Abstract
Various possibilities, that one is dreaming, that one is being deceived by a deceitful demon, that one is a brain in the vat being stimulated to think one has a body and is in a regular world, have been invoked to show that all one's experience-based beliefs might be false. Descartes in Meditation I advises that in order not to lapse into his careless everyday view of things he, or at least his meditator, should pretend that all his experience-based beliefs, indeed all his ‘habitual opinions’, are ‘utterly false and imaginary’. What is taken for granted by Descartes’ pretence, and is allegedly demonstrated by the sceptical scenarios mentioned above, is that it is logically possible that all one's experience-based beliefs are false.1 But for a typical agent this is simply not possible. To give a mundane example: on the basis of my sensory experience I believe the following two claims:
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