The topic of the mind and how we know it has been around since the beginning of time. It's one of those questions that will most likely never be answered. I mean, the mind itself is so baffling that we're still learning things about it every day. One question proposed by Descartes was “how do we know?” we are still thinking about this today. We ask ourselves this almost every day, maybe not in that way but in one form or another. So honestly, how do we know? Every time Descartes began to study the mind, he denounced all his previous opinions and started again. He first stated that “knowledge is seen as a building in which the whole superstructure rests on a foundation, and the building is only as strong as its foundation” (Palmer 55). He wasn't trying to prove that all his previous opinions were false, but rather he was trying to stay away from things that he didn't know whether or not they were true. This technique was known as methodological doubt. He has a motto that states: Everything must be questioned. This required Descartes to doubt anything and everything he wasn't sure of. He was looking for something that could not be doubted at all, the foundation of knowledge. At first he did it very hastily, but then he realized that perhaps he was going a little too fast. After slowing down he went back and looked at what he had already seen and thought this: “But it may be that, although the senses sometimes deceive us about other things barely perceptible or far away, there are still many others to be encountered about which we do not we can reasonably have no doubts, even if we recognize them through their means. For example, there is the fact that I am here. How could I deny that this... middle of paper... him gets to the truth. But he didn't stop, he kept going until he conquered his dilemma. It was this mindset that helped him succeed, he knew what he wanted to do and wouldn't stop until he achieved it. Looking at everything that Descartes did, one could say that he was quite a successful person. He did what 95% of the world's population will never even think of accomplishing in their lifetime. You could compare him to Bill Gates and say he wasn't that rich, but I don't think Descartes really cared about riches. He had everything he wanted and was intellectually happy. Works Cited Descartes, Rene. Meditation II. Leiden: Michael Soly of Paris, 1641. -. Meditations IV. Leiden: Michael Soly of Paris, 1641.Palmer, Donald. Does the Center hold up? New York: McGraw-Hill, 2014. Rachels, James, and Stuart. Problems of philosophy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012.