Did Rene Descartes Exist
The theme for the first 5 chapters are things are not always as they seem. In chapter 1 we originally thought that Mrs. Dodds was a regular teacher, but know we know she is a bird like figure. In the text it says, “Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons.
Descartes talks about God as if God is infinite because he radiates out in every direction. Descartes imagines that he himself is perfect and has the perfect qualities of God. This leads him to the discussion of disobeying God and turning into what one wants rather than what God wants. By doing what oneself wills, not what God wills, one is basically implying the he or she sees him or herself as God-like. Descartes believes he is partially God because he is on his way to infinite knowledge, but since he is gaining little by little, he is in a state of potentiality.
Descartes then attempts to define what he is. He previously believed that he had a spirit and body, by methods for which he was fed, moved, could sense, absorb space, had a distinct area and think. Each one of those methods are thrown into uncertainty except thinking. Since he can think, he should exist. He thinks about whether he no longer exists once his reasoning comes to a halt.
However, Descartes is indeed certain of the fact that he is a thinking being, and that he exists. As a result of this argument, Descartes makes a conclusion that the things he perceives clearly and distinctly cannot be false, and are therefore true (Blanchette). This clear and distinct perception is an important component to the argument that Descartes makes in his fifth meditation for the existence of God. This paper explains Descartes ' proof of God 's existence from Descartes ' fifth meditation, Pierre Gassendi 's objection to this proof, and then offers the paper 's author 's opinion on both the proof and objection.
To some degree, I believe that Descartes did confirm God’s existence, when one takes into consideration of the arguments that were presented and the limitations that were placed on the Meditator. For instance, when the Meditator was attempting to prove God’s existence by demonstrating that God does not depend on the existence of a substance, considering that God holds perfection in sovereignty and knowledge, which the idea of God could not be invented by the imagination or brought from the material world. This type of analysis was centered on the Meditator’s intellectual judgement, so that the Meditator could attain a clear and distinct idea of God by relying on the mind alone, since the Meditator understands that adventitious and factitious
Descartes gave a few arguments that God exists and is real. Desocrates believed our idea of God is that God is a perfect being, he believed he is more perfect to exist than not to exist. Desocrates also believed that God is a infinite being. Descartes idea would be that God gave us this idea to type this paragraph about him so he must be real. When he thinks negative of an idea or thought he wonders if an evil demon plotted those thoughts.
The existence of God is a highly debatable topic; the different views of believers, atheists and agnostics, show us that God's Existence remains a question with no definite final answer. Descartes is one of many philosophers who tried to establish a number of arguments in order to prove God's Existence. In fact, the French philosopher formulated the "trademark argument", an argument that he developed and defended in order to prove that God does exist despite the doubt that many have. In the first place, I will start by defining the trademark argument and the procedure Descartes used to attain it including the first principle summarized in the Cartesian method and the theory of ideas which puts God at the origin of the idea of His Existence.
Descartes declares he has to determine if there is a God and if he does exist, whether he can be a deceiver. The reason he has to determine the existence of God and what he is, rests in his theories of ideas. This is because we do not know if there is an outside world and we can almost imagine everything, so all depends on God’s existence and if he is a deceiver. “To prove that this non-deceiving God exists, Descartes finds in his mind a few principles he regards as necessary truths which are evident by the “natural light” which is the power or cognitive faculty for clear and distinct perception.” If arguments is presented in logical trains of thought, people could not help but to be swayed and to understand those arguments.
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,
Existence is something that can be imagined and therefore is false and a fallacy. How does Descartes really know he exists maybe he is just imaging it all and that his premises behind the existence of God are fake as well. If someone exist then they must have been born which would mean that Descartes parents where the ones who brought him into existence, and their parents brought them in to existence and so on and so on. This would mean that God did not create Descartes existence but that someone way far down the chain of human existence started it
Descartes, in his Meditations on First Philosophy, used a method of doubt; he doubted everything in order to find something conclusive, which he thought, would be certain knowledge. He found that he could doubt everything, expect that he was thinking, as doubting is a type of thinking. Since thinking requires a thinker, he knew he must exist. According to Descartes if you are able to doubt your existence, then it must mean that you exist, hence his famous statement cogito ergo sum which is translated into ‘I think, therefore I am.’ Descartes said he was able to doubt the existence of his body and all physical things, but he could not doubt that his mind exists.
For how he can be certain that 2+2= 4 and not 5, how can he know for sure that he is not being deceived into believing the answer to be 5 due to a demon. But even if an evil demon did indeed exist, in order to be misled, Descartes himself must exist. As there must be an “I”, that can be deceived. Conclusively, upon Descartes’ interpretations we can come to decipher that in order for someone to exist they must indeed be able to think, to exist as a thinking thing.
Descartes can support this claim by stating that it is universal knowledge that minds are capable of thinking; he is certain of his ability to thinking, so he must have a mind. Because Descartes has a mind and his mind is thinking, then something must exist to do this thinking; thus, Descartes and his mind must exist as result of thinking. While this deductive reasoning seems plausible, I claim that Descartes’ reasoning here is unnecessary. Descartes’ existence can be proven without establishing his ability to think (e.g., to receiving deception from the evil demon). Therefore, Descartes cannot base the action of thinking as the sole criterion of his existence, because it is shown other factors can also prove his
According to Descartes, God must exist because humans could never have been able to ever fathom the idea of a perfect and all powerful God, and that the idea of God has been inscribed in our innate beings. Descartes describes how their are three different kinds of ideas, some that are “innate, some to be adventitious, and others to have been invented.” Innate ideas are born with us, while invented ideas are ones that we create with our imagination. Adventitious ideas are ones that are minds process when they have been imposed on us by an outer force. Most of what we have learned as we develop as human beings is from ideas and perceptions that we observe in the world and surroundings we encapsulate ourselves within.
The next step that Descartes uses in the second meditation is the existence of this Godly figure. He questions his own beliefs with that of the God, and argues that a mind should be capable of thinking for them to be of existence, “Is there not some God, or some other being by whatever name we call it, which puts these reflections into my mind? That is not necessary, for is it not possible that I am capable of producing them myself?” He then puts forward that for one to be deceived by this “evil demon” as he describes it, they have to exist to be deceived.
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