Descartes Meditation Essay

Descartes holds that you are more mind than body. Do you agree? What sort of priority does he intend? † In the Meditation Two: Concerning the Nature of the Human Mind, Descartes describes himself â€Å"as if I had suddenly fallen into a deep whirlpool† (pg. 492), expressing the need to work his way up and pick up where he left off the day before. He basically exclaims that he will put off all doubts and â€Å"suppose that everything is false (492)†. In this meditation he plays on the concept that the mind is greater than the body. In some respects’ I do agree with what Descartes is saying about dualism concept and how we are â€Å"thinking things (493)†. I believe the mind is more important in some manner than the body because the power the mind has to think, reason, create, dream, imagine, believe, memorize, react, desire, feel, and the ability to know and have endless ideas. Descartes agrees that he â€Å"doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, and that also imagines and senses (494). †In this section I do agree with Descartes on his view of this â€Å"thinking thing†. The mind is so incredible that we humans can’t grasp the intricate complexes that the mind has. When Descartes describes the wax example I was rather confused but after critiquing the concept I have come to realization that it does make sense. I think Descartes was desperate to find away, some way to describe the importance of the mind and using this illustration was a creative way to do so. So he describes this piece of wax how it’s hard and cold, malleable, has a slight honey flavor (494). Then he describes what happens to this wax when it goes through the different temperature cycles and how the structure of the wax changes etc. So we know that when the piece of wax is going through those physical changes it still remains to be the same piece. So seeing that we understand that the hard piece of wax and now melted piece of wax have the same properties’ must not just come from the senses because all of the sensible properties were changed. As Descartes describes that â€Å"the sense of smell, sight, touch or hearing has now changed; and yet the wax remains (495). † So from this one may think that the imagination is what this piece of wax is, but Descartes exclaims, â€Å"Therefore this insight is not achieved by the faculty of imagination. Instead he concludes that â€Å"I (Descartes) perceive it through the mind alone. † Learning this illustration is shows the importance of the mind and the corporeal body. That the body can take on many different changes, yet the mind is beauty behind everything. I can’t say that I agree with everything that Descartes is trying to express, but I do agree with the fact there are hard concepts to grasp and understand. We each have unique mind, and understanding the mind will take time and will take patience.