Descartes Meditation 1 Knowledge Analysis

Descartes is now clear on his perception of God so he looks at material things. He points out that a body must exist in reality, because for him to dream about his body, it must exist before he would know what to dream about. So although he can perceive qualities of material things, he is still confused about some things because of is imperfect perception. He concludes that the senses are meant to help him get around in the world, not to lead him to the truth. ( SparkNotes Editors, 2012 )

He discusses about how everything he perceives is based on his “sensor data”, or the information that obtained through the five senses (touch, smell, sight, taste, and hearing). Although, he describes that the senses can also be deceived. For example, the initiation of an image when we experience mirages, or seeing hallucinations after taking meditation. Ideally, he argues that the simple 5 senses are not reliable as well. He then moves to the idea of God and religion, and that there is an evil deceiver or demon that is responsible for his deceived senses. He justifies that God is good, and there’s no way God would allow that to happen. In his second mediation, he explains the nature of the human mind and how it is better than the body. Descartes states that it’s impossible to doubt that God exists because it would mean the doubt your own existence. He then clarifies that he is a “thinking” thing, which then becomes his only valid statements as the previous statements were contradicting each other. In other words, I think, therefore I am. Descartes then approaches the physical aspects of beings, and talks about how wax, when cold, has all of its properties, and when it’s next to a fire becomes a puddle, but it’s still wax. He then takes that same idea and says that this could happen to the body as well. He comes to the conclusion that no matter what has occurred to the body, physically, it is still taking up space in the world. The only thing he can only rely on is

When Rene Descartes begins his fourth meditation in Meditations on First Philosophy, he has already established a three key ideas: God exists, God is not a deceiver, and that God created Descartes and assumes responsibility for Descartes’ faculties like the faculty of judgment. Descartes doesn’t have a problem with his first two ideas, however, the third idea causes him to think deeper. Since everything humans have comes from God, and he is not a deceiver, then we should not be able to make any mistakes. Descartes realizes that this is just not true, which leads to the dilemma known as the “Problem of Error”. This creates the necessity for Descartes to try and rework his argument around these opposite sides. For every argument that Descartes brings up throughout meditation four, however, all of them have flaws that cause the entire argument to not follow through. Therefore,

Humans are finite substances so they cannot come up with the ideas of infinite substances unless it were given to them by an infinite substance. Descartes continues that while we advance gradually each day these attributes could never exist within us because we are only potentially perfect whereas God is actually perfect. Furthermore, Descartes argues that only God could be the author of his being because if it were he or his parent’s other finite substances that authored his being then he would not have wants or doubts because he would have bestowed upon himself every perfection imaginable to a finite being. Therefore, God exists because Descartes could not have thought of God because he is a finite substance thus the idea of God must have come from an infinite substance.

In Descartes’ First Meditation, Descartes’ overall intention is to present the idea that our perceptions and sensations are flawed and should not be trusted entirely. His purpose is to create the greatest possible doubt of our senses. To convey this thought, Descartes has three main arguments in the First Meditation: The dream argument, the deceiving God argument, and the evil demon “or evil genius”. Descartes’ dream argument argues that there is no definite transition from a dream to reality, and since dreams are so close to reality, one can never really determine whether they are dreaming

From Descartes point of view, he thinks that it makes sense to talk of degrees of reality to qualify the above assumptions, and he sometimes equates this with talk of degrees of perfection. Thus, he brings God back into the picture. The ideas, then, could come from only God, or from another being superior to humans but inferior to God. But this, too, is impossible, argues Descartes, as if it were the case that God produces the ideas of bodies in humans, then the very strong inclination we have towards believing that the idea-producing bodies resemble the ideas we have would be false and thus God would be allowing us to be deceived which is not permissible. The same would apply if any other being were producing

By the start of Meditation Four Descartes has established the reliability of his clear and distinct criterion of knowledge, and he has concluded that he exists as an essentially thinking thing and that the idea of an infinite, perfect being entails God's existence. Descartes has also eliminated concern about being systematically deceived, since acting in such a way would be indicative of some deficiency rather than the exercise of some power, and God is perfect. This generates further questions, as humans do regularly judge falsely, even without the meddling of a malicious, deceptive being (99). Given God's nature, attributing error to him is unacceptable, but, conversely, how could humans be blamed for the faulty faculty of judgement that

     This is where the wax argument comes into play. All the properties of the piece of wax that we perceive with the senses change as the wax melts. This is true as well of its primary properties, such as shape, extension and size. Yet the wax remains the same piece of wax as it melts. We know the wax through our mind and judgement, not through our senses or imagination. Therefore, every act of clear and distinct knowledge of corporeal matter also provides even more certain evidence for the existence of Descartes as a thinking thing. Therefore his mind is much clearer and more distinctly know to him than his body. At this

At the beginning of Meditation three, Descartes has made substantial progress towards defeating skepticism. Using his methods of Doubt and Analysis he has systematically examined all his beliefs and set aside those which he could call into doubt until he reached three beliefs which he could not possibly doubt. First, that the evil genius seeking to deceive him could not deceive him into thinking that he did not exist when in fact he did exist. Second, that his essence is to be a thinking thing. Third, the essence of matter is to be flexible, changeable and extended.

