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Descartes and physical objects existence
Materialistic monism
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While evaluating this argument, I importantly considered the truth in Descartes’ premises that lead to his conclusion of the existence of material bodies. Initially, I was skeptical and in my evaluation, I put great thought into whether or not God, or some creature, could be the cause for why material bodies exist. In my thinking, I backtracked to Descartes’ arguments of the third and fifth meditations. Critical to Descartes’ reason is his belief that God cannot be a deceiver. Descartes describes God as a being of complete perfection, which is subject to no defects whatsoever. God, who has all perfections and no imperfections, cannot be a deceiver for the reason that deceit is an imperfection and a lack of goodness. Within this, I realized
that if ideas do not come from material bodies, then God must be a deceiver. If God did provide the ideas of material bodies, then He would have also needed to provide Descartes with the ability to recognize such a source. God did not provide Descartes with this ability; if He had, this would be an imperfection and thus contradict the notion of God not being a deceiver. Therefore, Descartes’ deduction follows conclusively from the premises. As long as Descartes’ previous arguments, which are the foundation for the premises in his argument on the existence of material bodies, hold true, then Descartes succeeded in proving the existence of material bodies.
Descartes strongly keeps the casual principle in mind for his reasoning; he realizes that a corporeal thing’s objective reality exceeds any property and would thus contradict the casual principle. Therefore, Descartes then considers three reasons for why corporeal things exist. Descartes contemplates, “ This substance is either a body, that is, a corporeal nature, in which case it will contain formally everything which is to be found objectively in the ideas; or else it is God, or some creature more noble than a body, in which case it will contain eminently whatever is to be found in the ideas (AT VII: 79; p.55).” To condense, Descartes considers corporeal things exist because of finite substances, God, or some creature. It is important to note that ‘some creature’ is thought to be, for example, an angel that is more noble than us humans but lesser than God. A body will have as much formal reality as it does in an idea’s objective reality; God and ‘some creature’ have the ability to cause properties (like ideas) in some thing, despite lacking the aforementioned
Through Descartes’s Meditations, he sought to reconstruct his life and the beliefs he had. He wanted to end up with beliefs that were completely justified and conclusively proven. In order to obtain his goal, Descartes had to doubt all of his foundational beliefs so that he could start over. This left Descartes doubting the reality of the world around him and even his own existence. In order to build up to new conclusively proven and justified true beliefs, Descartes needed a fixed and undeniable starting point. This starting point was his cogito, “I think, therefore I am.” In this paper I will argue that Descartes’s argument that he is definite of his own existence, is unsound.
According to Descartes, “because our senses sometimes deceive us, I wanted to suppose that nothing was exactly as they led us to imagine (Descartes 18).” In order to extinguish his uncertainty and find incontrovertible truth, he chooses to “raze everything to the ground and begin again from the original foundations (Descartes 59).” This foundation, which Descartes is certain to be the absolute truth, is “I think, therefore I am (Descartes 18).” Descartes argues that truth and proof of reality lies in the human mind, rather than the senses. In other words, he claims that the existence of material objects are not based on the senses because of human imperfection. In fact, he argues that humans, similarly to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, are incapable of sensing the true essence or existence of material objects. However, what makes an object real is human thought and the idea of that object, thus paving the way for Descartes’ proof of God’s existence. Because the senses are easily deceived and because Descartes understands that the senses can be deceived, Descartes is aware of his own imperfection. He
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.
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.
Rene Descartes meditations on the existence of God are very profound, thought-provoking, and engaging. From the meditations focused specifically on the existence of God, Descartes uses the argument that based on his clear and distinct perception that cannot be treated with doubt, God does exist. In the beginning of the third meditation, Descartes proclaims that he is certain he is a thinking thing based on his clear and distinct perception, and he couldn’t be certain unless all clear and distinct perceptions are true. Before diving into the existence of God, Descartes introduces smaller arguments to prove the existence of God. For example, Descartes introduces in his argument that there are ideas in which he possess that exists outside of him. Utilizing the objective versus formal reality, Descartes states “If the objective reality of any of my ideas turns out to be so great that I am sure the same reality does not reside in me, either formally or eminently, and hence that I myself cannot be its cause, it will necessarily follow that I am not alone in the world, but that some other thing which is the cause of this idea exists” (29). In other words, the ideas of objective reality that resides in Descartes can potentially only come from a supreme being, which is God; God possess more objective reality than he does formal reality. We as humans, as Descartes states, are finite substance, and God is the only infinite substance. The only way for us as a finite substance to think of an infinite substance is possible if, and only if, there is an infinite substance that grants us the idea of substance in first place. After these smaller arguments, Descartes states that while we can doubt the existence of many things, due to the fact that ...
