Descartes Meditation 3 - Reading Notes PDF

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Meditation 3 – Notes: Third Meditation: Concerning God and the Fact That He Exists SIMPLIFIED: The Meditator then contrasts his natural assumption that unplanned ideas represent outside objects with his knowledge that he exists. He cannot doubt that he exists or that this fact follows from the fact that he doubts, because that truth is “revealed…by the natural light”. Natural assumptions, on the other hand, are far less certain than the natural light, and have misled him in the past. Further, he has no reason to suppose that these ideas are unplanned/by chance at all. The will may have no effect on them, but they still may be produced from within him. And if they do come from without, there is no reason to think that they resemble the objects that they represent. For instance, the sun looks very small according to our senses, but astronomical reasoning suggest that it is in fact very large. The Meditator tries to determine how he can know these things, and whether he might come to know other things by similar means. He concludes all clear and distinct perceptions must be certain. Descartes seems to want to escape the problems involved in clear and distinct perceptions by relying on God’s existence to make them true. However, Descartes also seems to want to prove God’s existence by claiming it as a clear and distinct perception. For Descartes, the fundamental building blocks of reality are called substances. Substances can exist independently and are indestructible. There are two substances: body and mind. The Meditator is considering God as “a substance that is infinite, eternal, immutable, independent, supremely intelligent, supremely powerful, and which created both myself and everything else.” – the Meditator realizes that the idea of God must have far more objective reality than he has formal reality. God is an infinite substance whereas he is only a finite substance. Since the idea of God cannot have originated in himself, he concludes that God must be the cause of this idea and must therefore necessarily exist. If his parents or some other imperfect being created him, this creator must have endowed him with the idea of God. If this creator is a finite being, we must still ask how it came to possess the idea of an infinite God. We must conclude that the idea of God can originate only in God, and not in some finite being.

READING: Meditation 3: 1-12 - I am a thinking ( conscious ) thing, that is, a being who doubts, affirms, denies, knows a few objects, and is ignorant of many,-- who loves, hates], wills, refuses, who imagines likewise, and perceives; for, as I before remarked, although the things which I perceive or imagine are perhaps nothing at all apart from me and in themselves], I am

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nevertheless assured that those modes of consciousness which I call perceptions and imaginations, in as far only as they are modes of consciousness, exist in me. I am certain that I am a thinking thing; but I do not therefore likewise know what is required to render me certain of a truth? So long as I shall be conscious that I am, or at any future time cause it to be true that I have never been, it being now true that I am, or make two and three or more or less than five, in supposing which, and other like absurdities, I discover a manifest contradiction. And in truth, as I have no ground for believing that deity is deceitful, and as, indeed, I have not even considered the reasons by which the existence of a deity of any kind is established, the ground of doubt that rests only on this supposition is very slight, and so to speak, metaphysical.

Meditation 3: 13-27 - The thinker realizes that final certainty can only be achieved through the existence of a non-deceiving God, and argues from the idea of God found in her own mind to the conclusion that God must really exist and be the cause of this idea (this is sometimes nicknamed “The Trademark Argument” from the notion that our possession of the idea of God is God’s “trademark” on his creation) Mediations 4 and 5: 14-16 God’s Existence: 1. I have an idea of a perfect being 2. This idea must have originated from something at least as real and as perfect as the idea itself. 3. The only thing that is real and as perfect as the idea of a perfect being is an actual perfect being. _____________________________________________________________________ 4. An actual perfect being (God) must exist. -

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Descartes is allowed Premise 1 – doesn’t say that this entity exits, just that the idea of it is – as he established that he is a thinking thing Essentially, something/someone needs to be responsible for bringing this idea about – something as real, good, and perfect as the idea itself o He knows he has the idea, so where does it come from o He’s certain that is has to come from something as perfect as the perfect being – the only candidate is the perfect being itself  The only thing that is at least as good as the perfect being itself is the perfect being Puny us are not intellectually capable of coming up with the idea of a perfect being so it HAS to have come from the perfect being, proving that the perfect being exists WHAT ROLE DOES THE COGITO PLAY?

o He can be certain of his thought/idea of a perfect being because he already proved he is a thinking thing

MEDITATION 4: Trust of the Senses Regained: 1. A perfect being exists 2. A perfect being would not allow me to be deceived on a regular basis (because deception entails imperfection) ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 3. I am not deceived on a regular basis (I can trust my senses) -

Premise 3 – careful, rational, using senses effectively – will have foundation of all knowledge Premise 2 – a perfect being cannot be a deceiver NOR allow deception (like the evil demon) o the existence of the perfect being rules out the evil demon and not let the demon do evil things to us o not allow intelligent creatures like us live in a world where we are routinely deceived o because the perfect being is not evil

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skeptical hypothesis must be FALSE o started assuming they are not false and argued rationally making appeals to your intelligence and good sense that the hypothesis must be false

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urgers that the way to avoid error in our judgements is to restrict our belief to things of which we are clearly and distinctly certain.

MEDITATION 5: - The fifth meditation introduces Cartesian science by discussing the mathematical nature of our knowledge of matter, and also includes a second proof for God’s existence which resembles the eleventh-century “ontological argument” of St. Anselm. - Descartes finds the essence of material things to be extension, this train of thought leading him to another proof of God’s existence, and explains the role of God in his philosophy. - Descartes reflects on how he can discover truths by examining the essence of things, regardless of whether they exist. o God is such (and the only such thing) that necessary existence belongs to his essence. MEDITATION 6: - the thinker re-establishes our knowledge of the real existence of the external world, argues that mind and body are two distinct substances, and reflects on how mind and body are related....