Meditations on First Philosophy by Descartes - Book Report/Review Example

 One aspect of Descartes that separated him from the thinkers of his time was his departure from traditional modes of thought in bringing together things that had not been done, or not been done often, in times past.

Dualism is Descartes's attempt to bring the discipline of mathematics with its basis on basic ‘real’ knowledge, information that just cannot be wrong, together with the concepts of thought. Through the application of the logical questioning process, Descartes demonstrates how thought, not observation is really the right foundation for knowledge. Assuming that what he is able to perceive as distinct must be true, he strives to erase his mind of all information that has been gained through his five senses to arrive at what he knows deep within himself.

After rejecting all of the information he seems to know about the world because it has all come to him through one or the other of the senses, about the only thing Descartes is still sure of is that there is something within him that can be informed, rightly or wrongly, by these senses. He reasons that in order to fool a mind, a mind must first exist. “But there is I know not what being, who is possessed at once of the highest power and the deepest cunning, who is constantly employing all his ingenuity in deceiving me.

Doubtless, then, I exist, since I am deceived; and, let him deceive me as he may, he can never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I shall be conscious that I am something” (Descartes, 1989).