant mean by an analytic judgment?

Judgement where the predicate is already covertly contained in the subject (The bachelor is unmarried)

What does Kant mean by a synthetic judgment?

Judgement, where the predicate adds something to the notion of the subject (The bachelor is unhappy)

How does Kant account for the possibility of scientific knowledge? Answer in detail.

If scientific knowledge is possible, there has to be a priori. Kant says that synthetic a priori statements are possible because we have sensibility (sense-experience of forms in space and time) and understanding (ability to make judgments about sense-experience concepts). In order to have knowledge, we must have both sensibility and understanding, as they rely on each other.

• Scientific knowledge fundamentally arises by us figuring out what is universally and necessarily true about the sensible world

• What things are like in themselves (the X on the drawing), we cannot know. We know things only the way we experience/sense them and how we interpret them.

How does this account preclude, in his opinion, the possibility of our having theoretical knowledge of God, freedom, and immortality? Answer in detail.

Take the example of immortality. To have theoretical knowledge of immortality, you would have to know something that is not empirical and is beyond our senses, but our experience is limited to our senses (now), so we cannot have theoretical knowledge of something that continues out into the future. These areas of knowledge take you beyond the realm of what is sensible, so we cannot comprehend it.

• What things are like in themselves (the X on the drawing) we cannot know. We know things only the way we experience them

What, according to Kant, is the fundamental basis of the moral life? 

Duty: Once you accept that you have duties, you have to believe you are free and have dignity in this freedom. Recognizing your duty allows you to accept your role as a moral person, ultimately connecting to you having free, practical reason.

Can we argue about moral first principles with someone who denies them? If not, why not?

• No, cannot argue moral first principles with someone who denies them because there is no common ground between you. You have to accept the reality of duty in order to accept your role as a moral person. Once you accept that truth, you believe that you are free and live in a community of other persons. If someone denies that they have duties, you cannot convince them and should avoid the person

State and explain what Kant means by the Categorical Imperative.

Imperative (commandment) and Contegorical (in itself, not hypothetical (if you want ___ then ____) which is reliant on something else) A Categorical Imperative commands just by itself. 

Example: Act in such a way as to will that the maxim of our actions will become universal law.