-What is the “tree of philosophy” and how does the Meditations relate to it?

-What is the general philosophical purpose of “hyperbolic” doubt?

-Why does Descartes distrust the senses at the beginning of the Meditations?

-What are the three central skeptical arguments in the First Meditation and what is wrong with the first two of them?  (There is also another argument at the very beginning of the Meditation.  Four in all.)

-What is the cogito argument?  Explain the two interpretations of it (i.e. it is a logical argument; it is a direct intuition).

-What is the wax example and why does Descartes use it in the Second Meditation?

-What is the difference between innate, invented, and adventitious ideas?

-Why does Descartes need to prove the existence of God in the Third Meditation and how does he do it?  (What is the difference between the “formal” and “objective” reality of a thing?)

-How does he prove that God is not a deceiver?

-What are “clear and distinct” ideas and what is their role in Descartes’ work?

-Explain the objection to Descartes that his argument is circular.  (What does it mean for an argument to be “circular” and why specifically is it objected that Descartes’ argument is circular?)

-What is the purpose of the Fourth Meditation in the overall structure of the Meditations?

-What is the explanation of human error and why is it not God’s fault?

-Can we know why God created us in such a way that we possibly err?  Why or why not?

-What is the distinction between the imagination and the intellect in the fifth and sixth Meditations?  (What is the purpose of the chiliagon example?)

-What is the clear and distinct idea of body offered in the Fifth Meditation?

-What is the difference between “primary” and “secondary” ideas of body?

-How are the clear and distinct ideas of body like ideas of geometrical objects, such as a triangle?

-How does Descartes prove God’s existence in the Fifth Meditation?

-What is the argument for the existence of body in the Sixth Meditation?

-How does Descartes respond to the Dream argument at the end of the Meditations?