PHLB20H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Optical Illusion, Empirical Evidence, Omnibenevolence
Document Summary
Descartes arguments in 1st meditation what can be called into doubt. Step 1 (of descartes" 1st meditation): my senses deceive me and therefore cannot always be trusted question the senses. We have all fallen pray to visual illusion perceptual illusions. When we dream we can sometimes be convinced that our dream is real, i. e. , that we are awake and getting ready. Only allows descartes to doubt something"s and not others. Descartes points out that even if he is dreaming he still has knowledge of simple and universal realities; so to speak, dreaming of the colour red. If one can dream of the colour red, or of things that have shapes, extension, magnitude, place and time. Then these are things he can know exist even if the things inhering is not real, only imaginary or dreams. It would not be in the right intention (inconsistent) of an omnibenevolent being (god .
