Rene Descartes - Meditations on First Philosophy

[Music] you hello and welcome to philosophy by the channel where we discuss and debate different philosophical ideas today we're going to be looking at one of the most important works in modern philosophy and that is Descartes meditations on First Philosophy this is widely considered to be the birth of modern Western philosophy and would go on to influence many philosophers for years to come and help shape the rationalist mode of thought within philosophy interesting the meditations is a deep mental journey they caught takes pondering the nature of our reality our knowledge and truth it is quite literally a meditation from Descartes in which he grapples with some very profound ideas and shatters the empirical foundations philosophers at the time had held since the works of Aristotle namely that all knowledge comes from our senses the book is made up of six meditations they caught begins by understanding that in order to reach any sort of knowledge one would need to disregard any forces building upon a falsehood would only lead to 14 knowledge and so they caught begins the process of doubts and so he must disregard everything he has ever believed or has ever known and start the process again from a fresh slate from the bottom up I see so anything formally accepted as truth or as knowledge now must be brought into doubt well I think that's a bit drastic we do not need to disregard all our knowledge let's at least hold on to the things that we know are true things that can be verified empirically by our senses very interesting you should say that because in fact they cause say that doubting knowledge we have attained through the senses is in fact completely necessary how comes because our senses deceive us and we know this you know perfectly well that there are optical illusions if we put a stick in a pool of water it looks bent when we take it out it looks straight our senses are viewing this incorrectly okay sometimes there are news in specific areas but we don't need to go as far as to doubt all the senses all the time well again they caught would disagree with this point you said sometimes there are illusions in specific areas but in fact they call considers the times when all our senses are in fact deceived in their entirety as he now considers his dreams mmm interesting Descartes explains he may feel that at the moment he is sitting in his chair by the fire with his papers on his lap but in fact he has dreamt this scenario before he has had vivid dreams of being in this exact same situation and everything that he was perceiving was nothing more than a mental projection there was no physical chair or fire even the body he believed he had was not real the movement of his arms and legs and everything was nothing more than an illusion would you not agree that many people confined themselves in this state yes I would agree we can have names that are indistinguishable from reality exactly so if our senses can put us in this state then why should you not believe the right now you are dreaming that everything you are doing is a dream that you want in fact been deceived that's every conscious moment of your life how could you ever know if you have been in a state where all your senses were deceiving you then what is to say you were not always in a state where all your senses are deceiving you it is because of this that they can't must doubt everything imaginable including the knowledge our senses have produced as they caught say's everything I have accepted up to now as being absolutely true and assured I have learned through or from the senses okay I understand what Descartes is coming from but would you not agree that if we are dreaming of specific objects then surely this projection must come from a greater reality that the images we see is coming off of something real very good point and indeed Descartes addresses this he does think to himself that surely some part of this dream life must be real and not all of it can be a grand illusion we may be surrounded by illusionary dream objects in this dream world but if we consider the shape of these objects or the quantity or the size these types of properties must be real I may be holding a yellow box this yellow box might not exist and just be an illusion in my dream world but the property of squareness the quantity of one these things must be real it was here that they caught saw a distinction between composite things and simple things composite things being physics astronomy medicine which he called dubious and those we should doubt and simple things being arithmetic geometry these contain some measure of certainty as they call seis but whether I'm awake or sleeping two and three added together always make five and the square never has more than four sides okay fine we agree not everything in fact needs to be thrown into doubt well not exactly because they caught carried on the meditation and this is where it led him into an even darker play at this moment in time they caught is holding on to simple things as the only knowledge he can trust he does not need to doubt with a one plus one equals two then they caught considers God he has often believed that there exists an all-powerful God so then they caught wonders if there is an all-powerful God surely the unlimited power he has means it is possible that he can cause deception from even the simple things they caught start considering what if God has brought about mass deception he asked himself how do I know that I am not deceived every time I add two and three or count the sides of the square yes but if they caught believes in God then he would believe in a benevolent God and all loving God would not cause such deception this is true and they caught considers this but then he thinks that if the goodness of God would not allow one to be deceived all the time then surely the goodness of God would not allow one to be deceived even sometimes but they can't knows for sure he has been deceived sometimes and so he reaches a point where he must now doubt the existence of an all loving God in fact only evil can cause deception so now descartes has started to think what if instead of a good court there is in fact an evil demon in control an evil demon that has set about to