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Topic: Methodic Doubt

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	Doubt
		The resolution of doubt of this kind is the province of moral theology, in regard to questions of right and wrong and in regard to those of mere practical expediency, recourse must be had to the scientific or other principles which properly belong to the subject-matter of the doubt.
		The legitimacy, or the reverse, of doubt in regard to matters of fact is made evident by the forms of logic (induction and deduction), which, whatever may be the extent of their function as a means of acquiring knowledge, are indispensably necessary as a test of the correctness of conclusions or hypotheses already formed.
		Practical doubt, or doubt as to the lawfulness of an action is, according to the teaching of moral theology, incompatible with right action; since to act with a doubtful conscience is obviously to act in disregard of the moral law.
	www.catholicity.com /encyclopedia/d/doubt.html (2644 words)

	CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Doubt
		doubtful is, therefore, one as to which sufficient evidence to determine assent is not forthcoming; in itself it must be either true or false.
		Doubt of the former kind is the necessary preliminary to all inquiry, and in this sense
		doubt have arisen in matters which regard the state of the Church, we are to have recourse to the chief priest of the Roman Church" (Ep.
	www.newadvent.org /cathen/05141a.htm (2791 words)

	Cartesian Method (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		Methodical: doubt (skeptical attitude) is used strictly for methodical purposes, as a means (instrument or tool) to the achievement of secure and certain knowledge (final goal or end).
		As such, methodical doubt is a systematic procedure, consisting of a series of steps, designed to demolish our cognitive prejudices (preconceived opinions) in order to establish a new and firm foundation for knowledge and the sciences.
		Therefore, methodic doubt is a negative, critical, preliminary stage of Descartes’ inquiry and ultimately oriented toward the positive achievement of a secure, reliable foundation.
	faculty.ccri.edu /paleclerc/intro/desc_method.shtml (489 words)

	Scientific method - Biocrawler (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		In his enunciation of a 'method' in the 13th century Roger Bacon, under the tuition of Robert Grosseteste, was inspired by the writings of Arab alchemists who had preserved and built upon Aristotle's portrait of induction.
		The history of the discovery of the structure of DNA is a classic example of the four stages of the scientific method: in 1950 it was known that genetic inheritance had a mathematical description, starting with the studies of Gregor Mendel.
		The study of a scientific method is distinct from the practice of science and is more a part of the philosophy, history and sociology of science than of science.
	www.biocrawler.com /encyclopedia/Scientific_method (5664 words)

	Certitude
		The last-named signifies, in the strict use of the term, the holding of a proposition as probable, although in common parlance it is loosely used in a wider sense, as in speaking of a man's religious opinions, meaning not his speculations or theories about religious questions, but his dogmatic convictions.
		He suggests that we may doubt whether we can discover the truth on any other point whatsoever, for it may appear possibly that we have been created by a malign or mischievous beings who so constituted our mind that we must invariably be mistaken.
		To doubt whether a particular view may not be false is to suspect that the opposite may be true.
	www.catholicity.com /encyclopedia/c/certitude.html (3149 words)

	Scientific method Encyclopedia (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge, as well as for correcting and integrating previous knowledge.
		The history of the discovery of the structure of DNA is a classic example of the elements of scientific method: in 1950 it was known that genetic inheritance had a mathematical description, starting with the studies of Gregor Mendel.
		A "perfect" scientific method might work in such a way that rational application of the method would always result in agreement and understanding; a perfect method would arguably be algorithmic, and so not leave any room for rational agents to disagree.
	www.hallencyclopedia.com /topic/Scientific_method.html (6199 words)

	Methodic doubt
		Methodic doubt is a systematic process of being skeptical about (or doubting) the truth of one's beliefs, which has become a characteristic method in philosophy.
		This method of doubt was largely popularized in the field of philosophy by René Descartes (1596-1650), who sought to doubt the truth of all his beliefs in order to determine which beliefs he could be certain were true.
		Indeed, Descartes applied methodic doubt to everything from God, to the external world, and even to himself, but ultimately concluded that he could be certain of each.
	www.libraryoflibrary.com /E_n_c_p_d_Methodic_Doubt.html (4154 words)

	Body
		No doubt what he had in mind was the method used in Geometry in which the mathematician defines the questions by reducing the issues to the simplist terms.
		The methodic doubt is necessary because the metaphysical realities of the intelligent self, the ideas, and God as Infinite Subjective Power are utterly beyond the realm of sense experience and the physical world.
		The methodic doubt must be universal and extend to the truth of the ideas themselves because the ideas alone can justify the new scientific method as applicable to the physical universe and the ideas alone can illuminate the nature of human intelligence and divine power.
	members.aol.com /phuseos/Descrtes.htm (9046 words)

	New Catholic Dictionary: Rene Descartes (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		Contrasting the evidence and certainty of mathematics with the uncertainties and errors of philosophy, he sought to construct a new system of philosophy which would be as evident and convincing as the mathematical sciences.
		He began by calling into doubt whatever knowledge he had previously acquired, and by seeking a truth so evident that it could not be doubted.
		He himself confined his method strictly to matters of philosophy, at no time calling into doubt truths that belong to theology, and striving always to reconcile his doctrines with the dogmas of Catholic Faith.
	www.catholic-forum.com /saints/ncd02660.htm (471 words)

