I have been dealing with existentional crisis for years and now I am finally getting to Descartes and his work. Needless to say it's only gotten worse.
Why? The guy first can’t tell from dream and reality, next think the mind is separate from his body, now he think ideas are more real then objects in reality . The guy was clearly a god loving leaning magician trying to convince the public that god exists. Not to say he wasn’t smart. My point is you exist , your body exists, life is both brutal and beautiful. Take care of yourself and strive to find your own happiness.
@MugenTJ I Would argue that it is not that he couldn’t tell the difference between dream vs reality, but that he understood it differently and realized the mind is more complex than previously realized. The law of vibration (attraction) would explain that part. When you get into a deep meditation your brain waves slow and change and you actually feel a separation of your mind and body. Your body may exist but your mind is separate from your body. Descartes also talks about a thought. A thought is a vibration and vibration is energy/ or a form of. Therefore, a thought cannot be created nor destroyed. So where does it come from?
As a Christian i have a suggestion so what do you think of the arguments that at the very least you had to have Abrahamic presuppositions to start recording things scientificly
I'm a first year philosophy student in France and one of my teachers is among the most eminent Descartes experts there is. While his classes were really great, these videos and especially this one since my exam turned out to be about the third meditation really made everything clear to me. Today I was eventually told I got the best possible grade and I couldn't be happier. Mr Kaplan, thank you!
There's a reason that virtually no Christian or Muslim apologists use the Cartesian cosmological argument. It's frankly unconvincing (and likely full of informal fallacies), even to believers. It's interesting to me because I think a lot of the people really understand what he was doing with doubting everything and especially resonate with the cogito. But, then you get to meditation 3 and it really goes off the rails. Nevertheless, great summary by Kaplan here.
Well said. Descartes assumptions are wrong. His methods are flawed and his conclusions are nonsensical. My attempt to boil it down: “I have an idea of God, therefore God exists”
Agreed. Understanding the cogito was a personal and intimate discovery of That Which Is - the only thing we can have certain knowledge of ( I came to the understanding by doubting everything and then attempting to doubt that i doubt, and that did it - something was doubting and even before that something doubted, that something was already there existing). Not sure why he thought this was a better proof or even necessary after the cogito. Was he trying to give proof to the existence of a sky daddy? He seemed smarter than that.
the reason why is because descartes didn’t actually follow his method (which becomes clear in the third meditation); he says so explicitly in his discourse on method and in the introduction to the meditations. he says he is writing in response to the pope’s call for christian philosophers to prove the validity of christian beliefs. it’s very poorly written because descartes worked backwards: he predetermined his conclusion and then figured out the steps necessary to get there. he also refuses to engage with objections to the existence of god because he says objections are only worth his time if they have an equal chance of being true. since (as he claims) a benevolent god is the only way of knowing things with certainty, he concluded that any argument without god inherently had less chance of being true, and thus didn’t publish written responses to any of them. he also admits that there a bunch of unstated premises. once you read all his other works about the meditations you realize why it seems like such a bad argumrnt
There is absolutely no reason to waste so much time to prove that an entity that created and sustains the universe WITH ALL THE EVIL in it exists. It is obvious there certainly is a creator. Far more important is to realize that this CRUEL ENTITY doesn't deserve any respect, let alone prayers and subordintion to the rules The Cruel Brute is supposed to have revealed to some preferred idiots, who didn't have the guts to question The Brute about all the Evil. Existence of God doesn't mean The Brute deserves respect and/or following. The rules of god just like the Laws of Nature are all human inventions. Neither god nor nature has printed any law anywhere, but humans who formulated them claim them to come from a higher entity (God/Nature) to gain authority for their own inventions.
You're the only reason why I understand Descartes' third meditation. You make it so much easier to understand and you're entertaining as well. Thank you!!
Since I was like 8 years old, I used to watch my country’s university channel with lectures about philosophy for hours. At my 38 years old, I just went back to college and added Philosophy as my second major. Your lessons are my breakfasts. 👽♥️♥️♥️
Your a damn good teacher, you just explained the substance vs modes distinction in like 5 minutes when it has taken me ages to figure it out. I love the set up of these video, and the dark background really keeps me engaged. Keep doing what you're doing, this is amazing and fascinating to watch, I am so glad I came across your videos!
You remind me of an Art history teacher I once had in high school. I still remember a lot of art history while I forgot almost all my general history. She was so passionate and understood exactly what we needed to understand and learn from it. She learned us to recognise a painting, building or sculpture without ever seeing it before. She didn’t want us to memorise every painting, she wanted us to be able to tell who painted a less famous piece of the artist and why we think it’s that artist who painted it. It she gave a lot of paintings and she wanted us to say what time period and art movement it belonged to and why we think that. We usually had a test with a bunch of paintings, buildings and sculptures and we had to say: -the time it was painted. (always within 50 years for example: 1400-1450 between those years it was painted. or the exact date then you get an extra bonus point.😅) - the location it was made - the art movement it belonged to. -The artist - then we had to explain how we came to that conclusion. How do you know this painting is made by this artist? What are the aspects in the painting are tipical for it’s art movement? She was the best teacher ever I loved all her classes.
I am 45 years old and UA-cam thought I wanted to watch this series. Lecture 1&2 were awesome. I waffled on this lecture(three) right up until you said you didn't agree with the proof. This made me recall that I don't have to agree with something to understand it and those who hold the view. I appreciate your energy. Stay AWESOME! UA-cam was correct.
"19:46 take control of your life. you know." Hahaha. Thanks, a lot Prof. I love your content. I knew I had a gap in knowledge for not learning philosophy. And I'm glad you've made its importance apparent. It's a giant chasm of Knowledge. Thanks, a lot Professor.
Thanks Jeffery! I am somewhat embarrassed to admit I never understood what Philosophy was about. If I had, I would not have been surprised that people 100's and sometime 1000's of years ago were asking the same existential questions we all ask today and probably always will . My life would have been richer and more meaningful if I had taken the time to learn from the intellectuals of our past. I appreciate you clarifying their insights. :-)
I don't know why but I could understand the third meditation by watching your video much better and more clearly than by reading its translation and explanations in French or my language. Thank you very much. From Tokyo.
As someone who understands these things in Aristotelian terms, this lecture was like learning a whole different language where most of the words have opposite meanings to your native language. woooooo dawgie, that was hard!
This series on the meditations is my first real dive into philosophy lessons and you make understanding seem achievable thank you. Also the moments of pause and rumination (challenging us to answer a question) I really like that engagement well done.
To me rather than proving the existence of God, it proves the existence of reality itself outside of the individual mind. Or the way I understood it, was basically "I myself am not capable of creating the objects of my ideas, so there must be something outside of myself that creates the object of the idea.
Which is why I do not believe Descartes to be truly authentic in this experiment that he tried. If I recall, he referenced God as if it did exist once or twice prior to this meditation, which reveals a rather significant bias and "culturing" of his mind, which is why I find it somewhat unsurprising his second focus after validating his own existence was validating that of his God with capital G.@@AVeryHappyFish
I have just started with philosophy but many of the concepts are there in our culture (INDIA)so it's easy to relate to, The black background is good thankyou.
It might be beneficial to work through an objective/formal reality analysis of an object of fantasy-or the idea of that object of fantasy-to put a bow on Decartes meditations. For example, a unicorn 🦄, or a sentient robot. I really appreciate your content, professor. I studied philosophy in college and this presentation on Descartes was wonderfully satisfying to revisit and refresh. Thank you for sharing. 🙂
Thanks very much for this! I'm not formally studying it but I've been getting into philosophy recently, and read through Descartes' Meditations earlier but didn't understand things anywhere near as well as after watching some of your lectures.
He was a mathematician and these levels feel to me like they were dimensions rather than scales. Like, a square cant possibly know a cube exists, unless the cube somehow informs the square. Not that the proof holds up, but makes it more understandable where his head was at.
Really glad you added the qualifier at the end about premises 2 and 3 of the proof not quite holding water. That's one of the places I was like, wait, that's not a "given." Point 10 also seems to be begging the question. In any case, really enjoying your lectures, thank you!
Yes, not to mention the shady move to make a category of infinite substances just to have a higher substance is tissue paper thin, let alone just deciding God falls into that category. Thoroughly unsatisfying.
The label of such a thing as "God" also reveals what I would consider to be a theistic (or deistic) bias when he entered this framework. It is convenient, given the outcome of like thinkers during his time period, that one of his first deductions of reality is a very familiar God right after he affirms himself to exist. @@beatrixwickson8477
Absolutely Excellent! Yes, I had to rewind, so to speak, twice in Meditation #3. And yes, now I get it. I admit, for the same reasons you voiced, I don't agree with the findings, buy I understand now the process. Thank you so very much!