do nothing other than deceive all their energy has gone into this mass deception well they're scary Descartes does not want to be deceived by this demon but yet if all his knowledge opinions and assumptions throughout his life have been based on deceits then he must disregard them all if he is to attain any truth so Descartes concludes the full 100% doubts of everything is the only way he explains he shall consider that the heavens the earth colors figures sounds and all external things are nothing but illusions and dreams of which this demon has created in order to deceive they caught finishes first meditation in a situation where he must consider himself as having no hands no eyes no flesh no blood nor any senses in order to arrive at the knowledge of any truth he must suspend all senses and judgments that is a frightening conclusion well yes but we can see how Descartes thought has led him to this point all his previous knowledge has been attained by his senses but as we saw the senses can be deceived if they can be deceived sometimes they can be deceived all the time Universal doubts is the only place left for us to go and where does they can't go from here in the second meditation he continues his line of thoughts and carries on doubting but now he asks if he is doubting the existence of everything is he as a living being included in this everything is it possible that his existence is in fact a deception if he now understands that he doubts the existence of the physical world and his own body is he separate from his body or is he one and the same if he is one and the same then he now finds himself in a situation where he is doubting his very existence can it be that the evil demon has created it so that we believe we are alive when in fact we are not we do not live we are in fact being deceived into thinking we are living beings well this is a very scary thought so does they can't conclude that he does not actually exist well no as they call carries on his meditation he does not feel right in doubting his own existence he asks I myself am I not at least something but if he has denied the existence of his body and senses then why would his whole existence not go along with this again they cot asks am I so dependent on body and senses that I cannot exist without these although there may be an evil demon deceiving us at every point they can't realizes that he exists as long as he is something and then Descartes has the Epiphany it is thought thought as in thinking exactly that they can't realizes he is thinking he has thoughts he is a thinking being and as long as they cot is able to think he knows he exists and so the famous quote was coined cogito ergo sum I think therefore I am hmm interesting it really is so Descartes has assured himself of the vital factor that he exists but now he must go further it is all well and good saying that I exist because I think but what is this I how do we define what we are they can't reject their finition such as man or animal because they lead to even more questions such as what defines a man or what does it mean to be rational they caught also claims that he is more than just the body as all material objects can now be doubted but his ability to think is the only thing he cannot doubt he now draws a distinction between the mind and the body and claims that he can conceive up himself existing without the body he can't doubt the existence of the physical body but cannot doubts the existence of his mind I see so Descartes concludes he must be just a thinking thing yeah but what does he mean by this bekata explains is a thing that doubts perceives affirms denies wills does not will imagines and feels this thing can be likened to the concept of the mind or the soul very interesting I can see this is where the Duelist philosophies have been born the distinction of mind the body I appreciate they cause reasoning however they car seems to douse the material world and firmly believes in the spiritual or the mental this seems problematic clearly the material world has a much clearer and more vivid existence than that of the mind or the soul we see the material world we experience this with our senses why should we doubt the physical over the mind very good point they caught us in fact address this exact argument they caught explains that corporal properties are tested by the senses are more distinctly known and he feels he knows the things in which he now doubts more so than the truth he has now reached they can't just sees this as nothing more than a habit but the more he thinks about the new truth he has discovered the more he affirms it he begins to question the nature of the physical and uses the example of wax let's say we have a solid block of wax with a specific shape size and odor and we recognize this as a piece of wax let's say we leave this by the fire and return an hour or so later this wax has now melted the solidity is gone it is now a liquid it's shape and size have changed the auditor is also gone yet we still recognize this as the same piece of wax now all our senses are perceiving something completely different than we were an hour ago yet we know it to be the same piece of wax how so because of our rationality yes exactly our rationality our mind has understood what has happened and though our senses are perceiving two different things our rationality has understood what has happened and has concluded that it is the same piece of wax okay so Descartes has now understood this very important factor all our knowledge including our knowledge of the physical world does not derive from the senses but from our mind understanding and processing the information we receive and even more so because the senses can be deceived and because everything we perceive through the senses can therefore be doubted truth can only be reached through our minds our rationality our reason our ability to think logically it is because of this the mental world becomes much truer and a better source of knowledge than the physical so even though the physical may seem to have a more vivid or truer existence the most certain knowledge is based upon our thoughts it is based upon our ideas alone and does not involve the evidence of the senses the more we rely upon our senses the more uncertain our