Descartes: Philosophy, Method, and the Existence of God
Descartes’ Key Works and Philosophical Starting Point
The two most important works of Descartes are Discourse on Method (1637) and Meditations (1641). The starting point of Cartesian philosophy is: How to ensure that modern physico-mathematical science of nature is true? Is it possible to establish some absolutely certain and indubitable truth on which to build this new science in safety? To answer these issues, Descartes seeks to develop a method of research to advance knowledge for sure, based on a set of rules, to ensure correct reasoning and reconstruction of all human knowledge. The rules of the Descartes method are modeled on the method of mathematics:
- Evidence rule, which requires rejecting any idea that is not clear. Evidence is reached either by intuition or direct intellectual vision of a truth (as the first principles of reasoning), or by deduction, which allows to derive a number of consequences some of these principles necessarily intuitively obvious.
- Rule analysis, which reduces the complex to its simplest components, which can be known intuitively.
- Regulation of synthesis, by which, starting from the simple elements, known by intuition, or deductions are made more complex arguments.
- Rule of enumeration in the application of which would review all the steps taken to ensure that no mistakes were made in the argument.
Applying the Method to Metaphysics
Next, Descartes applied the method to metaphysics, the root of the tree of science, to see if a first absolutely certain truth, on which to raise the edifice of knowledge.
Methodical Doubt
For this, he raises the question methodically, which is to question all our knowledge to find one that is safe and unquestionable. Methodical doubt has four levels:
- Distrust of the knowledge gained from the senses, they deceive us like this often dark and confusing, raising ideas could fool forever.
- Confusion between sleep and wakefulness, dreams sometimes are indistinguishable from reality, so that all of reality may well be illusory (the existence of the world outside our minds is questionable and must be shown).
- Hypothesis of a “God deceiver”: mathematical reasoning remains valid, even in dreams, but perhaps God created us so that we always deceived, even in the most obvious reasons.
- Hypothesis of an “evil genius”: assuming that God can not deceive us, because he is kind, there could be an evil spirit had fun making that mistake every time we argue.
Cogito, Ergo Sum
However, although the question appears to have eliminated all of our knowledge, including mathematics, in the very act of doubting something comes along that resists any doubt: if the subject is certainly thinking, and if he thinks, is that there is “I, therefore I am” (Cogito, ergo sum). This proposition is usually known as cogito, is the keystone of Cartesian metaphysics. This is the first truth, known with absolute clarity and distinction, which certainly can safely support of the “building science.” Noted that its direct antecedent is the proposition of St. Augustine “If I am mistaken, I am” (Si fallor, sum).
The Self as a Thinking Substance
Descartes defines the self as a thinking substance “res cogitans“, in which there are ideas, desires, and judgments (which are those which may lead to error). In turn, the ideas are of three types: adventitious, factitious, and innate. Adventitious ideas seem to come from external objects; factitious ideas are created by our imagination, and innate ideas appear to be innate to the subject.
Proofs of God’s Existence
First Demonstration of the Existence of God
Among innate ideas are a very special: an “infinitely perfect” (God), which may not have been created by me, since this is finite and imperfect, so that idea had to be put in the subject of a being actually infinite, which demonstrated that God exists.
Second Demonstration of the Existence of God
Descartes adds two other proofs of the existence of God. The first is a variant of Anselm’s ontological argument: given that I have in mind the idea of an infinitely perfect, that being must include among its perfections of necessarily exist.
Third Proof of the Existence of God
The second variant of the Thomistic way of contingency: if I had been given himself there, he would have all kinds of perfections, including the necessarily exist, but it is known finite, imperfect, and contingent, and therefore has had to have been brought into existence by another being, which may be contingent or necessary. The chain of contingent beings can not be infinite, because then I would not exist today, but as it exists, there must be a necessary being, God, who created and maintains it in existence.
Demonstration of the Outside World
God as the infinitely perfect, you have to be kind and can not deceive us: he ensures that the external world exists and mathematical science that deals with him is true (provided that their arguments are in accordance with the rules of the method).
Cartesian Metaphysics: Three Substances
Cartesian metaphysics distinguishes between three substances: the infinite (God), thinking (soul), and extensive (physical bodies).
In the Cartesian metaphysical substance is defined as “that which exists in such a way that does not need anything else to exist.” Accordingly, only God (the infinite substance) is itself substance, but Descartes distinguishes two finite substances: the thinking substance (res cogitans) and extended substance (res extensa), the characteristic attribute of the first is the thought, and modes are the souls and the characteristic attribute of the second is the extent and ways are the physical bodies.
Anthropology
Descartes’s dualistic anthropology. In man we have to distinguish the soul (immortal), characterized by thought and body (that is material and is characterized by the extension). Are independent, do not need to exist.
