Blog Prompt 13: What is the process Descartes uses in his search for knowledge? Why doesn’t he stop after the argument that the senses cannot be trusted? How does each stage push his skepticism even further? What does he know by the end of meditation 1?

Descartes starts off by addressing that the majority of his beliefs prior to the theory that he is going to propose has been based off of falsity. Descartes wants to discover a solid foundation secure enough to hold against skepticism. His argument then is that our senses cannot be used as a form of rationality or truth, because as he states in his writing, “it is wiser not to trust entirely to anything by which we have once been deceived.” Descartes is implying that our senses are merely just feelings and observations, which have failed us over and over again, therefore do not provide a solid foundation for us to build a rational belief off of.

Although Descartes doubts the senses, he mentions that his existence on one hand cannot be doubted. He is for-sure of his existence based on the fact that deception is not possible unless their is a mind present to be deceived, and that acts performed in dreams do not appear so clear or in a uniformed manner as when one is awake. But, then he counter-argues this by saying that the things which at first appear fuzzy and unclear in our dreams begins to seem as if they are not within our dreams at all. Perhaps what we dream about is based on reality.

Descartes doubts the certainty of science where he states:
“That is possibly why our reasoning is not unjust when we conclude from this that Physics, Astronomy, Medicine and all other sciences which have as their end the consideration of composite things, are very dubious and uncertain; but that Arithmetic, Geometry and other
sciences of that kind which only treat of things that are very simple and very general, without taking great trouble to ascertain whether they are actually existent or not…”

Descartes views physical and materialistic things to provide uncertainty, like science, rather than objective and quantifiable things like mathematics. But, in the following paragraphs he speaks of a higher entity, which brings him to doubt even the objective things he is sure of. And at this point he stand uncertain of anything really, because if God exists then he must have control over the mind and it is he who decides what is certain and what is not. So, Descartes concludes at the end of Meditation 1 that perhaps there is not an exact answer to what we can justify to be definite.

The reason Descartes does not stop after his argument that the senses cannot be trusted is because he must explore his reasoning for this, in order to be certain. Descartes speaks in two points of view throughout Meditation 1, weighing both sides, which is why each stage pushes his skepticism even further.

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