The Philosophy of Plato, Socrates, Descartes, and Anselm - Essay Example

The analogy of the divided line draws on similar themes to the allegory of the cave. Plato has Socrates explain that the line is divided into four sections. The first and largest section of the line represents the shadows and reflections, the part of the visible world that is a copy of something else, which is not real in and of itself. The next portion is visible things, such as animals and trees, things that we actually see with our own eyes. However, just like those shadows are imitations of objects that have more realness to them, those solid objects like animals and trees are mere copies of a higher order, of truths and forms. The next two sections of the line are of the intellectual. The third is lower forms, and the final is higher forms. Plato uses the line to differentiate between what he views as different kinds of objects and ways we can obtain knowledge. Each line gets smaller the higher it goes, and the smaller the line becomes the closer to absolute truth it becomes. To briefly summarize the story of the cave, Plato envisaged people held prisoner within a cave who only saw the shadows of objects carried by a fire. One person briefly escaped from the cave, saw the sun, and returns to tell the other prisoners what was seen. The prisoners respond by threatening the person that briefly escaped if he continued to tell them about the sun. Plato is saying that people are like the prisoners, in that all people see are illusions, shadows of objects passing by a fire. They are seeing the material world, which he believed to be a copy of the higher forms. The person who escaped was able to see the sun, which represented the highest level of truth in this world: "But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed" (Plato). The escaped person's eyes took a while to adjust before they were actually able to see the sun; the person was able to see things at night better first, then reflections in water and such, and then finally objects themselves. This was supposed to represent a gradual increase in the realness of the objects until the sun was able to be seen. When the person went back to the cave and told the other prisoners what he saw, they rejected it. This represents how Plato felt that most people are so used to seeing what they see everyday that they can't comprehend the idea that there is something of a higher truth out there. They've never seen it, and if they've never seen it, then it couldn't possibly exist. Plato was alluding to the fact that he thought that it was dangerous for him and other philosophers to tell other people of the truth since most people weren't willing to hear anything of the sort. What Plato didn't realize was that he was in an even larger cave himself. He felt that there was absolute truth, and even though people might not be able to reach it, it still existed in the universe in some shape or form. He thought that because there are things called trees, we can only know that that is a tree because on some higher plane of existence there exists the perfect tree, its original and true form, and that is how people are able to recognize that trees when one is viewed. He felt that true knowledge could only be perceived a priori, and that the physical world was merely a reflection of this true world. A deconstructionist way to argue against this kind of thinking be to would say that there is no such thing as absolute truth, that thinking and language can not be separated, because without language, there is no canvas upon which to paint one's words. This viewpoint would claim that language isn't trying to reflect truth, but that language shapes reality. What can be learned from the example of the cave is that everybody has a cave. Instead of saying that there are select people that would be able to grasp a higher meaning, we can learn from the cave that no matter how learned we try to make ourselves, no matter how analytic we try to be, there will be concepts outside of our realm of thought that we will refuse to accept. Since Plato was such a huge advocate of math and sciences, we can draw from an example of 20th century science. Einstein changed the way that people viewed the world through his theory of relativity, but at the same time, because it contradicted his theory, he refuted quantum mechanics. He broke free from the cave of Newton, but there was an even larger cave that surrounded that one, the quantum physics cave. (2) While sometimes an author sets out to accomplish something, the author inadvertently ends up accomplishing the opposite. Descartes might have done just that with his Meditations. He might have tried to prove that God existed, but he might just have proved that we can't really know anything beyond the fact that we exist. It is hard to say whether or not this was what he intended. Descartes initially began by trying to prove that the only thing that a person can know is that person's own existence: "I shall then suppose, not that God who is supremely good and the fountain of truth, but some evil genius not less powerful than deceitful, has employed his whole energies in deceiving me" ( Philosophical 90). From there he claims that he wishes to use smaller truths to build up a case to prove that God has to necessarily exist. If God were to exist, then God would have created everything that exists, and a person would have to begin with God's existence as the basis of the argument, rather than that one's existence as the basis. To further explain, this is not a two way street of an argument. We can't prove that God exists because we exist; we would have to prove that we exist because God exists. By trying to prove that God exists because we exist, that is trying to say that God's existence relies on our existence. But if God is the all-powerful being that Descartes claims, then God could exist without having created us. Our existence in no way shows that God does in fact exist, because God can exist without us. If God does exist, then we would apparently not be able to exist without God, but we can't say that we can't exist without God until we show that God does in fact exist. Since the only thing that we can prove is that we exist, we can't really use that statement to extrapolate further and prove the existence of God. Another flaw in Descartes' logic comes from his insistence that the idea of God could only exist in our minds' because God put it there. We have ideas of other things, and how many of those other things can said to be the cause of those ideas Did a broom put the idea of a broom in our minds Does a door cause itself to exist If this were the case, then why can't we create things with our minds The definition of God is said to contain the necessity for God to be perfect. Since we are imperfect beings, supposedly this idea of perfection must come from some other source, and this source supposedly is God, thus necessitating God's existence. There are, however, terms that exist in our minds that don't have counterparts in reality. An example would be the term infinity. Infinity is a mental concept that people came up with to describe things that never end. People came up with this idea without having actually seen something that doesn't in fact end. We can't actually know if something doesn't end; all we can know is that we haven't reached the end of it yet. And who exactly would make the claim that infinity put its own existence into our minds So we have this mental concept of infinity, but we can't ever actually know if it