Meditations I & II - Descartes
Meditation I: Of the Things of Which We May Doubt
Descartes reflects on his past acceptance of false opinions as true and the necessity to rid himself of all adopted opinions to establish a firm foundation in the sciences.
He acknowledges the magnitude of this task and his delay in undertaking it until reaching a mature age.
Descartes decides to overthrow all his former opinions, not necessarily proving them false but finding some ground for doubt in each.
He notes that his former beliefs were based on or received through the senses, which sometimes mislead.
He acknowledges that it is imprudent to place absolute confidence in anything that has once deceived him.
He considers the possibility of doubting even seemingly certain information from the senses, such as being in a specific place or holding a piece of paper.
He acknowledges the difficulty of denying the existence of his hands and body without appearing insane.
He compares himself to insane persons who assert false realities.
Descartes reflects on his habit of dreaming and representing to himself the same things or less probable things which the insane experience when awake.
He questions whether he can distinguish waking from sleeping, acknowledging that he has been deceived in sleep by similar illusions.
He supposes that he is dreaming and that all particulars are merely illusions, including the existence of his body and hands.
He concedes that objects appearing in sleep are like painted representations based on realities.
He posits that even fantastic forms are derived from a medley of real animal members or real colors.
He suggests that there must be real, simple, and universal objects underlying imaginary ones.
He identifies corporeal nature, extension, figure, magnitude, number, place, and time as belonging to this class of objects.
He infers that Physics, Astronomy, Medicine, and sciences considering composite objects are doubtful.
However, Arithmetic, Geometry, and sciences regarding simple and general objects contain certainty and are indubitable, because truths like 2 + 3 = 5 and a square having four sides remain true whether awake or dreaming.
Descartes then considers the belief in a God who is all-powerful and his creator.
He questions whether God could have arranged for him to perceive objects (earth, sky, extension, figure, magnitude, place) without their actual existence.
He considers the possibility of being deceived even in simple judgments like adding numbers or counting sides.
He acknowledges the argument that God, being supremely good, would not allow constant deception.
He points out the contradiction in God allowing occasional deception if constant deception is against his goodness.
He considers the possibility that some might deny God's existence rather than believe nothing is certain.
He entertains the idea that his existence could be due to fate, chance, or an endless series of events.
Descartes reasons that the probability of being constantly deceived increases if his origin is due to a less powerful cause.
He admits that he cannot deny the possibility of doubting everything he formerly believed.
He stresses that this doubt comes from cogent and maturely considered reasons.
He resolves to refrain from assenting to doubtful opinions as carefully as to manifestly false ones.
He recognizes the challenge of maintaining these observations due to old and customary opinions recurring.
He acknowledges that long-held beliefs have a strong hold on his mind.
He is persuaded to take a deliberate opposite judgment, deceiving himself by supposing all his opinions are entirely false and imaginary.
He aims to balance old prejudices with new ones to guide his judgment toward truth.
He believes no peril or error will arise from this course since his goal is knowledge, not action.
He decides to suppose that a malignant demon, potent and deceitful, has employed all his artifice to deceive him.
He imagines that the sky, air, earth, colors, figures, sounds, and external things are illusions created by this demon.
He considers himself without hands, eyes, flesh, blood, or senses, falsely believing he possesses them.
He resolves to remain fixed in this belief to avoid assenting to what is false.
He admits the arduousness of this undertaking and the tendency to revert to his ordinary life.
He compares himself to a captive dreaming of liberty who dreads awakening.
He fears that awakening from his slumber will lead to laborious wakefulness without dispelling the darkness of the difficulties he has raised.
Meditation II: Of the Nature of the Human Mind, and That It Is More Easily Known Than the Body
The doubts from yesterday's meditation persist, and Descartes sees no principle to resolve them.
He feels disoriented, like falling into deep water without being able to touch the bottom or swim.
He resolves to cast aside all that admits of the slightest doubt, as if it were absolutely false.
