Descartes' Meditations
In Descartes' Meditation, he ponders over the idea that he is mistaken and often deceived. He believes that nothing is certain and goes through a series of mind-tests to prove that he is, in fact, an existence. In doing this, he also attempts to prove the existence of God as well as his own existence to ensure that things are certain and indubitable. He first banishes all preconceptions and starts with a clean slate. All knowledge that he knew of previously were through his senses. His senses, he concluded were extremely deceiving. There were many ways that his senses could have deceived him. Through the straw example, it could be said that your sight is misconstrued. Also, it is difficult to tell whether you are dreaming or awake, the two states share extremely similar qualities in regard to the senses, therefore your senses can be doubted. The one thing that may seem indubitable is math because 1+1 does make 2, however, Descartes says that that statement is only true because God makes it true, if he were to be an “evil demon”, such a statement could actually be false. Therefore, in order to restore his previous knowledge, he must prove that God exists. If he can prove that God exists, math is now true. Descartes believed that math is the base of all knowledge as it creates objective qualities. He ultimately concludes that his existence is indubitable. He states that in order to doubt his own existence, there must be a higher power doing the doubting or thinking, but if it is himself that is doing such tasks, he can't help but conclude that he does exist. This is where the philosophical notion of “I think, therefore I am” comes from. He also concludes that God exists because for such a 'perfect' being to exist, one must be perfect to come up with such a notion. But because no mortal being is perfect, God was not created by his mind and therefore God exists. And also by concluding that God is perfect, God would not deceive his mind and therefore his