Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Occam's Razor
I think I may be overthinking Descartes work. Maybe it is just what it is. There is no hidden meaning to it. Occam's Razor is a principle established by William of Occam. It states, "One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything." Thus, the simplest explanation is the best explanation. So maybe Descartes truly wrote two books (Discourse and Meditations) about God's existence and used what he knew best, mathematics and science, to back it up. Although, in my opinion, he fails to to provide hard evidence for the existence of God, in his mind the evidence he provided was sufficient. What I am basically saying here is that I don't think God is a representation for something else. I think the meaning of God in Descartes' books is just what God is referenced as in the bible, an eternal perfect being. And in the bible it does imply God will "reveal his power, truth and love to those who seek Him". Thus, according to Descartes and the bible the only way to find the truth is to truly seek God and know he exists.
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2 comments:
Lindsay, this is a very different way to look at these books. SInce all this time we all have been trying to find a greater meaning to all the things represented in the two books. This idea you have of decarte just writing what he knows seems to be the most believable thing i have heard so far. I have never heard of Occam's Razor but it sounds like a good way to think.
Yea, it just seems like there are so many interpretations that could be made and some are so complex that you have to wonder if Descartes would have written these books with such complexity. It seems that we are thinking to hard about what Descartes thought.
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