Sunday, February 12, 2006
Notes for Thursday, 2/16/06
Continental Rationalism and British Empiricism.
Read to p. 168.
René Descartes (1596-1650)
Mathematician and philosopher. Heliocentric vs. geocentric universe, and attendant theological difficulties. The "Copernican Revolution." What was the precise significance of (p. 153) "Ce ne sono quattro!"? Who were the Brothers of the Inquisition? The Inquisition condemned Galileo in 1633; he was rehabilitated in 1992. Descartes methodological doubt. (De omnibus dubitando) The radical search for certitude. Descartes reason for critiquing empirical knowledge. Rejection of the certainty of mathematics. What if God were an "Evil Genius"? Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am.) Even doubting can be subsumed under thinking. Self qua consciousness, the rock bottom certainty of Descartes. But this leaves the door open to the charge of solipsism. Descartes accepts, along with the certainty of self (my mind = myself) certain "innate ideas": self, identity, substance, God. The innate idea of God, or of perfection, paves the way to an ontological (and a priori) proof of the existence of God (cf. p. 165). With the proof of the existence of God, the Evil Genius hypothesis is put to rest.
Descartes replaces "naive realism" with a system whereby perceivable qualities are mental and mathematically measurable ones ("cold, colorless, odorless, soundless, tasteless) to the external world. Hence Cartesian dualism. The problem of interaction. Discuss figure on p. 168, illustrating the Cartesian dispensation.
Descartes the systematizer, but clearly not the originator, of dualism. To what extent is dualism founded? Wherein lie its difficulties?
Read to p. 168.
René Descartes (1596-1650)
Mathematician and philosopher. Heliocentric vs. geocentric universe, and attendant theological difficulties. The "Copernican Revolution." What was the precise significance of (p. 153) "Ce ne sono quattro!"? Who were the Brothers of the Inquisition? The Inquisition condemned Galileo in 1633; he was rehabilitated in 1992. Descartes methodological doubt. (De omnibus dubitando) The radical search for certitude. Descartes reason for critiquing empirical knowledge. Rejection of the certainty of mathematics. What if God were an "Evil Genius"? Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am.) Even doubting can be subsumed under thinking. Self qua consciousness, the rock bottom certainty of Descartes. But this leaves the door open to the charge of solipsism. Descartes accepts, along with the certainty of self (my mind = myself) certain "innate ideas": self, identity, substance, God. The innate idea of God, or of perfection, paves the way to an ontological (and a priori) proof of the existence of God (cf. p. 165). With the proof of the existence of God, the Evil Genius hypothesis is put to rest.
Descartes replaces "naive realism" with a system whereby perceivable qualities are mental and mathematically measurable ones ("cold, colorless, odorless, soundless, tasteless) to the external world. Hence Cartesian dualism. The problem of interaction. Discuss figure on p. 168, illustrating the Cartesian dispensation.
Descartes the systematizer, but clearly not the originator, of dualism. To what extent is dualism founded? Wherein lie its difficulties?
# posted by Michael @ 11:13 AM 
