Keyboard Shortcuts?

×
  • →Next step
  • ←Previous step
  • ↓Skip this slide
  • ↑Previous slide
  • mShow slide thumbnails
  • nShow notes
  • hShow handout latex source
  • NShow talk notes latex source

Click here and press the right key for the next slide (or swipe left)

also ...

Press the left key to go backwards (or swipe right)

Press n to toggle whether notes are shown (or add '?notes' to the url before the #)

Press m or double tap to slide thumbnails (menu)

Press ? at any time to show the keyboard shortcuts

 

The Proper Purpose of Sensory Perceptions

\section{Key Quote from \emph{Meditations}}

‘I have been in the habit of misusing the order of nature. For‘the proper purpose of [...] sensory perceptions [...] is simply to inform the mind of what is beneficial or harmful [...];
and to this extent they are sufficiently clear and distinct.
But I misuse them by treating them as reliable touchstones for immediate judgements about the essential nature of the bodies located outside us;
yet this is an area where they provide only very obscure information.’

\citep[pp.~57-8]{descartes:1985_csm2}

Descartes, Meditation IV

What is the proper purpose of sensory perceptions? (Have a guess.)
What does this mean?
What is this?
What else is unclear in this passage? (Make sure you keep notes on everything that is unclear.)
p related passage [*TODO: move to handout]
‘My nature, then, in this limited sense, does indeed teach me to avoid what induces a feeling of pain and to seek out what induces feelings of pleasure, and so on. But it does not appear to teach us to draw any conclusions from these sensory perceptions about things located outside us without waiting until the intellect has examined the matter. For knowledge of the truth about such things seems to belong to the mind alone, not to the combination of mind and body’ \citep[p.~57]{descartes:1985_csm2}.

How can we acquire knowledge about the essential nature of the bodies located outside us?

Each body has a form, which is its essential nature.

When a body is perceived, its form thereby enters the mind.

When a body is perceived, your sensory perception resembles the body’s form.

Thanks to this resemblance, your sensory perception acquaints you with the forms (essential natures) of bodies.

Which of these claim’s does Descartes claim about the proper purpose of sensory perceptions justify us in rejecting?

How can we acquire knowledge about the essential nature of the bodies located outside us?

So here’s the question, as I keep saying.

Sensory perceptions provide only very obscure information about the essential nature of bodies.

∴ Not by treating sensory perceptions as a basis for judgements about them.

So far: Descartes view that Sensory perceptions provide only very obscure information about the essential nature of bodies
We still don’t know why anyone should think that sensory perceptions provide only very obscure information. Nor do we know whether Descartes is right about this.