What Is Descartes Proof Of Self-Existence

In Descartes’ 2nd meditation, we are introduced to a new way of thinking. So far, Descartes wants to eliminate everything that is ‘known’ to him and permit that it is false. He thinks of how a child believes things when they are little, but when they grow up, find that said things are untrue. Descartes thinks that a similar situation could apply to every-day life. Perhaps what is around us is all an illusion. He uses this in the real world, saying that our senses are false- hearing, vision, sense of touch – it can all be doubted and therefore, is thrown away and forgotten about. Only things that can be proved (and cannot in any way be doubted) are of absolute knowledge.

I now can come to the cogito. The ‘Cogito’ is Descartes proof of self-existence.

I believe that his account of the cogito is very insightful and permits one to think on another level. It is one reason I loved studying this philosopher so much! However, in my opinion, there are some very weak, and strong points in his meditations which I would like to highlight below.

Firstly, the process of eliminating absolutely everything makes sense to me. I believe by doing this he has a clear pallet in what he can define as truth, and what is false. The fact that I sometimes think that I see a tall person, which turns out to be a tree trunk, shows that the sense of vision can definitely be doubted. When I put my hands into cold water and then place them in warm water, the warm water seems very hot- proving that sensation can also be doubted. The same goes for hearing and smelling. Therefore, I definitely think this is a strong point and one that made me question everything around

Even before I studied Philosophy, I thought of God as somebody who created the world, perhaps by accident or otherwise, and then left it as it is. It would explain why “bad things happen to good people” and other similar scenarios. This however, is just my own thinking, but when I read Descartes argument that the “ruler” could be an evil demon, I thought it was quite valid. On the other hand, when Descartes resolves this with a very weak “God is good, therefore he would not deceive me”, I can’t help but think; so what if there is a good God? What if there is also an evil demon that is on the same par as God, and is able to deceive us? Descartes does not argue this at all and it is not taken into account (nor is the fact that God may be evil, or very nonchalant about our existence) so I think this is both a strong and weak point.

Overall, I do believe that Descartes had many strong and weak points in his accounts. What annoyed me most was the disappointing conclusion of the meditations. As I have stated above, I believe that there was so much more to the theory of an evil demon or a nonchalant God. I would love if Descartes was still around today so that I could question and argue with him! I believe that the cogito (as said above) was a strong point for Descartes and I enjoy discussing this. My understanding of the cogito is that it proves