Rene Descartes Meditations On First Philosophy Analysis

1708 Words4 Pages

Philosophy makes up a portion of the great books collection that are found all over the world. Philosophy is one of the more popular literature subjects that helps readers reconsider what they already know and do a lot of critical thinking. Also not all that philosophers believe has to be possible or true because the whole purpose is to try and evaluate knowledge, reality, life, nature, etc. and question how or if it truly exists. Not very many philosophers refer to science when they are assessing why objects and materials exist, but one philosopher in particular, Rene Descartes, does just this. Particularly, when referring to one of his key texts of Western philosophy, Meditations on First Philosophy. Descartes takes a very mechanistic view …show more content…

Descartes states that one cannot simply make the object up, that a person has already experienced the objects through senses and incorporates them into irrational or rational thoughts during a dream and he also points out that the sensations that one experiences in a dream can also be the same sensations that one experiences when a person is awake (Important Arguements from Descartes' Meditations). Because Descartes makes this point a human is unable to differentiate being awake from being asleep and then proves that a person does not know if they are awake or asleep at any point; they could be, in fact, dreaming all along and this makes everything that they know false (Kemerling). This argument leads Descartes to believe that not everyone will believe that everything one has experienced is just an illusion and he moves on to his next point, which is about the deceit that God can cause a human to …show more content…

As explained earlier it is just put into different words and Descartes’ views are explained by means of doubting everything that he knows and believes. By the end of his argument Descartes has proved the he is certain that the mind exist and is unextended and he is unsure about the body existing and says that it is extended (Important Arguements from Descartes' Meditations). Meditations on First Philosophy can be directly related to science in multiple different aspects, but mainly by Descartes mechanistic view of the world and

Open Document