knowledge will be and so the more independent of Sense experience our knowledge is the more certain it will be very interesting Descartes finishes the second meditation with the birth of rationalism where empiricism relies on forming knowledge based upon what the senses perceive rationalism basis knowledge upon what the mind reasons so we conclude the second meditation knowing that we cannot doubt our existence if we think we exist I think therefore I am the mind and the body are in fact separate and we can now conceive of existing without our body and the only true knowledge we can attain is from the mild alone okay great some fascinating things to think about here one problem I have with Descartes is that he reaches the conclusion that he is a thinking thing I think therefore I am is it not the case that Descartes would be a thing that thinks rather than a thinking thing this criticism was raised by Thomas Hobbes bekaert seems to conflate the thing that understands with thinking what do you mean wouldn't it be the case that thinking is the thing that something does rather than what something is I think Descartes is identifying the thing that understands with thinking which would be the power of faculty that the thing has and not what the thing is Descartes is basically saying I think therefore I am thought this seems like a mistake the thinking is the power the thing in question has so the thing being that a human may very well have a mind which thinks well we should not say the essence of the thing is the thought it is just a faculty the thing has I see what you mean and so if we are in fact saying that the thing that thinks is not thought rather the thing has a mind that is capable of thoughts this could very well be something corporal something physical which would break down the mind-body distinction and so if we are a body which thinks we are using this body to think so the mind itself must be a physical property or at least the power of a physical property well let's clarify a few points here thank heart is using fairly abstract words when they can't refers to the mind or intellect he does not mean those terms system for mere faculties or abilities but for things that have the Faculty of thought so a human with a mind would be a human with a thing that has the capability of thought okay but your jump that the mind must be a corporal or physical entity seems like quite a leap and I do not see why you would reach that point firstly it is clear that thoughts or the act of thinking is nothing like matter at all what we all corporal properties will contain size shape motion and spatial extension we label these as body however the concept of thoughts such as understanding or willing or imagining and so on we call the substance that has them a thinking thing or a mind or any name you like but they have nothing in common with the Corporal thought is radically different from extension hmm interesting now dicot will carry on the search for truth and see if using the rationalist approach he can discover whether God exists they cop against this thought process by looking into ideas or to be more precise clear and distinct ideas ideas yes ideas our thought processes our mental perceptions Dec our first divides ideas into three categories the categories are factitious adventitious and innate factitious ideas are ones that have solely been created in the mind let's say a unicorn imaginary ideas that play no part in reality adventitious ideas are ones that appear to come from an external cause something outside the mind consider the sensation of heat or hearing a noise I see and finally innate ideas these are ideas that have no external course and are not created by the mind but rather they are there from the start they are almost put in our minds from the very beginning they are always true independently of external factors mathematics is an example Descartes would give we have a concept of one or three or ten this did not come about by experience it's an a priori truth mathematical concepts are therefore innate ideas their truth is not dependent on our senses they are independent of the world they are in a sense truths our minds come stocked with hmm so if if they caught clear and distinct ideas would be innate ideas now we have an understanding of how they Coty's categorize the ideas we can move on to the idea of God they call argues we have a clear and distinct idea of God he explains this idea as an infinite substance eternal inmutable independent ignition of knittin and by which i and all other things which exist if it be true that any such exists have been created and produced now this is what if they caught uses the rationalist approach to prove the existence of God they cut argues that for here to have this idea of God means this idea must be an innate idea and for him to have this innate idea means it would need to have been created by God and so if God put this idea into the mind of bay cards then that would mean God does exist okay this seems like quite a jump how exactly does they can't reach this conclusion they caught claims that the idea of an infinite urbanism being is an idea that he was not the cause of he did not create this idea of God and this idea did not originate from Descartes well why can this idea have originated with de cartes we are more than capable of coming up with things that don't exist yes possibly but we are talking about God we are talking about an infinite being they cause argues that as a finite being he would not be capable of creating an idea of an infinite being only an infinite being can create the idea of an infinite being a finite being wouldn't be able to do so so the fact that Descartes as a finite being has the idea of an infinite of Nipissing God means this idea must be innate it must have been placed into Descartes mind by an infinite of Nippert in being and so if this is the case it means an infinite of nippin being needs to exist in order to create the innate idea this goes to the basics of cause and effect if the idea of God is the effect then God himself must be the cause and so the degree of reality of the cause must be at least as great as the objective reality of the effect so the idea of God must have originated with something powerful enough to create it