Descartes thinks that the conception of error is a lack, rather than a real thing dependent on God. He also says that he falls into error because his God-given ability to judge the truth is not infinite. The problem is similar to the traditional problems of evil: if God “the Creator” exists, and is good, then why is his creation party evil? Descartes’ first response to the problem is that God’s purposes are impenetrable to us, and if we were less limited in outlook, we might see that our faults have a place in the universal scheme of things. His second response is that errors are mistaken judgements. When we enquire closely into the nature of judgement, we find that it involves the two faculties of the intellect and the will. Both are faculties of the self or soul, whose existence is proved in the Second Meditation. The activities of perceiving ideas, and the activities of willing, both count broadly as activities of thinking, in Descartes’ sense.

Using Descartes’ thought experiment with the bee’s wax candle, show how Descartes changes the philosophical understanding of a substance.

Conway attempts to prove that all of reality is one, that all things in the world contain spirit, that all things in the world are subject to change, and animate creatures are subject to reincarnation. She therefore brings up arguments against dualism because dualism, including that of Descartes, separates matter and spirit, the non-conscious and the conscious, God and the world, thus breaking up the unity of nature and the relationship between the spiritual and the material world. While Descartes thought that there are two kinds of substances, Conway distinguishes between three kinds: the one of God, of Christ, and that of creatures. The substance of God is pure spirit. Christ is both God and man, and his substance contains a high degree of spirit, as well as matter. Conway believes that there is no substantial difference between a stone, an animal, and a human being. She believes that the only difference between them lies in the fact that the stone will have fewer spiritual particles and the human being will have more. So basically everything is the same just containing different spiritual particles.

Explain Anne Conway’s main objection with Cartesian philosophy.

Define rationalism and empiricism. Which epistemological school doe

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