Philosophy Paper Example: First Meditation

Descartes begins his First Meditation, reflecting on his reasons for doubt, revealing that ultimately, he calls into doubt everything that he has perceived to be false throughout his life so that he is left with only that which is true (the cogito), and from there, he can build the rest of his knowledge in future meditations. 

Descartes starts citing the realization that he had accepted a number of falsehoods he had accepted as true during his childhood. He implies that, in order to establish a collection of truthful knowledge, he must throw entirely his former beliefs; and to do that, he doubts. Descartes understands “calling something into doubt” not as providing counterexamples for why something might be true or false, rather, he withholds assent from “opinions which are not completely and indubitable” (15). He equates these opinions which are not completely true to opinions which are completely not true to emphasize that he will only grant assent to those which are completely true. Withholding assent, as interpreted by Descartes, represents a suspension of belief, making the opinion just a possibility (and no longer believing it to be true). In this case, Descartes does not believe in the opinion, and also doesn’t not believe in the opinion. He, however, with all certainty does not consider this opinion to be true. 

Ultimately, his goal in calling his beliefs into doubt is to arrive at what is certain; that is to say, Descartes wants to eliminate all that is not true to get to a point where the only thing he believes is something that he knows to be true. From that point, he can use that as a starting point to build knowledge of everything that is true. He says that he “ will go straight for the basic principles on which all my former beliefs rested” (16). Descartes reasons that, by approaching the “basic principles,” he can demolish all of his former beliefs, and only what cannot be called into doubt will remain.

In order to dismantle his false beliefs, he addresses his senses, because everything that he has accepted as true has come from his senses, yet the senses deceive him. To fully explain how the senses deceive him, he describes sensory illusions, such as the perception of objects that are far off into the distance, as evidence that his senses deceive him and therefore cannot be trusted. (Similarly, auditory illusions such as the Laurel and Yanny sound, are examples of further deception). He then describes the perception of being and experiencing reality as a normal person curled up by a fireplace, in contrast to a madman who believes that he is a king, when in reality, he is a pauper.  He says that “I would be equally mad if I took anything from them as a model for myself” to explain that he would also be a madman to doubt reality as mere hallucination, caused by melancholia (depression). However, to doubt the reality that he experiences, he describes it through dreams. His argument is that in some dreams, it is very clear that it is a dream; however, it is impossible to ascertain that certain experiences are not dreams. Because some dreams can seem real – in that in a dream one can experience “eyes, head, hands, and the body as a whole,” and that these could be real or imaginary (one can experience these both in a dream and in real life), and therefore one cannot know what corporeal experiences are true and false, and must withhold assent.

By extension, Descartes argues, that subjects that depend on physical things (that can be a dream), such as physics, astronomy, and medicine, are to be doubted, and that which depends on “the simplest and most general things” such as arithmetic and geometry, “contain something certain and indubitable.” Because arithmetic and geometry are not grounded in physical, corporeal, things, which can appear in dreams, and therefore, may or may not be truthful (which is the exact case wherein Descartes establishes assent should be withheld). 

Though Descartes fails to call into doubt arithmetic and geometry in ruminating about the veracity of dreams, he calls these into doubt via the deceptive God postulate. He argues that an omnipotent God has the power to change the laws of mathematics into something else, and therefore, Descartes would not know if he were wrong every time he “counts the sides of a square,” because God could change the sides of a square.

However, because of God’s divine attributes, namely his supreme goodness (benevolence), it would be inconsistent with this benevolence that Descartes would be deceived all the time, and, he argues, therefore, much less that he would be deceived by God only occasionally (in the case of God deceiving him regarding the laws of mathematics). 

Descartes describes that his habitual opinions keep coming back to him no matter how hard he tries to withhold assent to these beliefs. He reasons that God, who is supremely good and “the source of truth”, does not deceive him, rather, it is a malicious genius who is responsible for Descartes’s habitual opinions. Descartes describes that the malicious genius deceives Descartes to the extent that he cannot believe anything he knows, and must deem all of it false. Thus, in continuation with doubting everything he cannot be certain is true, Descartes must doubt everything to avoid being misled by the malicious genius. This allows Descartes to enter the second meditation with conflicting beliefs, that his ideas of ordinary beliefs are true and that the malicious genius misleads him on virtually everything. Thus, Descartes is able to withhold assent that anything is real, and can then reach the most basic truth that not even the malicious genius can deceive, that Descartes is, Descartes exists (I am, I exist; the cogito). And from this point, his only belief in the truth of the cogito, can Descartes build his knowledge of only that which is true.