ABSTRACT
The Meditations opens with doubt.22 An opening stated in the subheading of the ‘First Meditation’, ‘De iis quoe in dubium revocati possunt’ (II, 177). The possible scepticism of such an opening, however, is immediately checked since the opening line of the Meditation serves to position doubt in relation to the existence of uncertainty, false opinions and that which is itself doubtful. Doubt does not exist in itself, nor, as will be suggested by the time the Meditations are written, is it purely epistemological. Doubt is not therefore an instance of Pyrrhonian scepticism. (Descartes suggests the same in a letter to Reneri pour Pollot, April/May 1638.23) It is part of the strategy that involves overcoming the totality-the ‘all’ (omnia)—that had been handed down. Once this is done it will then be possible for philosophy to ‘begin all anew from the foundations’ (atque a primis fundamentis denuo inchoandum) (II, 177). Prior to broaching the philosophical inauguration stated in the Meditations, it will be essential to examine what is at play in a similar attempt to empty both history-the handed down-from the present as well as the present self of its history. It will serve to indicate that the presence of both these manoeuvres is necessary; one cannot work without the other. In fact one presupposes the other.
