🟢| K&D - Descartes Meditation 2

Question 1

Statement of Diabolic Doubt

3

Answer 1

• “Yesterday’s meditation filled my mind with so many doubts that I can no longer forget about them, nor yet do I see how they are to be resolved.”
• He is in a position of not knowing anything for certain - even his own existence or the existence of the physical world
• He still decides to move forward with his method to establish a foundation for certain knowledge

Question 2

Role of Evil Demon

4

Answer 2

• Descartes didn’t believe in the evil demon, but presented it as the ultimate sceptical argument to see if he could find something that survived it
• If he succeeded, this would be the firm and lasting knowledge he was looking for
• Compares to Archimedes - principle of leverage suggested that if he found one firm spot to stand on, hee would be able to move the earth if he had a long enough plank
• For Descartes, he wanted one fixed point of knowledge to be used as a foundation

Question 3

Establishing Cogito

4

Answer 3

• Descartes makes the simple observation that he was conscious of the fact that he existed - he hasn’t just theoretically proved it, but he knows it.
• As Descartes says in Meditation 2, “But there is a deceiver (I know not who he is) powerful and sly to the highest degree, who is always purposely deceiving me. Then there is no doubt that I exist, if he deceives me.”
• If the evil demon can deceive him, he must exist for this to happen.
• Descartes establishes the Cogito as ‘I am, I exist’, which he describes as a necessary truth.

Question 4

Reflection of Cogito

5

Answer 4

• Descartes goes on to reflect on the nature of ‘I’.
• He still considers the possibility of the evil demon’s deception, which means that Descartes can’t know anything about his physical body
• All Descartes can know for certain is that he is thinking, and his reflections on the nature of ‘man’ all end up coming back to the mind – for Descartes, the central mark of a human is that he/she is a conscious thinking thing
• These reflections help Descartes prove rationalism as superior as his conscious mind alone has defeated the most sceptical of arguments.
• Rationalism should therefore be the foundation of knowledge as the senses were easily defeated in mediation 1, and although reason initially succumbs to the demon it does survive in the end.