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Argument For Defective Nature Doubt By Descartes

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In Descartes’ second meditation, he offers up an argument for Defective Nature Doubt that brings forth the idea that we can’t be certain of anything we perceive being actual and real (153). Descartes thinks that there is a possibility that we are constantly being deceived due to the fact that we don’t know, with perfect certainty, where our ideas originate from (154). He tries to describe a method in order to dispel this Defective Nature Doubt by giving an argument for the existence of God. I think that the argument he gives for the existence of God is valid, yet I find it to be unsound due to the fact that a few of his premises are can easily be doubted. In order to express this opinion, I will first provide explanations of the premises and …show more content…
The first conclusion that he comes to is that due to the five premises, God had to have been the entity that placed the ideas of God into Descartes’ mind (157). Through the five premises, Descartes casts out the idea of his thoughts of God coming from inside of himself, and he is able to pin the cause to a higher power (God). In short, Descartes argues that he is a thinking thing with an idea of God that could not in any way originated from himself due to his imperfect nature. After determining that God must have been the entity to put the ideas into his mind, Descartes’ finalizes his argument with one last conclusion; God must exist (157). After determining that there was no other way that the ideas of God could have came from anywhere else but God himself, Descartes was able to come to the conclusion that God …show more content…
His argument relies too much on people believing in his definition of God, and it also discredits the ability of humans to formulate ideas of a higher power. Both of these points provide too much doubt to the premises that they critique and thus lead to the conclusion that the argument is unsound. Despite the argument containing its fair share of flaws, the argument is still important. It offers food for thought about the existence of God, and it provides so many opportunities for debate and discussion on the existence of a higher

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