People refuse to accept that the Earth is round, they deny the germ theory of infectious disease, they think floride in their water is a mind control technique, they disagree about what the value of 1/0 should be, or if something can simultaneously both be and not-be in an unqualified sense. Rarely, if ever, do demonstrations in any sense "force" people to see the correctness of some view. — Count Timothy von Icarus

To place bread in front of someone who is hungry does not involve me in any "oughts", just "is's," and yet we know exactly what the person will do. The common person knows why: you ought to eat when you are hungry. — Leontiskos

I think that, like so much of Hume's thought, the Guillotine relies on question begging. Hume is a diagnostician, seeing what follows from the assumptions and prejudices of his era. But ask most people "why is it bad for you if I burn out your eyes, or if I burn out your sons eyes," and the responses will be something like:

"If you burn out my eyes it would be incredibly painful and then I would be blind, so of course it wouldn't be good."

The response: "ah ha! Look, you're tried to justify a value statement about goodness with facts!" and the idea that what is "good" doesn't relate to these facts is prima facie ridiculous here. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The choice I laid out was between Christ and Epicurus as an obvious counter-example from the ancient world of two ethical doctrines of thought which conflict. Both of them rely upon is-statements.

What this is meant to highlight is that just because you have some is-statements -- a "What is it for this kind of creature to be good?" -- that doesn't remove the conflict found in modern philosophy, from here:

I do think this is a problem modern ethics creates for itself. It tends to be more rules based (an after effect of the Reformation and theologies that precluded any strong role for human virtue). Even as the theology has crumbled, the structure has often remained. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Even if we switch from rules or consequences to the development of character due to the kind of creature we are there is still the question --

Why should one, in the general sense, do good is much harder for me to answer than why the good is attractive. — Moliere

"Because it's good for you", sure -- but which one?

It's easy to say that I'm an Epicurean because Epicurus is attractive to me. But it's much harder to generalize that to some general person.

I'd say that everyday people's reasoning about ethical matters is subtle, and recognizes the distinction between what is and what should be, and that the hungry person will agree that they eat the bread because they desire the bread rather than because the bread is there.

Actually, from the Epicurean point of view, it could be argued that the herd's ethical reasoning is too subtle -- what plagues people are these ideas which cause anxiety, and so the ideas must be removed so that the person can attend to the simple and obvious pleasures of life rather than fretting over what they have no control over.

I'm not particularly sure what you're expecting, someone to decide for you? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Oh no, nothing like that. I'm laying out how there's a choice at all -- so the move from modern ethics to ancient ethics doesn't get around the various trappings of modern ethics because we can still isolate different ways of thinking, even in the ancient world, and so the subject must make a choice. The question "Why ought one do what is Good?" is still meaningful even with a richer philosophy to draw from in answering questions -- it's not some failing of modern ethics to point out that this is so.

Basically Hume's guillotine still chops.

Is the idea that anyone who affirms a certain ethics or metaphysics shall become perfected by it if it is "the right one?" But this runs counter to the philosophy underpinning many systems of ethics. Epictetus claims most "free men" are, in truth, slaves. Plato doesn't have everyone being easily sprung from the cave. Christ says at Matthew 7:22-23:

"Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’" — Count Timothy von Icarus

The idea is that virtue cannot be taught, and therefore is not a knowledge. When the ethical philosophers throw up there hands at the masses and declare themselves the truly free ones and the rest of the world deluded by vice I tend to believe we've stumbled upon an ethical transcendental argument -- the only possible way we can be good is....


But if there is more than one virtuous life -- aside from the contemplative life, or the life of the politician, or the life of the family -- then the lawlessness of the Other is the Other's true freedom. They are free from the ethicists desires and following their own.

Attempting a summary -- the ancients are good to read but don't provide all the answers to what goodness is. And even if we study the philosophers that doesn't mean we know more about goodness than someone who has not studied. It could be the reason we're so interested in ethics is because we're terrible at it, and the person who is good at it has no need to study.

Maybe for many of the Stoics, and arguably for Aristotle, but I think what ataraxia normally describes is just the lower stages of the "beatific vision." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'd say the most notable exception is Epicurus, who would argue that the "later stages" are fine for contemplatives who want to live the life of the mind, but his task is to teach ataraxia because he has found it beneficial to himself.

And by that metric, at least...

