A Critical Analysis of René Descartes’ ‘Meditation One’

Abstract

The problem of certain and indubitable knowledge has preoccupied Western philosophy from the pre-Socratics through the medieval era to the dawn of modernity. The renaissance era inaugurated a decisive shift from the theocentricism of medieval thinkers to the anthropocentrism of the modern man, generating competing methodological frameworks — the Baconian empirical-inductive and the Galilean mathematical-deductive methods — whose controversy gave rise to a renewed general scepticism. This paper critically examines René Descartes’ ‘Meditation One’, assessing both the philosophical significance and the internal limitations of his method of radical doubt as a response to epistemological scepticism. The study employs philosophical textual analysis and critical exegesis, involving close reading of Descartes’ primary text, contextualisation within the history of epistemology, and systematic evaluation of his arguments against the positions of selected critics. Descartes’ quest for knowledge led him to doubt everything around him. This skepticism formed the foundation of a new theory of knowledge known as rationalism. This foundation was occasioned by the rise of science during the renaissance era. The attempt to place philosophy side by side with science saw the emergence of two methods: the Baconian empirical-inductive and the Galilean mathematical-deductive. The issue of method in the sciences resulted in controversy as to which is the correct method. It is out of these controversies and general scepticism that René Descartes emerged to search for certain and indubitable knowledge. Despite the fact that Descartes, through his doubt, gave philosophy a new method and solid foundation, he is found wanting in some of his postulations. This study concludes that, despite the loopholes inherent in his arguments, Descartes made a significant contribution to epistemology. This work challenges the extremity of his method and maintains that once one begins to doubt things thoroughly, one will never again be able to argue one’s way back to certainty.