The body is a complex machine, built by God. The separation between the soul and the body raises the problem of communication between the two substances, Descartes resolved by the pineal gland, point of contact between both.
Historical Context: The Thirty Years War
Descartes lived in the context of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), a conflict that decided the European hegemony, because after the Peace of Westphalia (1648), Spain began a process of irreversible decline against France, which was imposed as the most influential state in Europe to reach the height of its power under Louis XIV, the Sun King who came to power in 1661.
From the socioeconomic standpoint, the consequences of the war were devastating: the population was reduced drastically and the European states took decades to emerge from the deep crisis caused by conflict.
Political and Religious Climate
At the political level. It imposed the absolutist state, which concentrates all power in the king, who is considered appointed by God. The social organization was the estates: at the top stood the king, then the nobility and higher clergy, and the third level the “third state”, which begins to highlight the merchant bourgeoisie.
In the religious field, there was a confrontation between the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation, emphasizing the Jesuit order, dedicated to strengthening Catholic faith against Protestantism and Jansenism (inspired religious movement founded by St. Augustine and the Jan Senius theologian) was founded in France through the writings of Arnauld and Pascal (1623-1662).
Art and Literature of the Time
In the arts dominated the Baroque art movement akin to the Catholic Counter, which stressed the scenic effects, to promote the faith of the faithful and to exalt the power of the monarchs of the time. The two great Baroque artists are Velázquez (1599-1680) active in the Spanish court of Philip IV and Bernini (1598-1680) architect and sculptor. Active in Papal Rome. The literature shows a pessimistic conception of man, emphasizing the transience and vanity of life, and shows great concern about the death (as happens for example with the poetry of Quevedo and the theater of Calderon de la Barca, whose work Life is a Dream is very similar issues to Cartesian thought and the confusion between dream and reality. On partly in France stands at the theater Pierre Corneille: Le Cid.
Renaissance Humanism and the Scientific Revolution
Descartes is the first great philosopher of the modern age is marked by the Renaissance humanism and the modern scientific revolution.
Between the XV and XVI was first developed in Italy and then in the rest of Europe, the Renaissance humanism which coincided with the crisis of scholastic philosophy. Humanists tried to recover coinciliandola Greco-Roman philosophy with Christian thought in the context of a concordatio, extending to all levels of knowledge. Humanists regained interest in human beings and nature, and developed an anthropocentric thinking against medieval theocentrism. Therefore, if medieval philosophy had revolved around God, the modern will be focused on problems related to man, especially the problem of human knowledge and the problem of freedom.
Parallel between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the modern scientific revolution led by Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton among others. This revolution began the heliocentric theory of the solar system introduced by Copernicus and ends with the foundation of modern physics by Galileo and Newton. When modern science will be characterized by two features that differentiate it from the ancient science: first is a mechanistic science, that is, a science to eliminate the ultimate cause of his explanations and interpreting all the phenomena of nature in terms of extensive material particles moving in empty space interacting with each other through mechanical checks, on the other hand, is also a science mathematicism because once recovered the thought of Pythagoras and Plato in the Renaissance, nature is understood as a set of analyzable phenomena by mathematical laws. The scientific revolution ended the Thomistic and Aristotelian conception of the universe but also raised new philosophical problems. The first and most important was the problem of skepticism. Skepticism is called to the position which holds that there is no criterion of absolute certainty, since the old image of the universe and science had proved false and incorrect what guarantee is there that the new science is more true than before? This meant that in the sixteenth century, Pierre Charron and especially in his Essays Montaigne maintained that the failure to find any knowledge absolutely true: everything can be questioned and nothing is quite evident. Two other issues raised by modern science was the problem of method and the problem of the basis of scientific knowledge which method ensures the safe progress of science without fear of further mistakes?, Or otherwise be based on what scientific knowledge on the reason or experience?
Rationalism and Innate Ideas
Rationalist philosophers led by the founder of this movement: Descartes will try to find a research method capable of discovering new scientific truths safely and will consider the source of all human knowledge is reason, which has what they call innate ideas. These ideas know the reason alone, there are “a priori” and not from experience.
The Idea of God as Innate
Descartes says that the idea of God, i.e. an infinite being or substance is not an adventitious idea because it seems to come from experience, not a factitious idea because the subject is finite and imperfect, is capable of creating. Therefore, there is only one possibility: that is the same as the “I” an innate idea has been put into the reason why God Himself, the infinite, to create the subject. Descartes says even the idea of “infinite” allows us to recognize the creator of the subject (God) as the brand name printed on an object or device enables us to recognize its author. The text concludes by pointing out that God infinitely perfect can not be a deceiver and thus ensures that our mathematical knowledge about the outside world are valid and relate to real objects (provided you use either method).