Meditations on First Philosophy
I was very excited to read Descartes' Meditations. In my introductory lecture on epistemology, we were told, in essence, to forget about God. And then we look at Descartes, who does not forget God. However, I am not fully convinced that Descartes' approach to proving God from his position of doubt is entirely convincing. It seems to require Descartes' pre-understanding of God to prove God, which, to me, bypasses the idea of being full of doubt. Yet, either way, I found it a very unique, thought-provoking read.
During my reading of Descartes, I found myself in many discussions about the cogito: "I think, therefore I am". Although those exact words are never exactly in this work, it is his argument that because doubting is a form of thinking, you can't doubt that you are thinking; therefore, you exist. Although many arguments try to say this is wrong, I find this the most intuitive thought process, that due to us thinking, we must exist.
I really enjoyed Descartes and look forward to writing about him in my upcoming exam.