Descartes believes “it is clear enough from this that he cannot be a deceiver, since it is manifest by the natural light that all fraud and deception depend on some defect” (89). In addition, to the third Meditation, Descartes further explains God’s existence as a non – deceiving entity of natural light in Meditation IV. Descartes stands with his position that God is perfection by saying “it is impossible that God should deceive me”. For in every case of trickery or deception some imperfection is found.
In this essay, I plan to defend Descartes ' theory of Substance Dualism against the objection made by Princess Elizabeth. Substance Dualism is theory which states that there are two fundamental substances, mind and body. Princess Elizabeth 's objection against Substance Dualism is based off of her idea of how the mind and body interact in order for mental causation to occur. I defend Descartes 's theory by offering my own objection against Princess Elizabeth 's idea of what causation is.
existed in life, the physical and the nonphysical. He broke his theory of Dualism into two
Descartes often referred to as the “Father of Modern Philosophy” acquired his status by methods of reasoning to attain knowledge through one of his most influential philosophical writings Meditations on First Philosophy. One of the most pronounced and skeptical pieces from the mediations is Meditation III: “Of God: that He exist” where he tries to prove the existence of God, and his existence through God. I will be examining Descartes’ proof through its premises and conclusion as well as explain my reasoning for agreeing with the argument on the existence of God.
The purpose of the wax argument is designed to provide a clear and distinct knowledge of “I”, which is the mind, while corporeal things, “whose images are framed by thought, and which the senses themselves imagine are much more distinctly known than this mysterious ‘I’ which does not fall within the imagination” (66). Through the wax argument, Descartes’ demonstrates that corporeal things are perceived neither through our senses nor imagination, but through our intellect alone. In this argument, you will see that there is cause to doubt Descartes’ analysis of the wax and his method of philosophical reasoning.
In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes states “I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in as far as I am only a thinking and unextended thing, and as, on the other hand, I possess a distinct idea of body, in as far as it is only an extended and unthinking thing”. [1] The concept that the mind is an intangible, thinking entity while the body is a tangible entity not capable of thought is known as Cartesian Dualism. The purpose of this essay is to examine how Descartes tries to prove that the mind or soul is, in its essential nature, entirely distinct from the
In the Third Meditation, Descartes forms a proof for the existence of God. He begins by laying down a foundation for what he claims to know and then offers an explanation for why he previously accepted various ideas but is no longer certain of them. Before he arrives at the concept of God, Descartes categorizes ideas and the possible sources that they originate from. He then distinguishes between the varying degrees of reality that an idea can possess, as well as the cause of an idea. Descartes proceeds to investigate the idea of an infinite being, or God, and how he came to acquire such an idea with more objective reality than he himself has. By ruling out the possibility of this idea being invented or adventitious, Descartes concludes that the idea must be innate. Therefore, God necessarily exists and is responsible for his perception of a thing beyond a finite being.
Descartes’ first two Meditations are arguably the most widely known philosophical works. Because of this, one can make the error of assuming that Descartes’ method of doubt is self-evident and that its philosophical implications are relatively minor. However, to assume this would be a grave mistake. In this paper, I hope to spread light on exactly what Descartes’ method of doubt is, and how, though it furnishes challenges for the acceptance of the reality of the external world, it nonetheless does not lead to external world skepticism.
In Meditation Six entitled “Concerning the Existence of Material Things, and Real Distinction between the Mind and Body”, one important thing Descartes explores is the relationship between the mind and body. Descartes believes the mind and body are separated and they are two difference substances. He believes this to be clearly and distinctly true which is a Cartesian quality for true knowledge. I, on the other hand, disagree that the mind and body are separate and that the mind can exist without the body. First, I will present Descartes position on mind/body dualism and his proof for such ideas. Secondly, I will discuss why I think his argument is weak and offer my own ideas that dispute his reasoning while I keep in mind how he might dispute my argument.