René Descartes - Meditation #5 - The Ontological Proof of God's Existence

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This is a lecture video about the fifth Meditation on First Philosophy, published in 1641, by Rene Descartes. In this meditation Descartes offers his own version of the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God. The argument is explained by comparing it to a similar argument that we can construct involving triangles. I also discuss some potential objections that one might raise to the ontological argument.

Here are the videos summarizing the earlier meditations.

[abrahamtellez]

I find it mesmerizing that people as smart as Descartes could convince themselves that they could just _define_ god into existence.

[teaganblohm]

"It will eat you up inside and you will die alone" ... that went from 0 to 100 real quick lol. very helpful video tho

[garychap]

At this point I completely give up on Descartes. Not because he's difficult, but because he's irrational... for a few meditations now he's been completely blowing up his own principles.

It's like he borrowed one powerful idea from pre-existing (perhaps Buddhist) thought... misunderstood it... and then continued on in the very human business of assuming he's right about everything he already believes.

The 'original stuff' he presents is supremely ill-founded, illogical and self-serving
Whilst, the 'good stuff' he presents appears to be entirely unoriginal.

The more I learn about him, the less value I see in his work.

[jameshogan]

I'm really enjoying these videos. Just when we moderns think we have everything sussed, along comes this philosopher from four hundred years ago and invites us to reconsider our vision of reality on empirical grounds.

[briandawley]

I like the Kant response to point 2. I'm not quite sure if this is the same refutation, but it seems as though there's question begging going on. "Existence is something that is a fundamental nature of God, therefore God exists." That's using the assumption that a perfect being, call it God or whatever, to prove the very existence of that thing. I could just as easily say, "A perfect staff that, when held, gives me all the knowledge, power, and wisdom of a God would have as an essential element of it, existence, therefore existence is part of this staff's essence, therefore the staff exists."

Further it appears to me that the triangle proof doesn't actually prove the existence of triangles, it merely proves, IF triangles exist, the would have three angles. Which seems similar to the flaw in the God proof: If God exists, then God would have as part of its essence, existence; i.e., if God exists, then it follows that God exists.

[acourseinmiraclesissatanic]

6:00 You just gave the BEST refutation against "fake it till you make it" that I've ever encountered anywhere.

"Don't do that. Don't live your life pretending like you know what's going on, and hoping that no one is gonna stare at you or notice you or notice that you are faking it. Don't fake it. That's no way to live your life, it will eat you up inside and you'll die alone!"

Yup, extending from this line of thinking, we can derive reasons for these other phenomenon :
- impostor syndrome
- secretly depressed
- anomie
- shallowness + the secret feeling that nobody empathises with you
- trust issues, can't open up and show any vulnerability to anyone
- would rather be right than correct
- <plus some other malady I hadn't yet figured out just yet>

[pascalmartin]

If one starts with God defined as an objective reality, then concluding that God exists is simply coming back to the original premice. In reality it should be "having all of the perfections is part of the 'idea of God' essense".. Therefore the 'idea of God' exists. Now, having an idea is not proof of existence, otherwise we would all be billionaires.. We can have idea of something that does not necessarily exist, this is called fiction, for example science fiction. Descarte as an idealist philosopher: something necessarily exists simply because I imagined it. I never realized this.

[JACKSONDUNNETT]

this dude casually writing perfectly in reverse like Da Vinci

[brothermine]

1. Nothing is better than complete happiness.
2. A ham sandwich is better than nothing.
3. The "better than" relation is transitive.
4. Therefore a ham sandwich is better than complete happiness.

[MaxKuschmierz]

Premise 2 can also easily be shown to be flawed, because Descartes even admitted that you can not have just some perfections but necessarily either all or none of them in his response to the perfect island proof. So either existence is not a perfection or anything that exists must be god itself which is illogical since then no distinction between 2 things could be drawn.

[diegoc.]

Probably it was not his intention, but Descartes proves in an inadvertent act of geniality that god is a creation of the human mind, and not the opposite, exactly like the triangle or any other geometrical idea whatsoever, the mind gave god the attributes or essences he needs to have in order to exist, so we are an entity above god, because we can create him and prove his existence and not the other way around.

[jxarosemena]

Man, your videos just saved me from failing in understanding the meditations for an essay I have to write! I'm really grateful for your explanations!

[JuanMPalacio]

It’s strange that Descartes would use an ontological argument when it had already been refuted heavily, even by St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas criticized it in his Summa Theologica, which contained some of the most famous philosophical arguments for the existence of God. And I believe that Descartes was influenced by Aquinas.

[RottenDoctorGonzo]

What a time to be alive, when philosophy is so accessible. Kudos.
I'm re-reading Descartes' ontological argument, years after being introduced. I feel like there's more to it than meets the eye

[JohnSmith-pdkd]

Like you said, triangles don't exist. The idea of triangles exists. The ontological proof is only what you can figure out about your definition. So, if the thing that Descartes was defining exists then God exists. Premise 1 assumes the existence of God. Premise 1 could be the definition of Descartes' idea of God (if God existed). But, that's like saying "if God exists then God would definitely exist because that's one of God's properties that he necessarily exists. (if He exists)"

[ericd]

These lectures are *brilliant*. Highly informative and highly entertaining. Well done!

[joew]

9:39 several times now I've heard you refer to God as "the creature that ..." however the word creature comes from Middle English meaning "something created". So you can see it is the wrong word to refer to someone/something that is identified as the creator. Perhaps "the being that..." would be more fitting? Other than that, you make great videos and you have an extraordinary gift for teaching. I'm thankful the youtube algorithm gods smiled down on me and recommended your very popular video on Russell's Paradox. I've been hooked since.

[chrisearl]

Well after reading the "thing" should the proof not read more like. 1- Having all of the perfections is part of "MY IDEA" of gods essence 2- blar blar 3- blar blar blar 4- therefore "MY IDEA" of god necessarily exists.

[kayhash]

Keep making videos like this! Its very helpful for us that are new to philosophy.

[GabrielLima-ghwe]

I'm not a religious person, but even I am embarassed at Descartes ontological proof of God, even if I was religious I'd prefer to say that I believe in God because of faith than to say it's because of Descartes argument. It's so dumb that it's almost crazy to believe that this guy is supposed to be one of the most important philosophers in history. Even the greeks had better arguments for their Cosmos. Aristotle would be dissapointed that this guy took over his place in thinking tradition.