1. Descartes thinks there is a kind of cognitive error that we make that we are able to prevent.

Thus this kind of error is a moral fault of sorts, for it is in our power to be able to refrain from making errors of this kind. In this essay I want you to consider if Descartes' recommended method for preventing these errors is successful. To do this, you need to rst clarify Descartes' understanding of error. To clarify his understanding of error you need to explain the distinction for Descartes between an idea and a judgment, and how false judgments are involved in error, and how judgment requires both will and intellect. Relying on your preceding explanation of error according to Descartes, explain the method Descartes proposes to avoid such error. Finally, determine if this method will solve the problem, or if it really is no solution at all. 2. Descartes thinks that he has established that the human being is essentially a thinking thing and not a body. What is his argument in the sixth meditation for this position? In your explication of the argument be sure to focus on how Descartes claims we can have a clear and distinct idea of ourselves as mind without having an idea of ourselves as body. In the movie, Babette's Feast, there is something of a spiritual rift between the members of the community. In the course of the feast, the spiritual wounds somehow seem to be healed. How, if at all, would this present a kind of objection to Descartes' way of arguing for human beings as essentially mind and not body? (HINT: Most people in the community have no idea of what the feast is doing to them.) 3. The most foundational truth that Descartes believes cannot be doubted is that "I exist." What is immediately apprehended with this truth is that "I am a thinking thing." How is it that Descartes believes "I exist." to be incapable of being doubted? Does he provide an argument for this proposition, and if he does not, is that a problem? How is it that "I am a thinking thing." is immediately apprehended along with my existence? Finally, Descartes rather quickly assumes that being a thinking thing includes willing, imagining, sensing, afrming, denying, etc. Is Descartes being sloppy here by including such cognitive operations as imagining and sensing in the meaning of "thinking thing"? If he is being sloppy, then explain why it is that Descartes' characterization of a "thinking thing" is incorrect? If you think Descartes' characterization of a "thinking thing" can be defended here, you still must rst raise the problems with his characterization as we mentioned them in class and then show how the problems can be circumvented. 4. What is the position of determinism? Explain the meaning of this position via the notion of a proposition that expresses the total state of affairs in the world at a given moment and the notion of the set of all physical laws. What seems to be incompatible about determinism and free will? Be sure to reference the principle of alternate possibilities (PAP) here. As you'll recall, Frankfurt thinks he has a counterexample to PAP insofar as PAP is a necessary condition for being morally responsible for what we do. Explain how his counterexample works. If Frankfurt's counterexample works, does that mean that even if determinism is true we would still be morally responsible for some actions? Give an argument for why we would still be morally responsible for some actions or an argument for why we would not be.