Descartes Sixth Meditation Analysis

Most famously advocated by René Descartes, substance dualism is the view that minds, which are essentially thinking and consist of mental substance, and bodies, which are necessarily extended and made of material substance, are ontologically separate entities. The material and mental have entirely different natures, so a mind cannot be equivalent to a body. Human beings, therefore, must be mixtures of the two substances. Substance dualists assert that, despite lacking properties in common, mind and body connect through the capacity of each to causally affect the other (Kim 34). While this position may initially appear intuitive and commonsensical, Descartes and subsequent dualists have faced a multitude of challenges concerning mental causation.

By the way, of contrast to Heidegger, Sartre sees authenticity in connection the structure of human existence, a combination of facticity and freedom resulting in what he calls bad faith. Bad faith is when a conscious being denies their own freedom to choose from among an array of possibilities or denying an aspect of their own facticity, thus acting inauthentic. The two types of bad faith are, being-for-itself, and being-in-itself, both unavoidable, Sartre remarks, as the structure of human consciousness are a ubiquitous feature. For example, a murderer who refuses to acknowledge that they are a murderer, when his mother visits his holding cell and asks, with all sincerity, if he did murder people.

I am suggesting that his claim is a circular claim in as asking for verification for causality and instead that cause and effect is what the evidence are made up of. Causes are not literal but merely an explanation of the world, not to be confused with our

Ferdinand De Saussure’s notion that signs are arbitrary and their values are not intrinsic but instead constituted through difference is a claim that directly stems from his semiological view of linguistics. For Saussure language is a social fact. Saussure argues against the notion that the signifier and signified can be separated. He argues that there is a lack of definitive or intrinsic meaning from the sign itself therefore meaning is produced from the relationship between the signifier and signified, thus they cannot be separated. The value of symbols and images move past plain signification there must be a semiotic and reciprocal relationship between both components for meaning to be produced and recognized.

This quote from Stephen Law really encompasses the subject matter in the chapter “Into the Lair of the Relativist” in the book Philosophy Gym. He also talks about the matter of relativism and tries to answer the question, “Is there such a thing as an absolute truth?” In a quest to answer this question, the author explains interesting, boring, moral, and conceptual relativism, and how they differ. Stephen Law also goes into depth about relativists vs. those who oppose relativism, and how

The driving force behind Beyond Good and Evil is Nietzsche’s claim that if we fully come to understand the nature of our innate psychology, we will come to the realization that traditional philosophical methods are corrupt as well as the assumptions that they are founded on. Although Nietzsche does not present this claim in the form of a clear argument (with premises, supporting arguments, and a definite conclusion) I believe his main points can be derived from the preface and part one, particularly aphorism 23. The following are what I believe to be the main points that N makes in BGE and from which the claims in the following parts (2-9) stem from. However, it is important to first insert the caveat that the form in which I present N ‘s claim is one that he himself would object to.

The Other infiltrates our existence to the point at which we question ourselves about our very own Otherness ,escaping the self is impossible and in that sense we can never know the other and perceive their universe from their point of view. Othering is due less to the dissimilarity of the other than to the point of view of the person who perceives the Other as such. In this context, Otherness is defined as the unknown, as the opposite to oneself or as the outsider marked by outward signs like race and gender. As such, Otherness has also been associated with marginalized people, those who by their difference from the leading group, have been rejected, casted-away and robbed of their voice in the social, religious, and political world.

In “Divided Minds and the Nature of Persons,” Derek Parfit purposes that we as humans should separate what we consider identity and survival. Parfit’s strongest argument towards his claims is that there is no continual existence of the definite ego or personal identity. He supports some of his beliefs by contrasting Egos Theory to the Bundle Theory, a theory suggesting that our minds are a collection of none cohesive properties, related only by our consciousness and resemblance, with the studies of imaginary patients who may suffer from disorders known as split-brain cases. In this paper, I will argue that Derek Parfit’s validations for the support of the Bundle Theory should be questioned by their theoretical nature with no possible way to

However, the endorsed view of reality is not the actual reality. There is a cognitive dysfunction that exists that Mills warns against- blindness in place to maintain the oppressive

Incompatibilism is a philosophical thesis about how relevant determinism actually is to free will. It questions the truth of determinism rules out the existence of free will. An incompatibilist would believe that if determinism turned out to be true, then it must be true that we don’t have free will, and that we never had it to begin with. Soft Determinism is a view that holds that determinism and free will coexist in a person. This is also called Self-Determinism, which is when we are the causes of our actions, and that our actions

In The Puzzle of Experience, J. J. Valberg argues that, concerning the content of our visual experience, there is contention between the answer derived from reasoning and that found when 'open to experience '. The former leads to the conviction that a physical object can never be “the object of experience,” while with the latter “all we find is the world” (18). After first clarifying what is meant by 'object of experience ', the 'problematic reasoning ' will then be detailed. Afterwards, it will be explained how being 'open to experience ' opposes the reasoning, as well as why the resulting “puzzle” cannot be easily resolved. Lastly, a defence of Valberg 's argument will be offered on the grounds that it relevantly captures how we understand our visual

Therefore, premise iii. is flawed as you can not say that something is better if it exists, if existence is not a trait. I would agree with this, and I would put forward that existence as a concept is completely different from having a certain colour of hair, or personality trait. If one says something exists, they are not giving a trait to such object, but instead stating that it is a thing that has a place in the world. I would personally not say that if something exists that it is changed as to how it was before, whereas a trait such as colour changes the objects form. Referring back to Kant’s argument, he therefore suggests that if existence is not a trait (or existing in reality is better than not), then it is not possible to compare an existing God with a non existing God, because they are completely different concepts [Schonfeld 2000: 297].

In the First Meditation, René Descartes called upon all knowledge to be doubtful. It was a significant reflection on how reality and dreams are vague. By eliminating previous knowledge and theories, Descartes wiped out every conceivable mistake in finding new establishments of information. An indisputable outcome of questioning the senses induced the chance that God is in actuality a malevolent liar, a powerful being capable of manipulating the senses. In the Second Meditation while he contemplates the previous day, he discovered trouble in solving his questions and deemed his senses and memory conniving and faulty.