actually exists in the real world. The same would go for perfection. Just because we haven't come across something that is perfect, that doesn't mean that perfection doesn't exist in the real world. But since we haven't come across anything that was perfect, we don't know if it exists or not, but that doesn't keep us from having the idea of perfection in our imaginations. We have the idea of perfection in our heads, but we haven't actually seen anything that could be said to be perfect. The existence of an idea in our imagination does not in any way predicate its existence in the real world. The last thing that Descartes attempted to prove was the separation between mind and body. He builds his argument on the idea that he as already proven the existence of God. If he hasn't proven the existence of God, then the rest of his arguments would be pointless. Let's examine this argument with the given premise that he has shown God's existence, because it would be pointless to discuss anything with initially false premises. First Descartes claims that it is possible for God to create anything that Descartes can perceive, and that God is fully capable of creating things that are completely separate from each other. He then says that he understands himself as a thinking thing, and this thinking thing does not in fact require a body in order to think. It is true that if God exists then God can create a soul that doesn't require a body and a body that doesn't require a soul. What isn't true is that the body that God has created is in fact separate from a soul. Just because Descartes perceives his body to be separate from a soul doesn't mean that it is in fact separate form his soul. Also, just because Descartes perceives something, that doesn't mean that God has necessarily created it. By saying this, Descartes is giving himself power over God. There also is no room for an error in judgment; if Descartes perceives something, but that something is false, obviously his perceiving of something in that manner is not going to make God make it true. If one was going to make the argument that Descartes was intentionally contradicting himself, and that he was really trying to prove a point beyond what his stated implications were, one could go to his argument that material things exist. In this section of the Meditations, he seems to be openly contradicting himself. He states that he has a strong sense that other things in the world exist, and that it must have been God that put this sense into him. Even though before Descartes claimed that there couldn't be anyway for people to know if a being more powerful than oneself is a deceiver, he then goes on to claim that he in fact knows that God is not in fact a deceiver, and since God is not a deceiver, it can be known that these external things do in fact exist: "Moreover, nature teaches me that many other bodies exist around mine" ( Philosophical 90). (3)To briefly state Anselm's ontological argument, Anselm believed that God existed because we can conceive of the idea of God. This argument attempted to prove the existence of God through pure a priori reasoning. The premise goes that God is the supreme entity, and nothing greater than God can exist. Nothing greater than God can exist because that being would basically be God. The argument then states that if something exists in the imagination and in reality, then that object is greater than an object that exists merely in the imagination. Because the concept of God exists in the imagination, and by definition nothing greater than God can exists, this deems it a necessary function of reality that God has to exist, because the concept of God in the imagination is a contradiction if there is no God in reality. If God did not exist, then it would not be greater than something that was imagined; therefore, God has to exist because it would be a logical contradiction, at least to Anselm. The first point to argue is that Anselm is trying to prove the existence of something in reality by using reasoning: "And surely that than which a greater cannot be thought cannot exist only in the understanding. For if it exists only in the understanding, it can be thought to exist in reality as well, which is greater" (Anselm). The difference between reality and the imagination is that we have to be able to see something in reality to say that it exists in reality. Just imagining something and then giving it certain characteristics does mean that it necessarily has to exist. Using reasoning to prove that God exists is a fallacy in itself because the concept of God is an irrational thing. To make the point, I will bring up the rock example. If God is all powerful and is able to do everything, then God would have to be able to create a rock that was so heavy that God wouldn't be able to pick it up. If God wasn't able to pick up the rock, then God wouldn't be all powerful, because God couldn't pick up the rock. On the other hand, if God wasn't able to create a rock that God couldn't pick up, then God wouldn't be all powerful, because God wouldn't be able to create this rock with these attributes. To use logic to prove the existence of something that exists outside of the bounds of logic seems completely pointless. This is not to say that disproving Anselm is proving that doesn't exist; disproving Anselm is not the same thing as disproving the existence of God. Another point to criticize Anselm for is to bring up the idea of the imagination. He thought that an object that existed in reality was obviously greater than an object that existed in the imagination. The problem is that this states that there could possibly some sort of interdependence of reality and imagination. If something exists in the imagination, then it doesn't actually exist. That's the entire point of something in the imagination. Saying that something that exists in reality is greater than something that exists in the imagination is the same thing as saying that something that exists in the imagination is greater than something that doesn't exist. Two things that do actually exist can be compared to one another, but you can't compare something to nothing. You have to have something to compare it to, which is the whole point of comparison. To compare something to nothing is to create a complete contradiction. Thus, Anselm's argument couldn't possibly be true because it contains an absolute contradiction. It has been stated that the only way to prove something a priori is through an opposite contradiction. We can disprove the existence of married bachelors because the two terms are mutually exclusive. This is what we can accomplish with pure a priori thinking. We can't prove the existence of God through similar measures because there aren't two terms that we can put together that would equal a positive outcome. Since we are trying to prove something exists, as opposed to proving that something doesn't exist, we can't use pure a priori reasoning to do so. Works Cited Anselm's Ontological Argument. Accessed March 12, 2008, http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html Baird, Forest, & Kaufman, Walter, eds. From Plato to Derrida. Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 2007 Bonjour, Laurence, & Baker, Ann, eds. Philosophical Problems. Pearson Education, New York, 2005. Robinson, Dave. Introducing Plato. National Book Network, Lanham, MD, 2000. The History Guide: Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History. Accessed March 12, 2008, http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/anselm.htm Read More