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Meditations on first philosophy descartes
Meditations on first philosophy descartes
Meditations on first philosophy descartes
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He first goes on to note that the senses can deceive us, and that things are not always just as they seem at first glance to be. He claims our senses can deceive us and our very own perception of reality or what events are happening around us can be false. We may believe that what we are experiencing is true, but who’s to say that we are not actually living some other existence but our sense of reality is deceiving us. Descartes then goes on to mention the dream problem, where he goes on to say that we may dream of the physical world but who’s to say that we are not imagining our very existence. Can we truly distinguish everything we know or perceive to be true from our dreams and imagination, and possibly doubt that anything physical truly exists, that there is an external world at
However since we already have an idea of God as this perfect and infinite being, he must exist. Furthermore, since the natural light clears deception as an imperfection as well as not existing, God is a non-deceiver, he exist and is perfect. After the cogito argument and natural light examination of the deceptive God, Descartes discards the hypothesis that God is a deceiver. Since God is all-good, he would not deceive us. For that reason, Descartes introduces the evil demon/genius instead.
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
I do not think Descartes would disagree with Anselm’s assertion, but he builds upon and strengthens the ontological proof with 1) asserting God’s perfection and 2) by applying his doctrine of clear and distinct ideas. Much like the idea of a triangle, the concept of God exists within Descartes “no less…than the idea of any figure or number”. (Med. V.65). Descartes possess an idea, a concept of a supremely perfect being, much like his idea of a triangle, with immutable mathematical characteristics.
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 makes the Evil Demon argument to neither prove the existence of such a demon or construct a better understanding of this source of deceit. But rather to destroy the foundations in which he has built all his bias on and rebuild his knowledge from scratch. It works to make us speculate everything while doubting the beliefs and senses we hold so true. This never-ending doubt gives rise to a new question, how do I know that
To say that it is possible for there to be an evil demon whose singular purpose is to deceive me, is a claim that requires robust support which Descartes fails to do. Although Descartes contemplates unlikely possibilities in his process of doubt, he only proposes that such a thing could exist. Descartes’ skepticism position weakens his evil demon argument because if I’m in doubt, I’ll also doubt the possibility that an evil demon exists. So, my skepticism regarding the possibility of an evil demon reduces the greater doubt that is expected to be created by the evil demon. The evil demon must exists to create so much doubt, but Descartes doesn’t provide enough backing for possibility of the evil demon’s existence.
The ontological argument is noted, showing an a priori argument for God’s existence, dismisses evidence made with the senses but rather on analysis of idea of God. Descartes holds the view that God- as a supremely perfect being must exist, as it is part of God’s essence. If God did not exist, then he would not be a supreme perfection, which Descartes asserts is one of his distinct qualities. Thus, the argument here shows us that the idea of God necessarily must
Summary: Descartes continues from his knowledge of his own existence to reason the existence of God, His benevolent nature, and the disparity between our knowledge and will. The argument Descartes presents to prove God’s existence is through a series of premises. He states that all ideas he perceives (of himself, corporeal things, and God) can be reduced to a cause for believing them. That is because each effect gets its reality from a cause, meaning that the cause must have reality to begin with.
In his analogy, God is the fire and heat source that radiates outward, and he is the subject that receives this warmth, and thus the idea of God cannot be “materially false” (31). If God has the power to bring Descartes into being, He could also bring in another man, or animal, or
The proof that God exists premises that each of us understand the following clear and distinct idea of God. Descartes’s objective is to demonstrate that this idea can have no other cause than God. The aim of Descartes’s proofs is to demonstrate the irrationality that requires us to affirm the existence of God with the very same certainty of which it revealed itself capable when affirming our own existence as thinking beings while Descartes reasoned that the existence in us of the idea of God is impossible through any other cause than God as he believes God is not a deceiver. Descartes supported his argument by ruling out the ideas and imagination about God is within us. His first argument was that something comes from something with the idea of reality while he clearly distinct the idea of God existence.
Descartes first proof of Gods existence is first introduced in his Third Meditation. This proof is based on his Causal Adequacy Principle regarding the causes of effects. According to this principle, no effect can exist without a cause, and this cause must possess at least as much reality as the effect (Skirry 1). Descartes applies this principle to track the causes of ideas. According to his philosophy, ideas are what connect the mind to the world because there are two types of reality contained in them.
I believe Descartes brings God into the picture because he cannot know what is right and what is wrong until he figures out the nature of God, and, in fact, whether or not God even exists. When Descartes says, “But in order to remove even this basis for doubting, I should at the first opportunity inquire whether there is a God, and, if there is, whether or not he can be a deceiver. For if I am ignorant of this, it appears I am never capable of being completely certain about anything else.” –Pg. 71. This shows that Descartes feels he needs to know the nature of God before he can know anything else because he is in constant fear of being deceived.
His theory of the existence of God refutes his conclusion that God is real. Descartes says God is as an infinitely good being. To say this he would have to be comparing God to his own imperfection so that idea would have to be created in his own mind. Also, Descartes principle of universal doubt says he cannot simply know whether his conception of God is correct or incorrect. He would first have, as a matter of his own principle, considered this conception as false until it is proven otherwise.
In other words, Anselm stipulates that God must exist since we can’t think of something greater than God but Descartes says the main reason why God exists is because he is a perfect being. St. Anselm and Descartes arguments are without doubt the most important arguments to the existence of God. They formed the basis for further discussion both by those that agree to these schools of thought as well as those that saw the arguments as weak and decided to show why. Both philosophers agreed that the comprehension of the concept of God was sufficient for anyone to believe in the existence of God even though Anselm argument was skewed towards our inability to conceive a more powerful being while Descartes mainly concentrates on the perfect nature in
