Descartes and His "Crazy Thought Experiment"

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(a) Descartes' first meditation, on what can be called into doubt, is an attempt to discard everything that he has come to be known as true and existing. One might wonder what point there is to adopting such a sceptical way of thinking as, surely, it would only bring about much confusion and a kind of awkwardness which, I think, is unnecessary. However, it is only fair to fully consider an argument before criticising it. I will therefore discuss, in detail, Descartes' "Evil Demon" thought experiment; as to what type of information is it designed to undercut, and how it accomplishes the task of dismissing all his knowledge, opinions and beliefs as false.

In his pursuit of certainty, Descartes applies a special method that he has devised, known as "methodical doubt." As applied, methodical doubt has two steps; the first of which is to doubt everything that can be doubted, and secondly, never to accept anything as known unless it can be established with absolute certainty. Descartes does not analyze each and every one of his beliefs in an attempt to prove that all are fallacious. Instead he chooses to start with the principles upon which all his, now former, beliefs rested. He says that all that he has accepted as truth, until now, has come to him through his senses and further goes on to say that these senses are not trustworthy in the sense as they have deceived him before and, for this reason, are not to be trusted.

He asserts that our senses deceive us by referring to dreams. This is because, in our dreams, senses are still our most trusted source of judging truth, yet none of it really exists, questioning reality to the extent of thinking hat he might actually be dreaming instead of sitting by the fireplace. Dreams...

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...the argument.

Myself, I believe that we all have the right and choice to think as we please. We all have different needs and inquiries and should gratify ourselves in whatever respect that we can. For Decartes thinking is an essential part of his existence and he refused to indubitably accept everything that he has come to know as truth because he had found reason to doubt it. Surely, it was not a waste that he investigated the matter. Therefore, I Do not agree that there is no point to such crazy `thought experiments', as I do not view them as crazy. This is because I wonder, and will continue to wonder, about various metaphysical issues. Questions of existence, meaning and knowledge are particularly significant to my being. Hence, I value the findings of philosophers like Descartes even though, during their time, their efforts may have been deemed pointless.

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