Descartes’ Meditation Two is sixteen paragraphs long.
In the first paragraph, he announces that he will pick up from his endpoint in Meditation One
by continuing his thought experiment, in search of “just one thing, however slight, that
is certain and unshaken.”
In paragraph 2, he suggest that perhaps the only thing that is certain is that nothing
is certain.
This is skepticism, a view that Descartes will ultimately deny.
In paragraph 3, Descartes reasons his way to the famous “I think, I am, I exist,”
as the statement that is true no matter what.
Pay careful attention to this paragraph, and to the process of reasoning Descartes uses here.
In paragraphs 4, 5, and 6, Descartes tries to understand *what* he is.
He knows he exists, but what is he? What is this thing that exists?
He arrives at two important conclusions here: first, he cannot say he is “a rational animal,”
and second, “I am therefore precisely nothing but a thinking thing; that is, a mind, or
intellect, or understanding, or reason.”
This is an important step in Descartes’ project.
In paragraph 7, Descartes tries out his imagination, only to quickly realize that it misleads him
into error.
He resolves to be much more careful about using his imagination.
In paragraph 8, he briefly restates his conclusions so far: He exists, and he is a thing that thinks.
In paragraph 9, Descartes gives a catalog of thoughts, acts of thinking that he, this
thinking thing, is capable of doing.
These acts are inseparable from me, he realizes, and are just as certainly known as my existence.
In paragraph 10, Descartes notes that he feels compelled to believe in the existence
of sensible objects.
In order to explore this compulsion, he decides to relax his control, and to let his mind off
its short leash just this once, and see where it goes.
In paragraphs 11 and 12, Descartes reflects on the nature of physical, sensible objects
in his famous thought experiment with the wax.
He concludes that the reality of the wax is its extension and nothing else, and that this
extension is grasped by his mind alone, and not by his senses.
This is another important argument, so pay attention to the steps in Descartes’ reasoning
here as well.
In paragraph 13, Descartes notes that his mind is still inclined to make errors about things.
And in paragraph 14, he concludes that he only truly *knew* the wax after reflecting on his
sensible experiences of it.
The sense experiences themselves were far from being clear and distinct knowledge.
In paragraph 15, Descartes comes to two more important conclusions: that his own existence
as a mind is still better known than the existence of the wax, and that what is true of the wax
is true of every object external to his mind.
The entire physical world shares the character of the wax: it is known through my mind alone,
and it is less certainly known than my own existence as a mind.
In paragraph 16, the last paragraph, Descartes summarizes his findings so far.
“I now know that even bodies are not, properly speaking, perceived by the senses or by the
faculty of imagination, but by the intellect alone,” and furthermore, “I manifestly
know that nothing can be perceived more easily and more evidently than my own mind.”
He then resolves to rest and reflect on these truths before considering the existence of
God in Meditation Three.
That’s my quick overview of the sixteen paragraphs in Descartes’ Meditation Two.
I hope you found it helpful. Thanks for watching today; goodbye.