ultimately hopes to achieve absolute certainty about the nature of everything including

God, the physical world, and himself. It is only with a clear and distinct knowledge of

such things that he can then begin understand his true reality. Descartes starts by looking

at our usual sources for truth. Authority, which is churches, parents, and schools, he says,

are not reliable sources for truth because time shows we all die, and that we are

eventually proved wrong, much in the same way the accepted truths of science have

changed dramatically over the course of history. Also, he considers the generally excepted

view that our senses dependably report the absolute nature of reality. Simiar to authority,

Descartes discards the senses as a source of truth because of the "Dream Argument" or

the belief that based on the senses there is no definite way of proving that you are

dreaming or that you are awake. Therefore it is possible that everything we believe is

false, making the senses an unreliable source. Upon establishing this, Descartes doubts

the existence of a physical or external world. Despite that he has an idea of things in the

self-evident, or those that can be mathematically represented. Descartes calls these

addresses is mathematics. He soon realizes math's truth isn't completely reliable because

comprehended, no conflict should arise between science and religion. Descartes' focus in

ponders the possibility that he has no way of being completely positive about anything,

therefore eliminating his freewill. These are some of the considerations when thinking

way in which Descartes proves the existence of God is through an "ontological" proof.

an immaterial substance and God. Next, he shows that external ideas, or images of things

then one must do what God knows he will do in the future. This means that one has no

that a perfect being exists and that he is not alone. knows what one will do in the future,

even his existence. It is only after some deliberation that he decides that it is impossible

the imagination, which is the psychological power of receiving and processing images.

to accept as false and only then start to rebuild is foundation of knowledge. To insure the

ideas, therefore proving that matter exists. Now that Descartes has established the

Some common words found in the essay are:
Consequently God, Demon Hypothesis, God God, Sixth Meditation, , Dream Argument, Subsequently God, external ideas, external world, cause external ideas, cause external, nature reality, god god, essential property, immaterial substance, true nature, existence external, god cause external, external ideas images, true nature reality, external ideas god, ideas god,
Approximate Word count = 1231
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)