The Ontological Argument Reconsidered

Philosophical Studies

Descartes used the cogito to make two points: the epistemological point that introspection affords us absolute certainty of our existence, and the metaphysical point that subjects are thinking things logically distinct from bodies. Most philosophers accept Descartes's epistemological claim but reject his metaphysical claim. I argue that we cannot do this: if the cogito works, then subjects are non-physical. Although I refrain from endorsing an argument for dualism based on this conditional, I discuss how such an argument would differ from the conceivability arguments pursued by Descartes in the Sixth Meditation and by contemporary philosophers. Unlike those arguments, this argument would not be refuted by the discovery of a posteriori identities between physical and phenomenological properties. In other words, it is possible to argue for substance dualism even if phenomenal properties are physical properties.

The Ontological Argument (henceforth OA) remains a matter of lively discussion. Under the form of a rational proof of God's existence, the discussion is about the relations between essence and existence, between subjective thought and objective reality, and between analytic and synthetic judgments. The rationalistic OA asserts that essence determines existence. Its empiricist opponents assert that existence cannot be deduced from thought, and that existence can only be verified through experience. However, both defenders and opponents of the OA made the error of disconnecting the objective existence of God from subjective thought about Him. 1 We will try to find a way out of this traditional impasse by applying a new analytical approach. Basically, we propose to demonstrate two interconnected theses: We will try to show two interconnected issues: A) That, in the course of its historical development, the OA did not manage to refute empiricist critiques, despite the fact that it became more objective (that is, freed itself from the subject that thinks about God). B) That God exists objectively for the believer, and that His existence is only partial, since it is not a datum of sense-perception. A full existence needs two sources: an idea and a sense experience.

In the paper I tackle a long-discussed paragraph of Descartes’s Meditations on First Philosophy, considering the knowledge of God. There is an infamous passage in the Third Meditation, where Descartes states: “For if I do not know [the existence of God], it seems that I can never be quite certain about anything else”. (AT VII, 36; CSM II, 25. Emphasis added.) This rather short quote has provided quite a bit of puzzlement for scholars, mainly because it seems to be in tension with the famous cogito-paragraph of the same text: “So after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind”. (AT VII 25; CSM II, 17. Emphasis in the original.) If one can never be certain about anything before pertaining knowledge of God, how can one know his own existence? Put in other words, can an Atheist be certain that he exists? I examine this question on Atheist’s existence and what Descartes sees as the advantage point given by the knowledge of God. Even though the topic of Atheistic knowledge has seen its fair amount of discussion in the literature, it has almost only dealt with Atheist’s certainty of mathematics. Thus, the more interesting question of Atheist’s existence has been bypassed. I illuminate this matter by drawing from the discussion on ‘Atheist Mathematician’ in the Second Objections and Replies and by discussing the differences between Cartesian mathematical knowledge and self-knowledge. In the end, I challenge the long held cogito-foundationalist -reading of Descartes, in which the knowledge of ‘I exist’ is the first full and absolute philosophical certainty. I claim that even if knowledge of the self for Descartes is in some sense certain, it cannot yet be the starting point for lasting and stable science.

Philosophical Forum, 2010

Judging by the unabated publications,2 Woodruff Smith is certainly correct to observe “There is something dead right, and very much alive, about the cogito.” Of course, what exactly is “dead right” about it remains controversial. Recently, David Cunning4 suggests that the familiar passages in which Descartes insists on the indubitability of his existence “present an intractable problem of interpretation” since there are other texts in which he seems to allow that “I am, I exist” is open to doubt. Cunning notes “Some commentators have argued that in the light of these passages there is no coherent account to be reconstructed of Descartes’ view on the dubitability of “I am, I exist.” However, the text cited by Cunning in the Third Meditation6 expresses Descartes’s unshakeable certainty even in the face of an omnipotent deceiver, for “he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I continue to think I am something.” Of course, this is consistent with Descartes’s account of his certainty in the Second Meditation despite the efforts of the malin génie. Above all, the device of the deceiving demon is intrinsic to the Cogito argument as the very vehicle for establishing the indubitability of Descartes’s own thought and existence. Cunning’s discussion is surprising for failing entirely to mention the Cogito argument that is generally thought to be the locus of Descartes’s certainty. In particular, Cunning’s view that Descartes holds his existence to be “just as dubitable as anything else”7 only appears plausible if we fail to appreciate the special force of the reasoning of the Cogito. Accordingly, I propose to consider how Descartes’s indubitability may be understood in terms of the special, notoriously problematic features of the Cogito argument. Above all, my reconstruction of the logic of the Cogito as a “diagonal deduction”8 permits reconciling what Howell9 describes as “the two apparently conflicting theses,” namely, the peculiar Humean elusiveness of the self and the Cartesian certainty of cogito judgments.

This paper presents a reading of Descartes' Meditations as a work on philosophical logic akin with and comparable to Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. What Descartes "isolates" in the Cogito is thought. I believe this reading of Descartes' is sound and correct and makes best sense of Descartes' work, and that reading the two works side by side help to clarify perceived problems in both.

Journal of philosophical Investigations , 2023

Asking from the truth of Cogito as the basis of knowledge, this paper tries to analyze all possible answers in Descartes' philosophy. Inductively, four possible answers are open to consideration: either Cogito is true 1) based on argumentation, 2) because it is clear and distinct, 3) because of being innate, or, lastly, 4) because of intuition. All of these explanations either entail accepting some prior knowledge to Cogito or fall in a vicious circle. A proper way to explain Cogito's truth is a new perspective to the meaning of intuition in Descartes' philosophy. Through this perspective Cogito is a presential experience. Lack of any gap, separation, and disjunction in this presential experience is the reason for the truth of Cogito because this lack is the lack of error's cause.

2018

The philosophers and researchers throughout the world have read Rene Descartes and are aware of the famous phrase which Descartes wrote in his Discourse on the Method. I doubt, therefore I think, I am became the pledge and core of the Cartesian revolution. The principle gives us the change of doubting the phenomenon occurring, it makes us sceptic and thus we inquire. In the process of our investigations we reach to a conclusion declaring it to be a truth in itself. We often say-I went into the depth of the matter to know what it was. Before we could say, Descartes himself addresses the issue in The Search for Truth. It is necessary to know what doubt is, so that we can be fully persuaded for reasoning. Cartesian Doubt also has a special place in the philosophy of mind and History of Ideas. In the philosophy of mind, he doubts its nature and in the history of ideas he has a pyrrhonic doubt for studying history. These doubts, though sceptic and inquiring nature come to a conclusion which may or may not be subjective. The conclusions can be egocentric and thus I ask, whether they gave way to an egoistic view towards the world? If yes, then what is the nature of it? Who are the major critiques of Cogito? If not, then what is the truth?