Mind Map Descartes's Meditations
I cannot know that the things that surround me are real, therefore I have to question everything in order to gain knowledge of the world and find out whether what I believed in was wrong
Atanas Iliev, Maria Hristova 10/7
Meditation I Questioning everything
Obtaining real knowledge implies abandoning all forces that may affect your rational thinking and the understanding of a certain concept
Doubt - disregarding everything that has been previously believed or known, in order to begin again from a fresh state
Empirical Knowledge
Our senses deceive us
Optical illusions
Dreams
We dream things very close to the exact same scenario we experienced throughout our daily life.
Everything including our own body and motion could be an illusion
Composite things VS simple things
things we should doubt and may study in physics, medicine and astronomy
A yellow box may be an illusion, but a “sharpness” is a definition of the idea of sharp, so it must be real. Same goes to numbers and quantity
studied by algebra and geometry
2+3 is always 5, a rectangle always has 4 sides, etc.
Smell, taste, colour
Problem with rationally confirmed knowledge
A higher being (for example God) could be exercising mass deception on us. We can, therefore, be deceived every time we calculate 2+3.
God is good, but we make mistakes from time to time, and if God was “good” he wouldn’t allow even such mistakes, so mass deception is possible
The argument for the existence of an EVIL being, a demon
In order for him to achieve something, he drops his belief in all empirical knowledge and all his judgements including the world and his own body.
Meditation II On the existence of the mind
On doubting ones own existence and possible deception
Why should we doubt the physical over the mind when the physical is more easily perceivable?
Can one exist without one's body and senses? Are we so dependant on the body?
"I think, therefore I exist"
One must exist in order for another to be deceiving him
What am I?
The birth of rationalism
‘I’ is not simply a man, as Descartes can doubt his body, but not his ability to think.
Because he [Descartes] is sure only in his ability to think, he decides he is a thinking thing.
A thing that doubts, perceives, affirms, denies, wills, does not will, imagines, and feels
Concept of the mind/soul => DUALISM philosophy - a distinction of MIND and BODY
Descartes believes that physical perception is just a habit and that the more he thinks about the new truth, the more he is sure to doubt the physical.
If a person is one and the same they should accept that just like we can be deceived about our body, we can be deceived about our own existence
Wax - a known stick of wax with specific colour, shape, odor, etc. If the wax is melted from nearby heat, these properties may change, but this is still the same wax as before
RATIONALITY
Our mind has understood that this is the same wax, despite the change in its physical properties
=> Knowledge is derived from the MIND, NOT from the SENSES.
Empiricism relies on the fact that knowledge comes from the senses
Rationalism relies on the fact that knowledge comes from reason
Descartes
Only valid knowledge we can acquire should be attained by the mind through reasoning alone (no observations)
Meditation III On the existence of God
Clear and distinct ideas
Categorization
Innate - not created, and have no source; they are there from the start; Always true independent of external factors. (mathematics - the concept of one) - a priori truth
Adventitious - something outside the mind (Heat, sound)
Factious - solely being created in the mind (Unicorn - imaginary idea)
Clear and distinct ideas are Innate ideas
The clear and distinct idea of God
an infinite substance, eternal, immutable, independent, omniscient, omnipotent, and by which all things (including the ‘I’) exist, have been created and produced
to have this idea, it must be an innate idea (it must be created by God)
Therefore, God exists
Descartes:
true as he could not have created such an idea
a finite being - not capable of creating an infinite one
Only the infinite being can create the idea of an infinite being
Basis of cause and effect
the idea of God MUST have originated from something powerful enough to create it
Can we even understand what an infinite being is, given the fact we are finite ones?
A finite being knows that it is such, which means that it can know its finite only if understanding what an infinite one is
What if God does not exist?
If God does not exist how does the thinking thing come to think
It may be the creator of its own existence
one would have created themselves perfect (without limitations)
Another finite source may be the creator
Infinite regress - we could ask what created it, and so on, and so on
Maybe its parents created it
true for the physical part
infinite regress for the mental one
an infinite creator exists and that it is God
Meditation IV: The truth and the false
If one is created by an infinite being as God (and God is perfect), like everything else, why are they a subject to errors?
