DESCARTES: MEDITATION 3 OR: THE WORLD REGAINED — WITH CERTAINTY(?)

Proving he’s not systematically decieved God has existence just as necessarily as triangles have three sides.

THE CARTESIAN CIRCLE Can we use reason to remove doubts about the soundness of our reason? Descartes says at start of Meditation 3: “So I now seem to be able to lay it down as a general rule that whatever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true” …but then raises doubts….

Form of Argument as a Whole 1 i) I exist  ii) I have idea of perfect being  iii) Only possible cause of this idea is actual perfect being (aka God)  …

Form of Argument as a Whole 2 iv) God exists  v) God would not allow me to be systematically deceived, because vi) deception “depend[s] on some defect” (180L) 

Form of Argument as a Whole 3 vii) Malicious Demon impossible  viii) The world exists [more or less] as revealed by my senses+reason [I am not systematically deceived].

CRUX OF ARGUMENT iii) Only possible cause of the idea of God is God. Subargument: Paragraph beginning “Now it is manifest…” (175R)

“…in order for a given idea to contain such and such objective reality, it must surely derive it from some cause which contains at least as much formal reality as there is objective reality in the idea.” CRUCIAL INFERENCE

TWO KINDS OF REALITY Objective Reality: reality of the object in the idea Formal Reality: the reality of the object outside mind

Presupposed logic Ideas [eidos] are copies [forms] of real things. Idea of x = form (shape, structure) of x copied in the mind—minus the matter or substance of x.

Formal/Objective Examples Descartes’ examples stone –causes  stone heat –causes  heat Other (better?) examples infinity –causes  infinity perfection–causes  perfection

Sub-Argument 1 Three sources of ideas (174R) : innate adventitious fictitious

Sub-Argument 2 Principle of Sufficient Reason: “something cannot arise from nothing” or ex nihilo nihil fit or “everything has a cause” (175R)

Sub-Argument 3 The idea of God is not formed by “negating the finite” (177L) We have a “positive” idea of the perfect being, not merely a “negative” one.

Sub-Argument 4 I am not source of idea: my perfections merely potential, whereas God’s are actual (178L)

Sub-Argument 5 The idea of God is innate. (179R)