Who Is Rene Descartes The Wax Argument

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In Rene Descartes’ The Wax Argument, he discusses how we perceive bodies by using an easily identifiable object to make what he understands about us perceiving bodies clear. He uses a piece of wax as his example. There are five clear premises that can be formed into a conclusion to defend his belief.
1. The wax as a solid has characteristics of smelling of honey, being a white colour, and making a sound when rapped.
2. The wax once melted has differing characteristics of no longer having a smell, the colour is changed, and it does not make any sound.
3. Sense perception is not reliable.
4. Imagination has a limited amount of possibilities for the wax in terms of size and shape.
5. The wax can form into an unlimited amount of different shapes.
6. Imagination alone cannot comprehend the …show more content…

Our senses consist of smell, touch, sight, taste, and hearing. When Descartes first senses the wax, he notices that it “still tastes of honey and has the scent of the flowers from which the honey was gathered”, it makes a sound when it is hit, and it can be handled easily. However, when the wax is melted all the sensible properties change. He does not believe that we can rely on the senses because it is apparent that between the different states that the wax is in, solid and liquid, they tell us that they are completely separate bodies. As for imagination, it is literally limitless in how many different shapes this piece of wax can take but the imagination can only comprehend so many. Descartes uses the example of imagining the wax changing shape from “round to square, from square to triangular, and so on”. There are a limited amount of shapes that we can comprehend but physically, there are many different shapes. Therefore, both the sensible properties of a body and us using our imagination cannot be the way we perceive objects but only just by the mind we

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