Meditation 2 Study Q's Flashcards
What does the meditator say his doubt experiment makes him feel like?
His doubt experiment makes him feel like he has fallen unexpectedly into a deep whirlpool which tumbles him around so that he can either stand on the bottom nor swim up to the top.
What revelation does the meditator finally come up with? What MUST exist even if I am constantly tricked by an evil deceiver? WHY?
The meditator finally comes up with the revelation that “I am, I exist.” Even if I am constantly tricked by an evil deceiver “I” exist because the deceiver can’t be deceiving nothing. “I” have to exist in order to be deceived.
The meditator now considers what “I” actually means. What is the first definition of man that he rejects, and WHY?
The first definition of man that he rejects is that man is “A rational animal.” He rejects this definition because Then he would have to inquire what an animal is, what rationality is, and that would lead him down the slope to other harder questions which he does not want to waste his time on.
What is the second definition of a “man” that is given?
The second definition of man that is given is “a body”
How SPECIFICALLY does Descartes’ describe the body? In particular, in terms of “location,” “occupation of space,” and “movement.”
- Something that has a specific location
- Moved from without
- No two can be in the same place
- Nutrition
- sense-perception
What functions of the soul does the meditator REJECT? Why?
He rejects nutrition, movement, and sense-perception because these all require a body.
So what IS the true function of the soul, and also INSEPERABLE from the person themselves?
The true function of the soul is thought. Thought is inseparable from the person.
What, then, is the true definition or essence of a person?
The true definition or essence of a person is that they are “A thing that thinks.”
What does Descartes find “puzzling” about what we apparently know with more distinctness? WHY? What does this have to do with being able to “picture things in the imagination?”
“The corporeal things of which images are formed to my thought, and which the senses investigate, are known with much more distinctness than this puzzling “I” which cannot be pictured in the imagination.” Basically, It is often harder to imagine what we know most clearly.
What do people “commonly” think they understand most of all?
The bodies which we touch and see
What does the famous “wax” example prove about our sense perceptions?
The famous wax example proves that we can’t fully trust our sense perceptions because if we did, then when the wax was hard, it would not still be the same wax as when it was soft and had a different texture.
What does the meditator conclude about the TRUE nature of the wax? (when we take all of its changing characteristic away) What is the TRUE way that we know the wax?
The true nature of the wax is that it is flexible and changeable. The true way that we know the wax is by believing that it is capable of being extended and in many more different ways than I will ever encompass in my imagination.
Why does the infinite number of different shapes and extensions of wax PROVE that we really know its true nature through the MIND and not the IMAGINATION?
The nature of this piece of wax is in no way revealed by my imagination, but is perceived by the mind alone.
