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Today we began preparing for the final exam. I presented the first final exam question on Descartes’ second meditation and we read through much of this meditation. Here is the first possible final exam questions: Possible Final Exam Question 1. What does Descartes try to prove with his example involving the piece of wax? Does he succeed? Why or why not? Defend your view. We spent some time reading the first part of Meditation 2 because it is important for understanding the rest of the meditation, it is important in the history of philosophy, and we will return to this argument later in the course when we examine free will and determinism. Descartes famously argues that whenever he thinks about the possibility that he might be deceived about his existence it must be the case that he exists. This is true because in order to think about such deception he must think and thinking is an action performed by something that exists. Therefore, whenever he thinks, he is. I noted that a curious feature of this argument is that the statement is not made necessarily true by its content but by the circumstances of its utterance. The statement “Descartes exists” is not only not necessarily true but it is not even true. It is false. However, when the sentence that expresses this proposition is uttered by Descartes substituting “I” for “Descartes” it is necessarily true. The reason is because the sentence is self-referential. It refers to itself when spoken by Descartes or anyone else for that matter.
Approximate Word count = 973
Approximate Pages = 3.9
(250 words per page double spaced)
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