Essay on Rene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy

Descartes believes that knowledge comes from within the mind. This is a single indisputable fact to build on that can be gained through individual reflection. While seeking true knowledge, Descartes writes his Six Meditations. In these meditations, Descartes tries to develop a strong foundation, which all knowledge can be built upon. In the First Meditation, Descartes begins developing this foundation through the method of doubt. He casts doubt upon all his previous beliefs, including â€Å"matters which are not entirely certain and indubitable [and] those which appear to be manifestly false.† (Descartes, p.75, par.3) Once Descartes clears away all beliefs that can be called into doubt, he can then build a strong base for all true†¦show more content†¦Though, Descartes must explore all doubts involving this internal sense if he wants to use it as his foundation for knowledge. Descartes brings up the possibility that perhaps at this point, right now, he is dreaming. A person who is dreaming may have difficulty differentiating between the dream and reality. Descartes says â€Å"How often has it happened to me that in the night I dreamt that I found myself in this particular place, that I was dressed and seated near the fire, whilst in reality I was lying undressed in bed!† (Descartes, p.76, par.1) According to this idea, I may believe, even now, I am dreaming, this not my body, and I am not writing this paper for philosophy but I am really lying in bed somewhere sleeping. This dream hypothesis would invalidate the beliefs that are based on internal sense; for if you are dreaming then what you believe to be your awareness of self is truly false. You may say that everyday life exhibits a smoothness and understanding, which dreams do not. Dreams have little rhyme or reason; while life experience is orderly and controlled. However, this scale of mea suring the differences of coherence between dreams and reality is unreliable. Sometimes dreams are incoherent and sometimes they appear to be real.Show MoreRelatedRene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy1234 Words   |  5 Pages In Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes does and experiment with wax to try to prove that things actually exist in this world. This essay is going to prove how we can tell that things actually exist and what can perceive the wax. Rene Descartes starts off with a description of the wax so he can prove to us the changes that will happen throughout his experiment. â€Å"Let us take, for instance, this piece of wax. 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