In his opinion, senses can deceive people sometimes – an example of that would be mistaking a stranger on the street for a friend or perceiving an oar as bent when it is in the water. Granted, one might say that these cases are diagnosable and mistaken appearances can be corrected – but what can be opposed to that is the fact that there are seemingly reliable sensory experiences that are not such at all in the form of dreams. The consequent issue is the impossibility of determining that any of the experiences in the external world are not the same – that is, that a person’s life is not a dream. That no one can be certain of.
Why can’t Descartes be certain about the beliefs he acquires through the evidence of the senses?
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Academic.Tips. 2022. "Why can’t Descartes be certain about the beliefs he acquires through the evidence of the senses?" November 27, 2022. https://academic.tips/question/why-cant-descartes-be-certain-about-the-beliefs-he-acquires-through-the-evidence-of-the-senses/.
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