What is Descartes" conception of error? Be sure not only to include its definition, but also its causes.
Descartes thinks that the conception of error is a lack, rather than a real thing dependent on God. He also says that he falls into error because his God-given ability to judge the truth is not infinite. The problem is similar to the traditional problems of evil: if God "the Creator" exists, and is good, then why is his creation party evil? Descartes" first response to the problem is that God's purposes are impenetrable to us, and if we were less limited in outlook, we might see that our faults have a place in the universal scheme of things. His second response is that errors are mistaken judgements. When we enquire closely into the nature of judgement, we find that it involves the two faculties of the intellect and the will. Both are faculties of the self or soul, whose existence is proved in the Second Meditation. The activities of perceiving ideas, and the activities of willing, both count broadly as activities of thinking, in Descartes" sense. .
Using Descartes" thought experiment with the bee's wax candle, show how Descartes changes the philosophical understanding of a substance.
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Descartes first starts out by saying that the candle has smell, color, shape, and size. He also mentions that it makes sound when rapped. He moves the wax toward the fire and everything about the wax changes. It loses color, shape, size, and conformity. He knows though that the wax before him is the same wax, but everything about it has changed. He then says that despite the appearances, his grasp of the wax is not visual, tactile, or pictorial. Rather, his grasp of the wax is the result of a purely mental inspection, which can be imperfect and confused, as it was once, or clear and distinct, as it is now, depending on how much attention he pays to the things of which the wax consists. He then concludes that he comprehends things with his judgement, which is in his mind, objects that he once believed himself to see with his eyes.
