Rene Descartes's View on God
In 1996, songwriter Joan Osborne performed a song called "One of Us" that was nominated for three Grammy Awards. What made this song so successful and interesting were the powerful lyrics that basically asked, "What if God were a human being?" As she was writing the lyrics to "One of Us," she was wondering about God and how the world would be different if God did exist in real life and not just a supernatural force. You may be asking yourself, "What does this have to do with the seventeenth century?" Well, in the seventeenth century, there was a man, named Rene Descartes, who was interested in God and wondered about His existence. After an unforgettable night in November 10, 1619, his interest in God became stronger, and had developed many views that concerned or were about God. When he expressed his investigations of applying inductive methods of science and mathematics to philosophy by the "Cogito ero sum" (I think, therefore I am), he started to argue the existence of God by saying that God and science could co-exist, since he proved that he existed.
Rene Descartes, a Catholic, had the benefit of an extensive classical education, which influenced him to become a great philosopher. When he was eight years old, "he was enrolled in the Jesuit school of La Fleche in Anjou, where he remained for eight years" ("Descartes"). There, he received instruction in mathematics, scholastic philosophy, and classical studies. Although he was planning on having a military career in the Netherlands, "his attention had already been attracted to the problems of mathematics and philosophy to which he was to devote the rest of his life" ("Descartes").
Descartes experienced an unfor...
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Descartes was an important philosopher in the seventeenth century and one of the reasons why was his view on God. Because of his knowledge and inspiration that November 10, he has been able to elaborate on philosophy. He had a mission to accomplish during his life, a mission to see the truth. He was able to accomplish this mission by seeking the truth of God, algebra and geometry, reasoning, and many other theories that have caused him to be called the father of modern philosophy.
Works Cited:
Descartes, Rene. The Philosophical Works of Descartes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911.
Vrooman, Jack Rochford. Rene Descartes. New York: G.P. Putman's Sons, 1970.
"Descartes, Rene." Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Inc.,1952.
"Rene Descartes." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 13 July 1999.
Rene Descartes’ third meditation from his book Meditations on First Philosophy, examines Descartes’ arguments for the existence of God. The purpose of this essay will be to explore Descartes’ reasoning and proofs of God’s existence. In the third meditation, Descartes states two arguments attempting to prove God’s existence, the Trademark argument and the traditional Cosmological argument. Although his arguments are strong and relatively truthful, they do no prove the existence of God.
The Roman Army was a masterpiece in itself. There was no other army like it, and was impenentrable. This was probably because of the extreme patriotism and pride in battling for Rome, and maintaining their superiority. Gladiator, "RomanArmy.com", and The History of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire all portray this patriotism in many aspects.
thinking he is in love with Rosaline (a lady whom we never see). It is
Many readers follow Descartes with fascination and pleasure as he descends into the pit of skepticism in the first two Meditations, defeats the skeptics by finding the a version of the cogito, his nature, and that of bodies, only to find them selves baffled and repulsed when they come to his proof for the existence of God in Meditation III. In large measure this change of attitude results from a number of factors. One is that the proof is complicated in ways which the earlier discourse is not. Second is that the complications include the use of scholastic machinery for which the reader is generally quite unprepared -- including such doctrines as a Cartesian version of the Great Chain of Being, the Heirloom theory of causaltiy, and confusi ng terms such as "eminent," "objective" and "formal reality" used in technical ways which require explanation. Third, we live in an age which is largely skeptical of the whole enterprise of giving proofs for the existence of God. A puzzled student once remaked, "If it were possible to prove that God exists, what would one need faith for?" So, even those inclined to grant the truth of the conclusion of Descartes' proof are often skeptical about the process of reaching it.
In his book Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes tries to accomplish several subject concerns. Firstly, Descartes attempts to accomplish the use of methodological doubt to rid himself of all beliefs that could be false. Then, he arrives at particular beliefs that could not possibly be false. Next, he discovers a criterion of knowledge. Also, he proves that the mind is distinct from the body and also the existence of God.