I've been through a great many of your videos, and find them eminently enjoyable. I have a VERY high tolerance for weird -- my undergrad was Physics, and this was positively commonplace compared to things like General Relativity or the Statistical Proof of Entropic expansion. This didn't feel at ALL weird; what it felt was ad hoc. Despite the different language, it seems methodologically almost an exact recapitulation of Ancient Greek Ontological arguments... all of which only work if you add in a Proposition Zero involving a TON of divine attributes that are nowhere defended. It's not Descartes' fault that his context made God so very axiomatic that defining him into existence felt inevitable. He was a great mathematician, and they frequently fall prey to thinking they can define brute facts into existence.
Yeah these are always quite funny proofs. Proposition 0: I'm correct about whatever I say Statement: I say God exists Outcome: God exists Atheists BTFO'd. I mean this one is that but just in more words, he boils it down to "I know I think, and anything I can think of must exist or my thought of it wouldn't exist, and I'm thinking of God" which feels quite circular.
I love the way you explain things. The proof did not work for me, yes, but I liked how ppl are able to think in such directed (determined) manner about something, and more so, of what is so impressive is how you teach it so damn well. You are a very impressive teacher.
To me it sounds like Decartes just makes up a concept that explains why God exists but explaining why that concept in itself (Maximum Reality) is a thing at all, is equally difficult to prove. I don't really understand why should I accept that there are 3 degrees as a given, instead of only 2.
Or an infinite, or why there is a separation or validity to the idea of a formal reality, or a distinction between the two realities, or that abstraction justifies the consideration of the divine to begin with, or why he thinks and therefore is and not is, therefore he thinks, etc.
If Plato, Locke and Kant walked into a bar…….they'd ask the bartender to switch the TV channel to this. You’re a gifted thinker and teacher. Thank you.
It is circular logic based on biased assumptions, The first being that God is the only maximum or that there is a maximum at all. The second assumption is that the mind, in its purest form, is only medium. This next statement will sound weird, but it is true. You know things that you don't actively know that you know. Your mind is constantly working on things in your subconscious that you are not actively aware of and you do not know how much it can really do, since it is subconscious. I have a personal example of this. It's a minor thing, but it shows the principle. I was young and I was reading a book. I came across the word twit for the first time and I thought to myself "What is a twit?" I immediately had a strong and clear thought "It's a condensed version of the word nitwit." I know for a fact I hadn't thought about it before. I hadn't had time to think it through before I knew the answer. The thought that came to me was so loud and clear I looked around to see if someone was in the room and maybe I had asked the question out loud, but I was alone. My subconscious had been working on it faster than I could even think the question. There is no way to say how limited a pure mind would actually be. If all that exists is one pure mind, and it came up with the idea of everything that "exists" through imagination, then it would have to be far more powerful than we/it thinks it is. The third assumption is that the min/med/max is a valid way to divide everything. If all that exists is the one pure mind, then everything falls into the minimum category by default, because it is all thought, and the only other category is that of the mind that is thinking it all.
An admirable series of lectures. Makes me think I would have got a better pass if we'd had the internet when I was an undergraduate. Is there any chance you could publish a list of your seminars in chronological order, please?
I love this. Although it's kind of hillarious how little faith you have in us actually understanding during that quiz. 24:31- the face of a teacher desperately trying to explain string theory to a bored teenager with a gun XD Edit: also, on the 1,5 speed you get increasingly crazed towards the end of the video. All you need is a bunch of connected photos and newspaper clippings on that board. This is fun :D
@@Cuthbo Hey. Sorry to be answering so late, I had to go and watch the video again before and I was just too lazy:) It's all a string of assumptions: 1) Descartes assumes that different things in the world have different levels or reality. 2) THEN he assumes that HE has lower reality than GOD - because he is finate, and God is not. Yet he can still hold the idea of God (something that is more real than him) in his finate mind. 3) He assumes that it's impossible for his finate, less real mind to CREATE an idea of an infinite, more real thing like God - THREFORE the idea was created by something else. But what is it? 4) He assumes that an idea of an infinite thing can only be created by something that is also infine (that's why HE couldn't create it - he is not infinte) and also is "more real." *So. You need an infinite being for the idea of God to exist. The idea of God DOES exist, we know that. Therefore an infinite being also has to exist. There is only one infinite being that could possibly exist (Descartes thinks) and that's God.* *THREFORE God has to exist.* That's the annoying thing about philosophy - you create your own rules, then claim to have discovered secrets of the universe based on YOUR OWN RULES. It's an imagination game for adults. I'm not saying God doesn't exist, mind you - I'm just saying this proof (and most philosophy) doesn't work. Change any of those assumtions and it all falls apart like a house of cards it is.
@@olap. Our whole life, everything about is based on assumptions or made up definitions, not just philosophy. You cannot tell me a single thing to be real or true, that doesn't need an unprovable assumption or artificially made up definition. Philosophy isn't "better" or "worse" than anything else in this regard, it's just it is trying to create systems from the very ground up, and doesn't already assume a familiar, accepted system of thinking it has to work within. Natural sciences for example are already working in the framework of an established, familiar, currently widely accepted system of method and thinking, but even its usefulness wholy depend on what we define as "useful". And its "truthness" cannot be proven at all, even Descartes can easily shake down the foundations of the ability of natural sciences proving anything to be "true" or "right" immediately in his very first meditation.
@@bleekcer All of that is true in a college graduation paper, sure. But biology doesn't need four random assumptions to know that people give birth after nine months of pregancy. And no amount of assuming will make it three weeks of pregnancy, or people being born from a rogue lightsaber under the watchful eye of Yoda nurses. A skilled philosopher could definitely prove that they are, though. (Not that it would save any mothers or newborns - unlike the non-truthful, non-useful things that medicine and biology discover). Philosophy is a game. It's an imaginative logic game, and I would hold it in much higher regard had it not been for the ridiculous arrogance of people that think they gained magical powers of "easily shaking down" the universe as we know it - while the rest of us watch in awe, of course - because they understood Descartes that one time.
@@olap. So that's what you think about philosophers or those who are interested in philosophy, a bunch of magic believers. I would rate that simply as prejudice. Where did you see that ridiculous arrogance you are talking about?
I understood this pretty well, but it seems like Descartes is just saying "I am a flooble thinking about a glarble, but glarbles are more priffy than floobles. Since a being can't imagine something more priffy than itself, glarbles must actually exist for a flooble like me to be thinking about it." I pretty much agree with what you said at the end. All his definitions are arbitrary, he just made up formal and objective reality based on no more than vibes (or took it from philosophers who did similarly).
The apostle Paul explains this in Romans 1:19-20 "...that which is known about God is evident within them (human beings); for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse." God possesses maximum formal and objective reality.
Why must Descartes God be the ONLY infinite substance? Why couldn’t a human have created the idea of god? Also, just because there is an idea of god why does that mean it must exist somewhere? I can create an idea of an all perfect all powerful unicorn but that doesn’t make it exist. In a phl101 class, really enjoyed your videos on Descartes!
Because the formal idea of the Moon is above your objective ideea. You already thinking of the Moon or the universe for that matter because is already there... it was discovered
Well, it seems problematic for someone who is finite to come up with the idea of something infinite, or the concept of infinity itself. How something finite can create the idea of infinity? It seems like you have to either be in some sence infinite yourself, othervise this idea was put in your mind by something/someone else that is infinite.
@@Cghost-fh4hf But why does it seem problematic? It would be so, if our idea of infinity would have been infinite itself, but we have mechanisms to have ideas of infinite things without imagining infinity itself. E.g., in mathematics we have many concepts of infinity, for example, cardinality of the set of all natural numbers is not a finite number. And we have a way to describe set of all natural numbers within not more than 20 axioms (Wikipedia says there is 9 axioms?), each axiom is finite, and there are finite number of finite axioms, yet they define infinite set with infinite quantity of numbers. Also, the infinite set itself is such a thing that goes against premise "God is the only thing that has infinite formal reality" (at least that's from my perspective, although I don't see much counterarguments).
Well said. Descartes makes so many mistakes and assumptions that he isn’t taken seriously. Every response to your comment so far is riddled with claims, flaws and assumptions as well.
You are awesome! I love philosophy but I get bogged down reading those pillars of thought. You condense it down for me to enjoy the thinking part. Your method is so cool. Keep going !
I need to get this out. At this point, my opinion of Descartes went from "hm, alright. That's a good basis. Very intelligent, curious to where this goes." to "oh come on ... this was so promising, and then he went running head first into circular logic? Disappointing." I'll watch the rest when I have more time and can look past that he's flipping everything upside down and starts with a supposition, and does pages of mental gymnastics to prove that supposition.
Jeffrey, in your blurb that accompanies the video out left out a 'not': You said "Descartes does himself has enough formal reality to be the source of his own idea of God" but I think you must have meant to say "Descartes does NOT himself has enough formal reality to be the source of his own idea of God",
Descartes was a convoluted sel-fulfilling argument. Being Catholic really made it difficult for him. Moon is no different than a cat. Both are ideas. His definitions of “infinite substances” or “perfect” are poorly structured
I agree.. God having max formal reality and the "idea of God" having max objective reality.. either way, the idea of God was created by men who has "medium" formal reality.. 🤔😂
I describe it as such: -we have a concept for everything -some of these concepts refer to real objects other do not “Objective” and “formal” are just worse ways of trying to explain it.
