True Philosopher
...lines of argument taken by Descartes, Berkeley and Hume on this matter. Scepticism can be considered as being the belief that knowing anything for certain is impossible as there can always be some reason to doubt the existence or truth of an object or concept. Whether this is due to the fact that the senses cannot be trusted - examined in Berkeley's argument - or simply that it is possible to doubt the foundations of our own knowledge - shown in Descartes argument - each of the arguments seem to revolve around one key issue; the fact that nothing is certain, and the ability to debate this.
Descartes primary objective in his argument is to examine if it's possible to doubt the senses as if it is possible to doubt the senses, then anything else that rests upon this can be called into question, "Once the foundations of a building are undermined, anything built on them collapses of its own accord" (Descartes 1641). One of the first points that Descartes emphasises in his argument, is that in order to find some unquestionable truths, he must both set a standard of what can be considered certain knowledge and what he considers the foundations of knowledge to be. Instead, Descartes chooses to highlight what cannot count as certain knowledge as a method to find what he can. He aims to use pure reason to discover certain knowledge, instead of using the senses which he considers to be flawed and capable of deception.
Through Descartes use of the dream in his argument, he highlights how we cannot definitely distinguish if we are awake or asleep. Descartes states that everything that comes in sleep is "fashioned in the likeness of things that are real" (Descartes 1641), yet it could be stated that this depends on what your concept of reality is. The stance that Descartes takes is that what appears in dreams is simply a reflection of reality, and by using the senses or...
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