Rene Descartes Second Meditations On First Philosophy

Meditations on First Philosophy written by French philosopher Rene Descartes breaks down the Aristotelian notion that all knowledge comes from the senses and develops a new concept of mind, matter, and ideas through a process of methodological doubt and withdrawal. Notably, he is able to disregard all his pre-conceptions and rebuild his knowledge from the ground up. Specifically, in the Second Meditation Descartes ponders on what he knows to be certain and concludes that he cannot deny the fact that he exists. Through a series of questions, deliberations and assertions Descartes is able to successfully declare with certainty that he thinks and therefore exists. Moreover, he realizes that in order to doubt or think there must be a person
doing the thinking and doubting. Thus, he cannot doubt that he thinks because doubting is a form of thinking. If there is a being that is “supremely powerful and supremely sly and who is always deliberately deceiving…” him into doubting that he is thinking then that would show that he is thinking. Additionally, he asserts that he cannot doubt his own existence because the fact that he is thinking of his sole existence suggests that he is a thing that thinks. Furthermore, Descartes concludes with the following: “Thus, after everything has been most carefully weighted, it must finally be established that this pronouncement ‘I am, I exist” is necessarily true every time I utter it or conceive it in my mind.”