Summary -In Meditation 1, the method of doubt considers that if you can doubt something it might not be true/real. -The things Descartes know for surten, that he exists cause his mind exists and that God exists. -Ideas are about something else but most of things aren't, what means that most of things don't have an object. Only ideas have objects. - Some things are more real than others - God is the only infinite substance - God is not an idea, a mode,and he is now about anything else - Everything have a cause
If we're summarizing the video and this list is chronological in its premises, then you would have to move the last premise listed after the second premise.
16:40 I figured the answer was "medium" here, but it got me thinking. Wouldn't every physical object be considered a "mode" in this instance, while the actual substance is each individual atom? the mode of the marker is its "marker-ness", which is dependent on this specific arrangement of atoms, no?
Great lectures many thanks. Small remark, "green" can be a mode but also a finite substance as an ideal type. I guess it is about how Descartes saw it.
I think it kinda checks out but I think the real kink in this argument is the assumption that a human mind is capable of containing an idea of the infinite. If in fact we had a real idea of the infinite then yes it would have to come from something infinite but I dont think a human can truly grasp even the concept of infinity. We can create the circumstance for it verbally but not truly comprehend it.
I think it is more attackable at the stage where he defined formal and objective realities, as both aren't very rigorously argued for in his works and are merely presented. Infinity requires very strict definitions for it to be usable in an argument, as there are... different modes (not related to Descartes context) used mathematically, also used philosophically (of which I scrutinize more). Someone may use the word "infinite" to refer to something "all encompassing," whereas another may define it as "a series of numbers that cannot be summed," and others elsewise - the validity of each case depends upon what aspects of nature and thought are used to define it. There is one thing you say: "We can create the circumstance for it verbally but not truly comprehend it." that I would be careful with, as this defines a vast, vast majority of what we as a species engage with philosophically and practically in every other domain of our lives.
If formal reality can't produce something of greater objective reality, it can't necessarily work the other way either or God who has no objective reality could be produced by man. We also have several false ideas of God that are clearly human creations.
I think the problem is the premise that ideas are a mode of the object they point to - rather than a mode of the mind that holds them. that is to say, Descartes is mistaken into believing that the cause of an idea is the object it points to, rather than the mind that creates the idea. After all, this falls apart when we imagine something that certainly does not exist.
Well, imagination is still dependent on reality to great extend. A unicorn is combining a horse with a horn. I bet you can’t think of a thing not based on anything in reality. However Descartes was a mathematician that believed more in Christian doctrines than applying scientific method and logic. He essentially engaged in circular reasoning among other logical fallacies.
@@MugenTJ What if I can imagine something not based in anything from reality? it would then be impossible to describe to you, as you would have no basis to also imagine it.
@@s.t.-1094 well that sounds a lot like a friend of mine when he talked about taking d.r.u.g. He said he can’t describe it. But notice, if you can think of a thing, but can’t describe it that’s different from a thing that has no bearing on anything real. I’m sure the mind is capable of many things . People do go insane , essentially losing control of there mind, but that’s only because their brain is not functioning correctly. The point is: if your brain is working properly, it it meant to help you build a representation of your experiences and adding in some creativity to solve complex problems. So if you can honestly, consciously think of a thing yet can’t communicate, can’t draw, can’t express in any form , and has no bearing on reality, in part or in sum, then you can do something that I certainly can’t! Mind you I have a pretty crazy imagination and dream weird stuffs every night. When I examine my mental events carefully I can identify the parts in connection to reality. Example is: sometimes as I sit there doing something mundane, safe and leisure, my mind has a sensation of being rushed to do it faster, and I feel slight sense of fear. Yet my body continues to perform the task at ease. This experience is the closest i have to a mind/body separation. I was fully aware of each feeling, which had basis in previous experience of fear or being rushed. It not something my mind invented.
First off I want to say I am thoroughly enjoying and learning a lot from these lectures - I am simply here to feed my own knowledge, not for any formal reasons and I really appreciate your teaching style. However, this particular one has made me kind of sad. I have always though of Descartes to be really on the ball with so many ideas (not that i've known this level of detail about his ideas before). But something in this meditation really brought me down .... It was point 3 of the proof: "Level of formal reality of cause >= level of objective reality of effect". .... I simply can't accept this .... and by not accepting it, it makes everything Descartes subsequently bases on it mean nothing to me ... that's why i'm sad ... why can't i accept it? - it just doesnt seem right ... its essentially saying "there is no way i can originate an idea about God because God is something I can't even imagine ... " how can i accept this? ... it reduces this whole proof to "God must exist because God is something I can't even imagine but I just did" ... to me .. someone came up with the idea of God ... and part of that idea was "its impossible to have an idea of God" ... its circular ... and that upsets me because I really want to believe in Descartes ....
its been a while since ive read this but i remember being frustrated with this too. hes so diligent in the beginning about doubt and then just forces the god conclusion
...then Descartes finally grasps the full idea of god in all it's perfection, but then thought of even more perfect 'god creating pixies' (they spit out new gods in all their glory, like jellybeans), then Descartes starts over from the 1st meditation. I guess the point is to learn what Descartes believed.
🏆 Good job. Got you thinking. But you might be falling into the same trap: ... and that upsets me because I really want to believe in Descartes .... and Descartes really wanted to believe in god...
descartes falls off extremely hard but never forget how profound his cogito is, even if it turns out to be false, its the closest that humanity has ever come to concretely proving something, even if everything he goes on to say is a bit iffy to say the least
Same, i don't get it why the objective reality of the idea of god is max? Descartes want to proof god exists but he must assume god is existed in the first place to prove this theory.
Hi Jeffrey! I found Aristotle's classifications of substance and mode very eye opening! I have a question though and I'm curious to hear your thoughts. Aristotle's claim that a substance needs nothing else to exist while the mode depends on the existence of the substance seems to be very important for building the foundations of essentialism. However, if we were to think about about the existence of objects in a more Structuralist manner, would it perhaps be more fair to say that substances need nothing else to exist except for other substances? Do we not need the existence of many objects at once in order to make the distinctions necessary to deem one object separate and distinct from another?
I feel like I could get a solid C if I was tested on this. I think I'd have to watch it again on a bigger screen while I wasn't doing something else to get a really firm grasp on it. The concept makes total sense to me though. Kind of like in factories, and injection molding machine can't make another injection molding machine, it can just make the object it was designed to make. However some machines capable of making a die for an injection molding machine are able to make at least most of the components of another machine that could make injection mold dies.
This is awesome! My lawn chair is green dude. 😂😂 it's color, and the chair itself are med formal reality and not objective because they are not ideas. I think I learned sumthin lol. Love your videos man!
So many questions!! Why are ideas modes? Can the mind exist without ideas. Can ideas exist without the mind? Must the mind exist before ideas or are they coexistent? Are infinite numbers maximum reality? What about an infinite universe? If so, must they exist since I thought of the ideas? How do you know that all effects have causes? How do you get more reality? Do you add up the realities? Is a thing with medium formal reality and no objective reality equal to something with minimum formal reality and maximum objective reality? If so, then I could come up with the idea of god without the existence of god. It just seems so arbitrary. Please some explain it to me.
I love the fact that we listened to a 45 minute lecture to understand Descartes logic on what exists, and in the end the logic is flawed. Isn’t philosophy great.
I don't agree with Descartes, however i also don't disagree with him. I accept his thinking process and acknowledge him. What was the politically, economically and Religious atmosphere at that time? Around those years? Because, the firm desire of wanting to prove the existence of God so early and the firmness of the proof is a reason to think that Descart had some other interest. The proof may perhaps have so much to disagree on but it is an attempt. Interest or no interest, this is a thought and it prove that He is a thinking thing. Thank you Prof.
Love professor Kaplan's talks. I do sometimes find myself laughing because he reminds me of Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. 😜 A few questions... why is the objective reality of the Moon null if its object is planetoid or satellite (an astrophysics classification, min), or a celestial body, (a finite substance, med)? Why is the objective reality of green null if its object is a color (a mode / classification / concept, or quality, min)? And finally why is the objective reality of God null if its object is also God (max), or deity (an idea, min) or is that cyclical and therefore null, and also contrary to his assumption that God is singular and preceeds finite substances (which sort of predicates his outcome if so). Also, why didn't Descartes consider alternative explanations for his idea of God (like creativity of the mind, just as we can create ideas of other objects without reference), or that were in a simulation and that the "other" greater than him could simply be a superior life form, but still not require God be the source of his thought of God? Maybe he does and it's not material to the lecture on the proof itself. In any case, thank you so much for posting these lectures. They are truly a gift to all of us who have the chance to see them. Your ability to break down difficult concepts (and write backwards) is amazing and greatly appreciated. 🙏
I’m confused because surely the object of the wall would be related to it’s purpose and the object of the moon would be related to whatever brought it to be or what binds it by laws. I understand Descartes meaning, but I think objects have a deeper route that needs an explanation here rather than smoke screening over the point. Even the trees object is related to the seed it grew from or the tree that previously shed the seed. Secondly, surely a mind would be a mode and not a substance? As they need something else to exist? Although I guess from Descartes perspective, all he was is a mind at this point so again, I get his perspective but possibly disagree. Finally, thank you so much for breaking down the formal and objective reality equation. Given me a much greater understanding.
