MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHYRene Descartes

RENE DESCARTES

(1596-1650)mathematician, scientist, philosopher

Skeptical scenarios: inconsistent with most of our beliefs, consistent with everything we know for sure

Archimedean point: an infallible, indubitable foundation for all knowledge

I THINK, THEREFORE I AM

➤ Descartes: I exist, I am thinking must be true whenever I affirm them.

➤ Survives evil demon doubt:

➤ demon cannot deceive me of anything unless I exist and am thinking

➤ What am I? A thinking thing (res cogitans).

➤ Can be known even when material world unknown.

“WHAT ELSE AM I? I WILL USE MY IMAGINATION. I AM NOT THAT

STRUCTURE OF LIMBS THAT IS CALLED A HUMAN BODY. I AM

NOT EVEN SOME THIN VAPOUR WHICH PERMEATES THE LIMBS—A WIND, FIRE, AIR, BREATH, OR WHATEVER I DEPICT IN MY IMAGINATION; FOR THESE ARE

THINGS WHICH I HAVE SUPPOSED TO BE NOTHING. LET THIS

SUPPOSITION STAND; FOR ALL THAT I AM STILL SOMETHING.”

Second Meditation (pg. 11, right column)

DESCARTES’ MODAL ARGUMENT FOR DUALISM

➤Re (4): “I am not…a human body…or whatever I depict in my imagination.”

➤Re (1): “…for these [material objects] are things which I have supposed to be nothing. Let this supposition stand; for all that I am still something.”

➤“And yet may it not perhaps be the case that these very things which I am supposing to be nothing, because they are unknown to me, are in reality identical with the ‘I’ of which I am aware? I don not know…”

1. I can suppose that I exist without material objects existing.

2. ???

3. ???

4. I am not a material object.

“I KNOW THAT EVERYTHING WHICH I CLEARLY AND DISTINCTLY

UNDERSTAND IS CAPABLE OF BEING CREATED BY GOD SO AS TO CORRESPOND EXACTLY WITH MY

UNDERSTANDING OF IT. HENCE THE FACT THAT I CAN CLEARLY AND DISTINCTLY UNDERSTAND ONE

THING APART FROM ANOTHER IS ENOUGH TO MAKE ME CERTAIN

THAT THEY ARE TWO THINGS, SINCE THEY ARE CAPABLE OF BEING

SEPARATED, AT LEAST BY GOD.”Sixth Meditation (pg. 16, right column)

DESCARTES’ MODAL ARGUMENT FOR DUALISM

➤Re (2): God is omnipotent, so… ➤“everything which I…

understand is capable of being created by God”

➤Re (3): Descartes says that “two things are distinct” if “they are capable of being separated.” ➤separated = one existing

without the other existing ➤Follows from “It is impossible

for a single thing to both exist and not exist.”

1. I can understand a scenario where I exist but no material objects exist.

2. Every understandable scenario is possible.

3. If it is possible for X to exist without Y existing, then X is not Y.

4. I am not a material object.