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Jeyashankar asked:

My question refers to Rene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy:

When he asked the question, what can I know with certainty? why didn't he consider that if I stop
breathing I will die?

This not only evidences one's existence but also eliminates the possibility of doubts, which exist in the
mind, being a tool of the "devil".

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Descartes probably did consider the possibility that if he stopped breathing he would die, but felt it
was unnecessary to mention it in his works because it is overridden by a stronger kind of doubt, How
does he know that if he stops breathing he will die?

It cannot be from personal experience, otherwise he would be dead and not able to ask the question,
but from other people, what they say about biology, or perhaps from watching other people die. But
why believe what they say, perhaps they are playing a trick on Descartes, anyway what should he
even believe that these other people exist? Because he has reasons for doubting the veracity of the
senses he cannot be certain that the senses are not tricking him here.

In fact how can he be certain that he IS breathing? how can he be certain that he even has a body to
breathe? How can he be certain there is a link between his not breathing and his death? These are
questions that Descartes did consider and found that he had no positive answer, he simply does not
Know (in his sense of the word) any of these things. At least, that is not until he has finished his
meditations, where he established, to his satisfaction, the existence of a God who would not allow
Descartes to be deceived in such ways.

Brian Tee
Dept of Philosophy
University of Sheffield

In the 'First Meditation' Descartes' main point is that we can know nothing for certain on the basis of
sense experience. But my belief that if I stop breathing, I will die is based on sense experience.
Therefore, (according to Descartes) we could not know it for certain.

By the way, I do not think that Descartes thought that "doubts...are a tool of the devil." He used the
hypothesis of the evil demon to raise these doubts, and he also used these doubts to argue that he
could achieve certainty through the method of doubt. It was by the method of doubt that Descartes
thought he had proved that God existed. So, he could hardly have thought that doubt was a "tool of
the devil"

Kenneth Stern

Descartes' project was epistemological. He was seeking a foundation for knowledge. If he considered
the proposition that if he stopped breathing he would die, he would only achieve the knowledge that
he was essentially connected to his body. This would have been no good to him since one motivation
for his project was to prove the existence of God and, as a Catholic, the soul. The breathing
proposition doesn't rule out the existence of God and the soul but it is not a good premiss for
Descartes' purposes.

Even if we consider the proposition that if we stop breathing we will die, there could still be an evil
demon who causes this to be the case.

You can't beat the evil demon which is why Descartes is still studied.

Rachel Browne