Descartes Second Meditation Analysis

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In Descartes Second Meditation he begins by reviewing his First Meditation. Descartes then claims that the one truth he can know, the one thing that cannot be denied, is "I am, I exist" (Descartes R324). This truth does not come from sensory information or depend on the external world. “For even an omnipotent god could not cause it to be true, at one and the same time, both that I am deceived and that I do not exist. If I am deceived, then at least I am.” (Descartes R324). Descartes's reasoning here is best known by its Latin translation: "cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am"). He also then concludes that "sum res cogitans" ("I am a thing that thinks") (Descartes L325). According to Descartes, after going through the stages of methodological

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