Descartes was a philosopher who seemed to discard anything which was not absolutely certain and focused on what was known. In Meditation two of Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes is doubtful of everything, as he believes that if there is any doubt for something then it must not exist. With this in mind he begins to doubt his own existence but realizes that he is unable to doubt it. Descartes believes that there is a deceiver that is powerful which deceives him. Thus if something is deceiving him, Descartes believes that he must exist in order to be deceived. As result, in determining what he really is, Descartes comes to the conclusion that he is a thinking thing, and makes the point that being able to have thoughts or to be deceived, requires one to be thinking and if one is thinking then by default you must exist. In this paper I will talk about what Descartes knows he is, the powers he possesses, and the ways he can know.
First and foremost, Descartes is eager to show the distinction between the mind and the body. In the process of discovering what he is, Descartes starts by concluding that although he can conceive the possibility that his perception of his own body could in fact be false, he cannot conceive the possibility that he is without a mind. Thus, Descartes argues that he has no doubt that he exists by means of thinking and having thoughts. “ I am therefore precisely nothing but a thinking thing, that is, a mind, or intellect, or understanding , or reason words of whose meanings I was previously ignorant”(Descartes, Meditation Two, 27). The idea “Cogito ergo sum” is focused on in this meditation the idea of I think, therefore I am. Thus Descartes knows he is something without a doubt which is a thing tha...
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...ncludes that “bodies are not, properly speaking, perceived by the senses, or by the faculty imagination but by intellect alone” as he tries to show the distinction between the mind and the body.
Therefore, in Meditation two in Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes proves to show the distinction between the mind and that of the body. Descartes knows without a doubt that he is a thinking thing who has certain powers such as affirming, denying, sensing, imagining etc. The example that he provided with the piece of wax showed how we could misjudge and come to error when perceiving a thing. Descartes is able to prove that he exists in the same way that he judged the existence of the wax and how he saw it. Most importantly, Descartes comes to the conclusion that the intellect of the mind is what helps distinct and perceive something, rather than other factors.
Baird and Kaufmann, the editors of our text, explain in their outline of Descartes' epistemology that the method by which the thinker carried out his philosophical work involved first discovering and being sure of a certainty, and then, from that certainty, reasoning what else it meant one could be sure of. He would admit nothing without being absolutely satisfied on his own (i.e., without being told so by others) that it was incontrovertible truth. This system was unique, according to the editors, in part because Descartes was not afraid to face doubt. Despite the fact that it was precisely doubt of which he was endeavoring to rid himself, he nonetheless allowed it the full reign it deserved and demanded over his intellectual labors. "Although uncertainty and doubt were the enemies," say Baird and Kaufmann (p.16), "Descartes hit upon the idea of using doubt as a tool or as a weapon. . . . He would use doubt as an acid to pour over every 'truth' to see if there was anything that could not be dissolved . . . ." This test, they explain, resulted for Descartes in the conclusion that, if he doubted everything in the world there was to doubt, it was still then certain that he was doubting; further, that in order to doubt, he had to exist. His own existence, therefore, was the first truth he could admit to with certainty, and it became the basis for the remainder of his epistemology.
This idea begins the philosopher’s ongoing discussion on the body and the mind. The first thing he must do is prove he exists beyond a doubt. Descartes declares, “If I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed” (4). This idea rests on the ability of his mind, if he did not actually exist, he would not be have any sort of mental activity. From this early point in the text, Descartes foregrounds the superiority of the mind. As Blackburn puts it, “he is forced to recognize that his knowledge of his self is not based on knowledge of his embodied existence” (20). For Descartes, the ability the think defines the self (the mind/soul)– he cites thought as the one thing that cannot be separated from him. He believes if he stopped thinking he would stop existing. His ability to think sustains him, at this point in his meditations he is only a mind, his mental existence is the only thing he has
In Descartes’ second meditation, he offers up an argument for Defective Nature Doubt that brings forth the idea that we can’t be certain of anything we perceive being actual and real (153). Descartes thinks that there is a possibility that we are constantly being deceived due to the fact that we don’t know, with perfect certainty, know where our ideas originate from (154). He tries to describe a method in order to dispel this Defective Nature Doubt by giving an argument for the existence of God. I think that the argument he gives for the existence of God is valid, yet I find it to be unsound due to the fact that a few of his premises are can easily be debated. In order to express this opinion, I will first provide explanations of the premises and conclusions of the argument, and then I will critique the premises that I find to be inadequate in order to support my opinion that Descartes’ argument is valid but unsound.
Descartes’s approach to understanding the difference between mind and matter initially began by him doubting all truths which he had grown up believing to be true. He believed that if anything he held to be true was ever deceiving, he would reject its reliability all together. This extreme doubt resulted in Descartes
At the start of the meditation, Descartes begins by rejecting all his beliefs, so that he would not be deceived by any misconceptions from reaching the truth. Descartes acknowledges himself as, “a thing that thinks: that is, a thing that doubts, affirms, denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of many things” He is certain that that he thinks and exists because his knowledge and ideas are both ‘clear and distinct’. Descartes proposes a general rule, “that whatever one perceives very clearly and very distinctly is true” Descartes discovers, “that he can doubt what he clearly and distinctly perceives is true led to the realization that his first immediate priority should be to remove the doubt” because, “no organized body of knowledge is possible unless the doubt is removed” The best probable way to remove the doubt is prove that God exists, that he is not a deceiver and “will always guarantee that any clear and distinct ideas that enter our minds will be true.” Descartes must remove the threat of an invisible demon that inserts ideas and doubts into our minds to fool us , in order to rely on his ‘clear and distinct’ rule.
