The Second Meditation I Think Therefore I Am
THE SECOND MEDITATION: I THINK THEREFORE I AM
“The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.” --René Descartes Le Discours de la Méthode, I In the First Meditation, Descartes invites us to think skeptically. He entices us with familiar occasions of error, such as how the size of a distant tower can be mistaken. Next, an even more profound reflection on how dreams and reality are indistinguishable provides suitable justification to abandon all that he previously perceived as being truth. (18, 19) By discarding all familiarity and assumptions, Descartes hopes to eliminate all possible errors in locating new foundations of knowledge. An inescapable consequence of doubting senses and prior beliefs is the introduction of the possibility that God is in fact a malicious deceiver, an all-powerful being capable of confounding the senses. (22) As the Second Meditation begins, Descartes again faces the “inextricable shadows” brought forth by the previous day’s thoughts. (24) He continues to disregard anything that “admits the least doubt” – including all that is perceived by the senses – since anything that is tainted with doubt might as well be considered totally false. (24) However, once an element of truth is discovered and verified, it can be used as a basis for establishing other elements of truth. The first element of truth that is known for certain is that nothing can be confidently known. Such a statement has a curious sort of circular nature: how can I know that nothing is certain, if nothing can be known for certain? The answer simply contains itself in the definition. By knowing that there is nothing for certain, Descartes must abandon all that is reported to him by his senses and believed by him in his thoughts (including his body and the conception of the world around him). (24) At this point, Descartes is not prepared to accept that either himself or God exists. He cannot say that God exists, because there remains the possibility that his thoughts are in fact originating from himself (in which case there would be no need for God). Since he has abandoned all notions of existence and certainty, which includes his own body and senses, is it possible that he himself does not exist? To think a thought is bound to existence by definition; one must exist first before having the...