Juliet Arowosaye UCOR 132: Basic Philosophical Questions Meditations on First Philosophy; Descartes’ Doubts and Resolutions In Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes, the meditator presents the possibility that everything he, and all humans, have known and seen could be false. He struggles to find any reason to not doubt that our senses have just been deceiving us our whole lives. Thus, he reaches the conclusion that everything we have seen and known, as well as our existence, must be called into doubt. Descartes attempts to unravel the meditator’s mentality by presenting ways in which we are possibly being deceived.
In Meditation Five of Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes makes his argument for a supreme being, which he refers to as “God.” Descartes creates his argument based on the two premises that 1) if a supreme being exists, then it must hold all perfections, and that 2) existence is a perfection. These two premises lead to the conclusion that a supreme being does indeed exist, and in response to this argument, I will provide a counterexample, as well as the response that Descartes would likely provide to this objection. To begin his argument, Descartes first leads readers into his line of thinking in order that they might understand the possibility of the existence of a supreme being. Throughout his argument, Descartes relies on
Descartes ain’t no dummy! In his book, Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes challenges all his former beliefs by critically doubting them. When doing so, he aims to continue doubting until he is able to discover a belief that he cannot be doubted. Descartes is therefore searching for the truth, within the doubt. In his cogito argument, Descartes clearly navigates through three stages of doubt, leading him to ultimately overcome scepticism, and assure the certainty of his own existence because it is universally accepted, he eliminates all doubt, and it is indubitable.
Firstly, Lloyd illustrates how Descartes adapted reason into a methodical thought that he used to attempt to form a rational basis for the belief in God (Lloyd, 1993:39). Descartes mentions in the Meditations dedicatory letter that he believes that for theists it is their faith that holds the rational basis for belief in God, whereas atheists do not have this faith and so it lies in reason to prove that God exists in order to persuade them (Descartes, 1996:3). However, REFERENCE AGAINST THIS POINT Moreover, from Descartes thoughts on reasoning he stemmed his dualistic view of the body and mind being two separate entities, which Lloyd notes includes the distinction between the rational mind, which Descartes identifies with the soul, and the irrational body (Lloyd, 1993:45). As Descartes has established his dualistic view, he highlights the cogito in his third meditation,
Seen with the Cartesian idea of ‘I think, therefore I am” which is alarmingly a prevalent and an established belief in philosophy. But upon further inspection, the proposition “I think, therefore I am” is something that we could make sense of within a Buddhist framework. Assume Descartes’ ‘I’ is the five skandhas, the ‘I’ (or the fives skandhas) are causing an illusory effect which lead to the assumption of transient, tentative existence. Using radical reductionism, we cannot assume the existence of the world as we know it because the world as we know it is a product of the five skandhas. Therefore, any concept of “I’ we hold is illusory in nature, caused by the five
With the fear that what he sees is false, Descartes decides to doubt all his senses and rely on one simple fact he knows to be true: “I am, I exist” (Descartes, 64). Since the belief was not affected by the skepticism and he cannot exist without a thought and mind, he accepts that he is a “thinking thing” (Descartes 65). Descartes defines “thinking” as imagining, understanding, doubting, and sensing. To determine if he has a body, Descartes uses the Cartesian Dualism to describe the relationship between mind and body. We cannot be sure we have a body; Descartes can be sure that we have a mind.
Descartes’ doubt is methodical in that he questions the foundations of his beliefs and uses this doubt in order to discover knowledge that is entirely certain through perceptions that simply cannot be doubted. He devises the Method of Doubt in which he proposes a belief, negates it, and evaluates the possibility of the negation. In the book, Descartes focuses on the reliability of the senses, putting forth the belief that the senses are reliable, proposing the negation that the senses are unreliable, then evaluating the possibility of this negation. If the negation is impossible, then the belief is certain, and if the negation is possible, then the belief is suspended. Since medieval science is rooted in the reliability of the senses, and the argument that the senses are reliable does not
Leaving aside Descartes’ skepticism of the existence of everything, Frankfurt argues that Descartes’ ‘metaphysical doubt concerns simply the possibility that the demon victimizes us by making us think we remember clearly and distinctly perceiving what we in fact never clearly and distinctly perceived at all’ (217). Human beings rely on their senses to perceive the things around them. Through some complex processes that occur in the human’s mind, that we like to call thinking, humans are able to identify and make connections for themselves, for what is out there and what isn’t. Discussing Descartes’ works, Frankfurt acknowledges that Descartes’ thought might not be his only fundamental characteristic, ‘even though he perceives clearly and distinctly that it is, because he is not yet altogether convinced that what is clearly and distinctly perceived is true’ (161). Furthermore, Frankfurt adds that Descartes ‘does perceive clearly and distinctly that thought is his essence’, but he restricts the assertion because ‘he still fears the demon’ (161).
