Essay --

1. Descartes takes upon the task of finding what beliefs he holds are certain and in order to do this he partakes in the method of doubt. This is the method of doubt: â€Å"reject every belief which you can find reason to doubt† (Ginsborg Lecture 1/19). However, he finds the task of attacking every single belief that he holds to be too difficult, so he looks at the foundations for his beliefs. This will cause the beliefs built upon those foundations to also fall apart (AT 19). Throughout the first meditation Descartes goes through deeper stages of doubt, which leads him lastly to his supposition of the evil genius. The first foundation that Descartes breaks down is the belief of what his senses tell him about â€Å"very small and distant things† (AT 19). He notices how his senses have deceived him about these things and, therefore, attacks the beliefs he has about â€Å"very small and distant things†. Because the foundation of beliefs concerning â€Å"very small and distant things† is flawed, all the beliefs that were implicated from it can no longer be believed. Upon breaking down this first foundation, Descartes finds that he can still come to believe certain things that his senses tell him, like sitting next to a fire and holding a paper (AT 19). Therefore, Descartes considers that he may be dreaming, which makes these beliefs doubtful. Descartes argues that it is possible that he may be asleep and dreaming because there have been times in which he dreamt of mundane things such as sitting next to a fire. He cannot distinguish being awake and asleep. Dreaming has deceived him – it has made him think that he has been doing something other than actually sleeping (AT 29). Due to dream skepticism, the foundation of beliefs gained through his s... ...ed into. In essence, Descartes is a programmed computer that is being controlled, and seemingly has free will over his thoughts, but really does not. His future thoughts have already been assigned and his past and current thoughts were assigned. This idea of thoughts being instilled within him also indicates a second flaw in Descartes argument, in that he assumes he has free will in his thinking. The God in this scenario instills every aspect of thinking, such as to â€Å"doubt, understand, affirm...†, and so forth within Descartes. He cannot be certain that he has any control over the thoughts within his mind because he may not actually even have the ability to think. Thinking is not going on, but thoughts are inputted. Thus, having argued that he cannot assume that his thoughts belong to him and that he has free will, Descartes cannot be certain of his own existence.