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Descartes

 

            Descartes states that God exists, God is good, and God is not a deceiver, as proven in his arguments within The Meditations. Through his works one concludes that there is no possible deceiver who can prevent me from discovering the truth. The truth for which we all strive to attain in order to understand the meaning of life and that of which is made possible by surpassing and denying deception. If God exists, then He could not deceive me because He is perfect and good. If He does not exist, then there is no power that could deceive me because any other deceiver would not be perfect, and so he would fail to be successful in deceiving me. There is in either case no possible deceiver who can prevent me from discovering the truth. The latter further exemplifies and strengthens these points with specific examples.
             In his Cosmological Argument, Descartes reasons that God exists and is good. "It is God that sustains my substance during the individual moments of its existence" (p 35 Meditations on First Philosophy). This clarifies the first dilemma we are confronted with in the previously stated paragraph. There is no power that could deceive me because any other deceiver would not be perfect, therefore he would be unsuccessful in deceiving me. This is further explained in Descartes" causal proof for the existence of God. Ideas have objective reality, meaning that they are represented by a thing or a substance. External ideas have intrinsic reality of a thing. This is called the formal reality and it is what it is in itself. The thing that makes an image has as much formal reality as the image has objective reality. Meaning the thing that is the image has as much reality as the idea that makes the image in itself. I can be the cause of ideas of lower substances because I have more formal reality than the things represented by those ideas. I cannot be the source of the idea of God, because that idea has more objective reality than I have formal reality.


Essays Related to Descartes

1. Descartes

... in the third person since only "I" can know that "I" in fact exist. One cannot say for certain that anyone other than oneself exists. At times Descartes" argument is very mathematical in the formulation of his arguments, using logic as in the recurrent example "I think therefore I am." While he never actually states ... one can only make statements for ones own mind, it would not be possible to prove the meditator's existence without writing in the first person. Descartes addresses this, " is it perhaps the case that these very things I take to be nothing, because they are unknown to me...

  • Word Count: 1200
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

2. To Doubt Rene Descartes

... are based on. He agrees to only assume ideas that are clear and distinct; so self-evident that they cannot logically be doubted. Descartes reasons through his opinions of what he believes to be true, doubting any belief that could possibly admit of being false. This doubt ... 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, ... supreme...

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3. Descartes, Hume and the Existence of God

... incapable of love or goodness, which makes the Evil Genius imperfect. Since the Evil Genius is in control of what we think, Descartes is left questioning what is certain. Descartes explains that nothing is certain because the Evil Genius could just implant anything we think that is true or any idea that we ... of God. In his first argument, he was able to draw to the conclusion that there is a certainty of God through the idea of imperfection. Descartes thought that if there was an idea of imperfection, then that implies that there must be an idea prior to that of what perfection is. He ...

  • Word Count: 1300
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: High School

4. Descartes Discourse and Meditions Final (Cogito)

... demonstrates that he clearly does not understand thinking in the narrow sense "of being simply a cognitive act devoid of creative thought. When Descartes states that it is necessary to doubt, to understand, etc. he is essentially referring to the ability to be sentient of these functions rather ... His point is that the conclusion he has arrived at is based on what is self-evident from what he has perceived in himself. Indeed Descartes does seem to believe that there is an association between thinking and existing. However, rather than assert, "Everything that thinks, exists-, he assert...

  • Word Count: 1519
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5. Descartes

... and that therefore it is highly probable that other things which appear certain through the senses may in reality be illusions. On further reflection, Descartes ponders the proposition of being asleep or awake. He wonders if this is something that cannot be doubted. However he soon realises that there have ... been times when he has been asleep and dreaming of the same experiences he had when awake. Descartes argues: "How often asleep at night, am I convinced of just such familiar events-that I am here in my dressing-gown, sitting by the ... an idea of God, a supreme being and he wonde...

  • Word Count: 1519
  • Approx Pages: 6
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  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

6. Descartes

... and that therefore it is highly probable that other things which appear certain through the senses may in reality be illusions. On further reflection, Descartes ponders the proposition of being asleep or awake. He wonders if this is something that cannot be doubted. However he soon realises that there have ... been times when he has been asleep and dreaming of the same experiences he had when awake. Descartes argues: "How often asleep at night, am I convinced of just such familiar events-that I am here in my dressing-gown, sitting by the ... an idea of God, a supreme being and he wonde...

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  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

7. Gibert Ryle and Rene Descartes' Dualism

... could arrive at the very foundations of knowledge. He also refused to accept the Aristotelian and Scholastic philosophy which had dominated the traditional philosophical thought throughout the Medieval Period 7. He (Descartes) thought that if true knowledge is to be attained then we must start from the very foundation of our knowledge. He thus began his philosophy by doubting everything that he ... -body interaction with their respective theories. Among is Nicolas Malebranche with the theory of Occasionalism where he argues that the mind and body does not causally affect each other as De...

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8. Descartes

... , and I have secured for myself some leisurely and carefree time, I withdraw in solitude. I will in short, apply myself earnestly and openly to the general destruction of my former opinions." (Rene Descartes, Meditation I) "Whatever I had admitted until now as most true I took in either from the senses or through the senses; however, I noticed that they sometimes deceived me. And it is a mark ... of prudence never to trust wholly in those things which have once deceived us." (Rene Descartes, Meditation I) Descartes" Mediations combined equal the embodiment of an effort to establish a fou...

  • Word Count: 1177
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9. Descartes and External Objects

... external objects. He searched for answers to these questions even if the answer he received was that nothing can be known for certain. Even though Descartes knew they there was a chance that his judgment was not correct. He believed and justified the belief of the existence of external objects. He ... make up and distinguish the wax. When the wax is then under heat, the physical qualities of the wax all seem to change. (Descartes, 30) Descartes then concludes that the piece of wax may take on many different forms alienated from its original. Although our senses perceive the changing qual...

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10. What Exists: Descartes, Berkeley, And Russell

... from nothing, but likewise that what is more perfect-that is to say, which has more reality within itself-cannot proceed from the less perfect." (Descartes 118) There must be a creator and therefore an infinite perfect being and therefore a God. Also God cannot be a deceiver because if God were ... and by Himself, nor yet by the intervention of some creature in which their reality is not formally, but only eminently, contained." (Descartes 131) Corporeal things exist because God has given us no reason to doubt him and therefor our perceptions of these things must come from the ... all t...

  • Word Count: 1374
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  • Grade Level: High School