Can You Show That We Don't Know Anything?
             Most people go through life without ever questioning the idea of knowledge. We all make statements every day such as 'I know X', and 'We all have knowledge of Y', yet when we truly examine what it means to 'know' something, the statements and ideals we take for granted become dubitable. In fact, it could even be argued that it is essentially impossible to know anything at all.
             Knowledge can be defined as 'justified true belief', yet what do we mean by "justified"? Is there any statement in life which can be justified to the point beyond doubt, whereby it becomes 'knowledge'? Perhaps the most difficulty arises when looking at truths concerning empirical knowledge from the external world. If I make a statement such as 'I know that there is a desk in front of me', then I am relying on my senses to provide me with reliable information about the empirical world. Yet can the senses necessarily be trusted? A Sceptic may take the view that our senses deceive us, and henceforth should not be taken as a reliable source of knowledge. Yet it is not only the senses that provide a problem for the epistemologist. How can we ever justify any belief? Surely, to ever have any true knowledge, we must form an indisputable criterion for truth. But is it possible to do this?
             One man who thought that it is possible to find such a criterion is Rene Descartes; one of the most influential thinkers ever in the field of epistemology. In his 'Meditations' , Descartes examines the possibilities and limitations of knowledge, exploring whether certainty can be achieved about anything. He was very interested in the world of mathematics and physics, and wanted to be able to talk about knowledge with the same certainty in which we can speak of mathematics. He therefore uses a mathematical model of building up a number of (what he c...