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    The human intellect can perceive the nature of reality th... — Carmelics
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    The human intellect can perceive the nature of reality through purely intellectual perception, independent of the senses.

    Consciousness & MindTruth & Knowledge
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.The senses do not reveal the natures of substances.
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    • 2.Fundamental truths of metaphysics require withdrawing the mind from the senses.
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    • 3.Innate ideas of the essences of things (mind, matter, God) are accessible to the intellect directly.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.All concepts, including abstract ones, are derived from or structured by prior sensory and bodily experience (Aristotle, De Anima; Locke, Essay II.i).
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    • 2.Descartes' own 'innate' ideas (extension, duration, number) correspond structurally to categories abstracted from repeated sensory encounter.
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    • 3.If the intellect's content is traceable to sensory origins, its apparent independence is a retrospective rationalization, not a genuine faculty.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Kant demonstrated in the Critique of Pure Reason that pure intellect without sensory intuition produces empty concepts incapable of yielding knowledge of objects.
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    • 2.The Cartesian move of 'withdrawing from the senses' removes the very intuitive content that would allow intellectual perception to be about reality rather than mere logical form.
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    Topics

    Consciousness & MindTruth & Knowledge

    Connections

    2 topics

    Perception1 linkedSkepticism1 linked

    Related

    All concepts, including abstract ones, are derived from or structured by prior s...Descartes' own 'innate' ideas (extension, duration, number) correspond structura...Fundamental truths of metaphysics require withdrawing the mind from the senses.If the intellect's content is traceable to sensory origins, its apparent indepen...
    +4 moreShow less
    Innate ideas of the essences of things (mind, matter, God) are accessible to the...Kant demonstrated in the Critique of Pure Reason that pure intellect without sen...The Cartesian move of 'withdrawing from the senses' removes the very intuitive c...

    Similar

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    Descartes denied that the senses reveal the natures of substances. He held that in fact the human intellect is able to perceive the nature of reality through a purely intellectual perception. This means that, in order to procure the fundamental truths of metaphysics, we must “withdraw the mind from the senses” (7:4, 12, 14) and turn toward our innate ideas of the essences of things, including the essences of mind, matter, and an infinite being (God). Descartes constructed the Meditations so as
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    Details

    The senses do not reveal the natures of substances.
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit