KNOWLEDGE To judge of the appearances that we receive from objects we need some judging instrument; to calibrate such an instrument, we would need an experiment; to verify the experiment, we would need some instrument: we are going round in a circle (ME II 265) Montaigne adds some original material to the arsenal of ancient scepticism Reverting to one of his favourite themes, he points out that some animals and birds have sharper senses than we Perhaps they even have senses which we totally lack (Is it such a sense that tells the cock when to crow?) Our Wve senses are perhaps only a small number of those that it is possible to have If so, our view of the universe, compared with a true view, is no less deWcient than the view of a man born blind by comparison with that of a sighted person Descartes’ Response Descartes, in his Meditations, set himself the task of liberating philosophy from the threat of scepticism that had developed in the preceding century In order to so, Wrst he had to exhibit the sceptical position that he wanted to refute In the Wrst of the Meditations, he follows in Montaigne’s footsteps, but sets out the arguments in brisker and neater form The deliverances of the senses are called into question initially by considerations drawn from sense-deception, and then by the argument from dreaming: What I have so far accepted as true par excellence, I have got either from the senses or by means of the senses Now I have sometime caught the senses deceiving me; and a wise man never entirely trusts those who have once cheated him But although the senses may sometimes deceive us about some minute and remote objects, yet there are many other facts as to which doubt is plainly impossible, although these are gathered from the same source: e.g that I am here, sitting by the Wre, wearing a winter cloak, holding this paper in my hands and so on A Wne argument! As though I were not a man who habitually sleeps at night and has the same impressions (or even wilder ones) in sleep as these men when awake! How often, in the still of the night, I have the familiar conviction that I am here, wearing a cloak, sitting by the Wre—when really I am undressed and lying in bed! (AT VII 19; CSMK II.13) 119