Preview

Descartes Fourth Meditation Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
603 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Descartes Fourth Meditation Analysis
In his Fourth Meditation, Descartes approaches the problem of human mistakes and ultimately reconciles this with the existence of a non-deceiving God. He takes issue with the notion of God, being perfect, creating in him an imperfection – that is, the capacity to make mistakes. Mistakes, according to Descartes, arise when we are mistaken or deceived about a truth. But God is not a deceiver; and given that God has given humans the ability to judge, it doesn’t follow that he should give us the ability to be deceived in a judgement. Descartes discovers mistakes as a fault in ourselves, and not in God – he claims that though God gave us the faculties of intellect and of will, it is our incorrect use of these that causes us to make mistakes. Error,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Thus, they can be called into doubt. He is aware that if something deceives you at least one time, it will again, and therefore it cannot be trusted. This is evident when he states, “I have noticed that the senses are sometimes deceptive; and it is a mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in those who have deceived us even once” (14). This statement proves that Descartes believes that his senses’ reliability can be called into question. For example, he states that our senses are not always accurate when it comes to perceiving small and distant objects, because we may mistake a fly on the wall for a smudge if we do not look at it from a close enough distance. By doing this, Descartes discredits the first claim he makes, which says that you must believe what your senses tell you. Therefore, he has discovered that he cannot rely on his senses for his intended philosophical foundation upon which he wishes to build his…

    • 1108 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The existence of God has an extreme influence on the majority of philosophical debate and questioning and no more so than with Descartes and his meditations. His meditations and his method of approaching philosophical questioning all derive from a rationalist ideology. Therefore he argues that all humans are thinking beings and have ideas prior to experience due to their intellectual existence and not of a sensual one. His meditations are primarily to dismiss Empiricism and to reveal that doubt is necessary to our life. Perhaps even to warn us of the dangers of our own deceitfulness and not to trust anything forced upon us by our perceptions. That is why God is so important to his meditations; as Descartes believes God is perfect and cannot be deceived and cannot fail us therefore in his trust we do not need to doubt.…

    • 1278 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    "Give a detailed account of Descartes ' systematic doubt or methodical doubt in Meditation 1, making it certain that you distinguish between real doubts and so called hypothetical/metaphysical doubts. Then, explain in detail, exactly how Descartes dispels each and every one of these doubts during the course of the subsequent Meditations beginning with the cogito. Do you think that Descartes has been completely successful? Explain."The main goal of Descartes in Meditations on First Philosophy was to find truth behind all of his beliefs in order to build a solid foundation of certainty, and to focus his beliefs strictly on his idea of certainty; essentially to question knowledge. Descartes beliefs are mainly based on the theory that, if someone thinks that they really know something, they must be correct. Descartes meditations bring…

    • 3392 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The essence of the main argument in the fourth Meditation of Descartes is to establish that there is a difference between God: his creator and himself, and how this difference does not taint the infinite abilities of God. Descartes commences his argument by first establishing his idea of being a thinking being. In his previous book, The Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy he sates,…

    • 739 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Another philosophical reference found in the Matrix is the work of René Descartes. He is responsible for Cartesian coordinates, a system that specifies each point uniquely in a plane by a pair of numerical coordinates, and the phrase, “I think, therefore I am.” In his book Meditations on First Philosophy, he poses the question of how we can know that the world we experience daily is not an illusion being forced upon us by an evil demon. Because we believe what we see and feel when we are dreaming, how can we trust that our senses will tell us when we are no longer dreaming. If senses cannot provide us with proof that the world we live in actually exists, then senses are unreliable and that for all we know, the world might be under the control…

    • 232 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Descartes talked about the true and the false, and how we make mistakes in Meditation Four. Descartes believed that error as such is not something real that depends upon God, but rather is merely a defect. And thus there is no need to account for my errors by positing a faculty given to me by God for this purpose(546). He thought that the reason why we make mistakes is that the faculty of judging the truth, which we got from God, is not infinite(546). When Descartes focused more closely on more closely on himself and inquired into the nature of his errors, he noted that errors depend on the simultaneous concurrence of two causes: intellect and will(547). He didn’t believe that God ought to have given us a greater faculty of knowing than he did(547). So we cannot make no mistakes like God. Then Descartes raised a question that can he complain that the will or free choice he have received from God is insufficiently ample or perfect(547). After using paragraphs talking about it, Descartes perceived that the power of willing is not the cause of his errors, for it is most ample as well as perfect in its kind(548). This idea is similar to Augustine’s ides in On Free Choice of the Will. Then he thought if he held off from making a judgment when he do not perceive what is true with sufficient clarity and distinctness, it is cleat that he was acting properly and not committing an error(548). In the end, he said he would indeed attain it if only he paid enough attention to all the things that he perfectly understand, and separate them off from the rest, which he apprehended more confusedly and more obscurely(549).…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Meditator is alone, no trees, no people, no oceans, no mountains, no earth, no moon; just him and his isolation. In “Meditation Three”, Descartes goes much deeper than just his famous philosophical ideal — if “one can think one can be”(Descartes 19). He goes on to explain how there must be a God. He states that if there was not a God, people would have created themselves. If this were to be true, everyone would create themselves as perfect people. Descartes believes that there must be a God. God created humans and other humans and other objects to allow humans to think. This human ability to think allows them to exist. If nothing else were to exist and the Meditator was alone in the universe then he could not think and without thought,…

