God only knows...

As meditators who have been led through his destructive arguments all the while denying everything ourselves, senses, the world, every object, person, and place we have ever seen or will see. We have followed Descartes letting go of everything leaving only a somewhat obscure notion of self. Then in a matter of a few lines God is proven. Something that people today and for all of time have debated and questioned without much resolution is just… proven. I feel like there must be an understanding here that I am not quite “getting”, I don’t feel that Descartes would make such a huge statement idly. My assumption is that, just like an impressionist painting, being so close and focusing on the details is not allowing me to see the big picture and truth. So, with that said here’s what I disagree with on the surface:

The nature or essence of an idea has demonstratable properties that are seen clearly and distinctly. Therefore these properties must be true. But then he states that “whatever is true is something” (CSM 45). I do not see how that follows. But at this point he is still talking about geometric shapes. His argument concerning God’s existence seems to be circular concerning these demonstratable properties. We know God exists because existing is a part of its nature. Descartes has linked the property of existence with God; therefore in trying to discover the proof of its existence we cannot separate it from God himself. I can agree that an essence can be true, but I do not see that existence necessarily follows. Also, there is the property of perfection, which God alone supposedly has. Descartes claims that perfection necessarily means existence, for a thing that does not exist is flawed (?). Hatfield discusses Gassendi’s counter to this, which is, “existing things equally share the perfection of existence” (Hatfield 219). This concept that if a thing exists then it is perfect because it has the unique property of simply being makes sense to me. Descartes may simply have a different notion of perfection, but it seems to me that something exists and thus is perfect or a thing does not exist and is thus not perfect. But then again, seeing as I have become this cynical thinking thing unsure of most things, I have forgotten about faith in favor of doubt and despite Descartes’ ability to “prove” God, it seems to me that faith is a big a crucial point he is missing.

Math Teacher/ Preacher

To discover truth we must look deeper into our own thoughts instead of thoughts of things outside us. So, now that we have abandoned the question for a brief moment on our ideas that come from the existence of things outside ourselves and move toward knowing where our own ideas come from. With so many of our ideas subject to doubt finding what is true becomes the Meditator’s mission. Descartes, almost romantically, explains that there are some ideas whose truth is, “so open and so much in harmony with my nature, that on first discovering them it seems that I am not so much learning something new as remembering what I knew before” (CSM 44). Hatfield explains this distinction in ideas as establishing what ideas are inventions or discoveries. When the truth of a thing is so clear and distinct in my mind it is as if it was a part of my nature, but not dependent on me. Up to this point we have not proven that we can know assuredly of the existence of anything outside ourselves. So, the things that we perceive as these clear and distinct truths in our mind do not necessarily need to exist for them to be true.

One of Descartes justifications for this is the fact that we do not will the ideas into our mind. Hatfield explains the difference between this unwilled idea of something with an immutable nature to the unwilled idea of something shown to us through the senses as the former does, “not fill her [the meditator’s] experience, as the heat of the fire might, but they compel recognition, or cognitive acknowledgment” (Hatfield 209). Descartes explains that these certain undeniable ideas have a “determinate nature” also called “essence” or “form” (CSM 45). This determinate nature can be demonstrated and has undeniable properties, which, “I now clearly recognize whether I want to or not” (CSM 45). The properties are in no way dependent on me, we assume by reason of doubt that they do not even necessarily exist outside of me, and I did not will the idea into my mind or invent it. Therefore in our thoughts we can have an idea of a thing without the use of any of the faculties of our mind, but once we clearly and distinctly perceive its properties the truth of the nature of the thing is undeniable. Descartes mostly uses the examples of simple maths and God as the examples of these innate ideas that are not of our own creation.

I did not will them. I did not invent them. They are not by my mind, but they are not from outside me either. So, my question here is whether the truth/essence/nature (?) of these ideas was already in my mind or if through discovering their properties I came to know them. I suppose that Descartes believes in the former- that these truths were already pre-stocked, in a sense, in our mind and it is just up to us to rediscover them. But then does that mean that our mind is already stamped with all truths therefore inward reflection in the discovery of truths is all that is necessary? Things may exist outside of us, but if our mind already has knowledge of all truths than the real world does not seem to hold anything unique, new, or valuable.