A question for greater minds than me

Jebus

Jebus

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Allright, so I've got philosophy examn tomorrow. I didn't follow all too many lessons, so I had to struggle immensely to grasp what people like Spinoza, Hume and (especiall) Hegel were saying in less than two days - but there's one thing I can't figure out for the life of me.

It's about Descartes. Out of his 'res cognitans', or 'thinking subject' theory, he produced the following God-proof (or whatever it's called in English):

"I can form an idea of a perfect creature in my mind, a creature that posesses all positive qualities in a perfect way. This creature has to exist, because if it did not exist, it would lack the quality 'existing', and would therefore not be perfect."

Which is a variation on the 'ontological god-proof' of Anselmus.

Now; I am stuggling with the following:

1. Considering the fact that his philosophy is based on the fact that you cannot start out from any axioma's or dogma's, then how does he define 'positive qualities', as there is no defenitive argument to label any quality as 'positive'. Therefore, since any 'quality' can be apprecieted differently by different people, how can there be one God?

2. How does he define 'to exist'? He himself doubted that he existed - the only thing he was sure of was that he doubted in the first place, so that meant to him that he must in fact exist. However - a 'perfect' creature would not doubt, so how would there be a certainty of 'existing' for that creature? Also, 'exist' in what way? On a material, cognitive, or transcendant level?

3. Why would the fact that he can form the image in his head mean that it exists? If I'm not mistaken, his theory was not that everything only existed in his head - Solipsism was only produced by Berkeley half a century later. I mean, I can picture a 'perfect' 1000 kilometer long hot-dog in my head, so does that mean that a 1000 kilometer hot-dog actually exists somewhere?


I've got my examn at 14.00 h GMT +1 tomorrow, so if someone could enlighten me on this issue before 12.00h GMT +1 tomorrow, you'd be my god and saviour.


*EDIT* Allright, I think I already figured 3. out. If I am able to picture a 'perfect' 1000 kilometer long hot-dog, then that hot-dog would be God.
 
We had the same question in one of our tests, I wrote that he was full of bullshit at that point and my teacher accepted, I do not know if your will.
About that thing with god existing it is this way:
He forms the image of something that "nothing better/purer can be thought of", know he concludes that this thought, since being more perfect than him (his mistake is like Spinoza to believe that the thought of something "nothing better/purer can be thought of" can exist is equal to the actual knowing of what this is) can not have been placed there by himself because something existing always has to be created by something more perfect, which he concludes has to be god (and you are right i don`t know how he got the idea that being god is something absolute).
The giant hotdog however would only exit if the hotdog form would be the only form for something "nothing better/purer can be thought of", which i do not think.

The idea of god comes from that he through his cogito for him is something absolute and totaly logic, never to be proven against, totaly obvious.
He concludes that everything that is absolute obvious for him has to be true.
And this goodness is one of these things for him (i would say he is terribly wrong).

About this doubting, it was not the doubting, but the act of thinking.

This is how i understood him, hope you can use something of my rambling.

funny thing is that CCr has crushed his cogito with his
"razorbladestorm while making love to something"-logic in the i hate Determinism thread.

edit:damm didn`t look for edits, sory for the hotdog.
 
Turnip said:
About this doubting, it was not the doubting, but the act of thinking.
Click to expand...

Goes the same way. If a creature would be perfect, it wouldn't need thought as it would be all-knowing.

And unfortunately, I can't say he's full of shit, because it's a damn multiple choice examn :?
 
And unfortunately, I can't say he's full of shit, because it's a damn multiple choice examn
Click to expand...

in PHILOSOPHY?????!!!!!!!

And you got a point there, plus if he was perfect, he wouldn`t
make any choices at all, since a perfect creature would only have one possible way of acting.
Although he does not try to prove gods existence through that, but through this, if i imagine a creature thing, which in no way indicates that god is thinking.
 
