Rene Descartes 'Meditations On The First Philosophy'

As the book state on page 30, “yet, when we begin to think, we risk cutting ourselves off from our sensations”, meaning, that we cannot think and hand feel the sensation at the same time. We would lose track of what we were thinking of to feel the object.

Despite this problem, we believe it is the same piece of wax we see, touch, or imagine. But it is not our feelings or imagination that gives us the idea. If we had evaluated these abilities, and if the wax is distorted, we would not be able to agree that it is the same wax. This study enables us to recognize that the imagination, just like sensation, does not convey the true nature of wax; rather, this difficulty indicates that only understanding, exercising its powers of conception and judgment, performs the unifying function that constitutes the self-identity of the piece of wax: “our perception of the wax is neither a seeing, nor a touching, nor an imagining… but the mind alone” (68). Although the changing characteristics of the body has been transported through our senses and imagination, the identity of the matter is provided by the understanding of the wax itself. This analysis confirms Descartes’ view that “what we thought we had seen with our eyes, we actually grasped solely with the faculty of judgment, which is in our mind” (68). Therefore, any sense of the body is actually an introspection of our mind, not an external inspection.

Even corporeal objects, such as his body, are known much more distinctly through the mind than through the body.

Perception is quite an important piece in real life as well. The power of perceptions is amazing how it can actually help one or bring one down. One has the power to determine the response from events. “Perceptions begin when the human brain receives data from the body’s five sense.” (Enayati, A., 2012, p.2). An example that demonstrates how perception is able to help is Victor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist who lived three years in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Frankl became aware that he had only one freedom during that time which was the freedom to determine his response for a sorrowful truth. To imagine is to have the power to decide the response to events. Frankl decided that he would image seeing his wife, teaching students about what happened during the Holocaust, and the lessons learned while being in camp.

To portray this, he depicts how something can exist in the mind, but also reality. To further explain this, the analogy of a painter is exemplified. Before a painter illustrates his masterpiece, the painter has an understanding in his mind, yet knows it not to exist; the painter only understands it as a concept. However, upon completion of the masterpiece, the painter will come to understand that the concept exists in his mind, as he had the visual of the painting before he had constructed it, and also in reality, because the painting can now be seen in reality, and can be understood to

Rene Descartes just proved to us that our imagination is not able to grasp all of the perceptions of the wax but the mind is. After proving that theory he suddenly starts to doubt his proof. “But meanwhile I marvel at how prone my mind is to errors.” (Descartes, 22) He states that his mind is prone to making errors. For example; “For we say we see the wax itself, if it is present, and not that we judge it to be present from its color or shape.” (Descartes, 22) He thinks a mistake our minds make is when we judge that it is wax by just looking at it and not paying any attention to any of the forms. For this reason he is claiming that he still is not sure that the mind can actually perceive the wax due to it making mistakes.

Illusion motif. Nothing is what it seems. Only until he realizes that it affects his own reality did he tries to

For example, when I a rainbow, the first thing that I associate with it is color. Almost anyone would understand me if associate the word “color” to the object “rainbow”. However, consider the following scenario: what if you were never exposed to color? Since you were born into this world, you were kept inside a house that had only shades of gray. In short, what if the world you consider as real is all in black and white? Now consider that this person saw a “rainbow” outside his window for the first

he comes to term with three certainties: the existence of the mind as the thing that thinks,

This then leads him to question the existence of God, and then whether he himself truly exists as well. Descartes concludes his claim in stating, “So after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind,” (25). Therefore, in spite of everything he is skeptical of, Descartes manages to believe that his true existence is not something worthy of doubt.

If we think of our corporeal imagination being composed of layers of memory and experience, with some phenomena being

our visions, consciousness, and imagination and form of an entity, or an elemental is relative. When

Further, not only are these worlds different qualitatively, but they are located in different realms. If we accept that the things of which we are immediately aware possess secondary qualities and that these secondary qualities exist only 'in the mind', then what we are aware of are, 'ideas in the mind', not objects in the external world. Therefore, although these ideas of which we are aware can be held to represent, and in terms of primary qualities, resemble, objects in the world, they also constitute a 'veil of perception' which stands between the perceiver and the external world. From this we can conclude that the external world, as investigated by science, is different from the experiential or phenomenal realm.

As the course progressed we learned about perception, which helps us now be able to recognize the way in which different media such as art, use different characteristics of our perceptual system to create illusions. This paper will analyze an example of these illusions, and provide scientific evidence by Coren and Girgis to back up the explanation of the illusion. In analyzing my example of perceptual illusions, I will describe the reality, perceptual experience, and explain the perceptual principles.

A highly debated subject among various philosophers is the existence of physical objects; if physical objects cause and resemble a person’s sense data and if objects exist outside of what is sensed. Descartes mentions a lack of trust in human senses, and does not believe that one can know what truly exists and what does not. Later on, Russell builds upon this idea, not necessarily doubting the existence of sense data, but doubting that anything can exist with absolute certainty. Hume goes further, saying that nothing exists outside of what illusion it creates in our mind. Exploring each of these philosophers arguments, I will state each of their positions and analyze the premises that they rely on. I will then give an alternative argument that builds on each of their ideas, proving that we cannot know that there are physical objects existing that cause and resemble our sense data, although most will agree that it is likely that there are.