Doubt and certainty › The Method of Doubt

The arguments unfold in stages. A result established in a later meditation should not be read back into an earlier one. Knowing that thinking occurs, for example, is not yet a proof that the mind can exist independently of the body. > **Methodological Doubt** > > Descartes' strategy of treating any belief that admits of the slightest doubt as if it were false. The goal is to identify which beliefs, if any, are absolutely immune to doubt, rather than to prove that our beliefs are actually false. The First Meditation begins by acknowledging that many of Descartes' beliefs have turned out to be false. He had accepted false opinions from his youth. His senses have sometimes deceived him, especially about things that are small or distant. If his sources of belief have been unreliable even once, how can he trust them completely? But this initial doubt is relatively modest. Perhaps the senses are unreliable about distant or subtle matters, but surely I cannot doubt that I am sitting here, by the fire, in my dressing gown, holding this paper in my hands. This seems too immediate, too vivid to doubt. Or does it? Descartes recalls that he has had dreams in which he was equally convinced he was sitting by the fire, only to wake and discover he was in bed. How can he be certain he is not dreaming right now? At this stage, he finds no certain mark that distinguishes waking experience from vivid dreams. The possibility of dreaming undermines confidence in the entire testimony of the senses. But even in dreams, Descartes notes, certain things seem to remain true. The objects in dreams may be imaginary, but their simpler elements (colors, shapes, and extension) seem to exist whether we are awake or dreaming. And the truths of mathematics appear immune to doubt: two plus three equals five whether we are awake or asleep, whether the physical world exists or not. Descartes next considers whether his creator could have made him liable to error even in arithmetic. To keep his habitual beliefs from returning, he then imagines an evil deceiver. > **The Evil Demon Hypothesis** > > Descartes imagines a powerful, cunning deceiver who directs his efforts toward misleading him. Earth, sky, bodies, and extension might all be deceptive appearances. Together with the preceding doubt about his creator and arithmetic, this hypothesis keeps even apparently obvious beliefs under examination. Descartes is not claiming that such a demon exists. The demon is a thought experiment designed to push doubt to its logical extreme. If I cannot rule out the possibility of such a deceiver, then I cannot be certain of anything that such a deceiver could falsify—which seems to include everything I believe. The First Meditation ends in darkness. Descartes has found no belief that survives the method of doubt. He compares himself to a prisoner who dreams of freedom and fears to wake, preferring comfortable illusions to the harsh reality of his chains.