Turnip said:
And unfortunately, I can't say he's full of shit, because it's a damn multiple choice examn
Click to expand...

in PHILOSOPHY?????!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

I know, it's the only MC examn we have. Unfortunately, this makes the examn way harder than it would've been if it were open questions, as the MC questions are (so I heard from people who already took the examn) desinged to confuse you, and you have to answer 60 questions in two hours. That leaves two minutes per question, or 25 seconds to read each one of the five statements and decide which one is the false one.
I looked at the example questions, and it's overwhelmingly difficult.

And you got a point there, plus if he was perfect, he wouldn`t
make any choices at all, since a perfect creature would only have one possible way of acting.
Although he does not try to prove gods existence through that, but through this, if i imagine a creature thing, which in no way indicates that god is thinking.
Click to expand...

But how does he define 'to exist' then?
 
As being a consquence of something, completly obvius for him so i understood. And it is definitly not material, since he concludes that the soul can exist without the body.
 
Turnip said:
As being a consquence of something, completly obvius for him so i understood. And it is definitly not material, since he concludes that the soul can exist without the body.
Click to expand...

That still does not really define 'to exist', though. It 'proves' that God exists, but not in what way he exists.
Also - while there was indeed philosophical dualism in Descartes' reasoning, that doesn't apply to God; as God is not something that coud fit into a) the material, physical realm and b) could not be of the thinking spirit, because - as you have already pointed out- a perfect God would not think.
 
At the point of cogito, he is only certain of him existing.
When "proving" gods existence he is proving gods existence in a matter of "just has to be there to make it work", how to describe this form of existence i do not know.
But from god existing he concludes everything else existing too, since god would not betray him, cause of his all-godnes.
So the source of existence is as far as i see the fact that it seems logic for him.
Probably gods existence is categorised under the special term
"nothing better/purer can be thought of".
Funny isn`t it, through not being able to answer the question what god is,
Decards proof does not work for us.

Edit: You said Gmt +1? I think I`m just going to ask my philosophy teacher.
 
It was a joke :D


Although, a short and clear summary of the reasoning of Kant and Hegel would be nice ;)
 
Turnip summed it all up pretty well.

Remember that when you cut through all the bullshit, at the core is the actual problem that Descartes as a Christian could not face up to the fact that his perfect rational system would mean losing sureness in the existence of God. Hence he mauled his own system out of shape just to be able to prove ("if God doesn't exist, we'd have to invent him") God exists. He must have had his own doubts about this and it is a fact that this weakly stringed together theory has been attacked widely from day 1 and people have always found trouble widely accepting it. It is, in fact, total horseshit and even the respect people have for cogito ergo sum doesn't make up for it.

No shortening Kant, no, heh.
 
This puts me in quite the perdicament, then.

All 60 multiple-choice questions are 'mark the false statement', and I've heard my Philosophy professor is quite the Rationalist fetishist. So if Descartes' God-proof comes up (which has a good chance of happening); should I mark it as false? Teh dilemma's!

Heck, I will. Let's be wild! Let's party like the history of man is not based on idealistic dialecticism!
 
Kharn wrote:
No shortening Kant, no, heh.
Click to expand...

lets give it a try
apripo.jpg


+ther are some things that the human mind can't understand
like the universe has to have a end contra the universe can't
have a end.
Of which he concludes that humans never can be shure to have found the thing in it self, but only the thing for himself.

Very, very rough this is of course, and only a small part of what he wrote.
 
Turnip said:
Of which he concludes that humans never can be shure to have found the thing in it self, but only the thing for himself.
Click to expand...

Exactly the reason why I always liked the man.

Multiple choice in philosophy is indeed bullshit. The whole point of philosophy is that even without studying you can always bullshit yourself out of any query with enough eloquence.
 
Wait - isn't that Hume?

*EDIT* In retrospect, perhaps it's more practical if I were to write a short summary of Kant, and then you guys can tell me how right I am :D
Philosophy was never my cup of tea.
 
