Descartes Existence - Essay Example

Descartes’ Existence Rene Descartes is one of the most influential thinkers in history. His writings have spawned a number of different philosophical debates that have yet to be satisfactorily resolved. The reason for this is because of the careful, methodical way in which Descartes approached his subjects. Descartes felt the only way to obtain true knowledge was to rely solely upon human reason while ignoring the senses. “His philosophy refused to accept the Aristotelian and Scholastic traditions that had dominated philosophical thought throughout the Medieval period; it attempted to fully integrate philosophy with the ‘new sciences’; and Descartes changed the relationship between philosophy and theology. Such new directions of philosophy made Descartes into a revolutionary figure” (Baillet 1693). One of the conversations he started is the nature of human existence, which he suggests originates from God. This, of course, suggests Descartes had some sense of proof that God existed. Both of these concepts can be found toward the end of his Meditation III, published in his book Discourse on Method in 1637. By following his thought process in which he proves that he exists, it is possible to understand fully what Descartes meant when he provided his three proofs that he exists as well as his proof that God exists. Understanding that Descartes approached the world from an analytical, logically-based viewpoint is essential in understanding his thought process in proving his existence and origins. Instead of simply accepting the forms of reasoning he’d been taught, Descartes believed “that all natural science must be capable of being unified under mathematics, and that the world must be of such a nature as to admit of mathematical treatment” (Vincent 2003). However, instead of dividing thought from all other academic disciplines as his contemporaries had always done, Descartes worked to bring science and philosophy together with similar measures of ‘proofs’ and credibility. “Unsatisfied with scholastic philosophy and troubled by skepticism of the sort expounded by Montaigne, Descartes soon conceived a comprehensive plan for applying mathematical methods in order to achieve perfect certainty in human knowledge” (Kemerling 2002). In approaching philosophy in this way, it is evident that Descartes also attempted to deny the existence of God as a religious and largely human emotional crutch. “Therefore Descartes proposes a method of thought incorporating the rigor of mathematics but based on intuitive truths about what is real, basic knowledge which could not be wrong (like the axioms of geometry). He calls into question everything that he thinks he has learned through his senses but rests his whole system on the one truth that he cannot doubt, namely, the reality of his own mind and the radical difference between the mental and the physical aspects of the world” (Brians 1998). Descartes was in the unique position of providing an alternative path for philosophy to take. “According to Descartes, the four rules of logic were: to accept as true only those conclusions which were clearly and distinctly known to be true; to divide difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible for their better solution; to conduct thought in order, and to proceed step by step from the simplest and easiest to know, to more complex language; and in every case to take a general view so as to be sure of having omitted nothing” (Kandaswamy, 2006). The connection Descartes was making between the philosophical considerations of thought to the mathematical methods of analysis can be clearly traced in these rules of logic. “What suggested to Descartes that such a project made sense within the formalist framework was doubtless the stunning intellectual accomplishment represented by his analytic geometry, i.e., the reduction of the classical ‘science of space’ to a series of deductions within the algebraic ‘science of number’. Why should not something analogous be equally feasible for the emerging ‘science of nature’?” (Rosenberg 1998). There are generally two philosophical ideas brought forward by Descartes that are most widely known. These include his method of hyperbolic doubt and his often quoted ‘I think, therefore I am’ which was his moment of discovering his own existence. Regarding the method of hyperbolic doubt, “he refused to accept the authority of previous philosophers – but he also refused to accept the obviousness of his own senses. In the search for a foundation for philosophy, whatever could be doubted must be rejected. He resolves to trust only that which is clearly and distinctly seen to be beyond any doubt. In this manner, Descartes peels away the layers of beliefs and opinions that clouded his view of the truth” (Burnham & Fieser 2006). Mathematical concepts had not been applied to the school of philosophy previously because the formalist paradigm of the Socratic-Platonics denied the possibility of empirical knowledge. “On this view, sensory experience can inform us only about appearances, about how things seem. Authentic knowledge (episteme), however, must be of reality. The idea of empirical knowledge, that is, experiential knowledge, is thus intrinsically incoherent. The provenance of knowledge proper, that is, knowledge of the eternal and independent Forms, is reason alone. With regard to the world available to us through the senses, the world of appearances, we can aspire only to opinion (doxa)” (Rosenberg 1998). It was through this thought process of eliminating all knowledge that had even a suspicion of being based on opinion that Descartes arrived at his thought-provoking statement “cogito ergo sum” generally translated as meaning “I think, therefore I am” (Wikipedia contributors 2006). This simple-sounding statement is the result of a discourse in which Descartes calls into question all of the assumptions he’s come to know as a result of the philosophical thought of his day. “I had long before remarked that … it is sometimes necessary to adopt, as if above doubt, opinions which we discern to be highly