Descartes Meditation Analysis

Countless arguments have attempted to explain how we can justify our belief system and why it is important. The most notable outlook would be Descartes skeptical argument, that the justifiability of beliefs are based on perceptions rather than our beliefs being simply justified. From this we are forced into skepticism, a belief where we can’t know anything to full extent. All beliefs must be rejected when there is a possibility of doubt to help ensure absolute certainty to what is true for basic principles and knowledge. This outlook pressures us to doubt all of our beliefs once known to be true, even beliefs that seem to be second nature or foundational. I think we must doubt our justifiable beliefs that are originally based on our perceptions

Our senses can help us understand the truth in the nature of things and the world around us. However, we cannot trust only our senses because they may deceive us in regard to very far or small objects, our sensory knowledge as a whole is quite accurate. However, we can only understand the real world clearly and distinctly by our thinking and understanding of our minds. It is the only thing that can assure the certainty of the truth.

To be skeptical to all beliefs we must doubt everything, even some things that appear to be simple and justified like mathematics and even the existence of ourselves. How would we know what to doubt and what not to doubt? How can one say mathematics is undoubtable because of its concrete logical knowledge? We must doubt our intellectual knowledge and what appear to be assured truths. Descartes says, “Doubt is the origin of wisdom” and to explain further, we must start at this origin and then continue to understand the world around us to assure the

With the assumption of many people, we know when we are in a ‘dream’ state or in the ‘waking’ world; that the two are fundamentally different and are subject to different laws. If one can distinguish from ‘dreaming’ to ‘waking’ there must be a clear difference between our existing sensations and what we can consider a dream. However, how can you be certain that one thing happening in real life isn't in a dream. Things can happen both in the ‘dream’ or ‘waking’ state. Dream images are drawn from waking experience creating a universal possibility of dreaming. We can then present sensations that may be dream images so how would one be certain when distinguishing between in a dream on in a waking