Taken from Philosophy: A Text with Readings 9th Edition by Velasquez

Descartes (Rationalist)

- Our sense perceptions, he held, may be illusions or the products of our own dreams or hallucinations.

- Our ideas may be nothing more than the products of an evil, all – powerful being that puts these ideas in our minds

- He came to doubt everything of which he could not be certain- This method of doubting is sometimes known as Methodic Doubt which comes

form the Cartesian strategy of deliberately doubting everything it is possible to doubt in the last degree so that what remains will be known with absolute certainty.

- Asked the question: is there anything that survives an attempt to cast doubt on absolutely everything? Is there any truth that is so certain that it cannot be doubted?

- Ultimately he discovered what he felt was indubitable truth: he could not doubt that he existed. He could not doubt that he existed.

- Descartes reasoned that he could not doubt that he is a thinking thing. - He believed that only the clear and distinct ideas in our minds provide genuine

knowledge.- For Descartes, the mind or reason is the ultimate basis of knowledge