He will continue until he finds something certain or knows with certainty that there is nothing certain.
He references Archimedes' need for a firm and immovable point to move the Earth, comparing it to his search for one indubitable truth.
He supposes that all things he sees are false and that his memory is fallacious.
He supposes he possesses no senses and that body, figure, extension, motion, and place are fictions of his mind.
He questions whether there is anything certain, considering if there is not something different that he has not considered.
He asks if there is a God or some being causing these thoughts to arise in his mind.
He considers the possibility that he himself is capable of producing these thoughts.
He questions whether he is something, even if he denied possessing senses or a body.
He reflects on his previous persuasion that nothing existed and questions whether, at the time, he was persuaded he did not exist.
He concludes that he assuredly existed since he was persuaded of something.
He entertains the idea of a powerful and cunning being constantly deceiving him.
He reasons that he exists since he is deceived and that the deceiver cannot make him nothing as long as he is conscious of being something.
He maintains that the proposition "I am, I exist" is necessarily true each time it is expressed or conceived in his mind.
He acknowledges that he does not yet know with sufficient clearness what he is, though assured that he is.
He resolves to avoid substituting some other object in place of himself, which would lead him away from truth.
He considers what he formerly believed himself to be before entering the present train of thought.
He will retrench from his previous opinion all that can be invalidated by his doubts to leave only what is certain.
He recalls thinking he was a man, but questions the definition of man as a rational animal, which would lead to further questions.
He prefers to focus on the thoughts that arose spontaneously in his mind when considering what he was.
He thought he possessed a countenance, hands, arms, and a body.
He also thought he was nourished, walked, perceived, and thought, referring these actions to the soul.
He either did not consider what the soul was, or imagined it was something rare and subtle like wind, flame, or ether.
He believed he distinctly understood the nature of the body, defining it as something that can be terminated by a figure, comprised in a place, fill a space, be perceived by the senses, and be moved by something foreign to it.
He did not believe that self-motion, perceiving, and thinking pertained to the nature of the body.
He considers whether he can affirm that he possesses any of the attributes of the body, given the possibility of a malignant being deceiving him.
He finds that none of the attributes of the body can properly be said to belong to himself.
He moves to the attributes of the soul, starting with nutrition and walking, which are impossible without a body.
Perception is also impossible without the body, and he has been deceived in sleep about perceptions.
Thinking is an attribute of the soul, and he discovers that it properly belongs to himself and is inseparable from him.
He concludes, "I am—I exist: this is certain; but how often? As often as I think."
He admits nothing that is not necessarily true and affirms that he is only a thinking thing, a mind, understanding, or reason.
He affirms that he is a real and existent thing, specifically a thinking thing.
He questions whether he is anything besides a thinking being.
He knows he is not the assemblage of members called the human body, nor a thin air diffused through these members, because all these were supposed to be non-existent.
He cannot determine whether things unknown to him are different from himself.
The knowledge of his existence is not dependent on things whose existence is yet unknown.
The phrase "I frame an image" suggests an error, as imagining is contemplating the figure of a corporeal thing.
He knows he exists, and it is possible that images and all things related to the nature of the body are merely dreams.
He concludes it is not more reasonable to excite his imagination to know what he is than to go to sleep to have dreams represent the object of his perception.
Nothing he can embrace in imagination belongs to the knowledge he has of himself.
He needs to recall the mind from this mode of thinking to know its own nature with perfect distinctness.
He restates that he is a thinking thing.
He defines a thinking thing as something that doubts, understands, conceives, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, imagines, and perceives.
He questions whether these properties should not belong to his nature, since he is the one who doubts, understands, affirms, denies, desires, imagines, and perceives.
He is certain that these properties are as true as his own existence, even if he is dreaming or being deceived.
He asks if any of these attributes can be distinguished from his thought or separated from himself.
It is evident that he is the one who doubts, understands, and desires.
He is certainly the same being who imagines, and the power of imagination exists in him.
