René Descartes's Existence

CHIDIEBUBE OPARA PHIL 1301 PROF BROWN July 10, 2017 PRINCESS ELISABETH First, in my essay about what Princess Elisabeth was asking Descartes to clarify was about the meditation. This meditation was to give an expression of how the mind and the body interact to one another. Next, In Descartes response to Princess Elisabeth, he claims that the mind and the body are the two different important substances in our human beings.

Descartes, in his Meditations on First Philosophy, used a method of doubt; he doubted everything in order to find something conclusive, which he thought, would be certain knowledge. He found that he could doubt everything, expect that he was thinking, as doubting is a type of thinking. Since thinking requires a thinker, he knew he must exist. According to Descartes if you are able to doubt your existence, then it must mean that you exist, hence his famous statement cogito ergo sum which is translated into ‘I think, therefore I am.’ Descartes said he was able to doubt the existence of his body and all physical things, but he could not doubt that his mind exists.

Conclusion: The mind is substantively different from the body and indeed matter in general. Because in this conception the mind is substantively distinct from the body it becomes plausible for us to doubt the intuitive connection between mind and body. Indeed there are many aspects of the external world that do not appear to have minds and yet appear none the less real in spite of this for example mountains, sticks or lamps, given this we can begin to rationalize that perhaps minds can exist without bodies, and we only lack the capacity to perceive them.

Descartes is confounded by this so he will not admit anything since the idea is not yet known to him. He characterizes himself as a thing that basically thinks. What is thinking being? “It is a being which doubts, which understands, [which conceives,] which affirms, which denies, which wills, which rejects, which imagines also, and which perceives.” He has already established that he does exist, however denies that he is neither the body nor the spirit alone.

In the second meditation, Descartes uses this cogito of consciousness and existence to assume that the mind is distant from a body. “I am, I exist”. This essay I will clearly discuss an outline of Descartes cogito in the second meditation and how it deals with the subject of existence and also Descartes’s strongest and weakest arguments in this case. “The Meditation of yesterday filled my mind with so many doubts that it is no longer in my power to

Notre Dame ID: 902008117 In René Descartes ' Mediations on First Philosophy, Descartes abandons all previous notions or things that he holds to be true and attempts to reason through his beliefs to find the things that he can truly know without a doubt. In his first two meditations Descartes comes to the conclusion that all that he can truly know is that he exists, and that he is a thinking being. In his third meditation, Descartes concludes that he came to know his existence, and the fact that he is a thinking being, from his clear and distinct perception of these two facts. Descartes then argues that if his clear and distinct perception would turn out to be false, then his clear and distinct perception that he was a thinking being would not have been enough to make him certain of it (Blanchette).

In Meditation 3, the Meditator is creating arguments about the existence of god. This is where Descartes explains different reasons/premises to why god exists. Throughout Meditation 3, Descartes goes back and forth with his arguments arguing one thing then creating a counter argument to it at while still focusing on the main thing which is does god exist. For those wondering whether god does really exist stay tuned into what Descartes says. The premises from the meditation that claim god doesn’t exist are weak and invalid, and fail to give enough evidence to support the thought that god does not exists, which would conclude that God does exist.

We know clear and distinct perceptions independently by God, and his existence provides us with a certainty we might not possess otherwise. However, another possible strategy would be to change Gods role in Descartes philosophy. Instead of seeing God as the validation of clear and distinct perceptions, rather see him as a safeguard against doubt. This strategy, however, is a problem since it re-constructs the Meditations – Philosophical work of Descartes –.This is because it would not be God, who is the ultimate foundation of knowledge, but the clear and distinct

Rene Descartes is considered as one of the most important founders of modern day philosophy. His greatest contribution to philosophy is his meditations. This paper aims at establishing what wax represents in Descartes meditations. In his second meditation, Descartes introduces the idea of wax freshly obtained from honeycombs.

The philosopher Descartes speaks on the entities dear to any person, the mind and body. In the Meditations, speaks about the dualism of the mind and body and their properties. Descartes believes with the will of God something as the body and mind that are joined together have the possibility of existing separately. As stated by Descartes, “I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in so far as I am simply a thinking, non-extended thing; and on the other hand, I have a distinct idea of body, in so far as this is simply an extended, non-thinking thing.” He follows this statement up with “And accordingly, it is certain that I am really distinct from my body and can exist without it.

Attempting to appeal to Elisabeth’s objections without conceding his meditations, Descartes manifests replies with the goal to uphold his original arguments. After Elisabeth’s first letter to Descartes in which she questions the ability of the soul to act upon the body, he elaborates on why he had excluded this explanation from the Meditations on First Philosophy. In the letter he claims the knowledge of the soul depends on, “...that it thinks, and the other is that, being united to the body, it can act on and be acted upon by it” (Correspondence, 63). Admitting that he had willing neglected the latter to prove the distinction between the soul and body, Descartes continues on to say that including it would have harmed his argument. He then

In the Discourse on Method, the challenge for Descartes is especially to present his method and to fight against skepticism. Descartes realizes that sometimes he is in error with his way of perceiving things. Descartes is sure that the mind and the body exist independently and assert that it is hard to tell if it is “me” or “god” or an “evil demon” who is responsible for your thoughts.” His last meditation on this passage provokes a feeling of hesitation. Descartes decides voluntarily to question all his knowledge and opinion.

The mind and body were constrained by place and space. Descartes Cartesian Dualism was god linking mind and body through innate ideas and pre-ordained by god, free to make your choice, but he knows what you will choose already before you do. The mind and body depended upon god. Although Descartes had three problems with his metaphysics. The first one being his definition

In his philosophical thesis, of the ‘Mind-Body dualism’ Rene Descartes argues that the mind and the body are really distinct, one of the most deepest and long lasting legacies. Perhaps the strongest argument that Descartes gives for his claim is that the non extended thinking thing like the Mind cannot exist without the extended non thinking thing like the Body. Since they both are substances, and are completely different from each other. This paper will present his thesis in detail and also how his claim is critiqued by two of his successors concluding with a personal stand.

Rene Descartes an academic, scientist, mathematician, and philosopher. Which landed him the title of the father of modern philosphy for defining doubt in everything us humans possibly take for granted, making us doubt in everything we may or may not know. I find this to be one of the biggest issues with one of Descartes main arugments is the fact he believes that the idea of God is impossible through anyone other cause than God, also that any being less than God is not worth of his divine nature, proving that the meditiator cannot be God since he is a thinking thing as my argument pertains aganist Descartes views of how God exists, because if we as humans are all thinking things, God is a nonbeing therefore he has no thoughts or causes to create such thoughts. Decartes reasoning being in this sense he is his god because saying I am gods creation and he gave me this idea because he is my maker, almost like God is creating a trade mark.