Key terms and concepts

The use of the word ‘Meditations’ is not just an artistic device. Descartes says,

In metaphysics...there is nothing which causes so much effort as making our perception of the primary notions clear and distinct. Admittedly, they are by their nature as evident as, or even more evident than, the primary notions which the geometers study; but they conflict with many preconceived opinions derived from the senses which we have got into the habit of holding from our earliest years, and so only those who really concentrate and meditate and withdraw their minds from corporeal things, so far as is possible, will achieve perfect knowledge of them. Indeed, if they were put forward in isolation, they could easily be denied by those who like to contradict just for the sake of it.

This is why I wrote 'Meditations' rather than 'Disputations', as the philosophers have done, or 'Theorems and Problems', as the geometers would have done. In so doing I wanted to make it clear that I would have nothing to do with anyone who was not willing to join me in meditating and giving the subject attentive consideration. For the very fact that someone braces himself to attack the truth makes him less suited to perceive it, since he will be withdrawing his consideration from the convincing arguments which support the truth in order to find counter-arguments against it.

Descartes is specifically rejecting the then standard Aristotelian method of argumentation that started from agreed premises and using syllogisms and the like worked its way to a conclusion. Instead, he is using a method, a process, to uncover undeniable foundational truths. Although parts of Meditation One can be reconstructed as an argument it is important to realise Descartes isn’t trying to put forward a traditional step by step argument such that if you follow it you will accept the conclusion. He is trying to change the way the reader thinks so that they will be compelled to recognise the truth. This explains why it is difficult to fit the malicious demon into a reconstructed argument. On the method of doubt Descartes says,

Now the best way of achieving a firm knowledge of reality is first to accustom ourselves to doubting all things, especially corporeal things. Although I had seen many ancient writings by the Academics and Sceptics on this subject, and was reluctant to reheat and serve this precooked material, I could not avoid devoting one whole Meditation to it. And I should like my readers not just to take the short time needed to go through it, but to devote several months, or at least weeks, to considering the topics dealt with, before going on to the rest of the book. If they do this they will undoubtedly be able to derive much greater benefit from what follows.

It helps to remember that the Meditations are not autobiographical. Descartes has invented a character usually referred to as the meditator. This is important because it means the conclusions that the meditator arrives at at any particular point in the Meditations may not be Descartes’ actual position. In particular, in Meditation One the meditator comes to the ‘well thought-out’ conclusion that a supremely good god could allow him to be deceived. We know this is not Descartes’ position but it is not until later in the Meditations that the view of the meditator becomes aligned with that of Descartes the author.

Various commentators have pointed out that the literary form that the Meditations takes seems to have been strongly influenced by Descartes’ Jesuit education and his undoubted familiarity with the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola.