do you know anyting about Descartes??

[dimafleck: the living legend.]

this is a test question that i am going to be answering on monday....(we get our questions in advance.... the other two are fairly straigh forward...but his one is scaring the crap out of me...anyone wanna field this one??

while decartes insists throughout his writings that mathematics forms the paradigm for knowledge, he also insists in the Replies to the Second Set of Objections that metaphysics, the subject matter of hte Meditations, encounters difficulties in the discovery of its First Principles that are idiosyncratic, and, therefore, not shared with mathematics. as a result, decartes maintains that metaphysics requires a unique method for leading the reader to its First Principles, a methed (he calls it analysis) that is not shared wiht mathematics. discuss as fully as you can, Descartes' account of the differences that exist in the methodology in mathematics and metaphysics in the pursuit of their respecctive First Principles.

[hamilton]

All I know is that you shouldn't put Descartes before des horses.

[MamaPink]

ba doom boom ching!

[AD]

Being a mapper, I know Descartes is responsible for the Cartesian coordinate system, thus making cartography and mapping of the Earth and universe possible.

AD

[hamilton]

Rene Descartes walks into a bar and orders a beer. When he is finished, the bartender asks him if he would like another one. Descartes ponders the question for a minute, and then replies, "I think not."

... and immediately ceases to exist.

[StoneMtn]

I might be able to help with half of your problem:

It's been a long time since I read it, but if I remember correctly, his metaphysics was based on the theory that he would doubt everything that could possibly be doubted, until he arrived at a first principle, which he could not possibly doubt.

That first principle was the idea that a being, a thinking being, had to exist to do that doubting and that thinking being was him. ("I think therefore I am.")

He also drew the logical conclusion that that being is finite. As a finite being, it had to have been created by an infinite being. From this, he drew the conclusion that the finite being has a concept of the infinite.

The only way a finite being can have a concept of the infinite is if the infinite provided that concept to the finite being.

Logically, therefore, since Descartes exists (at least as a thinking being of some sort) an infinite being must exist. That infinite being, of course, is god. God, therefore, logically implants those ideas in the thinking being, Descartes, and he therefore knows those ideas. Further as they are implanted him by the infinite, they are obviously metaphysically true.

(As an aside, this, of course, is a specious argument in that the finite does not really have a concept of the infinite. The finite is only able to conceive of the idea of something being infinite, although it can have no actual understanding.)

Unfortunately for you, however, that is only half the answer, and I have never really studied Descartes' mathematics; just his metaphysics and not really in any great depth, at that.

Besides, I am just a simple caveman so what do I know anyway...

[zero]

It's all about the pineal gland.

[secondtube]

here's a better question.

Why do u get your questions in advance?

Thats pretty damn cool, wish i got my exam in advance...lol

[dimafleck: the living legend.]

we get our questions in advance because we need to do research and supply secondary sources....then show up and write 3 essays...we can only bring 6 lines of writing for each question .....