Existence Of Material Objects example essay topic

In Meditations on the First Philosophy, Descartes tries to put our knowledge of the world on the same footing of the knowledge of mathematics, that is, to expand our knowledge by deriving! ^0 theorems! +/- from! ^0 axioms! +/-.

Here the axioms is something that is absolutely certain and indubitable, free from all possible doubts. Through firm hold of the axioms, he goes further to determine what he can derive from it. The Meditations are divided into six parts: Meditation c~n: Of the Things of Which We May Doubt Descartes has for long realized that he had accepted many false opinions, and thus he is convinced to undertake the task of ridding himself of all the opinions he has adopted. Since all his previous knowledge is based on sense perception and the senses may mislead us in minute objects, it!'s quite likely that all the other things received from the senses are merely illusions. At the same time, he asserts that although the senses are occasionally deceivable, there are many other sense-informations impossible to doubt; for example, he is sitting here with this piece of paper. In his dreams he also has perceptions similar to those in reality, and there are no evident marks distinguishing sleeping from waking.

So it!'s possible that he is dreaming now and all his perceptions are false. To argue against this, he claims that the images we form in dreams can only be composed of bits and pieces of real experiences combined in novel ways, and we have no reason to doubt the properties that we perceive the basic components of our experience to have. Where does the false knowledge come from and who has deceived us? We believe that there exists an all-powerful God, and he may deceive us if he chooses to.

However, He is supremely good and it must be against his nature to deceive us. A Deity must exist who has deceived us in the same way as we suppose the God has been able to. Therefore, he has reason to doubt everything accepted from the senses and all his knowledge. Meditation c'o: Of the Nature of the Human Mind and That It Is More Easily Known Than the Body Wrestling in the ocean of doubts, Descartes wants to take hold of one certain and indubitable point in order to continue with his meditations.

He assumes that everything is false, nothing really exists, and he is deceived. Then it follows that there must exist a deceived person, in other words, ! ^0 I exist.! +/- Additionally, !

^0 my existence! +/- is proved by the face that! ^0 I am thinking! +/-. Descartes believes that he is sure of nothing but the fact that he exists and he is thinking.

Up to this point, he has come to the conclusion that he does exists as a thinking thing who performs the intellectual activities of doubting, understanding, affirming, denying, willing, refusing, imagining and perceiving. He proceeds on, trying to prove the existence of body. As men can touch and see any particular body, it seems that the existence of body is more certain that that of mind. However, even corporeal objects, such as his body, are known much more distinctly through the mind than through the body. We can perceive all the facial characteristics, such as its color, shape, size, odor, and texture, of a wax through our senses. As it melts, all these characteristics are no longer what they used to be while all that can be asserted about it is that it is extended, movable, and flexible, which are known through our mind.

Therefore, the fact that any clear certain and indubitable knowledge comes from our mind rather than the senses of our body adds soundness to the claim that our mind is much more clearly and distinctly known to us than our body. Meditation c'o: Of God "C That He Exists In order to allowing us to be sure that we are not deceived when we perceive things clearly and distinctly, Descartes tries to prove the existence of God and He is not a deceiver. Descartes proceeds in his demonstration of the existence of God by analyzing the ideas. According to him, ideas are just like images of things. Errors in our thought are most commonly caused by our judgment which mistakes these ideas for things existing outside of us. He divides ideas into three categories, those that are innate, adventitious and those made by himself.

Even if some ideas might come from outside him, he can! t confirm that they represent the reality of the object. Besides its formal reality, which accounts for its mere existence as an idea, every idea also has objective reality according to the reality of the thing which it represents, or its object. Since idea is the effect, there must be as much reality in the cause as there is in the effect. Further, it may be asserted that any cause must have as much perfection as its effect. When this principle is applied to his idea of God, Descartes asserts that the cause, God, must have as much reality and perfection as his idea of God which is in the effect. Moreover, the idea of a perfect God had much more objective reality than any idea of a finite substance, and since Descartes himself is a finite substance, the possibility of the idea of the God originated in him is excluded.

Therefore, only if the perfect God really exists can the idea of a perfect God exist in his mind. The existence of God is reasoned upon the basis that! ^0 I exist as a thinking being! +/- with a concept of God. What if the idea of God itself is false? What if he is more perfect than he perceives him to be and potentially contains the perfections he attributes to the God? He respectively replies like this: the idea of God is the most certain and distinct; potential reality is not enough to bring about the objective reality of his idea, and he will never have the actual perfection needed since he is a finite being, always in the process of improving.

The very existence of Descartes himself can also account for the assertion that God, who is the cause of his being, exists. Therefore, the existence of God is proved. Meditation c^o: Of Truth and Error Descartes believes that the perfect God has created him as well as all his faculties. As the product of a perfect being, still he often makes errors.

Deceit is excluded from God!'s perfect nature, so the error made by him can not possibly come out of the operation of his faculties created by God, which will set God into the position of a deceiver. Then how are the errors produced? Descartes declares that the errors depend on the concurrence of two causes, the faculty of cognition and that of election or the power of free choice, or else, the understanding and the will. The understanding merely apprehends the idea, and the errors come to be through the failure of people!'s restraining the will that creates errors. Of course, the perfect God can! t be blamed for giving us a free will that we might abuse and thus make errors.