something infinite all-knowing all-powerful therefore God or some sort of equivalent must in fact exist do you see well I'm not entirely convinced is it not fair to say that as a finite being we do not and cannot understand what an infinite being really is and so we do not possess the idea of an infinite being they call considered this argument but he claimed as he was a finite being and he knew he was a by being he would only know he is finite if he understood the idea of infinite if he did not understand the idea of an infinite being he would not understand the idea of a finite being by knowing that you are finite you therefore understand your polar opposite and of course Descartes himself could not be an infinite being none of us could be as we are currently finite and we would not approach being infinite by degrees but this reasoning seems fairly circular what Descartes is saying is that we are finite beings and as finite beings we understand the idea of an infinite being and because we understand the idea of an infinite being the infinite being must have created this idea well yes I do not see a contradiction here okay here's another objection raised by Thomas Hobbes do we really have an idea of God when we have an idea of something be it an angel or a unicorn we have specific images but these ideas are composed of visible things be it a small human with wings or a big horse with a horn but we do not possess this with the idea of God sure artists have portrayed God as an old bearded wise human but really this is not what an infinite being would look like we have no image we actually have no idea what the image of an infinite of nificent being would be this is not really a sufficient objection ideas are not just in the form of images we can easily say that feelings such as fear or love our ideas and no such images are represented here so I would say God falls under this category God would be an abstract idea an image wouldn't be necessary I still do not feel entirely satisfied I cannot accept that just because I have an idea of God this must come from God I still believe that we can create an idea of an infinite being as finite beings and so people created the idea of God and his existence is not necessary to explain this idea okay let's assume God does not exist they call does in fact do this and starts a line of questioning to see if this is reasonable dicot asks if there was no God what could be the cause of his existence dacon knows that he exists and describes himself as a thinking thing so then if there was no God how did he come to be they call considers three possibilities the first one is himself there he is the creator of his own existence however they can't rejects this and we can see why if you were the creator of yourself you would not have created yourself with such limitations you would have created yourself perfect with the best possible life you could imagine also the creator of your own life would make you somewhat powerful and Descartes is not aware of any extraordinary powers he may possess yes I agree the second possibility would be another source but not a god so not an infinite or oblivion being again they caught rejects this as all that would happen is that it would turn into an infinite regress the question would be asked what created this source and then what created that source and so on and so on without an infinite source or a God this would go on forever I see finally Descartes considers the possibility that his parents created him now of course parents are responsible for the physical creation of their offspring but there still leads to the infinite regress argument what created his parents what created his grandparents etc etc so then having rejected all these possibilities de Kock concludes that there must be an infinite being responsible for creating life or thinking things and this being is God well this by no means is a sufficient argument for the existence of God there are lots of problems here we have covered many arguments quite extensively in our philosophy of religion debates so I'm going to leave this here rather than start another debate on the existence of God very well now they caught Ponder's a very interesting point if my life my thoughts my consciousness and everything else in me has come from God then why am i subject to errors and so here lies the problem we all are of course subject to errors and falsehoods if they Klaus has concluded that God does exist and the concepts of God being a perfect being why then do we experience such errors if God is perfectly good why has he created us so that we should be immersed with such problems with so many forces this is the question that's asked indeed this is a very good question so how does they can't look to answer this well they caught begins thinking about us as thinking beings and realizes that our existence is in fact in the middle of two extremes what do you mean well Descartes agrees that God exists so God's been the most perfect being ever possible would sit on one into the spectrum then on the other end would be the polar opposite and what is the Boehner opposite of perfection well that would be nothingness complete non-existence I see so we sit in the middle we know we exist so therefore we are not nothing but we also know we are not complete perfection we are not on one side of the spectrum nor on the other we sit in the middle so what does this mean this means we are limited beings we are finite and with this comes existence but also comes our limitations and the necessity of committing errors and following falsehoods these become privations it is the nothingness we experience because of the lack of perfection okay I understand but I still do not feel satisfied in this as human beings we make a lot of errors we believe a lot of falsehoods they cause whole meditation so far has been to doubt every bit of knowledge we have ever attained by the senses this seems like an immense amount of error force her to be thrown into why would such a perfect God have created life this way surely God could have created a reality with less error on falsehood if we are in the middle of the speck between perfection and nothingness why can't we move slightly closer to perfection without necessarily reaching it fully their cart