Rene Descartes

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is generally considered to be one of the most influential
Philosophers of the modern Western world. He has been called the founder of modern philosophy. Descartes was the first man of any influence in philosophy to be interested and affected by physics and astronomy. He also refused to accept the views of his predecessors, preferring to work out everything for himself. He was the first man to attempt this since Aristotle. There was freshness about his work that had not been seen from any philosopher since Plato. To begin by doubting everything was the necessary first step in order to sweep away all past presumptions and eliminate all issues that were confusing human knowledge. He also isolated only those truths he himself could directly experience and substantiate. This approach of questioning and skeptical nature meant that Descartes was able to make breakthroughs in philosophy not available to earlier philosophers who had accepted other people’s views as true. The existence of God has been a question since the idea of God was conceived. Rene Descartes tries to prove God's existence, and to show that there is without a doubt something external to ones own existence. He is looking for a definite certainty, a foundation for which he can base all of his beliefs and know that they are true. Descartes' overall project is to find a definite certainty on which he can base all his knowledge and beliefs. I totally agree with Descartes belief that there is a God. In this paper I will discuss Descartes basic philosophy, his 3 reasons there is a god, and lack of souls in animals.
Almost all things should be doubted, but Descartes introduces his method of radical doubt. His radical doubt is the method of not accepting anything as true unless it hits you as distinctively true. There is no need to doubt every individual opinion, we only need to undermine the foundations and attack the principles. Everything is able to be doubted, but there are things that you should not have to doubt. You should not have to continue to doubt these things if your foundation is already true and strong. I tend not to agree with Descartes' method of radical doubt. It seems to me that nothing should strike you as automatically true. Our foundation is based on what has been taught to us, not what we have learned. I feel that one must doubt everything that has been taught to us until we ourselves confirm the validity of it. Everything that would strike us as true would come from someone who has taught it to us.
Descartes first endeavor was to prove the self existence. To start at the beginning is to start at the self. Self existence can be proved to exist even if only because it is thought to exist. There cannot be a self imagined, without the self being real. By way of doubting we can state that self exists. To doubt oneself, existence is necessary. Descartes logically proves the self must exist by stating that something must exist for it to doubt itself. This argument launched by Descartes is very logical. It makes sense, and though it can be argued, from this point of view it must be true. There can be physical proof, but again, that would be of less value than a reasonable explanation because physical proof appeals to the senses, which Descartes believes, are easily deceived. By beginning at the self for the basis of all other truths to be built on, Descartes has provided a foundation which can be known to be true because with the knowledge of self being real anything after that is not as important as knowing oneself exists. All other truths are secondary to the knowledge that though everything one perceives, all existence outside of the self, at least the self is known to be in existence. Descartes deduction of the self to reveal truth is vital to the understanding that the self is in existence. Until Descartes, philosophers accepted tradition without question and tradition as truth. He puts all tradition, all truths under scrutiny and accepts nothing other than what can be deduced to be true as truth. In this way, Descartes was a revolutionary in the world of philosophy. In Latin, the words, cogito ergo sum, mean, I think therefore I am. This was Descartes proof that self must exist, put simply.
Descartes second endeavor was to prove the existence of a being outside of oneself which can explain our existence. The existence of a God or being with infinite knowledge, something absolutely perfect, something with every degree of reality must be in existence because only such a being can provide an answer for our existence. The knowledge that self isn’t perfect is proven with the statement, “I am an imperfect being as proved by the fact that I can doubt and therefore have limited knowledge.” Here Descartes shows the need for the existence of a being which is perfect, all knowing and in every degree real. The self, being flawed and imperfect, cannot induce a thought of something so perfect that there is absolutely no flaw, no imperfection and therefore there must be a being which is perfect. The idea of a perfect God can only come from a perfect source. God has been deduced, rather the idea that God doesn’t exist has been eliminated, and therefore God must exist, there is absolute knowledge and it is God. With the proof that God exists, Descartes has strayed from the original plan to doubt and deduce everything until what is left is truth. Rather than deducing God, he has proven God exists by making the assumption that an imperfect being cannot make up an idea of a perfect being. In a sense, there has been no proof of a God or perfect being but rather there has been proof that a perfect being has been imagined. Sticking with Descartes’ assumption that God exists, and God must be a perfect being, we can prove that the world in which we live is real. Perfection by definition is absolutely pure. Since we know that deceit is not a characteristic of a perfect being, we can know that God, being perfect, will not be a deceiver. If God were to deceive, then he would not be perfect. Under these assumptions we can believe that the reality we know the world in which we live and the lives we lead are in fact, real. The question if God has deceived us into believing that the world we see and the lives we live is answered by deducing that God cannot, by nature, deceive us, and therefore the reality we know must be in existence.
The first of the three proofs of God is that we are finite, imperfect beings and God is an

