How does Descartes use the example of wax to reinforce his argument of the existence of the self - Term Paper Example

e I am) which implies that one’s consciousness, set of thoughts or thinking or ability to doubt would give proof of his own existence because of the ‘I’ or ego that conceives it (R. Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy) This is all the more reinforced when Descartes came up with the “wax argument” in substantiating his proof on the existence of the self. To Descartes, the program of radical doubt must be established on a solitary endeavor or more appropriately, a deliberate isolation which forms the nature of his philosophical work having been freed of social or emotional disturbances enabling him to inquire “What shall I say of the mind itself, that is, of myself?

For as yet I do not admit that I am anything but mind. What, then! I who seem to possess so distinct an apprehension of the ‘piece of wax’, do I not know myself, both with greater truth and certitude, and also much more distinctly and clearly? For if I judge that the wax exists because I see it, it assuredly follows, much more evidently, that I myself am or exist, for the same reason: for it is possible that what I see may not in truth be wax, and that I do not even possess eyes with which to see anything; but it cannot be that when I see, or, which comes to the same thing, when I think I see, I myself who think am nothing (Descartes, Meditation II).

” Basically, Descartes proposed the “wax argument” in two stages being – “(1) the argument from change; and (2) the argument from intellection then personified the “wax” in an entity called ‘Bob’ who sits on the mantle as time ‘t’ passes (Graziano, 2011)”. It is claimed that at an instant, Bob is found with initial properties such as those which the senses are susceptible to experience in terms, for instance, of temperature change, phase shift, or shape transformation. “At time ‘t’, Bob can assume the shape of an orb while being cold and solid at the same time while at some time after ‘t’ he may