Friday, January 3, 2020

Essay on Descartes Argument for the Existence of Corporeal...

Methods and Meditations on First Philosophy is a discourse by Rene Descartes, which largely focuses on the nature of humanity and divinity. This essay is a discussion of this discourse, and will summarize, explain and object to various parts of his work. The majority of this essay focuses on Descartes Sixth Meditation, which includes his argument that corporeal things do exist. 1. There clearly exists a passive faculty of sensing and I use it involuntarily. 2. If there exists a passive faculty of sensing within me and I use it, then there exists an active faculty of producing sense ideas, either in me, or in something else. 3. Therefore, there exists an active faculty of producing sense ideas, either in me, or in something else. 4.†¦show more content†¦This implication that Descartes uses for his reasoning is exemplary of foundationalism. Descartes does not use any beliefs that he does not justify through their dependence upon a basic justified belief. For his sixth premise that God is not a deceiver also depends upon this same basic justified belief for it also to be justified. Descartes criteria for what can constitute a basic justified belief must also be relevant if the justification of his argument lies upon such beliefs. It seems that the goal of Descartes meditations was to begin with a clean slate, and from there, distinguish only things that are certain. Descartes method required him to only accept things as true if they are certain. Through Feldmans definition of foundationalism it is apparent that Descartes method can be considered as such. Descartes primary focus was to find only what is basic, clear, distinct, and justified before further building upon those beliefs. For a belief to be basic for Descartes, it must rely upon no other beliefs. It must then be reliant upon self-evident, completely provable truths to be able to describe which beliefs can be justified through deduction. This is a very basic foundation to begin from and is truly foundationalism at its roots. For Decartes meditations the beliefs that he is a thinking thing and the refore he exists is used from the beginning as his first basic justified belief. The first premise inShow MoreRelated Descartes Wax Argument Essay1442 Words   |  6 Pagesof the wax argument is designed to provide a clear and distinct knowledge of â€Å"I†, which is the mind, while corporeal things, â€Å"whose images are framed by thought, and which the senses themselves imagine are much more distinctly known than this mysterious ‘I’ which does not fall within the imagination† (66). Through the wax argument, Descartes’ demonstrates that corporeal things are perceived neither through our senses nor imagination, but through our intellect alone. 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