Meditations on First Philosophy
Rene Descartes made his first publish titled Meditations on first philosophy in 1614. This publication is at times subtitled “in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated” is made up of six meditations in which the author first discards all belief in things that are not certain. In individual’s reflections, the author also tries to come up with what can be known for sure. The way in which the meditations are represented by the author assumes a setting that the whole set of reflection looks like they were made within a period of six days. The fact that each meditation refers to the previous mediation as yesterday makes some people refer to these meditations as steps.
In individual’s book, Descartes explains how he had mentioned two questio
...ns that are the existence of God and the existence the soul. As it will be noted, in this discussion, Descartes through his meditations concluded that the essence of the soul is a thing that makes its decisions by excluding other nature. After reaching this conclusion, the mediator was in a position to explain that he is a thinking thing. The most contradicting step that Descartes makes in his meditations argues that on a general reasoning level, the atheist act of denying the existence of God is somehow substantial (Descartes, & Cottingham 2013). The fact that human beings ascribe to God affections that are human or worse still, human beings attribute so much strength and wisdom to their minds that at times people presume to understand God’s doing. In response to the belief held by the atheist, Descartes made it clea
that people should consider God as incomprehensible and infinite and their minds as limited and something that can end.
Step one : concerning those things that can be called into doubt
This action opened the mediator’s reflection on the mean thing that the individual had believed in since his early life. The first step also awakens individual’s understanding of dangers associated with believing in the falsehood that is empirical knowledge. Following this awakening, the mediator made up individuals mind to swap all he knows and start from foundation to built up his knowledge once more on more elaborate grounds (Descartes & Cottingham 2013). To enhance individuals demolishment of his present knowledge the individual sat by the fire a place he thought was free from all worries of the world.
The significance of this step is that it enabled Descartes to suspend any notion that is slightly doubtful thus giving the individual correct reason that he required to pushing him to seek a sturdier basis for knowledge in light of proving people doubt.
Step/ meditation two: relating the character of the human mind
In this meditation, the mediator argues that the mind bears more fame than the body. The second step of Descartes meditation lays out a prototype in response to the doubts presented in meditation one. In this step, Descartes argues that the representational of the ideas argued out in the first meditation disconnects the world from the mind. According to Descartes & Cottingham (2013), the primary concept that the second step that Descartes took proves great significance since through it the individual was able to define himself deeply. To enhance self-description, Descartes makes uses of wax example.
Using the wax
example, the mediator argues that wax is not wax because of its color shape or texture but the composition that makes the wax. Wax model enabled the author to bring out the distinction between ordinary perception and judgment. The mediator further argued that the same way individuals cannot use what they see in wax to describe it then the self, cannot be determined by what we sense but rather what a person thinks. In the conclusion of the second Meditation, Descartes argues that he exists because the individual is a thinking thing.
Meditation 3 regards God.
In this step, Descartes put across that there exist three types of ideas that are innate, fictitious and adventitious. To start with, false ideas are those ideas that an individual develops from personal imagination. Innate ideas are ideas that have always been within human beings. Lastly, adventitious ideas come from experiences of the world. In this step, the idea of God is considered as innate in that God inflicted it to human beings.
Mediation 4 truth and false
The fourth meditation conclusion, “I” and “God” both exists led to the conflict that if God is perfectly good and bears all that is considered good, then how does the room of error and falsehood come in the world. The significance of the fourth meditation is that it helped the mediator in getting the answer to the question of truth and false. According to Descartes, wrong is attributed to difference aspects that are understanding and free will. Error occurs when a person makes a choice to act outside of a presented option that bears specific amount of understanding.
Reference
- Descartes, R., & Cottingham, J. (2013). René
Descartes: Meditations on first philosophy: With selections from the objections and replies. Cambridge University Press
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