What I find interesting about Descartes...

[Voice Of Reason]

...is that he presents a very radical idea for his time with his first meditation (Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes, for all who aren't familiar), and was really the first famous skeptic since Plato, yet somehow believes he has proven the existence of God, which is not evident at all, as opposed to the very evident things he claims to be unsure of.

I am by all means a Descartian philosopher, except in his views on God. Nothing is certain, and God is no exception.

I've only read it once through, so there may be some huge point I'm not getting. Did anyone see it a different way?

 

[MoonlessNight]

I thought that he resorted to proving God in an unsatisfactory way because from a certain perspective he needs God to exist. And I'm not talking about just being committed to the Christian faith, but also that the presence of an all-powerful omnibenevolent God pretty much negates the possibilty that your logic is being twisted by some malevolent demon. And Descartes being a philosopher and mathematician, it was pretty important to make sure that his logic could be trusted. So He forced a proof God to get there, I think.

 

[Prometheus_ash]

Descarte was quite a radicle for his time, but you must understand that he saw himself as defending the christian faith. In my opinion, he did an unsatisfactory job of it, but at least he made the attempt to proove what he belives in.

His proof in god rests in two ideas, his defination of the "soul-substance" and in his defination of the imagination.

I cannot tell you much about Descarts defination of the soul-substance, but I can tell you the critique of it. Descarte said that the human body was sort of like a shell in which the human soul inhabitated, which is what seperated us form animals. The problem with his definition was that he said that a person insubstantial (no tangible) soul was plugged into their brains, which to him meant that humans could feel pain, and that animals could not. He used to string dogs to his fence and eviserate them to try and proove his point, a rather grusome practice in my opinion, one which did nothing to proove his point. Anyway, the problem is easily apparent, how does a totally non tangible, non-corpreal "soul" interact with the completely tangible, only of this earth "body". For that question he had no answer, becasue the only logical answer is that it cannot.

Secondly, his defense of God came from his definition of the human imagination. He said that humans could never come up with anyting new, theat they sort of "re-aranged the furniture within their mind" to create something "new". Becasue we can immagine God, (which I would argue we cannot), and we have never actually seen a god before, but still have the idea, then it must be becasue god planted the idea in our minds. The critique of this is that we can immagine things opposit's, and for example, by looking at our own imortality I can immagine something that could never die. I could, in threory, imagine an island in the pacific that has cities made of gold and is filled with beautiful women, but that does not mean it exists. I can imagine a 3 headed dog, even through I have never seen one, but does that means it exists? of course not.

As for moonlessnight's assetion of descarte's "perspective he needs God to exist" claim, this is probaply true. In his own words he described himself as the great defender of faith (the belief in gd) as he had his problems with the church. Keep in mind, that Descarte's plan form the begining was to come up with completely logical proof that God does exist, and that all his meditations were geared toward getting his reader in the right midset to except his proof's for god.

 

[NaturesHuman]

The beauty in descartes was both his revolutionary thinking, and the locial sense of most of his arguments. I would say after a first reading you most likely to need to have a few more, maybe try to outline each logical step he takes in the meditations. Most of his ideas after the cogito are based on a God that is good who guarantees his clear and distinct perception as truth. To tell you the truth it smacks of circularity as you read it, but its very hard with a deep understanding of descartes to commit him to a circle. When reading make sure to use a good secondary source to see what the words he uses mean, as they differ from modern connotations and meanings.

 

[Brimshack]

One would hardly call Descartes a skeptic. The skepticism in his work is largely an exercise, and it set forth largely for the purpose of overcoming it in the end. I actually don't remember much about his argument for the existence of God, but I think the trouble actually begins earlir, with the very moment he starts to reverse the momentum of his presentation. The Cogito itself contains one unwarranted assumption, namely that it is I that is doing the thinking. One might argue that a first person vantage point is a necessary element of a though, but this is confusing grammar for metaphysica, and a schematic relationship for a reality. To say "i" is merely to locate a vantage point within an utterance. But to assume that I exists in a substantive sense, indeed that it is a constant, an entity unto itself is hardly the intuitively obvious assumption that he makes it out to be.

 

[12volt_man]

Descartes walks into a bar and orders a beer. A few minutes later, the bartender, noticing that his glass is reaching the bottom, says "Hey, buddy, you want another one"?

Descartes says, "I think not"...and disappears.

 

[Brimshack]

…an old renes Descartes
was a drunken fart.
I drink therefore I am.