Starship Captain

In order to understand the identity of an object, Descartes considers how we come to know of a piece of wax. Do we identify an object through the senses or by some other means? Descartes concludes what we know through our senses about a solid piece of wax and proceeds to make conclusions about melted wax. Our knowledge that the solid piece of wax and the melted piece of wax are the same cannot come through the senses alone since all of its sensible properties are different depending on what form it takes. Descartes considers what he can know about the piece of wax, and concludes that he can know only that it is extended, flexible, and changeable. The wax can change into an infinite number of different shapes and he cannot run through all these shapes in his imagination thus his imagination cannot be used to determine an objects identity. Therefore he can conclude that he knows the wax through only the intellect. Our intellect not our eyes determine what we truly see. In the end, Descartes concludes that he knows that he exists, that he is a thinking thing, that his mind is better known than his body, and that all perceptions come by means of the intellect alone, and not the senses or the imagination.

Descartes has forced me to re-evaluate how I identify the world. I completely agree with him that we recognize objects based on our intellect rather than by sensory experience. Water is another great example, since like wax, it can also appear in several different forms and regardless of its form it remains to be water nonetheless. Though intellect is the main component to understanding what an object is, I think that without our senses we could not use our intellect to identify an object of interest.