1. WHAT DOES DESCARTES PROVE IN THE SECOND MEDITATION
Introduction
Rene Descartes, in meditations debates with himself the existence of various things,
he does this by doubting everything he has ever come across. He doubts the
existence of God, the external world and even his own existence to determine what
is certain. In this essay I argue that while Descartes second meditation is convincing,
it is ultimately flawed, and I will support this by discussing what Descartes proves in
the second mediation. The first section of this essay will give a background of the 1st
meditation, the next section will discuss the second mediation along with what
Descartes proves in this meditation. Reasons why the second meditation is
convincing but flawed will be provided. The counterarguments to the claim that the
2nd mediation is convincing will be discussed as well as the responses to these
counterarguments.
First meditation
In the first meditation, Descartes embarks on a process of extreme doubt in which he
questions all he has ever believed in order to establish a solid basis for certain
knowledge. Descartes (2017:12) states that in order to do this he has to, “demolish
everything completely and start again.” Descartes does this in order to bring a new
basis for science, he claims that if he is ever to trust the external world based on
scientific knowledge then a new basis for scientific knowledge which will be
impossible to doubt is needed. In other words, he attempts to use science to explain
the world and answer the question: how can we be certain about anything?
Descartes regards doubt as a way of arriving to his main goal, which is certain
knowledge. He claims that he has always relied on the senses, however he has
concluded that the senses are not always reliable. He uses dreams and the idea of
an evil demon trying to influence his perception of the world to prove this. He
questions how he can we distinguish a dream from the waking moment and
concludes that in dreams we are often unable to distinguish between things that are
real and things that are not. He claims that we cannot be doubtful of simple things,
like the shapes and size of things because they are not made of multiple parts, but
we can doubt studies based on composite things, for example medicine because it
includes various pieces of evidence. According to Frankfurt and Goldstein (2007:22)
Descartes attempts to, “regain the intellectual innocence of a child while leaving the
mature strengths of his rational power intact.” Which is an impossible task to
accomplish.
Second Meditation
The second meditation attempts to arrive at a conclusive understanding of the self,
existence, and the nature of reality. Still in the path to find something that can be
completely certain, Descartes picks up where he left off. He continues to stand with
his firm decision that he in fact has no body, or reliable senses, however he does find
it impossible to deny the fact that he indeed doubts, that he is in fact thinking. This
revelation gets us to the formulation of the Cogito argument, which Descartes
(2007:17) claims that, “I am, I exist.” This can be interpreted as follows, I think, and if
I am able to formulate thoughts then that must mean I am, I exist. According to him,
how can he not exist if he is the ultimate foundation of these meditations. In addition
to this newfound certainty Descartes puts forth a question, where he questions this ‘I’
and what it means. He reprimands himself not to mistaken other things for this ‘I’,
that he does not yet know what it means. Previously Descartes thought he had a
fully functioning body with limbs, a face and he was nourished, however all that he
previously was, has been cast into doubt except for the fact that he thinks, according
to him, as long as he thinks then he exists regardless of not having a body, or limbs
or even a face. Which answers the question what does Descartes prove in the
second meditation, he proves that he exists even though this proof is questionable.
Descartes discusses the existence of God and whether or not he truly exists.
Descartes (2017:18) asks, “Is there no God?” In which he says that humans are born
with the impression that there is a God who is powerful. He claims that no one
another person than God could have given us the concept that he exists, hence we
can be positive that God exists. With regards to the evil demon argument, Descartes
thinks that a wicked demon is fooling us since God would never do so, and that this
demon has produced a wholly false perception of the world around us. This implies
we can't rely on our senses to give us the truth about the world, and we have to
question what we see. This leads us to the conclusion that the only certainty we
have is that we exist because we think. Descartes demonstrates in the second
meditation that we have a greater understanding of ourselves than of the world, and
that before we can comprehend the world, we must first understand ourselves, and
only then would it be possible to understand the world.
Thesis Argument and counterargument
I argue that Descartes argument is convincing however it is flawed, and reasons why
I argue so will be provided below. Firstly, Descartes claims that ‘I am, I exist.’
Descartes’s ‘I am, I exist’ makes sense because it is an undeniable fact of our
existence. Even if we doubt everything else, we cannot doubt the fact that we are
thinking beings who exist as Descartes claims. Even if we know everything is an
Illusion, our own existence as a thinking thing is not an illusion. However as much as
this argument is convincing it has flaws, according to Williams (2005) “only the
proposition ‘I am, I exist’ is explicitly said to be that.” What Williams is saying is that
Descartes does not prove that anything else exists, he only proves that that the self
exists. Descartes according to this does not prove the existence of the physical world
or how the ‘I’ is connected to this and other people, he only assumes that the ‘I’
exists in the same way that other things exist. In addition, Descartes did reprimand
himself not to make the mistake of assuming this ‘I’’ to be other things, however in
his whole argument he does end up assuming, which makes him contradict himself.
The other reason Descartes reasoning is flawed is that he did not consider using
other people to better support his position. He could have used other people to verify
the existence of the world, for example, If Descartes sees a fire, he can ask the
people around if they also see a fire and that would help to determine if he is being
deceived or not. His thesis is overly based on personal experience and fails to
consider how other individuals might assist us validate our ideas.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Descartes does bring about arguments that are worth exploring further
and he does prove in the second meditation that he does in fact exist; however, the
main goal of Descartes discussion was to prove the existence of the self, the nature
of reality and the physical world. Instead, Descartes proves that the ‘I; exits but the
proof of the ’I’ leads him to make various assumptions about the existence of other
things, for example he assumes that the ‘I’ has a face and a body, but he hasn’t
actually proved it just assumed that he did.
References
Descartes, R., Cottingham, J. and Williams, B. (2017) Meditations on first philosophy
with selections from the objections and replies. Cambridge, United Kingdom:
Cambridge University Press.
Frankfurt, H., Goldstein R. (2007). Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen: The defense
of reason in Descartes “Meditations”- Princeton University Press
Williams, B. (2005). Descartes: The project of Pure Inquiry. Oxford University Press.