Answer the following questions on a separate document (Microsoft Word .docx), exploring how Descartes develops his ideas on the nature of the mind in the 2nd Meditation.
- According to Descartes, what is necessarily true each time it is expressed by me?
- What, according to Descartes, am I? What is the nature of the mind?
- Exactly what does the argument concluding at the end of the third paragraph of Meditation II prove? Does it prove that Descartes exists? Does it prove that I (the reader) exist? Does it prove to me that I exist? (Are these last two questions different?)
- How does Descartes go about imagining himself without a body? Can you really imagine yourself without a body? Can you conceive of having sensations — sights, sounds, smells, etc. — without a body? Could you be without being somewhere and some when?
- What does Descartes say is the nature of material bodies? (Is he right?)
- In the example of the wax, if the wax really changes all of its sensory qualities (i.e., the qualities that the senses can perceive), then what makes me think there is any one thing here at all? Does any collection of sensory qualities make up the sensations of an object?
- What important conclusion about the nature or character of the mind does Descartes draw from the example of the piece of wax?
Sample Solution
