...2014 Rene Descartes: Mediations on First Philosophy Rene Descartes, known as one of the most influential philosophers of his time, is famously quoted to have been proven the existence of himself with the infamous statement, Cogito ergo sum or (in English) I think, therefore I am. Rene Descartes has claimed to have proven his own existence in this world by claiming that he is in fact a thinking thing, and that therefore he must be something that exists. This raises the question, how can Descartes truly prove to us that in fact he thinks, and how can he prove that since he thinks he therefore can say that he exists? In this essay I will be explaining the reasoning’s of proof as to why Descartes says that he thinks and that therefore he exists, and I will give sufficient support as to why Rene Descartes is in fact correct about his claims that he has stated in his Philosophy of Mediations. The evidence that I will be providing in support for Descartes statement I think, therefore I am include, Descartes doubtfulness of all things he once believed to be true (which he says has been false lies to have been told to him all of his life) (A. w. Bailey, First Philosphy, Second Edition 26-28), secondly his three proofs for his skepticism mentioned in the first piece of evidence listed previously (Descartes asking if he is dreaming or if he is really awake, his painters argument of how dream like/ images arise from real things, and an evil like demon trying to trick Rene Descartes into...
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...Explain Descartes Ontological Argument (25 Marks) René Descartes was a French philosopher who developed contemporary approaches to philosophy. In his writings the Meditations of Philosophy he examines the nature and reality of god featuring his Ontological approach to the existence of God. This argument is a priori and is featured heavily in the fifth Meditation. It is a deductive approach to the existence of God. Descartes ontological argument is a development of Anslem argument to which he continues to define God as ‘supremely perfect being’. He argued that a being which is the most perfect is necessary. He argued that God is the ‘supremely perfect being’ he must possess attributes associated with perfection such as beauty, existence, goodness and being eternal. In his writings Descartes argues that the existence of God cannot be doubted and is similar to the truths of mathematics which can also not be doubted and used his ontological argument to demonstrate this He uses an example of a triangle to do this. A triangle by nature has three sides, three interior angles which add up to 180 degrees. Descartes refers to this as being ‘immutable’ meaning being unable to change. Similar to a triangle, God has an ‘immutable’ nature and his existence is a part of this. He argues that the interior angles of a triangle equating to 180 degrees is a fundamental part of its nature such as the existence of God. This demonstrates that existence according to Descartes us a predicate...
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...Rene Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy 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. 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 Descartes...
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...“It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well, said Rene Descartes”. All throughout history there have been many remarkable minds, but as was stated by Descartes; it is not about how good the mind is, it is about how the mind is used. Descartes has always been regarded as a great philosopher; as a matter of fact, he is known as the father of modern philosophy. However, he was more than a philosopher. He was also a great mathematician and an eminent rationalist amid other things. Descartes has played as a major piece in the realms of mathematics, philosophy, and even science; therefore, he had a great impact in the course of history. Rene Descartes was born on March 31, 1596 in the small town of La Haye en Touraine, France. He was the youngest son of Joachim Descartes, his father who was a council member in the parliament, and Jeanne Brochard, his mother who sadly passed away within the first year of Descartes life. After the death of his wife; Joachim had his children live with their maternal grandmother. Joachim was very adamant about his children’s education. He wanted his children to get a good education and so he sent Rene to a boarding school. Rene was eight years old when he was sent to the boarding at the Jesuit college of Henri IV in La Fleche....
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...Descartes’ Mind Body Dualism Rene Descartes’ main purpose is to attempt to prove that the mind that is the soul or the thinking thing is distinct and is separate from the body. This thinking thing was the core of himself, which doubts, believes, reasons, feels and thinks. Descartes considers the body to be an extended unthinking thing; therefore it is possible that one may exist without the other. This view is known as mind-body dualism. He believes that what he is thinking in his mind is what God created and instilled in him. Descartes outlines many arguments to support and prove his claims of his discoveries. He states that because he can think, his mind exists. This is known as the Cogito, which is the first existential principal of all of Descartes’ work where modern philosophy begins. Descartes also explains that it is possible that all knowledge of external objects, including his body could be false because of the deceiving actions of an evil genius. The evil genius could make him contemplate his existence of his nature as a thinking thing. Descartes further explains in his arguments, even physical objects, such as the body, are better and more distinctly known through the mind than through the body. Descartes shows this through his example of The Wax Argument, where solid wax transitions into liquid state. With all of this in mind, Descartes theories suggest the mind and body can exist separately but it can be argued, the mind needs the body in order to think and reason...
