Rene Descartes Second Meditation

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. This is meant to explain the autonomy of the human mind or intellect in perceiving things in our external surroundings. According to Descartes, the wax argument follows that when the wax is freshly obtained from the honeycombs, the basic sensory abilities of touch, smell, as well as taste can effectively be used to identify wax from any other matter. He makes a comparison of the melting to the wax with the mind of the

From this statement, that is the very premise of the wax argument, it can be drawn that wax is used to represent the very being of an individual and their experiences in life as well as the human surroundings. Rene Descartes makes us think deeply about the mental faculty that humans have and how we can distinguish one experience from another but it becomes unique to each individual. Thus the behavior is exhibited differently by each individual. As Rene Descartes compares the idea of the melting wax and the mind is done in a way to bring clarity to his philosophy.

The importance of the wax argument in Descartes meditations go further than explaining the possibility of a mental faculty that allows the body to perceive nature and natural phenomenon.. By so doing, the wax argument as presented allows an individual to create doubt in their mind about their existence or the existence of any other matter. He had doubts about his senses but he discovered that there was a reason to doubt his senses. The purpose of his argument was to create doubt. Sometimes doubt can make us reason and it help us conclude if our experience has some truth to

The wax argument is straightforward and can appeal even to the most ordinary person. However, there is a weakness in this as the argument is entirely descriptive. Descartes only states the existence of a part of the brain that enables a person to perceive things. This part is not specified either in name or in a number of the parts of the mind that are responsible for this ability.

Descartes explains that the sheer human senses cannot conceive the changes through which the wax goes through. Descartes Wax Argument, allows one to make connections to the existence if matter; however, this can only be done up to some