Q1. Descartes begins by stating: "I will now shut my eyes, block my ears, cut off all my senses. I will regard all my mental images of bodily things as empty, false, and worthless." Why does he do so?
Q2. According to Descartes, how can such claims as "two plus three makes five" be doubted?
Q3. What is the difference between "ideas" and volitions/emotions/judgments?
Q4. What, according to Descartes, is the most common form of mistakes in our judgment?
Q5. Descartes categorizes ideas into three kinds: Innate, those caused by the outside, and invented. Define each, and give two or three examples of each.
Q6. What, according to Descartes, is the difference between natural impulses and natural light?
Q7. Descartes states, "Now it is obvious by the natural light that the total cause of something must contain at least as much reality as the effect." What do you think this means?
Q8. Descartes notes that the following are the list of all that we perceive vividly and clearly in bodies: Size, shape, position, motion, substance, duration, and number. Then, he notes that every other idea apart and away from one can be based on us. How does he do so? Explain using his example of a stone.
Q9. How does Descartes define God?
Q10. Descartes states that this definition of God leads to God necessarily existing. State his argument in your own words.
Q11. Descartes states, "I understand that I lack something and am therefore not wholly perfect. How could I grasp this without an idea of a perfect being that enabled me to recognize my defects by comparison?" What do you think he means by this?
Q12. How does Descartes reject the claim that "all the perfections that I attribute to God are ones that I do have in some potential form"?
Q13. How does Descartes reject the idea that his existence is something he derived?
Q14. What do you think Descartes means by the following: "For a life-span can be divided into countless parts, each completely independent of the others so that from my existing at one time doesn't follow that I exist at later times unless some cause keeps me in existence-one might say that it creates me afresh at each moment."
Q15. What do you think Descartes means by "It is clear enough that this sequence of causes of causes can't run back infinitely...."?
Q16. Why does Descartes say there cannot be different causes to "my creation"?
Q17. According to Descartes, whence comes the idea of God?
Q18. Why can't God be a deceiver?