Descartes Meditations

The skeptical arguments presented in Descartes first meditation are to suppose that one cannot know whether one is asleep or awake; that one cannot know whether ones eyes, hands, body and surroundings are real; that one cannot know if two and three really do make five or if one is only being deceived. The main argument is that one may not trust ones senses because ones senses can deceive one. The argument proceeds in this manner: since one cannot tell if one is asleep or awake with any certainty, one has good reason to doubt all sense data.

Descartes proceeds, however, to develop the argument by identifying the causes of the present situation: one explanation is that God exists but permits man to be deceived; another explanation is that everything is a dream; a third explanation is that there is no good God but rather an evil demon that deceives man.

Descartes does not insist upon the dream argument for he notes that not everyone will accept it as rational. He then picks up the God argument but proceeds to conclude further on the Meditations that a good God cannot deceive. Thus, before closing out the first meditation he offers the third premise, which is the evil demon argument, suggesting that deception is the work of an evil thing.

Now that these arguments have been stated, and Descartes has no answer to any of them at the close of the first meditation, he proceeds from a standpoint of doubt. In this position, he regards nothing as certain. He will use the later meditations to show how he can move from doubt to certainty.

In the second meditation, Descartes posits that since doubt is all he can do he can at least declare with certainty that he is thinkingand the fact that he is thinking proves his existence; for something that does not exist cannot be said to have thoughts. This is how he arrives at the conclusion, I think, therefore I am. He means that because he is capable at least of having doubts, this capacity for doubt is proof of his existence. Even as he might choose to doubt the information conveyed him by his senses he cannot doubt that he is doubtingi.e., thinking. Therefore, he knows he exists. Thus, from doubt he moves to certainty about the existence at the very least of his mind. In this manner he also shows that it is easier to know the mind than it is to know the body, since knowledge of the mind is the first certainty one can have.

Now Descartes moves to the third meditation in which he declares that since he has an idea of a perfect God in his mind,...…idea of perfection. That cause of the idea of perfection must have come from some place other than himselfindeed, from perfection itself, since no imperfect thing can cause the idea of perfection. Thus, he reasons that God has touched his thought directly with the idea of His own perfection, and this is how one knows that God exists.

Descartes overall goal in the Meditations is to prove Gods existence without referring to the senses or to any preconceived notions. His aim is to refute the atheists who say that God does not exist as there is no proof for His existence. The atheists look for empirical proof through the senses. But Descartes says that one can even doubt what ones senses tell one; therefore, the only proof of Gods existence that can have value is the metaphysical proof, which exists in the mind. In the mind, one can have an idea of God as a perfect being that cannot deceive, and since there is no cause within oneself that could enable one to have such an idea it stands to reason that the idea itself must have come from God, who cannot deceive. And so Descartes shows how doubt can be used to prove the existence of God. For an imperfect evil thingi.e., a demoncould not plant an idea of perfection in the mind since an imperfect thing (a thing not…