Infinite Truth

Descartes is now clear on his perception of God so he looks at material things. He points out that a body must exist in reality, because for him to dream about his body, it must exist before he would know what to dream about. So although he can perceive qualities of material things, he is still confused about some things because of is imperfect perception. He concludes that the senses are meant to help him get around in the world, not to lead him to the truth. ( SparkNotes Editors, 2012 )

Have you ever been driving in a car with a child who asked a million questions starting with “why”? Regardless of how well you think you answered their question, they will ask why the answer to that question is what it is, and so on and so forth. This is characteristic of all human beings; children just are not as restrained and willing to ask whatever questions comes to their minds, while adults are more inclined to accept the first level answer and question it no further. However in the back of our minds we all want to know the truth, and we will eventually conjure up a reason why what we accept as truth, in fact, the truth. Two very prominent philosophers, René Descartes, and William James were concerned with truth and how people come to believe and accept something as true or false. They believed that there is a very definite truth, but they mapped out different routes in order to get to the place where truth could be found.

     On the journey to find truth to base all thought upon, Descartes explains his first step in doing so. “Never accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt.”(Kolak, Pg.228). Assuming that everything you see is fictitious, Descartes believed he had no senses at all; “body, shape, extension, motion, and place are unreal.”(Weissman, Pg.23). Our senses have failed us all at one point or another in our lives, so why use the senses as a base for thought? The most famous quote and philosophy by Descartes in history ever, “Je pense, donc je suis, cogito ergo sum” (Durant, Pg.639). “I think, therefore I am” was the first step towards a basis to understand truth, and leaning away from truth through the senses.

Descartes’ “Cartesian Circle” has come under fire from countless philosophers because it supposedly commits a logical fallacy with its circular reasoning. In his second Meditation, Descartes attempts to prove the existence of God. He states that clear and distinct perception leads to knowledge, and that God’s existence is apparent and obvious because of things we have come to perceive as knowledge. Furthermore, he asserts that we cannot turn these perceptions into knowledge without the assurance that God exists. Essentially, Descartes claims that God is a necessary condition for knowledge, which in turn requires the existence of God. This circular logic presents a problematic scenario similar to the “chicken

The book The Penultimate Truth by Philip K Dick was written in 1964 and is set in the 21st century. World War III was being fought over the United States, so the general population was forced to move into underground silos to survive. This entire operation is run by a man named Stanton Brose; to aid in persuading the public to move underground and stay there while the war was happening, fake documentaries were made to pose the threat of a nuclear attack to the civilians and a realistic robot of their former president, Talbot Yancy, has been feeding them instructions on what to do. It is been 15 years since the population has seen the surface, and Talbot Yancy only demands more leadies, war robots that have been fighting instead of humans. Nicholas

Descartes’ method offers definitive conclusions on certain topics, (his existence, the existence of God)but his reasoning is not without error. He uses three arguments to prove existence (His and God’s) that attempt to solidify his conclusions. For his method to function seamlessly, Descartes needs to be consistent in his use of the method, that is, he must continue to doubt and challenge thoughts that originate in his own mind. He is unable to achieve this ideal state of mind, however, and his proofs are shown to be faulty.

Descartes’ second supposed proof for God’s existence also appears to be flawed, according to many of his contemporaries and later, Kant. Descartes likens the property of a triangle that stipulates that the sum of its angles must be 180 degrees to the supposed property of God that he must exist. This is not so according to Kant who remarks that existing is not a property in the real world so therefore for God to exist in the real world, the world must also exist, a certainty that Descartes dismisses. He is therefore contradicting himself.

