PHIL1003 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Logical Truth, Firm Foundation, Pineal Gland
Descartes cont.
• What is extendedness?
o To be extended is to take up a region of space
o Modes of extendedness include having a particular measurable
size, being of a particular shape, moving or resting the objects
positioning in space through time) and having texture.
o Note that if material substances A and B take up exactly the same
region of space, then A and B are one and the same substance
• Dualist interaction
o Fine-grained modes of extendedness that belong to material
substances (such as with light rays and candles) impact upon our
bodily sense organs (themselves complex configurations of tended
material substance) to produce (via pineal gland in brain) in our
minds (mental substance) the impression of different sensory or
secondary qualities, such as colour, fragrance, sound, taste, heat,
cold and pain, which in turn, causes change to extended modes of
body and physical world e.g. soundwaves of ouch
• Argument strategy
o P1: My mind is not F
o P2: All material/physical things are F
o P3: If mind = material thing, then they must share all the same
properties (different properties, then different things)
Therefore
o My mind is not a material/physical thing
o Descartes suggests a bung of possibilities for what we can put in
place of F
▪ F = divisible, spatially located, extended.
• Introspection
o What reasons do we have for thinking that our mind is not
divisible/spatially located/extended?
o Descartes thinks we can discover these things by introspection
o Introspection: means something like observing the contents of
your mind
▪ He thought it was impossible to be wrong about the
contents of your mind, we are infallible in this.
▪ To what extent is he right about this?
▪ Can we be wrong about our mental states? The nature of
our minds?
o There seems to be some mental states we cant be wrong about
▪ E.g. that one is in pain, one is experiencing a blue period.
There is no room for a gap between appearance and reality.
That one is having an appearance IS the reality
o There are other more complex mental states that we can be wrong
about
▪ E.g. that we love or hate someone, are not racist, having
desires. The subconscious and Freud.
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