Analysis Of Descartes The Meditation

This paper seeks to explain Descartes method and arguments presented in his work The Meditation. Descartes arrives at a dualistic metaphysics, one that supports the belief that there are two fundamentally real things in the universe. The dualism discussed in this paper claims that these fundamental substances are the immaterial mind and material body. This is known as Cartesian Dualism. The process that Descartes uses to arrive at this conclusion is reflected in the title of his work: The Meditations. Indeed, his process is very much a meditation on what is fundamentally real. In this paper, I am going to explorer and interpret Descartes first three meditations, in order, because I wish to fully grasp his arguments and method. This paper will

Now that Descartes has done away with what he was so sure of before, he finds himself lost in a world for which nothing seems certain. Nevertheless, he persists onward in his journey for truth. Until this point, he has shown me that I can doubt what I sense, my perspective, and the corporal world, he has even shown me that it is entirely possible that I am being deceived by a god or demon. But, there is something that is common in all of this: the “I” which is being deceived by god or the senses. Indeed, I am sitting here thinking about what word I’m going to write next, and even if I am being deceived about the computer in front of me or seat I am sitting on, I am still certain that I am thinking. In other words, if god is fooling me, I can be certain that I exist because god is fooling something, and this something happens to be me. Descartes puts it best, saying “I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind” (Descartes, pg 17). If there is one thing that is certain, it is that I exist, for if I didn’t I could not be deceived, and I also could not think I am being deceived. This is Descartes starting point for rebuilding his new

Therefore, if I were to conjure up an idea of an infinite being, I would be inventing something with more reality than me. This is nonsensical, I cannot possibly create something that goes beyond my finitude. Thus, if I could not have possibly conceived of an infinite god, yet I still have this idea of one, it necessarily follows that this god has put the idea of itself into me. This marks the end of the “Third Meditation”, where, in short, Descartes uses cosmological arguments to prove the existence of god.

Indeed, we have now gone through the first four Meditations. Descartes opinions have come a long way from the beginning. Everything he had previously believed has been destroyed via the method of doubt, and now all that he believes to be certain is that he exists and is a thinking thing, also that god is necessarily real. Although this paper only gave Descartes justification for the soul being a fundamental substance, he later goes on to justify the body as one