Continued from Knowledge (Part III) Another philosopher, René Descartes ( 1596-1650), had a distinctive perspective on knowledge. He believed that knowledge was a matter of certainty, and that the only way to achieve such certainty was through rational inquiry and doubt. Rene Descartes Cogito, ergo sum Descartes is a rationalist philosopher. He was known for his method of radical doubt, which involved questioning everything he knew in order to arrive at a foundation of knowledge that could not be doubted. He believed that all knowledge should be based on indubitable, self-evident truths, or what he called "clear and distinct" ideas. In other words, knowledge had to be based on ideas that were so clear and distinct that they could not be doubted. Descartes believed that the human mind was capable of arriving at such knowledge through the use of reason alone, independent of sensory experience. He argued that this was possible because the human mind had an innate knowledge of
Writings of Ts. Dr. Ahmad Shaharudin Abdul Latiff