Description
Read the following pages:
Epistemology Intro: p. 311-314
Descartes: p. 322-332
Hume: p. 333-341
Answer the following questions:
Descartes: p. 324 Q 1-7, p. 333 Q 3,4
Hume: p. 335 Q 1-4, p. 341 Q2
PLEASE answer all the questions below.
one page one unit
unit1
1. What was Descartess goal, and what method did he employ to get there?
2. Many of our beliefs are based on sensations. Descartes offered two arguments, thearguments from deception and dreaming, to show that beliefs based on sensations are nottrustworthy. State these arguments in your own words.
3. Some of our beliefs for example, that two plus three equals five are based onreasoning, not sensations. Descartes argues that even arithmetic calculations can bedoubted. What is his arguments?
4. Descartes ended the first Meditation with the famous malicious or evil demon argument.What is the point of this argument?
5. Descartes concluded that the statement I am, I exist must be true whenever he thoughtit. Why? What reasons support this conclusion?
6. The next step in Descartess argument is to reach the conclusion that he is a thinkingthing. How did he reach that conclusion? Why did he not conclude instead that he was aphysical thing?
7. In the final paragraph of Meditation II, Descartes listed several things he had learnedfrom his consideration of a piece of wax. What are they, and how did he arrive at theseconclusions?
Reading questions (Hume: p. 333-341 ):
unit2
1. Into what two categories can the perception of the mind be divided, and how are theydistinguished from one another? Give an example of each.
2. According to Hume, all reasoning concerning matters of fact is founded on the relation ofcause and effect. This relation, Hume argued, is not discoverable by reason, only byexperience. Summarize the argument Hume used to support this claim.
3. Why can we not prove the principle the future will resemble the past deductively(Humes term was by demonstrative reasoning)?
4. Why can we not prove this principle inductively (by moral reasoning)?
5. In answer to the question what is the foundation of all conclusions from experience?Hume challenges the reader to supply the foundation for the inference from the fact that Ihave found objects (like bread) to produce certain effects (like nourishment) in the past tothe conclusion that the same will occur in the future. Can you supply the basis for theconnection or inference between these two statements? If so, what is it?
