Rene Descartes Meditations On First Philosophy

Meditations on First Philosophy is a very influential book, written by Rene Descartes. Many philosophers look to this book for inspiration and for answers to many of life’s questions. One of these philosophers would be David Hume. Hume often did not share the same thoughts and beliefs as Descartes but uses his ideas on the origin of thought to further explain his own. The Meditations are written in order to answer one simple question, “what can we know for certain?” While this might seem like a very simple question to answer, Descartes takes a different approach by doubting everything he could possibly know in order to see what remains as the truth. Descartes thought that in order to discover things that are true and would remain for years to come, he would have to rule out everything that could be proved wrong. He believed that true knowledge can only be rational, in other words, you cannot have true knowledge from your senses (Meditations, pg. 2). David Hume did not share these same beliefs and felt that Descartes philosophy was much too metaphysical. David Hume
He begins by introducing a piece of wax from a honeycomb which he explains is golden in colour, is hard and smells like honey. Everyone would recognize this as a piece of wax, but put it by a fire and it begins to change into something unrecognizable from its original state. It has now become soft and no longer smells the same, yet we are still able to recognize it as the same piece of wax. Descartes suggests that there is some sort of property or connection beyond the senses that lets us be aware that this is the same piece of wax. Descartes says that intellect is what makes those connections, not physical observations. Since the senses often mislead us, intellectual properties beyond the object are what can give us rational knowledge (Meditations, pg.