Once the foundations of a building are undermined, anything built on them collapses of its own accord; so I will go straight for the basic principles on which all my former beliefs rested. Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once. (384)

In the meditations, Descartes evaluates whether or not everything we know is a reality or a dream. Descartes claims that we can only be sure that our beliefs are true when we clearly and distinctively perceive them to be true. As the reader analyzes the third meditation, Descartes has confirmed that some of his beliefs are in fact true. The first is that Descartes himself exists. This is expressed in what has now become a popular quote known as the “Cogito” which says, “I think therefore I am. His second conclusion is that God exist and that he is not a deceiver. Descartes then presents his arguments to prove the existence of God. He argues that by nature humans are imperfect beings. Furthermore, humankind could not possibly be able to comprehend perfection or infinite things on their own. He writes, “By the name of God I understand a substance that is infinite, independent, all-knowing, all powerful, and which myself and everything else…have been created.”(16) Descartes uses this description of God to display the distinction between God and man.

Through the application of his method of doubt, Descartes’ developed the understanding that the human experience remained unique to the individual. Descartes also expressed the possibility that the world as we know it may only be a mere, dream-like illusion fabricated by our own minds. His only proof of this notion being that there are no true signs in our universe that indicate whether we are awake or

Rene Descartes, a rationalist, said that each person contains the criteria for truth and knowledge in them. Finding truth and knowledge comes from the individual themselves, not necessarily from God. Descartes also believed that reason is the same for every single person. Descartes believed that nothing could be true unless we as humans could perceive it. He also believed that you could break down things into smaller simpler parts. Descartes also believed that there was a relationship between the mind and body. He also believed that the idea of being perfect originated from God since God himself was perfect. He also integrates his mathematical concepts into his methodology. Descartes also applied doubt to his ideas before he

Descartes attacks the possibility of certainty with regards to the existence of small and universal elements with the possibility of our thoughts being altered by an omnipotent deceiver. In paragraph nine, he states, “How do I know that he did not bring it about that there be no Earth at all, no heavens, no extended thing, no figure, no size, no place, and yet all these things should seem to me to exist precisely as they appear to do now.” His point is that this omnipotent evil deceiver could create in our minds an understanding of mathematics and logic that is at odds with reality, causing us to construe everything wrongly. Thus Descartes ends this final and devastating doubt with the preliminary conclusion that everything he perceives can be called into doubt.

Descartes separates his notion of ideas in two categories: the formal or material and objective. The formal and material notion is that all ideas are the same. The objective notion is that all ideas are different. Considered formally, ideas are the content of the activity of thinking and involved in the cogito. These ideas are clear and distinct. When ideas are considered objectively, on the other hand, they are the mental representatives of things that really exist. Therefore, the connections between ideas yield truths when they correspond to the realities of the world in which we live. Ideas do not come from experience, but are found within intellect itself. Descartes, however, states that these clear and distinct ideas do not necessarily correspond to realities, as there may be an omnipotent deceiver.

Descartes declares that he will only accept ideas that he can absolutely affirm, but accepts the existence of God without adequately proving it. This inadequacy undermines his declared project of defining the world in terms of established ideas. He does not sufficiently prove the idea of God, yet bases so much on it. When he later discusses physical bodies, intellect, and mathematical concepts, the reader cannot forget that everything he writes is based on the shaky foundation of the Christian God, and finds his

Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) contains six Meditations. In the first two of these Descartes addresses doubt and certainty. By the end of the second Meditation Descartes establishes the possibility of certainty by concluding that he is a “thinking thing” and that this is beyond doubt. Having established the possibility of certainty, Descartes attempts to prove the existence of God. The argument he presents in the Third Meditation for the existence of God has been nicknamed the ‘Trademark’ argument. This argument deals with types of ideas, of which there are three, a principle called the Causal Adequacy principle, and a sliding scale of reality. The argument concludes that the idea of a God that is a perfect being is an innate idea that is real and was caused by God and therefore God is real. This argument will be explained with the greater detail in the next paragraph. In the Fifth Meditation Descartes again addresses the existence of God with an argument for His existence. This argument is a variation of St. Anselm’s ontological argument. This argument is also framed around his theory of ideas, as well as his principle of ‘clear and distinct perception’ and is explained and discussed in paragraph three. The paragraphs following these will discuss how convincing these two arguments from Descartes are and will deal with various objections. Many of these objections are strong enough that it will be clear why Descartes’ case has failed to convince everyone.