That is an issue with his argumentation, as it comes purely from his perspective with which he is the sole being he can truly confirm to exist, and so, any argument he derives from that premise cannot easily be countered using empirical or other arguments. This is an issue I have with rationalist arguments or other types, as they very frequently seem to "invent" categories that are almost always metaphysical, or non-real (in the sense that they have more of a wishy-washy flavor to them) and treat them as absolutes for later use in their arguments. Whatever he defines as a mind is a mind, and we cannot say otherwise and remain in his framework. One of his core arguments if I recall for his famous saying is that he could picture himself "floating in space with nothing touching him," or "to be a mind completely devoid of all else," which therefore justified that the mind and the body are entirely separate with no dependencies. This is empirically a categorically false statement, but completely justified to Descartes because all he knows is that he's this thinking thing with *absolute* certainty.
Didn't Descartes just get through contemplating that, without thought, he _(the thinking thing)_ would cease to exist. So, unlike "brain" ... the substance "mind" is absolutely contingent on modes "thoughts" Wouldn't it make more sense to consider mind as a prime, or universal, mode? Wait, I'll explain that... The only time that a concept of (an) "mind" occurs, is when we need to partition the universe into discrete domains in which thoughts may occur (thinkers/minds) ... but Descartes isn't there yet. He has only identified one domain, his... therefore, it cannot yet be properly thought of as a 'class' of thing. Nor can it be thought of as separate to some external universe... since Descartes has not yet established a basis for an external universe, nor identified any properties which such an external thing may have that could distinguish it from "mind" It feels like he needs to take a step back. He's trying to move past "i am" by using his prior beliefs, themselves, as a foundation when rebuilding his model of truth. Thus, its not so much _"first principles, from the ground up"_ ... as it is _"God first, from the sky down"_ By insisting on "mind" as a discrete substance, apart from "other" - he creates God and the Universe by implication. But the method he uses to do so appears to break from the principles of meditation #1. Did he consider that he may be God? That the universe consists only of his own thought? And that, before positing anything external, he must find an internal inconsistency within the "thinker" that renders it incomplete without "other" ? And, if incomplete, this also seems to render "mind" not a valid independent substance. I think Descartes seems to be stretching here - or maybe I just don't get it. I shall keep watching. Great series by the way.
I dont understand this "The level of objective reality of an idea is the level of formal reality of its object" right? So whatever is medium level of objective reality of an idea is also medium level of formal reality of its object, and vice versa. I dont see how another interpretation is possible , but clesrly i am wrong bc in the video it says that the idea of a cat has a formal reality of minimum level while the object of a cat has an objective reality of medium level. How does these two statements add up?
Now the the universe is known not to be locally real, the realist (objects independent of mind) and localist (cause always comes before effect) are mutually exclusive. Whether or not this is compatible with the logic, I do not know. Also the idea of the Universe is maximal in Object Reality and the Universe is maximal in Formal Reality, so God would need to be the universe or one step (or more) above it. I also think that the idea of something can come from induction and/or emergance, like multiple sentient people coming together and being greater than their sum. Which is why I think the first step in having the idea of a deity is society and with it the idea of the expanse of the world - grows, which forms into the idea of God and the idea of the Universe, respectfully. As an example, the creation story in Genesis trys to explain the formation of these two ideas (but also a number of others).
What is the difference between step 2 and step 3 that makes the move controversial? They just seem like the same idea with step 3 being a more descriptive but not novel version of step 2.
I like your presentation and explanation except for one thing. I don't think that most substances are about nothing. For example, the Great Wall of China. I believe that the wall was about security reasons to deter any foreign invasion or some sort.
@@ultimateduo_rz5086 Not to defend Descartes' meditation, but you're conflating the wall itself with the construction of the wall and the motives of its builders. The wall is just a pile of stones and rice mortar.
13:20 Isn't saying that the mind doesn't rely on anything to exist contradictory to the second meditation, where Rene seems to only know that his mind exists because he is thinking? in fact, saying that ideas rely on the mind is the exact opposite of what he said in the second meditation. Am i missing something here? It seems to me that the mind itself is also a mode.
i didn't know if you still check comments on this 2 year's old video, i really love philosophy, and i can't speak about it with my friends, because they get bored in a minutes and never listen.. and when i see you try to be sure that we understand such a simple things, i see myself trying to explain something when my friends agree to listen) my main language is not english and it's hard to understand some things even if i know what words means, (i think you understand what im talking about) but, what i want to ask you about, is what about the idea of idea of God? Can mind create it? and (i believe i have understand what Descart talking about) answer is yes, because it's min min realty, and we have a question what is idea? If we think about idea of great wall of chaina its a list of its properties, like it's made by roks, it was created by humans and other stuff. And how we can know about it? and do we even have idea of wall if we never know about the wall. no, because we create Idea of a wall only when we see or know about it. but there is another question, how humans create a wall if you can't have idea of things that not exist? and now the hard part: we really can't have idea of things that not exist, because our mind working in that way, like there is walls existing before GWofChina was created, and there a walls in a cave that exist before humans was, and things like super heroes , we have ideas about them but they look like they didn't exist.. and they are made by combining several things that already exist, and everything created by humans are same. But, we can have ideas about ideas of things that not exist, like i do now. i can't tell you what is this thing that not exist, but i can tell you about my idea of idea about that thing. because of course I can't tell you properties of not existing things, but i can tell you about properties of ideas about them, like they need to be absolutely new, and didn't have cause (we all know that not possible) and here you have an idea about idea of nonexistent thing. and now we can come back to meditation and ask about Idea of God? which properties he have? and how you can know it. and answer is - you can't know this, because it's a infinity reality thing and you not, you can only think about them like what they can be, and that's a Idea about idea of God, so that what im thinking Rene Descartes was wrong here, he didn't have an idea of God, he only has idea about idea of God, but im agree with you that this mistake didn't mean that God not exist. So what you think about it?
I have been dealing with existentional crisis for years and now I am finally getting to Descartes and his work. Needless to say it's only gotten worse.
Why? The guy first can’t tell from dream and reality, next think the mind is separate from his body, now he think ideas are more real then objects in reality . The guy was clearly a god loving leaning magician trying to convince the public that god exists. Not to say he wasn’t smart. My point is you exist , your body exists, life is both brutal and beautiful. Take care of yourself and strive to find your own happiness.
@MugenTJ
I Would argue that it is not that he couldn’t tell the difference between dream vs reality, but that he understood it differently and realized the mind is more complex than previously realized. The law of vibration (attraction) would explain that part. When you get into a deep meditation your brain waves slow and change and you actually feel a separation of your mind and body. Your body may exist but your mind is separate from your body. Descartes also talks about a thought. A thought is a vibration and vibration is energy/ or a form of. Therefore, a thought cannot be created nor destroyed. So where does it come from?
As a Christian i have a suggestion so what do you think of the arguments that at the very least you had to have Abrahamic presuppositions to start recording things scientificly
How did this comment manage to kick off one of the most inane comment threads on UA-cam? On a philosophy lecture of all places.
@PhysHow42 because everyone needs a system of belief or they don't have an identity to find a reason to live
I'm a first year philosophy student in France and one of my teachers is among the most eminent Descartes experts there is. While his classes were really great, these videos and especially this one since my exam turned out to be about the third meditation really made everything clear to me. Today I was eventually told I got the best possible grade and I couldn't be happier. Mr Kaplan, thank you!
Yoo, tell me who he is. I'd like to read his works if I can find them
Man, what a relief! I've been battling the third meditation for about a fortnight. 45 minutes very well spent!
Glad I could help!
I want friends who measure time by fortnight, rather than PLAY it.
There's a reason that virtually no Christian or Muslim apologists use the Cartesian cosmological argument. It's frankly unconvincing (and likely full of informal fallacies), even to believers. It's interesting to me because I think a lot of the people really understand what he was doing with doubting everything and especially resonate with the cogito. But, then you get to meditation 3 and it really goes off the rails. Nevertheless, great summary by Kaplan here.
That's exactly how I felt.
Well said. Descartes assumptions are wrong. His methods are flawed and his conclusions are nonsensical.