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...Rene Descartes Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Value Theory Asma Naheed Introduction to Philosophy Mr. Ferguson 13 May 2016 Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was a very important philosopher in the 17th century. Many regard to Descartes as the father of modern philosopher. His famous statement "Cogito ero sum" is widely known and studied. He contributed much to mathematics as well as philosophy. What does my philosopher believe is real? One thing my philosopher believes is real is the certainty of the existence of god. René Descartes has an awareness about god. And acknowledges the existence of god. One of Descartes metaphysics is his certainty about god which is examined in his Fifth Mediations “Descartes holds that the idea of God is a true and immutable nature and hence it is not something that can be rejected at all in so far as it is ultimately an innate idea”. His view is similar like mine regarding the belief of god. Though his process for believing in god is quite different then of mine, we both have a strong belief in god. My View on Rene Descartes metaphysics regarding the existence of god is disagreement. Descartes argues that god exists beyond any doubt, but I disagree. My view is not like his because, I believe his proof of good relies mostly on false premises. Descartes argues that god exists but what is the actuality of god he does not answer. An example of this can be illustrated by a student doubting whether or not they will make a good grade on the...
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...René Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and writer of the 17th century. He was dissatisfied with the philosophy of his time which was dominated by scholastic philosophy, which sought to answer highly abstract philosophical questions mainly on the basis of Aristotle’s teachings. Descartes was dissatisfied with this kind of philosophy because he considered their highly abstract arguments senseless. Because of this dissatisfaction, Descartes tried to create a whole new system of thought that would unify all knowledge. As a result, René Descartes has been dubbed the “Father of Modern Philosophy”. René Descartes is the man credited to the famous dictum, Cogito Ergo Sum which translates to “I think, therefore I am”. Can one really prove that something, anything exists by this? I would like to believe that the cogito phrase holds an absolute truth. Come to think of this, if you’re even having these profound thoughts of questioning whether anything exists or not, if you even really care about purpose, the meaning, existence, why you are here or if you are real, can’t you then establish that you exist? Just by the mere fact that you are doing the process of examining yourself, you inside know that you are a complex creature, you truly do exists. If you’re looking at questions of self purpose and meaning and the existence of God, none of it would make sense but for the fact that you exists. Only you and you alone can prove that you exist, and that proof is...
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...RENE DESCARTES’ METHODS OF DOUBT Introduction The theory of knowledge and analytical method advanced by the French philosopher Rene Descartes is often summed up in the famous phrase, Cogito ergo sum- “I think, therefore I am.” While this phrase does express the final step in his systematic process of “doubting everything,” it is a gross over-simplification of Descartes’ methods. Descartes did use systematic doubt to find the starting point for his theory of knowledge, but his other philosophical inquiries involved several different methods of doubting, from simply imagining that which is contradictory, to carrying logical postulates to absurd conclusions, to the more traditional methods of testing syllogisms and analyzing proofs. In this essay, I will examine Rene Descartes’ various methods of doubt, to show that the philosopher did not rely on the single reductio ad absurdum in his famous proof of his own existence. Descartes, as we will see, employed several different approaches to philosophical proofs, and he was not the mechanistic logician that his mathematical background might suggest. It will be the argument of this essay that Descartes applied different methods of doubt to different problems, depending upon whether the problem was epistemological, scientific or theological in nature. Existential Doubt: Do I Exist? The first and best-known method of doubt employed by Descartes involves reductionism, in the sense that he used a negative or reverse logical path...
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...of a very long history of arguments, counter- arguments, thesis, and theories; thus we can also see questions, and answers that lead to more questions and so on. Like most sciences, philosophy has its own procedures and its own approach to inquiries about the world. One of the central objectives of this discipline is to learn and make use of those procedures to understand the mysteries behind existence and reality. It is also a study that aims to find out the nature of truth and knowledge and to discover what is of basic value and the significance of life. As established by its founding fathers the basic business of philosophy is to know what truly exists and the relation among these existents. Reason is a method in which people acquire knowledge and understanding by means of thinking in an organized and clear way. It has played a big role in the progress of different branches of philosophy (e.g. epistemology, metaphysics, etc.) throughout the years. Some of philosophy’s longest running problems are based on reason but reason also paves way for the solution to these problems. In this paper, I will address different examples that exhibit the being philosophical of reason. REASON IN THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS Ontological arguments are arguments that assert the existence of a God by using premises that lack support from observation of the world or usage of senses. In other words, ontological arguments rely on analytic, a priori...
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...Michael Hafner Dr. Samantha Langsdale PHIL 1800 December 2nd, 2015 The Delusion Dilemma Rene Descartes once proposed a tedious accusation about dreaming, and how our senses that we use to perceive what is considered reality should not be trusted fully. In the Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes attempts to convey the fascinating illusion of always being in a dream without a certain ability to distinguish what is actually reality or what is a dream, or at bare minimum prove that there are no certain marks to prove otherwise. He states, “…as I think about this more carefully, I see plainly that there are never any sure signs by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep. The result is that I begin to feel dazed, and this very feeling only reinforces the notion that I may be asleep” (First Meditation). In my attempts to contrast what Descartes argument was comprised of and what certain illusions made him feel this way about our perception of physical existence. I turned my attention to his famous dream argument originally brought forth in his Mediation on First Philosophy, and will be using different ideologies between a John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, two famous English philosophers who have attempted to refute Rene Descartes’s dream argument by providing useful and insightful situations to further explain against the idea, as well as provide my own insight in concluding that we are not dreaming right now. It should be noted that within the...
