display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
| 5352 | The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds' [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: The idea of the soul could be easily trashed if science does not countenance essences, but science does countenance essences in the form of what are known as 'natural kinds' (such as water, salt and gold). | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.181) | |
| A reaction: The existence of any essences at all does indeed make the existence of a soul naturally possible, but scientific natural kinds are usually postulated on a basis of chemical stability. Animals, for example, are no longer usually classified that way. |
| 3636 | God didn't give us good judgement even about our own lives [Gassendi on Descartes] |
| Full Idea: God is not to be blamed for giving puny man a faculty of judging that is too small to cope with everything, but we may still wonder why our judgement is uncertain, confused and inadequate even for the few matters he did want us to decide upon. | |
| From: comment on René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §4.58) by Pierre Gassendi - Objections to 'Meditations' (Fifth) 314 |
| 2277 | Since God does not wish to deceive me, my judgement won't make errors if I use it properly [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Since God does not wish to deceive me, he assuredly has not given me a faculty of judgement with which I could never make a mistake, when I use it properly. | |
| From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §4.54) |
| 2278 | Error arises because my faculty for judging truth is not infinite [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I make mistakes because the faculty of judging the truth, which I got from God, is not, in my case, infinite. | |
| From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §4.54) |
| 2281 | If we ask whether God's works are perfect, we must not take a narrow viewpoint, but look at the universe as a whole [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Whenever we ask whether the works of God are perfect, we should keep in view not simply some one creature in isolation from the rest, but the universe as a whole. | |
| From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §4.55) |