勒内-笛卡尔--如何确定

Some people claim that there is no truth. According to these sceptics everybody is stuck in their own personal perspective. Nobody can ever know anything for sure.

有些人声称不存在真理。根据这些怀疑论者的说法，每个人都被困在自己的个人观点中。没有人能够确定地知道任何事情。

Then again dogmatists believe in only one set of beliefs, which must not be questioned at all. Everybody must believe the same things, whether they are true or not.

然后，教条主义者又只相信一套信念，这套信念根本就不能被质疑。每个人都必须相信同样的东西，无论它们是真是假。

About 400 years ago René Descartes was confronted with a similar situation: On the one hand radical sceptics said that no knowledge was possible, and on the other hand dogmatists recognised only one source of truth: the church. The result was confusion and brutal conflict – over beliefs.

大约400年前，勒内-笛卡尔也面临着类似的情况。一方面，激进的怀疑论者说不可能有知识，另一方面，教条主义者只承认一个真理的来源：教会。结果是混乱和残酷的冲突--关于信仰。

But Descartes wouldn’t have it. He wanted to know, not just believe. There had to be an alternative to nihilism and righteousness of faith! On a quest for clarity and certainty, he aimed to prove the radical sceptics wrong.

但笛卡尔不愿意这样做。他想知道，而不仅仅是相信。在虚无主义和正义的信仰之外，必须有另一种选择!在对清晰性和确定性的追求中，他旨在证明激进的怀疑论者是错误的。

Here are five steps he took:

以下是他采取的五个步骤。

1. Think for yourself

1.为自己着想

He started with a thought experiment, in which he took the sceptic position to the extreme and doubted everything. Everything might be an illusion. He even doubted the existence of his own body.

他从一个思想实验开始，将怀疑论者的立场推向极端，怀疑一切。一切都可能是一种幻觉。他甚至怀疑他自己身体的存在。

He came to the conclusion that even if someone doubts everything, one thing remains absolutely certain: There must be something that is doing the doubting –  there must be something that is thinking.

他得出的结论是，即使有人怀疑一切，有一件事仍然是绝对确定的。一定有什么东西在做怀疑的事--一定有什么东西在思考。

At first sight his famous sentence “I think therefore I am” might seem banal, but it isn’t! This is our corner stone, the very thing that we can be absolutely sure of. It can not be doubted, not even by the most radical sceptics. It is the foundation on which we can build all our knowledge, said Descartes.

乍一看，他的名句 "我思故我在 "可能看起来很平庸，但事实并非如此！这是我们的基石，是我们可以绝...