I'm not sure if I get what you mean here. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I mean that not many people achieve ataraxia in the Christian way of life. Some do, but I don't see it as any more or less than any other way of life. From what I see Christians are about as anxious as the rest of humanity, which leads me to believe that they do not have a special knowledge about what is good according to the Epicurean way of life.

This all by way of making the point that we can follow others in valuing virtue-theoretic approaches, but I don't see the virtue theorist as escaping any of the problems which deontologists or consequentialists or specifications therein deal with -- that this is something of an overpromise. The ancients are interesting because they give us a point to reflect from but they don't overcome the problem of choice -- which is to say, should I follow Christ, or should I follow Epicurus?

If all is atoms and void and there is no afterlife and God doesn't care how I live my life then surely the highest good is to be content with the unfolding of being no matter which way it goes because we have very little control. Or, at least, I'd put it to you that this is a different good from the Christian good, which relies upon the promise of everlasting life (be it tomorrow or now): The Epicurean cautions against such thoughts because they aren't knowable in the first place, and since the Gods care nothing for us it's clear that Christ couldn't have walked on this Earth -- there never was a God that became man. The Gods are already perfect unto themselves and do not concern themselves with our life. This is just another case of human beings wanting to be more than what they are, which puts them into a state of anxiety for not achieving what they cannot be.

Basically I think the reason the Stoics are read more now is because it got along with Christianity in its hatred of the body, while Epicurus wrote a material and bodily philosophy that has little patience for desires which lead one to be anxious.

I feel like there is a wealth of evidence from the psychology literature to support the notion that virtue (or some instrumental approximation of it) can be taught, or that education is conducive to virtue. But, since virtue is self-determining, no education ensures virtue. Alcibiades has Socrates as a teacher and it doesn't save him from vice.

Overall though, I think the effects of mass education, as poorly as it might be implemented, are still a huge net positive. For one, it makes societies more self-determining, more able to reach collective goals. Certain desirable social systems are unworkable without most citizens having some sort of education. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I have no doubt that we can look at where our students are at now -- A -- and devise ways to help them grow and learn -- to become B.

I think education a good, but I'd separate it out from the topic at hand.

My point is more that we have to decide what B is.

So if we have a cohort of young people who have only known growing up and we need to turn them into soldiers then there are a set of steps we can take which will produce measurable outcomes whereby we can assert whether or not pupil 1 has or how they have become B.

We are all connected to one another, so I do not doubt that education can influence people.

But I think of this as a vertical point of view, whereas I'd emphasize a horizontal point of view -- there are some people for whom the life of the mind catches on and they are quite happy with it.

But can everyone do that?

I don't think so.

And how is everyone doing that isn't living up to this ubermensch, or doesn't even acknowledge the value of the path towards something greater?

Because it's the herd that I'm most concerned with. And I think that's where the good truly begins anyways.

But the achievement of ataraxia is what's truly eudemon, no?

I think that the virtuous approach can define itself with respect to modern moral philosophy, taking up a stance like Anscombe's Modern Moral Philosophy.

But I don't think that by offering a coherent account of goodness synthesized with a whole philosophy that it escapes choice. It's just another framing device that then falls into similar conflicts.

The whole idea of the classical education, so well defended in C.S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man, is that virtue can be taught. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is what I'm skeptical of. Not in principle, but certainly in practice. We need look no further than the success of the Catholic church to realize that the program doesn't teach us to be virtuous -- else the society would have no need for rituals of cleansing.

But as it is it's basically set up with the belief that no one can achieve the good. What good is that good?

Tell me if I'm understanding your reading of Descartes:

You're saying that the ascent towards God through the ontological argument is a necessary rhetorical device for the learned of his time.

But Descartes' actual position, coming from -- is that certainty comes from himself. God isn't necessary for knowledge, but rather there's a certain ascent from the certainty of him as a thinking thing, along with the others after he reaches that certainty, to his willing, his sensing, etc.

Do I understand you?

You should want the virtues because they are most likely to make you flourish, and because they help others flourish (which is key to our flourishing and freedom at any rate). You're safest when everyone around you is freer and wants what best for you. If they only do what is good for you because of coercion, then your happiness is unstable because that coercion can break down (and you are not free to remove that coercion without consequences).

As Saint Augustine says: "Thus, a good man, though a slave, is free; but a wicked man, though a king, is a slave. For he serves, not one man alone, but what is worse, as many masters as he has vices." Epictetus, the philosopher-slave, makes a similar point. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I see a problem here.

