Descartes Overview

Last week we summarized Descartes' first meditations, and hopefully helped with discussion regarding dualism as well as proof of God's existence. While we spent a class period on Descartes' argument for God from the magnitude or reality of causes, we didn't really touch that much on Cartesian substance dualism. As Descartes was one of the most famous proponents of the position, I had hoped to spark some debate on this neglected metaphysical conception. We did get a nice discussion going for the proof of God, though, so I'm glad to see that we aren't simply "swallowing the medicine."

I think the major point of contention on this proof was probably a confusion or conflation of the term "reality." Several people simply did not seem convinced that something can be more or less real than something else, and certainly not that ideas are more real than physical objects. When we began talking about the quantity of reality that certain things had, and that if a thing has a minimum of some property, it has nothing and is nothing, I began to see the logic behind Descartes' argument more clearly. Not to say I would endorse it, but I can understand his reasoning, at least.

What about the conception of the infinite as a positive idea? We didn't really get to a satisfactory resolution of that issue, so I'm hoping people have done some thinking on it and can continue discussion. I still hold that, much like Lewis' moral argument, arguing that we do not meet the standard implies the existence of that standard. Beyond that, all I can say is that I seem to be directly aware of a positive conception of infinity, rather than a negation of finitude or a simple addition ad... well, ad infinitum.

Rather as a side note, for those interested in the idea of infinity, I would recommend researching the work of David Hilbert. He has some fascinating thought experiments on the nature of an actually infinite set, rather than a potential infinite. Here's a link to an overview of one of the more famous problems, Hilbert's Hotel.