The Influence Of Descartes Meditations On First Philosophy

In Descartes’s Meditations on First Philosophy, he addresses issues of certainty of one’s beliefs. In the first two mediations, he demonstrates how it is possible to doubt everything and how one can prove their existence as thinking beings. However, there are some issues with his understanding. Scholars can question his certainty of knowledge without doubt. They also raise arguments of how Descartes doubt has lead him to partial answers. By evaluating Descartes’s method of doubt and the logic used to support his conclusions one can come to better understanding of human mind and body existence. By understanding the criticisms of Descartes, one can question the possibility of doubting everything and coming to the conclusions of Descartes that
Tillich related it to scientific theories and research (21). The New World Encyclopedia defines methodic doubt as “a systematic process of withholding assent regarding the truth or falsehood of all one’s beliefs until they have been demonstrated or rationally proven to be true or false” (“Methodic Doubt”). Descartes uses methodic doubt to question every belief he has once held to be true and part of his foundation. He notices “that the senses are sometimes deceptive; and it is a mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in those who have deceived use even once” (Descartes, 14). Descartes began to recognize the false ideas that he had been taught in his youth and how he had other beliefs that were based on an uncertain foundation. He realized that he “had to raze everything to the ground and begin again from the original foundation” in order to establish certain truths (Descartes, 17). Descartes methodic doubt allows him to erase what he once held to be true and form a new foundation based on logical
He has an idea of God as “a supreme deity, eternal, infinite, omniscient, omnipotent, and creator of all things other than himself, clearly has more objective reality within it than do those ideas through which finite substances are displayed” (Descartes, 27-28). This is part of his ontological argument that states that humans have an idea of an infinite, perfect, and good God even though humans are flawed and finite. Human beings can recognize an infinite because one is identified as finite. His cosmological argument of a first cause. Descartes inquires “whether it got its existence from itself or from another cause, until finally I arrive at the ultimate cause, which will be God” (Descartes, 34). At some point there is an initial cause and Descartes names the cause God. Descartes is able to conclude that “the mere fact of my existing and of there being in me an idea of a most perfect being, that is, God, demonstrates most evidently that God exists” (Descartes, 33). Due to his capability of recognizing perfection that is innately in him, he recognizes the idea of God to innate in every human being. Descartes was able to come to understand his foundation of his own existence, distinguishing the mind from the body, and the existence of a supreme being God. These truths he found he determined to be