	Descartes' Epistemology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
		Independent of this theory of ideas, Descartes' methodical doubts underwrite an assumption with similar force: for almost the entirety of the Meditations, his meditator-spokesperson—hereafter referred to as the ‘meditator’—adopts the assumption that his every thought is occurring in a dream.
		It ensures that the method only approves candidate first principles that are unshakable in their own right: it ensures that the appearance of unshakability in a candidate is not owed to its logical relations to other principles, themselves not subjected to collective doubt.
		Methodical doubt is intended to help us appreciate the folly of the commonsensical position—helping us to recognize that the perception of our own minds is “not simply prior to and more certain … but also more evident” than that of our own bodies (Prin.
	plato.stanford.edu /entries/descartes-epistemology (17532 words)

	Ziniewicz on Descartes
		It is not unaided reason, but reason relying on artificial methods (such as those found in mathematics) and artificial devices or instruments (such as the microscope or the telescope), that is able to prompt a rebirth and development of the sciences unknown in previous ages.
		Descartes' method, which he presents somewhat modestly in the -Discourse-, is in fact intended to be valid for all, to be universally followed.
		The first thrust is methodic doubt, or the clearing away of old views and presuppositions that are doubtful.
	www.fred.net /tzaka/descarte.html (4327 words)

	Philosophical Critiques: Why Descartes is Wrong
		This is more than mere doubt, because a doubt presupposes a suspended judgment due to the absence of all reasons for and against a proposition (negative doubt) or reasons of more or less equal value for an against it (positive doubt).
		When he rejects as doubtful and even as "absolutely false" all in regard to which he could imagine the least ground for doubt, he saws off the very limb upon which he is seated.
		The Cartesian universal methodic doubt, therefore, is not a proper approach to the problem of human knowledge.
	radicalacademy.com /adiphilwrgdescartes.htm (2397 words)

	Wisdom and Dialectic -- Shadows -- Ziniewicz
		This is often called methodic doubt or denying a thesis for the sake of argument and further understanding.
		Doubt is the tool of a careful mind, a mind that wants to make sure, to test its views.
		Methodic doubt, applied to our views for the sake of thinking, is not to be confused with lack of conviction or existential doubt (when we really don't know what to believe).
	www.fred.net /tzaka/wisdom_prt.html (4045 words)

	Scholastic Knowledge Base
		DOUBT is the wavering between assent and dissent, the intellect’s suspension of assent for fear of error.
		He would doubt about all things, else he would not be a universal skeptic.
		METHOD is the order observed in a series of operations to attain a specific end.
	home.comcast.net /~randmburns/scholastic_knowledge_base.htm (946 words)

	Phil 251 Epistemology Questions
		Descartes uses the methodic doubt to show that there is at least one thing that can be known with absolute certainty, namely, that he exists.
		By means of his "methodic doubt," Descartes is able to show that there is one thing we can know with absolute certainty--namely, that we cannot know anything with certainty.
		The methodic doubt by which Descartes hopes to achieve certainty and a foundation for claims of knowledge is, for him, both a real and reasonable doubt about the existence of things.
	www-phil.tamu.edu /~sdaniel/quesknow.html (6377 words)

	Introduction to Thomas Aquinas 6
		Descartes' methodic doubt is put forward on the assumption that the claims to know that people make prior to employing the method, that is, prior to the formal engagement in philosophy, are dubitable.
		One of the long-established criticisms of Descartes is that he smuggles into his supposed universal doubt all sorts of undoubted knowledge claims without which the very notion of doubt would be voided of meaning.
		No doubt there are distinctive characteristics of Thomas's thought as it moves away from these first principles, but it is the fact that it is so manifestly anchored in them that gives it a universality that shares in and participates in the community of the principles themselves.
	home.comcast.net /~icuweb/c001006.htm (1628 words)

	RTF Study Program - LESSON 6: THE PHILOSOPHICAL ORIGINS OF HISTORICAL-CRITICISM
		The "historical-critical method," is the method currently in use by the "historical-critical school" of biblical interpretation.
		The method of "literary-criticism" goes back to the Catholic Richard Simon (1638-1712), who examined repetitions (doublets), and various seeming discrepancies and incongruities of content and style in the Pentateuch in relation to the alleged Mosaic authorship of the whole, but it was afterwards developed mainly by a series of German Protestant exegetes.
		Catholic historical-critics believe that their use of the method has been purified by a thorough analysis of these rationalist presuppositions precisely as they affect the implementation of the method, but I know not where such an analysis can be found or who might have performed it.
	www.rtforum.org /study/lesson6.html (1470 words)

	SophistryToday
		This in interesting because, in mythological terms, doubt is represented by chaos, and Creation, or order, happens when chaos is defeated, as in the Babylonian story of Marduk, the Creator, who kills Tiamat, the sea monster, representing the uncertainty of the dark waters, then recreates the world from her dead corpse.
		The eristic method, on the other hand, has given up on discovering truth altogether, and is centered only on winning an argument, again, regardless of the truth.
		Under such a method real democracy cannot stand because, as one sophist defines it, “justice [is] the advantage of the stronger.”10 In other words, justice belongs to whoever wins the argument.
	www.cliftonunitarian.com /SophistryToday.htm (1663 words)

