Descartes ontological

Question 1

Descartes

Answer 1

Rejected scholasticism - the aristoliean ida that propostions are subjects and prediactes that assert something true or false

– Instead sees how knowledge is derived by intuition

Descartes did put it into the form of a deductive argument:

P1 – I have an idea of a supremely perfect being which contains all perfections
P2 – Existence is a perfection
C3 – God exists

Strong as Descartes’ rejection of Aristotelian subject-predicate analysis means he can’t be accused of inferring God’s existence by assuming that existence is a predicate of God.

Question 2

Gaunilos island

Answer 2

Gaunilo illustrates this with the case of a perfect lost island, an illustration of a thing whose real existence is ‘uncertain and doubtful’ yet exists in his understanding as a concept.

-see how island existing in mind doesn’t mean it exists in reality

Weak as – nothing has been proved, nobody showed the island to exist in the first place

Question 3

Malcom’s defense - Perfection entails neccessity

Answer 3

Defense – Malcom – its incoherent to say necessary concept of god exists, yet possibly doesn’t exist

See how island doesn’t exist in reality because it is contingent in nature

Its definition relies on external ideas – land and sea

So necessity isnt entailed in definition even if it is perfect

However god is necessary – so cannot not exist

-definition of god doesn’t rely on anything else

Question 4

Eval 1

Answer 4

Descartes sees god neccessarily exists because of perfection

Gaunilo - fails to distingusih between logical and ontological neccesity

Question 5

Kant’s empircisim - Existecne is not a perfection

Question 6

Gaunilo - Undertsnign of god is subjective, part of unique sense experience

Question 7

What is to say that senses are the arbiters of existence

Question 8

Eval 2

Answer 8

Empircist world view is more widely accpeted then Descartes Platonist approach