Hello Existentialism and Phenomenology

Meditation I

Descartes begins the first meditation by noting the the large number of false beliefs which he had adopted in his childhood. It is necessary to start over entirely, he realizes, if he wants to establish anything in the sciences which is firm and likely to last. In order to do this, he will suspend judgment about any of his beliefs which are in any way uncertain. To inspect each belief separately would take too long; he must find some way to undermine all of his beliefs at once.

The first way that Descartes tries to undermine his beliefs is by considering the fact that he remembers that his senses have deceived him before. If he has been misled by sensory information in the past (e.g. he judged that the stick in the water was bent, when in fact it was straight), then he may be deceived now, "and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once."

Descartes acknowledges, however, that this consideration doesn't undermine his beliefs very effectively, since it really seems as if he is sitting in his dressing gown by the fire, holding this piece of paper in his hands, and so on. How could his senses be misleading him about these things?

He goes on to suggest more powerful reasons to doubt that his beliefs are true. In general, his method is that of forming skeptical hypotheses. In the first meditation, he considers whether he is mad, dreaming, or deceived by an evil demon. If any of these scenarios were the case, many of his beliefs would be false. For instance, if he were mad, he might believe completely ridiculous things e.g. that his head is a pumpkin (he only considers the possibility that he is mad briefly and then seems to dismiss it). If he were dreaming, it would be false that he is sitting by the fire. He would only be imagining this were true, when in fact he's lying in bed asleep. Likewise, if there were a powerful being deceiving him, he would believe that there is a sky and an earth and so on, since the demon would make it appear to him as if this is the case, when in fact none of these things exist.

The general form of these arguments is:

1. If I am dreaming/deceived, then my beliefs are not true.

2. I don't know whether I am dreaming/deceived.

3. So, I don't know whether my beliefs are true.

Descartes' goal Ð'-- as stated at the beginning of the meditation Ð'-- is to suspend judgment about any of his beliefs which are even slightly doubtful. The skeptical scenarios show that all of the beliefs which he considers in the first meditation, including at the very least all of his beliefs about the physical world, are doubtful. So he decides to suspend judgment. He will henceforth give up all of his beliefs about the physical world. This is very difficult. At the end of the first meditation Descartes compares himself to a prisoner who enjoys an imaginary freedom while asleep, and dreads waking. In the same way Descartes slips back into his old beliefs, and dreads waking to toil "amid the inextricable darkness of the problems [he] has now raised."

It is important to keep in mind when reading the Meditations that Descartes intends to lead the reader along with him gradually. He begins with skepticism and attempts to offer a solution. Thus, he should not be uncharitably read as contradicting himself when, for instance, he thinks something is doubtful in the first meditation and as certain in the last. Several of his objectors fail to read the meditations as a guide, in which the order of the arguments is important, and so make this mistake.

[edit] Meditation II

In Meditation II: On the Nature of the Human Mind, Which Is Better Known Than the Body, Descartes lays out a pattern of thought, sometimes called representationalism, in response to the doubts forwarded in Meditation I. He identifies five steps in this theory:

1. We only have access to the world of our ideas; things in the world are only accessed indirectly.

2. These ideas are understood to include all of the contents of the mind, including perceptions, images, memories, concepts, beliefs, intentions, decisions, etc.

3. The ideas represent things that are separate from themselves.

4. These represented things are many times "external" to the mind.

5. It is possible for these ideas to constitute either accurate or false representations.

Descartes argues that this representational theory disconnects the world from the mind, leading to the need for some sort of bridge to span the separation and provide good reasons to believe that the ideas accurately represent the outside world. The first plank he uses in constructing this bridge can be found in the following excerpt:

I have convinced myself that there is nothing in the world - no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Doesn't it follow that I don't exist? No, surely I must exist if it's me who is convinced of something. But there is a deceiver, supremely powerful and cunning whose aim is to see that I am always deceived. But surely I exist, if I am deceived. Let him deceive me all he can, he will never make it the case that I am nothing while I think that I am something. Thus having fully weighed every consideration, I must finally conclude that the statement "I am, I exist" must be true whenever I state it or mentally consider it. (Descartes, Meditation II: On the Nature of the Human Mind, Which Is Better Known Than the Body).

In other words, one's consciousness implies one's existence. In one of Descartes' replies to objections to the book, he summed this up in the phrase, I am, I exist, which is often confused with the famous quote, I think, therefore I am.

Once he has secured his existence, however, Descartes seeks to find out what "I" is. He rejects the typical method which looks for a definition, e.g. Rational Animal, because the words used in the definition would then need to be defined. He seeks simple terms that do not need to be defined in this way, but whose meaning can just be "seen." From these self-evident truths, complex terms can be built up.

The first of these self-evident truths is Descartes' proof of existence turned on its head:

But what then am I? A thinking thing. And what is that? Something that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, and also sense and has mental images. (Descartes, Meditation II: On the Nature of the Human Mind, Which Is Better Known Than