Meditations on First Philosophy, in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated (Latin: Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animæ immortalitas demonstratur), often called simply the Meditations,[1] is a philosophical treatise by René Descartes first published in Latin in 1641.

[2] The book is made up of six meditations, in which Descartes first discards all belief in things that are not absolutely certain, and then tries to establish what can be known for sure.

Descartes' metaphysical thought is also found in the Principles of Philosophy (1644), which the author intended to be a philosophical guidebook.

[6] Descartes explains how he made a mention of the two questions, the existence of God, and the soul, in his Discourse on Method.

Finally says that the treatise was submitted to some men of learning to know their difficulties and objections, and are answered at the end of it.

He resolves to pretend that these opinions are totally false and imaginary in order to counterbalance his habitual way of thinking.

Descartes is aware of how revolutionary his ideas are, and must pay lip service to the orthodox opinions of the day in order to be heeded.

The Painter's Analogy, which draws on the Dream Argument, concludes that mathematics and other purely cerebral studies are far more certain than astronomy or physics, which is an important step away from the Aristotelian reliance on the senses and toward Cartesian rationalism.

Skepticism cuts straight to the heart of the Western philosophical enterprise and its attempt to provide a certain foundation for our knowledge and understanding of the world.

[10] The general form of these arguments is: Descartes' goal, as stated at the beginning of the meditation, is to suspend judgment about any belief that is even slightly doubtful.

He also decides to continually remind himself to avoid habitually falling into accepting beliefs without support, a habit to which he is susceptible.

The first plank he uses in constructing this bridge can be found in the following excerpt: I have convinced myself that there is nothing in the world — no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies.

Thus having fully weighed every consideration, I must finally conclude that the statement "I am, I exist" must be true whenever I state it or mentally consider it.

When one understands the mathematical principles of the substance, such as its expansion under heat, figure and motion, the knowledge of the wax can be clear and distinct.

First, he notes that it is very possible that his limited knowledge prevents him from understanding why God chose to create him so he could make mistakes.

I know that my nature is weak and limited and that God's is limitless, incomprehensible, and infinite, and, from this, I can infer that He can do innumerable things whose reasons are unknown to me.

Lastly, Meditation IV attributes the source of error to a discrepancy between two divine gifts: understanding and free will.

If I affirm what is false, I clearly err, and, if I stumble onto the truth, I'm still blameworthy since the light of nature reveals that a perception of the understanding should always precede a decision of the will.

While Descartes had already claimed to have confirmed God's existence through previous arguments, this one allows him to put to rest any discontent he might have had with his "distinct and clear" criteria for truth.

With a confirmed existence of God, all doubt that what one previously thought was real and not a dream can be removed.

But now I can plainly and certainly know innumerable things, not only about God and other mental beings, but also about the nature of physical objects, insofar as it is the subject-matter of pure mathematics.In Meditation VI: Concerning the Existence of Material Things, and the Real Distinction between Mind and Body, Descartes addresses the potential existence of material outside of the self and God.

Knowing that the existence of such objects is possible, Descartes then turns to the prevalence of mental images as proof.

Thus, Descartes jumps quickly to proofs of the division between the body and mind and that material things exist: Proof of the body being distinct from the mind (mind–body dualism) Proof of the reality of external material things After using these two arguments to dispel solipsism and skepticism, Descartes seems to have succeeded in defining reality as being in three parts: God (infinite), minds, and material things (both finite).

He closes by addressing natural phenomena that might appear to challenge his philosophy, such as phantom limbs, dreams, and dropsy.

Before publishing the Meditations, Descartes submitted his manuscript to many philosophers, theologians and a logician, encouraging them to criticize the work.

Further, empirical and philosophical work has shown that the mind, or consciousness, develops as a result of social, linguistic, and cultural influence.

The first two meditations, which employed the skeptical methodic doubt and concluded that only the ego and its thoughts are indubitable, have had a huge impact in the history of philosophy.

They 'indicate, or attempt to indicate, the necessary style of the philosophycal beginning'.… In fact, the Cogito is the only thing in Descartes that is, according to Husserl, of any philosophical significance at all.

[G]reat weight must be given to the consideration that, in philosophy, the Meditations were epoch-making in a quite unique sense, and precisely because of their going back to the pure ego cogito.

Changing its total style, philosophy takes a radical turn: from naive objectivism to transcendental subjectivism.