mind; the choice not to feel the heat is not within his powers. Just now, for instance, whether I will or whether I do not will, I feel heat, and thus I persuade myself that this feeling, or at least this idea of heat, is produced in my by something which is different from me... (160). Thus, without any ability to prove this experience to the contrary, Descartes concludes that this event must have come from an external world. Although considered one of the greatest philosophical minds of all time, Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy poses some inaccuracies which can be used to question Descartes entire argument. His work in Meditations only escapes scrutiny if you allow for a circular argument to serve as the basis for its justification. Most prominently, I think therefore I am, is the postulate which Descartes first formulates upon his quest for truth and his method of discarding all knowledge that may contain doubt. He begins by doubting something that he had long fixed in his mind, that was his belief that God was an all-powerful, good, power. Instead, he was forced to change his belief to include that God could in fact be an evil deceiver, who created him and fooled his senses. I shall then suppose, not that God who is supremely good and the fountain of truth, but some evil genius not less powerful than deceitful, has employed his whole energies in deceiving me, (153). However, in formulating his postulate of I think therefore I am, Descartes works uses the assumption that there has to be an evil, omnipotent being, capable of deceiving him; this evil being initially went by another name to Descartes, before he believed this being to be evil... God. This renders Descartes basic foundation for all other truths he has rationalized (the soul as a thinking thing; the existence of God; the existence of the external world) inept. The circular argument can be seen if you start at a different point of Descartes argument, th...
