Descartes and his Meditations on the First Philosophy - Essay Example

Descartes and his Meditations on the First Philosophy Abstract Descartes created his Meditations to unlearn everything and build stronger foundations for all the ideas that exist within humans. He said that often human beings make errors of judgment habitually and believe things without reason. He wanted to prove to the world that God exists not through religion or science but through a rationalized argument. In his meditations Descartes discusses how we know that we exist as human beings, how the senses work, how we gain knowledge, make judgments and that God exists and is the best judge of all. Descartes proves to us that we exist because we think. He helps us unlearn and rebuilds the foundations of all our thoughts and ideas as we have them today. He proves that nature is our teacher because it tells us what is right and wrong. Our intellect, understanding, and free will help us act upon what we have learnt through nature and obtained through our senses. We then make judgments in life even though we don’t have complete knowledge of anything and everything is doubtful and believe that God will pass the best judgment because God is the all knowing. Descartes and his Meditations on the First Philosophy Descartes created his Meditations to unlearn everything and build stronger foundations for all the ideas that exist within humans. He said that often human beings make errors of judgment habitually and believe things without reason. He wanted to prove to the world that God exists not through religion or science but through a rationalized argument. In his meditations Descartes discusses how we know that we exist as human beings, how the senses work, how we gain knowledge, make judgments and that God exists and is the best judge of all. “Nevertheless, the belief that there is a God who is all powerful, and who created me, such as I am, has, for a long time, obtained steady possession of my mind. How, then, do I know that he has not arranged that there should be neither earth, nor sky, nor any extended thing, nor figure, nor magnitude, nor place, providing at the same time, however, for [the rise in me of the perceptions of all these objects, and] the persuasion that these do not exist otherwise than as I perceive them ?? (Descartes, Meditation 1, section 9) Descartes asks a critical question in the first meditation. He wonders if our mind is in God’s control as is everything else in the universe how do we know if they universe really exists. The mind thinks and that is its only purpose. All the information gathered by our five senses is registered with our brain for us to know what we felt, saw, smelt, heard or tasted. We lose one of our senses if we lose that part of our body. For example, if a person loses his eyes he loses his sight and if a person loses his ears he loses his hearing. Everything in the body is connected to the brain, therefore, if one part of the brain is damaged, everything connected to it gets affected. The mind is the sensory treasure box. To think and to act are controlled by the mind. The mind is controlled by God as long as a person believes that there is a God and has created us. Therefore, it is absolutely possible that anything that mind observes and thinks maybe an illusion. We know there is a sky because we can see a sky; we know there is an Earth because we feel it under our feet. We know all of this because all signals we sense are shot up to our brain and processed so we know what we have sensed. Therefore, anything that we think we know is because of our mind. Our mind has been in ‘steady possession’ of God so anything that we perceive or think we know can easily by an illusion and not exist outside of what we perceive through my mind. “I suppose, accordingly, that all the things which I see are false (fictitious); I believe that none of those objects which my fallacious memory represents ever existed; I suppose that I possess no senses; I believe that body, figure, extension, motion, and place are merely fictions of my mind. What is there, then, that can be esteemed true? Perhaps this only, that there is absolutely nothing certain.” (Descartes, meditation 2, section 2) To understand that nature is our teacher we must first what is true. Descartes establishes that the only thing that is certain is that everything is uncertain. There is doubt in everything. But for doubt to exist, someone to doubt everything should exist. “Doubtless, then, I exist, since I am deceived” (Descartes, meditation 2, section 3) For him to understand that everything is a deception, proves his existence, therefore, he exists. “I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time it is expressed by me, or conceived in my mind.”(Descartes, meditation 2, section 3) Each time he thinks, each time he doubts, he proves that he exists. He exists because he is a thing that thinks. If a thing can be deceived, a thing must have thoughts to be deceived. If he is deceived, then he has thoughts and if he has thoughts then is a thing. A thinking thing. Hence the popular line by Descartes, “I think, therefore I am.” Nature and how it teaches us “Nevertheless I before received and admitted many things as wholly certain and manifest, which yet I afterward found to be doubtful. What, then, were those? They were the earth, the sky, the stars, and all the other objects which I was in the habit of perceiving by the senses.” After establishing that everything is doubtful and could be an illusion and that man exists because he thinks a question is raised. What happens to all the things that we previously thought existed? Descartes proposes that they were simply things that we were in the habit of perceiving through the senses. We think, therefore we are. To understand if the things other than us ore true and indubitable we must first establish that there is God. God is perfect and the devil is the opposite. If God creates perfect ness the devil/non-being convinces us of the doubt within everything. But to believe any theory and maintain that there is a God we must first prove that there is a God. (Meditation 3, section 3 - 4) “Of my thoughts some are, as it were, images of things, and to these alone properly belongs the name IDEA” (Descartes, meditation 3, section 5) Descartes calls everything that we think and see ‘ideas’. He further explains that are three kinds of ideas: innate, adventitious, and imaginary. Anything that a person establishes comes from himself therefore it is innate. For example, the idea “I think, therefore I am” has been formed through analyzing ourselves and our surroundings. No one else came up with that idea, it comes from human nature, and therefore it is innate. Adventitious ideas come from what we see and hear and perceive through our mind such as the sun and the moon. On the other hand, there are other things such as mermaids that come from our imaginations. (Descartes, meditation 3, section 7) Through this reasoning and others Descartes explains that the idea of God is innate, it comes from within us. There are two ways that we know things exist: through our senses and our imaginations. If we take a triangle and place it in front of our selves we see that it has three sides. When the triangle is removed from our sight we can still imagine the three sides. When we try to imagine a figure that has thousand sides it has hard to maintain the difference between a figure that