mmmmm.... burrito....

Descartes can sukkit

Max,
What's the matter with my main man René Descartes?

For starters, he won't let go of this whole "God exists" thing!

Vegankat,
How do you know French is backwards? Maybe it's the right way, and you're the backwards one.

I have to admit, Descartes wasn't very clear on how he knew that he could not have conceived of the idea of God in his own mind.

Yeah he kind of sold himself short on the knowledge-thing, huh?

I pointed that out in class a few days ago... it was just me and this guy Andy participating that day. Sometimes other people pipe up, but I guess he and I were the only ones remotely interested in Descartes. I'd talked with Andy last week, and he said he's enjoying Descartes immensely, though he doesn't agree with everything.

It sure seems like Descartes made a huge blunder on the knowlege-of-God part, which since that's like the second step in his philosophy, that kind of undermines anything else he has to say.

Which philosopher(s) do you prefer, Max?

Max,
If you were to make your own "Tree of Knowlege", in what order would you put the various parts? Would you organize it like Descartes- 1. Metaphysics, 2. Physics, and 3. Morals, Mechanics, and Medicine? Or some other way?

Ok, so enough philosophy.


For now.

Enough? Never!

I am really into existential phenomenology, especially its religious aspects. I prefer the idea of extracting meaning from life by pragmatic experience rather than through dogmatic and idealistic religion.

1. Experience
2. Interpersonal identification (how we handle human-specific relationships)
3. Metaphysics

Ah, now I see why you might not have liked Descartes right off the bat, seeing as he completely discounts the sense experience.

Yeah... Although I agree with his idea of how fallible sense experience can be; I just don't believe that it is as necessarily fallible as Descartes seems to say that it is.

How do you determine between geniune and false sense experience?

I don't think we can, nor do I believe that there is really that much difference between a "false experience" and a "genuine experience." Example: If I experience unicorns flying by my window, whether or not they actually flew by, my sense experience is real. What matters is how the experience affects me. If it has genuinely positive pragmatic consequences (let's say, I start to investigate the possibility of unicorns) then the experience was good (genuine or not). Contrarily, if I start mowing down horses, yelling "death to unicorns!" Then certainly the experience was bad.

"Pragmatic consequence" is stolen, I guess, from William James. His book on religious experiences ("The Varieties of Religious Experience") uses the same idea to "validate" mystical experiences. He dismisses the importance of, for example, visions of Jesus, on their own merit in favor of focusing on their pragmatic consequences.

memo - never again read this thread at 6am without a nurse in the room

HA! Yeah, I don't know if I can think about anything, let alone Cartesian phenomenology, at 6am (or 12:31, as is it here)...

'nighty night!

What's a positive pragmatic consequence, and how do you know for sure when it happens?

Wait, that was worded awkwardly. What I meant to say was what distinguishes a positive from a negative pragmatic consequence?

Well, one for the road...

It's a good questions, Sky. First of all, a pragmatic consequence is really not questionable when it occurs:

"Why did you shoot those horses?"
"Because I saw unicorns"

"Why did Paul start his church?"
"Because Jesus appeared to him in a mystical experience."

What certainly is up for interpretation is whether it is positive or not, and I think that would be based on perspective. Shooting horses is a negative pragmatic consequence for the horses I shot, at the very least. In this case, I think it is less questionable. In the latter case, was the consequence pragmatically positive? Well, millions of Roman Catholics would say so, although I'm not sure the many other sects of Christianity that were wiped out during the development of the Holy Roman Empire would necessarily agree.

Now, if you're questioning whether we can be sure ANY of that happened, then I will have to submit something of a diatribe on shared phenomenology and *yawn* who has time for that?

Okay, I'm out like Richard Simmons. I look forward to reading your replies tomorrow :)

Originally posted by skylark
Wait, that was worded awkwardly. What I meant to say was what distinguishes a positive from a negative pragmatic consequence?
That makes sense. I think my response assumed that that is what you meant, for the most part. I will add, though, that James, and many others that hop on the boat with him, tend to limit the question of "positiveness" to the individual who experienced the event.

Good night (for real this time!)

If I understood correctly, what you're saying is that positive vs. negative, good vs. bad is all a matter of perspective and opinion, but you're not quite sure on that. At least, it seemed to me that the first part (subjective perspective etc) might produce in the accepter some uncertain feelings.

I must head to bed, too.

*looks around for 1vegan* Can I hand over the care of this board yet for the night? ;)