An Analysis of Descartes’ First Meditation Essay example

Abigail Ross Dr. Mendell Philosophy 8 November 22, 2014 Throughout Rene Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, he argues against the philosophy of his time; that all knowledge comes from the senses. Initially, he reasons that we can establish whether or not we are dreaming purely from our actions and experiences. However, after further scrutiny, realizes that we do not have any way of distinguishing between being awake and being asleep. Descartes’ dream argument sparked the idea that sense perception does not convey accurate information.

The topic of this essay is Descartes’ First Meditations and I will be discussing in detail the Dreaming argument and the Evil Demon argument.

In the Meditations, Descartes abandons his views about everything he knows in the world. During this he discusses the idea of senses relying on the mind rather than the body. The role of senses is shown through his demonstration of the wax example and the ever changing properties the wax entailed. “The perception I have of it is a case not of vision or touch or imagination…but purely of mental scrutiny.” (Descartes 31) To Descartes, the senses were deceiving and could not be solely trusted in the understanding of a worldly object, in Meditation II he adequately defends this argument. Throughout this paper we will examine how this example was important to the entire argument that Descartes discusses in this paper, along with Descartes ultimate conclusion: “One cannot be deceived of their existence” and how these views may relate to other philosophers such as Locke and Berkeley.

This essay will outline and discuss Descartes dreaming argument and evil demon. Descartes argues that there is no certain way to distinguish a waking state from a dreaming state. I will argue that the dreaming argument is not sound and there may be a possibility that there are distinctions between waking and dreaming, putting Descartes certainty into doubt. I will also argue the evil demon argument is a stronger argument than the dreaming argument.

In Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, the first meditation he hypothesize an argument which suggest that there is no definitive way to validate whether we are awake or dreaming. Now, Descartes does not actually believe that the world we live in is an entire dream, he uses the dream argument as a way to break us in our beliefs and acceptance of sensory experiences; causing doubt. In the meditations Descartes target is to investigate knowledge. In order for the metaphysical problem to be dealt with it is important for Descartes to sort out truths and know with certainty. He successfully unravels all attempts to show a difference in being conscious versus unconscious validating his argument. First I will explain why Descartes presents the dream argument, next I will explain the dream argument itself, and lastly, I will proceed to prove it true.

Descartes begins the meditations in an effort to wipe out previous knowledge and rebuild it only on knowledge he can know without a doubt. Going through all he believes and deciding if he should still believe is too arduous a task so he goes through several steps and determines that everything can be doubted, even the science and mathematics we know. First he says we can’t trust what we know from our senses because they can deceive us, for example feeling a hat on your head after you remove it. He then says there is no way for him to believe any event because he could be dreaming. Sometimes when he dreams he thinks he’s awake so he knows his mind can’t tell the difference. Descartes remembers his idea of God and realizes God can do anything, including deceive him about what he thinks is real. He decides a perfect God wouldn’t deceive, so he imagines an evil genius creating us and deceiving us at all times. Now, he can put all previous knowledge

Descartes also states in the course of our life, many prejudices have been accepted as true, it also deviates us from knowing for certain what’s true. Descartes also stated that we should consider all that is doubtful absolutely false. Descartes then goes on to discuss why our senses are meant to be doubted and they make us believe when we shouldn’t. He states that we shouldn’t trust our senses because they do deceive us on a regular basis. He also argues that we can’t be certain on what is real when we experience the same stimulations when were asleep and dreaming or were awake. Which I believe to be very true we give off a sense of believing things in our dreams that are not exactly what they are or ever be in

Within meditation one Descartes subjects all of his beliefs regarding sensory data and even existence to the strongest and most hyperbolic of doubts. He invokes the notion of the all powerful, malign demon who could be deceiving him regarding sensory experience and even his understanding of the simplest mathematical and logical truths in

I found Descartes's Discourse on Method and The Meditations to be fantastic to be very interesting and informative. It really made me think about things. This is what philosophy is best at doing after all. Anyway what really intrigued me was Descartes' Dream theory. It is really amazing how during a dream, one does not typically know they are dreaming until they wake up. But are they waking up to another dream state? hmmm. I agree with you though when you pointed out that dreams are short and less detailed when compared to our daily experiences in life. Good job with this post this week. Descartes is definitely a conversation

The issue is that while you are asleep in your dreams you think that you are awake, so how could we know if you are actually awake or sleep at any given point in time. Descartes then talks about how the creatures and people that you dream about have to exist because they all use common things like shape, size, time and quantity. For this to be true in both the dream world and reality then there cannot be any doubt. He goes on to mention how we can not trust anything that has to do with the study of composite things, like physics, astronomy or medicine. We can trust the studies of simple things like arithmetic and geometry, because even in the dream world two plus two equals four, and triangles have three sides. In the end of the first meditation Descartes starts to talk about how could such a pure being like God allow for these things to exist on Earth, but at the same time let him falsely believe in all of the creations on earth. God being too perfect of a being to allow this to happen to his creations, Descartes goes on to think that it could possibly be a mad man or some type of evil demon is

Descartes was a metaphysical philosopher whose main goal was to obtain and isolate lasting scientific knowledge due to the long-held beliefs that were being disproved during his lifetime. However, this proved to be quite difficult as the majority of his previously held beliefs were either doubtful or able to be proven false. In an attempt to work towards his goals, Descartes developed his Dream Doubt argument. When first analyzing this argument, it is important to analyze it for all its premises, as opposed to simply the conclusions in which the argument itself draws. This allows for a better understanding of the argument. In regard to analysis, I will first present the argument piece by piece and then evaluate those components in a

In the Meditations, Descartes reflects on all of the faultiness in his life and of the body. He begins by discussing his life, noting that he has to raze everything that he once thought to the ground and begin again from the original foundations in order to establish anything firm and lasting in the sciences. (13) Descartes, through the first meditation make the argument that we are all dreaming.

He uses another argumentative device to disproof the credibility of the knowledge we acquire through intellect of an all powerful demon that employs his whole energies in deceiving him. Yet, he says that god is ultimately good, so He is not going to deceive human kind, but it is possible that contrary to his goodness He did allow him to be deceived by this evil genius; coming to the conclusion with this that he doubts having a body or any senses yet acknledging that he falsely believes he does because of this evil genius. This is how he ends he first meditation; with lack of certainty where the knowledge that is acquired by senses are doubted through his dream argument while knowledge acquired through intellect are doubted by the demon argument. In his second meditation, Descartes has come to find the one foundational belief that he is certain of and that was that he was doubting, this

Descartes’ first meditation concerns those things that can be called into doubt. It is in this mediation that Descartes relays all of which he previously believed in his life that could be false. He, in turn, decides that it would be best if he forgo all of his beliefs that could be false and begin again by starting with more certain bases. Descartes discusses his belief that though the senses are what we base our most certain knowledge on, the senses can be deceptive; for example, we sense things in dreams just as we do when we are awake. Hobbes objects to this meditation by saying if we leave out reason and only take into account our senses, then doubt is what follows; however, Plato had already come out with the idea of sensory deception as it applies to dreams, and so all

Through the six Meditations, Descartes comes to the conclusion that memories and dreams are deceptive and are not to be trusted. He discusses the existence of material objects, God, and himself. God exists and allows deception and Descartes’ ability to recognize that everything is false proves that he exists as well. He explains the difference between imagination and intellect, as well as the idea that the senses are deceptive and that knowledge comes from the mind and reason. Descartes’ belief in God allows him to solidify his own existence, as well as the existence of material objects.