Posted by duble up on December 01, 19101 at 20:37:15:

In Reply to: Re: lol posted by lol on December 01, 19101 at 20:27:52:

The Philosophy of Existence

The pinnacle drive that is inert in man is to attain a higher cognitive plateau, be it through scientific endeavors, humanitarian ventures or personal pilgrimages in search of enlightenment. Alone, this statement may seem ambiguous, however this zeal has evolved into the thoughts of many of Europe’s shapers and thinkers. The affirmation of power, wealth, progeny and other material possessions manipulate with the pcracksage of time, however to take the stance in affirming an object, would mean to establish its existence, universally, not in accordance with current norms or biases, but to forever leave its mark. The affirmation of God, the Self or nothing and its degree of variability has played a pivotal role in the works produced by Descartes, Montaigne and Pascal, texts, which appraised and rebuked the logic and understanding of the previous text and ideology. As the fundamental aim of all three philosophers was, search for the meaning of certainty and its possible existence in reality.
Rene Descartes in Discourse on Method attempts to qualify certainty with the quantity known as Man, and then proceeds to cracksert a justified and necessary certainty to God. “…If there are men who have not yet been sufficiently persuaded of the existence of god and their soul by means of the reasons I have brought forward, I would very much like them to know that all the other things that thought perhaps to be more certain – such as having a body, there being stars and an earth and the like – are less certain…. Let the best minds study this as much a they please, I do not believe they can give any reason that would suffice to remove this doubt (concerning the lack of certainty) were thy not to presuppose the existence of God. For first of all, even that I have already taken for a rule – namely that all things we very clearly and very distinctly conceive are true – is certain only because God is or exists, and is a perfect being, and because all that is in us comes from him. (Descartes, Discourse on method, IV, pp. 20-21)” It is from this sentence that Descartes sums up his ground breaking discovery. That 1: The actual existence of himself, 2: The deduced existence of God and 3: the interaction with the gift of God “all that is in us comes from him”. As a way to combat scholastic philosophy, where scholastic philosophy was a rigid reliance on authority- namely the church, Descartes used the authority of reason to compel a new brand of thinking, not to attack the church but to chance it. It was for this reason that he introduced systematic doubt- how far can one push skepticism, is there any truth that is absolute certain? By this process of elimination, he attacked common sense and scholastic philosophy. His aim was not to show to the reader that he was intending to prove a thing, object or ideal false, but uncertain. By seeking an absolute base as to which cannot be disputed, Descartes arrives to Cogito, ergo, sum…I think therefore I am. What is true when everything is disregarded, including ones senses, coming to the reality that the mind exists because the thinks, therefore making the mind exist. After Descartes has perceived this truth he brings fourth the notion that– God as the only true cause of his existence. Now with the stage set, he proceeds to the basis of proving the existence of God as he lays down the proposition, I think therefore I am, as the fundamental principle. The third principle that Descartes leaves us with is in the quote above is his theory of innate ideas- again “…God is or exists, and is a perfect being, and is a perfect being, and because all that is in us comes from him. (Descartes p.21)”. such a pcracksage or this sort gives the hint of Descartes touching upon a number of innate ideas implanted in the mind by nature or what we learn later is done by God. That knowledge and clear and distinct ideas are innate. Since it is now established how the theory of “Cogito, ergo, sum” was reached, now the explanation of Descartes methods of reaching the proof of the existence of God is produced. To pause for a moment and cracksyze the situation that Descartes has placed himself in is to seek the question why did Descartes go about proving his existence before that of God, it is to say that his existence is more grounded than that of God? If that question is looming in the mind, I feel that the only explanation that I may be able to give is that: Descartes took this route of establishing his existence before that of God’s is because he must have been evidently aware that there were atheists who would deny the existence of God. However, they would not and could not deny their existence because they were thinking beings because the notion of “I doubt that I exist” is a contradiction.

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