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DESCARTES, MEDITATIONS: 1. Scepticism Outline, examine and evaluate the arguments used by Descartes in the First Meditation Descartes’ project in Meditations is ‘to demolish everything completely and start again from the foundations’ in order to establish which of his beliefs he can know are true. He realises ‘how many things [he] had accepted as true in [his] childhood, and how doubtful were the things that [he] subsequently built on them’. Descartes believes it is necessary to ‘overturn’ one’s beliefs ‘once in a lifetime’ through a process of doubt; he regards the need to undermine the ‘foundations’ of his beliefs and this strategy of doubt as ‘straightforwardly and obviously’ the rational course to assume in order to discover the truth. However, it has been questioned just how ‘necessary’, ‘straightforward’ or ‘obvious’ this overturning is. Bernard Williams argues that ‘we constantly want the truth about various matters, but hardly ever demand the indubitable’. It appears rather overdramatic and unnecessary to insist on the absolute certainty of all things. However, Descartes’ use of ‘once in a lifetime’ suggests that he is merely curious; he is not searching for t