Descartes Meditation 1 Analysis
Meditation 1 Summary In Meditation one, Descartes initially writes about a blanket of ignorance that he feels he’s been trapped under for his entire life up until this point. He says “I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true.” With this statement, Descartes decides to do a spring cleaning of sorts of all his beliefs that he has reason to doubt. He makes a point to mention though, that not all of his beliefs are false or able to be refuted. The first doubt that Descartes highlights is that of his senses. He says that all of the information he has received has been through his senses and that sometimes his senses mislead him. Descartes is sure in his existence. To him, this is impossible to doubt and he justifies this
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He states that whether he is awake or asleep, “it remains true that two and three make five, and that a square has but four sides.” From his perspective, these truths are so evident that they could never fall under suspicion. God is the next doubt that Descartes brings to attention. He says that he is constantly deceived and God must have created him to be subject to this occasional deception. This doubt is quickly dispersed however when Descartes reasons that God is good and therefore would not deceive him because that would be contrary to his goodness. After this doubt Descartes reasons that rather than a Deity, it is an evil demon that deceives him. Here he starts to doubt things such as the sky, air, Earth, colors, figures, and sounds. He attributes these to being mere illusions of dreams. By the end of Meditation one, Descartes has doubted his senses, his prospect of reality, God, and an evil demon. All of these things lead him back to where he started at the beginning of his writing. He even states himself that he has “fallen back into the train of my former beliefs.” With this, Descartes has chosen to retreat back under his personal blanket of ignorant
He states that whether he is awake or asleep, “it remains true that two and three make five, and that a square has but four sides.” From his perspective, these truths are so evident that they could never fall under suspicion. God is the next doubt that Descartes brings to attention. He says that he is constantly deceived and God must have created him to be subject to this occasional deception. This doubt is quickly dispersed however when Descartes reasons that God is good and therefore would not deceive him because that would be contrary to his goodness. After this doubt Descartes reasons that rather than a Deity, it is an evil demon that deceives him. Here he starts to doubt things such as the sky, air, Earth, colors, figures, and sounds. He attributes these to being mere illusions of dreams. By the end of Meditation one, Descartes has doubted his senses, his prospect of reality, God, and an evil demon. All of these things lead him back to where he started at the beginning of his writing. He even states himself that he has “fallen back into the train of my former beliefs.” With this, Descartes has chosen to retreat back under his personal blanket of ignorant