Descartes First Meditation Essay

The major premises in Descartes' Third Meditation are his degrees of reality principle and his causal adequacy principle. Descartes' degrees of reality come from his ideas of more or less real, things can fall under properties being less real, like colors, to finite substances, to infinite substances being the most real, like God "But I understand God to be actually infinite, so that he can add nothing to His supreme perfection" (Third Meditation, pg 17). Something like a table can be a finite substance but the color of the table, its brownness, is something considered to be less real to Descartes, a less real property. Descartes' casual adequacy principle which goes like "Now it is manifest by the natural light that there must be as much reality in the efficient and total cause as in its effect," (Third Meditation, pg 15) meaning that something is not created from nothing, like the stone. The casual adequacy principle can

Descartes argues that some ideas are more real than others. These ideas are those that represent substances and contain more objective reality. These ideas are first modes or accidents, finite substance, and infinite substance. Descartes

Descartes concludes from his first meditation that he is a thinking thing, and as long as he thinks, he exists. In the second meditation, Descartes attempts to define what the “thinking thing” that he concluded himself to be in the first meditation actually was. Descartes’ determines that he gains knowledge of the world, that is, knowledge that is separate from the mind, through the senses; and that the senses can deceive. This he outlines within the first meditation, and mentions on the second meditation. Furthermore, in the second meditation, Descartes refuses to define himself as a rational animal, instead going back and relying on labeling him mind as a thinking thing. In the fifth and sixth paragraphs of the second meditation, Descartes distinguishes the body from the soul. Descartes indicates that there is the presence of the body, and it seems to be in the physical world, but he also notes that his mind does not seem to exist in the same manner. Descartes also claims that the ability to perceive is a power of the soul, but inoperable without the body. Descartes then explores another object with physical substance, which is a piece of wax. The piece of wax is undeniably physical; it takes up space within the material world. The body falls into the category, just as any other physical object in the material world. The main point of Descartes’ second meditation is that any given person can know more about their mind than of the world surrounding them.

Descartes is considering that all of his experiences could be false and that everything is just the invention of a powerful being. This resulted in this argument:

By saying this he means that a formal reality is expressed as an infinite substance, finite substance, or finite mode. And by objective, we are talking about ideas or representations that we have of these finite substances, infinite substances, and finite modes. One could theoretically be producing these ideas, but Descartes dismisses this possibility for two reasons; first, that the idea of corporeality does not presuppose thought and second, that our will seems to have no effect on what we perceive or don't perceive. He believes this because the scope of the will is wider than that of the intellect. Therefore, turning aside from making any judgment where one is at all questioning causes the correct behavior and avoids any error.

The highest degree of reality involves the infinite. The infinite represents substances that are unbounded and possess no conceivable or tangible limits in any of their aspects or qualities. The only example of this for Descartes would be an entity of omnipotence, who would be all knowing, all powerful, and that of which no greater can be conceived, in other words God.

In the Meditations, Rene Descartes attempts to doubt everything that is possible to doubt. His uncertainty of things that existence ranges from God to himself. Then he goes on to start proving that things do exist by first proving that he exists. After he establishes himself he can go on to establish everything else in the world. Next he goes to prove that the mind is separate then the body. In order to do this he must first prove he has a mind, and then prove that bodily things exist. I do agree with Descartes that the mind is separate from the body. These are the arguments that I agree with Descartes.

At the beginning of Meditation three, Descartes has made substantial progress towards defeating skepticism. Using his methods of Doubt and Analysis he has systematically examined all his beliefs and set aside those which he could call into doubt until he reached three beliefs which he could not possibly doubt. First, that the evil genius seeking to deceive him could not deceive him into thinking that he did not exist when in fact he did exist. Second, that his essence is to be a thinking thing. Third, the essence of matter is to be flexible, changeable and extended.

Descartes’s attempt to prove the existence of God begins with the argument that he has the clear and distinct idea of God as the “most perfect being and that there must be at least as much reality in the efficient and total cause in the effect of that cause” (40). Therefore, this idea of God can’t be from himself, but its cause must be God. So God exists. In what follows I’ll explain these terms and why the premises seemed true to him.

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.

In the first meditation, "Concerning those things that can be called into doubt", Descartes main goal is to distinguish what it is he can take to be true, and what supposed truths hold even the smallest degree of doubt. When he reviews all of his opinions he concludes "eventually [he] is forced to admit that there is nothing among the things [he]believed to be true which it is not permissable to doubt--and not out of frivolity or lack of forethought, but for valid and considered reasons. Thus [he] must be no less careful to withhold assent henceforth even from these beliefs then [he] would from those that are patently false, if [he wishes] to find anything certain."(Pg62) At the beginning of Descartes' meditations, he finds that there is really no concrete pillars of knowledge to base the foundations of his supposed

In the fourth premise Descartes states that indeed, the cause of this idea must contain at least as much formal reality as the idea contains objective reality. Formal and objective are used in a different context than what we are used to. “The formal properties of an idea are the properties it has as a mode of consciousness” (Thompson, 31) Formal reality is properties or modes that ideas have. In contrast, objective reality focuses on what an idea represents or the content of the ideas. “Descartes uses the phrase objective properties of an idea to stand for the content of the idea or what the idea is of” (Thompson, 31). There are also varying degrees of formal and objective reality. Modes, finite substances and infinite substances all have varying degrees formal and objective reality. Similarly, modes are considered to be the lowest type of both objective and formal reality, followed by finite and then by infinite substances. To put forth an example, a dragon has the objective reality of an idea of a substance. This is so even though we know that dragons do not exist. However, if hypothetically they

Therefore meaning that the world that we live in, the external world, is non-existent and merely a mirage placed into our minds by an evil demon. Obviously, to any sane person, this would sound irrational, but this is the possible world that Descartes presents to establish doubt in his common beliefs, mainly his belief that there exists an external world.

The distinction between formal and objective reality should be laid out from the beginning in order to grasp Descartes’ argument. When talking about the forms of reality, Descartes is differentiating between two ways of existing; mostly being independent or dependent to exist. Formal reality reflects the degree of independence in something’s existence. In other words, the more formal reality something has, the fewer things it needs to exist. Formal reality can be applied to everything, in different degrees, however. As for objective reality, it can only be applied to ideas as it basically is a representation of something; an object of thought. With this being said, an objective reality of an idea is equal to the formal reality of the thing that the idea is about.

René Descartes, a rationalist philosopher finds uncertainty in almost everything, including his senses, memory, body and the physical world. Everything besides the fact he himself is a res cogitans (thinking thing). He puts forth this idea in his second meditation of his most famous works, Meditations On First Philosophy, published in 1641. This analytic style of writing opens by considering any belief that was the slightest bit doubtful, as false. Descartes felt the need for this “hyperbolic doubt” in order to reach an impartial truth. He then takes you through the thought process that led him to the one thing that lies beyond all doubt. He finds certainty in the statement Cogito, ergo sum or “I think, therefore I am.” FOOTNOTE