Descartes' Wax Example

If you order your research paper from our custom writing service you will receive a perfectly written assignment on Descartes' Wax Example. What we need from you is to provide us with your detailed paper instructions for our experienced writers to follow all of your specific writing requirements. Specify your order details, state the exact number of pages required and our custom writing professionals will deliver the best quality Descartes' Wax Example paper right on time.

Our staff of freelance writers includes over 120 experts proficient in Descartes' Wax Example, therefore you can rest assured that your assignment will be handled by only top rated specialists. Order your Descartes' Wax Example paper at affordable prices!

The Wax

Even after his Cogito argument, Descartes is still unsure of the clarity of his knowledge. The external world, it seems to him, still seems more distinct and real than the percepetion that he exists.

As an experiment, Descartes takes a piece of wax and examines it its smell, texture, shape, colour - all these seem to Descartes to embody the distinct qualities that we associate with wax. However, subjecting it to the heat of the fire, the wax melts before his eyes, leaving him to ask What, then, was it I knew with so much distinctness in the piece of wax?

The second Meditation continues Descartes search for one thing he can be certain of - even if it turns out to be merely that he cannot be certain of anything.Order custom research paper on Descartes' Wax Example

Firstly, having dismissed sense experience as providing unreliable information, he turns inwards towards the mind itself in search of certainty.

Who produces these thoughts in his mind? Could it be God who does so? But then again, it might only be Descartes himself. Might the malignant demon be deceiving him by placing these perceptions in his mind?

It is here that Descartes arrives at his most famous argument, called the Cogito (after the Latin phrase cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am). Descartes argues that, even if he is deceived, it must be true that he exists in order to be deceived.

But what exists? Descartes then begins the process of investigating what it is that he can rightly claim to be, rejecting in turn the idea of the body, or a spirit like wind or fire spread throughout his body, until finally arriving at the notion of a thinking thing.

Lastly, Descartes compares his new-found knowledge with the apparent clarity of the existence of external objects (which at first seem more clear). However, on examining such a thing as a piece of wax he finds that everything which he thought he knew about it - its shape, texture, smell, etc. - are in reality illusions. Furthermore, he is convinced that the intellect is the thing that is resposible for all knowledge about the world, and is itself most clearly known.

Descartes argument here is that the melted wax - although apparently the same thing as the solid piece - retains almost none of the qualities which he considered as defining it. Furthermore, he argues, the wax seems capable of other changes - of shape, volume, etc. - which would make it still more alien to its original state. It seems then that the wax, and by comparision all other physical things, are in reality nothing.

The only thing which gives physical objects reality, according to Descartes, is the understanding that the mind has of them. So, the wax as perceived by the senses is unreal, changing; but the wax as understood by the intellect abides by certain laws, changes according to certain conditions and can be understood through scientific experiment.

Please note that this sample paper on Descartes' Wax Example is for your review only. In order to eliminate any of the plagiarism issues, it is highly recommended that you do not use it for you own writing purposes. In case you experience difficulties with writing a well structured and accurately composed paper on Descartes' Wax Example, we are here to assist you. Your persuasive essay on Descartes' Wax Example will be written from scratch, so you do not have to worry about its originality.

Order your authentic assignment and you will be amazed at how easy it is to complete a quality custom paper within the shortest time possible!