Descartes Beliefs

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Descartes main objective in his meditations is to question or doubt knowledge. It was important for Descartes to distinguish what people can identify as truth. He also believed that reason was the source for knowing what is the absolute certainty and knowledge. He uses radical form of skepticism in his investigation that resembles an “if and then” kind of reasoning. I think that Descartes wrote the meditations to reaffirm his beliefs and/or to justify his beliefs.
In Descartes’ first meditations, he begins by saying that he will start over and basically question everything he knows. In order for Descartes to question everything he says that he must first establish a foundation that is built on the absolute truth; therefore he will reset or start over with his beliefs because there is a possibility that what he already knows is not the absolute truth. Descartes says that because he has doubts on the things that he believes, then his beliefs might not be the absolute truth. Everything that he knows is based on the senses and how he sees the world. He says that he cannot trust his senses because there is the possibility that everything that he experiences is just an illusion created by a powerful being. He concludes the first meditation by saying that because his reality is perceived by the senses and that there is a possibility of illusion, he cannot be really certain of what things are and are not.
In his second meditations, Descartes explains why even though everything is just an illusion or not true, his existence is still an absolute truth. He says that even though his reality is just an illusion, there is still someone that is experiencing the illusion and that means that he must truly exist. And because the only evidence that...

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...derstanding, you can use mathematical relations to easily differentiate the two figures. Descartes then demonstrates the existence of body through reason. He claims that he perceives the body as an extension of his mind.
Descartes main objective in his meditations is to question or doubt knowledge and for him, in order to get an unbiased knowledge; he basically started from zero and questioned everything. He uses radical form of skepticism in his investigation for the absolute truth. I think that Descartes wrote the meditations to reaffirm his beliefs and/or to justify his beliefs. Most of the ideas that he tried to prove where based on the existence of god. Rene Descartes was a devout catholic and being one of the key figures in the scientific revolution, I think he had conflicting thoughts about what he believes and tried to prove his beliefs with the Meditations.

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