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...In “The problems of Philosophy” and “Meditations”, Bertrand Russell and Rene Descartes both doubts the ideas of perception and existence. In the book, Descartes built up his ideas by doubting the basic foundation of his knowledge. However, compare to Descartes, Russell focuses more on the object around him, like the rectangular table, rather than himself. In this paper, I will argue if their aim is successful by comparing the differences and similarities between them. My comparison will cover two main points between them, which are the fundamental basis of their arguments and the strength of their respective conclusion. In “The problem of philosophy”, Russell and Descartes are both arises a common epistemological question with different...
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...Pascal vs Descartes Paper Pascal’s argument is fallible because he reaches the conclusion that we should “wager” God’s existence, rather than coming up with “proof” by using deductive reasoning like Descartes provides in his argument. These early 17th century philosophers both provided writings defending the validity of the Christian religion and of God’s existence. After the Protestant Reformation of 1517, the Catholic Church’s sanctity was questioned. Different religions sprouted across Europe and citizens of Western Europe began questioning religion itself and the existence of God. Blaise Pascal and Rene Descartes each claimed to have a strong belief in Catholicism (or a denomination of), and because of this strong belief, they sought to defend the validity of the existence of God. Pascal wrote a collection of aphorisms which he started to revise into a writing he would call the “Apology of Christian Religion”. However, Pascal died before he was able to complete it. In Pascal’s Pensees (his writings were collected and organized in the 19th century and 20th century), Pascal systematically dismantles the notion that we, the people, can trust reason to validate God’s Existence. Pascal rambles on about what “we” can’t do to prove God, instead of finding his own proof of God’s existence. His approach to persuade us into believing God is to use mathematical equations and odds to reach the conclusion that it is worth it to a person to wager on God’s existence. Descartes on the other...
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...slave recognizes the answer to geometrical problem. Socrates proceeds to confirm with the concept that the sole is immortal and the slave was “recollecting” knowledge that the soul already had. In Plato’s Meno his argument was with “recollection doctrine” of knowledge was already having the concept to begin with and people were just “recollecting” prior knowledge. Plato continues to argue rationalism through Phaedo with the Socratic Method. Plato uses his arguments in Phaedo using Socrates’ voice and other characters to explore rational arguments. It is only when the philosophers realize the truth, is when they will know the true knowledge, even if they didn’t exactly see it. There are different forms of recollection for example one is mathematics. Unlike rational objects, which Plato describes this is not a legitimate form of knowledge. All knowledge is innate, the concept that knowledge originates in the mind. The soul just has to seek for that knowledge. On the other hand, Descartes believed that if one didn’t have the concept of time, space, and numbers, one couldn’t have those experiences. In the first meditation, he uses an example of a painter that uses colors to represent the general things, and that other certain things that are similar are true. Descartes’ example of the painter shows that using the colors it...
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...Rene Descartes Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is generally considered to be one of the most influential Philosophers of the modern Western world. He has been called the founder of modern philosophy. Descartes was the first man of any influence in philosophy to be interested and affected by physics and astronomy. He also refused to accept the views of his predecessors, preferring to work out everything for himself. He was the first man to attempt this since Aristotle. There was freshness about his work that had not been seen from any philosopher since Plato. To begin by doubting everything was the necessary first step in order to sweep away all past presumptions and eliminate all issues that were confusing human knowledge. He also isolated only those truths he himself could directly experience and substantiate. This approach of questioning and skeptical nature meant that Descartes was able to make breakthroughs in philosophy not available to earlier philosophers who had accepted other people’s views as true. The existence of God has been a question since the idea of God was conceived. Rene Descartes tries to prove God's existence, and to show that there is without a doubt something external to ones own existence. He is looking for a definite certainty, a foundation for which he can base all of his beliefs and know that they are true. Descartes' overall project is to find a definite certainty on which he can base all his knowledge and beliefs. I totally agree with Descartes...
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...premise is that Descartes presupposes something, such as the existence of the all-perfect God, to prove that the premise is true, the existence of the all-perfect God. Many critics argue that he creates a circular argument, hence “Cartesian Circle” and with a circular argument nothing concrete is really being proven. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Descartes argument can be broken down into two main steps (Newman). The first step sheds light in the Third Meditations, where Descartes makes arguments for the existence of an all-perfect God. The second step is where Descartes takes the now established premise to argue that the all-perfect God exists. In short, Descartes is arguing that since he thinks, he exists and since he exists, an all-perfect God exists. Finally, since the all-perfect God exists, he thinks. This creates a circular argument according to his critics. One of the objections to Descartes is in reference to the atheists. Descartes argument would lead us to believe that since atheists do not believe in the existence of the all-perfect God. The example used is the sum of the angles of a triangle equating to the angles of two right angles (Second Objections, DSW, p. 139). The critic would argue that under Descartes philosophy atheists, by default do not believe in the higher being, thus would not be able to have the knowledge to comprehend the idea that two right angles equal the sum of all the angles of a triangle. Descartes somewhat concedes...
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