Essay --

Philos 25B SID 22340925 Paper 1 Explain the method that Descartes adopts in the First Meditation and how it leads him to the supposition of an evil genius. Descartes starts his meditation by dream argument. First, he recalls himself having the same perception and sensation while he is dreaming, and finds it difficult to distinguish dreaming experience from waking experience. Therefore, he raises the possibility that he might be dreaming through which all the perceptions he has are illusionary. However, as Descartes realizes that even if all the perceptions are illusionary, those images and components can only be derived from something actual and true, such as mathematical truth and geometry. Yet is there any other reason to support that even mathematical property doesn’t stand true as they appear? Descartes keeps wondering, and develops the idea of the deceiving God. A deceiving God, in his mind, is someone omnipotent, and is fooling him with all his reasoning and perceptions, including granted mathematical truth and geometry. For example, one thinks 2 plus 3 accounts for 5 by addition rule but the rule has already be twisted through God’s scheme. Therefore, it is possible that even the basic ideas of the world structure one has can be deceiving and that all the granted belief he had are false or non-existing. Therefore, Descartes decides to doubt everything that he finds with even a slightest objection. While applying universal doubt, Descartes finds the idea of deceiving God contradictory, because God is supposed to be perfectly good, so good that God cannot deceive people on their knowledge. Instead, he states, that there should be something else if doing all the malicious tricks. Therefore he raised the idea of â€Å"evil g... ...ble proof. The possibility that thinking exists itself without â€Å"something† processing it can be stated as: There is thinking occurring, Therefore thinking exists. In this case, it is justifiable that the concept â€Å"I† is unnecessary and only appears as a part inside contingent thoughts. Nevertheless, it could also be argued that that Descartes is actually referring â€Å"I† to a broader sense, which has included the interpretation that â€Å"I† is equal to â€Å"thinking† itself, and the argument can be as such: There is thinking occurring. (1) I am the thinking. (2) Thinking exists because of (1). (3) I exist because of (2) (3). (4) Which of the speculations represents Descartes’ idea better is still in question and needs further clarification. With these proposed speculations, I look forward to reading the rest of Descartes’ text to find out the answer.