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''Meditations on First Philosophy, in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated'' ( la, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animæ immortalitas demonstratur) is a
philosophical Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
treatise by
René Descartes René Descartes ( or ; ; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Ma ...
first published in Latin in 1641. The French translation (by the
Duke of Luynes The Duke of Luynes (french: duc de Luynes ) is a territorial name belonging to the noble French house d'Albert. Luynes is, today, a commune of the Indre-et-Loire ''département'' in France. The family of Albert, which sprang from Thomas Alberti ( ...
with Descartes' supervision) was published in 1647 as ''Méditations Métaphysiques''. The title may contain a misreading by the printer, mistaking ''animae immortalitas'' for ''animae immaterialitas'', as suspected by A. Baillet. The book is made up of six meditations, in which Descartes first discards all belief in things that are not absolutely
certain Certainty (also known as epistemic certainty or objective certainty) is the epistemic property of beliefs which a person has no rational grounds for doubting. One standard way of defining epistemic certainty is that a belief is certain if and o ...
, and then tries to establish what can be known for sure. He wrote the meditations as if he had meditated for six days: each meditation refers to the last one as "yesterday". (In fact, Descartes began work on the ''Meditations'' in 1639.) One of the most influential philosophical texts ever written, it is widely read to this day. The book consists of the presentation of Descartes'
metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
system at its most detailed level and in the expanding of his philosophical system, first introduced in the fourth part of his '' Discourse on Method'' (1637). Descartes' metaphysical thought is also found in the '' Principles of Philosophy'' (1644), which the author intended to be a philosophical guidebook.


Letter of Dedication and Preface


Letter of dedication

''To the most wise and illustrious the Dean and Doctors of the Sacred Faculty of Theology in Paris'' Descartes says that he is asking the protection of the Faculty for his work, and to this end he writes the present dedication. His first consideration is that the existence of God has to be demonstrated philosophically, besides the theological reasons for belief, particularly if we consider to make a demonstration for the non-believers. Moreover, the believers could be accused of making a
circular reasoning Circular may refer to: * The shape of a circle * ''Circular'' (album), a 2006 album by Spanish singer Vega * Circular letter (disambiguation) ** Flyer (pamphlet), a form of advertisement * Circular reasoning, a type of logical fallacy * Circula ...
, when saying that we must believe in God because of the Scriptures, and in the authority of the Scriptures because they have been inspired by God. He further indicates how the very Scriptures say that the mind of man is sufficient to discover God. His aim is to apply a method to demonstrate these two truths, in a so clear and evident manner that result to be evident. This method he has developed for the Sciences.''René Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy in Focus''. Edited by Stanley Tweyman. Routledge. 34–40. London and New York. 1993.


Preface to the reader

Descartes explains how he made a mention of the two questions, the existence of God, and the soul, in his '' Discourse on Method''. Following this, he received objections, and two of them he considers are of importance. The first is how he concludes that the essence of the soul is a thing that thinks, excluding all other nature. To this he says that he has a clear perception that he is a thinking thing, and has no other clear perception, and from this he concludes that there is nothing else in the essence of the self. The second is that from the idea I have of something that is more perfect than myself, it cannot be concluded that it exists. In the treatise we will see that in fact from the idea that there is something more perfect than myself, it follows that this exists. It goes on to comment that on a general level the reasoning used by the atheists for denying the existence of God is based in the fact that "we ascribe to God affections that are human, or we attribute so much strength and wisdom to our minds" that we presume to understand that which God can and ought to do. He says that we have to consider God as incomprehensible and infinite, and our minds as limited and finite. Finally says that the treatise was submitted to some men of learning to know their difficulties and objections, and are answered at the end of it.


