Abstract
This paper argues that Descartes' "Trademark Argument" can only be a sound argument if all the premises are true leading to a true conclusion; thereby, all the premises must be 100% true and there is no argument within an argument. The author points out that there is a problem in the first premise because Descartes says he has this idea of a perfect being but he doesn't mention anything else besides the fact that he has this idea of something perfect. The paper contends that Descartes' actually trying to prove that there is a God is just ridiculous because the author feels that God's existence is supposed to be based on a belief system; there are many religions held by many types of people in the world, and every religion seems to have their own God and own story behind how the world became into existence.

From the Paper
"The first thing Descartes said in his argument was, "I have an idea of a perfect being." Well his perfect being he is referring to is supposed to be God. Since Descartes' whole goal of this argument is to prove the existence of God, this was probably a good start to the argument. He kept it simple, and short without too many details. Once he had this idea, he probably might have been thinking how this idea came to him, which brings up the next premise in his argument."

Tags:premises, perfect, belief, cause, idea

Abstract
This paper first outlines Descartes? argument for the existence of God as set forth in Meditation V. The writer then addresses the two most prominent objections to this argument: First, Kant?s objection that Descartes' argument is valid but unsound because it contains a false premise, and second, Caterus? objection that the argument is invalid because the conclusion does not logically follow the premises.

From the Paper
"Having established that clear and distinct perceptions are true, Descartes then asserts that he has a clear and distinct perception of God. ?Clearly the idea of God, that is, the idea of a supremely perfect being, is one I discover to be no less within me than the idea of any figure or number.? (M., 368) Additionally, this perception of God includes the concept of existence. ?It is obvious to anyone who pays close attention that existence can no more be separated from God's essence than [a triangle] having three angles equal to two right angles, or that the idea of a valley can be separated from the idea of a mountain.? (M., 369) Descartes then combines this concept with his first premise to complete the argument. Since clear and distinct perceptions about the nature of a thing are true, and the idea of existence is inextricably linked with the idea of a God, Descartes concludes that a God must therefore exist."

Tags:Caterus, God, Kant, existence, perception

Abstract
This paper begins with a brief background to the history of the play "Othello" by Willia, Shakespeare. It then moves on to discuss some of the themes and issues the play has raised over the years such as the racial implications of the term 'moor' that was used to describe Othello himself. The paper uses arguments and quotes from critics such as Charles Lamb, Coleridge and Thomas Rhymer, as well as quotes from the play itself.

From the Paper
"Thomas Rymer was an English critic and historiographer, especially interested in drama and drama criticism. He was very hostile towards contemporary dramatists of his time and in his essay A Short View of Tragedy written in 1692, he famously labelled Othello "a bloody farce without salt or savour". Rymer had nothing good to say about Othello and objected that Shakespeare had dignified a black man by giving him a name. Because of such comments, Rymer was widely regarded as the worst critic to ever publish anything about Shakespeare. Rymer didn't believe that the play was a true "tragedy" because the issue of the handkerchief was not an important enough event for tragedy to come from. He was of the opinion that tragedy should come from serious matters."

Tags:moor, race, tragedy

From the Paper
"In his Meditations, Descartes puts aside all his present beliefs and, by using skepticism, he attempts to discover a set of basic beliefs whose truth is beyond doubt. Descartes uses his dream argument to explain that our senses are not powerful enough to determine which beliefs are true and which are not. In his Second Meditation, through the use of skepticism, he derives his first basic belief, his own existence. "

Tags:beliefs, conclusion, doubt, dreams, existence, meditations, perception, philosophy, reason, reasons, senses, truth

Abstract
The essay reveals that the argument primarily suggests the innate existence of ideas. Descartes employs his famous "dream argument" to argue that the idea of one's own existence proves the difference between objective and subjective reality.

Abstract
Descartes' "The First Meditation", subtitled "What can be called into doubt," opens with a Meditator reflecting upon the volume of falsehoods he has believed during his life and on the subsequent shakiness of the body of knowledge he has built up from these falsehoods. He has resolved to clear away all that he thinks he knows to start anew from the foundations, reconstructing his knowledge once more on stable grounds. "Meditations", Volume 1 focuses upon the skepticism of a man confronting the instability of his perceptions of reality and upon life itself. He questions his senses, wrestles with deciding upon the Deific or Satanic origins of his deception and ultimately determines that he cannot doubt the reality of his own existence. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the nature of Descartes' skepticism relating to the "First Meditation", and to demonstrate the fallacy of his argument.

Abstract
This paper will examine the critical responses to three films, which derive from both immediate and reflective criticism. The films to be discussed are Kenneth Branagh's "Henry V", Federico Fellini's "La Strada" and Fritz Lang's "Metropolis". It will be argued that central to the criticism of the three directors and their films are the sense in which each is regarded as an "auteur". All three cinematic texts produce meaning through the tension between the director's personality and the material with which he is working. It is this pervasive domination by the director of the cinematic text through manipulation of the 'mise en scene' that defines these works as that of "auteurs".

Abstract
This paper provides a brief introduction to Descartes's arguments from "Mediations" and provides some common criticisms of Descartes's philosophy.

From the Paper
"Descartes dream argument is based on his assumption that humans accept any information that comes in from the senses as true. In his dream argument, Descartes proposes that the sensations that he feels in reality are greatly similar to those sensations that he feels while dreaming. As such, there is no reliable way to tell the difference between sensations felt during dreams and those felt while awake."

Tags:universal, laws, geometry, mathematics, philosophers, selves, reality, fundamental, truths

Abstract
This paper examines Descartes dualist thesis that mind and body are different things and his "Conceivability Argument" in his Meditations on First Philosophy. The conceivability argument uses one's ability to conceive of a mind without a body as a proof that mind and body are necessarily different things. The writer provides an objection to this argument from the point of view of an Identity Theorist, who believes that mind and body are in fact the exact same thing. The objection takes the meaning-reference distinction approach that states that mind and body essentially refer to the same thing but mean different things.

From the Paper
"One of the central pieces of Descartes' dualist thesis is his conceivability argument, which attempts to establish that mind and body are necessarily different types of things. As it provides grounds for substantiating that mind and body are distinct, this argument also serves as the backbone of a prominent objection to the claims proposed by the simple identity theory. The identity theory makes the claim that all types of mental states and experiences are equivalent to types of brain states or other physical states. This clearly conflicts directly with the dualist's view of an independently existing mind that is responsible for the realization of mental states and experiences regardless of the existence of any corresponding physical entity to go with them. As such, the dualist must have significant objections to the identity theory. One such challenge to the identity theory is well summed by a single claim: "I can imagine myself turned to stone, and yet having images, aches, pains and so on." In this paper I will first demonstrate how an objection to the identity theory centered on this claim can be constructed. I will demonstrate how this objection is quite similar in nature to Descartes' conceivability argument, which will necessitate a brief explanation of Descartes' argument. I will then offer a response from the identity theorist to this objection, which will rely on the relationship between "concept" and "meaning" and the distinction between meaning and reference. In presenting this reply, I will show that this response to the dualist's objection also works against Descartes' conceivability argument."

Tags:argument, body, conceivability, descartes, dualism, identity, meaning, meditations, mind, reference, theory

Abstract
The paper discusses how the arguments of Descartes' reasoning on the existence of God are often disproved by the more modern atheist argument that define a more objective understanding of reality through the functions of human mind. the paper explains that Descartes presents two points: The first being that the perfection of God exists, if man can deny his own imperfection within the cognition of the human of the mind; secondly, that God exists in the external world through material objects in relation to humankind.

Tags:god, philo, study