General instructions: Please answer two of the following questions. Label your essays withthe number of the questions you are answering. Do not re-write prompts in your essays. You may hand in up to 1500 words total of writing (excluding cover page, bibliography, etc.) for this assignment. Will attach needed documents for context but familiarity is preferred. Gross grammatical, spelling and typographical errors will be penalized. You may use any sources you wish, but all sources must be properly acknowledged. Feedback may be given that may required edits. Tips for this assignment available!!!! No use of ChatGBT or any AI tools. Questions:
1. Stroud uses the passage on dreaming in Descartes’ First Meditation to construct a skeptical
argument against knowledge of ordinary propositions like “There is a piece of paper in my
hand”. (a) How does the argument go? (b) What might Wolgast say about this argument?
Explain how she might object to it.
2. At the beginning of Meditation II Descartes doesn’t hesitate to ask himself questions about his
own existence and thinking. And he doesn’t hesitate to think about–reason about—thinking and
existing. He says, e.g., “if I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed. But there is a
supremely powerful and cunning deceiver who deliberately deceives me all the time! Even then,
if he is deceiving me I undoubtedly exist: let him deceive me all he can, he will never bring it
about that I am nothing while I think I am something.” [M2, p. 4] And, in Reply to an Objector
who complains that Descartes can be certain that he exists only if he knows what thinking and
existing are, Descartes replies that he does know these things, and that his knowledge of these
things “precedes” knowledge from reflection or demonstration. [Objections and Replies, p. 147]
What does this show us about how Descartes conceives of skeptical questions or doubts?
Does, e.g., feeling hesitant (or resistant) to some claim constitute skeptical doubt? (b) Is
Descartes right to concede that raising questions—in that sense, doubts–requires knowledge?
(c) Supposing Descartes is right, what does that teach us about the scope or extent of skeptical
questions and doubts? Can we, e.g., raise skeptical questions and doubts about everything
simultaneously?
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