My attempt to boil it down:
“I have an idea of God, therefore God exists”
Agreed. Understanding the cogito was a personal and intimate discovery of That Which Is - the only thing we can have certain knowledge of ( I came to the understanding by doubting everything and then attempting to doubt that i doubt, and that did it - something was doubting and even before that something doubted, that something was already there existing). Not sure why he thought this was a better proof or even necessary after the cogito. Was he trying to give proof to the existence of a sky daddy? He seemed smarter than that.
the reason why is because descartes didn’t actually follow his method (which becomes clear in the third meditation); he says so explicitly in his discourse on method and in the introduction to the meditations. he says he is writing in response to the pope’s call for christian philosophers to prove the validity of christian beliefs. it’s very poorly written because descartes worked backwards: he predetermined his conclusion and then figured out the steps necessary to get there. he also refuses to engage with objections to the existence of god because he says objections are only worth his time if they have an equal chance of being true. since (as he claims) a benevolent god is the only way of knowing things with certainty, he concluded that any argument without god inherently had less chance of being true, and thus didn’t publish written responses to any of them. he also admits that there a bunch of unstated premises. once you read all his other works about the meditations you realize why it seems like such a bad argumrnt
There is absolutely no reason to waste so much time to prove that an entity that created and sustains the universe WITH ALL THE EVIL in it exists. It is obvious there certainly is a creator.
Far more important is to realize that this CRUEL ENTITY doesn't deserve any respect, let alone prayers and subordintion to the rules The Cruel Brute is supposed to have revealed to some preferred idiots, who didn't have the guts to question The Brute about all the Evil.
Existence of God doesn't mean The Brute deserves respect and/or following.
The rules of god just like the Laws of Nature are all human inventions.
Neither god nor nature has printed any law anywhere, but humans who formulated them claim them to come from a higher entity (God/Nature) to gain authority for their own inventions.
You're the only reason why I understand Descartes' third meditation. You make it so much easier to understand and you're entertaining as well. Thank you!!
I am extremely glad that it was helpful!
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Zzzzz
S,
Since I was like 8 years old, I used to watch my country’s university channel with lectures about philosophy for hours. At my 38 years old, I just went back to college and added Philosophy as my second major. Your lessons are my breakfasts. 👽♥️♥️♥️
Your a damn good teacher, you just explained the substance vs modes distinction in like 5 minutes when it has taken me ages to figure it out. I love the set up of these video, and the dark background really keeps me engaged. Keep doing what you're doing, this is amazing and fascinating to watch, I am so glad I came across your videos!
I am still watching, and wow this is so engaging. Some people were just born to be teachers and you're one of them!
Thanks for the kind words!
Aren’t modes just properties of substances?
You're*
I totally have to agree. I would be unlikely to understand any of this without your superior teaching skills.
I am amazed by the amount of energy you put into making Descartes meditations easy to understand. Thanks so much.
You remind me of an Art history teacher I once had in high school. I still remember a lot of art history while I forgot almost all my general history. She was so passionate and understood exactly what we needed to understand and learn from it. She learned us to recognise a painting, building or sculpture without ever seeing it before. She didn’t want us to memorise every painting, she wanted us to be able to tell who painted a less famous piece of the artist and why we think it’s that artist who painted it. It she gave a lot of paintings and she wanted us to say what time period and art movement it belonged to and why we think that. We usually had a test with a bunch of paintings, buildings and sculptures and we had to say: -the time it was painted. (always within 50 years for example: 1400-1450 between those years it was painted. or the exact date then you get an extra bonus point.😅)
- the location it was made
- the art movement it belonged to.
-The artist
- then we had to explain how we came to that conclusion. How do you know this painting is made by this artist? What are the aspects in the painting are tipical for it’s art movement?
She was the best teacher ever I loved all her classes.
I am 45 years old and UA-cam thought I wanted to watch this series. Lecture 1&2 were awesome. I waffled on this lecture(three) right up until you said you didn't agree with the proof. This made me recall that I don't have to agree with something to understand it and those who hold the view. I appreciate your energy. Stay AWESOME! UA-cam was correct.
“I wrote it down, because it was important “ that’s a statement of the day - for me, that is!
How good is this guy - he explains it clearly and he’s an entertaining lecturer!
What a privilege to be able to view these lectures! Thank you.
"19:46 take control of your life. you know." Hahaha.
Thanks, a lot Prof. I love your content. I knew I had a gap in knowledge for not learning philosophy. And I'm glad you've made its importance apparent. It's a giant chasm of Knowledge. Thanks, a lot Professor.
This is 45 minutes… I want to cry :(
Thanks Jeffery! I am somewhat embarrassed to admit I never understood what Philosophy was about. If I had, I would not have been surprised that people 100's and sometime 1000's of years ago were asking the same existential questions we all ask today and probably always will . My life would have been richer and more meaningful if I had taken the time to learn from the intellectuals of our past. I appreciate you clarifying their insights. :-)
Take some shrooms
@@EricmcplumbMy favorite fungus 🙂
Excellent teacher.
Learn Descartes. Than immediately forget everything he said. You’ll be smarter for it.
I had read this meditation many times over the past 15 years but finally got it now. THANK YOU
This guy was a good companion in tough moments, total respect and gratitude towards you Mr. Kaplan.
the clearest philosophical presentation i have come across so far.
I don't know why but I could understand the third meditation by watching your video much better and more clearly than by reading its translation and explanations in French or my language. Thank you very much. From Tokyo.
Can't thank you enough! I wish there were a "love" button :) It is extremely helpful. Thank you so much!
You're very welcome!
You're an incredibly skilled teacher, thank you so much
You're very welcome!
As someone who understands these things in Aristotelian terms, this lecture was like learning a whole different language where most of the words have opposite meanings to your native language. woooooo dawgie, that was hard!
This series on the meditations is my first real dive into philosophy lessons and you make understanding seem achievable thank you. Also the moments of pause and rumination (challenging us to answer a question) I really like that engagement well done.
To me rather than proving the existence of God, it proves the existence of reality itself outside of the individual mind. Or the way I understood it, was basically "I myself am not capable of creating the objects of my ideas, so there must be something outside of myself that creates the object of the idea.
That's an interesting thought! I imagine this is what meditation #3 would be written like if Descartes was an atheist.
@@AVeryHappyFishor just honest and objective.
Which is why I do not believe Descartes to be truly authentic in this experiment that he tried. If I recall, he referenced God as if it did exist once or twice prior to this meditation, which reveals a rather significant bias and "culturing" of his mind, which is why I find it somewhat unsurprising his second focus after validating his own existence was validating that of his God with capital G.@@AVeryHappyFish
I have just started with philosophy but many of the concepts are there in our culture (INDIA)so it's easy to relate to, The black background is good thankyou.
It might be beneficial to work through an objective/formal reality analysis of an object of fantasy-or the idea of that object of fantasy-to put a bow on Decartes meditations.
For example, a unicorn 🦄, or a sentient robot.
I really appreciate your content, professor. I studied philosophy in college and this presentation on Descartes was wonderfully satisfying to revisit and refresh.
Thank you for sharing. 🙂
Wow wish to have you as my philosophy teacher, such a great understanding of this . Thanks !
This professor should get more viewers
Thanks very much for this! I'm not formally studying it but I've been getting into philosophy recently, and read through Descartes' Meditations earlier but didn't understand things anywhere near as well as after watching some of your lectures.
this guy actually saved me in the night before my exam, thanks for that!
Glad I could help!
you shocked me and left me speechless with your explanation
He was a mathematician and these levels feel to me like they were dimensions rather than scales. Like, a square cant possibly know a cube exists, unless the cube somehow informs the square.
Not that the proof holds up, but makes it more understandable where his head was at.
Really glad you added the qualifier at the end about premises 2 and 3 of the proof not quite holding water. That's one of the places I was like, wait, that's not a "given." Point 10 also seems to be begging the question.
In any case, really enjoying your lectures, thank you!
Yes, not to mention the shady move to make a category of infinite substances just to have a higher substance is tissue paper thin, let alone just deciding God falls into that category.
Thoroughly unsatisfying.
The label of such a thing as "God" also reveals what I would consider to be a theistic (or deistic) bias when he entered this framework. It is convenient, given the outcome of like thinkers during his time period, that one of his first deductions of reality is a very familiar God right after he affirms himself to exist. @@beatrixwickson8477
oh my god! to your explanation! we can never thank you enough.
Watching from Malawi and am really enjoying myself, you are really great presenter.
Absolutely Excellent! Yes, I had to rewind, so to speak, twice in Meditation #3. And yes, now I get it. I admit, for the same reasons you voiced, I don't agree with the findings, buy I understand now the process. Thank you so very much!
Dude came up with the whole "we're living in the matrix" long before that became technology feasible!! What a hero!
what a good teacher you are.
I've been through a great many of your videos, and find them eminently enjoyable.
I have a VERY high tolerance for weird -- my undergrad was Physics, and this was positively commonplace compared to things like General Relativity or the Statistical Proof of Entropic expansion.
