Chapter 17 Self-Quiz

. Among the rules of Descartes' method is the following:

Doubt only what you have clear and distinct, conclusive reason for doubting.

Multiply possibilities lest you miss a plausible alternative.

Accept only what an authoritative source reveals.

Make comprehensive reviews.

. In the Meditations, Descartes aims to

establish the irrelevance of God to modern physics.

show that the soul is identical with the body.

provide a firm foundation for knowledge.

prove that first philosophy is founded on a mistake.

. We ought to doubt our senses, Descartes says, because

they sometimes deceive us.

we don't understand God's purposes.

there exists an evil deceiver intent on leading us astray.

we are dreaming.

. On the representational theory,

we have direct and immediate access to the world around us, as it is represented by our ideas.

what we know best are the ideas in our minds.

we can tell which ideas represent things correctly by observing their causal conditions.

things serve as representations of our ideas.

. The result of Descartes' methodical doubt is that

he knows nothing.

he knows that he is a rational animal.

he doubts his own existence.

he finds something that can indicate a criterion for knowledge.

. What Descartes calls the "light of nature"

certifies something as true because it is lighted up as so clear and distinct it cannot be doubted.

is the same as what is "taught by nature."

is known innately as revealed to us by God.

cannot be relied on unless it is backed up by extensive argument, going back to simples and moving in small steps to complexes.

. Innate ideas, according to Descartes, are

what every infant already possesses by inheritance.

what everyone comes to have by virtue of common human experience.

ideas composed by us out of other ideas.

ideas I would have even if nothing but I existed.

. Descartes' first argument for God's existence, in Meditation III,

is a causal argument.

moves directly from the idea of God to God's existence.

relies on the principle that everything must originally have come from nothing.

makes use of the idea that there must be an infinite regress to guarantee infinite perfection.

. Why, after proving God's existence, does human error become a problem for Descartes?

Because we might have made a mistake in the proof.

Because we know our senses sometimes deceive us.

Because we know God is perfect and wouldn't deceive us.

Because it's always a problem to discriminate error from the truth.

. The essence of material things, according to Descartes, is

extendedness.

externality to the mind.

existence.

solidity.

. Descartes argues that material things exist by

pointing out that not only can we see them, but we can touch them as well.

relying on the fact that our senses do not always deceive us.

showing that even if the evil demon deceives us, it still seems to us as though they do exist.

claiming that if they did not exist, God would be a deceiver.

. Descartes thinks it is important to prove the existence of God because

otherwise many people would not believe.

you should not trust the Scriptures to tell you the truth.

otherwise you couldn't be sure of anything but your own existence.

it is an essential bulwark for a pious life.

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