Study Questions for Descartes, Meditation Six

1) How does Descartes distinguish between imagination and understanding? (Pp.92-93)

2) Why does he think that his power of imagination is not part of his ‘essence’? (P.93)

3) How does this lead him to the “probable conjecture” that he has a body? (P.93)

4) On pp.94-95 Descartes describes the way he used to think about his body and his senses. Note that the account he gives is an empiricist one: “I easily convinced myself that I had absolutely no idea in the intellect that I did not have beforehand in the sense faculty.” Then on page 95 he begins to explain why he gave up this way of thinking. He gives a much fuller explanation here than he did earlier of the way his senses can be misleading. He then describes “two quite general” causes for doubt. What are they? Are they the same ones we encountered in Meditation One?

5) On p. 96 (in the middle) Descartes concludes, “it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it.” Try to outline the argument (reasoning) that gets him to this conclusion. Can you think of any objections to this reasoning?

6) On p. 97 (middle of the page) he concludes, “consequently corporeal things exist.” Again try to understand and evaluate his reasoning.

7) Descartes says (top of p.98) that he is not “present to my body in the way that a sailor is present in a ship.” Why not? What does he think is the relation between his mind and his body?

8) What does Descartes think is the proper use of sensory perception? P.99)

9) On pp.99-100 he sets out a problem (similar to the problem that troubled him in Meditation Four) “how the goodness of God does not prevent ‘nature’, thus considered, from being deceptive.” (bottom of p.100) What is “nature, thus considered”? How is it deceptive? How does Descartes then (pp.101-102) try to show that this sort of deception is compatible with the goodness of God?

10) There is a further argument for the distinctness of mind and body (based on ‘divisible’ body vs. ‘indivisible’ mind) at 86 (top of p.101). What do you think of this one?

11) How does Descartes think it possible to tell the difference between being awake and dreaming? (P.103) Is his reasoning here consistent with what he said back in Meditation One when he used the possibility of dreaming as a reason to doubt?

12) Now that you have reached the end of the book, what do you think of it? What, if anything, do you think Descartes has accomplished?