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Meditations, By Rene Descartesian Philosophy

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The medieval age with its scholastic philosophy had lost its power to explain reality and knowledge base, and it was necessary to seek new paths. The Renaissance appeared eager to rescue the Greek thought and its core values, compared with a Christian philosophy that explained the world and knowledge from God as the source of all truth. Enlightenment and humanism is then raised, highlighting the value of knowledge and the scope of it to dominate and control the world. The man is guided back to center stage, and philosophy takes a very different from the traditional-scholastic course. Then Descartes appears and dedicates all of his efforts to find the truth. For this, He is besieged by a thought that has over powered the truth and call themselves …show more content…

The whole system begins with the Cartesian methodical doubt; doubt everything necessary in order to reach a safe and clear understanding. The senses are the first source of error for Descartes, for they can offer us false information about reality, fantasies and imaginations in converting data safe. In Descartes’ Meditations he argues that our senses trick us and we should not trust them, we have to seek the truth by doubting everything because that is the principle of knowledge. Descartes mentions that we should doubt anything that our senses make us believes and he does this because he wants to show that all of the knowledge acquired by our senses is open to doubt. If all of our scientific information came completely from our senses we would not be completely sure that we really exist. On the other hand we know that external objects exist and this knowledge must come not from our bodies but from our minds. To doubt the senses and all knowledge that comes from them, Descartes found the answer to his concern, realizing that there is something that cannot be doubted and that is the thinking. Anything else may be false except the fact that we are thinking; and if I think, therefore I am, and my existence is …show more content…

As time passes by Christianity appears and with this also a movement called "Scholastic", which aimed to reconcile faith and the reason, within this movement there are two great exponents, San Anselm and St. Thomas Aquinas, who sought in different ways to prove the existence of the Christian God. Both sides show weaknesses and errors in their arguments that allow us to realize that the reason-faith relationship in both ontological arguments is flawed, and from the analysis of these weaknesses it can be said that the demonstration of God through reason is not possible because its existence is beyond our reasoning. In St. Anselm’s "Proslogion" all his ontological argument starts from a faith assumption about the definition of "God", which he acquired from a personal reflection in which this is revealed through "seeds of faith" that God places on each of us, and according to this would be "something greater than which cannot think of anything", but the principle of any demonstration is that it must part from an absolute truth, and in the case of St. Anselm it does not begin with an absolute truth, because a course of faith cannot have a logical and consistent, making his definition of God relative, away from absolute

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Notre Dame ID: 902008117 In René Descartes ' Mediations on First Philosophy, Descartes abandons all previous notions or things that he holds to be true and attempts to reason through his beliefs to find the things that he can truly know without a doubt. In his first two meditations Descartes comes to the conclusion that all that he can truly know is that he exists, and that he is a thinking being. In his third meditation, Descartes concludes that he came to know his existence, and the fact that he is a thinking being, from his clear and distinct perception of these two facts. Descartes then argues that if his clear and distinct perception would turn out to be false, then his clear and distinct perception that he was a thinking being would not have been enough to make him certain of it (Blanchette).

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In the first stage of doubt Descartes questions his senses, as he believes that the senses cannot be trusted as they often deceive us. He states, "Of course, whatever I have so far accepted as supremely true I have learned either from the senses or through the senses. But I have occasionally caught the senses deceiving me, and it's prudent never completely to trust those who have cheated us even once. " As a result of this, we must withdraw our trust from our beliefs that have been learned through the use of our senses.

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Descartes, in his Meditations on First Philosophy, used a method of doubt; he doubted everything in order to find something conclusive, which he thought, would be certain knowledge. He found that he could doubt everything, expect that he was thinking, as doubting is a type of thinking. Since thinking requires a thinker, he knew he must exist. According to Descartes if you are able to doubt your existence, then it must mean that you exist, hence his famous statement cogito ergo sum which is translated into ‘I think, therefore I am.’ Descartes said he was able to doubt the existence of his body and all physical things, but he could not doubt that his mind exists.

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He begins his attempt at this by using methodic doubt. This is the process whereby Descartes eliminates anything from which he has the slightest doubt. He doubted the senses because they can often deceive us in the form that things may appear in one way but consequently

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Rene Descartes is considered as one of the most important founders of modern day philosophy. His greatest contribution to philosophy is his meditations. This paper aims at establishing what wax represents in Descartes meditations. In his second meditation, Descartes introduces the idea of wax freshly obtained from honeycombs.

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Descartes Epistemology: Descartes attempts to discover a foundation of knowledge as seen in his book ‘Meditations on First Philosophy’. He is essentially looking for total certainty. In order to do so, Descartes doubted everything, coming to the realization that he can only prove his

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Throughout Descartes Discourse and Meditations, he tears down the foundations of his knowledge and doubts all things that are not grounded on definite knowledge. His questioning leads him to discredit everything, as he cannot find anything that can’t be doubted. However, once he had doubted everything he searched for something indisputable. He realises to doubt is to think, and to think is to exist, so they first indisputable rule he comes to is ‘I think, therefore I am’.  

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