Ren Descartes Is a Solipsistic Buffoon

In this essay I tackle the issue of Descartes exclusiveness as he attempts to justify

human consciousness and the existence of God through his meditations and how

singular philosophy leaves a vague, backwards, and unreliable understanding of the

world. The method I used to determine the validity of Descartes meditations is claims

interpreted through the lens of reason.

In philosophical vernacular it is typically discouraged to use exact language in

that presumably suspending judgement is essential for further analysis. However, in this

essay I will attempt to exhibit why Descartes is an arrogant nimrod. The topic of this

essay concentrates on Descartes third meditation concerning the idea of God and the

Evil Demon and whether or not they exist based on his own logic and reasoning. I will

argue against his assertions by examining precedents he sets in each meditation to

constitute his belief in God as well as the Evil Demon. The criteria of my responses will

argue against the conceptual validity of his meditations through the lens of reason and

how though his suppositions may be forgivably archaic they are to be overlooked

because they are unique only to Descartes immediate reality.

Meditation I: Concerning Those Things That Can Be Called into Doubt

In the first meditation Descartes attempts to demolish and rebuild his perspective

of the world with the intention to audit sensory falsehoods he for some reason only
came to closely examine at the ripe young age of forty five. Starting from scratch,

Descartes reflects on his perception of reality and how the body of knowledge hed built

up before the meditation had been full of fallacies, thus leading him to explore avenues

of doubt. He reasons that hes too lazy to examine each facet of life he doubts included

in the body of knowledge hed gathered up until he decided to critically think for the first

time, so it would only make sense to start from ground zero, the five senses. Casting

away all doubtable thought and knowledge Descartes determines his senses to be the

only phenomenon in existence that are most true. In the process of abandoning all

awareness except for the most primal he recognizes that certain people feel the senses

differently and live in an even more deceptive world than he does. Those people he

deems insane, and assures himself that he is not. His confidence in his own mental

stamina is not only completely ableist, but only furthers my point of ego clouding his

judgement. Further exploring his idea of sensory awareness he reflects on his dreams

and how they often mimic experiences he had when he was awake, which to him must

mean that he isnt living in a dream world because his dreams encapsulate aspects of

being awake but not the entire package. Somehow he determines that because simple

composite things exist the same both in and out of his dreams, they are undoubtable.

This conclusion only continues to bring home my hypothesis of his morbid individualism.

Later, Descartes has an epiphany leading him to realize that his first genius dreamworld

conjecture wouldnt make sense in contrast to being so constantly deceived because

even the existence of simple things he was so sure were rock solid earlier could also be

a deception. He relates this to god, exploring the thought that an all powerful god could

even deceive. The only issue is that he believes God to only be an undeceptive perfect
entity. To combat the notion that God might be deceiving he conjures up the Evil Demon

who's only purpose is to deceive. Given that Descartes acknowledges that he might not

be the only one afflicted with the clich angel vs. demon condition, he still created each

presence entirely and assumed that he could cross apply his own ridiculous ailment to

universal consciousness which still proves my thesis.

Meditation II: Concerning the Nature of the Human Mind: That the mind is more

known than the body

After the first meditation Descartes takes all he gathered about the senses and

rejects it as untrustworthy evidence as it doesnt yield absolute certainty. He meditates

on the idea that something must somehow be solid fact. He then tackles the idea of the

Evil Demon deceiving him of his own existence in which he is unbothered as this means

even though he is being deceivedhe exists. Later in the meditation he states that the

mind and body are alien to one another and his existence is defined by the experience

of his own thought. Though its assumed the discoveries made in his meditations are

related to all human experience everything discovered is to be omitted and considered

unfactual as both prior meditations are based solely around his own individual

understanding and mental fortitude.

Meditation III: Concerning God, That He Exists

Descartes final meditation is a jumble of irrational backwards arguments where he tries

to justify the existence of God. Before his efforts in justifying God he declares three

types of ideas: innate, fictitious, and adventitious. Innate ideas are ones that have

always existed, fictitious ideas our ones we compose ourselves, and adventitious ideas

come from our own experiences. He claims the idea of God is innate and derives from

God themself and rejects God as adventitious or fictitious. The foundation for his

outcome is based around nonsensical justifications he applied himself for example: the

idea of perfection couldnt of derived from something non-perfect, ergo, God exists.

Assimilating either argument isnt necessary to prove my thesis as Descartes proves it

in meditation one where he depicts the world through his own eyes as distinctively valid

only to introduce ludicrous concepts enabling him to construct his own abstract

understanding of truth based loosely off a tug-of-war between where he associates not

having full understanding of something to an evil entity hellbent on deceiving him and

having full understanding of his surroundings to a blessing from God. Based off the logic

provided in the meditations Descartes can prove neither the existence of God nor the

Evil Demon as all his assertions are based on experiences exclusive to himself and his

own senses. Instead of making sense of the world and unearthing logic understanding

human perception in relation to how we as a species can navigate assured that we exist

Descartes created a personal model of comprehension for himself completely

unrelatable and isolated the concept of the human experience to thoughts and senses

only palpable to himself consequently proving my theory of his singularity as a

philosopher.