Essay --

Since the time of Parmenides in the 5th Century BCE, philosophers have been intrigued by the existence of a physical world and being in it. They have studied the nature of being, existence, and reality in what is now known as ontology. Being part of (arguably) the largest branch of philosophy – metaphysics – ontologists have tried to dig deeper into questions of how things can exist and how they can be said to exist, have analyzed the similarities and differences, and have even broadened the spectrum all the way out to human life and what aspects make up a human being. However, ontology evolved and became more and more generally applied and philosophers started considering the ontology (existence) of God, or rather simply a "supreme" or "all-powerful" being. One of the most notable ontological arguments of the existence of God comes from Renee Descates who uses his argument of the existence of God as a way to develop a system of attaining certain (absolute) knowledge t hrough clear and distinct perception. In this essay, I will attempt to: outline in detail Descartes' ontological argument and its purpose, detail some of the most promising objections to the argument, and present compelling counterarguments to those objections. I. The Ontological Argument Descartes establishes the fact that he exists as a self-thinking entity and he believes this to be certain knowledge because he distinctly and clearly perceives himself to be and he could not do so without existing and having the cognitive faculties to think this: "I am certain of my own existence because I clearly and distinctly perceive it; so I now seem to establish a general rule that whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive is true" (III, 2). But there is one slight... ...t clear and distinct perceptions are true. For something to be clearly and distinctly perceived, we must be actively attending to it. The only reason for Descartes to bring God into the equation is to ensure that doubt does not overtake these perceptions in after we stop attending to them. Therefore, Descartes can in fact use clear and distinct perception to prove the existence of God. In the proof of God's existence he uses clear and distinct perceptions which he is actively attending to, and so (by the established standard), they must be true. So now that God is proven to be true, this allows the thinker to not have to actively attend to his perceptions in order for them to be true, making the amount of perceptions one can have limitless. General Comments: 1. No fluff! There’s some padding in your writing that doesn’t contribute to your arguments at all. Avoid it.