Friday, October 12, 2018
God Chasing His Tail?
Antoine Arnauld (among others) famously accuses Descartes of arguing in a circle: the principle of clear and distinct ideas requires a non-deceiving God to validate it, but the proof of a non-deceiving God requires the principle of clear and distinct ideas. Is Arnauld correct? If not, why not? If not, at what cost?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think that Arnauld is correct to think that Descartes argument is circular. Descartes argument for God's existence relies on having clear and distinct ideas (not being deceived by God). He claims that the concept of God is that God is a supreme perfect, to not exist is to lack something, to lack some perfection, and God cannot be imperfect therefore God must exist. It is important to note that being deceiving is also considered imperfect, so this argument exists to prove that God also must not be deceiving. This is not necessarily valid without having clear and distinct ideas because Descartes could be deceived by God into thinking that God is supremely perfect when in reality God is a deceiver. His argument for God’s existence already requires that he is thinking clearly and is not being deceived by God, however his argument for clear and distinct knowledge requires that God exists and is not a deceiver. This is the Cartesian circle that Descartes has been accused of creating. I think that the correct his argument, he needs alternative methods of proving clear and distinct ideas. Proving God’s non-deceiving existence without clear ideas is not possible in my opinion because no matter your argument, there is always the possibility that God himself is deceiving you unless you have already disproved this chance by proving you have clear thoughts.
ReplyDeleteDescartes is at fault for creating a circular argument about the existence of God. There are many if’s in the argument that you must follow each premise to go back to the top. His premises are that you must belief that there is a clar and distinct rule to be true. After that you must need to prove that there is a God that is not a deceiver and that he exists. This part is confusing because in the meditations before Descartes talks about how there is a deceitful God and that it can make you believe different things into a dream world. But disregard all of that and hope for a non-deceitful God. And now you have a perfect god that exists who can do no wrong and with the clear and distinct rules one can imagine that god truly does exist and that you must believe all premises are true. Then it circulates to the top where you need the foundation of that true clear and distinct rule. Because of this circular argument it Is hard to truly rely on it and deem it correct. But because it I circular you cannot disprove the argument. Is this Descartes being too vague? Is he setting his meditations up so that they cannot be argued about? Its hard to say that Arnauld is correct and that Descartes is wrong. The only this Descartes is wrong about is creating a weak circular argument, but in contrary it is strong in that you can’t argue about it.
ReplyDeleteAntoine Arnauld is correct in his rejection of Descartes’ argument, known as the Cartesian Circle, for God because Descartes’ argument uses circular reasoning. The argument goes: in order to think clearly and distinctly, there must be a benign being that does not deceive me; I have an idea of a God that is supremely perfect; in order to be supremely perfect, this being must exist; and therefore, this benevolent God exists. If this argument did not include the first premise, then it would make sense, as the idea of God would not exist without Him existing. However, since Descartes cannot have any “clear and distinct” thoughts without the existence of said God, this argument falls victim to circular reasoning. Descartes assumes that he can clearly and distinctly think of this perfect being without taking into account that he does not know whether or not he is being deceived by a malevolent being. The argument’s foundation is that the idea of God is perfect, but without this perfect God, the idea cannot exist. Descartes’ Cogito argument stabs him in the back because he never proved there was no evil genius. The problem that arises from the Cartesian Circle is that no true knowledge can be attained without first knowing that one’s thoughts are not constantly being deceived. Since the argument for God only works given that the conclusion is true, true knowledge cannot be achieved. Descartes needs to make an argument for God without first accepting that God is not deceiving him. Without said argument, skepticism is still viable because nothing can be known other than the fact that I exist.
