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The wax argument or the sheet of wax example is a thought experiment that René Descartes created in the second of his Meditations on First Philosophy.He devised it to analyze what properties are essential for bodies, show how uncertain our knowledge of the world is compared to our knowledge of our minds, and argue for rationalism.
Meditations on First Philosophy, in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated (Latin: Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animæ immortalitas demonstratur), often called simply the Meditations, [1] is a philosophical treatise by René Descartes first published in Latin in 1641.
In Descartes' substance–attribute–mode ontology, extension is the primary attribute of corporeal substance. He describes a piece of wax in the Second Meditation (see Wax argument). A solid piece of wax has certain sensory qualities. However, when the wax is melted, it loses every single apparent quality it had in its solid form.
The nature of the self was specifically addressed in the Second Meditation wherein the narrator stated: "I am, then, in the strict sense only a thing that thinks; that is, I am a mind, or intelligence, or reason - words whose meaning I have been ignorant of until now." [3] The mind and body aspects of cartesian are distinct from one another. [6]
Descartes, who was most famous for the assertion "I think therefore I am", has had a lot of influence on the mind–body problem. He describes his theory of mental substance (which he calls res cogitans distinguishing it from the res extensa) in the Second Meditation (II.8) and in Principia Philosophiae (2.002).
Descartes identifies four degrees of knowledge which he names common, and a fifth degree he designates higher. The first degree consists of clear and evident notions that can be acquired without the need for any meditation. The second degree is all that is learned by means of the senses. The third comprises what we learn when talking with others.
Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology (French: Méditations cartésiennes: Introduction à la phénoménologie) is a book by the philosopher Edmund Husserl, based on four lectures he gave at the Sorbonne, in the Amphithéatre Descartes on February 23 and 25, 1929.
Discussions of theory of mind have their roots in philosophical debate from the time of René Descartes' Second Meditation, which set the foundations for considering the science of the mind. Two differing approaches in philosophy for explaining theory of mind are theory-theory and simulation theory. [24]