Rustle in the Bush

I’m going to recopy my notes down here from bthe first frw Meditations beacuse teh goal in calss next i responses to Meditation 6

The text I’m reading/working from is The Philosophical Writings Volume II Translated by John Cottingham 1988 Cambridge. It’s Orange.

Starting with “Dedicatory Letter to the Sorbonne” :

God and Soul deserve and can be argued for demonstrably. (Mind is distinct from body)

Moving onto “Preface to the Reader” :

I didn’t take any notes, but check the post going to be titled the same as the preface to see the comments, it involves a synopsis so I will read it before i go back into the 6th Meditation

Proper Descartes Introduction:

Quad vitae sectabar iter (Which path in life should I take?) – Ausonius

Doubt is not universally applicable (For example, God or soul), but appears as a heuristics in this method. It is no doubt for doubt’s sake like Pyhrro. Phyrronians doubt to avoid gaining knowledge. Descartes is doubting as a part of his foundational methodology, by trying to erect truth from the most basic principles (So, an analytic/geometric method continued and developed in Spinoza).

Descartes’s Aim is not to find the truths of science in themselves per se, but to dispel errors that occur in our natural thinking. Kant does this, but Descartes will not concede to the Copernican point of view, i.e. how categories of human cognition are the conditions of experience itself.

They are the foundations of the possibility of knowledge and not axiomatic principles (Like the way the cogito is not really an argument but is simply demonstrated from the nature of thinking itself). Descartes also wants science to be able to interpret mechanically, so as to not interfere with God’s teleology.