Meditations one and two

Meditations One and Two
Descartes’ ‘Cogito Ergo Sum’ (I am, I exist) argument is a complex one. In many ways, he constructs a convincing argument for the existence of the self, and for the process of the thinking being, the essence of that self. In these meditations on his philosophy, Descartes on numerous attempts tries to convince both the readers as well as himself of his theory that we must reject all of our present ideas and beliefs and start from nothing. He believes that the only thing that has any certainty at this point is “his own existence as a thinking being”. Everything else, which he has learned throughout his entire life and believed in, is to be thrown out because it is not known “clearly and distinctly”. Descartes’ method and theory on knowledge was well planned and carefully thought out. It is evident that he spent a great deal of time determining the principles that he would use as determinants for judging whether a specific idea was justified a...