Decarte

Descartes’s Mediation I Reflection

      Everything that Descartes has accepted as most true, he has learned from or through his senses. He acknowledges that sometimes his senses can deceive him, but only with respect to objects that are very small or far away. He also acknowledges that our sensory knowledge on the whole is quite accurate. I agree with him here. I would not consider myself to be as skeptical as Descartes, but there are definitely times where I am skeptical. Thinking back on things that I have accepted to be most true, I have learned them from or through my senses, just as Descartes says. For example, I can see and interact with other human beings in this world. Therefore, I can conclude that I am not the only mind that exists.
      Descartes later on says that he is often convinced when he is dreaming that he is sensing real objects. He feels certain that he is awake, but says he has dreamed of this sort of thing and has been completely convinced by it. I also agree with Descartes here. It is sometimes hard to differentiate when I am dreaming and when I am actually awake because they can be so similar. I sometimes have a dream one night and then that next day, something happens to me that happened to me in my dream that night and makes me stop and think about what is real and what is imaginary. I wonder if I will experience the rest of what happened in that dream in my day. I have not yet fully experienced the events of one of my dreams while being awake, but it still makes me a little paranoid about that dream. For the most part, I usually know when I am dreaming and when I am awake, but every once in a while, I will have a dream that stays in mind for the rest of the day and causes to me to be skeptical about what I am perceiving.