Descartes Meditations Essay -- essays research papers

Meditations is a discussion of metaphysics, or what is truly real. In these writings, he finally hopes to achieve absolute certainty about the nature of everything includingGod, the physiological world, and himself. It is only with a clear and distinct knowledge ofsuch things that he can indeed begin study his true reality. Descartes starts by lookingat our usual sources for truth. Authority, which is churches, p bents, and schools, he says,are not reliable sources for truth because time shows we all die, and that we areeventually proved wrong, much in the same way the accepted truths of science havechanged dramatically over the course of history. Also, he considers the generally excepted diorama that our senses dependably report the absolute nature of reality. Simiar to authority,Descartes discards the senses as a source of truth because of the Dream Argument orthe belief that based on the senses in that location is no definite way of proving that you aredreaming or that you ar e awake. Therefore it is possible that everything we believe isfalse, making the senses an unreliable source. Upon establishing this, Descartes doubtsthe existence of a physical or outside(a) world. Despite that he has an idea of things in theworld, he has no way of knowing if they exist past his own school principal. Another office headdresses is mathematics. He soon realizes maths truth isnt on the whole reliable becauseof the Demon Hypothesis, which acknowledges the possibility of an all powerful universethat is deceiving him about everything, including mathematics. As a result, Descartesponders the possibility that he has no way of being completely positive about anything,even his existence. It is only after roughly deliberation that he decides that it is impossibleto be incorrect about everything because he has doubt, and to posses doubt, there must bea doubter. Hence, he doubts, therefore he exists. With the bureau of his existence, he ispresented with the deeper questi on of what he, himself, actually is. Descartes knows thathe is not just a body based on his doubt of the senses. Despite the fact that he feels he isnot a body, he does believe he has properties, such as doubt, that make him a substance.From this he concludes that his is an immaterial substance and that his essential propertyis edginess because you can have no real proof of yourself except through yourown... ...man life is acquisition of salvation and eternal life. Conversely, what science tells usis that the world is completely deterministic or all just a course of random evolution.Descartes feels that the two, mind and matter, are in completely different arenas, both ofwhich were created by God. The mind deals chiefly with freedom, and personalresponsibility, which lies in the field of religion. Whereas matter is more connected toscience, buts doesnt negate the influence of God because God provided us with a system,mathematics, to better understand the physical world around us. Thus, if accuratelycomprehended, no conflict should arise between science and religion. Descartes focus inMeditations is absolute certainty. To achieve this he showtime must strike all that he has cometo accept as false and only then start to rebuild is foundation of knowledge. To insure the impartiality of his newly acquired understanding of reality, he uses the method of doubt. It isonly through this method that he can grasp the true nature of reality. After establishing theexistence of himself, God, and the external world through this method, Descartes feels henow possess a clearer picture of reality.