In Descartes second meditation, he established that because he is a thinking being, he exists. In the third meditation, Descartes attempts to build upon this foundation by questioning whether or not anything exists outside of him. In order to do so, he must distinguish between those of his thoughts that come from outside, and those, which only seem to. Descartes begins by analyzing the nature of thought and dissects what consists our ideas. An idea maybe an image, a form or a judgment and Descartes claims that the image or the form can never be false. The only idea that can deceive is thought. He states, “ Thus the only remaining thoughts where I must be on my guard against making a mistake are my judgments. And the chief and most com

. In the above statement Descartes seems to be arguing that since the majority of our judgments about our surroundings are assisted by our senses, these judgments must also be deceiving. He believes that he has two kinds of ideas, innate and adventitious. Innate being the ideas that were instilled in him by nature and adventitious which are ideas that come from things outside him based on his judgments. He states, “Now it is manifest by the natural light that there must be at least as much reality in the efficient and total cause as in the effect of that cause (p.91).” There are two major points Descartes makes in this statement. Firstly, that something cannot come from nothing, and secondly that what contains more reality (or is more perfect) cannot come from something that contains less reality (or is less perfect). To explain this argument, Descartes uses the example of a stone. He notes that “a stone cannot begin to exist (p.91)” unless it is produced by something which contains every quality which the stone possesses. Basically what Descartes states is that every effect has to have a cause.

At this point, Descartes is still dealing with the metaphysical. By applying this theory to his ideas, Descartes provides himself a foundation to judge between true existence and existence that is merely perceived. In order to show that ideas are subject to the cause and effect theory, Descartes points out a difference between formal and objective reality. Objective reality is the reality presented in a picture or idea and formal reality exists in the object of the picture or the idea. There cannot be more objective reality than actual reality; otherwise the surplus reality must come from nothing, which is impossible. Once this is established, Descartes extends his theory of cause and effect to metaphysical ideas. He states, “…In order for an given idea to contain such and such objective reality, it must surely derive it from some cause which contains at least as much formal reality as there is objective reality in the idea (p91).” To complete this theory Descartes attempts to solve the problem of how ideas originate.. He does so by arguing that although ideas – by their definition – can only contain objective reality, that they must come from something that contains formal reality. Therefo

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