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René Descartes Meditations On First Philosophy

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Within the second Meditation of the book, Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes has four goals to get across to the readers. The first goal is to establish the Cogito as Evidential Invincible. This argument raises many questions that will be discussed throughout the entity of my paper. To present the “I” of the Cogito as a thinking thing is the second goal of this meditation; this argument raises many questions that will be discussed throughout the entity of my paper. The second goal of Descartes ties into the third goal- to understand, what both thought and mind is. The last prevalent goal is to show that we are able to know more about our minds than our bodies. Descartes tries to use these above goals to justify the main argument …show more content…

Throughout this Meditation, Descartes wants to establish that “I think, therefore I am” is absolutely true. In Meditation 2, of Descartes’s Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes first questions the idea that he may not exist at all, “I at least know for certain that nothing is certain” (Meditation 2, p. 63). Although Descartes considers this inquiry at first, later on in the text he comes to the conclusion that if he is being deceived, he must be something, because an evil deceiver could not deceive nothing. Descartes now knows that he is something, but what? Because there is a chance that there is an evil deceiver that could be deceiving him in every way possible, he knows that he cannot confirm the fact that he has a body or senses; the only thing that he knows for certain is that when …show more content…

Therefore, I am. This is a simplified argument of the Cogito and a major point Descartes is trying to convey throughout Meditation 2. He reasons that if he, or “I,” is doing any act of thinking, doubting, sensing, etc., even if it may be false or he may be being deceived, he is still having thoughts, which means he must exist. Like state earlier, this argument implies that Descartes believes that he exists in this world as a “thinking thing.” The problem with this argument proposed by Descartes is the fact that it is unsound, because he has not yet proven that thinking things do exist or what makes thinking things exist (although there may be some debate that he has). This unsound argument has led to me to believe that the meditator has not successfully established that the “I” of the Cogito is a “thinking

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