How does Descartes try to extricate himself from the sceptical doubts that he has raised? Does he succeed? In the Meditations, Descartes embarks upon what Bernard Williams has called the project of 'Pure Enquiry' to discover certain, indubitable foundations for knowledge. By subjecting everything to doubt Descartes hoped to discover whatever was immune to it. In order to best understand how and why Descartes builds his epistemological system up from his foundations in the way …showed first 75 words of 4535 total…

…showed last 75 words of 4535 total… is not a little - is the knowledge of our own existence each time we assert it. But Descartes' project should not be judged by us as a failure - the fact that he addressed topics of great and lasting interest, and provided us with a method we can both understand and utilise fruitfully, speaks for itself. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography** [All page references and quotations from the Meditations are taken from the 1995 Everyman edition]