Descartes devised his system of methodic doubt in order to discover an indubitable belief, which he could use as a certain, and secure foundation as the basis for knowledge. For Descartes it was necessary to look inside himself at all the beliefs he once held as true, and subject them to the strongest of doubts. For the purpose of freeing himself from all preconceived opinions, he allowed himself to believe that all his past beliefs were false and imaginary, as he states in the first meditation: " So, for the purpose of rejecting all my opinions, it will be enough if I find in each of them at least some reason for doubt." (Cottingham 1984, p12). This provided Descartes with t

Descartes then considers the propositions of mathematics and the fact that a square has four sides and that two and three always makes five. This he perceives to be true whether he is asleep or awake and it appears that this cannot be doubted. On further consideration, however, Descartes considers the possibility that God may have brought it about that he just imagines these things are true, that God is making his mind incorrect when he adds two and three or counts the sides of a square. He further imagines that God is causing him to have sensations in his mind of the things he perceives around him. However when considering God as supremely good, Descartes finds it hard to believe that this supreme good being would deceive, therefore, Descartes invents the idea of an evil demon who is deceiving him, Descartes says of the evil demon: " I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds and all external things are merely the delusions of dreams which he has devised to ensnare my judgment" (Cottingham 1984, p13). Descartes introduces this idea of the evil demon in order to prevent the return of the former beliefs previously called into doubt. Therefore at the end of the first meditation, Descartes is now in the position where he has put aside all his beliefs as not being fully certain. Thereafter within his second meditation he manages to limit the spread of doubt brought about by the evil demon hypothesis.

Descartes affirms this thinking self by the fact that he has sense and imagination, he wonders if there is anything, which corresponds to all this activity, and that now that he is certain of his own existence, if there is anything else of which he can be certain. This is how Descartes leaves at the end of the second meditation. He then comes back to this problem at the beginning of the third meditation and when he reconsiders the idea of the evil demon, in his mind he looks around and finds an idea of God, a supreme being and he wonders how the idea got there. In considering the idea of God as eternal, infinite and omnipotent Descartes discovers: " All these attributes are such that, the more carefully I concentrate on them, the less possible it seems that they could have originated from me alone. So from wh

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