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Descartes to Berkeley

Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy regards Knowledge, identity, the

subconscious relationship to the body, substance, causation, perception, concepts, and the

existence of God. Descartes' views are called into doubt. He can't trust anything if everything he

knows is false. Then he thinks of being fooled by a monster. He reasoned that if the devil would

trick him, he could not trust anything. Falling asleep, he cannot inform if he's dreaming.

Descartes explores his knowledge to establish certainties. He reasoned that even a nasty demon

attempting to deceive him had to be authentic. He knows that he exists. He kept himself alive to

fantasize, even if it was a dream. Descartes' thinking is built on this foundation. First, he

establishes the existence of God. He reasoned that he had to be doing something. He'd always be

there if he made himself. God exists because he was created by someone other than himself.

Descartes is an analytic thinker. Descartes, in Meditation 1, presents the beginnings of the

illustrations for his skeptical reasoning. Descartes' primary tactic in dealing with this kind of

uncertainty is to demonstrate the fallacy of skepticism. From the outset, the validity of all

evidence, from sensory data to the very act of thinking itself, is questioned. Any fact that can

stand up to skepticism must be undeniably actual (Wilson and Kant. 12). In this first

Concentration, I am practicing doubting my previous assumptions. Using three concrete

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proposals distortions, the dream issue, and a deceptive God—Descartes starts to question what

he formerly believed about the outer world.

In the first meditation, Descartes begins by expressing regret that he was misled by so

many misconceptions during his life. To ensure that scientific investigation always produces

correct findings instead of deceptive ones, he set out now to devise a strategy.. His technique for

avoiding erroneous ideas is constantly questioning the integrity of everything he thinks he

knows. Because his senses have tricked him in the past, he assumes they will do so again. He

concludes that to discover information that is not wrong, it must be discarded if it has ever been

shown to be false, even once. He realizes how if he had been fantasizing, many more of his

beliefs might have been false. For example, if he were having a dream of strolling, his belief as

"he was strolling" would be false. (Adams 20). Since he has no way of knowing whether he is

dreaming or awake, he should not put too much stock in the information provided by his sense.

Even with things that appear true to him in his waking life or dreams, such as the statement

"bachelors are single," he acknowledges that he may be incorrect. However, it is conceivable that

an evil genius or God tricks him, and he has no way of proving this is not the case. Descartes

also dismisses these ideas because he wants to rid himself of the possibility that he is erroneous.

Yet, Descartes is persuaded to abandon his pursuit of knowledge after Meditation 1 since the

sciences depend on preconceptions about the physical world and mathematics.

In his Second Meditation, Descartes tries to Doubt everything he believes in. He starts

with the idea that the senses can deceive us and that there is no guarantee that what we see is

true. He then says that we cannot even trust our memories because they could have been

tampered with, or we could be dreaming (Pearce 20). Descartes ends his doubts by realizing that

there are things he cannot doubt. He cannot doubt that he exists because he would have to live to

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examine. He also cannot challenge his thoughts because to do so would require him to think.

Descartes has an intellectual revelation when he realizes he knows for sure that "I am, alive, is

inevitably true every time as I utter it, or that I intellectually perceive it."

Simply put, Descartes knows that he is confirmed as long as he thinks. Even if a wicked

demon or God were to trick him in his dreams, this would still be the case. Even if one's ideas

are contained inside a lie, the thoughts themselves and the person thinking them are real. This is

the Uncertainty principle from the Meditations. Descartes knows he exists, but what could he

really be? He can conceptualize existence apart from a body, but not mind or understanding. This

means he is a thinking being, capable of reasoning, questioning, confirming, rejecting, wanting,

envisioning, and feeling. This leads Descartes to conclude that he is primarily a mental being

rather than a physical one. If Meditation 1 casts a net of uncertainty, how does the Cogito get out

of it? Descartes argues that, since the contents of his states of mind are obvious to him, he is

capable of making reliable judgments of them. Regardless of whether this "visibility" of states of

mind is true, how well does someone understand there is one object that serves as the subject of

all of his opinions? In a famously provocative passage (Grzeliski and agosz.10), Descartes asks,

"Am I not a person who already doubts almost everything yet knows anything, which confirms

that this one fact is true?" He does not directly answer, but rather implies that he is eternal.

In the third belief, Descartes is aware that he has thoughts since he is a thinking thing.

One of these concepts, he realizes, is that of God, a being who is everlasting, infinite, all-

knowing, all-powerful, all-good, and the one responsible for creating everything. Where did he

obtain the notion that God is flawless, though? Was it his idea? Did you hear it from anybody

else? No. Only God could have given him such a concept of God. For Descartes, an explanation

for an effect's existence must be at least as genuine or perfect as the cause. Yet, compared to his

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self-conception or any other concept, the concept of God stands for something much more

genuine and flawless. Then God is the only reasonable explanation. This means God does exist.

Descartes uses this line of reasoning to justify his belief in a god. But God may be a liar, as God

may have deceived Descartes into believing many untrue things. It's feasible for such to happen.

Therefore, how can Descartes be confident that any of his ideas, other than the belief in his

presence, is reliable? Descartes "clearly and definitely" saw in the instance of the Cogito that to

think, one must exist. But how does he know that what he's seeing is accurate? When pressed for

an example, he claims to know that "pieces have three sides," yet this statement begs the

question: how well does a kid know this if a demon is tricking him? He has come to understand

that an all-good entity cannot fool him or give an evil demon the freedom to do so if he

"obviously and unmistakably" believes something is true (Grzeliński and Łagosz.7). Plus, he's

just established the existence of God. He knows that his "clear and held" beliefs are always

correct.

Conclusively Descartes doubts everything. If everything he knows is wrong, he can't

believe anything. He wonders whether a demon is deceiving him. If the devil is lying to him, he

can't trust anything. He finally contemplates dreaming. If he's dreaming, he can't trust what he

knows. Descartes doubts all he knows and searches for truth. Even if a demon is deceiving him,

something must be honest. His only certainty is that he exists (Nelson N.p). Even if he's

dreaming, he must live to dream. Descartes builds on this information. He confirms God's

existence. If he exists, there must be a cause. He can't be his cause, or he'd constantly exist.

Therefore, God caused his existence.Descartes demonstrates he's intelligent. If he exists, he must

be intelligent. Unless he thinks he doesn't exist. He must be intelligent. Descartes proves the

physical universe from these two premises. If he has a mind, he must be a thinker. Thinking

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things require bodies to think. The physical world exists. Descartes confirms his body's

existence. In my opinion, Descartes fails in doubting all his beliefs. He may be able to challenge

the validity of his senses and memories, but there are some things that he cannot doubt. For

example, he cannot doubt that he exists because, in order to do so, he would have to exist.

Work cited

Adams, George P. "Berkeley And Kant." The Real in the Ideal. Rout ledge, 2019. 13-31.

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Grzeliński, A., and M. Łagosz. "The animal-machine concept in Descartes and Berkeley. The

attempt at comparison." Вісник Національного авіаційного університету. Філософія.

Культурологія 1 (2019): 5-10.

Nelson, Alan. "Berkeley and Descartes." (2022).

Pearce, Kenneth L. "What Descartes Doubted, Berkeley Denied, and Kant Endorsed." Dialogue:

Canadian Philosophical Review/Revue canadienne de philosophie 58.1 (2019): 31-63.

Wilson, Margaret D., and Berkeley Kant. "The ‘Phenomenalisms’ of Berkeley and Kant." The

Real in the Ideal. Routledge, 2019. 13-31.

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