In this paper I will argue that certainty is not necessary for knowledge. In the first section, I will go over Descartes' intent to show why certain knowledge is possible. Then in the second section, I will explain how Descartes establishes that certain knowledge is possible. Lastly, I will provide an argument regarding the need for certain knowledge.
Descartes wanted to figure out if he could know anything for certain. Since he was a Christian and believed in God, he wanted to prove that at least some certain knowledge was possible, in particular the knowledge that God exist. In addition, given that he was a scientist, it was important for him to know how certain his scientific findings were. His goal was to establish …show more content…
By doing so, he quickly realized that he could not trust his senesce perception since they have misled him before. Then he wondered if he could doubt his own physical body, he thought it would be insane to think that his body was not real. But he thought to himself his sleeping experience seem as the waking, and in dreams he is sees things as if they are real. He wondered if he was dreaming, if so, is there any way to know that he was not. He figured that he couldn't tell for certainty that he was not dreaming.
Even though he concluded that there is no way of knowing if we are dreaming or not , he thought if he could find something in the dream world that was certain and stable, then that could be the start point for building the foundation of knowledge. He thought that math seems to work even in dream world. Two plus three always makes five. But, what if, he thought, there is some powerful being that is deceiving him to think that. What if his answers are wrong but this powerful deceiving being is making things work out from behind the scene. From this he realized that we cannot even trust math, and other basic