Descartes is able to examine ideas and gain knowledge form them. Innate ideas mean they are present at birth, in other words we are implanted with certain ideas at our creation. He often uses ‘innate ideas’ to explain the mind’s original programming. “An infant’s mind is programmed with the rules of logic. Consider as an example the valid rule, modus ponens. Let P and Q stand for variables… the rules states that, if P then Q is true and P is true, then it follows that Q is true. We know that we are programmed with this rule because young children, who have never studied logic and have never entertained the rule, when given an argument in which the variables above are replaced by actual sentences, are able to intuit the validity of the argument.” Descartes believed our minds are programmed with eternal truths, “Whatever comes into existence must have been brought into existence by something else.” He also discovers that the idea of God is only part of his initial programming but also that God, operating through secondary sources such as his parents, is the programmer.

However, the Meditator realizes that he is often convinced when he is dreaming that he is sensing real objects. He feels certain that he is awake and sitting by the fire, but reflects that often he has dreamed this very sort of thing and been thoroughly convinced by it. On further reflection, he realizes that even simple things can be doubted. Omnipotent God could make even our conception of mathematics false. One might argue that God is supremely good and would not lead Descartes to believe falsely all these things. He supposes that not God, but some "evil demon" has committed itself to deceiving him so that everything he thinks he knows is false. By doubting everything, he can at least be sure not to be misled into falsehood by this demon.

In the first meditation, "Concerning those things that can be called into doubt", Descartes main goal is to distinguish what it is he can take to be true, and what supposed truths hold even the smallest degree of doubt. When he reviews all of his opinions he concludes "eventually [he] is forced to admit that there is nothing among the things [he]believed to be true which it is not permissable to doubt--and not out of frivolity or lack of forethought, but for valid and considered reasons. Thus [he] must be no less careful to withhold assent henceforth even from these beliefs then [he] would from those that are patently false, if [he wishes] to find anything certain."(Pg62) At the beginning of Descartes' meditations, he finds that there is really no concrete pillars of knowledge to base the foundations of his supposed

The first Meditation concerns the things that can be called into doubt. Descartes explains the reasons for why we should, and can doubt all things around us, including substance and all material things. He also discusses the senses and their use of helping us to perceive and understand. He also talks about perceptions and dreams, how there is no definite way to separate your dream experience from your waking experience, therefore it is possible to be dreaming now and to not know it. He argues that the images we form in dreams that can only by made up of parts of real experiences, which in the end can be put together in different ways. Because of this, our perceptions of our own experiences can be deceiving. He believes God

He cannot say that God exists, because there remains the possibility that his thoughts are in fact originating from himself (in which case there would be no need for God). Since he has abandoned all notions of existence and certainty, which includes his own body and senses, is it possible that he himself does not exist? To think a thought is bound to existence by definition; one must exist first before having the ability to think. Even if an all-powerful deceiver made it so that I do not exist, it would generate a contradiction since I cannot think that I exists if I don't. (25) Thinking about existing requires existence as a prerequisite. Descartes has arrived at his first truly tangible and useful element of truth: that it is necessarily true that he exists.

He finds it plausible that we are all living in a dream and we have never experienced reality. He can no longer give any credence to his senses and finds himself in a place of complete uncertainty. Descartes comes to the conclusion that nothing can be perceived more easily and more evidently than his own mind. He has discovered that even bodies are not accurately perceived by the senses or the faculty of imagination, and are only accurately being perceived by the intellect. He also realizes that they are not distinguished through being touched, smelled, or tasted, but by being understood alone. (An apple is an apple because our mind tells us that it is an apple.) It is the faculty of reason that gives the knowledge and lets the mind know the truths and essences of objects. Descartes assumes that all of us can be decided by our senses, someone can see something far away, and then discover that is not what we thought it was. Or even a oar when is immerse half in water attempt to be bent, but instead is straight. Descartes think that we cannot always be sure of what we sense, and gives the example of himself seated by the fire.