Friday, February 8, 2008
Med Para 10 False assumptions vs. True ideas
Descartes does not at all see his belief in God’s existence (or the existence of perfection) as a false assumption but a true idea. He feels what is "clear and distinct" in our minds must be true. “I cannot even fabricate such a thing, so long as I am of a mind to admit only what I clearly and distinctly understand. Consequently, there is a great difference between false assumptions of this sort and true ideas that are inborn in me, the first and chief of which is the idea of God.” To Descartes God’s existence is more real than anything else. Descartes was really trying to find truths that suited him. You can even tell by his writing that he is sorting out the truth as he writes and thinking about arguments against his belief of the truth. Thus, Descartes must also doubt God’s existence since he feels the need to prove it and defend against arguments to the contrary. Why would you feel the need to prove something that you know exists? And my theory is the more he writes about God's existence, the more he believes it. As brought up in the class discussion, one also has to wonder what Descartes meant by God. Was it in a religious sense or something else? But whatever Descartes meant by God, he believed “God” to be perfect and supreme. Then the question is, as I mentioned in my conclusions on paragraphs 7, 8 & 9, what did he mean by perfection?
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2 comments:
I think that Descarte is torn between whether he should show his views on God and possibly get punished or if he should just speak his mind on his ideas of science and physical maters. I do think that he thought God was an almighty being but maybe not to the extent that he go through in the discourse and meditations.
I can see it both ways; thus, I am divided on this topic. He could have really believed in God and fell victim to his own bias. Thus, he based the truth on intuition rather than reason (without even knowing what he was doing due to his bias). However, it could also be that he couldn't write about what he really wanted to so he disguised it in a socially acceptable way (God's existence). Being that Descartes was a mathematician maybe he really did do the latter. I think I have to think about this more :).
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