How should we respond to Descartes sceptical arguments?

How should we respond to Descartes sceptical arguments?

Descartes starts by overturning all his beliefs by attacking them with sceptical arguments. He compares his beliefs to a basket of apples in the following analogy: ?Suppose [a person] had a basket full of apples and, being worried that some of the apples were rotten, wanted to take out the rotten ones to prevent the rot spreading. How would he proceed?

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Would he not begin by tipping the whole lot out of the basket? And would not the next step be to cast his eye over each apple in turn, and pick up and put back in the basket only those he saw to be sound, leaving the others??

I think there can be no doubt that such a method would result in finding a foundational belief. …

However, there have been times when I was dreaming but convinced that the dream was the reality and only after waking did I realize that it was in fact a dream.

In a similar way I could right now be deceived into believing that I am awake while in truth I would be dreaming. Descartes says he can ?never distinguish, by reliable signs, being awake from being asleep?[5] and therefore never be certain whether he is awake or, in fact, dreaming.

Norman Malcolm has argued against this argument that questioning the state of consciousness is only possible when a person is awake.[6] In a dream state one would never doubt that it was a dream. Although it is very hard to prove or disprove this, many psychologist