On Ren Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy
... Weimar Professor Kerry Duke 700 Special Topics On René Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy Since God is spirit He cannot be observed in the physical sphere. ... René Descartes (1596-1650) believed such ample evidence was found in his own mind, apart from the environment perceived by the senses, so as to conclude the existence of God and mind. Overview of Descartes’ Basic Approach To Epistemology Understanding the closed mind of another is no easy chore, no simpler when opened. Because he doubted his sensory perceptions of physical realities Descartes told us he consciously chose to deny assent to opinions founded thereon (Descartes 59). ... “Discourse on Method” gave four broad rules for his epistemology (Descartes 11). ... These rules are elucidated with application in “Meditations on First Philosophy.” Beginning amidst the French Enlightenment, Descartes’ works were revolutionary to Western thought. Overview of Meditations on First Philosophy The Meditations opened to its readers the deep reflections of Descartes as he elucidated upon such philosophical matters as the metaphysical foundation of truth, skepticism of existing epistemologies, the existence of God, and perceptions of the physical cosmos. It was presented in six individual “Meditations,” each subsequently built upon the rational discoveries of the previous. ... Descartes’ first meditation called into place his first methodological rule, “never to accept anything as true that I did not plainly know to be such” (Descartes, 11). ... Arithmetic, geometry and other such disciplines as deal with the “simplest and most general things and which are indifferent as to whether these things do or do not in fact exist, contain something certain and indubitable” (Descartes 61). ... Meditation Two Having denied the senses their input to the mind’s eye, Descartes found only thought itself as the substance of his existence. The second meditation further explicates the separation of mind from body, thus demonstrating the mind’s, the soul’s immortality (Descartes 54, 55). Distinctly turned on it’s self, the mind came to first realize its own existence in that a thing must exist before a thing can think, and as long as a thinking-thing thinks, it continued to exist. Descartes also briefly noted the importance of clearly understanding the distinctive nature of the corporeal body, but did not fully explore the topic until the fourth meditation (Descartes 54, 64). ... Meditation Three Having established his own existence could be proved without empirical data from the corporeal, Descartes set forth in the third meditation to demonstrate God’s. ... “Something cannot come into being from nothing,” he postulated (Descartes 73). ... Because he could imagine something more perfect than he, Descartes reasoned that the idea of God could not have been self-produced because that which is less perfect could not generate something greater than itself. Hence, the idea of “God” was itself the effect of something more perfect causing the idea (Descartes 76). Meditation Four Having acknowledged the impossibility of the perfect God to deceive him, with the fourth meditation Descartes manifested the importance of reasoning correctly. ... “Inherent in the incorrect use of free will is the privation that constitutes the very essence of error” (Descartes 85).