ReplyDeleteDecartes starts his premise with in order to justify his beliefs; we need a clear and distinct rule to be true. Decartes definition of clear and distinct rules are perceptions that are so obvious, even the people who may ponder this idea in their minds, will see the perceptions cannot be logically doubted. However, by Decartes beginning his premise with using Gods existence as the distinct rule that is true, he creates a perception that can be logically doubted. Although Decartes does not believe that his perception of God can be logically doubted, he uses his belief that God exists to prove that God exists and that God is perfect, and not a deceiver. To make his argument stronger, Decartes should have started with his premise that God is perfect, which would therefore prevent his argument from becoming circular. His problem is that he needs an idea to start from, he needs to prove something (such as why God exists). He needs God to exist so he can have his principle of clear and distinct ideas. Decartes argument is not wrong, but it is flawed. With Decartes belief that God is the clear and distinct rule to be true, I can argue that he is false. If God is not a deceiver and is supremely perfect, why would he let imperfection exist even outside of himself, because by letting others be imperfect is an imperfection itself. The final question is addressing whether or not if god was in fact not a deceiver then would making bad decisions be impossible? If God were truly not a deceiver then he would not allow or create paths for us to make imperfect decisions. Decartes needs to address these flaws that make his argument logically doubtful, he needs to create a clear and distinct idea that will prove his premise to be flawless, and help prevent it from becoming a circular argument.
ReplyDeleteI believe that Antoine Arnauld is correct that Descartes is using circular reasoning for his argument. From his two indubitable truths, Descartes tries to create a new argument that proves that a perfect, non-deceiving God exists. Descartes begins with a premise that in order to justify his belief, he needs to clearly and distinctively perceive that it is true. He continues his argument by saying that he needs to prove that a non-deceiving God exists in order to prove that the clear and distinct rule is true. In order to prove that God exists, he then needs to justify or prove the premises of that argument is correct. Finally, in order to prove that the premises of that argument, we must prove that we can clearly and distinctively perceive something to be true. From this layout, it becomes clear that Descartes is indeed arguing in a circular manner. Descartes requires the existence of god for absolute certainty of his two truths, which are “I exist” and “I am a thinking thing”. However, he also needs the certainty of these truths to definitively prove that God exists. There is no possible way to prove any of these premises because they both depend on each other. Therefore, this argument is problematic as it does not show a conclusive proof of God’s existence. I agree with Nathan that a solution for Descartes argument is to figure out a way to make an argument for God without accepting that fact that he is not deceiving him. That way, he is able to establish a true premise first and continue with his argument from there.
ReplyDeleteAntoine Arnauld is correct in accusing Descartes of circular reasoning as Descartes uses the inadequately proved notion that clear and distinct thoughts are true to defeat the skeptical argument from Meditation 1. Specifically, Descartes argues that 1) what he clearly distinctly perceives to be true is true. He then uses this argument to disprove the argument that God may be a deceiver who implants thoughts in your head and therefore controls basic cognitive processes, thus defeating Descartes foundational notion that we think independently (Cogito Ergo Sum). However, Descartes asserts that 2) without his knowledge of God’s existence, he cannot trust even his clear and distinct thoughts to be true. Thus the critique referred to as the Cartesian Circle is correct in that it recognizes how Descartes uses the idea that God is non-deceiver to justify that God is non-deceiver. An analogous circular argument could be something like “I know Ella wrote the book because she said she wrote the book in the book.” This arguments is circular because it relies on a potential fallacy to prove the premise correct. Though Descartes tries to get himself out of the circle by arguing that he never said that he needed God to guarantee distinct ideas, only his memory. However, this vacillation/correction does not ultimately prove that an Evil Genius does not exist and therefore Descartes remains trapped in his own circle.
