PHIL 10100 Lecture 13: Decartes Review
Document Summary
Descartes notes: methodological doubt (meditation i), the untrustworthiness of the senses, the evil genius. The cogito argument (meditation ii: overcoming doubt; laying a foundation for knowledge, the realization that the mind is his essence, reason as essential in knowledge, even perceptual knowledge. Descartes: the wax case & the skepticism of meditation ii: 1. The piece of heated wax changes in all its sensible (perceptible) qualities: i still know that the same wax [substance] exists (sec. 31): i do not know this sensorily (perceptually) or by imagination, [tacit] the only explanation of my knowing it is that i. Hence: my knowledge of it [or at least its identity despite change) is intellectual. Hence: i know that nothing can be perceived more easily and more evidently than my own mind (34). Argument i expresses the power of the intellect in comparison with the senses.
