MEDITACIONES METAFISICAS DE

The book consists of six meditations representing six days in which Descartes rejects any belief that is not absolutely true and then try to establish what can be known for sure. The part chosen for selectivity is the third meditation called " From God, who exists " and which , I have chosen the following fragments as more

representative .

The first phase of the method, evidence ( not admitting anything that we can have any doubt) or application of methodical doubt , allows us to put on hold our judgments about the existence and the material reality through three arguments that are suggested in this text :

• Fallacy of the senses

• Indistinction between wakefulness and sleep

• Hypothesis evil genius .

It results in clear and distinct acceptance ( criteria of truth ) through the intuition of the existence of thinking substance , first discovered reality ( subjectivity ) . From here the problem for our author will like to find out if there are more realities than the own thinking . To analyze this (2nd phase of the method) the first substance and distinguish what are the ideas ( representations ) and their types ( adventitious , factitious and innate ) .

You can also identify , first, the error of considering the natural attitude ( believe there is a world outside my printing your images ) as correct and considered a blind impulse . Second, it establishes another way to know if there is something other than the own thinking : for it distinguishes between material reality of ideas ( ways of thinking ) and objective reality of ideas ( what they represent) finally resorting to the argument of causality : must have as much reality in the cause as in the effect because if it were not so I could not build it. Will this argument which allows deductively discover a different reality to think.

It also applies the causality argument to ideas , so that the cause of an idea must have as much reality in reality act as objective that represents the idea because if not, it could generate . With what we have to do is to consider the kinds of ideas we have ( adventitious , fictitious and innate ) and ask for their cause to ascertain that may have caused the own thinking or not. If we find something then we can deduce that we are not alone in the world and there is something more .

In this fragment is checked whether the idea of God we have been able to generate ourselves, if not, and as the cause must have as much reality in act or more than what is the idea, then it will mean that God necessarily exists.

This is the deduction through causality argument a second reality , the answer infinite or God. From this discovery and demonstrate that it can not be bad , invalidated the hypothesis of the evil genius and certainly restoring what questioned the hypothesis , namely , the objective qualities

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