Summary Of René Descartes Meditation On First Philosophy By David Hume

In “Meditation on First Philosophy”, René Descartes states, in the first meditation, that all the falsehoods he had accepted as true before he had “acquired either from the senses or through the senses” (144). Descartes says that “from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once” (144). Humans have fives senses: touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing. Throughout our everyday lives, we need our senses because they allow us to experience things and gain knowledge through these experiences. However, in this essay, I will stand by Descartes and argue that our senses cannot be completely trusted because they can be easily deceived through illusions, emotions, and differences in perception.

For example, if we are baking a cake in the oven and we burn ourselves on the baking pan, we sense pain. From the pain that we sensed when touching the hot pan, we have acquired knowledge that the oven is hot and that we need to use gloves the next time we try to get something out of the hot oven. I understand that our senses are important and we have no choice but to trust our senses as they play such an important role in our everyday lives. We could not function normally if we did not have any senses to rely