In the early 17th century, a young man named Rene Descartes was deeply confused. The authorities he respected: his teachers, Church leaders, and the scientists of his day (who included Copernicus and Galileo), vehemently disagreed with each other and were sometimes violently at odds. So, what should he believe? What was true? How could he determine what was true? For six days, Descartes locked himself in a room and worked out a method for getting past the disagreements and finding certainty. In this class, we will learn how Descartes proposed to find certainty and will consider whether we think he really solved the problem of how to discern truth and falsity an unsettled and confusing world.