In the second meditation, Descartes is searching for an Archimedian point on which to seed a pearl of certainty. By doubting everything in his first meditation, Descartes consequently doubts his own existence. It is here that a certainty is unearthed: “If I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed”(17). However, Descartes “does not deduce existence from thought by means of syllogism, but recognizes it as something self-evident by a simple intuition of the mind,” or in other words, by natural light (Second Replies:68).
The teaching of Descartes has influenced many minds since his writings. Descartes' belief that clear and distinct perceptions come from the intellect and not the senses was critical to his ultimate goal in Meditations on First Philosophy, for now he has successfully created a foundation of true and certain facts on which to base a sold, scientific belief structure. He has proven himself to exist in some form, to think and therefore feel, and explains how he knows objects or concepts to be real.
Through Descartes’s Meditations, he sought to reconstruct his life and the beliefs he had. He wanted to end up with beliefs that were completely justified and conclusively proven. In order to obtain his goal, Descartes had to doubt all of his foundational beliefs so that he could start over. This left Descartes doubting the reality of the world around him and even his own existence. In order to build up to new conclusively proven and justified true beliefs, Descartes needed a fixed and undeniable starting point. This starting point was his cogito, “I think, therefore I am.” In this paper I will argue that Descartes’s argument that he is definite of his own existence, is unsound.
Outline and assess Descartes' arguments for the conclusion that mind and body are distinct substances.
Rene Descartes decision to shatter the molds of traditional thinking is still talked about today. He is regarded as an influential abstract thinker; and some of his main ideas are still talked about by philosophers all over the world. While he wrote the "Meditations", he secluded himself from the outside world for a length of time, basically tore up his conventional thinking; and tried to come to some conclusion as to what was actually true and existing. In order to show that the sciences rest on firm foundations and that these foundations lay in the mind and not the senses, Descartes must begin by bringing into doubt all the beliefs that come to him by the senses. This is done in the first of six different steps that he named "Meditations" because of the state of mind he was in while he was contemplating all these different ideas. His six meditations are "One:Concerning those things that can be called into doubt", "Two:Concerning the Nature of the Human mind: that it is better known than the Body", "Three: Concerning God, that he exists", "Four: Concerning the True and the False", "Five: Concerning the Essence of Material things, and again concerning God, that he exists" and finally "Six: Concerning the Existence of Material things, and the real distinction between Mind and Body". Although all of these meditations are relevant and necessary to understand the complete work as a whole, the focus of this paper will be the first meditation.
Descartes makes a careful examination of what is involved in the recognition of a specific physical object, like a piece of wax. By first describing the wax in a manner such that “everything is present in the wax that appears needed to enable a body to be known as distinctly as possible” (67), he shows how easily our senses help to conceive our perception of the body. But even if such attributes are modified or removed, we still recognize the changed form, as the same piece of wax. This validates Descartes’ claim that “wax itself never really is the sweetness of the honey, nor the fragrance of the flowers, nor the whiteness, nor the shape, nor the sound” (67), and the only certain knowledge we gain of the wax is that “it is something extended, flexible, and mutable” (67). This conclusion forces us to realize that it is difficult to understand the true nature of the wax, and its identity is indistinguishable from other things that have the same qualities as the wax. After confirming the nature of a human mind is “a thinking thing” (65), Descartes continues that the nature of human mind is better known than the nature of the body.
Descartian dualism is one of the most long lasting legacies of Rene Descartes’ philosophy. He argues that the mind and body operate as separate entities able to exist without one another. That is, the mind is a thinking, non-extended entity and the body is non-thinking and extended. His belief elicited a debate over the nature of the mind and body that has spanned centuries, a debate that is still vociferously argued today. In this essay, I will try and tackle Descartes claim and come to some conclusion as to whether Descartes is correct to say that the mind and body are distinct.
In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes states “I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in as far as I am only a thinking and unextended thing, and as, on the other hand, I possess a distinct idea of body, in as far as it is only an extended and unthinking thing”. [1] The concept that the mind is an intangible, thinking entity while the body is a tangible entity not capable of thought is known as Cartesian Dualism. The purpose of this essay is to examine how Descartes tries to prove that the mind or soul is, in its essential nature, entirely distinct from the
In Meditation Six entitled “Concerning the Existence of Material Things, and Real Distinction between the Mind and Body”, one important thing Descartes explores is the relationship between the mind and body. Descartes believes the mind and body are separated and they are two difference substances. He believes this to be clearly and distinctly true which is a Cartesian quality for true knowledge. I, on the other hand, disagree that the mind and body are separate and that the mind can exist without the body. First, I will present Descartes position on mind/body dualism and his proof for such ideas. Secondly, I will discuss why I think his argument is weak and offer my own ideas that dispute his reasoning while I keep in mind how he might dispute my argument.
In the second meditation he has found one true fact, "I think, therefore I am". Descartes then attempts to discover what this "I" is and how it perceives reality. The "I" is a body, a soul, and a thinking thing. It gains perception and recognition through the senses, the imagination, and the mind. He runs into two major problems in these meditations. The first was the existence of reality. The second is the connection between body and mind as he defines them.