Status Updates From Discourse on Method and Med...

Descartes argues that one cannot differentiate between the illusions of dreams and the reality of waking hours. It is because of this, that he adopts a hypothesis and philosophy to do all that he cannot prove and further experiment, in attempts to prove that of which he can be certain.

Descartes seems to predict the every thought of his readers via his justifications and the propositions of counter arguments they may make against his philosophy. Yet Descartes remains noble in that he doesn’t try to prove to a man what he refused to learn, but rather encourages meditation and the discarding of any and all prejudices.

“… all the other things, of which they might think themselves more certain [than the existence of god], such as their having a body, or the existence of stars and of an earth, and other such things are less certain. For even though we have moral assurance of these things… without being unreasonable we cannot deny that… there is sufficient room for doubt.”
- proofs of the existence of God and the human soul

“… I could not have limited my desires, nor been happy with the things within my power, if I were not following a path by which I expected to obtain all the knowledge of which I was capable… all the real values to which I might aspire“
Those following a path of a fulfillment will not face the bitter remorse of yearning for what they don’t have, but find peace in the eventual inheritance of all they desire.

Before meditation 4