Living in Radical Doubt
1. How Will You Feel In Your New State of Mind?
According to Descartes Meditation I, radical and methodical doubt is necessary to remind myself about the habit of accepting beliefs without any logical support. Thus, Descartes says that that it is important to dismiss all judgements on the basis of beliefs that are doubtful and do not have any solid support. In the new state of mind, where I doubt everything at least I would be content to know that I am not being misled into falsehood by some evil demon. The new state of mind would make me feel confident that I am not being deceived because I would be sure that I know nothing and hence needs to doubt everything.
2. How Will Your Life Change?
Descartes Meditation I aims at helping the readers to eliminate and remove their prejudices. The meditation follows St. Ignatius model which says that the first step is to detach oneself from all things material and all things belonging to the sinful world. Similarly, the Descartes Meditation I aims at detaching his Aristotelian readers from their prejudices and make them doubt the existing beliefs and norms. Thus, by accepting that the Descartes meditation and by following the process of radical doubt, my life would undergo a huge change. By, following the Descartes Meditation I, I would be able to see more clearly the reasons behind the existence of each object without depending upon the already existing beliefs.
3. How will you answer people who try to argue with your new position? What might they say to you (drawing perhaps from Descartes' other meditations, or from Plato, or others)? What will you say to them?
Drawn from Plato’s philosophy of theory of epistemology, which states that the knowledge that a human gains is developed by enhancing the ideas that are buried deep in the soul, some people might put up questions like how can you be completely sure that what you think is a distinct and clear perception is actually a distinct and clear perception?
A Descartes Meditation I states that there is no particular criteria through which I can distinguish between my dreams from the images I form when I mam awake. So, I would follow my senses without involving the logics and beliefs thus, justifying my doubt on its existence,
References
Murphy, Sean. Descartes: Overcoming scepticism in the Meditations, 2010.
