History of Philosophy II Lecture Notes
Phil A212
William Jamison
Lecture 2 Notes:
Descartes, "Meditations on First Philosophy"
Descartes was primarily a mathematician. On the issue of the certainty of knowledge he took the side against the skeptics.
Rationalism is the result.
Biographical sketch: One of the most informative on line.
Focus for class discussion: He was a mathematician first. The interest in math will lead him to some very Platonic and Augustinian views even though his main teachers were Jesuits following Aquinas.
An issue for his day seems to be the question: “How do we know,” instead of metaphysics. We historically view the issue as Locke versus Descartes and British Empiricism versus Continental Rationalism. (What about Hobbes?)
The concern with a foundation for our knowledge is central to our historical concern with this issue: how can we be certain about anything? Current debates during Descartes’ day were led by skeptics (Gassendi, Mersenne). Descartes’ mathematical interests led him to argue that a method could be used to give a foundation of certainty to our knowledge. The Meditations lay out this process. Universal doubt leads us to the cogito, which seems undeniable. (Note this relationship to Augustine’s reply to the skeptics!) This leads us to an ontological argument for the existence of God. This leads us to have confidence in our clear and distinct ideas.
Did Descartes argue that emotion is feminine, and women are perhaps not rational (is this a mathematical association for him?) Some say he felt that women are mere bodies, that is machines. This seems contrary to Descartes and even the associations we know he had with very intelligent women (Queen Kristina) give the lie to this criticism of Descartes that may have been made to defame him.
His books were placed on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1663.
I wanted to discuss Anthony Damasio’s book Descartes’ Error but we did not. The issue here concerns the question of mind and brain relationship. Is there a difference? The brain is physical. We think of the mind as not physical. This seems to be Descartes’s perspective, but it is traditionally attributed to Plato who felt the soul had no parts, was immortal and associated with ideas. Today we use more sophisticated technology to argue the same view that Hobbes argued for against Descartes. That is what we will look at with Hobbes.
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