Methodic doubt

Methodic doubt, in Cartesian philosophy, a way of searching for certainty

by systematically though tentatively doubting everything. First, all
statements are classified according to type and source of knowledge
e.g., knowledge from tradition, empirical knowledge, and mathematical
knowledge. Then, examples from each class are examined. If a way can be
found to doubt the truth of any statement, then all other statements of that
type are also set aside as dubitable. The doubt is methodic because it
assures systematic completeness, but also because no claim is made that
allor even that anystatements in a dubitable class are really false or
that one must or can distrust them in an ordinary sense. The method is to
set aside as conceivably false all statements and types of knowledge that
are not indubitably true. The hope is that, by eliminating all statements and
types of knowledge the truth of which can be doubted in any way, one will
find some indubitable certainties.
In the first half of the 17th century, the French Rationalist Ren Descartes
used methodic doubt to reach certain knowledge of self-existence in the act
of thinking, expressed in the indubitable proposition cogito, ergo sum (I
think, therefore I am). He found knowledge from tradition to be dubitable
because authorities disagree; empirical knowledge dubitable because of
illusions, hallucinations, and dreams; and mathematical knowledge
dubitable because people make errors in calculating. He proposed an allpowerful, deceiving demon as a way of invoking universal doubt. Although
the demon could deceive men regarding which sensations and ideas are
truly of the world, or could give them sensations and ideas none of which
are of the true world, or could even make them think that there is an

external world when there is none, the demon could not make men think
that they exist when they do not.