AQA A LEVEL PHILOSOPHY Essay Plans - EPISTEMOLOGY
A* Level Essay Plans which are concise and easy to understand.
Written by a student predicted 4A*, with an offer to study Philosophy & Economics at the LSE.
Very helpful to write a top grade essay.
Essay Plan: To what extent is Descartes’ intuition and deduction thesis
successful?
Introduction:
- Descartes’ ID tries to prove the existence of the external world, a synthetic
truth, a priori (independent of experience).
- Descartes firstly proves that I exist, then deduces that God exists, and
then deduces the external world exists (deduction is where the premises
guarantee the conclusion).
- Thesis: Will argue that the ID fails, objections to cogito from Hume,
objections to God from Hume’s Fork, fatal objection to existence of the
external world from Cartesian Circle.
Outline:
- Cogito: I exist. Descartes says, “I think, therefore I am”. The mere fact that
we are thinking suggests, according to Descartes, that we must exist. It
cannot be false.
- This is known through rational intuition – define – non-inferential
indubitable knowledge – self evident.
- Descartes also talks about clear and distinct ideas: define each and show
how he has a clear and distinct idea that “I exist”.
- Clear: open and present to the attending mind. Distinct: certainly
separable from other ideas; in itself is only the clear idea.
- This is an indubitable true belief, discovered by reasoning alone.
- God exists. Descartes argues for this using the trademark argument (and
cosmological will be explained in more depth). Causal adequacy principle -
the cause of something has to have at least as much reality as the effect.
- We are imperfect and finite; God is supremely perfect and infinite. We
cannot use concepts we experience to describe God because everything
we know is imperfect.
- Therefore, we haven’t created the concept of a perfect being.
- This concept derives from God himself. The fact that we even mention
perfect concepts suggests God exists.
- Physics example: 10J can’t turn into 20J.
- Descartes also uses the cosmological argument – talking about sustained
existence (e.g., like what causes Oxygen to keep us alive).
- Everything has a cause.
- I am not the cause of my sustained existence, otherwise I’d have all
perfections.
- My parents aren’t because of infinite regression, something can’t come
from nothing.
- So the thing that caused me is a self-caused perfect being.
- The external world exists.
- Our perception indicates that the external world exists, and an
omnibenevolent, perfect being wouldn’t deceive us. So the external world
does exist.
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