What we have control over is only ourselves and so even if we pursue the virtues because we want them for flourishing it could be that flourishing in one environment differs from another environment -- so I could pursue a kind of harmony with my fellow men, but supposing I've been thrown into prison unjustly, or I'm drafted to war, then what helps me flourish changes dramatically.

Tyler Durden's flourishing fits within his revolutionary cult and is dramatically opposed to Jack's effete office flourishing; the attraction of Tyler Durden is to someone who feels like the modern male is a mutation which should be rebelled against, which in turn requires a plan to destroy the financial infastructure so that modern men can "reset" and go back to a primordial existene of explicit hierarchal domination -- the man of Tyler Durden isn't opposed to the corporate hierarchies due to domination, but rather because it's not the sort of world Tyler Durden can flourish within.

The interesting twist being that Jack embodies both of these masculinities, the modern effete with tastes in apartment furniture and clever jokes, and the masculine ghost within that wants a primate based society (or what I'd call "The bad anarchy")

So the good man is more free, but the ends of flourishing aren't set -- and the problem comes up again. Why ought one do what's good? (And which vision is good?)

For St. Augustine, a key to moving beyond skepticism is "believing so that we might understand," a view St. Anselm takes up. For a good example of what this entails for practical concerns, suppose you wanted to learn about chemistry. Now suppose you doubt everything your professor and textbook says and refuse to accept it until you have drilled through layer after layer of justification. Will this be a good way to learn chemistry? Probably not. The justifications only make sense in a broader context, and one must have some faith in order to make progress towards actually understanding/knowing—and for Augustine this applies to religious practice as well. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Heh. I've certainly wanted to learn about chemistry and my method was not to doubt what they said. i showed up to class wanting what they knew and had no problem with correcting myself -- that's why I was there.

I think Descartes is coming from a place of learning, though -- he's already gone to the greatest colleges and listened to the most learned men in the world and found them saying uncertain things he's already believed and found wrong.

So, yes, there's something to be said for not doubting, but learning. It's only by learning that we learn how to doubt well, perhaps?

As to the denial of the "I" in the Cogito, who is "smeared out across time and changing," e.g. Hume's replacement of the thinking subject with a "bundle of sensation" or Nietzsche's "congress of souls," there is a good quote I found on this from Eddington's "The Rigor of Angels: Kant, Heisenberg, Borges, and the Fundemental Nature of Reality." I think it's fairly "knock down," and Borges' story "Fuentes the Memorious," is a good example of why. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not sure how the quote is knock down, or what it's knocking down exactly -- but I'll make guesses and respond:

Hume's notion of the "I" is a bundle of sensations, yes, though I don't think it replaces the thinking subject -- coming to Hume from Descartes we could say that Hume's is a rational psychology of the human thinking subject in res extensa. And Kant's theory is not far from this while still accommodating the cogito within his philosophy, just not like... either of them did.


But I've not denied the cogito, at least I don't think I have. I'm more wondering what we can derive from it, metaphysically or epistemically or whatever.

I agree, but do not think it prima facie. I think all the stuff about God is nothing more than a rhetorical defense to avoid the fate of Galileo. Descartes took his motto from Ovid: — Fooloso4

I think your interpretation likely. It makes sense of why he didn't publish The World, after all.

And I thank you for saying my reading isn't prima facie -- I only want to focus on how, by the text's surface at least, we can conclude God exists. At least necessarily, though I don't know how much Descartes' notion of God -- like Leibniz's -- is really "orthodox" either.


For my part here I think modern existentialism, from Husserl on, has taken from Descartes' notion of the cogito and attempted other things.

I'm a bit mired in a confusion of where I'm going with this, though....

Why should one do that which is good? No, I don't think that good is synonymous with, "something one ought to do". For example, most people would agree that selling all your worldly possessions and donating the money to charity is something that would be good. However, that doesn't mean that one is obligated to do so. Please input into this conversation with your own takes. — Hyper

A good conundrum for myself.

Why should one, in the general sense, do good is much harder for me to answer than why the good is attractive.

For one tempted by the good there is no "Why do what is good?" -- it's a light that brings moths in to burn them up.

No one is obligated by anything in the existential sense -- we are all free to choose.

But you do what is good because that's what you do (at least, as long as it helps others -- there's a darker side to this that hurts others, but that's not what I mean by the good)

Contrary to Descartes' claim, it comes from a lack or want, from a need or desire to improve, to have or be without defect.

