The way Descartes chose to write this piece literature captivated me. Descartes was a very intelligent man who wanted to make sense of the world he lived in. The format he used was unusual. It seems to me that he may have used this format, which is a replication of the book of Genesis in the Bible, to have a deeper and more profound impact on the reader. There are many similarities between Descartes Meditations and the first book of the Bible, Genesis. For example, Descartes Meditations was written one day at a time, just as God had created the world one day at a time. Furthermore, the order Descartes daily writings took resembled the same order the Bible had for the creation of the world. Meditation One in Meditations coincides with day one of Gods creation of the world. In the Bible, God divided the light from the darkness. (Bible Gen. 1:3) In Descartes work, day one consisted of separating our senses from reality. [T]here are no definitive signs by which to distinguish being awake from being asleep. (Descartes 352) Descartes is actually questioning whether or not the bodies we reside in actually exist or if we are in a continual dream state. I feel that Descartes intent in his first entry was to establish a certain state of mind for reading and understanding the remainder of his work. This included, mainly, a separation from our senses as a means of acquiring knowledge and being more open to all possibilities. He firmly maintains that our senses mislead us and we must put them aside in order to see a thing or an event for what it really is. This suggests that all things currently known to us as humans can be called into doubt, including our very physical bodies. This meditation differs from day one in Genesis in the fact that Descartes is questioning our physical bodies. The issue of our physical bodies can be argued in day seven of Gods creation, when He created man in His own image. Meditation Two in Meditations discusses the nat...
