How Does Descartes Perceive The World

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"Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once"(First Meditation, 2). Although the senses help us perceive the world, Descartes believes that the senses are not reliable, and that the mind is a better source of knowledge, and this is due to existence of dreams, evil demons, and the wax argument. Descartes realizes that while dreaming, things to him seem real. One of his dreams has him sitting by a fire in his room, and he claims to be feeling the warmth given off by the fire, just as it would have felt it if he were awake. Because of his …show more content…

Descartes believes that omnipotent God could have made our perceptions of mathematics false. "I will suppose therefore that not God, who is supremely good and the source of truth but rather some malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me"(First Meditation, 5). Descartes supposes that not God but some evil demon has committed its self to deceiving Descartes, so that everything Descartes perceives through his senses he now knows is false. By Descartes’s doubting of everything he can be sure that he will not be misled into any falsehood by this demon making his mind a better source of knowledge. "I see that without any effort I have finally got back to where I wanted. I now know that even bodies are not strictly perceived by the senses or the faculty of imagination but by the intellect alone, and that this perception derives not from their being understood; and in view of this I know plainly that I can achieve an easier and more evident perception of my own mind than of anything else"(Second Meditation, 13). Descartes believes that it is possible that all knowledge of external objects, including his body, could be misleading as the result of the actions of an evil demon. However, it could not be possible, that I could be hoodwinked about my presence or my nature as a rational

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