Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, mediation 3 (and 5) - Introduction to Philosophy
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In this session from my 2011 Introduction to Philosophy class at Marist College, we continue our study of Descartes' Meditations, focusing specifically on Mediations 3 and 5, in which Descartes provides some rather interesting arguments for God's existence
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I have just started my philosophy degree, and I am currently tackling Descartes Meditations. These lectures are very useful. Cheers... Also, when you were asking questions to the apparently mute class, know that I was calling out answers at my laptop;-)
Glad the videos are useful. I'll be shooting a new sequence on the Meditations, Objections, and Descartes' Replies this Spring
You're welcome -- I'm glad the videos have been useful for you and your reading group.
If you find this particularly accessible, I've got quite a few others that you might find worth taking a look at, depending on what you're reading
My reading group is discussing the Meditations, and I have suggested this as I have found it the most useful on you tube. We are a group of middle aged people who read all kinds of stuff (i.e. non students) and this was very accessible. Thanks for posting.
I'm currently writing a paper on Descartes' ideas on why God exists and why I agree or disagree. I read Meditations 3 & 5 at LEAST four times each and I've just had so much trouble understanding it. Your video really helped me! Thank you so much for posting!
Yeah, there's quite a few profs out there who are excellent researchers but are not very interested in teaching. I know, because I was someone a bit like that myself at one time.
You're welcome -- glad the videos help. I really need to revisit the Descartes stuff later down the line and produce some more videos
Gregory, this video is great. Its helping me with my first year course at ANU in Australia. Come teach here! :) Thanks for putting this up.
Thank you for this video, I am writing an essay on Descartes' proof of God and the role that God performs in the larger system of his thought. This really helped and gave me a great start to my essay.
You're welcome. Glad it was useful for you
Thanks! Glad you like the videos and get something out of them.
Nice videos.. I'm currently discussing Descarte's meditations in my Hist of Modern Phil class. I like the way your structure your notes for the discussion.
Thanks!
You're very welcome. Glad it's useful. Spread the word!
Awesome, thank you for posting this!.
Glad you liked it -- we're going to be doing Descartes' Discourse on Method this coming semester in Intro
I'm glad to read that it was helpful -- the argument in Meditation 3 IS indeed quite difficult to follow, until the difference between the kinds of reality gets clear. So, don't feel bad about having trouble making sense of it -- but do feel good about wrapping your head around it
You're quite welcome
Good talk, much learned
my class is just as quiet, by the way your videos really help out alot, i have to write a paper over meditations 1,2 and 3 before the we have the lecture in the class. my professor wants to know we did the reading -___- ....GREAT VIDS
This has been very helpful thank you
+BJ San Antonio Glad to read it!
Yep, it's a bad habit, leaning on the chalkboard - but one I've found it very difficult to break!
Descartes would be willing to say that when a computer could be programmed not only to doubt but to do the other things we call thinking, it would be a mind.
Until we see some evidence of that, however, we probably ought not think that it's actually possible -- as opposed to being possible in the sense of being able to be imagined.
I'm glad you're finding it helpful -- as to teaching out there. . . if you can get an institution or group to invite me out there and foot the travel bill, I'd be happy to give a series of talks
The mat dark background and white chalk in contrast to a glossy white reflective board bombarded with neon lighting might be easier on the eyes considering they're staring at it for an entire lecture. I myself also enjoy the rhythmic ticking and scraping of the chalk against the board
That's quite a nice endorsement!
I really enjoyed your explanations! My professor is really dull, so it was a bit confusing trying to understand Descartes. Wish I was in your class!
+Ricardo Perez Galarza Well, if you'd like to be, I do teach online
Perhaps what you're commenting on here is Descartes' own notion of infinity? He actually doesn't have the mathematical conception of infinity in mind when talking about God -- Descartes distinguishes between a negative or privative conception of infinity (like saying that Pi never reaches an end in its sequence) and a positive conception of it, in his response to Gassendi's objections to the Meditations.
I can't say that I entirely understand him on that matter
@igotocentenary Thanks! Well, they're Freshmen, and have no background in Philosophy for the most part. The juniors in my Ethics classes tend to be a bit more talkative. Plus, I think they're reluctant to discuss anything having much to do with religion
Wow If only you were my professor! Awesome lecture!
Thanks! I am actually developing online classes for Oplerno at present, so in a matter of time, you could actually take a class with me
That would be awesome! I am already enrolled in plenty of philosophy courses, but thank you! I will take that into consideration.
Augustine: si fallor, si fallor sum. I did identify myself as a thinking substance when I read the Meditations in grade 10. I became a solipsist.Are the modes of thought( sense intuition, imagination, will ,intellect) properties of one mind for Descartes? an individual mind would be the transcendental unity of the transitory values of these properties? Could the cogitio in thinking upon itself be itself the thought that thinks? Ultimately, this referral to itself could then be the principle of identity, and simple? When A is A, A is perfect, simple, and one. Nothing greater could be thought.(Anslem)
Yes, that all makes sense. I can add that it is much more satisfying to write with chalk than dry-erase markers
Thanks for explaining the two different types of realities (according to Descartes). It has been confusing reading about them in the Med 3.
+Peter Martin You're welcome. Yes - that is a linchpin to his argument/account
Thanks for recording and posting! At around 36 minutes he casually states Descartes did not write in french because he did not believe his french to be that good but I am pretty sure that in the original latin version Descartes gives a different reason.
