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    Descartes PDF

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    Forrest Bristow
    This document criticizes René Descartes' meditations as being overly solipsistic and relying solely on his own individual experiences and senses. It argues that Descartes makes arbitrary conclusions based on his dreams and perceptions of reality that he presents as universal truths, but are only valid within the scope of his own mind. The document also attacks Descartes' justification of God's existence in the third meditation as being illogical and based on nonsensical arguments intended to validate his own abstract understanding of truth rather than seeking universal principles of human perception and knowledge. Overall, the document aims to prove that Descartes' philosophy is too narrowly focused on his own singular perspective to provide a reliable framework for understanding the world.

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    Descartes PDF

    Uploaded by

    Forrest Bristow
    179 views4 pages
    This document criticizes René Descartes' meditations as being overly solipsistic and relying solely on his own individual experiences and senses. It argues that Descartes makes arbitrary conclusions based on his dreams and perceptions of reality that he presents as universal truths, but are only valid within the scope of his own mind. The document also attacks Descartes' justification of God's existence in the third meditation as being illogical and based on nonsensical arguments intended to validate his own abstract understanding of truth rather than seeking universal principles of human perception and knowledge. Overall, the document aims to prove that Descartes' philosophy is too narrowly focused on his own singular perspective to provide a reliable framework for understanding the world.

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    This document criticizes René Descartes' meditations as being overly solipsistic and relying solely on his own individual experiences and senses. It argues that Descartes makes arbitrary conclusions based on his dreams and perceptions of reality that he presents as universal truths, but are only valid within the scope of his own mind. The document also attacks Descartes' justification of God's existence in the third meditation as being illogical and based on nonsensical arguments intended to validate his own abstract understanding of truth rather than seeking universal principles of human perception and knowledge. Overall, the document aims to prove that Descartes' philosophy is too narrowly focused on his own singular perspective to provide a reliable framework for understanding the world.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    179 views4 pages

    Descartes PDF

    Uploaded by

    Forrest Bristow
    This document criticizes René Descartes' meditations as being overly solipsistic and relying solely on his own individual experiences and senses. It argues that Descartes makes arbitrary conclusions based on his dreams and perceptions of reality that he presents as universal truths, but are only valid within the scope of his own mind. The document also attacks Descartes' justification of God's existence in the third meditation as being illogical and based on nonsensical arguments intended to validate his own abstract understanding of truth rather than seeking universal principles of human perception and knowledge. Overall, the document aims to prove that Descartes' philosophy is too narrowly focused on his own singular perspective to provide a reliable framework for understanding the world.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 4

    Ren Descartes Is a Solipsistic Buffoon

    In this essay I tackle the issue of Descartes exclusiveness as he attempts to justify

    human consciousness and the existence of God through his meditations and how

    singular philosophy leaves a vague, backwards, and unreliable understanding of the

    world. The method I used to determine the validity of Descartes meditations is claims

    interpreted through the lens of reason.

    In philosophical vernacular it is typically discouraged to use exact language in

    that presumably suspending judgement is essential for further analysis. However, in this

    essay I will attempt to exhibit why Descartes is an arrogant nimrod. The topic of this

    essay concentrates on Descartes third meditation concerning the idea of God and the

    Evil Demon and whether or not they exist based on his own logic and reasoning. I will

    argue against his assertions by examining precedents he sets in each meditation to

    constitute his belief in God as well as the Evil Demon. The criteria of my responses will

    argue against the conceptual validity of his meditations through the lens of reason and

    how though his suppositions may be forgivably archaic they are to be overlooked

    because they are unique only to Descartes immediate reality.

