Reflection on Discourse on the Method

Descartes continues in the fifth meditation, Descartes argues that geometric shapes like triangles exist as an idea in his mind and he can clearly perceive it. Descartes believed these geometric truths to be more evident than the existence of things that can be understood through the senses. Descartes then argues that since a triangle which does not exist in the material world can be distinctly perceived to exist, God too must also exist because God exists as a clear and perceivable idea. From the idea of God Descartes can perceive God’s attributes and one of these attributes is that God exists. Therefore, Descartes

In Rene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes is seeking to find a system of stable, lasting and certain knowledge, which he can ultimately regard as the Truth. In his methodical quest to carry out his task, Descartes eventually arrives at the proverbial fork in the road: how to bridge the knowledge of self with that of the rest of the world. Descartes’ answer to this is to prove the existence of God. The purpose of this essay will be to state and explain Descartes' Third Meditation: Proof of God's Existence by identifying relevant concepts and terminology and their relationship to each other and examining each premise as well as the conclusion of the proof and finally

This essay attempts to explain Descartes’ epistemology of his knowledge, his “Cogito, Ergo Sum” concept (found in the Meditations), and why he used it [the cogito concept] as a foundation when building his structure of knowledge. After explaining the concept I give a brief evaluation of his success in introducing and using this cogito as a foundation. Finally, I provide reasons why I think Descartes succeeded in his epistemology.

He also knows for certain that various ideas appear before his mind. To work with Descartes has himself as a non-extended thinking thing and his ideas.

In Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes takes the reader through a methodological exercise in philosophical enquiry. After stripping the intellect of all doubtful and false beliefs, he re-examines the nature and structure of being in an attempt to secure a universally valid epistemology free from skepticism. Hoping for the successful reconciliation of science and theology, Descartes works to reconstruct a new foundation of absolute and certain truth to act as a catalyst for future scientific research by “showing that a mathematical [rational-objective] physics of the world is attainable by creatures with our intellectual capacities and faculties” (Shand 1994, p.

After giving his first proof for the existence of God Descartes concludes by mentioning that this proof is not always self-evident. When he is absorbed in the world of sensory illusions it is not quite obvious to him that God’s existence can be derived from the idea of God. So to further cement God’s existence Descartes begins his second proof by posing the question of whether he could exist (a thinking thing that possesses the idea of an infinite and perfect god) if God itself did not exist.

Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy was written by Rene Descarte. His main focus was to decide if God was real or not and if God created him or not. In Meditation Five, Descarte states that God existed because he has prior knowledge of materialistic things. He states that he recalls objects without prior knowledge of them, and that everyone perceives all the objects in the same type of manner. In the end of the mediation he closes it out by stating that, we all can think of non existent things with the same idea of what they are without them existing, thus proving that God exists in some manner, creating us with this information. In Meditation Five, Descarte focuses on proving God’s existence by considering the properties belonging to God 's essence. In this paper Descarte is trying to prove the existence of God through his pre existing knowledge of objects and ideas. He is wrong due to his examples being based on the big picture and not the small details that prove his ideas wrong.

In this paper, I offer a reconstruction of Descartes argument for God’s existence in the Third Meditation. Descartes tries to prove the existence of God with an argument that proceeds from the clear and distinct idea of an infinite being to the existence of himself. He believes that his clear and distinct idea of an infinite being with infinite “objective reality” leads to the occurrence of the “Special Causal Principle”. I will start by discussing and analyzing Descartes clear and distinct idea of an infinite being and how it the classification of ideas and the difference between formal and objective reality Special Causal Principle. Finally, I will examine the reasons Descartes offers for his belief in Gods existence and I will indicate the drawbacks within the proof. It will be concluded that Descartes arguments are inadequate and don’t clearly prove the existence of God.

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.

Descartes reasoning shows that as part of his a posteriori claim, God’s existence depends on our idea of God as a perfect being. However, he writes that “From this I knew I was a substance whose whole essence or nature is solely to think, and which does not require any place, or depend on any material thing, in order to exist” (Descartes, Discourse on the Method, page 36). As per Descartes, the existence of his mind is partially based on the notion that it’s (his minds) existence is independent of any other being. His causal proof of God, however, depends entirely on the human mind and its ideas of what God is. Aside from these flaws in his reasoning, Descartes also mistakenly links his proofs together, attempting to propagate them and champion their creditability.

one must have at least a general idea of his motives in undertaking the argument.

The existence of God has always been an arguable topic. Descartes’ however, believed that he had proof of God’s existence through an intense analysis of the mind. Throughout this paper I will discuss what he has provided as proof and some of the complications that arise throughout his argument.

Rene Descartes Meditations is known to be one of his most famous works, it has also shown to be very important in Philosophical Epistemology. Within the meditation’s he provides many arguments that remove pre-existing notions, and bring it to the root of its foundation which Descartes, then will come up with his indubitable foundation of knowledge to defeat any doubt and to prove God is real. Descartes was a “foundationalist”, by introducing a new way of knowledge and with clearing up how people thought about things prior. Descartes took knowledge to its very foundations, and from there he can build up from it. In this essay, I will be discussing Descartes, and analyzing his first two meditations and arguing that he does indeed succeed in his argument.

Secondly, Descartes, by embarking on this reconstruction of his thoughts, hopes to find a stable basis for the sciences. Since Descartes was trained as a mathematician, he likes to find proofs for ideas, so that he can know them with absolute certainty. Initially, he believes philosophy to be the basis for the sciences “insofar as they [the sciences] borrow their principles from philosophy.” However, he concludes that philosophy cannot be the basis for the sciences, saying, “one could not have built anything upon such unstable foundations.” Now, he has to find a stronger foundation for the sciences and it is only through the reconstruction of his thought that he is able to do this.

Upon talking about the history of modern philosophy, one of the most important philosophers, who is considered as the father of the philosophy in this period, is Descartes. He was a pioneer for the movement of the new trend of philosophy and became a break between the medieval philosophy and the modern philosophy. Being educated in the environment of medieval philosophy, specifically in the school of Jesuits, Descartes received the system of scholastic philosophy as his foundation for making a new start into the history of philosophy. In his life, Descartes tried to establish a system of philosophy which was suitable to the development of society and science. To do that, he did not collapse pre-philosophical systems, but somehow he ignored their values. In his Meditations he says “Once in my life I had to raze everything to the ground and begin again from the original foundations, if I wanted to establish anything firm and lasting in the sciences.” Therefore, he just could begin a new system of philosophy which, he thought, would be a certain and firm foundation to get knowledge. However, to build up the principles for this foundation, Descartes had to use the concept of God in his arguments. The existence of God became an important means for the construction of his new philosophical system. Hence, I will emphasize on the importance of God in this paper by discovering the role of God as a means in Descartes’ main points of reasoning, particularly God with the method of