Is there a more polarizing symbol of the ancient Romans than the gladiator to scholars today? Probably not, but the ancient Romans also held a dichotomous opinion of the famous warriors of the arena. Today, the gladiators represent the opulence and moral depravity of the Roman culture as well as the power and innovation of the Roman society. The contrasting views that the Republican and Imperial Romans had was that those who participated in the gladiatorial games were debased and stripped of status during the times they spent participating, but they could also attain greater honor, glory, and respect than they could or would have gained in their regular life by bravely fighting in the arena. Winning was not the determining factor if respect was given to the gladiator by the audience. Rather it was the zeal, conviction, heart that the contestants fought with in the arena. A clear example of how much popularity and glory a gladiator could received can be seen by the number of free men and women who volunteered to participate in the games. Carlin A. Barton discusses the contrasting opinions and the fascination that people had about the gladiators and where those opinions arose from in his article “The Scandal of the Arena.” He discusses the importance of the gladiator to the citizens, those who participated, and the history that led to the exorbitant numbers of gladiatorial participants in the Imperial period of the Roman Empire.
see such a custom as cruel, it was in fact made less so than it
In this paper, I will explain how Descartes uses the existence of himself to prove the existence of God. The “idea of God is in my mind” is based on “I think, therefore I am”, so there is a question arises: “do I derive my existence? Why, from myself, or from my parents, or from whatever other things there are that are less perfect than God. For nothing more perfect than God, or even as perfect as God, can be thought or imagined.” (Descartes 32, 48) Descartes investigates his reasons to show that he, his parents and other causes cannot cause the existence of himself.
Descartes goes on to prove the existence of God in two different ways. His arguments rely on that fact that we have a clear and distinct idea of God. The first way is the cosmological proof where the idea that something cannot come from nothing because something has to exist in order to create something else. As a finite being, it would be impossible for us to come up with an idea for something or someone
From Descartes' perception, nature is a depiction of God; therefore, God must fundamentally exist, to the extent that as he, too, is an outcome of His own creation. Descartes was one of many thinkers who fully braced this argument in support of God's actuality, challenging that the external world is the dominant force behind the existence of all persons. Descartes' claims, as depicted inside the scholarly borders of Meditations on First Philosophy, were created not in astrophysical or ontological quarrels but rather in teleological debate, to the extent that the philosopher thought that there has to be an all-powerful entity accountable for all the drive and command that is found within physical life and, thereby, encouraging a sense of marvel about the world.
The terms ‘civilized’ and ‘barbaric’, while being paradoxes in themselves, seem to go hand in hand and inseparable in all aspects of society, both in the current ‘developed’ world and its contemporary distant past. While one may easily laugh at the idiotic, yet violent simpleton of a caveman offspring in comedy cartoons, and similarly decline all backward practices of distant tribes of a faraway land, it cannot be denied that even the most advanced of our kind seem to embrace similar barbaric methods and means of entertainment in our everyday world. From violent movies filled with murders and gruesome scenes to bloody organized sports, the modern world still seeks entertainment in the form of violence and cruelty, not very different from that enjoyed by the ‘glorious’ world of Ancient Rome. Back then, people from all classes and age would look forward to weekend games. They would gather to see fighters, called gladiators, fight each other to the death in large arenas. This is one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the Roman Empire and one that has deep influence on the entire Roman society
Hearts pounding with sword, and shield in hand dripping blood, and covered in dust. Men
Descartes thinks that we have a very clear and distinct idea of God. He thinks God must exist and Descartes himself must exist. It is a very different way of thinking shown from the six meditations. Descartes uses ideas, experiments, and “proofs” to try and prove God’s existence.
load the spoon up and then run the stuff in and out of her mouth,
Descartes' philosophy was an attempt to create a genuine foundation upon which further scientific developments would be established. His devotion to math's methodic nature and invariability lead him to apply these concepts to all other ideas. He hypothesized that "those propositions which one could come to understand completely would be self evident, since one's knowledge about them would not depend upon knowledge of any other propositions; therefore they were suitable to stand as fundamental assumptions, to be the starting points from which other propositions could be deduced" (Walting).