Decartes

Thinking Things Exist, but not by Decartes’ standards According to the Cogito Doctrine Decartes is certain that he exists because he is a thinking thing. In my paper I am going to explain how Decartes justifies his claim that he knows for certain that he exists. After establishing a clear and concise understanding of Decartes’ justification I will point out that God’s existence is a fundamental premise in his argument for his existence. Then I will explain how Decartes incorporates his principles of justification to prove he can have clear and distinct ideas, which are the ideas that he can know to be true. Moreover, I will address how Decartes’ would use these principles to prove that other thinking things, besides he, exist as well. Finally,

Existence is a perfect attribute and nonexistence is an imperfection, so a supremely perfect being would necessarily exist. This is when the substance doctrine is incorporated into the proof, and it is important to grasp its relationship with the principle of sufficient reason. The substance doctrine states that if something exists it must necessarily be either a substance or an attribute of a substance. According to the principle of sufficient reason substances contain more formal reality and are more real, and attributes contain more objective reality and are less real. Given this, the idea of a substance contains more objective reality than the idea of an attribute, as the idea of an infinite substance contains more objective reality versus the idea of a finite substance. Therefore, the idea of infinite substance must be the most objectively real idea that one could have, since substances are the only things that can possibly cause an idea to emerge in one’s head. More specifically, the only possible formal cause of the idea of infinite substance is God. It is important to realize the element of the principle of sufficient reason still applies. Given it is impossible to derive something more perfect from something less perfect, the idea of infinite substance could only come from

God’s existence is the fundamental reason Decartes can completely rule out the possibility of doubt in clear and distinct ideas. I hope I have shown that from Decartes’ idea of perfection it follows that the Perfect God would not have created human beings with a defected faculty of judgment, because deceit is a flaw and God is flawless. Goodness and willing what is good are perfect attributes, which is why God created human beings with perfects intellects. The intellect enables you to distinguish what is true from what is false because it can have clear and distinct