Thus it!'s we ourselves who should endeavor to avoid errors by refraining from judgment until perceiving the truth clearly and distinctly. Meditation c~o: Of the Essence of Material Things and, Again, of God "C That He Exists In this meditation, Descartes exerts himself to discover the essence of material and prove the existence of God by another means, namely, considering what properties we can know to consist of God!'s essence. Firstly, he examines the ideas of the corporeal objects that are clear and distinct, finding that all the characteristics are concerned with extension and duration, such as length, breadth, depth, size, shape, position, and movement. During this process, he seems to be recalling something already within him.

In spite of this fact, he claims that he is not the cause of the ideas, for they have their own immutable and external natures which do not change according to him or any other object. The definite natures are the essence of matter. Obviously he can! t perceive essence through the senses but abstract it from the intellectual processes of the mind. He can! t form an idea that it!'s impossible to sense or imagine and demonstrate many truths concerning its nature. Since the idea in the mind is both clear and distinct, he knows it is a true idea of material reality. Material objects must therefore exist.

The qualities which he attributes to material objects must similarly exist. Next, he argues for the God!'s existence in the same manner. As demonstrated before, a clear and distinct idea must be true, and then it follows that the idea of a perfect God must be true. Something won! t be perfect if it merely exists in the imagination but not in reality. That!'s to say, since we clearly claim that God is perfect, it!'s impossible to deny his existence. Furthermore, existence belongs to the essence of God.

It!'s a principle that all that we perceive clearly and distinctly as pertaining to something really pertains to it. According to it, since he understands necessary existence belongs to the essence of God, existence really belong to the essence of God, and thus God exists. In the following part, after arguing against several objections to his arguments, Descartes clarifies the role of God in making knowledge possible. Once we are aware of God's existence and are sure of his perfection, surely we can! t be deceived about what we see clearly and distinctly as long as we assent only to what we see clearly and distinctly. Therefore, the truce of every science depends on the knowledge of God.

Meditation c"o: Of the Existence of Material Things and of the Real Distinction Between the Mind and Body of Man Firstly, Descartes continues to demonstrate the existence of material things by distinguishing imagination from intellect. Imagination is distinct from thought in the light of intuiting things as present, requiring efforts, not being essential to him and not acquiring the mind to turn on its own ideas. This suggests to Descartes that imagination indicates the mere probability of material existence while intellection may infer the necessity of material existence. It is not possible to make a necessary inference of corporeal existence from imagination because intellection is necessary to the act of imagination.

Secondly, Descartes demonstrates the evidence for the existence of corporeal things from the senses. After recalling the old beliefs got from the senses, he reasons that they show the existence of objects, but at the same time, it!'s doubtful that these things show the existence of material objects. Thirdly, Descartes clarifies the distinction of mind and body and demonstrates the existence of material objects. As to the distinction between mind and body, Descartes claims that he is certain of his existence as a thinking thing but not sure of the existence of his body; a thing that thinks hasn! t the quality of extension while a body has. According to the previous two reasons, he concludes that mind is distinct from body. Next, Descartes argues for the existence of material things.

He is certain that he has the power of movement, but it!'s contradiction to the fact that movement is a power only possessed by extended things. It follows that he is not only a thinking thing, and it seems that he also should have possessed an extended body. Descartes goes on to meditate that he has both the powers of passive thinking and active thinking, however, the latter can! t possibly be forged within himself. In other words, the faculty of active thinking, like originating ideas within his mind, must have a cause other than himself (just a thinking thing), which is either God or an extended body.

It has been stated that the perfect God is not a deceiver. Since God has created him and lead him to believe that these ideas come from corporeal things, it must be true that he does have an extended body. Therefore, the existence of material objects is proved. Up to this point, he continues to doubt whether our senses have brought us to perceive the true picture of the material objects.

Fourthly, Descartes manages to figure out the relation between mind and body. He tries to discover the contribution of our senses, which come out of the body, in our searching for truth. He asserts that without out the inquiry of our mind, we, in our nature, can! t come to any conclusion based on what our senses tell us. Only the composite of mind and body is capable of knowing the truth, and what our senses tell us are only components necessary for the composite to discover truth, but not the exact truth.

It!'s beyond the capability of our senses to point out the essence of things. Additionally, he still bears in mind the fact that our senses usually deceive or mislead us. For example, poisons are often attractive to our senses. Fifthly, he goes on to ensure us the idea of a perfect God by demonstrating that God is not to blame for creating in us the sensory faculties which sometimes mislead us. He claims that mind is affected by the brain and our sensory signals must travel up into the brain by means of animal spirits. During this process which is like a cord running to the brain that can be pulled at any point along its length, possibly we can get signals that don! t originate in our senses.

It follows that our mistakes are caused by the animal spirits within ourselves rather than by the perfect God. That is, God is not to blame for such an arrangement. Up to this point, Descartes has finally found out the means of avoiding errors and going straight to truth -- we should bear in mind the weaknesses in our nature, firmly follow the clear and distinct ideas and do away with all the doubtful beliefs. Reference web.