Philosophy 5: Critical Thinking and Composition  

Pierce College

Department of History, Philosophy, & Sociology

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lecture Notes for Descartes' Second Meditation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rene Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy

                 

Second Meditation: "Of the Nature of the Human Mind; and That it is More Easily Known than the Body"     

                 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Certainty   

If all of my thoughts could be the product of an evil genie, is there anything of which I can be certain? 

        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        

Descartes is not his Body  

Notice that Descartes cannot believe that he has a body

 

 

 

Does that mean that Descartes himself does not exist?       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                 

Descartes

Exists         But Descartes does exist         "Far from it; I assuredly existed, since I was persuaded."

                 

To Be          To be deceived, is to exist

 

         "But there is I know not what being, who is possessed at once of the highest power and the deepest cunning, who is constantly employing all his ingenuity in deceiving me. Doubtless, then, I exist, since I am deceived; and, let him deceive me as he may, he can never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I shall be conscious that I am something. So that it must, in fine, be maintained, all things being maturely and carefully considered, that this proposition (pronunciatum ) I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time it is expressed by me, or conceived in my mind."

                 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Existing?    

 

 

But what exists?          

 

 

"But I do not yet know with sufficient clearness what I am, though assured that I am;"

                 

 

                 

The Body?         

Since he can doubt the existence of his body, he can't be sure that what exists is his body

 

 

"But [as to myself, what can I now say that I am], since I suppose there exists an extremely powerful, and, if I may so speak, malignant being, whose whole endeavors are directed toward deceiving me? Can I affirm that I possess any one of all those attributes of which I have lately spoken as belonging to the nature of body? After attentively considering them in my own mind, I find none of them that can properly be said to belong to myself."