Novy Metaphysics SP08

Res Cogitans & Res Extensa

(Notes for Descartes’ Second Meditation)

 

Cartesian Dualism / Interactionism

A.      Bodies and minds are altogether different sorts of stuff (one physical, the other nonphysical)

B.      Nonetheless, there are causal relations between these things

1st Meditation

C.      Knowledge = only those things I believe even under the influence of Evil Demon

 

2nd Meditation

D.      What must be true simply because we believe them to be true? (from #3)

BORK1 (First Bit of Real Knowledge): “I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me and conceived in my mind”

E.      To what does “I” refer? (from #4-6)

BORK2: “ I am a thinking thing”

F.      “Am I aught besides?”

BORK3: A thinking thing is a nonphysical (from #7)

G.     What is a thing that thinks? (from #8-10)

BORK4: “To think” is to doubt, understand, affirm, deny, imagine, perceive and sense.

H.      What is it to perceive, sense, imagine?

a.             What our senses perceive may be an illusion, but the having of the perception cannot be.

BORK5: “Perceiving is an activity of the mind not of the body”

b.             Mind: the part of us that thinks; “Thinking” defined in terms of our conscious experience.

BORK6: “Mind is the center of consciousness”

I.         The Wax Argument / How do we have knowledge of ordinary physical stuff?

a.             An argument:

                                             i.                        Knowledge of physical objects is not obtained via the senses (from #11)

                                           ii.                        Knowledge of physical objects is not obtained via the imagination (from #12)

                                          iii.                        \Knowledge of physical objects is obtained through “the mind alone”

b.             We infer that there is wax given the appearances provided by our senses. (from #13)

c.             We often make judgments without noticing: The coats and hats beyond his window

BORK7: “The intellect is a faculty of judgment”

d.             What is it that I infer? (from #14)

BORK8: When an object is perceived, we form a judgment that there is an extended thing that produces certain sensations in our minds.

e.             Without the intellect, sensations would not provide a coherent perception of world

                                             i.                        Notion of extension does not come from the senses, but is read into the supplied data

                                           ii.                        Similar to Plato: senses supply only confused & confusing information, a conceptual framework is necessary to make sense  of that data

 

3rd Meditation

J.       Rule: Whatever I perceive clearly and distinctly is true

a.       If mind provides our conception of stuff, how do we know this conception is true?

                                             i.                        We accepted BORK1 precisely because it is simply a clear and distinct perception.

                                           ii.                        BORK9: A belief can be seen to be true only after its precise content has been clearly and distinctly perceived

6th Meditation

K.      God is not a deceiver, so would not fail to provide the ability to dispel “falsity in my opinions”

a.       BORK10: If we do all that is possible to avoid error, our beliefs will be true.

b.       Do objects exist?

                                             i.                        Matter is extended in space  (BORK8)

                                           ii.                        Principles of mathematics and science are perceived clearly and distinctly

                                          iii.                        These principles reveal the idea of spatial extension

                                          iv.                        BORK11: There is extended stuff.