ReplyDeleteAntoine Arnauld correctly argues that Descartes’ arguments are circular, as Descartes assumes in his premises the very conclusions he is attempting to prove. Descartes makes two arguments that together entail circular reasoning. The first argument is his version of the ontological argument for the proof of the existence and perfection of God. Descartes begins with the premises 1) that we have a clear and distinct idea of a perfect being and 2) that perfection entails existence. He concludes from them that 3) God exists and would not deceive us. In this argument, Descartes infers that God cannot be a deceiver from the premise that we have a clear and distinct idea of God. However, in Descartes’ argument for the claim that we actually have clear and distinct ideas, he uses the premise that God cannot be a deceiver. Because there exists a God who cannot be a deceiver, he cannot be the source of unclear and indistinct ideas either. On one hand, then, Descartes argues that a God who does not deceive us must exist because we clearly and distinctly conceive him as perfect. On the other hand, Descartes argues that we know our ideas are clear and distinct because God exists as a perfect being who would never deceive us. Since these two arguments are part of Descartes’ overall argument regarding the foundations of knowledge, and since together they entail circular reasoning, his overall argument is faulty.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAntoine Arnauld, among others, are correct in saying that Descartes argument for the existence of God relies upon circular reasoning. Descartes wants to prove the existence of a non-deceiving God using “clear and distinctive” ideas. Saying that the only way to prove clear and distinctive ideas to be true is to have a non-deceiving God would make the argument circular, which is precisely what Descartes has done. If there were some other way to prove the existence of clear and distinctive ideas, regardless of God’s existence, then the argument would no longer be circular. Descartes two certain truths, “I think, therefore I am” and “I am a thinking thing” are dependent upon the existence of a non-deceiving God; yet, according to his argument, he needs these two statements to be true in order to prove the existence of God. This kind of argument, accused of being the Cartesian Circle, is problematic because no true knowledge is attainable. The foundation of Descartes argument relies upon the clear and distinct idea that a non-deceiving God exists, but that idea cannot exist without there being a non-deceiving God. Because one of Descartes’ premises directly relies upon the conclusion, it is impossible for any real knowledge to be obtained. As previously mentioned, there needs to be a way have a clear and distinct thought regardless of the existence of some perfect God. Once Descartes is able to prove this argument, true and concrete knowledge will finally be attainable; without this proof, absolute skepticism might still prove to be true.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, I think Descartes was a little too ambitious in proving his premises of God existing. Descartes's premises all rely on each other, not being able to exist without the other, effectively creating an infinite loop and a dead loop at the same time (take that Berkeley). This is because Plato's ontological argument for proving the existence and perfection of God relies on the premises that firstly, we must have a clear and distinct idea of a perfect being and secondly, the perfection of the supreme being entails existence by itself, since the notion of having a perfect being means that to be perfect, it must exist. Because of this, God must exist, since God cannot deceive us, as perfect beings do not lie. In this argument, Descartes infers that God cannot be a deceiver from the premise that we have a clear and distinct idea of God. However, Antoine proves this entire theory false, a counterargument known as the cartesian circle, as one of Descartes's premises relies on the other to exist, and vice versa. It goes a little something like this: In order to prove that God exists, we must be able to clearly reason and distinctly perceive, but in order to prove that we can clearly reason and distinctly perceive, God has to exist. The two premises are not mutually exclusive, therefore descaretes's argument can not exist. Perhaps because of Descartes's failure, we truly know nothing.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Descartes is indeed arguing in a circle. His argument is self-reliant and is based upon itself. For Descartes to set up the idea of god, he also needs to have rule to abide by. He makes this rule the Clear and distinct rule. Descartes explains the clear and distinct rule by saying that everything that we clearly and distinctly perceive as true must be true. To believe that there is a god there must be the assumption that god is supremely perfect and good. If god is supremely perfect then he would also not have the ability to deceive us and therefore we would be allowed to clearly and distinctly perceive our surroundings because perfect being are incapable of lying. Descartes then goes on to prove that god exist because if we are able to clearly and distinctly perceive him, then he must also exists as a perfect being would not only be an idea. This who argument starts to become problematic because Descartes rule can exist only if a perfect god also exists and the perfect god can only exist if it is justified by the clearly and distinctly perception rule. This is without a doubt a Cartesian circle and therefore Descartes argument is very weak. Since Descartes does not actually prove anything, his only real victory against skepticism is the proof of himself.
ReplyDelete