PHIL 1050 Lecture Notes - Ontological Argument, Middle Ages, Actual Infinity

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHIL 1050
• Professor: Paul Raymont

Document Summary

Descartes is now confident he knows the contents of his mind, but whenever he tries to get beyond his mind, he still runs into doubt. This includes when he thinks of objects like: human bodies, and non-physical objects. He is convinced nothing outside his mind exists. He looks at his ideas to see if they can show him if there is a certain kind of thing that exists independently of him. He makes claims of the nature of ideas. This is the notion he gets from medieval philosophers, the word intend in medieval latin, means to point at something. Descartes is saying that our mental states seem to point to things beyond themselves. I don"t have an idea, i have an idea of something. My thoughts are about things, and represent things to me . Our mental states are representations of things beyond themselves.