Individualism in Philosophy

In connection with the what, Descartes did not take the same step. He set to work to gain mental pictures about the world, and—in accordance with the cognitive principle just presented—searched through his own inner being for such mental pictures. There he found the mental picture of God. It was of course nothing more than the mental picture of the human “I.” But Descartes did not recognize this. The idea of God as the altogether most perfect being » brought his thinking onto a completely wrong path. This one characteristic, that of the altogether greatest perfection, outshone for him all the other characteristics of the central being. He said to himself: Man, who is himself imperfect, cannot out of himself create the mental picture of an altogether most perfect being. Consequently this altogether most perfect being exists. If Descartes had investigated the true content of his mental picture of God, he would have found that it is exactly the same as the mental picture of the “I,” and that perfection is only a conceptual enhancement of this content. The essential content of an ivory ball is not changed by my thinking of it as infinitely large. Just as little does the mental picture of the “I” become something else through such an enhancement.