Chapter 1
What does Descartes mean by the claim "even though everyone is commonly persuaded that the ideas that are the objects of our thought are wholly like the objects from which they proceed, nevertheless I can see no reasoning that assures us that this is the case."
Chapter 2
~ Does fire move naturally 'upwards' or away from the center of the earth, for Descartes?
~ What assumptions does Descartes make about the nature of fire?
Chapter 3
~ Descartes claims (paragraph 3) that "there is a way of explaining the cause of all the changes that take place in the world and all the variety that appears on the earth." What is this way?
~ How does Descartes explain why some bodies are hard (solid) and others soft (liquid)?
Chapter 4
~ Does Descartes believe the void (= a vaccuum) exists? Why or why not?
~ Explain Descartes' claim "all the motions that take place in the world are in some way circular."
Chapter 5
~ What are the elements, according to Descartes?
~ What does Descartes think of the classical Greek notions of hot, cold, wet and dry?
~ What differences does Descartes think exist between the Earth on the one hand, and the planets and comets on the other?
Chapter 6
~ Describe Descartes' imagined world -- the "fable."
~ Why does Descartes present his ideas in this form of a fable? (See last paragraph of Ch.6, and the last sentence of the next-to-last paragraph.)
Chapter 7
~ What are Descartes' 3 laws of nature?
~ What is the relationship between these laws and God?
~ How do the motions described by these laws compare to the motions described by Aristotle, Copernicus, Kepler, and others?
Chapter 8
~ How did the cosmos (in Descartes' imagined world) come to have the structure and arrangement it does?
Chapter 10
~ Why do smaller planets move faster than larger ones, on Descartes' view?
~ What makes the planets move (around the Sun and upon their axes), according to Descartes?
Chapter 11
~ How does Descartes characterize weight?
~ Why do heavy things fall?
1. What is the (human) body, according to Descartes?
2. What are the 'animal spirits,' and what role or function do they have in the human body?
3. Describe Descartes' theory of sensation. How is sensation analogous to an (air-driven) organ?
4. Are we humans just machines, according to Descartes?