In modern day, people usually will say imagination comes from the mind (I'm going out on a reasonable limb and speaking for many people). But it is not scientifically verified what and where the imagination is or comes from.
But in contrast, Descartes seems to suggest that maybe imagination is not an essential property of the mind. One would still exist even if he could not imagine. In conclusion, the mind may have to depend on some other source for its existence. Descartes seems to suggest the body.
1. I think it was interesting how Descartes could link his idea of God’s existence to the existence of material things. He discovers in the 5th and 6th meditations that as God would not deceive the thinking mind with false perceptions of the external world, then there must be other factors that lead us to believe false perceptions, such as the body and a dual nature. I like the way Descartes seems to be able to link his new understanding to more new beliefs by thinking about what he can clearly and vividly perceive. 2. Analyzing Descartes understanding of the interaction between the mind and the body, I could understand that he reaches the conclusion that they exist independent of each other. Nevertheless, the mind can move the body. Therefore, the mind and body interact and the body might be considered an extension of the mind.
I thought that Descartes made an interesting point in the Sixth meditation on page 31. He says that he is a thinking thing and has a body, but we don't just intellectually perceive the body. If we get hurt, we feel the pain in our bodies and experience it instead of just knowing that we have to put on a Band-Aid. The mind and body can be separated but in life they are very much interconnected at the same time. I also thought that where Descartes differentiates between something's essence vs its existence in the fifth meditation on page 25 was important in his argument for the existence of God. Where God would be the only thing whose existence and essence hold each other together, and from which Descartes argues God an eternal being.
1. An observation that helped me make more sense of Descartes theory of "innate knowledge" -- when, on page 24, he states of general phenomenon (like size, shape, and position) "it feels less like learning something new than like remembering something I had known before, or noticing for the first time something that was already in my mind without my having turned my mental gaze onto it" -- this reminds me of Socrates argument in the Meno. Where there is knowledge of certain types of things, like general phenomenon for example, that has a notion of intuition instead of learnedness.
2. Descartes reasoning for God's existence still seems weak to me, perhaps though, this is because I don't fully grasp it. It seems as though Descartes is arguing that the mere essential qualities of God, are sufficient in reasoning that God is a being that must exist -- since God is a being of perfection, and existence is part of perfection, then God must exist -- and merely because this notion appears to Descartes as "vivid and clear" then this reason must have a true reality to it.
Much like last week, the medieval and ancient influences in Descartes rise to the forefront for me. I don’t remember whose argument it was, but Descartes embraces another proof of God based on “essence” He says that just like three sides is a necessary cause for a triangle, Existence is a necessary cause for God. And he supposes that because God is perfect, and since real things are more perfect than imaginary things, if God did not exist, He would not actually be God.
Based on his earlier meditations, I am not sure how much I buy into Descartes’ arguments in the sixth mediation. I feel underwhelmed by his conclusion that knowledge comes from the senses. I follow his argument, but I because I am not convinced by his solution to the evil demon, i.e. his proof of God and therefore God’s goodness that serves as a premise, I can’t accept this conclusion.
1.) In Descartes’ Fifth Meditation, he realizes that the existence is not separate from the essence of God since it would be contradictory to think of a perfect being lacking a property such as existence. Also, Descartes discovers that achieving the awareness of God will lead to the awareness or knowledge of all other things or truth.
2.) In Descartes’ Sixth Meditation, he is analyzing the mind and body relationship where he states that the mind can survive separately or independently without the body. However, Descartes does discuss the complex union or intermingling between the mind and body in terms of our natural sensations which leads him to erase any further doubt or falsity in our sensory perceptions.
1.) While Descartes argument regarding the distinction between instate ideas and those that are not seems pretty strong following his logic. Here the examples of the triangle and the thousand sided shape stood out to me in this regard. working with the set of Descartes metaphysical 'givens' here this part of the argument seems sound. 2.) However I do find fault with Descartes deployment of the ontological argument here. Ever since I was exposed to the argument it has never seemed as if it was anything more than a party trick that got way out of hand during its time. By this I mean that the ontological argument sounds good at first glance but upon further reflection can prove the existence of the most perfect island etc. It is this reason that I am not sure what to think about Descartes argument for the existence of the corporeal world, since it seems to rely almost entirely on there being an omni-benevolent God.
