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Explain and criticise descartes

            Explain and criticise Descartes" method of doubt.
             Descartes" method of doubt is located in his first meditation in which he is concerned to put forward a series of sceptical arguments relating to past experiences and issues dealing with mathematical knowledge. Descartes" method of doubt is described as a label often applied to his procedure where he attempts to irradiate prejudices or preconceived opinions, so he may be able to lay down a reliable metaphysical base for his apparent new science (Cottingham, 1993 ).
             "I realised that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last." (First Meditation, AT VII 17: CSM I 12).
             Many philosophers have described Descartes as a sceptic however he made it clear from his first public presentation of metaphysics that his aim was to eliminate doubt and find something secure and search for the truth in order to present a "true science".
             In order for anyone to criticise Descartes method of doubt, they must understand the concepts he has adopted and the reason(s) for his denial of previous knowledge and experience. From the beginning of the first meditation Descartes indicates that he will in fact attack his own opinions through attacking his own "principles" on which they are based. However he gives no explanation or justification that his beliefs are in fact based on principles and also no clarification on what he exactly means by principle. At first it seems that Descartes is implying that opinions acquired later in life are based on opinions generated earlier in life. He sees these opinions acquired early in life as false because they are counted among the principles on which later opinions may be founded. However it later emerges that he wished to avoid the infinite task of attacking principles which seems to imply that the principles in question are few in number, but fails to mention this assumption (according to Wilson, 1978).


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