#2
This statement is the first certain truth Descartes discovers after doubting everything else
What is “I am, I exist”
This is why Descartes believes the idea of God cannot come from his own mind.
What is finitude?
The faculty of choosing that is not as limited as the intellect.
What is free will?
In this meditation, Descartes uses this shape to demonstrate that certain truths are independent of his mind
What is a triangle?
Descartes’ term for interactions between the mind and body
What are sensations?
But how do I know that there is not something different from all those things I have just listed?
What is “doubt”?
This property of God makes the idea of God clearer and more certain than other ideas.
What is perfection?
When free will overcomes human intellect
What is human error?
In the fifth meditation, Descartes compares the existence of God to these geological feature
What are mountains and valleys?
According to Descartes, this famous statement proves the certainty of the mind's existence independent of the body.
What is “I think therefore I am”?
This is a true thing that truly exists.
What is one who thinks?
Descartes says that ideas cannot contain more perfection than their causes because something cannot come from this.
What is nothing?
The God-given faculty, that if used correctly will never lead one astray as God would never deceive man.
What is judgment?
Descartes mentions if he is ignorant to God, he finds himself doing this.
What is doubting the truth?
He uses this example to show the difference between imagination and intellection
What is the triangle and chiliagon example?
In the second meditation Descartes lists doubting, understanding, affirming, denying, willing, imagining, and sensing as all belonging to this single activity.
What is thinking?
The mind & body are this type of substance.
What is finite?
Descartes argues that falsity isn’t a real entity as it’s not caused by god, but it must instead be classified as this.
What is a privation?
Descartes argues that the existence of physical objects consists of this mathematical property, which includes size, shape, and position.
What is extension?
What example does Descartes argue that the mind and body are distinct substances? He notices that sensations like pain, hunger, and thirst are felt directly and not observed.
What is a pilot in a ship?
Using the wax example, Descartes ultimately shows that bodies are not known by the senses or imagination, but only by this mental act which proves the mind is more easily known than the body.
What is intellectual judgement?
Descartes claims that while he has many ideas, only one has infinite objective reality
What is the idea of God?
This describes the action of looking at the whole universe of things rather than a singular being in isolation.
What is the way we should look at the world around us?
In meditation 5, Descartes claims that you cannot have these ideas separated as a proof for God’s presence.
What is essence and existence?
The reason Descartes believes sensory experience cannot be fully false, even though it can be confused
What is the claim that “god is not a deceiver"?