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Research on Descartes
- Module
- Literature in Crisis
- Institution
- Royal Holloway University Of London
Research on Descartes for the module.
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What Descartes has already found out in the first two meditations: I know I am a thinking thing Try and not use ‘thing’ in an essay – v informal
Has not explored whether or not external things exist, so for now we must say that they don’t --
> Line four
(one can doubt everything because it is possible for there to be a god that is deceiving us --> he
must find out wether or not a God exists and whether or not he can be a deceiver)
Ideas cannot strictly speaking be false, because there is no reality/rightness that can be
cheated, example of goat and chimera(middle of p30)
(descartes classes ideas into three categories: innate, adventitious adventurous? and
produced (siehe lecture notes))
(descartes turns towards ideas that may be produced from external things and judges that
they “transmit to me its own likeness rather than something else” - this is not by natural light,
natural light? Not sure what you mean; as in organic ideas and originality? but what nature
pushes me towards)
(“Ideas which represent substances (…) contain within themselves more objective reality
than the ideas which merely represent modes or accidents”)
Ideas have an objective reality, as the cannot be false in the true sense and are not nothing
psychologically and physically – maybe research what the signifier is; the idea that we associate
words with an object but what was the original origin for it being called that, what do we
envisage when we think of that object, what physically is the object – did God do this?
! The idea of god must have more objective reality than ideas of finite substance, as this idea
is of something: “eternal, infinite, <immutable>, omniscient, omnipotent and the creator or
all things that exist apart from him” (p32 down) is he this vast? Or is it merely a
figure/impression brought about by western world ideologies and stereotypes
! “there must be at least as much <reality> in the efficient and total cause as in the effect of
that cause” --> or else: something would come from nothing - there must be a source to every
reality - the cause has to possess the effect (for the effect comes from the cause and there
must be a causal connection)
--> with this said, descartes argues that: (p33 around 41)
a) something cannot come from nothing
b) the cause of something perfect can’t be less perfect, or else a)x
--> this is not only true about formal reality, but also about objective reality
Example of stone coming into existence all of a sudden without a source maybe clarify
the source? Makes it clearer of what you mean, if you can identify a source your point
will be more impactful
--> this is the same for ideas: the idea of a stone “cannot exist in me unless it
is put there by some cause which contains at least as much reality as I conceive
to be in (..) the stone stream of consciousness; can we assign any to inanimate
objects
! An idea does not require formal reality as it is in the mind, but for an idea to contain x
amount of objective amount of reality there must be a cause that contains at least as much FR
- or else something came from nothing oooohhh I like this, my lecturer was talking about this
the other day; example? Would be stong if link to context; maybe current affairs
! Argument: if I have an idea that has too much OR for it to come from me, then I am not
alone in the world and there is something that is the cause of that idea identifying the cause;
God and his influence in this, do Descartes agree there is an influence?
--> among the three types of ideas only god can be considered as the others can all be
derived from me (bodily things) You as the origin; formulaic ideas – structured
Descartes argues that Gods attributes cannot derive from himself
Infinite substance cannot come from finite substance yes yes yes, I like this a lot
*infinitude: negating finitude
! 2) how could one understand/desire/doubt, unless one had something to compare ones
finite self with? --> one needs a comparison that is infinite in order to recognise ones own
defects (doubt because defects are adventitious and do not need an infinite to compare with:
most defects are on human scale)
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