Descartes Existence Theory

Emmet Thompson

Dr. Hom

Intro to Philosophy

February 21, 2011

PHILOSOPHY BITCHES

Descartes starts off his argument by justifying his complete memory wipe of what he believes his “fallacious memory” has led him to believe over his “existence” in this world be it a real world or not especially casting out his senses first. This leads him to believe that perhaps there is absolutely nothing certain. He then contemplates his entire existence by pondering wether his thoughts are even his own or that there is some higher power channeling preconceived thoughts through him. This brings him to the conclusion that he does in fact exist since he has thoughts, maybe not of his own but the fact that he has thoughts even by the cruel joke of deception or persuasion means he exists. He supports this theory by explaining to the bare roots of his argument that he is a thinking thing by proclaiming “I am, I exist” (Descartes) which must be true if one can conceive it and proclaim it.

This justification gives Descartes a strong foundation to stand on when conceiving what can be perceived as real but first he must discover the true method of perceiving reality. He starts with taking a ball of wax and judging what it is through sensory perception. By doing this he takes note of the faint hint of flowers, the sweet taste of the honey still contained in it, color, figure, size, hardness, its feel when handled. He then places the ball of wax next to fire and watches as everything he had just perceived melt and mold before his very eyes into something that senses would call a completely different object. This small experiment is Descartes support for how can we be so sure of what we think something is based on senses when a little fire can change it into something we would perceive as a complete opposite object if we had not known what it was before. This is Descartes completely throwing out using senses as constituting what is real. Descartes then moves on to test using imagination as a way to contemplate what is real and what is not.

He begins this part of the argument with questioning why would he not imagine the piece of wax