With regard to the perfectibility of man, perfect comes from the possibility of avoiding error by limiting what I will to what I know. — Fooloso4

M'kay; I can go with what you say.

Do you agree with my prima facie reading of the Meditations? That Descartes claims to deduce knowledge of God's existence on the basis of the foundation of certainty he finds in the Cogito?

Assuming an infinite time then Descartes could be the source of perfection. However, at the moment that Descartes is writing his argument he surely is not perfect-- the method of doubt is attractive because Descartes knows he has been in error before. In that moment where else would you say the idea of perfection comes from?

When I was still at school, I had the peculiar idea that if I suddenly swapped consciousness with the person walking towards me, AND I also instantly was connected to his or her memories at that moment, then there'd be no way of knowing what had happened. Rather peculiar thing to think, I grant, but at the time it seemed significant. Something about the universality of the experience of 'I'. — Wayfarer

I think that'd count as a higher reality -- some kind of metaphysical structure which connects all the individual minds.

This isn't to say I endorse that, but it'd make sense of the idea: We could wrap the theory up as an explanation for connection between physically disparate minds.

Trouble with identity again. The argument against reincarnation seems applicable here - in what sense was the person in the Irish Cottage the same as jgill? If all they shared was 'I AM', how do we conclude that they are the same? — Banno

Taking up the transcendental lens:

We could conclude the 'I AM' is the same because they referred to the same 'I' who was 'AM'ing.

But in terms of the setup my thought is to mostly copy it exactly because it seems to be working.

If people who voted to participate writing want a topic then this is a good thread for it to be proposed in.

I'm hesitant to restrict it to a topic out front because of how little participation there's been in the past with respect to writing essays. So I'd want to keep it as open as possible to allow people with different interests to submit, unless the participants really want to focus in on a particular topic.

Given that this is the first day in which the idea has been taken seriously as"a thing" I'm good with keeping it as simple as our stupidity can contain.

But there's time for thinking of guidelines along the way in this thread. I wouldn't post the announcement until at least February to ensure we don't conflict with the literary activity.

Sweet. :) Sounds like you'd be a good contributor then. It just took some time for the idea to "catch on"

Yes, though I haven't thought about what rules to have. I'm so far willing to administer things, I don't know if I have good ideas for rules. (unsurprisingly, I rather dislike rules)

Oh yeah. "Rigor" doesn't matter, I think, insofar that there's no rejection due to rigor. It's at least a creative excercise so you don't have to appeal to what a literal journal wants. Else, as you say, why not submit it there?

I like the idea of a less rigorous and creative philosophical display -- guesses, hints, attempts, and fun sound like an uncommon niche we could fill.

Heh. Fair.

What?! My wonderings are off-topic? Never! :D

Good and interesting thread either way. I'm enjoying it.

I was thinking after the literary activity is concluded we could put up an announcement somewhere that submissions are due by the 1st of June, then I'd post them up into a separate sub-forum like the literary activity does on the 2nd of June, and go from there.



Cool. That sounds super easy. Thanks!

What about June 1st?

Cool, thanks. I'll have to learn pastebin for thems who want shortcode.

Never used it before, but I believe you when you say it's easy to learn. I'm famliar enough with computers to figure it out, and will reach out if I can't.

I was thinking June-July, cuz May is end-of-school-year chaos for lots of people.

Sounds good. PM's work. Probably better to keep it "in house" in terms of servers etc. So I see it working like this:

If someone PM's me their essay then I'll copy-paste it into a .txt document on my hard drive without the name of the person, in the hopes that I'll forget over time when I post it come the summer. Then on the designated date I'll post the essays with their titles (or number them if they have no titles) and we'll go from there.

In terms of running things -- like anonymizing authors and posting submissions and intaking submissions -- I'm fine with taking over those tasks. How exactly do you do it @Jamal for the literary activity? Set up an email for submissions and then post them after a set date?

Hrm.

Sounds like you're one of those blasphemous philosophers....

:yikes:

Heh. Thanks. I looked for the blushing emoticon but didn't see it.

Sure!

That gets along with the notion that philosophy should be concerned with the ideas themselves rather than who says them.

I think feedback alone is enough, with maybe a thread after the fact where people share why they thought this or that essay was better, but it's not strictly a competition.

Odd that this is relevant, and weird to quote myself, but in response to @Janus question "Why doesn't the Nobel offer a philosophy prize?""

There is one, we're just still arguing over who has won it and what you get for winning and what it means to win in the first place.