This didn't feel at ALL weird; what it felt was ad hoc. Despite the different language, it seems methodologically almost an exact recapitulation of Ancient Greek Ontological arguments... all of which only work if you add in a Proposition Zero involving a TON of divine attributes that are nowhere defended.
It's not Descartes' fault that his context made God so very axiomatic that defining him into existence felt inevitable. He was a great mathematician, and they frequently fall prey to thinking they can define brute facts into existence.
Yeah these are always quite funny proofs.
Proposition 0: I'm correct about whatever I say
Statement: I say God exists
Outcome: God exists
Atheists BTFO'd.
I mean this one is that but just in more words, he boils it down to "I know I think, and anything I can think of must exist or my thought of it wouldn't exist, and I'm thinking of God" which feels quite circular.
I love the way you explain things. The proof did not work for me, yes, but I liked how ppl are able to think in such directed (determined) manner about something, and more so, of what is so impressive is how you teach it so damn well. You are a very impressive teacher.
Brillant lecture, please consider providing notes with additional explanation and text.
I really satisfy with the lecture, sir. It makes me more engaged in philosophy because the text itself is harder to follow for non-English speakers.
To me it sounds like Decartes just makes up a concept that explains why God exists but explaining why that concept in itself (Maximum Reality) is a thing at all, is equally difficult to prove. I don't really understand why should I accept that there are 3 degrees as a given, instead of only 2.
Or an infinite, or why there is a separation or validity to the idea of a formal reality, or a distinction between the two realities, or that abstraction justifies the consideration of the divine to begin with, or why he thinks and therefore is and not is, therefore he thinks, etc.
If Plato, Locke and Kant walked into a bar…….they'd ask the bartender to switch the TV channel to this. You’re a gifted thinker and teacher. Thank you.
It is circular logic based on biased assumptions, The first being that God is the only maximum or that there is a maximum at all.
The second assumption is that the mind, in its purest form, is only medium. This next statement will sound weird, but it is true. You know things that you don't actively know that you know. Your mind is constantly working on things in your subconscious that you are not actively aware of and you do not know how much it can really do, since it is subconscious. I have a personal example of this. It's a minor thing, but it shows the principle. I was young and I was reading a book. I came across the word twit for the first time and I thought to myself "What is a twit?" I immediately had a strong and clear thought "It's a condensed version of the word nitwit." I know for a fact I hadn't thought about it before. I hadn't had time to think it through before I knew the answer. The thought that came to me was so loud and clear I looked around to see if someone was in the room and maybe I had asked the question out loud, but I was alone. My subconscious had been working on it faster than I could even think the question. There is no way to say how limited a pure mind would actually be. If all that exists is one pure mind, and it came up with the idea of everything that "exists" through imagination, then it would have to be far more powerful than we/it thinks it is.
The third assumption is that the min/med/max is a valid way to divide everything. If all that exists is the one pure mind, then everything falls into the minimum category by default, because it is all thought, and the only other category is that of the mind that is thinking it all.
An admirable series of lectures. Makes me think I would have got a better pass if we'd had the internet when I was an undergraduate. Is there any chance you could publish a list of your seminars in chronological order, please?
I love this. Although it's kind of hillarious how little faith you have in us actually understanding during that quiz. 24:31- the face of a teacher desperately trying to explain string theory to a bored teenager with a gun XD
Edit: also, on the 1,5 speed you get increasingly crazed towards the end of the video. All you need is a bunch of connected photos and newspaper clippings on that board. This is fun :D
Pretty sure his lack of faith was directed at me personally since I still do not understand! Ah well
@@Cuthbo Hey. Sorry to be answering so late, I had to go and watch the video again before and I was just too lazy:) It's all a string of assumptions:
1) Descartes assumes that different things in the world have different levels or reality.
2) THEN he assumes that HE has lower reality than GOD - because he is finate, and God is not. Yet he can still hold the idea of God (something that is more real than him) in his finate mind.
3) He assumes that it's impossible for his finate, less real mind to CREATE an idea of an infinite, more real thing like God - THREFORE the idea was created by something else. But what is it?
4) He assumes that an idea of an infinite thing can only be created by something that is also infine (that's why HE couldn't create it - he is not infinte) and also is "more real."
*So. You need an infinite being for the idea of God to exist. The idea of God DOES exist, we know that. Therefore an infinite being also has to exist. There is only one infinite being that could possibly exist (Descartes thinks) and that's God.*
*THREFORE God has to exist.*
That's the annoying thing about philosophy - you create your own rules, then claim to have discovered secrets of the universe based on YOUR OWN RULES. It's an imagination game for adults. I'm not saying God doesn't exist, mind you - I'm just saying this proof (and most philosophy) doesn't work. Change any of those assumtions and it all falls apart like a house of cards it is.
@@olap. Our whole life, everything about is based on assumptions or made up definitions, not just philosophy. You cannot tell me a single thing to be real or true, that doesn't need an unprovable assumption or artificially made up definition. Philosophy isn't "better" or "worse" than anything else in this regard, it's just it is trying to create systems from the very ground up, and doesn't already assume a familiar, accepted system of thinking it has to work within.
Natural sciences for example are already working in the framework of an established, familiar, currently widely accepted system of method and thinking, but even its usefulness wholy depend on what we define as "useful". And its "truthness" cannot be proven at all, even Descartes can easily shake down the foundations of the ability of natural sciences proving anything to be "true" or "right" immediately in his very first meditation.
@@bleekcer All of that is true in a college graduation paper, sure. But biology doesn't need four random assumptions to know that people give birth after nine months of pregancy. And no amount of assuming will make it three weeks of pregnancy, or people being born from a rogue lightsaber under the watchful eye of Yoda nurses.
A skilled philosopher could definitely prove that they are, though. (Not that it would save any mothers or newborns - unlike the non-truthful, non-useful things that medicine and biology discover). Philosophy is a game. It's an imaginative logic game, and I would hold it in much higher regard had it not been for the ridiculous arrogance of people that think they gained magical powers of "easily shaking down" the universe as we know it - while the rest of us watch in awe, of course - because they understood Descartes that one time.
@@olap. So that's what you think about philosophers or those who are interested in philosophy, a bunch of magic believers. I would rate that simply as prejudice. Where did you see that ridiculous arrogance you are talking about?
The way you write backwards so quickly is amazing
This is the most difficult and crucial part.. thanks for this very clear explanation
I understood this pretty well, but it seems like Descartes is just saying "I am a flooble thinking about a glarble, but glarbles are more priffy than floobles. Since a being can't imagine something more priffy than itself, glarbles must actually exist for a flooble like me to be thinking about it."
I pretty much agree with what you said at the end. All his definitions are arbitrary, he just made up formal and objective reality based on no more than vibes (or took it from philosophers who did similarly).
The apostle Paul explains this in Romans 1:19-20 "...that which is known about God is evident within them (human beings); for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse." God possesses maximum formal and objective reality.
Why must Descartes God be the ONLY infinite substance?
Why couldn’t a human have created the idea of god? Also, just because there is an idea of god why does that mean it must exist somewhere? I can create an idea of an all perfect all powerful unicorn but that doesn’t make it exist.
In a phl101 class, really enjoyed your videos on Descartes!
Because the formal idea of the Moon is above your objective ideea. You already thinking of the Moon or the universe for that matter because is already there... it was discovered
Well, it seems problematic for someone who is finite to come up with the idea of something infinite, or the concept of infinity itself. How something finite can create the idea of infinity? It seems like you have to either be in some sence infinite yourself, othervise this idea was put in your mind by something/someone else that is infinite.
@@Cghost-fh4hf But why does it seem problematic? It would be so, if our idea of infinity would have been infinite itself, but we have mechanisms to have ideas of infinite things without imagining infinity itself. E.g., in mathematics we have many concepts of infinity, for example, cardinality of the set of all natural numbers is not a finite number. And we have a way to describe set of all natural numbers within not more than 20 axioms (Wikipedia says there is 9 axioms?), each axiom is finite, and there are finite number of finite axioms, yet they define infinite set with infinite quantity of numbers.
Also, the infinite set itself is such a thing that goes against premise "God is the only thing that has infinite formal reality" (at least that's from my perspective, although I don't see much counterarguments).
Well said. Descartes makes so many mistakes and assumptions that he isn’t taken seriously.
Every response to your comment so far is riddled with claims, flaws and assumptions as well.
Man this has been a lifesaver. Thank you so much!
You are awesome! I love philosophy but I get bogged down reading those pillars of thought. You condense it down for me to enjoy the thinking part. Your method is so cool. Keep going !
I need to get this out. At this point, my opinion of Descartes went from "hm, alright. That's a good basis. Very intelligent, curious to where this goes." to "oh come on ... this was so promising, and then he went running head first into circular logic? Disappointing."
I'll watch the rest when I have more time and can look past that he's flipping everything upside down and starts with a supposition, and does pages of mental gymnastics to prove that supposition.
21:45 "that's okay, start over, your times not that valuable" 🤣
Your a fantastic teacher and a funny dude too!
