Descartes, Rene, Meditations on First Philosophy. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1979.
Descartes' place in the history of philosophy is solid because he was the first rationalist thinker to reject the ideas of earlier philosophers in order to start over from the basic building block of his philosophy---"I think, therefore I exist." Earlier philosophers such as Aristotle had postulated the "truth" at the beginning of their works, then examined that "truth" in depth, assuming that their original postulation had been correct. Descartes reversed this process, beginning with the acceptance of himself as a thinking being. From that point, he reveals to himself and the reader the truth as he understands it, including God and a dualistic reality. The purpose of this book is to demonstrate his process and his findings, to provide an extended "discussion of the philosophical underpinnings for his vision of a unified and certain body of human knowledge" (viii).
In the First Meditation, Descartes abandons everything that he had previously thought or read about reality. Instead, he aims to accept nothing but that which he is absolutely certain. He says everything he previously accepted came from the senses, which can be deceived. He considers whether he is dreaming when he thinks himself awake, and concludes that dreams and reality are distinct in terms of clarity. Beyond the fact that he is awake when he believes himself to be awake, he accepts nothing to start with. For the sake of seeking the pure truth, he even doubts the existence of a good God and considers that God could be an "evil genius" whose job it is to deceive him. He acknowledges that he asks much of himself and of the reader, namely that we return to the beginning of thought itself. The tendency is that we "dread being awakened, lest the toilsome wakefulness" force us to live and reason "among the inextricable shadows of the difficulties now brought forward" (16).
In the Second...