Although I understand Descartes argument for the existence of God, I do not feel like it is strong enough. Descartes proof for anything is "nothing completely convinces me except what i vividly and clearly perceive"(26). This form of proof is just not good enough when it comes to the argument of God. We can simply take his word for it because he firmly believe it. Since I do not believe his argument of God is strong enough, his sixth meditation sounds like a lot of claims with no real proof for them. on page 30 he writes "I know that if I have a vivid and clear thought. So the fact that i can vividly and clearly think of one thing apart from another assures me that the two things are distinct from one another... since they can be separated by God." He later explains that because he is sure God can separate things he is sure his Mind and Body are two very different and distinct things. It is not as if i do not agree with this idea, I just don't think he has the grounds to make these claims.
1. Descartes’ conclusion on page 25 regarding the existence of a property based on his ability to find the idea in his own mind is quite interesting to me especially when he tries to apply this same conclusion to proving the existence of God. He states that God exists to him as much and as clearly as does mathematics. He claimed earlier that mathematics was “the most certain of all”—therefore, he must believe God to be the most certain of all as well. However, I’m not sure how much I buy into this comparison of ideas. He clearly stated examples of properties of mathematics (geometry to be exact) that present themselves as ideas he finds in his thought already. These ideas come as something he already knew rather than something he learned or invented, therefore they are true and exist as real properties.
2. This brings me to my questions: If God is in fact as certain to exist as mathematics, what are his properties that prove his existence? What is God’s essence? What makes existence perfect[ion]? How are God and existence inseparable? Is the existence of his thoughts of these things proof that they exist?
1. I'm not really sure what Descartes is trying to say in his Fifth Meditation. As a math major, he was using mathematical terms to describes thoughts. To me, that did not make much sense. When Descartes used a triangle as an example for mind, I could not understand the way it was meant to be interpreted.
2. In the Sixth Meditation, Descartes is again trying to distinguished between the mind and body using pure mathematics. Again, I might have missed the point of what he is trying to say. In general I was not a fan of this weeks reading
#1 "If I were not swamped by preconceived opinions, and if my thoughts were not hemmed in and pushed around by images of things perceived by the senses, I would acknowledge God sooner and more easily than anything else." This is really profound - It’s like once something is seen - it can’t be unseen. Once the seed of doubt has been planted - you can’t unplant it. From that moment on everything that would be thought about one particular concept is tainted by this internal bias. ie. When a child is small and they go to say Sunday school they are completely open to the concept of God and accept it unconditionally. However, when that child grows older and begins to more thoroughly about ones surroundings. They begin to challange their perceptions of the world around them and make their own assumptions about the world. This is where doubt would come into play either by something bad happening to the child leading them to believe that God isn’t all he is cracked up to be or vice versa where that child could have the oppsite happen. I believe that a lot of this would matter on what happens in the child’s life. #2 "I could never be separated from it, as I could from their bodies; •I felt all my appetites and emotions in it and in account of it; and •I was aware of pain and pleasurable ticklings in parts of this body but not in any other body. But why should that curious sensation of pain give rise to a particular distress of mind; and why should a certain kind of delight follow on a tickling sensation? Again, why should that curious tugging in the stomach that I call ‘hunger’ tell me that I should eat, or a dryness of the throat tell me to drink, and so on? I couldn’t explain any of this, except to say that nature taught me so. For there is no connection (or none that I understand) between the tugging sensation and the decision to eat, or between the sensation of something causing pain and the mental distress that arises from it. It seems that nature taught me to make these judgments about objects of the senses, for I was making them before I had any arguments to support them."
What about empathy? He says that he is not aware of other peoples pain or pleasure but it is known that sometimes people can “sense” other peoples pain or saddness. Do emotions play into this?
The question I kept asking myself when reading the Fifth Meditation was how real is the physical world?That could it possibly still all be a simulation almost within the mind, since Descartes does that he should search for the answer to this question by neglecting the external and focusing withinin ourselves. However after self evaluation he comes to the conclusion that infact physical objections could possibly be real, through the distinct and clear ideas that these objects hold mathematical principles which Descartes agrees to be true and that we could trust. In the sixth medidation, Descartes states that understanding turns inward looking at the contents of the mind and the imagination would turn outward to the perception of material objects. Hence the imagination is not an essential part of the mind since it is a part of the ecternal world, yet it does develop in the mind. That makes me question his whole thought process, he has points that I can understand, yet I do not enjoy his thought process.
1) To me the argument for math being real and a truth is simular to an argument that Socrates makes before his death. The fact he belived that we still know things that we were never taught so it must be real we just need to be reminded about. I may be completly wrong but the basic of Descartes reminds me of how Socrates tries to prove a young child knows geomerty without ever being educated about it.
2. I like his argument that ideas and imagination are not part of our mind but is actually material. This makes sense to me because we have to see something or learn about it to comprehend what it is. We have some inate ideas that our built into us, like love or spatial reasoning. But they arent physical concepts, physical concepts we need to learn about first.
1. I find Descartes argument faltering when it comes to considering clear and vivid conceptions as closer to absolute certainty. How we can ever be sure that things will continue to be vivid and clear? One idea that he delves into is the idea of ideas being independent from the perceiving subject, which concludes that perhaps material things do exist within the external. A triangle will always have three sides equaling 180 degrees regardless of being observed or not.
2. His assertion of God existing based on his intuitive belief seems to greatly contradict his meditative skepticism in the beginning, which has gotten really annoying. Perfection includes existence, so God being infinitely perfect must exist. But Descartes never bothers to ask himself whether his vague conception of perfection is illusory or not. And he says knowing God enables him to understand the reality of physical things. This groundwork of assuming God is already in the works is readily apparent in Descartes thinking, and thus seems to be ultimately counterproductive in unearthing the flimsy foundations of indoctrinated dogma. He never bothers to question these assumptions of his, but as much as anything, his rational skepticism was epoch-making in the history of philosophy so I'll give him his due on this one.
In modern day, people usually will say imagination comes from the mind (I'm going out on a reasonable limb and speaking for many people). But it is not scientifically verified what and where the imagination is or comes from.
ReplyDeleteBut in contrast, Descartes seems to suggest that maybe imagination is not an essential property of the mind. One would still exist even if he could not imagine. In conclusion, the mind may have to depend on some other source for its existence. Descartes seems to suggest the body.
1. I think it was interesting how Descartes could link his idea of God’s existence to the existence of material things. He discovers in the 5th and 6th meditations that as God would not deceive the thinking mind with false perceptions of the external world, then there must be other factors that lead us to believe false perceptions, such as the body and a dual nature. I like the way Descartes seems to be able to link his new understanding to more new beliefs by thinking about what he can clearly and vividly perceive.
ReplyDelete2. Analyzing Descartes understanding of the interaction between the mind and the body, I could understand that he reaches the conclusion that they exist independent of each other. Nevertheless, the mind can move the body. Therefore, the mind and body interact and the body might be considered an extension of the mind.
I thought that Descartes made an interesting point in the Sixth meditation on page 31. He says that he is a thinking thing and has a body, but we don't just intellectually perceive the body. If we get hurt, we feel the pain in our bodies and experience it instead of just knowing that we have to put on a Band-Aid. The mind and body can be separated but in life they are very much interconnected at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI also thought that where Descartes differentiates between something's essence vs its existence in the fifth meditation on page 25 was important in his argument for the existence of God. Where God would be the only thing whose existence and essence hold each other together, and from which Descartes argues God an eternal being.
1. An observation that helped me make more sense of Descartes theory of "innate knowledge" -- when, on page 24, he states of general phenomenon (like size, shape, and position) "it feels less like learning something new than like remembering something I had known before, or noticing for the first time something that was already in my mind without my having turned my mental gaze onto it" -- this reminds me of Socrates argument in the Meno. Where there is knowledge of certain types of things, like general phenomenon for example, that has a notion of intuition instead of learnedness.
