Meditations is a discussion of metaphysics, or what is truly real. In these writings, he
ultimately hopes to achieve absolute certainty about the nature of everything including
God, the physical world, and himself. It is only with a clear and distinct knowledge of
such things that he can then begin understand his true reality. Descartes starts by looking
at our usual sources for truth. Authority, which is churches, parents, and schools, he says,
are not reliable sources for truth because time shows we all die, and that we are
eventually proved wrong, much in the same way the accepted truths of science have
changed dramatically over the course of history. Also, he considers the generally excepted
view that our senses dependably report the absolute nature of reality. Simiar to authority,
Descartes discards the senses as a source of truth because of the "Dream Argument" or
the belief that based on the senses there is no definite way of proving that you are
dreaming or that you are awake. …
