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Philosophy (Descartes (we are unique beings with rational nature (strive…

- - - - all ideas of the external world were doubtful
        
        if he was doubting, he had to be something "I think, therefore I am"
  - - - external world must be real
  - - - discover truth about rational universe surrounding him
- - - - moral decisions shouldn't be influenced by considerations of consequences like pleasure/pain, life/death
        
        most of the time, whether or not we ought to do something isn't really moral choice, usually just contingent on our desires
    - - when you choose to act according to a rule which should be universal, you're acting morally, regardless of the consequences of your action
        
        ex. if i'm trying to decide whether to lie or not, I must ask if everyone should lie when convenient. if the answer is no, I have a rational duty to tell the truth
        
        feelings and consequences must be ignored (shouldn't only lie to help a friend out of pity, but if your rationale is that rational animals should always help rational animals, it's okay
  - - - but it must also please our rational nature, the part of us that wants order, unity, and purpose
  - - - we can't know if the external world is material or spiritual in nature, nor anything about the specific nature of a self that endures through time
- - - - there is a self that stays the same over time
        
        sense of self is a consequence of private associations evoked when an individual reflects on her past
      - there are necessary cause-and-effect relationships (fire and a burnt finger)
        
        just because one of two contiguous events has repeatedly followed the other, doesn't prove that it was caused by the first event
        
        possible we live in a universe where some events repeatedly follow others without being caused by them
        
        if the universe must have a cause, and the cause was God, was God caused? do events have cause? possible, but reason can't decide
        
        how can we know what the future will be like based on the past, if we don't know the future?
        
        we project our inner expectation onto the outside world
      - natural regularities will continue into the future
      - material/mental objects exists (atoms, God, mind)
        
        to determine whether God or matter exists, I must jump outside my thoughts about the world and encounter it directly (since they exist independent of thought), but this is impossible
      - any human moral act is right or wrong
    - - ex. when we witness a murder, we saw the murder, but not the "wrongness" of it. through reasoning, we can come up with a motive for the murder, or consequences that might follow, but reason alone doesn't add wrongness to these conclusions
- - - - rather than being passive, find greatest pleasure in digesting/transforming its surroundings
      - ex. Jews and Christians developed a "slave morality" to feel powerful over Roman authorities
  - - - we should rejoice and getting rid of this artificial burden
- - - - words get their meaning not from their relation to objects in the world, but from other words in the language game that they are a part of
        
        ex. yellow gets its meaning not from existing independently, but because of the linguistic system that arbitrarily divides the color spectrum into colors
  - - - a dog can think his master is at the door, but probably doesn't think that he's 5, has a particular purpose, will die one day, is made of atoms, etc.
      - mental life of older deaf children who never learned a language -> live in a mental world of particulars and concrete images, but not abstract concepts
  - - - the homosexual child doesn't first discover his homosexuality, an then interprets what it means; it's already interpreted for him by the way society describes it
- - - - "the sky" in my head is different from what exists in the outside world
      - to determine, I must slip outside mind and language
- - - - How should I live? Evil and good?
  - - - Rational/Logical- seeks truth and is swayed by facts and arguments
      - Spirited/Emotional- How feelings fuel your actions
      - Appetitive/Physical Desires- drives us to eat, have sex, and protect ourselves
    - - Species of Arguments (Deductive, Inductive, Abductive, Argument by Analogy, Reductio Ad Absurdum)