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How Did Descartes Make One Doubt Their Beliefs About Reality?

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Descartes’ first indubitable truth is “I think; therefore, I am.” His existence could not be doubted because Descartes knew that he had to exist as long as he was to think. Initially, his method of doubt had disproved everything that he had believed in, leaving him nothing but his self. Descartes then pondered on the idea that it was useless to claim that a thing was real or not without a solid foundation. One must first doubt everything that they know in order to conclude that there is anything that which one knows for indubitable truth, certainty. Thus, causing doubt because Descartes temporarily question his five senses, the rationalism of things, and God as a deceiver. Regardless of whether or not Descartes was being deceived by demons …show more content…

Identify and describe the three arguments Descartes employs to call into doubt our beliefs about reality.

The three arguments that Descartes used to make one doubt their beliefs about reality is the untrustworthiness argument, the dream argument, and the evil demon argument. However, Descartes did not take these arguments literally but used them to prove things beyond a certainty in finding the ultimate truth. The untrustworthiness argument is that senses are sometimes deceptive. However, Descartes could not without a doubt solely discard his perceptions based on his senses, just because his senses did or did not fail him on other occasions or under less than ideal circumstances. This argument does not allow Descartes to doubt all that could be doubted. The dream argument is a skeptical argument. It means is that it is possible, at any given moment, one could be sleeping and having only dreams, but the dreams are so realistic that they are undistinguishable from sleep or waking experiences. Thus, making it impossible to separate a dream or illusions from being awake. However, it is logically possible for a scenario in which everything appears exactly as it now but all of one’s beliefs based on these appearances are false because it is a dream. Therefore, one would not know if they were dreaming or awake in the present

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