An essay plan answering 'Is Descartes Intuition and Deducation Thesis convincing'.
It is designed for the AQA Philosophy A-Level 25 Marks. All essays are Band 5 and above.
The essays largely follow the recommended RICE (Reason, Issue, Counterexample and Evaluation).
Introduction, Statement of...
Is Descartes Intuition and Deduction
Thesis Convincing?
Statement of Intent: Descartes Intuition and Deduction Thesis is not convincing at all. Firstly because the
concept of God is not innate. Secondly because Descartes notion of clear and distinct ideas is
unconvincing and lastly the most crucial objection is the problem of personal identity in the cogito
argument
RICE 1:
R: The first but not as crucial objection to Descartes Intuition and Deduction thesis is the empiricist
arguments in which whilst Descartes claims his arguments are a priori many of his concepts require
experience an example being the concept of God. Descartes begins the Trademark argument with the
idea of God who is supremely perfect and infinite and the cause of this concept is God. The concept of
God is not innate but can be created by our minds. We start by imagining finite human qualities like
goodness and imagine what they were like without limit by abstractly negating finitude/imperfection to
create the concept not-finite/not-perfect, which is the concept infinite/perfect. We then combine
goodness and infinite/perfect to imagine God’s omnibenevolence, and so too with God’s other attributes.
I: Recognizing something as imperfect initially presupposes that you have the idea of perfect. That goes
against the order of Hume’s claim however, that we deduced perfection from imperfection.
C: The concept of perfection is merely a subjective preference for order over chaos since that typically
enables survival which we have evolved to desire. It’s hard to see what objective basis there could be for
perfection, but in that case the concept of God is only subjectively perfect which would not then place
any constraints on its causal adequacy. Furthermore we can argue that concepts such as infinity and
perfection requires experience of time and perfection first and therefore it is not rational and requires
experience. Statements about time and perfection are synthetic truths about the nature of the world and
can’t be a priori under Hume’s Fork etc.
E: So we have asserted that God cannot be innate unlike what Descartes has suggested and therefore the
Trademark argument fails. If it fails then we don’t have God whom we use to trust our clear and distinct
ideas and we trust our judgements because God wouldn’t deceive me. Alot of Descartes argument hinges
on the idea of a supremely perfect being who wouldn't deceive us, such as proof of the external world
and thus this objection is crucial in which it destroys all other arguments. Not only this not limited to only
God which required experienced to be conceived, considering the cogito argument, to think, to doubt
requires experience? How do we know we are doubting? We should be doubting our doubt. In reality, if
Descartes was to truly execute what he set out to do and doubt nearly everything including his ability to
doubt and so would be entirely incurable and no reasoning would bring to a state of assurance
RICE 2:
R: How can we trust our clear and distinct ideas? What if the evil demon has deceied you about whether a
statement is clear and distinct/self evident? If we can’t trust our clear and distinct ideas then we can’t
assert what is true. Clear and distinct ideas was an important implication of cogito in which he analysed
what made cogito so ig sure of and it was the fact that it was clear and distinct that must mean it is true.
I: Descartes would respond is that we can be assured that clear and distinct ideas are true because God is
supremely perfect who lacks no perfection and therefore would not deceive us (as that is a
weakness).Therefore we can trust our faculty of judgement so we can trust that clear and distinct ideas
are true
Is Descartes Intuition and Deduction Thesis Convincing? 1
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