Descartes Second Meditation On Philosophy

Fortunately, however, Descartes succeeds in determining one thing of which he can be certain. No matter how much he doubts, he can be certain of the fact that he is thinking, for the doubting is itself an affirmation of his thought. So he can be certain that he is at least a thing that thinks. Hence, the concept, "I think, therefore I am" is established in these ruminations.

The cogito, “I think” is Descartes’ first certainty and his first step into knowledge. Descartes argues that there is one thing that he is most certain of and even the evil demon can manipulate and make him doubt. He cannot doubt that he thinks because even doubting of a form of thinking and that means that he will be thinking. Even if the demon made him doubt that he is thinking, he would be confident that he is thinking that the demon is making him doubt his thinking. He cannot also doubt that he exists and if he were to doubt of his existence, he would prove that he exists because of his thoughts, and thus his thinking means he exists and hence if he exists then he must be thinking of his existence. Therefore, Descartes extends his certainty

In the Meditations, Rene Descartes attempts to doubt everything that is possible to doubt. His uncertainty of things that existence ranges from God to himself. Then he goes on to start proving that things do exist by first proving that he exists. After he establishes himself he can go on to establish everything else in the world. Next he goes to prove that the mind is separate then the body. In order to do this he must first prove he has a mind, and then prove that bodily things exist. I do agree with Descartes that the mind is separate from the body. These are the arguments that I agree with Descartes.

He also knows for certain that various ideas appear before his mind. To work with Descartes has himself as a non-extended thinking thing and his ideas.

As a thinking entity, Descartes is a consciousness mind aware of the potential to engage in various modes of existence. To the numerous operations of “thought” he includes doubting, understanding, affirming, denying, willing, refusing, imagining, and sensing. As varied and manifold as these operations appear, they are but expressions of two principal types of conscious activity, to which Descartes eventually traces the nature of error. Thinking and reasoning, together with all belief in general, depend upon the operation of the twin faculties “knowing” and “choosing,” or the free will. Garrett Thompson writes:

Descartes’ main argument as a philosopher doubts the existence of corporeal things. He believes that the only thing human beings can be sure of is their own existence because they are constantly thinking. That argument led him to state his famous line, “I think, therefore I am.” Even if things are doubted, the pure presence of thinking about those things does not go away. However, Descartes does doubt anything that is objectively active, which is reality.

He cannot say that God exists, because there remains the possibility that his thoughts are in fact originating from himself (in which case there would be no need for God). Since he has abandoned all notions of existence and certainty, which includes his own body and senses, is it possible that he himself does not exist? To think a thought is bound to existence by definition; one must exist first before having the ability to think. Even if an all-powerful deceiver made it so that I do not exist, it would generate a contradiction since I cannot think that I exists if I don't. (25) Thinking about existing requires existence as a prerequisite. Descartes has arrived at his first truly tangible and useful element of truth: that it is necessarily true that he exists.

The general rule that Descartes establishes is to allow him to draw a conclusion to prove him of his own existences, " that all things which he perceives very clearly and very distinctly are true", so if he thinks; therefore, he is which is, "cogito ergo sum". He makes this deduction by calling himself,"a thing which thinks",which he saw that denying ones self is a way of thinking because he always was doughtful. Into which you cannot reget thinking becaaue thats another form of thinking so thinking is something and cant be nothing. So, since he convinced himself that thinking is something so its a form of thinking therefore he is something. He uses the rule in meditaion three by determining if god himself exsits or if were being decived by

Having assured himself that he exists and that the essential nature of his self includes at least the capacity to think he then explored the question What else am I? (Section 27) and reached this conclusion: But then what am I? A thing that thinks (res cogitans). What is that? A thing that doubts (dubitans), understands (intelligens), affirms (affirmans), denies (negans), wills (volens), refuses (nolens), and that also imagines (imaginans) and senses (sentiens) (Section 28). Descartes acknowledges that thinking includes doubt, understanding, affirmation, denial, will (volition), refusal, imagination, and senses .

At this point, Descartes is reasonably certain he exists but he is unsure of what this “I” is. Descartes then briefly touch on the ideas of a soul and what he knew the body to be. The text reads, “It is only when I think I am certain that I exist.” This gives us on what is truly important to Descartes which is the fact that if one think, then they must truly exist. Remember Descartes refers to himself as a thing think.

Descartes' meditations are created in pursuit of certainty, or true knowledge. He cannot assume that what he has learned is necessarily true, because he is unsure of the accuracy of its initial source. In order to purge himself of all information that is possibly wrong, he subjects his knowledge to methodic doubt. This results in a (theoretical) doubt of everything he knows. Anything, he reasons, that can sustain such serious doubt must be unquestionable truth, and knowledge can then be built from that base. Eventually, Descartes doubts everything. But by doubting, he must exist, hence his "Cogito ergo sum".

     Through his philosophical search Descartes was able to find one indubitable certainty, that we are thinking beings. We always think, even when we have doubts that we are thinking we are still thinking because a doubt is a thought. Although Descartes found this one universal truth, he was still not able to believe in anything but the fact that he was a thinking being. Therefore he still doubted everything around him. He used this one certainty to try to find a system of knowledge about everything in the world. Descartes idea was to propose a hypothesis about something. For example he might say that a perfect being was in existence. He would go around this thought in a methodical way, doubting it, all the while trying to identify it as a certainty. Doubting everything was at first dangerous because in doubting everything he was also admitting that he doubted the existence of God, and thus opposing the church. However he made it a point to tell us at the beginning of his Discourse on Methods that what he was writing was only for himself and that he expected no one but himself to follow it (Descartes 14, 15). Descartes eventually managed to prove the existence of a higher being. He said that since he had the idea of a perfect being, then that perfect being must exist. His

Rene Descartes is a modern French philosopher, who is famous for his line, “I think, therefore I am.” The meaning of this quote is that he must exist because he has the ability to think. In Descartes most famous work, The Meditations, he starts off by doubting everything, which is known as the Method of Doubt. He believes that our senses are always deceiving us in some way and so our senses are unreliable in proving anything. By this, he means that when we use our senses, such as our vision, to look at something, the way that the object looks from afar is different from the way it looks upfront, thus, deceiving us. However, Descartes

As Bernard Williams states, ‘Descartes certainly arrives at the end of the Doubt with the conception that it is epistemically possible that all supposedly perceptual judgements are mistaken.’ (Williams, 1990, p.54) After questioning everything surrounding his existence, he comes to a realisation: ‘but doubtless I did exist, if I persuaded myself of something.’ (Descartes and Cress, 1993, p.18) Descartes has found the first piece of knowledge that he cannot doubt and can build upon. Doubt ends because it produces a certainty: the certainty of my own existence as a doubting consciousness. As Descartes himself

Descartes concludes that the attribute of thinking is the only quality that he can justifiably claim at this point. But he is quick to point out that thinking is the only attribute about which he is sure; not that thinking is the only attribute that he has. Nevertheless, this is the starting point of a radical ontological distinction that carries Descartes through his Meditations. That distinction is between a "thinking thing" and a corporeal body. The two are mutually exclusive. A "thinking thing" is nonphysical or spiritual in nature, whereas a corporeal body is physical, but not capable of consciousness or thought. For Descartes, a "thinking thing" is consciously aware of what is around it and doubts, understands some, is ignorant of most, imagines, and feels.