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Decartes - College Paper

Decartes

Descartes is famed by is familiar notion, “I think therefore I am (Cogito, ergo sum.).” It is a conclusion he has reached in his second meditation after much deliberation on the existence of anything certain. After he discovers his ability to doubt and to understand , he is able to substantiate his necessary existence as a consequence. What we doubt or understand may not ultimately correspond, but we can never be uncertain that we are in the process of thought. This idea is a major component in Descartes’ proof of the external world.
He relies on the existence of a non-deceiving God to ensure that an external world exists after calling it into doubt by the ...

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him rather than it being conceived in his mind completely independent of anything else. Descartes then considers those reasons that have inclined him to believe these material things exist in the past.
“I know by experience that these ideas do not depend upon my will, nor consequently upon myself, for often I notice them against my will... I feel heat, and therefore I believe that this feeling or idea of heat comes to me from something other than myself, namely from the fire I am near. Nothing is more obvious than the judgment that this object (rather than something else) grafts its likeness on to me.”
Since however, he has called upon anything to be false that provokes any doubt he does not believe this explanation to be enough for the proof of the external world. Relying on this sort of natural impulse has led him astray in the past, so what is to keep it from happening all the time. He also calls upon the dream argument in this instance. Ideas come to be in ...

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Decartes. (2008, July 7). Retrieved January 6, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Decartes/86403

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"Decartes." Essayworld.com. July 7, 2008. Accessed January 6, 2026. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Decartes/86403.

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 7/7/2008 06:37:07 AM
Category: English
Type: Free Paper
Words: 781
Pages: 3

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