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Descartes Fifth Meditation Essay

1100 Words5 Pages

In part III of this paper, I will explain Descartes’ idea of true and immutable natures from the Fifth Meditation, and determine if it is consistent with the view provided in the reply to Caterus, his interview with Burman, and the concept of automata. In the Fifth Meditation, Descartes provides his view about true and immutable natures, which describes the ideas that contain a firm nature, and he sees clearly and distinctly. This idea provided in the Fifth Meditation is consistent with the one he provides in his reply to Caterus. However, Descartes provides an inconsistent view in his interview with Burman, which violates the principles of true and immutable natures he describes in the Fifth Meditations. In like manner, Descartes view of true and immutable natures demonstrates to be inconsistent with his concept of automata. In the Fifth Meditation, Descartes claims to be in the presence of countless ideas of things that have an true and immutable nature. For these ideas of things, Descartes makes three remarkable points. First, Descartes claims that these ideas, even though these may …show more content…

Descartes argues to be able to think of countless other shapes that have not been encountered by the sensory perception (e.g. a chiliagon), and yet “[he] can demonstrate various properties of these shapes, just as [he] can of a triangle” (¶6). Nevertheless, Descartes claims that all the properties of these shapes are true for the fact that he is clearly aware of them. Thus it follows from the fact that these shapes are true that these must be something, “and not merely nothing” (¶6). Furthermore, Descartes thinks that we are capable of having an idea of true and immutable nature when we are in the presence of something that is quite clear and it does not depend on something existing. If it is the case that it is clear, then this idea must be true and, at the same time, it must be

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