Introduction to Philosophy: Overhead

Introduction to Philosophy	Notes	*This is not a substitute for coming to class - or for reading* the material.**	Richard Lee
Philosophy 2003	Notes	Copyright © 2006, Richard Lee	Autumn 2006

What I Am (Descartes)

What am I?

a body? (P 148a) -- No
"a subtle air distributed through" the body? (P 230a; Cf. P 148ab) -- No
"A thing which thinks." (P 230b) -- Yes (res cogitans)

"I am ... precisely only a thing that thinks, that is, a mind, or soul, or intellect, or reason ..." (P 148b)

"What is a thing which thinks? It is a thing which doubts, understands, [conceives], affirms, denies, wills, refuses, which also imagines and feels." (P 230b; Cf. P 149b)

Richard Lee, rlee@uark.edu, last modified: 12 March 2003