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Descartes on substance

 

            
             Using clear and distinct perceptions, Descartes determined that the wax contains extension in length, depth, shape, position, motion, substance, and duration. .
            
             •These are modes of a substance much as my own substance (mind). .
            
             •Thus, these corporeal elements could come from thoughts similar of me. Yet, if I can find something that I cannot be a cause of, then I am not alone in the world (There exists something else).
            
             •Descartes thought God is such an entity that we cannot be the cause of. .
             Causal Proof of God: .
            
             •God's Properties: Omnipotence, Omniscience, infinite .
             1) I could not have the idea of God unless God exists (God causes it). .
             2) I do have the idea of God. .
             3) Thus, God necessarily exists. .
            
             •Descartes argues that we could not invent the idea of God through our faculty of imagination since what is more perfect cannot arise out of what is less perfect. .
            
             •Some idea of a perfect being enables me to recognize my own defects. .
            
             •God is a clear and distinct idea that Descartes has. .
            
             •He claims the idea of God is an innate idea of a perfect being that only a perfect being could place in us. .
            
             •If someone claims they do not have such an idea, then he argues that that person has not thought enough or clearly about the idea. .
            
             •Another proof Descartes offers is similar to Anselm's ontological argument: God must exists since a perfect being is less than perfect if the being does not exist. .
            
             •In addition, Descartes does not think we are the perfect being (one of the logical possibilities to consider). .
            
             •There is absolutely nothing potential in a perfect being and we are something with potential for greatness but we are not truly great. .
            
             • One sign of our imperfection: We have a gradual increase of knowledge. This is not the mark of a perfect being. .
            
             •Since there must be a perfect being that causes our idea of God, then God exists.


Essays Related to Descartes on substance

1. Descartes

In Meditations on First Philosophy, Rene" Descartes discusses the existence of external objects, primarily in the First Meditation. Descartes doubts the existence of external objects based upon the idea that an "evil genius" exists instead of an ideally good God. This "evil genius" strives at deceiving Descartes. Descartes now assumes that all external objects- "the heavens, the air, the earth, colors, shapes, sounds"- ... causes things in this world to exist, that is ourselves and the idea of God's existence. The problem of perception develops with John Locke, who agrees with Descartes" ide...

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2. Descartes

... not all dependent on his will, but are impulses from the outside of him (external things). He later discusses perfections and imperfections. His ideas have a lack of perfection because of deficiency. The deficiency is whether or not Descartes could distinguish something true, from a non-thing, such as God. This leads to separation of categories and substance. To Descartes a substance like God could ... exist in various classifications. The substances Descartes imagines, have only originated through him, and are merely substances he created. So could ... have a rational God. Though this ...

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3. Descartes philosophy

... of error? Be sure not only to include its definition, but also its causes. Descartes thinks that the conception of error is a lack, rather than a real thing dependent on God. He also says that he falls into error because his God-given ability to judge the truth is not infinite. The problem is similar to the traditional problems of ... in the Second Meditation. The activities of perceiving ideas, and the activities of willing, both count broadly as activities of thinking, in Descartes" sense. Using Descartes" thought experiment with the bee's wax candle, show how Descartes changes the p...

  • Word Count: 841
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4. Gibert Ryle and Rene Descartes' Dualism

... existence of the mind as a thinking substance and the body as an extended substance; hence the two are independent and distinct. This distinction has therefore attracted a lot of attacks. The paper will discuss in broad spectrum, Gibert Ryle most sensational attack on Descartes' mind/body distinction and how he accused Descartes of making a categorical mistake. Response to Ryle's attack on Cartesian dualism will also be given ... the way that living human bodies are organized), mental properties emerge. On the other hand, Substance Dualism (or Cartesian Dualism) argues that the mind is ...

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5. Descartes and Hume - Rationalism and Empiricism

... the mind is the primary source of knowledge (rationalism) or with Hume that sense perception is the primary source of knowledge (empiricism). I have chosen to defend Descartes based on three main reasons. One reason is that Descartes believes in the mind and how it can think and obtain knowledge by us thinking. This contradicts Hume's belief that our senses determine our knowledge intake ... the BBC documentary The Secret You, is "A separation of the mind and body in which Descartes says we can do without" (Marcus du Sautoy). He says this because he believes that the mind is a substance...

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6. Descartes mind and body

... and body ultimately still fails to meet his own prior established doctrine of causation. The split between mind and body as separate entities lies within Descartes definition of material and immaterial substances. The mind is an immaterial substance which thinks,wills, desires, reasons and is the whole of our being. Bodies are the material extended mass interacting with other things of extension ... the mind and body were unified, then the manipulations caused by sense faculties could not be overturned by reason. Descartes ascribes the indubitably established in the Cogito to the mind. ...

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7. Descartes

... world when he does not know much about it. Wax takes many forms, and can take an infinite amount of shapes more than Descartes could ever imagine. The wax is a substance that he cannot even be sure exists but can understand it and in doing so, defines his own mental existence. He attempts to ... use the outside/ physical world (the wax) to look in on his mind. His mind is able to understand the outside world and so ... able to prove that his mind exists because he could understand the wax for what it really was and not by its characteristics. In the end, Descartes reasons that he succee...

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8. To Doubt Rene Descartes

... contain at least as much reality as does the effect, Descartes believes that he could not have convinced the idea of something perfect, being that he is imperfect. Descartes could not have originated the idea of God on his own. He claims that his idea of an infinite substance like God must come from some substance that is itself infinite. Therefore, God must exist as ... the source of Descartes' idea. Descartes also imagines that God exists as a perfect being. His idea of ... God is a substance that is "infinite, eternal, unchangeable, independent, supremely intelligent, supremely powe...

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9. Rene DesCartes and John Stuart Mill

... external sources then God must be a deceiver, but as he had already observed, this was absurd, as a perfect entity could not by nature be deceptive. From these premises DesCartes drew that material substance and the external world do in fact exist. Cartesian thought principle creates a whole methodology for perception analysis by contemplating whether a physical body is necessary to the essence of existence ... things have no function unless we assign function to them. Nature has no reason to exist. It just is. We have moral and ethical framework to rest on what DesCartes calls the Devi...

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