Essay Archive - Descartes
Descartes
How does Descartes try to extricate himself from the sceptical doubts
that he has raised? Does he succeed?
[All page references and quotations from the Meditations are taken from
the 1995 Everyman edition]
In the Meditations, Descartes embarks upon what Bernard Williams has
called the project of 'Pure Enquiry' to discover certain, indubitable
foundations for knowledge. By subjecting everything to doubt Descartes
hoped to discover whatever was immune to it. In order to best understand
how and why Descartes builds his epistemological system up from his
foundations in the way that he does, it is hel....
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