Descartes, Meditations the Strategy the

Descartes, Meditations The strategy the meditator uses to arrive at his conclusion, the main steps and an objection. The meditator uses the doubt everything strategy. Formally, this method of determining the truth of things is called methodological or radical doubt. The strategy is based on the premise that any part of an argument that causes Descartes to doubt must be dismissed. This may seem extreme, but this method was extremely important to the success of Descartes' writings. Descartes wanted to arrive at conclusions with which no one could argue.

To do this he starts his book by stating he will not assume anything, nothing will be taken for granted as truth. Then he begins dismantling our common perceptions of the world, including our reliance on the senses for information. After dismantling fundamental beliefs, Descartes' aim is to build up a newer, stronger foundation upon which to base his writings. Descartes' book Meditations on First Philosophy was originally a book about physics.

However, because of Galileo's misfortunes with the Catholic Church over his scientific writings, Descartes, being a devout Catholic, was worried about upsetting the Church. To avoid any issues, Descartes wrote the book as an illustration of how science and religion can work successfully together. His goal in aligning these two schools of thought is an important part of how he arrived at his conclusions in the Second Meditation. The first step in Descartes argument that he is a thing that thinks, doubts, etc.

is his dismantling of the senses as reliable perceptors of truth. This removal of the senses illustrates the difference in a priori and a posteriori beliefs. He follows this step with a look at mathematical truths and uses them to prove that the identity theory is an a priori truth. However, he undoes this possibility by bringing up the idea that some malevolent force could be deceiving him.

Now, when it seems Descartes is both paranoid that he is constantly being deceived and at risk of having no foundation of truth to base his future writings on, he finds a silver lining. Descartes realizes that although his conclusions seem to leave him wanting, the process of arriving at such conclusions is exactly what he needs to get started. In other words, yes he has found doubt in everything, but he now sees that his finding doubt in everything is something.

Because he doubts, he must exist! He could doubt everything his senses told him. He could even doubt he had a body. But he could not doubt he had a mind because if he did not have a mind, how could he doubt? The steps Descartes takes to reach this conclusion also illustrate the underlying importance of ensuring he did not upset the Catholic Church. For example, Descartes makes sure to show there is a difference between the physical body and the mind.

The mind or soul enables you to think, doubt, understand, etc. People and animals have bodies, but only people have minds and souls and thus only people can think, doubt and go to heaven! Although Descartes logic here calls into question a number of things, one of the most interesting objections to his argument and conclusion is the mind-body connection.

Descartes unifies religion and science in his fundamental concept that because he doubts he must exist, and because of this doubt he has proven that he has a mind and soul that are separate from his body. After all,.