In the Second Meditation, he comes to the strong conclusion of the cogito. “As long as I am thinking, I cannot help but to exist.” This discovery gave Descartes grounds to search for other metaphysical truths. He then continues onto his Third Meditation where he attempts to prove the existence of God. The reason why Descartes sought to prove…
Why is God so important to Descartes’ philosophical project in the Meditations? Answer with reference to Descartes’ attempts to prove the existence of God in Meditation 3.…
The essence of the main argument in the fourth Meditation of Descartes is to establish that there is a difference between God: his creator and himself, and how this difference does not taint the infinite abilities of God. Descartes commences his argument by first establishing his idea of being a thinking being. In his previous book, The Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy he sates,…
Descartes thinks that since we all have an innate idea of a perfect being, then that perfect being, which he calls God, has to exist, or else it would not be perfect anymore. There are two problems with this line of thought. First, do we really have an innate idea of a perfect being? Wouldn’t we need to acquire the concept of “perfect” and “being” first? It is true that we could not have directly seen or experienced a perfect being in real life, but that does not mean the idea of a perfect being has to be innate. Rather, we can form this idea merely by experiencing non-perfect beings and imagining the opposite, just like how we develop the idea of immaterial things after we have seen or experienced material things. Therefore, the idea of a perfect being is not innate, and in fact, it is possible for us never to have that idea at all. On the other hand, why must a perfect being exist? Why should existence be better, “more perfect,” than non-existence? Descartes does not give us enough evidence of the “perfectness” of existence, and thus existence cannot be guaranteed as an essential part of the perfect being’s property. Now I have shown that Descartes’ main argument for God’s existence is flawed, although I still do not rule out the possibility of God’s…
In Descartes’s Meditations III, the Meditator describes his idea of God as "a substance that is infinite, eternal, immutable, independent, supremely intelligent, supremely powerful, and which created both myself and everything else."(70) Thus, due to his opinion in regards to the idea of God, the Meditator views God containing a far more objective reality than a formal one. Due to the idea that of God being unable to have originated in himself, he ultimately decides that God must be the cause of the idea, therefore he exists. The meditator defines God as such, “by ‘God’ I mean the very being the idea of whom is within me, that is, the possessor of all the perfections which I cannot grasp, but can somehow reach in my thought, which subject no defects whatsoever.” (70)…
Descartes casts everything into doubt in the first meditation, including God Himself. He then comes to this disproval of this theory therefore concluding that God exists. This is brought about through the causal argument.…
Descartes conclusion on premise 6 about God’s existence argues that the clear and distinct perceptions provide the foundation or basis for the truth of our beliefs and that is so because God, who is not a deceiver would not allow Descartes to be mistaken about that which he clearlyl and distinctly perceives. His notion of clear and distinct perceptions and their truth requires God’s existence.…
"Give a detailed account of Descartes ' systematic doubt or methodical doubt in Meditation 1, making it certain that you distinguish between real doubts and so called hypothetical/metaphysical doubts. Then, explain in detail, exactly how Descartes dispels each and every one of these doubts during the course of the subsequent Meditations beginning with the cogito. Do you think that Descartes has been completely successful? Explain."The main goal of Descartes in Meditations on First Philosophy was to find truth behind all of his beliefs in order to build a solid foundation of certainty, and to focus his beliefs strictly on his idea of certainty; essentially to question knowledge. Descartes beliefs are mainly based on the theory that, if someone thinks that they really know something, they must be correct. Descartes meditations bring…
God is the next doubt that Descartes brings to attention. He says that he is constantly deceived and God must have created him to be subject to this occasional deception. This doubt is quickly dispersed however when Descartes reasons that God is good and therefore would not deceive him because that would be contrary to his goodness.…
In Meditation 1, one of the main premises that Descartes uses in his proof for the existence of God comes from the evil demon argument. The purpose of Descartes evil demon is to established doubt upon his belief that God is the sole figure who puts thoughts into his mind. A God that he believes to be omnipotent and a supremely good being, not being capable of deceiving him or force falsehood upon him. In the evil demon argument Descartes does not deny the existence of God. But rather makes it seem as if the evil demon coexist with God. Therefore, when his mind is being deceived or given false information it is not from God but from the demon itself. If God were to deceive us and put us in a fake realm then our image of God is wrong.…
Descartes uses the proof ‘Meditation III’ to explain God’s existence. The proof is given via reasoning, which begins by describing how he comes to such a conclusion. Descartes does this by mentally closing himself from the general public, ignoring hearing, sight, and the remaining of his senses as he deeply looks and depends upon himself. This state gives him the opportunity of making an introspective look at the existence of God, with no influences from another party (Steven 500). Descartes is able to organize his thinking, and from his reasoning, he is able to come up with the notion that God exists due to his finite existence.…
Firstly, Descartes in the third meditation sets out to prove that God does indeed exist. To begin with, he considered that the source of an idea must be as real as the idea itself. He thought that since his idea of God had overwhelmingly unlimited content, then the one who caused the idea must be infinite and that it must be god, and thus asserted that what is more perfect cannot arise from what is imperfect. In his conclusion, Descartes says that God is a substance that is omnipotent, omniscient, independent and infinite. He argued that if the objective reality of an idea could not come from him, then it could have come from something else. The basis for the arguments he put forward lies in the…
Descartes also states that this argument isn’t strong enough to prove that God exists. Because he has been constantly revising his believes he says that at this point he can easily tell the difference between essence and existence. After he points that out he explains that he believes that God could be separated from the existence but not from his essence. Then he contradicts himself saying that not existing would be prove of him not being perfect thus he had to exist. After that Descartes starts lacking of confidence that God exists. He thinks that he is giving some attributions, being perfect; to a creature that he doesn’t even know if exists. He thinks that he is just matching two things that he knows to make something new, something that…
Descartes’ first meditation, his main objective is to present three skeptical arguments to bring doubt upon what he considers his basic beliefs. Descartes believes this to be an intricate part of his complete epistemological argument. Descartes skeptical arguments are not intended to be a denial of his basic beliefs. On the contrary, he uses these arguments to help prove one of his main theses, which is the existence of God. One of the main premises that Descartes uses in his proof for the existence of God comes from the evil demon argument, which he proposed, in the first meditation. It is this evil demon argument, which will be the topic of the following discussion.…
These necessary truths incur no falsity and are clear and distinct perceptions to us. God’s existence is therefore necessary because of a clear and distinct idea of a supreme being. Not only do we acknowledge God as existent, but unlike other innate ideas, the idea of God cannot have come from our own (human) thoughts. Rather, it was planted into our minds by God himself. The logicality of Descartes’ proof of God is easy to follow and it is easy for one to understand an innate idea, but within these strengths lay the weaknesses of a priori…