Cartesian Mechanisms, Ideas, and Method
Cartesian Mechanisms
The Cartesian mechanistic states that the body is a machine and that all dealings must be explained by the same principles and physical laws that apply to the inanimate world. Indeed, the use of animal spirits does not serve to solve the problem of substance interaction. The mind-body problem is one of the most interesting issues in contemporary philosophy. Hard to find now a defender of classic dualism or dualism of substances. If there are, however, other forms of dualism that seek to be compatible with the postulates of physical sciences and neurosciences. These new forms of dualism are known as property dualism.
Introduction to Descartes’ Ideas
Once discovered the truth, Descartes proposes reasons for the existence of God from it. He tries to prove the existence of God as collateral for the accuracy of our surroundings through three arguments based on the innate idea of perfection. Descartes distinguishes three types of ideas that surround us.
Classification of Ideas
- 1-Adventitious: coming from outside, the ideas of men, trees…
- 2-Factitious: come from the imagination, the idea of a winged horse, a centaur…
- 3-Innate: created spontaneously by reason, the idea of thought, God.
Arguments for God’s Existence
- 1-Causal Argument: We are imperfect because we doubt, but we have the idea of perfection. Therefore, it had to be placed in us by a supremely perfect being (so that there is cause and effect): God.
- 2-Causal Argument: We are contingent and imperfect, because we have the cause of our existence in another on whom we depend. Therefore, there must first be a necessary being that is not dependent on another, which itself is due to start the chain: God.
- 3-Ontological Argument: God’s essence implies its existence, since the concept of God is explicitly perfection, and among the characteristics of perfection is existence.
Conclusion
From these three tests, Descartes concludes that God exists. With God, the smooth running of my mind is ensured. All knowledge is presented as obvious, exempt from doubt. The possibility of doubt, however, remains constant in the atheist. For Descartes, God is infinite, eternal, immutable, omniscient, and omnipotent.
Empiricism vs. Rationalism
Empiricism: especially considering the genesis of ideas, its starting point is an empty consciousness that will fill with the data of experience.
Rationalism: thinks that ideas are born with the subject and are in the consciousness. Rationalism is characterized by the claim that the certainty of knowledge comes from reason, which is associated with the affirmation of the existence of innate ideas. This will entail the downgrading of sensitive knowledge.
The Cartesian Method
The reaction against Cartesian skepticism coupled with his interest in science in Descartes will mean strengthening the rejection of the error and search for the truth. Both in the first meditation as in the first part of the Discourse, Descartes repeatedly insists on the need to reject the error, which is inevitably associated with the search for truth. Truth is only in mathematical knowledge.
Definition of Method
The set of certain and easy rules thanks to whom that will not ever look exactly the false for real and reach, without spending unnecessarily effort of the mind, but always gradually increasing science, the true knowledge of everything that is capable of. The method, we have seen, has to serve to discover new truths, not to prove what we will cover what has been found.
Rules of the Method
- 1st. The Evidence: is the criterion of truth. Do not accept anything as true if we do not know what evidence is. Evidence is clarity and conclusion. Thus, the first rule of method could be divided into three provisions:
- Do not judge before the trial appears to us as obvious.
- Do not judge based on preconceived ideas.
- Do not judge beyond what appears to us as clear and distinct.
- 2nd. Analysis: Strictly speaking, the actual method starts with this second rule: Divide each difficulty into as many parts as possible and in as many as required for its best solution. They represent the last gasp of the first analysis and synthesis.
- 3rd. Synthesis: Once the division of the difficulties into as many parts as possible allows us to achieve the simple natures, the third rule applies the method, which advises us to lead orderly thought. The second and third precept is at the core of the method.
- 4th. Enumeration: But to be sure of all the reasons, you have to have it on each of the links or steps.
Methodical Doubt
Rationalism understanding must find in itself core truths from which it is possible to deduce the whole edifice of our knowledge. Radicality of doubt: doubt everything possible, except that we doubt. Reasons: The senses often deceive us, and it is never wise to be wary of those who have once deceived us.