... of conclusion as to whether it is 'an intuition, a deduction, [or] a performance'. This will lead to the answer to how certain one can be that one exists. The first argument, that the cogito is an intuition, is that which Descartes himself asserts as true. He claims it to be intuitively apparent based upon the method of doubt discussed in the First Medititations. In this he states that we must doubt everything in order to find an absolute basis of truth, on which to build our scientific knowledge. And in the process of doubting everything, we find that there is only one thing that cannot be doubted - doubt itself, or the fact that we are doubting. And this leads to a proof of one's existence, for if doubting is a process of thinking (as Descartes claims) and in order to think one must exist, one who doubts must ...

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