Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Meditations on First Philosophy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Knowledge, Doubt, and Science
God and the World
Mind and Body
Intellectual Discipline
Summary
Analysis
In the First Meditation, Descartes will argue that, in order to achieve certain knowledge about the world, people should start by doubting everything they possibly can. In the Second Meditation, he will show that the one thing nobody can doubt is the existence of their own minds. In the Third Meditation, he will explain his proof for God’s existence, while in the Fourth Meditation, he will demonstrate that “everything that we clearly and distinctly perceive is true.” In the Fifth Meditation, he will give a second argument to prove that God exists. Finally, in the Sixth Meditation, he will show that the mind is immortal and separate from the body, then explain how we can know that the physical world exists.
This synopsis gives the reader a brief snapshot of Descartes’s broader argumentative strategy in the Meditations. Since he covers such different ideas in each chapter, it would be easy to lose track of how they all interrelate—and to forget that Descartes has carefully structured them to provide an airtight case for his conclusions. However, while Descartes describes his work’s primary goal as proving the existence of God and the soul, students today are more likely reading him to learn about the unique methodology that he lays out in the First and Second Meditations, since this methodology is the foundation for the general approach most commonly used in science, mathematics, and philosophy today.
Themes
