Abstract

In a number a passages Descartes appears to insist that "I am, I exist" and its variants are wholly indubitable. These passages present an intractable problem of interpretation in the face of passages in which Descartes allows that any result is dubitable, "I am, I exist" included. Here I pull together a number of elements of Descartes' system to show how all of these passages hang together. If my analysis is correct, it tells us something about the perspective that Descartes himself thinks we should take in reading the "Meditations"