I agree, but do not think it prima facie. I think all the stuff about God is nothing more than a rhetorical defense to avoid the fate of Galileo. Descartes took his motto from Ovid: — Fooloso4
Why should one do that which is good? No, I don't think that good is synonymous with, "something one ought to do". For example, most people would agree that selling all your worldly possessions and donating the money to charity is something that would be good. However, that doesn't mean that one is obligated to do so. Please input into this conversation with your own takes. — Hyper
Contrary to Descartes' claim, it comes from a lack or want, from a need or desire to improve, to have or be without defect.
With regard to the perfectibility of man, perfect comes from the possibility of avoiding error by limiting what I will to what I know. — Fooloso4
When I was still at school, I had the peculiar idea that if I suddenly swapped consciousness with the person walking towards me, AND I also instantly was connected to his or her memories at that moment, then there'd be no way of knowing what had happened. Rather peculiar thing to think, I grant, but at the time it seemed significant. Something about the universality of the experience of 'I'. — Wayfarer
Trouble with identity again. The argument against reincarnation seems applicable here - in what sense was the person in the Irish Cottage the same as jgill? If all they shared was 'I AM', how do we conclude that they are the same? — Banno
There is one, we're just still arguing over who has won it and what you get for winning and what it means to win in the first place.
Also, to ensure no one cheats, it's long been decided since Plato that no money will be given to the winner. — Moliere
(There's a thread over there about non-existent objects, but I haven't looked at it. ― No, there's two of them.) — Srap Tasmaner
Sometimes workbooks for children have a kind of puzzle in them, where you're given a little group of pictures and are told to put them in order to make a story. They often rely on thermodynamics ― you're supposed to know that broken pieces of a vase don't rise from the ground (defying gravity as well) and assemble themselves into a vase on the table.
Let's call the world where that sort of thing doesn't happen "the real world." If you tend to tell yourself and others stories where that sort of thing does happen, then I'd be tempted to say your world is "less real" than mine. And insofar as people's beliefs are real, or at least a useful way of categorizing their behavior, and insofar as their behavior has consequences in the real world, I'd be tempted to say that people are capable of increasing or decreasing the reality of situations they are involved in. (It's like the response to "facts are theory-laden": let's make sure our theories are fact-laden.) — Srap Tasmaner
I also have in mind the sort of thing you can see in Peter Jackson's film Heavenly Creatures, where the characters begin to slip back and forth between the real world and their own fantasy world. We all do a bit of this, and it seems quite natural to put how much we do it on a scale. Mistaking a windmill on the horizon for a grain elevator is one thing; mistaking it for a dragon is another. At least grain elevators are real, and windmills and grain elevators are both members of "rural towers". But dragons ... — Srap Tasmaner
See how the argument guarantees knowledge of God, and yet that knowledge depends on faith in the first place? — NotAristotle
Husserl and Frege seem quite similar to me, re psychologism. They both reject the idea that thoughts can only be said to be “caused,” rather than explained or justified. One of the things I see Husserl doing is to separate the fact that thought-terms describe mental/psychological phenomena from the further fact (as he saw it) that phenomena like judgments and syllogisms are also normative. Similarly, a number is not to be understood as a “presentation,” a thought that occurs to me or you. Husserl says, “The number Five is not my own or anyone else’s counting of five, it is also not my presentation or anyone else’s presentation of five.” Frege’s emphasis, as far as I know (I don’t know his work deeply), was more on what we’d call the analytic quality of logical truths. But the point is similar: The psychological origin of subjective (synthetic) and objective (analytic) truths may be the same – they’re all thoughts – but it’s the way we demonstrate them that shows the difference. So, “the psychological is to be distinguished sharply from the logical, as the subjective is from the objective.” (Foundations of Arithmetic) — J
If you're distinguishing between faith and knowledge, you'll have to define those terms. If we accept that knowledge requires a justified true belief, it would seem that the distinction between faith and knowledge would somehow hinge on the justification element. Those who believe in God based upon faith do not admit to having no justification for their faith, but they might use personal conviction, religious text, mystical feeling, or even pragmatic reasons to justify that faith. Some might even suggest an empirical basis (as in their experience of reality leads them to believe there must be a God), so that question is somewhat complicated.
That's not to say there are not differences between the justificaitons used by the faithful and those who are not of faith, but it's difficult to say one "knows" something and the other doesn't. What I think those who question those of faith really are attacking is the "truth" element, meaning they simply think there is no God and there is no way you can "know" something that isn't true. So, if you say Descartes knows there is God, then you are saying there is a God because to know something means it must be true.
My main point here isn't to suggest that Descartes made an intentional argument proving God by arguing that failure to accept God led to an incoherent solipsitic position. I just think that by working backwards and seeing what Descartes required to avoid solipsism you can come to the conclusion that God is necessary for Descartes to avoid that.
I do see the similarities with Kant's approach, but I also see the differences. With Kant, as it pertains to time, he argued that you could not begin to understand something without placing it in time. That is, an object outside of time is meaningless.
With Descartes, there is an private language argument problem that can suggest a complete incoherence to solipsism. https://iep.utm.edu/solipsis/#:~:text=The%20Incoherence%20of%20Solipsism,-With%20the%20belief&text=As%20a%20theory%2C%20it%20is,his%20solipsistic%20thoughts%20at%20all . What this would mean is that if God is necessary to avoid solipsism and solipsism is incoherent, then you need God to avoid incoherence.
Whether you want to go down that road, I don't know. I'm not necessarily arguing that a godless universe would result in a complete inability to understand anything, but, even if I did, I still see a distinction between that sort of incoherence and the one Kant references when he says time is imposed on objects and therefore a necessary element of the understanding.
