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Pros And Cons Of Rene Descartes

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1. (6pts) In 300–500 words, using specific identified passages from the text:
What is Descartes’s “method of doubt,” what is it supposed to do, and how is it supposed to do it?
Per my understanding, Descartes main goal was to establish a science foundation of knowledge and trying to do what scientists didn’t seem to understand. For the scientists to understand he used method of doubt that allowed him to systematically doubt structure of knowledge, this method was intended to let Descartes come up with one unique way of knowledge. It is hard to sometimes to doubt the truth while he came up with the structure that gives us the knowledge that we need in our daily basis. The first thing that Descartes did was to doubt the information he gave …show more content…

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. He believes Cogito was self-evident to the existence of God. At first Descartes questioned the existence of God because he believed that if Deity is deceitful he has no ground in believing as he has not considered his reasons as valid for the existence of any kind. He states that for whatsoever he may be able to be wholly to clear and inquire whether there is a God when the opportunity of doing so shall present itself. He continues to say that if he finds there is a God he will examine if he can be a deceiver without the truth if he is not certain of anything. Descartes proof of God existence was among the ideas which presents himself with respect that is easy that there is one God which is to represent corporeal and innominate things, angels, angels normalize and human beings him included. Per the text the idea of corporeal things made Descartes believe that God exists by proofing things that are clear and distinct. Descartes believes that when he for example thinks a stone as a substance or a thing capable to exist that he believes that he is a thinking of non-extending things. Another example

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Juliet Arowosaye UCOR 132: Basic Philosophical Questions Meditations on First Philosophy; Descartes’ Doubts and Resolutions In Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes, the meditator presents the possibility that everything he, and all humans, have known and seen could be false. He struggles to find any reason to not doubt that our senses have just been deceiving us our whole lives. Thus, he reaches the conclusion that everything we have seen and known, as well as our existence, must be called into doubt. Descartes attempts to unravel the meditator’s mentality by presenting ways in which we are possibly being deceived.

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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.

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Descartes begins his Meditations by putting his former beliefs to the test by thoroughly questioning them with the essence of doubt. Descartes divides his doubting into three

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Throughout the Meditations, Descartes tries to prove the existence of God while rebuilding the knowledge that he recently casted much doubt over. He uses the cosmological argument to provide the proof needed to show Gods existence through arguing his own imperfections and Gods perfections. The main concepts within this argument stem from his overall point that something can’t come from nothing, and that God is the perfect being. Descartes begins his cosmological argument by admitting he is an imperfect individual.

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Descartes’ first indubitable truth is “I think; therefore, I am.” His existence could not be doubted because Descartes knew that he had to exist as long as he was to think. Initially, his method of doubt had disproved everything that he had believed in, leaving him nothing but his self. Descartes then pondered on the idea that it was useless to claim that a thing was real or not without a solid foundation. One must first doubt everything that they know in order to conclude that there is anything that which one knows for indubitable truth, certainty.

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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.

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Descartes assumed first that it was God, who deceived us, but with the conclusion that God is all-good, he instead conclude that an evil demon exist. This evil demon possess the same power to deceive us, which God also would possess. God is perfect. Since humans have the ability to think of a being more perfect then themselves, then this being must have planted the idea in our mind. With the knowledge now that God is existing, perfect and is a non-deceiver – due to him being all-good –, Descartes can now move on to explain why material objects

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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

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Descartes defined God as a supremely perfect being, meaning that he contains all supreme perfections. Descartes argued that it is more perfect to exist than to not exist, therefore existence is one of God's supreme perfections and God must exist. ' God exists' must be true by definition because the subject (God) already contains the predicate (exists). Descartes also believed that God is a necessary being meaning that it is impossible to imagine him as not existing because it is part of his essence as a supremely perfect being, concluding therefore that God must exist.

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First Descartes examined the various qualitative mathematical features regarding such objects, those that he found having existed within him already. Some of these properties were uniform when it comes to a certain object, initiating Descartes to think of them as things he must clearly acknowledge regardless of his conscious idea toward them. The existence of God was then used to prove the truth behind such objects; including even those of the senses for mathematical properties could be derived from them. Since Descartes could clearly and distinctively conceive God, which was indubitable, any clear and distinctive feature of material objects perceived would ensure their existence as well as anything else that were perceived in the same manner (Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, p.87-90). In other words, God’s existence acted as Descartes’ ultimate key that would help him achieve the perfect knowledge (Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy,

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Descartes in a way aims to proves that he exists by the fact that he is a thinking thing. From Descartes stand point, he thought that everything was an illusion and if it was an allusion he would not be able to think. He considered to be able to think as proof of existence. The ability to think can not just be some type of an illusion. Because Descartes had the idea of God, there must be a God to receive that idea from.

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Rene Descartes an academic, scientist, mathematician, and philosopher. Which landed him the title of the father of modern philosphy for defining doubt in everything us humans possibly take for granted, making us doubt in everything we may or may not know. I find this to be one of the biggest issues with one of Descartes main arugments is the fact he believes that the idea of God is impossible through anyone other cause than God, also that any being less than God is not worth of his divine nature, proving that the meditiator cannot be God since he is a thinking thing as my argument pertains aganist Descartes views of how God exists, because if we as humans are all thinking things, God is a nonbeing therefore he has no thoughts or causes to create such thoughts. Decartes reasoning being in this sense he is his god because saying I am gods creation and he gave me this idea because he is my maker, almost like God is creating a trade mark.

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This subsequently means that Descartes could not discover anything outside himself. He could understand things outside himself and believed that to know what ‘I’ means, he also must know the meaning of ‘you’ and ‘they’. However he could not assure that another exists because he is only able to be certain of ‘I think’. Another weakness is the idea that Descartes only knows of his existence through his thinking. Everything is in the present tense meaning he is unable to make any predictions or thoughts on the past or the future.

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His method of doubt has lead him to question the existence of the material world of his senses, including his own body, as well as basic concepts that could be the work of an evil deceiver. This doubt causes him to wonder whether anything exists at all. Descartes realizes that threes one thing of which he can be certain. In order for him to doubt, there must be a thing that doubts. Similarly, for him to be deceived by an evil deceiver, there must be a thing that is deceived.

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