Summary and analysis


I. What Can Be Called into Doubt

The First Meditation, subtitled "What can be called into doubt", opens with the Meditator reflecting on the number of falsehoods he has believed during his life and on the subsequent faultiness of the body of knowledge he has built up from these falsehoods. He has resolved to sweep away all he thinks he knows and to start again from the foundations, building up his knowledge once more on more certain grounds. He has seated himself alone, by the fire, free of all worries so that he can demolish his former opinions with care. The Meditator reasons that he need only find some reason to doubt his present opinions in order to prompt him to seek sturdier foundations for knowledge. Rather than doubt every one of his opinions individually, he reasons that he might cast them all into doubt if he can doubt the foundations and basic principles on which the opinions are founded. Everything that the Meditator has accepted as most true he has come to learn from or through his senses. He acknowledges that sometimes the senses can deceive, but only with respect to objects that are very small or far away, and that our sensory knowledge on the whole is quite sturdy. The Meditator acknowledges that insane people might be more deceived, but that he is clearly not one of them and needn't worry himself about that. However, the Meditator realizes that he is often convinced when he is dreaming that he is sensing real objects. He feels certain that he is awake and sitting by the fire, but reflects that often he has dreamed this very sort of thing and been wholly convinced by it. Though his present sensations may be dream images, he suggests that even dream images are drawn from waking experience, much like paintings in that respect. Even when a painter creates an imaginary creature, like a mermaid, the composite parts are drawn from real things—women and fish, in the case of a mermaid. And even when a painter creates something entirely new, at least the colors in the painting are drawn from real experience. Thus, the Meditator concludes, though he can doubt composite things, he cannot doubt the simple and universal parts from which they are constructed like shape, quantity, size, time, etc. While we can doubt studies based on composite things, like medicine, astronomy, or physics, he concludes that we cannot doubt studies based on simple things, like arithmetic and geometry. On further reflection, the Meditator realizes that even simple things can be doubted.
Omnipotent Omnipotence is the quality of having unlimited power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence only to the deity of their faith. In the monotheistic religious philosophy of Abrahamic religions, omnipotence is often listed as one ...
God could make even our conception of mathematics false. One might argue that God is supremely good and would not lead him to believe falsely all these things. But by this reasoning we should think that God would not deceive him with regard to anything, and yet this is clearly not true. If we suppose there is no God, then there is even greater likelihood of being deceived, since our imperfect senses would not have been created by a perfect being. The Meditator finds it almost impossible to keep his habitual opinions and assumptions out of his head, try as he might. He resolves to pretend that these opinions are totally false and imaginary in order to counterbalance his habitual way of thinking. The Meditator wishes to avoid an excess of skepticism and instead uses a skeptical method, an important distinction. He supposes that not God, but some
evil demon The evil demon, also known as Descartes' demon, malicious demon and evil genius, is an epistemological concept that features prominently in Cartesian philosophy. In the first of his 1641 '' Meditations on First Philosophy'', Descartes imagine ...
has committed itself to deceiving him so that everything he thinks he knows is false. By doubting everything, he can at least be sure not to be misled into falsehood by this demon. Before retiring for the night, the Meditator indulges in his old beliefs, afraid to awake to a life of confusion. As a result he allows for the tempting falsehoods to continue unabridged.


Analysis

Descartes saw his ''Meditations'' as providing the metaphysical underpinning of his new physics. Like
Galileo Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was ...
, he sought to overturn what he saw as two-thousand-year-old prejudices injected into the Western tradition by Aristotle. The Aristotelian thought of Descartes' day placed great weight on the testimony of the senses, suggesting that all knowledge comes from the senses. The Meditator's suggestion that all one's most certain knowledge comes from the senses is meant to appeal directly to the Aristotelian philosophers who will be reading the ''Meditations''. The motivation, then, behind the First Meditation is to start in a position the Aristotelian philosophers would agree with and then, subtly, to seduce them away from it. Descartes is aware of how revolutionary his ideas are, and must pay lip service to the orthodox opinions of the day in order to be heeded. Reading the First Meditation as an effort to coax Aristotelians away from their customary opinions allows us to read different interpretations into the different stages of doubt. For instance, there is some debate as to whether Descartes intended his famous "
Dream Argument The dream argument is the postulation that the act of dreaming provides preliminary evidence that the senses we trust to distinguish reality from illusion should not be fully trusted, and therefore, any state that is dependent on our senses should ...
" to suggest the universal possibility of dreaming—that though there is waking experience, I can never know which moments are dreams and which are waking—or the possibility of a universal dream—that my whole life is a dream and that there is no waking world. If we read Descartes as suggesting the universal possibility of dreaming, we can explain an important distinction between the Dream Argument and the later "
Evil Demon The evil demon, also known as Descartes' demon, malicious demon and evil genius, is an epistemological concept that features prominently in Cartesian philosophy. In the first of his 1641 '' Meditations on First Philosophy'', Descartes imagine ...
" argument. The latter suggests that all we know is false and that we cannot trust the senses one bit. The Dream Argument, if meant to suggest the universal possibility of dreaming, suggests only that the senses are not always and wholly reliable. The Dream Argument questions Aristotelian epistemology, while the Evil Demon Argument does away with it altogether. The ''Painter's Analogy'', which draws on the Dream Argument, concludes that mathematics and other purely cerebral studies are far more certain than astronomy or physics, which is an important step away from the Aristotelian reliance on the senses and toward Cartesian rationalism. Read on its own, the First Meditation can be seen as presenting skeptical doubts as a subject of study in their own right. Certainly, skepticism is a much-discussed and hotly debated topic in philosophy, even today. Descartes raised the mystifying question of how we can claim to know with certainty anything about the world around us. The idea is not that these doubts are probable, but that their possibility can never be entirely ruled out. And if we can never be certain, how can we claim to know anything? Skepticism cuts straight to the heart of the Western philosophical enterprise and its attempt to provide a certain foundation for our knowledge and understanding of the world. It can even be pushed so far as to be read as a challenge to our very notion of rationality. It is difficult to justify a dismissal of skepticism. Western philosophy since Descartes has been largely marked and motivated by an effort to overcome this problem. Descartes' doubt is a methodological and rational doubt. That is, the Meditator is not just doubting everything at random, but is providing solid reasons for his doubt at each stage. For instance, he rejects the possibility that he might be mad since that would undercut the rationality that motivates his doubt. Descartes is trying to set up this doubt within a rational framework and needs to maintain a claim to rationality for his arguments to proceed. He goes on to suggest more powerful reasons to doubt that his beliefs are true. In general, his method is that of forming skeptical hypotheses— methodic doubt. In the first meditation, he considers whether he is mad, dreaming, or deceived by an
evil demon The evil demon, also known as Descartes' demon, malicious demon and evil genius, is an epistemological concept that features prominently in Cartesian philosophy. In the first of his 1641 '' Meditations on First Philosophy'', Descartes imagine ...
. The general form of these arguments is: # If I am dreaming/deceived, then my beliefs are unreliable Descartes' goal, as stated at the beginning of the meditation, is to suspend judgment about any belief that is even slightly doubtful. The skeptical scenarios show that all of the beliefs he considers in the first meditation—including, at the very least, all his beliefs about the physical world, are doubtful. So he decides to suspend judgment. He will henceforth give up all of his beliefs about the physical world. He also decides to continually remind himself to avoid habitually falling into accepting beliefs without support, a habit to which he is susceptible.


