Osi finished reading Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy by René Descartes
I follow him in agreement further than I expected, approximately halfway through the Third Meditation, past "cogito ergo sum" and into ontology. One line of argument that's surprisingly interesting is the notion that ideas must come from -somewhere-; and if there is nothing in the world that corresponds to a god-like notion, and/or we were not created by some similar notion (and thus take on some of its attributes), where exactly could the notion come from? This is subtle and striking - I do agree that things must come from somewhere, and that careful examination of how we "have" this notion could be fruitful.
He then immediately loses me with the assertion that this implies the existence of a God, and I avidly disagree with the ontological notion later put forth in the Fifth Meditation that existence is a "perfection", and any being conceived as truly perfect must exist. I …
I follow him in agreement further than I expected, approximately halfway through the Third Meditation, past "cogito ergo sum" and into ontology. One line of argument that's surprisingly interesting is the notion that ideas must come from -somewhere-; and if there is nothing in the world that corresponds to a god-like notion, and/or we were not created by some similar notion (and thus take on some of its attributes), where exactly could the notion come from? This is subtle and striking - I do agree that things must come from somewhere, and that careful examination of how we "have" this notion could be fruitful.
He then immediately loses me with the assertion that this implies the existence of a God, and I avidly disagree with the ontological notion later put forth in the Fifth Meditation that existence is a "perfection", and any being conceived as truly perfect must exist. I think existence is totally neutral as a quality, and a perfect being can be easily imagined without that.
A very valuable inclusion in my edition is a selection from the Objections, advanced by some of Descartes' contemporaries. I've never heard of Pierre Gassendi (who writes the Fifth Objections), and will be seeking out some of his writings - he's very articulate and very harsh in his criticism.