Rene Descartes Second Meditation Analysis

Rene Descartes, also known as the father of modern philosophy, was a French philosopher and scientist, well known for his notable philosophical writings. One of the most prominent of his writings is Meditations on First Philosophy. In his meditations, Descartes calls into question some major philosophical arguments, including the existence of God, the nature of human beings, and the objective of material things, among others. In the second meditation, Descartes discusses “the nature of the human mind; and that it is more easily known than the body.” To conclude his meditation, Descartes closes with the following passage: “But I see now that, without realizing it, I have ended up back where I wanted to be. For since I have now learned that bodies themselves are perceived not, strictly speaking, by the senses or by the imaginative faculty, but by the intellect alone, and that they are not perceived because they are touched or seen, but only because they are understood, I clearly realize [cognosco] that nothing can be perceived by me more easily or more clearly than my own mind” (Descartes 24). After a great deal of contemplation, Descartes settles on the dualistic perspective, highlighting the significance of the mind to the existence of human beings. Descartes begins the second …show more content…
Descartes’ “cogito ergo sum” sums up the second meditation, emphasizing the significance of the mind to the human nature. In the closing passage of the second meditation, he recognizes the power of the mind and commends it above the physical body and senses. He goes as far as to base the existence of material object on the mind’s understanding of such things rather than the perception of the physical senses of those materials. As this is a novel thought for Descartes, he admits that more meditation is needed “in order to fix this newly acquired knowledge more deeply in my memory” (Descartes