Question

1. Summarize the argument Descartes presents in the First and Second Meditations to prove that he knows that he exists.

2. After proving that he exists as a thinking thing (mind) in the First and Second Meditations, Descartes goes on to prove that he knows material things exist as being essentially "extended" things and uses a piece of wax example to make his point. In about 2 paragraphs, explain how this wax example is used by Descartes to show that he knows material objects exist as "extended" things.

Answer 1

1. In his book, "Meditations on First Philosophy", Rene Descartes writes about six meditations in which he discards all his beliefs that were not absolutely certain and then tries to find out what he knows as completely certain. Descartes realized that he had mistaken beliefs regarding some matters and tries to rebuild the knowledge regarding it by removing all of his preconceptions. He states that all that he had known previously had come to him through the senses and to avoid it he uses a process of methodological doubt with which he can withdraw from his senses, as he cannot trust his sense because at any moment he could be dreaming or be deceived by God or the evil demon.  

However, Descartes recognizes that he cannot doubt his own existence. He stated that there must be someone who does the thinking or doubting in order to think or doubt. Since, he is deceived by the evil demon regarding many other things, he states that there must be an "I" that could be made to doubt or be deceived. So he concludes that "I exist" because he is something that thinks or at least he knows that he is thinking. He further adds that he knows this because of his intellect and he knows his mind far better than he knows his body.

2. In his second meditation, Descartes used the example of a wax to explain why we as thinking beings are capable of knowing things even if they are altered in some way. Descartes analyses a piece of wax by looking at its properties like how it looks, smells and feels. After examining it, he places the piece of wax near a flame, due to which the wax melts. He then examined the melted wax, which looks, smells and feels different than what he had experienced in it before melting it, but he still knows that it is a wax even though its properties have changed.

From this example, Descartes concludes that, we are capable of knowing that an object is an object even though it had undergone some change. This is because, we rely on our senses to give is information that makes us to decide what a thing is, and even though if our senses tell us that its different, our mind is capable of taking that information and then decide what a thing actually is. So, all things must inherently have some characteristics, otherwise we would be unable to decide what is was because we are deceived by our senses.