I Think Therefore I Am: Rene Descartes, Research Paper Example

Analysis of the First Meditation of Philosophy

Rene Descartes, a well-known philosopher who is noted for his skepticism leading to several realizations on what is real and what is not, offers an argument of becoming a real person in his writing on the first Meditation of Philosophy. He makes mention on how people become accustomed to beliefs presented to them when they were younger he insists on the fact that children, young at their age, having lesser experiences than their parents, are likely to accept freely what their parents tell them to be true. Their parents, being their first teachers and their primary mentors, can say anything to their children and their children will by no doubt consider such claims to be factual. While some children might ask for proof, majority of the children will simply embrace what their parents are actually offering to them and telling them to be real.

As a person grows older, he becomes to certain realities in life. Elements that bring him into realizing particular factors that make up living. This is the reason why a person might begin to question basic facts that he has known since he was younger yet he finds specifically unfitting with the realities he is beginning to understand. The query of a young man specifically denotes the existence of doubt; the feeling of not being able to get the facts straight and having such issues affect him personally. What even makes such feeling worse is when one questions the provider of the information, in this case, the parents. Disagreements in the house between parents and their children often occur during the teenage years; a stage of growth when a person begins to presume that he already knows so much that he should be given the chance to face life freely, whose opinions should be considered with seriousness.

Further growing into maturity, a person becomes aware of some of the most compelling issues in life and begins to think for himself, trying to understand each situation and issue that faces him as an individual. In the process of doing so, he then engages in a concept of trails and errors, testing which belief is true or not. Creating his own way of measuring facts, he begins to seek specific points that determine the distinction on how his thoughts could be validated with practical proof. A person begins to research, to determine facts from fiction through determinable patterns of information that he comes across with. Descartes argues that it is because of this pattern of learning that one is able to embrace the concept of self-exploration, the ideal process by which one is able to attain higher levels of knowledge that later on assists him into becoming a better individual. In relation to this matter, Descartes points out that those people who do not remain specifically grounded on what they were taught to be right and true are the ones bound to make a difference.

Embracing one’s capacity to explore is something important especially in embracing the course of defined progress that one hopes to attain. For instance, a single issue may have different interpretations from different individuals coming from different backgrounds from all over the world. A good inquiry on such matters shall supply one with the necessary information he needs to formulate his own opinion about the said matter. Simply settling for an idea that is said to be true unless it has been personally proven specifically hurts one’s capacity of inference. The human mind has been specifically made to infer, to question and to desire a response to a particular doubt that he has in his mind. Relatively, it is through this doubtful thinking that new ideas are given birth. With such command to one’s own thinking process, a person becomes highly capable of using his thinking ability to explore on ideas that others may not have explored yet in the past.

The studies in science specifically thrive under this concept of thinking. Imagine if science did not question the theories of the earth being flat, then perhaps navigations outside the earth’s surface may have never been pursued. The capacity to doubt is not at all wrong; acting upon it and becoming more interested on how such doubts could be straightened through the existence of valid supporting proofs would pay well to determine the course of understanding that one develops.

Nevertheless, Descartes does not fail to acknowledge that there are some elements in life that cannot be doubted; matters that are already there and are unchangeable through time. Such elements are considered by the philosopher as the foundation of basic truths. For instance, quantity, size, time and shape are measurable yet cannot be interchanged for their value. These elements in life specifically provide people with the concrete basis of what they are supposed to believe in. These things are stagnant. They are the factors in human living that cannot be interchanged for their worth and the impact that they have on things that they are thriving with. While they can be managed, they cannot be retracted from the overall cycle of the system of life that humans are living with.

The concept of “I think therefore I am” is suggested to be something that defines the capacity of the mind to bring a person into a state that he wants to embrace. Still thriving on the idea of doubting matters surrounding him, a person becomes aware of the situations he engages in and somehow, these are the very situations that shape him away from the supposed facts that he was presented with in the past. The doubts motivate him to search for more, to understand deeper. Such urgency in the mind affects the whole being of a person. It depends on the individual concerned as to how he would use such motivation to his own advantage. Notably, if one chooses to use such doubting thought in a more positive manner, he would willingly seek the answers to his queries, to satisfy his craving for answers. Once he finds out about the answers and he becomes strongly attached to the said responses, he then decides to adjust to the new found knowledge and change himself into a person he wants to be especially in relation to the fact that he has just discovered. For instance, if a person was told that a particular act or ritual in their culture is acceptable, and yet as he grows older, he sees how such an action is against the common law and common norms of the society, he may begin to doubt the teachings that were provided to him from birth. Once the doubt is fueled and the person thinking acts upon it, changes are bound to happen. Personal change of course comes forth easily at first. Getting others to understand the transformation that happened is one specific aspect of challenge that one has to accept. What determines such condition of thinking is the willingness of one to explore, to get out of his comfort zone and to know whether or not the things he has been told in the past are real.

In his meditation, Descartes’ intended to challenge the existence of God as one specific phenomena that has led people into coming up with several beliefs that fits their understanding of what and who God is. He points out that since God has never been seen yet [although there are those that say God is Jesus], his existence could be questioned or doubted accordingly. The proofs that there is a living God may be many. However, until the time he is actually seen by the naked eye of a human being, Descartes’ argument will remain valid; that it is but right to doubt such matters that are lacking in evidence and supporting facts that can be proven tangible and relatively able to provide a strong and rational explanation of a specific thought that determines the existence of a supreme being such as a God.

In this case, Descartes entices his readers to think. To become observant and doubt matters that are not specifically supported by strong evidences. This encouragement does not hope to create divisions nor chaotic situations in the society; instead, it aims to help in determining the most consistent elements that exist in the society and perhaps create a new beginning that would give such elements a chance to develop and to embrace the concept of modern thinking. An inferring mind is one that is thirsty for knowledge. Not aimed at merely criticizing everything, a person who infers, a person who doubts is one who hopes for something better, who tries to improve the current situations further for the sake of presenting evidential facts that are able to bring forth change and development that humans need. Letting the mind direct one’s path towards engaging in transformation will provide a person the chance to enjoy everything that life has to offer.

It should not be forgotten though that as Descartes’ embraces and suggests doubting, he does not suggest that one remains to doubt. He also points out the need to act upon it. As a person who doubts alone will not get into the higher stakes of learning and knowledge, instead he would simply become a critic of everything else that exists. A doubter thinks and acts upon the query to be able to find good response to the questions he may have in his mind and when responses are found real and practical, he is not afraid to use it and apply it in his own life. This is the way he becomes the way that he thinks he is.

Works Cited

Cottingham, John. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Descartes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

Dicker, Georges. Descartes: An Analytical and Historical Introduction (New York: OUP, 1993)

Frankfurt, Harry. Demons, Dreamers and Madmen (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970).

Hatfield, Gary. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Descartes and the Meditations (London: Routledge, 2003).