Meditations on First Philosophy facts for kids
The title page of the Meditations
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| Author | René Descartes |
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| Original title | Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animæ immortalitas demonstratur |
| Language | Latin |
| Subject | Philosophical |
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Publication date
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1641 |
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Original text
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Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animæ immortalitas demonstratur at Script error: The function "name_from_code" does not exist. Wikisource |
| Translation | Meditations on First Philosophy at Wikisource |
Meditations on First Philosophy, in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated (Latin: Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animæ immortalitas demonstratur) is a philosophical treatise by René Descartes first published in Latin in 1641. The French translation (by the Duke of Luynes with Descartes' supervision) was published in 1647 as Méditations Métaphysiques. The title may contain a misreading by the printer, mistaking animae immortalitas for animae immaterialitas, as suspected by A. Baillet.
The book is made up of six meditations, in which Descartes first discards all belief in things that are not absolutely certain, and then tries to establish what can be known for sure. He wrote the meditations as if he had meditated for six days: each meditation refers to the last one as "yesterday". (In fact, Descartes began work on the Meditations in 1639.) One of the most influential philosophical texts ever written, it is widely read to this day.
The book consists of the presentation of Descartes' metaphysical system at its most detailed level and in the expanding of his philosophical system, first introduced in the fourth part of his Discourse on Method (1637). Descartes' metaphysical thought is also found in the Principles of Philosophy (1644), which the author intended to be a philosophical guidebook.
Contents
Letter of Dedication and Preface
Letter of dedication
To the most wise and illustrious the Dean and Doctors of the Sacred Faculty of Theology in Paris
Descartes writes the above dedication to ask for the protection of the Faculty for his work.
His first consideration is that the existence of God has to be demonstrated philosophically, besides the theological reasons for belief, particularly if we consider to make a demonstration for the non-believers. Moreover, the believers could be accused of making a circular reasoning, when saying that we must believe in God because of the Scriptures, and in the authority of the Scriptures because they have been inspired by God. He further indicates how the very Scriptures say that the mind of man is sufficient to discover God.
His aim is to apply a method to demonstrate these two truths, in a so clear and evident manner that result to be evident. This method he has developed for the Sciences.
Preface to the reader
Descartes explains how he made a mention of the two questions, the existence of God, and the soul, in his Discourse on Method. Following this, he received objections, and two of them he considers are of importance. The first is how he concludes that the essence of the soul is a thing that thinks, excluding all other nature. To this he says that he has a clear perception that he is a thinking thing, and has no other clear perception, and from this he concludes that there is nothing else in the essence of the self.
The second is that from the idea I have of something that is more perfect than myself, it cannot be concluded that it exists. In the treatise we will see that in fact from the idea that there is something more perfect than myself, it follows that this exists.
It goes on to comment that on a general level the reasoning used by the atheists for denying the existence of God is based in the fact that "we ascribe to God affections that are human, or we attribute so much strength and wisdom to our minds" that we presume to understand that which God can and ought to do. He says that we have to consider God as incomprehensible and infinite, and our minds as limited and finite.
Finally says that the treatise was submitted to some men of learning to know their difficulties and objections, and are answered at the end of it.
Structure
Descartes does not outline the text with a systematic structure. He writes the meditations in a first-person point-of-view, intending for the readers to meditate with him. Thus, the text serves as a handbook of meditative practices-- it does not only convey a message, but an experience, too.
Objections and replies
Before publishing the Meditations, Descartes submitted his manuscript to many philosophers, theologians and a logician, encouraging them to criticize the work. He explained this purpose in a letter to a friend: "I will be very glad if people put to me many objections, the strongest they can find, for I hope that the truth will stand out all the better." The objections which he gathered, and his own replies (many of which are quite extensive), were included in the first publication of the Meditations.
The seven objectors were, in order (of the sets as they were published):
- The Dutch theologian Johannes Caterus (Johan de Kater).
