Analysis Of Meditations On First Philosophy By Renè Descartes

Throughout his Meditations on First Philosophy, Renè Descartes assumes the position of a toddler and discards everything he thought he knew as true. In the first meditations, Descartes attempts to prove the existence of himself, while also completely doubting all of his external senses. Unlike most philosophers in the 1600's, Descartes believed in the possibility that he is just living in an extravagant dream, where all of his observations are inaccurate and false. Even if the fundamentals of mathematics and science still hold true, the colors, shapes, and other characteristic features of an object in a dream could be skewed or fake. Since there is no way of determining if we are in a dream, we cannot verify or believe in any of our senses.

Even though Descartes can see his own two hands and legs, he cannot confirm that they actually exist since he must doubt all of his senses. Even though he cannot confirm the presence of his physical body, he can prove the existence of res-cogitan or his own mind. In the second meditation, Descartes comprises his first main argument where he attempts to identify himself. Even if the world is just a simulation, Descartes believes that something has to think or create the dream. Similarly, something has to be doubting, or else no doubt would exist. Since "thought…cannot be separated from [him]", Descartes proves that he has to exist (19). Descartes believes that since he might not have a body at all, he has to be a thinking thing, or something that "doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, and that also imagines and senses"

In regards to his Cartesian Circle, Descartes shows that the clear and distinct ideas in each of the two proofs are different. In the first proof which he proves that clear and distinct ideas in the past depend on God being a deceiver where he states "there is nothing among the things I once believed to be true" (16). While in the second proof which Descartes proves that the existence of God is because of clear and distinct ideas in the present where he states "I perceive that I now exist" (30). Descartes shows that the clean and distinct ideas are in different contexts, however, he is extremely vague with his descriptions. The reader would benefit greatly if Descartes elaborated on the contexts of clear and distinct ideas in his