ABSTRACT
This chapter interprets Descartes’ reflections on knowledge and its acquisition as an early version of naturalized epistemology. In Cartesian natural philosophy, the concepts used are chosen because they facilitate our explanatory objectives. All Descartes’ knowledge claims, including the cogito, were based on various kinds of experience, and he explicitly rejected the thesis that we could know any truths a priori, except as statements about the way in which our cognitive capacities function. Even eternal truths and the laws of logic merely reflect an arbitrary decision of God’s creative design; although we cannot change the logical constraints on our thinking, they are no guarantee that reality is as we think it is.
