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The Western Canon Mailing List
Moderator: Paul John Barnette Jr.
Activation Date: March 8, 1997
Current Date:  June 21, 1997
Current Membership: 74
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Where are some questions concerning this month's readings. Please 
feel free to respond to any or all of them.

1. What would Descartes' opinion be in regards to the current debate 
over the possibility of artificial intelligence?

2. How is Descartes' method simular to the scientific method and
how is it different?

3. Does Descartes actually doubt to the extent that he says he does,
or is his method of doubt simply a technique he uses to convince his
readers?

4. Descartes uses the example of a piece of wax to argue that we
actually know objects with the power of judgment in our minds rather
than with our physical senses. Is this true?

5. Is the proof that Descartes gives for the existence of God in the
third meditation valid?

6. Descartes believes that there are ideas innate in the mind, such as
the idea of God, because they cannot be derived from the senses. What
is your opinion of innate ideas?

7. How is the proof that Descartes gives for God's existence in the
fifth meditation different from the one he gives in the third meditation?

8. Is the proof that Descartes gives for the existence of God in the
fifth meditation valid?

9. Is Descartes guilty of using circular reasoning in the latter half of
the fifth meditation?

10. This is more of a statement than an actual question. Descartes is
a dualist in that he divides reality into two equal and separate parts,
the mental and the physical. By doing so he creates the mind/body problem
and is unable to explain the interaction between the mind and the body
in any adequate way. Since his time there has been two ways in which to
overcome this difficulty. One is to reduce all of reality to the mental
alone, which is idealism. The other is to reduce all of reality to the
physical, which is materialism. Because of manner in which Descartes 
framed the problem we have only these three choices; dualism, idealism
or materialism, and all three have their philosophic difficulties. Today
materialism appears to be the most commonly accepted answer, but I suspect
that the real answer requires that the problem be framed in a manner
sufficiently different from Descartes' traditional way in order to eliminate
such bad alternatives. As to what this would actually entail I have 
no idea, for if I did I would be rushing to publish it rather that  
typing this message to the list! :)

Paul John Barnette Jr


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