II. The Nature of the Human Mind

In ''Meditation II: Concerning the Nature of the Human Mind: That the mind is more known than the body'', Descartes lays out a pattern of thought, sometimes called representationalism, in response to the doubts forwarded in ''Meditation I''. He identifies five steps in this theory: # We have access to only the world of our
ideas In common usage and in philosophy, ideas are the results of thought. Also in philosophy, ideas can also be mental representational images of some object. Many philosophers have considered ideas to be a fundamental ontological category of being. ...
; things in the world are accessed only indirectly. # These ideas are understood to include all of the contents of the mind, including perceptions,
images An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...
, memories,
concept Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs. They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by ...
s, beliefs,
intention Intentions are mental states in which the agent commits themselves to a course of action. Having the plan to visit the zoo tomorrow is an example of an intention. The action plan is the ''content'' of the intention while the commitment is the ''a ...
s, decisions, etc. # Ideas and the things they represent are separate from each other. # These represented things are many times "external" to the
mind The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...
. # It is possible for these ideas to constitute either accurate or false representations. Descartes argues that this representational theory disconnects the world from the mind, leading to the need for some sort of bridge to span the separation and provide ''good reasons'' to believe that the ideas accurately represent the outside world. The first plank he uses in constructing this bridge can be found in the following excerpt:
I have convinced myself that there is nothing in the world — no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Doesn't it follow that I don't exist? No, surely I must exist if it's me who is convinced of something. But there is a deceiver, supremely powerful and cunning whose aim is to see that I am always deceived. But surely I exist, if I am deceived. Let him deceive me all he can, he will never make it the case that I am nothing while I think that I am something. Thus having fully weighed every consideration, I must finally conclude that the statement "I am, I exist" must be true whenever I state it or mentally consider it.
In other words, one's consciousness implies one's existence. In one of Descartes' replies to objections to the book, he summed this up in the phrase ''
cogito, ergo sum The Latin , usually translated into English as "I think, therefore I am", is the "first principle" of René Descartes's philosophy. He originally published it in French as , in his 1637 ''Discourse on the Method'', so as to reach a wider audie ...
'', 'Ithink therefore I am.' Once he secures his existence, however, Descartes seeks to find out what "I" is. He rejects the typical method, which looks for a definition (e.g.,
Rational Animal The term rational animal (Latin: ''animal rationale'' or ''animal rationabile'') refers to a classical definition of humanity or human nature, associated with Aristotelianism. History While the Latin term itself originates in scholasticism, it r ...
), because the words used in the definition would then need to be defined. He seeks ''simple terms'' that do not need to be defined in this way, but whose meaning can just be "seen." From these
self-evident In epistemology (theory of knowledge), a self-evident proposition is a proposition that is known to be true by understanding its meaning without proof, and/or by ordinary human reason. Some epistemologists deny that any proposition can be self- ...
truths, ''complex terms'' can be built up. The first of these self-evident truths is Descartes' proof of existence turned on its head:
But what then am I? A thinking thing. And what is that? Something that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, and also senses and has mental images.
To define himself further, Descartes turns to the example of wax. He determines that wax isn't wax because of its color, texture or shape, as all of these things can change and the substance still be wax. He believes that wax is perceived "by the intellect alone." Therefore, he distinguishes between ''ordinary perception'' and ''judgment''. When one understands the mathematical principles of the substance, such as its expansion under heat, figure and motion, the knowledge of the wax can be ''clear and distinct''. If a substance such as wax can be known in this fashion, then the same must be of ourselves. The self, then, is not determined by what we sense of ourselves—these hands, this head, these eyes—but by simply the things one thinks. Thus, one "can't grasp anything more easily or plainly than ismind." Descartes concludes that he exists because he is a "thinking thing." If he is the thing that can be deceived and can think and have thoughts, then he must exist.


