Question 1: Why does Descartes decide to embark on these meditations?

Descartes decides to embark on these meditations to suspend judgment about any belief that is even slightly doubtful. The Scenarios shows that all the beliefs he gives consideration in these meditations including his own beliefs about the physical world are doubtful (pg. 6).

Question 2: What is Descartes’s criterion for certain knowledge?

Descartes’ criterion for knowledge is personal certainty. He argues that if he has and does then there is certainty. He believes that knowing ones existence alone is knowledge and therefore knowledge exists.

Question 3: How does Descartes undermine his confidence based on the senses?

Descartes argues that people dream and have experiences that seem like sense experiences but they do not provide accurate information about the world that people seem to be experiencing. So the dream argument is one thing that succeeds in undermining Descartes confidence in what he knows, seems to hear (pg. 7).

Question 4: How does Descartes undermine his confidence in beliefs based on fundamental axioms of reason (e.g. 1+2=3; or nothing can both be green all over and also at the very same time not green all over)?

He undermines his confidence by taking everything easy and simple in the field of arithmetic and later on argued that they were not clearly present in his mind to affirm if they were true. He says that perhaps God might have endowed him so there was no need to doubt and sovereign of a God presents itself to himself. (pg.13)

Question 5: What eventually stops Descartes’s from concluding that he knows nothing at all? In other words, what is the first thing that he knows that he knows for certain?

The first thing that Descartes knows for certain is that he exists, and he cannot doubt that fact because there must be a thinking mind to doubt the thinking (pg. 9).

Question 6: Compare Descartes’s solution to the problem of skepticism with Ghazali’s. In particular, do you think Ghazali would accept Descartes’s solution? Why or why not?

Descartes solution to the problem of skepticism is to achieve knowledge. In Descartes argument, there is at least one thing of genuine human knowledge which is own existence. According to Ghazali, quest for knowledge is religious and therefore he never doubts or questions. Ghazali goes ahead to argue that he is a thinking thing and if someone is in doubt then they are thinking (Paul). Yes, Ghazali could accept Descartes solution since they both agree that one exists and since there is existence they think to achieve knowledge.

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