What point is DesCartes trying to make in Meditation6. I am new to this subject matter. I have read this document three times and at the end my eyes are cross and mind is at a loss. Please help clearify?

-- mahta (mahta9@aol.com), May 29, 2003

Answers

Did you read the first five meditations first? Descartes begins with the observation that he can doubt the truth of everything he thinks he knows, except that he himself exists -- at least the part of him that is actually doing the doubting. He cannot not doubt that without courting contradiction. Of course, being able to doubt everything except his own mental existence means he can doubt the existence of the material world as a whole. In Meditation VI is tries to make an argument that, in spite of his methodological doubt, he can prove the existence of the material world. The argument is a little complicated -- there is some initial talk of the uses of geometry to represent the material world and the use of the senses -- but ultimately it seems to come down to his faith that God "is not a deceiver," as he repeatedly puts it. If the material world were not, at least in some respects, as he perceives it to be, then he would be the vicitm of such a deception, so he concludes that the material world must exist, put in place by God, and that his perception of it, guaranteed by God's not being a deceiver, must be veridical, at least to some degree.

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), May 30, 2003.