Fires up the bong. Time for meditation 3. "Wow, check out my hand."
Thank you so much I have been reading this at an elementary level on my own!
These courses are amazing! Thank you for this 🙂
Jeffrey, in your blurb that accompanies the video out left out a 'not': You said "Descartes does himself has enough formal reality to be the source of his own idea of God" but I think you must have meant to say "Descartes does NOT himself has enough formal reality to be the source of his own idea of God",
Good catch! You are correct. I just fixed it. Thank you!
Descartes was a convoluted sel-fulfilling argument. Being Catholic really made it difficult for him. Moon is no different than a cat. Both are ideas. His definitions of “infinite substances” or “perfect” are poorly structured
I agree.. God having max formal reality and the "idea of God" having max objective reality.. either way, the idea of God was created by men who has "medium" formal reality.. 🤔😂
I describe it as such:
-we have a concept for everything
-some of these concepts refer to real objects other do not
“Objective” and “formal” are just worse ways of trying to explain it.
Summary
-In Meditation 1, the method of doubt considers that if you can doubt something it might not be true/real.
-The things Descartes know for surten, that he exists cause his mind exists and that God exists.
-Ideas are about something else but most of things aren't, what means that most of things don't have an object. Only ideas have objects.
- Some things are more real than others
- God is the only infinite substance
- God is not an idea, a mode,and he is now about anything else
- Everything have a cause
If we're summarizing the video and this list is chronological in its premises, then you would have to move the last premise listed after the second premise.
16:40 I figured the answer was "medium" here, but it got me thinking. Wouldn't every physical object be considered a "mode" in this instance, while the actual substance is each individual atom? the mode of the marker is its "marker-ness", which is dependent on this specific arrangement of atoms, no?
I agree
Wow you are a great teacher.
Thanks from India 🇮🇳
Great lectures many thanks. Small remark, "green" can be a mode but also a finite substance as an ideal type. I guess it is about how Descartes saw it.
I think it kinda checks out but I think the real kink in this argument is the assumption that a human mind is capable of containing an idea of the infinite. If in fact we had a real idea of the infinite then yes it would have to come from something infinite but I dont think a human can truly grasp even the concept of infinity. We can create the circumstance for it verbally but not truly comprehend it.
I think it is more attackable at the stage where he defined formal and objective realities, as both aren't very rigorously argued for in his works and are merely presented. Infinity requires very strict definitions for it to be usable in an argument, as there are... different modes (not related to Descartes context) used mathematically, also used philosophically (of which I scrutinize more). Someone may use the word "infinite" to refer to something "all encompassing," whereas another may define it as "a series of numbers that cannot be summed," and others elsewise - the validity of each case depends upon what aspects of nature and thought are used to define it. There is one thing you say: "We can create the circumstance for it verbally but not truly comprehend it." that I would be careful with, as this defines a vast, vast majority of what we as a species engage with philosophically and practically in every other domain of our lives.
To be clear the whole thing boils down to:
Nothing but God could create the idea of God.
I have the idea of God.
Therefore God must exist.
Am i wrong?
Sounds like a good summary
If formal reality can't produce something of greater objective reality, it can't necessarily work the other way either or God who has no objective reality could be produced by man. We also have several false ideas of God that are clearly human creations.
Good God, you explain well. Does it take a lot of your energy?
Ha, thanks. Yes, It is exhausting!
what makes something more real/perfect than other things and how do you prove it?
I think the problem is the premise that ideas are a mode of the object they point to - rather than a mode of the mind that holds them.
that is to say, Descartes is mistaken into believing that the cause of an idea is the object it points to, rather than the mind that creates the idea. After all, this falls apart when we imagine something that certainly does not exist.
Well, imagination is still dependent on reality to great extend. A unicorn is combining a horse with a horn. I bet you can’t think of a thing not based on anything in reality. However Descartes was a mathematician that believed more in Christian doctrines than applying scientific method and logic. He essentially engaged in circular reasoning among other logical fallacies.
@@MugenTJ What if I can imagine something not based in anything from reality? it would then be impossible to describe to you, as you would have no basis to also imagine it.
@@s.t.-1094 well that sounds a lot like a friend of mine when he talked about taking d.r.u.g. He said he can’t describe it. But notice, if you can think of a thing, but can’t describe it that’s different from a thing that has no bearing on anything real. I’m sure the mind is capable of many things . People do go insane , essentially losing control of there mind, but that’s only because their brain is not functioning correctly.
The point is: if your brain is working properly, it it meant to help you build a representation of your experiences and adding in some creativity to solve complex problems.
So if you can honestly, consciously think of a thing yet can’t communicate, can’t draw, can’t express in any form , and has no bearing on reality, in part or in sum, then you can do something that I certainly can’t!
Mind you I have a pretty crazy imagination and dream weird stuffs every night. When I examine my mental events carefully I can identify the parts in connection to reality. Example is: sometimes as I sit there doing something mundane, safe and leisure, my mind has a sensation of being rushed to do it faster, and I feel slight sense of fear. Yet my body continues to perform the task at ease. This experience is the closest i have to a mind/body separation. I was fully aware of each feeling, which had basis in previous experience of fear or being rushed. It not something my mind invented.
I can't thank you enough, you really helped me with my studying.
First off I want to say I am thoroughly enjoying and learning a lot from these lectures - I am simply here to feed my own knowledge, not for any formal reasons and I really appreciate your teaching style.
However, this particular one has made me kind of sad. I have always though of Descartes to be really on the ball with so many ideas (not that i've known this level of detail about his ideas before). But something in this meditation really brought me down ....
It was point 3 of the proof: "Level of formal reality of cause >= level of objective reality of effect". .... I simply can't accept this .... and by not accepting it, it makes everything Descartes subsequently bases on it mean nothing to me ... that's why i'm sad ...
why can't i accept it? - it just doesnt seem right ... its essentially saying "there is no way i can originate an idea about God because God is something I can't even imagine ... " how can i accept this? ... it reduces this whole proof to "God must exist because God is something I can't even imagine but I just did" ... to me .. someone came up with the idea of God ... and part of that idea was "its impossible to have an idea of God" ... its circular ... and that upsets me because I really want to believe in Descartes ....
its been a while since ive read this but i remember being frustrated with this too. hes so diligent in the beginning about doubt and then just forces the god conclusion
...then Descartes finally grasps the full idea of god in all it's perfection, but then thought of even more perfect 'god creating pixies' (they spit out new gods in all their glory, like jellybeans), then Descartes starts over from the 1st meditation. I guess the point is to learn what Descartes believed.
🏆 Good job. Got you thinking. But you might be falling into the same trap:
... and that upsets me because I really want to believe in Descartes ....
and Descartes really wanted to believe in god...
descartes falls off extremely hard but never forget how profound his cogito is, even if it turns out to be false, its the closest that humanity has ever come to concretely proving something, even if everything he goes on to say is a bit iffy to say the least
Same, i don't get it why the objective reality of the idea of god is max? Descartes want to proof god exists but he must assume god is existed in the first place to prove this theory.
Hi Jeffrey! I found Aristotle's classifications of substance and mode very eye opening! I have a question though and I'm curious to hear your thoughts. Aristotle's claim that a substance needs nothing else to exist while the mode depends on the existence of the substance seems to be very important for building the foundations of essentialism. However, if we were to think about about the existence of objects in a more Structuralist manner, would it perhaps be more fair to say that substances need nothing else to exist except for other substances? Do we not need the existence of many objects at once in order to make the distinctions necessary to deem one object separate and distinct from another?
I feel like I could get a solid C if I was tested on this.
I think I'd have to watch it again on a bigger screen while I wasn't doing something else to get a really firm grasp on it.
The concept makes total sense to me though. Kind of like in factories, and injection molding machine can't make another injection molding machine, it can just make the object it was designed to make. However some machines capable of making a die for an injection molding machine are able to make at least most of the components of another machine that could make injection mold dies.
This is awesome! My lawn chair is green dude. 😂😂 it's color, and the chair itself are med formal reality and not objective because they are not ideas. I think I learned sumthin lol. Love your videos man!
This is the clearest explication of a cosmological argument I've yet heard.
I still find it baffling that anyone finds such arguments persuasive.
You are a great Teacher
Thank you for saying so!
Thank you - ran into a wall with this and your breakdown was fantastic!
thank you, wonderful explenation, helpd me a lot
Glad it helped! You're welcome.
So many questions!! Why are ideas modes? Can the mind exist without ideas. Can ideas exist without the mind? Must the mind exist before ideas or are they coexistent? Are infinite numbers maximum reality? What about an infinite universe? If so, must they exist since I thought of the ideas? How do you know that all effects have causes? How do you get more reality? Do you add up the realities? Is a thing with medium formal reality and no objective reality equal to something with minimum formal reality and maximum objective reality? If so, then I could come up with the idea of god without the existence of god. It just seems so arbitrary. Please some explain it to me.
