Part one of term paper
How does try to extricate himself from the sceptical doubts that he has raised? Does he succeed? by Tom Nuttall [All page references and quotations from the Meditations are taken from the 1995 Everyman edition] In the Meditations, Descartes embarks upon what Bernard Williams has called the project of 'Pure Enquiry' to discover certain, indu ...

Part two of term paper
... the 17th century that provided the motivation for his work. We can discern three distinct influences on Descartes, three conflicting world-views that fought for prominence in his day. The first was what remained of the mediaeval scholastic philosophy, largely based on Aristotelian science and Christian theology. Descartes had been taught according to this outlook during his time at the Jesuit college La Flech_ and it had an important influence on his work, as we shall see later. The second was the ...