PHL210Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Cartesian Doubt, Mental Substance, Adventitiousness
Document Summary
I am a thing that thinks, doubts, affirms, denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of many things, wills, refrains from willing, and also imagines and senses. Things sensed and imagined may be "nothing at all outside me. Sensing and imagining still exist within me as modes of thinking. Surely in this first instance of knowledge, there is nothing but a certain clear and distinct perception of what i affirm: clarity and distinctness rule: everything i very clearly and distinctly perceive is true. Problem with cdr: some things perceived cd are open to doubt: why: deceptive deity could have provided such a nature, to remove this basis for doubt, must question if there is a god and whether they are deceptive. Proof of the existence of god: descartes groups all thoughts into two classes. Innate: what a thing is, what a truth is, what a thought is: produced by me: sirens, hippogriffs, etc.
