Assignment task: Please read the article attached and answer the following questions if you can thank you.
Article: Meditations 1 & 2 by René Descartes (1641) translated by John Cottingham (1984)
Q1. What's Descartes' goal in the Meditations? What does he say? In other words, why is he doing what he is doing?
Q2. What's Descartes' argument in the first Meditation to show that our senses (experience) can't serve as a foundation for certainty?
Q3. Why does Descartes think we can doubt mathematical propositions? Does Descartes think it's possible to doubt God's existence?
Q4. Why is his answer to the latter question so important to the overall argument in the 1st Meditation?
Q5. What does Meditation 1 achieve? Anything??
Q6. In Meditation 2, Descartes finally lands upon an idea that skepticism, he feels. can't penetrate. What is it? Why is he so certain it's true?
Q7. What does Descartes conclude about the essential nature of the thinking "I"
Q8. Is this "I" gendered? French (after all Descartes is French)? German? Swedish? European? Does it have a culture, a history?
Q9. Does the "I" have a sex? If so, why? If not, why not? (hint: does it have a body?)
Q10. What does the "wax example" illustrate?