uncertain” (Descartes, 2001). Through this questioning process, he demonstrates how thought, not observation is really the right foundation for knowledge. “When I considered that the very same thoughts (presentations) which we experience when awake may also be experienced when we are asleep, while there is at that time not one of them true, I supposed that all the objects (presentations) that had ever entered into my mind when awake, had in them no more truth than the illusions of my dreams” (Descartes, 2001). His idea of discovering truths about the world was defined by whether he had a clear and distinct perception of them and that was sufficient for knowledge. However, the idea that knowledge can be defined by a “clear and distinct perception” is foiled by its own dependence on the senses. Descartes argues his way out of this idea by indicating that in order to fool a mind, a mind must first exist. “But there is I know not what being, who is possessed at once of the highest power and the deepest cunning, who is constantly employing all his ingenuity in deceiving me. Doubtless, then, I exist, since I am deceived; and, let him deceive me as he may, he can never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I shall be conscious that I am something” (Descartes, 2001). Because there is no doubt that he thinks, Descartes is sure that he exists, but at the same time, because he can be deceived, he cannot be his own creator. Within his meditation, Descartes provides three reasons why he cannot himself be his own creator. The first of these reasons is that he has no idea that any of the ideas of images that he gets in his mind have any true similarity to anything that exists outside of his mind. Although he may see stars and moon in the sky and have an image in his mind of something dark with white spots and a white circle, there is no reason to believe that these ideas have any real basis in reality. Through this kind of example, readers of the modern world with a clearer understanding of just what the moon and stars are become more able to appreciate the distinction Descartes was attempting to make. Living in an age when the church dominated all knowledge and technology had not yet allowed mankind to walk on the moon, Descartes’ understanding of star material would have been much different from our understanding today when three clicks on a computer will call up an animated graphic production of the lifecycle of a star. This simple understanding of the nature of his ideas as being only inner understandings with little or no actual connection to real life opens up the concept that one can be deceived on a very profound level of being. In order to determine the source of his existence, Descartes must therefore track the source of this deception by analyzing where these ideas are coming from. This tracing of the ideas to their source becomes Descartes’ second reason why he cannot be his own creator. In analyzing the various possible sources of his ideas, Descartes comes up with only three possibilities. The first is that his ideas originate from within himself. These ideas, he has already proven, can be deceived by the external senses as the second type of ideas, ideas from the external environment, infiltrate and inform the inner being. When external ideas are forced into the mind, Descartes says, the internal ideas begin to be created as different pieces of information are connected in different ways to form a perception of how things are. However, this perception is not necessarily the entire truth. A visual example of this idea is in the story of the blind man asked to identify the elephant. Feeling a long, supple tube, he pushes it away and claims it’s a snake because his external senses informed him of the shape while his internal ideas put this information together with other ideas to form a conclusion. The third possibility for the origin of ideas is that they are innate, built within his being at the time he was created. These ideas could not be deceptions as they would be a part of the authentic entity that he was. However, they also could not have been placed there by himself but had to have their origins in something greater than himself. These two thoughts come together to contribute to the third reason why Descartes feels he could not possibly have created himself. His first reason led him to the conclusion that he could not necessarily trust that his internal ideas were correct perceptions of the reality of the world around him, meaning that his internal ideas could be flawed. At the same time, he realized that his external ideas must necessarily also be flawed because there is no means of proving that they are reality. The second idea revealed that there are only three means by which one might obtain these ideas – internal, external or innate. Internal and external ideas had already been proven unreliable, leaving only innate ideas as trustworthy for true information. However, within this concept is buried the need for an explanation of how this pure knowledge came to be there when he himself was fallible and thus could not have been its originator. This innate knowledge comes to him as something clear and distinct and thus becomes his measuring stick for proving his rules. These ideas naturally become part of his proofs for the existence of God, whom he identifies as the source of his own origin. Assuming that what he is able to perceive as distinct must be true, Descartes has erased his mind of all information that has been gained through his five senses to arrive at what he knows deep within himself. “In this item of first knowledge, there is simply a clear and distinct perception of what I am asserting; this would not be enough to make me certain of the truth of the matter if it could ever turn out that something which I perceived with such clarity and distinctness was false. So I now seem to be able to lay it down as a general rule that whatever I perceived very clearly and distinctly is true” (Descartes, 2001). One of the first things that he perceived in this line of thought was that he had a basic idea of the existence of