Rene Descartes Father Of Modern Philosophy Summary

INTRODUCTION
René Descartes also known as “the father of modern philosophy” tried to establish a foundation for scientific knowledge. In this essay I will be discussing what Descartes tries to accomplish within the Meditations of First philosophy and then give a brief summary explaining whether or not I find his argument convincing.
DESCARTES
In the first meditation it is clear that Descartes decided to no longer believe in things which can be doubted or even carry the slightest bit of doubt. He presumed that this will allow him to identify some beliefs that could not be doubted and ultimately be defined as an absolute certainty. Knowing that such a task would take a considerable amount of time if one where to consider each belief one by one, he thus only dealt with broad categories of belief.
The first category was the beliefs that one learns through ones senses. This category was quickly proven to be subject to doubt. His argument was more or less like this: When I dream, I dream of a particular experience. If such an experience where to be seen as a reliable source of knowledge then when I win the lotto in my dream, that result would lead to the conclusion that I am really winning the lotto. But dreaming of winning fortunes does not make me in reality rich, thus it is safe to say that this experience (dreaming) is not a

Until this stage he has only proven to himself that only he and God exists. That is why in this meditation he wants to prove that physical things exist such as one’s own body (extended things). First he requires the meditator to accept that there is a possibility that material objects could exist since these objects are subject matter of pure mathematics. First he took it upon himself to distinguish between imagination and pure understanding. It was clear that one’s imaginations is very limited when compared against pure understanding that deals only in mathematical