CARTESIAN DOUBT AND THE SEARCH FOR FOUNDATIONAL KNOWLEDGE
            
             Descartes desires to know the truth; he realizes that this will be a difficult enterprise because he has to discover by painful experience that much of what he has been taught and has taken for granted is false. He must destroy his "knowledge" and lay a new foundation on which to construct and indestructible edifice. His method consists of doubting everything that can be doubted, and then, on the pure reminder of certain truth, beginning the process of constructing an indubitable system of knowledge. The result is a type of rationalism in which the only certainties are discovered by the mind through self evident insight or reason. The first half of his essay is called Mediation one: concerning those things that can be called into doubt. In this segment he deliberately liberates his mind from all cares, and has secured some leisurely and carefree time, he withdraws in solitude. He will apply himself earnestly and openly to the general destruction of his former opinions. He will attack the principles which supported everything that he once believed. His first consideration is denying that his whole body exists. Descartes states that "I feel this piece of paper in my hand. But how could one deny that these hands and my whole body exist?" He extends this hand consciously and deliberately and feels it. He says that he sees so plainly that there are no definite sign to distinguish being awake from being asleep that I am quite astonished and this astonishment almost convinces me that I am sleeping. Perhaps we do not even have these hands at all. He goes on to argue with himself on whether general things like hands, eyes, head ECT... really exist or if they were constructed. He comes to the conclusion that whether he is awake or asleep, two plus three makes five, and a square does not have more that four sides; nor does it seem possible that such obvious truths ...