Part one of term paper
can be defined as the position that reason alone, without the aid of sensory information, is capable of arriving at some knowledge, at some undeniable truths. Rene Descartes used the rationalist approach to knowledge to answer the question "What can I hold as true beyond any doubt?" Descartes believed that knowledge is obtained by reason, r ...

Part two of term paper
... as true beyond any doubt and determining where clear and distinct ideas come from. He began this task by casting doubt upon everything that he knew. He even felt that our sense perceptions were merely illusions or hallucinations. …I shall then suppose, not that God who is supremely good and the fountain of truth, but some evil genius not less powerful than deceitful, has employed his whole energies in deceiving me; I shall consider that the heavens, the earth, colors, figures, sound, ...