explains there for you to question this means you were trying to understand the creation of a perfect being you will not and cannot ever fully understand this we are limited beings we are finite beings we cannot fully comprehend the mind of an infinitely perfect being if you could see things through the eyes of a perfect being then maybe you would fully understand and it would make sense but you cannot hmm also they caught argues that in the grand scheme of things the errors we make could in fact equal to total perfection if we look at the totality of things our errors might be necessary for the perfect bigger picture consider the mechanics of a car you may pick apart a certain nuts or bolt on its own this may seem like a useless object and there are many things that cannot do and cannot function Weller's however in the totality of the car there's specific nuts with all its flaws functions perfectly for what it is meant to do so in the totality of reality our errors may be necessary for a perfect reality yes I understand what you're saying but there is still a problem here I appreciate we are limited beings but why must the limitations lead to errors and falsehoods there are things we do not know what things we cannot do but how are they responsible for all the errors we make as people surely a limitation cannot be responsible for an error very good point and Descartes does indeed address this so we agree we are limited beings however they caught us noticed two gifts that have been given to us by God our understanding and our free will our understanding is that of our knowledge what we know about the world and our capacity to learn our free will is the ability to act upon our desires to move or not to move to affirm or to deny yes they can't notices that our understanding is in fact limited as finite beings there is limitations on how much we understand on how much we know as ever then no person knows everything and it seems reasonable to say no person can ever know everything I agree however they can't notices our free will is not limited in the same way our free will is in fact infinite it is not limited at all so we may be restricted in our memory or knowledge or understanding but we can always make our choices we can always say yes or no act or not act etc etc interesting so Descartes concludes that we experience errors or followed falsehoods because our will exceeds our understanding we act on limited knowledge and when we do this we are prone to committing errors consider the person lost in the forest and comes across two paths one will lead home and the other will lead to a deep dark dangerous area of the forest they are lost their understanding is limited but they need to choose their will is not limited they choose a path they choose the wrong path and get eaten by wolves they made an error they followed a falsehood and it was fatal there made sense so Descartes advice was to focus on the importance of indifference he warned us that we should only act upon our will when we are absolutely certain about our understanding when something is logically certain and here is where he goes back to the concept of clear and distinct ideas however if we feel indifferent about something if we are not sure if it's true or false either way if there is no logical certainty then we must withhold judgment we must restrain our will from affirming or denying things if we do not possess sufficient understanding our choices are prone to error logical certainty should be our guide to truth I think that is a fascinating observation however there is an issue I have with this idea why does they call claim that our will is not restricted by any limits but our understanding or intellect is I would in fact argue that both of these faculties have an equally broad scope it seems more likely that the intellect is at least as wide as that of the will can our will ever aim at anything that's our intellect is unaware of I don't think so it is only because we understand that we are able to act and make choices if we did not understand something if our intellect was more limited than our will then we would not be in a position to make a judgment I am sorry but this is incorrect if our understanding is more limited than our will we shouldn't make a judgement but it is absolutely the case that we can make a judgment and we do and that is what leads to errors they cut asks us to consider a poisoned apple you judge that this Apple is nutritious you understand its smell and its color and so on are pleasant but this doesn't mean that you understand that it will be beneficial to eat you judge that it will because you do not understand that it is poisoned with any given object we may have many desires but very little knowledge I see what you mean there are however still more problems with the fourth meditation like what let's go back to Descartes idea that we as thinking beings for somewhere in the middle of perfection and nothingness if we exist as limited beings we therefore have no concept of perfection or of nothingness how can we attempt to define our existence as falling in the middle with two concepts we cannot even fathom they cause theory is built upon these two ideas and we do not even know or understand what they are now hold on there is a difference between understanding an idea and experiencing it I would agree as thinking limited beings we cannot experience perfection or nothingness but I think as concepts we can understand them we know loosely what we're talking about we may not know the full extent but there is some idea there is there wellyes how do these very words exist how are we having this conversation if we have no understanding at all of profession or nothingness we wouldn't be able to attach words to the idea or even discuss the idea as concepts they would just never arise in our dialogue or thoughts but they have which points to the fact that there is some limited understanding of these ideas I see okay another point I was not happy with you mentioned that as limited beings we can't fully understand the mind of a perfect God this seems like running away from the issue you do not need to be a perfect being to understand that errors and falsehoods are not desirable yes but as I said we have a limited understanding and in