Descartes thought we should push our doubts to absurdity, until they rebound and acquire indubitability. Hence, his Meditations...

The SQUASHED Version
I: Many of the things I used to be certain of, I now know to be nonsense...

II:... I think therefore I am.

III: ... the idea of an infinite and perfect God must have come from something outside me, so God must exist.

IV: God is not deceiving me about the things of which I have clear and distinct perceptions.

V: ...for example, mathematics...

VI:...Using several senses together I can determine what is true. But we don't always have time for this, so we often make mistakes.

(end of Meditation One)I confess that there is nothing in all that I formerly believed, which I cannot doubt in some measure. We must be careful to keep this in mind, and fear not that there is peril or error in yielding to distrust, since I am not considering questions of action, but only of knowledge.

So, I intend to attach myself to the idea that some evil genie is deceiving me; that the heavens, the earth, colours, figures, sound, even my body and senses are nought but illusions and dreams. This task is a difficult one, for just as a prisoner who dreams of liberty, when he begins to suspect that it is but a dream, fears to awaken, so I may fall back into my former opinions.

Charles Sanders Peirce (1893-1914) thought the Cartesian method of doubt illegitimate:

Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts. -Some Consequences of Four Incapacities

Similarly, George Santayana (1863-1952) found Descartes' willingness to entertain doubt towards concrete external realities literally incredible. Our actions constantly betray a form of some faith in animal, material existence.

Scepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer. quotes

There is no dilemma in the choice between animal faith and reason, because reason is only a form of animal faith...

Descartes seems to argue in a circle...

Whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive is certain;

this is true because God has given me these perceptions,

and God is no demon or deceiver. How do I know that?

Because I have a clear and distinct perception of God as

good. How do I know that God exists? Because my clear

and distinct perception of God the reliability of which God

ensures - entails His existence...

In other words...

"Cartesian dualism": mind andbody are separate substances."Distinguishing the mind and thebody provided a realm for science,concerned with the physical world,to proceed unhampered by religion.

... and a realm for religion andhuman freedom that would not bethreatened by science." (75)

Think Again-What did Descartes really know?by Anthony Gottlieb NYker

In The Chain, a chirpy British film comedy from 1984 about moving house, the foreman of a team of movers is taking evening classes in philosophy, and is prone to metaphysical musings while lugging heavy pieces of furniture. On the way to his first job of the day, he recites what he has learned to his workmates:

What Descartes is saying is I think, therefore I am. Am what? someone asks.Just am.Cant just be am. You gotta be am something.

...he would have been aghast at the way in which I think, therefore I am has been ripped from its context, inflated into a one-sentence summary of his ideas, and turned into something absurd...

The flimsiest parts of his Discourse and Meditations, as generations of undergraduates learn, are his proofs of the existence of God, and his argument that God would not deceive us. (Mersenne noted that God sometimes misled people in the Bible, so divine deception wasnt easily ruled out.)

He was buried in Sweden under a simple wooden monument that was allowed to rot. Seventeen years later, his remains were exhumed and taken on a six-month journey to France, except for his right forefinger, which the French Ambassador to Sweden was allowed to keep, and his head, which was removed by a captain in the Swedish guards. In France, his body was exhumed and reburied three more times before coming to rest in a former Benedictine monastery in Saint-Germain-des-Prs. The Muse de lHomme, in the Palais de Chaillot, near the Eiffel Tower, claims to have Descartess skull, but the claim is weak. It seems that the great dualists head is still missing.

OUP Online

Descartes, Ren
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04744b.htm
A biography of Descartes, including his influence on science and philosophy
http://www.phillwebb.net/History/Modern/Descartes/Descartes.htm
A list of internet resources on Descartes, including bibliographies

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/rmds/collections/gordon/literary...
Digital facsimiles and a list of internet resources on Montaigne's Essais
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/montaign...
Montaigne timeline with a searchable translation of the Essais

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE (1533-1592)

Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.

Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.

Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.

Few men have been admired of their familiars.

I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself.

What do I know?

He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.

No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.

Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.

Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.

Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.

Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul.

One may be humble out of pride.

Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.

A straight oar looks bent in the water. What matters is not merely that we see things but how we see them.

Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.

Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.

We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.

We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.

When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.

A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.

Montaigne is a great French Renaissance thinker who took himself as the great object of study in his Essays. In studying himself Montaigne is studying mankind. He attempted to weigh or 'assay' his nature, habits, his own opinions and those of others. He is searching for truth by reflecting on his readings, his travels as well as his experiences both public and private. Montaigne's writing style is light and un-technical. He was also a striking representative of Renaissance skepticism and fideism... -timeline-

...uses skepticism in order to clear the ground for the entrance of Catholicism... (limits reason to make way for faith)