III. Concerning God, That He Exists

Descartes proposed that there are three types of ideas: # Innate: ideas that are, and have always been, within us; # Fictitious (or Invented): ideas that come from our imagination; and # Adventitious: ideas that come from experiences of the world. Descartes argues that the idea of God is ''innate'' and placed in us by God, and rejects the possibility of such being ''invented'' or ''adventitious''. Argument 1 # Something cannot come from nothing. # The cause of an idea must have at least as much formal reality as the idea has objective reality. # I have in me an idea of God. This idea has infinite objective reality. # I cannot be the cause of this idea, since I am not an infinite and perfect being. I don't have enough formal reality. Only an infinite and perfect being could cause such an idea. # So God—a being with infinite formal reality—must exist (and be the source of my idea of God). # An absolutely perfect being is a good, benevolent being. # So God is benevolent... # So God would not deceive me, and would not permit me to err without giving me a way to correct my errors. Argument 2 # I exist. # My existence must have a cause. # The only possible ultimate causes are: #Not ''a.'': If I had created myself, I would have made myself perfect. #Not b.: This does not solve the problem. If I am a dependent being, I need to be continually sustained by another. #Not ''c.'': This leads to an
infinite regress An infinite regress is an infinite series of entities governed by a recursive principle that determines how each entity in the series depends on or is produced by its predecessor. In the epistemic regress, for example, a belief is justified bec ...
. #Not ''d.'': The idea of perfection that exists in me cannot have originated from a non-perfect being. #Therefore, ''e.'' God exists. Descartes argued that he had a clear and distinct idea of God. In the same way that the ''cogito'' was self-evident, so too is the existence of God, as his perfect idea of a perfect being could not have been caused by anything less than a perfect being.http://www.wright.edu/cola/descartes/meditation3.html Descartes original meditation 3 translation