    • 1030 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The main topic of the Meditation Three discusses the concept of God and the proof of His existence. Descartes begins with the assertion that he is a 'thinking thing' and therefore, he exists. Next, he further questions the source of his thoughts and certainty of anything else, because there are things that he previously admitted as certain and evident that later discovered to be doubtful (P.70). Therefore, Descartes concluded he has to find out whether there is God and that He is not a deceiver, to remove the basis for his doubts (P.71). The aim of this paper is to discuss and object Descartes' arguments given in Meditation Three for the proof of God.…

    • 1795 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the second meditation Descartes discusses analyzing a fresh piece of wax examining its physical attributes “... it still tastes of honey and has the scent of the flowers from which the honey was gathered; its colour, shape and size are plain to see; it is hard, cold and can be handled easily…” (Descartes). He then imagine it placed within a fire noticing all its physical attributes change the wax loses its fragrance, colour, and shape; it now has become soft, warm and cannot be easily handled. However, Descartes is still able to identify it as wax. Even though his sight would perceive the wax as a completely different substance if it completely liquified it could be mistaken for some type of oil or even water. The assumption would remain…

    • 234 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    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.…

    • 482 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Descartes Meditation Iii

    • 1297 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In the "Mediations of First Philosophy" Descartes tries to prove the existence of God in the third meditation. He does this by coming up with several premises that eventually add up to a solid argument. First, I will explain why Descartes ask the question, does god exist? And why does Descartes think he needs such and argument at this point in the text. Secondly, I will explain, in detail, the arguments that Descartes makes and how he comes to the conclusion that God does exist. Next, I will debate some of Descartes premises that make his argument an unsound one, including circular reasoning. Finally, I will see if his unsound argument has diminished and undermined his principal goals and the incorrigible foundation of knowledge.…

    • 1297 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Descartes Beliefs

    • 692 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The most important part of Descartes’ knowledge was that he understood that God should not be to blame for the mistakes that we make in our lives. According to Descartes’, God has a plan for us, but he gave us freewill so that we have the ability to do whatever it is that we want to do. However, this can be a disadvantage to us at times because, unlike God, we don’t understand everything and make mistakes. Descartes knows that God would not deceive him, because Descartes defines that will to deceive as a sign of weakness, and God’s perfection would not allow him to be weak or act maliciously towards another. He also believes that if God created him, then God is responsible for him, which means that Descartes’ judgment would be perfect if only he used it correctly.…

    • 692 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    René Descartes begins his first meditation by calling all our current beliefs to suspicion. His purpose of this practice was to stripe away all the falsehoods that we have acquired since childhood by the use of our senses. He also wanted to build anew a stable foundation of beliefs that he can be certain are of undeniably truths.…

    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Descartes’ first meditation, his main objective is to present three skeptical arguments to bring doubt upon what he considers his basic beliefs. Descartes believes this to be an intricate part of his complete epistemological argument. Descartes skeptical arguments are not intended to be a denial of his basic beliefs. On the contrary, he uses these arguments to help prove one of his main theses, which is the existence of God. One of the main premises that Descartes uses in his proof for the existence of God comes from the evil demon argument, which he proposed, in the first meditation. It is this evil demon argument, which will be the topic of the following discussion.…

    • 922 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This week we had to read Rene Descartes FIRST MEDITATION: On what can be called into doubt. I really enjoyed this reading because it made me think a lot and dig deeper into what he was writing about and try to connect it with real life. After reading Descartes outside of class we a lot about dreams, our senses, being deceived, trust and doubting out beliefs. I found this reading very interesting because almost everyone who reads it can relate to it some way or another. The topic I felt had the most connection to how people feel is having doubts about your beliefs. When you are being raised you share the same beliefs as your parents because they are raising you and instilling their beliefs in you. You believe everything your parents say and…

    • 300 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays