Rene Descartes 1596-1650 Rene Descartes 1596-1650

Third Meditation: What does “Natural Light” mean?“The natural light seems to reveal intellectual truths when we turn ourattention to them and concentrate on them in the same way that a torchreveals objects that were there all along but invisible in a dark room when itis turned on and aim. It is the natural light that is said to have revealed tothe Mediator in Meditation Two, that, from the fact he is doubting, it followsthat he exists. The natural light also revealed in Meditation 3 that:(a) causes have as much or more reality than effects;(b) ideas of non-things must arise from the Meditator’s own nature;(c) creation and preservation are not really distinct actions;(d) since all fraud and deception proceed from some defect, God is not adeceiver.The natural light was described as the most trustworthy faculty theMeditator possessed. Without natural light, the argument of Meditation 81Three would not be able to move.”