Descartes theory on the existence of god?

[Bianka]

I seriously don't get it. It contradicts itself. It's the prime example of an Epimenides paradoxon. I'm reading him cause I think your philosophy means nothing without exploring things that are the complete opposite of your beliefs but I don't understand. Seems like complete bullshit and I'm sure I'm not smart enough to understand it but no matter what I read I'm not convinced or even realize what it's about. Anyone more knowledgeable than me can enlighten me?

 

[OrphicEnd]

I remember studying it (I could be wrong on certain points), in fact at his time, it was very inappropriate to talk about questioning religion, it could end very badly ! So he, like all the philosophers of his time, made a "proof" of the existence of God.
It also seems to me that in a letter Descartes explained that it was necessary to remain "discreet" and conform to customs, this needs to be reviewed. We can say in a way that he was forced to write it if he didn't want to end up censored.
Therefore, this part should rather be put aside, even if there is no direct proof, we suspect that he did not mean it.

 

[SexyIncél]

Interesting, how's he contradict himself?

Yeah, apparently the whole industry was started by St. Anselm in the 1000's. Then Descartes comes along & gives a few arguments for god. Basically defines god as a perfect being. Unlike us

And says stuff like: one of god's attributes is necessary-existence. Well, that's the same thing as necessarily existing. So god exists

Leibniz came along a bit later & tried fixing up Descartes's holes. (Like, how the fuck do we know that such a being's possible?). Then Gödel comes along & says "Hey let's use this logic thing to prove god"

I got all this btw from Melvin Fitting's book, which I randomly bumped into at a library. The 2nd half, which is more readable than the 1st

Spoiler: More thoughts

Guess I can appreciate why they thought this way

There's an early observation, popularized by Plato, that we perceive all sorts of weird things that don't actually exist in reality. Like, we've never seen a straight line (which is infinitely thin & not jagged), not to mention the number 7. Such ideal objects are only mental & don't exist in reality

So it's like there's a world of ideal forms, that we can only observe mentally. Nowadays, a philosopher like Chomsky says it comes from our genetic endowment; back then, people like Plato didn't know about genetics

In Descartes' time, they had engineers, like watchmakers. Nowadays with computing, we imagine the universe as a computer simulation. Well back then, they imagined a clockwork universe. Modelled by the "mechanical philosophy", where things affected each other by bumping into each other. (This was before Newton's "spooky occult" action-at-a-distance forces like gravity.) Well, the mind didn't work that way. So he said the mind was maybe made of some crazy thing other than matter. ("Mind-body dualism", the ghost in the machine...)

Well, Newton eventually exorcized the machine & kept the ghost...

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btw, dunno about anyone else, but I think Descartes' translations from earlymoderntexts.com totally rocks. Contains many of his letters, it's like reading his email inbox

One problem was having to deal with the Church, which was censorious at the time; he assumed his letters were probably read. I remember Chomsky mentioned some writings of Descartes were propaganda to please the Church; can't remember which. Maybe the Meditations, at least some of them?

Maybe his more serious work was "Principles of Philosophy". But again, don't recall

 

[Bianka]

@SexyIncél
What I got was basically that:
I can only know that whatever I perceive clearly and distinctly is true if I know that God exists and is not a deceiver.
I can know that God exists and is not a deceiver if I know that whatever I perceive clearly and distinctly is true.

 

[SexyIncél]

What I got was basically that:
I can only know that whatever I perceive clearly and distinctly is true if I know that God exists and is not a deceiver.
I can know that God exists and is not a deceiver if I know that whatever I perceive clearly and distinctly is true.

Ah, gotcha. Yeah, perceiving things "clearly & distinctly" was his schtick. So let's take his "Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting one's Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences". He said:

"This convinced me that I could take it as a general rule that the things we conceive very vividly and very clearly are all true; but this isn't as powerfully simple a rule as you might think, because there is some difficulty in telling which conceptions are really clear."

Pretty useful tool, in developing a base of knowledge we can feel confident in. We can be fairly certain that 1+3=4. (In the standard interpretation of arithmetic.) Not so much for more complex things

So, thinking like you, Leibniz pointed out that Descartes went overboard with this tool, to build an argument for god: "Nor does it suffice for Descartes to appeal to experience and allege that he experiences this very concept in himself, clearly and distinctly. This is not to complete the demonstration but to break it off, unless he shows a way in which others can also arrive at an experience of this kind. For whenever we inject experience into our demonstrations, we ought to show how others can produce the same experience, unless we are trying to convince them solely through our own authority."

I think: we should see these historical arguments for god as buggy constructions, made by organisms that are fairly under-developed to engage in meta & abstract thought. Leads to fundamental questions: wtf's god? And wtf's reality; and what can we understand of it?

These buggy attempts at a difficult problem may create powerful tools along the way. I wouldn't be surprised if Gödel's revolutionary mathematics came from his obsession to prove god

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I think modern scientists should consider Descartes' tool. As philosopher Galen Strawson said: "Consciousness isn't a mystery. It's matter."

We can be most certain about what we're consciously aware of. Consciousness is like a room. We're clear about things inside it. But outside the door is an increasingly big buzzing confusion, in comparison

 

[Bianka]

@SexyIncél
Thank you ❤