Descartes' Meditation I: The Value of Doubt and Skepticism

Introduction: Descartes and the Method of Doubt

At every step along the way to metaphysical enlightenment, René Descartes responds intelligently and methodically to his own doubts and skepticism, and readers who are patient and keenly alert can learn a great deal through his constant questioning and evaluating. According to Michael Williams (Essays on Descartes' Meditations), by doubting each and every step when first encountering it, Descartes clears his mind "of prejudices that would blind him to new truths" (Williams 117). Why should readers accept that his old truths were no longer viable once his new truths had been uncovered — or that our own past beliefs become obsolete once we acquire new beliefs through analysis and inquiry? The alert reader should realize that any doubts about what Descartes has written will likely mirror the doubts that Descartes himself experienced during the presentation of his philosophies.

The thesis of this paper is that doubting is a good thing, a healthy thing; accepting too many truths at face value is not.

Meditation I: Senses, Dreaming, and the Limits of Certainty

What is interesting initially about Descartes' Meditation I is how carefully he leads the reader into believing that, at this point in his life, he is mature enough to take on the bigger questions. He knows that most of the opinions he once held were only a foundation for what he was about to discover, and now that his mind is clear and free to work at a leisurely pace, he will challenge everything he previously believed. What he previously believed — and was "misled" by — was based on or filtered through his senses. His argument on pages 22–23 is a very good one, a believable one.

Once deceived by the senses, a person should learn never to trust them again, Descartes asserts. He warns on pages 23–24, however, that life is full of opportunities to be deceived, and that many times when dreaming he has believed he was actually awake — much as now, while writing this Meditation, he might well be dreaming that he is doing so. His point is that whether dreaming or awake, the objects and images he perceives are based on real things that experience has led him to store in the conscious mind. There is, then, the conscious world — where one can doubt whether one is awake or asleep — and there is the world of Astronomy, Medicine, and Physics, all of which are also of "doubtful character."

Yet Descartes makes a compelling argument on page 25 by pointing out that there can be no doubt when it comes to arithmetic and other sciences "of the same class." Two and two will always equal four, whether one is dreaming or not. Belief in God, however, takes him to a different level of credulity and opens a whole new set of questions.

This part of Descartes' writing is both entertaining and enlightening, because who among us has not questioned the existence of a Deity? In order to follow Descartes' logic in questioning the reality of his world — including God — one must put one's own mind to the test. Is this not the real power behind Meditation I? Is it not altogether possible that the reason serious readers feel compelled to analyze this philosopher's work is that it functions as a challenge thrown into each reader's own court? Where does each of us stand within this system of questioning, doubting, and challenging what most other people accept at face value?

God, Deception, and the Deceiving Demon

If a Deity of some form placed us here, or if fate did, it matters little in the context of questioning one's own skepticism. Whoever or whatever placed us here did so knowing we were to be imperfect beings, easily deceived — or so Descartes argues on pages 26–27.

He questions the Deity and asks why, if God is so "supremely good," He allows Descartes to be so easily — and occasionally — deceived. Indeed, if there is a "God," then the first question becomes whether humans are being deceived as to the nature and power of this God, and the second is why God allows us to be so easily manipulated by our senses. Is this all a game, a vast joke of some kind? Descartes implies as much.

Carrying the argument to its next logical step, he asserts that all opinions are false until proven otherwise, and that perhaps it is not he himself who is responsible for his own deception, but rather "some deceitful demon" — one so clever and capable that it can blur the reality of "the sky, the air, the earth" into a dream or illusion. This evil demon hypothesis is among the most provocative and widely discussed moves in the history of philosophy.

Conclusion: Why Doubting Is a Healthy Thing

The aspect of Meditation I that holds the most appeal, as stated earlier in this paper, is that doubting is healthy. Not purely being skeptical for the sake of being a curmudgeon or a contrarian, but questioning every statement by every teacher and leader first — and only after careful analysis accepting that statement — is an alert and wise way to proceed in a world filled with deceptions in nearly every aspect of life. Descartes' methodical doubt is not a counsel of despair; it is an invitation to engage the world more rigorously and honestly than most of us typically do.

Works Cited

Descartes, René. The Meditations and Selections from The Principles of René Descartes. Translated by John Veitch. United States: Paquin Printers, 1968.

Wachbrit, Robert. "Cartesian Skepticism from Bare Possibility." Journal of the History of Ideas 57.1 (1996): 109–129.

Williams, Michael. "Descartes and the Metaphysics of Doubt." Essays on Descartes' Meditations. Ed. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.