Meditations on first philosophy

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On Descartes ' Meditations

In the first Meditation , Descartes argued that it not possible to know an object unless one can ascertain the existence of both God and the soul . The first act of Descartes was to place that doubt as a sensible starting point by questioning the reliability of the body 's meditation between thought and the external world . This doubting was used by

br Descartes to test the reliability of beliefs in to discover the foundation of knowledge that is immune from defect . The goal of the first meditation was to attain philosophical knowledge whose reliability may be equated with the certitude of mathematical knowledge . It was through this process of radical doubt that Descartes reached his first proposition regarding being : I think therefore I am . Descartes noted that so long as an individual is thinking [even if he is doubting] one can ascertain the existence of this thinking being . The `I ' is seen as capable of pure thought , an entity capable of containing the resources for the mathematical thought and hence an entity capable of deriving reliable and indubitable knowledge

The second Meditation , on the other hand , focuses on the distinction between the mind and the body . It is within this text that Descartes discovers that he can use the `I ' to rescue himself from doubt . The `I is used as...