mike_decock

I'm completely new to the study of philosophy. Just out of curiosity, I started reading Descartes' Discourse on Method because I have always been fascinated with his famous statement "I think, therefore I am".

To me, this is the only statement which I have been able to hold as inarguably true. In order to think, I must exist. Descartes follows this conclusion with a proof for the existence of God that goes as follows (please correct me if I have this wrong):

1) I exist.
2) I am imperfect.
3) I have a concept of perfection.
4) The concept of perfection must have originated externally.
5) God is the perfect originator of our concept of perfection.

Although this appears logically sound, I am questioning the definition of perfection. What is perfection? Is it merely an opinion or is there a standard of perfection? I can think of no reason to believe that perfection is any more than an opinion: "Perfection is in the eye of the beholder".

Descartes' definition of perfection includes the attributes of omnipotence and omniscience. He assumes that we do not have these attributes, which most people take for granted.

I also question these assumptions:

1) I cannot disprove my omnipotence if I assume that I have chosen not to exercise my unlimited power.

2) I also cannot disprove my omniscience if I assume that the universe I dwell in, and all knowledge contained therein is simply a "memory palace" I explore for my own entertainment.

The concepts of perfection, omnipotence and omniscience lead Descartes to conclude that God exists. I could similarly use those concepts to conclude that I am God.

-Mike...

Clutch

Mike, the argument in question (ie, for theism) is a very interesting one, not because it has any force whatever, but because it goes wrong in so many interesting ways.

To answer your first question about it, though: Descartes has no very clear definition of perfection in mind. He consistently treats perfection and infinity as equivalent terms; and in a way they were, for him, since he had equally little in the way of a well-defined notion of infinity.

As for the argument for theism, its basic structure is to chase down all the other possible explanations for my having the concept of infinity, ruling each of them out, until the only remaining option is that I got it from God.

Two particularly awful (but interesting!) aspects:

(1) He considers the obvious empiricist response that I get "infinite" from "finite" plus negation. RD's reply assumes the soundness of the "clear and distinct" criterion... the establishment of which is precisely the point of proving the existence of a God who just wouldn't, wouldn't let me be deceived by such judgements. This is one occurrance of the famous "Cartesian circle".

(2) The underlying causal principle that the cause must "have" at least as much "reality" as the effect. Actually, while these references to amounts of reality sound exquisitely inept to us, now that we've abandoned Aristotelian/Thomistic metaphysics in favour of approaches that actually work, this was at least state of the art by the standards of Descartes' time. (Though, ironically, he was instrumental in their demise!)

What is utterly lame even by the standards of his time, though, is RD's application of this principle across the categories of "formal" and "objective" reality. (These terms have almost exactly the opposite meanings that they would have now; the former means, roughly, mind-independent reality, while the latter means, roughly, the reality of the content of thoughts.) It was universally recognized in Descartes' day that, whatever the plausibility of the causal principle, it couldn't serve as a condition on the contents of your thoughts -- because, roughly, you can think about stuff that doesn't exist; you can conceive of a fire hotter than any that has ever existed.

So the whole line that my idea of the infinite must have been caused by some actual thing with at least infinitely great reality was a wash from Day One.

This is one of the things that more than one of Descartes' commentators fixed upon in their responses concurrent with the publication of the Meditations. In effect, the Meditations came straight into the world with a big bootmark already on its ass, over glaring mistakes just like this one.

But again: the mistakes are interesting ones that force us to make important distinctions. You can, and will, see people making this very same dreadful argument even today -- and without the excuse of a Thomistic science!

The_Ist

I'm pretty sure it was Nietzsche who said that the subject-verb dichotomy is just a linguistic convention. He argued that there is no doer, but only the action. For example, if I say "lightning flashes," there really is no way to separate the subject and verb, because there is no lightning without the flash.

I think that's one way the cogito could be denied: just because thoughts occur, does it necessarily follow that there is some subject, i.e., myself, that is having them?

Clutch

Who wants to know?

mike_decock

I've never considered it from that perspective. In my reflections, I concluded that my own existence was something I could hold to be unquestionable. That knocks away my last foothold of certainty.

Can you recommend any Nietzche? Hopefully we'll get a "Recommended Reading" sticky in this forum before too long.

-Mike...

beastmaster

I second that request. I'm embarassed that I've never read any of his works because, whenever Nietzsche is brought up, it seems that he has already expressed my intuitions fully and spot-on! I'm especially interested in a readable secondary source that critically evaluates his arguments.

ex-xian

I would recommend that you finish with medieval to modern philosophy before you start with Nietzche. It's very rewarding to see the progress of thought from Descartes to Leibnitz to Hume, .., all the way to Kant. Also, from what I understand, much of Nietzche's work was a critique of Kant. (I've read up thru Kant and some post-modern work...I hope to fill in the gaps, ie, Nietzche, Hieddiger (sp?), etc, this summer) A good history of western philosophy would be helpful (but not Russell's ). Let me plug my philosphy prof's website. The links to Phil 205, Ancient and Medieval philosophy, and Phil 206, Modern philosophy, have on them chronological links to the major writings of some of the most influential philosophers.

Descartes' god arguments have been dealt with pretty well. Regarding the cogito (the "I think" part of man), I think it was Hume who said that a person has no true, knowledgeable conception of what an "I" might be. We only have a perceptions and sensations.

Also, Descartes dualism is subject to the critique that all dualisms are subject to: how can an immaterial substance, mind, causaly influence and dwell inside something material, body.

Pyrrho

I agree with ex-xian that you will be better off if you read philosophers roughly in historical order. However, I disagree that the newer ones represent a "progress of thought". Leucippus and Democritus, for example, are far more modern than most philosophers who came after them, for a couple of thousand years. And Epicurus, who basically agreed with their worldview, came up with a very clear, and very modern, system of ethics. And I think Hume is more advanced than Kant (I am not the only one convinced that Humean arguments are destructive of many of Kant's remarks). But you must judge these matters for yourself.

The reason I think you should generally read philosophers in chronological order is that later ones often refer to earlier ones, and you need to know something about the earlier ones to understand these remarks.

ex-xian

When I said "progress of thought" I meant what Pyrrho said. Progress in the sense that the later writings critique the earlier ones. Not that the ideas necessarily improve.

For the record, I think Kant's critiques of Hume succeeded...but that's another thread.

mike_decock

Thanks for the tip... Is there a good list of authors/books to go by?

-Mike...