ReplyDelete2. Descartes reasoning for God's existence still seems weak to me, perhaps though, this is because I don't fully grasp it. It seems as though Descartes is arguing that the mere essential qualities of God, are sufficient in reasoning that God is a being that must exist -- since God is a being of perfection, and existence is part of perfection, then God must exist -- and merely because this notion appears to Descartes as "vivid and clear" then this reason must have a true reality to it.
Much like last week, the medieval and ancient influences in Descartes rise to the forefront for me. I don’t remember whose argument it was, but Descartes embraces another proof of God based on “essence” He says that just like three sides is a necessary cause for a triangle, Existence is a necessary cause for God. And he supposes that because God is perfect, and since real things are more perfect than imaginary things, if God did not exist, He would not actually be God.
ReplyDeleteBased on his earlier meditations, I am not sure how much I buy into Descartes’ arguments in the sixth mediation. I feel underwhelmed by his conclusion that knowledge comes from the senses. I follow his argument, but I because I am not convinced by his solution to the evil demon, i.e. his proof of God and therefore God’s goodness that serves as a premise, I can’t accept this conclusion.
1.) In Descartes’ Fifth Meditation, he realizes that the existence is not separate from the essence of God since it would be contradictory to think of a perfect being lacking a property such as existence. Also, Descartes discovers that achieving the awareness of God will lead to the awareness or knowledge of all other things or truth.
ReplyDelete2.) In Descartes’ Sixth Meditation, he is analyzing the mind and body relationship where he states that the mind can survive separately or independently without the body. However, Descartes does discuss the complex union or intermingling between the mind and body in terms of our natural sensations which leads him to erase any further doubt or falsity in our sensory perceptions.
1.) While Descartes argument regarding the distinction between instate ideas and those that are not seems pretty strong following his logic. Here the examples of the triangle and the thousand sided shape stood out to me in this regard. working with the set of Descartes metaphysical 'givens' here this part of the argument seems sound.
ReplyDelete2.) However I do find fault with Descartes deployment of the ontological argument here. Ever since I was exposed to the argument it has never seemed as if it was anything more than a party trick that got way out of hand during its time. By this I mean that the ontological argument sounds good at first glance but upon further reflection can prove the existence of the most perfect island etc. It is this reason that I am not sure what to think about Descartes argument for the existence of the corporeal world, since it seems to rely almost entirely on there being an omni-benevolent God.
Although I understand Descartes argument for the existence of God, I do not feel like it is strong enough. Descartes proof for anything is "nothing completely convinces me except what i vividly and clearly perceive"(26). This form of proof is just not good enough when it comes to the argument of God. We can simply take his word for it because he firmly believe it.
ReplyDeleteSince I do not believe his argument of God is strong enough, his sixth meditation sounds like a lot of claims with no real proof for them. on page 30 he writes "I know that if I have a vivid and clear thought. So the fact that i can vividly and clearly think of one thing apart from another assures me that the two things are distinct from one another... since they can be separated by God." He later explains that because he is sure God can separate things he is sure his Mind and Body are two very different and distinct things. It is not as if i do not agree with this idea, I just don't think he has the grounds to make these claims.
1. Descartes’ conclusion on page 25 regarding the existence of a property based on his ability to find the idea in his own mind is quite interesting to me especially when he tries to apply this same conclusion to proving the existence of God. He states that God exists to him as much and as clearly as does mathematics. He claimed earlier that mathematics was “the most certain of all”—therefore, he must believe God to be the most certain of all as well. However, I’m not sure how much I buy into this comparison of ideas. He clearly stated examples of properties of mathematics (geometry to be exact) that present themselves as ideas he finds in his thought already. These ideas come as something he already knew rather than something he learned or invented, therefore they are true and exist as real properties.
ReplyDelete2. This brings me to my questions:
If God is in fact as certain to exist as mathematics, what are his properties that prove his existence? What is God’s essence? What makes existence perfect[ion]? How are God and existence inseparable? Is the existence of his thoughts of these things proof that they exist?
1. I'm not really sure what Descartes is trying to say in his Fifth Meditation. As a math major, he was using mathematical terms to describes thoughts. To me, that did not make much sense. When Descartes used a triangle as an example for mind, I could not understand the way it was meant to be interpreted.
