Truth as the Goal of Philosophy Essay - 1255 Words

Truth as the Goal of Philosophy Truth is the goal of philosophy. Some philosophers, like David Hume, struggle with eliminating falsity, while others, like Rene Descartes, look for causes to explain effects. A cause and effect argument is called a causal argument. Descartes is interested in logic, one truth progressing to the next. Descartes gives a causal argument for the existence of God in Meditation III. He deals with the effect of the idea of absolute perfection in our minds and rationalizes that the cause is God, therefore proving the existence of God. Descartes believes there are two types of reality: objective and formal.. The degree of reality depends on the degree of independence. The more independent, the higher the†¦show more content†¦Following in this line of reasoning, only one who understands the concept could put it into our minds, therefore coming to the conclusion that there must be a being of absolute perfection. Descartes calls this being God. The idea states that for all effects there is a cause. Hume said that even though the cause preceded the effect, there is no proof that the cause is responsible for the effects occurrence. The cosmological argument follows the same logic as the causal argument of Descartes. The cosmological argument states that all physical things, even mountains, boulders, and rivers, come into being and go out of existence, no matter how low they last. Therefore, since time is infinite, there must be some time at which none of these things existed. But if there were nothing at that point in time, how could there be anything at all now, since nothing cannot cause anything? Thus there must always have been at least one necessary thing that is eternal, which is God. (Proofs For and Against the Existence of God) Hume emphasized that there is no legitimate way we can infer the properties of God as the creator of the word form the qualities of His creation. 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