	Methodic Doubt (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		The initial basis of Descartes philosophical theories that applies doubt to all things as a means of proving that the subject in question in fact, exists.
		Descartes applied Methodic Doubt to everything from God, the World, and even to Descartes himself, the proof of which spawned his most famous saying, "I think, therefore I am".
		It is licensed under the GNU free documentation license.
	www.ufaqs.com /wiki/en/me/Methodic%20Doubt.htm (74 words)

	Doug Beaumont Course Materials
		Thus, the method of doubt is basically the doubting of all things (even sense perception) until one reaches a point where doubt cannot exist.
		The value of methodic doubt is in the fact that it admits that we are less than certain about a great many things.
		Third, while all truths may be reducible to undeniable facts (such as the laws of logic), it is not at all clear how one may begin with logic and build upon it to all other truths.
	www.dougbeaumont.org /SoulDevice/philo_epistemology.htm (3800 words)

	THE ORDER OF TIME: POLITICS - Democratic Elections...
		From the first part of the method we thus learn this: separating church, synagogue, mosk and temple from the state is a schizoid exercise that rationally cannot be defended without falling in unreason, disbelief, decay, disrespect and dictature.
		Next part of the method is that of division: we have to cut the problem of representation up into different parts to arrive at a proper command over the problem.
		With these doubts it is not difficult to acknowledge that apparently we have difficulty of arriving at a balanced representation of the public interest.
	theorderoftime.com /politics/elections.html (4175 words)

	Term-Papers.us - God Cannot Exist Using Descartes' Arguements
		If he were consistent and seriously doubted the principle of contradiction, he would have to agree that it is possible for an entity to think and not think, to exist and not exist at the same time.
		Similarly, Descartes would have to remain doubtful as to whether God could be veracious and not veracious, deceiving and not deceiving unless the principle of contradiction was taken for granted before Descartes begins to prove God's existence.
		Universal doubt, therefore, is a flawed course in pursuing an understanding of human knowledge and the existence of God.
	www.term-papers.us /ts/fb/prz212.shtml (1382 words)

	CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Certitude
		The last-named signifies, in the strict use of the term, the holding of a proposition as probable, although in common parlance it is loosely used in a wider sense, as in speaking of a
		doubt", that is, provisional doubt of every truth, was put forward by Descartes as the proper course for the discovery of truth.
		doubting everything, except one thing: "I think, and therefore I am." He professes to hold that every other truth may be doubted and needs proof.
	www.newadvent.org /cathen/03539b.htm (3693 words)

	Cartesian Cogito-Introduction to Philosophy-CCR (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		Descartes claims that the experience of self-consciousness constitutes the certain epistemological foundation he had been seeking by means of methodical doubt.
		Discourse on Method (1637): Part IV But immediately I noticed that while I was trying thus to think everything false, it was necessary that I, who was thinking this, was something.
		It is not possible for us to doubt that we exist while we are doubting; and this is the first thing we come to know when we philosophize in an orderly way.
	faculty.ccri.edu /paleclerc/intro/desc_cogito.shtml (676 words)

	Solipsism and the Problem of Other Minds [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
		In introducing "methodic doubt" into philosophy, Descartes created the backdrop against which solipsism subsequently developed and was made to seem, if not plausible, at least irrefutable.
		This view of the self is intrinsically solipsistic and Descartes evades the solipsistic consequences of his method of doubt by the desperate expedient of appealing to the benevolence of God.
		Since God is no deceiver, he argues, and since He has created man with an innate disposition to assume the existence of an external, public world corresponding to the private world of the "ideas" that are the only immediate objects of consciousness, it follows that such a public world actually exists.
	www.utm.edu /research/iep/s/solipsis.htm (4930 words)

	Essay: Descartes's Methodic Doubt. - Coursework.Info
		His use of methodic doubt is introspective, but also logical and objective and an attempt to clear away the 'clutter' of history.
		The primary source for this used throughout this essay in examining his systematic doubt will be 'Meditations' (1641) and 'Discourse of Method' (1637).
		From this it is clear that Descartes' methodic doubt has two stages: firstly, doubt everything that can be doubted and secondly, do not accept anything as know unless it can be established
	www.coursework.info /University/Biological_Sciences/Psychology/Descartess_Methodic_Doubt_L74034.html (256 words)

	20th WCP: Heidegger's Reading of Descartes' Dualism: The Relation of Subject and Object
		The subject of cogito is beyond doubt if one asks what this subject is. Descartes cannot answer, because, if the subject is embodied in the world, the subject becomes a worldly thing in which man's doubts begin.
		Another difficulty in the method of radical doubt is the object of thinking.
		On the other hand, Levinas accepts the Cartesian methodic doubt, but differs from Descartes, where Descartes stops his doubt with the "I think".
	www.bu.edu /wcp/Papers/Cont/ContCuce.htm (3924 words)

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