Descartes Second Meditation Rhetorical Analysis

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A whirlpool is characterized as a swirling body of water that is caused by the meeting of two opposing bodies of water. In the beginning of the Second Meditation Rene Descartes says that he feels like someone who is “suddenly dropped into a deep whirlpool that tumbles him around so that he can neither stand on the bottom nor swim to the top.” This metaphor captures the conundrum that is Descartes mind, illustrating just how powerful his thoughts have become. He is torn between two worlds: his previous thought process, filled with highly doubtful ideas, and his newly emerging world, filled with questions about what is certain and what isn’t. Although he makes it clear in the first mediation that has been coherently aware for years that many of his beliefs were highly…show more content…
He decides that he is going to live his life by believing that he has no hands or eyes or senses, but that he just always believed that he had these things. By looking at things through this train of thought, he will protect himself from accepting any false beliefs to be true, ending the deceivers game of illusionist trickery. He is willing to accept this task although he is aware of how hard it is going to be to steer away from his former habitual opinions. It is evident that by the beginning of the second meditation Descartes has found himself shaken out of his comfort zone. Considering that he has decided to regard everything around him as false and an illusion concocted by this powerful demon, he is just left stuck in the middle of absolutely nothing. Descartes feels that he has suddenly been dropped into a deep whirlpool that tumbles him around. He cannot stand on the bottom nor swim to the top. This indicates that he cannot seem to fully grasp what he has uncovered. He doesn’t know if he can think in a way that suggests he see everything around

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