IV. Concerning the True and the False

The conclusions of the previous Meditations that "I" and "God" both exist lead to another problem: If God is perfectly good and the source of all that is, how is there room for error or falsehood? Descartes attempts to answer this question in ''Meditation IV: On Truth and Falsity'':
If I've got everything in me from God and He hasn't given me the ability to make errors, it doesn't seem possible for me ever to be in error.
The framework of his arguments center on the ''
great chain of being The great chain of being is a hierarchical structure of all matter and life, thought by medieval Christianity to have been decreed by God. The chain begins with God and descends through angels, humans, animals and plants to minerals. The great ...
'', in which God's perfect goodness is relative to His perfect being. On the extreme opposite end of the scale is complete nothingness, which is also the most evil state possible. Thus, humans are an intermediary between these two extremes, being less "real" or "good" than God, but more "real" and "good" than nothingness. Thus, error (as a part of evil) is not a positive reality, it is only the absence of what is correct. In this way, its existence is allowed within the context of a perfectly inerrant God.
I find that I am "intermediate" between God and nothingness, between the supreme entity and nonentity. Insofar as I am the creation of the supreme entity, there's nothing in me to account for my being deceived or led into error, but, inasmuch as I somehow participate in nothing or nonentity — that is, insofar as I am distinct from the supreme entity itself and lack many things — it's not surprising that I go wrong. I thus understand that, in itself, error is a lack, rather than a real thing dependent on God. Hence, I understand that I can err without God's having given me a special ability to do so. Rather, I fall into error because my God-given ability to judge the truth is not infinite.
Descartes also concedes two points that might allow for the possibility of his ability to make errors. First, he notes that it is very possible that his limited knowledge prevents him from understanding ''why'' God chose to create him so he could make mistakes. If he could see the things that God could see, with a complete and infinite scope, perhaps he would judge his ability to err as the best option. He uses this point to attack the Aristotelian structure of
causes Causes, or causality, is the relationship between one event and another. It may also refer to: * Causes (band), an indie band based in the Netherlands * Causes (company) Causes.com is a civic-technology app and website that enables users to orga ...
. The final cause described by Aristotle are the "what for" of an object, but Descartes claims that because he is unable to comprehend completely the mind of God, it is impossible to understand completely the "
why Why may refer to: * Causality, a consequential relationship between two events * Reason (argument), a premise in support of an argument, for what reason or purpose * Grounding (metaphysics), a topic in metaphysics regarding how things exist in vi ...
" through science—only the "how."
I realize that I shouldn't be surprised at God's doing things that I can't explain. I shouldn't doubt His existence just because I find that I sometimes can't understand why or how He has made something. I know that my nature is weak and limited and that God's is limitless, incomprehensible, and infinite, and, from this, I can infer that He can do innumerable things whose reasons are unknown to me. On this ground alone, I regard the common practice of explaining things in terms of their purposes to be useless in physics: it would be foolhardy of me to think that I can discover God's purposes.
Secondly, he considers the possibility that an apparent error at the individual level could be understood within the totality of creation as error free.
When asking whether God's works are perfect, I ought to look at all of them together, not at one isolation. For something that seems imperfect when viewed alone might seem completely perfect when regarded as having a place in the world. Of course, since calling everything into doubt, I haven't established that anything exists besides me and God. But, when I consider God's immense power, I can't deny that He has made — or, in any case, that He could have made — many other things, and I must therefore view myself as having a place in a universe.
Lastly, ''Meditation IV'' attributes the source of error to a discrepancy between two divine gifts: understanding and
free will Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to ac ...
. Understanding is given in an incomplete form, while will (by nature) can only be either completely given or not given at all. When he is presented with a certain amount of understanding and then ''chooses'' to act outside of that, he is in error. Thus, the gifts of God (understanding and will) both remain good and only the incorrect usage by him remains as error.
If I suspend judgement when I don't clearly and distinctly grasp what is true, I obviously do right and am not deceived. But, if I either affirm or deny in a case of this sort, I misuse my freedom of choice. If I affirm what is false, I clearly err, and, if I stumble onto the truth, I'm still blameworthy since the light of nature reveals that a perception of the understanding should always precede a decision of the will. In these misuses of freedom of choice lies the deprivation that accounts for error. And this deprivation, I maintain, lies in the working of the will insofar as it comes from me — not in my God-given ability to will, or even in the will's operation insofar as it derives from Him.


