The First Meditation - Essay Example

The First Meditation Descartes worries that he does not have a method to distinguish between his waking and dreaming experiences because of his belief that the foundation upon which all of his though is based is false. One will find that Descartes is a believer in finding the absolute truth about different situations, especially reality, and that his belief in the false foundation of much of knowledge is what motivates him to decide to find out what is true or false in his total knowledge (Descartes 35).

This is the reason why he chooses to consider his dreaming and waking experiences in order to decipher what is real and what is not and he theorises that the dreaming experiences he has been a manifestation of his waking experiences and that dreams cannot be formed without the latter. Descartes’ worry about not being able to distinguish between his waking and dreaming experiences can be a serious problem for scientific knowledge because there would be no means of making a distinction about what is true and what is false.

The result of such a scenario is that a large number of scientific studies and thought, while being extremely popular in some schools, might turn out to be completely false. Moreover, the development of newer scientific theories would be much difficult since even the scientific thinkers will not be able to know whether their theories are based on reality or not. The result of Descartes’ worry would be that what are considered to be scientific facts might turn out to be the imagination of individuals and not based on reality.

Descartes speculates that perhaps an evil genius, or what he terms as a malignant demon, is the one who influences his dreams and makes him believe that what he sees in his dreams happened in reality. The evil genius works towards putting false images into his mind during his state of slumber and thus ensures that Descartes is unable to distinguish what is real from what is not and whether what he is dreaming actually took place in reality (Descartes 38). Therefore, Descartes is faced with two dilemmas, and one of these is whether life is based on foundations of falsehood and the other is whether life is influenced by an evil genius whose intention is to ensure that individuals are confused about reality and the dream experience.

The result of these thoughts by Descartes is that he develops two different theories about reality and the foundation upon which it is built and whether there are other influences that might be at work in the formation of reality. The problem that is more difficult in this case is the one based on the dream and waking experiences and Descartes’ attempting to work out which one of them carries more weight and whether they are based on falsehood. The speculation that life is based on false conceptions that are developed from childhood is a most difficult problem to be considered and it is because of this difficulty that Descartes ends up speculating that perhaps not even his waking state is real and that it is only a figment of his imagination.

Works CitedDescartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy. Edited Stanley Tweyman. London: Routledge, 1993. Print.