He is the same being who perceives, apprehending objects through the senses, even if the presentations are false.
He seems to see light, hear a noise, and feel heat, which cannot be false and is what he properly calls perceiving, which is nothing else than thinking.
He begins to know what he is with greater clearness and distinctness.
He still believes that corporeal things, whose images are formed by thought, are known with much greater distinctness than his non-imaginable self.
He acknowledges it seems strange to know things whose existence is doubtful more distinctly than himself, whose reality he is persuaded of.
He understands that his mind is apt to wander and needs to be restrained within the limits of truth.
He will allow his mind liberty to consider external objects before gently withdrawing it to consider its own being.
He will now consider objects commonly thought to be distinctly known, such as bodies, specifically a piece of wax.
He describes the wax as fresh from the beehive, with the sweetness of honey, the odor of flowers, a certain color, figure, and size, hard, cold, easily handled, and sounding when struck.
He notes that all the qualities that make a body distinctly known are in the wax.
As the wax is placed near the fire, its taste, smell, color, and figure change, its size increases, it becomes liquid and hot, and it emits no sound when struck.
He asks if it's the same wax after the change and confirms that it is.
He questions what he knew distinctly in the piece of wax, concluding it was not the qualities observed by the senses, since they all changed.
He thinks that the wax was only a body that formerly appeared under certain forms and now is perceived under others.
When he thinks of the wax in this way, he finds that there remains only something extended, flexible, and movable.
He questions what is meant by flexible and movable, understanding that the wax can become any shape.
He cannot imagine all the possible changes of shape, so his conception of the wax is not a product of imagination.
He questions if extension is also unknown, as it becomes greater when the wax is melted or boiled.
He admits he cannot comprehend by imagination what the piece of wax is and that it is the mind alone which perceives it.
The piece of wax can be perceived only by the mind, and it is the same piece he saw, touched, and imagined.
The perception of the wax is neither an act of sight, touch, nor imagination, but an intuition of the mind, which may be imperfect or clear depending on the attention given to its elements.
He is astonished by the weakness of his mind and its proneness to error, as words can impede his progress.
He observes that we say we "see" the same wax, which suggests it is known by sight, but he recalls the analogy of seeing men from a window.
He judges that there are human beings from the appearances of hats and cloaks, not that he sees them directly.
He comprehends by the faculty of judgment alone what he believed he saw with his eyes.
He asks whether he had a clearer perception of the wax when he first saw it through the external senses, or now after examining it with greater care.
He concludes that his current apprehension is clearer, because the first perception was indistinct and accessible to animals.
When he distinguishes the wax from its exterior forms and considers it naked, his apprehension is more distinct and requires a human mind.
He questions what he shall say of the mind itself, acknowledging he doesn't yet admit he is anything but mind.
He asks if he, who seems to possess so distinct an apprehension of the piece of wax, does not know himself with greater truth, certitude, distinctness, and clarity.
If he judges that the wax exists because he sees it, it follows more evidently that he himself exists, since it is possible that what he sees may not be wax or that he does not possess eyes.
It cannot be that when he sees, or thinks he sees, he himself who thinks is nothing.
The same logic applies if he judges the wax exists because he touches it or because imagination persuades him of its existence: he still exists. All remarks applying to the wax apply to all things external to him.
If the perception of wax appeared more precise after sight, touch, and other causes rendered it manifest to his apprehension, then how much greater distinctness must he now know himself, for all reasons contributing to the knowledge of wax manifest still better the nature of his mind?
There are many things in the mind itself that illustrate its nature, making the body's contributions insignificant.
He finds he has reverted to his desired point: bodies are not properly perceived by the senses or imagination, but by the intellect alone.
They are not perceived because they are seen and touched, but because they are understood by thought.
There is nothing more easily or clearly apprehended than his own mind.
It is difficult to promptly rid oneself of long-held opinions, so he will linger and meditate to impress this new knowledge upon his memory.
SEP: