Essay: Nature and how it teaches us

Sample Essay

Words 1,320

“Nevertheless I before received and admitted many things as wholly certain and manifest, which yet I afterward found to be doubtful. What, then, were…

those? They were the earth, the sky, the stars, and all the other objects which I was in the habit of perceiving by the senses.” After establishing that everything is doubtful and could be an illusion and that man exists because he thinks a question is raised. What happens to all the things that we previously thought existed? Descartes proposes that they were simply things that we were in the habit of perceiving through the senses. We think, therefore we are. To understand if the things other than us ore true and indubitable we must first establish that there is God. God is perfect and the devil is the opposite. If God creates perfect ness the devil/non-being convinces us of the doubt within everything. But to believe any theory and maintain that there is a God we must first prove that there is a God. (Meditation 3, section 3 – 4)

“Of my thoughts some are, as it were, images of things, and to these alone properly belongs the name IDEA” (Descartes, meditation 3, section 5) Descartes calls everything that we think and see ‘ideas’. He further explains that are three kinds of ideas: innate, adventitious, and imaginary. Anything that a person establishes comes from himself therefore it is innate. For example, the idea “I think, therefore I am” has been formed through analyzing ourselves and our surroundings. No one else came up with that idea, it comes from human nature, and therefore it is innate. Adventitious ideas come from what we see and hear and perceive through our mind such as the sun and the moon. On the other hand, there are other things such as mermaids that come from our imaginations. (Descartes, meditation 3, section 7) Through this reasoning and others Descartes explains that the idea of God is innate, it comes from within us.

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