PHIL 111 Lecture Notes - Empiricism, Direct And Indirect Realism, Antithesis
18 Apr 2014
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What can be doubted: descartes is convinced of the need for certain knowledge, he sets aside all of his beliefs or opinions that are open to doubt, we have so many beliefs, how can we go through them to determine which ones are dubitable and which ones aren"t, descartes acknowledge that it would be impossible to go through every opinion, he comments that he will place them into groups. The archimedean point: once he knows that he must exist (because he is the one who conceives) he begins to explore his nature, he is essentially a thinking thing", he asks: what"s that? , answer: a thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions, so even on the hypotheses that an evil demon is consistently deceiving him, descartes can be certain that he exists as a thinking being.
