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Explain Descartes Ontological Argument
(25 Marks)
René Descartes was a French philosopher who developed contemporary approaches to philosophy. In his writings the Meditations of Philosophy he examines the nature and reality of god featuring his Ontological approach to the existence of God. This argument is a priori and is featured heavily in the fifth Meditation. It is a deductive approach to the existence of God.
Descartes ontological argument is a development of Anslem argument to which he continues to define God as ‘supremely perfect being’. He argued that a being which is the most perfect is necessary. He argued that God is the ‘supremely perfect being’ he must possess attributes associated with perfection such as beauty, existence, goodness and being eternal.
In his writings Descartes argues that the existence of God cannot be doubted and is similar to the truths of mathematics which can also not be doubted and used his ontological argument to demonstrate this
He uses an example of a triangle to do this. A triangle by nature has three sides, three interior angles which add up to 180 degrees. Descartes refers to this as being ‘immutable’ meaning being unable to change. Similar to a triangle, God has an ‘immutable’ nature and his existence is a part of this.
He argues that the interior angles of a triangle equating to 180 degrees is a fundamental part of its nature such as the existence of God. This demonstrates that existence according to Descartes us a predicate of God.
Existence according to Descartes is vital to God’s perfection and that the essence of God is to exist. Descartes in this context refers to perfection as something that is not lacking in anything. For example the idea of the perfect car is simple an idea and is not perfect unless it exists in reality
A more potent example is proposed by Descartes who states that it is impossible to

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