Rene Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy

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Recommended: Rene Descartes and his idea of knowledge

Descartes believes that knowledge comes from within the mind. This is a single indisputable fact to build on that can be gained through individual reflection. While seeking true knowledge, Descartes writes his Six Meditations. In these meditations, Descartes tries to develop a strong foundation, which all knowledge can be built upon. In the First Meditation, Descartes begins developing this foundation through the method of doubt. He casts doubt upon all his previous beliefs, including “matters which are not entirely certain and indubitable [and] those which appear to be manifestly false.” (Descartes, p.75, par.3) Once Descartes clears away all beliefs that can be called into doubt, he can then build a strong base for all true knowledge to stand upon. Descartes attacks all his previous beliefs by going to the root of their origin, the senses and intellect. He then supposes to say that everything he presumed to be absolutely true, such as simple arithmetic, was created by an evil demon.

Descartes starts the first argument by attacking the very basis of his beliefs, human senses. People learn their beliefs through their external and internal senses. “All that...I have accepted as most true and certain I have learned either from the senses or through the senses.” (Descartes, p. 75, par. 3) By means of the five external senses -- sight, sound, touch, taste, smell -- you learn various ideas about the world around you. Yet, how reliable are these external senses, these sources of beliefs? Everyone will admit that their external senses have deceived them on at least one occasion, and according to Descartes, it is a mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in anything that has deceived us even once. (Descartes, p.75, par.3) For instance, imagine that you spot a person from across the street that looks like your friend. You run all the way down the street and tap the person on the shoulder, only to find out that this is not your friend but a person who looks somewhat like her. According to your sense of sight you believed this person to be your friend, but your sense deceived you. To build a foundation of knowledge upon beliefs derived from external senses is foolish since those senses are deceptive.

Perhaps true beliefs come from your internal senses. Internal senses include an awareness of oneself, such as believing you have a stom...

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...they are all wrong. The argument will stand strong, but incorrectly. In that case, Descartes’ evil demon hypothesis seems necessary.

One final problem with Descartes’ evil demon hypothesis is that it causes Descartes to contradict himself. How can Descartes know the Evil Demon is not implanting him with the thoughts for his argument in the first place? Since the evil demon may be deceiving Descartes even about logic and mathematics, perhaps he is being deceived about his own argument. For instance, might Descartes be deceived into thinking that the conclusion of the argument “I cannot be certain about any of my beliefs” follows logically from the premises of the first meditation. How could Descartes argue for skepticism at all since the evil demon may be deceiving him about the validity of his arguments? Even if Descartes were arguing validly, he could never know it.

Work Cited

Blackburn, Simon. Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy, Oxford Paperbacks (March 22, 2013)

Descartes, Rene. "Meditations on First Philosophy." Trans. John Veitch. The Philosophy of the 16th and 17th Centuries. Ed. and Comp. Richard H. Popkin. New York: The Free Press, 1966.

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