descartes sixth meditation

A detailed Summary of descartes sixth meditation


In his sixth meditation must return to the doubts he raised in his first meditation. In this last section of his sixth meditation he deals mainly with the mind-body problem; and he tries to prove whether material things exist with certainly. In this meditation he develops his Dualist argument; by making a distinction between mind and body; although he also reveals their rather significant relationship.

Primarily he considers existence of the external world and whether our experience hold knowledge of this world or whether this knowledge is merely an illusion. He makes it quite clear how misleading some of external sensations can be. We are never sufficiently aware of subjectivity of our own thought and senses. The only thing we directly experience is the nature of our own ideas and we do not realise how our own appreciation of certain concepts may be very different from the objective character of the external world. Descartes takes a look at memory, imagination, hallucination, dreams, predictions, etc. which he calls our (sensory awareness) as these are part of the way we perceive the external world, he doubts at first that any of these internal experience holds any truth or existence. As he


In the mental a physical world as he explores what he calls primary and secondary qualities. The primarily qualities are to Descartes the more trustworthy mental perceptions and reality. The secondary qualities represent the not so trustworthy physical reality. He explores this relationship as he considers connection of the state of the body and physical sensations.

Descartes does regard the brain to being of critical importance concerning perception and sensation. He accepts that the brain receives, interprets and replies all nervous information. This information is collected by extensions of the brain; organs which act as receptors. They are in a way a sensory extension of the brain. He adds to this that nothing can assist better to preserving the body than what the mind itself feels. Still this mind and body experience can be deceiving, as sometimes what one feels is right or preserving for oneself is actually not the case at all.



Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1377
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Miscellaneous

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