Descartes

Descartes I am going to discuss Descartes’ first and second Meditations concerning doubt. I will first summarize what Descartes was trying to say and prove, and explain why he was unsuccessful in his search for a foundation in which he could build knowledge from. In Descartes first meditation he discusses that he has come to the conclusion that many of his beliefs and opinions he had as a child are doubtful. Descartes decides that in order to find out the “truths” he must disprove his current “knowledge.” He goes about this by a radical system of doubt and says that he must “attack those principles which supported everything I once believed (144).” His method of doubt allows him to eliminate anything and everything that has even the smallest possibility of not being factual. Descartes does not necessarily doubt everything that he brings up. In Descartes’ first meditation, he tries to disprove all of his fundamental beliefs. First, he doubts that he can trust his senses because they can be fooled. An example of this is the refraction that happens when a pencil is placed in water; it looks broken, even though it really is not. descartes, god, senses, think, first, existence, evil, even, truth, omnipotent, being, because, must, meditation, genius, dream, doubt, deceive, body, awake, argument, things, out, omniscient, knowledge, foundation, fooled, find, everything, deceiving, conclusion, beliefs, asleep, am, very