Descartes Exercise
Rene Descartes, one of the brightest philosophers in the 16th century, in his immortal masterwork “The Meditations” aimed to establish that there is knowledge, and the extent or range of such knowledge. The two ideas I shall try to explore in this essay are: the existence of God Almighty and the duality of mind and body. The first statement to assess is: The sentence “god exits” is true in the way in which the sentence “A square has four sides” is true. This is not an exact quote from the mediations text but we can see how this argument is developed in Meditation 5. Descartes starts the reasoning by examining his clear and distinct idea of a triangle. He states that of a triangle there is a certain determined nature or form or essence of this figure . Descartes believes this idea of a figure does not only come from a posteriori knowledge but solely from a priori truths, as he opines that I can form in my mind an infinity of other figures of which not the least suspicion can be had that they have ever come within the scope of my senses , these figure s many properties can be discovered through reason and be perceived clearly and distinctly in the mind believes Descartes. As Descartes believes clear and distinct ideas to be indubitable it follows that all that I recognize clearly and distinctly as belonging to that thing does indeed belong to it .
This method is then applied to a proof of God, as Descartes recognises the properties of God. A parallel of the above passage about square can be seen in Descartes augment that existence can no more be separated from the essence of God than the fact that the sum of its three angles is equal two right angles can be separated from the essence of a triangle . Descartes attempt to prove God s existence is known as the ontological argument. The key thought in this argument is that if you can understand what is meant by God you can see that God must exist. The argument can be simply set up as shown below: The idea of God is that of a supremely perfect being. It is better to exist than not to exist (existence is a perfection) God must exist otherwise he wouldn t be perfect. This argument looks like a valid argument, as Descartes has a clear and distinct thought of what the idea of God encompasses including the property of perfection. He believes that for something to be ultimately perfect it must have existence- surely it is better to exist than not to? Therefore God must exist for him to be supremely perfect
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