Descartes Free Will

As a thinking entity, Descartes is a consciousness mind aware of the potential to engage in various modes of existence. To the numerous operations of “thought” he includes doubting, understanding, affirming, denying, willing, refusing, imagining, and sensing. As varied and manifold as these operations appear, they are but expressions of two principal types of conscious activity, to which Descartes eventually traces the nature of error. Thinking and reasoning, together with all belief in general, depend upon the operation of the twin faculties “knowing” and “choosing,” or the free will. Garrett Thompson writes:

Descartes is able to examine ideas and gain knowledge form them. Innate ideas mean they are present at birth, in other words we are implanted with certain ideas at our creation. He often uses ‘innate ideas’ to explain the mind’s original programming. “An infant’s mind is programmed with the rules of logic. Consider as an example the valid rule, modus ponens. Let P and Q stand for variables… the rules states that, if P then Q is true and P is true, then it follows that Q is true. We know that we are programmed with this rule because young children, who have never studied logic and have never entertained the rule, when given an argument in which the variables above are replaced by actual sentences, are able to intuit the validity of the argument.” Descartes believed our minds are programmed with eternal truths, “Whatever comes into existence must have been brought into existence by something else.” He also discovers that the idea of God is only part of his initial programming but also that God, operating through secondary sources such as his parents, is the programmer.

A believer of fate believes in not only the Roman gods, but also an untampered path in life: yet, free will relies on one’s individual choices to change the path. Free will and fate reveals itself as a central theme in Shakespeare’s play, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. The main characters (Cassius, Brutus, and Caesar) found internal conflict in their individual ideology of either free will or fate.

In the play Julius caesar, there are two powerful forces and a theme of destiny vs human free will. Fate and free will are one of the many themes and philosophies present in the play Julius caesar. The role of fate along with Humans free will in this novel brings tragic events. “Men at some time are masters of their fates.”(I.ii.146-148), a quote said by cassius, explaining that men most of the time may not have control over their destinies. However characters in the play that follow their free will can create their own outcomes in their lives.

2. Descartes explains that the source of error and sin come from both the ability know things and the ability to make independent decisions that God had assigned to all humans. He explains that errors do not come from knowledge influencing the free will, but results from the ability to decide that directs our

Descartes talked about the true and the false, and how we make mistakes in Meditation Four. Descartes believed that error as such is not something real that depends upon God, but rather is merely a defect. And thus there is no need to account for my errors by positing a faculty given to me by God for this purpose(546). He thought that the reason why we make mistakes is that the faculty of judging the truth, which we got from God, is not infinite(546). When Descartes focused more closely on more closely on himself and inquired into the nature of his errors, he noted that errors depend on the simultaneous concurrence of two causes:

For thousands of years, humans have dwelled on the potential for free will; if we can choose our own path in life or if our futures are predestined by some entity. Thus far, there has been no definitive proof to support either argument, so we remain in the dark to ponder this query. The existentialist philosophy is that “existence precedes essence, that the significant fact is that we and things in general exist, but that these things have no meaning for us except that we can create meaning through acting upon them” (Harmond and Holman, p.203). Albert Camus’s “The Guest” is a prime example of existential dilemma, displaying tones of confusion and consequence resulting from the free will predicament.

As was discussed early in this paper, Descartes fills his arguments with fallacies in that he has no concrete proof there is a God, and thus his idea that our will is given by God, and God ultimately decides how we should use that will is inaccurate. Additionally Descartes seems to produce contradictions on his opinion of freedom of choice. Perhaps I am taking an approach like Nietzsche when I say that Descartes perspective on freedom of choice is inherently impeding it in itself. Reason or intellect is important to Descartes in deciding what his actions may be, but this restriction, is exactly that, a restriction. So truthfully, this should not be seen as freedom of choice because the physical mind is suspending the spirit-mind. Kant does not apply much of his theory to the existence of a supreme being however, his beliefs although closer to reality than that of Descartes, are still flawed. As humans it is natural for one to decide quickly and to have one’s own interest ahead of universal well

In contrast, I will compare Descartes’s view that God is omniscient, omnipresent, and immutable, but present the differences of Descartes’s view of the will as the ability to affirm or

Through his “Phenomenology” he concludes that “All our vices are virtues found in God”. Augustine uses this to present the argument that “Humans possess knowledge of… moral law… and their inability to obey it” producing “guilt over sin”. “God is the best explanation for the awareness” and by sending a mediator, Christ, enables “our hearts [to] find rest in the grace offered by God alone”. Descartes philosophy is expressed by Groothuis as being taken greatly out of context by the majority. The text describes Descartes as being an “earnest and humble seeker of truth” and it was this seeking of truth that caused Descartes to “test all that can be doubted” by doubting even his existence.

In the Meditations Descartes provides an explanation for the existence of error. He realises that we really shouldn’t be prone to error if we are made by God, yet we are. Therefore he explains the existence of error so that it shifts the blame from God onto human beings. In this essay I will first explain the argument which Descartes presents and then attempt to prove that this explanation is a bad account for the existence of error as there are many occasions when the faculty of the will is in fact limited. I will then proceed to critically analyse Descartes arguments as well as objections raised by his peers.

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, who is also known as Erasmus of Rotterdam, was a Dutch philosopher, social critic, theologian, and most significant humanist of the Northern Renaissance. Born at around 1466, Erasmus became interested with human nature at an early age. Throughout his adult life the subject of human nature became the focus of his discussions. In his adult life, Erasmus philosophical interests focused primarily on the freedom of human will. The nature of human will also became a subject of debate, especially with Martin Luther, when Erasmus published “De libero arbitrio diatribè sive collation” (“A Discussion Of Free Will”), where he defended the concept of free will. Luther argues against the notion of free will and became a major motivator for Erasmus explorations on human nature. Contrary to Luther’s opinion, Erasmus believed that human beings had free will. Erasmus argued that if people’s actions were not as a result of their own choices, then people would conclude that righteous actions will not receive eternal rewards and that evil actions will not result in eternal damnation.

Mr. Descartes was optimistic of the fact that all men are capable of rational thought or reasoning. He took to a quiet environment and contemplated the serious problem for which he wanted to reconcile within himself; ho can man learn knowledge. Facilitating the process of reason is the element Descartes terms, "the natural light of the mind." He argues that if we are to attain axiomatic truths we must be free of "precipitancy and prejudice", whereby reason, the natural light of the mind, shall guide us to the certainties which define our existence.

It is a fact that our knowledge is gradually increasing everyday, so Descartes’ brings up the question of do we have the capability to possibly one day have all the knowledge God has? And if so, he will one day be able to reach God’s perfection so therefore he is able to come up with the idea of God since he himself has the potential for perfection. To this point he contends that if his knowledge is constantly expanding, then it will never be able to reach perfection and although he has the many potentials, nothing about God is potential. This gradual increase in knowledge is a definite sign of imperfection. He also counters the argument of him having the potential of God inside of him by saying ???? Descartes then reflects on the possibility that his existence came about due to his parents or another being that is less perfect than God. He proceeds to reject this idea since Descartes is a thinking thing and contains in him some idea of God and he therefore whatever caused him must itself be a thinking thing that possesses the idea of all the perfections that one attributes to

In concluding he states that his making mistakes does not involve him possessing a, “deceiving” judgement from God, but rather that his capability to error is the result of God creating him as a finite instead of an infinite being. When Descartes found this out he began to question whether God should be to blame for his finite nature, making him more prone to errors and why God would not will for him to make