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Meditations On The First Philosophy
''Meditations on First Philosophy, in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated'' ( la, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animæ immortalitas demonstratur) is a philosophical treatise by René Descartes first published in Latin in 1641. The French translation (by the Duke of Luynes with Descartes' supervision) was published in 1647 as ''Méditations Métaphysiques''. The title may contain a misreading by the printer, mistaking ''animae immortalitas'' for ''animae immaterialitas'', as suspected by A. Baillet. The book is made up of six meditations, in which Descartes first discards all belief in things that are not absolutely certain, and then tries to establish what can be known for sure. He wrote the meditations as if he had meditated for six days: each meditation refers to the last one as "yesterday". (In fact, Descartes began work on the ''Meditations'' in 1639.) One of the most influential philosophical texts ever w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
René Descartes
René Descartes ( or ; ; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Mathematics was central to his method of inquiry, and he connected the previously separate fields of geometry and algebra into analytic geometry. Descartes spent much of his working life in the Dutch Republic, initially serving the Dutch States Army, later becoming a central intellectual of the Dutch Golden Age. Although he served a Protestant state and was later counted as a deist by critics, Descartes considered himself a devout Catholic. Many elements of Descartes' philosophy have precedents in late Aristotelianism, the revived Stoicism of the 16th century, or in earlier philosophers like Augustine. In his natural philosophy, he differed from the schools on two major points: first, he rejected the splitting of corporeal substance into mat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Representationalism
In the philosophy of perception and philosophy of mind, the question of direct or naïve realism, as opposed to indirect or representational realism, is the debate over the nature of conscious experience;Lehar, Steve. (2000)The Function of Conscious Experience: An Analogical Paradigm of Perception and Behavior, ''Consciousness and Cognition''.Lehar, Steve. (2000), ''The Function of Conscious Experience''. out of the metaphysical question of whether the world we see around us is the real world itself or merely an internal perceptual copy of that world generated by our conscious experience. Naïve realism is known as ''direct'' realism when developed to counter ''indirect'' or representative realism, also known as epistemological dualism, the philosophical position that our conscious experience is not of the real world itself but of an internal representation, a miniature virtual-reality replica of the world. Indirect realism is broadly equivalent to the materialist view of perce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Infinite Regress
An infinite regress is an infinite series of entities governed by a recursive principle that determines how each entity in the series depends on or is produced by its predecessor. In the epistemic regress, for example, a belief is justified because it is based on another belief that is justified. But this other belief is itself in need of one more justified belief for itself to be justified and so on. An infinite regress argument is an argument against a theory based on the fact that this theory leads to an infinite regress. For such an argument to be successful, it has to demonstrate not just that the theory in question entails an infinite regress but also that this regress is ''vicious''. There are different ways in which a regress can be vicious. The most serious form of viciousness involves a contradiction in the form of ''metaphysical impossibility''. Other forms occur when the infinite regress is responsible for the theory in question being implausible or for its failure to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proximate And Ultimate Causation
A proximate cause is an event which is ''closest'' to, or immediately responsible for causing, some observed result. This exists in contrast to a higher-level ultimate cause (or ''distal cause'') which is usually thought of as the "real" reason something occurred. * ''Example:'' Why did the ship sink? ** Proximate cause: Because it was holed beneath the waterline, water entered the hull and the ship became denser than the water which supported it, so it could not stay afloat. ** Ultimate cause: Because the ship hit a rock which tore open the hole in the ship's hull. In most situations, an ultimate cause may itself be a proximate cause in comparison to a further ultimate cause. Hence we can continue the above example as follows: * ''Example:'' Why did the ship hit the rock? ** Proximate cause: Because the ship failed to change course to avoid it. ** Ultimate cause: Because the ship was under autopilot and the autopilot's data was inaccurate. ** (even stronger): Because the ship ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Innatism
Innatism is a philosophical and epistemological doctrine that the mind is born with ideas, knowledge, and beliefs. Therefore, the mind is not a ''tabula rasa'' (blank slate) at birth, which contrasts with the views of early empiricists such as John Locke. Innatism asserts that not all knowledge is gained from experience and the senses. Plato and René Descartes were prominent philosophers in the development of innatism. Both philosophers emphasize that experiences are the key to unlocking this knowledge but not the source of the knowledge itself—essentially, no knowledge is derived exclusively from experience.Stich, S. P. (1975). ''Innate ideas''. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Difference from nativism ''Innatism'' and ''nativism'' are generally synonymous terms referring to the notion of preexisting ideas in the mind. However, more specifically, innatism refers to the philosophy of Plato and Descartes, who assumed that God or a similar being or proce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beeswax
