Descartes Meditation Iii
Essay Preview: Descartes Meditation Iii
Report this essay
In the “Mediations of First Philosophy” Descartes tries to prove the existence of God in the third meditation. He does this by coming up with several premises that eventually add up to a solid argument. First, I will explain why Descartes ask the question, does god exist? And why does Descartes think he needs such and argument at this point in the text. Secondly, I will explain, in detail, the arguments that Descartes makes and how he comes to the conclusion that God does exist. Next, I will debate some of Descartes premises that make his argument an unsound one, including circular reasoning. Finally, I will see if his unsound argument has diminished and undermined his principal goals and the incorrigible foundation of knowledge.
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 Gods existence, now he has to come up with a good sound argument to prove it.
Throughout the “Meditations on First Philosophy” Descartes gives a couple of major arguments about the existences of god, he gives one argument in the third meditation and on in the fifth meditation. The argument in meditation three and the one we will focus on is known as the “Trademark Argument”. This argument comes from the fact claimed by Descartes that inside of everyone is a supreme being, which is placed there by whatever created us. From this statement Descartes can say that a mark from a God has been place inside of every one of us. This argument involves the acknowledgement of such an idea is within ourselves, this idea that God is a being who is eternal and infinite and a creator of all things. This is Descartes first premise. His second premise is the “Causal Adequacy Principle.” The principle says that if there is an item A having the property of B, then whatever causes A must have at least as much B as does A. Descartes gives an example of a stone, stating that the stone cant be made by anything that doesnt contain everything found in a stone. Basically the premise is based on a more general one that, it is not possible for something to come from nothing. Descartes then applies the Causal Adequacy Principal to ideas. Descartes claims that just in the case of how objects must contain at least as much reality as what created it ,then the cause of an idea must contain at least as much reality as the idea itself. So if an idea I represents some object O as having property P then the cause of I must have as much F as O is represented as having. Descartes puts these premises together and arrives at the fact that God exists in the following way. Since my idea of God represents God has being infinite and perfect whatever causes this idea must be infinite and perfect as well. Descartes then realizes that he cannot be the cause of his idea, of God, because he is not perfect or infinite. The definition of God as being “the perfect being” shows that the only thing that can cause this idea of the perfect being is God himself. Therefore a being that is perfect and infinite exists. Since an infinite perfect being exist God must exist. Descartes has arrived at a conclusion and has proved his argument. There were a few smaller argument that Descartes offers throughout the third meditation. One of them suggest that it is not possible to exist without the existence of God, given that I have an idea of him. This argument is sort of goes along with the Causal Adequacy Principle. It isnt a huge part of his argument, but does add another premise to it. Another argument that Descartes suggest in trying to prove that there is an existence of God is with the Evil Demon Theory. Descartes tries to prove that there is a God by proving that there is no evil demon and if there is no