Rene Descartes Cosmological Proof Essay

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In both the Third and Fourth meditation there were two proofs that were created. They are called the Cosmological and Ontological proof which proves that God exists. These proofs were devised through Descartes thought-experiment. The Cosmological proof was made through Descartes goal to show that he is not alone in the world or to find “a certain substance that is infinite” (Meditation Three Line 45) and draws in three important ideas that make up this proof. The first is that he has an idea of infinity, second he is not an infinite being, and lastly there must be an infinite being called God. Descartes was desperate to find a higher or supreme being so that he could make sense in a strange and foreign world he was currently in at the beginning of the Meditations. Regarding the second proof in Meditation Five called the Ontological proof…show more content…
That one truth turned out to be God who can be considered as the ultimate truth in an otherwise false world. But his existence served another purpose which was dispelling the Evil-Demon argument. This argument served to give him reason to doubt the existence of everything he perceived and believed in. Descartes asserts that “I will not suppose a supremely good God, the source of truth, but rather an evil genius, supremely powerful and clever, who has directed his entire effort at deceiving me” (Meditation One Line 22). In other words there is a false being that is equally powerful as God and whose main purpose is to make Descartes question everything. This evil demon in a way can represent philosophers who cause people to actually think about their beliefs and if those beliefs were formed by their own opinions or through others. Which can sometimes be very difficult to take because we would all like to believe everything that we were taught to believe in was because we wanted to and not because others expected us
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