Meditations On First Philosophy

Meditations On First Philosophy is one of the premier works of Western philosophy, written by René Descartes in 1641, prompting us to abandon everything that can possibly be doubted and then starting to reason our way forward based only on what we can know with absolute certainty.

The first thing Descartes argues is that you can’t build your understanding and view of the world on lies. Therefore, anything that can be doubted in even the slightest way must be abandoned in favor of the truth.

Approaching life with a healthy dose of skeptical doubt means first not believing everything your senses tell you. Just imagine what it’s like to dream. Dreams are vivid, you can feel things in them, taste food and even pain seems real – yet when you wake up, none of it all has happened.

Similarly, mythical creatures like the minotaur, unicorns and mermaids sure seem unlikely, but don’t you still believe in them at least a little?

Fake pics and videos circulate the internet and thousands of U.F.O. sightings have been debunked over the years. Just think of The Matrix or The Truman Show (or how some animals try to lure others into traps with seductive scents) and you’ll instantly agree that not everything you see, hear and feel is real.

This is where Descartes most famous line “I think, therefore I am” comes in. Given that all things our senses tell us can be doubted, what’s even left?

According to Descartes, the one thing we can rely on is knowing that as long as you think, you truly exist. Even if your nose tells you that there’s an apple pie smell coming from around the corner, by thinking about it you can challenge this. Whether the apple pie really exists, or is actually something else, or even just part of a dream – the fact that you think about the apple pie proves that you exist.

Whatever our brain perceives, true or not, and can make judgments about, is further proof for our own existence. That’s why as long as you think, you exist and are alive. So much for you being a true thing, but what about all the other stuff in the world?

Okay, so your brain is reliable, but your senses aren’t. That leaves us with three different levels of truth then: The truth of things you can explain using only your mind. The truth of things you can explain by using your senses. The truth of things you can explain with a mix of your mind and senses. Descartes says the first level is the most sound, simply because thinking is our most reliable asset. That’s why math, a sole construct…