- Various "theologians and philosophers" gathered by Descartes' friend and principal correspondent, Friar Marin Mersenne.
- The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes.
- The theologian and logician Antoine Arnauld.
- The philosopher Pierre Gassendi — Descartes wrote that this set of objections could be easily dismissed.
- Another miscellany gathered by Mersenne.
- The Jesuit Pierre Bourdin.
Some of the most powerful objections include the following:
Objections to proof(s) of God’s existence:
- We have no (clear) idea of an infinite Being (1st, 2nd, and 5th objections).
- From the fact that I can think of a perfect being, it does not follow that the perfect being exists (1st, 2nd, and 5th).
- We could get the idea of God without God's causing the idea (2nd, 3rd).
- Nothing can cause itself to exist (4th), so God cannot cause himself to exist unless God is composed of some essence that in and of itself has the property of timelessness.
Objections to the epistemology:
- How can we be sure that what we think is a clear and distinct perception really is clear and distinct (3rd, 5th)?
- Circle objection 1: if we are not certain that judgments based on clear and distinct ideas are true before we prove God’s existence, then we cannot be certain that we are a thinking thing (2nd). Circle objection 2: if we are not certain that clear and distinct ideas are true before we prove God's existence, then we cannot be certain that God exists, since we use clear and distinct ideas to prove God's existence (4th).
- Contrary to what Descartes argues, we are certain that bodies exist/that perception coincides with reality (5th, 6th), but we are not certain that the bodies of our perception are actual bodies in an existent external world.
Objections to philosophy of mind:
- Ideas are always imagistic (3rd), so we have no idea of thinking substance (non-image idea).
- We cannot conclude that the mind (thinking thing) is not also a corporeal thing, unless we know that we know everything about the mind. But we do not know that we know everything about the mind. So we do not know that the mind is not corporeal. (2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th).
Elisabeth of Bohemia also corresponded with Descartes on the Meditations. She objected both to his description of the union between mind and body, and that virtue and moral truths seem to need to be grasped by something other than the intellect (despite Descartes' assertion that all truths must be grasped intellectually).
Descartes' philosophy of solipsism involves the assumption that a given individual will know their own mind best. However, the establishment of behaviorism revealed introspection to be a problematic method. Developments in psychology, based on studies focusing on the relationship between the mind and brain make it difficult to accept Descartes' take that the mind can exist without the body. Further, empirical and philosophical work has shown that the mind, or consciousness, develops as a result of social, linguistic, and cultural influence.
Influence and legacy
The historical impact of the six meditations has been divided. The first two meditations, which employed the skeptical methodic doubt and concluded that only the ego and its thoughts are indubitable, have had a huge impact in the history of philosophy. They are often considered as epoch-making for modernity, and an unavoidable first step for any modern philosophical thinking.
Arthur David Smith, author of the Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Husserl, claims that since Edmund Husserl usually refers only to "the first two" of the Meditations, therefore Husserl must have thought that they are the only part of Descartes' work with any philosophical importance at all.
Republications
Collected works in French and Latin
- Oeuvres de Descartes, edited by Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, Paris: Léopold Cerf, 1897–1913, 13 volumes; new revised edition, Paris: Vrin-CNRS, 1964–1974, 11 volumes (the first 5 volumes contains the correspondence).
English translations
- The Philosophical Writings Of Descartes, 3 vols., translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
- The Philosophical Works of Descartes, 2 vols, translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane, and G.R.T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978).
- The Method, Meditations and Philosophy of Descartes, translated by John Veitch (1901)
Single works
- Six Metaphysical Meditations ..., translated by William Molyneux (1680)
- Méditations Métaphysiques, translated to French from Latin by Michelle Beyssade (Paris: GF, 1993), accompanied by Descartes' original Latin text and the French translation by the Duke of Luynes (1647).
See also
- 17th-century philosophy
- Cartesian Meditations