Beeswax (''cera alba'') is a natural wax produced by honey bees of the genus ''Apis''. The wax is formed into scales by eight wax-producing glands in the abdominal segments of worker bees, which discard it in or at the hive. The hive workers collect and use it to form cells for honey storage and larval and pupal protection within the beehive. Chemically, beeswax consists mainly of esters of fatty acids and various long-chain alcohols. Beeswax has been used since prehistory as the first plastic, as a lubricant and waterproofing agent, in lost wax casting of metals and glass, as a polish for wood and leather, for making candles, as an ingredient in cosmetics and as an artistic medium in encaustic painting. Beeswax is edible, having similarly negligible toxicity to plant waxes, and is approved for food use in most countries and in the European Union under the E number E901. Production The beeswax is formed by worker bees, which secrete it from eight wax-producing mirror glan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-evident
In epistemology (theory of knowledge), a self-evident proposition is a proposition that is known to be true by understanding its meaning without proof, and/or by ordinary human reason. Some epistemologists deny that any proposition can be self-evident. For most others, one's belief that oneself is conscious is offered as an example of self-evidence. However, one's belief that someone else is conscious is not epistemically self-evident. The following proposition is often said to be self-evident: "A finite whole is greater than, or equal to, any of its parts". A logical argument for a self-evident conclusion would demonstrate only an ignorance of the purpose of persuasively arguing for the conclusion based on one or more premises that differ from it (see ' and begging the question). Analytic propositions It is sometimes said that a self-evident proposition is one whose denial is self-contradictory. It is also sometimes said that an analytic proposition is one whose denial is sel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rational Animal
The term rational animal (Latin: ''animal rationale'' or ''animal rationabile'') refers to a classical definition of humanity or human nature, associated with Aristotelianism. History While the Latin term itself originates in scholasticism, it reflects the Aristotelian view of man as a creature distinguished by a rational principle. In the ''Nicomachean Ethics'' I.13, Aristotle states that the human being has a rational principle (Greek: λόγον ἔχον), on top of the nutritive life shared with plants, and the instinctual life shared with other animals, i. e., the ability to carry out rationally formulated projects. That capacity for deliberative imagination was equally singled out as man's defining feature in ''De anima'' III.11. While seen by Aristotle as a universal human feature, the definition applied to wise and foolish alike, and did not in any way imply necessarily the ''making'' of rational choices, as opposed to the ''ability'' to make them. The Neoplatonic philo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cogito, Ergo Sum
The Latin , usually translated into English as "I think, therefore I am", is the "first principle" of René Descartes's philosophy. He originally published it in French as , in his 1637 ''Discourse on the Method'', so as to reach a wider audience than Latin would have allowed. It later appeared in Latin in his ''Principles of Philosophy'', and a similar phrase also featured prominently in his ''Meditations on First Philosophy''. The dictum is also sometimes referred to as the cogito. As Descartes explained in a margin note, "we cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt." In the posthumously published ''The Search for Truth by Natural Light'', he expressed this insight as ("I doubt, therefore I am — or what is the same — I think, therefore I am").. Antoine Léonard Thomas, in a 1765 essay in honor of Descartes presented it as ("I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am"). Descartes's statement became a fundamental element of Western philosophy, as it purported to pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophy Of Mind
Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addressed, such as the hard problem of consciousness and the nature of particular mental states.Siegel, S.: ''The Contents of Visual Experience''. New York: Oxford University Press. 2010.Macpherson, F. & Haddock, A., editors, ''Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, Knowledge'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Aspects of the mind that are studied include mental events, mental functions, mental property, mental properties, consciousness and neural correlates of consciousness, its neural correlates, the ontology of the mind, the nature of cognition and of thought, and the relationship of the mind to the body. Dualism (philosophy of mind), Dualism and monism are the two central schools of thought on the mind–body problem, although nuanced vie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mind
The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various mental phenomena, like perception, pain experience, belief, desire, intention, and emotion. Various overlapping classifications of mental phenomena have been proposed. Important distinctions group them according to whether they are ''sensory'', ''propositional'', ''intentional'', ''conscious'', or ''occurrent''. Minds were traditionally understood as substances but it is more common in the contemporary perspective to conceive them as properties or capacities possessed by humans and higher animals. Various competing definitions of the exact nature of the mind or mentality have been proposed. ''Epistemic definitions'' focus on the privileged epistemic access the subject has to these states. ''Consciousness-based approaches'' give primacy to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intention
Intentions are mental states in which the agent commits themselves to a course of action. Having the plan to visit the zoo tomorrow is an example of an intention. The action plan is the ''content'' of the intention while the commitment is the ''attitude'' towards this content. Other mental states can have action plans as their content, as when one admires a plan, but differ from intentions since they do not involve a practical commitment to realizing this plan. Successful intentions bring about the intended course of action while unsuccessful intentions fail to do so. Intentions, like many other mental states, have intentionality: they represent possible states of affairs. Theories of intention try to capture the characteristic features of intentions. The ''belief-desire theory'' is the traditionally dominant approach. According to a simple version of it, having an intention is nothing but having a desire to perform a certain action and a belief that one will perform this action. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
