Skepticism, Knowledge and Understanding

Harvard FAS

Descartes wrote his Meditations (1641) because he realized that, although he had received the best education in the world, much of what he had learned was false or unfounded. This led him to embark on a systematic investigation to discover whether knowledge is possible. Harvard students face a similar predicament. Having dutifully learned what they were taught, and evidently learned it well, some find themselves questioning its cognitive adequacy. Much that they learned in school seems…