I don't have the exact quote but it is something like: because he did not want lesser intelects undertaking a task superior to them. We know he rarely tells the truth on matters like this and I personaly think he wrote it in Latin because it would please the Church a lot more than spreading to the general public the concept of doubting absolutely everything including God. But people that spoke Latin can be presumed to have been educated in christian metaphysics by the catholic church, to fear eternal damnation, etc., so his words would be less dangerous in their hands.
Well. . . you're thanking the same guy for posting as the one who you're saying you think got Descartes wrong on this matter.
He gives more than one reason, if I remember rightly, in more than one place -- though I haven't got the time right now to track these down. I think he wrote the Meditations, the Principles, the Regulae, etc. in Latin quite simply because that's what one generally did with learned work at that time.
He'd have just as much to worry about opponents who could read Latin as those who could read French, since he was advancing a different Christian metaphysics than that generally endorsed by various institutions within the Church
This is an interesting perspective. Thanks for this idea. I-ll be reading into this line of thought
Between point A and Point B, there is an infinate number of Halves. The number Pi. Infinite.
Good video, awesome lecture. Could you make any objection to those meditations? Especially with the cause-effect argument
Yes, I suppose I could make some objections. That sounds a lot like a decent topic for a tutorial session. Of course, Descartes actually solicited sets of objections to the Meditations, and responded to them, so you might take a look at those
Thank you
Gregory, Sir, could one not be programmed to question, to doubt as well? some sort of quantum computer programming of the future? what does that mean for Descartes' proof of the mind?
It would have to mean something like that -- whatever terminology you'd like to use
Would a circle be perfect and infinite?
What two?
In the good way, I hope
Thanks
It would certainly be perfect, as a circle -- if what you've got in mind is not any actually drawn, real circle, but the concept of it. And, it is infinite in a sense, in that you can go round and round.
But this is, for Descartes, a lower level of being or perfection than even that of the human mind (which, as he says, is imperfect in more ways than he can even enumerate) -- certainly not the sort of perfection or infinity (let alone an infinity of perfections!) characteristic of God, for D
You're a beast
Thanks for the upload. I'm writing a paper on Descartes and whether or not because Descartes has an idea of an evil Demon, this means the evil Demon exists or not.
That's an interesting topic to pursue - what's your view on that (I'll tell you mind afterwards)?
Good lecture. Don't really understand why your students aren't active in the discussion at all.
Nice lecture. I can't help but notice that the classroom sounds like it has a screen door : )
Thanks. Yes, it's one of the less well-equipped classrooms in Marist
Interesting food for thought. Did you know that many animals are capable of answering questions but not a single one has ever asked a question for the sake of obtaining knowledge? The only animal capable of doing this is man. Does that mean there are different thresholds of consciousness?
Hi, Dr. Sadler! Thank you so much for your videos, they have been extremely helpful and educational!
I am writing a paper over Descartes' Meditations and I had an idea that has been bugging me. So Descartes believes that a perfect and infinite God exists because the idea of an infinite and perfect God exists within him. Am I understanding that correctly? Does that mean that by using the same reasoning that Descartes' "evil genius" would also exist because he has the idea of a being with a seemingly infinite ability to deceive?
The proof is certainly not as simple as you're presenting it here - really what you're presenting is a different argument than what Descartes sets out. It's a significant portion of Meditation 3.
Thanks for the feedback!
You're welcome. Poor kids, though -- they underperformed admittedly, but they can't catch a break!
It seems like some of them are always ill
that's interesting -- why do students want a chalkboard? you're not the only one to express that sentiment
Legion also has similar themes.
You mean the show?
+Gregory B. Sadler Yes
Was that the same guy who was late in the video for Meditation 1? LOL!
Could be
You can dream scars.
Although your class seemed to be a little dull on the subject haha. Great Job though!
Seems to me that the idea of God can just come from inference based on observations and knowledge of various principles rather than being placed in my mind by God. Also there is revelation, people believe others who say they have had an experience of God.
+Peter Martin Yep, all that would work, if - in the text itself - Descartes hadn't already set all that aside in the earlier meditations.
+Gregory B. Sadler Isn't the concept of an all powerful, infinite monotheist god fairly recent? Before, the belief in many gods was more prevalent if my scanty knowledge of ancient history is half way accurate. If God put the idea of an one all powerful god into humans then he must have waited a while to do it.
Peter Martin Descartes doesn't say - again, before raising yet more questions, you need to study the actual text - that this idea is one that everyone is going to have simply pop into their minds. That's not how innate ideas work for him
Yes, I think I am conflating that principle with the evil genius idea.
I prefer chalkboards too.
Cough Cough Cough!!! can't take it anymore. Great lecture(s), worst possible students. I suppose it makes it easier for viewers to follow though, without constantly being sidetracked by questions.
Yes, even back in ancient Greek times, at least for many the philosophers, God or the gods were conceived of as something other than the sort of imaginary constructions based on sense-perceptions. Of course, the Jews saw that sort of thing as being idolatry, and made their own contribution to the notion of God as being transcendent to physical nature or things -- something that carries through into Christian and Muslim thought.
Sorry to hear about your prof's response, though -- not helpful!
Fuck me, that constant coughing....
+subasurf chill out
Thanks for the vid. Shame about your students though....