Descartes starts The Meditations by regarding all knowledge as deception imposed by a deceptive God. He does this in an effort to rid himself of any possible falsehood, so that he can attain what he can rebuild his reality with only what is deemed to be certain. Eventually he disregards the notion of a deceptive God, and is able to regain with confidence many of his previous convictions. The first step he takes in his search for truth is to identify whether or not he exists. After some analysis he concludes that he must exist, because he is able to question his existence. The evil genius could not impose any false ideas on something that did not exist, therefore, he takes his apparent consciousness as evidence for his existence by stating “I think therefore I am” (Meditation 2). …show more content…
To do this he identifies different types of ideas that he possesses “among these ideas, some appear to me to be innate, some adventitious, and others to be formed [or invented] by myself” (Meditation 3). Innate ideas are inherent in his intellect, and because of this he concludes them to be true. He holds that his conception of God, as a being who possesses all possible perfections, is an innate idea that has been implanted into his mind by his creator. To further justify this claim, he provides his version of the ontological argument, proving that the existence of a God who possesses all perfections is self-evident. In conclusion Descartes rids himself of the notion that God is deceptive by identifying the idea of God as innate, and then proceeding to prove the existence of that God through an ontological