In his Meditations, Rene Descartes attempts to prove the existence and reality of himself and things external to himself. In order to fulfill such a feat, Descartes decides to doubt all that he knows, for he knows not whether that can be relied upon. He doubts his knowledge for three main reasons. For one, he accounts that in dreams, many times he had thought that things external to himself were real. Also, he had heard people declare pain in limbs that they had lost long ago. After pondering these two experiences he declared, "the chief and most common mistake which is to be found here consists in my judging that the ideas which are in me resemble, or conform to, things outside me" (Descartes 16). These two accounts proved to him that he should doubt the existence of his own body. Next, he realizes that even when he is "awake," he cannot trust his senses. Descartes says that “the senses do sometimes deceive us when it is a question of very small and distant things” (14) A perfect example of such would be how a stick that is straight might appear bent when immersed in water, or might mistake the height and shape of distant towers. This makes him further realize that he cannot trust experience. Finally, he is then forced to question his mind, when he realizes that there might be an Evil Genius that controls his every thought. If there were an Evil Genius doing such, his thoughts would mean nothing and his questioning would mean nothing, because he is constantly being deceived. With this in mind, he is able to stumble upon an epiphany, that the very fact that he is questioning, means that he exists. His reasoning is one that is quite logical. By questioning something, he knows that there has to be someone that does the actual action of the questioning, and if there is someone that questions, that someone must exist. It is a subject-object relationship. In order to question something, there must be so...
