Descartes Third Meditations

On the third meditation, Descartes attempts to prove the existence of God. In order to do this, it is important to believe that God doesn’t rely on anything else for his own existence; he simply has been and always has been and always will be. He is the first cause, same idea that leads to the well-known cosmological argument that is introduced throughout this meditation. For this, Descartes begs us to consider three things: 1) formal reality, 2) objective reality, and 3) the causal principle. Formal reality refers to the degree of reality something actually has. In simple terms, it could be said that an animal has a higher degree of formal reality than an inanimate object as it has a conscious awareness. At the same time, a human has a higher degree of formal reality due to an extended and more complex conscious awareness. Because of this, it is certain to say that ideas have the lowest degree of formal reality as they alone could not be and rely wholly on a …show more content…
However, this is clearly not the case with an infinite substance. Descartes immediately makes an effort to explain the reason of why this is the case, and how, in a bigger picture, it relates to the logic behind the cosmological argument. Descartes argues that the perception of that which is infinite relies plainly on “a negation of the finite” rather than a real understanding of such. Nevertheless, this does not imply that the infinite is fully incomprehensible. Descartes is able to see how the infinite, such as God, would have the highest degree of formal reality as the level of consciousness surpasses that of the human kind. Because of this, it is valid to conclude that the perception of God must be prior to the perception of oneself, referring once again to the causal