the grand scheme of things the errors we make could in fact equal to perfection we need to consider the totality this is not satisfactory we are talking about a perfect God his creation should be perfect through and through how can something contain imperfect parts that run perfectly as a whole this does not make sense Pierre Gassendi raised this argument he asked will in the universe be more perfect than it is now if all his parts were more perfect than they are now consider this a republic whose citizens are all good would be more perfect than one in which most or some of them are bad again I would have to disagree here I think it's possible to have individual imperfect parts that constitutes a perfect whole as the saying goes you are not seeing the forest for the trees you may look up closer to tree and think it looks ugly but then take a high up look at the forest as a whole and it may look beautiful hmm and they call disagreed with Cassandra's example of the citizen but rather he said a more appropriate example would be that of the eyes as imagine someone finds the eyes the most beautiful part of the body they call claims someone who thinks that there shouldn't have been any creature in the world who were liable to error can be compared with someone who wanted the whole of the human body to be covered with eyes so as to look more beautiful of course it would not look more beautiful it would probably look hideous the eyes are beautiful as a component of the hole and the hole is beautiful because of all its components even if each component is not as equally beautiful good example but I'm still not convinced a world with either less or no error would be better than our current world and we cannot have a perfect bigger picture with the existence of smaller errors now the fifth meditation is an important one as up until now their heart has not given much attention to the existence of a material world the existence of actual physical objects external to us in the fifth meditation they copy Ginn's given this some thought and this then leads him to even more certainty of the existence of God okay well please explain very well so as mentioned many caught begins to think about the existence of physical objects and if they do in fact exist how real is the physical world this is an important question to ask although don't cotton showing we exist as thinking beings we can still exist in some sort of mental simulation where the material world only exists in our minds why they call claims that in order to reach a conclusion on this he should not look outside himself for any proof or evidence but rather he needs to look inside himself in the contents of his own mind well this is the typical rationalist approach exactly so going back to the concept of clear and distinct ideas yes they call argues that he perceives certain clear and distinct ideas with relation to physical objects such as he uses the example of size shape motion and quantity now they call has went out these are clear and distinct ideas and as we saw in meditation 3 they caught will firmly believe a clear and distinct idea and claims they cannot perceive well is it not possible that these ideas have just been produced by Descartes his mind has just created these ideas then called us question this but he rejects this immediately the reason being is because many of these ideas come stats with rules and laws that they cot is unaware of for example Descartes could imagine a triangle he is aware of what a triangle looks like how a triangle has certain rules that make it a triangle his three angles are equal to two Riots angles that the greatest side is subtended by the greatest angle etc etc now they can't might know these facts now but there was a plane where he didn't know this this was something he learnt this means the very concepts of a triangle this clear and distinct idea of shape came from outside if they cost mind okay then couldn't we say the triangle has reached his mind through the senses he may have perceived objects that's a triangular and developed the concept like this again they call rejected this and the reason being is because he is able to conceive of certain shapes that he is not actually perceived in specific bodies I'm sure you can conceive of certain shapes that you have not actually seen in a physical manifestation hmm so then they gotta shown that these clear and distinct ideas were not created by his mind nor were they experienced by the senses they are therefore innate ideas so with regards to physical objects whether or not the actual physical or material objects exist the idea of them their shape their dimension their quantity do exist which then leads they cut to start thinking that the physical objects themselves may in fact exist I see these clear and distinct ideas relating to the physical objects are based on mathematical principles which Descartes holds to be truths we can trust yes I understand now Descartes has reached a point where he thinks the material things may exist he does not carry on this line of thought he actually leaves it here for now and takes a side step upon pondering the essence of shapes and the like they cause saw to further strengthen his argument for the existence of God how does he do that whilst he is thinking about the concept of a triangle he realizes that there are qualities inseparable from a triangle namely that it has three angles and it's three angles are equal to two right angles this is part of the essence of a triangle without these properties it would not be a triangle yes now if we turn our attention to the idea of God what is the essence of this concept well it would be AB nipa tense benevolence and omniscience exactly now they cot refers to him as a supremely perfect being yes I agree so here is the interest part we have the concept of the supremely perfect being as a clear and distinct idea and so existence must be part of the concept of perfection how can something be perfect if it does not exist surely it would not be perfect the only way to be perfect is to exist so if the concept of God is that of a perfect being and if the existence is part of perfection then it would logically follow that God does exist I see this is known as a version of the ontological argument and you can see the