Last Friday we had our second debate of the year: Descartes vs. Hume. The primary difference between these two philosophers is their views on how we gain knowledge and achieve truth. Descartes tried to rationalize his way to absolute truths, which he believed existed. Hume however, relied on his senses and their perceptions to achieve temporary truths. He did not believe in absolute truths and only believed in the things of the past and present that he had experienced personally. I was one of the students representing Hume in the debate.
One of the main questions we had to address was their views on God. As Mr. Summers pointed out yesterday, I did a good job defending Hume's views, but lacked in attacking Descartes enough during my argument. For this reason, Hume only got four points from my response to the question, whereas Descartes got three...too close! I think that while I could easily write about improvements to be made on Hume's side, I want to act as though I was Descartes arguing against myself. Descartes' theory of doubt prevents him from believing in the things he observes and yet he believes in an idea that he theorized himself about a perfect entity, claiming that if he can imagine the perfect being, then it must exist. I think you could argue that this is true by pointing to the complexity of our minds and thinking that our idea of a creator must be innate. Obviously, Descartes in relying somewhat on faith, because his line of thinking that leads him to the conclusion that God exists does not bode well with the rest of his philosophy. This is a really difficult point to argue, but essentially, if our minds are capable of grasping the idea of something then it must exist, because everything works like that. For example, we can conceive a baby and it exists...this works for everything, so it should work for a God too. The argument breaks down however when we consider that the only reason we can "justify" the other things we rationalize in our minds is because we can sense them as well. Perhaps Descartes could have argued well that a God must exist simply because it does not make sense that if we exist because we think, and the world does not think, then we could not come from it, and so, we must have come from some higher being or existence.
I'm still confused about this point. Descartes had a very weak argument on this topic and has absolutely zero evidence to prove his view, so I still need to think about how I would have argued this... thanks -j
One of the main questions we had to address was their views on God. As Mr. Summers pointed out yesterday, I did a good job defending Hume's views, but lacked in attacking Descartes enough during my argument. For this reason, Hume only got four points from my response to the question, whereas Descartes got three...too close! I think that while I could easily write about improvements to be made on Hume's side, I want to act as though I was Descartes arguing against myself. Descartes' theory of doubt prevents him from believing in the things he observes and yet he believes in an idea that he theorized himself about a perfect entity, claiming that if he can imagine the perfect being, then it must exist. I think you could argue that this is true by pointing to the complexity of our minds and thinking that our idea of a creator must be innate. Obviously, Descartes in relying somewhat on faith, because his line of thinking that leads him to the conclusion that God exists does not bode well with the rest of his philosophy. This is a really difficult point to argue, but essentially, if our minds are capable of grasping the idea of something then it must exist, because everything works like that. For example, we can conceive a baby and it exists...this works for everything, so it should work for a God too. The argument breaks down however when we consider that the only reason we can "justify" the other things we rationalize in our minds is because we can sense them as well. Perhaps Descartes could have argued well that a God must exist simply because it does not make sense that if we exist because we think, and the world does not think, then we could not come from it, and so, we must have come from some higher being or existence.
I'm still confused about this point. Descartes had a very weak argument on this topic and has absolutely zero evidence to prove his view, so I still need to think about how I would have argued this... thanks -j
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