ReplyDelete2. In the Sixth Meditation, Descartes is again trying to distinguished between the mind and body using pure mathematics. Again, I might have missed the point of what he is trying to say. In general I was not a fan of this weeks reading
#1 "If I were not swamped by preconceived opinions, and if my thoughts were not hemmed in and pushed around by images of things perceived by the senses, I would acknowledge God sooner and more easily than anything else."
ReplyDeleteThis is really profound - It’s like once something is seen - it can’t be unseen. Once the seed of doubt has been planted - you can’t unplant it. From that moment on everything that would be thought about one particular concept is tainted by this internal bias. ie. When a child is small and they go to say Sunday school they are completely open to the concept of God and accept it unconditionally. However, when that child grows older and begins to more thoroughly about ones surroundings. They begin to challange their perceptions of the world around them and make their own assumptions about the world. This is where doubt would come into play either by something bad happening to the child leading them to believe that God isn’t all he is cracked up to be or vice versa where that child could have the oppsite happen. I believe that a lot of this would matter on what happens in the child’s life.
#2 "I could never be separated from it, as I could from their bodies; •I felt all my appetites and emotions in it and in account of it; and •I was aware of pain and pleasurable ticklings in parts of this body but not in any other body. But why should that curious sensation of pain give rise to a particular distress of mind; and why should a certain kind of delight follow on a tickling sensation? Again, why should that curious tugging in the stomach that I call ‘hunger’ tell me that I should eat, or a dryness of the throat tell me to drink, and so on? I couldn’t explain any of this, except to say that nature taught me so. For there is no connection (or none that I understand) between the tugging sensation and the decision to eat, or between the sensation of something causing pain and the mental distress that arises from it. It seems that nature taught me to make these judgments about objects of the senses, for I was making them before I had any arguments to support them."
What about empathy? He says that he is not aware of other peoples pain or pleasure but it is known that sometimes people can “sense” other peoples pain or saddness. Do emotions play into this?
The question I kept asking myself when reading the Fifth Meditation was how real is the physical world?That could it possibly still all be a simulation almost within the mind, since Descartes does that he should search for the answer to this question by neglecting the external and focusing withinin ourselves. However after self evaluation he comes to the conclusion that infact physical objections could possibly be real, through the distinct and clear ideas that these objects hold mathematical principles which Descartes agrees to be true and that we could trust.
ReplyDeleteIn the sixth medidation, Descartes states that understanding turns inward looking at the contents of the mind and the imagination would turn outward to the perception of material objects. Hence the imagination is not an essential part of the mind since it is a part of the ecternal world, yet it does develop in the mind. That makes me question his whole thought process, he has points that I can understand, yet I do not enjoy his thought process.
1) To me the argument for math being real and a truth is simular to an argument that Socrates makes before his death. The fact he belived that we still know things that we were never taught so it must be real we just need to be reminded about. I may be completly wrong but the basic of Descartes reminds me of how Socrates tries to prove a young child knows geomerty without ever being educated about it.
ReplyDelete2. I like his argument that ideas and imagination are not part of our mind but is actually material. This makes sense to me because we have to see something or learn about it to comprehend what it is. We have some inate ideas that our built into us, like love or spatial reasoning. But they arent physical concepts, physical concepts we need to learn about first.
1. I find Descartes argument faltering when it comes to considering clear and vivid conceptions as closer to absolute certainty. How we can ever be sure that things will continue to be vivid and clear? One idea that he delves into is the idea of ideas being independent from the perceiving subject, which concludes that perhaps material things do exist within the external. A triangle will always have three sides equaling 180 degrees regardless of being observed or not.
ReplyDelete2. His assertion of God existing based on his intuitive belief seems to greatly contradict his meditative skepticism in the beginning, which has gotten really annoying. Perfection includes existence, so God being infinitely perfect must exist. But Descartes never bothers to ask himself whether his vague conception of perfection is illusory or not. And he says knowing God enables him to understand the reality of physical things. This groundwork of assuming God is already in the works is readily apparent in Descartes thinking, and thus seems to be ultimately counterproductive in unearthing the flimsy foundations of indoctrinated dogma. He never bothers to question these assumptions of his, but as much as anything, his rational skepticism was epoch-making in the history of philosophy so I'll give him his due on this one.