Descartes

Descartes In Meditations on First Philosophy, Rene’ Descartes discusses the existence of external objects, primarily in the First Meditation. Descartes doubts the existence of external objects based upon the idea that an ‘evil genius’ exists instead of an ideally good God. This ‘evil genius’ strives at deceiving Descartes. Descartes now assumes that all external objects- “the heavens, the air, the earth, colors, shapes, sounds”- are nothing more than hoaxes produced by the ‘evil genius’ and therefore do not exist. At the end of the First Meditation, thinking and perception remains certain because your own thinking and perception is the only thing you can believe because it exists in your mind and not in the external world, which can be altered by things such as the ‘evil genius’. In discussing the existence of external objects, Descartes must also include the existence of God. The existence of God is based upon the ‘ontological argument’. The ontological argument is that God is a “being than which none greater can be thought”. The meaning of the argument is that the concept of God is the greatest being who can be thought, and therefore He must exist. The counter argument is god, descartes, substance, existence, idea, exists, locke, perception, argument, world, know, exist, thing, external, physical, perceptions, because, evil, therefore, sense, problem, objects, first, berkeley, thought, thinking, nothing, hume, genius, continues, being, argues, upon, things, qualities