Descartes Second Meditation: An Analysis

In part I of this paper, I will explain how Descartes arrives at the conclusion that he is a thinking thing throughout ¶1-6 in the Second Meditation and analyze how ¶8-9 further his argument. In ¶1-3, Descartes is interested in demonstrating the existence of the ‘I’ (the mind) by only taking into consideration what is certain and unshakable. Moreover, after discovering the existence of the ‘I’, Descartes proceeds to investigate what the essence of the ‘I’ by taking into account previous considerations he had of the ‘I’. Furthermore, Descartes proceeds to provide a list of considerable acts that belong to the essence of the mind, in which he finds imagination and sensory perception as not part of the essence of the mind. In ¶1-3 of the Second

Descartes proceeds to review what he finds to admit of the slightest doubt in order to be disregarded. He asserts that anything entering the mind through the sensory perception is false. In like manner, since the false information obtained through the senses is directed to the memory, nothing in the memory ever happened. Therefore, Descartes believes that, if it is the case that the “sensory perception and bodies are unreal”, then it would follow that ‘nothing is certain’ (Carriero). Moreover, Descartes considers God and a deceiving supreme being with divine powers as the source of all current thoughts and doubts. Then, Descartes considers himself to be the author of his own thoughts. In this case, if he is the author of his own thoughts, then it follows that he is at least something where these thoughts reside. However, even though this idea of being ‘at least something’ is controversial with his initial idea that there is nothing in the world, Descartes responds to this controversy. He claims that his ability to engage in cognition is sufficient to establish his own existence; this

In order to complete such task, Descartes uses the same method applied in previous paragraphs. Moreover, Descartes proceeds to concentrate only on his previous conceptions about himself instead of proceeding with the definition of rational animal; for this Aristotelian method would lead to harder questions. For this, Descartes provides two conceptions. The first conception was the body: “I had a face, hands, arms and the whole mechanical structure of limbs which can be seen in a corpse” (¶5). The second was the soul: “I was nourished, that I moved about, and that I engaged in sense-perception and thinking” (¶5). However, Descartes finds difficult to assert the attributes of the body to the ‘I’, for the ‘I’ does not have a body. In this case, the only remaining consideration are the attributes of the soul, that is: nutrition or movement, sense-perception, and thinking. However, nutrition, movement, and sense-perception are not possible without a body of the body; not to mention, the same sensory experience is obtained while asleep. For thinking, however, Descartes asserts this is the only consideration that is certain and finds to be necessarily true.. For this, out of all the