logic behind it just like three angles is part of the essence of a triangle existence is part of the essence of God if you are thinking of a triangle and it does not have three sides you are not thinking of a triangle and so if you have the concepts of God but you do not recognize that he exists you are not thinking of a perfect being and so you do not have the concept of God the other example they caught uses instead of mountains and valleys if we have a concept of a mountain it must logically follow that the mountain has a valley so if we have a concept of God it must follow that this being has existence okay hold on I could have an idea of a mountain with a valley but there is nothing to say that that particular mountain and valley I'm imagining must exist it does not follow that such a mountain is in existence so I may have the concept of a perfect God but it does not follow that this God must exist you've missed the point slightly what they caught is saying is that if you have a concept of a mountain it is necessary that the valley should follow so if such-and-such Mountain existed the valley would have to exist as it is part of the concept the mountain and the valley cannot be separated from each other yeah I agree however with God the concept is of perfection and perfection needs existence so if God is the mountain existence would be the valley and so existence is part of the concept of a perfect being meaning that God exists a supremely perfect being and existence cannot be separated from each other what if we did not even possess the idea of God what if we never pondered the concept of God all of a perfect being at all if the concept does not exist would it not mean that the existence dies with the concept I would not agree Descartes in fact says whenever we think of a greater being than us we will eventually reach the concepts of God humans have this innate idea of a supremely perfect being we have always had it we have pondered for the entirety of our human civilization but it could be possible that one day we lose the concept completely should we imagine this happening would it mean the existence of God disappears along with the concept I don't think there could ever happen by even so let me ask you imagine we never thought of or came across the concept of a triangle just because no one had ever conceived of a triangle does it mean that's a triangle no longer has three angles well no exactly so even if we never had the concept of God it does not mean his existence would cease okay fine but there is still a major problem here this is they caused version of the ontological argument and as such it faces the problems of the ontological argument we have done a whole video on this and we saw the problems that arise the major one being raised by Manuel counts who argued that the ontological argument fails because it uses existence as a predicate and this is the categorical mistake if you recall when we have a concept of something it is made up of predicates let's take the concept of a unicorn we have this concepts and the predicates are that it's white it has the body of a horse and it has a horn on its head existence however is not a predicate its adds nothing new to the concept of a unicorn whether the unicorn exists or not the concept is the same existence is not part of the concept I see so this is the same with God we have a concept of God but existence cannot be part of this concept as it is not a predicate we cannot define chording to existence so if existence is not part of the concept it means we need to go beyond the concept to prove existence existence then is external to the concept and not part of it good point during his state of doubt they caught disregarded everything known by the census and doubted their existence but he has come a long way since the first meditation so now it's time to reevaluate the material world to see if there is reason enough to drop the doubt he agreed in meditation client that material things can exist insofar as they are the subject matter of pure mathematics so certain elements of material objects such as extension shape and size are subject to pure mathematics and so there is a possibility these things do exist external to the mind interesting Descartes carries on this line of thoughts and starts looking at how we as thinking things actually think he then makes a distinction between the imagination and the understanding well was the difference well Descartes explains that the understanding deals with pure concepts whereas the imagination deals with images or representations what do you mean okay let's take the idea of a triangle now our understanding can create the concept of a three-sided shape in our mind our understanding effectively understands the triangle but our imagination can literally picture the shape of a triangle it can give us the mental image I see but of course we can see the differences of the two even more when we look to bigger more complex shapes let's take a chicken a thousand sided shape now you can understand the concept of a thousand sided shape without a problem but try actually picturing this you can't your imagination is limited in this respect we are unable to form a clear mental image of a Chilean and even if you try are you really picturing a thousand sides can you tell the difference between that and a 999 sided shape I see so the Faculty of understanding views things are a lot different to the imagination so Descartes explains that the understanding turns inwards to look upon the contents of the mind and the imagination then turns out words to the perception of material objects because of this they can't argue that the imagination is not an essential part of the mind it concerns itself with the external world and so it must pick up these images from bodies it has experienced in a material world at this point they caught begins to agree that it may be even more likely that a physical world does exist so is this his proof not yet he is getting there but at this point he still does not feel 100% satisfied that this is enough to no longer doubt the existence of a material world up until this point Descartes has doubted all knowledge gained by the senses including an external world and his corporal body but now they caught starts to