Descartes just asserts everything you said without justification because there is none. His argument is horribly flawed and easily dismissed.
@@Nick-Nasti can you mention where it's flawed I'm confused and what fallacies are there
I love the fact that we listened to a 45 minute lecture to understand Descartes logic on what exists, and in the end the logic is flawed. Isn’t philosophy great.
This is brilliant! Please do Kant’s critique of pure reason
I don't agree with Descartes, however i also don't disagree with him.
I accept his thinking process and acknowledge him.
What was the politically, economically and Religious atmosphere at that time?
Around those years?
Because, the firm desire of wanting to prove the existence of God so early and the firmness of the proof is a reason to think that Descart had some other interest.
The proof may perhaps have so much to disagree on but it is an attempt.
Interest or no interest, this is a thought and it prove that He is a thinking thing.
Thank you Prof.
Love professor Kaplan's talks. I do sometimes find myself laughing because he reminds me of Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. 😜
A few questions... why is the objective reality of the Moon null if its object is planetoid or satellite (an astrophysics classification, min), or a celestial body, (a finite substance, med)? Why is the objective reality of green null if its object is a color (a mode / classification / concept, or quality, min)? And finally why is the objective reality of God null if its object is also God (max), or deity (an idea, min) or is that cyclical and therefore null, and also contrary to his assumption that God is singular and preceeds finite substances (which sort of predicates his outcome if so).
Also, why didn't Descartes consider alternative explanations for his idea of God (like creativity of the mind, just as we can create ideas of other objects without reference), or that were in a simulation and that the "other" greater than him could simply be a superior life form, but still not require God be the source of his thought of God? Maybe he does and it's not material to the lecture on the proof itself.
In any case, thank you so much for posting these lectures. They are truly a gift to all of us who have the chance to see them. Your ability to break down difficult concepts (and write backwards) is amazing and greatly appreciated. 🙏
Can you one day do a lecture on the Buddhist doctrine of anātman? I'd love to see it presented correctly and discussed in philosophical terms.
I’m confused because surely the object of the wall would be related to it’s purpose and the object of the moon would be related to whatever brought it to be or what binds it by laws. I understand Descartes meaning, but I think objects have a deeper route that needs an explanation here rather than smoke screening over the point. Even the trees object is related to the seed it grew from or the tree that previously shed the seed.
Secondly, surely a mind would be a mode and not a substance? As they need something else to exist? Although I guess from Descartes perspective, all he was is a mind at this point so again, I get his perspective but possibly disagree.
Finally, thank you so much for breaking down the formal and objective reality equation. Given me a much greater understanding.
Everything Descartes says is arbitrary (made up). Don’t take it too seriously.
That is an issue with his argumentation, as it comes purely from his perspective with which he is the sole being he can truly confirm to exist, and so, any argument he derives from that premise cannot easily be countered using empirical or other arguments. This is an issue I have with rationalist arguments or other types, as they very frequently seem to "invent" categories that are almost always metaphysical, or non-real (in the sense that they have more of a wishy-washy flavor to them) and treat them as absolutes for later use in their arguments. Whatever he defines as a mind is a mind, and we cannot say otherwise and remain in his framework. One of his core arguments if I recall for his famous saying is that he could picture himself "floating in space with nothing touching him," or "to be a mind completely devoid of all else," which therefore justified that the mind and the body are entirely separate with no dependencies. This is empirically a categorically false statement, but completely justified to Descartes because all he knows is that he's this thinking thing with *absolute* certainty.
Didn't Descartes just get through contemplating that, without thought, he _(the thinking thing)_ would cease to exist. So, unlike "brain" ... the substance "mind" is absolutely contingent on modes "thoughts"
Wouldn't it make more sense to consider mind as a prime, or universal, mode? Wait, I'll explain that...
The only time that a concept of (an) "mind" occurs, is when we need to partition the universe into discrete domains in which thoughts may occur (thinkers/minds) ... but Descartes isn't there yet. He has only identified one domain, his... therefore, it cannot yet be properly thought of as a 'class' of thing.
Nor can it be thought of as separate to some external universe... since Descartes has not yet established a basis for an external universe, nor identified any properties which such an external thing may have that could distinguish it from "mind"
It feels like he needs to take a step back. He's trying to move past "i am" by using his prior beliefs, themselves, as a foundation when rebuilding his model of truth. Thus, its not so much _"first principles, from the ground up"_ ... as it is _"God first, from the sky down"_
By insisting on "mind" as a discrete substance, apart from "other" - he creates God and the Universe by implication. But the method he uses to do so appears to break from the principles of meditation #1.
Did he consider that he may be God? That the universe consists only of his own thought? And that, before positing anything external, he must find an internal inconsistency within the "thinker" that renders it incomplete without "other" ?
And, if incomplete, this also seems to render "mind" not a valid independent substance.
I think Descartes seems to be stretching here - or maybe I just don't get it. I shall keep watching. Great series by the way.
lol... at 29:45 I forget what the word "Idea" meant for a split second. This is a great lecture
Great video can’t wait for college to take my philosophy classes.
I'm not even a college student but I felt compelled to rewatch this 😂
I dont understand this
"The level of objective reality of an idea is the level of formal reality of its object" right? So whatever is medium level of objective reality of an idea is also medium level of formal reality of its object, and vice versa. I dont see how another interpretation is possible , but clesrly i am wrong bc in the video it says that the idea of a cat has a formal reality of minimum level while the object of a cat has an objective reality of medium level. How does these two statements add up?
Now the the universe is known not to be locally real, the realist (objects independent of mind) and localist (cause always comes before effect) are mutually exclusive. Whether or not this is compatible with the logic, I do not know. Also the idea of the Universe is maximal in Object Reality and the Universe is maximal in Formal Reality, so God would need to be the universe or one step (or more) above it.
I also think that the idea of something can come from induction and/or emergance, like multiple sentient people coming together and being greater than their sum. Which is why I think the first step in having the idea of a deity is society and with it the idea of the expanse of the world - grows, which forms into the idea of God and the idea of the Universe, respectfully. As an example, the creation story in Genesis trys to explain the formation of these two ideas (but also a number of others).
What is the difference between step 2 and step 3 that makes the move controversial? They just seem like the same idea with step 3 being a more descriptive but not novel version of step 2.
You are genius! I lacks words to describe your personality. God bless you. I will offer one Mass for your private intention.
I like your presentation and explanation except for one thing. I don't think that most substances are about nothing. For example, the Great Wall of China. I believe that the wall was about security reasons to deter any foreign invasion or some sort.
@@ultimateduo_rz5086 Not to defend Descartes' meditation, but you're conflating the wall itself with the construction of the wall and the motives of its builders. The wall is just a pile of stones and rice mortar.
13:20 Isn't saying that the mind doesn't rely on anything to exist contradictory to the second meditation, where Rene seems to only know that his mind exists because he is thinking? in fact, saying that ideas rely on the mind is the exact opposite of what he said in the second meditation. Am i missing something here? It seems to me that the mind itself is also a mode.
"I'm about to give you the cosmological proof of god"
"What the hell make green"
The 2 sides to philosphy.
i didn't know if you still check comments on this 2 year's old video, i really love philosophy, and i can't speak about it with my friends, because they get bored in a minutes and never listen.. and when i see you try to be sure that we understand such a simple things, i see myself trying to explain something when my friends agree to listen) my main language is not english and it's hard to understand some things even if i know what words means, (i think you understand what im talking about) but, what i want to ask you about, is what about the idea of idea of God? Can mind create it? and (i believe i have understand what Descart talking about) answer is yes, because it's min min realty, and we have a question what is idea? If we think about idea of great wall of chaina its a list of its properties, like it's made by roks, it was created by humans and other stuff. And how we can know about it? and do we even have idea of wall if we never know about the wall. no, because we create Idea of a wall only when we see or know about it. but there is another question, how humans create a wall if you can't have idea of things that not exist? and now the hard part: we really can't have idea of things that not exist, because our mind working in that way, like there is walls existing before GWofChina was created, and there a walls in a cave that exist before humans was, and things like super heroes , we have ideas about them but they look like they didn't exist.. and they are made by combining several things that already exist, and everything created by humans are same. But, we can have ideas about ideas of things that not exist, like i do now. i can't tell you what is this thing that not exist, but i can tell you about my idea of idea about that thing. because of course I can't tell you properties of not existing things, but i can tell you about properties of ideas about them, like they need to be absolutely new, and didn't have cause (we all know that not possible) and here you have an idea about idea of nonexistent thing. and now we can come back to meditation and ask about Idea of God? which properties he have? and how you can know it. and answer is - you can't know this, because it's a infinity reality thing and you not, you can only think about them like what they can be, and that's a Idea about idea of God, so that what im thinking Rene Descartes was wrong here, he didn't have an idea of God, he only has idea about idea of God, but im agree with you that this mistake didn't mean that God not exist. So what you think about it?
Nice work with a difficult text
Well explained such a great teacher.keep it up good work.