Koganti Rikky Roy - Discourse On Method

SID: 22898469

Straight off the bat, Descartes leans towards the reasoning that either a living thing has reason or it does not. Reason itself is not quantifiable and those who are naturally endowed with it have it in equal harvests. However, a world with every individual possessing perfect reasoning would be an utopia. A world plauged with problems ranging from the deep-rooted insubstantial, like sterotyping, to outright extremism from terrorist activities, our world, is no utopia. This is due to, as Descartes expounds, the differing atmospheres of different inviduals growing up. He clearly states in part two how 'the same man with the same mind' would differ in persona and reason if he was brought up among the French or the Chinese. This is clearly a notion that he 'plainly knew to be true', one that seems obvious to him. However, from this notion arises a contradiction in his later ideas. In part two, Descartes states the first rules to his method - to never accept anything as true unless a person plainly knows it to be such. He alludes this doubtful nature to how he prescribed to all the knowledge that was accorded to him in his younger days, without first attemping, through his own merit, to verify the facts. And yet, having to doubt your very environment is a grim setting. Perhaps this is the reason why in part four, he tries to find something in his beliefs that is 'entirely indubitable'. The end result - the existence of God. In doubting everything around him, Descartes came up with the concept that his was an imperfect being and there was a more pefect being in existence who didn't doubt but knew and that being was God. This is where the great contradiction starts. Throughout the text, it is plain to see that Descartes was a devout follower in his faith. He venerated the theology of his time and believed in the existence of heaven. He also clearly states that he did not believe there was anything worthy of note in Galileo's publications of the heliocentric theory (in part six), although it is an infallible truth of the kind Descartes was searching for. This blind faith is in fact a trait of his era. In the early 17th Century, around the time Descarte was born, Europe could even be

synonymous with 'religion'. Religion was a vital part of everyone's life and was ingrained into everyone's childhood, including Descartes's. He himself says to never accept anything as true unless you plainly know it to be such. Descartes questions where his ideas of perfection and flawless qualities, that a truly perfect being posseses, have arisen from. He considers himself imperfect, like all human beings, thus they must have come from an external source. They could not have come from the experiences all his senses accorded him and he discounts other natural sources due to his presupposed superiority over them. Thus, the flawless qualities must come from somewhere else, a being of greater perfection that himself - God. Through this logical and geomtrical reasoning, he exerts that the existence of God is necesarily true. And it is only because God, a perfect being, exists that there are certain concepts that are clearly and distinctly true, that we 'plainly know to be such'. However, it is impossible that his fundamental belief in God from childhood did not affect his judgement in some way, leading him to make a circular reasoning about God. The existence of God is established by Descartes's distinct perception of a higher perfection while this higher perfection (God) guarantess the truth of the idea which Descartes, or anyone else for that matter, definitely percieves to be true with every fibre of his being. If Descartes had been born in another country, where the religion is centered around the belief that celestial bodies are higher powers, he would have ended his reasoning of perfection when he starts considering stars or the sun to be the source of his esteemed flawless qualities. That is why there is a contradiction in his words. He states to not accept anything as true unless you plainly percieve it as such. But this clarity of perception depends on the type of reason of the individual himself. As Descartes himself said, different individuals have different opinons due to varying environments they were nurtured in. To Descartes, perhaps the existence of God is a necessity but to another individual, it is still a question to be answered.