Analyze the extract below from Descartes, Meditation I. Try to identify the function of each sentence in the argument: is it (1) a premise, (2) a conclusion, (3) an intermediate step in reasoning, or (4) something else (for example a passing remark, a rhetorical flourish)? Summarize the results of your analysis in an essay of no more than 400 words. Please double-space your essay. Spelling, punctuation, and grammar all count: this is a course in writing. Your essay is due by 11:30 AM, Monday, February 4. Essays may be submitted on paper, or you may submit via email from your neo email account to rasmith@tamu.edu.
All that up to the present time I have accepted as most true and certain I have learned either from the senses or through the senses; but it is sometimes proved to me that these senses are deceptive, and it is wiser not to trust entirely to any thing by which we have once been deceived.
But if may be that although the senses sometimes deceive us concerning things which are hardly perceptible, or very far away, there are yet many others to be met with as to which we cannot reasonably have any doubt, although we recognize them by their means. For example, there is the fact that I am here, seated by the fire, attired in a dressing gown, having this paper in my hands, and other similar matters. And how could I deny that these hands and this body are mine, were it not perhaps that I compare myself to certain persons, devoid of sense, whose cerebella are so troubled and clouded by the violent vapors of black bile, that they constantly assure us that they think they are kings when they are really quite poor, or that they are clothed in purple when they are really without covering, or who imagine that they have an earthenware head or are nothing but pumpkins or are made of glass. But they are mad, and I would not be any the less insane were I to follow examples so extravagant,
At the same time I must remember that I am a man, and that consequently I am in the habit of sleeping, and in my dreams representing to myself the same things, or sometimes even less probable things, than do those who are insane in their waking moments. How often has it happened to me that in the night I dreamed that I found myself in this particular place, that I was dressed and seated near the fire, while in reality I was lying undressed in bed! At this moment it does indeed seem to me that it is with eyes awake that I am looking at this paper; that this head which I move is not asleep, that it is deliberately and of set purpose that I extend my hand and perceive it; what happens in sleep does not appear so clear nor so distinct as does all this. But in thinking over this I remind myself that on many occasions I have in sleep been deceived by similar illusions, and in dwelling carefully on this reflection I see so manifestly that there are no certain indications by which we may clearly distinguish wakefulness from sleep that I am lost in astonishment. And my astonishment is such that it is almost capable of persuading me that I now dream.