infinite, perfect being. He believes that we could not have created the idea of God; it

must have been created by something greater than ourselves. The cause of Descartes idea of God must be caused by something as great as the effect, which can only be God Himself. Descartes had three propositions of causes to go along with this proof:
• There must be as much reality in the cause as in the effect.
• Something cannot proceed from nothing.
• What is more perfect cannot proceed from the less perfect.
Descartes’ second proof of God is about existence and where we came from. He

states that there are only three possible causes for existence, which are: yourself, your

parents or someone less perfect than God, or God Himself. He argued that it could not be

our self because if a human were the author of his own being, he would make himself

flawless. However, one lacks the power to give oneself all perfections. It could also not

be parents because; yes they caused my existence, but then you must ask who caused

them to exist and it becomes an infinite series of causes. Therefore, Descartes claims,

God exists as the only possible cause of existence.

The third proof of God talks about perfection. He argues that just as the clear and

distinct idea of a triangle includes that the sums of its angles are 180°, so the clear and

distinct idea of a perfect being includes the perfection of existence. Therefore, if God

lacked existence, he would be less than perfect, but God has no imperfections.

Despite Descartes being known as the father of modern philosophy, he is often ridiculed for his views on animals. Descartes argues that animals might act as if they are capable of conscious thought but are in fact not. He uses this argument to attempt to prove that animals lack souls. Descartes argues that animals are purely physical entities, having no mental or spiritual substance. Thus, Descartes concludes, animals can't reason, think, feel pain or suffer. Animals are mere machines with no consciousness.
Descartes believed that free will was a requirement for a soul, and the high degree of perfection displayed in some animals' actions pointed towards a lack of free will. Even though a clock can perfectly keep time, it obviously has no free will or soul and is ruled by its function. Therefore, the ability of an animal to complete complex tasks in no way proves the existence of a soul, and shows that animals are ruled by their instincts. Descartes feels that animals are ruled by their function. In addition, Descartes uses the superiority of animals in some areas to his advantage by highlighting the alteration between seemingly brilliant moves and rather stupid ones. Animals do some things skillfully, Descartes says, because they are equipped for those things with instincts that do not aid them in different circumstances.
For example, a beaver may be better at construction than a student of engineering. According to Descartes, if this excellence was due to intelligence alone, the beaver should outperform the engineering student in nearly everything. This is obviously not the case, and the beaver's skills, therefore, are not related to his intelligence. His great skill comes from instinct alone, and not intelligence.
Descartes preferred to explain animal behavior by using the simplest possible explanation. He believed that all of animal behavior could be explained in mechanical terms, and therefore no reference to consciousness was required for such an explanation. Since it is possible to explain animal behavior without a reference to consciousness, doing so is far simpler than using the assumption that animals are conscious, and was Descartes preferred explanation.
In conclusion, the works of Descartes, though incomplete by following philosophers, were the starting point of modern philosophy. Though Descartes’ objective was to provide an undoubtedly truth to base all ideas on, some assumptions were made which cannot be proven. Descartes’ system of doubt proved to be extremely successful in producing ideas of existence of self, God, and reality. The assumptions made by Descartes were necessary in continuing the process of providing truths.