God. Since that idea had to have had a cause of some kind, because he had already proven that nothing comes from nothing, Descartes reasoned that this cause must have at least as much reality as the idea itself. At the same time, since he did not consider himself infinitely perfect, Descartes reasoned he could not have been the cause of this idea, so there must be an outside cause that is infinitely perfect – in other words, God must exist. “Descartes assumes that we have an idea of God as an actually infinite being, not just a being that is as great as we can imagine by extending the finite perfections of a human being. For this reason, it is impossible for us to have constructed our idea of God through an extension of the idea we have of ourselves or any other finite creature” (Rutherford, 2006). In other words, since we have had no examples or reasons to have ever conceived of the idea of a perfect infinite being, it is illogical for us to have conceived of it. Since we have conceived of it, it must exist. Descartes’ second argument to prove God’s existence lies in his ability to conceive of something perfect despite his own fallibilities. This second argument begins with the knowledge that he exists – again, “I think, therefore I am.” This existence must have a cause of some kind, which Descartes determines to be one of five possibilities. The first is that his existence stems from himself, but if he had created himself, he would have made himself perfect. Since he is not perfect, he could not have made himself. The second possibility is that he is merely a continuation of something that has always existed. However, scientific studies have shown, even in Descartes’ time, that continued existence does not necessarily follow from present existence, such as in the case of death. The physical explanation is that his parents were the cause of his existence, but this line of reasoning was determined to lead to an infinite regress and therefore unproductive to follow. If he were made by something that was less perfect than God, as in the fourth possibility, Descartes would still be left searching for the concept of something supreme, which something less perfect than God would not provide. Having eliminated all but one of the five possibilities, Descartes is able to declare with confidence that God exists as he is the only being that meets all of the necessary requirements that have been established. “I know that I could not exist with my present nature – that is, I could not exist with the idea of God in me – unless there were really a God. This must be the very God whose idea is in me, the thing having all of the perfections that I can’t fully comprehend but can somehow reach with thought, who clearly cannot have any defects. From this it’s obvious He can’t deceive – for, as the natural light reveals, fraud and deception arise from defect” (Descartes, 2001). Having pursued his thought to the faintest glimmer of its thread in the most basic, elemental depths of his knowledge, Descartes declares he has found irrefutable proof of God’s existence in the simple-sounding concept that he has an idea of perfection that he could not have had if something perfect like God did not exist. Regardless of the way in which it’s presented, though, there is a hole in the logic that states thought instead of the senses is the basis for truth while the evidence of correct thought is a clear and distinct sense that what is thought is correct. In pursuing a definition of the truth, Descartes came around full circle. From denying the existence of everything that had the shadow of a doubt, including everything known through the senses and seemingly intuitively, he argued his way through the idea that thought completely separated from sense was the necessary basis for knowledge and that the only correct thought was thought that carried with it the sense that it was clear and distinct. “He developed a dualistic system in which he distinguished radically between mind, the essence of which is thinking, and matter, the essence of which is extension in three dimensions. Descartes’ metaphysical system is intuitionist, derived by reason from innate ideas, but his physics and physiology, based on sensory knowledge, are mechanistic and empiricist” (Watson 2002). Through the meditations included in Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes presents his logical sequence leading to the idea that since God exists, all knowledge must come from him and therefore, whether we are dreaming or awake, our perceptions of our reality must be real. It’s a self-contradicting logical loop that simply doesn’t make sense when taken in its entirety. Works Cited Baillet, A. The Life of Descartes. London: Printed for R. Simpson at the Harp in St. Paul’s Churchyard, 1693. Brians, P. “Rene Descartes: Discourse on Method.” Department of English, University of Washington, December 18, 1998. Burnham, D. & Fieser, J. “Rene Descartes: 1590-1650.” The Internet Encyclpedia of Philosophy. The University of Tennessee – Martin, (2006). April 26, 2009 Descartes, R. Discourse on Method. Vol. XXXIV, Part 1. The Harvard Classics. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14; Bartleby.com, 2001. April 26, 2009 Kandaswamy, D. (2006). The Key to Geometry: A Pair of Perpendicular Lines. New Brunswick: Rutgers Mathematics Department. Kemerling, G. “Rene Descartes (1596-1650).” Philosophy Pages. (August 7, 2002). April 26, 2009 < http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/desc.htm> Rosenberg, J.F. “Descartes’ Skeptical Argument.” Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy. Vol. 1, (1998): pp. 209-32. Rutherford, Donald. “Descartes – Meditation III.” May 15, 2006. University of California – San Diego. Vincent, J. “Rene Descartes: 1596-1650.” Island of Freedom. (2003). April 26, 2009 Watson, R. “Rene Descartes: 1596-1650.” The Encyclopedia Britannica. Scottsdale, AR: Pearson Software, 2002. Wikipedia contributors. “Cogito ergo sum.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. (2006). April 26, 2009 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum> Read More