V. The Essence of Material Things, and Again Concerning God, That He Exists

''Meditation V: Concerning the Essence of Material Things, and Again Concerning God, That He Exists'' begins with the stated purpose of expanding the "known items" of God and self to include outside material objects; but Descartes saves that for ''Meditation VI'' in lieu of something he deems more fundamental but in the same direction: a discussion concerning the ''ideas'' of those external items. Along the way, he advances another
logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from prem ...
al proof of
God's existence The existence of God (or more generally, the existence of deities) is a subject of debate in theology, philosophy of religion and popular culture. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God or deities can be categorize ...
. as translated by John Veitch in 1901
Before asking whether any such objects exist outside me, I ought to consider the ideas of these objects as they exist in my thoughts and see which are clear and which confused.
Descartes separates external
objects Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ai ...
into those that are clear and distinct and those that are confused and obscure. The former group consists of the ideas of
extension Extension, extend or extended may refer to: Mathematics Logic or set theory * Axiom of extensionality * Extensible cardinal * Extension (model theory) * Extension (predicate logic), the set of tuples of values that satisfy the predicate * Ext ...
, duration and movement. These geometrical ideas cannot be misconstrued or combined in a way that makes them false. For example, if the idea of a creature with the head of a
giraffe The giraffe is a large African hoofed mammal belonging to the genus ''Giraffa''. It is the tallest living terrestrial animal and the largest ruminant on Earth. Traditionally, giraffes were thought to be one species, '' Giraffa camelopardal ...
, the body of a
lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large cat of the genus '' Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphic; adu ...
and
tail The tail is the section at the rear end of certain kinds of animals’ bodies; in general, the term refers to a distinct, flexible appendage to the torso. It is the part of the body that corresponds roughly to the sacrum and coccyx in mammal ...
of a
beaver Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers a ...
was constructed and the question asked if the creature had a large intestine, the answer would have to be invented. But, no mathematical re-arrangement of a
triangle A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non- colline ...
could allow its three internal angles to sum to anything but 180 degrees. Thus, Descartes perceived that truths may have a nature or essence of themselves, independent of the thinker. In Descartes' formulation, this is a ''mathematical'' truth only pragmatically related to nature; the properties of triangles in Euclidean geometry remain mathematically certain.
I find in myself innumerable ideas of things which, though they may not exist outside me, can't be said to be nothing. While I have some control over my thoughts of these things, I do not make the things up: they have their own real and immutable natures. Suppose, for example, that I have a mental image of a triangle. While it may be that no figure of this sort does exist or ever has existed outside my thought, the figure has a fixed nature (essence or form), immutable and eternal, which hasn't been produced by me and isn't dependent of my mind.
While thinking about the independence of these ideas of external objects, Descartes realizes that he is just as certain about God as he is about these mathematical ideas. He asserts that this is natural as the ideas of God are the only ideas that imply God's existence. He uses the example of a mountain and a valley. While one cannot picture a
mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher ...
without a
valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between hills or mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers or streams ove ...
, it's possible that these do not exist. However, the fact that one cannot conceive of God without existence inherently rules out the possibility of God's non-existence. Simply put, the argument is framed as follows: #God is defined as an infinitely perfect being. #Perfection includes existence. #So God exists. This
ontological In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exi ...
argument originated in the work of
St. Anselm Anselm of Canterbury, OSB (; 1033/4–1109), also called ( it, Anselmo d'Aosta, link=no) after his birthplace and (french: Anselme du Bec, link=no) after his monastery, was an Italian Benedictine monk, abbot, philosopher and theologian of the ...
, the medieval Scholastic philosopher and theologian. While Descartes had already claimed to have confirmed God's existence through previous arguments, this one allows him to put to rest any discontent he might have had with his "distinct and clear" criteria for truth. With a confirmed existence of God, all doubt that what one previously thought was real and not a
dream A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5 to 20 minutes, althou ...
can be removed. Having made this realization, Descartes asserts that without this sure knowledge in the existence of a supreme and perfect being, assurance of any truth is impossible:
Thus I plainly see that the certainty and truth of all my knowledge derives from one thing: my thought of the true God. Before I knew Him, I couldn't know anything else perfectly. But now I can plainly and certainly know innumerable things, not only about God and other mental beings, but also about the nature of physical objects, insofar as it is the subject-matter of pure mathematics.


