In Discourse on Method by René Descartes, the author starts by expressing his methodology and thought process in the effort to determine his own existence. While the topic of this piece starts by focusing on Descartes and the truth he was searching for about his existence, it quickly turns to the topic of the truth or existence of something more perfect than himself. That more perfect example being God.…
Descartes conclusion on premise 6 about God’s existence argues that the clear and distinct perceptions provide the foundation or basis for the truth of our beliefs and that is so because God, who is not a deceiver would not allow Descartes to be mistaken about that which he clearlyl and distinctly perceives. His notion of clear and distinct perceptions and their truth requires God’s existence.…
Descartes discovered his first indubitable truth is that he, himself, did exist. He used his methods of doubt to discount anything he thought he knew previously. He doubted everything his senses had told him because, according to Descartes, what he may have seen or heard might not necessarily be real. He also was not convinced that what he did in his waking life could have been while he was dreaming and, therefore, might also be false. By discarding everything based on the senses, mental imagery and by questioning the existence of God, he was able to start with a blank slate on which to prove his idea. His method of inquiry was knowledge based on certainty. Once he was satisfied that it was certain beyond any doubt, he came to his first indubitable truth, that he existed.…
Descartes sets out on a mission to guarantee that every one of his beliefs is certain without any doubt. He considers that he should free himself of all false learning keeping in mind the end goal is to acquire any genuine information. Descartes chooses to question all that he has learned from truth in the past. He will depend on his thinking capacity to reconstruct his own particular knowledge, starting with a foundation of things which he is most sure about. Descartes declines to acknowledge anything that has any hint of doubt. His purpose behind doing such is because he genuinely trusts this is the best way to find the practical presence of something that cannot be questioned. Descartes uses a strategy in his endeavor to obtain information.…
The fact that Descartes is even considering the mere question of his own existence just proves that he indeed exists and that is certain. Further, he argues that we are essentially thinking things (res cogitans) that can know our minds clearly and distinctly. Descartes pitches a tent for himself firmly in the rationalist camp, as opposed to the empiricist camp. He constantly emphasizes that the clear and distinct perceptions of the intellect are the only sure means of securing knowledge, and ultimately concludes that the senses are not designed to give us knowledge at all, but are rather meant to help us move through the world in a very practical…
The aim of Descartes’ first meditation is to first rid the mind of opinion and to only believe what is true. The second goal of his is to begin to put sciences on a firm foundation. He plans on achieving these goals by using a methodological doubt process in which he will see if he can discover a basis or corrosive agent that can bring all his beliefs into doubt. He believes that once a belief can be doubted, all…
In Meditation I, Descartes reflects on his past beliefs and realizes how so much that he once believed to be true was actually false. To separate what is truth from fiction; Descartes decided to completely reject anything which he can doubt at all. He wrote, “If I am able to find in each some reason to doubt, this will suffice to justify my rejecting the whole” (Descartes 4). The belief that inspired this method was that genuine truth was clear and distinct and that any doubt whatsoever could not provide absolute certainty. In essence, if any component of something was in the very least questionable, then any conclusion drawn from it would be at the most questionable. This method led Descartes to doubt practically everything he once believed, especially knowledge attained through the senses. He wrote, “All that up to the present time I have accepted as most true and…
Both the idea of God and the existence of God play a major role in the writings of Descartes and Pascal. Both certainly appear to believe in him though they argue the case for his existence very differently and they also give Him a very different sort of role in their works. Whilst Descartes claims that he is certain of the existence of God, using a large part of his Discours de la méthode pour bien conduire la raison, et chercher la verité dans les sciences to prove the supreme being’s existence, Pascal’s approach to philosophy cannot allow anything to be certain. He instead asserts that he knows God and that, through the use of his famous Wager, it is better for anyone to believe. The contrasting views of the two early-modern philosophers highlight the contrast between religious certainty and faith and also the key differences between metaphysical reasoning, a key element of Cartesianism, and Pascal’s more Aristotelian approach to philosophy.…
Descartes constructs an argument for God’s existence on page 32-34 of his third meditation titled: Concerning God and He Exists. In this paper, I will summarize Descartes’s argument in my own words.…
God is the next doubt that Descartes brings to attention. He says that he is constantly deceived and God must have created him to be subject to this occasional deception. This doubt is quickly dispersed however when Descartes reasons that God is good and therefore would not deceive him because that would be contrary to his goodness.…
Throughout the Meditations, Descartes successfully establishes methodical doubt about math and all sensory information, however, his answer to the doubt cast by the Evil Demon ploy does not fully relieve the dilemma of skepticism that his intense application of doubt has brought forth. Ultimately, Descartes is unable to satisfactorily answer the Evil Demon doubt because his argument does not prove that God’s existence would not prevent the serious errors in judgment and perception caused by the Evil Demon doubt.…
I am skeptical as to whether Descartes' believes in God and in his own reasons for saying God exists. I have first taken into consideration the fact that during this time and place it was highly frowned upon to disagree with the church and one can be put to death for this. When reading Descartes biography it stated that he pulled his material off from publication when he received word of Galileo's trial in Rome. Having this information it seems to me that there must have been some information that Descartes feared he would be put to death for. I believe this information was his reasoning that a God does…
He starts with the idea of a God who is eternal, infinite, and perfect. In the beginning of Meditations on First Philosophy, He explains that “we must believe that there is a God, because we are so taught in the Holy Scriptures, and, on the other hand, that we must believe the Holy Scriptures because they come from God “(Descartes 1). He then doubts himself if god does really exist. Through examining his thoughts, he ends up believing that the idea of God exists because of his innate idea of God which has to be God who “is the cause of this idea”(Descartes 25). Descartes then explains more in depth saying, “I have no choice but to conclude that the mere fact of my existing is and of there being in me an idea of a most perfect being, that is God, demonstrates most evidently that God too exists” (34). Another reason is how in his further mediations, he explains how if God does not exist, then he is not a supremely perfect being. Saying that God does not exist, we can imagine a being that is more perfect than God. But this is a contradiction because since the idea of God is the idea of the most perfect being of all. Therefore, God must exist because you cannot image a more perfect being than god, who he is the almighty and perfect of…
This is not proof because there are no public recordings, witness reports, documents or fulfilled prophecies that lead us to believe that his theory is true. This is simply a made-up idea that Descartes invented in his imagination and provides no actual proofs. Compare this theory of Descartes with the Christian God, we have Roman documents that describes an agitator named Jesus Christ that was put to death by crucifixion. This crucial documentation along with thousands of witnesses that have firsthand knowledge of the miracles Jesus performed, written documents of his apostles and disciples, and prophecies from the Old Testament that were fulfilled by Jesus. This is the difference between an idea that is fabricated in one’s own mind and a well-documented faith tradition, like Christianity.…
Firstly, Descartes in the third meditation sets out to prove that God does indeed exist. To begin with, he considered that the source of an idea must be as real as the idea itself. He thought that since his idea of God had overwhelmingly unlimited content, then the one who caused the idea must be infinite and that it must be god, and thus asserted that what is more perfect cannot arise from what is imperfect. In his conclusion, Descartes says that God is a substance that is omnipotent, omniscient, independent and infinite. He argued that if the objective reality of an idea could not come from him, then it could have come from something else. The basis for the arguments he put forward lies in the…