Descartes: I Think, Therefore...
1641 AD
1641 1641
04.45E51.50N
MISC

NETHERLANDS
	In his investigation of reality, the mathematician-philosopher Ren‚ Descartes decided his first step would be to discover some fact that was indisputable. And in this he almost certainly succeeded.
	In his classic "Meditations on First Philosophy" (1641) he says that in thinking about the problem, he realized that there was one thing he never doubted -- that he existed. "I think," he wrote, "therefore I am."
	It didn't matter to Descartes whether this thinking was part of a dream or a hallucination or even if he was crazy. The fact that thought was going on proved that he existed because there had to be a thinker, though that thinker might be a disembodied intelligence.
	Having established that he existed, Descartes advanced his arguments for the existence of God.
	The first of these was that he had the idea of a Perfect Being in his imperfect mind. But he reasoned that an imperfect mind couldn't come up with the idea of a Perfect Being, so there must actually be a Perfect Being (God) who gave him the idea.
	The second argument was this: If God is perfect -- as we imagine Him to be -- then He must exist because if he didn't exist He wouldn't be perfect. (If this argument strikes you as a bit strange, you are not alone. Most philosophers regard it as more of a play on words than as a philosophical proof.)
	From his conclusion that a perfect God exists, Descartes argues that God would not deceive his created beings, so the things we experience around us must also be real.
	While other philosophers had argued that God exists by saying the universe must have a first cause, a creator, Descartes took the argument the other way. The world must exist, he argued, because God exists.
	While few people doubt Descartes proof of self-existence, the rest of his argument is disputed. Descartes argued in favor of the existence of God on the basis of ideas in his mind, but many philosophers don't see that having ideas about God is the same thing as God actually existing.