Perceptive Abilities Versus The Bodies Senses example essay topic

313 words
The significance of Descartes use of the hat & coat example (pp. 465 para. 2) was he need to show that perceptual judgments aren't made by the senses, but in fact, they " re made by the mind, or intellect. He wanted to disprove bodies' dependence on the senses, and present a new argument for the intellect's ability in making judgments based on senses. So, perception, according to Descartes, is an intellectual action and it entails the mind making certain decisions that go beyond what is perceived by the senses.

So even thoughts on, say, the existence of a piece of wax, presupposes the existence of the brain. And once it is realized that knowledge of bodily objects involves certain intellectual judgments, Descartes can say that 'I can know myself more distinctly than I can know any corporeal object'. With this, Descartes presumes that an object can be understood even when its reality isn't thought of, but it is in itself thought of by the mind alone. In using the hats and coats example, Descartes was trying to say that even though we see men, we still know it's a man, even though the clothes maybe in reality hiding a robot or something. So, in fact what I might be observing by sight, I really used my intellect. On the other hand, if the mind distinguishes a thought that it is reflecting on, there is no difference between this perceived thought and the thought itself, a thought can't look as if it is any other thought than what it is.

Moreover, the thought is not an "appearance" of the mind but is the workings of the mind itself. In other words, Descartes is using a layman's example to provide means for his argument on the minds perceptive abilities versus the bodies senses.