Summary Of Rene Descartes Second Meditation

In the Meditations On First Philosophy by Rene Descartes, Descartes begins questioning the world and his existence, specifically in the “Second Meditation”. In the “Second Meditation”, Descartes claims that all he can know for certain is that he, himself, is a thinking thing. He comes to this realization after he began to doubt everything that he had ever believed in his life. Descartes came to the conclusion that everything he had ever known in his life has been a result of his senses, however he then realizes that his senses could be deceiving and that nothing can be for certain. He then sits at a dilemma of discovering of existence. Descartes begins the search of his existence by realizing the senses are deceptive and that they cannot be trusted in determining on whether or not he truly exists. To go about discovering himself, Descartes decided to disregard all senses for the most part, as said before, because they cannot be proven to be true. He then begins to question his existence and concludes that he is at least something due to the fact that he was able to persuade himself of something; “I myself, am I not at least something?… of a surety I myself did exist since I persuaded myself of something…” (Descartes 18). Now that Descartes accepted the fact that he indeed was at least something, he began investigating his body. He brings up that he believes that he is a man and that he considered himself to …show more content…
When he begins questioning all this, Descartes then comes to a realization; him thinking of all this is a trait that solely belongs to him and cannot be separated. “I am,