Descartes Meditation 1 - Concerning Those Things That Can Be Called into Doubt

The first way that Descartes tries to undermine his beliefs is by considering the fact that he remembers that his senses have deceived him before. If he has been misled by sensory information in the past (e.g. he judged that the stick in the water was bent, when in fact it was straight), then he may be deceived now, "and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once."
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 daemon.
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 of his beliefs which are even slightly doubtful. The skeptical scenarios show that all of the beliefs which he considers in the first meditation, including at the very least all of 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.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Descartes
• Meditation
• philosophy
• consciousness
• spirituality

[omegaxhowler]

ww w.classicallibrary. org/descartes/meditations/4. htm read along

[omegaxhowler]

yes now i do not need to read it, thank you

[InLucidReverie]

Great.