has nine hundred and ninety nine sides. All of this could on the other hand be understood through mathematics. Therefore as a long as a person understands he does not have to imagine. So a person can still think and exist without imagination. Imagination and the mind do not have a dependant relationship; therefore the imagination depends on something else. When we sense something the picture created in our mind is far more vivid than something we imagine. Anything that we see or hear is not controlled by us. When a person walking by us is singing, we can’t help but hear it. When a person standing in front of us is dancing we can’t help but see it. When we record anything into our mind through the senses the picture is clearer and more lasting. Anything that we imagine inside our mind cannot be as clear to us or anyone else than what is there in the world outside. (Descartes, meditation 6, section 1) For example, if we have an idea in our mind and we want to tell someone else about it, no one can peek into our mind to understand it. If I’m conjuring up a design for my clients next ball gown she cannot know it until I tell her or draw it for her. Therefore, our imagination cannot be a source of knowledge. Only what we sense can be the source of our knowledge. “Nature likewise teaches me by these sensations of pain, hunger, thirst, etc., that I am not only lodged in my body as a pilot in a vessel, but that I am besides so intimately conjoined, and as it were intermixed with it, that my mind and body compose a certain unity.” (Descartes, meditation 6, section 13) He explains that nature teaches him through his body. The body senses and shoots signals up to the mind to process it so that we have knowledge. If the mind is the treasure chest of all sensory details it cannot function without the body since everything inside the treasure chest is gained through the body. “For if this were not the case, I should not feel pain when my body is hurt, seeing I am merely a thinking thing… in truth, all these sensations of hunger, thirst, pain, etc., are nothing more than certain confused modes of thinking, arising from the union and apparent fusion of mind and body.” (Descartes, meditation 6, section 13) “But there are many other beliefs which though seemingly the teaching of nature, are not in reality so, but which obtained a place in my mind through a habit of judging inconsiderately of things.”(Descartes, meditation 6, section 15) Judgment is a part of human process. When we see something we judge it even though we might not have complete information about it. We assume that sweet things will always taste sweet and that bitter things will always taste bitter. We judge that a nice person will always be nice and a cruel person always vicious. “But nature, taking the term in the sense explained, teaches me to shun what causes in me the sensation of pain, and to pursue what affords me the sensation of pleasure, and other things of this sort; but I do not discover that it teaches me.”(Descartes, meditation 6, section 15) We think that we learn everything directly from nature because what we sense is obtained from nature. Although nature does teach sometimes we make the mistake of making a judgment. When we our stomach aches we feel that something hurts. When we cut an animal and blood appears we see that it is dead. What we sense leads us to knowledge, not the sensing it itself. When we feel pain we try to understand why we feel pain and gain knowledge. The act of feeling pain is not knowledgeable in it self, it is only sensory. Nature’s job is to exist so that we can sense. Through the senses we can tell what in nature is harmful or good. When we sense pain we know the thing is bad and when we feel satisfaction or relief we know the thing is good. But we often make mistake in our judgment too. For example, when Snow White ate the red the apple all she sensed that it looked shiny and probably tasted good because of her experiences with eating apples before. Little did she know that there was poison in the apple and that she would go into deep sleep. This reinforces the point that nature only informs us of what is good or bad because of what we sense and our previous experiences and knowledge. Therefore we make habitual judgments that might not necessarily be true and harm us like they did Snow White. (Descartes, Meditation 6, section 17) The fourth Meditation and the rule pertaining judgment Thus far, it has been established that nature only leads us to sensory judgments and to analyze whether they are truly right or wrong we must use our intellect. God is perfect and he has created the human being who is not perfect and creates errors. God should be able to create things that do not have room to create error because they are created by him. How could God, the most perfect, create something that is not perfect? Because if he did, then he wouldn’t be God and us not humans. We are creatures who are prone to errors and that is not a reflection of the imperfection of God but of the complexities of why he has created us that way. The perfection lies in the entire universe as a whole and how each piece fits in perfectly. We are simply the pieces of a puzzle that only God knows how to put together. (Descartes, 2002, Meditation 4) Although human beings are imperfect God has blessed us with free will. Free will brings us closer to God than anything else. There is nothing else without limits than the idea of free will. To do something or not to do something has been given to us in its perfect form. The only difference is that God when practicing his will has knowledge of everything. Human beings on the other hand have only limited knowledge. Therefore, while practicing free will human beings make many errors. (Descartes, 2002, Meditation 4) If we withhold judgment on any occasion where we do not know the entire truth we will never be able to make any decisions because we will never know the entire truth. Only God can know the entire truth therefore he is the best judge of us all. But in life we have to make decisions and practice our free will because it is a gift from God. In practicing our goodwill we must make the best decisions by trying to know all that is possible to know. We should sense and use our intellect in the best possible way to practice our free will in the best possible way and leave the rest to God since he is the best judge. Even if we err, God will know of all our intentions and be the best judge. Descartes proves to us that we exist because we think. He helps us unlearn and rebuilds the foundations of all our thoughts and ideas as we have them today. He proves that nature is our teacher because it tells us what is right and wrong. Our intellect, understanding, and free will help us act upon what we have learnt through nature and obtained through our senses. We then make judgments in life even though we don’t have complete knowledge of anything and everything is doubtful and believe that God will pass the best judgment because God is the all knowing. References Descartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy. Literature Online. Cambridge ProQuest Information and Learning, 2002. >ver=Z39.882003&xri:pqil:res>>ver=0.2&res>>id=xri:lion-us&rft>>id=xri:lion:ft:ref:EALKN096:0>. Descartes, Rene Meditations on First Philosophy. Retrieved June 08. 2008, from http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/descartes/meditations/meditations.html Read More