VI. The Existence of Material Things, and the Real Distinction between Mind and Body

In ''Meditation VI: Concerning the Existence of Material Things, and the Real Distinction between Mind and Body'', Descartes addresses the potential existence of material outside of the self and God. First, he asserts that such objects ''can'' exist simply because God is able to make them. Therefore, our assumption of the physical world outside of ourselves in non theoretical sense.
Insofar as they are the subject of pure mathematics, I now know at least that they can exist, because I grasp them clearly and distinctly. For God can undoubtedly make whatever I can grasp in this way, and I never judge that something is impossible for Him to make unless there would be a contradiction in my grasping the thing distinctly.
Knowing that the existence of such objects is possible, Descartes then turns to the prevalence of mental images as proof. To do this, he draws a distinction between
imagination Imagination is the production or simulation of novel objects, sensations, and ideas in the mind without any immediate input of the senses. Stefan Szczelkun characterises it as the forming of experiences in one's mind, which can be re-creations ...
and understanding—imagination being a non-linguistic "faculty of knowledge to the body which is immediately present to it…without intellection or conception," which therefore exists like a mental
photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...
; and understanding (or apprehending) being something that is not necessarily pictured. He uses an example of this to clarify:
When I have a mental image of a triangle, for example, I don't just understand that it is a figure bounded by three lines; I also "look at" the lines as though they were present to my mind's eye. And this is what I call having a mental image. When I want to think of a
chiliagon In geometry, a chiliagon () or 1000-gon is a polygon with 1,000 sides. Philosophers commonly refer to chiliagons to illustrate ideas about the nature and workings of thought, meaning, and mental representation. Regular chiliagon A '' regular c ...
, I understand that it is a figure with a thousand sides as well as I understand that a triangle is a figure with three, but I can't imagine its sides or "look" at them as though they were present.… Thus I observe that a special effort of mind is necessary to the act of imagination, which is not required to conceiving or understanding (); and this special exertion of mind clearly shows the difference between imagination and pure intellection (').
Descartes has still not given proof that such external objects exist. At this point, he has only shown that their existence could conveniently explain this mental process. To obtain this proof, he first reviews his premises for the ''Meditations''—that the senses cannot be trusted and what he is taught "by nature" does not have much credence. However, he views these arguments within a new context; after writing ''Meditation I'', he has proved the existence of himself and of a perfect God. Thus, Descartes jumps quickly to proofs of the division between the body and mind and that material things exist: Proof of the body being distinct from the mind (''
mind–body dualism In the philosophy of mind, mind–body dualism denotes either the view that mental phenomena are non-physical, Hart, W. D. 1996. "Dualism." pp. 265–267 in ''A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind'', edited by S. Guttenplan. Oxford: Blackwell. ...
'') # It is possible for God to create anything I can clearly and distinctly perceive. # If God creates something to be independent of another, they are distinct from each other. # I clearly and distinctly understand my existence as a thinking thing (which does not require the existence of a body). # So God can create a thinking thing independently of a body. # I clearly and distinctly understand my body as an extended thing (which does not require a mind). # So God can create a body independently of a mind. # So my mind is a reality distinct from my body. # So I (a thinking thing) can exist without a body. Proof of the reality of external material things # I have a "strong inclination" to believe in the reality of external material things due to my senses. # God must have created me with this nature. # If independent material things do not exist, God is a deceiver. # But God is not a deceiver. # So material things exist and contain the properties essential to them. After using these two arguments to dispel
solipsism Solipsism (; ) is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known a ...
and
skepticism Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the p ...
, Descartes seems to have succeeded in defining reality as being in three parts: God (infinite), minds, and material things (both finite). He closes by addressing natural phenomena that might appear to challenge his philosophy, such as
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s, dreams, and
dropsy Edema, also spelled oedema, and also known as fluid retention, dropsy, hydropsy and swelling, is the build-up of fluid in the body's tissue. Most commonly, the legs or arms are affected. Symptoms may include skin which feels tight, the area ma ...
.


Objections and replies

Before publishing the ''Meditations'', Descartes submitted his manuscript to many philosophers,
theologians Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the s ...
and a
logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from prem ...
ian, encouraging them to criticize the work. He explained this purpose in a letter to a friend: "I will be very glad if people put to me many objections, the strongest they can find, for I hope that the truth will stand out all the better." The objections which he gathered, and his own replies (many of which are quite extensive), were included in the first publication of the ''Meditations''. The seven objectors were, in order (of the sets as they were published): # The
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theologian Johannes Caterus (Johan de Kater). # Various "theologians and philosophers" gathered by Descartes' friend and principal correspondent,
Friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ...
Marin Mersenne Marin Mersenne, OM (also known as Marinus Mersennus or ''le Père'' Mersenne; ; 8 September 1588 – 1 September 1648) was a French polymath whose works touched a wide variety of fields. He is perhaps best known today among mathematicians for ...
. # The
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...
philosopher
Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5/15 April 1588 – 4/14 December 1679) was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book '' Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influ ...
. # The
theologian Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
and logician
Antoine Arnauld Antoine Arnauld (6 February 16128 August 1694) was a French Catholic theologian, philosopher and mathematician. He was one of the leading intellectuals of the Jansenist group of Port-Royal and had a very thorough knowledge of patristics. C ...
. # The philosopher
Pierre Gassendi Pierre Gassendi (; also Pierre Gassend, Petrus Gassendi; 22 January 1592 – 24 October 1655) was a French philosopher, Catholic priest, astronomer, and mathematician. While he held a church position in south-east France, he also spent much t ...
— Descartes wrote that this set of objections could be easily dismissed. # Another miscellany gathered by Mersenne. # The
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Pierre Bourdin. Some of the most powerful objections include the following: Objections to proof(s) of God’s existence: Objections to the
epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epi ...
: Objections to
philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are add ...
: Elisabeth of Bohemia also corresponded with Descartes on the ''Meditations''. She objected both to his description of the union between mind and body, and that virtue and moral truths seem to need to be grasped by something other than the intellect (despite Descartes' assertion that all truths must be grasped intellectually).