Also, to ensure no one cheats, it's long been decided since Plato that no money will be given to the winner. — Moliere

(There's a thread over there about non-existent objects, but I haven't looked at it. ― No, there's two of them.) — Srap Tasmaner

:D

Well, that takes down my theory. Is it really less real if we already have two threads discussing the curiosity?

Sometimes workbooks for children have a kind of puzzle in them, where you're given a little group of pictures and are told to put them in order to make a story. They often rely on thermodynamics ― you're supposed to know that broken pieces of a vase don't rise from the ground (defying gravity as well) and assemble themselves into a vase on the table.

Let's call the world where that sort of thing doesn't happen "the real world." If you tend to tell yourself and others stories where that sort of thing does happen, then I'd be tempted to say your world is "less real" than mine. And insofar as people's beliefs are real, or at least a useful way of categorizing their behavior, and insofar as their behavior has consequences in the real world, I'd be tempted to say that people are capable of increasing or decreasing the reality of situations they are involved in. (It's like the response to "facts are theory-laden": let's make sure our theories are fact-laden.) — Srap Tasmaner

But this is a better rendition.

I'm thinking now that it's not beliefs relative to states of affairs, as categories, that admits of degrees of reality.

But rather beliefs, relative to one another with respect to reality that admits of degrees of reality. Which makes some sense to me -- I have true and false beliefs, and beliefs which implicate sets of beliefs, and the beliefs which implicate sets of beliefs which have more true statements are the beliefs with "more reality".

Almost literally.

I also have in mind the sort of thing you can see in Peter Jackson's film Heavenly Creatures, where the characters begin to slip back and forth between the real world and their own fantasy world. We all do a bit of this, and it seems quite natural to put how much we do it on a scale. Mistaking a windmill on the horizon for a grain elevator is one thing; mistaking it for a dragon is another. At least grain elevators are real, and windmills and grain elevators are both members of "rural towers". But dragons ... — Srap Tasmaner

And I agree with you that this phenomena is related but different. I wanted to wait until I watched the movie before responding, hence my tardiness.

The slip between fantasy and reality seems to make sense of reality as degrees -- are we playing a part in our imaginative game together right now, or are we talking about the bills?

Yes, this is what I meant.

If anyone puts forth the effort then they can know that at least one person will read and comment.

I clicked "Maybe", but probably should have said "Yes" -- if there are essays then I'd participate as a reader.

See how the argument guarantees knowledge of God, and yet that knowledge depends on faith in the first place? — NotAristotle

Yeah... I just don't think that's the argument Descartes is making.

I'm insistent that he's not appealing to faith at all, but rather is deducing that God exists from the thought experiment.

It's because we live in the time after we've killed God that this inference is seen as implausible, rather than because the argument is obviously fallacious.

Husserl and Frege seem quite similar to me, re psychologism. They both reject the idea that thoughts can only be said to be “caused,” rather than explained or justified. One of the things I see Husserl doing is to separate the fact that thought-terms describe mental/psychological phenomena from the further fact (as he saw it) that phenomena like judgments and syllogisms are also normative. Similarly, a number is not to be understood as a “presentation,” a thought that occurs to me or you. Husserl says, “The number Five is not my own or anyone else’s counting of five, it is also not my presentation or anyone else’s presentation of five.” Frege’s emphasis, as far as I know (I don’t know his work deeply), was more on what we’d call the analytic quality of logical truths. But the point is similar: The psychological origin of subjective (synthetic) and objective (analytic) truths may be the same – they’re all thoughts – but it’s the way we demonstrate them that shows the difference. So, “the psychological is to be distinguished sharply from the logical, as the subjective is from the objective.” (Foundations of Arithmetic) — J

Cool. I'm going to include Sartre in that broad range because while he begins to drift into psychology he does so explicitly and he doesn't start there. I think it's safe to say that his philosophy, at least, is not depending upon a psychology or reducing phenomenology to psychological terms even though -- due to the Cogito's centrality -- psychology must be addressed.

If you're distinguishing between faith and knowledge, you'll have to define those terms. If we accept that knowledge requires a justified true belief, it would seem that the distinction between faith and knowledge would somehow hinge on the justification element. Those who believe in God based upon faith do not admit to having no justification for their faith, but they might use personal conviction, religious text, mystical feeling, or even pragmatic reasons to justify that faith. Some might even suggest an empirical basis (as in their experience of reality leads them to believe there must be a God), so that question is somewhat complicated.

