First Meditation from Descartes

Phil 2101

Prof: Kate Pendoley

03/02/2015

First Paper Assignment

French philosopher Rene Descartes claims in the first meditation "What can be called into

doubt" that in his childhood he accepted everything as true which later on came out to be false. Meditator in his meditation is convinced that he is feeling real objects while he is dreaming. On the one hand, the meditator, is skeptical about compound things from the field of science, such as physics, astronomy, or medicine; on the other hand, he is certain about the universal parts from which these compound things are build, such as size, time, number, quantity as well as beliefs from reason including here geometry or mathematic. In his meditation Descartes states that "the simplest and most general things-whether they really exists in nature or not -contain something certain and indubitable."(pg 2)

Descartes uses in his meditation different arguments that help him to validate and take away his skepticism about the existence of God which is one of his main argument. He states in his first meditation "I have for many years been sure that there is an all-powerful God who made me to be the sort of creature that I am."(pg 2)

I agree with his statement because if we suppose that there is no God, the probability of being deceived is greater because our senses would not have been created by an absolute being as God is. It is true that God being good, would not bring us in this life in order for us to be deceived. God gave us our life and I feel sorrowful for the fact that many people in this world try to hide of God or sometimes they do not express whatever belief they have toward God.

Many stories are written or tell by the writers trying to convince in the existence of God; however, in different ways we sometimes can see as Descartes states in his meditation "malignant demon" that try to misguide us. In those cases we have to look at the truth, the faith inside ourselves, and believe in the existence of God. Our sense perceptions are born with us. This means that others teach us that there is a God and we supervene the religion our family feeds us. Growing we are able to decide by ourselves about the religion because we use reason, language, and emotions in a more developed way. We believe in God and rely in our reasons to convince ourselves in the existence of God; however,