Good afternoon all, we will be presenting on topic 12 according to which we need to

review any one section of ‘meditations’, by rene Descartes. We will begin talking
about him and his ideas, and then move on to the explanation of section 4 of
mediations- truth and falsity. We will also be talking about our own interpretations of
his philosophies and we would love to discuss about it with you all after our
presentation.

Rene Descartes, also known as the Father of ‘modern philosophy’ was a

mathematician and a natural philosopher. So as a mathematician he has been working
on facts and logic all his life. But, He thought that the universal and Scholastics’
methods were prone to doubt due to their reliance on ‘sensation’ as the source for all
knowledge. So, he wanted to replace such scientific explanations with the more
modern and mechanistic model. He tried to approach the issue using the ‘doubt’ or’
skeptical’ method, which basically meant consider any belief that falls prey to even
the slightest doubt as false. He uses a systematic procedure of rejecting all types of
belief in which one has ever been, or could ever be, deceived as -false. Having a
doubtful and skeptical approach in life made him search for the truth, which is
something beyond all doubts.
(1 min)

Coming to section 4 now. He declares any kind of beliefs from ‘sensory’ experience
as untrustworthy, because such experience is sometimes misleading, so he diverts his
mind to the search about truth through human mind, and the god. Descartes denied
that the senses reveal the natures of substances. In order to procure the fundamental
truths of metaphysics, we must “withdraw the mind from the senses and turn toward
our ‘innate’ ideas of the essences of things, including the essences of mind, matter,
and an infinite being (God).while reading this, I thought that This may imply that the
author avoids reasoning in a circle when he says that we are sure that what we clearly
and distinctly perceive is true only because God exists. But what needs to be figured
out here is wether any of it what he thinks is true, is actually the reality? He believes
in the existence of the self and intellect and thus, reaches a conclusion that that god
exists- and that every moment of a person’s existence depends on god. Descartes also
tries to consider that sensory ideas might not misrepresentations, they might simply so
obscure and confused that we cannot tell what their representational content might be
by considering their experienced character, such as the phenomenal character of cold
or of colour. It might confuse us, and hence it cannot be trusted.
(2 mins)

He says that having doubts leads to the fact that he is incomplete and dependent which
makes him wonder about who must be the opposite- complete and independent? Well,
he considers that to be god. he then considers god as a frame through which he can
gain knowledge of the self and everything in the universe. He states that god would
never deceive him or his senses, as it is a sign of weakness- not to be found in god.
This means that God cannot be the cause of human error, since he did not create
humans with a faculty for generating them, so does that mean that humans are the
cause of their own errors when they do not use their faculty of judgment correctly.
This really made wonder the extents to which Descartes had thought or introspected
about human errors. Second, God’s non-deceiving nature also makes all clear and
distinct ideas the truth. So God would be a deceiver, if such clear and distinct idea that
was false, since the mind cannot help but believe them to be true .by this he implies
that knowledge of God’s existence is required for having any absolutely certain
knowledge. But again, it makes us question- Does it mean that atheists, who are
ignorant of God’s existence, cannot have absolutely certain knowledge of any kind,
including scientific knowledge.?

(3 mins)

Next page please

He moves on to say that the faculty of judgement was given to humans by god, and so
with faith in the supreme and powerful god, he says since god does not want deceive
humans, he cannot make errors if he is using his judgement correctly. This logic of his
must imply that we can never be wrong or be in error. But he also says that by
experience we all know that we have made mistakes and have been wrong. Then he
goes on to find the reason for his errors- which is according to him, the positive idea
of god and negative idea of nothingness. So he realizes that humans lie somewhere in
middle of being both of those things, in between being supreme and a non- being and
in between being perfect and furthest from all perfection. So he concludes that we
make mistakes, not because we are non-beings or imperfect, but because we ourselves
are NOT completely the supreme- god. And that we do lack perfections. So, the
faculty of true judgement also and partly involves nothingness. He uses the term
‘negation’ to justify that all that we lack- which is something that there might have
been no reason for us to possess it, like being able to fly, or calculate high numbers.
But error is different, as it is the lack of knowledge that we MUST have. His idea
about error and negation is intriguing actually, to understand how he tried to come up
with answers to the questions he had been asking himself.
(4 mins)

He mentions how with the power vested in god, he could have created man as perfect,
complete and righteous in every way, but I do make mistakes he says, then maybe
making mistakes is better than not doing so. Since God has set up the system of mind–
body union, shouldn't God be held accountable for the fact that the senses can
misrepresent how things are? He points out that God was working with the finite
mechanisms of the human body, and he suggests that God did the best that could be
done given the type of parts needed to constitute such a machine. But if it still makes
mistakes, maybe it is supposed to be like that.

He concludes with his final understanding about how god actually functions and about
human errors under three points-
1. Mere Doubts about why god acts the way he does or about his purposes, is not
enough justification to question his overall existence. He confesses that our
nature is limited and week whereas god is infinite and immense. So only a rash
man would even think to have the ability to discover what god’s impenetrable
purposes are. Here, I thought it was a bit extreme for him to so firmly believe
and justify everything with reference to god.

2. Judgement of one’s perfection must be made with reference to the rest of the
world and not just oneself. The universe as a whole must be taken into
consideration while analyzing the perfections and imperfections of anything
and everything, as we coexist. Something that might be useless alone, may
have a significant role to play in the context of universe as a whole. I think This
idea of his was more on the practical side of the entire philosophy.

3. Error can have two cooperating causes, he believes - the faculty of knowledge-
intellect and the faculty of choice- the will. Here Descartes observes that the
intellect is finite and that humans do not know everything, and so their
understanding of things is limited. But the will or faculty of choice is
seemingly infinite in that it can be applied to just about anything whatsoever.
So, The finitude of the intellect along with this seeming infinitude of the will is
the source of human error.
(5 mis)