think about his senses the ideas he immediately perceives if a material world exists then so would his body and the sensations he experiences like pleasure pain emotion hunger as well as heats color smell and taste would be better explained so without a physical world where do these experiences actually come from these sensations come to us involuntarily we do not create them in our mind and yet they are a lot more vivid than any idea we produce solely in the mind where then do the sensations come from without a material world well it could be that God has created these ideas in our minds the material world does not exist what we perceive is just the ideas planted by God they can't thinks about this but if God was to create the ideas without any kind of physical world this would be a deception and then that would make God a deceiver they can't rejects this and does not accept that God is a deceiver which then only leads to one place the existence of a material world that the physical world exists and so does the corporal body well we finally come back well not exactly although take on now again in the physical world he does not think the what we perceive through the senses is exactly how it is they cot explains that perception by the senses is very obscure and confused in many ways so although the physical world exists our senses may not give us a true perception of it I see this would be similar to the indirect realist mode of thoughts in philosophy of knowledge exactly one philosopher in particular whose expanded this line of thought was John Locke with his primary and secondary quality distinction yes so then Descartes now agrees that the existence of a physical world is highly likely and so too with the Corporal body so the final remaining question is the relation between mind and body interesting so Descartes explains on the one hand I have a clear and distinct idea of myself insofar as I'm a thinking an extended thing on the other hand I have a distinct idea of the body insofar as it is only an extended thing but which does not think it is certain that I that is to say my mind by which I am what I am is entirely and truly distinct from my body and may exist without it now what Descartes is saying here is that mind and body are in fact separate and not only this they are in fact completely different things a physical substance is not capable of thought it is however an entity that possesses extension it has length breadth depth and Heights and it can be divided you can break down a physical thing into smaller parts the mind however is not extended it is not spatially located and it is indivisible the essence of the mental is thought so for Descartes it was clear mind and body are not alike in any way they are in fact separate I see they Carr will also argue that we can in fact conceive of ourselves as existing without our body further showing the separation between mind and body and that's our true selves the eye is that of our minds so if the mind and body are separate how did the two connect are we to suppose that the mind is therefore inside the body controlling it I could drive us steering the car no actually Descartes says is a lot more complicated than that Descartes describes it as intermingling whereby the mind and body intermingle to become one entity the to effectively fuse together mix into each other to create the thinking physical organism that we are mmm this seems very problematic how can we say the two things that are not only separate as Descartes said completely different or able to intermingle in this way this seems like quite a leap with no real justification on how we got there I cannot really accept that conclusion really yes I cannot see how a nun extended non-physical mind can intermingle with an extended physical body this really doesn't work for me yes you're expressing doubt in this argument there's a lot of solid objection against they cause point okay well I think the biggest flaw is that in order for the sixth meditation to stand they caught two relies on God not being a deceiver his acceptance of the material world is that if it does not exist and everything is an illusion this would constitute mass deception and would be against God's nature correct but why must this be the case firstly we know we experience certain errors and deceptions in our senses so we know God has the ability to either cause or allow this and secondly this was raised by Thomas Hobbes it is generally thought that doctors aren't at fault if they deceive their patients for their Health's sake and that fathers aren't at Ford's if they deceived their children for their own good so God may still be good but deceive us at the same time well they Coty's not said that we can never be deceived as clearly we can and we are but rather it would be against the nature of God if he intends to deceive us for the so sake of deception this would go against a good God and so if this goes against the nature of God it seems unlikely we would be totally and completely deceived at all times therefore making it more likely that the material world exists okay but where does this leave an atheist for Descartes the existence of the material world is solely dependent on the existence of God how can one who does not believe in God to use this argument hmm good point well I guess we just need to leave it here that's all for Descartes meditations on First Philosophy we've covered all six meditations and what's an interesting thought-provoking journey it has been thank you all for watching we hope you enjoyed the vibe please like share and subscribe and we look forward to seeing you all soon bye-bye

Channel: Philosophy Vibe

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Keywords: Philosophy, Vibe, descartes, rene descartes, descartes meditations on first philosophy, descartes meditations on first philosophy summary, descartes meditation 1, descartes meditation 2, descartes meditation 3, descartes meditation 4, descartes meditation 5, descartes meditation 6, meditations on first philosophy summary, descartes meditations explained simply, rene descartes philosophy, descartes philosophy explained, descartes dualism, descartes meditations for dummies

Id: -6Yo6teVXSQ

Length: 56min 36sec (3396 seconds)

Published: Sun May 12 2019