Reference no: EM132351930

Descartes chooses to doubt everything because he believes that doubt provides a firm foundation for figuring out what is actually true. He opens up his first meditation by sharing how when he recognized that a lot of things he believed were true when he was younger turned out to be false, "from that time, I was convinced that I must once for all seriously undertake to rid myself of all the opinions which I had formerly accepted, and commence to build anew from the foundation, if I wanted to establish any firm and permanent structure in the sciences". This is very plausible to me because I do not see it as outright denying any truths. It is merely reexamining what one believes and evaluating if it still stands having relearned and unlearned many things. This could be applied in real life as well, with reexamining old ideals and opinions, and hopefully growing and moving forward from them if they are tinged with bigotry or close mindedness. To not doubt everything would just place a person into complacency, to believe everything leads to systems holding people under so those in power can control and benefit from those being held down. The only thing Descartes does not doubt is his own existence. This leads to the famous quote, "I think, therefore I am". When one dreams, or when one is conscious, they are thinking, and therefore they are real. Descartes also claims that certain things like Geometry are certain, "For whether I am awake or asleep, two and three together always form five". Personally, I believe that we can only know for sure that we are not dreaming, for we are able to feel pain, and we are able to wake up from a dream. My question would be, how can we be certain of anything in the real world? With so much media and "fake news" and false information being spread around, how can we know what is true?