Meditation II: On the Human Mind

René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, Meditation II: Of the Nature of the Human Mind (1641)

René Descartes, writing in Holland, in Latin, at forty-five

Doubts the floor out from under everything, then stands on the one board doubt cannot pull up.

Catch rate: 52 / 255
Base research: 210
Stat total: 300

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina66

Contend88

Defend70

Popularity76

Total300

Cited for this book

In his second Meditation, Descartes restates I think, therefore I am more carefully. He says it is not a conclusion drawn from a premise. It is grasped directly, each time the thought is thought. Everything else in his six Meditations is built on it.

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
1	I Am, I Exist	Rationality	Argument	82	100%	15
1	Random Verse	Bible	Argument	10	100%	30
34	Chapter…	Bible	Scripture	—	—	12

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“It must, in fine, be maintained, all things being maturely and carefully considered, that this proposition (pronunciatum) I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time it is expressed by me, or conceived in my mind.”
René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, Meditation II §3 (trans. John Veitch, 1853/1901), public domain.public domain

I Am, I Exist

RationalityArgument · power 82 · 100% accurate

In the gameIn the Meditations, Descartes is careful not to make this an argument with a therefore. Even if he is deceived about everything, a thing that is deceived must exist. That much survives every doubt.