The aim of this paper is not to analyze Descartes and Hobbes ideas and what does he say about the God and what he says about the concept of error or mistake. The overall effect is to raise some doubts about association of Descartes’ philosophy with others philosophy In meditation III, Descartes establishes the argument on the existence of God. He tried to seek to prove the existence of God from the fact what does he know about him moreover, He settle an argument on if the god is not just his imagination and rather, his idea of god is something he was born within. The one thing that Descartes argued the most about the cause of how element A depends on element B, then apparently have much more reality than the A itself therefore as he states, “Father is the principle of the son, do not on that account grant that the son came from a principle; just so, although I have granted that God can in a certain sense be called himself”.
Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician, who probably confused himself more than he confused his readers or students. Being that he was a mathematician, he was the first philosopher of his time to convey a sort of scientific method to his own personal madness through self doubt. Through our studies of Descartes we are shown that the proof of the existence of God is of importance in Descartes' journey through understanding. He uses self doubt and the acknowledgment of being an imperfect being to “prove” that God exists in the world of philosophy. Through his meditations Descartes shows the importance of doubting the self.
One of Descartes’ many critiques was that of fellow philosopher John Locke. Using Locke I will argue that many of Descartes claims in his meditations on innate knowledge and reality show problematic. I do not totally agree with his proposition that only the mind can produce certain knowledge and that our senses are always under the attack of the devil that deceives us. I do however agree with Locke’s argument which opposes Descartes concerning doubt in the first meditation. During Descartes first meditation the focus was placed on doubt and how knowledge is innate in each of us.
Descartes’ project –the Meditations- was undertaken to provide answers, as opposed to uncertainties. He aimed to establish which of our previous beliefs we can retain and which we should reject as unjustified. During his search for complete truths, Descartes concludes that God exists, primarily because this idea is already within us. God’s existence is crucial in Descartes’ argument because without establishing that God exists, the Meditator (symbolic of not only Descartes but of anyone reading the Meditations and repeating his exercise) cannot be certain of anything bar that he is a “thinking thing” (Descartes, 1998, p.31). Descartes also uses God’s existence to prove there is no deceiver, as God would not allow this (Descartes, 1998, p.44).
Justified, true belief knowledge is only real if there is no conceivable doubt, but nothing can truly be inconceivable fact. In “Mediation I: What can be Called into Doubt”, Descartes tries to find solutions to this, but he only raises more questions about the world. Skepticism arises to challenge the idea of a perfect knowledge and to question the human mind and the world. Descartes reflects on the countless falsehoods he believed that became his knowledge about the world and wipes everything out of his mind to begin anew. Descartes starts with the foundations of knowledge, deciding only to accept opinions as truths when there isn't any conceivable doubt in his mind.
Sartre himself describes consciousness in the manner of a cogito, establishing the existence of a being from the upsurge of its cogito. Sartre writes: “Being apprehends itself as not being its own foundation, and this apprehension is at the basis of every cogito” (Sartre, 127). Descartes’ original formulation of the cogito takes the form of: ‘I think; therefore I am’; it is undeniable that this Cartesian thesis itself is formulated in the mode of language. I argue that it is due to this cogito (operating in language) that the concept of existence first arises in the for-itself. Furthermore, the concept of existence itself is only possible from the point of view of the for-itself, as the being that causes the world to be.
In the second meditation, Descartes uses this cogito of consciousness and existence to assume that the mind is distant from a body. “I am, I exist”. This essay I will clearly discuss an outline of Descartes cogito in the second meditation and how it deals with the subject of existence and also Descartes’s strongest and weakest arguments in this case. “The Meditation of yesterday filled my mind with so many doubts that it is no longer in my power to
