PHILOS 2F03 Lecture 5: Descartes First Meditation
14 Sep 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Time is mid 17th century in europe. Procedure to see if he knows anything he sees if there are doubts: to doubt means to not know, doubt establishes knowledge as irrelevant since knowledge is certainty. The difference cannot be learned through experience. Dreams are just as realistic as reality. We rely on judgements of continuity: special (where things come and go form, time (where things have a before and after) In waking experience these 2 continuities rule in dreams they are not present. To determine the difference between dreaming and waking we never use our senses or experience: descartes"s conclusion is that knowledge does not need experience. Ideas that are innate and pure (native to reason, rational ideas) This turns the senses to an instrument of knowledge. This creates 2 hypotheses: nothing is too much for a truly perfect being. It would be possible for god to arrange the ideas that we hold true (ideas of space, arithmetic wtc. )
