Meditation on First Philosophy Essay

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First Essay Assignment Question: Meditation on First Philosophy

It can be seen that Descartes Meditations on first philosophy raised a lot of questions regarding the existence and nature of the self, the existence of God, the nature of truth and the possibility of error, and finally also the essence and existence of bodies along other things. Descartes did all this through the medium of his six meditations.
Descartes from his very first Meditation, that of concerning things that can be called in to doubt, gives reasons on why we should doubt all things, material or non-material, to be not true. He further goes on to state that, we must continue to doubt these things as being not true as long as we have no other reason to believe in …show more content…
Descartes attributed the highest form of reality to infinite substances such as God. The second highest form of reality was associated to finite substances such as the Body and the Mind. The third highest form of reality was conferred upon to essential properties such as the very process of thinking about something. Lastly, the lowest form of reality was attributed to Modes, which are basically things that are acquired through our senses or the body itself since it's merely an extension of the ‘I'. Descartes then used the ranking system described above to describe the two principles of causality. The first principle basically states that there must be at least as much form of reality in the cause as in the effect, while the second principle basically makes mere reference of the fact that from nothing, comes nothing. Descartes finally uses both the Cosmological Argument and the Eidological argument to prove that God exists, since Descartes according to his very own ranking system has a very clear and distinct idea of God since he has been able to link the highest form of reality to infinite substances or beings rather, such as God. Descartes using the Eidological Argument states that since he has an idea of perfection, then there must exist a perfect being as its cause, who Descartes points out to be God. In addition to this, Descartes using the
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