Influence and legacy

The historical impact of the six meditations has been divided. The first two meditations, which employed the skeptical methodic doubt and concluded that only the ego and its thoughts are indubitable, have had a huge impact in the history of philosophy. They are often considered as epoch-making for modernity, and an unavoidable first step for any modern philosophical thinking. Husserl (1929) ''
Cartesian Meditations ''Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology'' (french: Méditations cartésiennes: Introduction à la phénoménologie) is a book by the philosopher Edmund Husserl, based on four lectures he gave at the Sorbonne, in the Amphithéatre ...
'
p.4
quotation:
Arthur David Smith, author of the ''Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Husserl'', claims that since
Edmund Husserl , thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations) , thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view , thesis1_year = 1883 , thesis2_title ...
usually refers only to "the first two" of the Meditations, therefore Husserl must have thought that they are the only part of Descartes' work with any philosophical importance at all.Smith, Arthur David (2003
''Routledge philosophy guidebook to Husserl and the Cartesian meditations''
pp. 12–3:


Republications


Collected works in French and Latin

*''Oeuvres de Descartes'', edited by Charles Adam and
Paul Tannery Paul Tannery (20 December 1843 – 27 November 1904) was a French mathematician and historian of mathematics. He was the older brother of mathematician Jules Tannery, to whose ''Notions Mathématiques'' he contributed an historical chapter. Thou ...
, Paris: Léopold Cerf, 1897–1913, 13 volumes; new revised edition, Paris: Vrin-CNRS, 1964–1974, 11 volumes (the first 5 volumes contains the correspondence).


English translations

*''The Philosophical Writings Of Descartes'', 3 vols., translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). *''The Philosophical Works of Descartes'', 2 vols, translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane, and G.R.T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978). *''The Method, Meditations and Philosophy of Descartes'', translated by John Veitch (1901)


Single works

* *''Six Metaphysical Meditations ...'', translated by
William Molyneux William Molyneux FRS (; 17 April 1656 – 11 October 1698) was an Irish writer on science, politics and natural philosophy. He is noted as a close friend of fellow philosopher John Locke, and for proposing Molyneux's Problem, a thought exp ...
(1680) *''Méditations Métaphysiques'', translated to French from Latin by Michelle Beyssade (Paris: GF, 1993), accompanied by Descartes' original Latin text and the French translation by the Duke of Luynes (1647).


See also

*
17th-century philosophy This is a timeline of philosophy in the 17th century ( 17th-century philosophy). Events * 1649 – Christina, Queen of Sweden (reigned 1633–1654) invited René Descartes to educate her in his philosophical views, particularly his insight ...
* ''
Cartesian Meditations ''Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology'' (french: Méditations cartésiennes: Introduction à la phénoménologie) is a book by the philosopher Edmund Husserl, based on four lectures he gave at the Sorbonne, in the Amphithéatre ...
''


References


Further reading

* Alquié, Ferdinand. ''La découverte métaphysique de l'homme chez Descartes'' (Paris: PUF, 2000). * Ariew, Roger & Grene, Marjorie (eds.), ''Descartes and His Contemporaries. Meditations, Objections and Replies'', Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. * Beyssade, Jean-Marie. ''La Philosophie première de Descartes'' (Paris: Flammarion, 1979). * Cottingham, John. (ed.) ''The Cambridge Companion to Descartes'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). * Dicker, Georges. ''Descartes: An Analytical and Historical Introduction'' (New York: OUP, 1993) * Frankfurt, Harry. ''Demons, Dreamers and Madmen'' (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970). * Gilson, Étienne. ''Etudes sur le rôle de la pensée médiévale dans la formation du système cartésien'' (Paris: Vrin, 1930). * Gueroult, Martial. ''Descartes selon L'Ordre des Raisons'' (Paris: Aubier, 1968). Translated by Roger Ariew as ''Descartes' Philosophy Interpreted According to the Order of Reasons'' (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984). * Hatfield, Gary. ''Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Descartes and the Meditations'' (London: Routledge, 2003). * Kenny, Anthony. ''Descartes: A Study of His Philosophy'' (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1968). * Rorty, Amelie. (ed.) ''Essays on Descartes' Meditations'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). * Williams, Bernard. ''Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry'' (London: Penguin Books, 1978). * Wilson, Margaret. ''Descartes'' (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978).


External links


Text of 1641 Latin edition
at Project Gutenberg (with German foreword and footnotes)

at Athena
English translation by Elizabeth S. Haldane
at Internet Sacred Text Archive
English translation by Jonathan Bennett
at Early Modern Texts (slightly modified for easier reading; audio available) {{DEFAULTSORT:Meditations On First Philosophy 1641 books Books about consciousness Epistemology literature Metaphysics books Works by René Descartes 17th-century Latin books