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Descartes Fourth Meditation Analysis

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Recommended: Empiricism and rationalism

Descartes expounds upon the concept of error and its correlation to free will among humans and to the entity God in one of his passages, “Fourth Meditation.” He has proclaimed the existence of God in his previous meditation and further questions the perfection of humans and the issue with error. Humans, as the creation of God, should not be committing mistakes due to the claim that God is an all-perfect being and is not a deceiver. However, Descartes understands that humans are prone to error despite having an infinite will that would supposedly prevent them from doing any wrong. The philosopher therefore proclaims that error is a result from humans who attempt to utilize their knowledge and will simultaneously, which will result in mistakes. …show more content…

Descartes states with clarity that it does not seem possible for him to “to discover the [impenetrable] purposes of God” due to being in a state that does not reach God’s infinity (111). Being in a realm where nothingness does promote error, it is plausible that we have yet to acclaim knowledge or a true source that could help us understand God’s reasons behind our imperfect creation. Descartes narrows down the central concept to two faculties: the power of knowing (intellect) and the power of choice (free will). He understands that free will is the known infinite faculty, so our intellect is what determines our state of finity. Our knowledge is limited in comparison to God, and because of it, we are unable to give our full judgement to what God has committed because we do not understand its purpose in relation to its function in the world. Descartes claims that if one “abstain from making a judgement upon a topic when [one] do not conceive it sufficiently clearly and distinctly,” they can avoid committing error (115). Mistakes come from actions that are fueled by insufficient understanding or knowledge of a subject, which result in the improper use of free will. Since many humans do not understand this factor and continue to judge concepts (much like the existence of God itself), many of use continue to commit error despite knowing that we do not have sufficient information to backup our

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