This whole argument here has expanded as I've thought about it, so maybe there is a good argument that human understanding is impossible without God if one follows Descartes' reasoning. This wouldn't mean there is God. It would just mean you can't know anything without God. — Hanover
But now Method seems to Require Me to Rank all My Thoughts under certain Heads, and to search in Which of them Truth or Falshood properly Consists.
...
I have yet an other Way of inquiring, whether any of those Things (whose Ideas I have within Me) are Really Existent without Me; And that is Thus: As those Ideas are only Modes of Thinking, I acknowledge no Inequality between them, and they all proceed from me in the same Manner. But as one Represents one thing, an other, an other Thing, ’tis Evident there is a Great difference between them. * For without doubt, Those of them which Represent Substances are something More, or (as I may say) have More of Objective Reallity in them, then those that Represent only Modes or Accidents; and again, That by Which I understand a Mighty God, Eternal, Infinite, Omniscient, Omnipotent Creatour of all things besides himself, has certainly in it more Objective Reallity, then Those Ideas by which Finite Substances are Exhibited.
But Now, it is evident by the Light of Nature that there must be as much at least in the Total efficient Cause, as there is in the Effect of that Cause; For from Whence[37] can the effect have its Reallity, but from the Cause? and how can the Cause give it that Reallity, unless it self have it?
And from hence it follows, that neither a Thing can be made out of Nothing, Neither a Thing which is more Perfect (that is, Which has in it self more Reallity) proceed from That Which is Less Perfect.
And this is Clearly True, not only in those Effects whose Actual or Formal Reallity is Consider’d, But in Those Ideas also, Whose Objective Reallity is only Respected; That is to say, for Example of Illustration, it is not only impossible that a stone, Which was not, should now begin to Be, unless it were produced by something, in Which, Whatever goes to the Making a Stone, is either Formally or Virtually; neither can heat be Produced in any Thing, which before was not hot, but by a Thing which is at least of as equal a degree of Perfection as heat is; But also ’tis Impossible that I should have an Idea of Heat, or of a Stone, unless it were put into me by some Cause, in which there is at Least as much Reallity, as I Conceive there is in heat or a Stone.
.....
Thus, that if the objective reallity of any of my Ideas be such, that it cannot be in me either formally or eminently, and that therefore I cannot be the cause of that Idea, from hence it necessarily Follows, that I alone do not only exist, but that some other[40] thing, which is cause of that Idea, does exist also.
But if I can find no such Idea in me, I have no argument to perswade me of the existence of any thing besides my self for I have diligently enquired, and hitherto I could discover no other perswasive.
.....
Wherefore there only Remains the Idea of a God, wherein I must consider whether there be not something included, which cannot possibly have its original from me. By the word God, I mean a[44] certain Infinite Substance, Independent, Omniscient, Almighty, by whom both I my self, and every thing else that is (if any thing do Actualy exist) was created. All which Attributes are of such an high nature, that the more attentively I consider them, the less I conceive my self possible to be the Author of these notions.
From what therefore has been said I must conclude that there is a God;
That’s what I mean by saying that “I think therefore I am” is not the culmination of cogito qua cogito but of the transcendence of itself viz. the externalization of being through the process of “doubting.” Thinking that thinks itself. — NotAristotle
Maybe everything is supernatural for Descartes, while Sartre keeps it as an illusion out of distance, focusing on material problems — Gregory
I don't think so. Kierkegaard is the beginning of existentialism. His point was that the the more fully you become lost in the landscape of the intellect, the more disconnected and alienated you'll be from the knowledge that's most direct and intimate: the knowledge of what it feels like to be alive. — frank
I don't know if you saw my SEP quotes, but Descartes also points to this as what he meant by "cogito": he is talking about awareness, which is only sometimes of ideas. — frank
"Third, the certainty of the cogito depends on being formulated in terms of cogitatio – i.e., my thinking, or awareness/consciousness more generally. Any mode of thinking is sufficient, including doubting, affirming, denying, willing, understanding, imagining, and so on (cf. Med. 2, AT 7:28). My bodily activities, however, are insufficient. For instance, it’s no good to reason that “I exist, since I am walking,” because methodical doubt calls into question the existence of my legs. Maybe I’m just dreaming that I have legs. A simple revision, such as “I exist, since it seems I’m walking,” restores the anti-sceptical potency (cf. Replies 5, AT 7:352; Prin. 1:9)."
— SEP
Also:
"Second, a present tense formulation is essential to the certainty of the cogito. It’s no good to reason that “I existed last Tuesday, since I recall that I was thinking on that day.” For all I know, I’m now merely dreaming about that occasion. Nor does it work to reason that “I’ll continue to exist, since I’m now thinking.” As the meditator remarks, “it could be that were I totally to cease from thinking, I should totally cease to exist” (Med. 2, AT 7:27, CSM 2:18). The privileged certainty of the cogito is grounded in the “manifest contradiction” (AT 7:36, CSM 2:25) of trying to think away my present thinking."
— SEP — frank
So what's it all about? What sorts of things should we think are more or less real than other things? — Srap Tasmaner
Yes, probably. You're kind of stomping all over the existentialism with your intellectual observations, tho. — frank
And see Frege on psychologism. — J
Yes, but it does feel like a "move," and I wasn't suggesting it seriously. — J
Good observation. I think that philosophers who are hostile to phenomenology want this liminal place to be a mistake, an inability to be clear about what the topic is. A more sympathetic reading, starting with Husserl, is that the distinction between metaphysics and psychology must be put into doubt as a first step toward a new conception of doing philosophy in the first person. — J
One example where it does create confusion, though, is what I tried to straighten out with frank, above. He quite reasonably wanted to know why a thought must occur in time, which leads us into the two common meanings of the term "thought." One is psychological, the other metaphysical. And see Frege on psychologism.