REASON- Trademark Argument

Question 1

Summarise the argument

Answer 1

P1) the cause of anything must be at least as perfect as it’s effect
P2) my ideas must be caused by something
P3) I am an in perfect being
P4) I have the idea of god, which is that of a perfect being
IC1) I cannot be the cause of my idea of god (from p1, p2, p3, p4)
IC2) only a perfect being (god) can be the cause of my idea of god (from p1 and p4)
C) god must exist (from p4 and IC2)

Question 2

What is the empiricist response of causal principle

Answer 2

Descartes believed it was self- evidently true that the ‘total cause of something must contain at least as much reality as does the effect’. It may be true in regards to the physical world but it isn’t clear how it would apply to the world of ideas. Our minds can easily create the better versions of real objects. Hume argued that our idea of god is derived from considering virtues in other people and augmenting them without limit

Question 3

What is the empiricist response of not a priori

Answer 3

Hume argues that we can never deduce the effect from examining the cause, or the cause from examining the effect. We need experience of cause and effect before we can learn of their connection. So from knowing the effect, the idea of god, we cannot deduce what may have caused it. We can only know through experience

Question 4

What is the criticism of the Idea of perfection

Answer 4

We don’t have a clear idea of a perfect god or of infinity. If these concepts aren’t present in our minds, then Descartes argument is undermined