René Descartes First Meditation

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” René Descartes. While it may be an easy feat for any modern day philosopher to realize they exist, it was not the case for one philosopher who sought to prove his existence. This philosopher, René Descartes existed around the early 1600’s and grew up in western France. One of the things Descartes is most known for would be his Meditations. These Meditations that Descartes created illustrate how he was able to tear down what he had previously thought to be real, and then reconstruct it so that he knew for sure it was correct. However, for this essay I will only be focusing on his first Meditation. Descartes first started thinking about his life in 1619 when he was stranded near the river during bad weather. In his shelter he was engaged in intense philosophical speculations and when he fell asleep he had had three vivid dreams that …show more content…
Descartes then decides that it is not logical for him to believe that there is no God or that God would deceive him even just a little bit. So with that conclusion he then goes on to decide that since he is being deceived, and since it cannot be God, there must therefore be some sort of malicious demon of the utmost power that has devoted all of its energies into deceiving Descartes. With this newfound conclusion Descartes then goes on to be able to then disbelieve everything that he has previously thought to believe by concluding that everything he believes to be true is just him being deceived and therefore falsely believing that his ideas are true. With that Descartes ended his first meditation with his goal achieved of tearing down his beliefs and erasing all doubt in his mind (Bailey, p.