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Summary Of Rene Descartes Meditation 2

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Meditation II
Descartes begins to analyze himself since he stripped away all of his beliefs in “Meditation I”. By stripping everything away, Descartes wills himself to doubt everything, the physical world, his senses, his body, etc. This state of mind takes its toll and Descartes understands that he must challenge his doubts even though he is uncertain how to resolve them. Descartes world gets turned upside down as he begins to face his doubts, and returns to the beginning which is allows him to doubt everything again. He continuous this course of doubt until one he is able to find real truth, or he realizes that nothing is assured. Descartes deals with this predicament by giving the Archimedes which shows that finding at least one
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Descartes finishes up this Meditation with some more ethics about the self. Information of the self, or psyche, is more particular and sure than knowledge of the body. The technique for uncertainty in the First Meditation seemed to debilitate all information, yet in the Second Meditation Descartes discovers something that cannot be questioned. I think each of us must affirm our own particular presence and set up the means of our own

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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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Section 1: Introduction Is life as we know it real, or say a figment of our imagination, or can the possibility of some outside being controlling our every move be what is our true reality? In Descartes’s Meditation 1 it brings into question if we can truly know anything and if we should doubt our daily existence. I, for one, do think we know of our own reality or at least know for a fact that we are not controlled by some unknown being and can logically conclude that my existence and my perception of reality is true. Yeah, Descartes’s argument does bring us somewhat reasonable examples to question or doubt everything in the pursuit of knowledge, but if we did so on everything then will we truly know what is real or not. And to doubt our very own existence daily would be tiring to do, but Descartes’s breaks down his argument into three levels to avoid us from completely doubting everything and finding the truth of our existence.

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We know clear and distinct perceptions independently by God, and his existence provides us with a certainty we might not possess otherwise. However, another possible strategy would be to change Gods role in Descartes philosophy. Instead of seeing God as the validation of clear and distinct perceptions, rather see him as a safeguard against doubt. This strategy, however, is a problem since it re-constructs the Meditations – Philosophical work of Descartes –.This is because it would not be God, who is the ultimate foundation of knowledge, but the clear and distinct

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Descartes search for knowledge starts with a self claim of doubt. Like we studied earlier, he doubts senses, his body, everything he has experienced in the outside world. Descartes didn’t want to simply become a cynic and just doubt something because it was the easy way out. He believes that doubt is able to move the analyst toward the elimination of mistake and will be given to knowledge. In the sixth Meditation, he continues on to differ between the mind and body.

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Therefore, Descartes argues that the mind and the body must be two logically distinct

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