What is the process Descartes uses in his search for knowledge? Why doesn’t he stop after the argument that the senses cannot be trusted? How does each stage push his skepticism even further? What does he know by the end of meditation 1?
In Descartes article his process for the search of knowledge is to strip everything away, everything he knows he wants to get rid of, he wants a drastic change in order to completely switch he view. Descartes also believes that “and it is wiser not to trust entirely to anything by which we have once been deceived”, so essentially he is saying that if something leads you astray once it is automatically considered untrustworthy. After Descartes declares that the senses are untrustworthy we notice that he continues to explain he theories about dreams and how often we can see our dreams as true, ” 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!”. So he tries to prove to us that are sense are untrustworthy and even goes on a tangent explaining how he could still me in a dream right now, ” And my astonishment is such from sleep that I am lost in astonishment. And my astonishment is such that it is almost capable of persuading me that I now dream.” Each stage pushes he skepticism further because it seems like every paragraph he is further convincing himself that everything is a lie. He even goes far into the deep end by describing how God is actually deceiving us and is an evil genius who is tricking us all. Descartes by the end of his first mediation convinces himself that he can no longer trust anyone or anything which makes him suggest, ” I shall consider myself as having no hands, no flesh, no blood, nor any senses, yet falsely believing myself to possess all these things; I shall remain obstinately attached to this idea.” I find this quote very interesting because that means he can no longer even trust this theory because he is putting trust in this theory. So according to Descartes by the end of his first mediation we can’t even believe that the air we are breathing right now if even real or the family that we dearly love or the friends we’ve spent our whole lives with…FAKE.
Word Count: 412
Really Deep Feelings That Are Just Being Talked About 
I thought that your blog is insightful, I noticed to that Descartes would go deeper into his belief that everything is a lie and should be doubted or questioned. I have had “dreams” where upon from waking up they seem so real in which they are real in my subconscious without my mind trying to take complete control of my next thought, that when I wake up I question if that was real or if that really happened and if it did then why can’t I remember entirely. Memory is a fickle thing in my opinion because how can it be totally proved? That’s what I think of the senses being deceitful.
LikeLike
Really good analysis of the Descartes article. Isn’t it strange how nothing can be trusted? We cannot trust even our own minds because anything can be tampered with or distorted. We seek the truth but every question we have is just answered with another question. Descartes is making the point that truth is inconclusive and subjective.
LikeLike
Reading Descartes, Meditation 1, definitely felt like a roller coaster ride. Sort of like when you’re on a roller coaster and your eyes are open so you know your definitely alive and on the roller coaster, but then you close your eyes once it gets to the scary part so you feel less like you’re actually many feet off the ground. For me, as I read Meditation 1 it was like you start to believe what Descartes is saying about being sure of his existence but then he refutes that proposition he just made, and in the end you just don’t know what to believe like he says.
LikeLike
Hey Cameron! I really enjoyed reading your take on the Descartes article. Great quotes you pulled out too! It is bizarre to try and think of life as fake or as anything other than your reality. In some ways Descartes is right about a lot of things, there is so much unknown, but can we all really be just in one another’s heads? It would be impossible to live without being able to trust one’s own thoughts and beliefs. I cannot imagine how Descartes lived.
LikeLike