Method
Methodic Doubt
Classification
- Method family
- argumentative
- Domains
- Epistemology
Overview
Methodic doubt provisionally withholds assent from beliefs vulnerable to doubt in order to find a secure basis from which knowledge can be reconstructed.
Purpose. The procedure tests the foundations of belief by making doubt as strong as the inquiry requires. It is a deliberate method, not permanent skepticism and not the Pyrrhonian practice of remaining in suspension.
Characteristic operations
- Identify dubitable beliefs: Begin with beliefs that depend on sources capable of error.
- Intensify the test: Use skeptical scenarios to expose assumptions that ordinary doubt leaves untouched.
- Withhold assent: Treat the vulnerable beliefs as unsettled for the purposes of inquiry.
- Find and rebuild: Seek a proposition resistant to the test and reconstruct claims from that basis.
Used by traditions
Applied to questions
References
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Descartes' Epistemology
- René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, Meditations I–II (AT VII 17–34)