In the Third Meditation, entitled “Of God: That He Exists”, Rene Descartes presents an argument for the existence of God. Meditation III talks about what is real and how to justify it. Descartes acknowledges of being doubtful of bodily things but is absolutely assured that he exists and he clearly and distinctly perceives this fact. As he confirms: I am a thinking (conscious) thing, that is, a being who doubts, affirms, denies, knows a few objects, and is ignorant of many, - [who loves, hates], wills, refuses, who imagines likewise, and perceives. . . (Descartes p 66) However, he could not be certain unless all clear and distinct perception can be true. From this he concludes, whatever is clearly and distinctly perceived must be true. Therefore, he is not only proving that God exists but to prove his existence as well.
During his youth, Descartes thought he was confident that all things he believes were true but he doubts it now. For example, “two and three added together make five” (Descartes 67), which he finds clear and distinct. However, he is unsure about it because he thinks that God might be deceiving him. He says: Indeed, if I afterward judged that we ought to doubt of these things, it was for no other reason than because it occurred to me that a God might perhaps have given me such a nature as that I should be deceived, even respecting the matters that appeared to me the most evidently true. (Descartes 67) Since he assumes there is a malevolent God who he thinks is deceiving him, Descartes then needs to assure himself and look for evidence that he is not completely deceived. Hence, this causes him in proving that God exists and is not a deceiver.
Rene Descartes begins by classifying his ideas into different k...
... middle of paper ...
...ims we do because sometimes we go with our senses and some in our reasons and experiences. However, it is God, on whom Descartes relies on for his existence, and who the source of his idea of perfection is.
Works Cited
Rene Descartes, “Meditations on First Philosophy (1641)”, in Cutler (2013) Belief, Truth and Justification in Epistemology. Douglas College, NW, BC. 25 Oct. 2015.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Meditations on First Philosophy.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Meditations on First Philosophy.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.
Uzgalis, Bill. “Descartes' Proof for the Existence of God. “. Oregon State University. Department of Philosophy , Oregon State University, 2003. Web .26 Oct. 2015.
At the start of the meditation, Descartes begins by rejecting all his beliefs, so that he would not be deceived by any misconceptions from reaching the truth. Descartes acknowledges himself as, “a thing that thinks: that is, a thing that doubts, affirms, denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of many things” He is certain that that he thinks and exists because his knowledge and ideas are both ‘clear and distinct’. Descartes proposes a general rule, “that whatever one perceives very clearly and very distinctly is true” Descartes discovers, “that he can doubt what he clearly and distinctly perceives is true led to the realization that his first immediate priority should be to remove the doubt” because, “no organized body of knowledge is possible unless the doubt is removed” The best probable way to remove the doubt is prove that God exists, that he is not a deceiver and “will always guarantee that any clear and distinct ideas that enter our minds will be true.” Descartes must remove the threat of an invisible demon that inserts ideas and doubts into our minds to fool us , in order to rely on his ‘clear and distinct’ rule.
Descartes, Rene. “Meditation I & Meditation II”. Discourse on the Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Yale University Press., 1996.
In earlier meditations Descartes proved that he existed through the Cogito argument. Descartes must now move on to examine and explore questions about the world around him, but instead of doing this he first stop to examine the question of whether or not God exists. Descartes wants to know that he was created by an all knowing, perfect creator that is good and wants to make sure that he was not created by an evil spirit or demon. If Descartes can prove that he was created by a perfect all knowing creator then his ideas must carry some semblance of truth, because God is not a deceiver and he must of placed these ideas in Descartes. Descartes has good reasons for searching for the answer to the question of God’s existence, now he has to come up with a good sound argument to prove it.
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
Descartes, René. "Meditation Three." Descartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy. Trans. Donald A. Cress. Third Edition. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1993. 24-35. Paperback.
Descartes, R., & Cottingham, J. (1986). Meditation on First Philosophy: With Selections from the Objections and Replies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
He argues that if he does not solve God’s existence, he will not be certain about anything else. Thus, Descartes says that he has an idea of God and, therefore, God exists. However, in order to be certain of His existence, Descartes provides proofs that will illustrate his reasoning. The four proofs include formal reality vs. objective reality, something can’t arise from nothing, Descartes cannot be the cause of himself, and therefore, the bigger cause is God. Now that Descartes knows God is real, he must solve another aspect, which is if God can be a deceiver. 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 other words, God possesses all of the perfections that Descartes cannot have but those perfections that are in his thoughts, concluding that God has no defects whatsoever according to the natural
Descartes, Rene. Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Trans. Donald A. Cress. 4th ed. N.p.: Hackett, 1998. Print.
Meditation on First Philosophy. His position on the body being a strictly physical entity while
Firstly, Descartes talks about “proofs” of the existence of God, explained in his third and fifth meditation. Meaning, his proofs are shown by experiment to prove that God exists. He reinterprets Archimedes ' saying, “required only one fixed and immovable point to move the whole earth from its place, I can hope for great things if I can even find one small thing that is certain and unshakeable (Descartes 159).” That he could shift the entire earth
Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy. Translated by John Cottingham. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 1996.
In the first meditation, Descartes makes a conscious decision to search for “in each of them [his opinions] at least some reason for doubt”(12). Descartes rejects anything and everything that can be doubted and quests for something that is undeniably certain. The foundation of his doubt is that his opinions are largely established by his senses, yet “from time to time I [Descartes] have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once”(12). First, Descartes establishes that error is possible, employing the example of the straight stick that appears bent when partially submerged in water, as mentioned in the Sixth Replies (64-65). Secondly, he proves that at any given time he could be deceived, such is the case with realistic dreams. Further, Descartes is able to doubt absolutely everything since it cannot be ruled out that “some malicious demon … has employed all his energies in order to deceive me” (15). The malicious demon not only causes Descartes to doubt God, but also sends him “unexpectedly into a deep whirlpool which tumbles me around so that I can neither stand on the bottom or swim on the top”(16). Descartes has reached the point where he must begin to rebuild by searching for certainty.
Descartes proof of the existence of God is derived from his establishment that something cannot come from nothing. Because God is a perfect being, the idea of God can be found from exploring the different notions of ideas. Descartes uses negation to come to the conclusion that ideas do not come from the world or imagination; because the world contains material objects, perfection does not exist.
Firstly, Descartes made the mistake of supporting a conclusion with premises that can only be true if the conclusion was a premise for the other premises that were supporting it. To clarify, Descartes basically stated that the clarity of his reasoning and perceptions are only possible through the existence of a non-deceiving God and that the non-deceiving God can only be proved through the clear reasoning and perceptions that the non-deceiving God bestowed upon him (51, 52). This is clearly a...
Descartes. "Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy." Readings in Modern Philosophy. Ed. Roger Ariew and Eric Watkins. Vol. I. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000. 22-55. Print.