Topic > Overview of the main ideas in Descartes' meditations

Descartes' path to securing science begins with a fundamental doubt. Descartes claims that he was often wrong and that he also learned many mistakes in his scientific education. He wants to reach a certain knowledge of which he doubts everything, which is an uncertain knowledge. Doubt aims to arrive at primary knowledge, at least true, if such a thing exists. Because only fundamentally secure knowledge guarantees true science in the making. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay However, this is not about doubting each statement individually. It would be a never-ending task. Instead, the foundations on which specific knowledge is built must be examined. Descartes addresses these foundations. The first basis in the relationship of our knowledge to things outside of us is our senses. We intend to experience through the senses of things except ourselves. However, the senses can deceive us, as we know from our daily life experience: from afar we see a square tower, which is actually round. We can be fooled by the rod kept in the water, which we consider broken. We are subject to numerous optical and acoustic illusions. On the contrary, we have every reason to doubt it. We therefore doubt unique sensory knowledge. Doubt has the meaning here: withholding the consent of conscience to the affirmation. We tend to assume that the things we perceive sensually are the way we perceive them sensually. However, this has often proven to be an illusion. It is not because we have these sense perceptions that we must doubt, but that things outside of us are the way they represent the sense ideas, but this we must doubt. When we doubt our sensory perception, it is usually to correct it or to determine whether it is true or not. We take the stick out of the water. We are carrying out investigations to demonstrate whether what we perceive sensually is real or not. We try to assimilate our sensory perception to the assumed real situation, to replace it with something other than the wrong one and to correct it. In the fourth meditation, Descartes explains why people are wrong and make mistakes, even though there is God and he could have created us as perfect beings. Descartes explains this by saying that God gave us a perfect will. Since our will is perfect, it is also unlimited and extends to areas we cannot know/grasp. Therefore, according to Descartes, mistakes are made. If we only extended ourselves to what our mind can grasp, we would not make any mistakes. In line with this, man is guilty of errors, because he can only decide in the context of something for which he has enough common sense. The third meditation is probably the focus of the entire text because here Descartes wants to show that knowledge is possible despite hyperbolic doubt. This is why the so-called ideological theory of God leads. This is so called because Descartes concludes from his idea or idea of ​​God to his necessary existence. God is perfect and therefore useful, which is why He would not allow man to be continually led by an evil genius (or by himself). So if Descartes can prove that there must be a good god, the evil genius argument is refuted and knowledge is possible. The basic idea of ​​the proof of God is that the idea of ​​God must have some cause and Descartes argues that this cause must be God himself. The argument is as follows: I have an idea of ​​a being that is “perfect and infinite” (this being is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipotent, etc.) – p. 123This idea must have a cause. - P. 123There must be at least as much reality in the total cause of an effect as there isin the effect. – pp. 123-4That which is infinite and perfect has more reality than that which is imperfect and finite. Our idea of ​​God has infinite, perfect being as its objective reality. (objective reality: reality that something has precisely in our idea.) In the cause of an idea there must be at least as much formal reality as there is objective reality in the idea itself. (formal reality: reality that something has outside of our idea.) Therefore, the formal reality of the cause of my idea of ​​God must be infinite and perfect being. So this idea must have come to me from some other being, who is omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent, etc. (in other words, God!) Descartes' argument for the existence of God is based on the concept of cause and effect in which he states that everything, including his thoughts about external everything, is the effect of a cause. The following quote goes into more detail. «From where, I ask, could an effect derive its reality, if not from its cause? And how could the cause give that reality to the effect if it did not also possess that reality? It follows that something cannot be born from nothing, and also that what is more perfect (that is, what contains more reality within itself) cannot be born from what is less perfect." (Descartes, page 22). In the quote above, Descartes points out that what contains more reality gives something that has less reality; this means that a cause must have more reality than its effect because it would be impossible for something with less reality to create something with more reality. This argument by Descartes is strong enough to be considered infallible because all the points support each other so strongly. The fourth premise is the critical point of the entire argument: Descartes has to show here why we do not arrive at a representation of God only through the denial of the imperfect and the finite, and why this notion is not empty. According to Descartes, this idea cannot be empty at first, because it is too bright and clear. Descartes' idea of ​​God distinguishes him as an "infinite, independent, omniscient, omnipotent substance". How can we achieve this idea? If the mind adds nothing to the representational content, the following applies: through mental operations we cannot enrich our ideas with content; that is, we cannot develop an idea of ​​perfection from the ideas of our imperfections if we have not always possessed the concept of the latter. So far Descartes has shown that we must have an innate idea of ​​God. Why would God cause this? If this is the case, the idea of ​​perfection can be deduced with the causal principle of the existence of a perfect cause. Once again, if only God is perfect, the necessary existence of God can be affirmed on this basis. Descartes links perfection with integrity, meaning that these forces could not be called perfect unless they were unified. Descartes believes he has adequately eradicated all possibilities of God's non-existence; through the process of elimination we are left with the fact that God must exist. Why then is Descartes so absolutely sure that God exists if God is not a part of the "thinking thing" that Descartes is? Why would this require Descartes to be too? everything perfect to know that God is perfect. Since these attempts do not seem successful, we could try to get around the circle by arguing that the current rule does not depend on God, since even the skeptic is obliged to believe that what he is only consciously experiencing is true. God is responsible only for the truth of memories. However, in the first meditation, Descartes questions this very condition by suggesting that the deceiving god could also make evident and conscious truths such as 2 + 3 = 5 appear false. This defense strategy would be contradictory. All in all, Descartes succeeded, to some extent, in arriving at the.