What if everything in the world which is thought to be factual.
knowledge turns out to be false? Discoveries like these are unsettling, and.
they can provoke questions about the possibility of knowledge itself. .
People can be wrong about so many things, but how can we be certain.
about anything? That is the question of Descartes' Meditations. In his first.
Meditation, he comes up with the hypothesis of dreaming. One of the.
points Descartes raises is to discuss the issue of what kind of things we can.
know with certainty even under the hypothesis that we are dreaming. .
Descartes tries to doubt whatever he finds some good reason to.
doubt which is a process known as a methodological doubt. The point of.
the doubt is like an instrument for finding out a certain foundation of.
human knowledge. This skeptical argument is still aimed at the kinds of.
beliefs that are based on sensory experience. The dream argument.
threatens our beliefs about bodies outside us, but Descartes does not think.
it threatens our beliefs about mathematics. "Whether I am awake or.
asleep, two plus three make five, and a square does not have more than.
four sides. It does not seem possible that such obvious truths should be.
subject to the suspicion of being false" (Descartes, 461). Even in a dreamone may know that 2 plus 3 make 5, and that a square has only four sides.
The dreaming argument threatens all knowledge based on experience,.
but it does not threaten knowledge of truths known only from.
experience. In response to the hypothesis of dreaming, the thinker of the.
First Meditation concludes that it undermines all empirical beliefs, that is,.
all beliefs based on experience. .
Descartes also believes that things are not always as they appear.
to be. For instance, if we place a perfectly straight stick halfway into a.
glass of water it will seem bent. We can't trust our senses, even in this type.
of circumstance. The only way I know that my senses deceive me.