(with apologies to Norman Melchert, The Great Conversation)

The third meditation is probably the most difficult of the six. Here are some questions to try to answer before our class on Meditation III.

1. What are the differences between the following different sorts of contents of the mind? What are examples of each? 

2. What is the difference between being taught by nature and being taught by the light of nature? (What is the light of nature, anyway?)

3. What is the difference between formal and objective reality? What does it mean to say that some things have "more reality" than others?

4. Descartes says that "it is manifest by the natural light that there must be at least as much reality in the efficient and total cause as in its effect." What does this mean? Is it "manifest by the natural light"?

5. How does Descartes' first argument for God's existence go? (The argument that only God could be the cause of my idea of God.)

6. How does the second argument go? (The argument that only God could be the cause of my existence.)