Impact Of Rene Descartes Meditations On First Philosophy
Rene Descartes was a philosopher in the 1600’s. Descartes had a lot of questions that he analyzed and answered for himself in his book, Meditations on First Philosophy. He focuses on six different questions in his book, which include why do we believe what we believe, does God really exist, and what is true and what is false in the world. *****ADD While Descartes does achieve his goal of questioning those things in his life that could cause doubt, I do not agree with some of his viewpoints that he made throughout his Meditation.
In his first Meditation, “Meditation 1: Concerning Those Things that Can Be Called Into Doubt”, Descartes focuses on those questions in a person’s life that could cause some doubt in their own life. Descartes had some …show more content…
He brought forth the argument that are we constantly dreaming, and that we are dreaming what is happening at this exact moment. “Let us assume then, for the sake of argument, that we are dreaming and that particulars as these are not true: that we are opening our eyes, moving our head, and extending our hands. Perhaps we don’t even have such hands, or any such body at all. Nevertheless, it surely must be admitted that the things seen during slumber are, as it were, like painted images, which could only have been produced in the likeness of true things, and that therefore at least these general thing-eyes, head, hands, and the whole body- are not imaginary things, but are true and exist” (pg.14-15). Descartes questions this observation of his for the majority of the Meditation. He comes up with several theories that prove this, which will be touched on later. Descartes has some very strong proof and reasons as to why he thinks this. Even though he does has some solid ground as to why he thinks what he thinks, I just do not agree with him. This is one of the main argument from Meditation One that I just do not agree with. I think we only dream when we are asleep. Then when we are awake, we are actually experiencing and gaining new experiences through our senses. I am not under the impression that we are do not gain new knowledge through sense perception, like
In his first Meditation, “Meditation 1: Concerning Those Things that Can Be Called Into Doubt”, Descartes focuses on those questions in a person’s life that could cause some doubt in their own life. Descartes had some …show more content…
He brought forth the argument that are we constantly dreaming, and that we are dreaming what is happening at this exact moment. “Let us assume then, for the sake of argument, that we are dreaming and that particulars as these are not true: that we are opening our eyes, moving our head, and extending our hands. Perhaps we don’t even have such hands, or any such body at all. Nevertheless, it surely must be admitted that the things seen during slumber are, as it were, like painted images, which could only have been produced in the likeness of true things, and that therefore at least these general thing-eyes, head, hands, and the whole body- are not imaginary things, but are true and exist” (pg.14-15). Descartes questions this observation of his for the majority of the Meditation. He comes up with several theories that prove this, which will be touched on later. Descartes has some very strong proof and reasons as to why he thinks this. Even though he does has some solid ground as to why he thinks what he thinks, I just do not agree with him. This is one of the main argument from Meditation One that I just do not agree with. I think we only dream when we are asleep. Then when we are awake, we are actually experiencing and gaining new experiences through our senses. I am not under the impression that we are do not gain new knowledge through sense perception, like