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Descartes's Meditation VI - Coggle Diagram
Descartes's Meditation VI
Imagining vs. Understanding
Chiliagon, myriagon example
A person understands the concept (or even solve mathematical problems through equations), but can’t imagine the figure
Main difference
Imagining requires a mental effort (creating an image in the mind, requires mental focus and energy), understanding doesn’t
Essence
Thinking is more essential to ourselves because a person is pure intellect
Imagination is not part of my essence of a thinking thing
Corporeal Objects
Definition
A corporeal object is an object that has consists of, or relates to a physical material body
Differences with Descartes's argument for the existence of God
Corporeal objects - ideas of finite substances, but I am a finite substance ⇒ therefore, I could be the cause of my idea of corporeal objects
God - so much objective reality that I cannot possibly be the cause of that idea (the idea of imperfection)
⇒ however, I cannot be the cause of my idea of corporeal objects because the ideas of human deception and perception and that God is a deceiver are denied
Similarities with Descartes's argument for the existence of God
In the structure of the arguments: casual principle + source of ideas principle + I have an idea of God/corporeal objects ⇒ therefore God/corporeal objects exist
The Dream Argument
The Dream argument is about “How do I know that I am not dreaming?”
Descartes can now trust his memory
The difference between dreaming sensations and waking sensations: the latter is a spatio-temporal continuity (spatio-temporarily continuous)
The memories of events stored in our brain allow us to distinguish waking sensations from dream sensations
The continuity of our sensations is not guaranteed in our dreams
Overcoming of the Dream argument
Descartes needs to overcome the Dream argument in order to prove the existence of the world and corporeal objects because despite the phenomenological likeness/sameness between waking sensations and the dreaming sensations, a thinker can tell the difference by considering a series of sensations.
Purpose
The main purpose of Descartes’s Meditation VI is that in addition to his statements that a thinker knows he exists and that a thinker knows God exists, for him to prove that a thinker knows corporeal objects exist.