Sunday, October 23, 2011
What is Real and Intelligible
The Treatise on the Emendation of Intellect, is supposed to give insight into how the mind can form ideas that are clear and distinct. However after reading the passages, I found myself asking the question what is real and intelligible? I think that the intended function of the intellect is to assess our immediate environment and communicate the information to our body so it could respond in whatever way appropriate and helps us to form our final decisions. The ideas that we accumulate through our past and present experience are clear and distinct. Our minds are active and associative from one situation to another. If we sit in silence and try to remain that way, thoughts will arise no matter how much we try to block our minds from it. Would these thoughts be considered “real and intelligible” or fiction? “A circle is one thing, the idea of a circle is another. For the idea of a circle is not something having a circumference and a center, as is a circle, nor is the ideas of a body itself a body. And since it is something different from its object, it will also be something intelligible through itself”(p170, 33). So when we know the nature of both the circle and the square it is impossible for us to combine the two, but I’ve seen square donuts. So the folks at the Donut Plant took one idea formed a new one, which in turn can be formed into something else that is both real and intelligible.
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As an attempt to elaborate on the quote provided above, the object and the true idea of the object are two different things. Whereas a circle may have so and so properties, the true idea of a circle is the belief, for lack of better words, that a circle has such properties. My cell phone and the true idea of my cell phone are different in the sense that while it is objectively blue, for example, the true idea is the fact that I attribute blue to being one of its properties. In other words, the object is a “thing in itself” (as Kant would put it) whereas the true idea of the object is a judgment based on perception (an appearance perhaps?). In addition, for an idea to be a true idea, the judgment of the perceived must accurately reflect the objective essence of the object itself. How to perceive clearly is also mentioned by Spinoza and is story for another day. As to Leshawn’s problem with a square donut-, I believe he does not have the true idea of a donut in general. I do not doubt that he know has the true ideas of a square and a circle but is being of a circular shape one of the absolute attributes to being a donut? Since square donuts undoubtedly exists, being circular is not an accurate judgment that is attributable to donuts.
ReplyDeleteReading the section I found I wondered how much evidence does it need in order to prove what things are real and what things are not? I thought maybe having empirical knowledge and/or some variation of an object IE donuts, could prove its existence.
ReplyDeleteBased on new evidence the idea of the object will probably changed so much that the essence or idea could never be truly known.
I think it’s the combination of many things that make objects in my view real. Both true in the sense that I can feel them and that I recognize what ideas and attributes they have based on my prior knowledge of the object. Unfortunately philosophically speaking I’m not sure one justifies the other.
In our day-to-day lives as human beings, we learn to trust experience as our number one connection to reality. Descartes and Spinoza both agreed that the senses were not to be relied on and have no connection to our intellect, and Leibnitz agrees with our two previous readings. Ultimately, senses can be deceptive and what we encounter can not be trusted. As far back as ancient Greek philosophy they have made the clear distinction between the idea of an object and its perception of the particular. But as Spinoza goes on to state, there are then two types of ideas making things even more complicated. An adequate idea that has all of its parts therefore has intrinsic completion. A true idea on the other hand has an external agreement. The barrier between the extension and the idea is then met, this becomes an idea of god for Spinoza.
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