Doubt
Doubt
This chapter analyzes two notions of doubt and outline Rene Descartes' reasons for saying that he has grounds for doubt concerning each of his beliefs in the Meditations. It suggests that Descartes can call all of his beliefs by simply producing two hypotheses: one providing grounds for doubt concerning his empirical beliefs and one providing grounds for doubt concerning his nonempirical beliefs. The chapter also considers Descartes' hypothesis of the evil demon and argues that the dream hypothesis provides him with legitimate grounds for doubt concerning his empirical beliefs, since he has some slight suspicion that it might be true and sees that it challenges each of these beliefs.
Keywords: doubt, Rene Descartes, beliefs, Meditations, empirical beliefs, nonempirical beliefs, evil demon, dream hypothesis
Stanford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
