Comparing Gassendi And Descartes

Each individual defines God and their relationship with God differently. While that choice is up to each person, philosophers have tried to explain the complex nature of God and how this nature is presented to the self. Gassendi and Descartes have differing opinions on how God and the concept of infinity is processed in the mind, and how their seemingly inconceivable natures are best understood. Gassendi believes that God and the infinite nature are acquired over time, but can’t be completely understood since they are beyond our comprehension. On the other hand, Descartes feels that these incomprehensible qualities of God and infinity perfectly explain why they can’t be understood, and knowing that they are incomprehensible is enough to fully …show more content…
Gassendi argues that we can’t make sense of infinity because we are not capable of understanding something that is not finite in nature. So when someone calls something infinite, he is labeling it with something he doesn’t actually understand. Since Gassendi believes that human intelligence is limited to that which we can understand, trying to grasp something beyond our understanding is a contradiction. He says that one can only understand part of the principal part of infinite nature, the fact that it is incomprehensible. Infinity itself, not just the idea of it, cannot be understood. Descartes’ response to this is that Gassendi fails to take into account the full scope of human understanding, which includes both what we can conceive, but also what we are able to understand on a conceptual level. He uses the example of a triangle, claiming that one does not understand everything about the triangle even though one knows it has three sides. While the novice may not know anything else about it, experts know about its complexities. This explains how one can understand infinity; understanding the principal idea, and extending that knowledge to make further inferences. The difference in the two philosopher’s thinking is that Descartes makes the point that one does not need to know everything about something to understand its nature. Gassendi’s beliefs are rooted in the idea that one must …show more content…
According to Gassendi, the idea of a perfect God is just a list of positive qualities and attributes that one sees in themselves and others, amplified to an extent, in order to exhibit perfection. He says that just being able to verbally grasp this idea of perfection is not really grasping it at all. Basically, one cannot perceive what is beyond comprehension, which is the infinite. The reason why one might be able to think they can perceive infinity is because all they are really doing is amplifying the finite. In other words, one is just taking what is real and making it appear beyond normalcy. Trying to envision something that can’t be actually be perceived, according to Gassendi, distorts the image and therefore makes it impossible to truly understand. He references Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” to explain this point. He says the man in the cave would be a fool if he thought that the cave was representative of the entire world. Descartes’ response to this is that the idea that the infinite cannot be grasped is exactly the definition of what is infinite. The fact that we cannot fully understand and comprehend infinity explains its nature. He says this is possible because when we think of infinity, we have to think it about in terms of a human idea, where in reality, infinity is beyond what a single human idea could process. The same thinking would apply when thinking about God.