That's not to say there are not differences between the justificaitons used by the faithful and those who are not of faith, but it's difficult to say one "knows" something and the other doesn't. What I think those who question those of faith really are attacking is the "truth" element, meaning they simply think there is no God and there is no way you can "know" something that isn't true. So, if you say Descartes knows there is God, then you are saying there is a God because to know something means it must be true.

My main point here isn't to suggest that Descartes made an intentional argument proving God by arguing that failure to accept God led to an incoherent solipsitic position. I just think that by working backwards and seeing what Descartes required to avoid solipsism you can come to the conclusion that God is necessary for Descartes to avoid that.

I do see the similarities with Kant's approach, but I also see the differences. With Kant, as it pertains to time, he argued that you could not begin to understand something without placing it in time. That is, an object outside of time is meaningless.

With Descartes, there is an private language argument problem that can suggest a complete incoherence to solipsism. https://iep.utm.edu/solipsis/#:~:text=The%20Incoherence%20of%20Solipsism,-With%20the%20belief&text=As%20a%20theory%2C%20it%20is,his%20solipsistic%20thoughts%20at%20all . What this would mean is that if God is necessary to avoid solipsism and solipsism is incoherent, then you need God to avoid incoherence.

Whether you want to go down that road, I don't know. I'm not necessarily arguing that a godless universe would result in a complete inability to understand anything, but, even if I did, I still see a distinction between that sort of incoherence and the one Kant references when he says time is imposed on objects and therefore a necessary element of the understanding.

This whole argument here has expanded as I've thought about it, so maybe there is a good argument that human understanding is impossible without God if one follows Descartes' reasoning. This wouldn't mean there is God. It would just mean you can't know anything without God. — Hanover

I'd put it that faith is outside of the frame of discussion, but not opposed. We can have faith in something we know and in something we do not know, and the inferences of Descartes and Kant aren't appealing to faith. That is, I would not be inclined to put it in opposition to knowledge, and I don't think Descartes or Kant would at least either.

Faith is centrally important to Sartre's metaphysics since he's trying to given the metaphysical frame which explains how it is possible for us to end up in good or bad faith, and Sartre frequently makes references to knowledge -- so they're not opposed there either, though also "faith" in Sartre isn't the same as our everyday notion of "faith", since it's the kind of faith an atheist has (and has no choice in participating with -- it's either good or bad faith)


Given that I think I'd put faith to one side of justification -- the faithful may accept different sorts of justifications from the unfaithful (though my suspicion is that's not quite right -- it's probably how the justifications are used rather than the kind of justifications), but justification isn't the basis on which I'd separate faith from knowledge. I'm tempted to say they are orthogonal to one another such that different views of either can be made coherent.



I've been thinking about a response for too long to wait, but I'm still not sure how to tie this back to the cogito. (Of course, that's not your fault -- the original question has been answered, I'm still stuck on how to develop it though.... but I felt I owed you a response)

I'd read philosophy essays if people submitted them. That's always been the problem before -- essays require more work than posts :D

Yes.

"...exists", as I'm construcing these thinkers, means...

Descartes: A first order predicate which can be deduced from the concepts.
Kant: A predicate without logical significance -- it is only applied to what is given in intuition
Sartre: Precedes essence, which I gather is that existence is prior to predication; there isn't a logically deductive argument, but neither can we infer the existence of God by ourselves "lacking perfection".

And being: I think for Descartes and Kant, at least with respect to the phenomenological turn, are using the same notion of Being as Presence. But Sartre takes up Heidegger's terms and analysis/critique of Being as presence -- rather it's an unfolding of the horizon which discloses itself (and in the disclosure usually there is also a closure)

But whats different between Sartre and Heidegger on Being is that Being is explicitly transphenomenal in Sartre, while I'm not so sure about that in Heidegger (Heidi often gets put into the idealist camp because he's not really clear either way, where Sartre seems to be very clear on the realist/idealist distinction)



Good question (and I'm wrapping around to the other posters still, but this one looked like an easy answer for me): I'd say that there's a two-stepper that goes on. Initially he's looking for an indubitable proposition and from that inference from "I think therefore I am" he notices that these are clear and distinct ideas.

But now Method seems to Require Me to Rank all My Thoughts under certain Heads, and to search in Which of them Truth or Falshood properly Consists.

...

