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Descartes’ Third Meditation, Summaries of Modern Philosophy

Indiana University KokomoModern Philosophy

His aim is to offer an argument for the existence of God, based simply on what (after the first two Meditations) he knows with certainty.

Typology: Summaries

2021/2022

Uploaded on 03/31/2022

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Descartes’ Third Meditation
•His aim is to offer an argument for the
existence of God, based simply on what (after
the first two Meditations) he knows with
certainty.
•He begins by reviewing:
–His doubts, and
–What he now knows, and
–What he need not doubt.
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Descartes’ Third Meditation

  • His aim is to offer an argument for the

existence of God, based simply on what (after

the first two Meditations ) he knows with

certainty.

  • He begins by reviewing:
    • His doubts, and
    • What he now knows, and
    • What he need not doubt.

Med 3: Paragraph 1

“ I will now shut my eyes, block my ears, cut off all my senses. I will regard all my mental images of bodily things as empty, false and worthless .... I will ... examine myself more deeply, and try ... to know myself more intimately. I am a thing that thinks, i.e that doubts, affirms, denies, ... [etc]. This thing also ... has sensory perceptions; ... even if the objects of my sensory experience ... don’t exist outside me, still sensory perception ..., considered simply as mental events, certainly do occur in me. ”

Med. 3, Paragraph 3

I previously accepted as perfectly certain and evident many things ...—the earth, sky, stars, and everything else that I took in through the senses—but in those cases what I perceived clearly were merely the ideas or thoughts of those things that came into my mind .... But I used also to believe that my ideas came from things outside that resembled them in all respects. .... [This] was false; or anyway if it was true it was not thanks to the strength of my perceptions.

Med. 3, Paragraph 6

“ When ideas are considered solely in themselves and not taken to be connected to anything else, they can’t be false; for whether it is a goat that I am imagining or a chimera, either way it is true that I do imagine it. .... All that is left—the only kind of thought where I must watch out for mistakes—are judgments. And the mistake they most commonly involve is to judge that my ideas resemble things outside me. ’

Descartes’ Analysis of Sense Experience

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What do I know?

  • I know that I exist.
    • I know that I am a “thinking thing,” a “mind.”
      • i.e., the subject of conscious experiences.
        • Med. 2 and 6 argue that this “mind” is non-material.
  • I know I have ideas or sensations “in” my mind.
    • These “mental contents” are what I “directly” or “immediately” perceive.
  • I “judge” (i.e., infer ) that these mental contents are

caused by things that exist outside my mind, and that my ideas “resemble them.”

  • This is what Med. 4-6 attempt to prove.

Descartes, Locke, Berkeley

  • All three accept (without much argument) that what we directly or immediately know are only “ideas” or other “mental contents.”
  • Descartes argues (in Med. 3-6) that there is a world outside our mind.
  • Locke accepts (without argument) that there is such a world, but claims that our sensations do not always resemble it.
  • Berkeley argues that there is no world outside mind (yours, mine, and God’s).

Terminology

  • Empiricism:
    • All knowledge ultimately rests upon sense experience.
    • Our justification for claiming we know something must always end up with something we perceive with our senses. - “ Seeing is believing. ” - Rationalism: - Not all knowledge ultimately rests upon sense experience. - At least some (maybe all!) knowledge can be justified without appealing to sense perception. - E.g., 2+2=4.