Ez swoosh’s Weblog

Meditation I

In this meditation Descartes is trying to discover the distinction between mind and body. He wants to come to the conclusion that what he believes about his existence is solely based on his mind and his thoughts. Also that everything that happens in his life is simply just another trick that the mind plays. Meaning that what he observes with his senses, what he feels with his emotions and other experiences are all just different “modes of thought”.

The first step he takes to accomplish this is by trying to find a distinction between what he knows to be true and what actually the truth is. He decides that he will do this by using rational doubt, meaning that he will rule out an opinion he holds as truth if he can find at least one reasonable doubt of it being true. It would be close to impossible to find doubt to every opinion he holds so Descartes decides to attack the reasons that have supported everything that he once believed. By this he means that he challenges the senses, he says that the senses are sometimes deceptive, where they observe something but in fact it is something else from what they assumed it to be. For example, if you see someone from far away and you think you know the person and you start waving. Once the person comes closer it ends up being some stranger you have never seen before. Therefore the senses are sometimes deceptive. Therefore, we can never place our complete trust on something that has deceived us even once before. The second step is that even when you think the senses are not deceiving you, where you can clearly see your hands in front of you and the pen you are writing with, there still is no way to prove that the body he posses is actually his and not some imagination. There are those who we believe to be insane that think of themselves as kings when they are nothing more than a man and think they are wearing a purple outfit when in fact they are naked. Who is to say that those of us who are supposed to be “sane” are not really imagining ourselves the same way that those who are “insane” imagine themselves. The third step is that he must prove what he is experiencing is not a dream and that in fact it is reality. Dreams seem very real to us when we are asleep and we only know the difference after we wake up. So who is to say that we are not always dreaming. However, the things we see during slumber are I fact painted pictures in our memory which can only be produced if it existed in reality and we had seen it before. So therefore, Descartes proves that at least the eyes, head, hands and the whole body are not imaginary, but true and exist.

In the end of the passage he says that he must go on and see all the truths that he can uncover. However, there is a certain feeling in him that does not want to discover the truth because it might be too difficult to handle. The same way a prisoner does not want to be awakened when dreaming of freedom, Descartes also, does not want to get used to something that is opposite from what is has grown accustomed to. He would much rather nonchalantly conspire with pleasant illusions than horrible truths.