I have yet an other Way of inquiring, whether any of those Things (whose Ideas I have within Me) are Really Existent without Me; And that is Thus: As those Ideas are only Modes of Thinking, I acknowledge no Inequality between them, and they all proceed from me in the same Manner. But as one Represents one thing, an other, an other Thing, ’tis Evident there is a Great difference between them. * For without doubt, Those of them which Represent Substances are something More, or (as I may say) have More of Objective Reallity in them, then those that Represent only Modes or Accidents; and again, That by Which I understand a Mighty God, Eternal, Infinite, Omniscient, Omnipotent Creatour of all things besides himself, has certainly in it more Objective Reallity, then Those Ideas by which Finite Substances are Exhibited.

But Now, it is evident by the Light of Nature that there must be as much at least in the Total efficient Cause, as there is in the Effect of that Cause; For from Whence[37] can the effect have its Reallity, but from the Cause? and how can the Cause give it that Reallity, unless it self have it?

And from hence it follows, that neither a Thing can be made out of Nothing, Neither a Thing which is more Perfect (that is, Which has in it self more Reallity) proceed from That Which is Less Perfect.

And this is Clearly True, not only in those Effects whose Actual or Formal Reallity is Consider’d, But in Those Ideas also, Whose Objective Reallity is only Respected; That is to say, for Example of Illustration, it is not only impossible that a stone, Which was not, should now begin to Be, unless it were produced by something, in Which, Whatever goes to the Making a Stone, is either Formally or Virtually; neither can heat be Produced in any Thing, which before was not hot, but by a Thing which is at least of as equal a degree of Perfection as heat is; But also ’tis Impossible that I should have an Idea of Heat, or of a Stone, unless it were put into me by some Cause, in which there is at Least as much Reallity, as I Conceive there is in heat or a Stone.

.....

Thus, that if the objective reallity of any of my Ideas be such, that it cannot be in me either formally or eminently, and that therefore I cannot be the cause of that Idea, from hence it necessarily Follows, that I alone do not only exist, but that some other[40] thing, which is cause of that Idea, does exist also.

But if I can find no such Idea in me, I have no argument to perswade me of the existence of any thing besides my self for I have diligently enquired, and hitherto I could discover no other perswasive.


.....

Wherefore there only Remains the Idea of a God, wherein I must consider whether there be not something included, which cannot possibly have its original from me. By the word God, I mean a[44] certain Infinite Substance, Independent, Omniscient, Almighty, by whom both I my self, and every thing else that is (if any thing do Actualy exist) was created. All which Attributes are of such an high nature, that the more attentively I consider them, the less I conceive my self possible to be the Author of these notions.

From what therefore has been said I must conclude that there is a God;

Once he infers God must exist the rest is easy. I cut out the bits of meditation to try and get at the heart of the argument (well, the first argument for God. I've read that the 2nd argument is a little different from the first one)

***

Short answer, by my lights, is that the inference "I think, therefore I am" is indubitable in the moment of saying to the point htat even an Evil Demon couldn't deceive me, and so a foundation of certainty is found for knowledge. (Quotes pulled from here)

There is one, we're just still arguing over who has won it and what you get for winning and what it means to win in the first place.

Also, to ensure no one cheats, it's long been decided since Plato that no money will be given to the winner.

That’s what I mean by saying that “I think therefore I am” is not the culmination of cogito qua cogito but of the transcendence of itself viz. the externalization of being through the process of “doubting.” Thinking that thinks itself. — NotAristotle

I think, supposing we were to take up Descartes' side in this back-and-forth, Descartes could reply that Sartre has no right to claim externalization on the basis of his methodological doubt. Whether the process of doubting requires time is beside the point from the metaphysical set-up of the method of doubt.

Which is why I keep coming back to thinking that difference between them is the how they interpret being and "...exists". As well as their overall philosophical goals being very different, since they're in very different times.

Maybe everything is supernatural for Descartes, while Sartre keeps it as an illusion out of distance, focusing on material problems — Gregory

I'd say that neither believe in the supernatural -- and even if we mean "supernatural" in the sense of "outside of nature" Descartes still believes in nature -- res extensa is just as real as res cogitans, and while God may sit outside of nature and we have knowledge of his existence nature still exists.

And, on the other hand, I believe some would be inclined to call Sartre's notion of being-for-itself, and its radical freedom, a superstition in the modern, scientistic use of that term.

Though I believe both are doing philosophy in the sense that they're appealing to reason.