Descartes' Skeptical Argument And Reponses By Bouwsma And Malcolm
.... of our world, and that the ability to think mathematically was an
innate ability of all human beings. This theory becomes important in Descartes'
Meditations because he is forced to explain where the mathematical ideas that he
believed we were born with came from. Having discussed Descartes' background, I
will now explain the specifics of his argument.
The basis of Descartes' entire argument is that the senses can not be
trusted, and his objective is to reach a point of certainty, one undeniable
truth that fixes our existence. He said it best in his own words, "I will . . .
apply myself earnestly and openly to the genera .....
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Hume
.... be a miraculous event because
such an experience has not yet been commonly observed. In which case, his
philosophical view of a miracle would be true.
Hume critiques and discredits the belief in a miracle merely because it goes
against the laws of nature. Hume defines the laws of nature to be what has
been “uniformly” observed by mankind, such as the laws of identity and gravity.
He views society as being far to liberal in what they consider to be a miracle.
He gives the reader four ideas to support his philosophy in defining a true
miracle, or the belief in a miracle. These points leads us to believe that
there has never bee .....
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Descartes' Meditation One
.... brains are impaired by such an unrelenting vapor of black
bile..” that they believe they are something other than what they are, would one
doubt reality, without an argument. The argument is as follows: If the
experience of a dream is indistinguishable between that dream and reality; and
there is no test to differentiate between dreaming and awakens, then one must
doubt the world outside their minds. This is so because even if one believes
they are awake and perceiving their surroundings soundly, they have no way of
knowing for certain that they are not, at that moment, dreaming. Still this
argument is not sufficient in Descartes .....
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Can One Perceive Or Confirm The Existence Of An Idea Or Object That Is External To Him Mainly - God?
.... or superior properties in one's
intellect. The mind generates ideas and develops reality through previous
schema or beliefs as Descartes states:
"And although an idea may give rise to another idea, this
regress cannot, nevertheless, be infinite;we must in the
end reach a first idea, the cause of which is, as it were,
the archetype in which all the reality that is found
objectively in these ideas is contained formally."
Additionally, properties such as color, sound, heat, and cold are too
complex in their nature for Descartes to determine whether they are true or
false. In .....
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Discussion Of The Feasibility Of Miracles And The Grounds For Christianity Existing Without Miracles
.... made from two hundred to three hundred years after the crucifixion,
collected from different accounts. And then there are the letters, which were
written approximately four hundred and fifty years after the fact. They were
written by St. Paul, who was also a soldier for the Roman army and killed
hundreds of Christians, who believed and followed God, without the scriptures
that Hume talks about. From this, if you take away the scriptures, God's church
carries on and if you take the people from the church, "God's church" still
survives. The scriptures do not make people believe, they help people
understand. For this Hume is .....
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Do We Have Souls?
.... the
selected philosophers material on this subject. Though it first must be said
that most of the read material is or seems to be question-begging and therefore
leads only to more questions from myself.
The question of having souls and their existence after the physical body is
deceased has always been on men's minds. From the first beginnings of written
history from the Ancient Near Eastern civilizations [Egyptians, Mesopotamian] ,
men [people] have always regarded the afterlife and the question of souls. It
was not given much philosophical thought until the ancient Greek sophists, in
the decline of their city-states th .....
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Transcendentalism And A Belief In A "Higher Power"
.... good, which outweighs the evil. Many
events, such as infant deaths, would not be classified in this category.
If such an all-knowing deity existed, it states, He would know that
this evil was occurring. If He was all-powerful, He would have the power to stop
this evil. If He was righteous, He would stop the evil from occurring
Therefore, the existence of evil cannot be compatible with the existence of this
type of God.
The primary response to the argument from evil is the appeal to human
freedom. This argument states that God sees evil as necessary so that we humans
may be free to choose our own path. The fatal flaw in thi .....
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Dreams: Their Analysis
.... The tree just stood by itself colored naked and bare for all
to witness. The birds of summer seemed to favor this unique looking tree by
gathering and sitting on its thin but strong branches. I laid under this tree
looking up towards the birds feeling happy. I heard myself laughing and
listening to these birds singing. Where after I walked towards a pond, a man
made pond of gray marble brick. An immense wall lining a narrow stairwell was
to its left. My mother was kneeling by the pond wading her hand just above the
water, touching it very delicately. This was her pond and her pond had the most
incredibly beautiful bright f .....
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Dualism
.... or "ghost in the machine" form of substance dualism
states that a person is a "ghost in a machine", the ghost being the mind or
spirit and the machine is the body. Within this description, the mind/spirit
controls the body and is in intimate contact with the brain. The brain would be
the nexus between the mind and body.
The popular form of substance dualism was adopted after the
difficulties of Cartesian dualism could not be overcome. Rene Descartes stated
that the nonphysical and the physical could not interact. this became a problem
in dualism since the nonphysical mind needed to interact with the physical body. .....
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Enlightenment: The Light Bulb Of The 1700's
.... he established that
salvation is within oneself and that individual faith in God is very important .
But the church did not see it that way. The church believed that the only way to
atone for your sins were through indulgences. Indulgences were paying for the
removal of your sins. Martin Luther was later excommunicated from the church.
Galileo also disagreed with certain things that the church believed in. Galileo
proved Aristotle's theory wrong about gravity. One night during dinner, Galileo
picked up two pieces of fruit of unequal size. He then dropped them and
established that they dropped at the same rate. The church ha .....
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Existentialist View Of Human Condition
.... go for a jog someone else is effected. For an example: a man goes to the
store and buys a stereo.
First of all the clerk the clerk is effected because they have to check you out,
so you have taken some of their time. The store is effected because they are
minus one radio from their store. The manufacturer now has to make one more to
replace the one that was bought from the store. The manufacturing employees are
effected because put the radio together, and so on. On the other hand a man who
chooses to steal that same stereo will effect even more people. If he get caught
the store, the manufacturer, the police, the c .....
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Existence Of Man
.... his actions during the day. Estelle had to look into the "mirror" of
men to confirm her identity. A man is the number one determining factor in
discovering who he is. Each individual must understand that he is responsible
for his own pain, misery, unhappiness, or for his own joy. Man is not a product
of what people have done or are now doing to us. Man has the power to become
whatever he wants to be; to feel as much love or anger or joy as we want to feel.
Another subsequent factor in determining our identity is the image, name, or
label given to us by society. In other words, what we believe other people
think of us. Most p .....
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