Further I would like to proceed with a more in-depth concentration on the work itself, the details of each chapter of the book. The Meditations on the First Philosophy consists of six parts each of which represents a different topic for discussion. Meditation One: is called “Concerning Those Things That Can Be Called into Doubt.” The author begins this meditation by saying that there are many false opinions that he had to believe were true in his youth, but are now clearly false. So, Descartes sets out in this meditation to give reasons why we can “doubt all things, especially material things, so long, that is, as, of course, we have no other foundations for the sciences than the ones we have had up until now.” The reasons for doubt that he provides are twofold. First, Descartes argues that people are often deceived by their senses and thus, cannot know for certain that what they recognize is all true. Also he states that we are not provided with definite signs that can tell us whether we are sleeping or wide awake, which again puts us in doubts of our mere existence in the present moment. His second argument is that even things such as arithmetic and geometry, which seem very certain, might also be mistaken as he sees the mistakes of others that they do not see, thus he argues that he himself is probably deceived as well.

The title of Meditation Two, “Concerning the Nature of the Human Mind: That It Is Better Known Than the Body,” obviously expresses the purpose of this meditation. In this meditation, Descartes discovers things which cannot be doubted, as opposed to the first meditation, and thus forms groundwork for what he was looking for. For instance Descartes states in the first meditation that he cannot be certain if he has a body or senses, because it might happen that an evil genius is deceiving him. However, he states that there is no doubt to that point because he exists, if someone is able to deceive him. Thus he found something that is truly un-doubtful. That is where his famous “I think, therefore I exist” expression originated from, it explains that only thought exists and thus, not even the evil genius from the first meditation can separate it from him. Besides the author states that he exists as long as he is thinking and if he were to stop thinking, then he would cease to exist.

In the Third Meditation, entitled, “Concerning God, That He Exists,” Descartes tries to nullify all of his doubt by proving the existence of God. He wants to prove that a truly perfect God exists and in doing so Descartes argues that the cause of his ideas must be at least as perfect as the ideas themselves. He states that something cannot come of nothing and that this something has to contain a reality itself in order to create something. He also says that the idea of God could not have been originated within himself as he views himself to be finite as opposed to God who is infinite and omnipotent and all good. So, he has to admit that he certainly understands that there has to be more reality in an infinite substance than there is in a finite one. So, he concludes that God necessarily exists in his third meditation. “Concerning the True and the False,” is the fourth meditation by Descartes which shows how we can make mistakes even though God cannot deceive us because of his perfect nature. In this part he claims that the power of “willing and power of understanding” when regarded apart from each other do not cause problems, rather, it happens when they are both together. He says that will extends further than the intellect, so will is not in the same boundaries as intellect thus a person gets into matter that he fully does not understand and thus he is deceived and in sin. Further, Descartes states that because he is finite or limited as opposed to almighty God, and that he is not sure whether it is good for all the humans to be exactly alike in not making the mistakes, because otherwise it may not be good for the universe as the whole. However the author says that people can avoid making mistakes and achieving our greatest potential, IF people restrain their will when making judgments.

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