Descartes Fourth Meditation On The Existence Of God

In Descartes’ Fifth Meditation, he delivers an argument that has come to be known as the Ontological Argument. It is here that Descartes argues for the existence of God, through a priori reasoning. In order to understand both the strengths and weakness of this argument, I will first break it down into its main premises. From here, I will argue that despite the simplicity and use of reasoning in the argument, the weaknesses outweigh the strengths, and ultimately that the argument fails. To allow for a thorough examination of Descartes’ Ontological Argument, I will begin by outlining what the argument is. The argument goes that Descartes believes that God is a supremely perfect being. For God to be supremely perfect, He must exist, as it is†¦show more content†¦In the same way, having this analogy of God is not enough to pull Him into existence. The second objection that I wish to raise against Descartes’ argument is the idea of â€Å"perfection† itself. When claiming that God has â€Å"all perfections† (Pojman, 507), Descartes must also be asserting that everyone has the same idea of God as being a perfect being. If this were not the case, then the ontological argument would only apply to those who shared his view of God as being perfect, and would not allow for any other account of God that does not include this discription. Descartes would defend this by saying that as God is not a deceiver, He would not have placed false ideas into our minds. The caveat to this counter argument is that in defense of Descartes’ Third Meditation, where he claims that God is not a deceiver, he presupposes the existence of God. This occurs through what is now termed the â€Å"Cartesian circle†. In this reasoning, Descartes claims that the idea of God being perfect is â€Å"true and innate† within him and something that he can access through clear and distinct thought. Descartes continues on to say that anything that he can clearly and distinctly perceive is true. This falls back on the claim that is made in the Fourth Meditation, that all clear and distinct ideas must be true, as God is not a deceiver. This is proved in the Third Meditation, but relies on the proof of the existence of God to be true. However, this proof only comes in the Fifth Meditation with theShow MoreRelatedDescartes and HisThoughts Regarding Dreams Vs Reality731 Words   |  3 PagesIn first mediation Descartes ponders on the idea of what is real and what is a dream; he concludes that anything thing he can doubt is false and therefor a dream. After establishing the existence of the dream world he tries to figure out who is responsible for tricking him into this false world. 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