We are thinking things - our existence is in the middle of two extremes
the infinite God
the complete nothingness
Why are we in the exact middle of the spectrum and not closer to God?
we are limited finite beings, which explain committing errors and following falsehoods
Privations: Nothingness we experience from the lack of Perfection
Being close to God requires one to understand the infinite God’s process of creation
one's errors may be useful to the total perfection in the long run
finite beings cannot do
A car, for example, is composed of many parts that are useless on their own
How can limitation be responsible for an error?
The two gifts by God
Understanding
Free Will
Our capacity to learn
the ability to act upon one's desires
limited because we are finite
Unlimited
=> we make errors because our free will exceeds our understanding
A person standing on a crossroad can choose which route to follow even if he doesn’t know what they lead to
The importance of indifference - act upon your free will only when you are certain about your understanding
the importance of clear and distinct ideas
Why should our free will be exceeding our understanding in terms of capability?
Because we can make false judgements
How can we confirm the spectrum theory if we can comprehend neither of the two extremes?
Understanding an idea is not necessary in order for you to experience it
A poison apple may look the same way a normal apple looks
we can understand the idea of perfection because we can think of it despite not being able to experience it.
Why won’t a universe in which everything is more perfect be more perfect itself?
The example of the eyes - the eyes of a person are something more beautiful than other parts of the body, but if the whole body was covered in eyes it wouldn’t be better.
Meditation 5: On the existence of material things and God
How real is the physical world?
The existence of God
We do exist, but we do not need a medium in order to exist so it may all be just a simulation of some sort
In order for us to answer this question, we should look inside our mind, and NOT outside our body (rationalism + clear and distinct ideas)
clear and distinct ideas in relation to physical objects such as shape, size, motion, and quantity
Descartes possesses mathematical knowledge about a triangle (has three sides)
he learnt this (was not born with this knowledge)
=> there are clear and distinct ideas that are innate about the material
Rejected that this knowledge came from the senses (empiricism) - there are objects he is not able to observe in the real world but is still able to perceive.
Regardless of the existence of the physical object, the ideas about it such as its shape and size do exist as there are innate.
He can trust these as they are based on reason in the face of mathematical principles
Inseparable qualities of some objects ( a triangle always has three sides) - part of its essence, and it cannot be itself without them
The essence of God is omnipotence, benevolence, and omniscience - God is a supremely perfect being.
Existence is a part of perfection
=> God should exist
Existence is, therefore, part of the essence of God.
If you think of a mountain, a valley would follow. In the same way, if you are thinking of God, existence would follow
if we have the concept of God, God must exist
Meditation VI: The existence of material things and the mind-body split
Imagination VS understanding
Perceptions by our senses
The relation between mind and body
The overcoming of the dreaming argument
Understanding - pure concepts
Imagination - images and representation
turns inwards
turns outwards
We can understand a thousand-sided regular polygon, without being able to imagine a picture of it (chiliagon)
Understanding > Imagination (rationalism)
=> IMAGINING IS NOT ACTUALLY A PROPERTY OF THE THINKING THING
immediate perceptions such as pleasure, pain, emotion, hunger, heat, colour, smell, and taste.
If there isn't a physical world where do these experiences come from?
more vivid than any other idea, yet we have not produced nor created them
God could have planted these ideas into us, but this would be a deception.
If God is a deceiver then he is not God, as benevolence is part of its inseparable essence
It is, however, not impossible, for us to be deceived, only for God to intend to deceive us
the material world exists, and so do the corporeal things (corporeal things = finite substances)
Perception by the senses - very obscure and confused in many cases
=> The physical world exists, but the senses could still be deceiving us. This is the same as the Indirect Realism mode of thought.
Both the mind and body exist independently, although only the mind, and therefore, the ‘I’ is capable of thinking.
The physical object (body) possesses extension like in terms of size, which the mind does not possess. The essence of the mind is, therefore, thought and it is indivisible in nature.
The ‘I’ is capable of existing without the body, thus further separating them
=>the mind and body are completely separate things.
they intermingle (Intermingling) in order to become one entity thus creating the physical thinking organism that we are
Because of the existence of God, Descartes believes he can trust his memory (because of the no-deceiving nature of God)
He, therefore, trusts himself in that there is a difference between a sleeping and awake state
continuity
essential property of the material world’s time
not of the sleeping world’s one
observing continuity is a prove of not being asleep
We can be using our body (brain) to think so that the mind is not really distinguished from the body => We can just be a corporeal thing.