Allright - the basic premise of Kant was that -unlike the reasonings of earlier philosophers- he put the place of certainties in the subject, instead of in the empirical data of the source of it.

Furthermore, he says that the contents of our knowledge comes from imperical data, but that it is ordened in the mind by forms that were there a priori, and are transcendental, because it would otherwise all be chaos.

So knowledge in itself comes from the synthesis of the contents of empirical data and the ordering-forms of the mind.

Kant's certainty of the existance of a priori forms in th emind led Kant to believe that there are three different kinds of 'judgements':

- a priori analythical judgements, because the conclusion is the analysis of the subject. Example: "A bachelor is unmarried"

- a posteriori synthetical judgements, that add something new to the subject, such as: "That bachelor has a beard". These are a posteriori because one can only know this because of empirical data.

So far he's basically saying what the Empirist already said.

However, he also believed in

- a priori synthetical judgements, that are an analysis of the a priori forms. There are a priori forms of empirical data, namely space and time. We can't do otherwise than to order all imperical data in space and time, and our 'core machine' does this spontaniously. The analysis of this space and time form enables us to develop geometry and mathematics; so this explains why can do mathematics without experience.
The a priori forms of the mind are categories, such as unity, plurality, totality, possibility, impossiblility, and so on. The most important one is casuality - Kant says that causal relations in Newtonian physics are uncertain because our mind can't do anything else than categorise them into these categories. Physics is more than those forms alone, though, so that's why both empirical and reasonable imput is required.

Furthermore, Kant says (like Hume) that methaphysics are impossible, because the 'forms ' in the mind have as a function to categorise empirical data, and that they cannot be applied to abstract reasonings. We can, for instance, discuss the relationships between phenomenons, but not the Ding an sich, who are the cause of those.


K, so how correct is that?
 
Ok, I'll add some notes:

Notice first and foremost that Kant seems to grow a lot upon what Hume taught, hence all the ties. But that's besides the point.

Whenever Kant is discussed people mention "Pure" reason. Kant used this label to refer to a priori knowledge, which he considered higher than a postriori, obviously.

An important factor in Kant's works is actually splitting pure knowledge from empirical knowledge. He this by recognising two elements in it: necessity and generality (I guess, not sure if that's the English word I'm looking for; algemeenheid). From this stems Kant's famous statement that "Each reaction (or change) must have a cause" is *not* a priori knowledge, but empirical, as you can only see that every cause brings forth a reaction, yuo can not prove that it is necessary or generally true.

I assume you know well enough what Kant meant by analytical and synthetical? Good.

Turnip's table shows very essentially how Kant struggled with analytical and synthetical and pure and emperical knowledge. Make sure you understand everything that table says or ask.

Also, the basic question of Critique of Pure Reason (which is usually referred to as "Kant's philosophy", even though he had other periods in his life) would be; How are synthetic judgement possible in an a priori form? Kant's problem was the mixing of mathematics, the natural sciences and *even* metaphysics with a postriori knowledge, which was beforehand considered necessary. He troubles himself with finding ways of making these three sciences purely a priori (as such he did not, at least in the Critique, consider Metaphysics an impossible science, but did consider its current form completely flawed).

The Ding an Sich part of his philosophy actually boils down to this: Kant believed one could thing away all elements of any single thing, except the space it occupied (zijn "uitgebreidheid"). This means that our senses are tuned to see reality as a number of things occupying space, that's how reality presents itself. Presents itself is the keyterm here. Kant believed that since reality always presents itself to us like this throughout our life, and we never (certainly not as individuals) know any alternatives, it is impossible to know if we're actually looking at the thing itself (the Ding an Sich or noumenon). Kant believed that this perception is impenetrable and believes it to be the final limit of, indeed, metaphysics, but believes that after this limitation the space things occupy is the highest form of perception. etc. etc.
 
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