Descartes wax argument
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The wax argument identifies that the external is not only a stimulant the senses react to. In Rene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy, he is on a search for answers and meaning. As the wax transforms from a solid to liquid state its entire characteristics key to categorizing change, taste, smell, touch, sight, and sound, yet no one doubts it is not wax. Therefore, the person relies not entirely on the senses, but with something greater, the mind.
Before he reached his epiphany Descartes thought- "What am I?A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, and that also imagines and senses"(20 Descartes). Knowing there must be more than reactions to stimulants, he kept searching. Finding the unquestioning figure of wax before him, he saw externally the awareness that the mind no longer just reacts but observes past mere the external.
In finding the external key he found the more important question he was searching for, personal identity. Extending past the material wax, the significance lies in the metaphor as the wax to the body...