Rene Descartes Meditation Two Essay

Through his Meditations, especially in Meditation Two, Rene Descartes strives to prove the idea that the progress of science is not able to be proved thoroughly without an orderly, precise method. Meditation Two is subtitled “The nature of the human mind, and how it is better known than the body”, and this is where Descartes clearly claims to have shown three significant things: that he cannot be led astray about his own existence, that he is a rational, thinking thing that is distinct from his body, both of which lead him back to the Cogito ergo sum statement.

Firstly, Descartes ponders about the idea that what he sees does not exist, and that he has no direct senses and no body. He notes that the physical world does not exist, and this leads him to recall Archimedes’, a famous Greek engineer, mathematician, and physicist, by saying: “Archimedes used to demand just one firm and immovable point in order to shift the entire earth; so I too can hope for great things if I manage to find just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshakeable”. This portrays that Descartes is firm in his decision to continue his search for all things certain in the world and discard any false evidence that he finds, showing that he believes that in the path to greatness he cannot be led

He attempts to try to understand this complex idea by considering what we know about a piece of wax. He records the taste, smell, shape, size and colour, and then asks what happens when the wax is melted. All the qualities of the wax change, but the wax still remains wax. Our knowledge that both forms of the wax are the same get confused with our senses, since the properties have changed. Descartes concludes that the mind is superior to the body, and that the thoughts we have about the outside world has to confirm our own existence and authorize the nature of the