I’m working on a philosophy question and need a reference to help me learn.

1. What does Descartes’ declare as his purpose for writing to the Faculty of Sacred Theology of Paris? Summarize what Descartes says he has sought to achieve in the Meditations.

2. Why does Descartes fear that many people will have trouble understanding his arguments?

3. What does Descartes give as his reason for undertaking the project of razing everything to the ground and beginning again from the original foundations?

4. Explain the steps by which Descartes calls into doubt all the information received from the senses.

5. Why does Descartes call into doubt “arithmetic, geometry, and other such disciplines which treat of nothing but the simplest and most general things and which are indifferent as to whether these things do or do not in fact exist”?

6. Why does Descartes adopt the “evil genius” supposition? Describe this supposition. (What assumptions does it involve holding?)

Descartes’ Letter of Dedication

[Note: Numbers in parentheses below refer to the numbers in the margin of the text. These are from the standard edition of Descartes’ works (the Adam and Tannery edition), and (like the Stephanus numbers for Plato) they are conventionally used for citing Descartes’ works.]

Although we could start with Meditation One, I think it’s worthwhile to look at the Letter of Dedication that Descartes placed at the front of the work. It offers some interesting insights.

Descartes is frank about his motivation for writing to the Faculty of Sacred Theology of Paris, saying in the first paragraph that he is confident that, once they understand the plan of his work, they will take up its defense. (AT 1) Descartes, living in Holland, is not in danger of being brought up before the Inquisition. Nevertheless, he is eager for the approval of the religious establishment.

In the Dedication, he characterizes what he has sought to achieve in a way that’s different from the way he will present his goals in Meditation One. Here, he says he has sought to provide demonstrations for the existence of God and the distinction between the soul and the body. (AT1-2) (Note that these are also included in the complete title page of the work, given just above Meditation One.) He offers reasons for thinking that these propositions need to be demonstrated with the aid of philosophy. Two remarks are particularly interesting. They both come from the Bible, and they are both demonstrated in the Meditations: “everything that can be known about God can be shown by reasons drawn exclusively from our own mind” (AT 2, my emphasis), and there is a path by which “God may be known more easily and with greater certainty than the things of this world” (AT 2, my emphasis). As we discussed when we were looking at Plato’s Phaedo, our modern orientation is empiricist. So, what Descartes is saying here should strike us as different. How can God be known more easily and with greater certainty than something in this world – like the fact that H2O can exist in three different states?

Elsewhere in the Dedication, Descartes expresses concern that his arguments are not “suited to everyone’s grasp” (AT 4). He claims that his arguments “equal or even surpass those of geometry in certitude and obviousness” (AT 4) – a claim that we should be testing as we read through the arguments – but he says that (1) they are lengthy; (2) some depend on others; and (3) they require a mind that can easily withdraw itself from the senses. He’s not just bragging about his arguments here. We need to remind ourselves of all three of these features as we read, because losing sight of them often leads to confusion about what Descartes is doing.