Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Descartes, Existence, and God

What is existence? Descartes thought, therefore he was. His existence is the existence of the self, an elusive part of man separate from the physical world. But Descartes' existence is not as far separated from the corporeal as one might think. Descartes essentiality frames human existence as the presence of thought. However, as his meditations exemplify, human thought can seldom escape the confines of our physical world. Descartes' conception of knowledge and imagination does not allow for spontaneous thought. He asserts that "nothing can come from nothing," which helps form the basis of his proof of God. Where do our thoughts come from then? They must come from either the physical world or from God.

Descartes assumes that God must exist, for his visions of a God of infinite proportions and power could have come from none other than an ultimately powerful God. But even the traits to which Descartes' ascribes his God are traits of man or of worldly relationships, (Descartes lists independence, intelligence, power, and substance) manifested without flaw and unified in one existence in the person of God. Without the physical universe, Descartes’ would be without hope of understanding even his God. Thus as characterized by Descartes, the very thought of God depends upon the physical world. On the surface, this may seem to render his proof of God useless. I find however, the thought of a God understood through the world we live in—that world to which we ourselves are tied by our bodies-- just as appealing.

As I stated before, thought must come from God or from the physical world. If even our notion of God is requiring of our understanding the physical world, thought can be considered inseparable from the physical world. Truth is often seen as something greater than this world. Instead, we find it an integral part of it. While this might serve to alarm some or damage grand notions of transcending truth, knowledge, or good, I find it comforting to think that there might be a truth in this world, accessible to all of us should we be wary of our eyes and careful in our thoughts. So what is existence yet again? It is the inhabitation of this world by thinking creatures, an existence that Descartes’ God shares.

2 comments:

  1. Will,
    I really like what you are saying here. It's a great breakdown of this part of Descartes' Meditations.

    However, to play devil's advocate for a moment, do you think that it's possible that instead of our understanding of God being framed by the physical universe, it is our understanding of the physical universe which is framed by God? In other words, just as God put the conception of himself in our minds, did he not also put the conception of independence, intelligence, power, and substance, traits of which he is the perfect embodiment, in our minds? Perhaps it is only through God that we are able to make sense of the world.
    This idea makes sense to me for one primary reasons: namely, that if God put the conception of himself in our minds, he must also have added the idea of some of these traits of which he is the perfect embodiment so that we can have some understanding of this conception. Without knowledge of those traits, we would only know that some being exists named "God". Furthermore, when you speak of ideas such as intelligence and power, it seems to me that our understanding of God as the perfection of these ideas is what allows us to measure them in our daily lives, and not vice versa.

    I'm curious to know what you or anybody else thinks about that.

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  2. Will,

    I really enjoyed this post, and I certainly don't believe Descartes would disagree with what you said. In the second half of the Mediations, he comes to the exact same conclusion, yet the reason he does not focus on the outside world in the first half is to find his "Archimedian Point" which is independent of anything but thought. After he proves the existence of a supremely good Being, he comes to your exact conclusion, and I respect that your post prefaced that assigned reading.

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