Descartes used the existence o
Descartes used the existence of God as a foundation for all of his thinking. In the time of Descartes, the Catholic Church played a very important role in everyone life, including the life of Descartes. Descartes grew up and remained as a Catholic all his life. So being a Catholic, Descartes has to prove the existence of his belief before he prove anything around him existed. In the fifth meditation, Descartes says the mountain cannot exist without the valley even though we may see the mountain without the valley, the valley still must exist as well as the mountain. Therefore, since Descartes exist and for him to exist perfection is necessary then God must exist for this perfection. In order to get a better understanding of his relationship between his body and mind, Descartes melts a piece of wax. He observes the wax in two different states, the first in a solid form and the second in a melted form. He questions how his senses can show him two entirely different forms of the same substance; yet he knows that the substance, in both states, although completely different, is wax. The mind was able to understand the essence of the wax. Although the senses were not entirely capable of making the connection between the two fo
"But since God is no deceiver", says Descartes numerous times. Descartes uses the premise that God does not deceive humans to establish other truths. One of the primary points Descartes makes is that because God does not deceive, Descartes must have a body. Because he experiences pain, hunger, love, hate, and other emotions, he must have a body. These feelings cannot be conjured up by his imagination, merely because of the fact that our perfect God does not deceive. By establishing an existence of God, Descartes is able to convince others more thoroughly of his beliefs. He uses the same logic and meticulousness to prove other truths as he does with God. In a sense, in proving God, Descartes is establishing a "trust" with his students. He is establishing a trust that he will give all topics the same careful examining, and more importantly for his readers, careful explanation of his beliefs. rms of wax, the senses assisted the mind in determining what the substance was. This experiment proves to be important to Descartes because he is able to make a link between the senses and the mind. Using his experiment, Descartes enters his Third Meditation using his general rule of truth that "...all things we conceive very clearly and distinctly are true"(Descartes 113). However, there is one flaw to his thoughts. If God is an evil deceiver than this cannot be true. Descartes proceeds to establish that God is good and does not deceive. Descartes uses three points to establish the existence God. These points are ideas. The first one is adventitious ideas; those ideas
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Approximate Word count = 1055
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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