Rene Descartes Fourth Meditation Research Paper

Descartes’ Fourth Meditation: Account of Falsity and its Relation to Clear and Distinct Perception

This paper will address how René Descartes, the “Father of Modern Philosophy”, explains the nature of falsity in an attempt to prove his claim that “everything that we clearly and distinctly perceive is true” (Descartes 11). This paper sets out to prove that within his “Fourth Meditation” Descartes examines and diagnoses the source of error and falsity; it will also examine his successfulness of said purpose. The word “intellect” refers to the faculty of knowledge, which is within Descartes as well as all humans; “will” refers to the faculty of freedom of choice (page 38-39). Also, the word “privation” means the “lack of some knowledge
In the “Fourth Meditation”, titled Truth and Falsity, Descartes has proved the certain existence of only two things: the existence of himself, as a “thinking thing, which is not extended in length, breadth or height”, and the idea of God (37). To prove God’s existence, Descartes’ puts forth that: 1) our idea of a god is a perfect being, 2) it is more perfect to exist, than to not exist, 3) therefore, God must exist. Take a Pegasus for example, which is, simply, a horse with wings. A perfect Pegasus is one, which exists; this is because the Pegasus that exists is certainly more perfect the same Pegasus if it did not exist. Existence is essential to God’s “perfectness”, as an example can be seen the “Fifth Meditation”. In this meditation, Descartes again claims that the idea of a perfect being includes existence. This cements Descartes’ theory that existence is a characteristic of perfection. Therefore, if God is to be infinitely perfect, he must exist, because if he did not, than he would indeed not be infinitely perfect. Now that we know that God is indeed perfect, and has indeed created us and our faculties, we can attribute absolute certainty that these faculties provided to us, which “would [n]ever enable [us] to go wrong while using [them] correctly” are also perfect
This defends the reliability of clear and distinct ideas because all clear and distinct ideas come from God, which has now been found to certainly exist as non-deceiving and infinitely perfect. Descartes’ account of falsity is important because it establishes not only that God is not the source of error, but also attributes it to the misuse of faculties provided to us. In addition to knowing the root cause of error and falsity, Descartes is also able to contribute a rule for establishing the truth. By “simply refraining from making a judgment in cases where I do not perceive the truth with sufficient clarity and distinctness, than it is clear that I am behaving correctly and avoiding error” (41). Without his initial account of falsity, Descartes would not have been able to conclude this rule, which allows for the further exploration for secure and reliable