Summary
Rene Descartes is a French philosopher and scientist with a complicated life situation and tough childhood. However, Rene was not doomed to the difficult life of the late sixteenth century Rene Descartes – the most important philosophical ideas from the Meditations on the first philosophy
Rene Descartes is a French philosopher and scientist with a complicated life situation and tough childhood. However, Rene was not doomed to the difficult life of the late sixteenth century thankfully to baptism in the Catholic Church and his influential godparents. People around the baby tried to predict his future as a Catholic Lawyer in the crown service (Clarke, 2006). Nevertheless, Descartes chose a different path mainly dedicated to philosophy. One of the most famous masterpieces is Meditations on the first philosophy, which leads to the thoughts of prejudice towards surrounding life and the only acceptance of confirmed facts of our existence.
Human mind is more known than body
Rene Descartes believes that there is no certainty in the World and convinces himself that everything he sees is a false illusion in his head. These thoughts lead the author to the idea that his body shape is created by his own mind and is not possible to be true. This awareness makes Descartes concerned about the reality and actuality of the whole World. Rene described in the Meditation 2 the thought about the powerful liar who is making him think that he exists on the Earth, being in his body and mind. “Then without doubt I exist also if he deceives me and let him deceive me as much as he will, he can never cause me to be nothing so long as I think that I am something” (Descartes, 9). The wax experiment raised new reasonings in Descartes’s mind. Wax takes many different forms during melting, or solidification and the representation of it is not an act of “touch” or “vision”, but only “…intuition12 of the mind, which may be imperfect and confused as it was formerly, or clear and distinct as it is at present…” (Descartes, 12). Processes happening around the author more often force him to analyze his actions and thoughts to confirm the presence of a human mind, which plays a significant role than the body itself and its physical senses.
The existence of the God
Descartes falsely, in his opinion, stated that someone we call “God” is a liar because there is no evidence that he exists. The author suggests that he has his own image of the God’s appearance and additionally perceives is as an ordinary object or illusion within:
By the name God I understand a substance that is infinite [eternal, immutable], independent, all-knowing, all-powerful, and by which I myself and everything else, if anything else does exist, have been created (Descartes, 16).
Rene Descartes believes that people might have a wrong illusion and understanding what God is because he does not want us to live in full understanding of our being. Descartes suggested that God is the fruit of our future knowledge, which is endless. Consequently, “…possibly I am something more than I suppose myself to be…” (Descartes, 17). This saying showed that people may be gods for themselves and believe in what they want to believe.
Conclusion
To sum up the ideas of the greatest philosophers of the sixteenth century, the path to
understanding the human mind and people’s existence is very long. However, while thinking about the reality of human existence, all analyzed factors by Descartes in Meditation 2 and 3 make him believe in the truth of life. Thoughts generated in the head of the author, while being in a world full of other people, lead him to the realization that he has the intellect to divide the inner and out world of the self.
References
Descartes, R. (1641). Meditations On First Philosophy. Cambridge University Press.
Clarke D. M. (2006). Descartes A Biography. Cambridge University Press.