    Meditation I: Concerning Those Things That Can Be Called into Doubt

    In the first meditation Descartes attempts to demolish and rebuild his perspective

    of the world with the intention to audit sensory falsehoods he for some reason only
    came to closely examine at the ripe young age of forty five. Starting from scratch,

    Descartes reflects on his perception of reality and how the body of knowledge hed built

    up before the meditation had been full of fallacies, thus leading him to explore avenues

    of doubt. He reasons that hes too lazy to examine each facet of life he doubts included

    in the body of knowledge hed gathered up until he decided to critically think for the first

    time, so it would only make sense to start from ground zero, the five senses. Casting

    away all doubtable thought and knowledge Descartes determines his senses to be the

    only phenomenon in existence that are most true. In the process of abandoning all

    awareness except for the most primal he recognizes that certain people feel the senses

    differently and live in an even more deceptive world than he does. Those people he

    deems insane, and assures himself that he is not. His confidence in his own mental

    stamina is not only completely ableist, but only furthers my point of ego clouding his

    judgement. Further exploring his idea of sensory awareness he reflects on his dreams

    and how they often mimic experiences he had when he was awake, which to him must

    mean that he isnt living in a dream world because his dreams encapsulate aspects of

    being awake but not the entire package. Somehow he determines that because simple

    composite things exist the same both in and out of his dreams, they are undoubtable.

    This conclusion only continues to bring home my hypothesis of his morbid individualism.

    Later, Descartes has an epiphany leading him to realize that his first genius dreamworld

    conjecture wouldnt make sense in contrast to being so constantly deceived because

    even the existence of simple things he was so sure were rock solid earlier could also be

    a deception. He relates this to god, exploring the thought that an all powerful god could

    even deceive. The only issue is that he believes God to only be an undeceptive perfect
    entity. To combat the notion that God might be deceiving he conjures up the Evil Demon

    who's only purpose is to deceive. Given that Descartes acknowledges that he might not

    be the only one afflicted with the clich angel vs. demon condition, he still created each

    presence entirely and assumed that he could cross apply his own ridiculous ailment to

    universal consciousness which still proves my thesis.

    Meditation II: Concerning the Nature of the Human Mind: That the mind is more

    known than the body

    After the first meditation Descartes takes all he gathered about the senses and

    rejects it as untrustworthy evidence as it doesnt yield absolute certainty. He meditates

    on the idea that something must somehow be solid fact. He then tackles the idea of the

    Evil Demon deceiving him of his own existence in which he is unbothered as this means

    even though he is being deceivedhe exists. Later in the meditation he states that the

    mind and body are alien to one another and his existence is defined by the experience

    of his own thought. Though its assumed the discoveries made in his meditations are

    related to all human experience everything discovered is to be omitted and considered

    unfactual as both prior meditations are based solely around his own individual

    understanding and mental fortitude.

    Meditation III: Concerning God, That He Exists


    Descartes final meditation is a jumble of irrational backwards arguments where he tries

    to justify the existence of God. Before his efforts in justifying God he declares three

    types of ideas: innate, fictitious, and adventitious. Innate ideas are ones that have

    always existed, fictitious ideas our ones we compose ourselves, and adventitious ideas

    come from our own experiences. He claims the idea of God is innate and derives from

    God themself and rejects God as adventitious or fictitious. The foundation for his

    outcome is based around nonsensical justifications he applied himself for example: the

    idea of perfection couldnt of derived from something non-perfect, ergo, God exists.

    Assimilating either argument isnt necessary to prove my thesis as Descartes proves it

    in meditation one where he depicts the world through his own eyes as distinctively valid

    only to introduce ludicrous concepts enabling him to construct his own abstract

    understanding of truth based loosely off a tug-of-war between where he associates not

    having full understanding of something to an evil entity hellbent on deceiving him and

    having full understanding of his surroundings to a blessing from God. Based off the logic

    provided in the meditations Descartes can prove neither the existence of God nor the

    Evil Demon as all his assertions are based on experiences exclusive to himself and his

    own senses. Instead of making sense of the world and unearthing logic understanding

    human perception in relation to how we as a species can navigate assured that we exist

    Descartes created a personal model of comprehension for himself completely

    unrelatable and isolated the concept of the human experience to thoughts and senses

    only palpable to himself consequently proving my theory of his singularity as a

    philosopher.

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