Descartes

Descartes, are you there?

“To be, or not to be.” That certainly isn’t necessarily the question but is a question when it comes to Descartes. Does Descartes exist? In theory he should, right? Descartes prided himself on the belief that you should challenge anything and doubt everything that exists in your world. Now I can ramble on about Descartes beliefs about existence, but wouldn’t that contradict the topic of this paper? If he didn’t exist, his beliefs wouldn’t either. I should theoretically get a passing grade by stating “Descartes who?” and end it at that; but for the sake of satisfaction for the reader and my grade point average, this paper will go on.

If one must doubt the existence of anything, one must first doubt themselves and their purpose in the universe. “I am a thinking thing-a thing that doubts, affirms, denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of many things, wills, and refuses (Descartes).” Descartes just stated his duty to the world, he eats, he breaths, he thinks, he denies, he allows; each belief comes from a certain source which we could for the sake of argument call Descartes.

The truth is, Descartes himself doesn’t know if he exists, like a paradox he ponders it. If he didn’t think he existed, he wouldn’t have thought much when writing out his three meditations because who would read it if he didn’t exist?

“The ideas by which I understand what reality, truth, and thought are seem to have come from my own nature; those by which I hear a noise, see the sun, or feel the fire are ones I formerly judged to come from things outside me (Descartes).” Descartes is certain in one aspect, that he exists, but in his own world. In his world he created the noises he heard, the blue sky, the hot sun, and the grassy plains. Descartes is entitled to believe he conjured up everything from his own mind, but do we not see, feel, hear, and taste the same as he once did? Is the sun hot to him because he made it hot and not hot to some because they made it lukewarm? In essence, there is a foundation of certainties in the world that Descartes overlooks. We were given the gift of “challenge” by someone or something. We are here today because in a sense, we were set up this way,